(full name: Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitsdienstes [SD] und der Sicherheitspolizei [SIPO]), German term, meaning "action-groups," that originally referred to Nazi police intelligence units that worked with the German army after the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Later, the term referred to mobile SS killing units that traveled with the German forces that invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
When the Germans invaded Austria in March 1938 and Czechoslovakia in March 1939, the job of the Einsatzgruppen was to follow the advancing military, and act as portable offices of the Nazis' Security Service and Security Police until permanent offices could be set up. The Einsatzgruppen were in charge of security in these regions, which meant finding and imprisoning opponents of the Nazis.
In preparation for the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Einsatzgruppen were commanded to combat elements that were hostile to the Reich; they interpreted that as an order to murder thousands of Jews and members of the Polish upper-class. Soon after the invasion, the Einsatzgruppen were instructed on how to deal with Jews in the newly conquered regions: they were to arrest the Jews and put them in Ghettos near railway lines to facilitate future population movement, and set up Judenraete (Jewish Councils). These Einsatzgruppen were disbanded in November 1939; their members joined the permanent Security Services and Security Police offices in occupied Poland.
As Germany prepared to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler made it clear to the army that the upcoming war was based on a fundamental conflict between two completely opposing ideologies. It was imperative to destroy those elements that perpetuated the conflicting ideology. Thus, special units called Einsatzgruppen were formed to accompany the advancing military forces. Their job was to search for opponents of the Reich, including Communists and all Jews---and execute them.
When Operation "Barbarossa" began, the Einsatzgruppen followed the German army Wehrmacht right in to the Soviet Union. Four units had been established, Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D. Each one was assigned to liquidate the Jews in its own region and each was divided into sub-units called Sonderkommandos or Einsatzkommandos. Einsatzgruppe A, the largest group with about 1,000 men, was attached to Army Group North. They operated in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) and the area between their eastern borders and Leningrad. Einsatzgruppe B, 655 men attached to Army Group Center, worked in Belorussia and the Smolensk district, east of Moscow. Einsatzgruppe C, a group of 700 attached to Army Group South, covered the northern and central Ukraine. Einsatzgruppe D, with 600 men attached to the Eleventh Army, operated in the southern Ukraine, the Crimea, and Ciscaucasia. These groups did not carry out the destruction of Soviet Jewry alone---wherever they went, regular German soldiers, German police units and local collaborators helped get their murderous job done. By the spring of 1943, the Einsatzgruppen had exterminated 1.25 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Soviets, including Prisoners of War.
The Einsatzgruppen killed their victims---men, women, and children---by gathering them in ravines, mines, quarries, ditches, or pits dug specifically for this purpose. First they would force the Jews to hand over their possessions and remove their clothing. Then they would shoot them, and throw the bodies into the ditch. The commanders filed daily reports of their murderous activities.
The constant up-close contact with murder had a terribly destructive effect on the Einsatzgruppen members, despite the large amounts of alcohol they were plied with. This led the Nazis to search for other execution alternatives. Soon the Einsatzgruppen were given Gas Vans for the murder of the remaining Jews.
After the war, leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were tried at Nuremberg and at later trials. Of 24 defendants, 14 were sentenced to death. Only four were actually executed; the rest had their sentences reduced.
