Azerbaijani SS volunteer formations

Azerbaijani SS volunteer formations were recruited from prisoners of war, mainly from the Soviet Union and the countries annexed by it after 1939.

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

[7][5][2] In May 1944, the 550 men (Turkestanis, Volga Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Tajiks) from the Ostmuslemanische SS-Regiment were attached to the SS Dirlewanger brigade.

[8] On January 29, 1944, Heinz Reinefarth was assigned as SS and Police Leader in Reichsgau Wartheland (the pre-war Polish Greater Poland Voivodeship, annexed by Germany in 1939).

Fersemann's Polizei Wachtkompanie, platoon of SS-Röntgen MG Kompanie from Poznań, but also SS Grenadiere of SS-Schule Treskau and Azerbaijani 7.Komp/II Bt.

[9] On October 20, 1944, the rest of the Ostmuselmanisches SS-Regiment was transferred from Ukraine to Slovakia and renamed "Osttürkische Waffen-Verbände der SS" and reorganized into 3 battalions organized along ethnic lines.

The disbanded Tatar Waffen Gebirgs Brigade der SS would replace the Azerbaijani soldiers; Commander: SS-Standartenführer Harun el-Raschid Hintersatz.

At this time, all German military forces were scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel - for example, in January 1945, Heer and Waffen-SS recruiting centres were combined.

On 26 April 1945, Hintersatz signed a pact with the local partisan command, according to which the soldiers would remain in the barracks in Merate until the US troops arrived.

[15] Kaukasischer Waffen-Verband der SS, also known as Freiwilligen Brigade Nordkaukasien, began forming with volunteers from the Caucasus region, with the Frewilligen-Stamm-Division as a nucleus.

It was transferred from the Neuhammer training camp to Paluzza in northern Italy in Jan. 1945 and was still forming when it surrendered to British forces at the end of the war.