The Waffen-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 was disbanded in May 1945.
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was a Soviet Red Army general and collaborator with Germany. During the Axis-Soviet campaigns of World War II he fought (1941–1942) against the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Moscow and later was captured attempting to lift the siege of Leningrad. After his capture he defected to Germany and headed the Russian Liberation Army. Initially this army existed only on paper and was used by Germans to goad Red Army troops to surrender; only in 1944 did Heinrich Himmler, aware of Germany's shortage of manpower, arrange for Vlasov to form a real collaborationist army formed from Soviet prisoners of war. At the war's end, Vlasov changed sides again and ordered the ROA to aid the May 1945 Prague uprising against the Germans. He and the ROA then tried to escape to the Western Front, but were captured by Soviet forces with the United States' assistance. Vlasov was tortured, tried for treason, and hanged.
The Russian Liberation Army was a collaborationist formation, primarily composed of Russians, that fought under German command during World War II. The army was led by Andrey Vlasov, a Red Army general who had defected, and members of the army are often referred to as Vlasovtsy (Власовцы). In 1944, it became known as the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.
Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminski was a Nazi collaborator and the commander of the Kaminski Brigade, an anti-partisan and rear-security formation made up of people from the so-called Lokot Autonomy territory (1941-1943) in part of the German-occupied area of the Soviet Union. The Kaminski Brigade later became part of the Waffen-SS as the SS Sturmbrigade RONA. Under Kaminski's command, the unit committed numerous war crimes and atrocities in the German-occupied Soviet Union and in Poland.
The Lokot Autonomy or Lokot Republic was an autonomous republic in the occupied territories of the Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk Oblasts of the Soviet Union by German Nazi troops, and more specifically by Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army during World War II.
The Walloon Legion was a unit of the German Army (Wehrmacht) and later of the Waffen-SS recruited among French-speaking collaborationists in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. It was formed in the aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union and fought on the Eastern Front alongside similar formations from other parts of German-occupied Western Europe.
The Reichskommissariat Ukraine was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It was the civilian occupation regime of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine. It was governed by the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories headed by Alfred Rosenberg. Between September 1941 and August 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Erich Koch as the Reichskommissar. The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Führer decree defining the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941.
The Belarusian Central Council was a puppet administrative body in German-occupied Belarus during World War II. It was established by Nazi Germany within Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1943–44, following requests by collaborationist Belarusian politicians hoping to create a Belarusian state with German support.
Kaminski Brigade, also known as Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, was a collaborationist formation composed of Russian nationals from the territory of the Lokot Autonomy in Axis-occupied areas of the RSFSR, Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941 and led to a German military occupation of Byelorussia until it was fully liberated in August 1944 as a result of Operation Bagration. The western parts of Byelorussia became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941, and in 1943, the German authorities allowed local collaborators to set up a regional government, the Belarusian Central Rada, that lasted until the Soviets reestablished control over the region. Altogether, more than two million people were killed in Belarus during the three years of Nazi occupation, around a quarter of the region's population, or even as high as three million killed or thirty percent of the population, including 500,000 to 550,000 Jews as part of the Holocaust in Belarus.
When the Second World War in Europe began, the territory which now forms the country of Belarus was divided between the Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic. The borders of Soviet Belarus were greatly expanded in the Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939. In 1941, the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Following the German military disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk, the collaborationist Belarusian Central Council (BCC) was formed by the Germans in order to raise local support for their anti-Soviet operations. The BCC in turn formed the twenty-thousand strong Belarusian Home Defence (BKA), active from 23 February 1944 to 28 April 1945. Assistance to collaborators was offered by the local Soviet administrative governments, and prewar public organizations including the former Soviet Belarusian Youth. The country was soon retaken by the Red Army in 1944. Devastated by the war, Belarus lost significant populations and economic resources. Many battles occurred in Belarusian territory. Belarusians also participated in the advance towards Berlin.
In World War II, many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers, "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion." Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops they believed would liberate their countries from colonization. The Danish, Belgian and Vichy French governments attempted to appease and bargain with the invaders in hopes of mitigating harm to their citizens and economies.
Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany took place during the occupation of Poland and the Ukrainian SSR, USSR, by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
The 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS(1st Belarusian), originally called the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS , was a short-lived German Waffen-SS infantry division formed largely from Belarusian, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian personnel of the Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling in August 1944 at Warsaw in the General Government.
The Belarusian Home Defence, or Belarusian Home Guard were collaborationist volunteer battalions formed by the Belarusian Central Council (1943–1944), a pro-Nazi Belarusian self-government within Reichskommissariat Ostland during World War II. The BKA operated from February 23, 1944 to April 28, 1945. The 20,000 strong Belarusian Home Defence Force was formed under the leadership of Commissioner-General Curt von Gottberg, with logistical help from the German 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS known as the "Poachers' Brigade" commanded by Oskar Dirlewanger.
Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling was a Belarusian Auxiliary Police brigade formed by Nazi Germany in July 1944 in East Prussia, from six auxiliary police battalions following the Soviet Operation Bagration.
During World War II, the Waffen-SS recruited significant numbers of non-Germans, both as volunteers and conscripts. In total some 500,000 non-Germans and ethnic Germans from outside Germany, mostly from German-occupied Europe, were recruited between 1940 and 1945. The units were under the control of the SS Führungshauptamt beneath Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Upon mobilisation, the units' tactical control was given to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
During World War II, some Belarusians collaborated with the invading Axis powers. Until the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the territory of Belarus was under control of the Soviet Union, as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. However, memories of Soviet repressions in Belarus and collectivization, as well as of the polonization and discrimination against Belarusians under the Second Polish Republic were still fresh.
Among the approximately one million foreign volunteers and conscripts who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Finns, Danes, French, Hungarians, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Swedes, Swiss along with people from Great Britain, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Balkans. At least 47,000 Spaniards served in the Blue Division.
Igor Konstantinovich Sakharov was a Russian émigré and collaborator with Nazi Germany during World War II. A foreign volunteer for the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War, he later became one of the leaders of the collaborationist Russian National People's Army (RNNA) unit. Following the dissolution of the RNNA, he joined the Russian Liberation Army, partaking in the Prague uprising. After the war, he fled to Australia, where he died in a car crash.
![Flag of RONA, Lokot Republic and National Socialist Party of Russia [pl; ru; uk] Flag of Russian Liberation People's Army.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Flag_of_Russian_Liberation_People%27s_Army.svg/180px-Flag_of_Russian_Liberation_People%27s_Army.svg.png)
