Lithuanian_TDA_Battalions
Lithuanian TDA Battalion
Paramilitary units and Nazi collaborators
The Lithuanian TDA (Lithuanian: Tautinio darbo apsaugos; lit. 'National labor service'[nb 1]) Battalion or simply TDA,[1] was a paramilitary battalion organized in June–August 1941 by the Provisional Government of Lithuania at the onset of Operation Barbarossa.[2] Members of the TDA were known by many names such as Lithuanian auxiliaries, policemen, white-armbands, nationalists, rebels, partisans, resistance fighters or Schutzmannschaften.[2] TDA was intended to be the basis for a future independent Lithuanian Army, but it was taken over by Nazis and reorganized into the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions.[3] The original TDA eventually became the 12th and the 13th Police Battalions. These two units took an active role in mass killings of the Jews in Lithuania and Belarus.[4] According to the Jäger Report, the TDA battalion's members killed about 26,000 Jews between July and December 1941.[5]