(follows page 82)
ON 24 August 1943, Hitler relieved of his office Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia von Neurath, appointed the minister of interior, Wilhelm Frick, in his place, and made Heinrich Himmler, Reich Leader S.S. and Chief of the German Police, Minister of the Interior and General Commissioner for Administration in the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Realm (see pp. 56-7). The chief of the Order Police, S.S. Leader Daluege, was withdrawn from the Protectorate; the under-secretary of state in the Ministry of the Interior, Pfundtner, was relieved of his duties; while at the same time Reich Labor Leader Konstantin Hierl was given the title of a Reich minister and placed under the direct authority of Hitler—not, as heretofore, under the interior ministry.
The decree sanctioned Himmler’s rise to supreme power over domestic politics, and marked the demotion of Frick. A demotion it was; Frick is a mere figurehead in the Protectorate, where power has been vested in Karl Hermann Frank, the Sudeten German who was made German minister of state in the Protectorate government, with a rank equal to that of a Reich minister.
As Minister of Interior, Himmler is in charge of the whole civil-service apparatus, not only in the Reich proper but also in the annexed and appended territories. Through this position, he controls the whole party machinery—since the Gauleiter are provincial presidents, prime ministers, federal regents, and defense commissioners (among other positions), and local leaders control city mayors and rural councilors (Landräte), He retains the control of the most important instrument of the Nazi system: the police.
As Reich Leader of the S.S., Himmler controls the widespread machinery of domestic terror and, through the Combat S.S. (Waffen S.S.), reaches into the jurisdiction of the supreme command of the army. As Commissioner General for Reich Administration, he has decisive voice in all legislative matters and is the political chief of the Reich Ministry of Justice. As Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Folkdom (Reichskommissar für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums), he is responsible for the Germanization of occupied, annexed, and appended territories and controls the Volksdeutschen in Europe, that is the non-German citizens of German blood.
The German police is now divided into two wings: the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) and the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei).
The Order Police, under Colonel General of the Police and S.S. Oberst Gruppenführer Kurt Daluege,2 comprises: the Protective Police (Schutzpolizei); the Gendarmerie; and the Administrative Police (Verwaltungspolizei).
The Protective Police is the uniformed police for cities, the Gendarmerie that for rural areas, while the administrative police fulfils a variety of functions, largely stemming from the German conception of a police state.
The Security Police, under S.S. Ober Gruppenführer Franz Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian who succeeded Reinhard Heydrich after the latter’s murder in the Protectorate, is divided into: the Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei); the Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei); and the Security Service of the Reich Leader of the S.S. (Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführer S.S.).
The Chief of the German Police operates through three main offices, those of the Order Police, the Security Police, and Budget and Buildings. He is not satisfied, however, with an indirect hold over the lower echelons of the police personnel. He directly controls all police and S.S. formations in the regional level through the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders (Höhere S.S. und Polizeiführer). Three types of Higher S.S. and Police Leaders exist: in Germany, for each corps area (Wehrkreis); outside of Germany, for almost each occupied territory; and those for special purposes. They control, within their regions, all Order and Security Police formations, the Security Service, and the General S.S. They may assume direct command of any one of these formations, or of all of them, whenever they deem it necessary. The fullest concentration of police and S.S. powers in any corps area is thus assured.
The Command of the Order Police is divided into the main office Order Police (Hauptamt), and the office Administration and Law. The main office is subdivided into: the Reichoffice Technical Emergency Help (Technische Nothilfe); the office for Voluntary Fire Brigades; the State Hospital for Police; the Office for Police Sanitariums; State Training Stations for Police Dogs; and Order Police Schools. The Chief of the Order Police secures his power over all his subordinates through Inspector Generals (Generalinspekteure) of the Protective Police, the Gendarmerie, the Municipal Police, and the Police Schools. In addition he assures control of all Order Police formations in any corps area through Inspectors of the Order Police (Inspekteure der Ordnungspolizei) in charge of all Order Police branches in his territory. The Inspector belongs (as does the Inspector of the Security Police and Security Service) to the staff of the Higher S.S. and Police Leader.
In cities, the mayor as the head of local government is the police chief. In larger cities, however, state police administrations had already been established under the Weimar Republic. In these cities, all that remains to the mayors is the administrative police. The state police administrations are either police presidencies—in the largest cities—police directories—in the medium-sized ones—or police offices.
Above the local police authorities stand the higher police authorities, namely the rural councilors, the district presidents (Regierungspräsidenten) in Prussia and Bavaria, and the federal regents in the remaining Reichsgaue (see above, p. 527). The higher police authorities are topped by the Reich Minister of the Interior.
All Order Police activities come under the control of the higher police authorities, who may directly exercise police functions and often do so when authorized by law. As a rule, however, they are assigned either to state police authorities (Landespolizeibehörden)—district presidents, state governments, or federal regents—or county police authorities (Kreispolizeibehörden)—rural councilors in rural areas, mayors in cities, and state police administrations; so that they are at the same time local and state police authorities.
The Uniformed Police is employed by the Reich (Schutzpolizei des Reiches), or employed by the municipalities, or is the Gendarmerie or the Fire Protection Police (Feuerschutzpolizei). All these formations are militarized and, during the war, under military law, enforced by S.S. and Police Courts. They are all heavily Nazified, since replacements come exclusively from the Combat S.S. and the Armed Forces, while all police officers must be graduates of the S.S. Junker schools. As an outward sign of S.S. domination of the police, the S.S. collar patches are worn by the uniformed police.
Though the uniformed municipal police is probably less Nazified than the state police, it is nevertheless a reliable Nazi body. A central agency now allocates personnel to the municipal police that can be transferred to state police formations, while members of the latter may be shifted to the municipal police. The differences between the state and municipal police formations are thus reduced to purely fiscal considerations: the former is paid by the Reich, the latter by the municipalities.
It is likely that the least Nazified sector is the Gendarmerie, because appointment to this rural police corps requires 10 years’ service in the protective police, a condition that but few can have fulfilled.
The Fire Protection Police is under Reich control since the Fire Protection Statute of 13 November 1938. All members of the fire brigades (professional and voluntary) are under Reich control, the professionals being policemen; the voluntary, auxiliary policemen. All officers now graduate from a special school at Eberswalde, near Berlin. In consequence of an agreement between the Hitler Youth Leader and Himmler, Hitler Youth is now trained for fire-protection police service. It is they who usually fight fires caused by air raids. After proper training, a Youth Fire Badge is awarded to them.
Air-raid Protection Police is provided by all the above-mentioned police formations, assisted by the party, the air-raid protection warning service, and the air-raid protection warning union, co-ordinated by an air-raid protection leader. The whole air-raid protection police is now under Himmler and no longer under Göring.
The Technical Emergency Help was founded in 1919 as a kind of strike-breaking organization composed mainly of technical students and technicians for the operation of railroads and utilities during industrial disputes. It was one of the many counterrevolutionary cells in the body of the Republic. It is now part of the Order Police, though still primarily composed of volunteers of the same kind and for the same purpose, especially for the repair of utilities after aerial destruction and in occupied Europe. It is commanded by S.S. Brigade Leader Schmelcher.
The Order Police has jurisdiction over a huge variety of affairs: traffic control, road maintenance, and cleaning; control of canals, rivers, and ports; fire fighting and air-raid protection; control of public work and of construction; the issuance and withdrawal of permits and licenses for licensed trades and occupations; veterinary and health control; supervision and censorship of theaters and movies; registration of Germans. It assists, of course, the Security Police, Gestapo, and the Criminal Police in the execution of their tasks. It controls and trains the Auxiliary Police Formations created by the Himmler decree of 11 February 1942, namely the rural guards (Landwacht) and the city guards (Stadtwacht).
Special Police Formations, like the Railroad Police and the Water Protection Police, appear to have been subordinated to Himmler, while the former was previously under the Ministry for Transportation and the latter under various lower administrative agencies.
The ominous implications of the Nazi term police derive not so much from the Order Police but from the Security Police and its intimate relation with the Security Service of the S.S.
The Command rests with the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service, who is not only the direct commander of all the branches to be described below, but indirectly controls the municipal police forces, whose training and activities as political and criminal police agents he supervises. He operates on the national level through the Main Office for the Security of the Reich (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), divided into six sections: (1) administration and law; (2) investigation of enemies (Gegnererforschung); (3) German spheres of life (Deutsche Lebensgebiete); (4) fight against enemies (Gegnerbekämpfung); (5) fight against crime; and (6) foreign countries. Section 4 was previously called Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei) and still directs the work of the Gestapo. Training schools are attached to the main office.
The chief of the Security Police operates regionally through the Inspectors of the Security Police and Security Service for each corps area, who belong to the staff of the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders.
The Security Police thus comprises the Criminal Police, nationally controlled by Section 5 of the main office, regionally operating through 18 Criminal Police Directorates (Leitstellen), 46 Criminal Police Offices (Kriminalpolizeistellen), and 64 Criminal Departments. While the former two regional bodies are placed under the state police administration units in whose region they are located, the last are simply administrative departments of the state police units.
The Criminal Police tends to overshadow the role of the public prosecutor. Criminal police agents are, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, simply ‘auxiliary agents of the public prosecutor,’ and thus subject to his direction. Their function is merely to supply his office with information to be used for the public prosecutor’s indictment. This dependent position roused the ire of Dr. Werner Best, formerly in charge of Section 1 of the main Security office, now Hitler’s plenipotentiary in Denmark. He aimed at the elimination of the public prosecutor and at the preparation and the defense of the indictment during trial by the criminal police. This has not been done and legally, therefore, the Code has not been changed, probably because with Himmler’s appointment as Commissioner General for Administration, the Ministry of Justice (where the public prosecutors are incorporated) came under his control. But there is no doubt that the Criminal Police completely overshadows the public prosecutor, who is now only a stooge of the police.
The Secret State Police (Gestapo) is co-ordinated by Section 4 of the Security main office and operates regionally through 17 State Police Directorates (Leitstellen) and 52 State Police offices (Staatspolizeistellen). The powers of the Gestapo are unlimited, as has been shown on pp. 455-6.
The Gestapo also operates the Frontier Police (Grenzpolizei), who for this function are trained at a special school, while all Gestapo officers are, of course, graduates of the S.S. Junkerschulen.
The Security Service of the S.S. Reich Leader is far more than its name indicates. It was originally Himmler’s intelligence and espionage service. But on 9 June 1934, Hitler gave it the monopoly for the party and all its formations and affiliates, while later it was also made the intelligence and espionage organization for the government—except for the military intelligence, which is still concentrated in the famous Abwehr under Admiral Canaris. Thus a branch of the S.S. has the monopoly of intelligence and espionage both for the party and the government, and nothing indicates better its paramount importance.
Nationally, the Security Service operates through the main Security office (Sicherheitshauptamt), regionally through 57 sections (S.D. Abschnitte). The personnel is to a large extent non-professional, composed of thousands of agents all over Europe, charged with reporting the slightest variations in the moods of the people, reporting to the Gestapo and the local, regional, and national officials of the party either for repressive action or for the purposes of elaborating new propaganda lines.
This is the Police System in Germany. Its soul is that of the S.S. It is this all-important party formation that we have to discuss.
The S.S. traces its history back to 1923. It came under Himmler’s leadership on 6 January 1929. On 30 January 1933, it numbered 52,000. On 20 July 1934 it became an independent formation of the party, whereas before it had been merely a special branch of the S.A. Röhm’s murder paved the way for the ascent of the S.S.
In the National Command, the Reich Leader S.S. operates through the following bureaus (main offices):
(a) The personal staff of the Reich Leader S.S., developed from the Adjutantur. It is composed of the following offices: the chief adjutant; the police adjutant; press; culture (affiliated is the chinaware factory at Allach); S.S. barracks; co-ordination of all S.S. students; economic assistance; cultural research (i.e. excavations—excavations in Tibet were indeed carried out by S.S. scholars); Ahnenerbe—the heritage of the past; association Lebensborn, for mothers with many children; office of Four Year Plan (for the co-ordination of the S.S. economic activities with the Reich Four Year Plan); and liaison officers with government and party and the command of the General S.S., the Combat S.S., and the Security Service.
(b) The Chief of the S.S. Court. The powers of the S.S. courts go far beyond those of the normal party, S.A., or Labor Service Courts. According to the decrees of 17 October 1939 and 17 April 1940, S.S, and police formations fighting as S.S. or police units within the German army are exempt from army tribunals and come exclusively under S.S. courts. So do the full-time employees of Himmler, the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders, the members of the troops at disposal of the Death Head formations, of the Junker schools, and specially used police. In fact, therefore, only members of the General S.S. in Germany or S.S. men as soldiers in army—not S.S.—formations, fall under the general or military courts.
(c) The main office of the S.S. (Hauptamt S.S.). It had (and may still have) 13 sub-offices, concerned with training, administration, supply, mobilization, reserves, physical training, etc. Within the S.S. main offices are: the inspector of the Troops at Disposal; the leader of the Death Head Formation; the inspector of the frontier and guard units; the inspector of the S.S. cavalry; the inspector of the S.S. Junker schools; and the inspector of the S.S. cavalry schools.
(d) The main office for Race and Settlement. This office plays a major role in the determination of occupation policies in Europe. It disposes of huge properties, especially in the East, due to the fact that Himmler occupies the position of a Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German Nationhood.
(e) and (f) The main offices for Personnel and Administration and Economics, whose functions are self-explanatory.
(g) The main office Security, identical with the Security Service, mentioned above.
The Regional Command is centralized in the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders for each corps area. They are in command of the General S.S.—with a chief of staff for the General S.S., they command the Combat S.S., the Special Units of the S.S., the Security Service, directed by an inspector, and operate through leaders of S.S. sections (Absehnitte). Since Higher S.S. and Police Leaders exist in all occupied Europe, their powers are probably not matched by any official on the regional level.
The lower echelon of the S.S. is divided into 20 Oberabschnitte (main sectors—corresponding to the army corps in a corps area) and 43 Abschnitte (sectors). The leaders of these units range from Oberführer to Obergruppenführer.4 The lower units, with leaders, are:
Standarte (144) |
(regiment) –Standartenführer (colonel) |
Sturmbann |
(battalion) –Sturmbannführer (major) |
Sturm |
(company) –Sturmführer (captain) |
Trupp |
(platoon) –Truppführer (lieutenant) |
Schar |
(squad) –Scharführer (N.C.O.) |
The General S.S. has but minor significance today. It serves now primarily as a reservoir for the Combat S.S. It is composed of men between 18 and 35 who, in their leisure, undergo some military training and fulfil a number of minor functions. After 35, they join the S.S. reserve; after 45, the S.S. Stammabteilung.
The Combat (Waffen) S.S.5 arose from the Death Head (Totenkopf) formations and the S.S. Troops at Disposal (Verfügungstruppen). The Troops at Disposal, in turn, originated in Hitler’s own S.S. regiment, the Leibstandarte S.S. Adolf Hitler, under the iate Sepp Dietrich. Similar units were organized for his protection throughout the Reich, namely the S.S. regiments Deutschland in Munich, Germania in Hamburg, the S.S. engineer battalion (Pioniersturmbann) in Dresden, the communications battalion (Nachrichtensturmbann) in Tölz and Brunswick, and, in 1938, the fourth regiment Der Führer in Vienna, Klagenfurt, and Graz. The Death Head formations were and still are the concentration camp guards.
Up to 1939, therefore, these two combat S.S. branches were concerned with the security of the Leader and the insecurity of political opponents inside the camps, and provided a mobile arm for crushing internal disorder. In spite of conflicts with the army, the arming and expansion of the combat S.S. continued, especially when it showed its worth in the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1939, it thus started its equipment with artillery. When the war broke out it resisted its incorporation into the army, and expanded until it reached a number of divisions, each composed of 3 regiments, some of them recorded in the German press: the S.S. Death Head Division; the S.S. Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler; the S.S. Panzer Grenadier Division Das Reich; the S.S. Division Wiking; and the S.S. Police Division. However, the German armed forces proved formidable competitors for recruits. As a consequence, the S.S. began to look for recruits outside Germany. It found them first in the Volksdeutschen (see pp. 160-66 on the folk groups). Some of the Volksdeutsche were incorporated into the existing S.S. regiments; others, especially from the Balkans, were organized in a special division, Prince Eugen. But even foreigners of non-German blood were taken into S.S. regiments, Norwegians and Swedes into the S.S. regiment Nordland (now part of the Wiking division), and the S.S. Panzergrenadierregiment Norge. Dutchmen are being organized (regiment Westland), while Danes form a special corps Schalburg. Not only has every country of German-occupied Europe contributed to the combat S.S., but also neutrals like Sweden, Switzerland, Spain; there is even a Moslem detachment.
While the combat S.S. fights, it does so under its own commanders, though within the framework of the normal army corps. It is, as has been shown, exempt from military tribunals so as fully to retain its identity and its sole allegiance to Himmler.
1. This section is based on Werner Best, Die Deutsche Polizei, Darmstadt, 1940.
2. Daluege appears to have taken over the leadership of the whole police. Himmler now reigns as Reich Leader S.S. and Reich Minister of the Interior. Chief of the Order Police is now probably Wünnenberg.
3. The description of the S.S. structure is based on Gunter d’Alquen, Die S.S. Geschichte, Aufgabe und Organisation der Schutzstaffeln der N.S.D.A.P., Berlin, 1939.
4. Only Daluege and Schwarz seem to be Oberstgruppenführer.
5. For details, see the excellent study by Alfred Vagts, Hitler’s Second Army, Washington, D. C., 1943.