South Tyrolean security service

District management of the SOD in Bruneck

The South Tyrolean security service (originally security and security service , abbreviation SOD ) was a police-like auxiliary force in South Tyrol between 1943 and 1944 during the operational zone of the foothills of the Alps .

prehistory

When the invasion of German troops in northern Italy became apparent in 1943 (see armistice of Cassibile , Axis case ), the later SOD was formed in South Tyrol from circles of the Optanten Working Group for Germany .

history

Memorial for the Jews of Merano who were deported with the help of the SOD

Only three days after the German invasion, General Erwin Rommel officially recognized the SOD as "self-protection". Its members were armed with Italian prey weapons. They participated in the disarmament and capture of the remaining Italian troops. Some SOD commands searched for dispersed Italian soldiers, which also resulted in murders. Members of the SOD were also involved in the arrest of the Jews who remained in Meran - in accordance with an instruction from SS Brigade Leader Karl Brunner . The same was true for Bolzano , where immediately after the German invasion, SOD members Josef Clementi and Paul Knapp denounced and arrested members of the Carpi family on September 9, 1943 .

The tasks of the SOD were: building protection, monitoring compliance with the blackout, monitoring the railway systems, cleaning up after bomb attacks, etc.

The SOD was initially a civilian group of volunteers. From November 1943 it was possible for conscripts to do military service with the SOD instead of the Wehrmacht or SS . The number of members rose from 6,000 (at the end of September 1943) to 17,000 in May 1944.

resolution

The SOD was transferred to the Landwacht on August 1, 1944 .

literature

• Margareth Lun: Nazi rule in South Tyrol. The Alpine Foreland operational zone 1943–1945 (Innsbruck Research on Contemporary History 22). Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2004, ISBN 3-7065-1830-9 .
• Joachim Innerhofer, Sabine Mayr: Murderous homeland. Suppressed life stories of Jewish families in Bolzano and Meran. Edition Raetia, Bozen 2015, ISBN 978-88-7283-503-6 .
• Sabine Mayr: The Annihilation of the Jewish Community of Meran . In: Georg Grote , Hannes Obermair (Ed.): A Land on the Threshold. South Tyrolean Transformations, 1915-2015 . Peter Lang, Oxford et al. 2017, ISBN 978-3-0343-2240-9 , pp. 53-75 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sabine Mayr: The Annihilation of the Jewish Community of Meran , pp. 64–65.
2. ^ Sabine Mayr, Joachim Innerhofer: Quando la patria uccide. Storie ritrovate di famiglie ebraiche in Alto Adige. Bolzano: Raetia 2017. ISBN 978-88-7283-512-8 , p. 392.
3. ↑ Bozner Tagblatt , issue of November 15, 1943, p. 3