Reserve Police Battalion 11th

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The Reserve Police Battalion 11 was a military unit of the German Ordnungspolizei . As early as November 1939, members of this unit actively participated in the murder of the Jewish residents of the Polish city ​​of Ostrów Mazowiecka . After the attack on the Soviet Union , police officers from 3rd Company were used to guard the ghetto in Kaunas , while thousands of Jews were murdered in Kaunas under the direction of Einsatzkommando 3 (EK 3). Other companies of the battalion were deployed in Belarus to fight partisans and murder Jews . The battalion gained particular prominence for the murder of the Jews of Sluzk in October 1941. There is a report of this massacre by the German regional commissioner of Sluzk, which served as evidence in the Nuremberg trials and is cited by historians such as Raul Hilberg , Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen .

Lineup

The Reserve Police Battalion 11 was set up in Königsberg in September 1939 from police reserves and was mainly recruited from police reserves from East Prussia who had not yet done military service. The officers were active police officers. In addition to four companies and the battalion headquarters, it also had an intelligence train. The 4th Company (called the Heavy Company because it was equipped with machine guns) was disbanded in May 1941. Their relatives were distributed to the other companies. While the battalion staff and the 1st company were stationed in Pułtusk in Poland as early as 1939 , the 2nd company was in Ostrołęka and the 3rd in Mława . Since December 1939, the battalion commander was the then major of the Schutzpolizei Franz Lechthaler .

Use in occupied Poland

On November 11, 1939, the 2nd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 11 in Ostrów Mazowiecka took part in the arrest and shooting of the Jewish residents (156 men, 208 women and children). The majority of the town's Jewish population had fled to the Soviet-occupied area in October 1939 . About 500 Jews remained, mostly the elderly, the sick, women and children. The Gauleiter of East Prussia, Erich Koch , agreed with the Higher SS and Police Leader East, Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger , to set Ostrów on fire and to spread the rumor that Jews were the arsonists. In November 1939, a fire actually destroyed large parts of Ostrów's city center. The 2nd company of the Reserve Police Battalion, led by Captain Hans Timm, took part in the extinguishing work and began to arrest Jews and keep them in the basement of a brewery.

The commander of the Police Regiment "Warsaw" (IV) , Karl Heinrich Brenner , ordered the commander of the Reserve Police Battalion 91 to carry out a court martial and to execute the Jews. About 30 members of this unit then drove to Ostrów on November 11, 1939, where Captain Timm had already had three pits dug. Although women and children were among those arrested, orders were given to shoot them all. A trial court hearing or questioning did not take place.

The men of Reserve Police Battalion 11 cordoned off the execution site, while members of Reserve Police Battalion 91 first shot the male Jews at the pits from behind with carbines . One shooter came for every prisoner. When asked again, the order to execute the women and children was confirmed. These were killed by gunshots in the neck in a somewhat remote pit . Members of the Reserve Police Battalion 11 also took part because various officers were no longer able to carry out further executions. The East Prussian police ordered the pits to be closed after the execution. The historian Stefan Klemp suspects that the reason for the shooting was that the extermination of the Jews was not yet systematically pursued in 1939, but that the idea already existed and the police wanted to carry out the plans in advance obedience.

In German-occupied Poland , Reserve Police Battalion 11 arrested a total of 308 members of the Polish intelligentsia in order to hand them over to the Gestapo . In June 1940, 600 Jews were recorded for work . A platoon from the 3rd Company was used to guard the Soldau transit camp for a few months . Since the beginning of February 1940, all executions by the East Prussian Gestapo have taken place here under the command of Otto Rasch . Around 1000 Poles were killed here, with the firing squads formed from the guards. While the camp was converted into a labor education camp in May / June 1940, German and at least 250 Polish mentally handicapped people were murdered here in 1558 by the Lange special unit with a gas truck .

Use in the Soviet Union

After the attack on the Soviet Union , the companies of Reserve Police Battalion 11 were stationed at various locations in and around Kaunas . A platoon from the 3rd Company was used to guard Soviet prisoners of war at the Arys military training area for about six weeks and did not arrive in Kaunas until the end of August 1941. In Lithuania, the unit was under the orders of the Higher SS and Police Leader Russia-North in Riga , Hans-Adolf Prützmann (from October 1941 Friedrich Jeckeln ) or the commander of the Ostland Order Police .

Guarding the ghetto in Kaunas

In Kaunas, the 3rd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 11 was deployed to guard the ghetto established there and the Jewish work details. Lechthaler also built up Lithuanian auxiliary police . Members of the 3rd Company took part in the so-called "Intelligence Action" on August 18, 1941, during which 534 men were arrested, taken to the 4th Fort and shot. They also took part in the so-called “valuables campaign”, in which in August 1941 valuables belonging to the Jewish ghetto residents were systematically confiscated.

In addition, the 3rd Company carried out selections in the Kaunas ghetto in September 1941, together with Lithuanian auxiliaries and EK 3 . Those who were found without a German employment certificate were allowed to stay in the ghetto. The others were taken away and shot. On September 26, 1941, at least 1608 Jews were declared IX. Driven away and shot in prepared mass graves. On October 4, 1941, the 3rd Company surrounded the “Small Ghetto”, gathered the inmates, sent those with work certificates to the “Great Ghetto” and drove the others, around 1,600 Jews, to the IX. Gone. A command of around 25 active police officers from the company are said to have participated in the shootings. During the evacuation of the "Small Ghetto", members of the 3rd Company cordoned off the Jewish hospital and set it on fire. People trying to escape from the hospital were shot dead. The 3rd Company also took part in the so-called "Great Action" against the ghetto, in which on 28/29. October 1941 2007 men, 2920 women and 4273 children were selected and murdered.

When the first deportations of Jews from the Old Reich to Kaunas took place in November 1941 , EK 3 decided to shoot the newcomers a few days after their arrival. Members of the 3rd Company apparently participated in this too.

Use in Belarus

In October 1941 the 2nd and 4th companies of the 707th Infantry Division were subordinated to Major General Gustav Freiherr von Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim . Together with the Secret Field Police and Lithuanian police companies, the Reserve Police Battalion 11 carried out large-scale operations near Minsk in October against partisans , communists and Jews, in which several hundred people were shot each time. In Minsk, Lechthaler received the order, as he could not later be refuted in court, to shoot all Jews in Smilowitschi with his two companies and the Lithuanian auxiliaries . In this action on October 14, 1941, 1,300 people were shot. On October 21, 1941, the unit searched Koidanow and killed 1,000 people.

At the end of October 1941, Lechthaler allegedly received the order to have all Jews shot in Sluzk in order to ward off partisan attacks. On October 27th, a shooting site was selected where Soviet civilians were digging graves. The policemen of Reserve Police Battalion 11 surrounded the city and drove all Jews to the market square, where they had to hand over their valuables. The area commissioner of Sluzk, a former district leader of the NSDAP in Rendsburg named Heinrich Carl, complained on October 30, 1941 to the Reich commissioner for the east , Hinrich Lohse , that economically important Jewish craftsmen had been shot without distinction.

“As for the way in which the operation was carried out, I must emphasize, to my deepest regret, that the latter bordered on sadism . The city itself was a terrifying sight during the action. With an indescribable brutality both on the part of the German police officers and in particular of the Lithuanian partisans [= auxiliary troops, editor's note. Ed.], The Jewish people, including the White Ruthenians, were taken out of their homes and rounded up. Everywhere in the city there were bangs and the corpses of shot Jews piled up in the individual streets. The White Ruthenians were in dire need to free themselves from their grip. Apart from the fact that the Jewish people, including the craftsmen, were brutally abused in a terrible way in front of the eyes of the Belarusian people, the Belarusian people were also treated with rubber truncheons and rifle butts. There was no longer any question of a Jewish action; it looked rather like a revolution. I myself have been in between with all of my officers all day without interruption to save what could be saved. [...]
I was not present at the shooting in front of the city. So I can't say anything about the brutality. But it should also suffice if I emphasize that those who were shot have worked their way out again a long time after the graves were thrown. "

- Heinrich Carl, Regional Commissioner for Slutsk : report from October 30, 1941

The police battalion also plundered “in an unheard-of manner”. The report by Area Commissioner Carl is seen by Wolfgang Curilla as evidence that members of Reserve Police Battalion 11 were involved in the action to a far greater extent than was found in later court proceedings. In addition, the interventions of the area commissioner had at least given battalion commander Lechthaler the opportunity to have fewer Jews killed if he had wanted to. During the action on 27./28. In October 1941, around 3,400 Jews were killed.

Part of Reserve Police Battalion 11 also took part in the murder of around 4,000 Jews in Nieswiesch on October 30, 1941. In the Baranowitschi area , around 2,500 Jews were killed in Klezk on October 30 and 31, 1941. Within a month, the Reserve Police Battalion 11 and the Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft department subordinate to them were responsible for the murder of 15,500 Jews in the Minsk area.

Front deployment and 1st Battalion of the Police Regiment 2

Around Christmas 1941, the 11th Reserve Police Battalion was gathered near Vitebsk and initially deployed there to secure the railway. In mid-January 1942 it was moved to the front. The 3rd company from Kaunas was added by February 1942 at the latest. The battalion was surrounded by Russian troops in Toropez . After eight days, the breakout to Velikiye Luki was successful . Much of the unit, however, had been wiped out. Lechthaler reported on January 23, 1942 that the battalion had lost 12 dead, 7 wounded and 30 missing in the battle for Toropez; the other men are hospital or home sick. At the end of April / beginning of May 1942 the 11th Reserve Police Battalion was withdrawn from the front. In May 1942, two companies reinforced the central police regiment fighting partisans in the Klitschew - Suscha area . Then the battalion in Augustowo was refreshed and moved to Białystok . There it was incorporated into Police Regiment 2 in July 1942 as the 1st Battalion , which was deployed to fight gangs and took part in other murders as part of the Gottberg Combat Group , such as the annihilation of the ghetto in Glebokie , in which 3,000 Jews were killed.

In March 1944, the Reserve Police Battalion 11 returned to the front. After deployments at Polotsk in March 1944, it was in Brandenburg in November 1944 and in the west in December 1944.

Prosecution

During the Nuremberg Trials , the Soviet Union presented extensive material on the murder of the Jews of Slutsk. In the Federal Republic of Germany , investigations against members of police battalions rarely resulted in judgments. Franz Lechthaler was sentenced by the Kassel regional court in 1961 to three and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting manslaughter . The judgment, one of the few against members of a police battalion, was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). The new main hearing ended with a two-year prison sentence for Lechthaler. The co-accused leader of the 2nd Company, Willy Papenkort , was acquitted in both proceedings for lack of evidence. According to the court, he was unable to recognize the injustice of the order in the context of his contribution.

Papenkort then built up the “Comrades Aid”, a “network of alumni” that advised members of the regulatory police, who were investigated, on legal matters relating to defense behavior in such a way that statements were discussed, witnesses influenced and discredited.

In investigations against members of the police regiment 2 above all the commander or chief perpetrators denied the Holocaust to have known at all . Oberwachtmeister Wilhelm K., a member of the 3rd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 11, testified, for example: "I can say with good knowledge that I have actually not heard of systematic acts of extermination during my active service." Only a few confessed to being involved in the crime .

Hans Timm appeared in 1963 in a case against members of the Reserve Police Battalion 91 for the murder of the Jews from Ostrow. The investigators came to the conclusion that the act was statute-barred as early as 1960 because it had been committed before the Violent Criminal Ordinance of December 5, 1939 , so that attempt and aiding and abetting could not be punished like the completed act.

The chief of the 3rd Company, Alfred Tornbaum, was put out of prosecution in 1971 because his job only consisted of assigning company members to the actions; but he himself did not know what happened during these actions.

literature

  • Wolfgang Curilla : The murder of Jews in Poland and the German Ordnungspolizei 1939–1945. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77043-1 .
  • Wolfgang Curilla: The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and Belarus, 1941–1944. F. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 .
  • Stefan Klemp : "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice: A Handbook. 2nd Edition. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0663-1 .
  • "LG Kassel January 9, 1963". In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966 , vol. XVIII, ed. by Irene Sagel-Grande, HH Fuchs and CF Rüter. Amsterdam: University Press, 1978, No. 546, pp. 779-849

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 151.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: The murder of Jews in Poland and the German Ordnungspolizei 1939–1945. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77043-1 , pp. 540-543; Stefan Klemp: "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice: A Handbook. 2nd Edition. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0663-1 , pp. 29–34.
  3. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". P. 34.
  4. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. Pp. 155-157.
  5. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 158.
  6. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 160.
  7. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 161.
  8. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. Pp. 173-177.
  9. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 177.
  10. ↑ a b Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 164.
  11. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 164. See also document VEJ 8/12 . In: Bert Hoppe (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (source collection) Volume 8: Soviet Union with annexed areas II. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-486-78119-9 , p 100-104.
  12. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 166.
  13. ^ A b Wolfgang Curilla: The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, 1941–1944. F. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 , pp. 168f.
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla: The German Ordnungspolizei and the Holocaust in the Baltic States and in Belarus, 1941-1944. F. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71787-1 , p. 170.
  15. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. S. 172. According to Christian Gerlach , the battalion murdered 11,400 victims in three weeks. Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944. 1st edition. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-930908-54-9 , p. 613.
  16. ↑ Curilla, Ordnungspolizei , pp. 179–181; Klemp: "Not determined". P. 119.
  17. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 181.
  18. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". P. 433.
  19. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". P. 119f.
  20. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". Pp. 461-464.
  21. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". P. 320.
  22. ↑ Klemp: "Not determined". P. 35.
  23. ^ Curilla: Ordnungspolizei. P. 177.