Selbstschutz
Selbstschutz (German for "self-protection") is the name given to different iterations of ethnic-German self-protection units formed both after World War I and in the lead-up to World War II. The first incarnation of the Selbstschutz was a German paramilitary organisation formed after World War I for ethnic Germans who lived outside Germany in the territories occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary following the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The purpose of these units was to protect local ethnically German communities and, indirectly, to serve German security interests in southern Ukraine.