13th Belarusian Police (SD) Battalion

Members of the 13th Belarusian Police Battalion SD, c. 1943

13th Belarusian Police (SD) Battalion (German: Schutzmannschafts Bataillon der SD 13) was a Belarusian collaborationist formation in German service, established to combat partisan activity, primarily Soviet, and to guard concentration and POW camps.[1] Unlike other units of the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, the 13th Battalion was directly subordinate to the Security Service (SD) of SS.[2]

The formation of the unit began in January and February 1943 in Minsk, based on the already existing structures of the Belarusian SD.[1] Primarily Belarusians joined the unit, and there were also Poles and Russians among them.[3] Recruitment was essentially voluntary, although there were cases of forced mobilization.[4] The officer and non-commissioned officer were both the Germans and the Belarusians. German Sturmbannführer Junskers was the commander of the battalion, but Belarusian officers were commanders of companies.[1] Members of the Belarusian People's Self-Assistance, a nationalist organization created by the Germans, which activists intended to become the beginnings of Belarusian statehood, took part in the formation of the unit, trying to turn it into a Belarusian national unit.[5]

13th Battalion took part in numerous anti-partisan campaigns and pacification on the territory of Belarus in the years 1943–1944.[6] Members of the unit also took part in the liquidation of Jewish ghettos (Hlybokaye, Minsk, Vileyka, possibly Valozhyn),[7] and guarded the Koldychevo[8] and Maly Trostenets concentration camps.[7] Later, the battalion's units took part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.[9] For a brief period in 1944, the 3rd Company of the 13th Battalion was stationed in German-occupied Adriatic Littoral and its staff was in Trieste.[10]

  1. ^ a b c Grzybowski 2010, p. 463.
  2. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 461.
  3. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 464-465.
  4. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 465.
  5. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 471-472.
  6. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 466-467.
  7. ^ a b Grzybowski 2010, p. 467.
  8. ^ Rein 2017, p. 185.
  9. ^ Grzybowski 2010, p. 472-473.
  10. ^ Hryboŭski 2007.