Protective Police (Weimar Republic)

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Traffic post of the Berlin Police in 1924

The protective police in the Weimar Republic ( Schupo ) was an organizational unit part of the individual police forces of the federal states in the German Reich at the time of the Weimar Republic .

tasks

The main task of the protection police was to maintain public safety and order within the assigned protection area. The protection police served as a personnel reservoir for individual police duties (e.g. patrol duty and traffic monitoring ) and were also drawn into the violent clashes between right-wing and left-wing extremist groups in the Weimar Republic .

history

prehistory

In the 19th century in the German states there were usually the municipal police in large cities, the gendarmes who were delegated to cities, municipalities and rural districts, who were members of the military until 1919, and the state police . The job title of detective commissioner was introduced in Berlin as early as 1820 . On June 23, 1848, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV ordered the establishment of the Royal Guard in Berlin . The task of the protection team was the road inspection service and the procedure in "closed mass". The aim was to act as civilly as possible, since the exaggeratedly hard use of the guards regiments as in the March riots should not be repeated. This protection team is still considered to be the forerunner of the protection police . The organizational separation between the protective and criminal police in the Kingdom of Prussia did not take place until 1872, which was later adopted in other parts of Germany. So was z. In Munich, for example, the local gendarmerie company was also converted into a protection team in 1898 and subordinated to the state police headquarters as a “civil institute”. The term “Schutzmannschaft” thus became common for the lower ranks of the uniformed police responsible for public security in the cities.

Education in the Weimar Republic

In addition to the protection teams that already existed during the imperial era, security police (Sipo) were also set up in most German countries at the end of 1919 and were operational in mid-1920. They were planned as a paramilitary police force and largely financed by the Reich . On September 8, 1919, 2,500 police officers from all over Germany demonstrated with the Reich Association of the German Police against the construction of the Sipo.

As early as 1920, the security police were disbanded due to French protests and merged with the protection teams to form the protection police in Prussia , Saxony and Württemberg . In Bavaria , the Sipo was renamed " Bavarian State Police " from November 1920 . The civilian police apparatus, on the other hand, consisted of the gendarmerie , state protection teams and the municipal police . In Hesse the term Security Police was retained, in Mecklenburg-Strelitz the Security Police was renamed the State Police. Since the sovereignty over the police rests with the federal states, the designation of the protective police in the Weimar Republic was partly different elsewhere:

Armed police during the May riots

Situation in Prussia

In Prussia , the police were reorganized after the First World War by the administrative lawyer and later State Secretary Wilhelm Abegg . The Schutzpolizei was deployed as early as 1921 during the March fighting in central Germany . With a decree of December 12, 1928, the Prussian police were uniformly divided into an administrative, protective and criminal police. The officers of the Prussian protection police under the leadership of the longstanding Prussian interior minister Carl Severing were regarded as the "republican protection force". The spring of 1929, which went down in history as the so-called “ Blutmai ”, worsened relations between the population and the police in general. During the riots in Berlin from May 1st to 3rd, 1929 , numerous demonstrators and bystanders were killed or injured by the police. There was no official investigation into the police assault and no police officers were charged. With the Altona Blood Sunday (July 17, 1932), the democratically legitimized state government was ousted in the so-called Prussian strike . By ordinance, Chancellor von Papen became Reich Commissioner for Prussia and declared the government of Prussia to be deposed. This brought the Prussian protection police under control of the Reich.

Third Reich

After the National Socialists came to power , the police were transferred to the Security Police (Sipo) and the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) under the command of Police General Kurt Daluege , which was responsible for maintaining public safety and order . The Orpo itself was divided into the protection police (Schupo), the community police and the gendarmerie , and later also the fire brigade as fire-fighting police .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peter Leßmann-Faust: The Prussian Police in the Weimar Republic - patrol duty and street fighting . Verlag für Polizeiwissenschaft, 2012. ISBN 3-86676-196-1 .
  2. ↑ Article "Schutzmannschaft" and "Polizei" in Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon, FA Brockhaus in Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna, 14th edition, 1894–1896
  3. ↑ Klaus Gietinger, “Der Konterrevolutionär”, Hamburg 2009, p. 169.
  4. ↑ Gerhard Fürmetz, Bavarian State Police, 1920-1935 , in: Historical Dictionary of Bavaria , accessed on 9 April 2016th
  5. ↑ District Office Mitte of Berlin / Mitte Museum (ed.): Berliner Blutmai 1929. Escalation of violence or staging of a media event? Berlin 2009.
  6. ↑ Heiner Lichtenstein: Himmler's green helpers. The protection and order police in the "Third Reich". Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7663-2100-5 .