Einsatzgruppen

   The Einsatzgruppen were special killing units of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and therefore under the jurisdiction of the Reich Security Main Office Bureau (RSHA), which was headed by Reinhard Heydrich. The special attack units made their first appearance during the Anschluss, and then the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where they functioned as mobile units of the SD and Sicherheitspolizei (SIPO). During the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, they engaged in the mass shootings of civilians. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, four Einsatzgruppen units were deployed under commanding officers personally chosen by Heinrich Himmler.

   Einsatzgruppe A was led by Dr. Franz Stahlecker and consisted of about 1,000 men. Their base of operations was in the Baltic States. Einsatzgruppe B was commanded by Arthur Nebe and consisted of 655 men. Nebe’s unit was responsible for operations in Belarussia and the Smolensk region, up to the outskirts of Moscow. Paul Blobel commanded Einsatzguppe C, which operated in the area around Kiev in Ukraine, and it was his Sonderkommando 4a, attached to his Einsatzgruppe, which perpetrated the infamous massacre of Jews at Babi Yar in late September 1941 that resulted in the murder of 33,771 Jews in a two-day period. Einsatzgruppe D under Otto Ohlendorf was responsible for southern Ukraine, the Crimea, and Ciscaucasia.

   The approximately 3,000 Einsatzgruppen, which accompanied the Wehrmacht (German army) in the invasion of the Soviet Union, along with regular German police units, the Ordnungspolizei (ORPO) (Order Police), and auxiliaries from the Baltic states and Ukraine, had the murder of the Jews as their primary aim. This objective was included in Heydrich’s written instructions to the Einsatzgruppen commanders on 2 July 1941 in which he specifically singled out the Jews for execution. By the winter of 1941–1942, almost a half million Jews had been liquidated by the killing squads and their auxiliaries.