Why was this atrocity referred to as the final solution?

Answer 1

The term was used by the Nazis as a euphemism or 'cover word' for the attempt to exterminate the European Jews.

The Nazis had made various attempts at interim solutions, such as setting up a 'Jewish reservation' in occupied Poland.

Answer 2

The Final Solution wasn't the Holocaust. The Holocaust was an event with the mass murders of other 16 Million people. the Final Solution was part of the Holocaust where top SS Officers disincluding Heinrich Himmler meeted up and decide on what to do with the Jews and the Final Solution was the plan to deal with what they call "The Jewish problem". This involved the beginnings of the mass killings which during this time, The Final Solution was responsible for most of the killings during the Holocaust.

The Final Solution is commonly confused in being the Holocaust but the Final Solution was an event/plan in dealing with issues about the Holocaust.

________________

No, the term Holocaust came into widespread use in the late 1970s to replace the expression Final Solution (of the the Jewish Question). The latter was the Nazis' own term (Endloesung der Judenfrage) and was widely considered offensive. Here's a definition of the Holocaust by Professor Richard Evans, who appeared as an expert witness in the Irving versus Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Ltd case:

The standard work by the distinguished Canadian historian Michael Marrus, TheHolocaust in History, focused on, to use his own words, 'the Holocaust, the systematic mass murder of European Jewry by the Nazis'. Similarly, Sir Martin Gilbert, in his documentary compilation, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy( London, 1986), concurred in referring to 'the systematic attempt to destroy all European Jewry - an attempt now known as the Holocaust'. Another author, Ronnie S. Landau, put forward a similar definition in his book, The Nazi Holocaust: 'The Holocaust involved the deliberate, systematic murder of approximately 6 million Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe between 1941 and 1945.'

Richard J. Evans, Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial, Verso, London and New York, 2002, pp. 113-4.

Answer 3

The Holocaust happened between about 1941-1945. The Final Solution was the order to mass kill the Jews. The Final Solution resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. According to historians at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "The Nazis frequently used euphemistic language to disguise the true nature of their crimes. They used the term "Final Solution" to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people.

The timing of the decision to turn what was the persecution and execution of Jews into the Final Solution cannot be determined with the information that we have today.