Die deutsche Ordnungspolizei im westlichen Europa 1940-1945 by Wolfgang Curilla (review)

Wolfgang Curilla's detailed new study completes a trilogy documenting the participation of the Order Police in the destruction of European Jewry and, more generally, in the subjugation of countries under Nazi control during World War II. Curilla's works, along with those of Stefan Klemp, record the activities of individual Order Police units in the Final Solution, and have provided a wealth of information for establishing the scale and scope of the participation of Himmlers "green legions" in genocide.¹ Curilla's books have been described as reference works, but if their structure supports this, it remains equally clear that the totality of his research provides numerous critical insights and key details related to the involvement of the police in the destruction of the European Jews.

Curilla's examination of Order Police activities in Western Europe brings contemporary research full circle to the origins of Holocaust historiography in Raul Hilberg's seminal Destruction of the European Jews (1961), where Hilberg established the role of Order Police escorts guarding the trains bearing Western and Central Europe's Jews to the killing centers in "the East." Curilla's study intersects here with recent scholarship that has brought new insights into the motivations and roles of volunteers within the SS and police complex, the contribution of local government officials, and the collaboration of local police forces in anti-Jewish measures in the West.²

Organized into nine parts by country and chronology, the latest volume examines the activities of Order Police units in Norway, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, and Italy, with a concluding analysis quantifying police participation in the Holocaust not only in the West, but throughout Europe. Each section begins with an overview of the events and factors shaping German policies in each country. The analysis demonstrates the role of chronology, political and economic considerations, and governmental structures (e.g., military versus civil, occupation versus annexation, and so on) in the size and distribution of police units, and in the experience of occupied populations, Jews and non-Jews alike. Based on an impressive survey of German and European archival collections, Curilla's work focuses on postwar judicial investigations to document the activities of uniformed policemen, including the well-known police battalions, the gendarmerie, precinct police, and the largely overlooked Harbor and River Police (Wasserschutzpolizei). Like Curilla's earlier works on Eastern Europe, the present study also reveals the close working relationships between the Wehrmacht, the Security Police (Sipo) and Security Service (SD), and the Order Police in the occupied countries and territories, as well as the critical support provided by national police forces, especially in the Netherlands and France. Curilla offers as well a solid overview of the administrative organizations in each country that were complicit in Nazi anti-Jewish measures.

While the writing is accessible, the focus on the activities of specific units results, perhaps unavoidably, in long sections characterized by lists of facts ranging from the location of home bases or the names of leadership cadre, to the changing numerical and organizational designations of individual units; the separate examination of each unit at times results in significant repetition. Nevertheless, this volume rewards the reader with both mundane and startling detail: Curilla mentions one policeman who died of alcohol poisoning after a nighttime bender (p. 103), and others who used their assignment as guards on deportation trains as an opportunity for shopping sprees in Belgian stores (p. 314). One police patrol casually shot at the lights from an apartment during a black-out in Amsterdam, killing a man and a woman (p. 212). In one truly incredible story, the commander of the Security Police in the Netherlands, Dr. Eberhard Schöngarth, taken prisoner by the Allied forces, requested and was permitted to execute German deserters (his appeal was approved by an unidentified Canadian army colonel; other captured Order Policemen took part and were allowed to use their own weapons! p. 302).

Order Police murder...