The SS Einsatzgruppen

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The SS Einsatzgruppen – “Action Groups”

“Concurrent with the start-up of the euthanasia exterminations, Hitler authorized Himmler to establish a Race and Resettlement Office under the aegis of the SS. It was the Race and Resettlement Office that was to be responsible for the `racial’ purification of the Reich and the establishment of a Nordic empire. On October 17, 1939, Keitel summoned the victorious Wehrmacht generals for a lecture from the Fuehrer, who ranted: `The increased severity of the racial struggle permits of no legal restrictions. Jews, Poles, and similar trash are to be cleared from the old and new Reich territories.’ Eight million Poles and 800,000 Jews were to be transported from the annexed portion of Poland into the government-general, and replaced by ethnic Germans repatriated from the Baltic lands, the Balkans, Russia, and the Italian Tyrol – even though, in large part, these Germans had emigrated generations before.

RELATED ON REMEMBER.ORG

From Sidney Iwens about Witnessing in Lithuania and Latvia…:

“Throughout the war it seemed very important to me, as it did to many others, that there be left an authentic record of what actually happened to us. And although we had very little hope of survival and the ability to tell all, something compelled me to record dates and make notations on scraps of paper. In effect this became a crude sort of diary. Even in the midst of these experiences, part of my mind seemed to be observing, and committing to memory in sharp detail, the events I was witnessing.”

“How Dark the Heavens” is a journal of survival, divided into 1400 days

Sidney Iwen’s Biography

To `render harmless’ the Polish intelligentsia, political and religious leaders, Jews, and anyone else who might, theoretically, rally and opposition, Heydrich established SS Einsatzgruppen (action groups). The Einsatzgruppen rampaged over the land, terrorizing and killing.

Selections for execution were haphazard. Sometimes the commandos erred and included ethnic Germans whom they mistook for Jews. Shootings were carried out publicly to heighten the climate of fear.

A Wehrmacht intelligence officer reported: `Arrests were almost always accompanied by looting. Evacuations were carried out and blocks of houses were cleared at random, the inhabitants loaded into lorries at night, then taken to concentration camps. Actions against the Jews were carried out with the most serious excesses. A number of Jews were driven into a synagogue, where they had to crawl, singing, between the benches. Forced to take down their trousers, they were continuously whipped by the SS men on their bare behinds. A Jew who out of fright dirtied himself was forced to smear the excrement onto the faces of the other Jews.

`After about fifty Jews, who had been used during the day to repair a bridge, finished their work in the evening, two SS men drove them into a synagogue and shot them all without any reason.’

JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. Conot, Robert E. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. pp 211-212

The effectiveness of these Einsatzgruppen can be determined from the following report:

The Commander of the security police and the SD Einsatzkommando 3 Kauen [Kaunas], 1 December 1941

THE PERSECUTION AND MASS MURDER OF LITHUANIAN JEWS DURING
SUMMER AND FALL OF 1941: SOURCES AND ANALYSIS
Christoph Dieckmann and Saulius Sužiedelis

This 128 page PDF gives deep documentation about the Einsatzgruppen including this:

Documentation of The Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jewry

by the SS Einsatzgruppen – “Action Groups”

from a Secret Reich Letter

The Commander of the Security Police and the SD Einsatzkommando 3
Kauen [Kaunas, Kovno] 1 December 1941
====================
Secret Reich Business
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5 copies
————- 4th copy ————-

Complete list of executions carried out in the EK 3 area up to 1 December 1941.

Security police duties in Lithuania taken over by Einsatzkommando 3 on 2 July 1941. (The Wilna [Vilnius] area was taken over by EK 3 on 9 Aug. 1941, the Schaulen area on 2 Oct. 1941. Up until these dates EK 9 operated in Wilna and EK 2 in Schaulen.) On my instructions and orders the following executions were conducted by Lithuanian partisans:

Following the formation of a raiding squad under the command of SS-Obersturmfuhrer Hamman and 8-10 reliable men from the Einsatzkommando the following actions were conducted in cooperation with Lithuanian partisans:

[ * Date is European format: Day.Month.Year]

———————————————————————— ————————–

Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families. The distance between from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 to 5 Km.

I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned. Those working Jews and Jewesses still available are needed urgently and I can envisage that after the winter this workforce will be required even more urgently. I am of the view that the strelization programme of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If despite sterlization a Jewess becomes pregnant she will be liquidated.

(signed) Jager
SS-Standartenfuhrer

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