Auxiliary police

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SA deployed as auxiliary police at the arms roll call in Berlin, spring 1933

The auxiliary police (sometimes abbreviated as HiPo ) existed after the Nazis came to power between February and mid-August 1933 in Prussia and other German countries and included members of the SS , SA and the Stahlhelm . The HiPo played a central role in the terrorist elimination of political opponents of the National Socialists who were arrested and kidnapped. At the same time, the auxiliary police were a means of controlling the regular police officers, who were seen by the new Nazi rulers as politically "unreliable" to a large extent.

prehistory

Hermann Göring ( NSDAP ) was appointed Reich Commissioner for the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in the Hitler cabinet on January 30, 1933 . In this function he was the employer of the entire Prussian police and thus played a decisive role in the takeover and the establishment of the National Socialist regime, since political opponents could only be dispensed with by means of control over the executive organs of order.

Emergence

On February 22, 1933, the acting Prussian Minister of the Interior, Göring, ordered the formation of an auxiliary police force consisting primarily of the SA, SS and the paramilitary group Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten . The police officers had already instructed Göring on February 17, 1933 to establish the best possible understanding with the “national associations” (SA, SS and Stahlhelm), “in whose circles the most important state-preserving forces are represented”.

The SS-Gruppenführer Kurt Daluege had commissioned Göring to clean the police apparatus of allegedly “unreliable elements” as a “commissioner for special use”. An order was issued to the command post of the Prussian police stating: “The activities of anti-state organizations must be countered with the sharpest means. Police officers who use firearms in the exercise of these duties will be covered by me regardless of the consequences of using firearms. On the other hand, those who fail to show false consideration have to face the consequences of civil service law ”. That had the practical effect of an order to shoot and was a blatant invitation to political arbitrariness.

In order to increase the pressure on the police officers, the regular units were supported by a decree of February 22nd by SA and SS units as auxiliary police to ward off "increasing excesses from the radical left , especially the communist side". February 22nd is the founding date of HiPo, which was ready for use in Düsseldorf , for example, from the following day. The men were armed with weapons from the police barracks. They did not get their own uniform. The Prussian model was quickly adopted in other countries: In Hamburg, a HiPo was set up by a Senate decision on March 15, in Württemberg and Baden on March 10, and also in Bavaria (March 9/10, 1933).

scope

SS auxiliary police officer (right) together with a police officer in Berlin on the Reichstag election day on March 5, 1933

A total of 40,000 SA and SS men (25,000 SA and 15,000 SS members) as well as 10,000 steel helmet men were appointed auxiliary police officers and armed in Prussia. They wore a white armband that read "Auxiliary Police". The number of HiPo members made available to the regular police forces could vary greatly. Overall, the HiPo should make up around 10 percent of the existing police force. For example, 100 auxiliary police officers were called up in Aachen (Rhine Province), 32 of them from the SS, 46 from the SA and 22 from the Stahlhelm. It is also estimated that around 3,000 to 5,000 SA men were appointed auxiliary police in Berlin alone . There were 1,750 HiPo members in the state of Braunschweig and 2,445 in Württemberg.

According to a distribution key, a fifth of the 50,000 auxiliary police officers hired in Prussia also had to come from the “Stahlhelm”, but Göring had also hired some “commissioners at special disposal”, most of whom were SS leaders, to control his decrees.

tasks

Auxiliary police together with protection police during raid against communists and Jews in Berlin's Scheunenviertel , spring 1933

The auxiliary police were used by the Nazi government in the first few months as a tool to strengthen their power in support of the regular police. HiPo patrols or commands were usually accompanied by at least one police officer. The joint appearance gave the operations of the HiPo against political opponents of the Nazi rulers a coat of legality, at the same time the mere presence of HiPo forces alone may have limited the discretion of the regular police officers accompanying them, in the sense of a "sentiment police" surveillance .

The main focus of the police effectiveness of these SA forces lay in the political and police area, i.e. in the fight against actual and alleged political opponents of the National Socialists. Here the HiPo proceeded with extreme brutality and dragged their opponents to temporary torture sites and "wild" concentration camps . HiPo only carried out criminal police tasks in the true sense of the word in exceptional cases. The HiPo members did not become civil servants; the Prussian Ministry of the Interior only occasionally took them into service. The HiPo units were partially barracked and were only connected to larger police headquarters. They received a financial allowance for their services.

Well equipped with this were “ simple SA and SS men who had previously operated against the state and now - armed with weapons from the police authorities - had a free hand 'from above'. An escalation of the violence was therefore inevitable. “After years of street fighting and unemployment, the HiPo members had the feeling that“ they had finally been 'left off the chain' ”. They wanted to " carry out regular campaigns of revenge against political opponents, above all the communists, and ruthlessly settle 'outstanding accounts' ."

resolution

HiPo was dissolved again in practically all Prussian government districts in the course of August 1933. This was preceded by a message from Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on July 13th that after August 15th no funds would be paid to support the HiPo members. Remnants of the groups were restructured into "special police units" such as the SA field police . After the dissolution, some SS groups were integrated into the SS Sonderkommandos as barracked hundreds ( political readiness ) and were reorganized there as the core of the later SS disposable troops. Numerous HiPo men, especially from the SS, were put into the service of the first "wild" concentration camps before August and were deployed there as security guards, for example in the Ahrensbök concentration camp , in the Breitenau concentration camp , in the Kemna concentration camp near Wuppertal (SA), in the Saxon concentration camp Lichtenburg or in the concentration camp Sonnenburg near Küstrin .

Technical protection police

These specialized civil defense services were created to provide rapid assistance after air strikes.

See also

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm: The police in the Nazi state. The history of your organization at a glance , Schöningh Collection on the past and present, Paderborn 1997, p. 47f.
  • Richard J. Evans : The Third Reich . Volume 1: Ascent . Translated by Holger Fliessbach / Udo Rennert, Munich 2004
  • Peter Longerich : The brown battalions. History of the SA , Munich: CH Beck 1989
  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 .
  • Ulrich Herbert , Karin Orth , Christoph Dieckmann (Ed.): The National Socialist Concentration Camps . Frankfurt am Main 2002
  • Bastian Fleermann: "... pursue until it is destroyed". Wave of arrests and violence against political opponents in Düsseldorf in spring 1933. In: Rhein-Maas. Studies on history, language and culture 1 (2010), pp. 167–198.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Friedrich Wilhelm: The police in the Nazi state. The history of your organization at a glance , Schöningh Collection on the past and present, Paderborn 1997, p. 38, p. 40.
  2. ^ Lothar Gruchmann : Justice in the Third Reich 1933-1940. Adaptation and submission in the Gürtner era . 3rd improved edition, Munich 2001, p. 321.
  3. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/izpb/7399/beginn-der-nationalsozialistische-herrschaft?p=all
  4. ↑ http://www.chroniknet.de/daly_de.0.html?year=1933&month=2&day=22
  5. ↑ http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/1933/index.html
  6. ↑ (unpublished) decree of the Prussian. MdI IIC 59 No. 40/33, cf. Friedrich Wilhelm, p. 47.
  7. ↑ See: Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Baden 1933. The National Socialist Takeover of Power in the Field of Tension between State and Reich Policy. Materials. Readers and workbooks 11/2017 , here the chapter: Synchronization of the police , Stuttgart 2017, p. 11 f .; Online as PDF.
  8. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm: The police in the Nazi state. An overview of the history of your organization , Schöningh Collection for the past and present, Paderborn 1997, p. 38, cf. P. 40.
  9. ↑ Bastian Fleermann, p. 171.
  10. ↑ Bastian Fleermann, p. 169.
  11. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm, p. 48.
  12. ^ Reich Law on Fire Extinguishing , Reich Law Gazette, year 1938, Part I, page 1662 ff.