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Order Police battalions

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Militarised police units of Nazi Germany

Order Police battalions
Police battalions in parade formation,Minsk,occupied Belarus, 1943
Active	1939–1945
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Ordnungspolizei (Order Police, "Orpo")
Type	Uniformed police
Role	Participation in theHolocaust Nazi security warfare
Size	Battalions
Part of	Police units underSS command

Military unit

Order Police battalions werebattalion-sizedmilitarised units ofNazi Germany'sOrdnungspolizei which existed duringWorld War II from 1939 to 1945. They were subordinated to theSchutzstaffel and deployed in areas ofGerman-occupied Europe, specifically theArmy Group Rear Area Commands and territories under civilian administration. Alongside theEinsatzgruppen,Waffen-SS andWehrmacht, these units were involved in perpetratingthe Holocaust and were responsible for large-scalecrimes against humanity against civilian populations under German occupation.

Operational history

TheOrdnungspolizei (Order 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. In 1938, before the breakout of World War II, the police units participated in theannexation of Austria and theoccupation of Czechoslovakia.^[1]

Invasion of Poland

Order Police unit conducting a raid (*razzia*) in theKraków ghetto, 1941

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.^[1] The first 17 battalion formations were deployed by Orpo in September 1939 along with theWehrmacht in theinvasion of Poland. The battalions guarded Polish prisoners of war and carried outexpulsion of Poles fromReichsgau Wartheland under the banner ofLebensraum.^[2] They also committed atrocities against both theCatholic and theJewish populations as part of those "resettlement actions".^[3] After hostilities had ceased, the battalions−such asReserve Police Battalion 101−took up the role of security forces, patrolling the perimeters of theJewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland (the internal ghetto security issues were managed by the SS,SD, and the Criminal Police, in conjunction with theJewish ghetto administration).^[4]

Invasion of the Soviet Union

Twenty-three Orpo battalions were slated to take part in the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union,Operation Barbarossa. Nine were attached to theWehrmacht security divisions. 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 asPolice Regiments Centre,North,South, andPolice Regiment Special Purpose.^[5] The goals of the 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".^[6]

Comprising about 550 men each, the 300-numbered 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 by anti-semitism and anti-Bolshevism.^[7] The regiments and battalions were placed under the command of career policemen. When the units crossed the German-Soviet border, they came under the control of theHigher SS and Police Leader (HSS-PF) for the respective Army Group Centre Rear Areas.^[8]

Occupied Western and Southern Europe

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Units

Wehrmacht propaganda photograph of the Jewish women inMogilev, July 1941. Mogilev Jews were murdered byPolice Battalion 322 ofPolice Regiment Centre in October 1941.^[9]

Regular police battalions

Reserve police battalions

Reserve Police Battalion 101

Aftermath

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 society largely unmolested, with many returning to police careers in Austria andWest Germany.^[10]

References

^^a ^bShowalter 2005, p. xiii.
^Browning 1992, p. 38.
^Rossino, Alexander B.,Hitler Strikes Poland, University of Kansas Press: Lawrence, Kansas, 2003, pp 69–72, en passim.
^Hillberg, p 81.
^Westermann 2005, pp. 163–164.
^Westermann 2005, p. 165.
^Westermann 2005, p. 15.
^Breitman 1998, pp. 45–46.
^Breitman 1998, p. 66.
^Westermann 2005, p. 231.

Bibliography

Arico, Massimo (2010).Ordnungspolizei: Encyclopedia of the German Police Battalions. Stockholm: Leandoer and Ekholm.ISBN 978-91-85657-99-5.
Beorn, Waitman Wade (2014).Marching into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0674725508.
Blood, Phillip W. (2006).Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. Potomac Books.ISBN 978-1-59797-021-1.
Breitman, Richard (1998).Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew. New York: Hill and Wang/Farrar Straus & Giroux.ISBN 9780809001842.
Curilla, Wolfgang (2010).Der Judenmord in Polen und die deutsche Ordnungspolizei 1939-1945. Paderborn: Schöningh Paderborn.ISBN 978-3-50677043-1.
Persico, Joseph E. (22 October 2002).Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage.Random House.ISBN 0-3757-6126-8.
Showalter, Dennis (2005). "Foreword".Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas City:University Press of Kansas.ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1.
Smith, Michael (2004). "Bletchley Park and the Holocaust". In Scott, L. V.; Jackson, P. D. (eds.).Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: Journeys in Shadows.ISBN 0714655333.
Tessin, Georg & Kannapin, Norbert (2000).Waffen-SS und Ordnungspolizei im Kriegseinsatz 1939 - 1945: ein Überblick anhand der Feldpostübersicht. Osnabrück: Biblio-Verlag.ISBN 3-7648-2471-9.
"Selected Records from the Military Historical Institute Archives, Prague, 1941-1944"(PDF).United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2008. Retrieved20 January 2018.
Westermann, Edward B. (2005).Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas City:University Press of Kansas.ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1.