110-474: Einsatzgruppen ( German: [ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm̩] , lit. ' deployment groups ' ; also ' task forces ') were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe . The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of
220-402: A certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kyiv and the assembly point was near the train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey. After being marched three kilometres (two miles) northwest of
330-517: A collective act without individual responsibility. Framing the shootings in this way was not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of guilt. Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators: those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused to take part. A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for
440-770: A cyanide-based pesticide gas. Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at the Wannsee Conference , held on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death , and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (German: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage ). Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz, Belzec , Chelmno , Majdanek , Sobibor , Treblinka , and other Nazi extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as
550-638: A human, professional translator. Douglas Hofstadter gave an example of a failure of machine translation: the English sentence "In their house, everything comes in pairs. There's his car and her car, his towels and her towels, and his library and hers." might be translated into French as " Dans leur maison, tout vient en paires. Il y a sa voiture et sa voiture, ses serviettes et ses serviettes, sa bibliothèque et les siennes. " That does not make sense because it does not distinguish between "his" car and "hers". Often, first-generation immigrants create something of
660-721: A lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points further west. Thus, an interval passed between the first round of Einsatzgruppen massacres in summer and fall, and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep, which started in December 1941 and lasted into the summer of 1942. During the interval, the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos. Einsatzgruppe A had already murdered almost all Jews in its area, so it shifted its operations into Belarus to assist Einsatzgruppe B. In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942, Einsatzgruppe D reduced
770-541: A large crowd that cheered each murder with much applause; he occasionally paused to play the Lithuanian national anthem " Tautiška giesmė " on his accordion before resuming the murders. As Einsatzgruppe A advanced into Lithuania, it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups. In July 1941, local Lithuanian collaborators, pejoratively called "White Armbands" ( Lithuanian : Baltaraiščiai , lit. 'People with white armbands'), joined
880-460: A literal translation in how they speak their parents' native language. This results in a mix of the two languages that is something of a pidgin . Many such mixes have specific names, e.g., Spanglish or Denglisch . For example, American children of German immigrants are heard using "rockingstool" from the German word Schaukelstuhl instead of "rocking chair". Literal translation of idioms
990-589: A memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal . The final task of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettos within major cities with good railway connections. The intention
1100-507: A negative impact on the economy and the food supply. The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews). Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were all dead, a goal that was postponed until 1942. The Einsatzgruppen used public hangings as
1210-514: A result, the RSHA decreed the Fabrik-Aktion , an initiative to register all Jews working in armaments production. The primary targets of this action were Jews who were married to Aryans. The RSHA planned to remove all German Jews from Berlin in early 1943 (the deadline to deport these Jews was 28 February 1943, according to a diary entry Goebbels wrote in early February). On 27 February 1943,
SECTION 10
#17328007497681320-426: A terror tactic against the local population. An Einsatzgruppe B report, dated 9 October 1941, described one such hanging. Due to suspected partisan activity near Demidov, all male residents aged 15 to 55 were put in a camp to be screened. The screening produced seventeen people who were identified as "partisans" and "Communists". Five members of the group were hanged while 400 local residents were assembled to watch;
1430-460: A thousand people toward the execution ground. As they walked, some SS men went up and down the line, shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or rest. When the columns neared the prepared execution site, the victims were driven some 270 metres (300 yd) from the road into the forest, where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized. Here the victims were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into
1540-471: A transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders. Gas vans, which had been used previously to murder mental patients, began to see service by all four main Einsatzgruppen from 1942. However, the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos , because removing
1650-460: A translation that represents the precise meaning of the original text but does not attempt to convey its style, beauty, or poetry. There is, however, a great deal of difference between a literal translation of a poetic work and a prose translation. A literal translation of poetry may be in prose rather than verse but also be error-free. Charles Singleton's 1975 translation of the Divine Comedy
1760-548: A typical overblown bureaucracy", wrote British author Gerald Reitlinger . "The complexity of RSHA was unequalled... with at least a hundred... sub-sub-sections, a modest camouflage of the fact that it handled the progressive extermination which Hitler planned for the ten million Jews of Europe". The organization at its simplest was divided into seven offices ( Ämter ): RSHA-controlled activities included gathering intelligence, criminal investigation, overseeing foreigners, monitoring public opinion, and Nazi indoctrination. The RSHA
1870-721: Is a source of translators' jokes. One such joke, often told about machine translation , translates "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (an allusion to Mark 14:38 ) into Russian and then back into English, getting "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten". This is not an actual machine-translation error, but rather a joke which dates back to 1956 or 1958. Another joke in the genre transforms "out of sight, out of mind" to "blind idiot" or "invisible idiot". Reichssicherheitshauptamt The Reich Security Main Office ( German : Reichssicherheitshauptamt pronounced [ˈʁaɪ̯çsˌzɪçɐhaɪ̯t͡sˌhaʊ̯ptʔamt] , RSHA )
1980-526: Is clearly not a phrase that would generally be used in English, even though its meaning might be clear. Literal translations in which individual components within words or compounds are translated to create new lexical items in the target language (a process also known as "loan translation") are called calques , e.g., beer garden from German Biergarten . The literal translation of the Italian sentence, " So che questo non va bene " ("I know that this
2090-424: Is not good"), produces "(I) know that this not (it) goes well", which has English words and Italian grammar . Early machine translations (as of 1962 at least) were notorious for this type of translation, as they simply employed a database of words and their translations. Later attempts utilized common phrases , which resulted in better grammatical structure and the capture of idioms, but with many words left in
2200-457: Is regarded as a prose translation. The term literal translation implies that it is probably full of errors, since the translator has made no effort to (or is unable to) convey correct idioms or shades of meaning, for example, but it can also be a useful way of seeing how words are used to convey meaning in the source language. A literal English translation of the German phrase " Ich habe Hunger " would be "I have hunger" in English, but this
2310-590: The Freikorps . Heydrich instructed Wagner in meetings in late July that the Einsatzgruppen should undertake their operations in cooperation with the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) and military commanders in the area. Army intelligence was in constant contact with Einsatzgruppen to coordinate their activities with other units. Initially numbering 2,700 men (and ultimately 4,250 in Poland),
SECTION 20
#17328007497682420-879: The Schutzstaffel (SS) before and during World War II . The Einsatzgruppen had their origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938. Originally part of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary due to
2530-705: The Arājs Kommando in Latvia and the Rollkommando Hamann in Lithuania, the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to more systematic massacres. With extensive local help, Einsatzgruppe A was the first Einsatzgruppe to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area. Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote: Of the roughly 83,000 Jews who fell into German hands in Latvia, not more than 900 survived; and of
2640-721: The Arājs Kommando murdered 2,300 Jews in Riga on 6–7 July. Within six months, Arājs and collaborators would murder about half of Latvia's Jewish population. Local officials, the Selbstschutz , and the Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) played a key role in rounding up and massacring local Jews in German-occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. These groups also helped the Einsatzgruppen and other killing units to identify Jews. For example, in Latvia,
2750-578: The Einsatzgruppe released the criminals from the local jail and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway. Between 23 and 27 June 1941, 4,000 Jews were murdered on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches. Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom was the so-called "Death Dealer of Kaunas", a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis Garage before
2860-402: The Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5.5 to six million people. Literal translation Literal translation , direct translation , or word-for-word translation is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately without looking at how
2970-581: The Einsatzgruppen has been attributed to several factors. Since the Russian Revolution of 1905 , the Kresy Wschodnie and other borderlands had experienced a political culture of violence. The 1940–1941 Soviet occupation had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939; the population was brutalised and terrorised, and
3080-452: The Einsatzgruppen in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support. Given their main task was defeating the enemy, the army left the pacification of the civilian population to the Einsatzgruppen , who offered support as well as prevented subversion. This did not preclude their participation in acts of violence against civilians, as many members of
3190-524: The Einsatzgruppen 's mission was to murder members of the Polish leadership most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy , teachers, and members of the nobility. As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed, however harsh that sounds". SS- Brigadeführer Lothar Beutel , commander of Einsatzgruppe IV, later testified that Heydrich gave
3300-506: The Einsatzkommandos began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. Some Einsatzkommandos started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being murdered with a pistol shot. As word of the massacres got out, many Jews fled; in Ukraine, 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away. This was seen by the leader of Einsatzkommando VI as beneficial, as it would save
3410-700: The Hilfspolizei , consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian army and police officers, ex- Aizsargi , members of the Pērkonkrusts , and university students, assisted in the murder of Latvia's Jewish citizens. Similar units were created elsewhere, and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. With the creation of units such as
Einsatzgruppen - Misplaced Pages Continue
3520-599: The Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; "Criminal Police"). In correspondence, the RSHA was often abbreviated to RSi-H to avoid confusion with the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA; "SS Race and Settlement Office"). The creation of the RSHA represented the formalization, at the highest level, of the relationship under which the SD served as the intelligence agency for the security police. A similar coordination existed in
3630-961: The Ardennes offensive . Hahn had previously been in command of Einsatzgruppe Griechenland in Greece. Other Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos included Einsatzgruppe Iltis (operated in Carinthia, on the border between Slovenia and Austria) under SS- Standartenführer Paul Blobel , Einsatzgruppe Jugoslawien (Yugoslavia) Einsatzkommando Luxemburg (Luxembourg), Einsatzgruppe Norwegen (Norway) commanded by SS- Oberführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, Einsatzgruppe Serbien (Yugoslavia) under SS- Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs and SS- Gruppenführer August Meysner, Einsatzkommando Tilsit [ de ] (Lithuania, Poland), and Einsatzgruppe Tunis ( Tunis ), commanded by SS- Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff . After
3740-695: The Einsatzgruppen , related agencies, and foreign auxiliary troops co-opted by the Nazis, killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. As early as 1941, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels began to complain that large numbers of Jews had not been transported out of Germany because of their work in the armaments industry. They were protected from deportation as they were considered to be irreplaceable labourers, and many were also married to Aryan Germans. These Jews believed that these factors ensured their safety. But by late 1942, Hitler and
3850-436: The Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes . Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. However, only four of these death sentences were carried out. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations. The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and operated by
3960-594: The Geneva Conventions . However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the Einsatzgruppen and the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz , to little effect. For example, when Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz sent
4070-553: The Munich Agreement , the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. From September 1939, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) had overall command of the Einsatzgruppen . As part of
4180-532: The Wehrmacht assisted the Einsatzgruppen in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord. Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who supplied security forces on an "as needed" basis to the local SS and Police Leaders . Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the Orpo, Security Service and Waffen-SS , augmented by uniformed volunteers from
4290-743: The Babi Yar massacre, to liquidate the Riga ghetto . Jeckeln selected a site about 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station, and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by digging pits in which to bury the victims. Jeckeln organised around 1,700 men, including 300 members of the Arajs Kommando , 50 German SD men, and 50 Latvian guards, most of whom had already participated in mass-murdering of civilians. These troops were supplemented by Latvians, including members of
4400-580: The Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar (with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days), and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler , the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen , providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in
4510-571: The Führer, which he would carry out independently. This directive was intended to prevent friction between the Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive. Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts, and thus would go unpunished. In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against
Einsatzgruppen - Misplaced Pages Continue
4620-452: The German regime when it arrived. Some who had collaborated with the Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and murdering them. In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia, as he intended to move Jews from Germany into the area. He assigned SS- Obergruppenführer Jeckeln, one of the perpetrators of
4730-426: The RSHA sent plainclothes Gestapo officials to arrest intermarried Jews and charge them with various crimes. Around 2,000 intermarried Jewish men were taken to Rosenstrasse 2–4, where they were held. Goebbels complained that many of the arrests had been "thwarted" by industrialists since some 4,000 Jews were expected to be detained. Angry wives—as "Women of German blood"—began protesting against this action in front of
4840-437: The RSHA were ready to rid Berlin of its remaining German Jews. In September 1942, Hitler decided that these labourers would still be protected, but that they were to be sent out of the country. Meanwhile, Auschwitz administrators were lobbying the government to send them more armaments workers, as they had struck a bargain with the arms producer IG Farben to construct a camp specifically for arms development using slave labour. As
4950-576: The RSHA, centrality within Nazi Germany was pronounced since the organization completed the integration of government and Nazi Party offices as to intelligence gathering and security. Departments like the SD and Gestapo (within the RSHA) were controlled directly by Himmler and his immediate subordinate SS- Obergruppenführer and General of Police Reinhard Heydrich ; the two held the power of life and death for nearly every German and were essentially above
5060-582: The Reich. According to German historian, Klaus Hildebrand , the RSHA was "particularly concerned with racial matters". Adolf Eichmann stated in 1937 that "the anger of the people expressed in riots [was] the most effective means to rob the Jews of a sense of security". Entry into the Second World War afforded the RSHA the power to act as an intermediary in conquered or occupied territories, which according to Hans Mommsen , lent itself to implementing
5170-428: The Riga city police, battalion police, and ghetto guards. Around 1,500 able-bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave labour could be exploited; a thousand men were relocated to a fenced-off area within the ghetto and 500 women were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto, where they were put to work mending uniforms. Although Rumbula was on the rail line, Jeckeln decided that
5280-607: The SS, the Wehrmacht , and the Ordnungspolizei also shot civilians during the Polish campaign. Approximately 65,000 civilians were murdered by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they murdered Jews, prostitutes, Romani people , and the mentally ill. Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially murdered by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used. Seven Einsatzgruppen of battalion strength (around 500 men) operated in Poland. Each
5390-475: The Soviet Union in 1940–1941). According to its own reports to Himmler, Einsatzgruppe A murdered almost 140,000 people in the five months following the 1941 German invasion: 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 people with mental illnesses, 56 partisans, 44 Poles, five Romani, and one Armenian were reported murdered between 22 June and 25 November 1941. Upon entering Kaunas , Lithuania, on 25 June 1941,
5500-642: The Soviet Union. During the course of their operations, the Einsatzgruppen commanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht . Activities ranged from the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists, to joint citywide operations with SS Einsatzgruppen which lasted for two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar , perpetrated by the Police Battalion 45 , and at Rumbula , by Battalion 22, reinforced by local Schutzmannschaften (auxiliary police). The SS brigades, wrote historian Christopher Browning , were "only
5610-512: The Soviet Union. General Franz Halder , the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech: Struggle between two ideologies. Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism, equals antisocial criminality. Communism immense future danger ... This a fight to the finish. If we do not accept this, we shall beat the enemy, but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe. We don't make war to preserve
SECTION 50
#17328007497685720-604: The central, provincial, and district committees of the Communist Party; extremist and radical Communist Party members; people's commissars ; and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)." He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the population of the occupied territories were to be quietly encouraged. On 8 July, Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave
5830-408: The city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then were herded down into
5940-431: The city's Jewish population from 30,000 to 702 over the course of four days. The German Order Police and local collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings. Haberer wrote that, as in the Baltic states, the Germans could not have murdered so many Jews so quickly without local help. He points out that the ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus. In rural areas
6050-454: The coming war of annihilation against " Judeo-Bolshevism ", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population. The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; Einsatzgruppe victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape. In May 1941, Heydrich verbally passed on
6160-461: The corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the "millions" of banknotes taken from the victims' possessions. The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens. Jeckeln's troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October. Einsatzgruppe A operated in Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (the three Baltic countries which had been occupied by
6270-408: The dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma. Some of the early mass murders at extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B ,
6380-586: The direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich , the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Einsatzgruppen worked hand-in-hand with the Order Police battalions on
6490-508: The drive by the Nazi regime to remove so-called "undesirable" elements from the German population, from September to December 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Aktion T4 , a program of systematic murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals. Aktion T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941, but the murders continued until the end of
6600-440: The early days of the war. Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and victims being murdered by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow,
6710-474: The enemy ... Struggle against Russia: Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia ... Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated as such. The struggle will differ from that in the west. In the east harshness now means mildness for the future. Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about
SECTION 60
#17328007497686820-417: The exception of Einsatzgruppe A's Stahlecker, were of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to murder the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union in one sweep, and thought the murders should stop. An Einsatzgruppe report dated 17 September advised that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them. Also, in some areas poor weather and
6930-420: The existing familiar structures of society were destroyed. Historian Erich Haberer has suggested that many survived and made sense of the "totalitarian atomization" of society by seeking conformity with communism. As a result, by the time of the German invasion in 1941, many had come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour; thus, people simply transferred their allegiance to
7040-832: The extermination of Jewish populations in those places. An order issued by the RSHA on 20 May 1941 to block emigration of any and all Jews attempting to leave Belgium or France as part of the "imminent Final Solution of the Jewish question" demonstrates its complicity for the systematic extermination of Jews. Part of the RSHA's efforts to encourage occupied nations to hand over their Jews included coercing them by assigning Jewish advisory officials. Working with Eichmann's Reich Association of Jews in Germany, they also deliberately deceived Jews still living in Germany and other countries by promising them good living quarters, medical care, and food in Theresienstadt (a concentration camp which
7150-449: The forest, near the pits, where they were ordered to strip. The victims were driven into the prepared trenches, made to lie down, and shot in the head or the back of the neck by members of Jeckeln's bodyguard. Around 13,000 Jews from Riga were murdered at the pits that day, along with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train. On the second day of the operation, 8 December 1941, the remaining 10,000 Jews of Riga were murdered in
7260-517: The higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations. The men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), Orpo, and Waffen-SS . Each Einsatzgruppe was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations. In May 1941, General Wagner and SS- Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg agreed that
7370-494: The implementation of the "special tasks". Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the Einsatzgruppen . In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders
7480-444: The invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen 's main assignment was to kill civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and Jews. In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials; all senior and middle ranking members of
7590-668: The law. Heydrich remained the RSHA chief until his assassination in 1942 . In January 1943 Himmler delegated the office to SS- Obergruppenführer and General of Police Ernst Kaltenbrunner , who headed the RSHA until the end of the war in Europe. The head of the RSHA was also known as the CSSD or C hef der S icherheitspolizei und des SD (Chief of the Security Police and of the Security Service). The RSHA "became
7700-503: The local auxiliary police force. Each Einsatzgruppe was supplemented with Waffen-SS and Order Police battalions as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators. On average, the Order Police formations were larger and better armed, with heavy machine-gun detachments, which enabled them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS. Each death squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into
7810-432: The local offices, where the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD were formally separate offices. This coordination was carried out by inspectors on the staff of the local higher SS and police leaders. One of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD
7920-467: The mass murders. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen , related agencies, and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million of the 5.5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust . After the close of World War II, 24 officers, including multiple commanding officers, of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in
8030-516: The massacres. A pogrom in the Latvian capital Riga in early July 1941 killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalist Viktors Arājs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues. On 2 July, Einsatzgruppe A commander Stahlecker appointed Arājs to head the Arajs Kommando , a Sonderkommando of about 300 men, mostly university students. Together, Einsatzgruppe A and
8140-594: The more than 20,000 Western Jews sent into Latvia, only some 800 lived through the deportation until liberation. This was the highest percentage of eradication in all of Europe. In late 1941, the Einsatzkommandos settled into headquarters in Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn. Einsatzgruppe A grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size. The Germans relied increasingly on the Latvian Arājs Kommando and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews. Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with
8250-533: The newly occupied territories. Pogroms, some of which were orchestrated by the Einsatzgruppen , broke out in Latvia , Lithuania , and Ukraine . Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 10,000 Jews had been murdered in 40 pogroms, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims. However, SS-Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker , commander of Einsatzgruppe A, reported to his superiors in mid-October that
8360-575: The order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot. On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to murder all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia, as they too might be Jews. Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not
8470-566: The order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid-August. The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen – lists of people to be murdered – had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939, using dossiers collected by the SD from 1936 forward. The Einsatzgruppen performed these murders with the support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz , a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland during Operation Tannenberg . Members of
8580-771: The order to murder the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch , where the commanders of the reorganised Einsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa. In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the Wehrmacht Heer , General Eduard Wagner , successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the Einsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow
8690-413: The original language. For translating synthetic languages , a morphosyntactic analyzer and synthesizer are required. The best systems today use a combination of the above technologies and apply algorithms to correct the "natural" sound of the translation. In the end, though, professional translation firms that employ machine translation use it as a tool to create a rough translation that is then tweaked by
8800-469: The person practised the religion was irrelevant. The unit was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill. It was common practice for the Einsatzgruppen to shoot hostages. As the invasion began, the Germans pursued the fleeing Red Army, leaving a security vacuum. Reports surfaced of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area, with local Jews immediately suspected of collaboration. Heydrich ordered his officers to incite anti-Jewish pogroms in
8910-465: The police, and the Gestapo . Heydrich placed SS- Obergruppenführer Werner Best in command, who assigned Hans-Joachim Tesmer [ de ] to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups, called Einsatzkommandos , from among educated people with military experience and a strong ideological commitment to Nazism. Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as
9020-457: The primary method of mass-murder. The Einsatzgruppen remained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus. After the defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of a special task force, Sonderaktion 1005 , under SS- Standartenführer Paul Blobel . The unit's assignment
9130-440: The proportion was 1 to 20. This meant that most Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews were murdered by fellow Ukrainians and Belarusians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans. The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas, though the chance of success was poor. Weapons were typically primitive or home-made. Communications were impossible between ghettos in various cities, so there
9240-506: The ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims, and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads. The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims. Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material. Anton Heidborn, a member of Sonderkommando 4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among
9350-539: The regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals. In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately murder all the Jews in the conquered territories. A situation report from Einsatzgruppe C in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus, and suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have
9460-491: The regime's intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct murder of those considered racially inferior , but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life. For Operation Barbarossa, initially four Einsatzgruppen were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000. Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North , Centre , and South ; Einsatzgruppe D
9570-494: The residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was required. A similar reticence was noted by Einsatzgruppe B in Russia and Belarus and Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine; the further east the Einsatzgruppen travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into murdering their Jewish neighbours. All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from
9680-499: The rest were shot. The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kyiv city center in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September. The perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS attached to Einsatzgruppe C under Rasch, members of Sonderkommando 4a under SS- Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln , and some Ukrainian auxiliary police. The Jews of Kyiv were told to report to
9790-542: The same way. About a thousand were murdered on the streets of the city or on the way to the site, bringing the total number of victims for the two-day extermination to 25,000 people. For his part in organising the massacre, Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper Section, Ostland . Einsatzgruppe B, C, and D did not immediately follow Einsatzgruppe A's example in systematically murdering all Jews in their areas. The Einsatzgruppe commanders, with
9900-584: The so-called " Final Solution to the Jewish question " ( Die Endlösung der Judenfrage ) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood . Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars , Jews , and Romani people , as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe. Under
10010-651: The task. Commander of Einsatzgruppe D, SS- Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf , particularly noted this propensity towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions. During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppen mass execution first-hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men. By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health care. He also decided
10120-799: The thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and racial mass murder." Many Einsatzgruppe leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders of Einsatzgruppe A held doctorate degrees. Three Einsatzgruppen were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom (SS- Gruppenführer Otto Rasch ) held a double doctorate. Additional Einsatzgruppen were created as additional territories were occupied. Einsatzgruppe E operated in Independent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS- Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Teichmann [ de ] , SS- Standartenführer Günther Herrmann , and lastly SS- Standartenführer Wilhelm Fuchs . The unit
10230-613: The titles of 19th-century English translations of the classical Bible and other texts. Word-for-word translations ("cribs", "ponies", or "trots") are sometimes prepared for writers who are translating a work written in a language they do not know. For example, Robert Pinsky is reported to have used a literal translation in preparing his translation of Dante 's Inferno (1994), as he does not know Italian. Similarly, Richard Pevear worked from literal translations provided by his wife, Larissa Volokhonsky, in their translations of several Russian novels. Literal translation can also denote
10340-406: The troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough. Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink. As much as possible, the Einsatzgruppen leaders militarized the genocide. The historian Christian Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings
10450-523: The units were re-formed prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kripo , Orpo , and Waffen-SS . The units followed the invasion forces of the German Army into Eastern Europe. Not infrequently, commanders of Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommando sub-units were also desk officers from the main office of the RSHA. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945
10560-424: The victims should travel on foot from Riga to the execution ground. Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly. The victims were told that they were being relocated, and were advised to bring up to 20 kg (44 lb) of possessions. The first day of executions, 30 November 1941, began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4:00 am. The victims were moved in columns of
10670-463: The war. Initially the victims were shot by the Einsatzgruppen and others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940. In response to Adolf Hitler 's plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies. Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD),
10780-460: The words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In translation theory , another term for literal translation is metaphrase (as opposed to paraphrase for an analogous translation). It is to be distinguished from an interpretation (done, for example, by an interpreter ). Literal translation leads to mistranslation of idioms , which can be a serious problem for machine translation . The term "literal translation" often appeared in
10890-685: Was a significant factor in the growth in power of the Nazi state. With the formation of the RSHA, Himmler combined under one roof the Nazi Party's Sicherheitsdienst (SD; SS intelligence service) and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; "Security Police"), which was nominally under the Interior Ministry. The SiPo was composed of two sub-departments, the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo; "Secret State Police") and
11000-520: Was a way station to extermination facilities like Auschwitz) if they turned over their assets to the RSHA through a fictitious home-purchase plan. The RSHA oversaw the Einsatzgruppen , death squads that were formed under the direction of Heydrich and operated by the SS. Originally part of the SiPo, in September 1939 the operational control of the Einsatzgruppen was taken over by the RSHA. When
11110-542: Was also "the central office for the extra-judicial NS (National Socialist) measures of terror and repression from the beginning of the war until 1945". The list of persecuted people included Jews, Communists, Freemasons , pacifists, and Christian activists. In addition to dealing with identified enemies, the RSHA advocated expansionist policies for the Reich and the Germanization of additional territory through settlement. Generalplan Ost (General Plan East), which
11220-450: Was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Chief of German Police) and Reichsführer-SS , the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany . Himmler established the RSHA on 27 September 1939. His assumption of control over all security and police forces in Germany
11330-453: Was assigned to the 11th Army . The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. The Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS- Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner . Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all
11440-460: Was no way to create a unified strategy. Few in the ghetto leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents. Mass break-outs were sometimes attempted, though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees were often tracked down and murdered. After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppen were inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for
11550-472: Was slightly closer. The RSHA continued to grow at an enormous rate during World War II in Europe. Routine reorganization of the RSHA did not change the tendency for centralization within Nazi Germany , nor did it change the general trend for organizations like the RSHA to develop direct relationships to Adolf Hitler , adhering to Nazi Germany's typical pattern of the leader-follower construct. For
11660-643: Was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos located in Vinkovci , Sarajevo , Banja Luka , Knin , and Zagreb . Einsatzgruppe F worked with Army Group South. Einsatzgruppe G operated in Romania , Hungary , and Ukraine , commanded by SS- Standartenführer Josef Kreuzer [ de ] . Einsatzgruppe H was assigned to Slovakia . Einsatzgruppen K and L, under SS- Oberführer Emanuel Schäfer and SS- Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn , worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during
11770-416: Was subdivided into five Einsatzkommandos of company strength (around 100 men). Though they were formally under the command of the army, the Einsatzgruppen received their orders from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army. Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the murders violated the rules of warfare as set down in
11880-434: Was the secret Nazi plan to colonize Central and Eastern Europe exclusively with Germans, displacing inhabitants in the process through genocide and ethnic cleansing in order to obtain sufficient Lebensraum , stemmed from officials in the RSHA, among other Nazi organizations. In its role as the national and Nazi security service, the RSHA coordinated activities among various agencies with wide-ranging responsibilities within
11990-649: Was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined. Together, the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled territory . On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa , the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B specified that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from
12100-677: Was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated. By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe, and the Einsatzgruppen retreated alongside the Wehrmacht . By late 1944, most Einsatzgruppen personnel had been folded into Waffen-SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945
#767232