Military police
The Feldjäger are on the one hand a historical type of service and on the other hand a current type of service of the Bundeswehr . In the latter sense, they have been entrusted with the function of the military police in the Bundeswehr since 1955, under the name of Feldjägertruppe .
history
term
Today's Feldjägertruppe as military police goes back to the Profos , who was a military officer in charge of the regimental police in the 16th century and who was responsible for enforcing and observing the field order among the mercenaries in his regiment. Until the Thirty Years' War, the Profos was assigned to a company or a penniless and was charged with the execution of disciplinary punishments.
One of the first military police troops , the Royal Military Police , was formed under Wellington in the British Army for the 1807 expedition in Portugal. In the period after the Napoleonic Wars until the end of the Third Reich , the term “field gendarmerie ” was common for the police in military service in German-speaking countries .
The term "military police" itself originally had nothing to do with military police to do, but called the first from 1631, first in Hesse-Kassel , and later in other territories as in Prussia and in electoral Hanover established Jägertruppe . These light infantry units , mostly recruited from foresters and hunters , usually operated independently and outside of the usual line tactics , often for reconnaissance and as skirmishers and snipers . They were armed with drawn rifles from their private collection. The earliest military contribution to the Little War - Treatise on the Little War (Kassel 1785) - comes from the Hessian military police captain Johann von Ewald and processes his experiences from the American War of Independence .
The kuk Feldjäger was the name of the hunter troop of the Joint Army of the Land Forces of Austria-Hungary 1867–1914 of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary .
Old Prussian Army
Military police powers in the old Prussian army in the area of criminal prosecution were exercised by the regimental professionals and in the area of general security by the hussars , who carried out patrols at night to secure field camps from enemy attacks, but above all to prevent deserters from deserting. The Reitende Feldjägerkorps , which was set up in the Prussian army in 1740 , did not serve specific police tasks, but was used in the courier and reporting service.
New Prussian Army, Federal Army, First World War
Following the French model, a police force separate from the combat troops was formed in the German states only hesitantly after 1815: in Prussia the Royal Prussian Landgendarmerie . Like the gendarmerie in Bavaria and the Landjägerkorps in Württemberg , it was part of the army. In 1914, analogous to the number of Prussian provinces, there were twelve brigades, each with a colonel or senior lieutenant colonel as a brigadier at the head. A Prussian gendarmerie brigade comprised around 300 members in contrast to a gendarmerie brigade based on the French model, which comprised four to six gendarmes. The chief of the Landgendarmerie was an infantry general . From this Landgendarmerie the field gendarmerie was formed when officers and sergeants were mobilized , supplemented by a few other commanded officers and a considerable number of NCOs and men from mounted units. The uniform of the field gendarmerie corresponded to that of the rural gendarmerie. The troops first gained importance in the wars of 1866 and 1870/71 . Her job was the security service in the stage, the traffic service and also security police functions such as counter-espionage .
At the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, the German army set up 33 field gendarmerie departments with a budget of 21 mounted NCOs and men each. They were increased to 115 in the course of the war. Distinguishing features were the ring collar and sometimes just an armband . In the Government General of Warsaw was set up a Military Police Brigade on 1 March 1915 at the Chief in the East set up a police inspection on 19 January 1916th Due to the decline in the discipline stage of the Western Front was set up a military police corps for special use on 4 October 1918 which was renamed on November 5 in Gendarmerie Regiment. 9th
From the end of 1916, NCOs, but sometimes also team ranks (first as auxiliary gendarmes, later as security NCOs), were assigned to the regional police authorities by the Deputy General Commands of the Army Corps . The gendarmerie of the federal states were to be strengthened by the personnel reinforcement. B. in Prussia had partly given up their personnel to build the field gendarmerie. For example, in 1917 the Oldenburgische Gendarmerie, with a staff of around 120 members, was reinforced by a good 40 auxiliary gendarme sent by the X Army Corps in Hanover . Some of the auxiliary gendarme were taken over by the gendarmerie corps in 1919.
In general, the field gendarmerie was supported during the war by light cavalry such as dragoons and hussars , who carried out military police tasks such as B. staff guards, prisoner-of-war guards, etc. took over.
The Imperial navy basically did not have a military police. However, members of the naval battalions were used as military officers in the Marine Corps Flanders . At the end of 1916, the fortress gendarmerie Wilhelmshaven was set up in the fortress Wilhelmshaven to counter espionage and to prevent the increasing attacks by naval members on the civilian population . It was dissolved in July 1919.
Weimar Republic
In the Reichswehr there were no units with police-like tasks.
Second World War - Feldgendarmerie, Secret Field Police, Feldjägerkommandos
In the course of the armament of the Wehrmacht , no structural military police were initially set up. During larger military exercises and also when Austria was annexed, civilian police officers were mobilized for military police tasks such as traffic control.
The field gendarmerie of the Wehrmacht only came into being after the beginning of the Second World War . Together with the military substitute system , it received the weapon color orange , which is still used today . It was built up with more than 8,000 police officers . Organizationally, it was subordinate to the respective major unit in the operational area or to the local commander as a leadership force . The Secret Field Police operated next to her, the personnel of which were recruited from members of the security police . Both the Feldgendarmerie and the GFP had a certain closeness to the SS, which in the Third Reich was responsible for the police force, due to the strong representation of police officers. The field gendarmerie and the secret field police were involved in war crimes and the Holocaust.
Feldjäger-Kommandos were set up in response to a Führer order from December 1943 in response to indiscipline, neglect and signs of disintegration that were increasingly emerging behind the front. The Feldjäger-Kommandos were an orderly force directly subordinate to the High Command of the Wehrmacht . This also resulted in the extremely rare subordination of the Waffen SS to the disciplinary authority of a unit belonging to the Wehrmacht . The commanders of the Feldjäger-Kommandos had the position and powers of an army commander -in-chief , including disciplinary penalties . In later orders, the leaders of the Feldjäger commandos and units were granted far-reaching powers, ranging from practically unrestricted dismissal and the dissolution of stage organizations to the requisitioning of other troops of order. They only had no right to intervene in the military tactical leadership. The main focus of the task was the control in the rear area , the search for scattered parts, the establishment of collection and collection lines as well as the search for deserters and unauthorized soldiers absent from the troops . The Feldgendarmerie was empowered to give orders to every soldier and every type of army.
In World War II , and especially the end of the war towards the German military policemen were the Wehrmacht thousands "deserters" in their hands and were in accordance with Hitler's slogan "The soldier can die, the deserter must die" executed . In popular parlance, the Feldgendarmen were referred to as chain dogs , alluding to the metal plaque with the inscription Feldgendarmerie or Feldjägerkommando that was worn on a chain around their necks . The field gendarmerie also became notorious because of the hero's theft , as they searched the refugee routes from the east for men who were potentially capable of weapons. The role of the military police has so far been one of the worst dealt with in the Nazi tyranny . The latter also applies to the amalgamation of field gendarmerie, secret field police , army or armed forces patrol services and military police commands.
The military police force of the Bundeswehr
In the traditional Prussian sense, the Bundeswehr named its military orderly troops as "Feldjäger". It traces its troop history back to the Reitende Feldjägerkorps of Frederick the Great. After General Heusinger signed the order number 1 for the Bundeswehr on October 6, 1955 , a military police training company was set up in the former air force hospital in Andernach . On January 30, 1956, the term “ military police ” was replaced by “Feldjäger” by the then State Secretary Rust . The name change was carried out with the intention of deliberately keeping the number of security organs with police force (especially those under federal control) small and separating the troops from the civilian police forces, since after the centrally organized police in the Third Reich they were again called decentralized police moved to the sovereignty of the federal states. Decisive for this was the memory of the time of National Socialism with its sprawling and sometimes competing security and police services in connection with constitutional concerns.
The Feldjägertruppe, as a leadership force, performs military police tasks, but is not actually a police force, such as the federal police or the state police . In times of peace, military police officers have no authority to issue instructions to non-Bundeswehr members unless they are in a military (security) area or it is absolutely necessary to fulfill their tasks (e.g. establishment of a military security area). This means that the powers of the military police are far below those of the foreign military police.
The Feldjägertruppe has been part of the armed forces base since 2002 . The Feldjägertruppe is led by the Feldjäger command of the Bundeswehr , based in Hanover .
See also
- Commandant service of the NVA (GDR)
literature
- Landjägermajor Werner Blankenstein: The Prussian Landjägerei through the ages , Erfurt 1931.
- Army service regulation 275, field gendarmerie regulation. (July 29, 1940).
- Karlheinz Böckle: military policemen, military police officers, military policemen. Your story to this day. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-613-01143-3 .
- Peter Schütz: The forerunners of the Bundeswehr Feldjäger - A contribution to the Prussian-German military law history. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11631-3 .
- Helmut Rettinghaus: The German military police. Volume 1: Erbe 1740 to 1952. Verlag Helmut Rettinghaus, Langen 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-025560-1 .
- Helmut Rettinghaus: The German military police. Volume 2: Order from 1952 until today. Verlag Helmut Rettinghaus, Langen 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-026373-6 .
- Peter Lutz Kalmbach: Police investigative organs of the armed forces justice. In: Criminology. Independent journal for criminal science and practice, 2/2013, 67th year, pp. 118–122.
- Johannes Heinen / Alexander Bajumi: Legal Foundations of the Feldjägerdienst, 11th edition, Walhalla Fachverlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-8029-6534-0
- City of Oldenburg - City Archives (Ed.): Oldenburg 1914–1918. A source volume on the everyday, social, military and mental history of the city of Oldenburg in the First World War . (Publications of the Oldenburg City Archives, Vol. 7), Oldenburg (Isensee) 2014. ISBN 978-3-7308-1080-4 .
- Edgar Graf von Matuschka: Organizational History of the Army 1890 to 1918 , in: Military History Research Office (Ed.): German Military History in Six Volumes 1648-1939 , Volume 3, Section V, Herrsching (Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft) 1983, pp. 157-282. ISBN 3-88199-112-3
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The hussars consisted almost entirely of volunteers, the temptation to desert was rather low here, and for this reason they were predestined for control tasks.
- ^ Ranking list as of October 6, 1913, War Ministry editors, Berlin 1913.
- ^ Curilla, Wolfgang .: The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, 1941-1944 . F. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 , p. 57 .
- ↑ Boris von Haken: Trellis at the murder trench. In: Die Zeit , Hamburg, No. 52, December 17, 2009, p. 60.