Einsatzgruppe: Difference between revisions
Pat Palmer (talk | contribs) mNo edit summary |
Pat Palmer (talk | contribs) (PropDel; not deserving of a separate article; CZ is not a German dictionary; but, info needs preserving in the main Nazism articles) |
||
(One intermediate revision by one other user not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{PropDel}}<br><br> | |||
{{subpages}} | {{subpages}} | ||
{{TOC|right}} | {{TOC|right}} | ||
Line 134: | Line 135: | ||
| publisher = Basic Books | date = 1986}},pp. 159-160}}</ref> | | publisher = Basic Books | date = 1986}},pp. 159-160}}</ref> | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
{{reflist|2}} | {{reflist|2}}[[Category:Suggestion Bot Tag]] |
Latest revision as of 08:57, 26 August 2024
This article may be deleted soon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() In general German military terminology, an Einsatzgruppe (plural Einsatzgruppen) is a temporary unit for a specific purpose, comparable to the English task force. Within the context of the Second World War and the Holocaust, after the invasion of Russia, they were mobile killing units that followed the armies, ostensibly for rear area security and principally for killing Jews, Soviet officials, and other Nazi undesirables. The term came into common use in the context of the Operation Barbarossa invading the Soviet Union, but the function started with the invasion of Poland, killing political undesirables and possible threats. The largest execution in the Polish campaign was perpetrated by Russians, not Germans, at the Katyn Forest.
Note that the actual invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941. Earlier incarnations were brutal but not genocidal. Less well-known versions had operated in the takeover of Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Einsatzgruppen operated in both the Polish and Russian campaigns. His first instructions to the groups were issued in September 1939, three weeks after the invasion of Poland. [1] The actions of these units were not part of the Einsatzgruppen Case at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The genocidal groups, which killed approximately 2 million people, were organized as part of the preparation for Operation Barbarossa. They all reported to the then head of the SS security organization, the RSHA, commanded by Reinhard Heydrich. PersonnelPersonnel were drawn from a variety of RSHA personnel, including the Waffen SS, ORPO (regular police), SD, Gestapo and KRIPO (criminal police), as well as local police and foreign auxiliaries. While regular military units were not directly assigned to the RSHAgroups, Army commanders were concerned they were brutalizing troops. On 6 February 1940, Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz, chief of the Army in Poland, complained
Leaders in the Soviet campaign were tried in the Einsatzgruppen Case of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, with most being executed or imprisoned. Austria and the SudetenlandAs Nazi Germany began military expansion, Heydrich created Einsatzgruppen, then, before the RSHA was established, under the SIPO and SD. Their immediate missions were "the seizure of key buildings and documentation, the establishment of functioning intelligence operations, and the identification and elimination of real and perceived opponents of German rule. Einsatzkommandos (Operations Detachments) first went into Austria after the Anschluss in March 1938 and into the Sudetenland after its annexation in early October 1938. They secured documentation and intelligence information, and identified and arrested “enemies.”.[3] Polish campaignSix main battalion-sized groups were organized, and five attached to each of the armies going into Poland, one based in Posen, and one in Silesia. They had subordinate company-sized Einsatzcommandos. [4]
Even though they did not do mass killings, they generated Army protests. Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz, who commanded the 8th Army in the attack on Poland and then was Military Governor of the occupied country, wrote memos of complaint, between November 1939 and February 1940, to Army Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch. Blaskowitz documented many instances of raping, horsewhipping, murder and looting of Jewish and Polish shops, by both the Einsatzkommandos and other SS personnel, and warned that the SS “might later turn against their own people in the same way.” [5] Soviet campaignThere were four main battalion-sized groups, and some smaller independent Einsatzkommandos.[6]
OperationsTheir primary means of killing was by shooting and burial in mass graves. Different commanders had different ideas on the method of shooting; some insisted on machine guns so no individual had clear responsibility for killing, while others insisted that every unit member shoot at individual victims, to bond them to the effort. With either method, there was a high degree of stress on the units, with rampant alcoholism, mental breakdowns and suicide.[8] After Erich von Bach-Zelewski had witnessed an execution with Himmler, he said tohim
Hoess and Adolf Eichmann worked to find an alternative, less stressful killing method, assuming it would be a gas. By November 1942, however, they had not found one, and had not even considered methods for disposing of large numbers of bodies. [10] References
|