Auschwitz death estimates ranged from one million to two and a half million

Evidence

Hoess says he can only guess how many Jews died at Auschwitz. He “personally destroyed every bit of evidence which could be found in my office.” Officers throughout the SS did the same thing, on orders, as the war came to a close. He remembered being told by Adolf Eichmann, and his deputies, that about two and one half million Jews had died at Auschwitz. It may have been less, however. The excerpted passage ended with Hoess’s breakdown of how many Jews from different parts of Europe were killed in “the larger actions” at Auschwitz. That total comes to over a million. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 3177