The Einsatzgruppen:
Operational Situation Report USSR No. 117

The Chief of the Security Police and Security Service

Berlin,
October 18, 1941

50 copies

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36th copy

OPERATIONAL SITUATION REPORT USSR NO. 117

 

During the time to which the report relates, the settlement of the Jewish question was tackled, particularly in the territory to the east of the Dnieper. Investigations concerning the followers of Bandera and partisans are next in importance.

1. The districts occupied by the kommandos were cleaned of Jews. 4,091 Jews and 46 Communists were executed during the time span covered by the report, bringing the total to 40,699.

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3. On the Odessa front, a partisan leader of a five-man group was arrested after offering violent resistance. His task included fixing artillery positions and reporting them to a Soviet command stationed on the east bank of the Suchoi-Liman; carrying out attacks on German soldiers; destroying telephone cables. Names of members of the group were established. House searches yielded weapons and munitions. It is remarkable that partisan groups had no support whatsoever from the population.

4) Concerning Bandera members: 16 arrests in searches in Nikolayev. Three leaders under arrest, among others Machilynsky and Martynok. The rest were given appropriate warning. Political material confiscated.

Members were gathered in small groups in at the beginning of the campaign in Lvov or in Sanok where they received short training, propaganda material, and money. Martynok took over the leadership of Lvov group. Machilynsky was in charge of these groups from Sanok. On the way, under the pretest of performing police duties, they continued political work such as installing mayors, organizing military units, and finishing off Jews and Communists, etc. The two immediately took up leading positions with the militia. Their participation in murder in Zhitomir is not confirmed. They declared, however, that they would remove rivals.

5) Ethnic German settlements east of the Dnieper were taken under protection; part of them were passed on to the command of VOMI. [1] Concerning the preservation of German nationalism, the observations are similar to those between the Bug and the Dniester. In some areas, situation substantially better.

6) In the course of the work in Nikolayev, Party instructions concerning work in the navy were seized.

[1] Volksdeutche Mittelstelle - Liason Office for Ethnic Germans.

(The Einsatzgruppen Reports by Yitzak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski and Shmuel Spector, editors. p. 194-5)