Richard Korherr and His Reports

INTRODUCTION

I was twelve years old, when the 1956 Budapest uprising took place. In my native country of England, the newspapers gave the event massive coverage. That event had a considerable impact on my attitude to politics. I certainly became aware that Communism was an abnormal and detested political viewpoint. In 1958, when I was fourteen years old, I read "I Chose Freedom", by Victor Kravchenko. This book was a horrific account of Communism in Russia until the book's author defected in 1944. In 1959 the Tibetan uprising took place, the repression of which by the Chinese Communists was a carbon copy of the Russian repression of the Hungarians.

I became convinced that Communism was the most brutal scourge to inflict mankind during the Twentieth Century and possibly since Creation. As an adolescent I was repelled by the butchery and evil that was Communism. I have of course matured since those teenage times and learned more about other developments affecting mankind. Nevertheless nothing that I have learned since my youth has caused me to change my opinions about Communism. I am aware that there have been startling new developments inside Russia and other formerly East bloc countries since 1985 or 1986. However they cannot serve to rehabilitate Communism from its earlier crimes.

I became a professional accountant and have worked in accounting in England, Germany, Holland and Canada and I can speak both German and Dutch. I have always maintained my interest in history and current affairs, which I had when I was young and I am very well informed about World War II history. I did of course learn during my adolescence about murders by National Socialists of Jews. Whilst I found that deplorable it did not change my opinion that the Communists were the worst of the lot. In the macabre Olympics of brutal regimes, the National Socialists could only have received Silver Medals at best. The Communists would have received the Gold Medals every time.

Shortly after my move to Holland, which took place in August 1970, I heard for the first time that here were doubts about the claim that the Germans had murdered up to six million Jews during the Second World War. At first I thought it ludicrous to challenge that representation, but I began to realize that such doubts were not in fact trivial find and they did have some merit. As a result I began to share such doubts and I started to study the statistical claims of Jewish sufferings until 1945. In 1979 I obtained from the U.S. National Archives in Washington copies of the Korherr reports. These reports were German statistical surveys made in 1943 of Jewish population movements: I translated these reports into English in 1983 and I took out a copyright to my English translation in May 1991.

I have over the years exhaustively analyzed the Korherr reports. I have come to the strongly held opinion that these reports prove that the National Socialists in fact did not have a policy to kill off the Jews of Europe. Furthermore the statistically significant figures of Jews whom the National Socialists evacuated have, in my opinion, been overstated by one million and the figures of Jews who emigrated from Europe have been understated by the same number. The Germans never had more than 4.3 million European Jews under their wartime control. Wartime Jewish deaths were in the order of 1.2 million, of which 450,000 occurred in those parts of European Russia which the Germans never conquered, and 750,000 took place for which the Germans had direct or indirect responsibility. As these estimates show that Jewish mortalities were considerably less than most people have believed, they are additional proof that the National Socialists were not as bad as the Communists.

My notes and references support the bulk of my findings. However I have not shown notes and references for findings which are common knowledge, as that would not be necessary.

In outlook, I am a Christian-minded conservative. I am not an admirer either of National Socialism or of Adolf Hitler. However my own criticisms of Adolf Hitler are beyond the scope of this book and may well be the theme of another written commentary.

I accept that the conclusions in this book may be controversial. I have no ulterior motives in writing this book. I believe that the book is relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of its topic is for the public benefit and I have reasonable grounds for believing that its conclusions are right.

October 1993

Stephen Challen
Vancouver, Canada

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