When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, special killing units called Einsatzgruppen followed right behind the advancing army. These mobile death squads carried out one of the deadliest phases of the Holocaust on Soviet soil.
The Einsatzgruppen murdered over one million civilians in the Soviet Union through mass shootings and other killing methods between 1941 and 1943.
The four main Einsatzgruppen units spread out along the eastern front, from the Baltic states down to southern Ukraine. They worked with SS officers, police units, and local helpers to identify and kill Jewish civilians, Soviet officials, and other targeted groups.
Their actions marked a shift from earlier Nazi persecution to systematic mass murder. You can’t really overstate how much this changed the scale of Nazi crimes.
Understanding how these units operated shows the organized nature of Nazi genocide in Eastern Europe. The way they formed, deployed, and worked with German military forces reveals how the Holocaust expanded during the war.
The legacy of their crimes still shapes how we remember this period of history. It’s honestly hard to wrap your mind around the scale.
Formation and Structure of the Einsatzgruppen
The Einsatzgruppen grew out of earlier Nazi security operations and turned into four organized battalions for the Soviet invasion. Reinhard Heydrich created these mobile units under SS command, assigning specific leadership roles and a clear chain of authority.
Origins Prior to the Soviet Union Campaign
The Einsatzgruppen started as smaller units called Einsatzkommando back in March 1938. Reinhard Heydrich set up these first groups to secure government buildings and documents during the Anschluss in Austria.
The idea expanded during the 1939 invasion of Poland. These early units aimed to identify enemies of German rule and stop sabotage.
They also recruited local collaborators and built up intelligence networks. Franz Six led the first Einsatzgruppe in Austria, and his success there convinced Nazi leaders of the value of these mobile security units.
The Polish campaign showed that these units could work alongside regular army forces. They operated next to Wehrmacht troops but kept their own command structures under the SS and Sicherheitspolizei.
By 1941, Nazi planners saw these mobile units as essential for the Soviet invasion. Heinrich Himmler and Heydrich expanded the concept into four large battalions specifically for the eastern front.
Organizational Hierarchy and Command
The Einsatzgruppen operated under the SS, through the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst. Heinrich Himmler held overall authority as Reichsführer-SS, while Heydrich managed daily operations.
Four main units covered the Soviet front from north to south:
- Einsatzgruppe A: Northern sector
- Einsatzgruppe B: Central sector
- Einsatzgruppe C: Southern sector
- Einsatzgruppe D: Far southern sector
Each Einsatzgruppe had about 750 men. They included members from the SS, Sicherheitsdienst, Sicherheitspolizei, and regular police forces.
The units worked closely with Wehrmacht commanders but kept their own chains of command. This independence let them operate freely while still coordinating with army movements.
Local police and civilian authorities pitched in, too. The Ordnungspolizei and Waffen SS units often helped with bigger operations.
Key Leadership Figures
Reinhard Heydrich created and controlled the Einsatzgruppen as chief of the Sicherheitsdienst. He reported directly to Heinrich Himmler and developed the operational methods used across all units.
Heinrich Himmler provided overall SS authority for the program. As Reichsführer-SS, he made sure the units had resources and political backing from Adolf Hitler.
Each Einsatzgruppe had its own commander who answered to Heydrich. These leaders came from SS ranks and had experience in security operations.
Franz Six led the early development work based on his success in Austria. His methods became the standard for later units.
The commanders worked with Wehrmacht officers to coordinate movements. They also handled relationships with local collaborators and auxiliary police forces in occupied territories.
These leadership structures let the units act efficiently across huge distances. The clear command hierarchy made fast decisions and coordinated actions possible between different groups.
Deployment During the Invasion of the Soviet Union
The Einsatzgruppen deployment began with Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. Four main units followed the Wehrmacht into Soviet territory, each with specific regional assignments and objectives to eliminate perceived enemies behind German lines.
Preparations and Objectives in Operation Barbarossa
Nazi leadership planned the Soviet invasion as an ideological war of destruction. Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office, gave clear orders to the Einsatzgruppen commanders months before the attack.
The units got instructions to kill specific groups in a systematic way. Primary targets included Jewish civilians, Roma populations, Soviet Communist Party officials, and state workers.
The Nazis saw these groups as racially or politically dangerous to German control. Heydrich emphasized that this campaign would be different from earlier operations in Poland.
The scale and brutality would go far beyond anything before. The German leadership expected the Einsatzgruppen to operate behind advancing army units.
They would secure conquered territory by removing people the Nazis considered threats to their new order. Planning took place over six months before Operation Barbarossa began.
The mass murder of Soviet Jews was part of the invasion strategy from the very start.
Coordination with the Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht provided crucial support for Einsatzgruppen operations. Army units supplied food, fuel, transportation, and other logistics the killing squads needed.
Military commanders received orders to cooperate with the Einsatzgruppen. This cooperation let the mobile units move quickly behind advancing German forces across the vast Soviet territories.
The German army’s rapid advance opened up new areas for the Einsatzgruppen. Wehrmacht units often helped identify targets and provided security during mass killings.
Some army officers objected to the brutality they saw. Still, most military leaders followed orders and kept up the cooperation that allowed large-scale murders.
The relationship between regular army units and the Einsatzgruppen stayed complicated throughout the campaign. Both groups worked toward the same goal of German control over Soviet territory.
Assignment of Einsatzgruppen Units
Four battalion-sized Einsatzgruppen got specific regional assignments across the Soviet front. Each unit operated in coordination with higher SS and police leaders in their areas.
Einsatzgruppe A moved from East Prussia through the Baltic states toward Leningrad. They carried out massacres in Kovno, Riga, and Vilna as they advanced through Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Einsatzgruppe B began operations from Warsaw in occupied Poland. The unit moved east through Belorussia toward Smolensk, murdering Jews in Grodno, Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, and other cities.
Einsatzgruppe C started from the Krakow area and headed across Ukraine toward Kiev and Donetsk. They killed thousands in Lvov, Tarnopol, Kharkov, and Kiev during their advance.
Einsatzgruppe D operated in southern Ukraine. This unit extended killing operations to cities including Nikolayev, Kherson, Simferopol, and Sevastopol.
Local police auxiliaries and other German police and security units supported each Einsatzgruppe. This extra manpower let the relatively small mobile units carry out massive killing operations across their assigned territories.
Mass Murder and Key Atrocities
The Einsatzgruppen killed over 1.5 million people across Soviet territories through systematic shooting operations and gas vans. Their main targets included Jewish communities, Communist officials, Roma populations, and anyone the Nazis saw as an enemy of German rule.
Local collaborators often helped identify and execute victims.
Targeted Victims and Methods of Killing
Primary Targets:
- Jews of all ages and genders (the majority of victims)
- Communist Party officials
- Soviet state administrators
- Roma populations
- Intellectuals and clergy
The Einsatzgruppen used mass shootings as their main killing method. They forced victims to dig their own graves before execution.
Groups marched to pit edges and were shot so their bodies fell straight into the mass graves. The process went like this:
- Roundup at central locations
- Transport to killing sites
- Forced grave digging
- Stripping of valuables and clothing
- Group shooting at pit edges
Gas vans offered another method. These vehicles pumped carbon monoxide into sealed compartments during transport to burial sites.
But this method was slower and required personnel to remove bodies and clean up afterward. Mass shootings remained the preferred method.
Local Collaborators and Auxiliary Forces
The 3,000 Einsatzgruppen members couldn’t conduct mass murder alone. They relied heavily on local help and German military units.
Key Collaborating Forces:
- Waffen SS units – provided more manpower
- Order Police – helped with roundups and executions
- Wehrmacht soldiers – secured areas and transported victims
- Ukrainian auxiliaries – identified local Jewish populations
- Lithuanian militia – joined in mass shootings
- Latvian police battalions – conducted arrests and executions
Local collaborators played a big role in identifying victims. Many lived in the same communities as those targeted.
Neighbors pointed out Jewish families trying to hide. Former colleagues identified Communist Party members.
Romanian forces also helped Einsatzgruppen operations in Moldova and southern Ukraine. Estonian and Belarusian auxiliary police helped secure rural areas and find victims.
Notorious Massacres: Babi Yar and Beyond
Babi Yar Massacre stands as the largest single Einsatzgruppen operation. On September 29-30, 1941, Einsatzgruppe C killed 33,771 Jews in a ravine outside Kiev, Ukraine.
Multiple units worked together in this operation. Ukrainian auxiliaries helped identify victims and control crowds.
Waffen SS and Order Police provided security and more shooters.
Other Major Massacres:
- Ponary, Lithuania – 70,000 victims, mostly Jews from Vilnius
- Rumbula, Latvia – 25,000 Riga Jews killed in November 1941
- Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine – 23,600 Jews murdered in August 1941
- Drobitsky Yar, Ukraine – 15,000 victims near Kharkiv
Each massacre followed similar patterns. Victims received orders to report for “resettlement.” Families brought belongings and gathered at collection points.
Transport trucks took them to remote killing sites. The scale of these operations often overwhelmed local burial capacity.
Geographic Scope of Operations
Einsatzgruppen operations covered huge areas across Eastern Europe. Four main groups split responsibilities by region.
Operational Areas:
- Einsatzgruppe A – Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
- Einsatzgruppe B – Belarus and central Russia
- Einsatzgruppe C – Northern and central Ukraine
- Einsatzgruppe D – Southern Ukraine, Moldova, Crimea
The units followed German army advances eastward. They set up temporary headquarters in major cities.
Local offices coordinated with civilian administrators once the Germans took control.
Key Cities and Regions:
- Kiev and Kharkiv in Ukraine
- Minsk in Belarus
- Riga and Vilnius in the Baltic states
- Chisinau in Moldova
- Simferopol in Crimea
Operations stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Rural communities were especially vulnerable because escape was nearly impossible.
Jewish populations in small towns often faced complete extermination within days of German arrival.
Role in the Final Solution
The Einsatzgruppen acted as the main agents for carrying out Nazi genocide in the Soviet Union from 1941 onward. Their operations marked the shift from targeted persecution to systematic extermination.
They directly contributed to what became known as the Final Solution.
Transition from Targeted Killings to Systematic Extermination
The Einsatzgruppen started out targeting specific people during the Soviet invasion. Their original mission included killing Communist officials, Jewish leaders, and Polish intellectuals.
By August 1941, Heinrich Himmler visited Einsatzgruppen units across the Soviet Union. During these visits, he expanded their orders to include the complete annihilation of Jewish communities.
The new instructions removed age and gender restrictions from their killing operations. This shift marked a crucial escalation in Nazi policy.
Previous actions had targeted individuals based on their roles or activities. Now, the orders called for murdering entire populations based only on racial identity.
Key Changes in Operations:
- Original targets: Communist officials and Jewish leaders
- Expanded targets: All Jews regardless of age or gender
- Method: Mass shootings of whole communities
- Geographic scope: All occupied Soviet territories
The four Einsatzgruppen units (A, B, C, and D) operated across different regions. Each unit developed efficient killing methods that later influenced extermination camp designs.
Relationship with the Final Solution
The Einsatzgruppen operations came before and influenced the formal Final Solution policy. Their mass murder campaigns in the Soviet Union started in June 1941, months before the Wannsee Conference in January 1942.
These mobile killing units showed that large-scale murder was possible and practical. Their experiences taught Nazi leaders about logistics, methods, and the psychological effects on perpetrators.
The success of Einsatzgruppen operations encouraged Nazi officials to expand systematic killing to all occupied territories.
Their work proved that genocide could be carried out efficiently across vast areas.
Connection to Final Solution Development:
- Provided practical experience in mass murder
- Demonstrated logistical requirements
- Influenced later extermination camp methods
- Set a precedent for territorial genocide
The units killed about one million Jews in the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1942. This enormous death toll happened before extermination camps reached full operation.
Implementation of Nazi Racial Policies
The Einsatzgruppen took Nazi racial theory and put it into brutal action across the Soviet Union. They saw Jews as both racial and ideological enemies of the Reich.
Nazi ideology tied Jewish identity directly to Communist politics. During three-week courses at the Pretzsch police academy, the units got trained in Nazi racial theory. This training pushed them to spot and eliminate so-called racial threats.
The killing squads worked alongside German Army units and local collaborators. Wehrmacht soldiers often handled security and logistics. Sometimes, local people helped identify victims or even took part in the murders.
Racial Policy Implementation:
- Primary targets: Jewish communities
- Secondary targets: Roma populations
- Methods: Mass shootings and mobile gas vans
- Support: German Army and local collaborators
The units operated with broad authority under General Keitel’s March 1941 directive. This order let them act on their own as they carried out their racial elimination mission. Legal immunity for personnel took away any obstacles to extreme violence against civilians.
SS, Police, and Security Apparatus Integration
The Einsatzgruppen ran their operations through a tangled web of Nazi security organizations. Several police and SS units teamed up under centralized command to carry out mass murder across occupied Soviet territory.
Involvement of the SS, Sipo, Orpo, and Police Units
The Einsatzgruppen pulled personnel from different Nazi security branches. SS members made up the core leadership of these mobile killing squads.
Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) sent in experienced criminal investigators and Gestapo officers. These men brought interrogation skills and knew how to spot political enemies.
Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) provided regular uniformed police battalions. These units handled crowd control and boosted manpower for large-scale operations.
The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) sent intelligence officers to identify targets. SD personnel kept lists of Communist Party officials, intellectuals, and other so-called enemies.
Waffen-SS units sometimes helped the Einsatzgruppen. They brought military training and combat experience, especially when local resistance popped up.
| Unit Type | Primary Role | Personnel Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| SS | Leadership, ideology | Commanders, officers |
| Sipo | Investigation | Gestapo, detectives |
| Orpo | Security, logistics | Police battalions |
| SD | Intelligence | Target identification |
Local auxiliary police forces from occupied territories swelled these units’ numbers. German commanders leaned on these collaborators for language skills and local know-how.
Interaction with Other Nazi Security Organizations
The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin ran all Einsatzgruppen operations. RSHA chief Reinhard Heydrich gave direct orders to field unit commanders.
Higher SS and Police Leaders coordinated regional activities. These officials managed the relationships between Einsatzgruppen and regular army units moving through Soviet territory.
The German army gave vital logistical support. Wehrmacht units provided fuel, ammunition, and transportation to Einsatzgruppen personnel during their operations.
Communication moved through established SS command channels. Field commanders regularly sent reports back to Berlin headquarters, documenting killing operations.
Competition sometimes flared up between different security organizations. Jurisdiction disputes happened when several units operated in the same area.
This integrated approach let the Nazis carry out systematic mass murder across huge territories with chilling speed and efficiency.
Aftermath and Historical Legacy
The Einsatzgruppen’s crimes triggered major legal proceedings after the war and left deep scars on collective memory. Post-war trials set important precedents for international justice. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe faced the hard task of remembering these atrocities.
Postwar Prosecutions and Trials
The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial started in 1947 and ran until 1948. This trial focused on the leaders of the four mobile killing units that operated in the Soviet Union.
Twenty-four defendants faced charges like membership in criminal organizations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The prosecution showed how these units murdered over one million civilians in Eastern Europe.
The trial set key legal precedents. It defined systematic murder of civilians as crimes against humanity under international law. The proceedings also documented the scale of mass shootings in occupied Soviet territories.
Key outcomes included:
- 14 death sentences (though only 4 were carried out)
- Multiple life sentences
- Legal framework for future war crimes prosecutions
The trial didn’t get as much attention as the main Nuremberg proceedings. Still, it provided detailed evidence of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Memory and Impact in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
At first, Soviet authorities mostly ignored the fact that Einsatzgruppen targeted Jewish victims. Their official stories just lumped everyone together as “Soviet citizens,” skipping over which ethnic groups actually suffered.
Things shifted after Stalin died in 1953. Memorial sites started to mention Jewish victims more openly.
Babi Yar near Kiev turned into a powerful symbol of what the Einsatzgruppen did. It stands out as a reminder of those atrocities.
Eastern European countries took their own paths when it came to remembering these events. Poland and Czechoslovakia put up memorials where massacres happened.
The Baltic states set up museums that specifically document what the Einsatzgruppen did in their regions.
Modern remembrance includes:
- Educational programs in schools
- Memorial sites at mass grave locations
- Annual commemoration ceremonies
- Academic research centers
These efforts keep the stories of survivors and victims alive. They make sure people today, and in the future, really understand how these mobile killing units operated across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
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