local murders

Local Murders

Historical Background and Source DiscussionSuitable for ages 16 and above

Task Squad B and Police Battalions 322 and 316 in July 1941

Historical Background

The war against the Soviet Union that was launched in June 1941 was perceived as a battle against the Bolshevik world-view, which was supposedly disseminated by the Jews, thus making the Jews an obvious target of the occupation. In contrast with other battles, this war was understood as a life and death struggle between two world-views – the Aryan and the Jewish; a war in which no compromise was possible. Russia, The German invasion of Russia, 27/06/1941

(Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 95EO1)


The invading forces were given explicit orders to purge the area of potential enemies, and of Jews in particular. The fact that German society in the 1930s and early 1940s was permeated by Antisemitism, with large segments of German society accepting the fundamental notion that the Jews had to disappear, contributed to the form of warfare waged by Nazi Germany.

Russia, The German invasion of Russia, 27/06/1941 (Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 95EO1)


The Einsatzgruppen (Task Squads) were units of the security police that were ordered to follow the advancing army. Their primary task was to destroy what was regarded as the ideological infrastructure of the Soviet Union: political commissars, Communists and Jews. Wherever they stopped, they gathered Jews and Communists, led them out of the town or village, and shot them. Some 90% of the victims in these shootings were Jewish civilians. Entire communities, including the women and children, were destroyed. Those who succeeded in fleeing were often later killed by the local population or turned over to the Germans. Approximately one and a half million Jews were murdered in this way within a year and a half of the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union.


This discussion outlines the murder operations in the city of Bialystok. Bialystok was in the operational area of Einsatzgruppe B. In addition, there were three police battalions (known as Order Police) active in the town: Battalion 309 entered the town with the occupying army, and several days later Battalions 322 and 316 arrived in the area. All of these units participated in the mass murder of the Jews. Police Battalion 322 Soldiers on a Train on Their

Way to the Eastern Front (Dakumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes)


Whereas the members of the Einsatzgruppen were people who had chosen to become part of the Nazi organization, the men of the Order Police were drafted from among those exempt from military service due to their age or for other reasons. The majority of the men were around 30 years old. In 1941, 70% of the Order Police battalions’ officers were not members of the SS.


However, for six years the men had been exposed to the regime’s fierce Antisemitic propaganda, and the notion that they were fighting a total war for the very survival of Germany and its culture was instilled in them. Their training programme included political-ideological indoctrination designed to prepare them for their tasks and to liberate them from any moral scruples they might have had about conducting mass shootings.


The fact is that they participated in the extermination of the Jews and took part in the shootings or, as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen called it, became “Hitler’s willing executioners”. The men of Battalion 322, for example, participated in the execution of approximately 10,000 civilians in less than a year. This leaves us with the question of how these people, who came from perfectly normal backgrounds – Christopher Browning calls them “ordinary men” – could have become such brutal killers. This chapter will attempt to shed some light on this question.

Members of the Battalion 322 Leaving on a Mission (Dakumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes)


Contrary to the police battalions, the Einsatzgruppen came from the ranks of party organizations. Their officers and men were mostly members of the Party security service and of the SS. According to the reports sent to Berlin, Einsatzgruppe B, which numbered 655 men, shot 30,094 people in the first four months of the Russian campaign.

Einsatzgruppen soldiers shooting Jews who are in a ditch (Dakumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes)


The men of the Einsatzgruppe were implementing an ideology they supported, so it is less difficult to understand their motivation for participation in the mass murders. The question remains, though, whether there was a gap between approving of the ideology calling for the removal of a mortal enemy (as the Jews were perceived) and actually participating in the implementation of that ideology.

Prelude to the Murder

In the summer of 1941, Police Battalions 322 and 316 arrived in Bialystok. On July 8, the policemen were deployed against Jews for the first time in an operation conducted by Kommando 8 of the Einsatzgruppen, which were charged with the liquidation of the Jews in the territories occupied in the Soviet Union.

on July 9, the men had a visit from Daluege, chief of the German Order Police, who gave a speech to the policemen. He pointed out that “they should be proud of being part of the efforts to destroy Bolshevism, the enemy of the world. Never has a battle been this crucial. Now Bolshevism will be totally purged for the benefit of Germany, Europe and the entire world.”


Dr. Otto Bradfisch, commander of Kommando 8 of the Einsatzgruppen, had been informed of the plan to annihilate the Jews when all the members of the Einsatzgruppen were assembled at a police school a month prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. In Bialystok, on the eve of the first massacre, Bradfisch informed his men of their mission and told them it was a direct order from Hitler.


The operation against the Jews started with a raid on the Jewish neighbourhood in Bialystok. They began at five o’clock in the morning. The policemen were ordered to search for suspicious goods. Twenty trucks, loaded with confiscated goods, left the town at the end of the day. The effects of anti-Jewish propaganda were evident when the reports described the goods confiscated from the Jews as stolen merchandise. This false allegation was used as proof that Jews were looting and stealing from non-Jews. Use of such language and imagery was, of course, an important tool in shaping the perceptions that would facilitate the men’s participation in the murder.


Approximately 1,000 male Jews were shot by the Einsatzgruppen with the assistance of members of the police battalions. The shooting was conducted outside the town and lasted throughout the entire day and night. The Jews were taken to the killing site, where they were kept under guard. One group after another was taken to a ditch where they were shot.

Discussion and Sources

In the case of Battalion 322, the process of their becoming professional killers was gradual.

The following are excerpts from a diary kept by Battalion 322, recording their activities as they took place. In the original diary, the text is accompanied by photographs taken by members of the battalion.

The War Diary of Battalion 322

28 June 19419:00 Battalion and Regiment inspected by General von Schenkendorff and Higher SS and Police Commander von dem Bach. The general praised the battalion with the following words: The battalion’s smart appearance, attitude and level of training are outstanding. He expressed his conviction that, in this condition, the battalion would fulfill the duties assigned to it.Afterwards, the units marched past the commanders to regimental music.


30 June 194118:00 Battalion inspection by Battalion commander, police major Nagel.Punishment of two members of the 2nd company and two members of platoon N with three weeks’ high security detention.The Battalion commander addressed the battalion with serious and reproving words about the punishment. He demanded discipline and an unquestioning and obedient sense of duty and unswerving loyalty from each man. He then addressed sharp words to those who believed that they could incite the troops to disobedience, complaints and dissatisfaction, and added that he would not tolerate such behavior in his battalion.


8 July 1941Swift execution of house searches in the Jewish quarter. Great success. The property found was taken and secured. The storage of the booty is arranged at 123 Pilsudski Street. The looters and owners of weapons were shot. Company 3 secured the area with an outer and inner cordon and also provided four search parties.


10 July 1941…. 13:00 Special sentries are deployed in Bialystok to guard the military hospital and the storage of booty….14:00 Five Jews are shot by our men while attempting to flee from the camp.


23 July 1941…The battalion and our company are being removed from our present deployment and are to receive new assignments. Our battalion has the assignment to evacuate the population from the Bialowice woods….In spite of the hardships of the day (traveling a distance of 115 km. on bad roads), the company gathered at 23:00 around a campfire. Soldier songs, stories and jokes followed. The evening became an experience for all and was proof of the spiritual ambience and comradeship of the company.


31 August 194115:00 Execution of an Aktion [- forced assembly and deportation] against Jews in the Minsk ghetto.Company 9 is responsible for closing the area while company 7, the NSKK company (transport) and the SD [security service] carry out the searches. All Jews aged 15 to 60 were detained, as were all Jewesses who did not wear the Jewish stars on their clothes as ordered. A total of 913 Jews of both sexes were detained and transported to the Police Prison.


1 September 19415:30 Execution of the Jews detained yesterday at a site about 10 Km east of Minsk, north of the Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow highway. Three execution squads were formed. The commando of Company 9 shot a total of 330 Jews (including 40 Jewesses).


2 October 194115:30 The company reports to HSSPf Russia Center for the execution of an aktion against the Jews. 2208 Jews of both sexes are arrested and driven with trucks to the assembly point.During the aktion, 60 Jews were shot while attempting to escape or for being caught in hiding-places.


3 October 1941Execution of the Jews in the vicinity of the camp in the forest. 555 Jews of both sexes are shot.

Questions

• What does the person writing the journal want people to remember?

• What is included in the reports and what is omitted from them? What style,

language and codes are used?

• Describe the stages in the process that led to the battalion’s transformation into

what Konrad Kwiet calls “genocidal killers”.

The Order

On 11 July 1941, the following order was issued to the police battalions regarding the shootings: 1) On the orders of the Higher SS and Police Leader … attached to the Rear Army Center, all male Jews between 17-45 years of age convicted of looting are to be executed immediately.2) The executions are to take place away from cities, villages and traffic routes. The graves are to be leveled to prevent them becoming places of pilgrimage. I forbid photography and the admittance of spectators. Executions and places of burial are not to be made public.3) Battalion and company leaders are to pay special attention to the pastoral care of the participants in this action. The impressions of the day are to be dispelled through evening gatherings with comrades. In addition, the men are to be instructed regularly on the necessity of this measure, which stems from the political situation.

From: Yad Vashem Archive, TR 10/609, pp. 153-54.

Questions

• What potential “problems” do the orders seek to address, and so to solve in advance?

Wartime Diaries

The following is a part of a letter of SS-Obersturmführer Karl Kretschmer of the Einsatzgruppen’s Special Squad 4a, to his wife, 27 September, 1942:

The sight of the dead (including women and children) is not very cheering. But we are fighting this war for the survival or non-survival of our people. You back home, thank God, do not feel the full force of that…. One is aware of it everywhere one goes along the front. My comrades are literally fighting for the existence of our people. The enemy would do the same.

Wartime Diaries

…I think that you understand me. As the war is in our opinion a Jewish war, the Jews are the first to feel it. Here in Russia, wherever the German soldier is, no Jew remains. You can imagine that at first I needed some time to come to grips with this. Please do not talk to Frau Kern about this.unmoved. No pity, nothing. That’s the way it is and then it’s all over.

From: Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, The Good Old Days – the Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders (New York, 1991), p. 163.

Questions

• What might have motivated Kretschmer to write to his wife about the killings? What are the implications of the fact that he informed his wife?

• Why do you think he asks his wife … ”not [to] talk to Frau Kern” about what was happening? (Her surname may provide a clue.)

• What justifications does Kretschmer give for the killings of Jews in which he participates?

Wartime Diaries

From the diary of Felix Landau, SS officer and member of Einsatzgruppe (Task Squad) C:

12 July 1941At 6:00 in the morning I was suddenly awoken from a deep sleep. Report for an execution. Fine, so I’ll just play executioner and then gravedigger, why not?… I was detailed as marksman and had to shoot any runaway. We drove one kilometer along the road out of town and then turned right into a wood.

Wartime Diaries

…There were six of us at that point and we had to find a suitable spot to shoot and bury them…. The death candidates assembled with shovels to dig their own graves. Two of them were weeping. The others have incredible courage. What on earth is running through their minds during those moments? I think that each of them harbors a small hope that somehow he won’t be shot… Strange, I am completely unmoved. No pity, nothing. That’s the way it is and then it’s all over.

Wartime Diaries

…I came back dog-tired but the work went on. Everything in the building had to be straightened up. And so it went without respite. In the afternoon the car came from Radom unexpectedly. Like a small child I couldn’t wait to get my mail. That was my first question… …Apart from anything else Trude [his friend] wrote that she doesn’t know whether she can keep her promise and whether she will be strong enough. Why does this have to happen to me with a person I love so much? I have to see her and talk to her, then my little Trude will be strong again. She must come here.

From: Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, The Good Old Days – the Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders (New York, 1991), pp. 96-97.

Questions

• How does Landau maintain the divide between what appear to be three distinct mental categories? On the one hand, he reports that the victims weep, and he goes so far as to have them dig longer so that they don’t think about their fate too much; on the other hand, as he states, he is “completely unmoved”; finally, he makes a rapid transition from the killings to his concern with the mail and with his “little Trude”.• Compare Landau’s diary entry with Kretschmer’s letter. How does each of them

cope with their duties? How does each justify participating in mass murder?

local murders

Documents

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order police active

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soviet union

total war

nazi occupation

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