On 22 June 1941, von dem Bach-Zelewski became "HSSPF" in the "Heeresgruppe Mitte" (Army Group Center); in July 1943, he became commander of the ""Bandenkämpfverbände"" ("Band-fighting Units"), that carried out the mass murder of 35,000 people in Riga and more than 200,000 in Belarus and eastern Poland. The government was going to make him the future "HSSPF" in Moscow; however, the Wehrmacht did not get into the city. Until 1943, von dem Bach-Zalewski was the "HSSPF" in command of "anti-partisan" units on the "central front", a special command created by Adolf Hitler. Von dem Bach-Zalewski was the only "HSSPF" in the Soviet areas taken over by the Germans to have real authority over the police after Hans-Adolf Prützmann and Jockeln lost theirs to the civil government.