In a mere eight months of 1941-42, the invading German armies killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs through starvation, exposure, and summary execution.

[8]The foreign Waffen beginnings were shrouded in great secrecy for fear of Hitler's disapproval, who was categorically opposed to any form of participation of Soviet citizens in the war against Russia.

[10] The German courting of the Muslims was part of Hitler's schemes for bringing Turkey onto his side and to advance control of the oil fields in the Middle East and Baku.

The first Turkestani volunteers were integrated as a single battalion of the 444th Security Division in November 1941 and became an auxiliary force to help the Germans fight the Soviet partisans.

The Grand Mufti approved the plan to raise a Turkic-Muslim SS division and to give his "spiritual leadership" to influence the Muslim volunteers.

[17][5][6][7] Two hours before midnight on 5 August, the Azerbaijani soldiers and the Bergmann Battalion attacked St Lazarus hospital, executed hundreds of patients, doctors, and nurses, before burning it down.

[19] Operation Zeppelin was initiated in 1942 by SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, who became in the middle of May 1943 the Chief of Section E of Amt IV of the RSHA, the foreign intelligence service of the SS.

In the summer of 1942, the Reich ministries for Finances, Interior, Foreign Affairs, as well as the RSHA, created a special group, “Sonderstab Kaukasus”.

It was envisaged to recruit the future civil servants among the prisoners of war of Caucasian nationality, who were in large numbers in the German camps of the North Caucasus.

He actively participated in forming national legions from the Soviet prisoners of war in 1942, together with Abdurahman Fatalibeyli-Dudanginsky and Fuad Amirjan in Berlin.

In his personal archives, a member of the Ostministerium, Gerhard Von Mende, gives the number of 348 people of Azerbaijani origin who participated in those operations.