Einsatzgruppen
Travis M.
History
  • Reinhard Heydrich created special task forces called Einsatzgruppen
  • Charged w/ liquidating all political enemies of the Reich
  • Approx. 1.4 million Jews were murdered by wars end in spring of 1943
  • Activities escalated during invasion of Poland
  • Task was to eliminate political opponents & Jews
  • Executed 200+ daily
  • Origin can be traced back to Einsatzkommando
  • Used to secure gov. bldgs. & documents
  • Founded on Oct. 1st, 1938
  • Traveled in wake of German armies, securing gov. papers & offices
  • Ad hoc units recruited from ranks of SS, SD, Ordnungspolizei, Gendarmerie, Kripo, & Gestapo
  • Given several week's or month's training before sent into action
  • Disbanded once military campaign ended
  • Hitler decided to invade Poland and Ein. re-formed
  • Operation Sealion was German plan for invasion of UK (United Kingdom)
  • Was under command of Reinhard Heydrich
  • The gun was the main weapon
  • Eliminated communists, political dissidents, Polish gov. officials, & Jews
  • Most brutal mass extermination was at Babi Yar near Kiev
  • Kiev contained 175,000 Jews & in 2 days 34,000 brought to Babi Yar
  • Babi Yar most appalling massacre of the war
  • Lithuanian, Jews, Jewesses, Jewish children, Russians, Communists, & Partisans were killed
Method of killing
external image 12370.jpgMembers of an Einsatzkommando (mobile killing squad) before shooting a Jewish youth. The boy's murdered family lies in front of him; the men to the left are ethnic Germans aiding the squad. Slarow, Soviet Union, July 4, 1941.
  • 1941 began to commit large-scale massacres mainly in Russian territories
  • 34,000 machine-gunned in 2 days at Babi Yar
  • Camps opened specifically for killing Jews
  • Tortured, dehumanized, and humiliated Jews
  • Hunted down those who refused deportation
  • Graves were dug, shallow pits, or even deep ravines
  • Killed w/ machine guns or pistol shots to the head
  • Covered victims' grave & buried them using hand shovels or bulldozers
  • Victims often injured, not dead & some survived after finding a hiding place
  • Local anti-Semites & collaborators helped w/ killing
After the war
  • SS & Police Leaders oversaw all Ein. activities & reports in given area
  • After WWII a number of SS & PL disappeared, executed for war crimes, or committed suicide before capture
  • Large # of lower ranked were killed in combat, by inmates, captured and executed, or imprisoned & died in Russian camps
  • Lesser ranked returned to Germany or other countries
  • Were not charged (due to large #'s of them)
  • Senior leaders of Ein. put before U.S. occupation courts charged w/ membership in SS
  • Became known as Einsatzgruppen Trial of the Nuremburg Trials

Josh Boyer-Background of the Einzatzgruppen
  • The nazis needed a way to kill their there victims, as part of the final solution, they killed them by shooting them with machine guns and pistols.
  • They had different ways to kill there victims,one was gas chambers.
  • Gas chambers had were disquised as showers, and the prisoners were lead into it, an operator would close and lock an airtight door.
  • Then they would drop pellots down a vent that slowly soffocated them.
  • The victims were forced to dig a shallow grave and sit or stand at the edge of the hole and be shot, and then they would fall into the hole.
  • At first they killed only men, but later they killed women and children also, and the other victims, not just the jewish anymore.
  • They killed jews, poles,slavs, homosexuels, gypsies, russian P.O.Ws, and others
  • There were about 3000 men in the einsatzgruppen.
  • When the germans conquered a jewish town,the einsatzgruppen would round up all the jews and others and take them to the outskirts of the town to murder them.
  • tThe people with mental disabilitys were killed by lethal injection, and the nazis made up fake death certificates and sent them to their familys.
  • Even though most of the people killed in the holocost were jews, about 200,000 were mentally disabled people.
  • The einsatzgruppe killed about 3 million people in the holocost.
  • The einsatzgruppen members were drawn from the SS, and the order police.
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Richard Snyder- HISTORY
  • Eisatzgruppen were operated by the SS (Schutstaffel "Protective Squadron")
  • their main job in WW II was the annihilation of all Jews
  • the einsatzgruppen was formed by the Gestapo (German Secret Police) and the SS
  • even though WW II started in 1933 the Einsatzgruppen wasn't founded until 1938 by the Einsaztkommando and its leader Reinhard Heydrich
  • Einsatzgruppen were under command from German security police and security service officers
  • Einsatzgruppen got their orders from high ranked German government officials and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)