Everything about Einsatzgruppe totally explained
Einsatzgruppen (
German for "task forces" or "intervention groups") were
paramilitary groups formed by
Heinrich Himmler and operated by the
SS before and during
World War II. Their principal task, in the words of SS General
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski at the
Nuremberg Trials, "was the annihilation of the
Jews,
Gypsies, and
Soviet political commissars." They were a key component in
Hitler's plans to implement his "
final solution of the Jewish question" (
German:
Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in the conquered territories.
Formed mainly from men of the
Ordnungspolizei, the
Waffen-SS and local volunteers and led by
Gestapo,
Kripo, and
SD officers, these
death squads followed the
Wehrmacht as it advanced eastwards into
Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union. In occupied territories, the
Einsatzgruppen also
utilized local populations to provide additional security and manpower when needed. The activities of the
Einsatzgruppen were spread throughout a large pool of personnel from different branches of the SS and German State.
According to their own records, the
Einsatzgruppen operatives were responsible for killing over one million Jews, almost all civilians, without
judicial review and later without semblance of legality (no reading of sentences of
martial or administrative law), starting with the
Polish intelligentsia and quickly progressing by 1941 to target primarily the Jews of
Eastern Europe. The historian
Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the
Einsatzgruppen, along with the
SS, murdered over 1.3 million Jews in open-air shootings.
History
Einsatzgruppen can be traced back to the ad hoc
Einsatzkommando formed by
Reinhard Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the
Anschluss in
Austria in March 1938. The task of securing government buildings with their accompanying documentation and the questioning of senior civil servants in lands occupied by Germany was the Einsatzgruppen's original mission. In the summer of 1938, when Germany was preparing an
invasion of
Czechoslovakia scheduled for
October 1 of that year, the
Einsatzgruppen were founded. The intention was for
Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies as they advanced into Czechoslovakia, and to secure government papers and offices. Unlike the
Einsatzkommando, the
Einsatzgruppen were to be armed and authorized to freely use lethal force to accomplish their mission. The
Munich Agreement of 1938 prevented the war for which the
Einsatzgruppen were originally founded, but as the Germans occupied the
Sudetenland in the fall of 1938, the
Einsatzgruppen moved into the region to occupy offices formally belonging to the Czechoslovak state. After the occupation of the rest of the Czech portion of Czechoslovakia on
March 15 1939, the
Einsatzgruppen were re-formed and again used to secure offices formerly belonging to the Czechoslovak government. The
Einsatzgruppen were never a standing formation; rather they were ad hoc units recruited mostly from the ranks of the
SS, the
SD, and various German police forces such as the
Ordnungspolizei, the
Gendarmerie, the
Kripo and the
Gestapo. Once the military campaign had ended, the
Einsatzgruppen units were disbanded, though generally the same personnel were recruited again if the need arose for the
Einsatzgruppen units to be re-activated.
In May 1939, Adolf Hitler decided upon an
invasion of
Poland planned for
August 25 of that year (later moved back to
September 1). In response, Heydrich again re-formed the
Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies. Unlike the earlier operations, Heydrich gave the
Einsatzgruppen commanders
carte blanche to kill anyone belonging to groups that the Germans considered hostile.
After the occupation of Poland in 1939, the
Einsatzgruppen killed Poles belonging to the
intelligentsia, such as priests and teachers
(External Link
). The Nazis considered all
Slavic people to be
Untermenschen (subhuman), and wanted to use the Polish lower classes as servants and slaves. The mission of the
Einsatzgruppen was therefore the forceful depoliticisation of the Polish people and the elimination of the groups most clearly identified with the Polish national identity. Following the
German invasion of the
Netherlands,
Belgium and
France in May 1940, the
Einsatzgruppen once again travelled in the wake of the
Wehrmacht, but unlike their operations in Poland, the
Einsatzgruppen operations in
Western Europe in 1940 were within the original mandate of securing government offices and papers. Had
Operation Sealion, the German plan for an invasion of the
United Kingdom, been launched, six
Einsatzgruppen were scheduled to follow the invasion force to Britain. The
Einsatzgruppen intended for "Sealion" were provided with a list (known as
The Black Book after the war) of 2,820 people to be arrested immediately.
After the
invasion of the
Soviet Union in 1941, the
Einsatzgruppen's main assignment was to kill
Communist officers and Jews on a much larger scale than in Poland. These
Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) (Reich Security Main Office); for example, under
Reinhard Heydrich and his successor
Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The original mandate set by Heydrich for the four
Einsatzgruppen sent into the Soviet Union as part of
Operation Barbarossa was to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all of the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage
pogroms against all local Jewish populations. The orders that Heydrich drafted on July 2, 1941 stated that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute all Soviet officials of higher and medium rank; members of the Comintern; "extremist" Communist Party members; members of the central, provincial district committees of the Communist Party; Commissars; and all Jewish Communist Party members. In regards to Jewish populations in general, "No steps will be taken to interfere with any purges that may be initialed by anti-Communist or anti-Jewish elements in the newly occupied territories. On the contrary, these are to be secretly encouraged".
As the
Einsatzgruppen advanced into the Soviet Union, after July 1941, the
Einsatzgruppen increasingly engaged in the mass murders of the local Jews themselves rather than encouraging pogroms. Initially, the
Einsatzgruppen generally limited themselves to shooting Jewish men; but as the summer wore on, increasingly all Jews regardless of age or sex were shot. The most murderous of the four
Einsatzgruppen was
Einsatzgruppe A, which operated in the
Baltic states of
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania formerly occupied by the Soviets.
Einsatzgruppe A was the first
Einsatzgruppe that attempted to systematically exterminate all Jews in its area. After December 1941, the other three
Einsatzgruppen began what
Raul Hilberg has called the "second sweep", which lasted into the summer of 1942, where they attempted to emulate
Einsatzgruppe A by likewise systematically killing all Jews in their areas.
They murdered more than 1.5 million Jews, Communists, prisoners of war, and
Roma (Gypsies) in total. They also assisted
Wehrmacht units and local anti-Semites in killing half a million more. They were mobile forces in the beginning of the invasion, but settled down after the occupation. In addition, the
Einsatzgruppen were often used to carry out anti-partisan operations in the occupied regions of the Soviet Union.
The Holocaust
After time, it was found that the killing methods used by the
Einsatzgruppen were inefficient: they were costly, demoralizing for the troops, and sometimes didn't kill the victims quickly enough. At the
Wannsee Conference, SS and various other officials met to find a more efficient way of killing their victims; this ultimately led to the establishment of gas-chamber containing
Vernichtungslagern or
extermination camps. Under this and other plans, an estimated six million Jews and five million non-Jews would ultimately lose their lives.
Method of killing
The
Einsatzgruppen typically followed close behind
Wehrmacht army formations, marching into cities and towns where large numbers of Jews were known to live. Once they entered a town, they issued orders requiring Jews and non-Jewish communists to assemble for deportation out of town. Those who refused to comply were hunted down ruthlessly.
The process was as follows: The Einsatzgruppen's
Sonderkommando units (though not to be confused with Jewish gravediggers in the camps) were sent with the advancing military units to coordinate the executions, to concentrate the "hostile" population, and to recruit local assistants (Mannschaft, either "Junaks" (Lithuanian former convicts) or Gendarmes (Ukrainian policemen); then came the Einsatzkommando to execute the Jews and communists. The killings followed several methods and patterns:
- In conquered urban areas of eastern Europe, many Jews would be killed in nearby locations such as woods or inside buildings. The remaining Jews would be confined to ghettos. Death rates from disease and malnourishment were high; groups from the ghetto were periodically taken away and shot or deported to extermination camps. An example of this is the Lithuanian city of Kaunas; the Jews of Kaunas were concentrated in a ghetto and sent, thousands at a time, to be slaughtered in the 7th and 9th forts (watch towers) of Kaunas.
- In small rural areas, or in battle zones, the Jews were quickly led to their deaths in nearby woods and mass graves, which were often dug by the victims. An example of such a case is the town of Dovno in Ukraine.
- In big cities, mainly in the battle zones, the Nazis would create a small local committee of 8 to 12 important Jews, known as the Judenrat, who would be required to summon the local Jews for "relocation". The Jews (including the Judenrat delegates) would then be marched to previously prepared trenches or natural pits and shot. Examples are the massacre at Babi Yar and the Ponary massacre.
- Alternatives to execution by firearms existed. The gas trucks used by Einsatzgruppe D and Einsatzkommando Kulmhof in the death camp Chelmno are an example. Another, occasionally used in smaller towns, was to lock the Jews in abandoned buildings, which were then set alight or blown up, though this was rather rare.
Those who were gathered would then be sent to designated sites outside the cities and towns. Usually these massacre sites were graves dug in advance, shallow pits, or deep ravines (including one at Babi Yar, just outside
Kiev), where executioners were already waiting with orders to kill them with machine guns or pistol shots to the head. The killers would also seize the clothing and other belongings of the victims, and some victims were forced to strip naked just before their execution. Once dead, the victims would be buried with hand shovels or bulldozers. Some victims were only injured, not killed, and were buried alive. A few managed to climb out of the grave and recount this. (Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust)
The
Einsatzgruppen were assisted by other
Axis forces, including designated members of the
Wehrmacht and the
Waffen SS. In the Baltics and
Ukraine, they also recruited local collaborators -
hiwis to assist in the killing.
The Jäger Report
The
Einsatzgruppen kept track of many of their massacres, and one of the most infamous of these official records is the
Jäger Report, covering the operation of
Einsatzkommando 3 over five months in
Lithuania. Written by the commander of
Einsatzkommando 3,
Karl Jäger, it includes a detailed list summarizing each massacre, totaling 137,346 victims, and states "…I can confirm today that
Einsatzkommando 3 has achieved the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families." Jäger escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended, assumed a false identity, and was able to assimilate back into society as an agriculturist until his report was discovered in March 1959. Arrested and charged with his crimes, Jäger committed suicide in prison in Hohenasperg while he was awaiting trial in June 1959.
Planned Holocaust for Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine
A 2006 study by historians Klaus-Michael Mallman and Martin Cueppers says that an Einsatzgruppe was created in 1942 to kill Jews in Palestine. “Einsatzgruppe Egypt” was standing by in Athens, and was prepared to go with General
Erwin Rommel’s
Afrika Corps to
Palestine to kill the roughly half a million Jews that had fled Europe. The mobile killing unit was to be led by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer
Walter Rauff. The plan was for the 24 members of the death squad to enlist collaborators so that the “mass murder would continue under German leadership without interruption.”
The group never left
Greece, however, because Rommel’s force was routed at El Alamein by the British force of General
Bernard Montgomery; otherwise, the history of the Middle East might have been different.
After the war
The ultimate authority for the
Einsatzgruppen, which answered directly to
Heinrich Himmler and
Adolf Hitler, were the
SS and Police Leaders who oversaw all
Einsatzgruppen activities and reports in their given area. At the close of World War II, the majority of SS and Police Leaders who had overseen activities in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union simply disappeared, were executed for war crimes, or committed suicide prior to their capture. As for the lower ranking members, a large number of them were killed in combat, were captured in combat and executed (on the Eastern Front) or were imprisoned and died in Russian camps. The lesser ranking members who returned to Germany or to other countries were not formally charged (due to their large numbers ) and simply returned to civilian life.
At the conclusion of World War II, senior leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen were put before United States occupation courts, variously charged with
crimes against humanity,
war crimes, and membership in the SS (which had been declared a criminal organization), in what became known as the
Einsatzgruppen Trial of the
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. Fourteen death sentences and five life sentences were among the judgments, although only four executions were carried out on
June 7 1951, and the rest of these sentences were
commuted.
Organization (1941)
Further Information
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