At the other end of Europe, the Waffen-SS was dealing with the Warsaw Uprising. Between August and October 1944, the Dirlewanger Brigade (recruited from criminals and the mentally ill throughout Germany), which included Aserbaidschanische Legion (part of the Ostlegionen), and the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. "Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Narodnaya Armiya (Russian National Liberation Army)", which was made up of anti-Soviet Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian collaborators, were both sent to Warsaw to put down the uprising. During the battle, the "Dirlewanger" behaved atrociously, raping, looting, and killing citizens of Warsaw regardless of whether they belonged to the Polish resistance or not; the unit commander SS-"Oberführer" Oskar Dirlewanger encouraged their excesses. The unit's behaviour was reportedly so bestial and indiscriminate that Himmler was forced to send a battalion of SS military police to ensure the Dirlewanger convicts did not turn their aggressions against the leadership of the brigade or other nearby German units. At the same time, they were encouraged by Himmler to terrorise freely, take no prisoners, and generally indulge their perverse tendencies. Favoured tactics of the Dirlewanger men during the siege reportedly included the ubiquitous gang rape of female Poles, both women and children; playing "bayonet catch" with live babies; and torturing captives to death by hacking off their arms, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them alight to run armless and flaming down the street. The Dirlewanger brigade committed almost non-stop atrocities during this period, in particular the four-day Wola massacre.