- Barbarossa groups
- A, B, C, D
- Initial core personnel
- About 3,000
- Jews murdered
- More than one million by the units and close partners
- Broader shooting campaign
- Up to about two million Jews
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Origins and organization
Earlier Einsatzgruppen accompanied German expansion, but the term is most closely associated with four large groups deployed behind German armies invading the Soviet Union in June 1941. The units operated under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) led by Reinhard Heydrich.
Groups A, B, C, and D
Einsatzgruppe A operated through the Baltic region; B followed Army Group Center through Belarus; C operated in northern and central Ukraine; and D operated in southern Ukraine, Crimea and areas farther south. Each was divided into smaller Einsatzkommandos and Sonderkommandos.
From selective killing to family murder
Early operations targeted Communist officials, alleged security threats and many Jewish men. By late summer and autumn 1941, policy had expanded to systematic murder of Jewish women, children and elderly people. Entire communities were marched to pits, ravines, forts, quarries and antitank ditches.
The broader killing apparatus
The roughly 3,000 core personnel could not have murdered on this scale alone. Order Police, Waffen-SS formations, Higher SS and Police Leader staffs, Wehrmacht institutions, civil occupation authorities and local auxiliaries supplied personnel, transport, cordons, identification, property processing and other support.
Major massacre sites
Major sites included Babyn Yar, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Paneriai, Rumbula, Ninth Fort, Liepāja, Minsk, Maly Trostenets and Zmievskaya Balka. The geography of mass shooting makes clear that the Holocaust was not confined to camps.
Reports, gas vans, and evidence
Einsatzgruppen commanders reported killings through Operational Situation Reports. The Jäger Report and Stahlecker Report are especially important perpetrator documents. Gas vans were introduced partly to reduce the psychological and logistical problems that close-range shooting created for perpetrators; shootings nevertheless continued throughout the war.
Postwar trial
Twenty-four leaders were indicted in the 1947–1948 Einsatzgruppen Trial. Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz relied heavily on German records. Otto Ohlendorf, Paul Blobel and others were convicted; only a small fraction of the wider perpetrator network was ever brought to justice.
Sources
This page is based on institutional and scholarly sources. Media credit links point to the original source page.