The Einsatzgruppen were specialized paramilitary units established during the phase of Nazi territorial expansion and annexation between 1938 and 1939. Under the supreme authority of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the SS state, these units were developed as the primary instrument for enforcing racial policy and suppressing perceived political opposition in newly occupied territories.
A central figure in the institutionalization of the Einsatzgruppen was SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. In his capacity as the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), Heydrich consolidated the Nazi security and police forces to ensure a unified approach to the regime's ideological goals. Under his direction, the RSHA coordinated the deployment and operational mandates of these units, transitioning them from political intelligence gatherers into organized instruments of mass murder.
The outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland, marked a radical shift in the Einsatzgruppen's mission. Their orders transitioned from intelligence gathering to the systematic elimination of the Polish intelligentsia. Targeted groups included:
The mission reached its lethal pinnacle during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen were deployed to conduct the "Holocaust by Bullets." Tasked with the liquidation of "undesirables," they carried out the mass murder of Jewish communities, Roma, Sinti, and Soviet officials on an unprecedented scale.
In preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union, SS-Brigadeführer Bruno Streckenbach (1902–1977) was tasked with the recruitment and training of Einsatzgruppen personnel. The primary staging ground was the Border Police School in Pretzsch on the Elbe, located roughly 150 kilometers southwest of Berlin. Due to the high volume of personnel, many men were billeted in surrounding towns. The curriculum was designed to prepare the units for "special tasks" on the Eastern Front and included:
Despite commanding an auxiliary force of 10.000 police officers and 33.000 local collaborators, the Einsatzgruppen lacked the numerical strength to independently execute the total extermination of Jewish populations across Eastern Europe. To achieve the regime's genocidal objectives, the RSHA and high-ranking SS leaders mobilized additional military and paramilitary branches to expand the scale of the Holocaust by bullets.
The following organizations provided direct support or independently conducted mass execution operations:
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It was composed of personnel from the Gestapo, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police), the Ordnungspolizei (Regular Police), and the Waffen-SS.
Death
Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and spent three years in detention before being hanged at the Landsberg Prison in Bavaria on 7 June 1951
The Einsatzgruppen or Nazi mobile killing squads carried out some of the most horrific war crimes in Eastern Europe during World War II. Alongside auxiliaries and collaborators, they orchestrated mass shooting massacres that claimed the lives of nearly 2 million Jews.
Unlike the industrialized killing in concentration camps, the Einsatzgruppen’s atrocities were carried out face-to-face, leaving behind haunting evidence of one of the darkest chapters in human history. Understanding these mass shootings is essential to grasp the full scope of the Holocaust and the devastating impact of Nazi genocide across occupied territories.
Between 1941 and 1942, SS-Standartenführer Walter Rauff played a key role in developing and deploying one of the Nazi regime’s most chilling tools of mass murder: the gas van. These mobile gas chambers were designed to kill victims through carbon monoxide poisoning and marked an early shift from mass shootings to more "efficient," industrialized methods of extermination. The first known use of gas vans occurred at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Over time, these vehicles became a central method of execution, responsible for the deaths of an estimated 700.000 people. Victims, most often Jews, but also Roma (commonly referred to at the time as "Gypsies"), people with disabilities, and others labeled “undesirable”, were told they were being relocated or transported for labor. Instead, they were loaded into sealed compartments in the vans. Once the doors were shut, exhaust fumes from the engine were pumped inside, killing those trapped within minutes.
Although often associated with Nazi atrocities, the concept of the gas van was not originally their invention. In 1936, Soviet secret police (NKVD) reportedly used a similar method on a small scale. Isay Berg, a senior NKVD official, is said to have overseen the conversion of vans used to execute prisoners in Moscow. However, while the Soviets kept their use limited and secret, the Nazis refined, expanded, and industrialized the process to an unprecedented scale.
The use of gas vans represents a terrifying moment in history when technology and bureaucracy were merged to commit systematic, state-sponsored murder. These mobile death chambers were direct precursors to the fixed gas chambers later used at Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, and other extermination camps. They serve as grim symbols of the cold, calculated machinery behind the Holocaust, and a warning of how quickly cruelty can be scaled when ideology, innovation, and indifference collide.
Haunting images depict the grim reality of the crimes committed by the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads formed by Nazi Germany during World War II. In this images, uniformed members of the Einsatzgruppen are shown carrying out mass executions of innocent civilians, including men, women and children.
Men from an unidentified unit execute a group of Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave
Following World War II, the Einsatzgruppen trials were held to bring to justice the leaders and members of the notorious Nazi death squads known as the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen trial was known as 'Nuremberg Military Tribunal II, Case 9: 'Einsatzgruppen Trial'. in total there were 12 other trials against the perpetrators of the Nazi regime.
Michael A. Musmanno
Presiding, United States Naval Reserve, County of Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
John J. Speight
Member, prominent member of the Alabama Bar.
Richard D. Dixon
Member, Judge of the Superior Court of the State of North Carolina.
Conducted between September 29, 1947 and April 10, 1948 in Nuremberg, Germany, these trials were part of the broader Subsequent Nuremberg Trials organized by the United States. A total of 24 Einsatzgruppen leaders and key personnel were charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization.
The trials resulted in multiple convictions, with sentences ranging from imprisonment to death. They played a crucial role in exposing the brutal realities of the Holocaust and established important legal precedents for prosecuting crimes against humanity. The Einsatzgruppen trials stand as a powerful reminder of the need for accountability and the pursuit of justice in the face of mass atrocities.
Defendant Otto Ohlendorf commander of Einsatzgruppe D and responsible for around 90.000 deaths (standing behind the microphone), formally pleads "not guilty".
Benjamin Ferencz (March 11, 1920 – April 7, 2023) was honorably discharged on Christmas 1945 from the U.S. Army as a sergeant. Soon after returning to New York, he was recruited to join Telford Taylor’s legal team as a prosecutor, with the simulated rank of colonel for the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials.
In early 1946, while examining documents near Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, Ferencz uncovered detailed reports of the Einsatzgruppen’s mass murder of over one million people starting in June 1941. He flew to Nuremberg, demanding these crimes be prosecuted.
Despite initial hesitation due to limited resources, Taylor appointed Ferencz Chief prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen Trial, his first major case at the age of 27. All 24 indicted defendants were convicted; 13 received death sentences, with four executions carried out, among the last on German soil.
Chief Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz during the Einsatzgruppen Trial (Case #9) of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings.
The Einsatzgruppen (A, B, C and D) were led by these infamous highly educated officers, many with doctorate degrees. Notable commanders included:
After 1941, the leaders were replaced except for Dr. Otto Ohlendorf.
