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Volume IV · Page 435
| Jews but did not kill them. He shows the superior methods of the Einsatzgruppe. |
"Only by the Security Police and the SD were the Jews gradually executed as they became no longer required for work." (2273-PS. ) |
| He then adds as an obvious deduction — |
"Today there are no longer any Jews in Esthonia." |
| Just as a heartless tradesman may work a superannuated horse until he has drained from its body the last ounce of utility, so did the action unit in Minsk dispose of the Jews. |
"In Minsk itself — exclusive of Reich Germans — there are about 1,800 Jews living, whose shooting must be postponed in consideration of their being used as labor." (2273-PS.) |
| In White Ruthenia the Kommando leaders were instructed on orders of Heydrich to suspend the killing of Jews until after they had brought in the harvest. |
| INSTIGATION TO POGROMS |
| Certain Einsatzkommandos committed a crime
which, from a moral point of view, was perhaps even worse than their own
directly committed murders, that is, their inciting of the population to abuse,
maltreat, and slay their fellow citizens. To invade a foreign country, seize
innocent inhabitants, and shoot them is a crime, the mere statement of which is
its own condemnation. But to stir up passion, hate, violence, and destruction
among the people themselves, aims at breaking the moral backbone, even of those
the invader chooses to spare. It sows seeds of crime which the invader intends
to bear continuous fruit, even after he is driven out. On the question of criminal knowledge it is significant that some of those responsible for these shameless crimes endeavored to keep them secret. SS Brigadier General Stahlecker, head of Einsatzgruppe A, reporting on activities of Einsatzgruppe A, stated in October 1941 that it was the duty of his security police to set in motion the passion of the population against the Jews. "It was not less important," the report continued, |
"In view of the future to establish the unshakable and provable fact that the liberated population themselves took the most severe measures against the Bolshevist and Jewish enemy quite on their own, so that the directions by German authorities could not be found out." (L-180.) |
| In Riga this same Stahlecker reported: |
"Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against Jews during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be very difficult. Following |
