Ukrainian auxiliary police
The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police was an auxiliary police force of the German Ordnungspolizei in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and existed from July 1941 until probably mid-1944; an exact dissolution date is not known. Smaller contingents were integrated into the Waffen-SS when it was dissolved .
Organization and function
The auxiliary police was set up on July 27, 1941 by an order of the commander of the police in Krakow and was initially only responsible for the district of Galicia . The area of responsibility was further expanded in the course of the German military conquest of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and the establishment of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
In principle, the auxiliary police served to secure the German occupation regime and to support the gendarmerie of the order police in general police tasks. The so-called protection teams served to support the battalions of the Ordnungspolizei, the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS in the so-called gang fight . Like the German Ordnungspolizei itself, the auxiliary police were used in carrying out the Holocaust . B. by recording the Jewish population, guarding ghettos and escorting them. In individual cases, such as in Babyn Yar , the auxiliary police were involved in massacres of Jews.
A police school was set up in Lemberg to train the auxiliary police. The two dozen battalions of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police were organized according to the same pattern as in the occupied Baltic States or Belarus . A Shuma battalion comprised three companies and a staff of about 50 men, the total strength was 500 men. At times the total strength of the Ukrainian auxiliary police is said to have comprised 35,000 men.
The Ukrainian guerrilla leader Stepan Bandera urged the members of the auxiliary police to desert , taking their weapons with them, in order to serve in the Ukrainian insurgent army . Allegedly 10,000 members of the auxiliary police defected to the insurgents. It is unclear when the Ukrainian auxiliary police were disbanded. Some of the staff was transferred to the 14th Division of the Waffen SS.
Uniform, ranks, equipment and armament
As in other occupied territories, auxiliary police officers in Ukraine were equipped with obsolete pre-war black SS uniforms, from which the insignia had been removed. The ranks:
were indicated by stripes and chevrons on both lower sleeves. Apparently in 1943 the black uniforms were replaced by field gray ones. Armament and equipment came partly from German spoils of the Red Army , partly from outdated police and armed forces stocks.
literature
- Gordon Williamson / Velimir Vuksic: German Security and Police Soldier 1939-45 ( Osprey Publishing Warrior series no. 61 ), Botley 2002. ISBN 1-84176-416-7 .