Einsatzgruppen
Mekenna Aguilar 7th
Introduction
Einsatzgruppen are killing units Hitler used during the Holocaust. These groups went on many different invasions in many different places. There were four different groups all with different leaders. Without the four different groups, Hitler wouldn't of been able to kill as many people as he did.
All About Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were units that mainly consisted of police personnel and German SS. The German SS were "protection squads." They murdered people they thought were political or racial enemies which included Jews, Gypsies, and Soviet State and Communist Party Officials. They also killed the mental and physically disabled living in institutions. The Einsatzgruppen followed the German army during the invasion of the Soviet Union. There were four different groups, all killing in different places, that got their men from local police and civilian populations. The German army gave the Einsatzgruppen support during the invasion by helping them with supplies and other necessities. They started shooting only Jewish men, but in the summer of 1941, they started killing all Jewish people women and children included. Althought shooting was the most common way of killing, they started using the gas van. The gas van was a portable gas chamber on a cargo truck that used carbon monoxide to kill the Jews. By the spring of 1943, they had taken over 110 milion lives.They weren't very good people, but they got their job done.
Source
"Einsatzgruppen (killing Units)." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <United States Holocaust Memorial Museum>.
einsatzgruppen actual footage
Some additional facts can be found below.
- The Einsatzgruppen soldiers thought they were "cleansing the streets" when they were killing the Jews, not just taking innocent lives.
- The first invasion they went on was in Czechoslovakia after May 1939.
- A lot of times the Einsatzgruppen men made the already scared victims stand on dead bodies before they were killed.
- Some killers had a hard time killing all the people, so the unit leaders would give out extra alcohol as rewards for good behavior.
- Historians have given credit to the Einsatzgruppen units for killing over one million people in two years.
- Their killings had such a big role in the Holocaust the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal wrote a separate "Einsatzgruppen Trial" in 1947 to 1948.
Sources:
"The SS Einsatzgruppen." The Einsatzgruppen. 1995. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/einsatz.html>.
"The Einsatzgruppen." The Holocaust. 19 July 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/einsatzgruppen/>.
Lewis, Ken. "The Einsatzgruppen." The Einsatzgruppen. N.p., 17 Apr. 1998. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.phdn.org/archives/einsatzgruppenarchives.com/>.
Conclusion
Einsatzgruppen made a big contribution to the number of lives lost. Hitler was a cruel man that killed many people because he thought they were enemies. Many innocent people were killed during the Holocaust. It is a sad, but well known time in history that will never be forgotten.
For further information about the Einsatzgruppen killing units, go to the websites listed below.
This website talks all about the invasion in Poland and the differnt sizes of the Einstazgruppen units. Britannica is an encyclopedia so it is a very well trusted website.
This website talks about a few different invasions the Einsatzgruppen did. It also talks about their leaders and certain jobs people did. This website is created by prefessional researchers that study this for a living so it is a very trusted website.