(, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" () in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood. Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe.
Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Reinhard Heydrich, the operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The worked hand-in-hand with the Order Police battalions on the Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar (with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days), and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the , providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass murders. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the , related agencies, and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million of the 5.5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
After the close of World War II, 24 officers, including multiple commanding officers, of the were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were delivered, but only four of the death sentences were carried out. Four additional leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.
Formation and Aktion T4 The were formed under the direction of SS- Reinhard Heydrich and operated by the (SS) before and during World War II. The had their origins in the ad hoc formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the in Austria in March 1938. Originally part of the (Security Police; SiPo), two units of were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary due to the Munich Agreement, the were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. From September 1939, the (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) had overall command of the .
As part of the drive by the Nazi regime to remove so-called "undesirable" elements from the German population, from September to December 1939 the and others took part in Aktion T4, a program of systematic murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals. Aktion T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941, but the murders continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the and others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.
Invasion of Poland
In response to Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed the to travel in the wake of the German armies. Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the (Security Service; SD), the police, and the Gestapo. Heydrich placed SS- Werner Best in command, who assigned to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups, called , from among educated people with military experience and a strong ideological commitment to Nazism. Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as the . Heydrich instructed the First Quartermaster of the Eduard Wagner in meetings in late July that the should undertake their operations in cooperation with the (Order Police; Orpo) and military commanders in the area. Army intelligence was in constant contact with to coordinate their activities with other units.
Initially numbering 2,700 men (and ultimately 4,250 in Poland), the 's mission was to murder members of the Polish leadership most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the nobility. As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed, however harsh that sounds". SS- Lothar Beutel, commander of IV, later testified that Heydrich gave the order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid-August. The lists of people to be murderedhad been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939, using dossiers collected by the SD from 1936 forward. The performed these murders with the support of the , a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland during Operation Tannenberg. Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the also shot civilians during the Polish campaign. Approximately 65,000 civilians were murdered by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they murdered Jews, prostitutes, Romani people, and the mentally ill. Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially murdered by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used.
Seven of battalion strength (around 500 men) operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into five of company strength (around 100 men). I, commanded by SS- Bruno Streckenbach, acted with 14th Army II, SS- Emanuel Schäfer, acted with 10th Army III, SS- Herbert Fischer, acted with 8th Army IV, SS- Lothar Beutel, acted with 4th Army V, SS- Ernst Damzog, acted with 3rd Army VI, SS- Erich Naumann, acted in Wielkopolska VII, SS- Udo von Woyrsch and SS- Otto Rasch, acted in Upper Silesia and Cieszyn Silesia
Though they were formally under the command of the army, the received their orders from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army. Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the murders violated the rules of warfare as set down in the Geneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the and the , to little effect. For example, when Johannes Blaskowitz sent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal.
The final task of the in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettos within major cities with good railway connections. The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined. Together, the Wehrmacht and the also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled territory.
Preparations for Operation Barbarossa
On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B specified that Heinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from the Führer, which he would carry out independently. This directive was intended to prevent friction between the Wehrmacht and the SS in the upcoming offensive. Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts, and thus would go unpunished.
In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet Union. General Franz Halder, the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech:
Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against "Judeo-Bolshevism", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population. The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape. In May 1941, Heydrich verbally passed on the order to murder the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganised were being trained for Operation Barbarossa. In spring 1941, Heydrich and General Eduard Wagner successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the and the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks". 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 .
In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime's intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct murder of those considered racially inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.
Organisation starting in 1941
For Operation Barbarossa, initially four were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000. A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; D was assigned to the 11th Army. The for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. The were under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS- Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations. The men of the were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, (Kripo), Orpo, and Waffen-SS. Each was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations. In May 1941, General Wagner and SS- Walter Schellenberg agreed that the in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the with all necessary logistical support. Given their main task was defeating the enemy, the army left the pacification of the civilian population to the , who offered support as well as prevented subversion. This did not preclude their participation in acts of violence against civilians, as many members of the Wehrmacht assisted the in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord.