Police in the NS state

In Munich, too, the police were an important instrument of power for the Nazi regime, but they differed in one respect from all other police authorities in the Reich: They were the government authority that had dealt with the Nazi Party in a variety of ways right from the Party’s founding in 1919/1920. Until the Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch in 1923, the Nazi Party was able to develop unhindered into an anti-democratic, antisemitic, nationalistic, and violent anti-government party right under the noses of the police. Moreover, as the first Nazi Chief of Police in Munich, Heinrich Himmler laid the groundwork for his meteoric career culminating in his rise to head the entire Nazi terror apparatus.

The Munich Police during the Weimar Republic
Their experiences during the November Revolution and the Munich Soviet Republic left behind a lasting impression on the ranks of many police officers. Named Chief of Police in May 1919, Ernst Pöhner was a monarchist but maintained close ties with the ethnic-chauvinist movement and the ‘nationalist organizations’. He laid the foundation for the politically one-sided approach of the Munich police and turned them into a cornerstone of the Bavarian ‘cell of order’, which understood itself as a bulwark against Bolshevism, Prussianism, and the republican tendencies emanating from there. ‘Feme’ murders committed by the ranks of the citizens’ militias were covered up by Pöhner and his officers; the right-wing terrorists of the ‘Organisation Consul’ could continue to plan their assassinations from their Munich headquarters without fear of interference. Pöhner and Wilhelm Frick, head of the Political Department, followed the rise of the Nazi Party with approval: They saw it as an ally in the fight against ‘Marxism’. The extent to which radical right-wing and ethnic-chauvinist sympathizers had gained a foothold in the police was demonstrated by the contradictory behavior of the bureau during the Hitler Putsch. It wasn’t until after its failure that the police took decisive action against the Nazi Party, especially under Chief of Police Julius Koch. However, they couldn’t prevent the Party’s further rise following the outbreak of the Great Depression in 1929.

The Munich Police as a Nazi Instrument of Power
After the Nazi Party seized power in Bavaria, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, became the first Nazi Chief of Police in Munich; Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Security Service of the SS (SD), acted as head of the Political Department of the Munich Police. This was split off from the police headquarters and, as the ‘Bavarian Political Police’ (later: Secret State Police, Gestapo), it then became an independent authority. It took great numbers of political dissidents into ‘protective custody’, which was not subject to any judicial oversight. In doing so, they were supported by members of the Storm Battalion (SA), SS, and the veteran’s organization ‘Steel Helmet’, who were declared auxiliary police. Due to mass arrests, the prisons quickly overfilled. On March 20, 1933, Himmler ordered the establishment of a large concentration camp that would initially be guarded by police officers. They were soon replaced in May 1933 by the SS, giving the SS control of both the Political Police and the concentration camp. Dachau Concentration Camp soon became a training camp of the SS and a ‘model’ for future camps.

The function of the police changed fundamentally: It was no longer tasked with protecting individuals from attacks by others. Instead, it was responsible for protecting the National Socialist ‘people’s community’, which excluded people based on political, social, and racial criteria. In order for the police to carry out their duties in the interests of the regime, Himmler, Chief of the entire German police force since 1936, forged ahead with its centralization (‘Verreichlichung’ (creating one single Reich)) and its fusion with the SS into a ‘state security force’. The influence of the SS in the Gestapo and Criminal Investigation Department, which was combined into the ‘Security Police’, was especially considerable.

The Gestapo was the regime’s central instrument of power, and the remaining police forces served as its informants and auxiliary forces. Right from the beginning, all police forces participated in the pursuit of those who, as opponents of the regime, were considered ‘enemies of the people’: Police officers arrested those who expressed criticism of the government and turned them over to the Gestapo. Administrative police officers kept their own ‘Jew files’ to keep control of the Jewish population. Nor did the security police intercede as Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed on November 9, 1938. The Gestapo organized the deportation of Munich’s Jewish residents, but they were guarded by the security police. Criminal inspectors investigated ‘race defilement’ offenses, took persons defamed as an ‘asocial element’, defamed individuals, Sinti/Sintize and Roma/Romnja, and homosexuals into ‘protective custody’ or preventative detention, and sent them to concentration camps.

During the war, it was ‘normal’ police officers who arrested people for violations of the ‘Treachery Act’ or the ‘Ordinance against Human Pests’ and turned them over to the Gestapo or the Nazi justice system. This justice system handed down an ever greater number of draconian sentences to terrorize the populace into submission the worse the situation at the front became. Another area of responsibility during the war was guarding the foreign forced laborers. The living conditions of especially the Polish and Soviet forced laborers (‘Eastern workers’) were strictly regulated. Even minor infringements were reported to the police or Gestapo, which could send the laborer to a penal or concentration camp. For offenses deemed serious, the Gestapo could murder the accused person without a court decision by formally applying for ‘special treatment’ at the Reich Security Main Office.

At least 5,000 police and reserve officers from the greater Munich region performed their service in the areas occupied by Germany. However, they performed barely any ‘normal’ police work there, but upheld the German tyranny: Officers of the Order Police guarded German bureaus, prisons, camps, and ghettos, or they, like in Slovenia, ‘resettled’ the local populace. Similar to regular military units, they fought the increasingly stronger local resistance movements. Under the guise of ‘anti-partisan warfare’, members of the Order Police took action against innocent civilians, tracked down hidden Jews, and murdered them. Members of the Security Police (Gestapo/criminal police) also preventively fought all instances of resistance. A number of police from Munich, the exact number cannot be established, became enforcers of the Final Solution: They arranged deportations to the extermination camps and murdered Jewish men, women, and children as members of the Einsatzgruppen (paramilitary death squads) of the Security Police and the Security Service (SD).

Only members of the SS and the Security Police were interned for a period after the war. Provided they were Party and SS members, ‘normal’ police officers were also temporarily suspended from service. Only a few had to stand trial. Most police officers soon returned to the police force.