Figure 1.--SS Einsatzgruppen conducted large-scale killing operations. They also killed individualsnd small groups. Here SS Einsatzgruppen men are killing Jews at Ivangorod in the Ukraine (1942). A mother is trying to protect her child with her own body just before they are shot. Notice the close range. The SS men involved mailed this photograph home from the Eastern Front. It was intercepted at a Warsaw post office by Jerzy Tomaszewski, a member of the Polish resistance. The German soldier had written on the back "Ukraine 1942, Jewish Action [operation], Ivangorod." One wonders to who you would send a terrible photograph like this.

The German Army in Belgium executed 6,000 civilians ahd was acquired aeputation for brutality that lasted the entire war. The Whermact and paramilitary formations killed about 100,000 civilians in Poland (1939). Operation Barbarossa was to be something even more terrible. It woukd be unlike any other campaign in modern history. Hitler made it very clear that the campaign in the East would be conducted differently than any other modern campaign--it was to be a war of extermination. Mass executions of Jewish men, women, and children as well as Communists were carried out. Four SS Einsatzgruppen were responsible for most of the killings, together with local collaborators, but the numbers of Jews encountered was so large that regular Wehrmacht units also participate in the killing. It was not just the Jews that were killed, but also Communist Commisars in the army army and Communist officials. Eventually large numbers of Slavs were to be killed to clear land for German colonization. In the end this war of extinction may have doomed Operation Barbarossa because it precluded the effective utilization of anti-Communist Russians and Ukranians to fight the Red Army.

Whermacht Standing Orders

OKW issued a series of orders setting the perameters for the conduct of German troops in the Soviet Union. Each were in blatant violation of international law. They included the Barbarossa Order, the Commissar Order, the Kommunisten Order, and, later, the Commando Order and Night and Fog Decree. Note that these were not secret orders given to the SS, but commands issued by the Wehrmnacht high command in total violation of the rules of war and international law.

Barbarossa Order (March 3)

General Major Alfred Jodl, wjo had been a strong supporter of Hitler and the NAZIs, Chief of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, briefed the ranking officers of the Wehrmacht on how Barbarossa would be conducted (March 3, 1941). He told them, “This campaign is more than a struggle at arms, it will lead to a conflict of ideologies”. arbarossa was to be a struggle of extermination. Jodl warned his fellow officers that it would be necessary to "distance oneself from the standpoint of soldierly comradeship". Many Wehrmasct officers identified with these ideological effort. This is impossible to identify. This was not just aAZI orientation, but was essentially a continuation of the historic Drag noch oSt. While it is impossible to quantify, We do know that not one important German commander resigned his command. This can be construed as the Wehrmacht's attempt to curry favor with the Führer who after the victories in the West was now in an unassailable position. The Barbarossa Order which mandated the "upmost severity" with "eneny civilians" which "interfered" with military operations. This meant that German officers, even lower-level officers, were given the authority to shoot civilians. German officers could order reprisals reprisals against villages from which hostile fore came or close to or close to such actions. Here it should be pointed out that American soldiers would routenily shell German villages rather than fight door to door if German soldiers fired from the village. The diffeerence is that after the actiin, the Germans commonly executed some or all of the villagers. The Barbarosa Order meant that German soldiers would not be tried for actions against Soviet civilans that would previously been military crimes. The Wehrmact was concerned that vHitler might actually abolish military courts altogether. The Whermacht thus suspended them in Russia. [Mazower, p. 142.]

Commissar Order (June 6)

The Commissar order issued a month later went much further thasn the Barbarossa order. The Barbarossa Order was directed at civilians who resisted or were preceived as resisting. The Commissar Order was vet different. It was directed at individuals who had surrenderd and were in German custody. This was muder pure and simple. Hitler wanted Communist Party officials killed outright. Thus the Whermacht and SS and were ordered to execute captured Red Army Army commisars (June 6). The Commissar Order of 6 June 1941 was entitled, "Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars". It read, "In the battle against Bolshevism, the adherence of the enemy to the principles of humanity or international law is not to be counted on. In particular the treatment of those of us who are taken prisoner in a manner full of hatred, cruelty and inhumanity can be expected from the political commissars of every kind as the real pillars of opposition. The troops must be aware that: 1. In this battle mercy or considerations of international law with regard to these elements is false. They are a danger to our own safety and to the rapid pacification of the conquered territories. 2. The originators of barbaric, Asiatic methods of warfare are the political commissars. So immediate and unhesitatingly severe measures must be undertaken against them. They are therefore, when captured either in battle or offering resistance, as a matter of routine to be dispatched by firearms. The following provisions also apply: 2. ...Political commissars as agents of the enemy troops are recognizable from their special badge—a red star with a golden woven hammer and sickle on the sleeves.... They are to be separated from the prisoners of war immediately, i.e. already on the battlefield. This is necessary, in order to remove from them any possibility of influencing the captured soldiers. These commissars are not to be recognized as soldiers; the protection due to prisoners of war under international law does not apply to them. When they have been separated, they are to be finished off. 3. Political commissars who have not made themselves guilty of any enemy action nor are suspected of such should be left unmolested for the time being. It will only be possible after further penetration of the country to decide whether remaining functionaries may be left in place or are to be handed over to the Sonderkommandos. The aim should be for the latter to carry out the assessment. In judging the question "guilty or not guilty", the personal impression of the attitude and bearing of the commissar should as a matter of principle count for more than the facts of the case which it may not be possible to prove." A few Whermacht officers objected. The Whermach high command obsequiosly complied and issued the orders. [Shephard, p. 53.] The Germans soldiers went further than the actual instructions. Actual Wehrmacht procedures varied. One estemed Soviet author describes a common Wehrmacht practice. Red Army soldier captured by the Germans described his experience. The Germans captured large numbers of Red Army soldiers. Then they did the following. They separated the officers and political officers fom the soldiers. Then they went along the line of the POWs and separated from them all who looked like Jews. As aesult, some Byelorussians who had black hair were separated as possible Jews. Then the Germans shot all those who had been separated (officers, Commissars, and Jews. [Sholokhov]

Guidelines for the Conduct of Troops in Russia (June 12)

The Wehrmacht on the even of Barbarossa issued instructions to its personnel--Guidelines for the Conduct of Troops in Russia (June 12). The Wehrmacht High Command cast the upcoming campaign in NAZI terms as a life-and-death struggle against Bolshevism. It was desribed as "the mortal enemy of the National Sicialist German people". The campaign demanded that the German soldier "ruthless and energetic measures against Bolshevik agitators, irregulars, saboteurs and Jews and the total eradication of any active or passive resistance." Many field commanders issued orders to their men which used the same terminology. Even officers like General Hoepner who would take part in the Whermacht July bomb plot.

Kommunisten Order

Other Orders

Other orders violating international law were issued to or by the Whermact, but unlike the orders listed here were not specifically issued for Babarossa and the campaign in the East. The failure of Barbarossa had consequences in the West as well as the East. These orders were aimed at the increasingly restive occupied peoples and the increasingly potent Allied military.

SS Einsatzgruppen

Despite the orders issued by OKW and subiordinate commands, Hitler had no confidence that the Wehrmacht would execute these orders with the severity he expected. The Wehrmact actually arrested and was prepared to court martial both Wehrmacht and SS members who committed attrocities. Nor did the orders fully describe what he wanted done. Hitler concluded that the Wehrmacht was just not the institutiin needed to carry out the actions he required. He gave SS Reichführer Himmler the responsibility for carrying out "special tasksresulting from the struggle which has to be carried out between two opposing political systems" (March 1941). Himmler ordered the creation of four Einsatzgruppen (Special Operations Groups). Einsatzgruppen had been sent into Poland, but they were not as large nor did they have the clear instructiond given to the four new Einsatzgruppen. They were established to follow in the wake of the advanzing Wehrmacht and carry out murder on a large scale. The Einsatzgruppen were nominally under the command of the three Army Groups that conducted Barbarossa. In fact, they followed instructions from Heydrich RSHA. Both Himmler and Heydeich had personnal access to Hiler. Hitler made it clear to the Wehrmacht that he decribed as the "Judeo-Bolshevik intelligentsia" completely eliminated. He appeas to have gone much furher with Himmler and Heydrich. He never went further in open statements to the military leadership and precisely what he told the SS can not be proven. there is, however, every reason to think that the barbaritites carried out by the SS, reflected Hitler's instructions. Heydrixh ordered the Einsatzgruppen commanders to to clear the newly conquerred territories of "suspect elemnents". Note that there was no attempt to link the actions with resistence, but simply "suspect elements" Heydrich ordered the commanders to incite local pograms against Jews. The idea was to be able to show that local populatiions had begun the campaign against Jews. SS-Brigadeführer Franz Stahlecker, a protoge of Heydrich fom the SD and commander of Einsatzgruppen A explained, "It has to be shown that the local population themselves had taken the first measures on their own as a natural reaction against decades cof supression by the Jews." {Streit, pp5-6]

OperationBarbarossa (June 22, 1941)

The Battle of Britain in many ways changed the course of the War. An invasion of Britain was impossible without air superiority. Hitler, fearing a cross-Channel invasion, decided that the only way to force the British to seek terms was to destroy the Soviet Union. He began shifting the Wehrmacht eastward to face the enemy that he had longed to fight from the onset--Soviet Russia. The nature of the War changed decisevely in the second half of 1941. The Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, launching the most sweeping military campaign in history. It is estimated that on the eve of battle, 6.25 million men faced each other in the East. The Soviets were surprised and devestated. Stalin ignored warnings from the British who as a result of Ultra had details on the German preparations. Stalin was convinced that they were trying to draw him into the War and until the actual attack could not believe that Hitle would attack him. The attack was an enormous tactical success. The Soviets were surprised and devestated. The Soviet Air Force was destoyed, largely on the ground. The Germans captured 3.8 million Soviet soldiers in the first few months of the campaign. No not knowing the true size of the Red Army, they thought they had essentally won the War. German columns seized the major cities of western Russia and drove toward Leningrad and Moscow.

Prisoners of War (POWs)

The Holocaust Decesion

It is not precisely known when Hitler ordered the mass murder of European Jews. The principa NAZI concern before the War was to first rob German Jews abd then drive them from the Reich. They had considerable success with both, but the Anschluss (1938)and seizure of Czechoslovakia (1938-39) brought more Jews within the Reich than the NAZIs began with. And many more still came with the invasion of Poland (1939). So the Reich had more Jews than when Hitler came to power. Even so the decesion to murder European Jews had not been taken. The NAZIs were talking about a reservation in Poland around Lublin or shipping the Jews to Madagascar. The turning point in NAZI thought was Barbarossa (June 1941). The formation of the SS Einsatzgruppen meant killing on a large scale. The orders were at first muddeled, byt Hedrich quickly made it clear that they were to kill Jews without mercy. And once the killing began in the Soviet Union, the fate of the Jews in the rest of NAZI occupied Europe was sealed. Hitler made the decesion at a time when it looked like Germany had won the War and there would be no repercussions. This changed with the Red Army offensive before Moscow and the American entry into the war (December 1941). This meant that it was no longer clear that Germany would win the War. Even so, Hitler went ahead with the plans to kill European Jews. Most of the Jews were killed after this time. The gas chambers needed to kill in large numbers obly became operational (April 1942). About half of the Jews which perished in the Holocaust were killed after Stalingrad (January 1943) when it was clear that Germany could not win the War. As NAZI prospects declined, Hitler maintained the killing process. As it became clear that the War was lost, in his mind he saw himself in fufilling at least one war goal--exterminating the Jewish people.

Sources

Mazower, Mark. Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (Penguin Press: New York, 2008), 726p.

Shepherd, Ben. War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans (Cambridge, 2004).

Sholokhov, Mikhail. "Fate of a Man.

Streit, C. "The Germany Army and the policies of genocide," in Hirschfeld, ed. Policies of Genocide.

Created: 7:43 PM 6/18/2009
Last updated: 7:43 PM 6/18/2009