Einsatzgruppen (German for "task forces", [2] "deployment groups"; [3] singular Einsatzgruppe; official full name Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting, during World War II. The Einsatzgruppen had a leading role in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany.
Under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the German armed forces following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) in June 1941. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies and foreign auxiliary personnel killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. [4] The total number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to six million people. [5]
After the close of the World War II, 24 senior leaders 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 among the judgements. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations. [6]
Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into four Einsatzkommandos of company strength. [7]
Einsatzgruppe | Leader | Subgroups | ||
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Einsatzgruppe A (Baltic states) [8] | SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker (until 23 March 1942) | ![]() |
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Einsatzgruppe B (Belarus) [8] | SS-Brigadeführer Arthur Nebe (until October 1941) | ![]() |
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Einsatzgruppe C (Northern and central Ukraine) [8] | SS-Gruppenführer Dr. Otto Rasch (until October 1941) | ![]() |
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Einsatzgruppe D (Bessarabia, Southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Caucasus) [8] | SS-Gruppenführer Prof. Otto Ohlendorf (until June 1942) | ![]() |
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Einsatzgruppe E (Croatia) [9] | SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Teichmann, SS-Standartenführer Günther Herrmann, SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs | Five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb | ||
Einsatzgruppe F (Army Group South) [10] | ||||
Einsatzgruppe G (Romania, Hungary, Ukraine) [9] | SS-Standartenführer Dr. Josef Kreuzer | Einsatzkommandos 11 and 12 | ||
Einsatzgruppe H (Slovakia) [11] | SS-Obersturmbannführer Josef Witiska | Einsatzkommandos 13 and 14, formed in Brno 31 August 1944 as part of the German invasion of Slovakia concurrent with the Slovak National Uprising | ||
Einsatzgruppe K (with 5th Panzer Army in the Ardennes offensive) [12] | SS-Oberführer Dr. Emanuel Schäfer | ![]() | ||
Einsatzgruppe L (with 6th Panzer Army in the Ardennes offensive) [12] | SS-Standartenführer Dr. Ludwig Hahn | ![]() | ||
Einsatzgruppe Griechenland (Greece) [13] | SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Ludwig Hahn | |||
Einsatzgruppe Iltis (Carinthia (Slovenia)) [14] | SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel | ![]() | ||
Einsatzkommando Luxemburg (Luxembourg) [10] | ||||
Einsatzgruppe Norwegen (Norway) [15] | SS-Oberführer Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker | |||
Einsatzgruppe Serbien (Yugoslavia) [16] | SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs, SS-Gruppenführer August Meysner | |||
Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes (eastern Poland) [8] | SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Karl Eberhard Schöngarth | ![]() | ||
Einsatzkommando Tilsit (Lithuania, Poland) [17] | ||||
Einsatzkommando Tunis (Tunis) [18] | SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff | ![]() | ||
Proposed Einsatzkommando Egypt (Middle East) [19] [20] | SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff |
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Proposed Einsatzgruppe (United Kingdom) [21] | SS-Standartenführer Dr. Franz Six | ![]() |
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The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
Sicherheitsdienst, full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office, as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision".
Einsatzgruppen 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" 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. 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.
The Reich Security Main Office was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS, the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany.
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of the Einsatzgruppen – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellectuals, Romani, and communists in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front. Einsatzkommandos, along with Sonderkommandos, were responsible for the systematic murder of Jews during the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. After the war, several commanders were tried in the Einsatzgruppen trial, convicted, and executed.
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The Sicherheitspolizei, often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe.
Franz Walter Stahlecker was commander of the SS security forces (Sicherheitspolizei and the Sicherheitsdienst for the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941–42. Stahlecker commanded Einsatzgruppe A, the most murderous of the four Einsatzgruppen active in German-occupied Eastern Europe. He was fatally wounded in action by Soviet partisans and was replaced by Heinz Jost.
Otto Ohlendorf was a German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. An economist by education, he was head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. In 1941, Ohlendorf was appointed the commander of Einsatzgruppe D, which perpetrated mass murder in Moldova, south Ukraine, the Crimea and, during 1942, the North Caucasus. He was tried at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in 1951.
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Walther Karl Johannes Bierkamp, also sometimes spelled Walter Bierkamp was a German Nazi lawyer and SS-Brigadeführer. During the Second World War, he served as the commander of the Sicherheitspolizei or SiPo and Sicherheitsdienst or SD in occupied Belgium and Northern France and later in occupied Poland and in Baden & Württemberg. He also commanded Einsatzgruppe D, in the occupied Soviet Union. He was involved in Holocaust-related war crimes in Poland and the North Caucasus area. After the end of the war in Europe, he committed suicide.
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