Police fight

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Federal archive Image 183-K0105-0601-004, March fights in Central Germany, Eisleben

The police fight is a historical police- tactical term that was coined in the 1920s in the German law enforcement and protection police of the federal states for combat operations that included counterinsurgency . One opponent to be fought was the secret military apparatus (M apparatus) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which was published in its military journal Vom Civil War (1923–1926) and October. Military Political Bulletin (1926–1931) developed concepts for insurrection planning . The term was used again in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1950 in the training of the newly founded riot police and was used in the theoretical police literature until the early 1970s. In the military-historical sense, these were concepts for fighting partisans and guerrillas .

Historical background

In the German Empire , the military was responsible for suppressing unrest or uprisings, i.e. the Prussian , Bavarian , Saxon and Württemberg armies. In contrast to France , Spain or Italy , where there were militarily organized and barracked police troops, the police force of the German Empire was largely non-governmental and, as is still the case in the USA today , a matter for the municipalities . In addition to the protection teams of Berlin , Dresden and Munich, only the gendarmerie of the individual states was state, which was almost exclusively active in the country. Since in small and medium-sized towns there was in fact no separation of the enforcement and administrative police, the municipal police in the German Empire were largely occupied with administrative tasks that are now performed in the Federal Republic by the municipal regulatory authorities or the rural districts . She had no training in fighting serious crime or armed insurgents.

These police forces were unable to maintain public safety and order during the civil war-like unrest that followed the November 1918 Revolution . Since the provisional Reichswehr and then later the Reichswehr were out of the question for domestic use due to their weak staffing and concentration on defending against regular foreign armed forces, the paramilitary security police were set up at the state level in 1919 , but in 1920 due to French Complaints demilitarized and now had to be renamed to Schutz- or Ordnungspolizei, depending on the state . Nevertheless, the Schupo / Orpo remained organized militarily. The officer corps came almost exclusively from the Old Army.

The new police forces initially operated with purely military regulations. That was not problematic because communist insurgents, for example during the Soviet republics in Bremen and Munich and in the Ruhr uprising of 1920, used conventional military tactics themselves; a large part of the rebels consisted of former army and navy members. Above all, however, the central German uprising of the KPD of 1921 and the Hamburg uprising of 1923 demonstrated that the KPD had partially changed its strategy and operated with partisan and guerrilla tactics. The police theorists recognized that the previous military concepts were obsolete for both legal and police tactical reasons. The result of these considerations was reflected in publications by 1933, exclusively by active police officers.

The theoretical concepts

The police theorists, first and foremost Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Hartenstein in Hamburg , assumed that fighting by insurgents sometimes resembled regular military operations, but on the other hand had a component of gang warfare or partisan or guerrilla tactics. In contrast to regular warfare, especially in World War 1914 to 1918, there was no clear separation between the front and the hinterland during uprisings, especially in large cities. For this, von Hartenstein coined the term “fight in space”, which also included the third dimension, since police units, as had been shown in the Hamburg uprising, could also be taken under fire from blocks of houses or their roofs. Hartenstein therefore advocated the concept of “front everywhere”, which included the inclusion of police units, and spoke of a “partisan and roof rifle system” for the rebels. In 1933, in his essay Introduction to the Nature and Principles of the Use of the Protection of the Police (Berlin 1932/33), he again clearly highlighted the differences between acts of war and the use of the protection police:

Although military combat and police operations differ considerably in their character , there is still a certain affinity between the two that cannot be ignored. In addition, the fact remains that the protection police in their current form are useless for war purposes, just as the army is out of the question for an active solution to purely police tasks (cf. v. Seeckt, “Future of the Reich”). The use inside, in particular street and house fighting, is not practiced by the army. The training remains exclusively geared to the extermination struggle of modern enemy armies. Insofar as the army or parts thereof are used to maintain orderly conditions inside, it can only be a rare exceptional case, ie a kind of war at home that justifies such a "warlike" operation. Such a case of extreme distress presupposes that the security police have come to the end of their tactical Latin.

The aim of the police fight was not, as in military combat, the so-called annihilation of the enemy, but his arrest . The police opponent was a citizen , which in the Riot case and with the use of firearms and explosives such as hand grenades , a process be had. Although many theorists called for a resolute approach in order not to encourage the rebels with a de-escalating stance, there were also tacticians like Wilhelm Neese, who also called for a defensive approach in order to avoid losses and not give the rebels the opportunity to defame the police as attackers.

However, Fendel-Sartorius, who had operated against Max Hoelz in the Halle area in 1921 with his police force in the area of ​​Halle, found that outwardly fighting between insurgents and the police resembled military combat operations :

On the other hand, once the police struggle to maintain peace and security in the country is under way, it naturally often takes on the character of military fencing, because after all, every fight waged with modern weapons is similar to the other.

All police theorists saw the (unauthorized) mass demonstration as a dangerous catalyst for an uprising, as the police could be surrounded and disarmed from the crowd. They therefore advocated breaking up the demonstration early on in order to nip an uprising in the bud. Clarification in advance of expected unrest was seen as particularly important. In the big cities, this was the responsibility of the criminal police, who, through informers, usually had a fairly good overview of the activities of radical groups and police forces. Countries such as Bremen, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg had very effective so-called intelligence police, in the broadest sense forerunners of today's state offices for the protection of the constitution, which constantly wrote situation reports on both the right and left political spectrum. These reports were collected by the Reich Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order and in turn passed on to the police authorities throughout the Reich for mutual information.

In general, the police saw themselves at an advantage over the insurgents. The authorities were well aware that the KPD's so-called military apparatus (M apparatus) was not particularly effective. In addition, military weapons still privately owned from World War II had been confiscated or destroyed since around 1922, so that the rebels could not fall back on such stocks as they did in 1921. In addition, the younger KPD members or supporters of the party no longer had the military training required by their earlier conscription. In contrast, the protection and order police in the larger federal states such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony were very well trained and equipped.

In fact, after the total failure of the Hamburg uprising in 1923, there was no further attempt by the KPD and its military apparatus to overthrow by force, although the magazine Oktober: military-political Mitteilungsblatt ( about civil war until 1926 ) continuously reported openly about concepts of uprising. The magazine, the last editor-in-chief of which was the military leader of the Hamburg uprising, Hans Kippenberger , was discontinued by the KPD leadership in December 1931 because the radical tenor of the article had given rise to a ban on the party. Both the KPD's military apparatus and the police theorists had mutually evaluated their publications by then.

Police fight in the Third Reich

With the seizure of power , the barracked state police quickly lost their importance until they were disbanded in 1935 and most of the staff was taken over by the new Wehrmacht. But probably around 1937, showed clearly the need for the newly established order police to develop a new concept for the police fight. This was reflected in the work of Police Captain Alfons Illinger : The Unterführer in Police Use (Lübeck 1938). According to his own statements, he was told about the work by his former superior, Colonel of the Gendarmerie Dr. Oskar Lossen , who now worked for the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior as head of the training office. After the Second World War, Lossen was a co-author of the Police SOS training program: Protection, Order, Security. Official hints for police officers (Hanover 1950), first published in 1942 and last published in 1953. Illinger himself was a teacher for police use at the Police Officer and Protection Police School in Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich. In Chapter VII. Use in Total War the police fight against "explosive or terrorist squads" is discussed. The author assumed that a war against the Soviet Union was to be expected in the foreseeable future and that this would be waged as a total war on the part of the USSR, whereby he expected sabotage troops to be parachuted far into the German hinterland. The work does not contain any concepts for the fight against partisans in the USSR itself. Most of the work, however, contains instructions for the fight against normal crime or the protection of large events. In terms of content, these parts are apparently largely identical to the standard work Police Tactics by Botho Elster / Herbert Jilski (Berlin 1928). Illinger's work, reprinted unchanged in 1942 and 1943, remained the only real textbook for the police fight during the "Third Reich".

Police operation in the Federal Republic in the context of terrorist attacks and unconventional warfare

Shortly after the riot police of the federal states in the Federal Republic of Germany were set up in 1950, Illinger's work was reissued in a slightly modified version in 1952; the eleventh and final edition appeared in 1962. It also served as a basis for other police tactical works in the Federal Republic of Germany. The police theorists of the Federal Republic assumed that the KPD, which was banned in 1956, could plan armed uprisings, which would be supported by sabotage troops from abroad. The attempts at revolt in the 1920s were also repeatedly referred to. In the 1960s, the term police fight was replaced by the term Extraordinary Security and Order Service (ASOD). This term was also no longer used by the mid-1970s at the latest and the corresponding training concepts in the riot police in the federal states were gradually discontinued.

In terms of military history, the concepts of police combat, which were developed in the 1920s and were valid with interruptions until the early 1970s, are of interest because they are the only comprehensive theoretical considerations in Germany on counter insurgency (fighting armed uprisings ), fighting guerrillas or asymmetrical warfare represent. The concepts of the KPD and the Communist International can be found in the works of "Alfred Langer" and "A. Neuberg “again; in both cases it is a question of collective pseudonyms that have not yet been fully uncovered.

literature

  • Gustav Schmitt: The deployment of the police in the riot area in sketch and leaflet. With appendix: Map reading, finding your way around and orienting yourself in the area , Dresden 1925 (first edition 1921).
  • Wilhelm Hartenstein: The combat deployment of the police during internal unrest: with 5 simulation games and 42 practical exercises as well as a description of the Hamburg October unrest of 1923 , Berlin 1926.
  • Police Lieutenant Colonel Harteinstein, Hamburg: Police fighting types and forms of fighting , in: German Police Archive , 10th year 1931, no. 21, p. 318f.
  • Hartenstein: Introduction to the nature and basic features of the use of the police , Berlin 1932/33.
  • Hartenstein: The leadership and their means in the combat deployment of the police , Berlin 1933.
  • Police Lieutenant Colonel Schröder, Darmstadt: Street and house fighting , in: Die Polizei , 1928, pp. 489–491, 548–551.
  • Police Major von Oven: Street Fight , in: German Police Archive , 1927, p. 97f.
  • Fendel-Sartorius: The police and their combat principles , Darmstadt 1922.
  • Wilhelm Neese: The textbook for the police schools , Berlin 1930, here Section VII: The police fight, pp. 681-706.
  • Botho Elster / Herbert Jilski : Police Tactics , Berlin 1928.
  • Drobnig: The Central German uprising in 1921. Its fight by the police , Lübeck / Berlin / Hamburg 1929.
  • Herbert Scheffler, Police Adviser: Leaflets on Police Use. The police fight , Lübeck 1958.
  • Herbert Scheffler, Schutzpolizeidirektor: Police use. Guidelines for use in the large and extraordinary security and stewardship service , Vol. I, H. 1, 12th completely revised edition Lübeck 1970, 13th edition Lübeck 1973.
  • Alfons Illinger: The Unterführer in the police use. A police tactical textbook and exercise book for individual and troop police. Revised by Wilhelm Schell, Police Council, 11th expanded edition, Lübeck 1962.
  • Wilhelm Schell, Police Adviser i. R .: Police use. First part. Basic tactical training (VfdP 1, numbers 1–153), Hamburg 1966.
  • A. Neuberg (collective pseudonym, inter alia for Mikhail Nikolajewitsch Tukhachevsky , Ho Chi Minh and Hans Kippenberger ): The armed uprising. Attempt at a theoretical representation , Zurich 1928, ISBN 3-434-45006-8 . English version: Armed insurrection (translated from the French and German by Quintin Hoare), London 1970. German new edition Frankfurt a. M. 1971 with an introduction by Erich Wollenberg .
  • Alfred Langer (collective pseudonym; Tuure Lehén): The way to victory. The art of the armed uprising , Berlin 1928.
  • Karl Plättner : The organized red horror! Communist parade armies or organized gang fight in the civil war , n.d., n.d. (Berlin 1921).
  • Walther von Schultzendorff: Proletarians and Praetorians. Civil war situations from the early days of the Weimar Republic , Cologne 1966.
  • Siegfried Zaika: Police History . The executive in the light of historical conflict research - investigations into the theory and practice of the Prussian police in the Weimar Republic to prevent and combat internal unrest , Lübeck 1979 (Phil. Diss.).
  • Siegfried Zaika: Police deployment theory from the turn of the century to the Third Reich , in: Peter Nitschke (ed.): The German police and their history. Contributions to a distanced relationship , Hilden 1996, pp. 98–116.
  • Jürgen Siggemann: The barracked police and the problem of internal security in the Weimar Republic. A study on the development and expansion of the domestic security system in Germany 1918 / 19-1933 , Frankfurt a. M. 1980.
  • Christin Knatz: "An army in a green skirt"? The Central German uprising in 1921, the Prussian protection police and the question of internal security in the Weimar Republic , Berlin 1999.
  • Martin Herrnkind (ed.): The police as an organization with a license to use violence: possibilities and limits of control , Münster a. a. (LIT) 2003. ISBN 3-8258-6516-9