Killing squads went in after territory was occupied. This was all part of the policy of ‘cleansing’ the area in preparation for settlement.
After 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.[43] 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 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.[65]
On 8 July, Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot.[66] On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to kill 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 the person practised the religion was irrelevant.[68] The unit was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill. It was common practice for the Einsatzgruppen to shoot hostages.[69]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 the newly occupied territories.[70] Pogroms, some of which were orchestrated by the Einsatzgruppen, broke out in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.[71] Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 40 pogroms led to the deaths of 10,000 Jews, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims.[71][72] However, SS-Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, reported to his superiors in mid-October that the residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was required.[73] 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 killing their Jewish neighbours.[74]
All four main Einsatzgruppen took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war.[75] 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 killed by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, 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 killed with a pistol shot.[76]
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 the regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals.[77] In other areas the invasion was so successful that the Einsatzgruppen had insufficient forces to immediately kill all the Jews in the conquered territories.[78] 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 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).[79] 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 totally eliminated, a goal that was postponed until 1942.[80]
The Einsatzgruppen used public hangings as 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; the rest were shot.[81]
Babi YarThe largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev, a city in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September.[82][83] 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.[84] The Jews of Kiev were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kiev 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.[85]
After being marched two miles north-west of 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 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.[86]
The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims.[83] Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material.[87] Anton Heidborn, a member of Sonderkommando 4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the “millions” of banknotes taken from the victims’ possessions.[88] The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens.[87] Jeckeln’s troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October.[83]