THE NAZI POLICE FORCE: ORPO

  

Ordnungspolizei conducting a raid (razzia) in the Krakow ghetto, January 1941.

The Ordnungspolizei (German: [ˈʔɔɐ̯dnʊŋspoliˌt͡saɪ], Order Police), abbreviated Orpo, were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945. The Orpo organization was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favor of the central Nazi government (Verreichlichung of the police). The Orpo was under the administration of the Interior Ministry but headed by members of the SS until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei (green police). The force was first established as a centralized organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis.

The Ordnungspolizei encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organizations, including fire brigades, coast guard, civil defense, and even night watchmen. Deployed along with the German Army (Wehrmacht) in the invasion of Poland in 1939, it had the task of terrorizing the civilian population of the conquered and colonized countries beginning in spring 1940.