"Goering had said he wanted to know how it was technically possible to murder 2,500,000 Jews [at Auschwitz]. I explained it to him during the lunch hour, just as Höss [the former Commandant of Auschwitz] explained to me this morning: each of the gas chambers could accommodate up to 1500 or 2000 persons; the killing was easy but the burning of bodies took all the time and manpower. Goering felt extremely uncomfortable at the realization that it was no longer possible to deny the extent of the mass murders on the basis of the technical incredibility of the numbers. He wanted to know just how the order was given. I told him that Himmler had given it to him directly as a Führerbefehi (order from the Fuhrer)."