The Katzmann Report (or the Final Report by Katzmann) is one of the most important testimonies relating to the

Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust saw the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under similar racial pretexts in occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. Over three million Polish Jews were murdered, primarily at the ...

and the extermination of

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

during World War II. It was used as evidence in the

Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...

(USA No. L-18, Exhibit-277) and numerous other proceedings against war criminals abroad. It is a leather-bound report by '' SS-Gruppenführer'' Fritz Katzmann, German

SS and Police Leader The title of SS and Police Leader (') designated a senior Nazi Party official who commanded various components of the SS and the German uniformed police (''Ordnungspolizei''), before and during World War II in the German Reich proper and in the o ...

(SSPF) in the District of Galicia, entitled "Lösung der Judenfrage im Distrikt Galizien" (The Solution of the Jewish Question in the District of Galicia), submitted on 30 June 1943 to his superior officer, the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) "Ost" (East), '' SS-Obergruppenführer'' Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. It describes part of

Operation Reinhard Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...

. The Katzmann Report was published in German and illustrated with photographs of the systems of persecution. A Polish translation of the report was published in the 1950s, but was subject to communist censorship and it did not have an accompanying scholarly analysis; that came with a more recent edition by the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...

. A full uncensored text of the report was published in 2009.

Report as an artifact

Modern historians consider the report to be of limited value in terms of evidence because of its intentional distortion of some facts, meant to cover up the wholesale theft of gold and money by various German officials. The 62-page book attempts to present the extermination of Jews as an orderly operation. It begins with a photo collection titled "The Solution of the Jewish Problem in East Galicia", which is followed by a

cost–benefit analysis Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits ...

. The report provides only a window into the scale of plunder. The totals are never rounded off. They are meant to lead the reader into believing in their authenticity. The Katzmann Report was written not in the occupied territories but in Berlin after Katzmann's tour of duty in the District of Galicia where he personally directed the murder of between 55,000 and 65,000 Jews during 1941-1942 around Lemberg. In the following months, his "Jew hunts" coupled with roundups for mass deportations to death camps produced a death toll of 143,000 people. In all, the report described the murder of 434,329 Jews, implementing a thoroughly sanitized and approved language based on popular "racial science" of Adolf Hitler and his "experts", so as to help Katzmann advance his career.Koonz 2005, pp. 2-8.

References

* Fritz Katzmann, "Rozwiązanie kwestii żydowskiej w dystrykcie Galicja", Instytut Pamięci Narodowej 2009, *

Dariusz Libionka Dariusz Marian Libionka (born 25 June 1963 in Bielsko-Biała) is a Polish historian affiliated with the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin. Life Dariusz Libionka graduated from the Catholic University of Lublin (''KUL'') and the School f ...

"AKCJA REINHARDT -Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie", Warszawa, 2004, wydanie I, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, *

Extermination of Jews by Nazis in the Polish Territories Research Programme
, last accessed on 25 April 2007 * Institute of National Remembrance
Solving the Jewish Question in the District of Galicia publication
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926230007/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/3/124/ , date=2007-09-26 , last accessed on 25 April 2007

YadVashem.org * Sara Neshamith

JewishGen.org Holocaust historical documents Jewish Polish history 1943 in Europe Operation Reinhard 1943 documents

Report as an artifact

See also

References