From June 22 to August 22, 1941 a shift occurred in the newly occupied territories of the Soviet Union, a change that fundamentally changed the tone of the war and the approach to the Final Solution of the Jewish problem in the occupied territories of Europe. On August 22, 1941 a massacre took place in the Ukraine that might seem unimportant, almost insignificant in the face of the other killings that had already taken place in the war except for one detail; the killing order came from Wehrmacht Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Reichenau, not from an SS official. This essay will explore how General Reichenau’s directive to massacre the Jewish children at Belaya Tserkov was a watershed event in the Final Solution by focusing on the chain of
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There had been much conflict and tension between the troops and the Einsatzgruppen about the latter’s task in the conquered areas, army officials were worried that exposing their men to such violence could possibly endanger troop discipline and SS commanders were frustrated that they could not properly carry out their assigned tasks. After the military success of France the Wehrmacht Generals were more willing to listen to their perceived genius Führer and turned from animosity with the Hitler-backed Nazi power structure to a willingness to compromise. In the spring of 1941 Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner met to create an agreement that would allow for a cooperation between the Einsatzgruppen and the Army to allow implementation of “special tasks” by the SS, finalized on April 28, 1941 (Hillgruber 96). Then in May Wagner met with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg where it was decided that, “The Einsatzgruppen . . . would operate even in the front-line areas (under Wehrmacht supervision) as well as completely independently behind the lines, with logistic support—quarters, fuel, rations—from the army” (Rhodes 15). It was now concretely established that the Einsatzgruppen would be directly under the command of the Wehrmacht in the front-line areas of the war, meaning that Walther von Reichenau as a Generalfeldmarschall in the 6th Army would have final say in what the SS men did in his allotted area of Army Group South. He could even command them, an important distinction from the occupation of Poland where the SS and Wehrmacht were to operate independent from each other. This new organizational structure now made the Army and SS interdependent with each other, they could now
There had been much conflict and tension between the troops and the Einsatzgruppen about the latter’s task in the conquered areas, army officials were worried that exposing their men to such violence could possibly endanger troop discipline and SS commanders were frustrated that they could not properly carry out their assigned tasks. After the military success of France the Wehrmacht Generals were more willing to listen to their perceived genius Führer and turned from animosity with the Hitler-backed Nazi power structure to a willingness to compromise. In the spring of 1941 Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner met to create an agreement that would allow for a cooperation between the Einsatzgruppen and the Army to allow implementation of “special tasks” by the SS, finalized on April 28, 1941 (Hillgruber 96). Then in May Wagner met with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg where it was decided that, “The Einsatzgruppen . . . would operate even in the front-line areas (under Wehrmacht supervision) as well as completely independently behind the lines, with logistic support—quarters, fuel, rations—from the army” (Rhodes 15). It was now concretely established that the Einsatzgruppen would be directly under the command of the Wehrmacht in the front-line areas of the war, meaning that Walther von Reichenau as a Generalfeldmarschall in the 6th Army would have final say in what the SS men did in his allotted area of Army Group South. He could even command them, an important distinction from the occupation of Poland where the SS and Wehrmacht were to operate independent from each other. This new organizational structure now made the Army and SS interdependent with each other, they could now