against serving in the Waffen-SS, they would be forced into conscription in any case. According to head of recruitment for the Waffen SS, Gottlob Berger, no one in Germany or elsewhere cared for what happened with the ethnic Germans anyway, making forced recruitment easy to force upon ethnic German communities. Among the indigenous populations in the Nazi-occupied lands, Volksdeutsche became a term of ignominy. During the early years of the Second World War (i.e., before the US entered the war), a small number of Americans of German origin returned to Germany; generally they were immigrants or children of immigrants, rather than descendants of migrations more distant in time. Some of these enlisted and fought in the German army. During World War II Ethnic Germans throughout Europe benefited financially during World War II from the Nazi policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and profited from the expulsion and murder of their non-German neighbors throughout Eastern Europe. For example, in Ukraine the Volksdeutsche directly participated in the Holocaust and were involved in deportation of local farmers and their families; Volksdeutsche figures like Arthur Boss from Odessa (Blobel's right-hand man) or Becker brothers became integral part of Nazi Holocaust machine. 'Volksdeutsche' in German-occupied western Poland In September 1939 in German occupied Poland, an armed ethnic German militia called Selbstschutz (Self-Defence) was created. It organised the mass murder of Polish elites in Operation Tannenberg. At the beginning of 1940, the Selbstschutz organization was disbanded, and its members transferred to various units of the SS, Gestapo and the German police. Throughout the invasion of Poland, some ethnic German minority groups assisted Nazi Germany in the war effort: they committed sabotage, diverted regular forces and committed numerous atrocities against civilian population.Browning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942, 2007 p. 33 After Germany occupied western Poland, it established a central registration bureau, called the German People's List (Deutsche Volksliste, DVL), whereby Poles of German ethnicity were registered as Volksdeutsche. The German occupants encouraged such registration, in many cases forcing it or subjecting Poles of German ethnicity to terror assaults if they refused. Those who joined this group were given benefits including better food, as well as a better social status. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle organised large-scale looting of property and redistributed goods to the Volksdeutsche. They were given apartments, workshops, farms, furniture, and clothing confiscated from Jews