Implications of Korherr's arithmetic (check my math)

[Archie]

This morning I was rereading parts of the Korherr report to reply to the incoherent babblings of CJ over in this thread:
viewtopic.php?t=514

Korherr report: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org ... rherr.html

I noticed something curious about some of Korherr's numbers which had completely escaped me before. Perhaps this has been pointed out previously, but I don't recall seeing it come up. It involves a bit of arithmetic so please bear with me.

According to the calculations of the Reich Office for Statistics, in 1880 Europe accounted for 88.4% of the World Jewish population, in 1937 only 60.4%. In 1943 Europe should not account for more than one third of the world Jewish population. (from X. European Jewish Statistics)

The 1/3 is the part that I want to focus on because we can back out from this what Korherr thought the global Jewish population was in 1943.

European and World Jewish Populations for 1937

We can easily determine exactly what numbers he's using.

In 1937 10.3 million (60%) were living in Europe and 5.1 million (30%) in America. In 1880 the European Jews comprised 88% of the world Jewish population and the American Jews only slightly more than 3%.

The implied world Jewish population would be 10.3M/.604 = 17.05M, and elsewhere he explicitly says he assumes a prewar world population of 17M.

The total Jewish population of the world was estimated at 17 million in 1937. Of these, over 10 million were in Europe.

The Statistische Reichsamt (German Bureau of Statistics) estimated the total Jewish population of the world at 17 million in 1937.

So this is absolutely cut and dry. 10.3M in Europe. 17.0M global. 60% in Europe.

European and World Jewish Populations for 1943

He does not explicitly give us the numerator or denominator here, but we can back these out.

These figures indicate that the Jewish population of Europe has already been reduced by 4 million. On the European continent (after Russia with c. 4 million) only Hungary (750,000, Rumania (302,000) and possibly France have large Jewish populations.

In addition to the abovementioned figures, if one takes into account the Jewish emigration, the excess mortality in the non-German countries of Middle and Western Europe and the unavoidable double-counting due to the fluctuation of the Jews, then the reduction of the Jewish population of Europe from 1937 to the beginning of 1943 could be estimated at 4 and a half million.

We have already established that his number for the Jewish population in Europe as of 1937 was 10.3M. The reduction of 4.5M would imply a Jewish population in Europe of 5.8M in 1943.

To get the denominator (world Jewish population in 1943), we need to make use of the percentage he gave us earlier.

In 1943 Europe should not account for more than one third of the world Jewish population.

5.8M*3=17.4M

This is basically the same as the 1937 value (slightly higher). So implicitly he believes the world population did not really change which obviously contradicts the Holocaust story. Of course, the true believers will brush this off. They will just say this is part of the "camouflage." But if you think it through that doesn't really make any sense. This wasn't for mass consumption. If Korherr intended to present a false picture that the global population did not decline why not make this explicit? What would be the point of such a subtle denial of the Holocaust in a private report? The more natural conclusion here is that he simply doesn't think all these Jews had died.

So: 5.8M in Europe. ~17.0-17.5M World. ~1/3 in Europe.

Summary

Korherr's numbers imply the global Jewish population essentially did not change from 1937 to 1943. (Note: imo, this is probably not true. It probably went down some during that time. But the point is that Korherr is unaware of the mass extermination program or has chosen to try to do an extremely subtle and totally unnecessary "cover up".)

Code: Select all

Yr    Europe  World   % Europe
1937  10.3M   17.0M   60.4%
1943   5.8M   ~17.0M  ~1/3 

If the Holocaust were story were true, the 4.5M reduction would have to be entirely due to deaths (the final 1.5M coming in 1943-1945), and these deaths would obviously reduce the population in Europe AND the world simultaneously.

10.3M - 4.5M = 5.8M in Europe (no difference)
17.0M - 4.5M = 12.5M for the World
5.8/12.5 = 46.4% in Europe (not the 1/3 estimated by Korherr)

[Wetzelrad]

Looks right to me. 46.4% is not even close to "one third". Korherr could only have been using 17 million as his denominator for 1943.

Surprisingly I don't see this argument presented on Metapedia or elsewhere.

Korherr's actual calculation was just slightly over one third at 34.12%. I think we can say that Korherr's accounting was slightly imperfect, because while in the text he does allow that some population was lost both due to mortality and to low fertility, he doesn't appear to subtract any losses from the denominator 17 million. If he had, it would have brought the percentage up. Or, perhaps he thought the world Jewish population might remain steady in spite of local conditions.

Note that the translation on the website you're using is also imperfect, not that I have a better one to offer. Comparison:

1943 dürfte der europaische Anteil noch 1/3 dem Weltjudentums betragen.

In 1943 Europe should not account for more than one third of the world Jewish population.

In 1943, the European share was probably still 1/3 of world Jewry.

It was totally wrong to add "not... more than" to this sentence, in my view, as it changes its statistical meaninig.

[Archie]

Overall, I think this is a solid point. If we can show that the report strongly implies no change in global population this forces them to make a conspiratorial argument if they want to try to use this.

I do not see this point mentioned in the Holocaust Encyclopedia entry, nor in the main source for the entry (HH #19 on Sobibor). But I checked an older source, a booklet from 1993 by Stephen Challen and found that he does makes this point, albeit with somewhat different numbers. So it seems it is not an entirely new argument, but I don't think it every really got any attention.

https://codoh.com/library/document/rich ... s-reports/

In section XII. Estimate of the 1943 Jewish Population, Challen comes up with 5.3M for Europe in 1943 (vs my 5.8M). And from this, he gets 15.9M for the world population in 1943. It appears that Challen relied on this sentence for his estimates: "Altogether European Jewry must have decreased by almost half since 1933 that is to say, during the first decade of the development of power of National Socialism." Half of 10.3M is 5,150,000. Then he makes some adjustments to roll from 1933 to 1937 and comes up with a decrease of 5.0M. But I think Korherr's "almost half" is very approximate and a bit exaggerated. It makes more sense I think to go with the 4.5M reduction from 1937 as this is more exact and easier as it does not require us to roll back to 1933. Whatever the number, whether 17M or 15.9M, it's way higher than the expected 12.5M.

Another related point I like to make about Korherr is that even if you interpret the text in an exterminationist fashion, the numbers are just too low. Maybe 2M or so. Not enough to get you anywhere close to 6M by 1945. People don't usually realize how front-loaded the deaths are according to the standard Holocaust history.

Hilberg, 1985 edition , volume 3. Appendix B. "Table B-3: Deaths by Year"

1933-1940: under 100,000
1941: 1,100,000
1942: 2,700,000
1943: 500,000
1944: 600,000
1945: 100,000
Total: 5,100,000

See also Thomas Dalton's "death matrix" discussion (in Debating). Around 3/4 of the deaths would have supposedly already happened by the end of the 1942. To hit 6M, that would mean around 4.5M dead by the end of 1942, so that's what we would expect to see in the Korherr report. Korherr says the total population decrease in Europe was 4.5M, so to be "on target" you'd have to assume ALL those people died even though Korherr explicitly says half had "fled to other countries." And we can now add to that that he didn't seem to think the global population changed much.

[Callafangers]

Fantastic.

With this new interpretation in mind, here's an AI summary of how I would now argue the overall report insofar as Jewish outcomes should be interpreted:

When reading the Korherr Report—a 1943 statistical summary prepared for Heinrich Himmler on Jewish population shifts in Europe—focus on its key figures and implications: It estimates about 10.3 million Jews in Europe in 1937 (roughly 60% of a global total of 17 million) and projects a reduction of around 4–4.5 million by early 1943 due to emigration, excess mortality from low births and high deaths, and "evacuations" eastward, leaving about 5.8 million in Europe. Crucially, Korherr states this remaining European population should amount to about one-third of world Jewry in 1943, implying the global total stayed roughly stable at 17 million—contradicting narratives of mass extermination, which would require subtracting those millions from the global figure (yielding only ~12.5 million worldwide and Europe at ~46%, not one-third). The report's literal phrasing treats "evacuations" as migrations or departures ("Abwanderung"), including 1.27 million Jews "sifted through" (durchgeschleust) camps in the General Government (including the labor camp network) for transport to the Russian East, aligning with evidence of wartime labor utilization and resettlement rather than 'extermination' in sites like Belzec or Treblinka. This supports a revisionist view of population relocations amid chaos, not systematic genocide, as the arithmetic suggests no drastic global decline despite Europe's losses.

[Archie]

Regarding the Jewish population in Europe, I think this part should also be highlighted.

These figures indicate that the Jewish population of Europe has already been reduced by 4 million [note: in the next paragraph he revises this to 4.5M]. On the European continent (after Russia with c. 4 million) only Hungary (750,000), Rumania (302,000) and possibly France have large Jewish populations.

Adding up these three countries mentioned already gives us 5,052,000. And earlier in the report he gives figures for the Reich territories of 606,103 (as of Dec 1942). That would give us at least 5,658,103 in Europe in 1943. This number already would get us to around 17M for the world population (assuming 1/3 in Europe). And that doesn't even include Britain, France, Spain, etc.

Another point I would make here is that Korherr's numbers are not necessarily accurate. There may well have been some pressure to exaggerate the success of the "final solution" and show as large a decrease as possible. You know, show the boss what he wants to see.

[Wetzelrad]

Overall, I think this is a solid point.

What makes it particularly compelling is that the report's title is the defining phrase, "The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem". Therefore, since the Final Solution still has ~17 million alive in 1943, it cannot be death but must be expulsion.

If we can show that the report strongly implies no change in global population this forces them to make a conspiratorial argument if they want to try to use this.

How does that argument go?

Are we to believe that Richard Korherr, in believing that 17 million Jews were still alive in 1943, did not know about the mass scale genocide that he compiled the statistics for? And therefore it was kept secret from him by the small number of Germans who were informed about it?

Or did he know about it and make up some of these facts and figures to cover up the genocide? But then why would a classified report to Hitler need to hide anything?

It makes more sense I think to go with the 4.5M reduction from 1937 as this is more exact and easier as it does not require us to roll back to 1933. Whatever the number, whether 17M or 15.9M, it's way higher than the expected 12.5M.

4.5M makes sense because it's right there in the original text. No arithmetic needed to argue it.

One minor caveat to all this: Holocausthistoryproject mistakenly presents both Korherr reports as if they were one. In reality, the first report ends after section X, on page 16 of the scanned German text. The second report begins with "Jewish statistics are to be accepted only with reservations [...]". So when you quote "4 and a half million" you are quoting from the second report.

[Archie]

How does that argument go?

Are we to believe that Richard Korherr, in believing that 17 million Jews were still alive in 1943, did not know about the mass scale genocide that he compiled the statistics for? And therefore it was kept secret from him by the small number of Germans who were informed about it?

Or did he know about it and make up some of these facts and figures to cover up the genocide? But then why would a classified report to Hitler need to hide anything?

By "conspiratorial argument" I mean to say (I have to imagine since this point has seemingly never been discussed) that I think they would be forced to admit that the report flatly contradicts the Holocaust when taken at face value. As this report is one of their favorite things to cite, this would be a good neutralizing counterpoint. They could still try to use it but they would have to argue that the report does not mean what it says but rather has some hidden meaning. It seems to me they would have no choice but to reject his 1/3 in Europe statistic. But then the question arises of why he would be trying to mislead Himmler and/or Hitler on this point and for what conceivable reason.

I agree it seems like too much of a stretch to think Korherr would be asked to prepare a "progress" report on an extermination program that he wasn't in the loop on.

4.5M makes sense because it's right there in the original text. No arithmetic needed to argue it.

One minor caveat to all this: Holocausthistoryproject mistakenly presents both Korherr reports as if they were one. In reality, the first report ends after section X, on page 16 of the scanned German text. The second report begins with "Jewish statistics are to be accepted only with reservations [...]". So when you quote "4 and a half million" you are quoting from the second report.

Good point. I think I had noticed that before but had actually forgotten when I wrote up the OP. The Challen edition (his booklet is a full translation with commentary) has both reports clearly labelled along some related documents. The reason I tend to use that HHP link is that I like having everything all together in searchable text (even if the presentation and translation leave something to be desired). It makes it much easier to find connections between the different sections.

[TlsMS93]

Korherr wanted to demonstrate that the European Jewish population had declined, not necessarily to prove that their numbers had decreased globally or to demonstrate that a genocide was taking place. Although exterminationists claim that he camouflaged deaths in the Reinhardt camps as "special treatment" at Himmler's request, regardless of the ridiculousness of this in a report intended for Hitler, unlike the one exterminationists like Nessie use as the action report, which explicitly mentions over 300,000 Jews executed. Others, like Challen and Rudolf, suggest that Himmler wanted to persuade Hitler by contradicting statistics on Jews who fled to other countries from those in the USSR—that is, who had fled to the Russian interior, which Korherr claims to be unaware of.

The report neither proves the Holocaust nor disproves it, which is why neither side uses it as evidence.