Police battalion

Police battalions were paramilitary units of the Ordnungspolizei of National Socialist Germany during the Second World War .

Lineup

In 1939, the Ordnungspolizei under Kurt Daluege had to set up 21 police battalions with around 500 men each to support the Wehrmacht , who gave up their trained teams to form further battalions and filled them up with drafted reservists . Special police battalions with the numbers 251-256 and 301-325 were formed from volunteers from autumn 1939 . From them the new elite organizations of the regulatory police should emerge.

From 1939 the police battalions were supposed to secure the occupied territories. From January 1941 it was valid that the designation "police battalion" was only allowed to lead the battalions formed from the police training battalions. All other battalions, which consisted mainly of reserve police officers, were called "Reserve Police Battalion" from that point on.

In addition to the police battalions, there were also police cavalry units . Motorized police regiments were then formed from the originally independently operating police battalions by decree of the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police Heinrich Himmler of July 9, 1942. Each regiment consisted of 3 to 4 battalions and one each message - Panzerspäh - and tank destroyers - company .

The police rifle regiments were set up in accordance with the decree of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police of March 29, 1943. Between October 1943 and October 1944, the four additional police regiments "Bozen", "Alpenvorland", "Schlanders" and "Brixen" were set up from South Tyroleans .

From 1943 the designation SS police regiment was used for the police regiments.

history

During the attack on Poland , the police battalions were already in action from September 1939 and were initially used to capture dispersed soldiers, collect the military equipment left behind by the enemy and guard prisoner- of- war camps. In the further course of the war, police units also committed war crimes such as kidnappings and mass murders . In his study, Klemp comes to the conclusion that “at least half a million people” were killed directly by the approximately 50,000 battalion members. He had collected data on 125 battalions. At least 75 of them were suspected to have been directly or indirectly involved in mass crimes. From 1954, members of various battalions were investigated in the Federal Republic, convictions and convictions were made.

Police battalions involved in war crimes

literature

Stefan Kühl: Completely normal organizations: On the sociology of the Holocaust. Suhrkamp, Berlin 2014 ISBN 978-3-518-29730-8
Stefan Klemp: "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice. A manual. Essen, 2nd edition 2011 ISBN 978-3-89861-381-1
Wolfgang Curilla: The German order police and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus 1941 - 1944. 2., durchges. Edition Paderborn 2005 ISBN 9783506717870
Stephen Campbell: Police battalions of the Third Reich. Schiffer Military History, Atglen PA 2007