They are best known for the role they played in murdering Jews, Romani people, and actual or suspected Slovak partisans in conjunction with Einsatzgruppe H, especially for their participation in the Kremnička massacre.

[1] Slovak fascist propaganda claimed that the uprising had been fomented by the Czech and Jewish minorities, considered "enemies of the state" because of their alleged support for Czechoslovakism and Communism respectively.

Their deportation or murder was seen as an integral part of the suppression of the uprising, and the Hlinka Guard was the preferred tool for the Slovak Republic's racial persecutions.

Under new regulations making the POHG legally part of the armed forces, those who refused to serve in it were subject to a 5,000 Slovak koruna fine and up to 3 months imprisonment.

[10] Those who had participated in the uprising, even under threat of violence from partisans in partisan-controlled areas, were also forbidden to join, but in practice many did anyway and were even promoted to positions of responsibility within the POHG.

[16] The first unit to join the fighting, led by Štefan Rabin, did not begin to engage in combat until the end of September, when the suppression of the rebellion was already well underway.

One POHG unit, training in the Bratislava area, rioted when it learned that it might be expected to fight against advancing Red Army forces; many of its members deserted despite the death penalty.

[18] Partisan groups often set ambushes and lured POHG units with anonymous tipoffs about Jews in hiding, a tactic that proved effective.

[20] Slovak propaganda claimed the overall Hlinka Guard as superior to the regular armed forces, emphasizing the POHG's loyalty to the regime and glossing over their military failure.

[5][22] The POHG cooperated closely with Einsatzgruppe H, a Nazi German death squad created to murder or deport Slovakia's remaining Jews, during the entirety of its existence.

Einstazgruppe H's intelligence personnel, in reports to their superiors, emphasized the help that the POHG provided during roundups of Jews for deportation to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

Corruption was so rampant that some POHG men were imprisoned for theft and special sections had to be formed for anti-Jewish persecutions to minimize the amount of Jewish property appropriated by individual guardsmen.

[36] Therefore, it is impossible to know the exact role that individual soldiers played in the massacre, but even those who did not shoot still contributed to the killings by guarding the perimeter and performing other auxiliary tasks.

[37] During the Bratislava-Brno Offensive in which Slovakia was liberated by the Red Army, most POHG men remained home with their families and avoided fighting, despite an attempt at evacuation by Kubala.

[40] Returning POHG members faced property confiscation, loss of civil rights, and imprisonment; most of the major leaders were executed for their role in war crimes.

[42] During the Communist era, the POHG were portrayed as loyal agents of the Nazi regime and their role in war crimes was emphasized in order to delegitimize the institutions of the Slovak Republic.

At the same time, some anti-communists perceived the POHG as heroic forces fighting against communism and for Slovak nationalism, while glossing over the units' participation in war crimes.