The Einsatzgruppen were Schutzstaffel (SS) mobile death squads, operating behind the front line in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. From 1941 to 1945 alone, they murdered around 2 million people; 1.3 million Jews, up to 250,000 Romani, and around 500,000 "partisans", people with disabilities, political commissars, Slavs, homosexuals and others.[1] The 24 defendants in this trial were all officers of these Einsatzgruppen and faced mass murder charges.