Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
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It is only to a person not accustomed to the German language that the term
Sonderbehandlung sounds like it stands for some very special concept. For a
German, however, the term is as diverse in possible application as “special treatment”
is in English.
Himmler commented somewhat unclearly on Sonderbehandlung when he examined
the “Korherr report,” documents NO-5193 through 5198. Korherr was the
chief SS statistician and thus, in late 1942 and early 1943, he prepared a report for
Himmler on the situation regarding European Jews. In March 1943 he reported
that a total of 1,873,594 Jews of various nationalities had been subjected to a program
of “evacuation,” with a parenthetical note “including Theresienstadt and including
Sonderbehandlung.” The report also gave numbers of Jews in ghettos in
Theresienstadt, Lodz and the General Government, the number in concentration
camps, and the number in German cities on account of a special status conferred
for economic reasons. It was also remarked that, from 1933 to December 31,
1942, 27,347 Jews had died in German concentration camps.
After Himmler examined the report, he informed Korherr through Brandt that
the term Sonderbehandlung should not be used in the report and that transport to
the East should be specified. Nevertheless, the document, as it has come to us,
uses the term in the way indicated. The document gives no hint how the term
should be interpreted but, because it occurs in such a way that it is linked with
Theresienstadt, it is obviously fair to interpret it in a favorable sense, as a reference
to some sort of favored treatment.
In a document said to be initialed by Himmler, he wrote shortly that he regarded
the “report as general purpose material for later times, and especially for
camouflage purposes.” What was to be camouflaged is not indicated in the document
but, at his trial, Eichmann testified that after the Stalingrad disaster (January
1943) the German government quickened the pace of the deportations “for camouflage
reasons,” i.e., to reassure the German people that everything was OK out
there. Himmler specified that the Korherr report was not to be made public “at the
moment,” but the camouflage remark could still be interpreted in the sense in
which Eichmann suggested (Eichmann’s statement was not in connection with the
Korherr report.) 216
Other documents are 003-L, a letter by SS General Katzmann, speaking of
434,329 resettled (ausgesiedelt) Jews of southern Poland as having been sonderbehandelt,
and NO-246, a letter from Artur Greiser to Himmler dated May 1,
1942, asking permission to give Sonderbehandlung, specified as getting them
“locked up” (abgeschlossen), to about 100,000 Jews in the Warthegau (part of annexed
Poland). Greiser was sentenced to death by a Polish court on July 20, 1946,
despite the intervention of the Pope on his behalf. There is also a letter by Lohse,
which is discussed on page 243. 217
Summarizing the situation with respect to documents which speak of Sondersion
107, U1-V1; session 109, F1-H1, N1, O1; NG-5077.
Most of the Korherr report is reproduced in Poliakov & Wulf (1955), 240-248. Eichmann, session
77, Y1, Z1.
Reitlinger, 557. Documents reproduced in Poliakov & Wulf (1955), 197-199.