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
Operation Tannenberg
Operation Tannenberg
Volksdeutsche