Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling
Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling (also ) was a Belarusian Auxiliary Police brigade formed by Nazi Germany in July 1944 in East Prussia, from six auxiliary police battalions (60th and 64th Belarusian and the 57th, 61st, 62nd and 63rd Ukrainian) following the Soviet Operation Bagration. Background Most members of the Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling originated from the pro-Nazi Belarusian Home Defence (BKA). The total number of soldiers evacuated by the Nazis to East Prussia from across Belarus during the Soviet advance might have reached 10,000. They regrouped northeast of Warsaw in German-occupied Poland, under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Siegling who was also the SS and police leader of Generalbezirk Weissruthenien. The new Brigade consisted of four rifle regiments as well as artillery and cavalry units. It was renamed by Himmler in August 1944, as the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. It consisted of men from the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, mainly from Belarus, including whole local military headquarters () of Belarusian Home Defence and members of Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army, but also units of the German Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and Ordnungsdienst from the area. By November 1944, the battalion whose formation started in August originally – as the