"In the city of Minsk, about 10,000 Jews were liquidated in November of the previous year, at the Fuehrer's orders.
The Sluzk area was also ridded of several thousand Jews.
The same applies to Nowogrodek and Wilejka". not been going as well as he desired:
"Radical measures still remain to be taken." He explained: "In Baranowitschi, about 10,000 Jews are still living in the town alone." However, he would attend to that situation at once. He promised that 9,000 of them would be "liquidated next month." of Jews executed in Lithuania was 71,105. ory of the people killed as a business house might submit a list of stock on hand:
"Total: Jews Communists Total White Ruthenia 7.620 - - 7,620 to be added to these figures:
"In Lithuania and Latvia Jews annihilated by pogroms 5,500 (correct total 130,065) 122,455 135,567"
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Dixon will continue with reading of the opinion and the judgment.
JUDGE DIXON: It would not take, and it did not take many reapings of this character to reach the figure of one million.
Operational Report No. 190, speaking of the activities of Einsatzgruppe D, announces quite matter-of-fact that , in the second half of March 1942, a total of 1,501 people were executed, and then adds, perhaps boredly: "Total number shot up to date, 91,678". Operation Report No. 150 declares: "There is no longer any Jewish civil population".
Activity and Situation Report No. 9, covering the period of January 1942, apprised Berlin:
"In White Ruthenia the purge of Jews is in full swing.
of the Security Police and the SD." Eastern Territories, left nothing to conjecture as to the purpose of their organization.
"The systematic mopping up of the Eastern Territories complete removal, if possible, of Jewry.
This goal has present time, of 229,052 Jews."
observation that many of the Jews used force against the officials and Lithuanian auxiliaries who performed these excutions and that, before they were shot, they even abused Germany! that it did not take over this area until a heavy frost had set in. The report points out this "made mass executions much more difficult". And then another difficulty, the report-writer emphasizes, is that the Jews "live widely scattered over the whole country. In view of the enormous distances, the bad condition of the roads, the shortage of vehicles and petrol, and the small forces of Security Police and SD, it needs the utmost effort in order to be able to carry out shootings."
unreasonable in not coming themselves over these long distances to present themselves for shooting. In spite of all the difficulties, however, the report ends up with: "Nevertheless, 41,000 Jews have been shot up to now." in one report, where the question of setting up a ghetto was concerned the report-writer communicated that in getting things started there would be "executions of a minor nature of 50 to 100 persons only".
"On 2 January, at the order of Einsatzgruppe A of all foodstuffs, etc.
, and all the villagers shot.
neighboring town, Rossitten".
The report ends on the very casual note:
"All these actions were carried out without incident." massacred. In another village 301 people were herded into the public square and shot down mercilessly. But for the report-writer this mass violence did not even constitute an incident!
On two days alone (September 29 and September 30, 1941) Sonderkommando 4a, with the help of the Gruppenstaff and two Police Units, slaughtered in Kiew 33,771 Jews. The money, valuables, underwear and clothing of the murdered victims were turned over to the racial Germans and to the Nazi administration of the city. The massacre ends up with the phrase:
"The transaction was carried out without friction - " and then adds, as he was about to put away the typewriter:
"No incidents occurred." kommandos sought to avoid executions, not out of charity or sympathy, but because it meant just that much more work. The defendant Nosske testified to a caravan of from 6,000 to 7,000 Jews who had been driven across the Dnjester River by the Rumanians into territory occupied by the German forces, and whom he guided back across the river.
When asked why these Jews had been expelled from Rumania, Nosske replied:
"I have no idea. I assume that the Rumanians wanted to the trouble of shooting them.
We didn't want to do that.
We didn't want to do the work for the Rumanians, and we happened.
We refused it and, therefore, we sent them back." resulting from acts of the organizations to which the defendants belonged did not reach the total of one million. As a matter of fact, it went far beyond one million. As already indicated, the International Military Tribunal, after a trial lasting ten months, studying and analyzing figures and reports, declared:
"The RSHA played a leading part in the 'final solution' established to supervise this program.
Under its direc of the Security Police."
declared that, according to the reports, his Einsatzgruppe killed 90,000 people. He also told of the methods he employed to prevent the exaggeration of figures. He did say that other Einsatzgruppen were not as careful as he was in presenting totals, but he presented no evidence to attack numbers presented by other Einsatzgruppen. Reference must also be made to the statement of the defendant Heinz Schubert who not only served as adjutant to Ohlendorf in the field from October 1941 to June 1942, but who continued in the same capacity of adjutant in the RSHA, Office Amt III B, for both Ohlendorf and Dr. Hans Emlich, until the end of 1944. If there was any question about the correctness of the figures, this is where the question would have been raised, but Schubert expressed no doubt nor did he say that these individuals who were momently informed in the statistics entertained the slightest doubt about them in any way.
prepare the reports and to avoid errors:
"The Einsatzgruppe reported in two ways to the Reich Security Head Office.
Once through radio, then in writing.
The radio reports were kept strictly secret enter the radio station.
This is the reason why only the of these radio reports.
The reports were dictated directly to Fritsche by Ohlendorf or Seibert.
After the report had been sent off by Fritsche I received it for filing.
In persons killed.
The written reports were sent to Berlin by courier.
These reports contained exact details and des etc."
thought of ever filing a false report because he regarded that as unworthy of himself.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess fifteen minutes.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will be in recess until 11:15 o'clock.
(recess)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Dixon continues with the reading of the opinion and judgment.
JUDGE DIXON: Then, the actual figures mentioned in the reports, staggering though they are, do by no means tell the entire story. Since the objective of the Einsatzgruppen was to exterminate all people falling in the categories announced in the Fuehrer-Order, the completion of the job in any given geographical area was often simply announced with the phrase: "There is no longer any Jewish population." Cities, towns and villages were combed by the kommandos and when all Jews in that particular community were killed, the report-writer laconically telegraphed or wrote to Berlin that the section in question was "freed of Jews". Sometimes the extermination area covered a whole country like Esthonia or a large territory like the Crimea. In determining the numbers killed in a designation of this character one needs merely to study the atlas and the census of the period in question. Sometimes the area set aside for an execution operation was arbitrarily set according to kommandos. Thus one finds in the reports such entries as: "The fields of activity of the kommandos is freed of all Jews." meditated by the Einsatz units without their having to do the killing. When Jews were herded into a few miserable houses which were fenced off and called a "ghetto", this was incarceration -- but incarceration without a prison warden to bring them food. The reports make it abundantly clear that in these ghettos death was rampant, even before the Einsatz units began the killing off of the survivors. When, in a given instance, all male Jews and Jewesses over the age of 12 were executed, there remained, of course, all the children under 12. They were doomed to perish. Then there were those who were worked to death. All these fatalities are unmistakably chronicled in the Einsatz Reports, but do not show up in their statistics.
victims of the Einsatzgruppen who did not fall under the executing rifles. In many cities, towns end provinces hundreds and thousands of fellow-citizens of those slain fled in order to avoid a similar fate. Through malnutrition, exposure, lack of medical attention and particularly, if one thinks of the aged and the very young, of exhaustion, most if not all of those refugees perished. These figures, of course, do not appear in the Einsatzgruppen Reports, but the criminal responsibility for their deaths falls upon the Fuehrer-Order program as much as the actual shooting deaths. temporarily spared, not for humanitarian reasons, but for economic purposes. Thus, a report from Esthonia specifies:
"The arrest of all male Jews of over 16 years of age has been nearly finished.
With the exception of the cial Detachment 1 a. Jewesses in Pernau and Reval of were arrested and put to peat-cutting or other labor."
(L-180) a great shortage of doctors for the non-Jewish population:
"More than 60% of the dentists were Jews; more than 50% of the other doctors as well.
The disappearance from the Reich."
(L-180) Jews be killed by working and not by shooting:
"There is only one possibility which the German ad ted for a long time:
Solution of the Jewish prob economic conditions of the country."
(NO-3151) paid manpower, but there was always the danger that, despite these economic advantages to the Germans, the security police would shoot the working Jews.
(NO-3146) Einsatzgruppe C reports in September 1941:
"Difficulties have arisen, in so far as Jews are often the only skilled workers in certain trades.
Thus, the only are Jews.
At other places also only Jews can be employed "In order not to endanger reconstruction and the repair older Jewish skilled workers from the executions."
(NO-3146) and Dnepropetrovsk, collective farms, known as Colchoses,were found to be operated by Jews. They were described in the report as being of low intelligence but since they were good workers the einsatz commander did not liquidate them. However, the report goes on to say that the einsatz commander was satisfied with merely shooting the Jewish managers. (NO-3153) July 1942, expressed quite frankly his desire to strike down all Jews in one murderous stroke. However, he was willing to stay his arm temporarily until the requirements of the Wehrmacht should be satisfied:
"I myself and the SD would certainly of the Wehrmacht have fallen off.
For still being considered."
(3428-PS) Operation Report No. 11, dated July 3, 1941, also explains that in the Baltic region the Wehrmacht is not "for the time being" in a position to dispense with the manpower of the Jews still available and fit for work.
(NO-4537) the Jews were free from molestation. Einsatzgruppe B, reporting on affairs in Witebsk, declared:
"By appointed Jewish Council, so far about 3,000 Jews registered.
Badges for Jews introduced.
At present they ble.
For deterrent, 27 Jews, who had in the streets."
(NO-2954) that as the Germans advanced, the Esthonians arrested Jews but did not kill them. He shows the superior methods of the Einsatzgruppe:
"Only by the Security Police and the work."
(2273-PS) He then adds as an obvious deduction:
"Today there are no longer any Jews in Esthonia."
til he has drained from its body the last ounce of utility, so did the action unit in Minsk dispose of the Jews:
"In Minsk itself--exclusive of Reich used as labor."
(2273-PS) of Heydrich to suspend the killing of Jews until after they had brought in the harvest. point of view, was perhaps even worse than their own directly committed murders, that is, their inciting of the population to abuse, maltreat and slay their fellow citizens. To invade a foreign country, seize innocent inhabitants and shoot them is a crime, the mere statement of which is its own condemnation. But to stir up passion, hate, violence and destruction among the people themselves, aims at breaking the moral backbone, even of those the invader chooses to spare. It sows seeds of crime which the invader intends to bear continuous fruit, even after he is driven out.
of those responsible for these shameless crimes endeavored to keep them secret. SS-Brigadier General Stahlecker, head of Einsatzgruppe A, reporting on activities of Einsatzgruppe A, stated in October 1941 that it was the duty of his Security Police to set in motion the passion of the population against the Jews. "It was not less important", the report continued, "In view of the future to establish the ities could not be found out."
(L-180) In Riga this same Stahlecker reported:
"Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces be very difficult.
Following out ord possible means and most decisively.
But were apt to stir even German circles.
It period."
(L-180) was not so easy to start pogroms against the Jews. However, after certain prodding and assistance, results were attained. He reports:
"Klimatis, the leader of the partisan unit, from the outside.
During the first pogrom sisting of about 60 houses.
During the made harmless in a similar way.
In other been left behind."
(L-180) groms in Lithuania and Latvia, Stahlecker made it a point to select men who for personal reasons had a grudge against the Russians. Somehow these squads were then made to believe that by killing Jews they were avenging themselves on the Russians for their own griefs.
Activity and Situation Report No. 6, prepared in October 1941, complained that Einsatz units operating in Estonia could not provoke "spontaneous, anti-Jewish demonstration with ensuing pogroms" because "adequate enlightment was lacking". However, as stated before, not everything was lost because under the direction of the Einsatzgruppe of the Security Police and Security Service, all male Jews over the age of 16, with the exception of doctors and Jewish Elders, were arrested and killed. The report then states: "At the conclusion of the operation there will be only 500 Jewesses and children left in the Ostland". building firm in Sdolbunow, Ukraine, has described in graphic language just how a pogrom operates. When he heard that a pogrom was being incubated he called on the commanding officer of the town, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Putz, to ascertain if the story had any basis in fact since he, Graebe, employed some Jewish workers whom he wished to protect. Sturmbannfuehrer Putz denied the rumors. Later, however, Graebe learned from the Area Commissioner's deputy, Stabsleiter Beck, that a pogrom was actually in the making but he exacted from Graebe the promise not to disclose the secret. He even gave Graebe a certificate to protect his workers from the pogrom. This amazing document reads:
"Messrs. JUNG affected by the pogrom.
You must transfer them From the Area Commissioner Beck".That evening the pogrom broke.
At ten o'clock SS-men and Ukrainian militia surged into the Ghetto, forcing doors with beams and crossbars. Let Graebe tell the story in his own words:
"The people living there were driven on to the street dressed or in bed.
Since the Jews in most cases militia applied force.
They finally succeeded, with in clearing the houses.
The people were driven out of had been left behind in several instances.
In the street parents.
That did not prevent the SS from driving the "Car after car was filled, and the screaming of women and resounded unceasingly.
Since several families or groups these houses were now blown open with handgrenades.
Since a small river to get away from the Ghetto area.
As this "All through the night these beaten, hounded and wounded people moved along the lighted streets.
Women carried road toward the train.
Again and again the cries 'Open the door! Open the door!' echoed through the Ghetto."
Beck, seven of them were seized and taken to the collecting point. Graebe's narrative continues:
"I went to the collecting point to save these seven men.
the streets I had to walk along. The doors of the houses stood open, windows were smashed.
Pieces of clothing, shoes, stockings, jackets, caps, hats, coats, etc.
were lying in the street.
At the corner of the house lay a baby, less than a year old with his skull crushed.
Blood the area immediately around the child.
The child was the ground.
He had a heavy dog whip in his hand. I those who were crouching on the ground.
Dr. Puetz was very furious about Beck's concession and nothing could persuade him to release the seven men.
He made a motion with his once here would not get away.
Although he was very angry strasse out of Rowno by 8 o'clock at the latest.
"When I left Dr. Puetz, I noticed a Ukrainian farm cart, with two horses.
Dead people with stiff limbs were lying The cart was making for the freight train.
I took house to Sdolbunow."
27 Jews on the streets of Witebsk, announced in its report:
"The Ruthenian part of the population has approved of this.
Large-scale execution of Jews will follow immediately."
of pogroms is evidenced by one report where the Sipo and SD want some of the credit for the murders committed:
"As a result of the pogroms carried out by the Lithua smaller town were eliminated."
In some areas special groups were set up:
"In addition to this auxiliary police force, 2 more of carrying out pogroms.
All synagogues have been destroyed; 400 Jews have already been liquidated."
THE PRESIDENT: The presiding judge continues with the reading: Heading, the Jews to extermination, the public record shows that they counted on substantial material advantage. The levying of enormous indemnities against persons considered by the Nazis as Jews or halfJews and the expropriation of their property in Germany as well as in the countries occupied by it, brought huge returns to the coffers of the Reich. And even in the dread and grim business of mass slaughter, a definite profit was rung up on the Nazi cash register. For example, Situation Report No. 73, dated 4 September 1941 reporting on the executions carried out by a single unit, Einsatzkommando 8, makes the cold commercial announcement:
"On the occasion of a purge at Tscherwen 125,880 rubels kommando 8 to 1,510,399 rubels up to the present day."
Situation Report No. 133, dated 14 November 1941, shows the progress made by this unit in a little over two months:
"During the period covered by this report, Einsatzkommando rubels.
They were entered into the ledgers and passed to the Administration of Einsatzkommando 8. The total amount to 2,511,226 rubels."
On 26 October 1941, Situation Report No. 125 gave Einsatzkommando 7b credit for 46,700 rubels taken from liquidated Jews, Einsatzkommando 9 credit for 43,825 rubels and "various valuables in gold and silver", and recorded that Einsatzkommando 8 had increased the amount of its loot to the sum of 2,019,521 rubels.
Operation and Situation Report No. 31, dated July 1941, rendering an account of operations in Lithuania, recorded the taking of "460,000 rubels in cash as well as a large number of valuables" from liquidated Jews. The report stated further:
"The former Trade Union Building in Wilna was secured for the German Labor Front (DAF) at their request, likewise 1.5 million rubels."
on the highest ethnic and cultural level, executants of the program were not above the most petty and loathsome thievery. In the liquidation of Jews in Zhitomir and Kiew the reporting Einsatzkommando collected 137 trucks full of clothing. The report does not say whether the clothing was torn from the victims while they were still alive or after they had been killed. This stolen raiment was turned over to the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization. ordered to obtain furcoats for his men, and that since the Jews had so much winter clothing, it would not matter much to them if they gave up a few fur coats. In describing an execution which he attended, the defendant was asked whether the victims were undressed before the execution. He replied: "No, the clothing wasn't taken - this was a fur coat procurement operation."
A document issuing from Einsatzgruppe D headquarters (February 1942) speaks of the confiscation of watches in the course of anti-Jewish activities. The term "confiscate" does not change the legal or moral character of the operation. It was plain banditry and highway robbery. The gold and silver watches were sent to Berlin, others were handed over to the Wehrmacht (rank and file) and to members of the Einsatzgruppe itself "for a nominal price" or even gratuitously if the circumstances warranted that kind of liberality with these blood-stained articles. This report also states that money seized was transmitted to the Reich Bank, except "for a small amount required for routine purposes (wages etc.)". In other words the executioners paid themselves with money taken from their victims. some Ethnic German families were living in Southern Russia, showed that it helped by placing Jewish homes, furniture, children's beds, and other equipment at the disposition of the Ethnic Germans. These houses and equipment were taken from liquidated Jews. (September 1941), stated that it organized a regular police force to clear the country of Jews as well as for other purposes. The men enlisted for this purpose, the report goes on to say, received "their pay from the municipality from funds seized from Jews".
Whole villages were condemned, the cattle and supplies seized, (that is stolen), the population shot and then the villages themselves destroyed. shallow pretense, that some of the inhabitants had been aiding or lodging partisans. cooking-utensils, etc., taken from the murdered Jews.
over to the mayor who, according to the report covering this action, "gave special priority to the Ethnic Germans when distributing it". to give up their money and valuables and sometimes their clothes before breathing in the carbon monoxide. Reich Ministry of Finance. When a Jewish Council of Elders was appointed to register the Jews for the ostensible purpose of resettlement, the Council was also requested to submit the financial situation of the Jews. This facilitated the despoiliation of their possessions which went hand in hand with their execution.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
also extended to prisoners of war. Even in the first weeks of Germany's war against Russia, large numbers of civilians from the invaded areas were indiscriminately thrown into prisoner of war camps, run by the P.O.W. department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. On 17 July 1941, Heydrich issued Operational Order No. 8, which contained "directives" for the Einsatz units "detailed to permanent P.W. camps (Stalags) and Transit camps (Dulags)". These directives not only grossly violated the provisions of the Hague Regulations on prisoners of war and civilians in belligerently occupied territories and of century-old rules and customs of warfare, but outraged every principle of humanity. They provided for nothing less than the cold-blooded mass-murder of prisoners of war, and of civilians held in P.W. camps. The directives state as their "purpose":
"The Wehrmacht must immediately free it Bolshevist influence.
The special situa fore, demands special measures (Italics original) which have to be carried out in ness to assume responsibility."
gories of persons to seek out "above all". This list mentions in detail all categories and types of Russian Government officials, all influential communist party officials, "the leading personalities of the economy", "the Soviet Russian intellectuals", and as a separate category -- the category which was again to yield the largest number of victims of this "action" -
"All Jews" "taking any decisions, the racial origin has to be taken into consideration."
Concerning executions, the directives specified:
Court No. II, Cass No. IX.
"The executions must not be carried out neighborhood.
They are not public and as possible."
Further:
" "In order to facilitate the execution of Commander-in-Chief of the P.W. camps in of the P.W. camps in the General Gouvern ment in Kieloe."
doomed either because they were "Russian intellectuals" or because they were Jews. However, by 29 October 1941, Heydrich found it necessary to rule:
"Because of the existing shortage of segregation and to be left in the P.W.founded cases."
strates to what extent the Reich went officially in flouting the most basic rules of international law and the principles of humanity:
"The chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen decide kommandos the corresponding orders."
aware of its illegality:
"This order must not be passed on in an excerpt.
District commanders for ally."
objected to this shameful and degrading repudiation of the rules of war. In one report we find:
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
"As a particularly clear example the two other officers."
Army, however, was not so chivalrous as the officer indicated. The report states further:
"Generalfeldmarshal von Reichenau has, by the Wehrmacht."
reached by these murder groups when one of the kommandos brutally killed helpless, wounded prisoners of war. Einsatzgruppe C, reporting (November 1941) on an execution performed by Sonderkommando 4a, stated:
"....the larger part were again Jews, been handed over by the Wehrmacht.
At handed over by the camp physician."
PRESIDENT: The next heading, How were the executions conducted?
What was the modus operandi? On this subject history need not remain in the dark. Several of the executioners have themselves cleared away all mystery as to just how they accomplished their extraordinary deeds. Defendant Paul Blobel, who stated that his sonderkommando killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people, described in some detail one performance he personally directed. Specifying that from 700 to 1,000 persons were Court No. II, Case No. IX.