People's police readiness / orderly operation
VPB Ordnungsarbeit is a text separation from the article VP readiness .
The VP readiness or parts of them (company or platoon) acted in orderly operations under the control of an operations manager of a VPKA (district office) or, in Berlin, a VP area. As a rule, a lieutenant of the VP (Schutzpolizei) assigned the tasks to the company commander, a major or a captain of the VP. In contrast to the members of the VP readiness, the head of operations had knowledge of the police situation in the action area and of the applicable legal provisions.
The following tactical methods were used:
- To back up
- Monitor
- Check
- regulate
- Accompany
- Isolate
- Lock
- Clearing
- Dissolve
Within these tactical methods, the following types of operations were used:
- operational groups
- Post
- Cordon
- Locking chain
- Trap circuit
- Clearing chain
The strength, armament and equipment of the type of operation as well as the type and duration of their operation were dependent on the task to be performed.
- The strength was for
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Definitions of Tactical Methods
To back up
Securing is the occupation and guarding of sections, rooms and objects with the aim of protecting the population, facilities and material goods from opposing activities or other disturbances, as well as maintaining permanent or temporary order.
Example: when securing a room after a plane crash like in Königs Wusterhausen in 1972.
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Monitor
Monitoring is the observation and review of the actions of people as well as possible disruptors and sources of danger, with the aim of recognizing dangers to public order and security in good time.
Example: during a state visit to the GDR by Castro or Tito.
Check
Checking is the examination of people, vehicles and objects with the aim of ensuring the established order in a room, section or object, preventing legal violations, identifying and arresting named persons, locating and securing the objects that are being sought.
Example: used when searching for fleeting infringers.
The tactical methods of securing, monitoring and controlling can be used as task forces and posts :
- Reconnaissance group,
- Patrol and
- Post (security, observation, control and patrol posts).
regulate
Rules are the local and temporal coordination of the process of passenger and vehicle traffic with the aim of keeping people or vehicles away from the operational area, ensuring the safety and fluidity of traffic, preventing or resolving congestion and ensuring that traffic is diverted in certain directions . There is the deployment of forces of the traffic police and other branches of service, in exceptional cases support by parts or by closed units to support these measures.
Example: the use of VPB trains to temporarily block subway entrances at Alexanderplatz after the Puhdy concert during the World Festival.
The following items are used:
- Regulatory items
Accompany
Accompanying is the escorting and protection of people, groups of people on foot and by motor vehicle as well as the transport of material goods with the aim of protecting them from external dangers and ensuring their unhindered movement.
To implement this tactical method :
- Accompanying group
Isolate
Isolation is the demarcation and separation of a trouble spot or a group of interferers from the population, from interferers from each other and from people at risk and the rearrangement of rooms and locations with the aim of preventing people from entering the trouble spot or from leaving the trouble spot uncontrolled to protect citizens from dangers, to guarantee the emergency services freedom of action, to secure rescue and rescue work.
Example: the deployment in the peaceful demonstrations in autumn 1989.
Lock
Blocking is the occupation of sections with the aim of preventing unauthorized entry into rooms or objects.
Example: at football events.
To implement this tactical method, the operational forms are:
- Restricted circle (change of groups of people),
- Lock chain (setting up a chain of posts in a front) and
- Cordon (stringing of items / representation) applied.
Clearing
Clearance is the removal of people and groups of people from streets and squares as well as from buildings and sections of the site with the aim of preventing disruptions, removing the population from sources of danger as well as displacing disruptive or illegal gatherings of people in certain directions and temporarily arresting active interferers.
The application form is used
- the clearing chain: locking chain in motion.
Dissolve
Dissolving is the division, diverting and dispersing of gatherings of people with the aim of preventing or eliminating disturbances and preventing them from gathering again. Ringleaders are to be arrested for the time being.
Detaching
Detachment is the removal of people or recognized interferers, especially ringleaders, from crowds with the aim of protecting people or eliminating the disturbance intended or caused by the interfering party, or creating favorable conditions for restoring public order and security.
In the tactical methods of dissolving and detaching, the following deployment groups are used:
- Resolution group / troop,
- Detachment group / troop and
- Arrest group.
particularities
- Before each mission, the (defense) liaison officer of the MfS “checked” every member of the family and, if necessary, intervened against the K-VPB.
- The police aids and weapons (submachine guns) carried during a police operation only allowed the "immediate transition to active actions" to a limited extent, since batons and irritant gas in transport crates were kept sealed on the personnel carrier under the direct responsibility of the train driver and were only used after the VPKA chief of operations had obtained approval through the command channel. Police aids were only released by the minister or, in exceptional cases, by the chief BDVP (fears of political effects or West German media reports).
- A civilian use of conscripts did not take place. It was strictly forbidden to store civilian clothes in the barracks. Only the special scouts of the general reconnaissance group of the headquarters company (anti-terrorist unit, temporary subordinate), a maximum of two troops, were deployed in exceptional cases on the orders of the chief BDVP.
The members of the OHS were deployed in civilian clothes (personal clothing of the OS and officers) in the course of the World Festival in Berlin before and in the accommodations of the delegates and on the occasion of the holding of party conferences in the hotels in which delegates were accommodated, together with members of the MfS ("Class struggle at the bar").