Police Battalion 322

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The police battalion 322 was a military unit of the NS- Ordnungspolizei during the Second World War . The battalion was actively involved in the Holocaust and other crimes.

history

Police Battalion 322

With the circular issued by the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police Heinrich Himmler on October 11, 1939, 26,000 unserved conscripts and members of older age groups were to be recruited as police recruits to ensure the need for police forces in the areas occupied by the Wehrmacht . A total of 38 police training battalions were created for training purposes, in which the recruits were accepted separately according to age group. The recruits of the later police battalions 301 to 325 came from the older age groups from 1909 to 1912. They were referred to as "Wachtmeister battalions". The leading positions in the battalions were mostly occupied by professional police officers who trained the recruits. The recruits were promised exemption from military service and rapid promotion opportunities.

The police battalion 322 was formed on April 15, 1941 from the police training battalion "Vienna-Kagran" in Vienna - Kagran . From June 6, 1941 to June 10, 1941 the battalion was relocated to Warsaw , then from July 2, 1941 to Ostrów Mazowiecka , where it arrived on July 3, 1941. It was subordinated to the Police Regiment Center , which was assigned to the HSSPF Russia Center Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski .

The battalion took part in the war against the Soviet Union from the very beginning . On the night of July 5th to 6th, 1941, the unit moved into the town of Białystok , in which the Police Battalion 309 had raged a few days earlier . The battalion was initially entrusted with guarding the Dulag (transit camp) 185, 4 kilometers outside the city. Between July 11 and 14, 73 prisoners of war and Jews were killed. From July 8, 1941, the battalion began a systematic search of the city's Jewish quarters. 22 people were shot immediately and another 16 who had been captured were later executed. In addition, the battalion was responsible for road safety in the Białystok area from July 6 to July 17, 1941. In total, the battalion had already killed 105 people by July 14.

On July 11, 1941, orders were issued to round up all Jewish men aged 17 to 45 and then shoot them outside the city. The battalion, together with police battalion 316, combed the Jewish quarters and transported those arrested to an execution site. The police forces murdered around 3,000 Jewish victims there.

From July 17 to 19, 1941, the area between Białystok and Bereza-Kartuska was combed by the battalion in order to break up dispersed units and take soldiers of the Red Army prisoner.

On July 23, 1941, the police unit was relocated to Białowieża and reported directly to the HSSPF Central Russia. Here the battalion was supposed to clear a hunting area for the "Reichsjägermeister" Hermann Göring . The police force displaced a total of 6,446 people from 34 villages between July 25 and 31, 1941. Numerous localities were burned down. During this period, up to and including August 2, 1941, 163 to 166 people, including in particular striking forced laborers , communists and Jews, were murdered.

While the 1st and 2nd companies were relocated to Baranavichy on August 2, 1941 , the 3rd company in Białowieża continued its mischief. So she received the order to liquidate all Jews in the village. On August 5th and 6th, 54 people were killed, on August 8th another 19 in a place east of Białowieża. On August 9, all remaining Jews were arrested, 77 of them shot in the following days. All but ten Jews were deported to Kobrin . Finally, on August 11th, a Jew and two Polish farmers were killed.

On August 15, 1941, the battalion shot 282 Jewish men in Narewka Mala . 259 women and 162 children were again deported to Kobrin. On August 17, 1941, the battalion handed over accommodation in Białowieża to the 323 police battalion from Tilsit and withdrew from the town on August 19, 1941. On August 18, 1941, the 3rd Company in Narewka Mala killed 26 communists, including 5 Jews.

From August 14 to 16, 1941, the first company in Minsk was deployed to guard and secure a visit from Heinrich Himmler . During the operation in Baranavichy from August 5 to 25, 1941, individual shootings took place, which killed Jews, including women and children, as well as communists.

III. Battalion of the Central Police Regiment

On August 22, 1941 the police battalion 322 in III. Battalion of the Central Police Regiment was renamed.

On August 25 and 26, 1941, the battalion searched Jewish homes in Pinsk . There was no mass shooting.

In contrast, on August 28, 1941, 257 Jews were murdered by the police association in Antopal . On the same day, the battalion in Bereza-Kartuska carried out a special operation in which an unknown number of people fell victim to the police unit.

On August 31 and September 1, 1941, the battalion was involved in the arrest and execution of Jews in Minsk. A total of 2,278 Jews were killed in the Minsk Heide.

This massacre was followed by an operation against partisans in Usda , in which 7 of them were shot. On September 7 and 8, 1941, the battalion moved to Mahiljou / Mogilew . In the area around Klitschew , a town northeast of Babrujsk , in association with the Police Regiment Center, the Security Regiment 2 of the 286th Security Division and the 221st Security Division from September 10 to 12, 1941, an operation against Partisans through. From September 15, further operations in the Mogilew area followed as "pacification actions". Individual shootings took place, which killed 62 people from September 16 to 18, in particular communists, Jews and people without identity papers. On September 22nd, 13 people were killed in Barsuki, 27 kilometers southeast of Mogilev, and two more in Batunj. Two days later, members of the battalion shot four Soviet prisoners of war.

The town of Knjaschizi, 15 kilometers northwest of Mogilew on today's M4 , was surrounded by the police association on September 25 as part of an “exercise”, 51 Jewish people rounded up and 32 of them shot. Two days later, 3 “ringleaders” of a “mutiny” were murdered by the battalion. On September 29, 1941, the police association appeared in Daschkowka, 19 kilometers south of Mogilew, on the railway line to Bychau . There, 65 partisans and 14 Jews were killed in a "pacification operation". On October 1 and 2, 1941, the battalion shot 13 other communists and partisans in the Mogilev region. The houses of the murdered were burned down. On October 2, 1941, Jewish quarters in Mogilev were searched, over 2,000 people were taken prisoner, and 2,208 were finally executed near the city the following day.

From October 4 to 22, 1941, the battalion headquarters moved to Stary Bychau. Here the unit was used to fight partisans. Overall, the battalion killed 378 partisans and 285 other people. On October 22, 1941 , 121 Jews were shot in Krasnopolje , 90 kilometers southeast of Mogilev, for allegedly supporting partisans. The following day, 219 people, almost all of them Jewish women, fell victim to the battalion at the same location.

Until October 28, 1941, the battalion was still raging in the area around Stary Bychau, where it murdered another 47 people while performing "security tasks". On October 29th, the unit was moved to Smolensk , where it was also used to guard and secure the city. In the period between December 17, 1941 and January 4, 1942, members of the battalion in Mogilev shot 250 patients from a psychiatric clinic outside the city and the residents of an orphanage.

With the Soviet counter-offensive in the Battle of Moscow in December 1941 and January 1942, the battalion was responsible for securing railway lines and in particular the Kolodnja stations east of Smolensk and Smolensk-Ost. At the same time, 19 Jews, communists, partisans and escaped prisoners of war were shot by the battalion's “base guards”. On February 7, 1942, the battalion was directly subordinated to the site commander of Smolensk. At the same time the unit took over the defensive section Gniesdowa, west of Smolensk. Residents of the village were driven from their homes.

On February 24, 1942, five Jews were shot in Malaja Dressna.

From March to May 1942 the battalion was again used in the fight against partisans in the Smolensk area. From March 24 to March 28, the police unit killed 336 partisans. On April 13, 1942, 83 partisans fell victim to the battalion. On April 22nd and May 14th, 1942, the association suffered losses in fighting with partisans.

On May 16, 1942, the battalion was replaced by Reserve Police Battalion 6 and relocated to Katowice on May 19, 1942 .

2nd Battalion of the Police Regiment 5

In July 1942 the company was moved to Belgrade . Here it was subordinated to the newly formed Police Regiment 5 , whose 1st Battalion came from Reserve Police Battalion 64 . The III. Battalion had been set up in Oranienburg . The former police battalion 322 was deployed in Serbia until the evacuation .

In April 1944, the battalion was stationed in southern Hungary . Here it was involved in the concentration of Jews from the Batschka and Baranya in ghettos in Baja , Bačka Topola and Subotica . From 15 May 1944, the Jews were in the then Auschwitz deported , and thereto the battalion was apparently not involved, since it after that date for Montenegro was moved.

Commanders

  • April 1941 until unknown: Major Gottlieb Nagel
  • November 1942 (taq) to July 1944 (tpq): Major August Binder

War Crimes Investigation

Preliminary proceedings were initiated against members of the 322 Police Battalion in the Federal Republic after the end of the Second World War.

In July 1963, the Freiburg Regional Court acquitted the former battalion adjutant, the chief of the 3rd company and the leader of the 2nd platoon of the 1st company . An appeal by the public prosecutor to the Federal Court of Justice was unsuccessful.

In two decisions by the Darmstadt Regional Court , 21 relatives were spared further prosecution due to an imperfect order .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torsten Schäfer: "In any case, I also shot", the NSG proceedings against Johann Josef Kuhr and other former members of Police Battalion 306, Police Rider Department 2 and the SD Office of Pinsk at the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court 1962-1973, series of dissertations by the Evangelical Studienwerk e. V. Villigst, Volume 11, LIT-Verlag Dr. Hopf Hamburg, 2007, p. 59 f.
  2. ↑ See also on this and the following: Stefan Klemp: "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice. A manual . 2nd edition, Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0663-1 , p. 301 ff.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, Schöningh-Verlag Paderborn, 2nd edition 2006, p. 545 f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 549.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 532.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 550.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, pp. 550f.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 552.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, pp. 552–554.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 553f.
  11. ↑ a b Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 554.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 554f.
  13. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 555ff.
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 557f.
  15. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 559.
  16. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, pp. 560-562.
  17. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 563f.
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 564.
  19. ↑ a b Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 565.
  20. ↑ a b Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 566.
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, pp. 566-568.
  22. ↑ a b Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 568.
  23. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, Der Judenmord in Polen and the German Ordnungspolizei 1939–1945, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, pp. 281f.
  24. ↑ Federal Archives , holdings R 20: Troops and schools of the Ordnungspolizei / Chief of the gang fighting units - BAB R 20/84, p. 523, officer positions of II./SS-Pol. Rgt. 5.
  25. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla, The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, p. 545.