The Ordnungspolizei were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government. The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei. The force was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis.
The 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS was a foreign infantry division of the Waffen-SS that served alongside the Wehrmacht during World War II. According to some sources, the division was under Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's overall command but was not an integral part of the Schutzstaffel (SS). It was officially activated on 24 January 1944, and many of its soldiers had been members of the Estonian Legion and/or the 3rd Estonian SS Volunteer Brigade, which had been fighting as part of German forces since August 1942 and October 1943 respectively. Both of the preceding formations drew their personnel from German-occupied Estonia. Shortly after its official activation, widespread conscription within Estonia was announced by the German occupying authorities. The division was formed in Estonia around a cadre comprising the 3rd Estonian SS Volunteer Brigade, and was initially known as the 20th Estonian SS Volunteer Division. By 1944, a total of 60.000 Estonians were fighting in the ranks of the SS and Wehrmacht.
Friedrich Jeckeln was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as a Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Jeckeln was the commander of one of the largest groups of Einsatzgruppen death squads and was personally responsible for ordering and organising the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Romani and others designated by the Nazis as "undesirables". After the end of World War II in Europe, Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in Riga and executed by hanging in 1946.
The military occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany was completed on 10 July 1941, by Germany's armed forces. Initially, the territory of Latvia was under the military administration of Army Group North, but on 25 July 1941, Latvia was incorporated as Generalbezirk Lettland, subordinated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, an administrative subdivision of Nazi Germany. Anyone not racially acceptable or who opposed the German occupation, as well as those who had cooperated with the Soviet Union, was killed or sent to concentration camps in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost.
The Schutzmannschaft, or Auxiliary Police was the collaborationist auxiliary police of native policemen serving in those areas of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), established the Schutzmannschaft on 25 July 1941, and subordinated it to the Order Police. By the end of 1941, some 45,000 men served in Schutzmannschaft units, about half of them in the battalions. During 1942, Schutzmannschaften expanded to an estimated 300,000 men, with battalions accounting for about a third, or less than one half of the local force. Everywhere, local police far outnumbered the equivalent German personnel several times; in most places, the ratio of Germans to natives was about 1-to-10.
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 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS , originally called the Latvian SS-Volunteer Division was an infantry division of the Waffen-SS during World War II. It was formed in February 1943, and together with its sister unit, the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS formed the Latvian Legion.
Voldemārs Veiss was a Latvian officer and prominent Nazi collaborator, who served in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany.
Hinrich Schuldt was a German SS commander during World War II. He was a posthumous recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany.
A field force in British, Indian Army and Tanzanian military parlance is a combined arms land force operating under actual or assumed combat circumstances, usually for the length of a specific military campaign. It is used by other nations, but can have a different meaning.
The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police was the official title of the local police formation set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in Eastern Galicia and Reichskommissariat Ukraine, shortly after the German occupation of the Western Ukrainian SSR in Operation Barbarossa.
The Belarusian Auxiliary Police was a German force established in July 1941 in occupied Belarus, staffed by local collaborators. In western Belarus, auxiliary police were created in the form of Schutzmannschaften units, while in the east they were made as the Ordnungsdienst.
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.
VI SS Army Corps (Latvian) or VI. SS-Freiwilligen-Armeekorps (Lettisches)(German) was a corps of the Waffen-SS during World War II. It was formed in October 1943 to command the Latvian Waffen-SS divisions. It fought in the northern sector of the Eastern Front as part of the 18th Army. They were part of Army Group North until early 1945, when it was subordinated to Army Group Courland. In October 1944, they were encircled by the Red Army and spent the remainder of the war in the Courland Pocket, until they surrendered at the end of the war.
Estonian Auxiliary Police were Estonian police units that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
The 658th Eastern Battalion was an Eastern Front World War II military unit of the Wehrmacht composed of Estonians. It was formed on 23 October 1942 from the merger of the 181st Security Group and two companies each from both the 183rd and 185th Security Groups, subordinated under the 18th Army (Wehrmacht). The 181st, 183rd and 185th security groups were originally formed on August 21, 1941, for the purposes of securing supply lines and clearing the 18th Army rear area of remaining Red Army troops and partisans, but were committed to front-line combat duties from October 1941. Captain Alfons Rebane, a former Estonian Army officer, was appointed commander.
Reserve Police Battalion 33, "Ostland", was a militarised unit of the German Ordnungspolizei in World War II. For the first three months between August and October 1941 – according to Latvian Museum of Occupation – its official name was Police Reserve Battalion "Ostland" and, from October 1941, the 33rd Reserve Police Battalion. The 1st Company of Battalion 33 was known as Ostlandkompanie. It was composed largely of Estonian Volksdeutsche.
Hryhoriy Mykytovych Vasiura was a Soviet senior lieutenant in the Red Army who was captured during the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941 and subsequently volunteered for service in the Schutzmannschaft and the Waffen-SS. Vasiura's wartime activities were not fully revealed until the mid-1980s, when he was convicted as a war criminal by a Soviet military court and executed in 1987 for his role in the Khatyn massacre.
Wartime collaboration occurred in every country occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, including the Baltic states. The three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were occupied by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, and were later occupied by Germany in the summer of 1941 and then incorporated, together with parts of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, into the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Collaborators with Germany participated in the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, as well as in the Holocaust, both in and outside of the Baltic states. This collaboration was done through formal Waffen-SS divisions and police battalions, as well as through spontaneous acts during the opening of the war.
Nazi Germany 