Operation Report 88, reporting on the activities of only one kommando, states that up to September 6, 1941, this Kommando 4a "has taken care of a total of 11,328 Jews." (NO-3149)
Einsatzgruppe A, reporting its activities up to October 15, 1941, very casually declares: "In Latvia, up to now, 30,000 Jews were executed in all." (L-180)
Einsatzgruppe D, reporting on an operation near Kikerino, announces that the operational area has been "cleared of Jews. From 19 August to 25 September 1941, 8,890 Jews and communists were executed. Total number 13,315." (NO-3148)
This same Einsatzgruppe communicated from Nikolajew as of November 5, 1941, that total executions had reached the figure of 31,767. (NO-3159)
Reporting on one month's activities (October 1941), Einsatzgruppe B advised that "during the period of the report, the liquidations of 37,180 people took place." (NO-2656)
Einsatzgruppe C, reporting on its operations in Kiew as of October 12, 1941, declared that Sonderkommando 4a had now reached the total number of more than 51,000 executions. (NO-3155)
The Commissioner General for White Ruthenia reported with self-approbation on October 10, 1942:
"During detailed consultations with the SS-Brigadefuehrer Zenner and the extremely capable Chief of the SD, SS Obersturbannfuefrer Dr. jur. Strauch, we found that we had liquidated
approximately 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia during the last 10 weeks. "
"The preparations for the liquidation of the Jews in the Glebokie area were completely disrupted by an arbitrary action by the Rear Army Area, which has already been reported to your office. In the Rear Army Area -- I was not contacted, 10,000 Jews were liquidated who were scheduled for extermination by us anyway."
However, the Commissioner General quickly got over his resentment and went on with his narrative:
"In the city of Minsk, about 10,000 Jews were liquidated on 28 and 29 July, 6,500 of whom were Russian Jews -- mainly old people, women and children -- the remainder consisted of Jews unfit for work, most of whom had been sent to Minsk from Vienna, Bruenn, Bremen and Berlin in November of the previous year, at the Fuehrer's orders. The Sluzk area was also ridded of several thousand Jews. The same applies to Nowogrodek and Wilejka."
As of October 15, 1941 Einsatzgruppe A declared that the sum total of Jews executed in Lithuania was 71,105. (L-180)
As an appendix to the report, Einsatzgruppe A submitted the inventory of the people killed as a business house might submit a list of stock on hand:
| "Total | Jews | Communists | Total |
| Lithuania | 80,311 | 860 | 81,171 |
| Latvia | 30,025 | 1,845 | 31,868 |
| Esthonia | 474 | 684 | 1,158 |
| White Ruthenia | 7,620 | --- | 7,320 |
| ------- | ------- | ------ | |
| 118,430 | 3,387 | 121,817 |
to be added to these figures:
| In Lithuania and Latvia Jews annihilated by pogroms | 5,500 |
| Jews, Communists and partisans executed in old-Russia area | 2,000 |
| Lunatics executed | 748 |
| ------ | |
| [correct total 130,065] | 122,455 |
| Communists and Jews liquidated by State Pol. and Security Service Tilsit during search actions |
5,502 |
| ------ | |
| 135,567" |
Operation Report No. 190, speaking of the activities of Einsatzgruppe D, announces quite matter-of-factly that, in the second half of March 1942, a total of 1,501 people were executed, and then adds, perhaps boredly: "Total number shot up to date, 91,678." (NO-3359)
Descanting on the activities of Einsatzgruppe A, around Leningrad, Operation Report No. 150 declares: " There is no longer any Jewish civil population." (NO-2834)
Activity and Situation Report No. 9, covering the period of January 1942, apprised Berlin:
"In White Ruthenia the purge of Jews is in full swing. The number of Jews in the Territory handed over to the Civil authorities up to now, amounts to 139,000. 32,210 Jews were shot meanwhile by the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD. "
"The systematic mopping up of the Eastern Territories embraced, in accordance with the basic orders, the complete removal, if possible, of Jewry. This goal has been substantially attained -- with the exception of White Russia -- as a result of the execution up to the present time, of 229,052 Jews."
Describing the operations in White Ruthenia, Einsatzgruppe A complained that it did not take over this area until a heavy frost
The report-writer almost wistfully complains that the Jews were unreasonable in not coming themselves over these long distances to present themselves for shooting. In spite of all the difficulties, however, the report ends up with: "Nevertheless, 41,000 Jews have been shot up to now." (NO-2934)
So inured had the executioners become to the business of death that in one report, where the question of setting up a ghetto was concerned, the report-writer communicated that in getting things started there would be "executions of a minor nature of 50 to 100 persons only". (NO-2934)
Report No. 155, dated January 14, 1942, disclosed that in Audrini --
"On 2 January, at the order of Einsatzgruppe A of the Security Police and the Security Service, the village was completely burned down after removal of foodstuffs, etc., and all the villagers shot. 301 men were publicly shot in the market square of the neighboring town, Rossitten."
The report ends on the very casual note:
"All these actions were carried out without incident."
The report-writer who narrates the harrowing details of this appalling massacre ends up with the phrase:
"The transaction was carried out without friction -"
and then adds, as he is about to put away the typewriter:
"No incidents occurred."
"I have no idea. I assume that the Roumanians wanted to get rid of them and sent then into the German territory so that we would have to shoot them, and we would have the trouble of shooting them. We didn't want to do that. We didn't want to do the work for the Roumanians, and we never did, nor at all other places where something similar happened. We refused it and, therefore, we sent them back."
"The RSHA played a leading part in the 'final solution' of the Jewish question by the extermination of the Jews. A special section, under the AMT IV of the RSHA was established to supervise this program. Under its direction, approximately six million Jews were murdered of which two million were killed by Einsatzgruppen and other units of the Security Police." (Emphasis supplied)
totals, but he presented no evidence to attack numbers presented by other Einsatzgruppen. Reference must also be made to the statement of the defendant Heinz Schubert who not only served as adjutant to Ohlendorf in the field from October 1941 to June 1942, but who continued in the same capacity of adjutant in the RSHA, Office Amt II B, for both Ohlendorf and Dr. Hams Emlich, until the end of 1944. If there was any question about the correctness of the figures, this is where the question would have been raised, but Schubert expressed no doubt nor did he say that these individuals who were momently informed in the statistics entertained the slightest doubt about them in any way.
Schubert showed very specifically the care which was taken to prepare the reports and to avoid errors:
"The Einsatzgruppe reported in two ways to the Reich Security Head Office. Once through radio, then in writing. The radio reports were kept strictly secret and, apart from Ohlendorf, his deputy Standartenfuefrer Willi Seibert and the head telegraphist Fritsche, nobody, with the exception of the radio personnel, was allowed to enter the radio station. This is the reason why only the above-mentioned persons had knowledge of the exact contents of these radio reports. The reports were dictated directly to Fritsche by Ohlendorf or Seibert. After the report had been sent off by Fritsche I received it for filing. In cases in which numbers of executions were reported a space was left open, so that I never knew the total amount of persons killed. The written reports were sent to Berlin by courier. These reports contained exact details and descriptions of the places, the course of the operations, losses, number of places destroyed and persons killed, arrest of agents, reports on interrogations, reports on the civilian sector, etc."
The defendant Blume testified that he completely dismissed the thought of ever filing a false report because he regarded that as unworthy of himself.
population." Cities, towns and villages were combed by the kommandos and when all Jews in that particular community were killed, the report-writer laconically telegraphed or wrote to Berlin that the section in question was "freed of Jews." Sometimes the extermination area covered a whole country like Esthonia or a large territory like the Crimea. In determining the numbers killed in a designation of this character one needs merely to study the atlas and the census of the period in question. Sometimes the area set aside for an execution operation was arbitrarily set according to kommandos. Thus one finds in the reports such entries as: "The fields of activity of the kommandos is freed of all Jews."
Musmanno, Michael A., U.S.N.R, Military Tribunal II, Case 9: Opinion and Judgment of the Tribunal. Nuremberg: Palace of Justice. 8 April 1948. pp. 22 - 28 (original mimeographed copy)
Ken Lewis