Plot Synopsis

NAZI DEATH SQUADS is a one-hour documentary series that chronicles the history of the Einsatzgruppen (EZG), Nazi Germany's paramilitary death squads responsible for mass killings of Jews during World War II. Between June 1941 and the end of 1943, they shot to death close to two million Jews -- men, women and children -- from the Baltic countries to the Black Sea. Relying on archival footage filmed by the Nazi propaganda machine in the Baltic countries and in Belarus, Ukraine and Romania, on the memories of witnesses of these public executions, and on the words of survivors, this series also presents for the first time the confessions of the executioners that were found in Germany. The series opens with the armies of the Third Reich invading the USSR on June 22, 1941. Mobile commandos, the Einsatzgruppen, were following their advance to Stalingrad with the mission of eliminating all Jews on the conquered territories. Then, in the second installment, the carnage continued from September to December 1941. After the EZG's intervention, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Baltic states are declared "Judenfrei": free of Jews.