Dr. Richard Korherr (30 October 1903 – 24 November 1989) was a professional

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, and chief inspector of the statistical bureau of the SS during World War II. Korherr eventually held the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. Korherr received his doctorate in 1926 and worked for the before

Hitler's rise to power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

. He served as chairman of the Bavarian anti-separatist ''Reich und Heimat'' Committee in 1930-33, and became member of the Catholic

Bavarian People's Party The Bavarian People's Party (german: Bayerische Volkspartei; BVP) was the Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria ...

. On 1 January 1934 his department was taken over by the Bavarian Statistical Office, and he was transferred there. In 1935-40 Korherr was Director of the Statistical Office of the city of

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

. ''(also in)'' Following the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

at the onset of World War II, on 9 December 1940 Himmler brought Korherr to

Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...

office, to study the progress of resettlement for him. Korherr's incredible problems with the SS began only when the German advance on the Russian front had been halted, resulting in the most damning statistic often attributed to him.

Korherr Report

During World War II Korherr was commissioned by

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

to calculate the number of Jews in Europe subject to "special treatment" (''

Sonderbehandlung (, "special treatment") is any sort of preferential treatment. However, the word ''Sonderbehandlung'' was used as an euphemism for mass murder by Nazi functionaries and the SS, who commonly used the abbreviation ''S.B.'' in documentation. It ...

'', an SS

code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

for

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

) from 1937 to December 1942. Korherr completed his

Korherr Report The Korherr Report is a 16-page document on the progress of the Holocaust in German-controlled Europe. It was delivered to Heinrich Himmler on March 23, 1943, by the chief inspector of the statistical bureau of the '' SS'' and professional statis ...

in January 1943 and handed it over to SS- Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Brandt on the 23 March of that year. It was a 16-page document on the progress of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

as reflected in the dwindling numbers of Jews in Germany and

German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

. It included a seven-page supplement about the deportations in the first three months of 1943. The report was released under the title ''Die Endlösung der Judenfrage'' ( en, the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

to the Jewish Question). Korherr calculated that the number had fallen by 4 million, of whom 1,274,166 victims were delivered to camps for 'special treatment'. The exacting number of 1,274,166 Jews appeared in the

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

sent by SS-Sturmbannführer

Hermann Höfle Hermann Julius Höfle, also Hans (or) Hermann Hoefle ((; 19 June 1911 – 21 August 1962), was an Austrians, Austrian-born SS commander and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. He was deputy to Odilo Globočnik in the ''Aktion Reinhard'' p ...

on 11 January 1943 suggesting that both of them used data collected by the German Transport Authority. Himmler returned the document to its author and demanded a more innocuous word in place of the ''

'' to divert and obscure the crimes. Korherr replaced the phrase with ''Durchgeschleust'' suggesting that the quoted numbers of Jews had "passed through" the so-called ''Durchgangslager'' (transit camps). A summary of his report was delivered to Adolf Hitler by Brandt. In 1945-46 he was under so-called ' automatic arrest' as state functionary, however he did not face the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

, because his Report was not revealed and he later claimed he never heard about the extermination before 1945.

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concer ...

, ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich'', Frankfurt 2005, , p. 331. Later Korherr worked at the Federal Ministry of Finance in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. He also lectured at the

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in 1959–62. Korherr died in the city of

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, on 24 November 1989 at the age of 86.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korherr, Richard 1903 births 1989 deaths Holocaust historical documents Einsatzgruppen personnel SS-Sturmbannführer