Since his appointment as "Reichsführer SS" (1929), Himmler had begun to develop the SS, a sub-organization of the NSDAP, into an armed, paramilitary elite force. To this end, Reinhard Heydrich had founded the "Security Service of the Reichsführer SS" (SD) since 1931, which was given a central, Germany-wide organization in the spring of 1933. After the Röhm putsch in 1934, Himmler also became head of the political police, and in 1936 also of the other German police. Together with Heydrich he aimed at a close connection of SS, SD and police. For special tasks prior to almost any territorial expansion, Himmler had special "Einsatzkommandos", also called "Sonder-" or "Spezialeinheiten", set up from the ranks of the organizations under his command since 1938. Until 1940, SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Best was responsible for their formation. These groups were to take over the "fight against the enemies of the Reich" immediately after the respective invasion of German troops into a new territory, mainly by investigations and arrests. Until September 1939, they had no orders to kill, but they had considerable room for maneuver in carrying out their orders. Their deployment marked the transition to a systematic persecution of all actual and perceived opponents of the Nazi regime in these areas.
When Austria was annexed by the German Reich, the Einsatzkommando Österreich, founded in 1938, was deployed. It consisted of SD members and was led by SS-Standartenführer Franz Six. Its task was the arrest of opponents of the Anschluss with prepared wanted lists.
During the incorporation of the Sudetenland in September 1938, the term Einsatzgruppe appeared for the first time in Nazi administrative language: It referred to Einsatzgruppe Dresden, which consisted of five Einsatzkommandos under SS-Standartenführer Heinz Jost, and Einsatzgruppe Wien, with two Einsatzkommandos under SS-Standartenführer Walter Stahlecker. Both were set up and dispatched by the Gestapo, which claimed jurisdiction because the Sudeten Germans were defined as Reich citizens. The commandos were to carry out relatively independently all Gestapo tasks in their area in a "special operation", i.e. to arrest "Reich-enemy" persons by means of a "special wanted list" and reports from Sudeten Germans, to confiscate their documents, to dissolve their establishments, to occupy Czechoslovak police stations and to monitor postal and telephone traffic. They were strictly forbidden to mistreat and kill arrested persons and to harass uninvolved persons, because this prohibition seemed necessary. They arrested about 10,000 people and, together with Sudeten German organizations, expelled numerous Czechs from their residential areas.
Einsatzgruppe I Prague and Einsatzgruppe II Brno were set up for the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia (the "rest of Czechia") in March 1939. They were in turn divided into several Einsatzkommandos: Budweis, Prague, Kolin, Pardubitz, Brno, Olmütz, Zlin, Einsatzkommando 9 Mies under SS-Hauptsturmführer Gustav vom Felde and Sonderkommando Pilsen. They too arrested about 10,000 people.
