Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (review)

Since the Browning-Goldhagen debate scholarly attention has shifted from the Einsatzgruppen to the police battalions that did even more of the mass killing on the Eastern Front.¹ Joining the fray, Edward Westermann offers a monograph that should be received as seminal.

Westermann forcefully argues that it was the organizational culture of the uniformed police (Ordnungspolizei) rather than German national culture that prepared them for their role in genocide. "The senior leadership of the SS and police forces had paved the way for the actions of the entire Uniformed Police organization," Westermann asserts, "by creating an organizational culture within the police in which anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism emerged as institutional norms and expanded the boundaries of acceptable and desired behavior" (p. 1). In his introduction, Westermann broadly outlines his analysis based on Edgar H. Schein's work on organizational culture, defined as "basic assumptions and beliefs . . . shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic 'taken for granted' fashion an organization's view of itself and its environment."² Westermann has chosen well, for applying such a concept to the police has proven valuable since the 1960s, when sociologists began focusing on a "police subculture" to explain undesirable and anti-democratic behavior. The author argues convincingly that the pre-Nazi German police subculture (or, organizational culture) provided a fertile field for Nazi endeavors and facilitated the police's availability as Nazi enforcers and ultimately as "willing executioners."

In the following chapters, Westermann relates the evolution of a radically perverted organizational culture and how that culture facilitated mass murder, and in particular the often enthusiastic and creative participation in it of police battalion personnel. Central to this new organizational culture was the militarization of the police and their fusion with the SS. A militaristic ethos had already been well established in the police of the imperial era, and liberal reform efforts failed to reverse the trend during Weimar. The Party and SS leadership ardently fostered an obedient, soldierly ethos, preparing the police to support a war against ideologically-defined enemies, and even for a role in the occupation of conquered lands. The ultimate result was the militarily equipped and organized police battalions used to secure rear areas.

More important still was the fusion of the police with the SS through multiple channels. Suitable police were encouraged, even pressured, to join the SS; SS-men received preference for entry into the police; youthful recruits were required to qualify for and to join the SS when they joined the police; SS and police recruitment programs were combined. Although we have no reliable statistics for the final results, the union was especially significant in the officers' ranks, in particular at command levels. Beyond the actual fusion of membership, every propaganda effort was made to present the union as essential and successful. The SS leadership took the indoctrination of all police forces seriously. Although the SS shaped all programs, most ideological training reached rank-and-file policemen from their own officers or via professional publications. In stressing the SS and police relationship, Westermann joins the growing number of scholars who view this connection as effective and significant in motivating the zealous participation of the police in murder.

Westermann details extensively the "baptism-by-fire" policemen experienced during the "pacification" of Poland. Numerous concrete examples illustrate the extent to which the policemen adapted rapidly, even proactively, to their mission. And as Westermann notes, "if Poland . . . provided the training ground for annihilation, then the Soviet Union offered the forum for its perfection" (p. 163). Police units began the invasion well informed of the genocidal nature of their mission, and participated both in the front lines and in the rear. "In the performance of their duties, Himmler's policemen were not afraid to offer suggestions, not only on improving the conduct of operations, but on further radicalizing existing policies as well" (p. 194). In the Occupied Eastern Territories...