Recall Goering's directive of 31 July, 1941, instructing Heydrich to plan for the final solution:
As supplement to the directive already given to you by the edict of Jan. 14, 1939, to solve the Jewish question through emigration or evacuation in a most favorable way according to the prevailing conditions, I hereby instruct you to make all necessary organizational and material preparations for an overall solution to the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. Insofar as the responsibilities of other authorities are affected, they are to be involved.
I further instruct you to promptly provide me with an overall conceptual plan regarding the organizational and material requirements for carrying out the desired final solution to the Jewish question.
On the other hand here's Raul Hilberg, telling us that "there was no planning" (start 30 seconds in):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEKFbB-v86cOther statements by Hilberg and others confirm the absence of planning:
But what began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They [these measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus -- mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.
The process of destruction…did not, however, proceed from a basic plan. … The destruction process was a step-by-step operation, and the administrator could seldom see more than one step ahead. … In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization. [Hilberg, Destruction, 2003]
If Goering instructed Heydrich to plan and prepare for the final solution, then why was there no planning? Did Heydrich plan for a final solution that didn't include extermination, and if so, then why did everyone ignore his plan? In short, how do you reconcile "Heydrich's plan for the final solution" with "the final solution happened without a plan as the result of 'improvised bureaucratic initiatives whose dynamic prompted a process of cumulative radicalization in the fragmented structures of decision-making in the Third Reich'"? When was it decided not to follow Heydrich's plan, why didn't they make a new one?