This article is based upon a presentation at the IAJGS Conference in Philadelphia, August 2–6, 2009—Ed.
Some months ago, I listened to what was billed as a scholarly approach to the fate of German Jews in the Holocaust. It quickly became obvious that the speaker’s eloquence was matched only by his ignorance. At roughly the same time, the German government “released” its Residenten Liste, a database that purports to identify 600,000 Jews living in Germany at the beginning of 1933. I have placed the word “released” in quotation marks because the restrictions that control access to the material are so complicated that likely only a few persons will have the opportunity to examine the list. Those who do will find that this is a political document, well-intentioned, but full of incomplete information and errors. The coincidence of the speech and the new database, however, forced me to realize that, after 20 years of collecting information on Holocaust victims and survivors, I had never focused on “the numbers,” on the grounds that, to misquote Stalin, “the death of a million is a statistic; the death of a single person is a tragedy.”What constituted the horrors of the Holocaust may be considered in many ways. The genealogist, or even the survivor, is likely to focus on how the Holocaust affected a single person or family. The historian may provide a broad overview of events or zero in on one group such as Jews, an area/country, a specific locality, or a concentration camp. The statistician works with numbers, perhaps as they apply to a specific country or locality and, sometimes, a broad group, such as European Jews.
I do not have the historical background to attempt a European-wide analysis of Holocaust data, so I decided to focus on German Jews, the victim community I know the best, and which is perhaps the best documented. Utilizing German and other data, I quickly found that at least 75 percent of German Jews did not perish in the Holocaust, an astonishingly high number, which I later found to be too low. The usual explanation for the higher survival rate of this group is that German Jews became aware earlier than other European Jews about Hitler’s intention to annihilate them and, consequently, had more time and opportunity to emigrate. This is a valid but incomplete explanation. The attempt to confirm this unusual statistic further led me to prepare a paper presentation for the August 2009 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) conference entitled “The German Jewish Community Prior to the Holocaust—Where Did It Go?” a somewhat misleading title, since I only focused to a minor extent on where German Jews emigrated.
While researching my presentation, I became aware for the first time of a 14-page document—The Korherr Report—written in March 1943 by Richard Korherr, Chief Inspector of the Statistical Bureau of the Nazi SS. The title makes its scope and approach clear, “Die Endlösung der Europäischen Judenfrage, Statistischer Bericht” (The Final Solution to the European Jewish Question—Statistical Report). The paper, prepared in response to a January 18, 1943, request from Himmler, was circulated to a limited number of senior Nazi officials, including Hitler, who, reportedly, was very pleased with it. The document has been available for many years in German and English and may be downloaded in either language from various websites. I asked my Philadelphia audience, all of whom had an interest in the Holocaust, who had heard of the Korherr Report; none had.
Background on the Korherr Report
Before describing the specifics of this document, a brief digression into the role of statisticians and their cousins, the economists (a profession to which I once belonged) may be useful. Korherr was not the first or last statistician to recognize that in preparing a report it is essential to consider who will read the document and what they want to see written—or not written.
Here is a small example from my own experience: Several years ago, I was asked to prepare a paper for the President of the United States demonstrating how one of his favorite programs was a great success. Unfortunately, when I finished preparing a draft for senior officials in the State Department and the White House, I found that the numbers demonstrated the exact opposite. A solution to this awkward situation quickly was found. By changing the assumptions, the numbers clearly proved that the program had been successful and the President never knew that the data had been “adjusted.” The report was released to the press, who had no opportunity to see the numbers which underlay the conclusion, and everyone lived happily thereafter, including me, who received a commendation and a medal.
Korherr faced a similar dilemma in that he wished to demonstrate the success of the “Final Solution” on the European level, while obscuring the situation within Germany itself. He succeeded magnificently, pleasing senior SS officials while not antagonizing the German military. Reading the document, one cannot help but be struck by its dryness. This is not a polemic. It is a statistical paper, which could just as well have focused on potato production. It is exactly the dispassionate nature of this paper and its unique internal German overview, based on statistics developed by the killers, of what later was termed the Holocaust, that makes it worth reading.
How Korherr Proceeded
Like all clever drafters of reports, Korherr begins by noting how difficult his project was, citing the effects of intermarriage and conversion. This was particularly true since Korherr had to define “Jew” in terms of the Nürnberg laws, i.e., anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, with conversion to Christianity not accepted. The question of conversion had led the Reichsippenamt, the organization charged with the task of establishing racial purity, to order both the Catholic and Lutheran churches to provide lists of all Jews who had converted to these faiths. It is to the lasting credit of the Catholic church that it refused this “request,” although that did not prevent Nazis from seizing and murdering converts when they could find them. The Lutheran church noted that its records were decentralized and the task fell on regional archives. Some, such as the Lutheran church of Berlin, readily provided the information, which led to the deaths of several of my relatives. Some others found ways to undercut the request. For example, in Hamburg, research focused on the 17th and 18th centuries, which were irrelevant, and, somehow, time was purposely never found to supply information on more recent conversions.
Korherr notes the existence of widely different estimates of the number of Jews in Germany. In the 1925 and 1933 censuses, 564,379 and 499,682 persons had identified themselves as Jews. Recognizing that Hitler would never accept such a “low” number, Korherr added that some estimates ranged as high as 850,000. At the same time, the Gestapo was using the figure of 561,000 for 1933, a base figure that was never explained but Korherr was required to use and from which he subtracted some numbers. Korherr asserted that in the decade from 1933 to 1943, Germany had seen a net natural decline of 61,193 Jews, emigration of 352,534, and Evakuierung (a euphemism for deportation) of 100,516. This left 51,327 Jews in the Altreich (Germany proper), including Danzig and the Sudetenland, persons who were alleged to be vital for various defense industries.
Creating the Statistics
Korherr’s data on emigration, which does not coincide with those of German Jewish organizations, is as follows:
- 144,000 to other European countries, including Italy, often on the way to Palestine
- 57,000 to the United States
- 54,000 to South America
- 10,000 to Central America
- 53,000 to Palestine
- 15,000 to Africa, primarily South Africa
- 16,000 to Asia, primarily China
- 4,000 to Australia.
The numbers may add up, but, as Korherr almost certainly knew, the facts did not. The Gestapo figure of 561,000 was far too low if Korherr had included quarter and half Jews as he should have done. No one knows the real figure, but an estimate of 800,000 seems reasonable. Such a figure could not be utilized since it would have exposed the fact that large numbers of half and quarter Jews were serving in the German military. Bryan Rigg, in his book, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, the Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, has identified one field marshal, seven admirals (including one full Jew) and 20 generals who were Jews under the Nürnberg laws, i.e., they had at least one Jewish grandparent. The total number of “Jews” who fought in Hitler’s armies is unknown, but a figure of 150,000 seems possible. Hitler was well aware of this fact, and he frequently intervened personally to approve or disapprove applications of officers who sought “Aryan” status. Korherr chose, however, carefully to ignore these matters.
Deportation Statistics
Korherr was on much less controversial grounds when he turned to the deportation of Jews from the remainder of occupied Europe. Excluding such ghettos as Cracow, Lodz, Radom, and Warsaw, all of which still existed in early 1943, and using Gestapo figures, Korherr asserted that nearly 1.5 million Jews had been deported from “Ostprovinzen,” e.g., the General Gouvernement (Central Poland with Cracow as its capital); 633,000 from “Russian” areas including the Baltic states; and smaller numbers from Western Europe, Slovakia, and other areas. He never uses such words as exterminated, murdered, or any similar term. Nor does he mention death camps such as Sobibor. A reader who knew nothing about the Holocaust might be puzzled about what happened to these Jews who were “evacuated.” Korherr concludes triumphantly that, while in 1937 the estimated number of Jews in the entire world was about 17 million, 10 million of whom had lived in Europe, the Jewish population of Europe had been reduced by 4 million.
Korherr survived the war and became a German civil servant. When his report surfaced some years later, he lost his job but never was prosecuted. One reason may have been, ironically, that to prepare his report he took on as an assistant Dr. Erich Simon, an employee of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, the umbrella organization for Jewish organizations in Germany, and ensured that Simon was protected.
Conclusion
How many “German Jews” died in the Holocaust? Certainly more died than the 149,000, listed in the Bundesarchiv’s Gedenkbuch. How many more probably can never be established. As a percentage, it was less than 25 percent of Jews as defined by the Nürnberg Laws—again a number that cannot be established. For me, these numbers are interesting, but without much meaning. Would the Holocaust have been “worse” if 6.5 million Jews had perished, or “better” if “only” 5.5 million Jews had perished? Each person who perished, and each who survived, deserves recognition as an individual, not as ciphers.
Peter Landé is a retired U.S. foreign service officer who has contributed greatly as a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2001, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies for his work in identifying sources of information on Holocaust victims and survivors.
