paramilitary units formed for “liquidating” murdering Jews, Romany, and political operatives of the Communist Party. They were established before the
invasion of the Russia. The Einsatzgruppen were divided into Eisatzgruppen A, B, C, and D. The Eisatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to army groups taking
part in the invasion. The Einsatzgruppen D was sent to the Ukraine without being attached to any army group. All of the groups operated in the territories occupied
by the Third Reich on the eastern front. Most of their crime took place in the Ukraine and the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
The most succinct description of the purpose of the Eisatzgruppen was given at the trial of Adolph Eichman by Dr. Michael Musmanno, Justice of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who presided over the trial of 23 of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen. He states that the purpose of the Eisatzgruppen was to murder
Jews and deprive them of their prosperity. SS General Erich von dem Bach- Zelewski confirmed this at the main Nuremberg Trial when he testified that the
principal task of the Einsatzgruppen was the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, and political commissars.
Many people believe that the systematic killing of Jews in Russia that was done by Einsatzgruppen and Order Police battalions was the first step of the Nazi
program to kill all Jews in Europe, which was called the Final Solution. In June 1941, when the German invaded Russia, the Einsatzgruppen was also there along
with the German army. The method was different from the method of Final Solution. The method of Final Solution was deporting Jews from their own
hometown, and then sending them to concentration camps as the place for killing
them. On the other hand, the method of Eisatzgruppen was coming directly to the home of Jews and massacring them.
The German army provided logistical support to the Eisatzgruppen, including supplies, transportation, housing, and occasionally manpower in
the form of units to guard and transport prisoners. At first the Eisatzgruppen shot primarily Jewish men. By late summer 1941, however,
wherever the Eisatzgruppen went, they shot Jewish men, women, and children without regard for age or sex, and buried them in mass graves.
Often with the help of local informants and interpreters, Jews in a given locality were identified and taken to collection points. Thereafter they
were marched or transported by truck to the execution site, were trenches had been prepared. In some cases the captive victims had to dig their own
graves. After the victims had handed over their valuables and undressed, men, women, and children were shot, either standing before the open
trench, or lying face down in the prepared pit. Shooting was the most common form of killing used by the
Einsatzgruppen. Yet in the late summer of 1941, Heinrich Himmler, noting the psychological burden that mass shootings produced on his men,
requested that a more convenient mode of killing be developed. The result was the gas van, a mobile gas chamber surmounted on the chassis of a
cargo truck which employed carbon monoxide from the truck’s exhaust to kill its victims. Gas vans made their first appearance on the eastern front in
late fall 1941, and were eventually utilized, along with shooting, to murder Jews and other victims in most areas where the Eisatzgruppen operated
“Einsatzgruppen,” 2003.
c. The Siege of Leningrad
1 The Beginning of the Siege of Leningrad
According to Alexander Werth1964, the news on June 22, 1941 about the German invasion made many mass meetings in Leningrad. The people of
Leningrad volunteered to help saving their city. At the great Kirov Works, 15,000 men and women applied for immediate military service. Not all of these
applicants could be accepted, because the Kirov Works also needed to produce armaments.
On July 14, the Germans succeeded in establishing a large bridgehead north of Luga. It was from there they were to develop their subsequent offensive
against Leningrad. Werth also states that the situation in Leningrad was very grim.
Voroshilov, the C-in-C of the Northern Armies and Zhdanov, the head of Leningrad Party organization, were very desperate. They made the order and read
out to all the Red Army units of the ‘North-West Direction’ on July 14: Comrades Red-Army men, officers and political workers A direct threat
of an enemy invasion is now suspended over Leningrad, the cradle of the Proletarian Revolution. While the troops of the Northern Front are bravely
fighting the Nazi and Finnish Schutzcorps hordes all the way from the Barents Sea to Tallinn and Hango, and are defending every inch of our
beloved Soviet land, the troops of the North-Western Front, often failing to repel enemy attacks, and abandoning their positions without even
entering into combat with the enemy, are only encouraging by their behavior the increasingly arrogant Germans. Certain cowards and panic-
stricken individuals not only abandon the Front without orders, but saw panic among the good and brave soldiers. In some cases both officers and
political workers not for combat, but increase even more, by their shameful behavior, the panic and disorganization at the Front p. 285.
The order implied that anyone abandoning the front without orders would
be tried by a field tribunal depended on their rank and previous achievements. In the end of July and the beginning of August, it was about one million people were
engaged in the building of defenses: People of the most different trades and professions- workers, employees,
schoolchildren, housewives, scientists, teachers, artists, actors, students, etc.- worked with their picks and shovels. From morning till night they
went on, often under enemy fire. Leningrad was isolated from the rest of the country. The only
communication was through across Lake Ladoga. While the South and South- West of the city the position of the Russians were equally desperate, because the
Germans having broken through to the Gulf of Finland only a few miles South- West of the city and attacked heavily in the Kolpino and Pulkovo areas about
fifteen miles south of Leningrad p. 287. On August 20, there was a meeting of the Leningrad Party. Voroshilov and
Zhdanov admitted that the situation in Leningrad was very serious. Zhdanov said that the whole population, the young, must be given a shooting training and also
grenade-throwing and street-fighting. On the next day, August 21, the famous Appeal to the Leningrad people,
signed by Voroshilov, Zhdanov and Popkov, the chairman of the Leningrad Soviet was published:
Let us, like no one man [it concluded], rise to the defense of our city, of our homes and families, our freedom and honor. Let us do our sacred duty
as Soviet patriots in our relentless struggle against a hated and ruthless enemy, let us be vigilant and merciless in dealing with cowards, panic-
mongers and deserters, let us establish the strictest revolutionary discipline in our city. Armed with such iron discipline and Bolshevik organization,
let us meet the enemy and throw him back p. 288. On October 7, 1941, there was an order from the Fuhrer’s headquarters. It
was signed by Jodl.He delivered the Fuhrer’s order not to accept capitulation ‘at either Leningrad or, later Moscow’. This order also mentioned that Leningrad
should be razed to the ground by air bombing and artillery fire. In the middle of September, the danger of the German occupation in
Leningrad had been averted. It was also too clear that the cut off from the rest of the country, except for the Lake Ladoga route.Lake Ladoga was the only real hope
of keeping the city supplied with food, raw materials and fuel, and also the armaments and ammunition that could not be made on the spot p. 291.
