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Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War In The East (Modern War Studies)

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Over the last 10 or so years since the Publication of Hitler's Willing Executioners reignited the smoldering debate over the role of ideology in the prosecution of a genocidal war there have been many published books on the subject. These have accomplished their stated goals of either minimizing or arguing for the role of ideology with varying degrees of skill and hence success. Of the dozen or so that I've read thus far this one is head and shoulders above the rest. Edward B. Westermann's book is a classic in the field of Holocaust studies.

What Westermann looks at here is whether or not ideology was an important motivation for individuals in the Police Battalions to commit mass murder and how were the Uniformed police organizations structured by the Nazis to reinforce their brand of racial and political ideology. In other words he looks at the methods with which the Uniformed Police were handled by Hitler, Himmler and Daluege in order to attain THEIR ideological goals. His conclusions and research are both insightful and masterfully explained. What makes it easily read is his grasp of the human element here and his semi-chronological approach to telling the story with small subsections for the important details of issues covered. What's more, in the process of arguing for the role of ideology in the commission of genocide by the members of the organization he takes a 'from the ground up approach' do explaining it, not as Goldhagen did, assuming a racist outlook in the very blood of these men because they were german. Professor Westermann uses the entire first half of this book detailing the various efforts to creat political soldiers, as he refers to them and then in the second half goes on to describe the resulting actions taken in Poland, the Baltic states and the USSR by the men in these units.

The first chapter is devoted to the deep background of the Uniformed police and following through to the Nazi seizure of power and the party's early efforts to gain control of the police throughout Germany, starting with Prussia. Here he describes the traditions of violence within the police going back as far as the 1870's. He clearly shows an evolution of disdain and in fact hostility towards socialism and leftist politic's which were a threat to the status quo that they were to protect. This evolution became rapidly more evident during the chaos of the early Weimar years during which time the Uniformed Police and the paramilitary `Freikorps' worked together in many instances to violently put down leftist attempts to seize political power throughout Germany. The Nazi's were well aware of this general attitude, contends Westermann, and once they were in power they quickly moved to solidify the hold of right or nationalist high ranking officers by removing those who were less politically reliable.

In his second and third chapters he goes on to explain the efforts that Himmler and Daluege made to create both a militarized and ideologically trained force within the Uniformed Police(UP) that would be linked to Himmler's SS. Westerman gives example after example of military and ideological training that was the norm within Nazi Germany as well as less obvious methods of bringing about the desired change. As well as their infantry style training the men within the UP were clothed in military dress and given military style awards. Physical fitness standards were almost fanatically enforced and military pageantry was also observed. The author shows convincingly as well the effort put into putting ideological training into even the most innocent appearing recreation activities such as evening get togethers and trips to the cinema. This was in addition to actual training sessions and classes on race and global politics. He also, quite convincingly details the efforts made by Himmler to join the police with the SS both ideologically and in practical application as well.

In the second half of the book Professor Westermann focuses on the actual manifestations of the Nazi effort to reshape the police outside of German territory. He shows how the racial war in the east (Poland, the Baltic and the USSR) and the enforcement of occupation policies that followed were proof of Himmler's success in creating political soldiers who would willingly murder men, women and children in pursuit of pacifying the conquered territories. This is the key issue here. Westermann for once and for all does away with Stanley Milgram's model of unsure pawns simply accepting orders from an authority figure. He gives example after example of police volunteering for or taking initiative in mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. He shows how in many cases although they may not have all tortured their victims, by and large they continued to volunteer to do their murderous duty and even suggest methods to make their tasks more efficient and take the initiative to include more victims than were intended in many instances. On the other hand he does not portray the majority of all German policemen as the bloodthirsty ideologues from birth that Daniel Goldhagen did with his landmark book. Rather, Professor Westermann carefully documents the myriad efforts of the Nazis over many years to create a political soldier and brother to the men of the SS and their, tragically, very successful results.

This is an absolute 'must-have' book for anyone who has an interest in the first phase of the 'Final Solution'. My one complaint, if it can be called that, is that his treatment of occupation policy was a bit brief considering the duration of time that the UP served as an occupying pacification force. Nonetheless this is an absolutely fantastic piece of work.

This book is well written and thoroughly researched. Mr. Westermann has looked not only at the actual Battalions and Regiments involved but also the surrounding Nazi structure that put them in place and drove them. From a historic perspective, this book is invaluable to those who are trying to understand this little know aspect of the Holocaust and to get an appreciation of the enormity of the crimes committed and the mindset that was involved.

I highly recommend this book to those interested in the topic and want to learn more that just the headlines. It provides detailed information that helps us understand the development of the Police force and their transformation into a large killing machine that devastated an innocent population of Jewish and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime.

Please be aware that by the very nature of the subject, it has some graphic written depictions of atrocities that may upset some.

Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book. I would suggest reading "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland" first. The role of the German Police in the Holocaust is still little known in America. Unlike the SS they were not declared a criminal organization by the allies at Nurnberg. Most of their work was done in Eastern Europe where since it was behind the "Iron Curtain" little became known of it.

This book is an excellent introduction to the creation of "Political Soldiers" and an excellent argument for not doing so in a democracy. This is one of those books that upon finishing it, you will find it will lead you down a lot of different reading roads in the search of more information.

Most books on WWII in Europe typically dwell on the Holocaust, and any mention of non-Jewish victims of the Nazis is an afterthought. They also tend to dichotomize the military actions of Hitler's regime and its genocidal policies. This work, in contrast, shows that the war-making and genocidal actions of the Nazis formed a seamless garment, as did German attitudes and actions against Jews and Slavs. Instead of focusing on leading Nazi personages, the SS, Gestapo, or even the Wehrmacht, Westermann examines the ordinary German police forces as killers.

In the early 20th century, westerners commonly depicted the Hun as innately warlike, even going back to the FUROR TEUTONICUS of Roman times. Interestingly, the Germans themselves cultivated such a characterization. For instance, well before WWII, Wilhelm Kube, the eventual Reich commissar for Belorussia, commented as follows: "Kube began his article by noting that the love of bearing arms had been in the blood of a northern people like the Germans for thousands of years." (p. 75). All this was part of the unmistakable trend elaborated by Westermann: "The march towards `social militarization' did not go unnoticed by contemporary observers. In a diary entry of September 10, 1934, William Shirer, an American radio correspondent in Berlin at the time, reflected that militarism `is something deeply ingrained in all Germans.'" (p. 59).

Although the author does not fall for Goebbels' propaganda regarding the "Bloody Sunday" events at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), his citation of "over 1,000" German deaths, including that of innocent bystanders, is still wide of the mark. See the Peczkis review of: Dywersja niemiecka i zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Bydgoszczy na tle wydarzen w dniu 3 IX 1939 (Polish and German Edition).

The German occupation of Poland was far more intense than that of any other German-conquered nation. Westermann thus writes of the situation in August 1940: "In fact, the ratio of policemen to inhabitants ranged from 1:400 in the annexed Polish territories and 1:860 in the General Government to 1:3,323 in the Netherlands." (p. 87). For comparison: "The ratio within the Reich (including the Sudetenland) was 1:475 with the inclusion of the 91,500-man Police Reserve." (p. 264).

Westermann discusses the expulsion of Poles from those regions of German-conquered Poland directly annexed to the Third Reich. The victims, mostly women and children, underwent transport, for days, in 30 degree below zero weather (C), in cattle cars lacking lavatories, water, or heat. The death toll was very high. (p. 150).

The author also mentions the Germans' destruction of the Polish intelligentsia and those suspected of involvement in resistance activities (e. g., p. 111, 159), but realizes that Germans murdered Poles, at whim, under any pretext. (e.g., p. 158, 227). [This refutes the Judeocentric notion that "Whereas Jews were killed because they were Jews, Poles were killed because it was war."]. However, Westermann does not begin to do justice to the scale and genocidal scope of the 2-3 million non-Jewish Poles murdered by the Nazis. (See the Peczkis Listmania: FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST...).

This book devotes most of its attention to German conduct against the conquered population of the Soviet Union. The scale of Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration was staggering. By the end of 1942, out of some 300,000 auxiliaries serving the Germans in the German-occupied portion of the USSR, there were some 100,000 Ukrainians alone. (p. 196).

Westermann examines and rejects many of the exculpations advanced to excuse Nazi conduct. For instance, against the "atrocities happen in every war" notion, he cites the racially tinged Japanese-American Pacific War, in which individual atrocities did take place on both sides. However, at no time did Presidents Roosevelt or Truman order or condone the indiscriminate slaughter of Japanese. (p. 234). As for the BEFEHL IST BEFEHL (An order is an order) notion, the author comments: "There is not a SINGLE documented case of a policeman being shot or imprisoned for refusing to kill Jews in cold blood." (p. 236; emphasis his).

"Hitler's Police Battalions" is a detailed examination of Hitler's self-styled "political soldiers in action." The book is essentially divided into two parts: the Nazification of German police forces before World War II and the murderous actions of these politicized police forces in Poland and Russia. The prose is dry at times and the details can be repetitious and at times horrifying, but Westermann presents a graphic portrait of a group of men whose ideological training enabled them to murder tens of thousands of Jews and Slavs in a brutal and almost casual manner.

FEW PEOPLE REMEMBER THE tHIRD rEICH.S GREEN GARBED oRDER pOLICE ALTHOUGH RECENT BOOKS HAVE BEGUN TIO EXAMINE THAT SINISTER pOLKICE FORCE OF 1933 TO 1945. A quarter millkion strong, they were an integral part of the Nazi agenda and the holocaust. Anyone who dreads police states can profit from seeing such a system in action. read this book and lose sleep. It was not that long ago.