| Ukrainian Auxiliary Police | |
|---|---|
| Active | July 27, 1941 |
| Allegiance | Germany |
| Role | Auxiliary police |
The Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (English: Ukrainian Auxiliary Police Constabulary, Ukrainian: Українська поліція допоміжна) was a German mobile police force that operated in the General Government beginning on July 27, 1941.[1] The total number enlisted numbered slightly more than 35,000.[2] 6,000 of them - including 120 low-level officers - served in the District of Galicia.[3] In Reichskommissariat Ukraine auxiliary police were named Schutzmannschaft.[4][5]
The name of the unit reflected its geographic jurisdiction rather than the ethnic makeup of recruits.[1] The makeup of the officer corps were often representative of various nationalities. Professor Wendy Lower from Towson University writes that as the largest population under German occupation rule, Ukrainians outnumbered other non-Germans in the auxiliary police forces; the Volksdeutsche Germans from Ukraine meanwhile were given leadership roles.[6]
Many of those who joined the ranks of the police had served as militiamen under Soviet rule since 1939.[7] Tadeusz Piotrowski claims the majority of the police was made from members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B[8], while Ivan Patryljak claims that the German authorities expressly forbade drafting known nationalists. Nonetheless, the ethnic composition of Auxiliary Police reflected the demographics of the land and included Russians, Poles, and Volksdeutsche Germans drafted from the local population and from Soviet POWs.[9][10]
The auxiliary police were directly under the command of the Germanic-SS, Einsatzgruppen, and military administration.[11] The units were used primarily to keep order among the civilian population and carry out normal constabulary duties.[12] Their actions were restricted by other police groups such as the Sonderdienst, made up of Volksdeutsche; the Kripo (Criminal police); Bahnschutz (railroad and transport police); and the Werkschutz, who kept order and guarded industrial plants. They were supported by the Ukrainian Protection Police and the Ukrainian Order Police.[12]
In Galicia, Ukrainian and Polish auxiliary police units were under the command of Ordnungspolizei (ORPO) in Kraków. A special Ukrainian command for the auxiliary police did not exist. The highest ranked Ukrainian auxiliary police officer only rose to the rank of major - V. Pituley, who became a district commandant (Major der Ukrainische Polizei und Kommandeur) in Lemberg (now Lviv). A police school was established in Lviv by the district SS and Police leader in order to meet plans for growth. The school director was Ivan Kozak.[13]
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Professor Alexander Statiev of the Canadian University of Waterloo writes that Ukrainian Auxiliary Police were the major perpetrator of Holocaust on Soviet territories based on native origins, and those police units participated in the extermination of 150.000 Jews in the area of Volhynia alone[14] German historian Dieter Pohl in The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization writes that the auxiliary police was active during killing operations of Germans in the first phases of the German occupation[15].The auxiliary policy registered Jews, conducted raids and guarded ghettos, loaded convoys to execution sites and cordoned them off; around 300 auxiliary policemen from Kiev helped organize the massacre in Babi Yar[15]. They also took part in the massacre in Dnipropetrovsk, where the field command noted that the cooperation ran "smoothly in every way"; cases where local commandants ordered murder of Jews using the policy are known[15]. In killings of Jews in Kryvy Rih the "entire Ukrainian auxiliary police" was put to use[15].
On November 13, 1942, members of the Ukrainische Hilfspolizei robbed and executed 32 Poles and 1 Jew in the village of Obórki, located in Volhynia. After the crime the village was burned down.[16] On December 16, 1942, the Ukrainian policemen, led by Germans, killed 360 Poles in Jezierce (former powiat Rivne).[16][17]
In Lviv, in late February and March 1944, the Ukrainische Hilfspolizei arrested a number of young men of Polish nationality. Many of them were later found dead and their Identity documents stolen. The Government Delegation for Poland started negotiations with the OUN-B. When they failed, Kedyw began an action called "Nieszpory" (Vespers) where 11 policemen were shot in retaliation and the murders of young Poles in Lviv stopped.[18]
For many who joined the police force, enlistment served as an opportunity to receive military training and direct access to weapons. Bandera's OUN leadership on March 20, 1943 issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the German auxiliary police to desert with their weapons and join with the "military detachment of OUN (SD)" units in Volyn. The number of trained and armed policemen who in spring 1943 joined the ranks of the future Ukrainian Insurgent Army were estimated to be 10 thousand. This process in some places involved engaging in armed conflict with German forces as they tried to prevent desertion.[19]
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