From NCA Volume VII, page 978
PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT L-180
ACTION-GROUP A
[Pencilled] Personal property of SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Wv.31.1.1942
[Rubber-stamp] Secret matter of the Reich
40 copies copy nr. 23. Comprehensive Report up to 15 October 1941 Page
Contents
[Original table of contents omitted from Wikisource edition]
Report
Action-Group A, after preparing their vehicles for action proceeded to their area of concentration as ordered on 23 June 1941, the second day of the campaign in the East. Army Group North consisting of the 16th and 18th Armies and Panzer-Group 4 had left the day before. Our task was to hurriedly establish personal contact with the commanders of the Armies and with the commander of the army of the rear area. It must be stressed from the beginning that co-operation with the Armed Forces was generally good, in some cases, for. instance with Panzer-Group 4 under Col. Gen. Hoeppner, it was very close, almost cordial. Misunderstandings which cropped up with some authorities in the first days, were cleared up mainly through personal discussions. * * * * * * At the start of the Eastern Campaign it became obvious with regard to the Security Police that its special work had to be done not only in the rear areas, as was provided for in the original agreements, with the High Command of the Army, but also in [page 979] the combat areas, and this for two reasons. On the one hand, the development of the rear area of the armies was delayed because of the quick advance and on the other hand, the undermining communist activities and the fight against partisans was most effective within the area of actual fighting -- especially when the Luga sector was reached. To carry out the duties connected with security police, it was desirable to move into the larger towns together with the armed forces. We had our first experiences in this direction when a small advance detachment under my leadership entered Kowne together with the advance units of the Armed Forces on 25 June 1941. When the other larger towns, especially Libau, Mitau, Riga, Dorpat, Reval, and the larger suburbs of Leningrad were captured, a detachment of the Security Police was always with the first army units. Above all, communist functionaries and communist material had to be seized, and the armed forces themselves had to be secured against surprises inside the towns; the troops themselves were usually not able to take care of that because of their small numbers. For this purpose the Security Police immediately after capture formed volunteer detachments from reliable natives in all three Baltic provinces; they carried out their duties successfully under our command. For example, it may be mentioned that the armed forces suffered not inconsiderable losses through guerillas in Riga, on the left of the Duena river; on the right bank of the Duena river, however, these volunteer detachments had been organized in Riga not a single soldier was injured, although these Latvian detachments suffered some killed and wounded in fighting with Russian stragglers. Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against Jews during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be very difficult. Following out orders, the Security Police was determined to solve the Jewish question with all possible means and most decisively. But it was desirable that the Security Police should not put in an immediate appearance, at least in the beginning, since the extraordinarily harsh measures were apt to stir even German circles. It had to be shown to the world that the native population itself took the first action by way of natural reaction against the suppression by Jews during several decades and against the terror exercised by the Communists during the preceding period. After reaching the Duena river and therewith Riga, the Action-Group detached itself at first from the further advance of the Army- Group North, and concentrated its forces on the pacification of [page 980] the Lithuanian and Latvian area, and later of the old Russian area which was reached at Opotschka. The work in this connection took on many shapes. In view of the constant changes in German troops and the fluctuation within the German authorities, which was caused by the transfer of the rear-area of the Wehrmacht to the rear-area of the Armies, and later to the civil administration and to the Commander of the Armed Forces the personnel and thus the opinions of the German authorities changed far too often and far too quickly. In the Security Police this had to be avoided, which led us to adopt the policy of keeping the same commanders in the same locality as far as possible.