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Volume IV · Page 414
| EINSATZGRUPPEN |
| When the German armies, without any
declaration of war, crossed the Polish frontier and smashed into Russia, there
moved with and behind them a unique organization known as the Einsatzgruppen.
As an instrument of terror in the museum of horror, it would be difficult to
find an entry to surpass the Einsatzgruppen in its blood-freezing
potentialities. No writer of murder fiction, no dramatist steeped in macabre
lore, can ever expect to conjure up from his imagination a plot which will
shock sensibilities as much as will the stark drama of these sinister bands.
They came into being through an agreement between the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office), the OKW (Armed Forces High Command), and the OKH (Army High Command). The agreement specified that a representative of the chief of the security police and security service would be assigned to the respective army groups or armies, and that this official would have at his disposal mobile units in the form of an Einsatzgruppe, sub-divided into Einsatzkommandos and Sonderkommandos. The Kommandos in turn were divided into smaller groups known as Teilkommandos. Only for the purpose of comparison as to size and organization, an Einsatzgruppe could roughly be compared to an infantry battalion, an Einsatz or Sonderkommando to an infantry company, and a Teilkommando to a platoon. These Einsatzgruppen, of which there were four (lettered A to D), were formed, equipped, and fully ready to march before the attack on Russia began. Einsatzgruppe A was led by Stahlecker and later the defendant Jost, operated from central Latvia, Lithuania, and Esthonia towards the East. Einsatzgruppe B, whose chief was Nebe, succeeded by the defendant Naumann, operated in the direction of Moscow in the area adjoining Einsatzgruppe A to the South. Einsatzgruppe C, led by Rasch and later Thomas, operated in the Ukraine, except for the part occupied by Einsatzgruppe D, which last organization, first under the defendant Ohlendorf and then Bierkamp, controlled the Ukraine south of a certain line, which area also included the Crimean peninsula. Later Einsatzgruppe D took over the Caucasus area. These Einsatzgruppen, each comprising roughly from 800 to 1,200 men, were formed under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and SD. The officers were generally drawn from the Gestapo, SD, SS, and the criminal police. The men were recruited from the Waffen SS, the Gestapo, the Order Police, and locally recruited police. In the field, the Einsatzgruppen were authorized to ask for personnel assistance |
