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123-513: Generalbezirk Weißruthenien was formally organized on 1 September 1941 on the territory of German-occupied Beyelorussia, (including West Belarus , previously Wilno and Nowogródek regions of the eastern territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union ) which had until then been under the military administration of the Wehrmacht 's Army Group Centre . The capital of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien

246-643: A group of 120 SS men on 17 March 1933 by Sepp Dietrich to form the Sonderkommando Berlin. By November 1933 the formation had 800 men, and at a commemorative ceremony in Munich for the tenth anniversary of the failed Beer Hall Putsch the regiment swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler . The oaths pledged were "Pledging loyalty to him alone" and "Obedience unto death". The formation was given the title Leibstandarte ( transl.  Bodyguard Regiment ) Adolf Hitler (LAH). On 13 April 1934, by order of Himmler,

369-628: A joint Lithuanian Belorussian Soviet Republic (Litbel) was established, and then a separate Byelorussian SSR . Thus, the almost unsolicited national state, which arose during the First World War, owed its existence directly to the alternative German, Russian and Polish attempts to secure control over the area. — Tania Raffass In the Second Constituent Charter, the Rada abolished the right to private ownership of land (paragraph 7) in line with

492-577: A large majority of the senior officers corps of the Waffen-SS were from an upper-middle-class background and would have been considered for commissioning by traditional standards. Among later Waffen-SS generals, approximately six out of ten had a "university entrance qualification (Abitur), and no less than one-fifth a university degree". Hausser became the Inspector of the SS-VT in 1936. In this role, Hausser

615-494: A plan to recruit volunteers in the conquered territories from the ethnic German and Germanic populations. At first, Hitler had doubts about recruiting foreigners, but he was persuaded by Himmler and Berger. He gave approval for a new division to be formed from foreign nationals with German officers. By June 1940, Danish and Norwegian volunteers had formed the SS Regiment Nordland , with Dutch and Flemish volunteers forming

738-581: A third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions but that the divisions would be under army command. Hitler resisted integrating the Waffen-SS into the army, as it was intended to remain the armed wing of the party and to become an elite police force once the war was won. During the invasion, numerous war crimes were committed against the Polish people. The Leibstandarte became notorious for torching villages without military justification. Members of

861-677: Is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period . For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland , it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion . Following the end of World War II in Europe , most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies , while some of it, including Białystok ,

984-668: Is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte "Brandenburg" . It arrived in Włocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four-day "Jewish action" that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en-masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled to Bydgoszcz to conduct an " intelligentsia action ". In October 1939, the Deutschland , Germania , and Der Führer regiments were reorganised into

1107-624: The Leibstandarte also committed atrocities in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine gunned in Złoczew . Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec , Torzeniec , Goworowo , Mława , and Włocławek . Eicke's SS-TV field forces were not military. Their military capabilities were employed instead in terrorizing

1230-458: The Leibstandarte battalion was up to strength. The three SS divisions and the Leibstandarte spent the winter of 1939 and the spring of 1940 training and preparing for the coming war in the west. In May, they moved to the front, and the Leibstandarte was attached to the army's 227th Infantry Division . The Der Führer Regiment was detached from the SS-VT Division and attached to

1353-589: The Leibstandarte had taken the village of Wormhout , only ten miles from Dunkirk. After their surrender, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment , along with some other units (including French soldiers), were taken to a barn in La Plaine au Bois near Wormhout and Esquelbecq . It was there that troops of the Leibstandarte 's 2nd Battalion committed the Wormhoudt massacre , where 81 British and French prisoners of war were murdered. By 30 May,

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1476-715: The Reichswehr (the Weimar Republic's armed forces) and conservatives of the country, people whose support Hitler needed to solidify his position. When Hitler decided to act against the SA, the SS was put in charge of killing Röhm and the other high-ranking SA officers. The Night of the Long Knives occurred between 30 June and 2 July 1934, claiming up to 200 victims and murdering almost the entire SA leadership, effectively ending its power. This action

1599-651: The SS-Verfügungs-Division . The Leibstandarte remained independent and was increased in strength to a reinforced motorised regiment. Hitler authorised the creation of two new divisions: the SS Totenkopf Division , formed from militarised Standarten of the SS-Totenkopfverbände , and the Polizei Division , formed from members of the national police force. Almost overnight the force that

1722-623: The 207th Infantry Division . The SS-VT Division minus Der Führer was concentrated near Münster awaiting the invasion of the Netherlands . The SS Totenkopf and Polizei Divisions were held in reserve. On 10 May, the Leibstandarte overcame Dutch border guards to spearhead the German advance of X Corps into the Netherlands, north of the rivers towards the Dutch Grebbe Line and subsequently

1845-650: The 6th Army was destroyed during the Battle of Stalingrad . Hitler ordered the SS Panzer Corps back to the Eastern Front for a counter-attack with the city of Kharkov as its objective. The SS Panzer Corps was in full retreat on 19 February, having been attacked by the Soviet 6th Army , when they received the order to counter-attack. Disobeying Hitler's order to "stand fast and fight to the death" , Hausser withdrew in front of

1968-554: The Big Three , Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, established new borders for Poland . Most of Western Belarus remained part of the BSSR after the end of World War II in Europe ; only the region around Białystok (Belostok) was to be returned to Poland. The Polish population was soon forcibly resettled west . The Western Belorussia, in its entirety, was incorporated into

2091-679: The Deutschland Regiment from being destroyed and their bridgehead lost. That same day, as the SS Totenkopf Division advanced near Merville, they encountered stubborn resistance from British Army units, which slowed their advance. The SS Totenkopf 4 Company, then committed the Le Paradis massacre , where 97 captured men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets . Only two men survived. By 28 May,

2214-792: The Grodno oblast . In addition, Sapotskin and its selsoviet have a Polish majority. The largest Polish organization in Belarus is the Union of Poles in Belarus ( Związek Polaków na Białorusi ), with over 20,000 members. Waffen-SS The Waffen-SS ( German: [ˈvafn̩ʔɛsˌʔɛs] ; lit.   ' Armed SS ' ) was the combat branch of the Nazi Party 's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany , along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. It

2337-590: The Leie River at Merville . They forced a bridgehead across the river and waited for the SS Totenkopf Division to arrive to cover their flank. What arrived first was a unit of British tanks, which penetrated their position. The SS-VT managed to hold on against the British tank force, which got to within 15 feet of commander Felix Steiner 's position. Only the arrival of the Totenkopf Panzerjäger platoon saved

2460-651: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed earlier in Moscow were soon broken, when the German Army entered the Soviet occupation zone on June 22, 1941. After Operation Barbarossa , most of Western Belorussia became part of the German Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO), as the so-called Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (General Region of White Ruthenia). Many ethnic Belarusians supported Nazi Germany. By

2583-653: The Pinsk Regions. They were reorganized one more time after the Soviet liberation of Belarus into the contemporary western provinces of Belarus which include all of Grodno and Brest regions , as well as parts of today's Minsk and Vitebsk regions. Vilnius was returned by the USSR to the Republic of Lithuania which soon after that became the Lithuanian SSR . The territories of contemporary Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, and

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2706-669: The Polish census of 1921 , there were around 1 million Belarusians in the country. Some estimated the number of Belarusians in Poland at that time to be perhaps 1.7 million, or even up to 2 million . Following the Peace of Riga, thousands of Poles settled in the area , many of them (including veterans of armed struggle for Poland's independence) were given land by the government. In his negotiations with Belarusian leaders in Vilnius, Józef Piłsudski rejected

2829-590: The Pripyat swamps , an operation designed to round up and exterminate Jews, partisans, and civilians in that area of the Byelorussian SSR . Fegelein split the territory to be covered into two sections divided by the Pripyat River , with the 1st Regiment taking the northern half and the 2nd Regiment the south. The regiments worked their way from east to west through their assigned territory, and filed daily reports on

2952-734: The Red Army launched the Minsk offensive and, on 3 July, Minsk fell. On 1 August, administration of those parts of Byelorussia still under German occupation reverted to military administration under Army Group Centre and Generalbezirk Weißruthenien effectively ceased to exist. Gottberg was transferred to the Waffen-SS to become commander of XII SS Corps . West Belarus Western Belorussia or Western Belarus ( Belarusian : Заходняя Беларусь , romanized :  Zachodniaja Biełaruś ; Polish : Zachodnia Białoruś ; Russian : Западная Белоруссия , romanized :  Zapadnaya Belorussiya )

3075-674: The Totenkopf ", Eicke was awarded Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross on 20 May 1942. The Waffen-SS expanded further in 1943: in February the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and its sister division, the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg , were formed in France. They were followed in July by the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland created from Norwegian and Danish volunteers. September saw

3198-772: The USSR . The territory of modern-day Belarus was split by the treaty into Western Belorussia ruled by the Polish and the Soviet Eastern Belorussia , with the border town in Mikaszewicze . Notably, the peace treaty was signed with the full active participation of the Belarusian delegation on the Soviet side. In paragraph 3, Poland abandoned all rights and claims to the territories of Soviet Belarus, while Soviet Russia abandoned all rights and claims to Polish Western Belarus. As soon as

3321-485: The Waffen-SS divisions and brigades fared better. The Totenkopf and Polizei divisions were attached to Army Group North , with the mission to advance through the Baltic states and on to Leningrad . The Das Reich Division was with Army Group Centre and headed towards Moscow . The Leibstandarte and Wiking Divisions were with Army Group South , heading for Ukraine and the city of Kiev . The invasion of

3444-633: The Waffen-SS formations participated (including the Reich Division, which was formally renamed to Das Reich by the fall of 1941). SS Division Nord, which was in northern Finland , took part in Operation Arctic Fox with the Finnish Army and fought at the battle of Salla , where against strong Soviet forces they suffered 300 killed and 400 wounded in the first two days of the invasion. Thick forests and heavy smoke from forest fires disoriented

3567-453: The Waffen-SS had increased in size from eight divisions and some brigades to 16 divisions. By 1943 the Waffen-SS could no longer claim to be an "elite" fighting force. Recruitment and conscription based on "numerical over qualitative expansion" took place, with many of the "foreign" units being good for only rear-guard duty. On the Eastern Front, the Germans suffered a devastating defeat when

3690-586: The Waffen-SS until 1942. At the same time, the Totenkopf-Standarten , aside from the three constituting the TK-Division, lost their Death's Head designation and insignia and were reclassified SS-Infanterie- (or Kavallerie- ) Regimente . The 11th Regiment was transferred into the Reich Division to replace Germania ; the remainder were grouped into three independent brigades and a battle group in Norway. By

3813-697: The Western Front for the 1918 Spring Offensive , leaving behind a power vacuum . The non-Russians inhabiting the lands ceded by the Soviets to the German Empire , saw the treaty as an opportunity to set up independent states under the German umbrella. Three weeks after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918, the newly formed Belarusian Central Council founded the Belarusian People's Republic . The idea

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3936-512: The heavy panzer companies . The Soviet offensive of January 1942 trapped a number of German divisions in the Demyansk Pocket between February and April 1942; the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division was one of the divisions encircled by the Red Army. The Red Army liberated Demyansk on 1 March 1943 with the retreat of German troops. "For his excellence in command and the particularly fierce fighting of

4059-414: The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Nazi propaganda claimed that the war was a "European crusade against Bolshevism " and subsequently units consisting largely or solely of foreign volunteers and conscripts were also raised. These Waffen-SS units were made up of men mainly from among the nationals of Nazi-occupied Europe. Despite relaxation of the rules, the Waffen-SS was still based on

4182-401: The 2,000 that had started the campaign in June. Altogether, the Waffen-SS had suffered 43,000 casualties. While the Leibstandarte and the SS divisions were fighting in the front line, behind the lines it was a different story. The 1st SS Infantry and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of the SS-TV, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into

4305-434: The Amsterdam region. The neighbouring Der Führer Regiment advanced towards the Grebbe Line in the sector of the Grebbeberg with as a follow-up objective the city of Utrecht . The Battle of the Grebbeberg lasted three days and took a toll on Der Führer . On 11 May, the SS-VT Division crossed into the Netherlands south of the rivers and headed towards Breda . It fought a series of skirmishes before Germania advanced into

4428-406: The BSSR . It was initially planned to move the capital of the BSSR to Vilna . However, the same year Joseph Stalin ordered that the city and surrounding region be transferred to Lithuania , which some months later was annexed by the Soviet Union and became a new Soviet Republic. Minsk, therefore, remained the capital of the enlarged BSSR. The borders of the BSSR were again altered somewhat after

4551-475: The BSSR, but very soon became victims of Soviet repression . The table below shows a comparison of the number of Belarusians and the number of Poles in Western Belarus based on the 1931 census (questions about mother tongue and religion). Belarusian/Poleshuk("Tutejszy")/Russian and Orthodox/Greek Catholic plurality or majority counties are highlighted with yellow, while Polish and Roman Catholic plurality or majority counties are highlighted with pink: Soon after

4674-413: The Balkans. Himmler approved the introduction of formal compulsory service for the Volksdeutsche in German-occupied Serbia. Another new division was formed at the same time, when the SS Cavalry Brigade was used as the cadre in the formation of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer . The front line divisions of the Waffen-SS that had suffered losses through the winter of 1941–1942 and during

4797-452: The Baltic states were a major theatre of operations during World War I ; all the while, the Bolshevik Coup overturned the interim Russian Provisional Government and formed Soviet Russia . The Bolsheviks withdrew from the war with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , and ceded Belarus to Germany for the next eight and a half months. The German high command used this window of opportunity to transfer its troops to

4920-408: The British were cornered at Dunkirk , and the SS divisions continued the advance into France. The Leibstandarte reached Saint-Étienne , 250 miles south of Paris, and had advanced further into France than any other unit. By the next day, the fighting was all but over. German forces arrived in Paris unopposed on 14 June and France formally surrendered on 25 June. Hitler expressed his pleasure with

5043-529: The Byelorussian SSR as the Soviet subjects, without the recognition of their Polish citizenship. The Soviet propaganda portrayed the Soviet invasion of Poland as the "reunion of Western Belorussia and Ukraine". Many ethnic Belarusians and Jews welcomed unification with the BSSR. Mostly wealthy groups of citizens changed their attitude after experiencing firsthand the style of the Soviet system. The Soviets quickly began confiscating, nationalizing, and redistributing all private and state-owned property. During

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5166-434: The Communist Manifesto . Meanwhile, by 1919, the Bolsheviks took control over large parts of Belarus and forced the Belarusian Rada into exile in Germany. The Bolsheviks formed the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia during the war with Poland on roughly the same territory claimed by the Belarusian Republic. The League of Nations ratified the new Polish-Soviet border. The peace agreement remained in place throughout

5289-413: The Dutch province of Zeeland on 14 May. The rest of the SS-VT Division joined the northern front against the forces in Antwerp . On the same day, the Leibstandarte entered Rotterdam . After the surrender of Rotterdam, the Leibstandarte left for The Hague , which they reached on 15 May, capturing 3,500 Dutch soldiers as prisoners of war . In France, the SS Totenkopf Division was involved in

5412-426: The Dutch surrender, the Leibstandarte moved south to France on 24 May. Becoming part of the XIX Panzer Corps under the command of General Heinz Guderian , they took up a position 15 miles south west of Dunkirk along the line of the Aa Canal, facing the Allied defensive line near Watten. A patrol from the SS-VT Division crossed the canal at Saint-Venant , but was destroyed by British armour. A larger force from

5535-547: The Jewish population of Byelorussia, were murdered. Following the German invasion, the Nazi death squads of Einsatzgruppe B immediately began the systematic murder of Jews. Following a massive wave of killings between mid-May and the end of July 1942, the Generalkommissar reported that in the 10 weeks, 55,000 Jews had been liquidated. Only in the districts of Baranowitsche and Hansewitschi were such large operations still to be conducted, especially in Baranowicze, where about 10,000 Jews remained. The escape of up to 20,000 Jews from

5658-437: The LSSAH). Concentration camp guards had to make a one-year commitment, be between the ages of 16 and 23, and at least 1.72 metres (5 ft 8 in) tall. All recruits were required to have 20/20 eyesight , no dental fillings, and to provide a medical certificate. By 1938, the height restrictions were relaxed, up to six dental fillings were permitted, and eyeglasses for astigmatism and mild vision correction were allowed. Once

5781-408: The NKVD apparatus, which resulted in over 100,000 people being forcibly deported to eastern parts of the Soviet Union (e.g. Siberia) in the very first wave of expulsions. In total, during the next two years some 1.7 million Polish citizens were put on freight trains and sent from the Polish Kresy to labour camps in the Gulag . The majority of Poles live in the Western regions, including 230,000 in

5904-442: The Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland following the Nazi–Soviet Pact , the area of Western Belorussia was formally annexed into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The Soviet secret police NKVD , aided by the Red Army, organized staged elections which were decided in the atmosphere of intimidation and state terror. The Soviet occupational administration held the elections on October 22, 1939, less than two weeks after

6027-423: The OKW had tried to disband had increased from 18,000 to over 100,000 men. Hitler next authorised the creation of four motorised artillery battalions in March 1940, one for each division and the Leibstandarte . The OKW was supposed to supply these new battalions with artillery, but was reluctant to hand over guns from its own arsenal. The weapons arrived only slowly and, by the time of the Battle of France , only

6150-421: The People's Assembly session held in Belastok ( Polish Białystok ) affirmed the Soviet decision to join the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) with the USSR. Nevertheless, the unification voting in the People's Assembly of Western Belorussia was not fully successful during the first attempt because 10 Lithuanians , who were elected to the People's Assembly of Western Belorussia, initially voted against

6273-534: The Polish minority were shot by NKVD troika . According to Bogdan Musiał, many were murdered in prison executions. In addition, several hundred thousand ethnic Poles from Belarus and Ukraine were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union. The Soviets also promoted the Soviet-controlled BSSR as formally autonomous to attract Belarusians living in Poland. This image was attractive to many Western Belorussian national leaders, and some of them, like Frantsishak Alyakhnovich or Uładzimir Žyłka emigrated from Poland to

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6396-514: The Polish national identity on Roman Catholics in Belarus . In January 1921, the starosta from Wilejka wrote of the popular mood as being one of resignation and apathy among the Western Belorussian peasants , impoverished by food requisitions by the Bolsheviks and the Polish military . He insisted that, although the new Belarusian schools were 'springing up everywhere' in his county, they harbored anti-Polish attitudes. In 1928 there were 69 schools with Belarusian language in Western Belorussia;

6519-426: The Red Army. During Field Marshal Erich von Manstein 's counteroffensive, the SS Panzer Corps, without support from the Luftwaffe or neighbouring German formations, broke through the Soviet line and advanced on Kharkov. Despite orders to encircle Kharkov from the north, the SS Panzer Corps directly attacked in the Third Battle of Kharkov on 11 March. This led to four days of house-to-house fighting before Kharkov

6642-404: The SS (1st Galician) formed from volunteers from Galicia in western Ukraine. The 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian) was created in 1943, using compulsory military service in the Ostland . The final new division of 1943 was the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS , which was created using the Sturmbrigade Reichsführer SS as a cadre. By the end of the year,

6765-412: The SS Cavalry Brigade had 2 regiments with a strength of 3500 men and played a pivotal role in the transition to the wholesale extermination of the Jewish population. In the summer of 1941, Himmler assigned Hermann Fegelein to be in charge of both regiments. On 19 July 1941, Himmler assigned Fegelein's regiments to the general command of HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski for the "systematic combing" of

6888-448: The SS Regiment Westland . The two regiments, together with Germania (transferred from the Reich Division), formed the SS Division Wiking . A sufficient number of volunteers came forward requiring the SS to open a new training camp just for foreign volunteers at Sennheim in Alsace-Lorraine . At the beginning of the new year, the Polizei Division was brought under FHA administration, although it would not be formally merged into

7011-405: The SS insisted that it had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal instead of as one formation, and was improperly equipped by the army to carry out its objectives. Himmler insisted that the SS-VT should be allowed to fight in its own formations under its own commanders, while the OKW tried to have the SS-VT disbanded altogether. Hitler was unwilling to upset either the army or Himmler, and chose

7134-416: The SS, which still maintained its racial criteria, but rather were considered to be foreign nationals serving under the command of the SS. As a general rule, an "SS Division" was made up of Germans or other Germanic peoples, while a "Division of the SS" was made up of non-Germanic volunteers and conscripts. Himmler's military formations at the outbreak of the war comprised several subgroups that would become

7257-440: The SS-VT Division then crossed the canal and formed a bridgehead at Saint-Venant; 30 miles from Dunkirk. That night the OKW ordered the advance to halt, with the British Expeditionary Force trapped. The Leibstandarte paused for the night. However, on the following day, in defiance of Hitler's orders, Dietrich ordered his 3rd Battalion to cross the canal and take the heights beyond, where British artillery observers were putting

7380-527: The SS-VT was untested in combat. In 1938, a battalion of the Leibstandarte was chosen to accompany the army troops in occupying Austria during the Anschluss , and the three regiments of the SS-VT participated in the occupation of the Sudetenland that same year in October. In both actions no resistance was met. Recruiting ethnic Germans from other countries began in April 1940, and units consisting of non-Germanic recruits were formed beginning in 1942. Non-Germanic units were not considered to be part of

7503-457: The SS-VT would have a role in domestic as well as foreign affairs, which transformed this growing armed force into the rival that the army had feared. He decreed that service in the SS-VT qualified to fulfill military service obligations, although service in the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) would not. Some units of the SS-TV would, in the case of war, be used as reserves for the SS-VT, which did not have its own reserves. For all its training,

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7626-435: The SS-VT. At the same time Himmler established two SS-Junker Schools (SS officer training camps) that, under the direction of former Lieutenant General Paul Hausser , prepared future SS leaders. In addition to military training, the courses aimed to instill a proper ideological worldview, with antisemitism being the main tenet. Instructors such as Matthias Kleinheisterkamp , or future war criminals, such as Franz Magill of

7749-419: The Soviet NKVD undertook the so-called "Polish Operation" (from approximately August 25, 1937, to November 15, 1938) – where the Poles in East Belorussia, i.e. BSSR, were deported and executed. The operation caused the deaths of up to 250,000 people – out of an official ethnic Polish population of 636,000 – as a result of political murder , disease or starvation . Amongst these, at least 111,091 members of

7872-439: The Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans and cut off units of the Red Army in the rear of Army Group South, capturing 7,000 prisoners of war, but from mid-August 1941 until late 1942 they were assigned to the Reich Security Main Office headed by Reinhard Heydrich . The brigades were now used for rear area security and policing, and were no longer under army or Waffen-SS command. In

7995-424: The Soviet Union proceeded well at first, but the cost to the Waffen-SS was extreme: by late October, the Leibstandarte was at half strength due to enemy action and dysentery that swept through the ranks. Das Reich lost 60% of its strength and was still to take part in the Battle of Moscow . The unit was later decimated in the following Soviet offensive. The Der Führer Regiment was reduced to 35 men out of

8118-536: The Soviet counter-offensive were withdrawn to France to recover and be reformed as Panzergrenadier divisions. Due to the efforts of Himmler and Hausser, the new commander of the SS Panzer Corps , the three SS Panzergrenadier divisions Leibstandarte , Das Reich , and Totenkopf were to be formed with a full regiment of tanks rather than only a battalion. This meant that the SS Panzergrenadier divisions were full-strength Panzer divisions in all but name. They each received nine Tiger tanks , which were formed into

8241-401: The Soviet regime. Tensions between the increasingly nationalistic Polish government and various increasingly separatist ethnic minorities continued to grow, and the Belarusian minority was no exception. Likewise, according to Marek Jan Chodakiewicz , the USSR considered Poland to be "enemy number one". During the Great Purge , the Polish National District at Dzyarzhynsk was disbanded and

8364-475: The Soviet-German peace treaty was signed in March 1918, the newly formed Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic laid territorial claims to Belarus based on areas specified in the Third Constituent Charter unilaterally as inhabited by the Belarusian majority. The same Rada charter also declared that the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk of March 1918 was invalid because it was signed by foreign governments partitioning territories that were not theirs. In February 1919,

8487-430: The Yugoslav capital. Fritz Klingenberg , a company commander in the Reich , led his men into Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later the Royal Yugoslav Army surrendered. The Leibstandarte had now crossed into Greece, and on 10 April engaged the 6th Australian Division in the Battle of the Klidi Pass . For 48 hours they fought for control of

8610-407: The advance on 13 May. When the Reconnaissance Battalion under the command of Kurt Meyer came under heavy fire from the Greek Army defending the Klisura Pass , they broke through the defenders and captured 1,000 prisoners of war at the cost of only six dead and nine wounded. The next day, Meyer captured Kastoria and took another 11,000 prisoners of war. By 20 May, the Leibstandarte had cut off

8733-436: The annexation, the Soviet authorities carried out the nationalization of agricultural land owned by large landowners in Western Belorussia. Collectivization and the creation of collective farms ( kolkhoz ) was planned to be carried out at a slower pace than in Eastern Belorussia in the 1920s. By 1941, in the western regions of the BSSR, the number of individual farms decreased only by 7%; 1115 collective farms were created. At

8856-507: The attendance was minimal due in part to lower quality of instruction. The first-ever textbook of Belarusian grammar was written only around 1918. In 1939, over 90% of children in Poland attended school. As elsewhere, the educational systems promoted Polish language there also. Meanwhile, the Belarusian agitators deported to the USSR from Poland were put in prison by the Soviet NKVD as bourgeois nationalists . Most Polish inhabitants of

8979-554: The autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust . While assisting the Einsatzgruppen , they participated in the extermination of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union, forming firing parties when required. The three brigades were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands by the end of 1941. Because it was more mobile and better able to carry out large-scale operations,

9102-587: The basis of the Waffen-SS : In August 1939, Hitler placed the Leibstandarte and the SS-VT under the operational control of the Army High Command ( OKH ). Himmler retained command of the Totenkopfstandarten for employment behind the advancing combat units in what were euphemistically called "special tasks of a police nature". In spite of the swift military victory over Poland in September 1939,

9225-577: The call for Western Belorussian independence. In December 1919 the Rada was dissolved by Poland, while by early January 1920 a new body was formed, the Rada Najwyższa , without aspirations for independence, but with proposed cultural, social and educational functions. Józef Piłsudski negotiated with the Western Belorussian leadership, but eventually abandoned the ideas of Intermarium , his own proposed federation of partially self-governing states on

9348-414: The civilian population through acts that included hunting down straggling Polish soldiers, confiscating agricultural produce and livestock, and torturing and murdering large numbers of Polish political leaders, aristocrats, businessmen, priests, intellectuals, and Jews. His Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out "police and security measures" in the rear areas. What these measures involved

9471-413: The civilian population, including torture , human experimentation , kidnapping of children , mass rape , child sexual abuse and mass murder . Therefore Waffen-SS members, with the exception of conscripts, who comprised about one-third of the membership, were denied many of the rights afforded to military veterans. The origins of the Waffen-SS can be traced back to the selection of

9594-633: The different branches of the Wehrmacht to meet quotas set by the German High Command ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW in German); the SS was given the lowest priority for recruits. Even with the difficulties presented by the quota system, Heinrich Himmler formed two new SS regiments, the SS Germania and SS Deutschland , which together with the Leibstandarte and a communications unit made up

9717-573: The end of 1942, sworn Germanophile Ivan Yermachenka formed the pro-Nazi BNS organization with 30,000 members. The Belarusian Auxiliary Police was formed. Known to the Germans as the Schutzmannschaft , the ethnic Belarusian police played an indispensable role in the Holocaust in Belarus , notably during the second wave of the ghetto liquidations, starting in February–March 1942. In 1945,

9840-487: The fall of 1939, but many of them were deported to the Soviet interior before June 1941. A further unknown figure is the number of Jews who were evacuated or fled in time or were recruited into the Red Army. As an example, of the 70,998 Jews registered in Minsk in 1939, it is estimated that about 55,000 remained when the Germans invaded on 28 June 1941. By 1944, it is estimated that roughly 800,000 Byelorussian Jews, or about 90% of

9963-398: The first in the Holocaust to wipe out entire Jewish communities. Fegelein's final operational report dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken and losses of 17 dead, 36 wounded, and 3 missing. Historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700. In 1942, the Waffen-SS

10086-585: The formation of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend using volunteers from the Hitler Youth . Himmler and Berger successfully appealed to Hitler to form a Bosnian Muslim division, and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) , the first non-Germanic division, was formed, to fight Josip Broz Tito 's Yugoslav Partisans . This was followed by the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of

10209-526: The ghettos to the partisans forced the Germans to accelerate the liquidations of ghettos. By the spring of 1943, ghettos remained only in a few locations, including Minsk, Lida, Nowogródek, and Głębokie. In October 1943, the Minsk ghetto , the largest ghetto in the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union, was the last in GkWR to be liquidated, and nearly all of its nearly 100,000 detainees perished. On 29 June 1944,

10332-694: The head of the SS. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, "High Command of the Armed Forces"), with some units being subordinated to the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS (Command Staff Reichsführer-SS ) directly under Himmler's control. Initially, in keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany , membership was open only to people of Germanic origin (so-called " Aryan ancestry "). The rules were partially relaxed in 1940, and after

10455-633: The heights, often engaging in hand-to-hand combat, eventually gaining control with the capture of Height 997, which opened the pass and allowed the German Army to advance into the Greek interior. This victory gained praise from the OKW: in the order of the day they were commended for their "unshakable offensive spirit" and told that "the present victory signifies for the Leibstandarte a new and imperishable page of honour in its history." The Leibstandarte continued

10578-501: The interwar period. The borders established between the two countries remained in force until World War II and the 17 September 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland . On Joseph Stalin 's insistence, the borders were redrawn in the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. "Despite Soviet efforts at sealing the border [with Poland], peasants – refugees from the BSSR – crossed into Poland in the tens of thousands, wrote Per Anders Rudling . According to

10701-589: The invasion. The citizens were threatened repeatedly that their deportations to Siberia were imminent. The ballot envelopes were numbered to remain traceable and usually handed over already sealed. The referendum was rigged. By design, the candidates were unknown to their constituencies which were brought to the voting stations by armed guards. The so-called Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia were conducted in Russian. On October 30,

10824-551: The lands of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In the 1922 Polish legislative election , the Belarusian party in the Bloc of National Minorities obtained 14 seats in the Polish parliament (11 of them in the Sejm ). In the spring of 1923, Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski ordered a report on the situation of the Belarusian minority in Poland . That summer, a new regulation

10947-454: The notorious SS Cavalry Brigade were of questionable competence. In 1934, Himmler set stringent requirements for recruits. They were to be German nationals who could prove their Aryan ancestry back to 1800, unmarried, and without a criminal record. A four-year commitment was required for the SS-VT and LSSAH. Recruits had to be between the ages of 17 and 23, at least 1.74 metres (5 ft 9 in) tall (1.78 metres (5 ft 10 in) for

11070-435: The number of people killed and taken prisoner. By 1 August, 1st SS Cavalry Regiment under the command of Gustav Lombard was responsible for the death of 800 people; by 6 August, this total had reached 3,000 "Jews and partisans". Throughout the following weeks, the regiment's personnel under Lombard's command murdered an estimated 11,000 Jews and more than 400 dispersed soldiers of the Red Army. Thus Fegelein's units were among

11193-406: The occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion, the authoritative Polish Institute of National Remembrance announced that its researchers reduced the estimate of the number of people deported to Siberia to 320,000 in total. Some 150,000 Polish citizens perished under Soviet rule. The majority of Lithuanians in Belarus intelligentsia and communists were also repressed. The terms of

11316-515: The only Allied tank counterattack in the Battle of France. On 21 May, units of the 1st Army Tank Brigade , supported by the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division , took part in the Battle of Arras . The SS Totenkopf , on the southern flank of the 7th Panzer Division , was overrun, finding their standard anti-tank gun , the 3.7 cm PaK 36 , was no match for the British Matilda II tank. After

11439-543: The performance of the Leibstandarte in the Netherlands and France, telling them, "Henceforth it will be an honour for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack." On 19 July 1940, Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag , where he gave a summary of the western campaign and praised the German forces involved. He used the term " Waffen-SS " when describing the units of the LSSAH and SS-VT that took part. From that day forward,

11562-468: The population of Western Belorussia welcomed the annexation by the USSR. However, soon after the annexation of Western Belorussia by the Soviet Union, the Belarusian political activists had no illusions as to the friendliness of the Soviet regime. The population grew less loyal as the economic conditions became even worse and as the new regime carried out mass repressions and deportations that targeted Belarusians as well as ethnic Poles. Immediately after

11685-574: The racist ideology of Nazism , and ethnic Poles (who were viewed as subhumans ) were specifically barred from the formations. The Waffen-SS were involved in numerous atrocities. It was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946, due to its involvement in the Holocaust , the Porajmos , and numerous war crimes and crimes against

11808-574: The regiment at risk. They assaulted the heights and drove the observers off. Instead of being censured for his act of defiance, Dietrich was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . On that same day, British forces attacked Saint-Venant, forcing the SS-VT Division to retreat. On 26 May, the German advance resumed. On 27 May, the Deutschland Regiment of the SS-VT Division reached the Allied defensive line on

11931-640: The regiment became known as the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The Leibstandarte demonstrated their loyalty to Hitler in 1934 during the " Night of the Long Knives ", when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders and the purge of the Sturmabteilung (SA). Led by one of Hitler's oldest comrades, Ernst Röhm , the SA was seen as a threat by Hitler to his newly gained political power. Hitler also wanted to appease leaders of

12054-512: The region supported the policy of cultural assimilation of Belarusians as proposed by Dmowski . The polonization drive was inspired and influenced by Dmowski's Polish National Democracy , who advocated refusing Belarusians and Ukrainians the right of free national development. Władysław Studnicki , an influential Polish official, stated that Poland's engagement in the East amounts to a much needed economic colonization . Belarusian nationalist media

12177-520: The regular army felt that the performance of the SS-VT left much to be desired; its units took unnecessary risks and had a higher casualty rate than the army. They also stated that the SS-VT was poorly trained and its officers unsuitable for combat command. As an example, the OKW noted that the Leibstandarte had to be rescued by an army regiment after becoming surrounded by the Poles at Pabianice . In its defence,

12300-513: The retreating Greek Army at Metsovo and accepted the surrender of the Greek Epirus-Macedonian Army. As a reward, the Leibstandarte was nominally redesignated as a full motorised division, although few additional elements had been added by the start of the Soviet campaign and the "division" remained effectively a reinforced brigade. Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion of the Soviet Union, started on 22 June 1941, and all

12423-420: The same time, pressure and even repressions against larger farmers (called by the Soviet propaganda, kulaki ) began: the size of agricultural land for one individual farm was limited to 10ha, 12ha and 14ha depending on the quality of the land. It was forbidden to hire workers and lease land. Under the Soviet occupation, the Western Belorussian citizenry, particularly the Poles, faced a "filtration" procedure by

12546-619: The spring of 1941, the Waffen-SS consisted of the equivalent of six or seven divisions: the Reich , Totenkopf , Polizei , and Wiking Divisions and Kampfgruppe (later Division) Nord , and the Leibstandarte , 1st SS Infantry , 2nd SS Infantry , and SS Cavalry Brigades. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack against Greek forces failed, and Germany came to the aid of its ally. Operation Marita began on 6 April 1941, with German troops invading Greece through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in an effort to secure its southern flank. Reich

12669-834: The term Waffen-SS became the official designation for the SS combat formations. Himmler gained approval for the Waffen-SS to form its own high command, the Kommandoamt der Waffen-SS within the SS Führungshauptamt , which was created in August 1940. It received command of the SS-VT (the Leibstandarte and the Verfügungs-Division , renamed Reich ) and the armed SS-TV regiments (the Totenkopf Division together with several independent Totenkopf-Standarten ). In 1940, SS chief of staff Gottlob Berger approached Himmler with

12792-414: The troops and the division's units completely fell apart. By the end of 1941, Nord had suffered severe casualties. Over the winter of 1941–42 it received replacements from the general pool of Waffen-SS recruits, who were supposedly younger and better trained than the SS men of the original formation, which had been drawn largely from Totenkopfstandarten of Nazi concentration camp guards. The rest of

12915-412: The two years following the annexation, the Soviets arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens across Kresy. Due to a lack of access to the secret Soviet and Belarusian archives, for many years after the war the estimates of the number of Polish citizens deported to Siberia from the areas of Western Belorussia, as well as the number who perished under Soviet rule, were only estimated. In August 2009, on

13038-598: The unification of Western Belorussia with the Belarusian SSR and explained that they instead want to unite with Lithuania , thus the voting had to be repeated and eventually succeeded. The petition was officially accepted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 2 and by the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR on November 12, 1939. From then on, all citizens of Poland but also born in Poland would find themselves living in

13161-537: The war (notably the area around the city of Białystok ( Belastok Region ) was returned to Poland). Still, in general, they coincide with the borders of the modern Republic of Belarus . The Belarusian political parties and the society in Western Belorussia often lacked information about repressions in the Soviet Union and was under a strong influence of Soviet propaganda. Because of bad economic conditions and national discrimination of Belarusian in Poland, much of

13284-643: The war commenced, the physical requirements were no longer strictly enforced, and any recruit who could pass a basic medical exam was considered for service. Members of the SS could be of any religion except Judaism , but atheists were not allowed according to Himmler in 1937. Hitler expounded on the attitude he wanted during a talk in the Wolf's Lair : "I have six divisions of SS composed of men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn't prevent them from going to their deaths with serenity in their souls." Historian Bernd Wegner found in his study of officers that

13407-816: Was Minsk . On 1 April 1944, Generalbezirk Weißruthenien was detached from Reichskommissariat Ostland and was subordinated directly to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . Generalbezirk Weißruthenien was subdivided into Gebiete (areas). According to different sources, it had from as few as 9 to as many as 39 such subdivisions, some of them planned but never transitioned from military to civilian administration. These were to be subordinated to four or five Hauptgebiete (main areas) headquartered in Baranowitschi , Minsk , Mogilew , Witebsk , and possibly Smolensk . Civil administration

13530-528: Was disbanded in May 1945. The Waffen-SS grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions during World War II . Combining combat and police functions, it served alongside the German Army ( Heer ), Ordnungspolizei (Order Police), and other security units. Originally, it was under the control of the SS Führungshauptamt (SS operational command office) beneath Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ,

13653-576: Was further expanded and a new division was entered on the rolls in March. By the second half of 1942, an increasing number of foreigners, many of whom were not volunteers, began entering the ranks. The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was recruited from Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) drafted under threat of punishment by the local German leadership from Croatia , Serbia , Hungary , and Romania and used for anti-partisan operations in

13776-562: Was given to the Polish People's Republic . Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus. Created by the USSR after the conquest of Poland , the new western provinces of Byelorussian SSR acquired from Poland included Baranavichy , Belastok , Brest , Vileyka and

13899-451: Was in charge of the troops' military and ideological training but did not have command authority. The decision on deployment of the troops remained in Himmler's hands. This aligned with Hitler's intentions to maintain these troops exclusively at his disposal, "neither [a part] of the army, nor of the police", according to Hitler's order of 17 August 1938. On 17 August 1938, Hitler declared that

14022-636: Was largely carried out by SS personnel (including the Leibstandarte ) and the Gestapo . In September 1934, Hitler authorised the formation of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party and approved the formation of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), a special service troop under Hitler's overall command. The SS-VT had to depend on the German Army for its supply of weapons and military training, and its local draft boards responsible for assigning conscripts to

14145-741: Was led by a Generalkommissar (General Commissioner) directly appointed by Adolf Hitler , and who reported to Ostland Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse , headquartered in Riga . In addition, police and security matters were overseen by an SS and Police Leader (SSPF) directly appointed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler , and who reported to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Ostland und Russland-Nord in Riga, SS- Gruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann until 1 November 1941, and SS- Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln until 1 April 1943. At that point, jurisdiction

14268-645: Was ordered to leave France and head for Romania , and the Leibstandarte was ordered to Bulgaria. The Leibstandarte , attached to the XL Panzer Corps , advanced west then south from Bulgaria into the mountains, and by 9 April had reached Prilep in Yugoslavia, 30 miles from the Greek border. Further north the Reich Division, with the XLI Panzer Corps , crossed the Romanian border and advanced on Belgrade ,

14391-434: Was passed allowing for the Belarusian language to officially be used in courts and schools. Obligatory teaching of the Belarusian language was introduced in all Polish gymnasia in areas inhabited by Belarusians in 1927. The Belarusian population of West Belarus faced active Polonization by the central Polish authorities. The policy pressured Belarusian schooling, discriminated against the Belarusian language, and imposed

14514-731: Was pressured and censored by the Polish authorities. Belarusians were divided along religious lines with roughly 70% being Orthodox and 30% Roman Catholic. According to Russian sources, discrimination was targeting assimilation of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians. The Polish church authorities promoted Polish in Orthodox services, and initiated the creation of the Polish Orthodox Societies in four cities including Slonim , Białystok , Vawkavysk , and Novogrodek . The Belarusian Roman Catholic priest Fr. Vincent Hadleŭski who promoted Belarusian in church, and Belarusian national awareness,

14637-579: Was recaptured by the Leibstandarte Division on 15 March. Two days later, the Germans recaptured Belgorod , creating the salient that, in July 1943, led to the Battle of Kursk . The German offensive cost the Red Army an estimated 70,000 casualties but the house-to-house fighting in Kharkov was particularly bloody for the SS Panzer Corps, which lost approximately 44% of its strength by the time operations ended in late March. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

14760-611: Was rejected by the Germans, the Bolsheviks and the Americans. Woodrow Wilson rejected it, because the Americans intended to protect the territorial integrity of European Russia . The fate of the region was not settled for the following three and a half years. The Polish–Soviet War which erupted in 1919, was particularly bitter; it ended with the Peace of Riga of 1921. Poland and the Baltic states emerged as independent countries bordering

14883-602: Was the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union , also referred to as the Hramada . Hramada received logistical help from the Soviet Union and the Communist International and served as a cover for the radical and subversive Communist Party of Western Belorussia . It was therefore banned by the Polish authorities, its leaders sentenced to various terms in prison and then deported to the USSR, where they were killed by

15006-486: Was transferred to the HSSPF "Russland Mitte" (Central Russia) headed by SS- Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski until 21 June 1944, and SS- Gruppenführer Curt von Gottberg from that date forward. Precise demographic data on the Jewish population of GkWR in August 1941 is not available, but it is likely there were over 300,000 Jews . Tens of thousands of Jewish refugees had arrived from central and western Poland in

15129-714: Was under pressure by his Polish counterparts. The Polish Catholic Church in Western Belorussia issued documents to priests about the usage of the Belarusian language rather than Polish language in Churches and Catholic Sunday Schools. The Warsaw-published instruction of the Polish Catholic Church from 1921 criticized priests preaching in Belarusian at the Catholic masses . Compared to the (larger) Ukrainian minority living in Poland , Belarusians were much less politically aware and active. The largest Belarusian political organization

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