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HITLER'S POLICE BATTALIONS ENFORCING RACIAL WAR IN THE EAST
Book Type: C By Edward B. Westermann. Beginning with the invasion of Poland, the Uniformed Police were charged with following the army to curb resistance, pacify the countryside, patrol Jewish ghettos, and generally maintain order in the conquered territories. Edward Westermann examines how this force emerged as a primary instrument of annihilation. Westermann reveals initiatives pursued before the war by Heinrich Himmler and Kurt Daluege to create a culture within the existing police forces that fostered anti-Semitism and anti-Communism as institutional norms. Challenging prevailing interpretations of German culture, he draws on extensive archival researchâincluding the testimony of former policemenâto illuminate this transformation. Purged of dissidents, indoctrinated to idolize Hitler, and trained in military combat, these police battalions repeatedly conducted actions against Jews, Slavs, gypsies, asocials, and other groups on their own initiative, even when they had the choice not to. In addition to documenting these atrocities, Westermann examines cooperation between the Ordnungspolizei and the SS and Gestapo, and the close relationship between police and Wehrmacht in the conduct of the anti-partisan campaign. Throughout, Westermann stresses the importance of ideological indoctrination within specific groups. It was the organizational culture of the Uniformed Police, he maintains, and not German culture in general that led these men to commit genocide. Hitlerâs Police Battalions provides the most complete and comprehensive study to date of this neglected branch of Himmlerâs SS and Police empire. 19 photographs, 256 pp. 
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