The Police and the Shoah

Psa 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Scriptures and convention in all centuries have admonished us to obey Civil Authorities. Christian Scripture (Romans 13) even warns us that the powers of government and authority are ordained of God and to step out from under authority is walk waywardly. When Civil Authority, though is severely misused and abused, to the point of being destructive in a society; even the New Testament warns that we are to obey God and not man.¹ The Torah is replete with examples such as Mordecai, when obedience to Civil Authority would mean disobeying God; in these difficult circumstances we then as now make difficult choices.

In the Shoah, the Police presented European Society with these very difficult dilemmas. They were not the Nazi Party, but there were very many who were Party Members.A few Policemen were benevolent and sereptitiously helped in rescue efforts by looking the other way, failing to investigate diligently, or aiding more directly, especially in facilitating emigration. The nature of Police stations in Germany and subsequently the occupied Countries became one of an arm of the Third Reich; just as there was an attempt to politicize the Wehrmacht and create them not just as a German Armed Forces, but as a Nazi Armed Forces, so there was the attempt to bring Police Departments in the Reich under philosophical control as well.

The Police, The Nazis and The SD

By the time of the Putsch in 1923, the Nazis were formidable in number in the area of Bavaria and Southern Germany and Goebbels had control over 2/3 of the police through the Chief of Police, who had joined with the Nazis for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. While the Putsch of '23 failed, and Hitler and others were jailed, within 11 years, the Nazi Party control of the Police was firmly in place. Within a year of Hitler taking the highest office of the land, Heydrich was appointed by Himmler over intelligence, and in 1934 the State Secret Police, the Gestapo was formed by Heydrich to keep intelligence information not only on enemies but on Party members as well. While the 'SD' or Security arm of the SS and the Gestapo were not technically the same, they shared offices and heads, the SD acting as an arm of the Gestapo.³ This agency started a form of treachery which would eventually tear the Nazi Party apart well into the war. Local Police under the watchful eye of the Nazis (membership in the Party became required) enforced the racial laws and 1935 Nuremberg laws stringently. By 1936, Heydrich took control of the border and criminal police ² which gave the Nazis power over emigration, and criminal activity. Criminal activity grew in definition to include not only traditional crimes of murder, theft, fraud, vice, etc, but also to actions against the State. Just as in communism children were trained that the State was supreme and that even a rebellious parent must be turned in. Heydrich was later given permission to use concentration camps for interment of prisoners. These "Lagers" began to see political prisoners, traditional criminals, Soviet POWS, and over time Jews, Resistance members, those the Reich considered "Genetically Inferior and others.

Police as Agents of Deportation Evacuation

Police were also often the agents of emigration: One could not emigrate to another country without first obtaining Police clearance which included 'racial' criteria, background and history, employment etc. For the Jew, this was essentially the death of an emigration application: Jews in Germany during WWII were never seen as moral, they were barred from most jobs and normal activities, and they certainly failed any racial qualifications. While in the mid and late 30s many were able to flee the Nazi Regime, as the time wore on, almost no Jew could qualify for emigration along traditional lines. In some Nazi occupied territories, heavy and oppressive taxes had to be paid to leave the country, and the exchange rate for money was different for Jews than Aryans: A small number of wealthier Jews were allowed to leave, but most of their monies and goods had to stay behind. As Himmler and Heydrich increased in power along with the Reich, the Police also increased in power.

The First Aktions

While the Nazi officials oversaw the aktions, local police coordinated efforts: early aktions were so anathema to normal European lifestyle, that even Anti-Semites had difficulty with entering towns and killing innocents for no reason. Alcohol was often handed out freely to numb conscience and feeling and aid police and locals in committing the abominable crimes of the holocaust.

By the end of the war, the Nazis had designed and implemented a fortress of control over their populace: Hitler's word as fuhrer had the force of law, the SS, SD/Gestapo had utter control over intelligence and were trying to take over the Abwehr or Intelligence branch of the Military, and the local and regional law enforcement agencies were under complete control of the Nazi Party. Only toward the end did some intelligence and law officers begin to realize that Hitler was not moving Germany in a positive way, but instead towards its destruction. While there was a major attempt to assasinate Hitler from those in the Abwehr and his High Command such as Canaris and Stauffenberg, and other smaller attempts, they failed and the structure of enforcement of Nazi "policy" as law held till the very end of the war.⁶