The Himmler's SS (20 page)

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HE
V
ERKEHRSPOLIZEI AND
M
OTORISIERTE
G
ENDARMERIE

The Verkehrspolizei, or Municipal Traffic Police, consisted of specially trained units of men who were stationed alongside the Kaserniertepolizei in all major German cities. They regulated traffic and patrolled the main roads in their areas, and were well versed in the field of traffic law. The Verkehrspolizei was responsible for the prevention of traffic accidents, piecing together and recording the causes of accidents, and escorting abnormal loads, ambulances and other emergency vehicles. The Motorisierte Gendarmerie was formed to cope with the increase in traffic on rural roads and the new network of autobahn – or motorways being built across Germany. Unlike the Verkehrspolizei, their jurisdiction was not limited by geographical divisions. They were organised into Bereitschaften or mobile reserves containing three or four platoons of men and vehicles, each located in barracks at strategic points on the German highway system. The wail of their sirens could often be heard as they provided high-speed escorts for NSDAP leaders travelling throughout the Reich.

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HE
W
ASSERSCHUTZPOLIZEI

The Wasserschutzpolizei, or Waterways Protection Police, was responsible for policing and patrolling all navigable inland rivers and canals, regulating waterborne traffic, preventing smuggling, enforcing safety and security measures and inspecting waterways shipping. It was supplemented during the war by special units of the Allgemeine-SS known as Hafensicherung-struppen, or Port Security Troops, which patrolled the waterfronts and major ports of the coastal SS Oberabschnitte in co-operation with the police authorities and the SD. In addition, by a proclamation of SS-Ober-gruppenführer Karl Kaufmann, Gauleiter of Hamburg and Reich Commissioner for Ocean Navigation, all ships which were operating for Germany's war effort in the Baltic and North Sea areas, and which were manned partially or entirely by Danes, Dutchmen, Norwegians and other non-Germans, had on board so-called SS-Bordschutzmannschaften. These SS Shipboard Security Crews were assigned by the Führer of the Oberabschnitte from whose ports the vessels sailed, and they were used to man flak guns and generally assist the German officers in maintaining order on the ships.

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HE
B
AHNSCHUTZPOLIZEI

The Bahnschutzpolizei, or Railway Police, recruited primarily from Deutsche Reichsbahn employees who held part-time membership of the Allgemeine-SS or SA, were armed with rifles and machine-guns and were charged with protecting railway property, preventing espionage and sabotage, and maintaining law and order on trains and at stations. They were assisted by the Reichsbahn Wasserschutzpolizei which patrolled railway facilities associated with harbours, canals and inland waterways.

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HE
P
OSTSCHUTZ

The Postschutz, or Postal Protection Service, had the responsibility of protecting and maintaining the security of all post offices and other postal establishments, together with mail, telephone and telegraph services throughout the Reich. Prior to 1942 the 4,500-strong Postschutz was under the control of the Postmaster-General, NSKK-Obergruppenführer Dr Wilhelm Ohnesorge, but in March of that year, upon the directions of Hitler, it was completely incorporated into the Allgemeine-SS and redesignated as the SS-Postschutz. From then on, SS collar patches were worn with the Postschutz uniform.

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HE
F
EUERSCHUTZPOLIZEI

All of Germany's provincial fire brigades were incorporated into the Ordnungspolizei in 1938 under the title Feuerschutzpolizei, or Fire Protection Police, which thereafter directed fire-fighting and fire prevention across the Reich. The size of the Fire Protection Police was fixed in accordance with the local population, and in those towns with more than 150,000 residents auxiliary fire brigades known as Freiwillige Feuerwehren were established on a voluntary basis to assist the regulars. At the height of the wartime air raids on Germany, the fire-fighting services numbered over 1,700,000 men and women, all of whom were technically under the command of SS-Gruppenführer Dr Johannes Meyer, the Inspector-General of the Feuerschutzpolizei.

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HE
L
UFTSCHUTZPOLIZEI

Germany's civil defence system comprised three main bodies. The first was the Reichsluftschutzbund or RLB, which engaged in the widespread civil defence training of the civilian population. The second was the Luftschutz Warndienst or LSW, which acted like Britain's Royal Observer Corps in alerting the local populace to impending air attacks. The third body was the Sicherheits- und Hilfsdienst or SHD, the Security and Assistance Service, a highly mobile rescue organisation which rendered immediate help to trapped and injured air raid victims. The equipment used in their dangerous work included hydraulic jacks, cutting machines and wrecking tools. During the war, the RLB and the LSW came under the direct control of the various NSDAP Gauleiters, whose responsibilities included civil defence in their Gaue. The SHD, however, was absorbed into the police in May 1942, renamed the Luftschutzpolizei and issued with police insignia. Members were housed in barracks on a rotating basis, i.e. they were allowed to sleep at home every second night, and were exempt from conscription into the Wehrmacht as service with the Luftschutzpolizei was a reserved occupation. Consequently, those who were also in the Allgemeine-SS could keep up their normal SS activities, air raids permitting.

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HE
T
ECHNISCHE
N
OTHILFE

The Technische Nothilfe, or TeNo, was a Technical Emergency Corps founded initially as a strike-breaking organisation by the government in September 1919, and used later as a technical reserve in cases of natural disaster. In 1937, it was incorporated into the Ordnungspolizei and set the task of dealing with breakdowns in public services and utilities such as gas, water and electricity, particularly after air raids. A second and more remote purpose was to meet potential revolutionary conditions in the ‘Theatre of War Inner Germany', as Himmler liked to call the home front where the majority of his forces operated. In addition to this domestic work, units known as TeNo Kommandos laboured with the Wehrmacht on front-line construction and repair. From 1943 the 100,000 members of TeNo were authorised to wear SS-style rank badges. The wartime Chef der TeNo was SS-Gruppenführer Hans Weinreich, later succeeded by Willy Schmelcher.

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HE
SS-F
UNKSCHUTZ

In 1941, the Allgemeine-SS assumed responsibility for the protection of radio stations because of their vulnerability to sabotage in wartime. To that end, an SS-Funkschutz, or Radio Guard, was established. It ultimately policed all the official radio stations, or Reichssender, raided illicit radio stations and detected illegal listening to foreign stations. Members wore standard Allgemeine-SS uniform with the addition of a gorget bearing the legend ‘SS-Funkschutz' while on duty.

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HE
W
ERKSCHUTZPOLIZEI

Members of the Werkschutzpolizei, or Factory Protection Police, were stationed at important industrial concerns to act as factory guards and watchmen, and were under the command of the Führer of the SS Oberabschnitt in which their factory was sited. They were generally kitted out with surplus black Allgemeine-SS uniforms and outdated Prussian-blue fire service uniforms, to which they attached their own insignia.

By 1943 therefore, through his continued absorption of uniformed police responsibilities, Himmler had succeeded in achieving ultimate control of all conventional German police forces, the fire brigade, railway and post office guards, rescue and emergency services, and even night watchmen. Moreover, the corresponding domestic police forces in the conquered territories also came under his authority. The active Allgemeine-SS proper was by that time a relatively small organisation in its own right, and numerically far inferior to the Waffen-SS. However, its leaders directed the operations of hundreds of thousands of uniformed policemen throughout the Greater German Reich, and had access to their intimate local knowledge. In that way, the oft-maligned and faceless bureaucrats of the Allgemeine-SS hierarchy exercised a power and influence more widespread and effective than anything contemplated by their fighting comrades in the Waffen-SS, who naturally received all the propaganda publicity during the war.

Just as the German police network could be split into two distinct groupings, the uniformed police and the security police, so the security police forces themselves comprised two entirely separate divisions prior to September 1939, namely those of the Nazi party and those of the state. The principal party force was the Sicherheitsdienst des RfSS, or SD, the SS security service, which absorbed all other intelligence services of the NSDAP in June 1934. The state force was known as the Sicherheitspolizei, or Sipo (Security Police), a general administrative term used to cover both the traditional Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo (Criminal Police), and the more recently formed Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo (Political Police). In 1939, all of these groups were united as part of the Staatsschutzkorps programme to become departments of a single newly created SS Hauptamt, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA (Reich Central Security Office). These main security police bodies are best described in turn, to indicate their wide-ranging responsibilities and the power which the SS obtained by taking them over under Himmler's authority.

SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich at his desk in 1937. The SS death's head ring can be seen clearly on his left hand.

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HE
SD

In June 1931, Himmler accepted Reinhard Heydrich, a former naval communications officer, into the SS as a Sturmführer and set him the task of organising an SS intelligence service to keep watch on the political opposition. Initially known as Department Ic of the SS-Amt, or the Ic-Dienst, then as the Press and Information Service, it was finally renamed the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS), or SD, in June 1932. By that time, Heydrich had been promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer and with a staff of seven civilians established his small SD headquarters in Munich. When the Nazis came to power at the beginning of 1933, the SD had no more than 200 personnel, most of whom were attached to the various Abschnitte HQs throughout Germany. During the 1933–4 period, however, the service was expanded and many doctors, lawyers and other academics who applied to join the Allgemeine-SS were advised that their best prospects for advancement within the organisation lay with the SD branch. As soon as Himmler took over the Gestapo in April 1934, Heydrich, by then a Brigadeführer, reorganised it and placed as many of his SD men as possible in positions where they could observe the activities of the political police and gain valuable experience. However, although the SD continued as a separate entity, it had neither the manpower nor the expertise to replace the existing political police altogether. Himmler's original plan to incorporate all members of the Sipo into the SD was continually frustrated, and by January 1938 the SD still had only 5,000 full-time and honorary members across the Reich. In fact, with the formation of the RSHA the following year, the SD eventually became superfluous and was itself almost completely absorbed into the security police. Its continued existence as a separate branch of the Allgemeine-SS was due solely to Himmler's desire to retain his SD's unique position as the only intelligence agency of the NSDAP.

The remit of the SD gradually expanded from purely political intelligence to social, economic and religious matters, and became somewhat ‘airy-fairy'. Its members made detailed studies of communism, Judaism, the doctrine of papal supremacy, Freemasonry, astrology, religious sects and the forces of reaction generally. They were concerned not so much with actual and current security problems as with perceived ideological questions. They delved into the influence of Bolshevism on Masonic circles abroad, and looked at the symbolism of top hats at Eton. They studied Jewish economics and the black market in currency. They propounded the theory that by 1960 communism would become a religion centred in Asia, designed to destroy the whole white world. By the time war broke out, many members of the SD had become something of a laughing stock among their colleagues in the Sipo who were engaged in the real day-to-day struggle against criminals, saboteurs and active enemies of the state.

The connotations of dread and horror which later attached themselves to the SD in occupied Europe and Russia stemmed from the fact that all members of the security police serving in the conquered territories, whether or not they were members of the SS or SD, were instructed to wear the grey SS uniform with a combination of SD collar and sleeve insignia and police shoulder straps, to give them the protection of military status yet at the same time distinguish them from other uniformed SS, police and Wehrmacht personnel. During the early days of the war, security policemen, who were detested by the fighting services, had worn civilian clothing and there had been occasions when they had been conveniently ‘mistaken for resistance people' and shot by German soldiers! The uniform was therefore intended to protect them as much from their own side as from the enemy. The atrocities carried out by some of these Sipo men, particularly those attached to extermination squads in the east, reflected directly on the SD proper, the majority of whose members were engaged almost exclusively in academic research, intelligence-gathering and policy formulation. In fact, while the death squads which penetrated deep into Soviet territory in 1941 killing communists, partisans and Jews as they went were entitled ‘Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD', only 3 per cent of their members were actually SD men. The greater number were Waffen-SS (34 per cent), army (28 per cent) and uniformed police (22 per cent), assisted by Gestapo (9 per cent) and Kripo (4 per cent).