The Obergruppen ted for the Russian campaign.
This is not only true for the were arranged; financial funds even were formed in order to help aid the poorer Jews to make this emigration possible.
Until representatives of the I. G. Farben approached me in order to overcome difficulties with the State Police.
It was then their intention to let so-called bearers of secrets emigrate.
Up to the very end I succeeded in giving such aid.
Thus at the begin the fine cooperation with the Russian population.
They were never objected to.
When Himmler was in Nikolajev, in the begin nor did he give me any other directives.
I am rather convinced it was the work of individual people."
This statement of Ohlendorf's is confirmed in many ways. The witness Wisliczeny, one of the closest collaborators of Eichmann, who was assigned to handle the Jewish questions by Heydrich, said before the I.M.T. that the order for the extermination of Jews was only issued in April 1942 (Doc. bk. Ohlendorf Ia, exhibit 58, doc. No. 37). foreign populations in the East, which were issued in 1940 and expressly approved by the Fuehrer, also speaks against the thought that an extermination of Jews or of other races was planned at that time. (Doc. Ohlendorf No. 63, 64, exh. no. 63).
The letter from Goering to Heydrich dated 31 July 1941 - Doc. PS 710) - which the Prosecution also has presented, still sees the allover solution to the Jewish question in German-dominated Europe, contrary to the conception of the I.M.T., expressly in emigration or evacuation. When in the last part of the letter the word "final solution" is used, it can be seen from the unmistakable meaning of the letter that at that time this word was not a code word for execution.
Ohlendorf's statement that he personally helped Jews to emigrate until 1941, is confirmed by document Ohlendorf No. 31, doc. ing to the Fuehrer order were not sent to Referat IV B 2 (Jews), but to the Referat department IV A 1 (Communism). The Einsatzgruppen were not connected with the Jewish Referat under Eichmann in any way (see the various statements of the defendants on the witness stand and the affidavit of Rudolf Fumy (Doc. Ohlendorf No. 32, doc. bk. Ia,) In my exposition on Ohlendorf's work with the SD I have supported the claim sufficiently that he did not personally think of or strive for an extermination of the Jewish race.
had a knowledge of plans or measures that were designed to exterminate the Jews.
in their closing statement against Otto Ohlendorf, that the executions in the Soviet Union resulting from the Fuehrer order actually were carried out for the "present and permanent security" by the Einsatzgruppen. I quote:
"These executions were carried out for the purpose of "present and permanent security" in the theater of operations of the this defendant."
Prosecution, another error which weakens their position has crept in. For it says in the record, as a quotation of Ohlendorf's statement:
". . . that these Jews are to be killed, and for the reason that German Reich."
while word for the word the quotation is used, on page 634 of the German record, goes like this:
"... that these Jews are to be killed, and for the reason that German Reich."
small extent in the Crimes, was based on the same point of view. of an extension of the Fuehrer Order to goals which were to serve a "permanent" (i.e. future) securing of the territory, has been elaborated, I do not have to go into this question any further because it does not go beyond the problems covered by the Fuehrer Order. Ohlendorf himself has made a statement on the witness stand concerning the fact that after this war other nations themselves were faced with difficult decisions which pertained to a permanent securing of a territory or to a hostile population.
(Record pg. 544, pg. 755). In support of his statement I would like to refer the Tribunal to the speech of the U. S. Senator William L a n g e r, held in the U. S. Senate in April 1946, and to the publication "The Land of the Dead", a study of the deportation from eastern Germany, Committee against Mass Expulsion, New York City. ethnic groups. Insofar as charges might be made in this connection from Document No. 2894 - doc. bk. V-D (Affidavit of Erwin Lahousen), I will discuss them when I come to the charge of "Segregation from Prisoner of War Camps". Fuehrer Order, the decree of the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of 13 May 1941 (Doc. Ohlendorf No. 44), the "Decree for the Administration of Military Jurisdiction in the "Barbarossa" Territory and for Special Measures of the Troops", or according to the Special Decrees of the Commander in Chief of the Army as bearer of the Executive Power in his Army territory, are designated as "murder" by the Prosecution because the guilt was established without a formal trial. At this point I would only like to say that on account of the above quoted decree of the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht of 13 May 1941 all the Armed Forces in the Russian campaign were directed not to have courts martial for the cases that the Prosecution has cited. Over and above the procedure ordered in the decree (bringing suspicious elements before an officer, to see whether they should be shot) the Einsatzgruppen made thorough investigations, held hearings etc.
and only then decided on the question of guilty or not guilty. Concerning this, the defendant Ohlendorf directed, through special orders, that in determining guilt a suspicion was not sufficient, but that the suspect must be proved to have committed an act or to be a real danger to security. made in the above quoted Decree of the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of 13 May 1941 for the Einsatzgruppen working in the theater of operations. This, therefore, was outside of the authority of Ohlendorf and his subordinates. This side of the operating methods of the Einsatzgruppen must also be considered in connection with the circumstances of international law in the territory of the Soviet Union, as I shall show later. grounds against Ohlendorf. Prosecution's cross examination of Ohlendorf. For the representative of the Prosecution argued here against Ohlendorf with the contention that the Kraimen on the Crimea were not killed although they were Jewish by religion. But their execution was stayed in agreement with the Fuehrer Order and due to the directives from Berlin which Ohlendorf received in regard to the Karaimen. nor attempts to bring proof that would show any act or intention of religious persecution by Einsatzgruppe D. not only made repeatedly in the indictment, but also played a big part in the examinations of the defendants on the witness stand. This charge and these questions can only be understood if one does not take into consideration that, in connection with Bolshevism, the political activist and the political official or the active carrier of Communist ideology are equal to extreme danger to the security of the "hostile non-Communists", class enemies or enemies of the Soviet Union who oppose them.
The Court is presented with a series of documents (Stalin Order, etc) which show how, according to the teachings and orders of the Soviet State and Army leaders a Communist official and a Communist activist are put on an equal footing with leading Partisans, saboteurs and terrorists. the witness stand have shown, simple Communist party members were not persecuted as such, and local officials also remained further in the administration, and only the active Communist was persecuted for his activity against the occupation force, then this shows, to what extent the persecution for political and ideological reasons corresponded here with the persecution that was motivated by a real danger to the security of the occupation force. According to the directions of the Einsatzgruppe D no one was to be persecuted or executed who was not guilty of a deed or action which was punishable by death under the law in force. But this method of operating is not a persecution for political or ideological reasons as usually understood, but a persecution which all occupying powers use in their own interest.
Segregation of prisoners of war. Apart from that, the defendant Ohlendorf has been charged by the Prosecution , particular in the Closing Brief, with the screening of Prisoner of War and transit camps for Communists and Party functionaries by his units. It refers to an Operational Order No. 8, issued on 17 July 1941 (Doc. Book I, Exh. No. 14) and its enclosures, in which directions were said to have been "given to the Einsatzgruppen chiefs." It then draws special attention to the Operational Order No. 14, dated 29 October 1941 which it calls a "supplementary direction" (Pros. Exh. 19). Furthermore, it is asserted that these screening kommandos could operate in the prisoner camps independently of the Army and the camp commandants.
(page 9 Closing Brief against Otto Ohlendorf). To this point I have to make the following statements: 1) Contrary to the assertions of the Prosecution, Order No. 8 of 17 July 1941 has not been given to the Einsatzgruppen in order to be carried out, but rather, as is clearly shown by page 4 of the original, only for the purpose of information which means, in the German usage "to the attention" rather than for action. That the said order was not forwarded to the Einsatzgruppen for action should not have escaped the Prosecution also, for on p. 2/3 of the original it says:
"With regard to the screening of the transit camps in the newly occupied territories (which means Russia) a separate direction will be issued to the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen and the Security Police." "the Reichsfuehrer SS makes available Einsatzkommandos of the Security Police and the Security Service", which are "under the direct command of the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service." of the Einsatzgruppen A-D which are being dealt with in this trial . They were instead, as shown by order of 17 July 1941, to be organized by the offices in Cracow, Radow, Warsaw, Lublin, as well as at Koenigsberg, Tilsit, Ziechenau, Allenstein and Stettin, i.e., only by the offices in the Eastern part of the Reich, and/or in the conquered Polish towns rather than in the occupied Russian gerritories. 2.) To support its assertions, the Prosecution has further submitted the Doc. NO-2894 Exh. 228, Pros. Doc. Book V-D, p. 16, an affidavit by Erwin Lahousen. In this affidavit Lahousen states that he took part in a conference in summer 1941, soon after the start of the Russian campaign. Interrogated before the IMT he makes this additional statement: (I quote) ".... approximately in July". During that conference at the Headquarters of the OKW he says, he opposed among other things the way the Einsatzgruppen used to sort out the Russian prisoners of war according to quite peculiar and arbitrary principles. The probative value of this deposition is, I think, best shown by the fact that the first order for the screening of the prisoner of war camps, issued to the Einsatzgruppen, was not sent to the Einsatzgruppen previous to the 29 October 1941, so that it reached the Einsatzgruppen as late as November.
This was the Operational Order No. 14, in Document Book III D, page 93 ff., Doc. NO-3422. This order was directed only to the Einsatzgruppen and Kommandos, as the distribution list shows on pages 1 and 2. The fact that this was the first operational order directed to the Einsatzgruppen, is shown on page 1 where it says:
"The Einsatzgruppen,will immediately detail Sonderkommando in appropriate strength in relation to the size of the camps located in their operational area under the command of an SS officer." gruppen had been ordered to do the screening before. So it cannot be explained, where Herr Lahousen might have got to know as early as in summer 1941 that the Einsatzgruppen made their selection according to peculiar and arbitrary principles, if the order, as I just proved, was really issued to the Einsatzgruppen as late as November 1941. 3.) Contrary to the statement of the Prosecution in its Closing Brief against my client that the Sonderkommandos "could operate independently from the Army and camp commandants", the Operational Order No. 14 of 29 October 1941 reads:
"Close cooperation with the camp commandants and intelligence officers is obligatory", and enclosure 1 to this order says:
"It is a matter of course that the Kommandos remain in close contact with the camp commandants and intelligence officers"; and, "Outstanding conduct on duty and off duty, best cooperation with the camp commanders is, above all, obligatory for the chief of the Sonderkommandos." 4.) Apart from the fact that the order was issued to the Einsatzgruppen not in July, but rather as late as on 29 October 1941, the defendant Ohlendorf stated as early as in his direct examination with regard to that order that in his area of command there were no such camps, which had its reasons in the fact that his Kommandos had their quarters only in the immediate combat zonem and that there no camps with a view to a longer duration were established.
Then he goes on:
"But I am positive about the fact that I had never before me a list of segregated persons, and that I never approved or rejected such lists in accordance with the direction provided for in this document. I have never seen such lists." necessarily have known of it, for he would have had to set them up according to the order, the members of these screening Kommandos would have had to send him weekly reports and he would have had to decide about the suggestions for executions, giving the screening Kommandos corresponding directions. Beginning from November, when Special Order No. 14 was issued the Einsatzgruppe of the defendant was in the Crimea. There were no prisoner of war camps here, and therefore no screening. The Prosecution has proved nothing to that effect. vit of 1 April 1947, who said:
"I had never the order to segregate Communists in Russian prisoner of war camps, but I know of the fact that members of the Security Police and the SD received the order to interrogate inmates of those camps and to carry out executive measures." interrogations, nor whether or not they became at any time practical in the area of the Einsatzgruppe D. On the other hand, Seibert elucidated the facts in an unequivocal way both in his direct and in his cross-examination. In his direct interrogation Seibert answers the question: "Do you know whether such orders were carried out?"
During his cross examination Seibert says:
Einsatzgruppe D."
"I did not got acquainted with any screening Kommandos at all within the Einsatzgruppe D." received the Operational Order No. 14 for his information when serving with the Einsatzgruppen, or whether he had heard of it subsequently in Berlin. But he had told Mr. Wartenberg that he was unable to give any details. Seibert also gave the explanations for that, he said:
"Remembering the conditions in the Crimea, e.g., I cannot help saying that there I did not see any camp. This I explain by the fact that there I did not see any camp. This I explain by the fact that we were staying with the group in the combat zone and the prisoner of war camps had been established further in the rear area." client, is no proof against him. Lindow only says that there existed ordinances and orders issued by Himmler, to the effect that captured Soviet Russian political commissars and Jewish soldiers were to be executed. He goes on saying:
"To my knowledge suggestions arrived for executions of such prisoners of war from the individual prisoner of war camps. Koenigshaus then had to prepare the execution orders and submitted them to the Office Chief IV, Mueller, for his signature." of segregations within the area of the Einsatzgruppen A-D, for there the Einsatzgruppen chief had to decide, rather than Mueller. Lindow's statements, therefore, can only refer to the activity of the Kommandos mentioned in the Operational Order No. 8 in the Eastern part of the Reich and in Poland.
the affidavit of Erwin Lahousen with the allegation that Tartars from the Crimea were segregated from prisoner of war camps and subjected to special treatment. I pointed already to the probative value of this document. Lahousen pretends to have pointed to such a case in summer 1941, whereas it has been ascertained that the Einsatzgruppen received the segregation order as late as November 1941. Beyond that, the document does not say when and where that segregation or special treatment is alleged to have taken place. It cannot possibly have occurred in the Crimea in summer 1941, for the Crimea was conquered only by the end of October 1941. Thus, no special treatment could have been employed of a kind Lahousen was able to discuss in a conference at the OKW headquarters in Berlin as early as summer 1941. This statement does not explain in what sector of a length of 2000 kilometers of the Eastern front that segregation might have occured. Thus, it cannot incriminate my client. I believe, the documents presented by the Prosecution as well as the testimonies of my client, of Seibert, Braune, and Schubert have shown sufficiently clearly the treatment the Tartars of the Crimea received by the Einsatzgruppe D. It ought to be obvious to everyone that an Einsatzgruppe and Einsatzkommando which recruited 10,000 Tartar volunteers for the fight against Bolshevism , which organize 16 voluntary Tartar Self-Defense companies, arming and training them for the fight against their own partisans, do not sort out Tartars from prisoner of war camps and shoot them. This allegation of the Prosecution is too absurd to be worth refuting.
Insane Persons. Furthermore, the Prosecution charges my client with having taken part in the euthanasia program and quotes as an evidence the operational situation report of 23 March 1942, according to which in the area to the south of Karasubasar more that 800 gypsies and insane people were shot. Apart from that it draws the attention to the execution of an insane person by the name of Romanenko by the Einsatzkommando 11 a in September 1941. stand: incriminate him, since he had gone on leave into the Reich as early as the beginning of March, together with the defendant Braune, as stated repeatedly by the Prosecution itself, so that he was not in the Crimea at all at that time. Ohlendorf stated at the witness stand:
"The report to this operational situation report refers to a period in which I myself was not in the Crimea. Nevertheless I am in a position to state firmly that no executions by shooting of insane people were carried out by my Kommandos. I had expressly forbidden this, and repeatedly issued now prohibitions for the reason that the army had on various occasions approached us with the request to shoot insane people. For this reason alone it can be ruled out that that report refers to the actions of one of my Kommandos. Incidentally, I regard this report as a false statement, as the area "to the south of Karasubasar" means woods and clay-hut where there were neither any large size villages nor asylums for insane persons".
To the Remanenko case the following nay be stated: The Prosecution Document, a letter of the Sonderkommando 11a of 10 September 1941, shows that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army had personally ordered to hand Romanenko over to Sonderkommando 11a, adding that he desired an exemplary punishment -- if possible a public execution by hanging."
executed as an insane person, who had been placed as often as three times in an asylum, for hereditary biological reasons. The letter does not show to whom it was addressed, whether or not it came to Ohlendorf's knowledge, just as the whole case. Ohlendorf said on the witness st and: directly interrogated, under oath:
"I do not know whether or not I ever saw the report. since the Commander-in-Chief had given the order direct to this commando." document in view of these circumstances. property, founding it on the confiscation of money, valuables and other property of the persons executed. done out of any private interest. On the contrary, evidence has shown that the Einsatzkommandos registered the confiscated objects in an orderly way and remitted them through the Einsatzgruppen, or directly to the Reichsbank, or the Reich Ministry of Finance, that is to the German Reich. Objects of daily use were handed over by request of the Wehrmacht to be used for war essential purposes or for the interests of the occupation, or were turned over the the representative of the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization in the Staff of the Army, in an orderly way. relating to the seizure and confiscation of the property of persons hostile to the state, which had been extended to the occupied Eastern territories. If the property of the executed persons had not been seized and confiscated, it would have become unclaimed property, or would have devolved to the Russian state, so that it would have fallen to the share of the occupation power even by virtue of the general laws of war.
It would hardly be juristically tenable to subsume such an incident under the notion of spoliation. happening in the Soviet Union, means to ignore the facts of history in view of the fact that e.g., with regard to more than 10 millions of Germans expelled from the East, the afore-mentioned "Land of the Dead", it says:
"....and yet those people expelled from Eastern Germany and the frontier". acts of violence after the truce of arms.
atrocities have not been substantiated or proved by the Prosecution. Therefore, I need not go into details as far as those charges are concerned.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Your Honor, this would be a suitable occasion to take a recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Tribunal will be in recess fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
in the Soviet Union, in as far as the activities of the Einsatzgruppen are included therein, would leave out important matters without taking into consideration the actual organizational connection, the incorporation of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos into the military machinery, the command situation connected with this, the power of command and the free latitude of command within thsi command situation. Only after these prerequisites have been taken into consideration can the acts of the defendants be avaluated. The contention in the indictment, that the Einsatzgruppen, with respect to command and organization, had already been set up in the spring of 1941, is correct. At that time the Fuehrer, considering the campaign against Russia, ordered the establishment of Einsatzgruppen to be organized by the Chief of the Security Police and SF in agreement with the Wehrmacht for use within the compas of the operating army units. Quatermaster General Wagner, who was acting for Keitel, negotiated with the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, Heydrich, about the form and nature of these now joint organizations (Transcript page 10, and page 5ff, of the indictment). A temporary result of these negotiations about the so-called "Barbarossa Decree " and a draft of the decree was submitted by the Prosecution as Document NOKW 256, Prosecution Exhibit No. 174. fundamentally new task for the operational area of the army? The Prosecution itself calls this task justified if it states in its opening statement:
"It was the task of the Einsatzgruppen to guarantee the political not directly under civil administration". (Page 11) This was not a new task.
This function (contrary to other armies) was up till that time taken care of by the German army itself. The Chief of the Security Police and SD, in order to enable the army to carry out this task, had so far provided the Wehrmacht with the necessary technical personnel, taken in particular from the criminal police.
With the help of this technical personnel as a skeleton staff the Army formed now units in the secret field police which were to ensure the political (police) security in the army area. as it had to be expected now that the enemy, namely, Russian Communism, would find allies in the rear areas, including the German home area; in the form of the illegal Communist cadres in these territories. Thus, the security of the immediate area of operation could not be separated from that of the rear and home area. The fight against the Communist acts of sabotage and terror was therefore to be carried cut in the same manner as it would be conducted by the Communists chiefs themselves, namely in accordance with a well-connected plan and in close observation of the entire area threatened by Communism. That alone explains the organization of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos by the Chief of the Security Police and SD who, as previously, provides these units with their technical personnel, with the reservation, however, that he be able, contrary to the former regulation, to give them technical instructions and require from them a regular reporting which makes a concentrated fight against Communism possible from a point in Central Germany. The fact that the Chief of the Security Police and SD, as the technically competent expert, organizes the Einsatzgruppen does not alter the fact that they are organized in support of the army, that they are attached to the army groups or armies and are not units under the command of the Chief of the Security Police and SD. It is not by accident that the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos do not carry the secondary designation "Office of the Chief of the Security Police and SD", as it is otherwise customary with the authorities of the Chief of the Security Police and SD. Although Heydrich would have liked to make these units his own, he nevertheless had to consider the fact that his own personnel in these units represented only a minority, that closed units of the regular police and the Waffen-SS were strong components of the Einsatzgruppen and that neither the Waffen-SS, nor the regular police were willing to renounce the placing of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos under the command of the Commander in Chief of the army groups or armies.
and Einsatzkommandos had possibly been units of the Reich Security Main Office. Besides that, I refer in this connection to my statements concerning the situation as to the organization of the RSHA, which show that the RSHA itself was not a genuine agency or authority; consequently could net have its own branch organization. Nor has any proof been advanced that the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos might have been the agencies, authorities or parts of offices IV or V, in other words of the Main Office Security Police or Office III, VI, or VII, which is the SD Main Office. Not even an attempt was made to prove such an allegation. Therefore the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos have actually never been the authroties, agencies or parts of the security police or SD. already been established in several verdicts (compare, among ethers, the verdict against Pohl and others, page 21, the Einsatzgruppen, actually were military units of police character which, as it is asserted in the I.M.T. verdict (Nuernberg Verdict, page 104), were subordinated in front areas to the operational control of the permanent army commander. Since the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos were only used in the operational areas of the army, it becomes evident that they actually were separately organized units to function within the compass of the operating army under the command and control of the supreme authority in this area namely, the commander in chief. Their sole particularly can be seen in the fact that, for the same reasons as mentioned above, they were also subordinated at the same time, as a matter of principle and in technical respect, to the power of directive of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD.
be given special emphasis because of the fact that the designation "Security Police and SD" is only used by the Commissioners of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD as a person, who as such was assigned in an advisory capacity to the staff of the commander in chief of the army group of army. The military units of the Einsatzgruppe were at the disposal of this commissioner in order to enable him to carry out the tasks of the army units in cooperation with those military, units which were assigned to the armies, corps and divisions, in each case in accordance with the orders of the army groups of the armies. Consequently, the Commissioner of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD was at the same time chief of the Einsatzgruppe.
If it is mentioned in the excerpt from the "Manual for General Staff Officers" -submitted in Document Book III Sandberger - that the G-2 of the army gives orders to the Gestapo then this is the simplest establishment for the tasks and the position of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos within the compass of the army organizations. They were auxiliary organizations of the G-2 machinery in those units. The defendant Ohlendorf, testifying as a witness in his own defense, has given a detailed explanation to this effect. The difficulties he described during the period of his activity with the 11th Army showed clearly that he was regarded as a subordinated battalion commander. The Prosecution has repeatedly brought forward (among others also in its opening statement) that Hitler himself informed the commanders in chief of the army groups and armies about all measures for the Russian campaign which he deemed necessary and in which the activities of the Einsatzgruppen were also included. The documents submitted have shown, and in this connection I especially refer to my Trial-Brief in which part of the Prosecution documents from Case 12 against the generals has been utilized, that just the particular Fuehrer order, about the killing of elements endangering the security of the Army, was given as a whole.
I repeat: which was given concerning the killing of elements endangering the a security of the Wehrmacht. the responsibility of the Army and received by the latter specific orders to this effect, but the very units of the army have carried out this order in the same way as the Einsatzgruppen.
defendant Ohlendorf, the Prosecution attempts to make it appear as though all orders for killings, in theactual areas, even in individual cases, were given by Himmler or Heydrich exclusively, while parallel to that the commanders in chief of the army groups or armies just arranged for the tactical employment of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos, this will not do the trick. The evidence has produced a different impression and nothing can conceal the fact that, whereever the defendant Ohlendorf has given a description of the issuing of the command and of the personal purging in the Soviet territories for reasons of security, he meant in this connection the initial fundamental issue of orders which, as is undisputed, were given to the Einsatzgruppen by way of Himmler andHeydrich. The very fact that, as the Prosecution asserts, the orders of purging were given directly to the Einsatzkommandos, according to Ohlendorf's testimony, shows this best and at no time during the entire evidence has a situation ever been discussed in which an Einsatzkommando of the Einsatzgruppe D had received an order through Heydrich for acting on its own initiative in carrying out the order of cleaning up a specific area. On the other hand it is correct, and that is what Ohlendorf meant with regard to such a statement of facts, that the announcement of the Fuehrer order in Pretsch in June 1941 which explicitly continued the order for killings, was given directly to the chiefs of the Einsatzkommandos. In so far as in the course of the evidence concrete orders for acting on their own initiative with respect to executions have been discussed, this rather concerned only those orders which were given to the Einsatzkommandos by the army. (Compare among others the case Simferopol and Romanenko). their organizational setup by stating as follows: Security Police and SD and provided with skilled personnel. However, they were organized in order to be subordinated to the army units in Carrying out their tasks.