Einsatzgruppen

*The **Einsatzgruppen*** were a paramilitary group in Nazi Germany created by the notorious Nazi SS-Gestapo Officer Reinhard Heydrich . They were part of the *Schutzstaffel* (SS).  They helped make The Holocaust happen by murdering about 12 million people throughout Europe.  Almost all of the people they killed were civilians.

Sometimes, the *Einsatzgruppen* would kill only a few people at once.  Other times, they would kill thousands of people in a few days.  For example, at Babi Yar, the *Einsatzgruppen* killed 33,771 Jewish people in two days.

Most of the people the *Einsatzgruppen* killed were Jews.  They killed between 5 and 6 million Jews.p.&nbsp;257   However, they also killed hundreds of thousands of Polish people, Soviets, and Roma people in Eastern Europe.

After Nazi Germany lost World War II, 24 leaders of the *Einsatzgruppen* were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials.  Sixteen were convicted.  Fourteen were sentenced to death, and two were sentenced to life in prison.  Other countries later tried four other *Einsatzgruppen* leaders, convicted them, and sentenced them to death.

At first, in October 1938, Heydrich sent the *Einsatzgruppen* to the Sudetenland.  Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, wanted to take over the Sudetenland.  He was ready to use the Nazi military to invade the area.  However, in the Munich Agreement, world powers agreed that Hitler could have the Sudetenland.  The *Einsatzgruppen* helped take over government buildings, and took all the government papers they could find.  They also arrested about 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens.pp.&nbsp;405, 412

From September to December 1939, the *Einsatzgruppen* took part in the Nazis' Action T4 program.  The Nazis believed that people with physical, intellectual, and mental disabilities did not deserve to live.  Action T4 was a plan to kill them all.  At first, the *Einsatzgruppen* and other Nazis shot these people.  However, by spring of 1940, the Nazis started using gas chambers so they could kill people with disabilities more quickly.pp.&nbsp;138–141

## Invasion of Poland
In 1939, Hitler decided to invade Poland.  Heydrich decided the *Einsatzgruppen* would follow the regular German Army.p.&nbsp;144 Adolf Hitler said: "...there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed[.]"pp.&nbsp;430–432

Finally, the *Einsatzgruppen* forced the surviving Jews in Poland to move to ghettos in big Polish citiies. The Nazis planned to get rid of all the Jews in Poland, but they had not yet decided where to send them.pp.&nbsp;227–228, 242-245  With the help of the German Army, the *Einsatzgruppen* also forced tens of thousands of Jews eastward into the part of Poland that the Soviet Union had taken over.pp.&nbsp;95–96

In May 1941, Heydrich gave the *Einsatzgruppen* an order to kill the Jews in the Soviet Union.p.&nbsp;177
# To take control of all of the offices and papers that belonged to the Soviet Union and the Communist Party;
# To kill all of the top leaders of the Soviet Union; and
# To start and encourage pogroms (riots and murders) against Jews

The *Einsatzgruppen* did these jobs in many ways.  Sometimes, they would make lists of people who they thought were enemies, and would then murder them.  Other times, they would perform massacres of thousands of people over a few days.  For example, at Babi Yar, one *Einsatzgruppen* battalion killed 33,771 Jews in two days; in the Rumbula massacre, another killed about 25,000 people in two days.

File:Piaśnica digging of the graves.jpg|*Einsatzgruppen* force Poles, Jews, Czechs, and Germans to dig their own graves in Piaśnica, Poland
File:Piaśnica execution.jpg|The *Einsatzgruppen* killed 12,000-16,000 people at Piaśnica
File:Friedrich Jeckeln in Soviet custody.JPG|Friedrich Jeckeln organized both the Babi Yar and Rumbula massacres
File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F016206-0003, Russland, Deportation von Juden.jpg|Soviet Jewish women and children being forced out of their homes

## More *Einsatzgruppen* are created
As the Nazis took over more and more countries, they created more *Einsatzgruppen*.  They also created smaller groups called *Einsatzkommando* and *Sonderkommando*.  These included:
* *Einsatzgruppe E*, which worked in the Independent State of Croatia
* *Einsatzgruppe G*, in Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine
* *Einsatzgruppen Jugoslawien* and *Serbien*, in Yugoslavia
* *Einsatzkommando Luxemburg*, in Luxembourg
* *Einsatzgruppe Norwegen*, in Norway
* *Einsatzkommando Tilsit*, in Lithuania and Poland

## Killings in the Soviet Union
### Orders to kill
After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the *Einsatzgruppen*s main job was still to kill civilians, like they did in Poland.  However, this time, Heydrich ordered the *Einsatzgruppen* to kill:

* Commissars (officers in the Soviet government)
* All top and middle- members of Comintern, a group that supported world communism
* All top and middle-ranking members of the Communist Party
* All extremist Communist Party members
* All Jews that held jobs in the government or the Community Party

Between July 8 and July 17, Heydrich also ordered the *Einsatzgruppen* to kill:
* All male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45

### Killings
The Red Army retreated.  However, Heydrich thought there were Soviet guerrilla fighters still in the area and thought local Jews were helping them.  He ordered the *Einsatzgruppen* to encourage anti-Jewish pogroms in the newly occupied territories.  Pogroms (some of which the *Einsatzgruppen* started) broke out in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

Groups like the Arājs Kommando were created in Lithuania and Estonia too.  With their help, *Einsatzgruppe A* was able to kill almost every Jew in its area.

## Related pages
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