Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

150 Konferences “Baltija Otrajā pasaules karā (1939–1945)” referāti par holokausta tematiku
The reason for this delay may have something to do with an important meeting that
had taken place in the mean time in Berlin. On 6 August 1942, Reichsmarschall Göring,
acting as Hitler’s deputy, met with the highest military and police commanders of several
occupied territories, including the Reichskommissariate of both Norway and Ostland.
Point 3 of the meeting protocol records the decision that new Schutzmannschaft battalions
should be recruited from Norway and the Netherlands, and even partially from Belgium
and France. These new battalions would be used in anti-partisan warfare in the areas
around St. Petersburg and Lake Ilmen, freeing up the German police battalions deployed
there at the time for service elsewhere. It was assumed that there was no danger of
units from north-western Europe fraternising with the Soviet partisan enemy, and that
the combat morale of these battalions would thus be high. 69 Aside from the seemingly
incongruous application of the somewhat deprecating name Schutzmannschaft to units
of allegedly racially superior Germanic Norwegians, 70 the message of what is decided
is clear: Norwegian police units would be sent to the East for anti-partisan warfare.
The first company of the Ordenspolitiet destined for front service, headed by Jonas
Lie personally, was formally created in autumn 1942. 71 Amongst the places where recruitment
drives had been held was Kongsvinger, 72 where a round of police courses had
been underway, and where the hardened Orpo men of PB 9 could tell the volunteers
what to expect from this kind of front duty.
Jonas Lie himself also had personal experience of front service, SS-style. In 1940,
he had served at Himmler’s invitation in the Balkan campaign attached to the elite
Waffen-SS division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. The next year, he went on a “study
trip to the Black Sea” with Einsatzgruppe D. 73 Jonas Lie was therefore also a good
Norwegian example of kämpfende Verwaltung.
After a brief stopover in Germany, the 1st Police Company travelled to the Leningrad
Front via Tallinn, where they took part in a parade held as part of the recruitment
campaign for the Estonian Legion. Behind the front lines, the policemen received some
extra training from 15 September to 6 October, before they were eventually deployed to
a sector separate from the rest of the men of the Norwegian Legion. 74
This short period of training was certainly not a problem for the men of Lie’s Police
Company. The company was dominated by men who were products of the police
training courses at Kongsvinger, and many of them had served in the Oslo Police
Battalion (Politibataljon Oslo) of the Ordenspolitiet. The courses they had received at
Kongsvinger comprised mainly of two types of training: firstly, ideological indoctrination,
and secondly, a great deal of practical combat training according to German infantry and
Orpo methods. For example, under the heading “Policing Education” in the literature list
for the Konsgvinger courses were listed Max Kreutzer’s Die Polizeitruppendienst and
Alfons Illinger’s Der Unterführer in der Polizeiverwendung, both standard Orpo manuals