Affidavit submitted by Otto Ohlendorf, the commander of Einsatzgruppe D, in advance of the Nuremberg Trial, 1945

Affidavit submitted by Otto Ohlendorf, the commander of Einsatzgruppe D, in advance of the Nuremberg Trial, 1945 Details regarding the Einsatzgruppen, including the names of the commanders and the activity that took place in the Soviet Union; the function of the Einsatzgruppen was the murder of Jewish men, women and children and Communist functionaries by means of execution [and burial] in pits, according to an order established by Himmler; subordination of the secondary units of the Einsatzgruppen to Military Divisions of the Wehrmacht that defined the areas of the activities; receipt of operational orders from the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD –BdS (Commander of the SIPO and the SD) in Berlin; murder of 90,000 people during the year that Ohlendorf supervised Einsatzgruppe D; ban by Ohlendorf against shooting at [individual] victims, in order to prevent direct responsibility by his soldiers; use of gas vans by the Einsatzgruppen, starting in spring 1942; The document is part of the Evidence material at the Nuremberg Trial.