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The Field Men: The SS Officers Who Led the Einsatzkommandos - the Nazi Mobile Killing Units
Two thousand nine hundred forty-five men lined up in four motorized columns immediately behind the German Army on June 22, 1941 as it prepared to launch Operation Barbarossa – the German attack on the Soviet Union – an attack designed to win the war. Their mission – for the glory of Greater Germany – was to butcher as many human beings as they could get their hands on – men, women and children who were at that very moment peacefully sleeping in their warm beds in dozens of large cities and scores of small hamlets from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea, and from the border with old Poland to the outskirts of Moscow.
The field men of the Einsatzkommandos, the men of Bach and Beethoven, Grimm and Gutenberg – and now Hitler and Heydrich – were very thorough at what they did. Over the course of the next two years, by means of machine-guns, carbines, gas vans, explosives, rifle butts or ax handles, the field men would slaughter 1,300,000 people.
The Field Men, a companion volume to MacLean’s The Camp the SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System, covers the entire gamut, from the organization of the units, to the SS officers who served in this scourge on the Eastern Front. Some 380 SS officers are described in full detail and extensively analyzed. The photographic section of the book contains over 175 photographs, while detailed maps show the locations for each unit throughout the campaign.
The field men of the Einsatzkommandos, the men of Bach and Beethoven, Grimm and Gutenberg – and now Hitler and Heydrich – were very thorough at what they did. Over the course of the next two years, by means of machine-guns, carbines, gas vans, explosives, rifle butts or ax handles, the field men would slaughter 1,300,000 people.
The Field Men, a companion volume to MacLean’s The Camp the SS Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System, covers the entire gamut, from the organization of the units, to the SS officers who served in this scourge on the Eastern Front. Some 380 SS officers are described in full detail and extensively analyzed. The photographic section of the book contains over 175 photographs, while detailed maps show the locations for each unit throughout the campaign.
- GenresWorld War II
232 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1999
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March 19, 2023
A detailed examination of over three hundred SS officers who served in the mobile execution units, the EINSATZGRUPPEN and their subordinate units. MacLean provides as much detail on these individuals as possible, analyses various facts such as SS and Party membership, military service, awards, fate and other details though brief. The organisation and history of the Einsatzgruppen is explained in its own right and within the overall SS structure. He doesn't focus on the on the individual, per se, in lengthy biographies, as the purpose was to primarily to identify those involved as a whole.
Each SS has an entry, easy to read and later possibly a photo. The appendices provide useful information such rank progressions and combat experience compared to those in the concentration camp system, post war justice (very little), police units involved and more. Also included are numerous photographs of the Einsatzgruppen carrying out various activities, including executions - some of which had not been published previously but all are shocking.
Hannah Arendt was once criticized for describing Eichmann as the 'banality of evil' but if you look at the perpetrators in MacLean's photographs, this could easily be said of the SS depicted - the plain and utter indifference to those they are killing or about to kill. The photograph of blindfolded Jews being 'escorted' by their individual executioner past an SS senior NCO who is indifferently smoking a cigarette as he looks at the camera is particularly disturbing.
It isn't possible to really grasp the size and scale of the Holocaust but volumes such as this do help. MacLean provides another valuable study to the Holocaust. His purpose was partially to expose those responsible - the major criminals such as Blobel and Ohlendorf are fairly well known, but we know even more about the 'minor' perpetrators without whom genocide on such a scale wasn't possible. Whether or not they were "ordinary men" or Hitler's "willing executioners", they made the Holocaust by Bullets a sickening reality.
Each SS has an entry, easy to read and later possibly a photo. The appendices provide useful information such rank progressions and combat experience compared to those in the concentration camp system, post war justice (very little), police units involved and more. Also included are numerous photographs of the Einsatzgruppen carrying out various activities, including executions - some of which had not been published previously but all are shocking.
Hannah Arendt was once criticized for describing Eichmann as the 'banality of evil' but if you look at the perpetrators in MacLean's photographs, this could easily be said of the SS depicted - the plain and utter indifference to those they are killing or about to kill. The photograph of blindfolded Jews being 'escorted' by their individual executioner past an SS senior NCO who is indifferently smoking a cigarette as he looks at the camera is particularly disturbing.
It isn't possible to really grasp the size and scale of the Holocaust but volumes such as this do help. MacLean provides another valuable study to the Holocaust. His purpose was partially to expose those responsible - the major criminals such as Blobel and Ohlendorf are fairly well known, but we know even more about the 'minor' perpetrators without whom genocide on such a scale wasn't possible. Whether or not they were "ordinary men" or Hitler's "willing executioners", they made the Holocaust by Bullets a sickening reality.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review