This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics,
nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of
the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2009 state of the
art in this extremely quickly developing interdisciplinary
research direction. The discussion summarizes the
nucleosynthetic processes in the course of the evolution of the
Universe and the galaxies contained within, including primordial
nucleosynthesis, stellar evolution, and explosive
nucleosynthesis in single and binary systems.
