Rathenow Police Riding School
The Rathenow Police Riding School was a training facility for the German police that existed in Rathenow from 1937 to 1945 .
history
The police riding school began its service in the former barracks of the Zietenhusaren in the summer of 1937 with 45 constables, 154 horses, a veterinary officer and three police officers and trained mounted police officers from all over the German Reich. From the summer of 1939 it was officially designated as the Police School for Riding and Driving and, as part of the Ordnungspolizei, was directly subordinate to the supreme commander of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior , Heinrich Himmler . The task consisted, on the one hand, of training horses for use as police horses and, on the other hand, of training police officers and teams for service in mounted units . The horses were trained according to army service regulations for riding horses, which included getting used to loud noises such as gunshots and music.
On August 26, 1939, about 85% of the civil servants employed there received a draft order for the Wehrmacht . During the Second World War , the training company was greatly reduced. In an air raid on Rathenow on April 18, 1944, only one of the three riding arenas was hit, the almost 800 horses housed in the stables at the time were unharmed. Towards the end of the war, scattered riding officers and teams gathered in the school as they withdrew. Since their armament and equipment did not promise an orderly resistance to the advance of American and Soviet troops, the officer responsible for the defense of Rathenow agreed to the evacuation of the riding school. The dissolution took place at the end of the war at the end of April 1945 with the withdrawal of the remaining personnel and material in a trek towards the west.
literature
- Eva Lehmann: Chronicle of the Rathenow Police Riding School , Format: A5, 30 pages with numerous illustrations
- The end of the Rathenower police riding school , in: Brandenburger Wochenblatt of February 2, 2003, page 8
Web links
- Brief description ( memento of February 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on westhavelland.antifa.net, in the Internet Archive on archive.org, as of February 11, 2009
Coordinates: 52 ° 36 '12.2 " N , 12 ° 20' 57.7" E