SA field police
The SA Field Police (Fepo) or the SA Feldjägerkorps (since October 1933) was a special unit within the National Socialist Assault Department (SA) that existed from 1933 to 1936 .
The SA field police
The SA field police were set up in Berlin on February 24, 1933 at the instigation of the then Prussian Interior Minister Hermann Göring . It was a special unit within the Prussian SA auxiliary police that had been launched two days earlier, on February 22, 1933, also by Göring. At the time of its establishment, the field police comprised around 180 selected SA members.
The SA auxiliary police was a force formed from members of the National Socialist party task force, the SA, which was supposed to support the regular police in fighting the political opponents of the young National Socialist government. The SA field police, on the other hand, served as a regulatory body for members of the SS, SA and the Stahlhelm (from April 1933: SA reserve, abk. SAR), but they also took part in actions against opponents of the Nazi regime . One important action in which Fepo was involved was the large-scale raid in the Schöneberg Laubenkolonie in June 1933. In their headquarters on General-Pape-Strasse, they maintained the SA prison in Papestrasse in the basement , where from March to December 1933 a total of about 2000 political prisoners were held. The SA field police were initially only active in the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area.
The original location of the field police remains unclear. The researchers at the Papestrasse Memorial, however, assume that some of the empty warehouse buildings at Friedrichstrasse 234 were used by her as the first headquarters . In March 1933, the field police moved into building H in Berlin's General-Pape-Strasse as their headquarters (today's Werner-Voss-Damm 54 a). The command of the field police was transferred to the former police trainer, SA-Sturmbannführer Walter Fritsch . For his part, Fritsch was subordinate to the leader of the Berlin-Brandenburg SA group as his direct superior; in February 1933 this was still Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff , from March 1933 Karl Ernst . Georg von Detten was also entrusted with monitoring them as SA representative in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and State Ministry . The field police maintained close links with the Political Police and the Secret State Police established in April 1933 .
The SA field policemen differed from the other SA members in that they had a ring collar made of white metal with a police star, they also wore blue police coats and the police star on their hats (below the national eagle) and the right collar tab. The black badge color on the cap and collar tabs corresponded to that of the other formations of the SA Group Berlin Brandenburg.
SA Feldjäger Corps
On October 1, 1933, Hermann Göring, in his capacity as Supreme SA Leader in Prussia, ordered the establishment of a Feldjägerkorps (FJK) in Prussia. Goering's initiative followed SA Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm by ordering the formation of an SA Feldjägerkorps on October 7th.
On August 11, 1933, Röhm had previously announced in a circular to the SA offices that he wanted to expand the field police organization to cities outside Berlin:
“The Berlin Brandenburg group has successfully set up an SA field police in Berlin. I intend to set up the SA field police in other larger cities in the Reich. I ask the leaders of the upper groups to comment on August 22, 1933, and to make suggestions. "
It is questionable whether the establishment of the FJK represented a mere renaming of the field police, as repeatedly asserted in historiography. Because on August 15, 1933, the Prussian SA auxiliary police had been disbanded and with it the SA field police. An exception order in this regard is unknown. More probable is a complete reorganization, in which, however, at least in Berlin, the former staff of the SA field police might have been used. In any case, this was the case with the appointment of the Berlin FJK top management when the former SA Fepo boss Walter Fritsch was appointed FJK boss.
After the FJK groups were set up across the empire, the Feldjägerkorps had around 2,000 members in October 1933, 200 of them in Berlin. The right to supervise the Feldjägerkorps was in turn with Georg von Detten as the special representative of the Supreme SA leadership for Prussia, who was based in the Prussian State Ministry. As a representative of Ernst Röhm, he was authorized to give instructions to the FJK.
In their official capacity, Röhm declared the members of the troops to be superiors “of every SA, SS and ST leader and man”, whose “orders must be followed unconditionally and without contradiction”.
On December 10, 1933, the command of the Feldjägerkorps and its Berlin department moved into new headquarters in the former barracks of the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 , Kleine Alexanderstraße 21-24 near Alexanderplatz .
In February 1934 the Feldjägerkorps was involved in the smashing of the illegal Kreuzberg district group of the KPD , with more than 50 people arrested.
According to some evidence, the Feldjägerkorps was involved in the Röhm affair from June 30 to July 2, 1934. It can be assumed that the field hunters carried out arrests during this wave of political cleansing by the Nazi government and secured important buildings and streets. According to a statement by SA man Alfred Martin, Walter Fritsch is also said to have been involved in court trials against alleged mutinous SA leaders in the Lichterfelde cadet institute , in which numerous death sentences were passed. In Dresden and Tilsit, however , the SS also shot two members of the Feldjägerkorps ( Franz Bläsner and Lamberdus Ostendorp ) at this point .
With the disempowerment of the SA, the Feldjägerkorps also largely lost its importance as a sub-formation of the SA. Due to the growth of the SS and the ever closer interlinking of the SS and the political police , the corps was incorporated into the protective police by decree of the Reich and Prussian Interior Ministry in the State of Prussia with effect from April 1, 1935 . The final dissolution of the FJK took place in 1936. The remaining relatives were taken over into the traffic police and the protection police.
The police officers were externally recognizable by means of a white metal ring collar with a police star and service number. The collar tab and cap were white, plus the police star on the right collar tab.
Research Discussion
The founding of the Feldjägerkorps is often interpreted in research as an expression of the SA's ever expanding self-confidence and its claim to statehood. For example, the statutes of the Feldjägerkorps claimed that the corps within the SA should completely replace the regular police in the future and should be the only authority authorized to make arrests within the SA and SS .
Web links
- Article on the history of the SA field police on the website of the Papestrasse Memorial
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Federal Archives NS 23/798.
- ^ Matthias Heisig: The SA field police and their prison, in: Yves Müller / Reiner Zilkenat (ed.) Civil War Army. Research on the National Socialist Sturmabteilung (SA), Peter Lang Edition, 2013, p. 199 f, ISBN 978-3-631-63130-0 .
- ↑ Order by CH. No. 1547/33, of October 7, 1933.
- ↑ SA Feldjäger Corps Command has moved. In: Vossische Zeitung. December 10, 1933, p. 13.