Part I

On June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. It has been called the “most monstrous war of conquest, enslavement and extermination “ in modern times, notes German historian Jürgen Förster. More than 3 million German soldiers were involved in Operation Barbarossa, which found the Russians surprised, confused and unprepared, historian Richard Breitman points out.

The next day, SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), unleashed approximately 3,000 men of the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units, A, B, C and D) to seek out and destroy the 5 million Jews in Russia, and those in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Poland and the former Russian territories under German occupation, and vanquish civilian resistance. Ninety percent of the Jews in Russia were concentrated in the cities.

The Einsatzgruppen followed behind the advancing Wehrmacht, the German army, to gain the element of surprise. “The Jews are remarkedly ill-informed about our attitude towards them,” reported Sonderführer (Detachment Commander) Schröter from White Russia on July 12, 1941. Thus the effect “was all the more cruel as a result,” stressed German journalist Heinz Höhne.

Within hours, the German military commanded every bridge crossing, border and rivers from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, Breitman said. The Luftwaffe destroyed many Russian planes still parked on the ground, while German tanks sped their way to the east. Western experts were convinced Germany would be victorious within a few months.

In early July, Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev were expected to be in German hands within days. On July 4, Reinhard Heydrich asked Einsatzgruppen B for the names of all soldiers of the Einsatzkommando who would be accompanying the advance troops as they entered Moscow, according to Alfred Streit, Nazi war crimes prosecutor.

Hitler did not envision this be a conventional war, asserts historian Förster. Hitler planned and organized a Vernichtungskrieg (war of annihilation) to achieve his concept of Lebensraum (living space) by conquering Russia. The “idea of acquiring living space,” Förster said, was “inextricably intertwined with the extermination of Bolshevism and the Jewish people, with the doctrine of economic self-sufficiency, and with the strategic necessity of thereby winning the war against Great Britain.”

The difference between the attack against Poland and Operation Barbarossa was that the “line between military and ideological warfare was erased before the first shot was even fired.” Hitler had pardoned the soldiers and SS in Poland after the campaign. In the Soviet Union, “a preemptive amnesty for crimes” had been declared.

Who were the men who commanded the Einsatzgruppen?

The leading figures of the Einsatzgruppen were born between 1900 and 1910. During the war, they were in their 30s or early 40s. Before beginning their careers in the Security Services (SD), Nazi Party intelligence service and police, they worked in medicine, theology, economics, education, business, law and architecture. Members of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the Security Police, the SD, the Gestapo, the Criminal police (Kripo), the uniformed police or Order Police (Ordnungspolizei), the Waffen SS and conscripts unfit for frontline duty, Ronald Headland explains.

The leaders of the Einsatzgruppen and the leaders of the Kommandos had one thing in common: Most had enlisted in the SS, the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party’s initial paramilitary wing, or the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) at the earliest opportunity they could, reflecting the high regard the Nazis were held among students of the Weimar Republic.

Later, most joined the Ministry of the Interior to become public servants. From the ministry, they were randomly selected to be posted in the east, explains German historian Benno Müller-Hill. In Germany, not only lawyers, but prosecutors and judges also hold doctoral degrees in law. The more aspiring public servants have earned them as well.

Einsatzgruppe A, B, C, D

Einsatzgruppe A was commanded first by Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker, a lawyer attached to Army Group North, which operated from the Baltic States to the Leningrad area. He had been an adversary of Reinhard Heydrich, and had been reassigned to the Foreign Ministry. It had approximately 1,000 men. By commanding an Einsatzgruppe, he had hoped to be able to return to the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).

Einsatzgruppe B, commanded by Arthur Nebe (chief of Kripo, the criminal police), was attached to Army Group Center, which operated between Belorussia and Moscow. It had 655 men.

Einsatzgruppe C, commanded by SS General Dr. Otto Emil Rasch, who had two PhDs, was attached to the Army Group Center in northern and central Ukraine. It had 750 men. Einsatzgruppe C carried out the massacre at Babi Yar, where over 33,771 Jews were murdered in two days. Rasch insisted every man in his unit had to participate in the executions as part of its “collective guilt,” according to German historian Heinz Höhne.

Witnessing ghastly scenes together formed a bond that kept the unit together, Rasch believed. “Collective blood guilt was to be its cement.” Höhne said an eyewitness reported that in Einsatzgruppe C, practically everyone experienced “the most horrible dreams.” Nonetheless, the goal had been accomplished—“the camaraderie of guilt.” (Höhne, op.cit 366-367)

“Collective blood guilt,” the idea that bloodshed united warriors together and bound them undyingly to their leader, influenced Hitler, a great admirer of Genghis Khan. Hitler coined the phrase “blood cement,” Breitman stated. Rasch was replaced at the end of 1941 by SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Maximillian Thomas, PhD, with special training in psychiatry, writes Benno Müller-Hill, a German professor of genetics.

Einsatzgruppe D, headed by Professor Otto Ohlendorf, a student of sociology, was attached to the Eleventh Army in southern Ukraine, Crimea and Ciscaucasia. It had about 600 men.

“The Jew-Liquidators”

“The Jew-liquidators … were a curious collection—highly qualified academics, ministerial officials, lawyers and even … [Ernst] Biberstein, [a Lutheran pastor] and an opera singer,” observed Höhne. Nine of the degrees, including the PhD held by Max Thomas, were received before the Nazis assumed power. The others obtained their degrees during or after the “legal takeover” of the government. Twelve of the dissertations were in law, three in political science, two in science, and one each in German literature and medicine, notes Müller-Hill.

They were not “hoodlums, delinquents, common criminals, or sex maniacs,” declared Raul Hilberg. Yet undeniably, they sought a degree of influence, recognition and accomplishment, but they did not actively pursue a position in a Kommando. Whatever background, training and abilities they had acquired, these skills facilitated them in becoming effective murderers.

Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He has an MA and a PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.