Nazi Leaders Snapped in April of 1941

Nazi leaders (Himmler, Heydrich, G;ring, Hitler) were textbook serial killers. True, they were serial mass murderers… but still serial killers. So, they did exactly what most serial killers do – they escalated, snapped (started killing) and escalated again, graduating to more extensive and move vicious serial mass murder.

They escalated from persecution and forced emigration to deportation to “slow death factory” in Europe (Nisko Plan) to even worse killing center in Africa (Madagascar Plan) … until in April of 1941, they finally snapped – and made a firm commitment to carrying out “Holocaust by Bullets” (initially killing all Jewish men of military age in occupied territories of the Soviet Union).

This snap was the inevitable result of a critical mass formed after three key components converged and created a literally deadly synergy. First, the total number of Jews under German control (perceived by Nazis as the “fifth column” after the idiotic “declaration of war” by Chaim Weizmann) grew to totally unmanageable (in Nazi minds) 4,000,000 +.

Second, neither forced emigration nor deportation of Jews to a remote piece of land (in Europe) or elsewhere, were now possible. Total extermination appeared to be the only viable solution.

And, finally, in a speech to his leading generals on March 30, 1941 Adolf Hitler officially announced that the inevitable upcoming existential (true) racial (not true) war with “Judeo-Bolshevist” (wrong on first count) Soviet Union would be the “war of annihilation” – both ways.

No surprise here – after Holodomor and Great Terror in the USSR (and wholesale deportations from Baltic countries and occupied Poland, Bessarabia and Bukovina in 1940) that scared the bejesus of the Nazis they had every right to assume that Stalin would kill millions of Germans – if he wins this genuinely existential war.

So, not surprisingly, Adolf Hitler legally (in Nazi Germany his word was above any written law) sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in the Soviet Union… which for all practical purposes included all male Jews of military age.

There is no evidence that Hitler explicitly ordered extermination of the latter – it was simply not his management style. Most certainly, on the last days of March (or first days of April) of 1941, he ordered (most likely, via G;ring) Himmler or directly Heydrich to come up with the “solution to the Jewish question in the USSR”.

After Operation Tannenberg, Intelligenzaktion and AB-Aktion the solution was a no-brainer so the decision was to… just shoot them all. More specifically, shoot all male Jews of military age – and Einsatzgruppen were the obvious tool, given their extensive experience in (ultimately unsuccessful) “pacification” of Poland.

Most likely, this solution (first stage of “Holocaust by Bullets”) was proposed by Heydrich (who had the overall command of Einsatzgruppen) and was approved – sometime in mid-April of 1941 – by Himmler, G;ring and Hitler – in that order.

In late April of 1941, four Einsatzgruppen were created: Einsatzgruppe A (Baltic states); Einsatzgruppe B (Belarus); Einsatzgruppe C (Northern and central Ukraine); and Einsatzgruppe D (Bessarabia, Southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Caucasus).

Each Einsatzgruppe numbered 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000.  Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army.

In May 1941, Heydrich verbally passed on the abovementioned order at the SiPo (Security Police) NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganized Einsatzgruppen were being trained for Operation Barbarossa.

Right before that, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the German Army, General Eduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the Einsatzgruppen and the German Army to allow the implementation of the “special tasks” (i.e., serial mass murder).

Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the Einsatzgruppen.

Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, Einsatzgruppen included recruits from the Orpo, Security Service and Waffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force.

Each Einsatzgruppe was supplemented with Waffen-SS and Order Police battalions as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators. Order Police was heavily involved in “Holocaust by Bullets” because its formations were larger and better armed, with heavy machine-gun detachments, which enabled them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS.

Each Einsatzgruppe followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet Union. During the course of their operations, the Einsatzgruppen commanders received assistance from the Wehrmacht.