 They served as local controllers, informers, and members of execution squads particularly active in the wave of mass murders of Polish intelligentsia during Operation Tannenberg and other more local and vengeful atrocities.The killings of Poles and Jews ascribed specifically to members of "Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz" is estimated at the minimum of 10,000 men, women and children.The force was disbanded in winter 1939/40 and the majority of its members joined the German "SS" or Gestapo by the spring of the following year.