taken place in Fort VII of the fortress of Kaunas since 4 July had been carried
out ‘by the Lithuanian partisans but on my orders and arranged by me’; 37
according to Jäger’s own list, 2,530 Jewish men and 47 women fell victim to
these shootings. From 7 July onwards, Jäger went on to report, a group of
men in his commando had also begun to carry out mass executions ‘in
cooperation with the Lithuanian partisans’ outside the city of Kaunas, which
claimed a total of more than 1,400 people, mostly Jewish men, in the month
of July.
Einsatzgruppe A was additionally supported by a commando that was made
up of members of the SD and the Gestapo and had been put together in the
city of Tilsit near the German border, thus receiving the name Einsatzkom-
mando Tilsit. In the towns of Gargždai (Garsden), Kretinga (Krottingen), and
(Palanga) Polangen (in the area immediately over the border with Lithuania),
on 24, 25, and 27 June, this unit executed respectively 201, 214, and 111
civilians, mostly Jewish men, by way of ‘reprisal’ for alleged attacks by
civilians on units from the advancing Wehrmacht. 38 In the days that followed, Einsatzkommando Tilsit carried out further ‘cleansing operations’ in the
border zone, including operations on 2 July in Taurage (Tauroggen), on 3
July in Jurbarkas (Georgenburg) and Augustowo, as well as in Marijampole
and Wladislawo, 39 during which an incident report, dated 18 July, claims 3,302
people were shot. 40
More executions by the commando are documented for the whole of July, in
many towns and villages, overwhelmingly of Jewish men. 41 The fact that in reports on later shootings carried out in the border zone the data for some towns only
includes the numbers of women, older men, and children, and not men of military
age, is an indication that the first wave of shootings had already claimed all the
Jewish men in that age-group. 42
These executions were fully in alignment with the intentions of the SS
leadership. A telex from the Gestapo office in Tilsit dated 1 July makes it clear
that Himmler and Heydrich had visited the border zone at the end of June, had
been informed about the ‘measures taken’ and had ‘fully approved’ them. 43 A few days later Heydrich expressly confirmed in a written order that the executions carried out by the Einsatzkommando Tilsit were in accordance with his
instructions: in Order No. 6 he informed the Einsatzgruppe chiefs that he had
‘authorized the eastern commanders of the SPSD (Security Police and SD) and
the state police offices to undertake cleansing operations in the newly occupied
areas opposite their border zones in order to relieve pressure on the Einsatz-
gruppen and Einsatzkommandos, and above all to ensure their freedom of
movement’. 44
198
Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941
Einsatzgruppe B
All four of the commandos under Einsatzgruppe B can be shown to have
undertaken mass executions of Jewish men during the month of July. 45
Sonderkommando 7 was responsible for what an incident report calls ‘the
complete liquidation of male Jewry’ in Vilejka by the end of June or early July
1941. 46 The same commando was responsible for shooting 332 Jews in Vitebsk at the end of July or early in August, 47 and for a subsequent ‘operation’ in Grodek (Gorodok) in which 150–200 Jewish men were shot. 48 Mass shootings of Jewish men by Sonderkommando 7 are documented in Borisov (in July) and in the area
around Orsha/Mogilev (late July or early August). 49
At the beginning of July Einsatzkommando 8 initiated in Bialystok alone two
‘operations’ in which German courts established that at least 800 and 100 Jewish
men were shot dead; thereafter there were two executions in Baranowicze each
with at least 100 victims. The commando was involved in mass shootings in Minsk
at the end of July and in August during which more than 1,000 Jews were killed. 50
A sub-unit of Einsatzkommando 8 was sent to Slonim in the middle of July where,
according to an incident report of 24 July, 51 ‘in cooperation with the Order Police a major operation was conducted against Jews and other Communist elements in
which c.2,000 persons were arrested for Communist subversion and looting; 1,075
of them were liquidated on the same day’. 52 The leader of Einsatzkommando 8, Otto Bradfisch, testified in respect of this operation that he had already ascertained during the march to Minsk that there was no express order ‘to annihilate
the Jewish population of a town or area solely on the grounds of their racial
identity’, but that orders from Einsatzgruppe B were in practice interpreted so
broadly that ‘every Jew was to be seen as a danger to combat troops and therefore
liquidated’. 53 The Commander of Einsatzgruppe B, Artur Nebe, believed in interpreting the orders ‘sent from above as if in some places and districts all Jews were
to be exterminated irrespective of age or sex’. 54
A statement made in 1966 by Higher SS and Police Commander for Russia
Centre, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, indicates that Nebe’s attitude is attribut-
able to an instruction from Himmler. According to Bach, Himmler had told Nebe
as early as his visit to Bialystok (8 July) that ‘every Jew must in principle be
regarded as a partisan’, 55 and three days later the commander of Police Regiment Centre, whose headquarters were in Bialystok, gave the order for the ‘immediate
summary shooting of all male Jews aged between 17 and 45 convicted of looting’. 56
These orders therefore opened the way for the annihilation of all those members
of the Jewish population who were fit for military service without further condi-
tions.
A report by Einsatzgruppe B from July 1941 contains information about the
activities of Einsatzkommando 9 in Vilnius:57 ‘The Einsatzkommando in Vilnius The Mass Murder of Jewish Men
199
has liquidated 321 Jews there in the period up to 8 July. The Lithuanian order
police, who were placed under the command of the Einsatzkommando after the
disbandment of the Lithuanian political police, were ordered to take part in the
liquidation of the Jews. For this purpose 150 Lithuanian officials were assigned to
capture the Jews and get them to concentration camps where they were subjected
to special treatment on the same day. This work has now begun and more than
500 Jews and other saboteurs are now being liquidated daily.’ The total number of
Jews killed in Vilnius by Einsatzkommando 9 and Lithuanians during July—
mostly men—was at least 4,000–5,000, 58 but is thought to be as many as 10,000.59
It is also demonstrable that Himmler intervened directly in the case of Einsatz-
kommando 9 in order to increase the number of executions. In a report from early
July on the activities of a sub-unit of Einsatzkommando 9 that had been sent to the
towns of Grodno and Lida the leader of Einsatzgruppe B notes, ‘in Grodno and
Lida only 96 Jews were liquidated in the first few days. I have given the order for
this to be greatly intensified’. 60 The background to this order was the fact that on a visit to Grodno on 30 June Himmler and Heydrich criticized deficiencies in the
work of the commando; in a general task order issued on 1 July Heydrich
demanded ‘greater flexibility in the tactical disposition of the Einsatzkommandos’
and d
eplored the fact that four days after the occupation there were still no
members of the Security Police and SD in Grodno. 61 On 9 July Himmler and Heydrich visited Grodno once more, 62 and were evidently reassured that the order for Einsatzgruppe B to intensify liquidations had by then been implemented.
According to the incident report: ‘The activity of all commandos has developed
satisfactorily. Above all, the liquidations have got going properly and now take
place in large numbers daily. The implementation of the necessary [!] liquidations
is guaranteed under all circumstances.’ This passage makes very clear how only a
few weeks after the start of the Russian campaign there was a perception that
certain liquidation targets had to be systematically attained.
Einsatzgruppe C
All four of the commandos under Einsatzgruppe C can be shown to have
undertaken mass executions of Jewish men during the month of July. 63 Even before then, on 30 June in Dobromil, on the orders of the Higher SS and Police
Commander Russia South, Friedrich Jeckeln, and the leader of Einsatzgruppe C,
Otto Rasch, Einsatzkommando 6 shot at least 80 Jewish men as a ‘reprisal’ for
alleged attacks by departing Soviet troops. 64
Einsatzkommandos 5 and 6 both participated in the massacre of the Lvov Jews,
which was again mainly organized by Jeckeln and the officers of Einsatzgruppe C. 65
The reason given for this massacre in the incident reports was that it was a
‘reprisal’ for murders of Ukrainian nationalists that had been committed in the
city prisons by Soviets immediately before their departure. The reports record:
200
Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941
‘approximately 7,000 Jews were rounded up and shot by the Security Police as a
reprisal for [these] inhuman atrocities. . . . Those seized were mostly Jews between
20 and 40; craftsmen and those in specialist trades were exempted where appro-
priate.’66 After taking part in the Lvov massacre, Einsatzkommando 5 undertook
‘operations’ in Berdichev and surrounding districts, 67 including Chmielnik, where 299 people, mostly Jews, were shot in a ‘reprisal’ operation. 68
After its deployment in Lvov, Einsatzkommando 6 spent the second half of
July in Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, where it carried out further executions, notably
one with 146 victims and another that claimed the lives of 600 Jews. 69
According to its own reports, at the end of June 1941 Sonderkommando 4a had
shot more than 300 people in executions carried out in Sokal—people who had
first been classified as ‘Communists’ and then as ‘Jewish Communists’. 70 At the beginning of July, again according to its own reports, the commando shot a total
of 2,000 Jews in Lutsk ‘as a counter-measure for the murder of Ukrainians’. 71 It then moved on to Zhitomir, where it carried out three ‘operations’ in July, in
which more than 600 Jewish men were murdered, and another on 7 August, when
402 Jews were shot. 72 In the second half of July, Sonderkommando 4b shot at least 100 people in Vinnitsa as part of the so-called ‘intelligence operation’. 73 The report on this operation makes clear how arbitrarily the Einsatzkommandos went about
their attacks on the ‘Jewish-Bolshevist leadership cadre’. After ‘trawling the city
for leading Jewish figures produced a less than satisfactory result’, the report says,
the commando leader ‘sent for the city’s principal Rabbi and directed him to
identify the whole of the Jewish intelligentsia within 24 hours, because this
information was needed for registration purposes. When the first batch proved
to be numerically insufficient, those members of the Jewish intelligentsia who had
presented themselves were sent away with the instruction that they should identify
more of their kind themselves and present themselves along with these people the
following day. This measure was then used a third time with the result that we
were able to seize and liquidate virtually all the Jewish intelligentsia.’74
The first summary report on the activities of Einsatzgruppe C in ‘the Polish and
Russian parts of White Ruthenia [Belarus]’ from early July 1941 contains an
important indication that the staff of the Einsatzgruppe understood the execution
orders to mean that they did not only affect Jews ‘in Party and state posts’. ‘On the
basis of the instructions received from the Reich Security Head Office, function-
aries of the state and Party apparatus were liquidated in all the towns of Belarus
already mentioned. As for the Jews, they were treated in the same way, as the
orders directed. ’75
In the incident report for 20 August Einsatzgruppe C described a ‘measure’
that reveals just how spurious the term ‘reprisal’ was as grounds for action.
‘In Januszpol, a city with more than 25 per cent Jewish inhabitants, Jewish
women have in recent days displayed impertinent and insolent behaviour
with respect to the restrictions currently imposed on them. They tore their
The Mass Murder of Jewish Men
201
own and their children’s clothes from their bodies. As an interim reprisal
measure, the commando that arrived, once order had been re-established,
shot 15 male Jews. Further reprisals will follow.’76 The report ultimately makes it plain that ‘reprisal measures against looters and Jews will continue
to be carried out as planned [!] as they have already been’, 77 and that these
‘reprisal measures’ were taken systematically and independently of the nature
of the situation on the spot. 78
Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes
In addition to the four commandos in the Einsatzgruppe, there was an additional
commando under the leader of the Security Police in Cracow, which had been sent
into the eastern Polish area to support Einsatzgruppe C. 79 It too was carrying out mass executions by July, overwhelmingly of male Jews, as the incident report of 3
August documents: ‘between 21 and 31 July 1941 3,947 persons were liquidated.’80
According to an incident report of 9 August, 510 people were killed in Brest-
Litovsk and another 296 in Bialystok. 81
The reports made from early August on by this commando from the eastern
Polish area, which was immediately named Einsatzkommando for Special Pur-
poses, show very clearly how excessive the ‘reprisals’ were at this point and how
this was merely a pretext for mass murder: ‘in the area around Pinsk one member
of the militia was shot in an ambush; 4,500 Jews were liquidated in return. ’82
Einsatzgruppe D
Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army, which together with two Roma-
nian armies was to form the southernmost spearhead of the invasion. Its activity
has to be assessed against the background of Romania’s radical anti-Semitic
politics: Romania was an ally that had pursued a policy of ‘solving’ the ‘Jewish
question since the outbreak of war against the Soviet Union using a mixture of
pogroms, massacres, and violent expulsions. The potential for anti-Semitic vio-
lence that was thereby released was considerable during the first few weeks of the
war; whilst the German Einsatzgruppen mostly directed their measures during the
first weeks of the war at members of the ‘leading’ Jewish social groups and only
then extended the range of the murders to include men of military age, th
e
Romanian attack was directed at the whole of the Jewish minority from the very
beginning.
On 28 July Romanian soldiers and civilians, supported by members of the
Wehrmacht, carried out a pogrom in the border city of Jasi that had been prepared
by the Romanian secret service. There were countless murders within the city, a
mass execution in the courtyard of the police headquarters, and during the
subsequent transports in crowded goods trains that shuttled back and forth all
202
Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941
day in the scorching heat, without food and water, thousands of people lost their
lives—4,000 according to the estimate of the German ambassador. 83
Whilst reconquering the areas of Bessarabia and the Bukovina that had been
ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940 under pressure from Moscow, Romanian police
and troops murdered many Jews. They were supported in part by Einsatzgruppe
D and members of the Wehrmacht, but largely acted on their own initiative, but
also supported by Romanian and Ukrainian peasants and farmers. The Romanian
authorities were following a plan dictated by their own government for the
systematic ‘cleansing’ of the country: Jews in rural areas were to be killed on the
spot; those living in cities were to be interned in camps. 84 Raoul Hilberg estimates the total number of victims of this campaign at more than 10,000.85
These murders left a mixed impression with Einsatzgruppe D, as is shown by
one of their reports. ‘There would be no objection to the shooting of numerous
Jews if the technical aspects of preparation and implementation were not so
inadequate.’ It was in that sense that the Einsatzgruppe wished to influence the
activities of the Romanians. 86
All five commandos from Einsatzgruppe D that were assigned to the German
11th Army attacking from Romanian territory or to the two allied Romanian
armies can be shown to have participated in the mass execution of Jewish men
in the period up to the beginning of August 1941.87
In the city of Belzy, as part of a bloody ‘reprisal’ by Romanian police and
soldiers against the city’s Jews in which hundreds were killed, Sonderkommando
Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Page 36
