The Bergmann battalion was formed of the émigrés and Soviet POWs from the Caucasian republics at Neuhammer in October 1941.
At the end of 1942, Bergmann conducted a successful sortie through the Soviet lines, bringing with them some 300 Red Army defectors, and covered the German retreat from the Caucasus.
Battalion covered the retreat from Russia and was deployed to Warsaw after the onset of the Uprising 1944 to fight with the Dirlewanger unit.
There and in subsequent engagements with the Red Army, it suffered heavy casualties, and surviving soldiers of II./Bergmann, together with Azeri from another Wehrmacht unit (I./111), formed the III.
[1][2] The Bergmann group used as insignia a traditional Caucasian dagger (kinzhal) with curving blade, worn on the left side of the cap.