GERMANY’S POLICE FORCE

Evening Star, Issue 22686, 28 June 1937, Page 11

GERMANY’S POLICE FORCE

TAKEN OVER BY HITLER'S ELITE GUARD Official Germany observed recently “ The Day of tne German Police,” which in outward appearance is a propagandist effort to make the police popular with the masses, but in its deeper significance initiated a drastic reorganisation of the German police force into a purely National Socialist force designed to protect the Nazi regime and propagate its philosophy, writes Otto D. Tolischus from Berlin to the ‘ New York Times.’ The propagandist programme was carried through in typical National Socialist style under the motto, “ The Police, Your Friend and Helper.” There were flags' and parades, the entire police force turned out to collect donations for the National Sorialist winter relief fund, police officers appeared in the schools to show the children how to cross the streets safe’y, many of the poorer children were the dinner guests of individual police formations, and in 12 public squares children were permitted to ride on police horses while a po’iccman 'himself swung a collection box among the amused spectators. Altogether this part of the programme was pronounced a vreat success. The dry’s more important aspect was emphasised by copious formal statements'and interviews issued by Colonel General Hermann Goeri* l ", Heinrich Himmler, chief of the political police, and many other important police commanders, the crux of which was that the entire German police force was he'ng taken over by the black-coated S.S or Hitler Elite Guard, which in the future will furnish all police recruits, both officers and men. Chancellor Hitler himself symbolised his sanction of this merger by bestowing upon the nolice members who m-o already Elite Guard members the r : ~ht to wear on their police uniforms two S runes, the old - being worn bv the Elite Guard, which officially symbolise “ Sieg ” or victory hut are also regarded by many as anti-Semitic signs. _ _ With this new police organisation new work seems to have been found for both the brown-shirted Storm Troops and the ’ black-coated Elite Guard. Both were fighting organisations during the Nazis’s struggle for power, and both became something of a problem after victory had b°en obtained. Now, however, new and separate functions are being given to both. SHOP SQUADS. The Elite Guard, which heretofore has furnished merely the Gestapo or secret police, but -which from the very first was something of a National Socialist military police for the Storm Troops and as such furnished the firing? squads that executed the opposition Storm Troop leaders on June 30, 1934, is being converted into a police of the whole German people. The Storm Troops, on the other hand, are " being organised into so-called Werkscharen, or shop squads, which will form a sort of Nazi shop police designed to instill the proper National Socialist enthusiasm in the workers,, but, above all, to keep them in order, nip in the bud any signs of dissatisfaction, squelch all secret agitators, prevent sabotage, and break incipient strikes, which "have been multiplying lately. ■ The new police reorganisation was prepared by the appointment of Herr Hiirnler to the post of Commander of the German Police, but heretofore the German Police had been merely a headquarters organisation. It is now being extended downward to the last man until it will have replaced the police forces of the still-existing States, which aro scheduled for an early demise. In that respect, the police move is a further step in the reorganisation of Germany by the federation of some 20 Federal 'States into one centralised State under Hitler. But it also signifies that Herr Himmler and his Elite Guard have finally won out in their effort to obtain control over all the German police forces. Colonel Ernst Boehm and his Storm Troops, who sought to obtain control over the German Army, ended befors a firing squad. The importance of the new development to the German people lies in tho fact that the Elite Guard is the most radical among all the National Socialist organisations. It prides itseP on being the advance guard of the National Socialist philosophy in its most uncompromising form.