On the Eastern Front the volunteers and conscripts in the Ostlegionen comprised a fighting force equivalent of 30 German divisions by the end of 1943. By mid-1944 upwards of 600,000 troops of the Eastern Legions/Troops were assembled under the command of General Ernst-August Köstring, stemming mostly from the periphery of the Soviet empire; they consisted of non-Slavic Muslim minorities like the Turkestanis, the Volga Tatars, Northern Caucasians, and Azerbaijanis, as well as Georgians and Armenians.[8] The overall effectiveness of Nazi Germany's military collaborators was described by one German commander as one-fifth good, one-fifth bad, and three-fifths inconsistent.[9]