The Warsaw Uprising , which started on August 1 , 1944 , changed Himmler 's plans and , on August 4 , 1944 , a combat ready regiment of the brigade was ordered to assist the efforts in crushing the uprising . SS - '' Gruppenführer '' Heinz Reinfarth was placed in charge of Kampfgruppe '' Reinfarth '' , a pacification unit which consisted of the '' Kaminski '' along with the '' Dirlewanger '' , several other Ordnungspolizei and SS rear area units . Himmler personally requested Kaminski 's assistance , and the latter obliged by gathering a task force of 1,700 unmarried men and sending them ( some sources state they had four T-34 tanks , one SU-76 and a few artillery pieces ) to Warsaw as the mixed regiment under field command of Kaminski 's brigade chief-of-staff , SS - '' Sturmbannführer '' Ivan Frolov . Frolov in 1945 stated that regiment had up to 1600 men and seven artillery pieces and four mortars . < ! -- Commented out because image was deleted : '' Kaminski '' volunteers were first given the task of clearing the Ochota district defended by only 300 poorly armed Poles . Their attack was planned for the morning of August 5 , but when the time came , Kaminski 's men could not be found . After some searching , they were found looting abandoned houses in the rear . The attack finally got underway shortly before noon and it went poorly , with the brigade advancing only 275 meters before nightfall . The men had neither training for nor prior experience in urban combat . For many it was the first time they had even seen a major city and they fought poorly while suffering high casualties . At the same time , thousands of Polish civilians were killed by the RONA SS men during the events known as the Ochota massacre ; many of the victims were also raped . In the middle of the month , the '' Kaminski '' was moved south to the Wola sector , but it fared no better in combat there than in Ochota . In one incident , a sub-unit had stopped their advance to loot a captured building on the front line and was consequently cut off and destroyed by the Poles
Ochota massacre
Ochota massacre
SS Sturmbrigade RONA