World War, the so-called Asipovichy diversion of 30 July 1943, four German trains with supplies and Tiger tanks were destroyed. To fight partisan activity, the Germans had to withdraw considerable forces behind their front line. On 22 June 1944, the huge Soviet Strategic Offensive Operation Bagration was launched, finally regaining all of Belarus by the end of August. War crimes The German invasion and occupation resulted in heavy human casualties, with some 380,000 people deported for slave labour, and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of more civilians. The ethnically Slavic Byelorussian population was intended to be exterminated, expelled, or enslaved as part of the German ethnic cleansing operation named Generalplan Ost. At least 5,295 Byelorussian settlements were destroyed by the Nazis and some or all their inhabitants killed (out of 9,200 settlements that were burned or otherwise destroyed in Belarus during World War II), and more than 600 villages like Khatyn had their entire population annihilated. Altogether, over 1 million were killed in Belarus during the three years of German occupation. A 2017 study found "that Soviet partisan attacks against German personnel provoked reprisals against civilians but that attacks against railroads had the opposite effect. Where partisans focused on disrupting German supply lines rather than killing Germans, occupying forces conducted fewer reprisals, burned fewer houses, and killed fewer people." Nazi units 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS RONA (1st Russian) 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Belarussian) 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Russian) 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Einsatzgruppen Ukrainian Auxiliary Police Byelorussian Auxiliary Police Notable Nazi personnel Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski Gustavs Celmiņš Oskar Dirlewanger Curt von Gottberg Konrāds Kalējs Bronislav Kaminski Wilhelm Kube Anthony Sawoniuk Karl Schäfer Jakob Sporrenberg Other units and participants Army Group Centre Holocaust The largest Jewish ghetto in Soviet Belarus before the conclusion of World War II was the Minsk Ghetto, created by the Germans shortly after the invasion began. Almost the whole, previously numerous Jewish population of Belarus which did not evacuate east ahead of the German advance was killed during the Holocaust by bullet. The list of eradicated Jewish ghettos in Nazi-Soviet occupied Poland extending eastward toward the border with the Soviet Belarus can be found at the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland article. Post-occupation Later in 1944, 30 German-trained Belarusians were