Katzmann Report

The Katzmann Report

Cover page of the Katzmann Report

The Katzmann Report (or the Final Report by Katzmann) is one of the most important testimonies relating to the Holocaust in Poland and the extermination of Polish Jews during World War II. It was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials (USA No. L-18, Exhibit-277)^[1] and numerous other proceedings against war criminals abroad. It is a leather-bound report by SS-Gruppenführer Fritz Katzmann, German SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in the District of Galicia, entitled "Lösung der Judenfrage im Distrikt Galizien" (The Solution of the Jewish Question in the District of Galicia), submitted on June 30, 1943 to his superior officer, the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) "Ost" (East), SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. It describes part of Operation Reinhard.^[2]

The Katzmann Report was published in German and illustrated with photographs of the systems of persecution.^[2] A Polish translation of the report was published in the 1950s, but was subject to communist censorship and it did not have an accompanying scholarly analysis; that came with a more recent edition by the Institute of National Remembrance. A full uncensored text of the report was published in 2009.