Einsatzgruppen Commander Who Brought Death to the East: Erich Naumann
Einsatzgruppen Leaders: Faces of Nazi Genocide [collection]
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12m
1 September 1939 — as Nazi Germany invades Poland, the first waves of terror follow not with tanks, but with firing squads. Behind the advancing army come the Einsatzgruppen — mobile death squads sent to exterminate civilians, intellectuals, and Jews. Among their leaders stands Erich Naumann, a career Nazi who rose from SA activist to SS-Brigadeführer and commander of Einsatzgruppe B.
Responsible for mass executions across Poland, Belarus, and western Russia, Naumann supervised the murder of more than 130,000 men, women, and children, pioneering mobile gas vans later used throughout the Holocaust. From Operation Tannenberg to Operation Silbertanne, his crimes spread from Poland to the Netherlands.
After the war, Naumann showed no remorse, declaring that he saw “nothing wrong” with killing defenseless human beings. Tried at Nuremberg, he was sentenced to death and hanged in 1951 at Landsberg Prison.
This film exposes the rise, crimes, and final reckoning of one of the most brutal architects of Nazi genocide.
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