Princely Lippisches Gendarmeriekorps

Infantrymen of the princely Lippe military contingent of the federal army around 1840. Green collar, dark gray winter and white summer trousers. From 1842 to 1846 the police officers in Lippe were practically identical in uniform.

The Princely Lippische Gendarmeriekorps was the gendarmerie of the Principality of Lippe (Lippe- Detmold ) from 1842 to 1918 . The corps was one of the smallest German state police forces and never had any mounted men .

history

Even during the reign of Princess Pauline (1802-1820) there was a so-called Sauvegarde ( French : Schutzwache), about which no further information was available as early as 1912:

Unfortunately, the files available to me only go back to the year 1829, so that nothing can be reported about the gendarmerie or "Sauvegarde" established at the time of Princess Paulina.

Quentin, p. 9

Although the Lippe offices and magistrates had asked for the reintroduction of a gendarmerie or protective guard as early as the 1820s , it was not decided until 1841. The new guard was on January 1, 1842 on the orders of Prince Leopold III. from 16 corporals and soldiers of the battalion formed lip which were 22-33 years old. The commander was a captain , later Major Friedrich August Hornhardt (1791–1865), who commanded the corps from 1842 to 1862. Up until 1912 the number of personnel was never more than 21 gendarmes, although the population growth from 1842 to 1910 was a good 50%. In 1846 the guard was renamed the Gendarmerie.

Employment around 1912

The corps was organized militarily and was subordinate to the Princely Lippe Government; the commander was a deputy Prussian officer . Disciplinary authority lay with the commander, judicial authority with the respective commander of the Graf Bülow infantry regiment in Detmold and the commander of the 13th division in Münster .

The service operations had been organized according to the Prussian model since 1895, and the gendarmes were also assistants of the Princely Lippe Public Prosecutor's Office .

The replacement of the corps was made up of NCOs from the military. A minimum of seven years of service with "impeccable leadership" was required. The minimum height was 1.70 m; In addition to a strong build, literacy and intellectual talent were required. Preferably, born Lippers should be discontinued. The would-be gendarmes received their six-month training from the Oberwachtmeister in Detmold .

In 1912 the 21 gendarmes from Lippe were spread over three Oberwachtmeister districts with 18 stations:

1. Detmold (Detmold, Lage, Oerlinghausen, Pivitsheide, Schlangen, Horn)
2. Lemgo (Lemgo, Salzuflen, Schötmar, Leopoldshöhe, Hohenhausen, Langeholzhausen and Silixen)
3. Blomberg (Blomberg, Schieder, Rischenau, Barntrup, Bösingfeld)

Because of the small number of personnel, the Lipper gendarmes were apparently never divided into brigades .

uniform

When the corps was founded, the uniform basically corresponded to that of the infantry contingent of the principality in the federal army , in which Lippe provided the 9th battalion of the reserve division. The Lippe infantry, whose actual strength in 1840 was no more than 200 men, wore dark green collets with red collars, gray trousers and black shakos at that time .

The first gendarmes set up in 1842 and still referred to as security guards wore a corresponding uniform, which was, however, completely changed in 1845 by introducing a green tunic, dark gray trousers and a spiked cap based on the Prussian pattern, as well as a gray coat . This uniform also hardly differed from that of the Lippe military. The helmet wore the Lippe rose next to a star as a national .

In 1846 the term gendarme was introduced and the corps was made subject to military law. Formally, the gendarmes were seen as NCOs assigned by the military . On February 6, 1846, the first gendarmerie service instruction appeared, which comprised 19 paragraphs .

Presumably in 1862 the uniform was slightly modified in order to better distinguish the gendarmes from the NCOs of the military. The tunic was given yellow buttons, gold braids and a green instead of a black collar. From 1864 to 1866, a shako of a more modern type was introduced again, analogous to the military . In 1896 the army infantry helmet was introduced.

In 1912, ostensibly for reasons of tradition , the last Lippe fusilier uniform from 1867 was reintroduced, which also included a black shako. This recourse to its own military tradition is probably unique in German police history and obviously had political reasons to demonstrate the independence of the principality from Prussia.

Colored illustrations of the uniforms were made by the portrait painter Bruno Wittenstein (1876–1968) and reproduced by Quentin in 1912.

Armament

The first equipment in 1842 consisted of sabers and flintlock rifles , which still came from French stocks. In the course of 1842 the sabers were replaced by hag hunters , in 1843 the outdated flintlock rifles percussion rifles. In 1877 the latter was a Lefauché- Doppelbüchsflinte replaced and 1910, the carabiner 88 introduced. In 1893 the armament was supplemented by the army revolver . In 1910 the gendarmes were given a drag saber.

Commanders from 1842 to 1912

• Captain / Major Friedrich August Hornhardt (1842–1862)
• Major Friedrich Kellner (1863–1867)
• Captain Conrad Cronemeyer (1867–1874)
• Major Karl Großkopf (1874–1893), from 1879 with the character of a Prussian lieutenant colonel
• Major Richard Wasserschleben (1893-1897)
• Captain, later Major and Lieutenant Colonel Richard Quentin (1897-?, At least until 1912)

resolution

Because of the November Revolution thanked Prince Leopold IV. From the November 12, 1918. It is unclear whether the corps in what is now the Free State of Lippe was organized as a gendarmerie or (based on the Prussian model) as a country hunt.

See also

• Royal Hanoverian Land Dragon Corps
• kk gendarmerie

literature

• Lieutenant Colonel à la suite of His Highness and Gendarmerie Commander Quentin: The Princely Lippian Gendarmerie Corps. A brief outline of its founding and development from January 1, 1842 to January 1, 1912 respectively. May 30, 1912 , undated, 1912.
• Heinrich Ambros Eckert / Dietrich Monten : The German army. After the uniform work from the years 1835 to 1843 edited by Georg Ortenburg , Dortmund (Harenberg) 1990. ISBN 3-611-00132-5