He was promoted to SS-Oberführer. He was succeeded in this position in autumn 1940 by Heinrich Fehlis. Einsatzgruppe A On 6 February 1941 Stahlecker was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei and took over as commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe A, in hopes of furthering his career with the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), Nazi Germany's security police and intelligence organization. In June 1941, Einsatzgruppe A followed Army Group North and operated in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and areas of Russia up to Leningrad. Its mission was to hunt down and murder the Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and other "undesirables". In a 15 October 1941 report, Stahlecker wrote: By winter 1941, Stahlecker reported to the German government that Einsatzgruppe A had murdered some 249,420 Jews. He was made Commander of the Security Police and the SD (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) of Reichskommissariat Ostland, which included the occupied territory of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus, at the end of November 1941. Stahlecker was fatally wounded in action on 22 March 1942, by Soviet partisans near Krasnogvardeysk, Russia. Heinz Jost then assumed command of Einsatzgruppe A and of the Security Police and SD. See also Jelgava massacres Kaunas pogrom References Bibliography 1900 births 1942 deaths People from Enzkreis People from the Kingdom of Württemberg Nazi Party members SS-Brigadeführer Einsatzgruppen personnel Jungfernhof concentration camp German military personnel of World War I Riga Ghetto Lawyers in the Nazi Party Gestapo personnel 20th-century German lawyers University of Tübingen alumni Holocaust perpetrators in Lithuania Holocaust perpetrators in Latvia Holocaust perpetrators in Russia Holocaust perpetrators in Estonia Holocaust perpetrators in Belarus Holocaust perpetrators in Czechoslovakia German military personnel killed in World War II