Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East
by Edward B. Westermann; University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2005, $34.95.
This book is an excellent complement to—and extension of—the work begun by Christopher Browning on German police battalions. Whereas Browning’s Ordinary Men (1992) concentrated solely on Police Battalion 101, Westermann expands this to cover German police battalions in general, and on the part they played in Hitler’s war of extermination on the Eastern Front.
Westermann begins with a detailed account of the strenuous efforts made by SS chief Heinrich Himmler to gain control of the German police. It is indeed important to remember that Himmler’s full title was “Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police.” He secured this position after Hermann Göring brought the Prussian state police, the largest police force in Germany, into the Nazi orbit after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933.
Himmler saw the uniformed police as a critical element both in enforcing Nazi rule in Germany and carrying out the murderous racial policies in the East. His principal henchman in this was Chief of the Uniformed Police Kurt Daluege. As a result, the uniformed police played sinister if only supporting roles in the two most infamous episodes of prewar Nazi Germany, namely the “Night of the Long Knives” and the “Night of Broken Glass.” Once firmly in control of the uniformed security services, Daluege went to great lengths to instill its men with the ethics and values of the SS.
The importance of the uniformed police to Nazi policies is shown by efforts made by Himmler and Daluege to obtain high quality military-age manpower for the force, even during wartime. Contrary to Browning’s image depicting Police Battalion 101 as a collection of middle-aged men unfit for military service, Westermann’s broader study reveals something quite different. The uniformed police was able to gain large numbers of young men fit for military service. This was in keeping with the broader vision of Himmler and Daluege. Both sought to give the uniformed security services a martial identity, and both saw police battalions playing a military role, including participation in combat missions in support of the Wehrmacht. In addition, the effort to staff the police with young men was in line with the emphasis on youth, a key part of Nazi ideology, or any other totalitarian movement.
Once Hitler unleashed World War II, police battalions became a familiar feature in German military operations, especially during the Polish campaign in 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. In both cases police battalions were temporarily attached to army formations for some combat missions. More commonly, police battalions were engaged in securing large swathes of territory overrun by the rapidly advancing German forces. This included conducting antipartisan operations, supporting SS murder squads and committing atrocities on their own. Westermann looks at these activities through the prism of a number of police battalions, and their individual actions in specific cases.
Perhaps the biggest flaw in the book is its limited chronological scope. Westermann concentrates briefly on the Polish campaign, and then the period 1941-42 for the Soviet Union. This is unfortunate, because it means that some questions go unanswered. The most important of these concerns was whether the role of police battalions changed as the tide of war turned against Germany. Also nothing is said of the fate of any number of figures in the book, most notably Kurt Daluege.
That flaw aside, this well-researched and well-written work is an excellent addition to the corpus of literature on Germany and the war, especially on the Eastern Front. It is essential for any student of that theater, and of German occupation policies.
Originally published in the September 2006 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
