Karl Jäger

Karl Jäger (; 20 September 1888 – 22 June 1959) was a German mid-ranking official in the SS of Nazi Germany and Einsatzkommando leader who perpetrated acts of genocide during the Holocaust.

Early life and career Jäger was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and moved with his father to Germany when he was 3 years of age. Jäger enlisted in the German Imperial Army at the start of World War I, where he received the Iron Cross (1st Class) and other awards. After the war, Jäger, an orchestrion maker by profession, obtained a managerial position with the Weber orchestrion factory in Waldkirch. He joined the Nazi Party in 1923 (party n°. 30988) and founded the local party chapter, as a result of which he became known as "Waldkirch's Hitler" among the Alte Kämpfer (Old Fighters), as those who had joined before the Reichstag election of September 1930 called themselves.

The Weber company went bankrupt in 1931,

Jäger joined the SS in 1932 (serial n°. 62823), and soon had built a 100-strong troop in his small hometown of Waldkirch. His rise within the SS began in 1935,

Mass murders in Eastern Europe Einsatzgruppen killing people in 1942 in Ukraine at Ivangorod. Jäger organized thousands of murders like these.

Jäger was instrumental in the brutal and systematic destruction of the Jewish community of Lithuania. From July 1941 until September 1943 Jäger served as commander of the SD Einsatzkommando 3a, a sub-unit of Einsatzgruppe A under Franz Walter Stahlecker, in Kaunas. Under Jäger's command, the Einsatzkommando, with the help of Lithuanians, shot Jewish men, women and children indiscriminately. It perpetrated the Ninth Fort massacres of November 1941.

During this time, reports detailing calculated acts of mass murder were routinely submitted to his superiors. Some of these reports survived the war and are collectively referred to as the "Jäger Report" from 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941 [Updated 9 February 1942]. Reassigned back to Germany near the end of 1943 after a nervous breakdown occasioned by the mass murders he had participated in, Jäger was appointed commander of the SD in Reichenberg in the Sudetenland, and precluded from further promotions due to what the SS saw as a "lack of strength of nerve."

The Jäger Report

The actions by Einsatzkommando 3, including the Rollkommando Hamann killing squad were tallied by Jäger himself. The report keeps an almost daily running total of the liquidations of 137,346 people. The "Jäger Report" provides a detailed account of the murderous rampage of this "special squad" in Nazi-occupied Lithuania.

Escape, capture and suicide Jäger was able to assimilate back into society as a farm hand until his report was discovered in March 1959. Arrested and charged with his crimes, Jäger committed suicide by hanging himself in Hohenasperg prison using "the wire of the cell's radio carphones," while he was awaiting trial on 22 May 1959.