The Byelorussian SSR was the hardest-hit Soviet republic in World War II; it remained in Nazi hands until 1944. The German  called for the extermination, expulsion, or enslavement of most or all Belarusians for the purpose of providing more living space in the East for Germans. Most of Western Belarus became part of the ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' in 1941, but in 1943 the German authorities allowed local collaborators to set up a client state, the Belarusian Central Council.