Babi Yar: Who was shooting?
On the 85th anniversary of the massacre of September 29–30, 1941, this isn't a retelling of the plot, but rather a difficult question: who exactly carried it out? The answer is more complex than the two usual theories.
A line that names the performers
Let's start with one line. On October 7, 1941, operational report No. 106 on the situation in the USSR was sent to Berlin—and it contains a phrase that makes it worth delving into the official language of the murderers: "In cooperation with the group headquarters and two teams of the police regiment 'South,' Sonderkommando 4a executed 33,771 Jews on September 29 and 30." This document would later pass through Nuremberg under the number NO-3140.
The perpetrators have already been named here. Not "Germans in general," not "Nazis" as an impersonal force—specific structures: the Sonderkommando, the Einsatzgruppe headquarters, two police battalions. The usual conversation about Babi Yar usually yields different answers—and we'll explore them below. We'll return to this line at the end.
Two familiar answers
There are essentially two common theories about who shot at Babi Yar, and both did not arise out of nowhere.
The first: the SS did it. The basis is solid—the central executive body was indeed the SS and the Security Police, and the murderers' document lists it as the primary one. The second version is more resonant in the post-Soviet and Ukrainian debate: the main role was played by Ukrainian nationalists, specifically the Bukovinian and Kyiv Kurens, associated with the OUN. The basis here is also real: local auxiliary police existed during the occupation, and collaboration in Ukraine is well documented.
Both versions are convenient because they answer the question with a single word. The problem is that the documents provide a more detailed picture.
Core: about a hundred shooters
The actual killing was carried out by a small group. The first to fire were men from Sonderkommando 4a, commanded by Paul Blobel, and from the headquarters of Einsatzgruppe C. The second group consisted of two battalions of Police Regiment "South," subordinated to the Supreme SS and Police Leader Friedrich Jeckeln: Reserve Police Battalion 45 from Aussig (now Ústí nad Labem), commanded by Martin Besser, and Police Battalion 303 from Bremen, commanded by Heinrich Hannibal. Karel Berkhoff shows that these battalions weren't limited to cordons—their men also formed part of the firing squads.
Only about a hundred riflemen—that's Berkhoff's estimate—and 33,771 killed in two days. This ratio is explained by organization, not arithmetic: cordons, confiscation of belongings, stripping, and the continuous supply of people to the ravine in small groups over two days.
The Wehrmacht: Not a Bystander
This is where the "it was purely an SS operation" theory breaks down. Formally, the actual shooters were part of the SS and the Security Police—and the usual answer stops there. But an operation of such pace would have been impossible without the army.
The army printed the summons: approximately two thousand notices were produced by Military Propaganda Company 637 (according to Berkhoff). Ammunition was provided by army structures. The Wehrmacht provided field gendarmerie to cordon off the area; after the main operation, Engineer Battalion 113 blew up the slopes above the graves. On September 26, Kyiv's military commandant, Kurt Eberhard, met with Blobel, Einsatzgruppe C commander Otto Rasch, and Jeckeln. Berkhoff explicitly writes that such a swift massacre would have been unthinkable without the close cooperation of the 6th Army command; the Wehrmacht's role in preparing the massacre is explored in Alexander Kruglov's work on German documents on Babi Yar, and the question of "who was responsible for Babi Yar" has been explored by the German historian Hartmut Rüss.
The Wehrmacht participated in decision-making, supply, security, and engineering support. This wasn't the same role as a firing squad, but without this support, it couldn't have acted with such speed. It's fair to speak not of an isolated SS action, but of a coordinated operation, in which the punitive apparatus and the army performed different but interdependent functions.
Local Helpers: What's Proven and What's Not
Having established the role of German structures, let us turn to the most controversial question: what exactly did the locals do – and who were they.
This is confirmed by sources. Auxiliary police posted notices to report to the detainees and participated in cordons and escorts. Ukrainian-speaking officers were in charge at the site where people were forced to undress.
A few months later, the same occupiers began killing OUN members and auxiliary police officers suspected of disloyal nationalism; in February 1942, Kyiv Mayor Volodymyr Bagaziy was assassinated, and the bodies were often taken to the same Yar—including those the regime had previously used.
Why isn't there a single-name answer?
The temptation remains to name a single individual who gave the order. The sources don't provide one. No signed order from 6th Army commander Walther von Reichenau to "kill all Kyiv Jews" has been found—Berckhoff specifically notes this as a fundamental limitation of the source base.
However, the personal responsibility of the perpetrators is known from post-war trials. In 1968, a court in Darmstadt convicted eight former members of Sonderkommando 4a, including Kuno Callsen and August Hefner, of complicity in murder, including 33,771 people at Babi Yar. In 1971, in Regensburg, of the three veterans of Battalion 45 brought to trial, one was found fit to stand trial—Engelbert Kreuzer, the former commander of the 2nd Company; he received a seven-year sentence for forming a firing squad, commanding it at the ravine, and firing himself. The commanding heights cannot be summed up by a single name—the court named the perpetrator by name.
So who did this?
Report No. 106's initial title is no accident: it sets a standard for precision. The murderers' document names the perpetrators—Sonderkommando 4a, Einsatzgruppe C headquarters, and two police battalions. Further analysis doesn't refute this line, but rather expands on it: behind it stand the army logistics that made the operation possible, the local police who participated in the cordons, and the absence of a single signed order, which doesn't absolve responsibility but merely distributes it among those who negotiated the meetings, supplied ammunition, and personally commanded the firing squads.
"SS men" and "kureni"—both familiar answers strike a single, correct note and present it as the entire score. A precise picture is inconvenient because it cannot be reduced to a single culprit: the state, composed of many components, was committing murder, and each component performed its part routinely and according to instructions.
Literature
- Kruglov A. I. The Babi Yar Tragedy in German Documents. — Dnepropetrovsk: Tkuma Center; Lira, 2011.
- Berkhoff K. C. “The Corpses in the Ravine Were Women, Men, and Children”: Written Testimonies from 1941 on the Babi Yar Massacre // Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 2015. Vol. 29, no. 2. P. 251–274.
- Berkhoff K. C. Babi Yar // Mass Violence and Resistance Research Network, Sciences Po. 2015 (May 27).
- Rüß H. Wer war verantwortlich für das Massaker von Babij Jar? // Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen. 1998. Bd. 57, H. 2. S. 483–508.
- Operational Situation Report USSR No. 106 (October 7, 1941), Nuremberg Trials document NO-3140.
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