Replies

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

"I have almost no reserves left to meet the enemy massing of forces and the constant counterattacks. They took away my offensive air power and heavy artillery and diverted some of the reserves originally destined for my front, the painful consequences of which are beginning to show. With the present state of the railroads I can't receive any help from home or through the shifting of forces...Greiffenberg briefed the Army High Command and asked that any units from home - replacement formations or whatever - be moved up into the rear area, because I urgently need those of my divisions still there at the front." - Field Marshall Bock
"The pocket at Smolensk is still not done...very regrettable, for the enemy's attacks on the army group's eastern front are growing ever stronger...The Chief of Staff of the 9th Army, Weckmann, is very downcast. He is also pessimistic about the situation on the northern wing...Kesselring is helping me as best he can, nevertheless his remaining forces are very weak after giving up VIII Air Corps" - Field Marshall Bock
Field Marshall Leeb admits that he cannot defend his eastern flank in his drive towards Leningrad since it now is 360 kilometers in length.
Finnish forces attack Leningrad Front's 23rd Army forcing it back to defensive positions along side the Karelian Isthmus but do not press the attack further.
Guderian's XXIV Motorized Corps strikes at Group Kachalov, south of Smolensk, and destroys it within days.
The three army groups have suffered 213,301 casualties, but have only received 47,000 replacements.

In our eagerness to follow German military progress into the Soviet Union, we (and I'd promised myself to keep track of these things) have neglected the Dark Side of Nazi atrocities.

Remember, the Holocaust-Proper kicks off with Einsatzgruppen following the Wehrmacht, and under orders to exterminate communists and Jews.
This they did, from the beginning.

I'll pick up the data starting today, and take it from the Holocaust Chronicle:

"July 31, 1941: Hermann Goring instructs SS Reich Security Service chief Reinhard Heydrich by letter to evacuate and eliminate all European Jews presently in German-held territory.
The letter mentions "complete solution" to European Jewry.
Late July 1941:
"Germans establish a Jewish ghetto at Dvinsk, Latvia.
July-August 1941:
"Tens of thousands of Jews are murdered throughout the western Soviet Union, Lithuania, Romania, and Latvia.
The killers are German Einsatzgruppen, Romanian troops and militia, Ukrainian peasants, and Lithuanian civilians."

Reinhard Heydrich:

"An Einsatzgruppe D member about to shoot a Jew kneeling at a mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, in 1942.
The photograph is inscribed: The last Jew in Vinnitsa.":