Ordnungpolizei:

The Ordnungspolizei (abbreviated as OrPo) was the uniformed police force of Nazi Germany, established in 1936 when Heinrich Himmler reorganized the German police under SS authority. Before that time, police forces were run at the state and municipal level, but the Nazi Reich sought total centralization. Under the leadership of Kurt Daluege, the OrPo combined local police departments, rural constabularies, fire brigades, and specialized services into one national body. Though outwardly a civilian institution responsible for maintaining public order, the OrPo was deeply integrated into the SS security apparatus and functioned as an arm of Nazi control.

Inside Germany, the OrPo continued to perform the duties of a typical police force—patrolling neighborhoods, investigating crimes, and managing traffic—but it also became a key enforcer of Nazi ideology. It monitored “racial purity,” enforced the Nuremberg Laws, and worked alongside the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei [secret state police]) and Kripo (Kriminalpolizei [criminal police]) to suppress political opposition. The image of the OrPo as a reassuring “green uniform” force helped normalize the regime’s authority for ordinary Germans, even as it prepared for much darker tasks once war broke out.

During World War II, the OrPo’s scope expanded dramatically. It formed police battalions that accompanied the Wehrmacht into occupied territories, particularly in Eastern Europe. These battalions were tasked with security and anti-partisan duties but quickly became instruments of mass violence. Units of the OrPo participated in mass shootings of Jews, Roma, and political prisoners, oversaw deportations to ghettos and camps, and assisted in the liquidation of entire communities. One of the most infamous units, Reserve Police Battalion 101, composed largely of middle-aged men with little military background, carried out massacres in Poland, showing how “ordinary” policemen became perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Beyond mass killings, the OrPo also played a role in population control throughout occupied Europe. Its officers guarded ghettos, patrolled rural areas, and fought resistance movements in brutal “anti-partisan” campaigns that often targeted civilians indiscriminately. In this way, the OrPo became a vital part of the Nazi occupation machine, providing manpower where the SS and Wehrmacht were overstretched. While it lacked the same prestige as elite SS divisions, its sheer size and reach made it essential to the regime’s genocidal and repressive policies.

After Germany’s defeat in 1945, the Allies formally dissolved the OrPo, recognizing its role in war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, the process of justice was uneven. While some commanders were tried and punished, many rank-and-file members reintegrated into postwar German police forces, especially in West Germany, where Cold War priorities often overshadowed thorough reckoning with the past. For decades, the OrPo’s contribution to Nazi atrocities received less attention than that of the SS or Gestapo, though historians today identify it as one of the key institutions that allowed the Nazi regime to carry out both everyday repression and systematic genocide.

Kurt Daluege:

Kurt Max Franz Daluege, was born on September 15, 1897, in Kreuzberg, Poland. Daluege was a high ranking Nazi official that led the Ordnungpolizei from 1936 to 1943. Daluege served in the Imperial German Army during World War I as a Vizefeldwebel (NCO). In July, 1930, Daluege resigned from the Sturmabteilung and joined the Schutzstaffel, and was given the rank Oberführer. His job was to spy on the Sturmabteiluung and other oppenents of the Reich. In 1930, the Sturmabteilung's leader Walter Stennes ordered his men to attack the Berlin Party Headquarters. Daluege's men were the ones to defend the Berlin Party Headquarters. Hitler was very pleased and ranked Daluege and Heinrich Himmler to Obergruppenführer. 

In 1932, Daluege was given the position as a Nazi Party Deputy for the Landtag of Prussia. In 1934, Daluege helped execute the Night of the Long Knives. Which killed many Sturmabteilung members and their commander Ernst Röhm. 

In 1936, the Ordnungpolizei was reorganized. And Daluege was appointed Generaloberst der Polizei. In 1941, he attended a mass murder of Jews, under the Ordnungpolizei. In 1942, Daluege became the Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia due to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. 

In May, 1943, Daluege suffered from a massive heart-attack and was relieved from his position. In May, 1945, Daluege was arrested by British troops and was taken to the Nuremberg Trials where he would be found as a major war criminal and was sentenced to death on October 23, 1946 and was hung at a prison in Prague on October 24, 1946.