Who Killed Lida's Jewish Intelligentsia? A Case Study of Wehrmacht Involvement in the Holocaust's “First Hour”

Abstract

An investigation of the liquidation of Lida's Jewish intelligentsia reveals that front-line Wehrmacht troops, and not the Einsatzgruppen normally associated with such actions, were responsible. This finding regarding the first week of the war challenges the paradigmatic view that the Wehrmacht requested and supported the liquidation of Soviet Jewry, while the security apparatus—e.g. the SS, the SD, the SiPo, the OrPo, and the Einsatzgruppen—carried out the executions. A comparison of military operations in Lida and Grodno brings to light patterns within front-line Wehrmacht officers' and soldiers' attitudes towards Soviet Jews, and allows us to place genocidal crimes within the context of the prosecution of Operation Barbarossa.