Barracked People's Police

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Parade of the barracked people's police on May 1, 1953, Marx-Engels-Platz, Berlin
Medal for "Loyalty to the CIP" ( bronze level )

The Kasernierte Volkspolizei ( KVP ) was the forerunner of the National People's Army of the GDR . Its history began on July 1, 1952 , when first the readiness ( regiments ) of the main training administration of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR (MdI) were formed in divisions of the land forces . The main staff was initially in Berlin-Adlershof (Rudower Chaussee) and from June 1954 in Strausberg . The cut of the KVP uniform resembled the army uniform of the Soviet Army , the basic color was initially dark blue, laterKhaki .

After the establishment of the Bundeswehr , the barracked People's Police, numbering around 100,000, became the GDR's official military as the National People's Army.

history

Emergence

In October 1948, on the orders of the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD), 40 people's police stations with 250 men each were set up and barracked. They were subordinated to the “Main Department Border Police and Readiness” (HA GP / B) in the “German Administration of the Interior” (DVdI). In July 1949, the border police were removed from the HA GP / B and renamed the “Administration for Training” (VfS) (General Inspector Wilhelm Zaisser ). When the GDR was founded on October 7, 1949, the Ministry of the Interior (MdI) emerged from the DVdI . From April 1950 the VfS became the main training administration (HVA) under General Inspector Heinz Hoffmann , to which the readiness belonged. After the order issued in April 1952 from Moscow to build up a regular army, the Barracked People's Police was formed on July 1, 1952 on the orders of the Minister of the Interior, Willi Stoph , from the HVA readiness staff . In August 1952, the territorial administration of the KVP Pasewalk began its work as the management body of the KVP offices for the northern region of the republic ( Eggesin , Prora , Prenzlau and Fünfeichen ).

Role during the 1953 uprising

From the end of 1952, the GDR leadership's one-sided policy of armaments and heavy industry caused a supply crisis for the population. This erupted in the uprising of June 17, 1953 in which around half a million people took part in demonstrations or strikes on July 17, 1953. The suppression of the uprising was left mainly to Soviet troops of the Soviet Armed Forces Group in Germany . The supreme command for these operations lay with the Soviet headquarters in the GDR. On the first day of the uprising, the CIP was only deployed with around 8,200 People's Police and, unlike the Soviet Army, it was not allowed to use firearms. The following day, the leadership of the CIP, in coordination with the Soviets, ordered the people's police to use firearms against their own population. During the crackdown on demonstrations in Leipzig , Dresden and Rostock , there were injuries through the use of firearms by the KVP. The CIP shot a demonstrator in Halle . Up until June 23, 2,329 participants in the uprising were arrested by the KVP, with barracked plainclothes police officers spying on and arresting them. The deployment was rated as problematic in parts within the GDR leadership. The fear of the senior officers that the People's Police might show solidarity with the insurgents and refuse orders did not come true, but major deficiencies in the motorization, operational preparation, food and medical supplies as well as communication were found. After the uprising, the military leadership of the GDR also assigned internal security as a sub-task to the CIP. Each unit was now assigned a defined territorial area in which it should be used in the event of unrest. The civilian leadership of the SED reacted to the uprising with a reorientation of economic policy. As part of this new course , armaments efforts against consumer goods were throttled. As a result, the people's police force was reduced by around 24,000 men, but leaving out the air component of the people's police force. The leadership of the CIP also used the wave of layoffs to get rid of politically unreliable members.

Transition to the NVA

With the incorporation of VP-See and VP-Luft in August 1953 , the administrative structure of the KVP (-Land) was changed again. So the previous TV in the Territorial Administration North (or TV 12) with seat in Pasewalk and in the Territorial Administration South (TV 24) with seat in Leipzig. In addition, the newly added air associations operated from then on under the name Aeroklub . In the course of the decentralization of the command posts of the armed organs , the staff of the KVP was relocated from the capital Berlin to Strausberg , 35 kilometers to the east . The VP-See administration, which is already based in Parow , also experienced another change of location and from then on operated from Rostock . The administration of the Aeroklubs (VdAK) had already been relocated in August 1953 with the incorporation of VP-Luft into the KVP.

Even before the NVA was founded, there was an attempt at the beginning of the 1950s to create a socialist, German military tradition for the armed forces of the GDR within the management staff of the KVP. The Peasants' War of 1524/25 and the Prussian Wars of Liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte 1806 to 1815 served as models.

As early as 1955, the government of the GDR reported the de facto operational readiness of the KVP to convert it into regular armed forces of the GDR. The central committee of the CPSU forbade the official regularization of the CIP for political reasons. This should only take place after West Germany had been rearmed. In October 1955, Willi Stoph formulated a detailed plan for the further expansion of the CIP. The total strength should be increased to around 150,000. This cadre army, in which every soldier and officer should be trained one level above his current function, was to form the basis for further expansion of the GDR's military. The existing college for officers was to be converted into a military academy , which was to train a further 10,000 officers by the end of 1956. Increased advertising measures for the service at the CIP should solve the personnel problem.

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In November 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany founded the Bundeswehr with the commissioning of the first 101 volunteers. In contrast, there were 100,000 officers, NCOs and soldiers of the barracked People's Police. The establishment of the West German army was seen within the KVP as a sign of a further development of the KVP into the regular military of the GDR. On the eve of the transition to the National People's Army, the leadership of the KVP saw progress in training and equipment, but criticized the lack of combat training, night, winter and amphibious warfare. A particular problem was the quality and quantity of the offspring. In internal reports, a low level of education was mentioned - around a fifth of the recruits had no primary school certificate. Likewise, too high a proportion of CIP members would have relatives in Germany. The pool of personnel that could be recruited through volunteer recruitment was also limited and every year positions remained unfilled due to a lack of applicants. As early as 1954, calls for the introduction of compulsory military service by high-ranking CIP officers are documented.

The recruitment campaigns for the CIP carried out in 1955 and 1956 were viewed by the political leadership of the SED as not very successful. Here companies or party organs were allocated fixed quotas as to how many voluntary applicants they had to deliver. The party used social pressure, including dismissal or unemployment, to force people into the CIP. The KVP also established the tradition of the GDR state to tie advancement in party organizations to participation in the armed organs. For thousands, the threat of service with the CIP was a reason to flee across the still passable border to the west.

On January 18, 1956, after consulting the SED leadership with the Central Committee of the CPSU , the People's Chamber passed the law "on the creation of the National People's Army and the Ministry of National Defense". When the law was passed, the future Minister of Defense Willi Stoph publicly rejected the introduction of compulsory military service. The KVP staff in Strausberg was converted to the Ministry for National Defense of the GDR (MfNV).

The MfNV embodied the military district I within the National People's Army . The territorial administrations north and south formed the military districts V and III of the land forces , the administrations of the aeroclubs and the VP-See were adapted in their structure to the armed forces of the future army. The resulting air forces / air defense and naval forces formed the military districts II and IV.

For the soldiers and officers of the KVP, however, little changed apart from a new uniform and a new swearing-in from February 1956, as the previous structures only continued to operate under a different label. The uniform of the NVA differed greatly from the Soviet uniforms of the KVP and showed strong similarities to the uniform of the Wehrmacht and the army in the German Empire. The leadership hoped that the specifically German uniform would have a propagandistic effect; it should stand in contrast to the German army uniforms based on the American models. In parts of the CIP and the population of the GDR, it was rejected as a “fascist uniform”. Due to procurement problems, the new uniforms took place gradually, as not all soldiers of the NVA could be equipped with a new uniform at the beginning.

The founding of the NVA was prepared and accompanied by a centrally orchestrated propaganda campaign by the SED. Companies and party organs passed resolutions to approve, and citizens loyal to the system wrote telegrams to the SED leadership requesting that an army be set up as a reaction to West German rearmament. Internal documents of the SED, however, state a negative attitude towards the East German rearmament among intellectuals, the youth and in church circles. The motives were mostly of a pacifist nature and justified the rejection of the army with the fear of falling living standards and fear of the introduction of conscription. Occasionally there were anonymous leaflets and letters.

On March 1, 1956, these measures were largely completed, whereupon the MfNV of the GDR and the administrations of the military districts officially started their work. By resolution of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the GDR , the founding day was declared the future “Day of the National People's Army”.

After the transfer of the last KVP units to the NVA, the KVP was declared dissolved on December 31, 1956.

structure

Document stocks

The documents of the KVP (87 running meters ) are in the Federal Archives-Military Archives in Freiburg im Breisgau .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Torsten Diedrich: The barracked people's police (1952-1956) in Hans Ehlert , Rüdiger Wenzke (Hrsg.): In the service of the party - manual of the armed organs of the GDR . Berlin 1998, pp. 351-357.
  2. ↑ Torsten Diedrich , Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 340 f.
  3. ↑ Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 453 f.
  4. ↑ Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, pp. 622-626.
  5. ↑ Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 620.
  6. ↑ Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 626 f.
  7. ↑ Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 684.
  8. ↑ a b Torsten Diedrich, Rüdiger Wenzke: The camouflaged army - history of the barracked people's police 1952-1956 . Berlin 2001, p. 685 f.
  9. ↑ Torsten Diedrich: Die Kasernierte Volkspolizei (1952-1956) in Hans Ehlert, Rüdiger Wenzke (ed.): In the service of the party - manual of the armed organs of the GDR . Berlin 1998 p. 364.

literature

Web links

Commons : Barracked People's Police  - Collection of images, videos and audio files