Arājs Kommando and other perpetrators at pages 13-14, 22 and following
The Germans launch the Holocaust in eastern Europe and the Baltics | pages 13-14
Schiessl presents the Holocaust in eastern Europe as a progression of phases. Focusing on the first two, its inception in Nazi-occupied territory:
- Phase 1: June 1941, Germany invades, there is an interregnum of "two weeks" during which locals organize Selbstschutz units and immediately begin attacking Jews and suspected Communists. After Germans occupy territory, locals continue to rampage. Several weeks later Germans organize the Selbstschutz into Schutzmannschaften.
- Phase 2: Starting with the arrival of the Einsatzgruppen in July, Germans "take over" planning and extermination of Jews. Locals already performing that function on their own "willingly cooperate."
- Germans "wanted to stop spontaneous pogroms" because they might spread to non-Jewish groups and potentially place too much power in the hands of nationalists.
- It was then that they organized Schutzmannschaften and other collaborator units, such as Arājs Kommando
In the context of the Baltics, this narrative is folklore.
Operation Barbarossa was launched Sunday, June 22. By June 25th or 26th, Germans were already machine-gunning Jews to death in the Slobodke (Vilijampolė) Jewish suburb of Kaunas. Franz Walter Stahlecker sent his men into Kaunas ahead of the arrival of Einsatzkommando 3 (unit of Einsatzgruppe A)) to organize and execute spontaneous-appearing pogroms and enlist Lithuanian partisans to kill Jews, in which they succeeded after initial resistance. It is not clear what persuaded the partisans to collaborate; nevertheless, the Germans closely managed their actions, including disarming them at the end of each day. In fact, anyone possessing a weapon had to turn it in. There was no possibility of armed locals executing anyone independently of the Germans.
Lithuania was subsequently "cleansed" by an EK "Rollkommando" (mobile killing unit) led by Joachim Hamann, killing 1,000 Jews a day for three months straight.
In Latvia, Germans already occupied Daugavpils (Dvinsk) by June 26th. The Wehrmacht and EK entered the city together, and the Nazis had already executed Jews before the day was done.
To the point:
There was no interregnum, let alone two weeks, during which locals slaughtered Jews. Nor did the Soviets flee, leaving a vacuum. They held on until the last minute, imprisoning and executing locals even in retreat. In Rīga, the capital, the Soviets jailed Vilis Hāzners on the 25th. He was freed after the Russians abandoned the jail on the 30th — the Germans completed their occupation of the city the next day. Hāzners found the hallways littered with bodies, including that of a friend, and in the summer heat the stench of rotting flesh of unburied corpses already filled the jail's courtyard. That weeks passed during which locals killed Jews is utterly false.
That Stahlecker and his Einsatzgruppen units arrived some time after occupation was established or "took over" control of the Holocaust from locals is utterly false.
- There was no anti-Jewish action which the Germans did not manage. Even post-occupation Latvians "looting" Jewish homes in Rīga were collaborators whom Stahlecker ordered to dress in civilian clothes and authorized to loot.
Arājs Kommando | page 22 and following
While Schiessl's account of Arājs Kommando is largely factual regarding victims and actions, it is also fictional in that it omits German management and control, and does not indicate the Germans killed a single Jew. Rumbula is mentioned only as a "killing site". Absent is describing it as the location where Germans shot 25,000 Jews over two separate days and packed them like sardines into mass graves.
Schiessl also falsely credits Arājs Kommando alone for cleansing the entire Latvian countryside of Jews by the end of October, and doing it so thoroughly that none were left to kill.
Intentionally or not, Schiessl leaves the uninformed reader to erroneously infer a Holocaust in which the Germans were incidental, or latecomers at most.
Discussing the Holocaust in detail is well beyond the scope here. However, urgent corrections are required to Schiessl's faulty narrative beyond just the sequence of events regarding both the Selbstschutz and Schutzmannschaften. We suggest historian Andrew Ezergailis's Holocaust in Latvia, published (1996) in conjunction with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. LINK.
The Selbstschutz
Schiessl defines the Selbstschutz:
literally “self defense” units; formed after Soviet forces left and before German army arrived; members could be either ethnic Germans or natives.
There is an article about Selbstschutz in Wikipedia, but which discusses it in its pre-WWII context.
Schiessl's definition is simply not factual. As already mentioned, there was no interregnum, there was no Selbstschutz predating Nazis invasion, occupation, establishment, and control. Following the Nazi invasion, the only option for Latvians who wanted to pursue the Soviets — who had just mass deported their friends and families only a week earlier — was a German rifle. These formed the Selbstschutz organized under Latvian Voldermārs Veiss, subordinated to the Wehrmacht and operating out of a headquarters on Annas Street. While ostensibly formed to protect national assets, guard against sabotage, and so on, they became the recruiting reserve for service under the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. These Selbstschutz were later reorganized into the Schutzmannschaften, but their function as a front-line combat reserve did not change. In practice, the "reservists" were all deployed in active combat.
Notably, the Germans were not interested in "collaboration". All requests to form Latvian units to pursue the Red Army were rebuffed. The Nazis even assassinated a former senior Latvian army officer petitioning to form such units. "Collaboration" from the Nazi viewpoint was total subjugation under German control. Only German-created and run "organizations" were allowed. Just as the word "voluntary" was a Nazi propagandist sham so were all instances of any organization or action prefixed by "self-": self-protection, self-defense, self-cleansing, self-administration, self-help. There was no "self" anything. This appears to be lost on Schiessl.
The Schutzmannschaften
As mentioned, the Schutzmannschaften were not organized immediately. It was declared as an umbrella organization a month into the organization, including guards, street police, and police battalions. As mentioned, the Selbstschutz recruiting/combat Eastern Front reserve was subsequently included/renamed to the Schutzmannschaften but their role did not change. New Schutzmannschaften units were only formed at the end of 1941 and into 1942/43. While the later combat Latvian Legion (Waffen-SS) is was mostly conscripted, Nazi conscription of Latvians had already begun in 1941.
Those who initially volunteered out of a desire to secure Latvia from Soviet return obligated themselves to a year of service. While there were numerous instances of Latvian "collaborators" providing guard duty or digging graves, they were not necessarily willing participants. The Nazis shot anyone who did not follow orders or who deserted. (For example, police escorting Jews to Rumbula, where Germans killed 25,000 over the course of two days, were told they were taking them to the railway to be "resettled." Some of the German officers in charge had orders to shoot Latvian guards who failed to keep Jews in line.)
The vast majority of Schutzmannschaften units did not participate in the Holocaust. As Ezergailis relates in Holocaust in Latvia:
The Schutzmannschaften occupy an ambiguous place among the military and police forces in Latvia. They were a sprawling organization that included street policemen, countryside constabularies, bridge guards, and the military units known as police battalions. It is impossible to paint them all with the same brush. The majority of the Schutzmannschaften had nothing to do with the atrocities, although some did.
On the upper levels of the German command the lines of authority of all the Latvian police, military, and paramilitary units ultimately led to the SD [Sicherheitsdienst]. The Latvian SD reported directly to the German SD. The Schutzmannschaften were under the control of the German Ordnungspolizei, but at the same time, through the Ordnungspolizei, General Friedrich Jeckeln had a great deal to do with the activities of the Schutzmannschaften. Hardly anything in Latvia transpired without SD involvement, but when we consider the operative level there is a sharp distinction between the work of the SD and that of the Schutzmannschaften. In the worst case, Schutzmannschaften involvement in the atrocities was not identical with that of the SD. The overwhelming number of the Schutzmannschaften, those serving in the battalions, and most of those guarding the streets, had no involvement at all with the killing of the Jews. The participation of the Latvian Schutzmannschaften in the killings was episodic and outside their routine. They received it as a special assignment at a specified time and location. Although some of the Schutzmannschaften, especially in the small towns, were ordered to carry out killings, their function usually was limited to gathering and guarding the Jews prior to and during the killing [by Germans]. In many locations, especially Vidzeme [northeastern Latvia, more than a third of its territory], where there were few or no Jews, the resident Schutzmannschaften had no opportunity to be involved with the atrocities, even if they had wanted to. If the Schutzmannschaften participated in the killings, they participated only in their own locality; they did not, as did the Arājs Commando, travel from place to place. Due to the episodic and fleeting nature of their role in the atrocities it has been extremely difficult to find out the truth about their participation. The war crimes prosecutors in the United States and West Germany, with some exceptions, have not attempted to prosecute the Latvian members of the Schutzmannschaften, either the residential ones or those from the battalions.1
It is worth noting that U.S. prosecutions of Latvian émigrés focused on former Latvian Legion (Waffen-SS) officers. Proceedings were rife with Soviet propaganda and perjured evidence. As elsewhere, we recommend our research on the Vilis Hāzners deportation trial.
1 Ezergailis, Andrew. The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1944: The Missing Center, Historical Institute of Latvia in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996, ISBN: 9789984905433. LINK, p. 45. “Alleged Nazi Collaborators”Schiessl's thesisAlleged inter-regnum and "Germanless" HolocaustCIA recruits émigrésProblems with picturesLatvian perpetratorsAppraisalView all