| Police Regiment Centre | |
|---|---|
| Polizei-Regiment Mitte | |
| Active | 1941–1942 |
| Country |  Nazi Germany |
| Role | Participation in theHolocaust Nazi security warfare |
| Size | Regiment |
| Part of | Order Police underSS command, reporting directly toHigher SS and Police Leader, Central Russia |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Max Montua [de] Walter Schimana |
ThePolice Regiment Centre (Polizei-Regiment Mitte) was a formation of theOrder Police (uniformed police) during theNazi era. DuringOperation Barbarossa, it was subordinated to theSchutzstaffel (SS) and deployed in German-occupied areas, specifically theArmy Group Centre Rear Area, of the Soviet Union. In mid-1942, its three constituentbattalions were reassigned and the unit was re-designated as the13th Police Regiment.
Alongside detachments from theEinsatzgruppen and theSS Cavalry Brigade, it perpetratedmass murders and was responsible for large-scalecrimes against humanity targeting civilian populations in the course ofNazi security warfare. The scope of the regiment's operations had been known to British intelligence since July 1941, but, for reasons of national security, information pertaining to their activities was not released until 1993.
The GermanOrder Police (uniformed police) was a key instrument of the security apparatus ofNazi Germany. In the prewar period,Heinrich Himmler, the head of theSS, andKurt Daluege, chief of the Order Police, cooperated in transforming the police force of theWeimar Republic into militarised formations ready to serve the regime's aims of conquest and racial annihilation. The police units participated in theannexation of Austria and theoccupation of Czechoslovakia. Police troops were first formed into battalion-sized formations for theinvasion of Poland, where they were deployed for security and policing purposes, also taking part in executions and mass deportations.[2]
Twenty-threeOrder Police battalions were slated to take part in the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union,Operation Barbarossa. Nine were attached tosecurity divisions of theWehrmacht, three for eachArmy Group Rear Areas. Two battalions were assigned to support theEinsatzgruppen, the mobiledeath squads of the SS, and theOrganisation Todt, the military construction group. Twelve were formed into regiments, three battalions each, and designated as Police Regiments Centre,North,South, andSpecial Purpose.[3]
Police units assigned to the Wehrmacht security divisions and theEinsatzgruppen were motorised, while those formed into regiments were not. The goals of theOrder Police battalions were to secure the rear by eliminating the remnants of the enemy forces, guarding the prisoners of war, and protecting the lines of communications and captured industrial facilities. Their instructions also included, as Daluege stated, the "combat of criminal elements, above all political elements".[4]
Police Regiment Centre was formed in June 1941 by combining Police Battalions307,316, and322, each comprising about 550 men. These battalions were raised from recruits mobilised from the 1905–1915 year groups. They were led by career police professionals, steeped in the ideology ofNazism, driven anti-semitism and anti-Bolshevism.[5] The unit was placed under the command ofMax Montua [de], a career policeman. When it crossed the German-Soviet border, the regiment came under the control ofErich von dem Bach-Zelewski, theHigher SS and Police Leader (HSS-PF) forArmy Group Centre.[6]
Himmler made a personal visit to the headquarters of the unit inBialystok on 8 July where he met withMax von Schenckendorff, commander ofArmy Group Centre Rear Area, Daluege, Montua, Bach-Zalewski, and the regiment's officers. He expressed concern that too few Jews had been rounded up and called on the officers to increase their efforts. It was likely that Himmler had ordered increased killings since several massacres followed immediately after.[7]
The same evening, a company of Police Battalion 322 participated in the shooting of about 1,000 Jews under the direction ofEinsatzgruppe B.[8] The next day, 9 July, Police Battalion 307 participated in the massacre of 4–6,000 Jewish men, Russians and Belarusians in the vicinity of Brest-Litovsk (nowBrest, Belarus).[9] The killing operation, with assistance by personnel of the Wehrmacht's162nd Infantry Division, lasted several days.[7] On 10 July, Daluege addressed the members of the regiment arrayed in a parade formation, extolling them to "exterminate" Bolshevism as a "blessing for Germany".[10] On 11 July, Montua passed a confidential order from Bach-Zalewski to the battalion commanders that Jews, who had been "convicted of looting", were to be shot; an execution took place the same day.[8] Around this time, Police Battalions 316 and 322 rounded up approximately 3,000 Jewish men from Bialystok and shot them in a nearby forest.[11]
On 17 July, the regiment murdered over 1,100 Jews inSlonim, with Bach-Zalewski reporting to Himmler on 18 July: "Yesterday's cleansing action in Slonim by Police Regiment Centre. 1,153 Jewish plunderers were shot".[12] By 20 July, the unit's reports referred to executions of Jewish women and children.[8] By late August, Police Battalion 322 moved toMinsk, where, on 1 September, it conducted a killing operation together with the units ofEinsatzgruppe B. The victims included 290 Jewish men and 40 Jewish women.[13]
In September 1941, the regiment participated in theMogilev conference, organised by GeneralMax von Schenckendorff, commander of theArmy Group Centre Rear Area.[14] Montua had been in charge of the event's planning and logistics.[15] The conference included three field exercises. On the second day, participants travelled to a nearby settlement where a company of Police Battalion 322, assisted by the troops of the SD, conducted a demonstration of how to surround and screen a village. According to the after-action report, "suspicious strangers" (Ortsfremde) or "partisans" could not be found. The screening of the population revealed fifty-one Jewish civilians, of whom thirty-two were shot.[16]
On 2 October 1941, Police Battalions 322 and 316, along with Bach-Zalewski's staff company and Ukrainian auxiliaries, rounded up 2,200 Jews in theMogilev Ghetto. Sixty-five were killed during the roundups, and another 550 executed the next day. Throughout the rest of the month, the battalion continued to execute Jews, communists, and alleged partisans in the vicinity of Mogilev. The commander of the unit received theIron Cross, 2nd class, following these operations.[17] Another killing operation later that month, byEinsatzkommando 8 and Police Battalions 316 and 322, brought the total number of victims in Mogilev to about 6,000.[1]
On 7–8 November, Police Battalion 316 participated in the murder of Jews inBobruisk. The inmates of the Bobruisk ghetto were rounded up and loaded into trucks. They were taken to the village of Kamenka where they were shot into pits dug for this purpose. About 5,281 people were killed by the personnel of the battalion and theEinsatzkommando 8.[18]
In December, after the German defeat in theBattle of Moscow, the regiment was sent to the front lines to reinforce the German defenses, thus depriving Bach-Zalewski of manpower.[19] Police Battalion 307, for example, was deployed nearKaluga on 20 December and had been reduced to a combat strength of 60 men by March. The other two battalions were assigned to guard and security duties to the immediate rear of the front-line troops and were not heavily involved in combat.[20] The regimental commander, Montua, was recalled to Germany to assume an SS and police training position[19] and was replaced byColonel of Police (Oberst der Polizei)Walter Schimana on 1 December.[21] Bach-Zalewski himself was temporarily relieved of command and sent to Germany for recuperation.[19] Around May–June 1942, the battalions were replaced by Police Battalions6,85 and301, which were redesignated as the regiment's first through third battalions, respectively.[22] The regiment was redesignated in July as the13th Police Regiment.[23]
Progress reports on the murderous activities of the Police Regiment Center, theEinsatzgruppen detachment and the SS Cavalry Brigade were regularly forwarded by Bach-Zalewski. However, unbeknownst to him, the reports were being intercepted byMI6, the British intelligence service, whose code breakers atBletchley Park had broken the German ciphers as part ofUltra, the British signals intelligence program.[24]
The head of MI6,Stewart Menzies, communicated the decrypts directly to British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. The first decrypted message was the 18 July report on the mass murders by the regiment at Slonim. In late July and early August, similar reports were intercepted on a regular basis. Angered by the scope of the atrocities, Churchill delivered a speech over the radio on 24 August stating:[24]
Whole districts are being exterminated (...) Scores of thousands of executions are perpetrated by the German police troops upon the Soviet patriots defending their native soil. Since the Mongol invasion of Europe, there have never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale or approaching such a scale. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.
From 27 August, Bletchley Park delivered specially prepared daily intelligence reports on the activities of the police troops. By this point, the British intelligence had detailed information on the activities of both Bach-Zalewski's andFriedrich Jeckeln's formations (with Jeckeln operating inArmy Group South Rear Area). On 12 September, the German Police changed their cipher; the following day, the SS officials were instructed to stop transmitting the reports over the radio.[25] Subsequently, the code breakers produced monthly reports detailing the crimes perpetrated byNazi Germany.[26]
Police Battalions 307, 316, and 322 were reassigned to other regiments and continued to engage in security warfare (Bandenbekämpfung, or "bandit-fighting") and genocide. Battalion 307 was assigned to the23rd Police Regiment and took part in the punitiveOperation Sumpffieber [de] in Belarus. Battalions 316 and 322 were sent toSlovenia, with Battalion 316 then assigned to the4th Police Regiment in France and Battalion 322 joining the5th Police Regiment, still in Slovenia.[27] The regiment's former commander, Montua, committed suicide in April 1945.[28]
The Order Police as a whole had not been declared a criminal organisation by the Allies, unlike the SS, and its members were able to reintegrate into the German society largely unmolested, with many returning to police careers in Austria andWest Germany.[29] Personnel of Police Battalion 322 were investigated by the West German authorities in the 1960s. One of the battalion's members stated:[30]
The expression 'combat of the partisans' is strictly speaking a complete misnomer. We did not have a single battle with partisans after we left Mogilev. ... The fact of the matter [was] that those found without identity cards sufficed for their arrest and executions".[30]
For reasons of national security, the Ultra program remained classified after the war and the decrypts pertaining to the activities of security and police troops during the war were not shared with Britain's allies. Consequently, they were not used during theNuremberg trials or subsequent investigations of German war crimes and crimes against humanity. The decrypts were finally released in 1993.[31]