Introduction
A brief letter written by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, on April 9, 1943, to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the Security Police and SD, makes direct reference to the so-called Korherr Report – a statistical analysis compiled by Richard Korherr, the SS’s chief statistician, on the progress of the “Final Solution”. In it, Himmler acknowledges the report’s value as “material for possible later times” and, above all, “for camouflage purposes”. At the same time, he orders that the report must not be published or circulated further. Himmler closes the letter by stressing his overriding concern that “what remains most important to me is that Jews are now being shipped off to the East as much as is at all humanly possible.”
Document
Der Reichsführer-SS
Tgb.Nr. 1573/43
RF/V.
Feld-Kommandostelle, 9.4.1943
Geheime Reichssache!
3 Ausfertigungen
Ausfertigung
An den
Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD.
Berlin
Ich habe den statistischen Bericht des Inspekteurs für Statistik über die Endlösung der Judenfrage erhalten.
Ich halte diesen Bericht als allenfallsiges Material für spätere Zeiten, und zwar zu Tarnungszwecken für recht gut. Im Augenblick darf er weder veröffentlicht noch weitergegeben werden.
Das Wichtigste ist mir nach wie vor, daß jetzt an Juden nach dem Osten abgefahren wird, was überhaupt nur menschenmöglich ist. In den kurzen Monatsmeldungen der Sicherheitspolizei will ich lediglich mitgeteilt bekommen, was monatlich abgefahren worden ist und was zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch an Juden übrig blieb.
[Paraphe Himmler]
The Reichsführer-SS
Ref. No. 1573/43
RF/V.
Field Command Post, 9.4.1943
Secret Reich Matter!
3 copies
3rd copy
To the
Chief of the Security Police and the SD.
Berlin
I have received the statistical report of the Inspector for Statistics on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question.
I consider this report as material for possible later times, namely for camouflage purposes, to be quite good. At the moment it must neither be published nor passed on.
What remains most important to me is that Jews are now being shipped off to the East as much as is at all humanly possible. In the brief monthly reports of the Security Police, I merely want to be informed of what has been shipped off each month and what Jews still remained at that time.
[Paraph Himmler]
Archivial reference:
Bundesarchiv, NS 19/1570, p. 41.