During the Second World War, a huge number of war crimes were committed by different
countries.
However some of the worst were committed by the Germans, and by a group of soldiers who
had been tasked with mass murder.
The Einsatzgruppen were the paramilitary death squads of the SS who were responsible for
mass slaughter during World War 2 in German occupied Europe.
They were involved heavily in the final solution and the mass murder of civilians and those
deemed enemies of Nazism.
Inside of the squads were 3000 employees, and trained killers who were responsible for
the murders of more than two million people.
So join us today as we look at the Barbaric Executions of the Einsatzgruppen.
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The Einsatzgruppen was formed under the oversight of Reinhard Heydrich, the Chief of the Reich
Security Main Office.
Heydrich oversaw the Gestapo, Kripo and SD, and he used the SS to staff the death squads.
They were originally part of the Security Police, and two units were based in the Sudetenland
in October 1938.
They were used initially to confiscate papers and documents, but they also initially were
used to secure government buildings, and arrest communists.
However as the Nazis sought to try and eradicate all of the enemies and undesirable elements
of the German population, the Einsatzgruppen began to be used in the killing operations.
In September 1939, they were utilised to help in the Action t4 Euthanasia programme, in
which they helped to organise the mass killing of people with physical and mental disabilities.
Thousands were killed in this way, and the Einsatzgruppen initially shot many of the
victims, but then gas chambers were used in the program.
So already before the Second World War was in full swing, the group were being used to
murder civilians.
After the Invasion of Poland, Heydrich mobilised the death squads to be used after territorial
gains by the Wehrmacht.
They were organised into different elements, and the soldiers with the firmest devotion
to Nazism were used in the einsatzgruppen.
Over 4000 men were used in Poland to complete the Einsatzgruppen’s mission to massacre
members of the Polish leadership, and the intellectual part of society, along with members
of the clergy, teachers and also members of the nobility and people with significant positions
in society.
The SS had drawn up lists of prominent polish people to be executed, and the Einsatzgruppen
did this.
There were other massacres committed by the SS and the Wehrmacht, and by the end of 1939
around 65,000 civilians had been murdered.
Jews, Romani people and psychiatric patients were murdered by gunshot there until the gas
van was used in 1941.
Ultimately there were 7 different einsatzgruppen’s staffed of around 500 men who operated inside
of occupied Poland.
They were seen as under the command of the Army, but it was Heydrich who initially gave
them their orders.
It was clear that the executions committed by the group were war crimes, and Hitler gave
them everything they needed to commit the war crimes.
There were unauthorised shootings by the groups and much looting, and they were involved also
in rounding up Jews to be taken to ghettos.
Before the Invasion of the Soviet Union and the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler
ordered that criminal acts against any civilians during the operation committed by members
of the Wehrmacht would not be prosecuted, and would be unpunished.
This gave the army a free license to shoot whoever they wanted, regardless of if they
were prisoners of war.
Hitler saw the invasion of the Soviet Union as necessary to rid Bolshevism and Communism
from Europe, and his strong action in this order showed how harsh he wanted to deal with
the Soviets.
In preparation for Barbarossa, there were four initial Einsatzgruppen detachments created,
of between 500 and just under 1000 men.
They were under the control of Heydrich yet again, and he ordered them to shoot civilians
and also Jews.
The men for the job were recruited from the SD, Gestapo and Waffen-SS, and following advancements
they went in, rounded up civilians and shot them en mass.
Each death squad followed an assigned army group, and they would target groups of individuals
and also shoot as many as they could.
Following the invasion of the Soviet Union, their task was to kill civilians but also
Communist commissars, and Jews.
The instructions given by heydrich were deliberately vague, and the groups would shoot thousands.
On the 8th July 1941, Heydrich stated that all Jews were to be seen as Partisans, and
all male jews between 15 and 45 years of age should be shot.
He also ordered all POWs to be shot too, as well as mentally ill people and the Romani.
From the early days of the invasions, all units were involved in mass shootings.
The targets switched further too in which women, children and the elderly were included
in the shootings.
Sickeningly, the killing process was viewed as too slow at times, so measures were taken
to ensure that more killing could be done in a shorter amount of time.
The process of killing was as followed.
After the advancements made by the Army, the Einsatzgruppen would round up victims inside
towns or villages, and then take them and order them to go to a destination.
The victims were then marched to the killing site, and if a mass grave had not been dug
then the victims were forced to dig their own graves.
They were then stripped of valuables, before being driven in groups into the pit.
The Einsatzgruppen either shot the victims at the edge of the pit so that they fell into
the pit, or forced them into the grave to be then shot.
Often friends and families were forced to watch their loved ones die before them, and
the executed would be standing on the corpses of those forced into the pit minutes before.
Word of the massacres did reach Jews and a number did manage to flee, however they also
used hangings to scare the local population.
The biggest mass shooting conducted by the Einsatzgruppen occurred on the 29th and 30th
September 1941 at Babi Yar.
This was in a ravine northwest of Kyiv, and the Jews had been told to report to a street
corner and if not they would be killed.
They assembled in large numbers, and then they were marched 2 miles out of the city
centre, where anyone who tried to escape was beaten.
They were then led into an open area, and were forced to strip and were then ushered
down the ravine.
People were forced to lie down in rows on the top of other bodies, and then they were
shot either in the back of the head, or the neck by the einsatzgruppen.
For two days the shooting continued, and claimed the lives of over 33,000 people.
Sand was then bulldozed over to hide the bodies, and the ravine was dynamited to conceal the
crime further.
Killing also occurred in the Baltic states, and the Einsatzgruppen massacred thousands,
it was estimated in Latvia that out of 83,000 Jews, less than 2000 survived.
The sheer percentage of eradication in Latvia was the highest its believed in the whole
of Europe.
Another massacre was ordered and carried out by Friedrich Jeckeln who also oversaw parts
of the Babi Year massacre, and this was known as the Rumbla massacre.
It was decided that Victims should travel on foot to the execution site, and buses were
prepared for the elderly.
The victims were told they were being relocated and were told to bring 20kg of baggage, and
after this they were marched in column of a thousand to the execution site.
As they walked, some of the SS men shot indiscriminately those who could not keep up, or tried to run
away.
As the group approached the execution area, they were driven towards the forest and split
up in groups of 50 and taken further into the forest to the death pits.
They were told to strip, and then were shot in the back of the head after being ordered
to lie down in the trench, on the bodies of those before.
Over two days, 25,000 people were killed in this specific crime.
Different Einsatzgruppen groups were shifted to help other ones at different times, once
they had eradicated those who they deemed they needed to.
But after a period of time, it was found by Heinrich Himmler that the killing process
used by the Einsatzgruppen was not quick enough.
He deemed it to be too costly using bullets, and also saw it as not time efficient taking
too long.
Also it was deemed to be too demoralising for the men who were conducting the massacres,
and a number of them were found to have suffered physical and psychological problems by the
executions they had performed.
There was an emphasis on the killing being justified by the Nazis, and that the shootings
were a collective act and not one person committing murder.
But obviously executing hundreds and thousands would cause severe issues psychologically.
Also it was noted though that some members of the Einsatzgruppen were too eager to massacre
and kill, and those soldiers who were like this were taken off duty.
But whilst visiting Minsk in August 1941, Himmler himself had witnessed a mass execution
performed by the death squads, and he found this too much for the men.
Because of this, he decided that there should be a transition from shooting to carry out
the genoicde to gassing.
This was seen as easier on the perpetrators, and it was decided that more people could
be exterminated at once using this.
Gas vans were initially used, and these were operated by the Einsatzgruppen.
The soldiers performing the killing however did not like them as it took longer and was
more distressing for them to dispose of the bodies.
But following the Wansee Conference, the final solution to continue the genocide saw it decided
that mass execution centres such as Treblinka, Sobribor and Auschwitz should be used.
At the end of the Second World War, 24 senior leaders of the einsatzgruppen were brought
to trial.
They were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and being members of the SS.
14 death sentences were handed out, but only 4 executions were ever carried out.
They claimed that they were only following orders.
Very few executions of those perpetrators of the mass shootings were ever carried out,
and for the crimes of the Einsatzgruppen its hard to see how justice was ever carried out.
It’s believed that of the roughly 2 million people were massacred by the Einsatzgruppen
during the Second World War.
Their despicable crimes saw scores of people being massacred in horrific war crimes that
today much of the evidence has yet to have been uncovered.
There are examples of war crimes committed by the group that have yet been told, and
have not yet been discovered.
They were a despicable group who would stop at nothing to execute as many people as they
could.
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