Korherr Report

The Korherr Report is a report by Richard Korherr, statistician and chief inspector of the statistical bureau of the SS during World War II, on Jewish populations trends until January 1943.

The report, entitled The Final Solution to the European Jewish Question, contained details of the emigrations and evacuations of Jews, but made no mention of alleged exterminations or gassings.

"Code words"

Holocaust revisionists argue that the Korherr Report, made by reputedly the best statistician in Germany, is evidence supporting Holocaust revisionism. The politically correct view is that Korherr used "code words" to hide the Holocaust, but revisionists have criticized this, since the report was intended for Hitler’s and Himmler’s eyes only.

The "code word" theory was also rejected by Korherr, who in the post-war period stated he had had no knowledge of a supposed continuing extermination of Jews.

Another example of criticism of the supposed use of "code words" is that both "evacuation" and "special treatment" (German: "Sonderbehandlung") in the report are supposed to be "code words" for "extermination", with this roundly criticized by revisionists as redundant. Revisionists have instead argued that these two words refer to different kinds of deportations.

Non-revisionists have cited a letter in which Himmler (or rather a member of his staff) requested revisions of a draft of the report, including that the phrase "special treatment" not be used in one place, and seen this as an admission of guilt and attempted cover-up, while revisionists have instead argued that this was done to clarify an unclear phrase.

That 'evacuate' is a "code word" for extermination is argued to be disproven by the word in some cases clearly referring to no-killings, such as the phrase "Evacuation of Jews from Baden and the Palatinate to France" referring to transportation to the concentration camp in Gurs in the French Pyrenees, with Gurs not being one of the alleged "extermination camps". Another example is the phrase "Evacuation of Jews from the Reich area and the Protectorate to Theresienstadt", with Theresienstadt also not being one of the alleged "extermination camps".

The revisionists Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues, and Carlo Mattogno: "The conclusion we may draw from the analysis of the Korherr report is that the “special treatment of Jews” stood only for the deportation of western Jews (those from the Altreich with Sudetenland, Ostmark and Protectorate) and of the eastern Jews (those from Ostgebiete with Bialystok and General Government with Lemberg) to the East, i.e. beyond the confines of the Greater German Reich. The Jews deported within these confines, in particular the roughly (121,428+8,500=) 130,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz, were not subjected to “special treatment.” Neither were the 69,084 Jews deported from the Altreich, Ostmark, Protectorate, and Slovakia to Nisko and the Lublin district formally subjected to it. We say formally, because they acquired the status of “specially treated” (sonderbehandelt) gradually as they were transited from the Polish ghettos through the various camps. This is also true for the 18,004 Jews deported to Theresienstadt and then from that ghetto to Treblinka. In practice there was a double accounting system: one for the Jews evacuated from individual countries, and one for the Jews who were transited through the above camps and who were counted independently of their origin."

See also Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism: Code words. In particular, see the sections on "Sonderbehandlung" and "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (part of the title of the report).

Questioned correctness of some of the demographic claims in the report by Holocaust revisionists

The correctness of some of the demographic claims in the report (but not the authenticity of the report itself) has been questioned by some Holocaust revisionists, who have made arguments such that Korherr (in order protect his superior Himmler from criticisms) overstated the number of Jews deported to the occupied Soviet Union and understated the number of Jews who migrated from German controlled areas and/or understated the numbers of Jews who remained in the General Government.

Stephen Challen

The revisionist Germar Rudolf has written that:

"Korherr states: “Between 1937 and early 1943 the number of Jews in Europe had decreased by approximately 4 million, due partly to emigration, partly to the excess of deaths over births among the Jews of Central and western Europe, and partly to evacuations, particularly from the more densely populated eastern regions, which are counted here as part of the decrease.”

Why does Korherr mention that the evacuations are counted as part of the decrease? That would make sense only if they are not actually gone from Europe but are nevertheless counted statistically as having emigrated. So were they perhaps not dead? S. Challen was puzzled not only by this additional remark and by the absence of even the slightest allusion to the mass murder in these top secret papers intended for Himmler and Hitler only, but also by the fact that the reputedly best statistician in Germany covered up gross errors in his report so elegantly.

In his conclusions, for example, Korherr wrote that the Jewish population losses in Europe from 1933 to 1943 ( some 5 million) were caused approximately 50% by emigration to other continents, but his statistics cite only about 1.5 million emigrants. So roughly 1 million emigrants are missing. This begs the question: why would Germany’s foremost statistician draw conclusions contradicting his own data, and in a secret report intended for Hitler, no less? Furthermore, if one adds Korherr’s individual 1943 figures regarding the Jews scattered throughout the world, one arrives at a total that is only slightly less than the pre-war total; this already rules out any mass extermination. S. Challen therefore went to the trouble of examining Korherr’s claims more closely. He ultimately concludes that Korherr, acting on Himmler’s orders, reduced the emigration statistics by one million and increased the number of Jews evacuated to the East by that same million. And in one of his letters, Himmler writes that this report would serve well as a cover. Challen arrives at the well-founded conclusion that Himmler wanted to keep Hitler from realizing that a large part of the Polish and Russian Jews in the East had gotten away by means of flight and Soviet evacuation measures. On the basis of Korherr’s data, Challen calculated that the Jews lost approximately 1.2 million of their number during World War Two, some 750,000 of them in Germany’s sphere of influence."

Samuel Crowell

The revisionist Samuel Crowell has also criticized aspects of the Korherr Report:

• "First, the motive for the report: Himmler wished to present a short report to the Führer showing how the Government General of Poland was now free of Jews; that is the clear import from a comparison of the short report and the longer one. In the same manner, the number of Polish Jews remaining, about 300,000, corresponds precisely to the benchmark that Himmler indicated in July 1942 that he wanted to achieve by the end of the year. In other words, there was a powerful incentive for the numbers in this report to be cooked."
• "A second point has to do with the likelihood of double counting, a likelihood increased when we reflect on the fact that since the Höfle Telegram was the source of Point #4, there is no guarantee that its totals would not overlap with other statistical sources."
• The argued real and recently discovered Franke-Griksch Report makes no mention of mass killings in the camps, Aktion Reinhardt is explicitly described as a plunder operation, and Jewish deportees from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are stated to not have been killed. The Franke-Griksch Report contradicts the claim in the Korherr Report of there being only 20,000 Jews in Lublin in the Government General and states a much higher number. The low number in the Korherr Report may have been false in order to fit with what Himmler wanted in the Korherr Report. Furthermore, the Franke-Griksch Report is argued to fit with statements in the Stroop Report and statements made by Jürgen Stroop in the postwar period on the Jews captured in Warsaw being sent to camps in the Lublin province.
• "In 1977, Korherr wrote to Der Spiegel protesting the claim that the 1.274 million in Point #4 referred to Jews who had been killed. He claimed that he had called Himmler’s offices precisely because he did not know the meaning of the phrase “special treatment” (Sonderbehandlung) in this context. He went on, “I received the answer that it referred to Jews who were to be settled in the district of Lublin.” The authentic Franke-Gricksch report confirms this claim."

The Höfle Telegram

The Höfle Telegram repeated one of the deportation numbers stated in the Korherr Report and listed the numbers of arrivals to the Majdanek camp and to the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka camps. However, the authenticity of the Höfle Telegram has been questioned. On the other hand, if the Höfle Telegram is authentic, then careful analysis of the numbers is argued to create more problems for the Korherr Report "code word" theory.

Furthermore, the Höfle Telegram only listed arrivals to these camps. Regarding the fate of the arrivals, if not "exterminated", then some may have been deported to the occupied Soviet Union, while other may have been deported to other locations, such as camps/ghettos in the General Government. Thus, the Höfle Telegram is not necessarily incompatible with many Jews remaining in the General Government rather than being deported to the occupied Soviet Union.

See also

• Holocaust demographics
• Jewish Question

External links

• Richard Korherr and His Reports, A Translation and Commentary - translations and discussion of the Korherr Reports and related documents in a downloadable book by Stephen Challen.

Holocaust revisionist views

• Response to David Cole Regarding Treblinka - the section "The Korherr Report".
• “Talking Frankly” about David Irving, A Critical Analysis of David Irving's Statement on the Holocaust - pages 8, 9, and 10.
• The Razor and the Ring

In downloadable books

• Dissecting the Holocaust—The Growing Critique of ‘Truth’ and ‘Memory’ - section 6.2. The Korherr Reports
• Sobibór: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality - by Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues, Carlo Mattogno, section 9.4. Evacuations to the East: Höfle Telegram and Korherr Report.
  • The “Extermination Camps” of “Aktion Reinhardt”—An Analysis and Refutation of Factitious “Evidence,” Deceptions and Flawed Argumentation of the “Holocaust Controversies” Bloggers - answers to criticisms.
• The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes - by Samuel Crowell