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.
involved in this execution, he related how he divided his unit into shooting squads of 30 men each. Then, the mass graves were prepared -
"Out of the total number of the persons faces turned toward the grave.
At that collected.
Later on this was changed.....
"When the men were ready for the execution shoot.
Since they were kneeling on the "I have always used rather large execution (Genickschusspezialisten). Each squad placed.
The persons which still had to not take part in the executions."
graves, and the executioners were then compelled to exert themselves to complete the job of internment. A method, however, was found to avoid this additional exertion by simply having the victims enter the ditch or grave while still alive. An SS eye-witness explained this procedure:
"The people were executed by a shot in the neck.
The corpses were buried in a large tank ditch.
The candidates for execution ditch.
One group had scarcely been shot on the corpses there."
ment:
"The shootings took place in a sand pit, buried."
to 100 executions, told of one winter execution where the corpses were temporarily buried in the snow.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
business-like procedure, illustrated by Report No. 24, dated 16 July 1941, which succinctly stated:
"The arrested Jewish men are shot without at Duenaburg up to now."
ceremonious. These executioners called off the names of the victims before they were loaded on to the truck which was to take them to their death. This was their whole judicial trial -- the indictment, the evidence, and the sentence -- a roll call of death.
There were different techniques in execution. There were Einsatz commanders who lined up their victims kneeling or standing on the edge of the grave, facing the grave, others who had the executees stand with their backs to the grave, and still others, as indicated, who had their victims stand in the grave itself. One defendant described how the victims lined up at the edge of the ditch and, as they fell, another row stepped into position so that, file after file, the bodies dropped into the pit on to the bleeding corpses beneath.
Hardly ever was a doctor present at the executions. The responsibility of the squad leader to make certain the victims were dead before burying them was simply discharged by a glance to determine whether the bullet-ridden bodies moved or not. Since in most cases the huddled and contorted bodies were strewn and piled in a trench at least six feet deep, only one more horror is added in contemplating the inadequacy of an inspection made from the rim of a ditch as to whether life in the dark ground below was extinct or not. that an executee could only seem to be dead because of shock or temporary unconsciousness. In such case it was inevitable he would be buried alive.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
aimed at the heads of the victims. If, he explains, the victim was not hit, then one member of the firing squad approached with his rifle to a distance of three paces and shot again. The scene of the victim watching the head-hunter approaching with his rifle and shooting at him at three paces represents a horror for which there is no language. lie down on the ground, and they were shot in the back of the neck. But, whatever the method, it was always considered honorable, it was always done in a humane and military manner. Defendant after defendant emphasized before the Tribunal that the requirements of militariness and humaneness were meticulously met in all executions. Of course, occasionally, as one defendant described it, "the manner in which the executions were carried out caused excitement and disobedience among the victims, so that the kommandos were forced to restore order by means of violence", that is to say, the victims were beaten. Undoubtedly always, of course, in a humane and military manner. Commenting on this phase of the executions, one defendant related how some victims, destined to be shot in the back, turned around and bravely faced their executioners but said nothing. Almost invariably they went to their end silently, and some of the defendants commented on this. The silence of the doomed was mysterious, it was frightening. What did the executioners expect the victims to say? Who could find the words to speak to this unspeakable assault on humanity, this monstrous violence upon the dignity of life and being? They were silent. There was nothing to say. not be performed publicly, but should always take place far removed from the centers of population. A wooded area was usually selected Court No. II, Case No. IX.
for this grim business. Sometimes these rules were not observed. Document NOKW-641 relates an execution which took place near houses whose occupants became unwilling witnesses to the macabre scene. The narrative states:
"A heavy supply traffic for the soldiers window of the battalion's office, the be heard, too.
The following morning, quisitive civilians and soldiers.
An immediately."
has left a moving account of a mass execution witnessed by him in October 1942 near Dubno, an account which because of its authoritative description deserves recording in its entirety in this Opinion:
"Moennikes and I went direct to the pits.
Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle one of the earth mounds.
The people who "They had to put down their clothes in top clothing and underclothing.
I saw clothing.
Without screaming or weeping "During the 15 minutes that I stood near the pit I heard no complaint or plea for mercy.
I watched a and two grown up daughters of about 20 to 24.
An tickling it.
The child was cooing with delight.
years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears.
The father pointed toward the thing to him.
At that moment the SS-man at the pit shouted something to his comrade.
The latter counted the earth mound.
Among them was the family which I "I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who, '23'. I walked around the mound and found myself con fronted by a tremendous grave.
People were closely only their heads were visible.
Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads.
Some of the people shot were still moving.
Some were lifting were still alive.
The pit was already 2/3 full. I I looked for the man who did the shooting.
He was an SS feet dangling into the pit.
He had a tommy gun on his knees and was amoking a cigarette.
The people, completely them.
They lay down in front of the dead or injured people; some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice.
Then I heard a series of "I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were of the bodies that lay before them.
Blood was running down their necks.
I was surprised that I was not postmen in uniform nearby.
The next batch was approach ing already.
They went down into the pit, lined them truckload of people which had just arrived.
This time it included sick and infirm persons.
An old, very thin The woman appeared to be paralyzed.
The naked people carried the woman around the mound.
I left with Moennikes "On the morning of the next day, when I again visited the about 30 to 50 meters away from it.
Some of them were still alive; they looked straight in front of them with around.
A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape.
At that that it was an SS detail.
I moved away to my site.
of the pit. The Jews still alive had been ordered to throw the corpses into the pit; = then they had them selves to lie down in this to be shot in the neck."
The tragecy of this scene is lost entirely on the executioner. He does his job as a job. So many persons are to be killed, just as a carpenter contemplates the construction of a shed. He must consider the material he has on hand, the possibilities of rain, etc. Only by psychologically adjusting oneself to such a state of affairs can one avoid a shock when one comes to a statement in a report very casually written, namely: "Until now, it was very difficult to carry out executions because of weather conditions." the winter of 1941-42, remarks:
"The Commander in White Russia is instructed to liquida the difficult situation.
However, a period of about 2 months is still required - according to the weather."
another report-writer to chronicle simply: "Hostages are taken in each new place, and they are executed on the slightest reason." executed at Grodno and Lida during the first days. He manifests his displeasure and declares: "I gave orders that considerable intensification was to take place there."
JUDGE SPEIGHT: Adolf Ruebe, a former SS-Hauptscharfuerher, declared in an affidavit that now and then there were executioners who devised original methods for killing their victims:
"On the occasion of an exhumation in Minsk, in Novem kommando of Latvians.
They brought eight Jews, men and women, with them.
The Latvians guarded the Jews, their own hands.
The Jews were bound, put on the pile alive, drenched with gasoline and burnt."
children were to be executed with the men so that Jews, Gypsies and so-called asocials would be exterminated for all time. In this respect, the Einsatzgruppen leaders encountered a difficulty they had not anticipated. Many of the enlisted men were husbands and fathers, and they winced as they pulled their triggers on these helpless creatures who reminded them of their own wives and off-spring at home. In this emotional disturbance they often aimed badly and it was necessary for the kommando leaders to go about with a revolver or carbine, firing into the moaning and writhing forms. This was hard on the executioners, personnel experts reported to the RSHA in Berlin, and to relieve their emotional sensitivity, gas vans were sent to the rescue. otherwise externally resembled family trailers. Women and children were lured into them with the announcement that they were to be resettled and that they would meet their husbands and fathers in the new place. Once inside the truck, the doors automatically and hermetically closed, the driver stepped on the accelerator, and monoxide gas from the engine streamed in. By the time the van reached its destination, which was an anti-tank ditch outside the town, the occupants were dead. And here they joined their husbands and fathers who had been killed by rifles and carbines in the hands of the Einsatzkommandos. image of these murder wagons, they were simply articles of equipment so far as the Einsatzgruppen were concerned. Communications went back and forth, correspondence was written about these vans with the casualness which might accompany a discussion on coal trucks. For instance, on May 16, 1942, SS-Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Becker, wrote SSObersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, pointing out that vans could not be driven in rainy weather because of the danger of skidding.
He, therefore, posed the question as to whether executions could not be accomplished with the vans in a stationary position. However, this suggestion offered a problem all its own. If the van was not actually set for mobility the victims would realize what was about to happen to them, and this, Becker said, must be avoided so far as possible. He thus recommended: "There is only one way left. To load them at the collecting point and to drive them to the spot". Becker then complained that members of the kommando should not be required to unload the corpses:
"I brought to the attention of the commanders of those S.K. concerned, the immense psychological injuries and after each unloading."
Becker says:
"The application of gas usually is not undertaken correct ly.
In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent.
By asleep peacefully."
Service Ostland wrote the RSHA in Berlin as follows:
"Subject: S-Vans "The three S-vans which are there are not sufficient for that purpose.
I request assignment of another S-van (5 tons). At the same time I request the shipment of 20 gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand (2 Diamond, 1 Saurer), since the ones on hand are leady already". that the Einsatz authorities now even set up a school in this new development of the fine art of genocide.
The defendant Biberstein, describing one of these ultra-modern executions, spoke of the driver Sackenreuter of Nuremberg "who had been most carefully instructed about the handling of the gas truck, having been through special training courses". Biberstein was satisfied that this method of killing was very efficient because the faces of the dead people were "in no way distorted"; death having come "without any outward signs of spasms". He added that no physician was present to certify that the people were dead because "this type of gas execution guaranteed certain death". Who it was that guaranteed this was not vouchsafed to history.
power, driven to the field of action. The reports tell of two vans which travelled from Berlin to the Crimea. It would be interesting to know the thoughts of the drivers of these murder-cars as they rolled over half of Europe, through city and country, climbing mountains and penetrating plains, travelling 2,000 kilometers with their gaseous guillotines to kill helpless women and children. One of the drivers was none other than the chauffeur of the arch-murderer Reinhardt Heydrich. a few excerpts and yet there remains the instinct to disbelieve, to question, to doubt. There is less of a mental barrier in accepting the weirdest stories of supernatural phenomena, as, for instance, water running up hill and trees with roots reaching toward the sky, than in taking at face value these narratives which go beyond the frontiers of human cruelty and savagery. Only the fact that the reports from which we have quoted came from the pens of men within the accused organizations can the human mind be assured that all this actually happened. The reports and the statements of the defendants themselves verify what otherwise would be dismissed as the product of a disordered imagination. The record reveals that investigators and evidence analysts have checked and rechecked. Being human they sometimes doubted the correctness of the startling figures appearing in the reports.
Thus, when one of them came across the statement of Stahlecker that Einsatzgruppe A, of which he was chief, had killed 135,000 human beings in four months, the investigator questioned Otto Ohlendorf if this were possible. Ohlendorf read the statement in question and announced:
"I have seen the report of Stahlecker (Document L-180) the first four months of the program.
I know Stahl document is authentic."
How can all this be explained? Even when Germany was retreating on all fronts, many troops sorely needed on the battlefield were diverted on this insane mission of extermination. In defiance of military and economic logic incalculable manpower was killed off, property of every description was destroyed - all remained unconsidered as against this insanity to genocide.
Here and there a protest was raised. The SS-Commissioner General for White Ruthenia objected to the executions in his district - not on the grounds of humanity, but because he believed the unbridled murder program was lowering the prestige of Germany.
"Above all, any act lowering the prestige of the Ruthenia with methods of that sort.
To bury reported to the Fuehrer and Reich Marshal.
The Fuehrer.
These efforts cannot be brought in harmony with the methods described herein."
action. It told of the arrival of a Police Battalion with instructions to liquidate all Jews in the town of Sluzk within two days. The Commissioner for the Territory of Sluzk protested that the liquidation of all Jews, which naturally included the tradesmen, would shut down the economic life of that area.