Einsatzkommando


During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of the Einsatzgruppen – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellectuals, Romani, and communists in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front. Einsatzkommandos, along with Sonderkommandos, were responsible for the systematic killing of Jews during the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. After the war several commanders were tried in the Einsatzgruppen trial, convicted, and executed.

Organization of the ''Einsatzgruppen''

Einsatzgruppen were paramilitary groups originally formed in 1938 under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich – Chief of the SD, and Sicherheitspolizei. They were operated by the Schutzstaffel. The first Einsatzgruppen of World War II were formed in the course of the 1939 invasion of Poland. Then following a Hitler-Himmler directive, the Einsatzgruppen were re-formed in anticipation of the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen were once again under the control of Reinhard Heydrich as Chief of the Reich Main Security Office ; and after his assassination, under the control of his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Hitler ordered the SD and the Security Police to suppress the threat of native resistance behind the Wehrmacht's fighting front. Heydrich met with General Eduard Wagner representing Wilhelm Keitel, who agreed to the activation, commitment, command, and jurisdiction of Security Police and SD units in the Wehrmachts table of operations and equipment ; in the rear operational areas, the Einsatzgruppen were to function in administrative sub-ordination to the field armies in order to effect the tasks assigned them by Heydrich. Their principal task, according to SS General Erich von dem Bach, at the Nuremberg Trials: "was the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, and Soviet political commissars". They were a key component in the implementation of the "Final Solution of the Jewish question" in the conquered territories. These killing units should be viewed in conjunction with the Holocaust.
The military commanders knew the task of the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen depended upon their sponsoring army commander for billet, food, and transportation. Relations between the regular army and the SiPo and the SD were close. Einsatzgruppen commanders reported that the understanding by Wehrmacht commanders of Einsatzgruppen tasks made their operations considerably easier.
For Operation Barbarossa, initially four Einsatzgruppen were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000. Each unit was attached to an army group: Einsatzgruppe A to Army Group North; Einsatzgruppe B to Army Group Center, Einsatzgruppe C to Army Group South, and Einsatzgruppe D to the 11th German Army. Led by SD, Gestapo, and Criminal Police officers, Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the regular police, SD and Waffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force. When occasion demanded, German Army commanders bolstered the strength of the Einsatzgruppen with their own regular-army troops who assisted in rounding up and killing Jews of their own accord.

The earliest ''Einsatzgruppen'' in occupied Poland

The first eight Einsatzgruppen of World War II were formed in 1939 for the invasion of Poland. They were composed of the Gestapo, Kripo and SD functionaries, and deployed during the classified Operation Tannenberg and the Intelligenzaktion lasting till the spring of 1940; followed by the German AB-Aktion which ended in late 1940. Long before the attack on Poland, the Nazis prepared a detailed list identifying more than 61,000 Polish targets by name, with the help of German minority living in the Second Polish Republic. The list was printed as a called Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen, and composed only of names and birthdates. It included politicians, scholars, actors, intelligentsia, doctors, lawyers, nobility, priests, officers and numerous others – as the means at the disposal of the SS paramilitary death squads aided by Selbstschutz executioners. By the end of 1939 already, they summarily killed around 50,000 Poles and Jews in the annexed territories, including over 1,000 POWs.
The SS operational groups were assigned Roman numerals for the first time on 4 September 1939. Before that, their names were derived from the names of their places of origin in the German language.
  1. Einsatzgruppe I or EG I–Wien, deployed with the 14th Army
  2. # Einsatzkommando 1/I: SS-Sturmbannführer Ludwig Hahn
  3. # Einsatzkommando 2/I: SS-Sturmbannführer Bruno Müller
  4. # Einsatzkommando 3/I: SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Hasselberg
  5. # Einsatzkommando 4/I: SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Brunner
  6. Einsatzgruppe II or EG II–Oppeln, deployed with the 10th Army
  7. # Einsatzkommando 1/II: SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Sens
  8. # Einsatzkommando 2/II: SS-Sturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Rux
  9. Einsatzgruppe III or EG III–Breslau, deployed with the 8th Army
  10. # Einsatzkommando 1/III: SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Scharpwinkel
  11. # Einsatzkommando 2/III: SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Liphardt
  12. Einsatzgruppe IV or EG IV–Dramburg deployed with the 4th Army in Pomorze '
  13. # Einsatzkommando 1/IV: SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Helmut Bischoff
  14. # Einsatzkommando 2/IV: SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Walter Hammer
  15. Einsatzgruppe V or EG V–Allenstein, deployed with the 3rd Army
  16. # Einsatzkommando 1/V: SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Heinz Gräfe
  17. # Einsatzkommando 2/V: SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Robert Schefe
  18. # Einsatzkommando 3/V: SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Walter Albath
  19. Einsatzgruppe VI, deployed in Wielkopolska area
  20. # Einsatzkommando 1/VI: SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Sommer
  21. # Einsatzkommando 2/VI: SS-Sturmbannführer Gerhard Flesch
  22. Einsatzgruppe z. b. V., deployed in Upper Silesia and Cieszyn Silesia
  23. Einsatzkommando 16 or EK–16 Danzig, deployed in Pomerania after the withdrawal of EG-IV and EG-V. The Commando was involved in the massacres in Piaśnica known as "Pommern Katyń" between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940 conducted in Piasnica Wielka '. The civilian shooters belonged to Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz aiding EK–16. During that period approximately 12,000 to 16,000 Poles, Jews, Czechs, and Germans were murdered. Not to be confused with Einsatzkommando 16 of Einsatzgruppe E deployed in Croatia

    ''Einsatzgruppe'' A

Einsatzgruppe A, attached to the Army Group North, was formed in Gumbinnen in East Prussia on 23 June 1941. Stahlecker – its first commander – deployed the unit toward the Lithuanian border. His group consisted of 340 men from the Waffen-SS, 89 from the Gestapo, 35 from the SD, 133 from the Orpo, and 41 from the Kripo. Soviet troops withdrew from the Lithuanian temporary capital Kaunas the day before, and the city was taken over by Lithuanians during the anti-Soviet uprising. On 25 June, the Einsatzgruppe A entered Kaunas with the forward units of the German army.
;Commanders:
  1. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker
  2. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Heinz Jost
  3. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Dr. Humbert Achamer-Pifrader
  4. SS-Oberführer Friedrich Panzinger
  5. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Dr. Wilhelm Fuchs
;Sonderkommando 1a
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Martin Sandberger
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Bernhard Baatz
;Sonderkommando 1b
  1. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Erich Ehrlinger
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Hoffmann –
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Eduard Strauch
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Erich Isselhorst
;Einsatzkommando 1a
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Martin Sandberger
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl Tschierschky
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Erich Isselhorst
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Bernhard Baatz
;Einsatzkommando 1b
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Hermann Hubig
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Manfred Pechau
;Einsatzkommando 1c
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Graaf
;Einsatzkommando 2
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Batz
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Eduard Strauch
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolf Lange
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Manfred Pechau
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Reinhard Breder
  6. SS-Obersturmbannführer Oswald Poche
, 1941
;Einsatzkommando 3
  1. SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger
  2. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Dr. Wilhelm Fuchs
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Hans-Joachim Böhme

    ''Jäger'' Report

The Jäger Report is the most precise surviving chronicle of the activities of one Einsatzkommando. It is a tally sheet of the actions of Einsatzkommando 3 — a running total of their killings of 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 persons with mental disabilities, and 134 others, from 2 July-1 December 1941. A second, major sweep occurred in 1942, before death camp killing replaced Einsatzkommando open-pit executions. Einsatzkommando 3 operated in the Kovno district, west of Vilna in contemporary Lithuania.

''Einsatzgruppe'' B

The operational command of Einsatzgruppe B, attached to the Army Group Center, was established under the command of Arthur Nebe a few days after the German attack on the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Einsatzgruppe B departed from the occupied city of Poznań on 24 June 1941, with 655 men from the Security Police, Gestapo, Kripo, SD, Waffen-SS and the 2nd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 9. On 30 June 1941 Himmler visited the newly formed Bezirk Bialystok district and pronounced that more forces were needed in the area, due to potential risks of partisan warfare. The chase after the Red Army's rapid retreat left behind a security vacuum, which required urgent deployment of additional personnel.
Scrambling to meet the "new threat", Gestapo headquarters in Zichenau formed a lesser known unit called Kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg, which departed from the sub-station Schröttersburg under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper, with the mission to kill Jews, communists and the NKVD collaborators across the local villages and towns in the Bezirk. On 3 July additional formation of Schutzpolizei arrived in Białystok from the General Government. It was led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner, veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the Polish Campaign of 1939. The relief unit, called Kommando Bialystok, was sent in by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Main Security Office, due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out. On 10 July 1941, Schaper's unit was split into smaller Einsatzkommandos due to requirements of Operation Barbarossa.
In addition to mass shootings, Einsatzgruppe B engaged in public hangings used as a terror tactic on the local population. An Einsatzgruppe B report, dated 9 October 1941, described one such hanging. Due to suspected partisan activity in the area around the settlement of Demidov, all males aged fifteen to fifty-five in Demidov were detained in a camp for screening. The screening produced seventeen people identified as 'partisans' and 'communists'. Thereafter, 400 local residents were assembled to watch the hanging of five members of the group; the rest were shot.
On 14 November 1941, Nebe told Berlin that, up until then, 45,000 persons had been eliminated. A further report, dated 15 December 1942, established that the Einsatzgruppe B had shot a total of 134,298 people. After 1943, the mass killings of Einsatzgruppe B diminished, and the unit was decommissioned in August 1944.
;Commanders:
  1. SS-Gruppenführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Arthur Nebe
  2. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Erich Naumann
  3. SS-Standartenführer Horst Böhme
  4. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Erich Ehrlinger
  5. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Heinrich Seetzen
  6. SS-Standartenführer Horst Böhme
Around 5 July 1941, Nebe consolidated Einsatzgruppe B near Minsk, establishing a headquarters and remaining there for some two months. The Gruppenführer determined that Sonderkommando 7a and Sonderkommando 7b and the Vorkommando Moskau would follow the Army Group Center, while Einsatzkommandos 8 and 9 clean up to the sides of the spearhead. In compliance, Einsatzkommando 8 reached Bialystok on 1 July, passed through Słonim and Baranowicze, and began systematic mass killing operations in modern-day southern Belarus.
On 5 August, Nebe moved his Einsatzgruppen command to Smolensk, where the Vorkommando Moskau was concentrated. On 6 August, Einsatzkommando 8 reached Minsk, remaining there until 9 September 1941. From Minsk, it reached Mogilev, which became its general headquarters, and from there Einsatzkommando 8 effected successive killings in Bobruisk, Gomel, Roslavl, and Klintsy systematically attacking the local Jewish communities, and killing the inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Einsatzkommando 9 was put to work; they had left Treuburg, in eastern Prussia, and reached Vilna on 2 July. Their main theater of mass killing operations were Grodno and Bielsk-Podlaski. On 20 July it moved its headquarters to Vitebsk, and then exterminated the citizens of Polotzk, Nevel, Lepel, and Surazh. The command progressed to Vtasma, and from there they killed the communities of Gshatsk and Mozhaisk in the Moscow vicinity. The Soviet counter-offensive forced the Einsatzkommando to withdraw to Vitebsk on 21 December 1941. Anticipating the fall of Moscow, the Vorkommando Moskau advanced to Maloyaroslavets, earlier captured by the Wehrmacht on 18 October 1941. In practice, Sonderkommandos 7a and 7b operated behind the vanguard of the army. The actions were fast, in order to prevent the Jews from escaping the advancing German Army. To the south and east of Smolensk and Minsk, the two Sonderkommandos left a wake of dead civilians, from Velikiye Luki, Kalinin, Orsha, Gomel, Chernigov and Orel, to Kursk.
;Sonderkommando 7a
Sonderkommando 7a led by Walter Blume, was attached to the 9th Army under General Adolf Strauß. SK 7a entered Vilna on 27 June and remained there until 3 July. Soon Vilna was in the command sphere of Einsatzgruppe A, and Sonderkommando 7a was transferred to Kreva near Minsk. The Sonderkommando was active in Vilna, Nevel, Haradok, Vitebsk, Velizh, Rzhev, Vyazma, Kalinin, and Klintsy. It executed 1344 people.
  1. SS-Standartenführer Walter Blume
  2. SS-Standartenführer Eugen Steimle
  3. SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Matschke
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Albert Rapp
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Looss
  6. SS-Sturmbannführer Gerhard Bast
;Sonderkommando 7b
The Sonderkommando was active in Brest-Litovsk, Kobrin, Pruzhany, Slonim, Baranovichi, Stowbtsy, Minsk, Orsha, Klinzy, Briansk, Kursk, Tserigov, and Orel. It executed 6,788 people.
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer Günther Rausch
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Ott
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Josef Auinger
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl-Georg Rabe
;Sonderkommando 7c
See also Vorkommando Moskau
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Bock
  2. SS-Hauptsturmführer Ernst Schmücker
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Blühm
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Eckhardt
;Einsatzkommando 8
The Einsatzkommando was active in Volkovisk, Baranovichi, Babruysk, Lahoysk, Mogilev, and Minsk. It executed 74,740 people.
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Otto Bradfisch
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Heinz Richter
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Erich Isselhorst
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans-Gerhard Schindhelm
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Rendörffer
;Einsatzkommando 9
The Einsatzkommando was active in Vilna, Grodno, Lida, Bielsk-Podlaski, Nevel, Lepel, Surazh, Vyazma, Gzhatsk, Mozhaisk, Vitebsk, Smolensk, and Varena. It executed 41,340 people.
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Wiebens
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Friedrich Buchardt
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Werner Kämpf
;Vorkommando Moskau
The Vorkommando—also known as Sonderkommando 7c—was to operate in Moscow, until it became apparent that Moscow would not fall; it was incorporated to Sonderkommando 7b, where it was active in Smolensk and executed 4,660 people.
  1. SS-Brigadeführer Professor Dr. Franz Six
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Waldemar Klingelhöfer
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Erich Körting
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Friedrich Buchardt
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer'' Friedrich-Wilhelm Bock

    ''Einsatzgruppe'' C

The Einzatzgruppe C, as a whole, was attached to the Army Group South and executed 118,341 people.
  1. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Dr. Dr. Otto Rasch
  2. SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Max Thomas
  3. SS-Standartenführer Horst Böhme
;Einsatzkommando 4a
The Einsatzkommando was active in Lviv, Lutsk, Rovno, Zhytomyr, Pereyaslav, Yagotyn, Ivankov, Radomyshl, Lubny, Poltava, Kiev, Kursk, Kharkiv and executed 59,018 people.
  1. SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Erwin Weinmann
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Eugen Steimle
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Schmidt
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Theodor Christensen
;Einsatzkommando 4b
The Einsatzkommando was active in Lviv, Tarnopol, Kremenchug, Poltava, Sloviansk, Proskurov, Vinnytsia, Kramatorsk, Gorlovka and Rostov. It executed 6,329 people.
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Günther Herrmann
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Braune
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Walter Hänsch
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer August Meier
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Sühr
  6. SS-Sturmbannführer Waldemar Krause
;Einsatzkommando 5
The Einsatzkommando was active in Lviv, Brody, Dubno, Berdičhev, Skvyra and Kiev. It executed more than 150,000 people.
  1. SS-Oberführer Erwin Schulz
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer August Meier
;Einsatzkommando 6
The Einsatzkommando was active in Lviv, Zolochiv, Zhytomyr, Proskurov, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kryvyi Rih, Stalino and Rostov. It executed 5,577 people.
  1. SS-Standartenführer Dr. Erhard Kröger
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Robert Möhr
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Ernst Biberstein
  4. ?
  5. SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Sühr

    ''Einsatzgruppe'' D

The Einsatzgruppe D, as a whole, was attached to the 11th Army. It was established in June 1941 and operated until March 1943. Einsatzgruppe D conducted operations in northern Transylvania, Cernauti, Kishinev and across the Crimea. In March 1943 it was re-deployed in Ovruch as an anti-partisan unit called Kampfgruppe Bierkamp, named after its new commander Walther Bierkamp. The Einsatzgruppe D was responsible for the killing of over 91,728 people.
and Heinz Jost at the Einsatzgruppen trial
;Commanders
  1. SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Dr. Otto Ohlendorf
  2. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Walther Bierkamp
;Einsatzkommando 10a
  1. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Heinrich Seetzen
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Kurt Christmann
;Einsatzkommando 10b
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Alois Persterer
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Eduard Jedamzik
;Einsatzkommando 11a
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Paul Zapp
  2. Fritz Mauer
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Gerhard Bast
  4. SS-Sturmbannführer Werner Hersmann
;Einsatzkommando 11b
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Unglaube
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Bruno Müller
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Werner Braune
  4. SS-Obersturmbannführer Paul Schultz
;Einsatzkommando 12
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Gustav Adolf Nosske
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Erich Müller
  3. SS-Obersturmbannführer Günther Herrmann

    ''Einsatzgruppe'' E

The Einsatzgruppe E was deployed in Croatia behind the 12th Army in the area of Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb.
;Commanders:
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Teichmann
  2. SS-Standartenführer Günther Herrmann
  3. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Wilhelm Fuchs
;Einsatzkommando 10b
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer und Oberregierungsrat Joachim Deumling
  2. SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Sprinz
;Einsatzkommando 11a
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat Rudolf Korndörfer
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Anton Fest
;Einsatzkommando 15
  1. SS-Hauptsturmführer Willi Wolter
;Einsatzkommando 16
  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer und Oberregierungsrat Johannes Thümmler
  2. SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Freitag
;Einsatzkommando Agram
  1. SS-Sturmbannführer und Regierungsrat'' Rudolf Korndörfer

    ''Einsatzgruppe Serbien''

  2. SS-Oberführer und Oberst der Polizei Wilhelm Fuchs, Yugoslavia
  3. SS-Oberführer Emanuel Schäfer

    ''Einsatzkommando Tunis''

Officially the Einsatzkommando der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD beim AOK Norwegen, Befehlsstelle Finnland, Einsatzkommando Finnland was a German paramilitary unit active in northern Finland and northern Norway. Operating under the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and Finnish Valpo security police, Einsatzkommando Finnland remained a secret until 2008.

Planned ''Einsatzkommando'' units