Sonderdienst

Sonderdienst (German: Special Services) were mostly non-German Nazi paramilitary formations created in the occupied General Government during the occupation of Poland in World War II.

After Operation Barbarossa began in 1941, they also included Soviet prisoners of war who volunteered for special training, such as the Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) deployed at all major killing sites of the "Final Solution".

[4] The Republic of Poland was a multi-ethnic country before World War II, with almost a third of its population comprising minority groups: 13.9% Ukrainians; 10% Jews; 3.1% Belarusians; 2.3% Germans and 3.4% Czechs, Lithuanians, and Russians.

[6] German organizations in Poland such as Deutscher Volksverband and the Jungdeutsche Partei actively engaged in espionage for the Abwehr, sabotage actions, weapons-smuggling and Nazi propaganda campaigns before the invasion.

They took an active role in the executions of Jews at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw (three times), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lwów, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki during Aktion Erntefest of 1943,[10] and the remaining subcamps of KL Lubl in including Poniatowa concentration camp, Budzyn, Kraśnik, Puławy, Lipowa 7 camp, as well as during massacres in Łomazy, Międzyrzec, Łuków, Radzyń, Parczew, Końskowola, Komarówka and all other locations, augmented by the SS and the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Orpo.

Sonderdienst battalion in occupied Kraków , July 1940
Gauleiter Hans Frank and Sonderdienst leaders in Kraków, 1941.
Hiwis from one of two Sonderdienst battalions trained by Karl Streibel at the Trawniki training camp during the firearms artillery subjugation of Warsaw . Photo from Jürgen Stroop Report, 1943