When the German Army went into... Latvia or Sevastopol...just for example. How did they go about identifying "enemies".? How did they know if somebody was a Gypsy, Gay, Communist, Jewish.? Thank You
During the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen received support from local police forces, civilians and employed interpreters to locate and identify Jewish families and others. This was the beginning stage. (USHMM)
It wasn't like today's secular world, where belief rests firmly in a box with moving pictures in the living room. "Seeing is believing". Following a religious persuasion dictated in many cases how you should dress, and how you should behave. In an age when most people participated in weekly religious ceremonies, it's pretty obvious in a community who goes to the synagogue, and who goes to church.
Instructions were given to the local populations turned collaborators.... Communists and Jews were easily discovered thanks to records and locals....
Indeed, but that was just collaboration at lower level, just technical detail which helped gather civil population for slaughter. It was Wehrmacht who brought civil population to hands of Einsatzgruppen and Wehrmacht massively participated the mass murder. Complete German army was involved. Einsatzgruppen were introduced by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht: on March 1941 Jodl and Hitler addressed the need for introducing of Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei (SD) and after consulting with Heydrich they decided to form these new units for committing mass murders at the East. The Wehrmacht agreed to a free and unlimited activities of these task forces. A command for the final solution had not yet been issued. Much later, on 21st January 1942 the command was issued during the Wannsee-Konference. But killing has began from the first day of the Barbarossa. Wehrmacht did the killing: the most of extermination-by-the-bullet has been practically completed before the Wannsee Konference. They were willing executioners, without any direct command from above. They want us to believe that local population delivered Jews directly to the hands of Einsatzgruppen, to clear the future Bundeswehr, a successor of the Wehrmacht. That's an ordinary lie: Wehrmacht did that job.
Man those were scary times..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6lrPI1r_9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6JN0l7A_mE
There was very active support in Latvia and Lithuania and the Ukraine for the persecution of Jews. The word Pogrom started in the Ukraine. I believe Finland was the only Axis ally that did not allow the murder of its Jewish population, I have never heard about Estonia.
The Soviets took extensive censuses of its population and kept the records on site in local government offices. Between 1941-42, the rapidity advancing German forces usually overran the municipal archives, with documents intact. The Einsatzsgruppen, which were attached to the German Army Group HQs, would then move into population centers and kill the identified undesirables. Frequently, the Einsatzgruppen used deception by informing the targeted population that they were to present themselves for resettlement, and that those who tried to hide would be killed. Therefore a lot of the victims surrendered themselves without a struggle. It was somewhat more complex in the countryside. If memory serves, different genocidal strategies were developed to suit particular geographies. In the Baltic region, roaming bands of kill teams, consisted of local collaborators, Nazi-sympathizers, and Einsatzkommando troops, were sent out to hunt down the victims. Carbon monoxide murder wagons were first deployed in the Baltic region for the purpose of killing people on the move. In the Pripat Marshes, military assaults were frequently launched on villages that were considered racially impure or harbored resistance fighters. Conventional forces as well as Einsatzgruppen were involved in such "Actions". Your local library should contain a copy of either O. Bartov's 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare and G. Megaree's War of Annihilation that discus this topic at some length and would introduce you to the sources.
Christ.....thanks for the info. You mention Latvia...and that reminds me of the Wannsse Konferenz. In attendance was Rudolf Lange...a Major in the SS. I suppose he was a borderline Psychopath. The accounts I have read about his time in Latvia is tear jerking.