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The Korherr Report is a document on the numbers of Jews in Germany and Europe as of January 1, 1943, written by the chief inspector of the statistical bureau of the SS, Dr Richard Korherr.

Significance

The main report, published in March of that year, summarized how many Jews remained in Germany, Austria and Europe; detailed the numbers of Jews detained in the concentration camps; how many Jews had died natural deaths since 1933; and how many Jews had been evacuated to the eastern territories. Himmler accepted the report, but made Korherr change the word Sonderbehandlung or "special treatment," to the word durchgeschleust or "processed."

The report calculated that, from 1937 to December 1942, the number of Jews in Europe had fallen by 4 million.

Korherr ascribed this fall to "emigration, partially due to the excess mortality of the Jews in Central and Western Europe, partially due to the evacuations especially in the more strongly populated Eastern Territories, which are here counted as ongoing."

By way of explanation, Korherr added that "It must not be overlooked in this respect that of the deaths of Soviet Russian Jews in the occupied Eastern territories only a part was recorded, whereas deaths in the rest of European Russia and at the front are not included at all. In addition there are movements of Jews inside Russia to the Asian part which are unknown to us. The movement of Jews from the European countries outside the German influence is also of a largely unknown order of magnitude. On the whole European Jewry should since 1933, i.e. in the first decade of National Socialist German power, have lost almost half of its population."

During his interrogation by Israeli police, Adolf Eichmann, recalled seeing the Korherr report and said that the SS had given “All our top-secret stuff. That was the order. All the shipments, insofar as they had been reported to us” for use in compiling the report.

However, the opening paragraph of the Korherr Report states that the numbers of Jews had been derived from the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany).

When asked by his interrogator if “this material also include(d) figures on the extermination of the Jews” Eichmann answered “No. Not the extermination. I never had those figures.”

Korherr was never a member of the SS and denied all knowledge of the Holocaust, saying that he had “only heard about exterminations after the collapse in 1945.”

In a letter he sent to the German magazine Der Speigel in July 1977, Korherr said that he had not written the report on Himmler’s order” and that the “statement that I had mentioned that over a million Jews had died in the camps of the Generalgouvernement and the Warthegau through special treatment is also inaccurate. I must protest against the word ‘died’ in this context. It was the very word ‘Sonderbehandlung’ that led me to call the RSHA by phone and ask what this word meant. I was given the answer that these were Jews who were settled in the Lublin district.”

References

1. ^ [http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/korherr/faksimile-lang/ Richard Korherr, DIE ENDLÖSUNG DER EUROPÄISCHEN JUDENFRAGE, Der Inspekteur für Statistik beim Reichsführer SS, Berlin, 1943
2. [ http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/korherr/anweisung-himmler.php Richard Korherr, Anweisung Himmler an Korherr, Der Reichsführer-SS, Feld-Kommandostelle 10.4.1943
3. Richard Korherr, DIE ENDLÖSUNG DER EUROPÄISCHEN JUDENFRAGE, Der Inspekteur für Statistik beim Reichsführer SS, Berlin, 1943
4. Eichmann, Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police., von Lang, Jochen, ed., in collaboration with Claus Sibyll, Translated from the German by Avner W. Less. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.
5. Eichmann, Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police., von Lang, Jochen, ed., in collaboration with Claus Sibyll, Translated from the German by Avner W. Less. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.
6. Eichmann, Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police., von Lang, Jochen, ed., in collaboration with Claus Sibyll, Translated from the German by Avner W. Less. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.
7. Eichmann, Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police., von Lang, Jochen, ed., in collaboration with Claus Sibyll, Translated from the German by Avner W. Less. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.
8. Der Spiegel, Der SPIEGEL, Nr. 31, 25. Juli 1977, S. 12.
9. Ernst Klee, Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich,. Aktualisierte Ausgabe Frankfurt/M 2005, S. 331.
10. Der Spiegel, Der SPIEGEL, Nr. 31, 25. Juli 1977, S. 12.
11. Der Spiegel, Der SPIEGEL, Nr. 31, 25. Juli 1977, S. 12.

• Korherr Report online
• Korherr Report, Nuremberg documents, NO 5192-4
• Korherr-Bericht, lange Fassung originals (German)
• Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: Die restlose Erfassung. Volkszählen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt/M. 2005, ISBN 3-596-14767-0 (germ.)
• Gerald Roberts Reitlinger, Johann Wolfgang Brügel: Die Endlösung. Hitlers Versuch der Ausrottung der Juden Europas 1939-1945. (1. Ed. English 1953 The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. 1987 - ISBN 0876689519)), Berlin, Colloquium 1. dt. Aufl. - 1956, 7. Ed. 1992 (ISBN 3891668708), Copress - paperb.ed 1983. 700 p. ISBN 3767804662

• Holocaust historical documents