Indeed, this claim has now emerged in a German government report sponsored by a person in a department of the interior ministry.  The report concludes that "probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level" and that the only people who died from the virus were those who had already reached the end of their lives.

Tell that to New York City. Normal levels of illness and death do not overwhelm health care and burial systems.  In New York City hospitals were overwhelmed and health care personnel were over-burdened.  Politifact confirms that NY City had to rely on mass burials on the city's Hart Island because of "the city's staggering death toll amid the COVID-19 pandemic."  A staggering accumulation of corpses was also a feature of the crisis in northern Italy.  We heard the same reports from Wuhan which cast doubts on the relatively small number of deaths reported. Currently, Chile reports that the country is hovering on the brink ( https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Chilean-Scientists-Call-on-President-to-Change-COVID-Strategy-20200531-0002.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=7 ) Flu season deaths are not known to over-tax health care facilities or to require mass burials. Clearly, the impact of Covid and the flu differ.

What is the point of a report that denies the obvious? I will believe the report when the governor of New York state and the mayor of NY City endorse it.

How such unrealism gets into reports is a mystery.  One possible explanation is that the imposed restraints reduced the density of people on streets, in shops and work places and prevented or limited the spread of the virus from highly infected areas, thereby preventing other geographical areas from becoming centers of high infection. If none of these measures had been taken, there would have been more areas of high infection.