Before leaving me, Thomas had asked me for a favor: “I’d like you to see someone. A statistician.”—“From the SS?”—“Officially, he’s the statistics inspector for the Reichsführer-SS. But he’s a civil servant, he’s not even a member of the Allgemeine-SS.”—“That’s odd, isn’t it?”—“Not really. The Reichsführer clearly wanted someone from outside.”—“And what would you like me to tell your statistician?”—“He’s in the process of preparing a new report for the Reichsführer. An overview of the diminution of the Jewish population. But he’s questioning the numbers in the reports from the Einsatzgruppen. I’ve already seen him, but it would be good for you to talk with him. You were closer to the field than I was.” He scribbled an address and phone number in a notebook and tore the page out: “His office is right near here, at the SS-Haus, but he’s always closeted at the IV B 4, with Eichmann, you know who that is? That’s where they archive everything on this question. They have an entire building, now.” I looked at the address; it was on the Kurfürstenstrasse: “Oh, that’s near my hotel. Fine.” The conversation with Thomas had depressed me, I felt as if I were sinking into a marsh. But I didn’t want to let myself go, I had to take myself in hand. I made the effort to call this statistician, Dr. Korherr. His assistant set up an appointment. The headquarters of IV B 4 were housed in a handsome building made of stone with four floors, from the end of the last century: no other section of the Staatspolizei, to my knowledge, had such offices; their activities must have been colossal. A large marble staircase led up to the main lobby, a cavernous, dimly lit space; Hofmann, the assistant, was waiting for me to lead me to Korherr. “This is huge here,” I remarked as I climbed another staircase with him.—“Yes. It’s a former Judeo-Masonic lodge, confiscated of course.” He led me into Korherr’s office, a tiny room cluttered with boxes and files: “Excuse the disorder, Sturmbannführer. It’s a temporary office.” Dr. Korherr, a glum little man, was wearing civilian clothes and shook my hand instead of saluting. “Please, have a seat,” he said as Hofmann withdrew. He tried to clear some papers from a desk, then gave up and left things as they were. “The Obersturmbannführer has been very generous with his documentation,” he murmured, “but there’s really no order.” He stopped rummaging, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Is Obersturmbannführer Eichmann here?” I asked.—“No, he’s on assignment. He’ll be back in a few days. Did Obersturmbannführer Hauser explain to you what I do?”—“In general terms.”—“In any case, you’ve come a little late. I’ve almost finished my report, which I have to hand in in a few days.”—“What can I do for you, then?” I retorted with a touch of annoyance.—“You were in the Einsatz, weren’t you?”—“Yes. In a Kommando first…”—“Which one?” he interrupted.—“Four-A.”—“Ah yes. Blobel. Good show.” I couldn’t tell if he meant that seriously or ironically. “Then, I served in the Gruppenstab D, in the Caucasus.” He made a face: “Yes, I’m not so interested in that one. The numbers are negligible. Tell me about Four-A.”—“What do you want to know?” He bent down behind his desk and came back up with a cardboard box, which he put in front of me. “These are the reports from Group C. I went through them in minute detail, with my deputy, Dr. Plate. And we noticed some curious things: sometimes, there are extremely precise numbers—two hundred eighty-one, one thousand four hundred seventy-two, or thirty-three thousand seven hundred seventy-one, as in Kiev; other times, they’re round numbers. Including for a single Kommando. We also found contradictory numbers. For example, a city where twelve hundred Jews were supposed to live, but where the reports mentioned two thousand people convoyed to the special measures. And so on. What interests me, then, are the counting methods. I mean the practical methods, on-site.”—“You should have talked directly to Standartenführer Blobel. I think he’d have been better able to inform you than me.”—“Unfortunately Standartenführer Blobel is in the East again and can’t be reached. But, you know, I have my own idea anyway. Your testimony will only confirm it, I think. Tell me about Kiev, for instance. Such an enormous but precise number is curious.”—“Not at all. On the contrary, the bigger the Aktion, the more means we had, the easier it was to get a precise calculation. In Kiev, there were very tight cordons. Just before the operation site, the…the patients, or rather the condemned, were divided into equal groups, always a round number, twenty or thirty, I don’t remember. A noncom counted the number of groups that passed by his table and noted it down. The first day, they stopped at twenty thousand exactly.”—“And everyone who walked by the table was submitted to the special treatment?”—“In principle, yes. Of course, a few could, let’s say, pretend, then run away under cover of night. But that would be at most a handful of individuals.”—“And the smaller actions?”—“They were under the responsibility of a Teilkommandoführer who was in charge of counting and passing on the numbers to the Kommandostab. Standartenführer Blobel always insisted on exact counts. For the case you mentioned, I mean the one where they took away more Jews than there were in the beginning, I think I can give you an explanation: when we arrived, a lot of Jews fled into the woods or the steppe. The Teilkommando treated those who were found on-site in an appropriate manner, then left. But the Jews couldn’t remain hidden: the Ukrainians chased them out of the villages, sometimes the partisans killed them. So little by little, impelled by hunger, they returned to their towns or villages, often with other refugees. When we found out, we conducted a second operation that liquidated a certain number again. But again others returned. Some villages were declared judenfrei three, four, five times, but each time, more appeared.”—“I see. That’s an interesting explanation.”—“If I understand correctly,” I said, a little annoyed, “you think the Groups inflated the figures?”—“To be frank with you, yes. For several reasons, no doubt, advancement being only one. There are also bureaucratic habits. In statistics, we’re used to seeing agencies get fixated on some number, no one really knows how, and then this number is taken up and repeated as fact, without any criticism or modification in time. We call that a house number. But it also differs from Group to Group and from Kommando to Kommando. The worst case is clearly that of Einsatzgruppe B. There are also gross irregularities among certain Kommandos in Group D.”—“In ’forty-one or ’forty-two?”—“In 1941 especially. At the beginning, then in the Crimea too.”—“I was in the Crimea briefly, but I didn’t have anything to do with the actions then.”—“And in your experience of Four-A?” I thought for a minute before replying: “I think the officers were honest. But in the beginning, things were badly organized, and some figures might be a little arbitrary.”—“In any case it’s not very serious,” Korherr said sententiously. “The Einsatzgruppen represent only a fraction of the overall numbers. Even a deviation of ten percent would scarcely affect the overall results.” I felt something tighten around my diaphragm. “Do you have the figures for all of Europe, Herr Doktor?”—“Yes, of course. Up to December thirty-first, 1942.”—“Can you tell me what they add up to?” He looked at me through his little glasses: “Of course not. That’s a secret, Herr Sturmbannführer.” We talked some more about the work of the Kommando; Korherr asked precise, meticulous questions. In the end, he thanked me. “My report will go directly to the Reichsführer,” he explained. “If your responsibilities require it, you’ll have access to it then.” He accompanied me back to the main entrance. “Good luck! And Heil Hitler.”

Why had I asked him that idiotic, useless question? How did that concern me? It had been nothing but morbid curiosity, and I regretted it. I wanted to take an interest in nothing but positive things now: National Socialism still had a lot to build; that’s where I wanted to direct my energies. But the Jews, unser Unglück, kept pursuing me like a bad dream in early morning, stuck in the back of my head. In Berlin, though, not many were left: all the so-called protected Jewish workers in the arms factories had just been rounded up. Yet fate decreed that I would meet up with them in the most incongruous places.