[2] The battalions were charged with internal security duties and engaged in anti-partisan operations in the Wehrmacht's rear areas, e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Northwest Russia.

German documents referred to them as Ordnungsdienst (order service), Selbstschutz (self-defense), and Hilfspolizei (auxiliary police).

During the war, journal Karys published frequent stories about the battalions, but to protect military secrets the articles were heavily censored to remove names, dates, and locations.

In the post-war years, the KGB produced interrogation protocols of former members of the battalions, but these are not considered reliable, as confessions were often obtained through torture or fabricated outright.

Nevertheless, Lithuanian scholars, primarily Arūnas Bubnys, have published several articles analyzing the structure and activities of individual battalions.

[12] Opponents of communism and the new regime were persecuted: an estimated 6,600 were imprisoned as "enemies of the people"[13] and another 17,600 deported to Siberia.

The Germans had no intention of giving the Lithuanians independence, so the provisional government was dissolved on August 5, 1941 and partisan units disarmed.

The fourth, auxiliary units grouped into platoons and companies, assisted regular police when needed.

[2] The first battalion, known as the Tautinio darbo apsaugos batalionas (TDA), was formed by the Provisional Government in Kaunas on June 28.

[18] On August 7, the TDA had 703 members and Lechthaler ordered it reorganized into two battalions of auxiliary police (German: Polizeihilfsdienst bataillone; Lithuanian: Pagalbinės policijos tarnyba or PPT).

[23] On July 21, 1941, LSD was reorganized into the Vilnius Reconstruction Service (Lithuanian: Vilniaus atstatymo tarnyba or VAT) with three units (Work, Order, and Security).

Some Lithuanian auxiliary police battalions took an active part in the extermination of Jewish people in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Poland and committed crimes against the Polish and Belarusian populations.

Of 26 Lithuanian Auxiliary Police battalions, 10 were directly involved in the destruction of Jewish people in Eastern Europe.

[26] The largest crime against the non-Jewish civilian population by Lithuanian policemen was the killings of Polish people in the villages of Švenčionėliai and Švenčionys and their surroundings.