the einsatzgruppen
TRANSCRIPT
The Einsatzgrüppen :
Psychology of the Perpetrator
Mother and child victims at mass shooting near Ivangorod, Ukraine
Overview
• Einsatzgrüppen(German: “task
forces”) were mobile killing
squads, or death squads, under
administration of the German SS
• Victims: racial and political
enemies of the state
– Jews
– Roma
– Soviet State officials [see slide 6]
– Communist Party members
– The handicapped
• The Einsatzgrüppen’s systematic
execution of Jews in Eastern
Europe is believed to be the first
step of the Final SolutionThe shooting of a young Jewish man in Slarow,
Soviet Union, July 4, 1941. His family lies dead
in front of him.
Areas of OperationThe Einsatzgrüppen followed the German army as it advanced into Soviet satellite
states (Baltic Area) and the Soviet Union.
Methods• Einsatzgrüppen separated into four units
– Einsatzgruppe A: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, to St.Petersburg
– Einsatzgruppe B: from Warsaw to Smolensk and Minsk
– Einsatzgruppe C: western Ukraine• Responsible for infamous September 1941
massacre: BabiYar
– Einsatzgruppe D: Southern Ukraine and Crimea
• Swept into towns, initiated flood of anti-Semitic propaganda that rallied local civilians, who often helped in the massacres [see Witness Testimony, slide 5]
• Rounded up their victims; vast majority were Jews, who were forced to undress [see Film Footage, slide 7], hand over valuables, and march to their deaths
• No man, woman, or child was spared in the mass shootings
• Extremely few survivors; those who survived the shot were almost always buried alive by bodies and dirt
“The Last Jew in Vinnitsa” (Ukraine, 1942)
Witness Testimony
Stanislav M. from Grimaïliv, Ukraine
Testimony
Film Footage
Rare footage of a mobile killing unit during a massacre
in Liepaja, Latvia
Footage
Behind the Masks of Killers
• Some of the Einsatzgrüppen were sadistic, many were ruthless and brutal, but they were ordinary Germans, “ordinary men”
• Milgram experiment demonstrates how far people will go to follow orders
• Milgram experiment was recreated in March 2010 on controversial French game show, Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death)– Participants told they are contestants on game show and
must deliver near-fatal electric shocks to other contestants for answering questions incorrectly
– No actual shocks are given—an actor plays rival participant; screams and cries in pain
– Over 80% of contestants delivered “shocks” of up to 380 V (even though there was no prize for winning)
Le Jeu de la Mort
Mostly in French; watch for the clip from the original
Milgram experiments.
Le Jeu de la Mort
Fundamental Responsibility: Obey
• Absolute obedience, hierarchical structure, but obsfucation of authority and responsibility
• All roads of responsibility lead to the Führer
• Höss, Auschwitz commandant: “We were all so trained to obey orders without thinking that the thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody and somebody else would have done just as well if I hadn’t… I never really gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed a necessity” (Rhodes 159).
• Note his feeling of being replaceable, dispensable– Each perpetrator was one among thousands
• The killings were “mass shootings reduced to ordinary bureaucratic process within the framework of police activity” (Headland 75).
Ja! Führer, we will follow you!
Tactics• Coercive violent coaching: men who refused to shoot were jeered at as
cowards and humiliated into murder (Rhodes 220)
• Extensive rationalization: justified killings on a “legal” basis
– Jews labeled as saboteurs, plunderers, terrorists, agitators, brutes, arsonists, spies,
enemies of the state [see Propaganda poster, slide 12]
• Dehumanization:
– Kurt Möbius (police batallion member): “I believed the propaganda that all Jews
were criminals and subhumans and that they were the cause of Germany’s decline
after the First World War. The thought that one should disobey or evade the order
to participate in the extermination of the Jews did not therefore enter my mind at
all” (Rhodes 159).
• Euphemisms: camouflage words cloaked actions
– Included: action, special action, large-scale action, reprisal action, pacification
action, radical action, cleansing action, cleared of Jews, special measures,
handled appropriately, liquidated, rendered harmless, Jewish problem solved,
handled according to orders, ruthless collective measures, executive tasks, severe
measures, elimination, eradication, extermination (Headland 75).
Where Rationalizations Failed• “But the repetition of massacre after
massacre, the screams and pleadings, the faces and bodies glimpsed in their helpless final agonies that unavoidably recalled a sister, a brother, a wife, a child, an aging parent at home or the perpetrator himself, made such rationalizations difficult for some perpetrators to maintain at the edge of the killing pits” (Rhodes 223).
• Bach-Zelewski, SS general, confronted Himmler, military commander, about the mass shootings:
“Look at the men, how deeply shaken they are! Such men are finished for the rest of their lives! What kind of followers are we creating? Either neurotics or brutes!” Einsatzgrüppen in Poland
Psychological Repercussions• Many members of the Einsatzgrüppen underwent:
– Uncontrollable fits of weeping and trembling
– Nervous breakdowns; nervous exhaustion
– Mental derangement (shot wildly and randomly at surroundings)
– Desensitization/Denial• Karl Kretschmer, Obersturmführer, in a letter to wife and children: “Rather it is
a weakness not to be able to stand the sight of dead people; the best way of overcoming it is to do it more often. Then it becomes a habit” (Rhodes 220).
– Sadistic impulses
– Alcoholism
– Some committed suicide
• While these do not mitigate the crime in any way, they demonstrate how deeply the massacres affected the perpetrators– Einsatzgrüppen were, overall, ordinary men who ignored their own
morality and followed orders blindly
– As Milgram/Le Jeu de la Mort experiments show, any person can fall prey to the forces of authority
– It takes power of will and a strong moral compass to disobey superiors.
Bibliography
• "Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005130>.
• Bytwerk, Randall. "Nazi Posters: 1933-1945.” German Propaganda Archive. 2001. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm>.
• "Grymayliv, Ukraine." Broad Daylight. Yahad in Unum, May 2009. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://villagesbyyahad-inunum.weebly.com/grymayliv.html>.
• "Le Jeux De La Mort, Zone Xtreme, Le Pouvoir De La Téléevision, Soumissionà L'autorité." YouTube. 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1i8bZrXLqU&feature=related>.
• Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: the SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2002.
• Headland, Ronald. Messages of Murder: a Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1992.
• Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
• Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2003