TheHöfle telegram (orHoefle telegram) is a cryptic one-page document, discovered in 2000 among thedeclassifiedWorld War II archives of thePublic Record Office inKew, England. The document consists of several radio telegrams in translation,[1] among them a top-secret message sent bySSSturmbannführerHermann Höfle on 11 January 1943; one, toSSObersturmbannführerAdolf Eichmann inBerlin, and one toSS ObersturmbannführerFranz Heim in German-occupiedKraków (Cracow).[2][3]
The telegram contains the detailed statistics on the 1942 killings of Jews in theextermination camps ofOperation Reinhard including atBelzec (B),Sobibor (S),Treblinka (T), and atLublin-Majdanek (L). The numbers were compiled and quoted by Höfle, likely from the very precise records shared with theDeutsche Reichsbahn.[3] Even though theHolocaust railway transportation records were notoriously incomplete as revealed by theMain Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes against the Polish Nation,[a] the quoted numbers shed a new light on the evidential standard of proof for the scope of the crimes committed by theSS. The telegram gave train arrivals in the prior fortnight, as well as cumulative arrivals until 31 December 1942, for the extermination camps during the deadliest phase of the "Final Solution".[5]
All Holocaust trains were run by theDeutsche Reichsbahn. The SS paid German Railways the equivalent of a third-class ticket for every prisoner transported via the Holocaust trains (Sonderzüge) to the extermination camps of Operation Reinhard fromghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe andJewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland.[6] Children under four went free. The payment was collected from the SS by the German Transport Authority on behalf of theReichsbahn according to a schedule, at a cost of 4Pfennig per track kilometer.[7] The actualwaybills did not include the number of prisoners in each cattle car because calculations were predetermined.[8] The standard means of delivery was a 10-metre-longcovered goods wagon, although third-classpassenger carriages were also used withtrain tickets paid by the Jews themselves, when theSS wanted to keep up the "resettlement to work in the East" myth.[9] The Deutsche Reichsbahn manual, which was used by theSS for making payments, had a listed carrying capacity of each trainset setup at 50 boxcars, each loaded with 50 prisoners.[10]
In reality, boxcars were crammed with up to 100 persons and routinely loaded from the minimum of 150% to 200% capacity for the same price.[10] Notably, during themass deportation of Jews from theWarsaw Ghetto toTreblinka in 1942, trains carried up to 7,000 victims each, which reduced the cost to the SS by more than half.[11] According to an expert report established on behalf of the German "Train of Commemoration" project, the receipts taken in by the state-ownedDeutsche Reichsbahn for mass deportations in the period between 1938 and 1945 reached a sum of US$664,525,820.34.[12]
The Höfle telegram is a decoded message, encrypted at source by the GermanEnigma machine.[13] A missing "5" is added in the table, and is considered to be the correct figure, because only the number 713,555 yields the correct total of 1,274,166, and also theKorherr Report of 1943 substantiates that the total number of 1,274,166 Jews subjected to "special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung) in theGeneral Government district of German-occupied Poland is correct to the last incongruous digit.[3] The British decoded version of the telegram would almost certainly be a transcription error, since British security clearly did not realise what this message was about (see above). It is unlikely that the numerical mistake would have been noticed by them at the time. Admittedly the interception and decoding was not 100% accurate (see reproduction).
| Original in the German language | Complete English translation |
|---|---|
 (including two small PRO annotations) |
|
| Destinations | Transports for 2 weeks prior to 31 December 1942 | Sum total as of 31 December 1942 |
|---|---|---|
| L (Lublin, i.e.Majdanek) | 12,761 | 24,733 |
| B (Bełżec) | 0 | 434,508 |
| S (Sobibor) | 515 | 101,370 |
| T (Treblinka) | 10,335 | 713,555 |
| Total | 23,611 | 1,274,166 |
According to theUS National Security Agency and the Holocaust historians, "it appears the British analysts who had decrypted the message missed the significance of this particular message at the time. No doubt this happened because the message itself contained only the identifying letters for the extermination camps followed by the numerical totals. The only clue would have been the reference to Operation Reinhard, the meaning of which – the plan to eliminate Polish Jewry that was named after the assassinated SS GeneralReinhard Heydrich – also probably was unknown at the time to the codebreakers atBletchley."[13]
The Höfle's radio telegram is one of two evidential proofs making use of the very precise figures, suggesting their common origin; the other one is theKorherr Report to Himmler by professional statistician DrRichard Korherr from January 1943. Both of them quote exactly the same number of Jews "processed" during Operation Reinhard. Apart from providing identical totals as of December 31, 1942, the Höfle telegram also indicates that the camp at Lublin (Majdanek) was part ofOdilo Globocnik's Operation Reinhard, a fact that historians previously had not fully realised.[5]
Bundesarchiv - Fahrplanordnung 567.
The Treblinka extermination process was based on experience the Germans had gained in the Belzec and Sobibor camps. An incoming train, generally consisting of fifty to sixty cars (containing a total of 6-7,000 persons), first came to a stop in the Treblinka village railway station. Twenty of the cars were brought into the camp, while the rest waited behind in the station.
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