The Schutzstaffel (SS): Waffen-SS, Gestapo & Einsatzgruppen
The Architect of the Lithuanian Holocaust: Karl Jäger
13m
22 June 1941. Under the codename Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union.
Among the first territories occupied is Lithuania, home to a vibrant Jewish community that soon faces total annihilation.
Behind the front lines operates Einsatzkommando 3, a Nazi death squad commanded by SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger.
Under his leadership, thousands of Jews, Roma, and other victims are rounded up, forced to undress, and executed in fields and forests across Lithuania.
Jäger meticulously records every massacre in what becomes known as the Jäger Report — a cold, bureaucratic list documenting 138,272 murders committed between July and November 1941.
It remains one of the most detailed written proofs of the Holocaust’s machinery of death.
After the war, Jäger lived quietly under his real name until he was finally identified and prepared to stand trial for his crimes.
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