Police Battalion 316
Police Battalion 316 | |
---|---|
Polizeibattalion 316 | |
Active | 1941–1945 |
Country | SS command, part of:
|
The Police Battalion 316 (Polizeibattalion 316) was a formation of the
Background and formation
The German
Twenty-three
Along with
Operational history
Himmler made a personal visit to the headquarters of Police Regiment Centre in Białystok on 8 July where he spoke to Montua, Bach-Zalewski and the regiment's officers. On 10 July, Daluege visited the unit and addressed the members of the regiment arrayed in a parade formation, extolling them to "exterminate" Bolshevism as a "blessing for Germany".[6] On 11 July, Montua passed a confidential order from Bach-Zalewski to the battalion commanders that Jews, who had been "convicted of looting", were to be shot; an execution took place the same day.[7] Around this time, Police Battalions 316 and 322 rounded up approximately 3,000 Jewish men from Białystok and shot them in a nearby forest.[8]
On 17 July, the regiment murdered over 1,100 Jews in Slonim, with Bach-Zalewski reporting to Himmler on 18 July: "Yesterday's cleansing action in Slonim by Police Regiment Centre. 1,153 Jewish plunderers were shot".[9] By 20 July, the unit's reports referred to executions of Jewish women and children.[7]
On 2 October 1941, Police Battalions 316 and 322, along with Bach-Zalewski's staff company and Ukrainian auxiliaries, rounded up 2,200 Jews in the Mogilev ghetto. Sixty-five were killed during the roundups, and another 550 executed the next day.[11] Another killing operation later that month, by Einsatzkommando 8 and the two police battalions, brought the total number of victims in Mogilev to about 6,000.[10]
On November 7–8, the battalion participated in the murder of Jews in
In December, after the German defeat in the
Decrypts by British intelligence
Progress reports on the murderous activities of the Police Regiment Center, the Einsatzgruppen detachment and the SS Cavalry Brigade were regularly forwarded by Bach-Zalewski. However, unbeknownst to him, the reports were being intercepted by MI6, the British intelligence service, whose code breakers at Bletchley Park had broken the German ciphers as part of Ultra, the British signals intelligence program.[16]
The head of MI6, Stewart Menzies, communicated the decrypts directly to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The first decrypted message was the 18 July report on the mass murders by the regiment at Slonim. In late July and early August, similar reports were intercepted on a regular basis. Angered by the scope of the atrocities, Churchill delivered a speech over the radio on 24 August stating:[16]
Whole districts are being exterminated (...) Scores of thousands of executions are perpetrated by the German police troops upon the Soviet patriots defending their native soil. Since the Mongol invasion of Europe, there have never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale or approaching such a scale. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.
In May–June 1942, Police Battalions 307, 316, and 322 were reassigned to other regiments and continued to engage in security warfare (Bandenbekämpfung, or "bandit-fighting") and genocide. Battalions 316 and 322 were sent to Slovenia, with Battalion 316 then assigned to the 4th SS Police Regiment in France[17] and redesignated as the First Battalion of the regiment.[18]
Aftermath
The Order Police as a whole had not been declared a criminal organisation by the Allies, unlike the SS, and its members were able to reintegrate into society largely unmolested, with many returning to police careers in Austria and West Germany.[19]
References
- ^ Showalter 2005, p. xiii.
- ^ Westermann 2005, pp. 163–164.
- ^ Westermann 2005, p. 165.
- ^ Westermann 2005, p. 15.
- ^ Breitman 1998, pp. 45–46.
- ^ Westermann 2005, pp. 2–3.
- ^ a b Breitman 1998, pp. 47–48.
- ^ Arico 2010, pp. 456–59.
- ^ Persico 2002, p. 219.
- ^ a b Megargee 2009, p. 1642.
- ^ Breitman 1998, p. 66.
- ^ Megargee 2009, p. 1650.
- ^ Blood 2006, pp. 61–62.
- ^ Arico 2010, p. 457.
- ^ Tessin & Kannapin 2000, pp. 617, 637.
- ^ a b Smith 2004, pp. 112–113.
- ^ USHMM 2008, pp. 5–6.
- ^ Arico, p. 457
- ^ Westermann 2005, p. 231.
Bibliography
- Arico, Massimo (2010). Ordnungspolizei: Encyclopedia of the German Police Battalions. Stockholm: Leandoer and Ekholm. ISBN 978-91-85657-99-5.
- Beorn, Waitman Wade (2014). ISBN 978-0674725508.
- Blood, Phillip W. (2006). ISBN 978-1-59797-021-1.
- ISBN 9780809001842.
- Curilla, Wolfgang (2010). Der Judenmord in Polen und die deutsche Ordnungspolizei 1939-1945. Paderborn: Schöningh Paderborn. ISBN 978-3-50677043-1.
- ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.
- Persico, Joseph E. (22 October 2002). Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage. ISBN 0-3757-6126-8.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1.
- Smith, Michael (2004). "Bletchley Park and the Holocaust". In Scott, L. V.; Jackson, P. D. (eds.). Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: Journeys in Shadows. Routledge. ISBN 0714655333.
- Tessin, Georg & Kannapin, Norbert (2000). Waffen-SS und Ordnungspolizei im Kriegseinsatz 1939 - 1945: ein Überblick anhand der Feldpostübersicht (in German). Osnabrück: Biblio-Verlag. ISBN 3-7648-2471-9.
- "Selected Records from the Military Historical Institute Archives, Prague, 1941-1944" (PDF). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2008. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
- Westermann, Edward B. (2005). Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East. Kansas City: ISBN 978-0-7006-1724-1.
Further reading
- ISBN 9780674025776.