Wachovia
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo and Company in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States, based on total assets. Wachovia provided a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. At its height, it was one of the largest providers of financial services in the United States, operating financial centers in 21 states and Washington, D.C., with locations from Connecticut to Florida and west to California. Wachovia provided global services through more than 40 offices around the world.
Schutzstaffel
The SS was built on a culture of violence, which was exhibited in its most extreme form by the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war on the Eastern Front. Augmented by personnel from the Kripo, Orpo (Order Police), and Waffen-SS, the "Einsatzgruppen" reached a total strength of 3,000 men. "Einsatzgruppen" A, B, and C were attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; "Einsatzgruppe" D was assigned to the 11th Army. The "Einsatzgruppe" for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. The historian Richard Rhodes describes them as being "outside the bounds of morality"; they were "judge, jury and executioner all in one", with the authority to kill anyone at their discretion. Following Operation Barbarossa, these "Einsatzgruppen" units, together with the Waffen-SS and Order Police, engaged in the mass killing of the Jewish population in occupied eastern Poland and the Soviet Union. The greatest extent of "Einsatzgruppen" action occurred in 1941 and 1942 in Ukraine and Russia. Before the invasion there were five million registered Jews throughout the Soviet Union, with three million of those residing in the territories occupied by the Germans; by the time the war ended, over two million of these had been murdered.