The Einsatzgruppen

A detailed Summary of The Einsatzgruppen

Introduction

During World War II, at the time of Germany's Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, there was a fairly small well-trained commando group. This group was called the Einsatzgruppen. It's main objective was to kill Jews. There are many different ways that you may state this, but basically that was all they were trained to do. They were first introduced to help the German army in the process of the final solution. The final solution being that the Jewish population be brought down to an all time low, if any survived at all.

Killing Units

The Einsatzgruppen operated from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. It was composed into four sub units that were called A, B, C, and D. All units were under the command of Reinhard Heydrich . The Einsatzgruppen operated just behind the invading German troops. After the German troops had cleared a path of destruction, the Einsatzgruppen followed and made sure that as many Jews as possible were killed. Their specific words were "Getting rid of the undesirables" .

After the Germans troops had cleared a path, the Einsatzgruppen came in and collected all the men, women, and children who were Jewish or even believed to be

In 1941, there were two ghettos created in Vilna. They were called ghetto #1 and ghetto #2. All the Jews who were incapable of work, were sent to ghetto #2. When the ghetto was finally full, the Einsatzgruppen would take all the Jews eight miles Southwest of Vilna to a wooded area called Ponary. It was here that the Einsatzgruppen killed over 40,000 Jews.

About one and a half million people were killed by the Einsatzgruppen. This number comes from the letters and radio messages that were constantly coming into Heydrich's office from the field commanders of the Einsatzgruppen.

Minsk

The Einsatzgruppen enjoyed the company of local hate groups for two reasons, one, they always were looking for a few extra men to help kill the

After the sub groups of the Einsatzgruppen were made up (A, B, C, and D) there were even subgroups of them. They were called Einsatzkommandos, or Sonderkommandos. These even smaller groups went on even smaller more direct missions for the subgroups.

The invasion of Poland was not the first time the Einsatzgruppen was used. They were also used in 1939 in Poland. Then they were ordered to arrest and or liquidate priests and Polish intelligence. They were however not asked to perform mass murders as they were in 1941. Though the Einsatzgruppen was used twice, they were not related at all. They had totally different soldiers in the two, and they had different objectives.

Einsatzgruppen A started their killing spree in eastern Prussia, and went across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia until they hit Leningrad. They killed Jews in Kovno, Riga, and Vilna. Einsatzgruppen B started from Warsaw, and went through Poland and Byelorussia while heading towards Smolensk. They killed Jews in Grodno, Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Slonim, Gomel, and Mogilev. Einsatzgruppen C started from the western Generalgouvernment and went through the Ukraine heading towards Kharkov and Rostov-on-Don. They killed Jews in Lvov, Tarnopol, Zolechev, Kremenets, Kharkov and Kiev. Finally, Einsatzgruppen D went and killed Jews in the Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Crimea, Nikolayev, Kherson, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Feodosiya, and Lithuania. Einsatzgruppen D was the only group to work without the help of the army.

Shootings to Gas Vans

The third meeting was held shortly before June 22, 1941. This time, they met in the Chief of Order Police building. General Kurt Dalueges ran the

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Approximate Word count = 2856
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History