Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118

Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118
Ukrainian leaders of the Schutzmannschaft Battalions 102, 115, and 118, photographed at a training base in Minsk, spring 1942
Active	Founded in spring of 1942
Country	occupied Poland and the USSR
Allegiance	Nazi Germany, the SS
Type	Paramilitary volunteer brigade

Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 of Ukrainische Hilfspolizei was a Schutzmannschaft auxiliary police battalion (Schuma) formed by the Nazis in the spring of 1942 in Kiev in Reichskommissariat Ukraine (now capital of sovereign Ukraine) with 500 volunteers in three companies. The battalion was split away from the Schuma Battalion 115 with 100 members of the third company of the Ukrainian-only Battalion 115 forming the first company of Battalion 118. Additional two new companies were composed of Ukrainian nationalists from Bukovyna and volunteers from the prisoners-of-war camp for the Soviets captured in Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa. The German commander of the battalion was Sturmbannführer Erich Körner.

The battalion, led by Ukrainian officers (ex Red Army officers) under the leadership of Hryhorii Vasiura (Григорий Васюра, age 27, tried in 1986 by the USSR), was merged back to Battalion 115 in 1944 around East Prussia and transported to France where it formed the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS.

In November 1942 the newly-formed Battalion 118 was transferred to Minsk (occupied Belorussian SSR, now capital of sovereign Belarus) and from there for approximately one year to a new base on the outskirts of the former Second Polish Republic. It was active in the area until July 1944. During this time the battalion participated in the German pacification actions, part of the "dead zone" policy of annihilating hundreds of Belarusian villages in order to remove the support base for the alleged partisans. The 60 major and 80 smaller actions affecting 627 villages across occupied Belarus included Operation Hornung, Draufgänger, Cottbus (with 13,000 victims),Hermann (4,280) and Wandsbeck. Entire Jewish communities were exterminated on the general orders of Curt von Gottberg with the necessary backup provided by the Battalions 115 and 102, the Russian ROA, Baltic collaborators, Belarusian Auxiliary Police, and the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. They also fought the Polish underground. In 1943, close to 50 men of the 118th battalion deserted and joined the UPA in Volhynia.