Korherr, Höfle and Himmler

[Figures]

Hello. I first posted this on CODOH which it seems, on closer inspection, does not attract a particularly varied group of posters. So I thought I would re-post it here

This is my first post and I may be covering old ground. Before I start I must inform you that I am not a holocaust denier and I believe that millions of Jews died during the Second World War, including a vast number who were murdered by Nazis and their collaborators.

I have been looking at the Korherr Report and the Höfle Telegram recently. It is generally regarded by historians that the numbers of Jews evacuated to the East in this report (1.45 million) were all murdered at the Reinhardt camps and Chelmno. The total transport numbers for the Reinhardt camps (1,274,166) are confirmed by Höfle. The numbers for Majdanek in the Korherr report (26,258) also nearly match number given by Höfle (24,733). The difference (1,525) can be attributed to the number of Jews who were already at Majdanek at the beginning of 1942 and would need to be re-interned in order for the totals to add up correctly.

The Evacuation numbers do not add up correctly in the report. We know that Korherr was sent a telegram telling him to remove mention of special treatment (a euphemism for killing) from this page of the report. Would it not make sense for the missing numbers from that page (30,225, all from the Eastern territories) to be numbers referring to special treatment and not the whole 1.45 million?

This does NOT mean that the remainder of these people were not murdered. It could mean that either they were murdered after they had crossed the River Bug in to the Russian East or that they were killed at Treblinka etc but recorded within the killings for the East carried out by the Einsatzgruppen. The limited field reports we have sent by these death squads are, unusually, almost entirely without euphemism in their description of mass murder which suggests that the Nazis thought that murdering Jews to the East of the Bug was somehow less criminal than killing them elsewhere.

Following on from this I make the following speculation: In the famous report by Himmler in which he claims 363,211 Jews were murdered in Ukraine, Bialystok etc. between August and November 1942 the numbers for each month are respectively: 31,246; 165,282; 95,735; and 70,948. On the website JewishGen, Robin O'Neill lists transports to Belzec for the same period. The numbers are not exact but if you look at the numbers from July to October 1942 they are: (very approximately): 71,000; 21,000; 146,000; 109,000. Subtract the Himmler numbers from the Belzec numbers and you get approximately 40,000 people left over per month. Coincidence? Maybe or maybe not. The figures are, of course, one month removed from each other but this could be because the Jews were not immediately killed or because of some delay in the Administrative process of counting the dead. Perhaps the new transports were sent to replace Jews who had died by starvation, disease or execution in the East (though you would think the time lag would be the other way round if at were true). Also, O'Neill's total transport numbers to Belzec, taken from March to December 1942 are over 800,000. The Hoefle telegram numbers are only 434,508, about half. I am not sure what this implies but I feel it may be important.

My conclusions are as follows. First, the Korherr Report and Höfle telegram, which are widely cited by historians to prove the murder of almost 1.5 million Jews at the Reinhardt camps in 1942 alone actually suggest only about 30,000 died up to and including the point of being processed by those camps. They may have been murdered at these sites after processing, of course. Secondly, it seems possible that the death toll in the East is related to the transport numbers to the Reinhardt camps in some way. This could mean that those who died at Belzec etc. were documented wrongly as dying in the East or it could mean that they really did die in the East, but they could only have died once. Therefore I suggest that there might be some double counting going on by historians in arriving at the overall death toll. Does Himmler's report with the 363,211 specifically refer to the Einsatzgruppen or might these be additional numbers? Either way it seems at least about 40,000 per month sent through Belzec might have survived, at least initially. The same may be true of the other camps.

I am not sure if I have succeeded in keeping hold of the thread of logic during the course of this post and I may or may not post any further comments on this site in future, but I felt compelled to note my observations. I repeat that I am not a Holocaust denier and that I suspect that the majority of people sent through the Reinhardt camps ultimately died, whether at the camps themselves by gassing or elsewhere by other means or a combination of both. But I do think that it is important to properly scrutinise the information we have available. Apologies, once again, if this is old news.

Any thoughts?

[Figures]

On reflection I would like to retract my comment above about the possibility of double counting of fatalities. It is clear from census data that there was a reduction of about 6 million in the European Jewish population during the war. How or if the Nazis recorded this in their paperwork is not to so important and renders the rest of my post rather irrelevant. Sorry for any time wasted. I would delete the thread but don't seem to be able to.

[KZ-Dachau]

My conclusions are as follows. First, the Korherr Report and Höfle telegram, which are widely cited by historians to prove the murder of almost 1.5 million Jews at the Reinhardt camps in 1942 alone actually suggest only about 30,000 died up to and including the point of being processed by those camps.

Alright... Here is the major issue with your theory... Only 70 survived Treblinka, only 2 people survived Belzec, and 47 people survived Sobibor. I would direct you to the following estimate form Skepticforum.

Does Himmler's report with the 363,211 specifically refer to the Einsatzgruppen or might these be additional numbers? Either way it seems at least about 40,000 per month sent through Belzec might have survived, at least initially. The same may be true of the other camps.

Alright you said it yourself:

In the famous report by Himmler in which he claims 363,211 Jews were murdered in Ukraine, Bialystok etc. between August and November 1942 the numbers for each month are respectively: 31,246; 165,282; 95,735; and 70,948.

How does this in any way relate to action Reinhardt?

[Figures]

I think you are right on both counts. It just seems odd that Korherr's tallying up is so clumsy.

I wonder whether the Korherr report originally stated that 30,225 had NOT received special treatment? This would make sense in that we know that some survived at Majdanek and the Nazis certainly would certainly have had good reason to edit such a high number out of the final report.

I think I remember hearing somewhere that a small number of Jews had been sent to Treblinka 1 as well. Plus those employed as Sonderkommandos at all of the Reinhardt camps, most of whom would not have ultimately survived the war. All of which would mean that Evacuation is just another euphemism for murder as is generally believed.

[KZ-Dachau]

Thought I would add something here. His math for the Korherr report is incorrect. Korherrs report only counts 14,000 dead and this isn't the numbers which make up the total number on Höfle telegram. In total the numbers provided by Höfle and Korherr make around 39,000 killed at Majdanek in the year 1942.

Also of 74,000 Jews sent to Majdanek only 15,000 were sent elsewhere. This is a death total of 59,000. Mind if my math is correct they found only around 2000 people in Majdanek at liberation and these were majority poles. To the best of my knowledge less then 50 Jews survived Majdanek with exception to the 15,000 sent to other camps.

I feel it would be best to also link to this writing. It's rather important as the Höfle telegrams numbers only represent those sent to "Generalgouvernement" which was Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek which was confirmed by the Höfle telegram and another 145,301 were sent to the Warthegau aka Chelmno. Mind these estimates were those whom revived special treatment, which means these are the totals of 1942 not just the number sent to the camp, these are the numbers killed.

[michael mills]

Also of 74,000 Jews sent to Majdanek only 15,000 were sent elsewhere. This is a death total of 59,000. Mind if my math is correct they found only around 2000 people in Majdanek at liberation and these were majority poles. To the best of my knowledge less then 50 Jews survived Majdanek with exception to the 15,000 sent to other camps.

The Jews sent to the Lublin Concentration Camp (known unofficially as Majdanek) had been selected for labour, that is why their numbers were so small compared with the number of those sent to the real extermination centres. Almost all of them were killed in November 1943 in a mass shooting action code-named "Aktion Erntefest" (Operation Harvest Festival), when the last remaining Jewish work camps in the Lublin District were eliminated in the face of the advance of the Red Army after the German defeat at Kursk and a series of uprisings at various ghettos and the Treblinka and Sobibor camps.

[Sergey Romanov]

There is no doubt that people were subject to gassing at Majdanek - albeit in far fewer numbers than, say, in Sobibor.

This was reflected in Höß' testimony - he confirmed the existence of gas chamber(s) in Majdanek (and he was in a position to know), but characterized them as "temporary".