Talk:Police Regiment Centre

Couple of queries prior to GAN review
This article naturally focuses on the war crimes committed by this regiment. I imagine they did other things in the rear area other than executing people. It was my understanding that these police regiments were used for rear area security operations to fight partisans as well, but there doesn't seem to be any coverage of this, so it constitutes an obvious gap in information. Also, it is usual for a regiment such as this that was redesignated to have one article in the final name (or name which is clearly most common in sources). I strongly suggest merging this one and the 13th Police Regiment article (the relevant guideline for this is WP:MILMOS), and covering the pre-histories of the constituent battalions here as well, as they may not be individually notable given their nature and size. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm answering here in a general sense, and appreciate the detailed responses below. It appears that the break between the two regiments may have been more significant than it appeared at first glance, so I'm neutral about a merge now. It is clear that some battalions may be individually notable and some may not (BTW, if either of you come across anything on Reserve Police Battalion 64, I'd be very interested, as they carried out a large proportion of similar executions in occupied Serbia, particularly out of the Banjica concentration camp). I also understand that the primary focus will always be on the roundups and executions conducted by these regiments, rather than anti-partisan warfare, especially this one, focused as it is on the initial stages of Barbarossa, but if they did conduct anti-partisan operations, I would have thought not covering them might be an obstacle to comprehensiveness if you want to take them above GA. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Potential merge
Thanks for taking a look! Regarding the proposed merge: The source that I have (USHMM document) states that the regiment was dissolved; please see "Selected Records from the Military Historical Institute Archives, Prague, 1941-1944", pp. 5-7. There's clearly a distinct period for the unit as "Police Regiment Centre" / "Polizeiregiment Mitte". In any case, I would not be opposed to the merge of Rgt 13 into this article; this name appears to be the more prominent one, but I wonder if it makes sense given that the constituent battalions of Polizeiregiment Mitte were not part of Rgt 13, as discussed below:

Polizeiregiment Mitte

With the onset of the invasion of the Soviet Union, three police regiments were deployed in the rear areas of Army Groups North, Center, and South. Max Montua commanded Polizeiregiment Mitte (Center), which consisted of the 307th, 316th, and 322nd Police Battalions, which existed prior to the formation of the police regiment and after its dissolution. During the period they served in the police regiment, they also had consecutive Roman numerals. Thus, Police Battalion 322 was simultaneously Police Regiment Center Battalion III. (...) In mid-1942, new police regiments were set up with Arabic numerals. Polizeiregiment Mitte was dissolved and its original battalions were reassigned.

Battalion 307 became Battalion I of Regiment 23, and I/23 was listed as a component of Gruppe Binz, named for its commander, Siegfried Binz, which was set up for the anti-partisan operation “Sumpffieber” in the Byelorussian region. Battalions 316 and 322 were subordinated with their original Arabic numerals to the Befehlshaber der Ordungungspolizei “Alpenland” in Bled, Slovenia. Battalion 316 was then shifted to France, where it became Battalion I of SS Police Regiment 4. Battalion 322 remained in the northwestern Yugoslavia area and southern Hungary area from which it operated in 1944 as Battalion II of SS Police Regiment 5.

I'll double check with on this discrepancy; it seems to have been a complete reorganisation, rather than a redesignation. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Activities
The same document details the activities of the regiment which mention partisans only in passing. The documents consist almost entirely of depictions of various killing operations, as in:


 * [Polizeiregiment Mitte. Pol. Bat. 322. Kompanie Tagebuch. 9 June 1941 – 26 March 1942]
 * War diary of 3d Company of Police Battalion 322 (Oberleutnant Riebel), 9 June 1941 – 26 March 1942 (200740 ff.), recording departure, arrival in Bialystok, creation of forest preserve in Bialowicza with attendant evacuation of Polish population and shooting of Jewish men, movement of company to Baranowicze, transfer to Minsk and shooting of hundreds of Jews there end August 1941 (200806 ff.) movement to Mogilev and mass shooting of Jews in that area (200825 ff.), thereafter various anti-partisan actions. (...)


 * [Polizeiregiment Mitte. Pol. Bat. 322. A-II. 14 June 1941 – 16 December 1941]
 * Correspondence, memoranda, reports regarding Montua order, 11 July 1941, regarding conduct of shootings and spiritual care of shooters (201180 ff.). Shooting Jewish POWs in Bialystok by 3d Company, 20 July 1941 (201185). Regiment order, 27 July 1941, regarding format for reports on shootings (201189). Company 8 (Binz) report on house to house search in Pinsk (201211). Company 8 report, 30 August 1941, regarding shooting of Jews in Antopol (201216). Company 9 report, 1 September 1941, regarding shooting Jews (201226). Montua warning against looting, 9 September 1941 (201234). Company 9 report regarding two men hanged in error due to false accusations and subsequent shooting of two accusers, 13 October 1941 (201237). Monthly report by Battalion III regarding numbers of people shot, 1 October 1941 (201263). Company 9 report regarding shootings, 15 October 1941 (201301).


 * Etc.

The regiment was indeed assigned to combat duties during the crisis of the Soviet winter counter-offensive, which is already mentioned in the article. I've searched again and found a bit more about the unit's combat activities: Battalion 307 took part in fending off a Soviet air landing operation in late December 1941 (Hitler's Bandit Hunters, p. 60). The regiment is described once as having participated in countering an attempted breakthroughs of a bypassed Red Army unit, around Sept 1941 (also p. 60).

This is 1.5 paragraphs vs pages and pages outlining the unit's mass murder tasks. If there are sources that discuss its participation in anti-guerilla warfare in the rear, I'd be glad to review them. But I'm not sure they exist since the unit's purpose was primarily policing / genocide, not combat. The sources cover it accordingly, and so does the article. Dedicating disproportionate coverage to combat operations would be undue, IMO. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Sub-units
Lastly, I agree that the battalions themselves may not be independently notable, esp those that were part of Rgt 13. Police Battalion 322 is likely notable, since its set of war diaries and orders was one of the more complete ones to reach the archives; source: and subsequent pages. A bit on motivations:. Also: "Police Battalion 322 distinguished itself by participating in about 10,000 executions by May 1942" etc. The redlinks were added by Sturm; I think it would be a good idea to remove them for some of the sub-units.
 * Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew, p. 45 -- background on Police Battalion 322 + pre-Barbarossa history. Note that the author states that info on other Orpo battalions is extrapolated based on this one, due to the availability of records.

Does this address your queries? Would love to hear your and Sturm's thoughts on this. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Some additional sources

 * Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews


 * Annihilation: Volume II: The European Rimlands 1939-1953


 * Fegelein's Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare


 * Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization


 * The Holocaust in the Soviet Union


 * Ordinary Men
 * Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg: Front und militärisches Hinterland 1941/42
 * Der Judenmord in Polen und die deutsche Ordnungspolizei 1939-1945

K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

General responses

 * From my reading the Police units were more focused on killing Jews and other undesireables during Barbarossa and that changed over 1942 as the targeted peoples were murdered or moved into ghettos, so that they were increasingly used on anti-partisan ops for the rest of the war. As most historians of the Holocaust are quite naturally primarily interested in the period of the Judenmord, the readily available literature reflects that bias and doesn't cover the later anti-partisan activities in any kind of depth with some of Ben Sheperd's word being notable exceptions.
 * I'd actually argue that most, but certainly not all, of the individual police battalions qualify as notable through coverage in reliable sources. Arico has histories of each one, although some of these are quite brief, depending the amount of documents surviving or how long they were actually in existence. And I could further argue that the individual companies of Police Battalion 9 are notable as they were the initial police support for the Einsatzgruppen in '41 and their activities are very thoroughly documented. But I digress... So I'd prefer to leave the red links in place.
 * The Germans generally kept the regimental staff intact when they transitioned to the more formal regiments in '42, often swapping out the battalions for fresher ones, so the regiment was technically intact even if no battalions were actually assigned. And the documentation on the actual formation of the regimental HQs for those that didn't actually exist before then is kinda sketchy, so you'll see the regiment formed with 2 or 3 battalions, but without a regimental HQ or vice versa. And the whole designation thing gets really sketchy in April-June '42 as documents start showing up using I., II., or III. of a regiment that actually hasn't formally been ordered to form yet. So I tend to think that some bigwig in the Orpo laid out a plan to (semi-)permanently assign battalions to the regiments (probably earning a DKiG for it) and it leaked before it was actually approved with various ass-kissers applying the names before they were meant to be used (at least that's how it might have worked in the US Army when I was on active duty). A key piece of evidence would be a change in commanders when the regiments were redesignated. If new commander in the numbered regiment, then probably entirely new unit; same commander, just a redesignation. Anyhow, Tessin & Kanapin pretty much state that the regimental HQs of the numbered regiments came from the Barbarossa-era units while I'd argue that coffman's source is more concerned about the effective combat power of the regiment was all new when the original battalions were swapped out, rather than what specifically happened to the regimental staff. And who replaced Montua after he left, anyway?
 * Perhaps shocking both of you, I actually agree with coffman and would prefer not to merge the articles as there's a pretty clear transition in role in '42. When I was setting up all the other police regimental articles I included info on Polizei-Regiment z.b.V in the article on Police Regiment 11 because it didn't swap battalions like the other Barbarossa-era units and I was feeling lazy. I'd certainly not be adverse to splitting it out if somebody wanted to do that to standardize how we treat all four of the Barbarossa-era regiments.
 * What I think the article needs to meet the GA reasonable coverage criteria is more equal coverage of the other assigned police battalions, coverage of any notable anti-partisan or combat ops in which the battalions participated, if any, before the regiment was redesignated, and coverage of any activities of the three replacement police battalions before July if available and significant. I'm willing to help with the sources that I have to hand and can get if I can get free sometime soon to do a research trip to the Library of Congress like I want to. Arico can certainly provide some coverage of the other police battalions' activities; I was just focused on the post July '42 period when I was creating all the other regimental articles.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:46, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links, a couple of books that I hadn't heard of.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:18, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Further discussion and sources
I found a source that may be directly relevant: Edward B. Westermann (2005): Hitler's Police Battalions: Forcing Racial War in the East. University Press of Kansas. It has received positive reviews. Unfortunately, the book does not appear to be searchable via Google books. It covers the pre-WWII history of the force and 1939-1942 period of the war.

The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos has information on the actions by individual battalions. The first two volumes are available as online PDFs from the USHHMM web site; here's part 2 of Vol II:.

Regarding the unit's 1942 activities, I could find little in Google books; same for regiments South and North. That's how I ended up locating the USHMM document that I linked above. My general impression (possibly incorrect) was that the regiment Center was depleted and in disarray following the Soviet counter-offensive; von dem Bach was on convalescent leave, Montua was recalled, etc, etc.

I did find an overall summary of killing operations by various battalions in Hitler's Willing Executioners; some of the data points are for the first half of 1942: PB battalions 307, 316, 322 – major killing operations, pp. 272, 273.

Sturm, if you have sources pertaining to 1942, that would be helpful. I also see that the page needs a "Background / formation" section; the article opens kind of abruptly. I'll add that in the meantime. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The Westermann book was one that I was hoping to look at my research trip to the Library of Congress, but that looks like that's going to have to be postponed indefinitely. I used to have a copy, but I don't recall how good it was for the killings as I was more focused on anti-partisan ops.
 * I think that your general impression of the named police regiments after the Soviet counterattack is correct for North and Center as they were committed to the front to stave off Soviet attacks and breakthroughs. South and z.b.V weren't and remained essentially intact because they mostly kept their original police battalions.
 * Munoz has a book, Hitler's White Russians: Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-Partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944, that also might have some decent info on operations in the first half of '42. Another of the many books that I lost in a fire back in '12, I remember it being full of info on anti-partisan and killing ops, so I'll order a copy.
 * In my experience, we're into hyperspecialized books now, often from small publishers, and Google Books just doesn't cover them with any reliability. So I'm not at all surprised that you struck out on a search. But thanks for the links, I've been away from Holocaust stuff ever since the fire, and I haven't been keeping up on stuff very much.
 * I've some family stuff going on now, but I'll try to add the stuff on the other police battalions next week sometime.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:21, 13 January 2018 (UTC)