History glossary
Einsatzgruppen
mobile Nazi killing units that carried out mass shootings behind German lines, especially in occupied eastern Europe.
- Category
- Nazi killing unit
- Region
- Eastern Europe
- Date range
- 1941–1945
What it means
Mobile Nazi killing units made up mainly of SS and Security Police personnel. During the invasion of the Soviet Union and occupation of eastern Europe, they murdered Jews, Roma, Soviet officials, and others in mass shootings.
Stories using this term
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Operation Barbarossa
From Hitler's ideological war in the east to Soviet survival before Moscow, Barbarossa turned expected blitzkrieg into prolonged attritional catastrophe.
The Second World War
From fragile peace to global war, WWII reshaped the world through conflict, genocide, and new power orders.
