Ahead of the primary invasion forces in the USSR, operatives from the Brandenburg Division seized bridges and strategically important installations in clandestine missions lasting for weeks before they linked up with advancing forces. They would mingle with enemy soldiers, secretly countermand orders, redirect military convoys, and disrupt communications-all the while collecting intelligence along the way. Many of the Brandenburgers were misfits who could hardly be characterized as conventional soldiers, due in large part to the nature of their operations. Correspondingly, Department II of the Abwehr, under which the Brandenburgers were subsumed, had a distinct sub-component for army, navy, and air force operations. Others even adorned themselves in Arab garments to conduct surveillance on Allied warships traversing between the Straits of Gibraltar and North Africa ahead of the Wehrmacht deployment there. During the night before Operation Barbarossa began, Brandenburger units crossed the Soviet border disguised as Soviet workers and Red Army soldiers. In 1941, they preceded the invasion of Yugoslavia undercover as Serbian workers. Most of the personnel were fluent in other languages, which allowed them, for example, to penetrate the Netherlands in 1940 disguised as Dutch barge crews just before the start of the invasion.

Despite their demonstrated successes while incurring minimum casualties, many traditionally-minded German officers still found their use abhorrent. Brandenburg units were deployed as small commando outfits to penetrate into enemy territory and conduct both sabotage and anti-sabotage operations. Training for the men in the Brandenburg Division ranged from five to seven months and included course instruction on reconnaissance, swimming, hand-to-hand combat, demolitions, marksmanship in both German and Allied weapons, conventional infantry tactics, and other specialized training. 800 (800th Special Duties Construction Training Battalion) but its later more widely known epithet, 'the Brandenburgers', stemmed from the name of the unit's first permanent quarters. Originally, the unit Hippel assembled was named the Deutsche Kompagnie, then later on 25 October it became the Baulehr-kompagnie 800 and then again on 10 January 1940, the unit was called the Bau-Lehr-Bataillon z.b.V. Just a few days after their meeting, the Army General Staff put forth a directive authorizing the creation of 'a company of saboteurs for the West.' As part of the Abwehr's 2nd Department, Hippel was tasked with creating the unit. Still determined to form the unit, Hippel looked to his section chief, Helmuth Groscurth, who supported the unit's formation and the two men conferred on the matter on 27 September 1939. Canaris was at first against the proposal as he viewed such measures similar to what the Bolsheviks had done and was suspicious of Hippel's motives. Hippel proposed that small units, trained in sabotage and fluent in foreign languages, could operate behind enemy lines and wreak havoc with the enemy's command, communication and logistical tails. The unit was the brainchild of Hauptmann (captain) Theodor von Hippel, who, after having his idea rejected by the Reichswehr, approached Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, commander of the German Intelligence Service, the Abwehr. They committed various atrocities in the course of their operations. In the later course of the war, parts of the special unit were used in Bandenbekämpfung operations against partisans in Yugoslavia before the division was reclassified and merged into one of the Panzergrenadier divisions in the last months of the war. The Brandenburg Division was generally subordinated to the army groups in individual commands and operated throughout Eastern Europe, in northern Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East and in the Caucasus. Being foreign German nationals who were convinced Nazi volunteers, constituent members had lived abroad and were proficient in foreign languages as well as being familiar with the way of life in the area of operations where they were deployed. Members of this unit took part in seizing operationally important targets by way of sabotage and infiltration. Originally, the unit was formed by and operated as an extension of the military's intelligence organ, the Abwehr. The Brandenburgers ( German: Brandenburger) were members of the Brandenburg German special forces unit during World War II.

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