Sicherheitspolizei

Last updated
Security Police
Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo)
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-027-1475-38, Marseille, deutsch-franzosische Besprechung.jpg
SiPo officers in Marseilles during World War II
Agency overview
Formed26 June 1936
Preceding agency
Dissolved22 September 1939
Superseding agency
Type State Security Police
Jurisdiction Flag of Germany (1935-1945).svg Germany
Occupied Europe
Headquarters Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
Employees245,000 (1940) [1]
Ministers responsible
Agency executive

The Sicherheitspolizei (English: Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police; Kripo) between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe.

Contents

Origins

The term originated in August 1919 when the Reichswehr set up the Sicherheitswehr as a militarised police force to take action during times of riots or strikes. Owing to limitations in army numbers, it was renamed the Sicherheitspolizei to avoid attention. They wore a green uniform, and were sometimes called the "Green Police". It was a military body, recruiting largely from the Freikorps , with NCOs and officers from the old German Imperial Army. [2]

Nazi era

Standard for the chief of SiPo Stander Chef der SiPo und SD 1942.svg
Standard for the chief of SiPo
SiPo officers in occupied Warsaw Funkcjonariusze Sipo z al. Szucha 25 w Warszawie.jpg
SiPo officers in occupied Warsaw

When the Nazis came to national power in 1933, Germany, as a federal state, had myriad local and centralized police agencies, which often were un-coordinated and had overlapping jurisdictions. Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich's plan was to fully absorb all the police and security apparatus into the structure of the Schutzstaffel (SS). [3] To this end, Himmler took command first of the Gestapo (itself developed from the Prussian Secret Police). Then on 17 June 1936 all police forces throughout Germany were united, following Adolf Hitler's appointment of Himmler as Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Chief of German Police). [4] As such he was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, but in practice Himmler answered only to Hitler. [5]

Himmler immediately reorganised the police, with the state agencies statutorily divided into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo), consisting of both the national uniformed police and the municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), consisting of the Kripo and Gestapo. [5] Heydrich was appointed chief of the SiPo and was already head of the party Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD) and the Gestapo. [6] [7] The two police branches were commonly known as the Orpo and SiPo (Kripo and Gestapo combined), respectively. [5]

The idea was to fully identify and integrate the party agency (SD) with the state agency (SiPo). [8] Most of the SiPo members were encouraged or volunteered to become members of the SS and many held a rank in both organisations. Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo. [9] The Kripo kept a level of independence since its structure was longer-established. [10] Himmler founded the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei in order to create a centralized main office under Heydrich's overall command of the SiPo. [9]

The Einsatzgruppen were formed under the direction of Heydrich and operated by the SS under the SiPo and SD. [11] [12] The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938. [13] Originally part of the SiPo, two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. [14]

Merger

In September 1939, with the founding of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA), the Sicherheitspolizei as a functioning state agency ceased to exist as the department was merged into the RSHA. [15] Further, the RSHA obtained overall command of the Einsatzgruppen units from that time forward. Members of the Einsatzgruppen units at this point were drawn from the SS, the SD and the police. [16] They were used during the invasion of Poland to forcefully de-politicise the Polish people and murder members of groups most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the nobility. [16] When the units were re-formed prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the men of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, Kripo, Orpo and Waffen-SS. [17] These mobile death squads were active in the implementation of the Final Solution in the territories overrun by the Nazi forces. [18]

Organizational structure

Amt Politische Polizei (Office of the Political Police)
PP II A – Kommunismus und andere marxistische Gruppen (Communism and other Marxist groups)
PP II B – Kirchen, Sekten, Emigranten, Juden, Logen (Churches, sects, emigrants, Jews, lodges)
PP II C – Reaktion, Opposition, Österreichische Angelegenheiten (Reaction, Opposition, Austrian Affairs)
PP II D – Schutzhaft, Konzentrationslager (Protective custody, concentration camps)
PP II E – Wirtschafts-, agrar- und sozialpolitische Angelegenheiten, Vereinswesen (Economic, agricultural and social affairs organizations)
PP II G – Funküberwachung (Radio surveillance)
PP II H – Angelegenheiten der Partei, ihrer Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände (Affairs of the party, its divisions and affiliated associations)
PP II J – Ausländische Politische Polizei (Foreign Political Police)
PP II Ber. – Lageberichte (Situational reporting)
PP II P – Presse (Press Affairs)
PP II S – Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung (Combating homosexuality and abortion)
PP III – Abwehrpolizei (Police Intelligence)

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gestapo</span> Secret police of Nazi Germany

The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhard Heydrich</span> Nazi high official and deputy head of the SS (1904–1942)

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.

<i>Schutzstaffel</i> Nazi paramilitary organisation (1925–45)

The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.

Sicherheitsdienst, full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office, as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision".

<i>Einsatzgruppen</i> Nazi paramilitary death squads, part of the SS

Einsatzgruppen were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood. Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reich Security Main Office</span> Nazi German police and intelligence organization (1939–45)

The Reich Security Main Office was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS, the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)</span> German police official and head of the Gestapo (1939–1945)

Heinrich Müller was a high-ranking German Schutzstaffel (SS) and police official during the Nazi era. For most of World War II in Europe, he was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. Müller was central in the planning and execution of the Holocaust and attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans for deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" to distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Nebe</span> German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator (1894–1945)

Arthur Nebe was a German SS functionary who held key positions in the security and police apparatus of Nazi Germany and was, from 1941, a major perpetrator of the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruno Streckenbach</span>

Bruno Streckenbach was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He was the head of Administration and Personnel Department of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). Streckenbach was responsible for many thousands of murders committed by Nazi mobile killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen.

<i>Allgemeine SS</i> Main branch of the SS

The Allgemeine SS was a major branch of the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (SS-Hauptamt). The Allgemeine SS was officially established in the autumn of 1934 to distinguish its members from the SS-Verfügungstruppe, which later became the Waffen-SS, and the SS-Totenkopfverbände, which were in charge of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen.

<i>Ordnungspolizei</i> Uniformed police force of Nazi Germany (1936–1945)

The Ordnungspolizei, abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government. The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei. The force was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis.

<i>Kriminalpolizei</i> German criminal police organization

Kriminalpolizei is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal police department for the entire Reich. Today, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the state police (Landespolizei) perform the majority of investigations. Its Criminal Investigation Department is known as the Kriminalpolizei or more colloquially, the Kripo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Walter Stahlecker</span> Holocaust perpetrator (1900–1942)

Franz Walter Stahlecker was commander of the SS security forces (Sicherheitspolizei and the Sicherheitsdienst for the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941–42. Stahlecker commanded Einsatzgruppe A, the most murderous of the four Einsatzgruppen active in German-occupied Eastern Europe. He was fatally wounded in action by Soviet partisans and was replaced by Heinz Jost.

There were two main Police forces of Nazi Germany under the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler from 1936:

Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei was a central state police agency command office in Nazi Germany entrusted with overseeing the Kriminalpolizei and the Geheime Staatspolizei for the years 1936–1939.

Units and commands of the Schutzstaffel were organizational titles used by the SS to describe the many groups, forces, and formations that existed within the SS from its inception in 1923 to the eventual fall of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (RKPA), was Nazi Germany's central criminal investigation department, founded in 1936 after the Prussian central criminal investigation department (Landeskriminalpolizeiamt) became the national criminal investigation department for Germany. It was merged, along with the secret state police department, the Gestapo, as two sub-branch departments of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo). The SiPo was under Reinhard Heydrich's overall command. In September 1939, with the founding of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the SiPo as a functioning state agency ceased to exist as a department and was merged into the RSHA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Panzinger</span>

Friedrich Panzinger was a German SS officer during the Nazi era. He served as the head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Amt IV A, from September 1943 to May 1944 and the commanding officer of three sub-group Einsatzkommando of Einsatzgruppen A in the Baltic States and Belarus. From 15 August 1944 forward, he was chief of RSHA Amt V, the Kriminalpolizei. After the war, Panzinger was arrested in 1946 and imprisoned by the Soviet Union for being a war criminal. Released in 1955, he was a member of the Bundesnachrichtendienst. In 1959, Panzinger committed suicide in his jail cell after being arrested for war crimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Hitler's bodyguard</span> Overview of Adolf Hitlers bodyguard units

Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany, initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust. He was hated by his persecuted enemies and even by some of his own countrymen. Although attempts were made to assassinate him, none were successful. Hitler had numerous bodyguard units over the years which provided security.

Kriminalpolizei, often abbreviated as Kripo, is the German name for a criminal investigation department. This article deals with the agency during the Nazi era.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 608.
  2. ↑ Edmonds 1987, p. 210.
  3. ↑ Browder 1990, pp. 226–227, 231–234.
  4. ↑ Browder 1990, pp. 225–226.
  5. 1 2 3 Williams 2001, p. 77.
  6. ↑ Weale 2010, pp. 134, 135.
  7. ↑ Williams 2001, p. 61.
  8. ↑ Browder 1996, pp. 233–234.
  9. 1 2 Weale 2010, pp. 134–135.
  10. ↑ Buchheim 1968, pp. 166–187.
  11. ↑ Gerwarth 2012, p. 132.
  12. ↑ Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 227.
  13. ↑ Streim 1989, p. 436.
  14. ↑ Longerich 2012, pp. 405, 412.
  15. ↑ Weale 2012, pp. 140, 141.
  16. 1 2 Longerich 2010, p. 144.
  17. ↑ Longerich 2010, p. 185.
  18. ↑ McNab 2009, pp. 113, 123, 124.

Bibliography

  • Browder, George C. (1990). Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of Sipo and SD . The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN   978-0-81311-697-6.
  • Browder, George C (1996). Hitler's Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security Service in the Nazi Revolution. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19820-297-4.
  • Buchheim, Hans (1968). "The SS – Instrument of Domination". In Krausnik, Helmut; Buchheim, Hans; Broszat, Martin; Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf (eds.). Anatomy of the SS State. New York: Walker and Company. ISBN   978-0-00211-026-6.
  • Edmonds, James (1987). The Occupation of the Rhineland. London: HMSO. ISBN   978-0-11-290454-0.
  • Gerwarth, Robert (2012). Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-30018-772-4.
  • Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-30008-432-0.
  • Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-280436-5.
  • Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-959232-6.
  • McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945. London: Amber Books. ISBN   978-1-906626-49-5.
  • Streim, Alfred (1989). "The Tasks of the SS Einsatzgruppen, pages 436–454". In Marrus, Michael (ed.). The Nazi Holocaust, Part 3, The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder, Volume 2. Westpoint, CT: Meckler. ISBN   0-88736-266-4.
  • Weale, Adrian (2010). The SS: A New History. London: Little, Brown. ISBN   978-1408703045.
  • Weale, Adrian (2012). Army of Evil: A History of the SS. New York: Caliber Printing. ISBN   978-0-451-23791-0.
  • Williams, Max (2001). Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography, Volume 1—Road To War. Church Stretton: Ulric Publishing. ISBN   978-0-9537577-5-6.
  • Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich . New York: MacMillan Publishing. ISBN   0-02-897500-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.