These mobile groups carried out guard duties of strategic objects or building fortifications, participated in anti-partisan operations and fought on the Eastern Front.

[1] One of the earliest units formed was in Daugavpils, which German forces reached on June 28, 1941, six days after launching the Operation Barbarossa.

Here, as in the case of small towns, the Latvian auxiliary police was directly involved, participating in the arrest of Jews and contributing one firing squad at Šķēde.

The front around Leningrad was held not only by Germans and Finns, but also by Norwegians, Dutch, Danes, Belgians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and the Spanish Blue Division.

In February–March 1943, eight Latvian battalions took part in the punitive anti-partisan Operation Winterzauber near the Belarus–Latvia border which resulted in 439 burnt down villages, 10,000 to 12,000 deaths, over 7,000 taken for forced labor or imprisoned at the Salaspils concentration camp.

To improve the firepower of the 26th Battalion, corporal Žanis Butkus dug up weapons which he had captured as a leader of a group of national partisans in June and July 1941 and which he had hidden from the Germans.

[citation needed] Not all of the service was on the front lines, and the actions in the rear frequently brought Latvians and Germans into conflict.

A battalion on the other side of the former Latvian-Polish border prevented the German SD from collecting and sending Polish women to Germany in September 1943.

The existing 18th, 24th, and 26th Latvian police battalions serving in the Leningrad front were used to form the brigade's 2nd SS Volunteer Regiment.