"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (229 page)

action in the Warsaw District (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
). For details see Madajczyk,
Polityka
, 1:280 ff.; Broszat,
NS-Polenpolitik
(1961), 164 ff.

3.
Secret decree issued by the Führer and Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, October 7, 1939 (ZS, Versch. 26/112–13 a); the higher SS and police leaders (HSSPF) under the
Reichsstatthaltern
of Posen (Pozna
) and Danzing (Gda
sk) were appointed
by law
(sec. 2, second decree, Reich minister of the interior, November 2, 1939, concerning the implementation of the Führer decree of October 8, 1939) as the representatives of the RKF (Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood) for their sectors; HSSPF Kraków and HSSPF under the
Oberpräsidenten
of Breslau (Wrocław) and Königsberg were appointed by special RKF instruction (instruction RKF no. 13/1, December 19, 1939, BA R 58/243; ZS, Polen, film 35/627). Resettlement was the responsibility of Dept. 4, Population Affairs and Welfare, in the Central Department of Internal Administration of the General Government; the department comprised 12
Referate
(desks);
Referat
5, Resettlement (of Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Gypsies), Evacuation, Welfare, and Prisoners of War, dealt with the resettlement of Jews (organizational structure of Dept. 4, no date, ZS, Versch. 104, 558 ff.).

4.
Comments to the president of the Central Department of Internal Administration, Siebert; cf. his report “Zur Polenpolitik im General Government,” May 4, 1959 (BA Ostdok. 13 GG Ib/3); cf. also letter from Governor General Frank to the Central Security Department of the Reich IV/B (Eichmann), November 6, 1940 (ZS, Versch. 84/395); this tactic was least transparent to the experts, who continued to believe that pragmatism outweighed ideological goals; see, e.g., memorandum from the head of the Central Department of Food and Agriculture (Naumann), February 23, 1943 (BA, Ostdok. 13 GG, 17), according to which all farm inspectors at
Kreis
and
Bezirk
level in the General Government declared that the entire 1943 harvest was threatened if the resettlements did not cease
immediately
, because (according to a memo from Baumann on April 24, 1942, ibid., 46 ff.) this had resulted in an enormous strengthening of the Polish resistance. On March 18, 1943, the Geschäftsgruppe Ernährung im GG (Working party on food in the General Government) addressed a bitter complaint to Göring in his capacity as plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, detailing the economic drawbacks of resettlement in the General Government. Referring back to the RKF was pointless since he was pursuing the resettlement program without consulting the Settlement Committee (comprising representatives of the Reich minister in the occupied Polish territories and the RKF); agricultural production had been significantly disrupted (BA R 26 IV vorl. 33, 9 ff.). In this sense see also a memorandum from the Reich minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories,
Ref.
III, March 17, 1943 (10): in it he complains that the RKF had even personally instigated resettlement measures without consulting his (the minister’s) office. And even if agreement were to be reached with these offices, it was to be feared that the resettlements would simply go ahead anyway on the personal orders of the RKF—as had already happened in the Crimea.

5.
A comprehensive account of the Reich organization is given in Greifelt, “Festigung deutschen Volkstums in den Ostgebieten” (1940). Police powers were in the hands of the HSSPF, formally “subordinate” to the governor general (Führer Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Territories, October 12, 1939,
RGBl.
I 2077); in practice, though, because the HSSPF had no disciplinary powers, they received their instructions exclusively from the police leadership in Berlin (RFSSuChddtPol by way of RSHA or the
Hauptamt der Ordnungspolizei
).

In the Reich, the
Ordnungspolizei
(the regular police) and the SIPO (Security Police) were formally still part of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. In the General Government, the
Ordnungspolizei
was detached from the Internal Administration and—unlike in the Reich—placed under the HSSPF. Whereas in the Reich the regular police remained an integral part of the general administrative apparatus (the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of the
Länder
, the district administration, and the regional administration), in the General Government it was completely detached from the Internal Administration, which retained only the powers of legislation and administration. On the organization of the
Ordnungspolizei
(subordination to the HSSPF, at district level to the SSPF), cf. administrative decree of RFSSuChddtPol of June 5, 1940 (BA R 70 Polen/180). The
Kreis
authorities themselves had no police powers of their own; the gendarmerie forces assigned to them, though in all practical matters subject to the authority of the
Kreishauptleutel Stadthauptleute
, answered in disciplinary matters not to them but to the commander of the
Ordnungspolizei
, which led to constant quarreling (cf. police discussion on October 17, 1940, “Diensttagebuch” 1940, vol. 2). This organizational structure guaranteed the crucial influence of police headquarters in Berlin—by way of the HSSPF—and thereby that of the SIPO (RSHA) right down to the
Kreis
level. For further details, see Sehn, “Zur Organisation der Polizei im Reich und im GG” (1947). The high point of police autonomy was the Führer directive of May 27, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942], no. 41), which removed
all
police matters (including police administration and the police code) and transferred them to the newly created office of state secretary for security in the General Government (decree of the Governor General on June 3, 1942,
VBl.GG
[1942], no. 50), which was run by the HSSPF as a combined office in one person. The police apparatus in the General Government was numerically very strong. In November 1942, police manpower was as follows: 12,000 German police, 12,000 Polish police, 1,500–1,800 Ukrainian militia, 2,000 SIPO officers plus an additional force of 3,000, and 3,000 men in the special forces; at the same time an auxiliary police service of 10,000 Reich Germans was set up (police meeting on November 21, 1942, “Diensttagebuch”). In 1941 the police budget was 347 million złoty, more than a quarter of the total budget of the General Government (
Finanzpräsident
Spindler in a discussion with Frank, July 17, 1941, “Diensttagebuch”).

6.
Cf. organizational plan of the government of the General Government, March 10, 1940 (ZS, Order 0180, 29–210, copy). According to this, Department 3, Police Matters, came under the Central Department of Internal Administration until 1942 and was integrated into the newly established State Secretariat for Security; see the preceding note). Concerning the status of the
Verwaltungspolizei
(Administrative Police) in the major cities (Kraków, Lublin, Radom, Czenstochau [Cz
stochowa], Kielce;
Polizeidirektionen
—the HQs of the municipal police), cf. decree issued by Central Department of Internal Administration on May 12, 1941 (Main Commission Warsaw, Archive, government of the General Government, Central Department of Internal Administration—III/388); for further details, see Schönhals, “Abt. III Polizeiangelegenheiten,”
Das Generalgouvernement
, Folge 13–14 (November 1941): 13 ff., University Library, Warsaw, Sign. 011248. Concerning the controversy over the appointment of the
Polizeidirektoren
(who were appointed by the HSSPF
without
consultation with the administration, cf. cabinet meeting on the security situation of May 4, 1943, at which State Secretary Bühler in particular lodged a strong protest against this practice, but without success [“Diensttagebuch,” 1943, 597 ff., 599 f.]). The response of the administration was a decree from the governor general issued the same day, disbanding the
Polizeidirektionen
(“Diensttagebuch” 1943). As a result, only a few months later—in a deal between Frank and the police—the district chiefs were appointed as police authorities (administrative instruction of July 8, 1943,
VBl.GG
[1943]: 306 f.; also, ZS, Versch. 104, Bl. 526 f.); with that, conditions similar to those prevailing in the Reich were formally reestablished after “two years’ struggle” (comments by Frank, “Diensttagebuch,” 1943, 689 ff., 694). The president of the Central Department of Internal Administration, Siebert, expressed on September 13, 1943, in Kraków, that the police regretted the “admission this decree incarnates” (720). The responsibilities of the administrative police at
Kreis
level were taken over by the Office of Internal Administration (no.1, subpar. B, of administrative instruction no.4 to the Decree on the Unified Administration of December 1, 1940), but were then made the personal responsibility of the
Kreishauptleute
by a decree from Frank on May 4, 1943 (“Diensttagebuch,” 1943). For details of matters concerning the administrative police, cf. “Report on the Development of the General Government,” July 1, 1940, Bl. 39 (BA R 52 III/247; also IfZ, 1442/54; Bestand ED 6), though this does not take into account the changes described above.

7.
The position of the police authorities in the General Government—ignoring for the moment “extralegal” powers (resettlement, protective custody, etc.)—was therefore somewhere between that appertaining in the Reich, which (at least formally) was in line with the traditional legal status of the police as
one
of several central authorities and their de facto status of
Immediatstellung
(direct access and resonsibility to the Führer) in the Occupied Eastern Territories, which gave them the right to issue instructions to all civil authorities (cf. letters from CSSD to RMuChdRkzlei of September 18, 1941, BA R 43 II/396). The dominant position of the police, at least from 1941–42, was further strengthened by the very strained personal relationship between the governor general and HSSPF Krüger (for further details, see the report by F. Siebert, “Das Verhältnis zwischen Innerer Verwaltung und Polizei im ehemaligen GG,” BA Ostdok. 13 GG Nr. I b/4; also copy in ZS, Ordner 104, 753 ff. of the report from the district governor of Galicia to Frank, February 24, 1942, concerning the “barely tolerable” tension between administration and police, the effects of which were felt right down to the lowliest
Landkommisar
and local police chief. The conditions on the ground in Galicia were out of all proportion to the difficulties caused by these strains, IfZ, Bestand RFSS/Pers. Stab, Ma-289, Bl. 9796 ff.; Broszat,
NS-Polenpolitik
[1961], 75 ff.). A more important factor was the independent line pursued by the HSSPF (more in ibid.), who countenanced senseless acts of violence in conflict with the policy of the governor general. This was made possible by the fact that legal principles concerning the nature and form of police powers (e.g., procedure based on legal principle) that were valid in the Reich did not apply in the General Government; here, routine police procedure was dominated by the system of directives or ad hoc measures, and records show a relatively small number of police orders or decrees, which the HSSPF was expressly authorized to issue (sec. 3 of the Decree on Security and Order in the General Government, October 26, 1939,
VBl.GG
[1939]: 5).