Putative Threat to National Security as a Nuremberg Defense for Genocide

Abstract

Otto Ohlendorf, SS group leader and Lieutenant General of Police, director of the Reich Security Main Office that was responsible for domestic intelligence and public opinion analysis, and lawyer and economist, was the best- known defendant in the subsequent Nuremberg trial of the Einsatzgruppen commanders (case 9) for the mass murder of Jews and others in the rear areas of the invading German armies during the first two years of the Russian campaign. Having admitted, as a witness in the precedent trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, that his Einsatzgruppe D operating in the southern Ukraine during one short year under his command executed some 90 thousand Jews and other civilians, Ohlendorf could not deny the charges, particularly because almost daily detailed con temporary Einsatzgruppen reports were submitted in evi dence. Nor could he claim "superior orders" because the IMT (London) Charter ruled out such a defense, except as miti gation. Ohlendorf and some of his fellow defendants in the same case contended that they were convinced at the time that Soviet Jewry was a mainstay of bolshevism and therefore constituted a direct threat to the security of the Third Reich. Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and was executed at Landsberg prison on 7 June 1951.