Blue Police
Encyclopedia
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
in the German occupied area of the Second Polish Republic, known as General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
during the Second World War. The official name of the organization was Polish Police of the General Government .
It was created by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
as an auxiliary
Auxiliary
Auxiliary may refer to:* A backup site or system* Auxiliary input jack, generally for audio* Auxiliary verb* International auxiliary language* Auxiliary police* Auxiliaries, troops supporting the main force of an army** Auxiliaries...
paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
police force in order to keep law and order in the General Government part of occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. Similar police organizations existed in all of the occupied countries (see Hilfspolizei
Hilfspolizei
The Hilfspolizei was a short-lived auxiliary police in Nazi Germany in 1933.The Hilfspolizei was created on February 22, 1933 by Hermann Göring, newly appointed Interior Minister of Prussia, to assist regular police in maintaining order and persecuting communist in the wake of the Reichstag fire...
). Initially used to deal with purely criminal activities, the Blue Police was later used to also prevent smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
, and to police the Jewish population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
in the ghettos. The ethnic composition of the police was not composed exclusively out of Polish people, but rather simply out of volunteers of the local population. It was liquidated and declared officially disbanded by the Polish Committee of National Liberation
Polish Committee of National Liberation
The Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
on August 27, 1944.
Organization
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
ordered the mobilization
Mobilization
Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Prussian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed...
of the pre-war Polish police into the service of the Germans. The policemen were to report for duty or face the death penalty.
According to the German plan, the police force was to consist of approximately 12,000 officers, but the actual number of its cadre was much lower. However, some sources put the numbers as high as 14,300. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust reports its manpower as 8,700 in February 1940 and states that it reached its peak in 1943 with 16,000 members. The Blue Police consisted primarily of Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and Polish speaking Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
s from the eastern parts of the General Government.
The Blue Police had little autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
, and all of its high ranking officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s came from the ranks of the German police
Ordnungspolizei
The Ordnungspolizei or Orpo were the uniformed regular police force in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945. It was increasingly absorbed into the Nazi police system. Owing to their green uniforms, they were also referred to as Grüne Polizei...
(Kriminalpolizei
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 during 1936, the Kripo became the Criminal Police Department for the entire Reich...
). It served in the capacity of an auxiliary force, along with the police forces guarding seats of administration (Schutzpolizei
Schutzpolizei
The Schutzpolizei , or Schupo for short, is a branch of the Landespolizei, the state level police of the German states. Schutzpolizei literally means security or protection police but is best translated as Uniformed Police....
), Railway Police (Bahnschutz), Forest Police (Forstschutz) and Border Police (Grenzschutz). The Blue Police was subordinate to German Ordnungspolizei
Ordnungspolizei
The Ordnungspolizei or Orpo were the uniformed regular police force in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945. It was increasingly absorbed into the Nazi police system. Owing to their green uniforms, they were also referred to as Grüne Polizei...
.
From the German perspective, the primary role of the Blue Police was to maintain law and order on the territories of occupied Poland, as to free the German police for other duties. As Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
stated in his order from May 5, 1940: "providing general police service in the General Government is the role of the Polish police. German police will intervene only if it is required by the German interests and will monitor the Polish police."
As the force was primarily a continuation of the pre-war Polish police force, it also relied largely on pre-war regulations and laws, a situation that was accepted as a provisional necessity both by the Germans and by the exiled Polish government
Polish government in Exile
The Polish government-in-exile, formally known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile , was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which...
. While the Polish Underground State had its own police force and judiciary (see National Security Corps and Directorate of Civil Resistance
Directorate of Civil Resistance
Directorate of Civil Resistance was one of the branches of the Polish Government Delegate’s Office during World War II. Its main tasks were to maintain the morale of the Polish society, encourage passive resistance, report German atrocities and cruelties to the Polish Government in Exile, and to...
), it was unable to provide basic police services for the entire population of the former Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
in the conditions of German occupation.
Assessment
Scholars disagree about the degree of involvement of the Blue Police in the rounding up of Jews. Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
historian Emmanuel Ringelblum and another eyewitness described Polish policemen carrying out extortions and beatings in the Ghetto.
A significant part of the police personnel belonged to the Polish underground resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
organization Armia Krajowa
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
, mostly in the counter-intelligence of the Home Army and the National Security Corps. Some estimates are as high of 50%. Blue Police followed German orders reluctantly and that the officers had little choice but to obey their orders or face death. The Blue Police often disobeyed German orders or even acted against them, and some of its officers were ultimately awarded the Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
award (for example, Wacław Nowiński
Polish Righteous among the Nations
Polish citizens have the world's highest count of individuals awarded medals of Righteous among the Nations, given by the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination during the Holocaust...
).
On the other hand the police did take part in street roundups as well as in numerous killings of Jews.
Forceful draft among members of the police was needed to create the Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202
Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202
Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202 was a collaborationist police battalion, one of a number of Schutzmannschaften auxiliary battalions composed of Ukrainians and Poles drafted by Germans from inhabitants of General Government, as a support for the Nazi Sicherheitspolizei .Created in...
.
Personalities
WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
was the biggest city, so the commander of Warsaw police was the most important post available for ethnic Poles. The first commander was Marian Kozielewski (brother of Jan Karski
Jan Karski
Jan Karski was a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later scholar at Georgetown University. In 1942 and 1943 Karski reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and...
), imprisoned by Germans and send to Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. The next commander Aleksander Reszczyński was murdered in 1943 by the Communists. 1977 research confirmed that Reszczyński cooperated with the Armia Krajowa
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
.
See also
- Underground Police
- Jewish Ghetto PoliceJewish Ghetto PoliceJewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Police Service and referred to by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Jewish ghettos of Europe by local Judenrat councils under orders of occupying German Nazis.Members of the did not have official...
- Lithuanian Security PoliceLithuanian Security PoliceThe Lithuanian Security Police, also referred to as Saugumas , was a Lithuanian Nazi collaborationist police force that operated from 1941 to 1944. It had a staff of approximately 400 people, 250 of them in Kaunas and around another 130 in Vilnius....
- Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202 was a collaborationist police battalion, one of a number of Schutzmannschaften auxiliary battalions composed of Ukrainians and Poles drafted by Germans from inhabitants of General Government, as a support for the Nazi Sicherheitspolizei .Created in...
- Ukrainian Auxiliary PoliceUkrainian Auxiliary PoliceThe Ukrainische Hilfspolizei was a German mobile police force that operated in the General Government beginning on July 27, 1941. The total number enlisted numbered slightly more than 35,000. 6,000 of them - including 120 low-level officers - served in the District of Galicia...