Selbstschutz - Para-military Organisation

Para-military Organisation

Selbstschutz as a para-military organisation was formed both after World War I in territories inhabited by Germans outside of Germany before the beginning of World War II; notably in Poland, the Free City of Danzig, Czechoslovakia and Russian Empire by ethnic Germans who were citizens of these countries. The first incarnation of the organisation was aimed at keeping Polish inhabited territories within Germany.

In 1921, units of Selbstschutz took part in the fights against the Third Silesian Uprising.

In 1938, a campaign was started by local Selbstschutz in the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland in order to subjugate the local Czechs prior to the Munich Conference.

During the Invasion of Poland of 1939, a number of similar units operating in Poland and led by volunteers trained in Nazi Germany were officially merged into one organization, the Ethnic German Self-Defense Force (Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz). These units took part in fighting as a Fifth Column, served as auxiliary forces of the Gestapo, SS and SD during the early stages of the occupation of Poland, and helped the Civil Administrations of West Prussia and Wartheland, and other entities of the German occupation forces, as local controllers, informers and members of execution squads particularly active in the eradication action of Polish intelligentsia called Operation Tannenberg as well as in other more local and vengeful atrocities. The killings of Polish and Jews that can be ascribed specifically to the more then 100,000 strong Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz is set to at least 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.