Korherr report

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The Korherr report is a report that contains statistical information about the “ final solution to the Jewish question ”. It was marked as a Secret Reich Matter. The report was compiled on behalf of Heinrich Himmler by Richard Korherr , head of the statistical department in the SS main office , and has been received in two different versions from March 23, 1943 and April 19, 1943 . An instruction from Himmler on the language regulation has been handed down to replace the widely known cover name “ special treatment ” in the report with another.

Emergence

Korherr's office in the Thiergarten hunting lodge (around 1975)

According to his own statements, Adolf Eichmann himself had delivered Himmler, first orally, in August 1942 and then in writing on December 15, 1942, an “Activity and Situation Report 1942 on the Final Solution to the European Jewish Question”. This report has not been received. Himmler was apparently dissatisfied and complained on January 18, 1943:

"The Reich Security Main Office itself [...] no longer has to do any statistical work in this area, because the previous statistical documents lack technical accuracy."

On the same day Korherr, as "Inspector of the Reichsführer-SS for Statistics", was given a written mandate to prepare a report on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"; At the same time he was assured that the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) would provide him with all "necessary and requested documents" .

On March 23, 1943, Korherr sent a sixteen-page report to Rudolf Brandt , Himmler's personal advisor. On April 9, 1943, Himmler wrote to Ernst Kaltenbrunner that he considered this report “as material for later times, and for camouflage purposes, to be very good. At the moment it may neither be published nor passed on. ” On the same day, bureau chief August Meine personally presented a letter from Brandt to Korherr, dated April 10, 1943, stating:

“The Reichsführer SS has received your statistical report on 'The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question'. He wishes that there is no mention of 'special treatment for the Jews'. On page 9, point 4, it must read as follows:
'Transporting Jews from the Eastern Provinces to the Russian East:
They were smuggled through the camps in the Generalgouvernement ...
through the camps in the Warthegau .......... ..... '
No other formulation may be used. I am sending back the copy of the report already signed by the Reichsführer-SS with the request to change this page 9 accordingly and to send it back. "

On April 1, 1943, Himmler also commissioned Korherr to prepare a short version of his report “for submission to the Führer” . On April 19, 1943, Korherr sent a six-and-a-half-page short report with an accompanying letter to Rudolf Brandt. This version was probably copied in the RSHA on a typewriter with large types and sent to Hitler . According to Adolf Eichmann, this copy is said to have come back with the note “Führer has taken note, destroy, HH” and was destroyed.

Content of the long version

The sixteen-page long version of the Korherr Report, dated March 23, 1943, begins with a lengthy preliminary remark which points to the difficulties in recording the numbers of Jews . For the “Jewish balance sheet in Germany” the report records that of the estimated 561,000 Jews in the Old Reich in 1933, only 51,327 were still living there at the end of 1942. In the third chapter, entitled “Jewish Weakness of the People”, he refers to the aging and excess deaths of German Jews; in 1942 there were only 239 births but 7,657 deaths. This is followed by information on the numbers and destination countries of the German Jews who were forced to emigrate.

The fifth chapter of the report is entitled "The Evacuation of the Jews", by which the deportations to the ghettos and extermination camps were meant. Korherr relies on information from the Reich Security Main Office and gives figures for the Reich territory, the eastern territories newly acquired after the attack on Poland and for the German sphere of power and influence in Europe up to December 31, 1942.

As instructed, Korherr had replaced the originally chosen designation "special treatment" on page 9 under point 4, so that it reads:

4. Transporting Jews from the Eastern Provinces to the Russian East: 1,449,692 - 1,274,166 Jews were smuggled through the camps in the Generalgouvernement […]

However, Korherr apparently overlooked the fact that the cover word appears again on page 10, so that it remained unchanged:

"Total evacuations (including Theresienstadt and including special treatment) ... 1,873,549 Jews."

In other chapters, figures for Jews in the ghettos (camouflage designation for collective concentration camps ) , Jews in the concentration camps and Jews in correctional facilities are listed. At the beginning of 1943, 185,776 Jews were employed in the Reich territory for the war-important work, most of whom were barracked in labor camps or with the Schmelt organization .

In conclusion, the report draws a “European Jewish balance sheet” and comes to the conclusion that European Jewry has soon lost half of its population of 10 million people since 1933. This is partly due to emigration, partly to excess deaths and, since the ban on Jewish emigration on October 18, 1941 , especially in the ethnic stronger eastern areas, to "evacuations". The Soviet Russian Jews in the occupied eastern territories were only partially recorded and those in the rest of European Russia were not counted at all.

short version

In the abridged version of April 19, 1943, which was submitted to Hitler, two changes in content are noteworthy.

The figures for the "Altreich" were updated beyond the reference date and thus take into account the deportations on the occasion of the factory action , during which numerous Berlin Jews "went into hiding":

“The number of Jews in the Old Reich has since decreased further from 51,327 on December 31, 1942 to 31,910 on April 1, 1943. [...] In addition, a larger number of Jews should be counted in the list, who ultimately have to be written off as untraceable, as happens again and again with every resident cadastre. The number of Jews in the old Reich area (excluding Eastern areas) is nearing its end. "

The term "special treatment" objected to by Himmler is completely left out in the short version, the " abridged report for submission to the Führer with a clear balance sheet" .

However, the closing sentences make it clear that by March 1943 around a quarter of all European Jews had been "lost", namely had been murdered:

“Overall, European Jewry is likely to have lost half of its existence since 1933, that is, in the first decade of the National Socialist development of power. Of this, only about half, i.e. a quarter of the total European inventory from 1937, flowed to the other continents. "

Reliability of the numbers

The standard work "Dimensions of Genocide" refers several times to Korherr's information, which serve as important reference points for the calculation of the total number of Jewish victims. According to research, at least two and a half million Jews had been murdered by March 1943.

However, new research suggests this number is too low. Dieter Pohl considers the number of victims in the Korherr report to be far too low for Ukraine . Pohl claims that the RSHA did not order the monthly reporting for executions of the Einsatzgruppen until July 4, 1942 . Therefore Korherr could not get an overview and the 324,000 local Jews murdered previously were not included in the report. Even Raul Hilberg points out that missing in the lineup Jewish victims in southern Russia under the responsibility of Hans-Adolf Prützmann were shot before the end of the 1,942th He puts this at more than 363,000 people.

The total of 1,274,166 victims from the Generalgouvernement shown in the Korherr report agrees with the information from the so-called Höfle telegram : This radio message was recorded by the British secret service on January 11, 1943, but only recognized in its context in 2001 and in a Journal published.

Interpretations

History revisionists like David Irving , who want to acquit Adolf Hitler of the charge of having been an initiator and person responsible for the genocide , argue that Himmler deleted the word “special treatment” in order to leave Hitler in the dark about the murder of the Jews. The historian Gerald Fleming , on the other hand, calls the process a “cynical and cruel-naive camouflage game” and points out:

"It goes without saying that the first man in the Reich, the head of state Adolf Hitler, could not, under any circumstances, be tainted or incriminated with the stigma of such a monstrous crime through the ... treacherous word 'special treatment'."

Ian Kershaw speaks of a "taboo" to speak bluntly about the mass murder of the Jews in Hitler's environment and cites several sources that prove Hitler's knowledge and approval of the Holocaust . Kershaw writes about the Korherr report:

“The camouflage language served a specific purpose here. Hitler would understand what was meant and recognize the achievements of the Reichsführer SS. "

Raul Hilberg believes the report is related to the conflicting needs and wants of the defense industry and war production. Albert Speer and General Friedrich Fromm appealed to Hitler himself at the end of 1942, as Jewish slave laborers needed for war-related tasks had been withdrawn from them. Himmler, on the other hand, wanted to arm himself with his “balance sheet” for the “final solution to the Jewish question”, which he had presented in encrypted form.

Saul Friedländer does not think this connection is plausible. For him, the focus is on Himmler's intention to please his Führer in the face of severe setbacks in the war with a report that documents the extermination campaign against the Jews and their almost complete expulsion from the German Reich:

“We do not know whether the 'Führer' showed satisfaction while reading or whether he was impatient because the killings were proceeding so slowly. [...] The scene presented in this way - which in any case took place this way - says more about the regime and its Messiah than many abstract treatises. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Saul Friedländer: The Third Reich and the Jews , Durchsichte Sonderaufl. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56681-3 , p. 862.
  2. ↑ Further information in the chapter follows mainly Gerald Fleming: Hitler and the Final Solution , Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2196-2 , pp. 148–153.
  3. ↑ Document VEJ 6/239 in: Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 6: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia October 1941 – March 1943. Berlin 2019 , ISBN 978-3-11-036496-5 , pp. 622-634.
  4. ↑ Gerald Fleming: Hitler and the Final Solution , p. 150.
  5. ^ Instructions from Himmler to Korherr ; the facsimile bears the handwritten note: Original Dr. Korherr handed over personally on April 9th. M [a] 12.4. [1] - For details and the changed dating see Fleming, p. 151.
  6. ↑ Gerald Fleming: Hitler and the Final Solution , p. 151 (source quotation) and accompanying letter to Brandt .
  7. ↑ Document VEJ 11/12 in: Lisa Hauff (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 11: German Empire and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia April 1943–1945 . Berlin / Boston 2020, ISBN 978-3-11-036499-6 , pp. 123–128.
  8. ^ Jochen von Lang: The Eichmann Protocol - tape recordings of the Israeli interrogations , Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88680-036-9 , p. 104.
  9. ↑ Document VEJ 6/239 in: Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 6: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia October 1941 – March 1943. Berlin 2019 , ISBN 978-3-11-036496-5 , pp. 622-634.
  10. ↑ For quotation see p. 5 in [2] . - Wolf Gruner: Resistance in Rosenstrasse. The factory campaign and the persecution of "mixed marriages" 1943 , fibu 16883, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-596-16883-X , p. 77, considers Korherr's figures on this point to be out of date.
  11. ↑ See also Holocaust Reference ; see. also Götz Aly / Susanne Heim: Vordenker der Vernichtung , Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-596-11268-0 , p. 464; there the information under 5) and 6) on p. 9f. of the report totaled and interpreted as "2,419,656 murdered".
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Dimensions of Genocide - The Number of Jewish Victims of National Socialism , dtv 4690, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04690-2 , p. 3f.
  13. ↑ Dieter Pohl : Schauplatz Ukraine: Der Massenmord an der Juden ..., p. 169 with note 223. In: Norbert Frei u. a. (Ed.): Exploitation, Destruction, Public , Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-24033-3 .
  14. ^ Raul Hilberg: The sources of the Holocaust , Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-10-033626-7 , p. 192.
  15. ↑ Peter Witte / Stephen Tyas: A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during 'Einsatz Reinhardt' 1942 , in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15 (2001) V 3, pp. 468-486; on the Internet Num. 15, Vol. 3
  16. ↑ Gerald Fleming: Hitler and the Final Solution ... , p. 152f.
  17. ^ Ian Kershaw: Hitler 1936-1945 , Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-421-05132-1 , p. 686.
  18. ^ Raul Hilberg: The annihilation of the European Jews , looked through u. exp. Edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 1284.
  19. ^ Saul Friedländer: Das Third Reich ... , ISBN 978-3-406-56681-3 , p. 864.

Web links

from www.ns-archiv.de/verendung: