Order police

Standard of the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei

The Ordnungspolizei ( OrPo , also Orpo ) formed the organizational roof of the uniformed police forces in the German Reich during the National Socialist era . It was headed by Kurt Daluege and reported directly to the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police, Heinrich Himmler . The regulatory police were instrumental in carrying out war crimes as well as the Holocaust , Porajmos and the murders of the sick .

Police of National Socialist Germany

Sergeant of the Ordnungspolizei inspecting Jews in a market in Lublin (May 1941)

The German police were centralized as early as 1933 and then divided into two branches in 1936: the Ordnungspolizei and the Security Police . Heinrich Himmler was responsible for the reorganization. As "Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry", he was directly subordinate to the Minister of the Interior and as SS leader to Hitler.

The uniformed police (protection police, gendarmerie, community police) were organized in the "Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei", it was located at the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Berlin, Unter den Linden) and existed until the end of the war in 1945. The management of the Ordnungspolizei was ex 1936 according to the executive order General of the police and SS-Oberstgruppenführer Kurt Daluege , followed in September 1943 by the General of the Police and SS-Obergruppenführer Alfred Wünnenberg . Your position was "Chief of the Ordnungspolizei".

The uniformed security police consisted of the criminal police (Kripo) and the secret state police (Gestapo). In 1936, SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich was in charge of the Main Office of the Security Police , who had built up the Security Service (SD) from the political police forces of the federal states on Himmler's behalf since 1933 . The security police were responsible for the prosecution of more serious and in particular political crimes in the Reich and in occupied countries. In 1939 the SD was "connected" and the main office of the security police was renamed the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which carried out a regime of terror and murder in the occupied territories.

In this interlocking of the SS and the police, both were tied exclusively to the “ Führer ” through Himmler . In this constellation, the SS police were just as little under the control of the Interior Minister as were the military SS formations of the Wehrmacht.

The original plan was to merge the entire police force under the umbrella of the SS and SD . Until the end of the war, however, this only succeeded incompletely, more so with the Security Police than with the Ordnungspolizei. By linking the state police leadership to the party organization SS by filling the leadership positions with SS members - with only a few exceptions already veteran police officers - it was ensured that the National Socialist German Workers' Party had complete control over internal security in Germany. This fulfilled a characteristic of the totalitarian state organization .

Duties of the regulatory police

Strength of the police force

In 1938, the Ordnungspolizei had 62,000 police officers, 9,000 of whom were grouped into 108 police officers. In ten major German cities, a police training department was formed from three hundred groups. Since police officers were released from military service, the order police could reach a strength of 131,000 men by 1939. With the beginning of the war the best units were transferred to a police division of 16,000 men of the Wehrmacht and later converted into the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division . Two police regiments from Danzig were also handed over to the Wehrmacht. Finally, the police transferred 8,000 men to the field gendarmerie . The other police officers remained exempt from compulsory military service. In order to win new police officers, 26,000 young Germans and 6,000 ethnic Germans were allowed to be recruited. In addition, 91,500 reservists born between 1901 and 1909 were gradually drafted. By the middle of 1940 the Ordnungspolizei had a strength of 244,500 men. In 1939 the hundreds of police battalions were formed into 21 police battalions, each with 500 men, of which 13 were assigned to the Wehrmacht, for example to arrest Polish soldiers who were scattered behind the lines. In mid-1940 there were already 101 police battalions, most of which were stationed in the occupied countries. The teams consisted to a considerable extent of drafted reservists, hence the name reserve police battalions.

General police duties

Police officers raid Krakow

As a general police force, the main task of the Ordnungspolizei was to ensure public safety and order through immediate enforcement measures. The protective police were responsible for security in the cities, the gendarmerie for security in the country, special traffic gendarmerie departments monitored the traffic on motorways and national expressways.

The police was only responsible to a very limited extent for investigating crimes. She cleared up minor offenses (such as simple theft and violations ). The Reich Criminal Police Office and the Secret State Police as well as the SD , whose joint management was combined in the Reich Security Main Office , were responsible for more serious and especially political offenses .

Special tasks and character of the police in the dictatorship

Destroyed Jewish shop, Berlin, November 10, 1938

Police officers take arrested Soviet civilians away, photo from September 1942 from the Federal Archives

In addition to the general tasks of every enforcement police activity, under the conditions of the Nazi dictatorship , the police were occupied with functions that corresponded to their politically desired role as an instrument of the oppressive state . As part of the Nazi civil service law in particular, the management staff was ideologically largely into line was and the police organization has been linked to an increasing extent with Nazi organizations such as the SS. The implementation of National Socialist laws (such as the racial laws ) was only possible with the cooperation of the police (as well as the rest of the state civil servants) . The loss of the rule of law became more and more apparent in everyday police operations. These included, for example, the arrest of opponents of the regime on blatantly false accusations, the confiscation of telephones or cars in Jewish households, or the deliberate tolerance or support for overt acts of violence by National Socialist officials. During the November pogroms in 1938 (also called Reichskristallnacht ), the police were ordered by their boss Daluege on November 10th to accompany these demonstrations and actions only with weak men in civilian clothes and only to intervene in extreme emergencies. In addition to the political police organs, the Ordnungspolizei was involved to a considerable extent in the monitoring and prosecution of politically dissenters, the implementation of protective custody , the maintenance of the war economy and finally in the deportation of Jews and other persecuted persons to extermination camps in what was then Reich territory .

This involvement, the police monitoring of the deportation of Jews from Germany from autumn 1941, was formally regulated by an express letter from OrPo boss Kurt Daluege dated October 14, 1941: The "transports" should be 1:12 (1 officer and 12 crew members) ) are accompanied and guarded. All transports from the Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the first waves of deportation - Litzmannstadt Ghetto (Warthegau) in October and November 1941, Minsk Ghettos (Belarus), Riga and Kaunas (Baltic States) in November / December 1941 - were carried out by units of the OrPo accompanied and thus actually handled on behalf of the Gestapo. The officer had to write a detailed report about each individual transport and send it to the Reich Security Main Office, Section IV B 4 ( Adolf Eichmann ). Two such reports, both from the Gestapo control center district in Düsseldorf, have been preserved: the report by Paul Salitter (Riga) and that by Wilhelm Meurin (Minsk).

Involvement in war crimes

A number of units of the Ordnungspolizei took part in war missions during World War II . Even before the war began, German police were involved in the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 and in the so-called smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic in 1939 . Police officers also took part in the attack on Poland and murdered Polish citizens who were classified as "dangerous" or "undesirable". Forces of the security police were also involved in the deportation of Jews to the Soviet-occupied part of Poland .

The extent of the involvement of German police units in war crimes in the further course of the war has made clear recent research. Special mention should be made here of the so-called colonial police, whose main task was to take action against partisans . The climax of the criminal police actions was the systematic involvement of law enforcement officers in the Holocaust (mostly mass shootings of Jews) and the murder of other Nazi victims from 1941 to 1944 in Poland, the Baltic States and Belarus . According to the author and former Hamburg Justice Senator Wolfgang Curilla, it is “the darkest chapter in German police history”, in which more than 20,000 police officers were actively involved. More than two million Jews were murdered with the direct and indirect participation of the regulatory police. The American historian Christopher Browning investigated the involvement of the police in these crimes on the basis of 125 interrogation protocols of members of the Hamburg Reserve Police Battalion 101 from the 1960s.

Police battalion	time	place	did
Police battalion	involved in major massacres
Police Battalion 303	1941	Babyn Yar near Kiev, Zhytomyr	Approximately 33,000 Jews are murdered in Babyn Yar near Kiev
Police Battalion 304	1941	Starokostjantyniw , Vinnytsia , Hajssyn , Kirowohrad , Bila Tserkva ,	various mass shootings with a total of 17,000 dead
Police Battalion 306	1941	Deblin, General Government, Pinsk	Shooting of 6,000 Russian prisoners of war , murder of at least 16,200 Jews
Police Battalion 307	1941	Brest-Litovsk	Shooting of about 4,000 Jews
Police Battalion 309	1941	Białystok	Murder of around 2000 Jews
Police Battalion 316 and Police Battalion 322	1941	Białystok	Murder of around 3,000 Jews
Police Battalion 320	1941-1944	Kamenets-Podolsk , Rovno , Kostopol , Pinsk	Murder of about 45,000 Jews
Reserve Police Battalion 101	1941-1943	Józefów , Łomazy , Końskowola , “ Harvest Festival ”, Poniatowa	Murder of around 38,000 Jews

Division of the regulatory police

Police leadership

Structure of the main office OrPo in the Ministry of the Interior

Command Office of the Ordnungspolizei
- Chief of the regulatory police
- Main office
- Justice with the head of OrPo
Administration and Law Office (VuR)
- Head of office and 3 office groups
Command office
- Head of office
- Office group command I
- Office group command II
- Office group command III
  - Medical services
  - German Colonial Police (1938–1943)
  - Technical emergency aid
  - Fire Police (1939)
General Inspectorate of the Security Police
General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie

Subordinate agencies

Outline level	Protection police	Gendarmerie	Administrative police
highest level	Higher SS and police leaders		Higher Police Authorities
Middle plane	Inspectors of the regulatory police		Medium police forces
regional management level	Staff officers of the security police	Staff officers of the gendarmerie
District level	Commanders of the protection police in police sections	Gendarmerie commanders in gendarmerie circles	District Police Authorities
Local level	Police stations	Gendarmerie departments with subordinate posts	Local Police Authorities

Police divisions

Protection police post in Katowice , autumn 1939

Kurt Daluege (2nd from left) and Adolf von Bomhard (3rd from left) in the Rathenow Police Riding School , October 15, 1940

In 1941 the Ordnungspolizei was further subdivided and comprised the following police offices until the end of the war.

Protection police: The protection police were responsible for general police tasks and performed their service in the cities and larger communities . A distinction was made between the protection police of the Reich (cities), the protection police of the communities (larger communities) and barracked police (tasks similar to those of the gendarmerie , which performed police tasks in small communities). She was also responsible for traffic police tasks (traffic gendarmerie) and, in addition to customs border protection, also for securing the borders.
Administrative police: The Administrative Police was responsible for the administration of the Ordnungspolizei and had extensive authority over all OrPo departments. In addition, it was the central point for the collection of files and command point for all areas of the administrations that were concerned with public security and order, such as the health police , trade police and construction police .
Traffic police: In addition to the traffic gendarmerie, the traffic police were tasked with monitoring traffic. In contrast to the traffic gendarmerie, she mainly performed her duties on motorways and was also responsible for solving major traffic accidents . In addition, she performed protocol services on state visits and was responsible, in addition to the SS units, for accompanying leaders of the state.
Water police: In addition to the usual water police tasks on inland waters and in ports , the water police also performed tasks on the high seas as a coast guard , some with military equipment. In ports, SS port security troops from the General SS were subordinate to her.
Railway protection police: The railway protection police were preferably formed from reserve officers from members of the Reichsbahn who were delegated to the order police. The railway protection police were partly armed with military equipment and were primarily intended to prevent sabotage of railway facilities . In addition, she also performed normal railway police duties.
Landguard: The Landwacht was set up as an auxiliary police force in 1942 on the orders of the Reichsführer SS , Heinrich Himmler . Landguard posts were then set up at all major gendarmerie posts in the Reich. Its members were armed and wore a white armband with the words "Landwacht" to identify them. They were responsible for guarding prisoners of war and forced labor . In addition, the Landwacht was also used in the search for fugitive prisoners of war. In the urban areas, these tasks were carried out by the so-called “city watch”. In addition, land guard units of the SS were set up in the General Government and the Netherlands . In November 1942, on the orders of the Lublin SS and Police Leader, Odilo Globocnik , the 1st SS Land Guard Battalion Zamosc was set up in the Litzmannstadt resettlement camp . And in the Netherlands the SS and Police Leader Northwest, Hanns Albin Rauter, ordered the formation of the Landwacht Netherlands , which on March 11, 1943 was merged into SS Grenadier Regiment 1 "Landwacht Netherlands" .
Fire police: In 1938, on the basis of the Reich Fire Brigade Act, the volunteer fire brigades and compulsory fire brigades were subordinated to the regulatory police. At the height of the Second World War, almost two million full-time and volunteer firefighters were working under the supervision of the fire police.

Air raid police: The air raid police was a civil defense facility that was subordinate to the police from July 1942. It replaced the previous security and auxiliary service , which until then had been subordinate to the Reich Aviation Ministry . The reorganization was essentially related to the tactical leadership of the fire brigade units during the bombing raids on Germany , during which subordination to other police units seemed sensible. The air raid police was divided into different specialist departments, the most important of which were the fire extinguishing and detoxification service, the repair service and the medical service . The core of these units were members of the fire police , volunteer fire brigades , technical emergency aid and the German Red Cross , while the main part of the teams consisted of conscripted men, women, young people and foreigners.
Technical emergency aid: The Technische Nothilfe (TeNo, TN) was founded in 1919 and was initially mainly used in "wild" strikes to maintain operations that were classified as vital. Later and until the time of National Socialism, the organization's tasks were shifted to disaster control and air protection as part of the security and emergency services and the air raid police. In 1943 the TN had around 100,000 members. From 1938, TN units were also assigned to the Wehrmacht for special technical tasks.
Radio protection: The radio protection was formed jointly by members of the SS and the police. He was responsible for securing radio stations against sabotage and also for warding off partisan attacks on soldiers' stations. He also carried out investigations into criminal offenses in the field of broadcasting (such as listening to foreign broadcasters forbidden).
Factory security police: The factory security police had the task of protecting industrial plants against sabotage and theft. She was responsible for the protection of objects of importance to the war effort. The staff consisted of civilians (mostly company employees) who were under the direction of the police and who were wearing General SS uniforms. But badges of the Ordnungspolizei and not the SS were worn on these uniforms.

Gun colors

The police departments were identified by weapon colors , for example the

Protective Police of the Reich, Police Generals : light green
Protective police of the municipalities: burgundy red (from 1942: light green)
Gendarmerie: orange

Ranks of the order police

The ranks and rank badges followed the military model for the crews and NCOs, and for the officers almost entirely. The individual police types differed in the colors of their uniforms and shoulder pieces (gendarmerie orange, protection police of the municipalities wine-red , protection police of the Reich green, water protection police sand-colored , fire protection police crimson red , generals of all police forces green). Air raid police, railway protection police, postal security and technical emergency aid used a very different system for ranks and badges.

Rank badge for the Reich Police, the municipalities, the Water Police, the Fire Police and the Gendarmerie

The information corresponds to the status of April 10, 1941.

Pauldrons, caps and collar tabs of the men and officers

not shown. police contender
1 police sub Sergeant
2 Rottwachtmeister
3 police Sergeant
4 police Oberwachtmeister and Junker OA
5 Revier- (area) Oberwachtmeister and train-Oberwachtmeister
6 police main Sergeant and upper Junker OA
7 police Master
without fig. police - Chief Master (1 star, silver) , Police Inspector (2 stars, silver) , Chief Police Inspector (2 stars, gold) .

Not shown in the graphic above is the rank of Police Candidate . This marked shoulder pieces in the color of a badge without white angular decoration on the outer flat cord. After six months of service, he also put a rank star on the left lower sleeve (analogous to the Army rank of Oberschützen or the SS rank of SS man).

Managing main sergeants in closed police formations (e.g. training battalions, police hundreds), in their function as company sergeants (spit), had worn two "piston rings" made of silver-colored sergeants ' braid over both cuffs since 1939, similar to the main sergeants of the Wehrmacht. The provision was extended to the main sergeant's service door in 1940 .

The also not shown Unterführer ranks police (gendarmerie) chief master , protection police (gendarmerie) inspector and protection police (gendarmerie) chief inspector wore the shoulder boards of the police masters, additionally with one or two silver-colored stars; As a special feature, the chief inspector had two gold-colored stars as prescribed for officers. Presumably introduced in July 1936, the rank of chief inspector seems to have been out of use again before December 1939.

The ranks from the police (gendarmerie) master up wore the cap of the police (gendarmerie) officers (with a braided silver cord) with their uniform. The officer's collar games, however, only led the ranks from the inspector upwards, then later from the Revier (district) lieutenant upwards.

Officers' shoulder boards

In accordance with the circular of the Reich Minister of the Interior (RMdI) of December 30, 1939, the ranks of the senior master and inspector were put on shoulder boards for the ranks of lieutenant and first lieutenant and their salutation ("Leutnant") in the protective police of the Reich, in the municipal police and in the gendarmerie. , "Oberleutnant") approved; At the same time, the police (gendarmerie) masters were approved the silver officer's cap cord. After at least five years of service as a security police (gendarmerie) inspector, but not before the age of 50, the captain's uniform and salutation could be approved.

Obermeister and inspectors were more senior than officers of the same rank who were younger in age. After at least five years in the rank, but not before the age of 50, inspectors (Revier Oberleutnant) were allowed to wear the captain's uniform, the salutation was then "captain". Corresponding applications had to be submitted to the RMdI via official channels. The civil service and salary regulations for the chief masters and inspectors remained unaffected.

With a ruling of July 4, 1940, the designation of these three ranks was changed for the last time, namely Revier-Leutnant (in the gendarmerie as district lieutenant ), Revier- (district) first lieutenant and Revier- (district) captain . At the same time the gold-colored stars of rank of the officers were exchanged for the silver-colored stars of the subordinates.

Revier and district officers were equated with the Wehrmacht war officers .

Traditionally, the basic color of the shoulder pieces and collar tabs was “green”. In order to distinguish them from the officers of the Wehrmacht, the shoulder pieces, collar tabs and piping were also kept in the weapon color usual for the branch of service, branch of service, special troop, service or uses .

Rank insignia

Kurt Daluege in the uniform of a general in the Prussian State Police (1933)

Officer ranks of the Ordnungspolizei 1936–1945 compared with the SS

Generals and staff officers of the Ordnungspolizei 1936–1945 compared with the SS
Police rank	Rank - SS	1936-1942
Chief of the German Police and Reichsführer SS
Colonel General of the Police	SS Colonel Group Leader	-
General of the police	SS-Obergruppenführer	-
Lieutenant General of the Police	SS group leader	-
Major General of the Police	SS Brigade Leader	-

Police Colonel	SS standard leader	-
Police lieutenant colonel	SS-Obersturmbannführer	-
Major in the police	SS-Sturmbannführer	-
Police captain in general Revier-Hauptmann (protection police) District Captain (Gendarmerie)	SS-Hauptsturmführer	-
Lieutenant of the police in general Revier-Oberleutnant (Protection Police) District First Lieutenant (Gendarmerie)	SS-Obersturmführer	-
Lieutenant of the police in general Revier-Leutnant (Schutzpolizei) District Lieutenant (Gendarmerie)	SS Sturmführer	-

There were only generals and colonel-generals in the Reich Schutzpolizei and the Fire Police. Head of the German Police was a position within the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

Collar Tabs

Because of the connection between the two offices of Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, no separate collar tab was introduced for the Chief of the German Police.

Alignment of rank between police and SS

In connection with the desired merger of the police and the SS, police officers should increasingly be encouraged to join the SS voluntarily. In the course of a so-called rank adjustment , the officers who joined the SS would in future have the corresponding SS rank in addition to their police rank. The assignments have been changed several times because the police have repeatedly renamed and upgraded, especially the sergeant ranks. In April 1941, for example, the rank of police sergeant rose from a team rank to a subordinate rank.

Rank comparison of the Security Police, Ordnungspolizei (administration, general service) and Schutzstaffel (SS)
(status: April 10, 1941 to May 8, 1945)
Security Police ranks	Ranks of the Ordnungspolizei (administrative service)	Ranks of the Ordnungspolizei (General Service)	Ranks General SS
Men (teams)
Criminal assistant candidate in preparatory service	-	candidate	SS candidate
-	-	Candidate (after six months of service)	SS man
-	-	Sergeant	SS storm man
-	-	Red Sergeant	SS Rottenführer
Unterführer (NCOs)
Detective Trainee	Clerk messenger caretaker	Constable	SS-Unterscharführer
ap detective assistant (unscheduled position)	ap police assistant	Sergeant major	SS squad leader
Detective Assistant	Police assistant police prison superintendent	Revier-Oberwachtmeister (protection police) District-Oberwachtmeister (gendarmerie) Zugwachtmeister (closed police units) Junker	SS-Oberscharführer
Chief Detective Assistant	Police Prison Sergeant	Hauptwachtmeister Oberjunker	SS-Hauptscharführer
[Detective Secretary]	[Police Secretary]	master	SS Sturmscharführer
-	-	Obermeister (like master, additionally 1 Silober rank star)
-	-	Inspector (like master, additionally 2 silver rank stars)
-	-	Chief Inspector (1936–1939; like master craftsman, plus 2 gold stars)
Leaders (officers)
Detective Secretary Auxiliary Criminal Inspector Detective Inspector on probation / for examination	Police Secretary, Office Secretary, Technical Senior Secretary a.p. Police inspector	Revier lieutenant police officer	SS-Untersturmführer
Chief Criminal Secretary Criminal Inspector a.p. Detective inspector	Chief Police Secretary Police Inspector (also with allowance) Assessor Ministerial Registrar	Revier-Oberleutnant Lieutenant of the police	SS-Obersturmführer
Detective Inspector a.p. Detective	Chief Police Inspector a.p. Police Council a.p. Bailiff government assessor	Revier-Hauptmann Captain of the police	SS-Hauptsturmführer
Kriminalrat Criminal Director, Government and Criminal Council	Police advisor, Amtsrat, government councilor	Major in the police	SS-Sturmbannführer
Higher government and criminal councilor	Upper Government Council	Police lieutenant colonel	SS-Obersturmbannführer
Government and criminal director Reich criminal director	Government Director Ministerial Councilor	Police Colonel	SS standard leader
Higher SS u. Police chiefs (generals)
???	Ministerial Director	Major General of the Police and SS Brigade Leader	SS Brigade Leader
???	Ministerial Director	Lieutenant General of the Police and SS Group Leader	SS group leader

Police officers in particular had to prove themselves in an unscheduled position for three years when they were recruited before they were finally appointed to the civil service and promoted to the next higher salary group (while retaining their previous grade!). Until then, they used the prefix "ap" for their official title, for example "ap Kriminalrat" for the unscheduled criminal inspector.
The official designations "Schutzpolizei- (Gendarmerie-) Inspektor" (middle service, from December 30, 1939 "Revier-Oberleutnant") and "Polizei-Inspektor" (high administrative service) are not to be confused with each other.

Also Ministerialblatt

Careers in security and emergency services, air raid warning service or with the air raid police

Teams and subordinates

Air raid man
Squad leader
Squad leader
Main group leader
Staff group leader

leader

Security and auxiliary service (until 1942) and air raid police (from 1942)
- Platoon leader (equivalent to lieutenant)
- Oberzugführer
- Standby leader
- Department head

Air raid warning service (until 1942)
- Platoon leader
- Oberzugführer
- Warning center guide
- Warning center chief
- Department head

Careers in technical emergency aid

Crews and NCOs

Candidate for technical emergency aid
Sub-superintendent of technical emergency aid
Red Sergeant for Technical Emergency Aid
Sergeant for technical emergency aid
Supervisor of the technical emergency aid
Train sergeant for technical emergency aid
Chief Constable of the Technical Emergency Aid
On-call manager of the technical emergency aid
Master of technical emergency aid

Officers

Platoon leader of the technical emergency aid
Chief platoon leader of the technical emergency aid
Stand-by leader of the technical emergency aid
Head of the technical emergency aid department
Head of Department of Technical Emergency Aid
National leader of technical emergency aid
Deputy Reichsführer of the technical emergency aid
Reichsführer of the technical emergency aid

Transfer of police officers to the field gendarmerie

can be found in the table below.

With the outbreak of World War II, numerous officials of the Order Police were in the military police transferred the Wehrmacht: rank fixing
Rank in the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo)	Rank in the field gendarmerie (FG)
Constable	Sergeant of the FG
Sergeant major	Sergeant of the FG
Revier-Oberwachtmeister (protection police) District-Oberwachtmeister (gendarmerie)	Oberfeldwebel of the FG
Chief constable	Oberfeldwebel of the FG
Main sergeant (with more than 12 years of service)	Staff sergeant of the FG
master	Lieutenant of the FG
Chief master	Lieutenant of the FG
Orpo inspector	First lieutenant of the FG

The officers of the Ordnungspolizei were transferred to the Feldgendarmerie while retaining their rank designation, but with the addition of "der Feldgendarmerie". The field gendarmerie of the Kriegsmarine was called the Marine Coast Police.

The Feldgendarmerie was one of the order troops of the Wehrmacht, so the Feldgendarmen wore the soldiers' uniform and rank badges with the weapon color orange. The ring collar ("chain dogs") worn on a metal chain when on duty was characteristic; the applied sovereign badge, the black background "Feldgendarmerie" (in " Fraktur letters ") and the two buttons in the corners were painted in bright colors. The armed forces could also be recognized by two badges on the left sleeve: the forearm was adorned with a brown sleeve strip with the words "Feldgendarmerie" made of woven aluminum-colored Fraktur letters; The badge of the German police in the weapon color orange was also attached to the upper arm.

Each army was assigned a FeldGendarmdBtl , each division a FeldGendarmtrupp consisting of 3 officers, 30 NCOs and 31 men. Each squad had 6 motorcycles (Kräder), 4 heavy vehicle combinations, 17 VW Kübelwagen, two cars (2 t) and 2 trucks (3 t). The license plate was "Pol" (for police), and not WH (Wehrmacht - Heer); WL (Wehrmacht - Air Force) or WM (Wehrmacht - Navy).

In addition to the Feldgendarmerie, so-called military police battalions were later set up; these wore the white weapon color of the infantry.

literature

Christopher Browning , Jürgen Peter Krause: Just normal men. 3rd edition Rowohlt, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-60800-6 .
Hans Buchheim : SS and police in the Nazi state. State political series 13 (collection on the law of National Socialism), Study Society for Time Problems, Duisdorf 1964.
Wolfgang Curilla : The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus 1941-1944. 2nd edition Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 .
Stefan Klemp : acquittal for the "murder battalion". The NS-Ordnungspolizei and the post-war justice system. LIT Verlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3994-X .
Stefan Klemp: "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice. A manual. 2nd ext. and revised Ed. Klartext, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0663-1 .
Heiner Lichtenstein: Himmler's green helpers. The protection and order police in the "Third Reich". Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7663-2100-5 .
Hans-Joachim Neufeldt: On the history of the order police 1936–1945. Writings of the Federal Archives, issue 3, 1957.
Philip Nix, Georges Jerome: The Uniformed Police Forces of the Third Reich. Leandoer and Ekholm, Stockholm 2006, ISBN 91-975894-3-8 .
Markus Roth, Annalena Schmidt: Murder of Jews in Ostrów Mazowiecka : Act and punishment. Metropol, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-120-9 , p. 141.
Daniel Schmidt: Protect and serve. Policemen in the Ruhr area in democracy and dictatorship 1919–1939. Klartext, Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89861-929-5 .
Friedrich Wilhelm: The police in the Nazi state. The history of your organization at a glance. 2nd edition Schöningh, Paderborn 1999, ISBN 3-506-77513-8 .
German Police University, Münster; Florian Dierl; Mariana Hausleitner ; Martin Hölzl; Andreas Mix (Ed.): Order and Destruction: The Police in the Nazi State. Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2011, ISBN 978-3-942422-20-8 .

Web links

Commons : Ordnungspolizei - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Order and Extermination - The Police in the Nazi State. German Historical Museum, exhibition 2011
Overview of the rank badges of the Reich Schutzpolizei.

Individual evidence

↑ see also decree on the appointment of a chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior of June 17, 1936 (RGBl. I p. 487)

↑ Himmler's executive decree to create the two main offices is dated June 26, 1936, Erl.d.RMdI. v. June 25, 1936 - Z HB 139/110 or business distribution and business dealings of the chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior RdErl. Of the RFSSuChdDtPol.im RMdI. dated June 26, 1936 O / S No. 3/36

↑ Christopher Browning: Ordinary Men. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the 'Final Solution' in Poland , Reinbek 1993, pp. 23-27

↑ Wolf-Arno Kropat: Reichskristallnacht. Commission for the History of the Jews in Hessen , Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 978-3-921434-18-5 , p. 216.

↑ Deportation of Jews: Historian discovers shocking Nazi police report. In: Spiegel Online . May 9, 2012, Retrieved June 9, 2018 .

↑ http://www.derwesten.de/staedte/duesseldorf/ein-duesseldorfer-nazi-in-polizeiuniform-bewachte-den-todeszug-id6640397.html

↑ Christopher Browning: Ordinary Men. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the “Final Solution” in Poland. Translated by Jürgen Peter Krause, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993.

↑ Ministerial-Blatt des Reichs- und Prussischen Ministry des Interior, 5th (101st) year (1940), page 46 ( Memento of the original from 7th September 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ u. a. on the unpunished murder of civilian Marianne Cohn , Annemasse in 1944, by four men of the 19 SS Police Regiment, at that time part of the Ordnungspolizei

[1] see also decree on the appointment of a chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior of June 17, 1936 (RGBl. I p. 487)

[2] Himmler's executive decree to create the two main offices is dated June 26, 1936, Erl.d.RMdI. v. June 25, 1936 - Z HB 139/110 or business distribution and business dealings of the chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior RdErl. Of the RFSSuChdDtPol.im RMdI. dated June 26, 1936 O / S No. 3/36

[3] Christopher Browning: Ordinary Men. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the 'Final Solution' in Poland , Reinbek 1993, pp. 23-27

[4] Wolf-Arno Kropat: Reichskristallnacht. Commission for the History of the Jews in Hessen , Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 978-3-921434-18-5 , p. 216.

[SPON-832335-5] Deportation of Jews: Historian discovers shocking Nazi police report. In: Spiegel Online . May 9, 2012, Retrieved June 9, 2018 .

[6] ttp://www.derwesten.de/staedte/duesseldorf/ein-duesseldorfer-nazi-in-polizeiuniform-bewachte-den-todeszug-id6640397.html

[7] Christopher Browning: Ordinary Men. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the “Final Solution” in Poland. Translated by Jürgen Peter Krause, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993.