Einsatzkommando

Einsatzkommando, literally meaning deployment command or task force, was the designation used for mobile units of the Nazi SS and police during World War II. These units operated as part of the larger Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing squads that accompanied the German invasion of Poland and the campaigns in the Soviet Union. Einsatzkommandos were responsible for carrying out security actions and mass murder in occupied territories.

Organizationally, an Einsatzkommando was usually led by an SS officer and staffed with members of the Sicherheitspolizei (SD), Gestapo, and Ordnungspolizei, sometimes with local collaborators. They operated under the authority of the Reich Security Main Office and the appropriate Einsatzgruppen command. Their duties included mass shootings, arrests, deportations, and anti-partisan actions, and they often coordinated with local authorities, Wehrmacht units, and other police formations.

During the campaigns in Poland and the Soviet Union, Einsatzkommandos carried out large-scale killings as part of the Holocaust, targeting Jews, Romani people, political opponents, and others persecuted by the Nazi regime. They used improvised execution sites, pits, and, in some cases, local communities to facilitate these acts. Over time, their role in mass murder was supplemented or supplanted by extermination camps and other agencies, but the units remained active in various regions until the collapse of the regime.

After the war, many members of the Einsatzkommandos were prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and in subsequent trials. In historical scholarship, the term is used to describe these mobile subunits within the Nazi framework of coordinated persecution and murder.