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Blue Police

The Blue Police, more correctly translated as The Navy-Blue Police (Granatowa policja) was the popular name of the collaborationist police in the German occupied area of Poland (including parts of modern Western Ukraine & some parts of Western Belorussia), known as General Government during the Second World War. The official name of the organization was Polish Police of the General Government (Polnische Polizei im Generalgouvernement, Policja Polska Generalnego Gubernatorstwa).

It was created by Nazi-Germany as an auxiliary paramilitary police force in order to keep law and order in the General Government part of occupied Poland. Similar police organizations existed in all of the occupied countries (see Hilfspolizei). Initially used to deal with purely criminal activities, the Blue Police was later used to also prevent smuggling, and to police the Jewish population in the ghettos. It was officially disbanded by the Polish Committee of National Liberation on August 27, 1944.

Organization

In October 1939, General Governor Hans Frank ordered the mobilization of the pre-war Polish police into the service of the Germans. The policemen were to report for duty or face the death penalty.

According to the German plan, the police force was to consist of approximately 12,000 officers, but the actual number of its cadre was much lower. However, some sources put the numbers as high as 14,300. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust reports its manpower as 8,700 in February 1940 and states that it reached its peak in 1943 with 16,000 members. The Blue Police consisted primarily of Poles and polish speaking Ukrainian catholics from the eastern parts of the General Government.

The Blue Police had no autonomy, and all of its high ranking officers came from the ranks of the German police (Kriminalpolizei). It served in the capacity of an auxiliary force, along with the police forces guarding seats of administration (Schutzpolizei), Railway Police (Bahnschutz), Forest Police (Forstschutz) and Border Police (Grenzschutz). Blue Police was subordinate to German Ordnungspolizei.

From the German perspective, the primary role of the Blue Police was to maintain law and order on the territories of occupied Poland, as to free the German police for other duties. As Heinrich Himmler stated in his order from May 5, 1940: "providing general police service in the General Government is the role of the Polish police. German police will intervene only if it is required by the German interests and will monitor the Polish police."

As the force was primarily a continuation of the pre-war Polish police force, it also relied largely on pre-war regulations and laws, a situation that was accepted as a provisional necessity both by the Nazis and by the legitimate Polish authorities. While the Polish Underground State had its own police force and judiciary (see National Security Corps and Directorate of Civil Resistance), it was unable to provide basic police services for the entire population of the former Second Polish Republic in the conditions of German occupation.

Historic assessment

The role of the Blue Police in its collaboration and resistance towards the Nazis is difficult to assess as a whole, and is often a matter of dispute.

Scholars disagree about the degree of involvement of the Blue Police in the rounding up of Jews. Warsaw Ghetto historian Emmanuel Ringelblum and another eyewitness described Polish policemen carrying out extortion and beatings in the Ghetto.

A significant part of the police personnel belonged to the Polish underground resistance organization Armia Krajowa, mostly in the counter-intelligence of the Home Army and the National Security Corps. Some estimates are as high of 50%. Blue Police followed German orders reluctantly and that the officers had little choice but to obey their orders or face death. The Blue Police often disobeyed German orders or even acted against them, and some of its officers were ultimately awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award (for example, Wacław Nowiński).

On the other hand the police did take part in street roundups as well as in numerous killings of Jews.

In 1946-1952 in Poland was established special Rehabilitation-Qualification Commission in charge of former policemen, which examined about 10 000 persons from whom about 2000 were passed to Civil Militia (in 1949 they were repressed), and about 600 persons got a death sentence.