The Bad Stats of Adolph Eichmann

On January 18, 1943, Heinrich Himmler relieved Adolph Eichmann of his responsibilities as official statistician of the Shoah. Eichmann had botched the job of gathering data on the regime’s kill rate, leading Himmler to replace him with Richard Korherr. It was one of the great humiliations of Eichmann’s career. As Himmler explained to Eichmann’s boss Heinrich Müller: “The statistical documents produced thus far lack scientific exactitude.” The Nazis may have been liars, but when it came to mass murder of the Jews, they wanted to crunch the numbers just right.