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Einsatzgruppen

April 26, 2024

For other uses, see Organisation Todt § Administrative units.

Einsatzgruppen[a] (German: [ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm̩], lit. 'deployment groups';[1] also 'task forces')[2] were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood.[3] Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe.

Einsatzgruppen
The Einsatzgruppen operated under the administration of the Schutzstaffel (SS)

Mass execution of Soviet civilians, 1941
Agency overview
Formedc. 1939
Preceding agency
JurisdictionGermany and German-occupied Europe
HeadquartersRSHA, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
52°30′26″N 13°22′57″E / 52.50722°N 13.38250°E / 52.50722; 13.38250
Employeesc. 3,000 (1941)
Minister responsible
Agency executives
Parent agencyAllgemeine SS and RSHA

Under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen worked hand-in-hand with the Order Police battalions on the Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days, and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen, providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass murders. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen, related agencies, and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million of the 5.5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.

After the close of World War II, 24 officers, including multiple commanding officers, of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. However, only four of these death sentences were carried out. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.

Formation and Aktion T4

The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and operated by the Schutzstaffel (SS) before and during World War II.[4] The Einsatzgruppen had their origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938.[5] Originally part of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary due to the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens.[5][6] From September 1939, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) had overall command of the Einsatzgruppen.[7]

As part of the drive by the Nazi regime to remove so-called "undesirable" elements from the German population, from September to December 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Action T4, a program of systematic murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals. Aktion T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941, but the murders continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the Einsatzgruppen and others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.[8]

Invasion of Poland

Main articles: Intelligenzaktion and Operation Tannenberg
 
Execution of Poles in Kórnik, 20 October 1939
 
Polish women led to mass execution in a forest near Palmiry

In response to Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies.[9] Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), the police, and the Gestapo.[10][11] Heydrich placed SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Best in command, who assigned Hans-Joachim Tesmer [de] to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups, called Einsatzkommandos, from among educated people with military experience and a strong ideological commitment to Nazism.[12] Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps.[13] Heydrich instructed Wagner in meetings in late July that the Einsatzgruppen should undertake their operations in cooperation with the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) and military commanders in the area.[14] Army intelligence was in constant contact with Einsatzgruppen to coordinate their activities with other units.[15]

Initially numbering 2,700 men (and ultimately 4,250 in Poland),[13][16] the Einsatzgruppen's mission was to murder members of the Polish leadership most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the nobility.[10][17] As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed, however harsh that sounds".[18] SS-Brigadeführer Lothar Beutel, commander of Einsatzgruppe IV, later testified that Heydrich gave the order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid-August.[19] The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen – lists of people to be murdered – had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939, using dossiers collected by the SD from 1936 forward.[10][20] The Einsatzgruppen performed these murders with the support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland during Operation Tannenberg.[21] Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the Ordnungspolizei also shot civilians during the Polish campaign.[22] Approximately 65,000 civilians were murdered by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they murdered Jews, prostitutes, Romani people, and the mentally ill. Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially murdered by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used.[23][24]

Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength (around 500 men) operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos of company strength (around 100 men).[11]

Though they were formally under the command of the army, the Einsatzgruppen received their orders from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army.[26][27] Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the murders violated the rules of warfare as set down in the Geneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the Einsatzgruppen and the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, to little effect.[28] For example, when Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz sent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal.[29]

The final task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettos within major cities with good railway connections. The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined.[30][31] Together, the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled territory.[22]

Preparations for Operation Barbarossa

Main articles: The Holocaust in Belarus, The Holocaust in Ukraine, The Holocaust in Russia, and Hunger Plan

On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B specified that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from the Führer, which he would carry out independently.[32][33] This directive was intended to prevent friction between the Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive.[32] Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts, and thus would go unpunished.[34]

In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet Union. General Franz Halder, the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech:

Struggle between two ideologies. Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism, equals antisocial criminality. Communism immense future danger ... This a fight to the finish. If we do not accept this, we shall beat the enemy, but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe. We don't make war to preserve the enemy ... Struggle against Russia: Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia ... Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated as such. The struggle will differ from that in the west. In the east harshness now means mildness for the future.[35]

Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against "Judeo-Bolshevism", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population.[35] The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; Einsatzgruppe victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape.[36] In May 1941, Heydrich verbally passed on the order to murder the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganised Einsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa.[37] In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the Wehrmacht Heer, General Eduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the Einsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks".[38] Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the Einsatzgruppen.[39]

In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime's intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct murder of those considered racially inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.[40]

Organisation starting in 1941

Further information: List of Einsatzgruppen

For Operation Barbarossa, initially four Einsatzgruppen were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000.[41] Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941.[41] The Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS-Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party;[42] to liquidate all the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations.[43] The men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), Orpo, and Waffen-SS.[41] Each Einsatzgruppe was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations.[39] In May 1941, General Wagner and SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg agreed that the Einsatzgruppen in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support.[44] Given their main task was defeating the enemy, the army left the pacification of the civilian population to the Einsatzgruppen, who offered support as well as prevented subversion.[45] This did not preclude their participation in acts of violence against civilians, as many members of the Wehrmacht assisted the Einsatzgruppen in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord.[46]

 
Naked Jewish women from the Mizocz ghetto wait in a line before their execution by the Order Police with the assistance of Ukrainian auxiliaries.
 
Members of the Order Police execute those who survived the initial shooting

Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who supplied security forces on an "as needed" basis to the local SS and Police Leaders.[4] Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the Orpo, Security Service and Waffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force.[47] Each Einsatzgruppe was supplemented with Waffen-SS and Order Police battalions as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators.[41] On average, the Order Police formations were larger and better armed, with heavy machine-gun detachments, which enabled them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS.[47] Each death squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet Union.[48] During the course of their operations, the Einsatzgruppen commanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht.[48] Activities ranged from the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists, to joint citywide operations with SS Einsatzgruppen which lasted for two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar, perpetrated by the Police Battalion 45, and at Rumbula, by Battalion 22, reinforced by local Schutzmannschaften (auxiliary police).[49][50] The SS brigades, wrote historian Christopher Browning, were "only the thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and racial mass murder."[51]

Many Einsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders of Einsatzgruppe A held doctorate degrees.[52] Three Einsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom SS-Gruppenführer Otto Rasch) held a double doctorate.[53]

Additional Einsatzgruppen were created as additional territories were occupied. Einsatzgruppe E operated in Independent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Teichmann [de], SS-Standartenführer Günther Herrmann, and lastly SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs. The unit was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb.[54][55] Einsatzgruppe F worked with Army Group South.[55] Einsatzgruppe G operated in Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine, commanded by SS-Standartenführer Josef Kreuzer [de].[54] Einsatzgruppe H was assigned to Slovakia.[56] Einsatzgruppen K and L, under SS-Oberführer Emanuel Schäfer and SS-Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn, worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during the Ardennes offensive.[57] Hahn had previously been in command of Einsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece.[58]

Other Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos included Einsatzgruppe Iltis (operated in Carinthia, on the border between Slovenia and Austria) under SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel,[59] Einsatzgruppe Jugoslawien (Yugoslavia)[60] Einsatzkommando Luxemburg (Luxembourg),[55] Einsatzgruppe Norwegen (Norway) commanded by SS-Oberführer Franz Walter Stahlecker,[61] Einsatzgruppe Serbien (Yugoslavia) under SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs and SS-Gruppenführer August Meysner,[62] Einsatzkommando Tilsit [de] (Lithuania, Poland),[63] and Einsatzgruppe Tunis (Tunis), commanded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff.[64]

Killings in the Soviet Union

 
 
Vileyka
Map of the Einsatzgruppen operations behind the German-Soviet frontier with the location of the first shooting of Jewish men, women and children, 30 July 1941
Further information: Einsatzgruppen reports

After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and Jews.[43] In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials; all senior and middle ranking members of the central, provincial, and district committees of the Communist Party; extremist and radical Communist Party members; people's commissars; and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)." He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the population of the occupied territories were to be quietly encouraged.[65]

On 8 July, Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot.[66] On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to murder all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia, as they too might be Jews.[67] Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant.[68] The unit was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill. It was common practice for the Einsatzgruppen to shoot hostages.[69]

As the invasion began, the Germans pursued the fleeing Red Army, leaving a security vacuum. Reports surfaced of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area, with local Jews immediately suspected of collaboration. Heydrich ordered his officers to incite anti-Jewish pogroms in the newly occupied territories.[70] Pogroms, some of which were orchestrated by the Einsatzgruppen, broke out in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.[71] Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 10,000 Jews had been murdered in 40 pogroms, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims.[71][72] However, SS-Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, reported to his superiors in mid-October that the residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was required.[73] A similar reticence was noted by Einsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus and Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine; the further east the Einsatzgruppen travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into murdering their Jewish neighbours.[74]

 
Jews forced to dig their own graves in Zboriv, Ukraine, 5 July 1941
 
A teenage boy stands beside his murdered family shortly before his own murder. Zboriv, Ukraine, 5 July 1941

All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war.[75] Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and victims being murdered by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, the Einsatzkommandos began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. Some Einsatzkommandos started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being murdered with a pistol shot.[76]

As word of the massacres got out, many Jews fled; in Ukraine, 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away. This was seen by the leader of Einsatzkommando VI as beneficial, as it would save the regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals.[77] In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately murder all the Jews in the conquered territories.[78] A situation report from Einsatzgruppe C in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus, and suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply. The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews).[79] Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were all dead, a goal that was postponed until 1942.[80]

The Einsatzgruppen used public hangings as a terror tactic against the local population. An Einsatzgruppe B report, dated 9 October 1941, described one such hanging. Due to suspected partisan activity near Demidov, all male residents aged 15 to 55 were put in a camp to be screened. The screening produced seventeen people who were identified as "partisans" and "Communists". Five members of the group were hanged while 400 local residents were assembled to watch; the rest were shot.[81]

Babi Yar

Main article: Babi Yar

The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kyiv city center in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September.[82][83] The perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS attached to Einsatzgruppe C under Rasch, members of Sonderkommando 4a under SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and some Ukrainian auxiliary police.[84] The Jews of Kyiv were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kyiv and the assembly point was near the train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey.[85]

After being marched three kilometres (two miles) northwest of the city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then were herded down into the ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims, and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads.[86]

The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims.[83] Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material.[87] Anton Heidborn, a member of Sonderkommando 4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the "millions" of banknotes taken from the victims' possessions.[88] The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens.[87] Jeckeln's troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October.[83]

Killings in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia

Main articles: The Holocaust in Lithuania, The Holocaust in Latvia, and The Holocaust in Estonia
 
Massacre of Jews in Lietūkis garage on 27 June 1941 during the Kaunas pogrom

Einsatzgruppe A operated in Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (the three Baltic countries which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941). According to its own reports to Himmler, Einsatzgruppe A murdered almost 140,000 people in the five months following the 1941 German invasion: 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 people with mental illnesses, 56 partisans, 44 Poles, five Romani, and one Armenian were reported murdered between 22 June and 25 November 1941.[89]

Upon entering Kaunas, Lithuania, on 25 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppe released the criminals from the local jail and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway.[90] Between 23 and 27 June 1941, 4,000 Jews were murdered on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches.[91] Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom was the so-called "Death Dealer of Kaunas", a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis Garage before a large crowd that cheered each murder with much applause; he occasionally paused to play the Lithuanian national anthem "Tautiška giesmė" on his accordion before resuming the murders.[91][92]

As Einsatzgruppe A advanced into Lithuania, it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups. In July 1941, local Lithuanian collaborators, pejoratively called "White Armbands" (Lithuanian: Baltaraiščiai, lit. 'People with white armbands'), joined the massacres.[72] A pogrom in the Latvian capital Riga in early July 1941 killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalist Viktors Arājs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues.[93] On 2 July, Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arājs to head the Arajs Kommando,[72] a Sonderkommando of about 300 men, mostly university students. Together, Einsatzgruppe A and the Arājs Kommando murdered 2,300 Jews in Riga on 6–7 July.[93] Within six months, Arājs and collaborators would murder about half of Latvia's Jewish population.[94]

Local officials, the Selbstschutz, and the Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) played a key role in rounding up and massacring local Jews in German-occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.[95] These groups also helped the Einsatzgruppen and other killing units to identify Jews.[95] For example, in Latvia, the Hilfspolizei, consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian army and police officers, ex-Aizsargi, members of the Pērkonkrusts, and university students, assisted in the murder of Latvia's Jewish citizens.[94] Similar units were created elsewhere, and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.[96]

With the creation of units such as the Arājs Kommando in Latvia and the Rollkommando Hamann in Lithuania,[97] the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to more systematic massacres.[94] With extensive local help, Einsatzgruppe A was the first Einsatzgruppe to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area.[98][95] Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote:

Of the roughly 83,000 Jews who fell into German hands in Latvia, not more than 900 survived; and of the more than 20,000 Western Jews sent into Latvia, only some 800 lived through the deportation until liberation. This was the highest percentage of eradication in all of Europe.[99]

 
Pit where bodies were burned after the Ponary massacre

In late 1941, the Einsatzkommandos settled into headquarters in Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn. Einsatzgruppe A grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size. The Germans relied increasingly on the Latvian Arājs Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews.[97]

Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with the Einsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors. Since the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Kresy Wschodnie and other borderlands had experienced a political culture of violence.[100] The 1940–1941 Soviet occupation had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939; the population was brutalised and terrorised, and the existing familiar structures of society were destroyed.[101]

Historian Erich Haberer has suggested that many survived and made sense of the "totalitarian atomization" of society by seeking conformity with communism.[102] As a result, by the time of the German invasion in 1941, many had come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour; thus, people simply transferred their allegiance to the German regime when it arrived.[102] Some who had collaborated with the Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and murdering them.[103]

Rumbula

Main article: Rumbula massacre

In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia, as he intended to move Jews from Germany into the area. He assigned SS-Obergruppenführer Jeckeln, one of the perpetrators of the Babi Yar massacre, to liquidate the Riga ghetto. Jeckeln selected a site about 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station, and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by digging pits in which to bury the victims. Jeckeln organised around 1,700 men, including 300 members of the Arajs Kommando, 50 German SD men, and 50 Latvian guards, most of whom had already participated in mass-murdering of civilians. These troops were supplemented by Latvians, including members of the Riga city police, battalion police, and ghetto guards. Around 1,500 able-bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave labour could be exploited; a thousand men were relocated to a fenced-off area within the ghetto and 500 women were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto, where they were put to work mending uniforms.[104]

Although Rumbula was on the rail line, Jeckeln decided that the victims should travel on foot from Riga to the execution ground. Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly. The victims were told that they were being relocated, and were advised to bring up to 20 kg (44 lb) of possessions. The first day of executions, 30 November 1941, began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4:00 am. The victims were moved in columns of a thousand people toward the execution ground. As they walked, some SS men went up and down the line, shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or rest.[105]

When the columns neared the prepared execution site, the victims were driven some 270 metres (300 yd) from the road into the forest, where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized. Here the victims were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into the forest, near the pits, where they were ordered to strip. The victims were driven into the prepared trenches, made to lie down, and shot in the head or the back of the neck by members of Jeckeln's bodyguard. Around 13,000 Jews from Riga were murdered at the pits that day, along with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train. On the second day of the operation, 8 December 1941, the remaining 10,000 Jews of Riga were murdered in the same way. About a thousand were murdered on the streets of the city or on the way to the site, bringing the total number of victims for the two-day extermination to 25,000 people. For his part in organising the massacre, Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper Section, Ostland.[106]

Second sweep

 
The Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph: the murdering of Jews in Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942. A woman is attempting to protect a child with her own body just before they are fired upon with rifles at close range.
 
A member of Einsatzgruppe D is about to shoot a man sitting by a mass grave in Winniza, Ukraine, in 1942. Present in the background are members of the German Army, the German Labor Service, and former Hitler Youth.[107] The back of the photograph is inscribed "The last Jew in Vinnitsa"

Einsatzgruppe B, C, and D did not immediately follow Einsatzgruppe A's example in systematically murdering all Jews in their areas. The Einsatzgruppe commanders, with the exception of Einsatzgruppe A's Stahlecker, were of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to murder the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union in one sweep, and thought the murders should stop.[108] An Einsatzgruppe report dated 17 September advised that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them.[108] Also, in some areas poor weather and a lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points further west.[109] Thus, an interval passed between the first round of Einsatzgruppen massacres in summer and fall, and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep, which started in December 1941 and lasted into the summer of 1942.[110] During the interval, the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos.[111]

Einsatzgruppe A had already murdered almost all Jews in its area, so it shifted its operations into Belarus to assist Einsatzgruppe B. In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942, Einsatzgruppe D reduced the city's Jewish population from 30,000 to 702 over the course of four days.[112] The German Order Police and local collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings. Haberer wrote that, as in the Baltic states, the Germans could not have murdered so many Jews so quickly without local help. He points out that the ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus. In rural areas the proportion was 1 to 20. This meant that most Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews were murdered by fellow Ukrainians and Belarusians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans.[113]

The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas, though the chance of success was poor. Weapons were typically primitive or home-made. Communications were impossible between ghettos in various cities, so there was no way to create a unified strategy. Few in the ghetto leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents. Mass break-outs were sometimes attempted, though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees were often tracked down and murdered.[114]

Transition to gassing

See also: Final Solution
 
Magirus-Deutz van found near Chełmno extermination camp is the same type as those used as gas vans.

After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppen were inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for the troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough.[115] Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink.[116] As much as possible, the Einsatzgruppen leaders militarized the genocide. The historian Christian Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings a collective act without individual responsibility. Framing the shootings in this way was not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of guilt.[117] Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators: those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused to take part.[118] A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for the task. Commander of Einsatzgruppe D, SS-Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, particularly noted this propensity towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions.[119]

During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppen mass execution first-hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men.[120] By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health care.[121] He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders.[121][122] Gas vans, which had been used previously to murder mental patients, began to see service by all four main Einsatzgruppen from 1942.[123] However, the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos, because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.[124] Some of the early mass murders at extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide gas.[125]

Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death, and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (German: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage).[126] Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and other Nazi extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as the primary method of mass-murder.[127] The Einsatzgruppen remained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus.[128]

After the defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of a special task force, Sonderaktion 1005, under SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.[129]

By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe, and the Einsatzgruppen retreated alongside the Wehrmacht. By late 1944, most Einsatzgruppen personnel had been folded into Waffen-SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews.[130] The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5.5 to six million people.[131]

Plans for the Middle East and Britain

According to research by German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers [de], Einsatzkommando Egypt, led by Walter Rauff, was formed in 1942 in Athens. The unit was to enter Egypt and Mandatory Palestine once German forces arrived there.[132] According to Mallmann and Cüppers, the unit's purpose was to carry out mass-murder of the Jewish populations in those areas. Given its initially small staff of only 24 men, Mallmann and Cüppers point to the further history of the unit, when it was quickly enlarged to more than four times its original strength during its deployment in Tunisia. Furthermore they assume that the commando would have been supported in the annihilation of the Jews by local collaborators, like it happened with the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe.[133]

Former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini played roles, engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda, preparing to recruit volunteers, and in raising an Arab-German Battalion that would also follow Einsatzkommando Egypt to the Middle East.[134] On 20 July 1942 Rauff was sent to Tobruk to report to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Commander of the Afrika Korps. Since Rommel was 500 km away at the First Battle of El Alamein, it is unlikely that the two met.[135][136] The plans for Einsatzgruppe Egypt were set aside after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein.[137]

Had Operation Sea Lion—the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom—been launched, six Einsatzgruppen were scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain. They were provided with a list called the Sonderfahndungsliste, G.B. ('Special Search List, G.B'), known as The Black Book after the war, of 2,300 people to be immediately imprisoned by the Gestapo. The list included Churchill, members of the cabinet, prominent journalists and authors, and members of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.[138]

Jäger Report

Main article: Jäger Report
 
Page 6 of the Jäger Report shows the number of people murdered by Einsatzkommando III alone in the five-month period covered by the report as 137,346.

The Einsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres and provided detailed reports to their superiors. The Jäger Report, filed by Commander SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger on 1 December 1941 to his superior, Stahlecker (head of Einsatzgruppe A), covers the activities of Einsatzkommando III in Lithuania over the five-month period from 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941.[139]

Jäger's report provides an almost daily running total of the liquidations of 137,346 people, the vast majority of them Jews.[139] The report documents the exact date and place of massacres, the number of victims, and their breakdown into categories (Jews, Communists, criminals, and so on).[140] Women were shot from the very beginning, but initially in fewer numbers than men.[141] Children were first included in the tally starting in mid-August, when 3,207 people were murdered in Rokiškis on 15–16 August 1941.[140] For the most part the report does not give any military justification for the murders; people were murdered solely because they were Jews.[140] In total, the report lists over 100 executions in 71 different locations. Jäger wrote: "I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by Einsatzkommando 3. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families."[139] In a February 1942 addendum to the report, Jäger increased the total number of victims to 138,272, giving a breakdown of 48,252 men, 55,556 women, and 34,464 children. Only 1,851 of the victims were non-Jewish.[142]

Jäger escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended. He lived in Heidelberg under his own name until his report was discovered in March 1959.[143] Arrested and charged, Jäger committed suicide on 22 June 1959 in Hohenasperg Fortress while awaiting trial for his crimes.[144]

Involvement of the Wehrmacht

Main article: War crimes of the Wehrmacht

The murders took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east.[145] As ordered by Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen, providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass killings.[146] On 10 October 1941 Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front. Now known as the Severity Order, it read in part:

The most important objective of this campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in European civilization ... In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war, but also the ruthless standard bearer of a national conception ... For this reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry.[147]

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group South expressed his "complete agreement" with the order. He sent out a circular to the generals under his command urging them to release their own versions and to impress upon their troops the need to exterminate the Jews.[148] General Erich von Manstein, in an order to his troops on 20 November, stated that "the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all."[145] Manstein sent a letter to Einsatzgruppe D commanding officer Ohlendorf complaining that it was unfair that the SS was keeping all of the murdered Jews' wristwatches for themselves instead of sharing with the Army.[149]

Beyond this trivial complaint, the Army and the Einsatzgruppen worked closely and effectively. On 6 July 1941 Einsatzkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C reported that "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews".[150] Few complaints about the murders were ever raised by Wehrmacht officers.[151] On 8 September, Einsatzgruppe D reported that relations with the German Army were "excellent".[150] In the same month, Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A wrote that Army Group North had been exemplary in co-operating with the exterminations and that relations with the 4th Panzer Army, commanded by General Erich Hoepner, were "very close, almost cordial".[150] In the south, the Romanian Army worked closely with Einsatzgruppe D to massacre Ukrainian Jews,[111] murdering around 26,000 Jews in the Odessa massacre.[152] The German historian Peter Longerich thinks it probable that the Wehrmacht, along with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), incited the Lviv pogroms, during which 8,500 to 9,000 Jews were murdered by the native population and Einsatzgruppe C in July 1941.[153] Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by the Einsatzgruppen.[154] British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the murders, it was common for both the men of the Einsatzgruppen and for bystanders to take pictures to send to their loved ones, which he felt suggested widespread approval of the massacres.[155]

Officers in the field were well aware of the killing operations being conducted by the Einsatzgruppen.[156] The Wehrmacht tried to justify their considerable involvement in the Einsatzgruppen massacres as being anti-partisan operations rather than racist attacks, but Hillgruber wrote that this was just an excuse. He states that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti-partisan response were lying, and maintained that the slaughter of about 2.2 million defenceless civilians for reasons of racist ideology cannot be justified.[157]

Einsatzgruppen trials

Most of the surviving perpetrators of Nazi war crimes were never charged, and returned unremarked to civilian life. The West German government only charged about 100 former Einsatzgruppen members with war crimes.[158] As time went on, it became more difficult to obtain prosecutions; witnesses grew older and were less likely to be able to offer valuable testimony. Funding for trials was inadequate, and the governments of Austria and Germany became less interested in obtaining convictions for wartime events, preferring to forget the Nazi past.[159]

1947–1948 trial

Main article: Einsatzgruppen trial

After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority. The men were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in the SS (which had been declared a criminal organization). Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the judgments; only four executions were carried out, on 7 June 1951; the rest were reduced to lesser sentences. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.[160]

 
Otto Ohlendorf, 1943

Several Einsatzgruppen leaders, including Ohlendorf, claimed at the trial to have received an order before Operation Barbarossa requiring them to murder all Soviet Jews.[161] To date no evidence has been found that such an order was ever issued.[162] German prosecutor Alfred Streim noted that if such an order had been given, post-war courts would only have been able to convict the Einsatzgruppen leaders as accomplices to mass murder. However, if it could be established that the Einsatzgruppen had committed mass murder without orders, then they could have been convicted as perpetrators of mass murder, and hence could have received stiffer sentences, including capital punishment.[163]

Streim postulated that the existence of an early comprehensive order was a fabrication created for use in Ohlendorf's defence. This theory is now widely accepted by historians.[164] Longerich notes that most orders received by the Einsatzgruppen leaders—especially when they were being ordered to carry out criminal activities—were vague, and couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime. Leaders were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly.[165] British historian Sir Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler's apocalyptic remarks before Barbarossa about the necessity for a war without mercy to "annihilate" the forces of "Judeo-Bolshevism" were interpreted by Einsatzgruppen commanders as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence, with each Einsatzgruppen commander to use his own discretion about how far he was prepared to go.[166]

1958 trial

Main article: Ulm Einsatzkommando trial

The crimes of the Einsatzgruppen came into wider public awareness with the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958. At the trial, ten former members of Einsatzkommando Tilsit [de] were on trial accused of murdering around 5,500 Jewish men, women, and children in the German-Lithuanian border area in mid-1941. Among them were the heads of the Tilsit task force Hans-Joachim Böhme [de; fr; ru; sv], Bernhard Fischer-Schweder [de], and the head of the Tilsit SD section Werner Hersmann [de].[167] The responsible senior public prosecutor, Erwin Schüle [de], used as evidence documents from the American Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg, existing specialist literature, SS personnel files, and surviving "USSR event reports".[168]

See also

References

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Singular: Einsatzgruppe; Official full name: Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD.

Citations

  1. ^ Wolf 2020, p. 53.
  2. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 138.
  3. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 4.
  4. ^ a b Edeiken 2000.
  5. ^ a b Streim 1989, p. 436.
  6. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 405, 412.
  7. ^ Nuremberg Trial, Vol. 20, Day 194.
  8. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 138–141.
  9. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 425.
  10. ^ a b c Longerich 2010, p. 144.
  11. ^ a b Rossino 2003, p. 11.
  12. ^ Rossino 2003, pp. 11, 20.
  13. ^ a b Evans 2008, p. 17.
  14. ^ Rossino 2003, p. 14.
  15. ^ Rossino 2003, p. 17.
  16. ^ Rossino 2003, p. 12.
  17. ^ Browning & Matthäus 2004, pp. 16–18.
  18. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 143.
  19. ^ Rossino 2003, p. 15.
  20. ^ Rossino 2003, p. 16.
  21. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 144–145.
  22. ^ a b Longerich 2012, p. 429.
  23. ^ Evans 2008, p. 15.
  24. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 430–432.
  25. ^ Weale 2012, p. 225.
  26. ^ Evans 2008, p. 18.
  27. ^ Gerwarth 2011, p. 147.
  28. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 146.
  29. ^ Evans 2008, pp. 25–26.
  30. ^ Weale 2012, pp. 227–228.
  31. ^ Weale 2012, pp. 242–245.
  32. ^ a b Hillgruber 1989, p. 95.
  33. ^ Wette 2007, p. 93.
  34. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 521–522.
  35. ^ a b Hillgruber 1989, pp. 95–96.
  36. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 14, 48.
  37. ^ Hillgruber 1989, pp. 94–95.
  38. ^ Hillgruber 1989, pp. 94–96.
  39. ^ a b Hillgruber 1989, p. 96.
  40. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 181.
  41. ^ a b c d Longerich 2010, p. 185.
  42. ^ Thomas 1987, p. 265.
  43. ^ a b Rees 1997, p. 177.
  44. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 15.
  45. ^ Langerbein 2003, pp. 30–31.
  46. ^ Langerbein 2003, pp. 31–32.
  47. ^ a b Browning 1998, pp. 10–12.
  48. ^ a b Einsatzgruppen judgment, pp. 414–416.
  49. ^ Browning 1998, pp. 135–136, 141–142.
  50. ^ Robertson.
  51. ^ Browning 1998, p. 10.
  52. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 186.
  53. ^ Browning & Matthäus 2004, pp. 225–226.
  54. ^ a b MacLean 1999, p. 23.
  55. ^ a b c Museum of Tolerance.
  56. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 419.
  57. ^ Dams & Stolle 2012, p. 168.
  58. ^ Conze, Frei et al. 2010.
  59. ^ Crowe 2007, p. 267.
  60. ^ Mallmann & Cüppers 2006, p. 97.
  61. ^ Larsen 2008, p. xi.
  62. ^ Shelach 1989, p. 1169.
  63. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 197.
  64. ^ Mallmann, Cüppers & Smith 2010, p. 130.
  65. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 523.
  66. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 198.
  67. ^ Hillgruber 1989, p. 97.
  68. ^ Hilberg 1985, p. 368.
  69. ^ Headland 1992, pp. 62–70.
  70. ^ Urban 2001.
  71. ^ a b Longerich 2012, p. 526.
  72. ^ a b c Haberer 2001, p. 68.
  73. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 193–195.
  74. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 208.
  75. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 196–202.
  76. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 207.
  77. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 208, 211.
  78. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 211.
  79. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 211–212.
  80. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 212–213.
  81. ^ Headland 1992, pp. 57–58.
  82. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 179.
  83. ^ a b c Evans 2008, p. 227.
  84. ^ Weale 2012, p. 315.
  85. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 172–173.
  86. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 173–176.
  87. ^ a b Rhodes 2002, p. 178.
  88. ^ Weale 2012, p. 317.
  89. ^ Hillgruber 1989, p. 98.
  90. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 41.
  91. ^ a b Haberer 2001, pp. 67–68.
  92. ^ Rees 1997, p. 179.
  93. ^ a b Haberer 2001, pp. 68–69.
  94. ^ a b c Haberer 2001, p. 69.
  95. ^ a b c Haberer 2001, p. 71.
  96. ^ Haberer 2001, pp. 69–70.
  97. ^ a b Haberer 2001, p. 70.
  98. ^ Rees 1997, p. 182.
  99. ^ Haberer 2001, p. 66.
  100. ^ Haberer 2001, p. 73.
  101. ^ Haberer 2001, pp. 74–75.
  102. ^ a b Haberer 2001, p. 76.
  103. ^ Haberer 2001, p. 77.
  104. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 206–209.
  105. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 208–210.
  106. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 210–214.
  107. ^ Berenbaum 2006, p. 93.
  108. ^ a b Hilberg 1985, p. 342.
  109. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 549.
  110. ^ Hilberg 1985, pp. 342–343.
  111. ^ a b Marrus 2000, p. 64.
  112. ^ Hilberg 1985, p. 372.
  113. ^ Haberer 2001, p. 78.
  114. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 353–354.
  115. ^ Rees 1997, p. 197.
  116. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 52, 124, 168.
  117. ^ Ingrao 2013, pp. 199–200.
  118. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 163.
  119. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 165–166.
  120. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 547–548.
  121. ^ a b Rhodes 2002, p. 167.
  122. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 551.
  123. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 548.
  124. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 243.
  125. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 280–281.
  126. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 555–556.
  127. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 279–280.
  128. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 248.
  129. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 258–260, 262.
  130. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 257.
  131. ^ Evans 2008, p. 318.
  132. ^ Mallmann, Cüppers & Smith 2010, p. 117.
  133. ^ Mallmann, Cüppers & Smith 2010, pp. 124–125.
  134. ^ Mallmann, Cüppers & Smith 2010, pp. 127–130.
  135. ^ Mallmann, Cüppers & Smith 2010, pp. 103, 117–118.
  136. ^ Shepherd 2016, p. 357.
  137. ^ Krumenacker 2006.
  138. ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 783–784.
  139. ^ a b c Rhodes 2002, p. 215.
  140. ^ a b c Rhodes 2002, p. 126.
  141. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 230.
  142. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 216.
  143. ^ Rabitz 2011.
  144. ^ Rhodes 2002, p. 276.
  145. ^ a b Hillgruber 1989, p. 102.
  146. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 244–247.
  147. ^ Craig 1973, p. 10.
  148. ^ Mayer 1988, p. 250.
  149. ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 43.
  150. ^ a b c Hilberg 1985, p. 301.
  151. ^ Wette 2007, p. 131.
  152. ^ Marrus 2000, p. 79.
  153. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 194.
  154. ^ Marrus 2000, p. 88.
  155. ^ Klee, Dressen & Riess 1991, p. xi.
  156. ^ Wette 2007, pp. 200–201.
  157. ^ Hillgruber 1989, pp. 102–103.
  158. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 275–276.
  159. ^ Segev 2010, pp. 226, 250, 376.
  160. ^ Rhodes 2002, pp. 274–275.
  161. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 187.
  162. ^ Longerich 2010, pp. 187–189.
  163. ^ Streim 1989, p. 439.
  164. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 188.
  165. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 189–190.
  166. ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 258–259.
  167. ^ Fischer & Lorenz 2007, p. 64 f.
  168. ^ Mix 2008.

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Further reading

  • Earl, Hilary (2009). The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958: Atrocity, Law, and History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45608-1.
  • Förster, Jürgen (1998). "Complicity or Entanglement? The Wehrmacht, the War and the Holocaust". In Berenbaum, Michael; Peck, Abraham (eds.). The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 266–283. ISBN 978-0-253-33374-2.
  • Krausnick, Helmut; Wilhelm, Hans-Heinrich (1981). Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942 (in German). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. ISBN 978-3-421-01987-5.
  • Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00239-9.
  • Stang, Knut (1996). Kollaboration und Massenmord. Die litauische Hilfspolizei, das Rollkommando Hamann und die Ermordung der litauischen Juden (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-30895-0.

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Comprehensive report of Einsatzgruppe A up to 15 October 1941
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum article on Einsatzgruppen
  • "Einsatzgruppen" The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

April 26, 2024
einsatzgruppen, other, uses, organisation, todt, administrative, units, german, ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm, deployment, groups, also, task, forces, were, schutzstaffel, paramilitary, death, squads, nazi, germany, that, were, responsible, mass, murder, primarily, shooting,. For other uses see Organisation Todt Administrative units Einsatzgruppen a German ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm lit deployment groups 1 also task forces 2 were Schutzstaffel SS paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder primarily by shooting during World War II 1939 1945 in German occupied Europe The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so called Final Solution to the Jewish question Die Endlosung der Judenfrage in territories conquered by Nazi Germany and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland including members of the Catholic priesthood 3 Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars Jews and Romani people as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe EinsatzgruppenThe Einsatzgruppen operated under the administration of the Schutzstaffel SS Mass execution of Soviet civilians 1941Agency overviewFormedc 1939Preceding agencyEinsatzkommandoJurisdictionGermany and German occupied EuropeHeadquartersRSHA Prinz Albrecht Strasse Berlin52 30 26 N 13 22 57 E 52 50722 N 13 38250 E 52 50722 13 38250Employeesc 3 000 1941 Minister responsibleHeinrich Himmler Reichsfuhrer SSAgency executivesSS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich Director 1939 1942 SS Obergruppenfuhrer Ernst Kaltenbrunner Director 1943 1945 Parent agencyAllgemeine SS and RSHA Under the direction of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht German armed forces following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 The Einsatzgruppen worked hand in hand with the Order Police battalions on the Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days such as the massacre at Babi Yar with 33 771 Jews murdered in two days and the Rumbula massacre with about 25 000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen providing logistical support for their operations and participated in the mass murders Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen related agencies and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people including 1 3 million of the 5 5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust After the close of World War II 24 officers including multiple commanding officers of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947 48 charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out However only four of these death sentences were carried out Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations Contents 1 Formation and Aktion T4 2 Invasion of Poland 3 Preparations for Operation Barbarossa 3 1 Organisation starting in 1941 4 Killings in the Soviet Union 4 1 Babi Yar 5 Killings in Lithuania Latvia and Estonia 5 1 Rumbula 6 Second sweep 7 Transition to gassing 8 Plans for the Middle East and Britain 9 Jager Report 10 Involvement of the Wehrmacht 11 Einsatzgruppen trials 11 1 1947 1948 trial 11 2 1958 trial 12 See also 13 References 13 1 Explanatory notes 13 2 Citations 13 3 Sources 14 Further reading 15 External linksFormation and Aktion T4The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich and operated by the Schutzstaffel SS before and during World War II 4 The Einsatzgruppen had their origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938 5 Originally part of the Sicherheitspolizei Security Police SiPo two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938 When military action turned out not to be necessary due to the Munich Agreement the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents They also secured government buildings questioned senior civil servants and arrested as many as 10 000 Czech communists and German citizens 5 6 From September 1939 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt Reich Security Main Office RSHA had overall command of the Einsatzgruppen 7 As part of the drive by the Nazi regime to remove so called undesirable elements from the German population from September to December 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Action T4 a program of systematic murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals Aktion T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941 but the murders continued until the end of the war Initially the victims were shot by the Einsatzgruppen and others but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940 8 Invasion of PolandMain articles Intelligenzaktion and Operation Tannenberg nbsp Execution of Poles in Kornik 20 October 1939 nbsp Polish women led to mass execution in a forest near Palmiry In response to Adolf Hitler s plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939 Heydrich re formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies 9 Membership at this point was drawn from the SS the Sicherheitsdienst Security Service SD the police and the Gestapo 10 11 Heydrich placed SS Obergruppenfuhrer Werner Best in command who assigned Hans Joachim Tesmer de to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups called Einsatzkommandos from among educated people with military experience and a strong ideological commitment to Nazism 12 Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps 13 Heydrich instructed Wagner in meetings in late July that the Einsatzgruppen should undertake their operations in cooperation with the Ordnungspolizei Order Police Orpo and military commanders in the area 14 Army intelligence was in constant contact with Einsatzgruppen to coordinate their activities with other units 15 Initially numbering 2 700 men and ultimately 4 250 in Poland 13 16 the Einsatzgruppen s mission was to murder members of the Polish leadership most clearly identified with Polish national identity the intelligentsia members of the clergy teachers and members of the nobility 10 17 As stated by Hitler there must be no Polish leaders where Polish leaders exist they must be killed however harsh that sounds 18 SS Brigadefuhrer Lothar Beutel commander of Einsatzgruppe IV later testified that Heydrich gave the order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid August 19 The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen lists of people to be murdered had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939 using dossiers collected by the SD from 1936 forward 10 20 The Einsatzgruppen performed these murders with the support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland during Operation Tannenberg 21 Members of the SS the Wehrmacht and the Ordnungspolizei also shot civilians during the Polish campaign 22 Approximately 65 000 civilians were murdered by the end of 1939 In addition to leaders of Polish society they murdered Jews prostitutes Romani people and the mentally ill Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially murdered by shooting but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used 23 24 Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength around 500 men operated in Poland Each was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos of company strength around 100 men 11 Einsatzgruppe I commanded by SS Standartenfuhrer Bruno Streckenbach acted with 14th Army Einsatzgruppe II SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Emanuel Schafer acted with 10th Army Einsatzgruppe III SS Obersturmbannfuhrer und Regierungsrat Herbert Fischer acted with 8th Army Einsatzgruppe IV SS Brigadefuhrer Lothar Beutel acted with 4th Army Einsatzgruppe V SS Standartenfurer Ernst Damzog acted with 3rd Army Einsatzgruppe VI SS Oberfuhrer Erich Naumann acted in Wielkopolska Einsatzgruppe VII SS Obergruppenfuhrer Udo von Woyrsch and SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Rasch acted in Upper Silesia and Cieszyn Silesia 25 Though they were formally under the command of the army the Einsatzgruppen received their orders from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army 26 27 Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces as the murders violated the rules of warfare as set down in the Geneva Conventions However Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings looting and rapes committed by members of the Einsatzgruppen and the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz to little effect 28 For example when Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz sent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities Hitler dismissed his concerns as childish and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940 He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal 29 The final task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettos within major cities with good railway connections The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined 30 31 Together the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet controlled territory 22 Preparations for Operation BarbarossaMain articles The Holocaust in Belarus The Holocaust in Ukraine The Holocaust in Russia and Hunger Plan On 13 March 1941 in the lead up to Operation Barbarossa the planned invasion of the Soviet Union Hitler dictated his Guidelines in Special Spheres re Directive No 21 Operation Barbarossa Sub paragraph B specified that Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler would be given special tasks on direct orders from the Fuhrer which he would carry out independently 32 33 This directive was intended to prevent friction between the Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive 32 Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts and thus would go unpunished 34 In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941 Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet Union General Franz Halder the Army s Chief of Staff described the speech Struggle between two ideologies Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism equals antisocial criminality Communism immense future danger This a fight to the finish If we do not accept this we shall beat the enemy but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe We don t make war to preserve the enemy Struggle against Russia Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated as such The struggle will differ from that in the west In the east harshness now means mildness for the future 35 Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler s frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against Judeo Bolshevism his generals would have understood Hitler s call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population 35 The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as special tasks and executive measures Einsatzgruppe victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape 36 In May 1941 Heydrich verbally passed on the order to murder the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch where the commanders of the reorganised Einsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa 37 In spring 1941 Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the Wehrmacht Heer General Eduard Wagner successfully completed negotiations for co operation between the Einsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow the implementation of the special tasks 38 Following the Heydrich Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941 Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union and fully co operate with the Einsatzgruppen 39 In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime s intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people not only through direct murder of those considered racially inferior but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life 40 Organisation starting in 1941 Further information List of Einsatzgruppen For Operation Barbarossa initially four Einsatzgruppen were created each numbering 500 990 men to comprise a total force of 3 000 41 Einsatzgruppen A B and C were to be attached to Army Groups North Centre and South Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941 41 The Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA headed by Heydrich and later by his successor SS Obergruppenfuhrer Ernst Kaltenbrunner Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party 42 to liquidate all the higher cadres of the Soviet state and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations 43 The men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD Gestapo Kriminalpolizei Kripo Orpo and Waffen SS 41 Each Einsatzgruppe was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations 39 In May 1941 General Wagner and SS Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg agreed that the Einsatzgruppen in front line areas were to operate under army command while the army provided the Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support 44 Given their main task was defeating the enemy the army left the pacification of the civilian population to the Einsatzgruppen who offered support as well as prevented subversion 45 This did not preclude their participation in acts of violence against civilians as many members of the Wehrmacht assisted the Einsatzgruppen in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord 46 nbsp Naked Jewish women from the Mizocz ghetto wait in a line before their execution by the Order Police with the assistance of Ukrainian auxiliaries nbsp Members of the Order Police execute those who survived the initial shooting Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler who supplied security forces on an as needed basis to the local SS and Police Leaders 4 Led by SD Gestapo and Kripo officers Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the Orpo Security Service and Waffen SS augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force 47 Each Einsatzgruppe was supplemented with Waffen SS and Order Police battalions as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators 41 On average the Order Police formations were larger and better armed with heavy machine gun detachments which enabled them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS 47 Each death squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet Union 48 During the course of their operations the Einsatzgruppen commanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht 48 Activities ranged from the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists to joint citywide operations with SS Einsatzgruppen which lasted for two or more days such as the massacres at Babi Yar perpetrated by the Police Battalion 45 and at Rumbula by Battalion 22 reinforced by local Schutzmannschaften auxiliary police 49 50 The SS brigades wrote historian Christopher Browning were only the thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and racial mass murder 51 Many Einsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated for example nine of seventeen leaders of Einsatzgruppe A held doctorate degrees 52 Three Einsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates one of whom SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Rasch held a double doctorate 53 Additional Einsatzgruppen were created as additional territories were occupied Einsatzgruppe E operated in Independent State of Croatia under three commanders SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Ludwig Teichmann de SS Standartenfuhrer Gunther Herrmann and lastly SS Standartenfuhrer Wilhelm Fuchs The unit was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci Sarajevo Banja Luka Knin and Zagreb 54 55 Einsatzgruppe F worked with Army Group South 55 Einsatzgruppe G operated in Romania Hungary and Ukraine commanded by SS Standartenfuhrer Josef Kreuzer de 54 Einsatzgruppe H was assigned to Slovakia 56 Einsatzgruppen K and L under SS Oberfuhrer Emanuel Schafer and SS Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Hahn worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during the Ardennes offensive 57 Hahn had previously been in command of Einsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece 58 Other Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos included Einsatzgruppe Iltis operated in Carinthia on the border between Slovenia and Austria under SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel 59 Einsatzgruppe Jugoslawien Yugoslavia 60 Einsatzkommando Luxemburg Luxembourg 55 Einsatzgruppe Norwegen Norway commanded by SS Oberfuhrer Franz Walter Stahlecker 61 Einsatzgruppe Serbien Yugoslavia under SS Standartenfuhrer Wilhelm Fuchs and SS Gruppenfuhrer August Meysner 62 Einsatzkommando Tilsit de Lithuania Poland 63 and Einsatzgruppe Tunis Tunis commanded by SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff 64 Killings in the Soviet Union nbsp nbsp VileykaMap of the Einsatzgruppen operations behind the German Soviet frontier with the location of the first shooting of Jewish men women and children 30 July 1941 Further information Einsatzgruppen reports After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 the Einsatzgruppen s main assignment was to kill civilians as in Poland but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and Jews 43 In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials all senior and middle ranking members of the central provincial and district committees of the Communist Party extremist and radical Communist Party members people s commissars and Jews in party and government posts Open ended instructions were given to execute other radical elements saboteurs propagandists snipers assassins agitators etc He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the population of the occupied territories were to be quietly encouraged 65 On 8 July Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot 66 On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to murder all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia as they too might be Jews 67 Unlike in Germany where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent in either case whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant 68 The unit was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill It was common practice for the Einsatzgruppen to shoot hostages 69 As the invasion began the Germans pursued the fleeing Red Army leaving a security vacuum Reports surfaced of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with local Jews immediately suspected of collaboration Heydrich ordered his officers to incite anti Jewish pogroms in the newly occupied territories 70 Pogroms some of which were orchestrated by the Einsatzgruppen broke out in Latvia Lithuania and Ukraine 71 Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa 10 000 Jews had been murdered in 40 pogroms and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place claiming as many as 24 000 victims 71 72 However SS Brigadefuhrer Franz Walter Stahlecker commander of Einsatzgruppe A reported to his superiors in mid October that the residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms and secret assistance by the Germans was required 73 A similar reticence was noted by Einsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus and Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine the further east the Einsatzgruppen travelled the less likely the residents were to be prompted into murdering their Jewish neighbours 74 nbsp Jews forced to dig their own graves in Zboriv Ukraine 5 July 1941 nbsp A teenage boy stands beside his murdered family shortly before his own murder Zboriv Ukraine 5 July 1941 All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war 75 Initially the targets were adult Jewish men but by August the net had been widened to include women children and the elderly the entire Jewish population Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings with trumped up charges being read out arson sabotage black marketeering or refusal to work for example and victims being murdered by a firing squad As this method proved too slow the Einsatzkommandos began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to or even inside mass graves that had been prepared Some Einsatzkommandos started to use automatic weapons with survivors being murdered with a pistol shot 76 As word of the massacres got out many Jews fled in Ukraine 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away This was seen by the leader of Einsatzkommando VI as beneficial as it would save the regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals 77 In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately murder all the Jews in the conquered territories 78 A situation report from Einsatzgruppe C in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus and suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered Judenfrei free of Jews 79 Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were all dead a goal that was postponed until 1942 80 The Einsatzgruppen used public hangings as a terror tactic against the local population An Einsatzgruppe B report dated 9 October 1941 described one such hanging Due to suspected partisan activity near Demidov all male residents aged 15 to 55 were put in a camp to be screened The screening produced seventeen people who were identified as partisans and Communists Five members of the group were hanged while 400 local residents were assembled to watch the rest were shot 81 Babi Yar Main article Babi Yar The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar a ravine northwest of Kyiv city center in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September 82 83 The perpetrators included a company of Waffen SS attached to Einsatzgruppe C under Rasch members of Sonderkommando 4a under SS Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich Jeckeln and some Ukrainian auxiliary police 84 The Jews of Kyiv were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September anyone who disobeyed would be shot Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kyiv and the assembly point was near the train station they assumed they were being deported People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers laden with possessions and food for the journey 85 After being marched three kilometres two miles northwest of the city centre the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs Anyone who tried to escape was beaten Soon the victims reached an open area where they were forced to strip and then were herded down into the ravine People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads 86 The murders continued for two days claiming a total of 33 771 victims 83 Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material 87 Anton Heidborn a member of Sonderkommando 4a later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the corpses Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the millions of banknotes taken from the victims possessions 88 The clothing was taken away destined to be re used by German citizens 87 Jeckeln s troops shot more than 100 000 Jews by the end of October 83 Killings in Lithuania Latvia and EstoniaMain articles The Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Latvia and The Holocaust in Estonia nbsp Massacre of Jews in Lietukis garage on 27 June 1941 during the Kaunas pogrom Einsatzgruppe A operated in Baltic states of Lithuania Latvia and Estonia the three Baltic countries which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 1941 According to its own reports to Himmler Einsatzgruppe A murdered almost 140 000 people in the five months following the 1941 German invasion 136 421 Jews 1 064 Communists 653 people with mental illnesses 56 partisans 44 Poles five Romani and one Armenian were reported murdered between 22 June and 25 November 1941 89 Upon entering Kaunas Lithuania on 25 June 1941 the Einsatzgruppe released the criminals from the local jail and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway 90 Between 23 and 27 June 1941 4 000 Jews were murdered on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches 91 Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom was the so called Death Dealer of Kaunas a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis Garage before a large crowd that cheered each murder with much applause he occasionally paused to play the Lithuanian national anthem Tautiska giesme on his accordion before resuming the murders 91 92 As Einsatzgruppe A advanced into Lithuania it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups In July 1941 local Lithuanian collaborators pejoratively called White Armbands Lithuanian Baltaraisciai lit People with white armbands joined the massacres 72 A pogrom in the Latvian capital Riga in early July 1941 killed 400 Jews Latvian nationalist Viktors Arajs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues 93 On 2 July Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arajs to head the Arajs Kommando 72 a Sonderkommando of about 300 men mostly university students Together Einsatzgruppe A and the Arajs Kommando murdered 2 300 Jews in Riga on 6 7 July 93 Within six months Arajs and collaborators would murder about half of Latvia s Jewish population 94 Local officials the Selbstschutz and the Hilfspolizei Auxiliary Police played a key role in rounding up and massacring local Jews in German occupied Lithuania Latvia and Estonia 95 These groups also helped the Einsatzgruppen and other killing units to identify Jews 95 For example in Latvia the Hilfspolizei consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian army and police officers ex Aizsargi members of the Perkonkrusts and university students assisted in the murder of Latvia s Jewish citizens 94 Similar units were created elsewhere and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe 96 With the creation of units such as the Arajs Kommando in Latvia and the Rollkommando Hamann in Lithuania 97 the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to more systematic massacres 94 With extensive local help Einsatzgruppe A was the first Einsatzgruppe to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area 98 95 Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote Of the roughly 83 000 Jews who fell into German hands in Latvia not more than 900 survived and of the more than 20 000 Western Jews sent into Latvia only some 800 lived through the deportation until liberation This was the highest percentage of eradication in all of Europe 99 nbsp Pit where bodies were burned after the Ponary massacre In late 1941 the Einsatzkommandos settled into headquarters in Kaunas Riga and Tallinn Einsatzgruppe A grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size The Germans relied increasingly on the Latvian Arajs Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews 97 Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with the Einsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors Since the Russian Revolution of 1905 the Kresy Wschodnie and other borderlands had experienced a political culture of violence 100 The 1940 1941 Soviet occupation had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939 the population was brutalised and terrorised and the existing familiar structures of society were destroyed 101 Historian Erich Haberer has suggested that many survived and made sense of the totalitarian atomization of society by seeking conformity with communism 102 As a result by the time of the German invasion in 1941 many had come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour thus people simply transferred their allegiance to the German regime when it arrived 102 Some who had collaborated with the Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and murdering them 103 Rumbula Main article Rumbula massacre In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia as he intended to move Jews from Germany into the area He assigned SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jeckeln one of the perpetrators of the Babi Yar massacre to liquidate the Riga ghetto Jeckeln selected a site about 10 km 6 mi southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by digging pits in which to bury the victims Jeckeln organised around 1 700 men including 300 members of the Arajs Kommando 50 German SD men and 50 Latvian guards most of whom had already participated in mass murdering of civilians These troops were supplemented by Latvians including members of the Riga city police battalion police and ghetto guards Around 1 500 able bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave labour could be exploited a thousand men were relocated to a fenced off area within the ghetto and 500 women were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto where they were put to work mending uniforms 104 Although Rumbula was on the rail line Jeckeln decided that the victims should travel on foot from Riga to the execution ground Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly The victims were told that they were being relocated and were advised to bring up to 20 kg 44 lb of possessions The first day of executions 30 November 1941 began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4 00 am The victims were moved in columns of a thousand people toward the execution ground As they walked some SS men went up and down the line shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or rest 105 When the columns neared the prepared execution site the victims were driven some 270 metres 300 yd from the road into the forest where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized Here the victims were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into the forest near the pits where they were ordered to strip The victims were driven into the prepared trenches made to lie down and shot in the head or the back of the neck by members of Jeckeln s bodyguard Around 13 000 Jews from Riga were murdered at the pits that day along with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train On the second day of the operation 8 December 1941 the remaining 10 000 Jews of Riga were murdered in the same way About a thousand were murdered on the streets of the city or on the way to the site bringing the total number of victims for the two day extermination to 25 000 people For his part in organising the massacre Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper Section Ostland 106 Second sweep nbsp The Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph the murdering of Jews in Ivanhorod Ukraine 1942 A woman is attempting to protect a child with her own body just before they are fired upon with rifles at close range nbsp A member of Einsatzgruppe D is about to shoot a man sitting by a mass grave in Winniza Ukraine in 1942 Present in the background are members of the German Army the German Labor Service and former Hitler Youth 107 The back of the photograph is inscribed The last Jew in Vinnitsa Einsatzgruppe B C and D did not immediately follow Einsatzgruppe A s example in systematically murdering all Jews in their areas The Einsatzgruppe commanders with the exception of Einsatzgruppe A s Stahlecker were of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to murder the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union in one sweep and thought the murders should stop 108 An Einsatzgruppe report dated 17 September advised that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them 108 Also in some areas poor weather and a lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points further west 109 Thus an interval passed between the first round of Einsatzgruppen massacres in summer and fall and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep which started in December 1941 and lasted into the summer of 1942 110 During the interval the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos 111 Einsatzgruppe A had already murdered almost all Jews in its area so it shifted its operations into Belarus to assist Einsatzgruppe B In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942 Einsatzgruppe D reduced the city s Jewish population from 30 000 to 702 over the course of four days 112 The German Order Police and local collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings Haberer wrote that as in the Baltic states the Germans could not have murdered so many Jews so quickly without local help He points out that the ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus In rural areas the proportion was 1 to 20 This meant that most Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews were murdered by fellow Ukrainians and Belarusians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans 113 The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas though the chance of success was poor Weapons were typically primitive or home made Communications were impossible between ghettos in various cities so there was no way to create a unified strategy Few in the ghetto leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents Mass break outs were sometimes attempted though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees were often tracked down and murdered 114 Transition to gassingSee also Final Solution nbsp Magirus Deutz van found near Chelmno extermination camp is the same type as those used as gas vans After a time Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppen were inefficient they were costly demoralising for the troops and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough 115 Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems and many turned to drink 116 As much as possible the Einsatzgruppen leaders militarized the genocide The historian Christian Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings a collective act without individual responsibility Framing the shootings in this way was not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of guilt 117 Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators those who were eager to participate right from the start those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so and a significant minority who refused to take part 118 A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for the task Commander of Einsatzgruppe D SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Ohlendorf particularly noted this propensity towards excess and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions 119 During a visit to Minsk in August 1941 Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppen mass execution first hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men 120 By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health care 121 He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims especially the women and children and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders 121 122 Gas vans which had been used previously to murder mental patients began to see service by all four main Einsatzgruppen from 1942 123 However the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma 124 Some of the early mass murders at extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines similar to the method used in gas vans but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B a cyanide based pesticide gas 125 Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe eleven million people were formalised at the Wannsee Conference held on 20 January 1942 Some would be worked to death and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question German Die Endlosung der Judenfrage 126 Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz Belzec Chelmno Majdanek Sobibor Treblinka and other Nazi extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as the primary method of mass murder 127 The Einsatzgruppen remained active however and were put to work fighting partisans particularly in Belarus 128 After the defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943 Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war and ordered the formation of a special task force Sonderaktion 1005 under SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel The unit s assignment was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide The task remained unfinished at the end of the war and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated 129 By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe and the Einsatzgruppen retreated alongside the Wehrmacht By late 1944 most Einsatzgruppen personnel had been folded into Waffen SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people including 1 3 million Jews 130 The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5 5 to six million people 131 Plans for the Middle East and BritainAccording to research by German historians Klaus Michael Mallmann and Martin Cuppers de Einsatzkommando Egypt led by Walter Rauff was formed in 1942 in Athens The unit was to enter Egypt and Mandatory Palestine once German forces arrived there 132 According to Mallmann and Cuppers the unit s purpose was to carry out mass murder of the Jewish populations in those areas Given its initially small staff of only 24 men Mallmann and Cuppers point to the further history of the unit when it was quickly enlarged to more than four times its original strength during its deployment in Tunisia Furthermore they assume that the commando would have been supported in the annihilation of the Jews by local collaborators like it happened with the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe 133 Former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al Gaylani and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini played roles engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda preparing to recruit volunteers and in raising an Arab German Battalion that would also follow Einsatzkommando Egypt to the Middle East 134 On 20 July 1942 Rauff was sent to Tobruk to report to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel Commander of the Afrika Korps Since Rommel was 500 km away at the First Battle of El Alamein it is unlikely that the two met 135 136 The plans for Einsatzgruppe Egypt were set aside after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein 137 Had Operation Sea Lion the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom been launched six Einsatzgruppen were scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain They were provided with a list called the Sonderfahndungsliste G B Special Search List G B known as The Black Book after the war of 2 300 people to be immediately imprisoned by the Gestapo The list included Churchill members of the cabinet prominent journalists and authors and members of the Czechoslovak government in exile 138 Jager ReportMain article Jager Report nbsp Page 6 of the Jager Report shows the number of people murdered by Einsatzkommando III alone in the five month period covered by the report as 137 346 The Einsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres and provided detailed reports to their superiors The Jager Report filed by Commander SS Standartenfuhrer Karl Jager on 1 December 1941 to his superior Stahlecker head of Einsatzgruppe A covers the activities of Einsatzkommando III in Lithuania over the five month period from 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941 139 Jager s report provides an almost daily running total of the liquidations of 137 346 people the vast majority of them Jews 139 The report documents the exact date and place of massacres the number of victims and their breakdown into categories Jews Communists criminals and so on 140 Women were shot from the very beginning but initially in fewer numbers than men 141 Children were first included in the tally starting in mid August when 3 207 people were murdered in Rokiskis on 15 16 August 1941 140 For the most part the report does not give any military justification for the murders people were murdered solely because they were Jews 140 In total the report lists over 100 executions in 71 different locations Jager wrote I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by Einsatzkommando 3 There are no more Jews in Lithuania apart from working Jews and their families 139 In a February 1942 addendum to the report Jager increased the total number of victims to 138 272 giving a breakdown of 48 252 men 55 556 women and 34 464 children Only 1 851 of the victims were non Jewish 142 Jager escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended He lived in Heidelberg under his own name until his report was discovered in March 1959 143 Arrested and charged Jager committed suicide on 22 June 1959 in Hohenasperg Fortress while awaiting trial for his crimes 144 Involvement of the WehrmachtMain article War crimes of the Wehrmacht The murders took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east 145 As ordered by Hitler the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen providing logistical support for their operations and participated in the mass killings 146 On 10 October 1941 Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front Now known as the Severity Order it read in part The most important objective of this campaign against the Jewish Bolshevik system is the complete destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in European civilization In this eastern theatre the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war but also the ruthless standard bearer of a national conception For this reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry 147 Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group South expressed his complete agreement with the order He sent out a circular to the generals under his command urging them to release their own versions and to impress upon their troops the need to exterminate the Jews 148 General Erich von Manstein in an order to his troops on 20 November stated that the Jewish Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all 145 Manstein sent a letter to Einsatzgruppe D commanding officer Ohlendorf complaining that it was unfair that the SS was keeping all of the murdered Jews wristwatches for themselves instead of sharing with the Army 149 Beyond this trivial complaint the Army and the Einsatzgruppen worked closely and effectively On 6 July 1941 Einsatzkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C reported that Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews 150 Few complaints about the murders were ever raised by Wehrmacht officers 151 On 8 September Einsatzgruppe D reported that relations with the German Army were excellent 150 In the same month Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A wrote that Army Group North had been exemplary in co operating with the exterminations and that relations with the 4th Panzer Army commanded by General Erich Hoepner were very close almost cordial 150 In the south the Romanian Army worked closely with Einsatzgruppe D to massacre Ukrainian Jews 111 murdering around 26 000 Jews in the Odessa massacre 152 The German historian Peter Longerich thinks it probable that the Wehrmacht along with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists OUN incited the Lviv pogroms during which 8 500 to 9 000 Jews were murdered by the native population and Einsatzgruppe C in July 1941 153 Moreover most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by the Einsatzgruppen 154 British historian Hugh Trevor Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the murders it was common for both the men of the Einsatzgruppen and for bystanders to take pictures to send to their loved ones which he felt suggested widespread approval of the massacres 155 Officers in the field were well aware of the killing operations being conducted by the Einsatzgruppen 156 The Wehrmacht tried to justify their considerable involvement in the Einsatzgruppen massacres as being anti partisan operations rather than racist attacks but Hillgruber wrote that this was just an excuse He states that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti partisan response were lying and maintained that the slaughter of about 2 2 million defenceless civilians for reasons of racist ideology cannot be justified 157 Einsatzgruppen trialsMost of the surviving perpetrators of Nazi war crimes were never charged and returned unremarked to civilian life The West German government only charged about 100 former Einsatzgruppen members with war crimes 158 As time went on it became more difficult to obtain prosecutions witnesses grew older and were less likely to be able to offer valuable testimony Funding for trials was inadequate and the governments of Austria and Germany became less interested in obtaining convictions for wartime events preferring to forget the Nazi past 159 1947 1948 trial Main article Einsatzgruppen trial After the close of World War II 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947 48 part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority The men were charged with crimes against humanity war crimes and membership in the SS which had been declared a criminal organization Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the judgments only four executions were carried out on 7 June 1951 the rest were reduced to lesser sentences Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations 160 nbsp Otto Ohlendorf 1943 Several Einsatzgruppen leaders including Ohlendorf claimed at the trial to have received an order before Operation Barbarossa requiring them to murder all Soviet Jews 161 To date no evidence has been found that such an order was ever issued 162 German prosecutor Alfred Streim noted that if such an order had been given post war courts would only have been able to convict the Einsatzgruppen leaders as accomplices to mass murder However if it could be established that the Einsatzgruppen had committed mass murder without orders then they could have been convicted as perpetrators of mass murder and hence could have received stiffer sentences including capital punishment 163 Streim postulated that the existence of an early comprehensive order was a fabrication created for use in Ohlendorf s defence This theory is now widely accepted by historians 164 Longerich notes that most orders received by the Einsatzgruppen leaders especially when they were being ordered to carry out criminal activities were vague and couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime Leaders were given briefings about the need to be severe and firm all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly 165 British historian Sir Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler s apocalyptic remarks before Barbarossa about the necessity for a war without mercy to annihilate the forces of Judeo Bolshevism were interpreted by Einsatzgruppen commanders as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence with each Einsatzgruppen commander to use his own discretion about how far he was prepared to go 166 1958 trial Main article Ulm Einsatzkommando trial The crimes of the Einsatzgruppen came into wider public awareness with the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958 At the trial ten former members of Einsatzkommando Tilsit de were on trial accused of murdering around 5 500 Jewish men women and children in the German Lithuanian border area in mid 1941 Among them were the heads of the Tilsit task force Hans Joachim Bohme de fr ru sv Bernhard Fischer Schweder de and the head of the Tilsit SD section Werner Hersmann de 167 The responsible senior public prosecutor Erwin Schule de used as evidence documents from the American Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg existing specialist literature SS personnel files and surviving USSR event reports 168 See alsoFunctionalism versus intentionalism Glossary of Nazi Germany List of Nazi Party leaders and officials Myth of the clean Wehrmacht PorajmosReferencesExplanatory notes Singular Einsatzgruppe Official full name Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD Citations Wolf 2020 p 53 Longerich 2010 p 138 Rhodes 2002 p 4 a b Edeiken 2000 a b Streim 1989 p 436 Longerich 2012 pp 405 412 Nuremberg Trial Vol 20 Day 194 Longerich 2010 pp 138 141 Longerich 2012 p 425 a b c Longerich 2010 p 144 a b Rossino 2003 p 11 Rossino 2003 pp 11 20 a b Evans 2008 p 17 Rossino 2003 p 14 Rossino 2003 p 17 Rossino 2003 p 12 Browning amp Matthaus 2004 pp 16 18 Longerich 2010 p 143 Rossino 2003 p 15 Rossino 2003 p 16 Longerich 2010 pp 144 145 a b Longerich 2012 p 429 Evans 2008 p 15 Longerich 2012 pp 430 432 Weale 2012 p 225 Evans 2008 p 18 Gerwarth 2011 p 147 Longerich 2010 p 146 Evans 2008 pp 25 26 Weale 2012 pp 227 228 Weale 2012 pp 242 245 a b Hillgruber 1989 p 95 Wette 2007 p 93 Longerich 2012 pp 521 522 a b Hillgruber 1989 pp 95 96 Rhodes 2002 pp 14 48 Hillgruber 1989 pp 94 95 Hillgruber 1989 pp 94 96 a b Hillgruber 1989 p 96 Longerich 2010 p 181 a b c d Longerich 2010 p 185 Thomas 1987 p 265 a b Rees 1997 p 177 Rhodes 2002 p 15 Langerbein 2003 pp 30 31 Langerbein 2003 pp 31 32 a b Browning 1998 pp 10 12 a b Einsatzgruppen judgment pp 414 416 Browning 1998 pp 135 136 141 142 Robertson Browning 1998 p 10 Longerich 2010 p 186 Browning amp Matthaus 2004 pp 225 226 a b MacLean 1999 p 23 a b c Museum of Tolerance Longerich 2010 p 419 Dams amp Stolle 2012 p 168 Conze Frei et al 2010 Crowe 2007 p 267 Mallmann amp Cuppers 2006 p 97 Larsen 2008 p xi Shelach 1989 p 1169 Longerich 2010 p 197 Mallmann Cuppers amp Smith 2010 p 130 Longerich 2012 p 523 Longerich 2010 p 198 Hillgruber 1989 p 97 Hilberg 1985 p 368 Headland 1992 pp 62 70 Urban 2001 a b Longerich 2012 p 526 a b c Haberer 2001 p 68 Longerich 2010 pp 193 195 Longerich 2010 p 208 Longerich 2010 pp 196 202 Longerich 2010 p 207 Longerich 2010 p 208 211 Longerich 2010 p 211 Longerich 2010 pp 211 212 Longerich 2010 pp 212 213 Headland 1992 pp 57 58 Rhodes 2002 p 179 a b c Evans 2008 p 227 Weale 2012 p 315 Rhodes 2002 pp 172 173 Rhodes 2002 pp 173 176 a b Rhodes 2002 p 178 Weale 2012 p 317 Hillgruber 1989 p 98 Rhodes 2002 p 41 a b Haberer 2001 pp 67 68 Rees 1997 p 179 a b Haberer 2001 pp 68 69 a b c Haberer 2001 p 69 a b c Haberer 2001 p 71 Haberer 2001 pp 69 70 a b Haberer 2001 p 70 Rees 1997 p 182 Haberer 2001 p 66 Haberer 2001 p 73 Haberer 2001 pp 74 75 a b Haberer 2001 p 76 Haberer 2001 p 77 Rhodes 2002 pp 206 209 Rhodes 2002 pp 208 210 Rhodes 2002 pp 210 214 Berenbaum 2006 p 93 a b Hilberg 1985 p 342 Longerich 2012 p 549 Hilberg 1985 pp 342 343 a b Marrus 2000 p 64 Hilberg 1985 p 372 Haberer 2001 p 78 Longerich 2010 p 353 354 Rees 1997 p 197 Rhodes 2002 pp 52 124 168 Ingrao 2013 pp 199 200 Rhodes 2002 p 163 Rhodes 2002 pp 165 166 Longerich 2012 pp 547 548 a b Rhodes 2002 p 167 Longerich 2012 p 551 Longerich 2012 p 548 Rhodes 2002 p 243 Longerich 2010 pp 280 281 Longerich 2012 pp 555 556 Longerich 2010 pp 279 280 Rhodes 2002 p 248 Rhodes 2002 pp 258 260 262 Rhodes 2002 p 257 Evans 2008 p 318 Mallmann Cuppers amp Smith 2010 p 117 Mallmann Cuppers amp Smith 2010 pp 124 125 Mallmann Cuppers amp Smith 2010 pp 127 130 Mallmann Cuppers amp Smith 2010 pp 103 117 118 Shepherd 2016 p 357 Krumenacker 2006 Shirer 1960 pp 783 784 a b c Rhodes 2002 p 215 a b c Rhodes 2002 p 126 Longerich 2010 p 230 Rhodes 2002 p 216 Rabitz 2011 Rhodes 2002 p 276 a b Hillgruber 1989 p 102 Longerich 2010 pp 244 247 Craig 1973 p 10 Mayer 1988 p 250 Smelser amp Davies 2008 p 43 a b c Hilberg 1985 p 301 Wette 2007 p 131 Marrus 2000 p 79 Longerich 2010 p 194 Marrus 2000 p 88 Klee Dressen amp Riess 1991 p xi Wette 2007 pp 200 201 Hillgruber 1989 pp 102 103 Rhodes 2002 pp 275 276 Segev 2010 pp 226 250 376 Rhodes 2002 pp 274 275 Longerich 2010 p 187 Longerich 2010 pp 187 189 Streim 1989 p 439 Longerich 2010 p 188 Longerich 2010 p 189 190 Kershaw 2008 pp 258 259 Fischer amp Lorenz 2007 p 64 f Mix 2008 Sources Benishay Guitel 3 May 2016 Le journal de bord du chef SS en Tunisie decouvert LPH info Retrieved 18 April 2020 Berenbaum Michael 2006 The World Must Know Contributors Arnold Kramer United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2nd ed USHMM and Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 80188 358 3 Browning Christopher R 1998 1992 Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland London New York Penguin Browning Christopher Matthaus Jurgen 2004 The Origins of the Final Solution The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy September 1939 March 1942 Comprehensive History of the Holocaust Lincoln University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 1327 2 Cohen Nir 17 April 2015 Inside the diary of SS officer known as gas chamber mastermind Ynetnews Retrieved 18 April 2020 Conze Eckart Frei Norbert Hayes Peter Zimmermann Moshe 2010 Das Amt und die Vergangenheit deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik in German Munich Karl Blessing ISBN 978 3 89667 430 2 Craig William 1973 Enemy at the Gates The Battle for Stalingrad Old Saybrook CT Konecky amp Konecky ISBN 978 1 56852 368 2 Crowe David 2007 2004 Oskar Schindler The Untold Account of his Life Wartime Activities and the True Story Behind the List New York Basic Books ISBN 978 0 465 00253 5 Dams Carsten Stolle Michael 2012 2008 Die Gestapo Herrschaft und Terror im Dritten Reich Becksche Reihe in German Munich Beck ISBN 978 3 406 62898 6 Edeiken Yale F 22 August 2000 Introduction to the Einsatzgruppen Holocaust History Project Archived from the original on 7 October 2015 Retrieved 10 June 2018 Einsatzgruppen case PDF Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No 10 PDF Green Series Vol 4 Nurnberg October 1946 April 1949 Retrieved 10 June 2018 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Evans Richard J 2008 The Third Reich at War New York Penguin Group ISBN 978 0 14 311671 4 Fischer Torben Lorenz Matthias N 2007 Lexikon der Vergangenheitsbewaltigung in Deutschland Debatten und Diskursgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus nach 1945 in German Bielefeld transcript Verlag ISBN 978 3 8394 0773 8 Gerwarth Robert 2011 Hitler s Hangman The Life of Heydrich New Haven CT Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 11575 8 Haberer Erich 2001 Intention and Feasibility Reflections on Collaboration and the Final Solution East European Jewish Affairs 31 2 64 81 doi 10 1080 13501670108577951 OCLC 210897979 S2CID 143574047 better source needed Headland Ronald 1992 Messages of Murder A Study of the Reports of the Security Police and the Security Service London Associated University Presses ISBN 978 0 8386 3418 9 Hilberg Raul 1985 The Destruction of the European Jews New York Holmes amp Meier ISBN 978 0 8419 0832 1 Hillgruber Andreas 1989 War in the East and the Extermination of the Jews In Marrus Michael ed Part 3 The Final Solution The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 The Nazi Holocaust Westpoint CT Meckler pp 85 114 ISBN 978 0 88736 266 8 Ingrao Christian 2013 Believe and Destroy Intellectuals in the SS War Machine Malden MA Polity ISBN 978 0 7456 6026 4 Kershaw Ian 2008 Hitler the Germans and the Final Solution New Haven Conn Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 12427 9 Klee Ernst Dressen Willi Riess Volker 1991 The Good Old Days The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators and Bystanders Trans Burnstone Deborah New York MacMillan ISBN 978 0 02 917425 8 Krumenacker Thomas 7 April 2006 Nazis Planned Holocaust for Palestine historians Red Orbit Archived from the original on 22 December 2017 Retrieved 10 June 2018 Langerbein Helmut 2003 Hitler s Death Squads The Logic of Mass Murder College Station TX Texas A amp M University Press ISBN 978 1 58544 285 0 Larsen Stein Ugelvik 2008 Meldungen aus Norwegen 1940 1945 Die geheimen Lagesberichte des Befehlshabers der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Norwegen 1 in German Munich Oldenburg ISBN 978 3 486 55891 3 Longerich Peter 2010 Holocaust The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Oxford New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 280436 5 Longerich Peter 2012 Heinrich Himmler A Life Oxford New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 959232 6 MacLean French L 1999 The Field Men The SS Officers Who Led the Einsatzkommandos The Nazi Mobile Killing Units Schiffer Publishing Madison WI Schiffer ISBN 978 0 7643 0754 6 Mallmann Klaus Michael Cuppers Martin 2006 Crescent and Swastika The Third Reich the Arabs and Palestine Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press ISBN 978 3 534 19729 3 Mallmann Klaus Michael Cuppers Martin Smith Krista 2010 Nazi Palestine The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine New York Enigma ISBN 978 1 929631 93 3 Marrus Michael 2000 The Holocaust in History Toronto Key Porter ISBN 978 1 55263 120 1 Mayer Arno J 1988 Why Did The Heavens Not Darken New York Pantheon ISBN 978 0 394 57154 6 Mix Andreas 27 April 2008 NS Prozesse Als Westdeutschland aufwachte Der Spiegel in German Retrieved 20 October 2023 Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 20 Day 194 The Avalon Project Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library Retrieved 10 January 2013 Rabitz Cornelia 21 June 2011 Biography of Nazi criminal meets resistance from small German town dw de Deutsche Welle Retrieved 9 September 2016 Rees Laurence 1997 The Nazis A Warning From History Foreword by Sir Ian Kershaw New York New Press ISBN 978 1 56584 551 0 Rhodes Richard 2002 Masters of Death The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust New York Vintage Books ISBN 978 0 375 70822 0 Robertson Struan The genocidal missions of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in the General Government Poland 1942 1943 Hamburg Police Battalions during the Second World War Regionalen Rechenzentrum der Universitat Hamburg Archived from the original on 22 February 2008 Retrieved 2 January 2015 Rossino Alexander B 2003 Hitler Strikes Poland Blitzkrieg Ideology and Atrocity Lawrence Kansas University Press of Kansas ISBN 978 0 7006 1234 5 Segev Tom 2010 Simon Wiesenthal The Life and Legends New York Doubleday ISBN 978 0 385 51946 5 Shelach Menachem 1989 Sajmiste An Extermination Camp in Serbia In Marrus Michael Robert ed The Victims of the Holocaust Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews Vol 2 Westport CT Meckler Shepherd Ben H 2016 Hitler s Soldiers The German Army in the Third Reich New Haven London Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 17903 3 Shirer William L 1960 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 671 62420 0 Smelser Ronald Davies Edward 2008 The Myth of the Eastern Front The Nazi Soviet War in American Popular Culture Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 83365 3 Staff Book review Tasks of the Einsatzgruppen by Alfred Streim Museum of Tolerance Online Multimedia Learning Center Annual 4 Chapter 9 Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Center Archived from the original on 26 August 2012 Retrieved 10 June 2018 Streim Alfred 1989 The Tasks of the SS Einsatzgruppen In Marrus Michael ed The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The Final Solution The Implementation of Mass Murder Vol 2 Westpoint CT Meckler pp 436 454 ISBN 978 0 88736 266 8 Thomas David April 1987 Foreign Armies East and German Military Intelligence in Russia 1941 45 Journal of Contemporary History 22 2 261 301 doi 10 1177 002200948702200204 JSTOR 260933 S2CID 161288059 Urban Thomas 1 September 2001 Poszukiwany Hermann Schaper Rzeczpospolita in Polish 204 Archived from the original on 24 November 2007 Retrieved 5 January 2015 Weale Adrian 2012 Army of Evil A History of the SS New York Toronto Penguin Group ISBN 978 0 451 23791 0 Wette Wolfram 2007 The Wehrmacht History Myth Reality Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 67402 577 6 Wolf Gerhard 2020 Ideology and the Rationality of Domination Nazi Germanization Policies in Poland Translated by Wayne Yung Bloomington Indiana University Press ISBN 978 025 3048 07 3 Further readingEarl Hilary 2009 The Nuremberg SS Einsatzgruppen Trial 1945 1958 Atrocity Law and History Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 45608 1 Forster Jurgen 1998 Complicity or Entanglement The Wehrmacht the War and the Holocaust In Berenbaum Michael Peck Abraham eds The Holocaust and History The Known the Unknown the Disputed and the Reexamined Bloomington Indiana University Press pp 266 283 ISBN 978 0 253 33374 2 Krausnick Helmut Wilhelm Hans Heinrich 1981 Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938 1942 in German Stuttgart Deutsche Verlags Anstalt ISBN 978 3 421 01987 5 Snyder Timothy 2010 Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin New York Basic Books ISBN 978 0 465 00239 9 Stang Knut 1996 Kollaboration und Massenmord Die litauische Hilfspolizei das Rollkommando Hamann und die Ermordung der litauischen Juden in German Frankfurt am Main Peter Lang ISBN 978 3 631 30895 0 External links nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Einsatzgruppen nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Comprehensive report of Einsatzgruppe A up to 15 October 1941 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum article on Einsatzgruppen Einsatzgruppen The Holocaust Education amp Archive Research Team Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Einsatzgruppen amp oldid 1213286750, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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