SS officers in Poland, ca. late 1939, ethnic German Selbstschutz.

[wizardman]

In the fall of 1939 following the invasion of Poland the Nazi German occupational authorities set up a temporary concentration camp in Płutowo at a manor once owned by von Alvensleben family. The Polish prisoners brought to the camp came from the area of Ziemia chełmińska (Chełmno land). Over 200 victims were murdered at a nearby forest by the German Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz executioners, along the road to Szymborno.[2]
References

2 ^ a b "Ekologia i Środowisko: Przyroda (Ecology and Environment: Nature)". Gmina Kijewo Królewskie. 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2012.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks for the fine contributions. Very valuable. The Selbstschutz people we see here, however, would have been disbanded by the time the SS leadership conceived the General Plan Ost, would it not?
Thanks again. Wonderful material and a pleasing corrective to some of the other material we see here all too often.

[wizardman]

from what ive been reading they (Selbstschutz) were loosely organised by the SS as they had first hand knowledge of the area and were more than willing to continue..i read somewhere and i cant find it now of discipline issues with them..the General Plan Ost conceived between 39-42 i believe ...
"During the Invasion of Poland of 1939, a number of similar units operating in Poland and led by volunteers trained in Nazi Germany were officially merged into one organization, the Ethnic German Self-Defense Force (Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz). These units took part in fighting as a Fifth Column, served as auxiliary forces of the Gestapo, SS and SD during the early stages of the occupation of Poland, and helped the Civil Administrations of West Prussia and Wartheland, and other entities of the German occupation forces, as local controllers, informers and members of execution squads particularly active in the eradication action of Polish intelligentsia called Operation Tannenberg as well as in other more local and vengeful atrocities. The killings of Polish and Jews that can be ascribed specifically to the more than 100,000 strong Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz is set to at least 10,000 men, women and children.[1] The force was disbanded in winter 1939/40 and the majority of its members joined the German SS or Gestapo by the spring of the following year.So i think it overlapped,but once you have such an effective (for want of a better term)organization like the SS move in,im sure they preferred the more structured approach to these matters