The Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of the twelve Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, a U.S. military tribunal that ran from September 29, 1947, to February 12, 1948, and charged 24 SS officers with responsibility for the murders of more than a million civilians in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Formally titled United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf, et al., it produced 14 death sentences, more than any other Subsequent Nuremberg case, though only four of those sentences were ultimately carried out.
Who the Defendants Were
The Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing units organized under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, four groups (A, B, C, and D) followed the army into occupied territory with orders to eliminate perceived political and racial enemies behind the front lines.1Harvard Law School Library. Nuremberg Trials Project – NMT Case 9 Victims were overwhelmingly Jewish civilians, along with Roma people, Soviet political officials, and others. The units’ own operational reports documented at least 1,152,731 killings by December 1942, and the true toll was likely higher.
Of the 24 men named in the indictment, 22 stood trial. Emil Haussmann committed suicide on July 31, 1947, before proceedings began, and Otto Rasch was severed for medical reasons.2United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, Case 9, The Einsatzgruppen Case3United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Defendant Emil Haussmann at the Einsatzgruppen Trial The remaining defendants were not foot soldiers. Many held doctorates and had worked as lawyers, economists, or academics before the war. Lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe D, had trained in economics and served as an economic adviser in the SD.4National Archives. Report on the Otto Ohlendorf IRR File Ernst Biberstein, who commanded Einsatzkommando 6, had been a Protestant pastor and church superintendent before joining the SS.5EHRI Project. Ernst Biberstein Statement in the Einsatzgruppen Trial The four Einsatzgruppen commanders charged were Ohlendorf, Heinz Jost (A), Erich Naumann (B), and Rasch (C, severed). The rest led sub-units or held senior RSHA staff positions.
The Charges and Legal Authority
The tribunal drew its authority from Control Council Law No. 10, enacted by the four occupying powers to create a uniform framework for trying war criminals in occupied Germany beyond those handled by the International Military Tribunal.6The Avalon Project. Control Council Law No. 10 – Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Peace and Against Humanity The law permitted prosecution of any person “without regard to nationality or the capacity in which he acted,” which allowed a U.S. tribunal in Nuremberg to try German officers for killings carried out across Soviet territory.
The indictment contained three counts. Count I charged crimes against humanity, framing the killings as a coordinated policy of extermination on political, racial, and religious grounds rather than isolated acts of battlefield violence. Count II charged war crimes, meaning violations of the laws and customs of war, including the murder of civilians in occupied territory. Count III charged membership in organizations (the SS, SD, and Gestapo) that the International Military Tribunal had already declared criminal.
How the Prosecution Proved the Case
Chief prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz was 27 years old when he took the case. After graduating Harvard Law in 1943 and serving in the Army’s War Crimes Branch, he led a team of researchers combing through captured Nazi records in Berlin.7United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. About Benjamin Ferencz There he found the evidence that would define the trial.
Ferencz built the entire case on the defendants’ own paperwork. The core exhibits were the Ereignismeldungen, or “Event Reports,” operational summaries the RSHA compiled from field dispatches sent in by the Einsatzgruppen themselves. Because these were classified internal records, they contained frank admissions of mass killing with locations, dates, and body counts recorded as routine administrative data. The prosecution called no live witnesses. “I rested my case in two days,” Ferencz later recalled. “I had their daily reports signed on the bottom.”8Judicature. Ben Ferencz Recalls His Work on the Einsatzgruppen Trial By tying each defendant’s name and signature to reports generated during his command, the prosecution built a chain of responsibility that could not be attacked as faulty memory or unreliable testimony.
The Defense and Why It Failed
The defendants raised two main arguments. The first was superior orders: they had been carrying out the Führerbefehl and could not have refused without risking their own lives. Ohlendorf never denied the killings themselves and rested his defense entirely on the claim that he acted under binding orders from above.9Harvard Law School Library. Transcript for NMT 9 – Einsatzgruppen Case The second argument was necessity: Ohlendorf characterized the mass killings as a “preventive security” measure, claiming that Jewish civilians, including women and children, were potential partisans whose elimination was required to protect the German army’s rear.
The tribunal rejected both. On superior orders, the judges held that an order to commit mass murder was so manifestly illegal that obedience did not provide legal cover. On necessity, the tribunal found that classifying entire civilian populations as security threats and systematically exterminating them had no relationship to legitimate military defense. Individuals bear personal criminal responsibility for atrocities regardless of who issued the command.
Verdicts and Sentences
Presiding Judge Michael Musmanno delivered judgment on April 8–9, 1948, with sentences announced April 10. All 22 defendants who stood trial were convicted. Twenty were found guilty on Counts I and II, and all 22 were convicted on Count III.1Harvard Law School Library. Nuremberg Trials Project – NMT Case 9
The sentences broke down as follows:2United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, Case 9, The Einsatzgruppen Case
- Death by hanging: 14 defendants, including Ohlendorf, Naumann, Blobel, and Braune
- Life imprisonment: 2 defendants
- Prison terms of 10 to 20 years: 5 defendants
- Time served, then released: 1 defendant (Matthias Graf)
The tribunal weighed how long each defendant had commanded a unit and the scale of killings that occurred under his watch. Commanders who held their posts the longest and oversaw the largest operations received the harshest sentences.
What Happened After: Commutations and Executions
The April 1948 sentences were not the final word. On January 31, 1951, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John J. McCloy announced clemency decisions covering war criminals held at Landsberg Prison. Of the 14 Einsatzgruppen defendants under death sentence, McCloy commuted 10 to prison terms. Only four were executed at Landsberg on June 7, 1951: Otto Ohlendorf, Erich Naumann, Paul Blobel, and Werner Braune.1Harvard Law School Library. Nuremberg Trials Project – NMT Case 9
The commutations drew heavy criticism. The Korean War had begun in June 1950, and the United States was seeking West German cooperation on rearmament and integration into Western defense. Critics saw the reduced sentences as a concession to smooth relations with the new West German government. Additional review boards through the 1950s further reduced prison terms, and most of the convicted men were released well before their original sentences would have expired.
Legal Legacy
The rejection of the superior-orders defense in this case reinforced a principle from the first Nuremberg trial and later shaped the statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court. Individuals cannot hide behind a chain of command when the orders they followed were obviously criminal.
The trial also demonstrated what documentary evidence could do in a war-crimes prosecution. Ferencz’s decision to build the case entirely on the perpetrators’ own records showed that meticulous bureaucratic documentation of atrocities could become the most damning evidence against those who created it. A two-day prosecution of defendants responsible for over a million deaths remains one of the most efficient presentations in the history of international criminal trials.
The clemency decisions cut the other way. The tribunal’s verdict stands as a comprehensive judicial record of the Einsatzgruppen’s operations, but the reduction of most sentences showed how quickly wartime justice could be subordinated to Cold War strategy. That tension between establishing legal precedent and enforcing its consequences has recurred in nearly every international criminal proceeding since.