 TheEinsatzgruppen operated under the administration of theSchutzstaffel (SS) | |
 | |
 Mass execution of Soviet civilians, 1941 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | c. 1939 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Germany and German-occupied Europe |
| Headquarters | RSHA,Prinz-Albrecht-Straße,Berlin 52°30′26″N13°22′57″E / 52.50722°N 13.38250°E /52.50722; 13.38250 |
| Employees | c. 3,000 (1941) |
| Minister responsible | |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency | Allgemeine SS and RSHA |
Einsatzgruppen[a] (German:[ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm̩],lit. 'deployment groups';[1] also 'task forces')[2] wereSchutzstaffel (SS) paramilitarydeath squads ofNazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, duringWorld War II (1939–1945) inGerman-occupied Europe. TheEinsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to theJewish question" (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of theintelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of theCatholic priesthood.[3] Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Sovietpolitical commissars,Jews, andRomani people, as well as actual or allegedpartisans throughout Eastern Europe.
Under the direction ofReichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-ObergruppenführerReinhard Heydrich, theEinsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by theWehrmacht (German armed forces) following theinvasion of Poland in September 1939 and theinvasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. TheEinsatzgruppen worked hand-in-hand with theOrder 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 atBabi Yar (with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days), and theRumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leaderAdolf Hitler, theWehrmacht cooperated with theEinsatzgruppen, providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass murders. HistorianRaul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 theEinsatzgruppen, 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 theHolocaust.
After the close of World War II, 24 officers, including multiple commanding officers, of theEinsatzgruppen were prosecuted in theEinsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged withcrimes against humanity andwar crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. However, only four of these death sentences were carried out. Four additionalEinsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.
TheEinsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS-ObergruppenführerReinhard Heydrich and operated by theSchutzstaffel (SS) before and duringWorld War II.[4] TheEinsatzgruppen had their origins in the ad hocEinsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following theAnschluss inAustria in March 1938.[5] Originally part of theSicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), two units ofEinsatzgruppen were stationed in theSudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary due to theMunich Agreement, theEinsatzgruppen 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, theReichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) had overall command of theEinsatzgruppen.[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 theEinsatzgruppen and others took part inAktion 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 theEinsatzgruppen and others, butgas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.[8]
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In response toAdolf Hitler's plan toinvade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed theEinsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies.[9] Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, theSicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), the police, and theGestapo.[10][11] Heydrich placed SS-ObergruppenführerWerner Best in command, who assignedHans-Joachim Tesmer [de] to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups, calledEinsatzkommandos, 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 theFreikorps.[13] Heydrich instructed Wagner in meetings in late July that theEinsatzgruppen should undertake their operations in cooperation with theOrdnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) and military commanders in the area.[14] Army intelligence was in constant contact withEinsatzgruppen to coordinate their activities with other units.[15]
Initially numbering 2,700 men (and ultimately 4,250 in Poland),[13][16] theEinsatzgruppen'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-BrigadeführerLothar Beutel, commander ofEinsatzgruppe IV, later testified that Heydrich gave the order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid-August.[19] TheSonderfahndungsbuch 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] TheEinsatzgruppen performed these murders with the support of theVolksdeutscher Selbstschutz, a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland duringOperation Tannenberg.[21] Members of the SS, theWehrmacht, and theOrdnungspolizei 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 1941gas vans were widely used.[23][24]
SevenEinsatzgruppen of battalion strength (around 500 men) operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into fiveEinsatzkommandos of company strength (around 100 men).[11]
Though they were formally under the command of the army, theEinsatzgruppen 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 theGeneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to theEinsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of theEinsatzgruppen and theVolksdeutscher Selbstschutz, to little effect.[28] For example, whenGeneraloberstJohannes 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 tofield marshal.[29]
The final task of theEinsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them inghettos 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, theWehrmacht and theEinsatzgruppen also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward intoSoviet-controlled territory.[22]
On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up toOperation 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 thatReichsführer-SSHeinrich 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 theWehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive.[32] Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of theWehrmacht 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. GeneralFranz 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 andGPU 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 historianAndreas 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 inPretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganisedEinsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa.[37] In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of theWehrmacht Heer, GeneralEduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between theEinsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks".[38] Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field MarshalWalther 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 theEinsatzgruppen.[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 consideredracially inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.[40]
For Operation Barbarossa, initially fourEinsatzgruppen 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 toArmy Groups North,Centre, andSouth;Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the11th Army. TheEinsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941.[41] TheEinsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS-ObergruppenführerErnst 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 encouragepogroms against Jewish populations.[43] The men of theEinsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo,Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), Orpo, andWaffen-SS.[41] EachEinsatzgruppe was under the operational control of theHigher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations.[39] In May 1941, General Wagner and SS-BrigadeführerWalter Schellenberg agreed that theEinsatzgruppen in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided theEinsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support.[44] Given their main task was defeating the enemy, the army left the pacification of the civilian population to theEinsatzgruppen, 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 theWehrmacht assisted theEinsatzgruppen in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord.[46]
Heydrich acted under orders fromReichsführer-SS Himmler, who supplied security forces on an "as needed" basis to the localSS and Police Leaders.[4] Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers,Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the Orpo, Security Service andWaffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force.[47] EachEinsatzgruppe was supplemented withWaffen-SS andOrder 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] Eachdeath squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet Union.[48] During the course of their operations, theEinsatzgruppen commanders received assistance from theWehrmacht.[48] Activities ranged from the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists, to joint citywide operations withSS Einsatzgruppen which lasted for two or more days, such as the massacres atBabi Yar, perpetrated by thePolice Battalion 45, and atRumbula, by Battalion 22, reinforced by localSchutzmannschaften (auxiliary police).[49][50] The SS brigades, wrote historianChristopher Browning, were "only the thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and racial mass murder."[51]
ManyEinsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders ofEinsatzgruppe A held doctorate degrees.[52] ThreeEinsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom (SS-GruppenführerOtto Rasch) held a double doctorate.[53]
AdditionalEinsatzgruppen were created as additional territories were occupied.Einsatzgruppe E operated inIndependent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS-ObersturmbannführerLudwig Teichmann [de], SS-StandartenführerGünther Herrmann, and lastly SS-StandartenführerWilhelm Fuchs. The unit was subdivided into fiveEinsatzkommandos located inVinkovci,Sarajevo,Banja Luka,Knin, andZagreb.[54][55]Einsatzgruppe F worked with Army Group South.[55]Einsatzgruppe G operated inRomania,Hungary, andUkraine, commanded by SS-StandartenführerJosef Kreuzer [de].[54]Einsatzgruppe H was assigned toSlovakia.[56]Einsatzgruppen K and L, under SS-OberführerEmanuel Schäfer and SS-StandartenführerLudwig Hahn, worked alongside5th and6th Panzer Armies during theArdennes offensive.[57] Hahn had previously been in command ofEinsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece.[58]
OtherEinsatzgruppen andEinsatzkommandos includedEinsatzgruppe Iltis (operated in Carinthia, on the border between Slovenia and Austria) under SS-StandartenführerPaul 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-StandartenführerWilhelm Fuchs and SS-Gruppenführer August Meysner,[62]Einsatzkommando Tilsit [de] (Lithuania, Poland),[63] andEinsatzgruppe Tunis (Tunis), commanded by SS-ObersturmbannführerWalter Rauff.[64]
After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, theEinsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically includedSoviet Communist Partycommissars and Jews.[43] In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that theEinsatzgruppen were to execute all senior and middle rankingComintern 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 theEinsatzgruppen were to murder all JewishRed 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 theNuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, theEinsatzgruppen 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 theEinsatzgruppen 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 theEinsatzgruppen, broke out inLatvia,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-BrigadeführerFranz Walter Stahlecker, commander ofEinsatzgruppe A,reported to his superiors in mid-October that the residents ofKaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was required.[73] A similar reticence was noted byEinsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus andEinsatzgruppe C in Ukraine; the further east theEinsatzgruppen travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into murdering their Jewish neighbours.[74]
All four mainEinsatzgruppen 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, theEinsatzkommandos began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. SomeEinsatzkommandos 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 ofEinsatzkommando 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 theEinsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately murder all the Jews in the conquered territories.[78] A situation report fromEinsatzgruppe 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 renderedJudenfrei (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]
TheEinsatzgruppen used public hangings as a terror tactic against the local population. AnEinsatzgruppe 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]
The largest mass shooting perpetrated by theEinsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest ofKiev city center in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September.[82][83] The perpetrators included a company ofWaffen-SS attached toEinsatzgruppe C under Rasch, members ofSonderkommando 4a under SS-ObergruppenführerFriedrich Jeckeln, and some Ukrainian auxiliary police.[84] The Jews of Kiev 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 Kiev 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 ofSonderkommando 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]
Einsatzgruppe A operated inBaltic 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 enteringKaunas, Lithuania, on 25 June 1941, theEinsatzgruppe 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]
AsEinsatzgruppe 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 capitalRiga in early July 1941 killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalistViktors Arājs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues.[93] On 2 July,Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arājs to head theArajs Kommando,[72] aSonderkommando of about 300 men, mostly university students. Together,Einsatzgruppe A and theArājs 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, theSelbstschutz, and theHilfspolizei (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 theEinsatzgruppen and other killing units to identify Jews.[95] For example, in Latvia, theHilfspolizei, consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian army and police officers, ex-Aizsargi, members of thePērkonkrusts, 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 theArājs Kommando in Latvia and theRollkommando 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 firstEinsatzgruppe to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area.[98][95] Latvian historianModris 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]
In late 1941, theEinsatzkommandos 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 LatvianArājs Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews.[97]
Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with theEinsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors. Since theRussian Revolution of 1905, theKresy 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]
HistorianErich 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]
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 theRiga 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 theArajs 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]
Einsatzgruppe B, C, and D did not immediately followEinsatzgruppe A's example in systematically murdering all Jews in their areas. TheEinsatzgruppe commanders, with the exception ofEinsatzgruppe 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] AnEinsatzgruppe 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 ofEinsatzgruppen massacres in summer and fall, and what American historianRaul 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 assistEinsatzgruppe B. InDnepropetrovsk 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]
After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by theEinsatzgruppen 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, theEinsatzgruppen 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 ofEinsatzgruppe D, SS-GruppenführerOtto 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 toMinsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed anEinsatzgruppen 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 mainEinsatzgruppen from 1942.[123] However, the gas vans were not popular with theEinsatzkommandos, 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 atextermination 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 atAuschwitz usingZyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide gas.[125]
Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at theWannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942. Some would beworked to death, and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of theFinal Solution of theJewish 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] TheEinsatzgruppen remained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus.[128]
After thedefeat 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-StandartenführerPaul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves all along theEastern 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 theEinsatzgruppen retreated alongside theWehrmacht. By late 1944, mostEinsatzgruppen personnel had been folded intoWaffen-SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 theEinsatzgruppen 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]
According to research by German historiansKlaus-Michael Mallmann andMartin Cüppers [de],Einsatzkommando Egypt, led byWalter Rauff, was formed in 1942 inAthens. The unit was to enterEgypt andMandatory 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 ministerRashid Ali al-Gaylani and theGrand Mufti of JerusalemHaj Amin al-Husseini played roles, engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda, preparing to recruit volunteers, and in raising anArab-German Battalion that would also followEinsatzkommando Egypt to the Middle East.[134] On 20 July 1942 Rauff was sent toTobruk to report to Field MarshalErwin Rommel, Commander of theAfrika Korps. Since Rommel was 500 km away at theFirst Battle of El Alamein, it is unlikely that the two met.[135][136] The plans forEinsatzgruppe Egypt were set aside after the Allied victory at theSecond Battle of El Alamein.[137]
HadOperation Sea Lion—the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom—been launched, sixEinsatzgruppen were scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain. They were provided with a list called theSonderfahndungsliste, G.B. ('Special Search List, G.B'), known asThe 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 theCzechoslovak government-in-exile.[138]
TheEinsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres and provided detailed reports to their superiors. TheJäger Report, filed by Commander SS-StandartenführerKarl Jäger on 1 December 1941 to his superior, Stahlecker (head ofEinsatzgruppe A), covers the activities ofEinsatzkommando 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 inRokiškis 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 byEinsatzkommando 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 inHohenasperg Fortress while awaiting trial for his crimes.[144]
The murders took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east.[145] As ordered by Hitler, theWehrmacht cooperated with theEinsatzgruppen, providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass killings.[146] On 10 October 1941 Field MarshalWalther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to theGerman Sixth Army on the Eastern Front. Now known as theSeverity 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 MarshalGerd 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] GeneralErich 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 toEinsatzgruppe 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 theEinsatzgruppen worked closely and effectively. On 6 July 1941Einsatzkommando 4b ofEinsatzgruppe C reported that "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews".[150] Few complaints about the murders were ever raised byWehrmacht officers.[151] On 8 September,Einsatzgruppe D reported that relations with the German Army were "excellent".[150] In the same month, Stahlecker ofEinsatzgruppe A wrote that Army Group North had been exemplary in co-operating with the exterminations and that relations with the4th Panzer Army, commanded by GeneralErich Hoepner, were "very close, almost cordial".[150] In the south, the Romanian Army worked closely withEinsatzgruppe D to massacre Ukrainian Jews,[111] murdering around 26,000 Jews in theOdessa massacre.[152] The German historianPeter Longerich thinks it probable that theWehrmacht, along with theOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), incited theLviv pogroms, during which 8,500 to 9,000 Jews were murdered by the native population andEinsatzgruppe C in July 1941.[153] Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by theEinsatzgruppen.[154] British historianHugh Trevor-Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the murders, it was common for both the men of theEinsatzgruppen 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 theEinsatzgruppen.[156] TheWehrmacht tried to justify their considerable involvement in theEinsatzgruppen 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 theEinsatzgruppen 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]
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 formerEinsatzgruppen 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]
After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of theEinsatzgruppen were prosecuted in theEinsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, part of theSubsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority. The men were charged withcrimes 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 additionalEinsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.[160]
SeveralEinsatzgruppen 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 theEinsatzgruppen leaders asaccomplices to mass murder. However, if it could be established that theEinsatzgruppen had committed mass murder without orders, then they could have been convicted asperpetrators 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 theEinsatzgruppen 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 who had to be dealt with ruthlessly.[165] British historianIan 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 byEinsatzgruppen commanders as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence, with eachEinsatzgruppen commander to use his own discretion about how far he was prepared to go.[166] According to Erwin Schulz, one of only two of Ohlendorf's codefendants to not attest to his version of events, he only received an order to exterminate all Jews in mid-August 1941. Unlike Ohlendorf, however, Schulz, unwilling to kill women and children, had refused to carry out this order and was subsequently discharged from this duty in a move that did not harm his career in any way.[167]
Prior to the invasion, Schulz testified that Heydrich had told him:
That every one should be sure to understand that, in this fight, Jews would definitely take their part and that, in this fight, everything was set at stake, and the one side which gave in would be the one to be overcome. For that reason, all measures had to be taken against the Jews in particular. The experience in Poland had shown this.[168]
The crimes of the Einsatzgruppen came into wider public awareness with the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958. At the trial, ten former members ofEinsatzkommando 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 forceHans-Joachim Böhme [de;fr;ru;sv],Bernhard Fischer-Schweder [de], and the head of the Tilsit SD sectionWerner Hersmann [de].[169] 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".[170]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)[better source needed]{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)ISBN 978-3-8685-4245-5,3-8685-4245-0;OCLC 1039842033 &794319959.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)doi:10.2307/j.ctv10h9f66;JSTOR j.ctv10h9f66;LCCN 2019-54996 (print);LCCN 2019-54997 (eBook);ISBN 978-0-2530-4807-3,0-2530-4807-9 (hard cover);ISBN 978-0-2530-4808-0,0-2530-4808-7 (eBook, pdf);ISBN 978-0-2530-4809-7,0-2530-4809-5 (eBook);OCLC 1139013187 (all editions).
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