They were among the most hated and evil men of World War II. In the years after the war ended, many were led to the gallows screaming and resisting because of their horrific crimes. These were the men who led the death squads that followed the German army during its advance east. The forces under their command were responsible for the murder of millions. The Einsatzgruppen generals were convicted of their crimes because of the overwhelming amount of evidence against them. Some survivors even claimed they were present and witnessed the firing squads eliminating millions. So, why were the captured Einsatzgruppen generals also executed?
At the end of World War II, Allied courts tried many different war criminals. But among the worst were the men who belonged to the Einsatzgruppen. They were on an extermination campaign to eliminate the enemies of the Reich. Their victims numbered in the millions. Mass graves of victims executed by these death squads remain undiscovered beneath the ground even today. The Einsatzgruppen were essentially mobile killing units. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, known as Operation Barbarossa, four main killing groups, or Einsatzgruppen (A, B, C, and D), followed the German army east. They belonged specifically to the SS Security Police and the SD Security Service. They were also divided into smaller groups known as Einsatzkommandos. Although initially tasked with dealing with enemies of the new German occupation, such as partisans, their mission shifted to the extermination of civilians.
The Einsatzgruppen, along with police, army, and auxiliary groups, would round up civilians, march them to execution sites, force them to surrender their belongings and clothing, and then shoot them into prepared pits that became mass graves. Entire communities were wiped out within hours. For example, at Babi Yar, German SS and police units killed around 34,000 people in just two days. The men who led these operations were different from the military leaders tried at the end of the war who fought for Germany. They were tried because they ran organizations whose operations deliberately involved the mass murder of civilians. The scale of the killings was also exceptional.
At the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen Trial was held to bring the men responsible for the deaths of at least 723,000 people to justice. The prosecution claimed there were over a million victims, and today it is believed that at least 1.5 million people were killed by the Einsatzgruppen death squads in the east. Much of the evidence of the Einsatzgruppen’s crimes came from the Germans themselves. The group prepared detailed reports and recorded the killings and victim numbers. These documents also included information about the categories of victims and their burial sites. This documentary evidence made it very difficult for senior leaders to claim they were unaware of what their units were doing.
One of the clearest examples of an Einsatzgruppen general who deserved death was the commander of Group D, Otto Ohlendorf. His forces operated in southern Ukraine, the Crimean Peninsula, and the Caucasus region. He became a major figure in the post-war trial because he personally witnessed much of the killing. He even stated, in his own words, that Group D slaughtered around 90,000 people, mostly civilians, during his time in command. Ohlendorf did not deny these killings. Instead, he tried to justify his actions by arguing he was following orders from his superiors, such as Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, and that these orders were linked to the Third Reich’s struggle for supremacy over the communist Soviets. The court rejected the idea that superior orders could justify mass murder as legal acts, which was significant. A soldier can usually obey legitimate military orders. But an order to deliberately kill unarmed civilians did not become legal simply because it came from a higher level in the chain of command.
The key point is that the victims of the Einsatzgruppen crimes were not ordinary battlefield casualties or soldiers. This is why many leaders received death sentences. The defendants could not claim their victims were soldiers or enemy combatants. The victims included women, children, and the elderly, and they were all unarmed. Communities were gathered by deceptive means before being led to their deaths. Sometimes, victims were shot while lying on top of the corpses of those who came before them. If the Nazis were persecuting a specific group of people, they were typically shot and dealt with by a single bullet to the back of the head.
In the trials, the prosecution did not need to prove that the Einsatzgruppen leaders personally shot and killed victims. They had to prove that they ordered and participated in an organized system of slaughter. A leader who passed on orders, organized the killings, provided the men, received the reports, and oversaw the organization responsible for the massacres could be held criminally responsible without firing a shot himself. In the Einsatzgruppen Trial, 24 senior officers were initially indicted, and 22 went to trial. The charges related to crimes against humanity, including the murder and persecution of civilian populations, and war crimes involving killings committed in occupied territories in violation of the laws and customs of war. There was also the need to prove their membership in criminal organizations such as the SD, the SS, and the Gestapo. All 22 defendants were tried on at least one charge.
One man in the dock was particularly notorious. Paul Blobel was a commander of a unit involved in the Babi Yar massacre and was also responsible for “Action 1005,” a plan to destroy the evidence of Nazi crimes. Prisoners were forced to dig up mass graves, extract the rotting and decomposing corpses, and then burn the remains. The prisoners involved in this work were routinely killed themselves so they could never testify about the original crimes. Blobel was one of those sentenced to death. After the death sentences were confirmed, the men were to be executed by hanging on the gallows. This method reflected their status as criminals. They were not executed as enemy soldiers upon capture. They were arrested, charged, represented by defense lawyers, tried before a military tribunal, convicted, and sentenced. Hanging became the primary method used by the Western Allies for Nazi war criminals sentenced to death in such proceedings.
The symbolism mattered too. Execution after criminal conviction treated the condemned as convicted criminals, not simply as soldiers who lost the war. However, in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, the 14 death sentences did not mean 14 executions actually took place. On April 10, 1948, the court issued 14 death sentences, two life sentences, and five prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years. But after the trials, politics had a major impact. The Cold War was heating up. West Germany became important to the Western Allies, and pressure grew to reconsider the death sentences for German war criminals. Because of this, a number of death sentences were commuted to prison terms, and only four senior Einsatzgruppen generals and leaders were ultimately executed. These included Otto Ohlendorf and Paul Blobel, as well as Erich Naumann, commander of Group B, and Werner Braune, leader of Sonderkommando 11b. These four were the last to be hanged at Landsberg Prison. Their executions were carried out in June 1951, shortly before the prison was handed back to the Germans. Before they dropped through the trapdoor, photographs were taken of the men in their final moments.
So, why were these four men ultimately executed? The most important reason was their involvement in organizing the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The Allies did not treat the Einsatzgruppen leaders as high-ranking German officers. They were men who gathered entire communities and killed them, and the leaders played an active role in that. The prosecution also had an overwhelming amount of evidence. There were German operational reports, captured documents, witness testimony, confessions from the perpetrators, and even admissions of guilt. The Einsatzgruppen Trial showed that issuing an order, organizing a massacre, or leading the organization that carried it out could be just as responsible as the men who actually pulled the trigger. The four Einsatzgruppen generals went to the gallows not just because they were members of the SS or because Germany lost the war. They were executed after being convicted by fair proceedings and held responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes, which ultimately meant the slaughter of millions of people. That is why the Einsatzgruppen generals were executed.