Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

Dr. Matthew Kott. What Does the Holocaust in the Baltic States Have to Do with the SS’ Plans?
Soon after the arrival of the main body of EK 2 in Riga in early July 1941, a detachment
of men from 1st Company of PB 9 were ordered to Jelgava for several days.
Here they participated in the mass execution of local Jews alongside men for the local
SD and the Latvian SD auxiliary unit under Mārtiņš Vagulāns. These executions of
several hundred Jews were described as particularly bloody, and the victims included
not only women, but also children. 54 It is interesting to note that Vagulāns, one of the
most eager genocidaires in Latvia, was appointed head of the local Latvian SD auxiliary
by Stahlecker himself, as he passed though Jelgava en route to Riga. 55
Perhaps the biggest single action where men from PB 9 took part in Latvia was
the series of massacres in the Biķernieki Wood just outside of Riga, starting on 7 July,
in which several thousand Jews were murdered. The brunt of these semi-industrialised
executions was performed by Latvians from the infamous Sonderkommando Arājs, but
Stahlecker also ordered men from PB 9 to participate in the shooting as well – including
Clausen and those from 3rd Platoon serving in his personal staff. Legal expert Wolfgang
Curilla estimates that the men from 1st Company murdered at least 500 Jews in this
series of massacres. 56
It is highly probable the men from PB 9 assigned to EG A also participated in the
murder of Roma, suspected Communists, and the mentally ill. 57
In time, Stahlecker took most of the men from PB 9 under his command with him
to his new EG A headquarters at Krasnogvardeisk on the Leningrad Front. These men
were relieved in December 1941 by units from Police Battalion 3. Suffering from the
mental stress of having participated in so many mass executions, all the companies of
PB 9 serving with the different Einsatzgruppen were withdrawn to Zamość in Poland to
recuperate. In April 1942, they were stationed in the Czech town of Jihlava (Iglau), where
the Orpo had several training facilities. By July 1942, PB 9 was once again deployed
back in Norway, this time as 3rd Battalion of the newly-created Police Regiment 27
(III./Polizeiregiment 27). Its new home base would be the town of Kongsvinger, not far
from the Swedish–Norwegian border, where it would remain stationed until the end of
the war. 58
Despite its small size and peripheral location, Kongsvinger was a focus of SS and
police activity in occupied Norway. Regarding Germans, it was home to not only an
Orpo battalion, but also an SD branch office and border control point. The Norwegian
presence was equally significant. Kongsvinger was a key station for the Norwegian
border police, as well as home to schools for both the Norwegian police and Norwegian
SS organisation (Norges SS, later reorganised as Germanske SS Norge). 59
The new police school created at Kongsvinger in late 1940 was the only institution
for educating aspiring policemen in occupied Norway. The goal was to create a new, elite
type of police force, Ordenspolitiet, directly patterned after the German Ordnungspolizei.
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