Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  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

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  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:

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  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

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  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

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  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