In parallel, the SS organized special Einsatzgruppen (" task forces ") to murder Jews in these areas and a few massacres were carried out.

" When on trial for his leadership of Einsatzgruppen in the USSR, Otto Ohlendorf cited the massacres of Romanis during the Thirty Years War as a historical precedent.

During the time Schöngarth was stationed in Kraków, he formed several Einsatzgruppen ( Special Action Groups ) in Warsaw, Radom, and Lublin, with the intention of perpetrating massacres.

The Einsatzgruppen carried out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar ( 33, 771 killed in two days ) and Rumbula ( 25, 000 killed in two days ).

Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by the Einsatzgruppen.

Thus, an interval passed between the " first sweep " 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.

The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that although photographs of the killings were officially forbidden, it was very common for both the men of the Einsatzgruppen and various by-standers to take pictures of the killings to send to their loved ones, which would suggest widespread approval of the massacres.

The Einsatzgruppen kept official records of many of their massacres, and reported to their superiors on their actions.

The Einsatzgruppen remained active, however, and were still participating in massacres as late as the fall of 1943.

Those actions were in addition to the massacres carried out by the Einsatzgruppen who were specifically detailed to kill innocent civilians and Jews.

Hildebrand has argued that the distinction drawn by the functionalists between the Einsatzgruppen massacres of Jews in the German-occupied parts of the Soviet Union in 1941-42 and between the rest of the Shoah is largely meaningless.

The initial, formal killings of the Final Solution were undertaken by the SS Einsatzgruppen ( Task Forces ) death squads who followed the Wehrmacht during the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the USSR in June 1941.

In an act of retaliation for the killings on Bloody Sunday, a number of Polish civilians were executed by German military units of the Einsatzgruppen, Waffen SS, and Wehrmacht.

Sydnor remarked that Irving's statement that the Einsatzgruppen were in charge in the death camps seems to indicate that he was not familiar with the history of the Holocaust, as the Einsatzgruppen were in fact mobile death squads who had nothing to do with the death camps.

Gross asserted emphatically that Polish perpetrators were not coerced by the Germans: “ the ‘’ Einsatzgruppen ,’’ German police detachments and various functionaries who implemented the ‘ final solution ’ did not compel the local population to participate directly in the murder of Jews ... the so-called local population involved in killings of Jews did so of their own free will .” ( p. 133 )

The Einsatzgruppen were initially ordered to establish " security " in the rear areas by killing communists and partisans, but by 1941 the identity between Jews and communism was strongly established in the minds of most SS men and Police officers.

Since Reichenau's order was widely understood as endorsing the mass killings of Ukrainian Jews which were going on behind the German lines, with which 6th Army at any rate was actively co-operating, Rundstedt's open endorsement of its strongly anti-Semitic language clearly contradicts his later assertions that he did not know what the Einsatzgruppen were doing.

These inconsistencies were exposed both at Nuremberg, in the trials of the Einsatzgruppen leaders ( who also claimed they had a duty to obey distasteful orders ) and in the 1947 trials of senior officers, and in Manstein's trial in 1949.

Timothy Snyder notes that in the Soviet Union alone there were 8, 000 documented cases of Roma murdered by the Einsatzgruppen in their sweep east.

Starting in July 1941, the Jewish inhabitants were subjected to mass extermination by shooting in a German campaign carried out by four Einsatzgruppen (" operational groups ") specially organized for the purpose.

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, special extermination squads ( the Einsatzgruppen ) were organised to kill Jews in the areas of eastern Poland which had been annexed by the Soviets in 1939.

It commanded a number of Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD formed with Gestapo, Kripo and SD officers who were theoretically subordinate to local Wehrmacht commanders.

Through the use of Einsatzgruppen A and B over a million Jews were killed in the Reichskommissariat Ostland.

Most of the town's Jewish population ( which in its history included such famous rabbis as Leo Baeck and Jacob of Lissa as well as the Polish-Jewish writer Ludwig Kalisch ) and remaining Poles were murdered by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen.

Einsatzgruppen (;, " deployment groups " singular Einsatzgruppe ; official full name Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD ) were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting.

The Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the murders of over 1, 000, 000 people, and they were the first Nazi organizations to commence mass killing of Jews as an organized policy.

The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich ( deputy to Heinrich Himmler ) and operated by the Schutzstaffel ( SS ) before and during World War II.

During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads ( term used by Holocaust historians ) – up to 3, 000 men each – usually composed of 500 – 1, 000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Polish intellectuals, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front.

Hillgruber maintained that the slaughter of about 2. 2 million defenceless men, women and children for the reasons of racist ideology cannot possibly be justified, and that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti-partisan response were lying.

The fact that Nolte has found eloquent supporters both inside and outside the historical profession has little to do with the normal process of research and much to do with the political implications of the relativization of the Holocaust that he has insistently championed for so long ... The fundamentally apologetic character of Nolte's argument shines through most clearly when he concedes Hitler's right to deport, though not to exterminate, the Jews in response to the supposed " declaration of war " issued by the World Jewish Congress ; or when he claims that the activities of the SS Einsatzgruppen can be justified, at least subjectively, as operations aimed against partisans fighting the German Army ".

Authorised by Hitler and under the direction of Himmler and Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen units — now repurposed as death squads — followed the Heer ( army ) into Poland, and by the end of 1939 they had murdered some 65, 000 intellectuals and other civilians.

Himmler set up four Einsatzgruppen under the overall command of Reinhard Heydrich.

These Einsatzgruppen were under the control of the RSHA ; i. e., Reinhard Heydrich and later his successor Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

Each Einsatzgruppen in its area of operations was under the operational control of the Higher SS-Police Chiefs.

In a further agreement between the army and the SS concluded in May 1941 by General Wagner and Walter Schellenberg, it was agreed that the Einsatzgruppen in front-line areas were to operate under army command while the army provided the Einsatzgruppen with all necessary logistical support.

In areas near the front, the Einsatzgruppen were under Army command, so when Colonel Groscurth ordered the planned massacre to be put on hold, the local Einsatzkommando leader had no choice, but to comply.

At the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority, variously charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in the SS ( which had been declared a criminal organization ).

On one occasion, starting December 9, 1941, the Einsatzgruppen D under Otto Ohlendorf's command killed an estimated 14, 300 Simferopol residents, most of them being Jews.

According to an eyewitness the executions were made by an Einsatzgruppen unit ( Einsatzkommando zur besonderen Verwendung ) under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth with the participation of Ukrainian translators, who were dressed in German uniforms.

* Einsatzgruppen – " Special-operation units " that were death squads under the command of the RSHA and followed the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front to engage in the systematic killing of mostly civilians, including: Jews, communists, intellectuals, and others.

Einsatzgruppen were battalion-sized, mobile killing units made up of SiPo, SD or SS Special Action Groups under the command of the RSHA.

Einsatzgruppen () were paramilitary groups originally formed in 1938 under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich – Chief of the SD, and Sicherheitspolizei ( Security Police, SiPo ).

The Einsatzgruppen were once again under the control of Reinhard Heydrich as Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ( RSHA — Reich Main Security Office ); and after his death, under the control of his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

The death squad units of the Einsatzgruppen were considered part of the Allgemeine-SS and under the operational control of the RSHA.

This latter role was obscured in the immediate aftermath of World War II, both by accident and by deliberate obfuscation, when most of the focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen (" Operational groups ") who reported to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ( RSHA — Reich Main Security Office ) under Reinhard Heydrich.