The 16th SS Police Regiment (german: SS-Polizei-Regiment 16) was initially named the 16th Police Regiment (''Polizei-Regiment 16'') when it was formed in 1942 from existing
Order Police
The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...
() units for security duties on the
Eastern Front. It was redesignated as an
SS unit in early 1943.
Formation and organization
The regiment was ordered formed on 9 July 1942 in northern
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
Police Battalion 56 (''Polizei-Batallion 56''),
Police Battalion 102, I Battalion of the
15th Police Regiment, formerly
Police Battalion 305, and
Police Battalion 121 were redesignated as the regiment's first through fourth
battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...
s, respectively.
I Battalion was transferred to
Tilsit
Sovetsk (russian: Сове́тск; german: Tilsit; Old Prussian: ''Tilzi''; lt, Tilžė; pl, Tylża) is a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the south bank of the Neman River which forms the border with Lithuania.
Geography
Sov ...
,
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
(now
Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast), and was converted into a training unit on 5 February 1943. It eventually became I Battalion of the
3rd SS Police Regiment
The 3rd SS Police Regiment (german: SS-Polizei-Regiment 3) was named the 3rd Police Regiment (''Polizei-Regiment 3'') when it was temporarily formed in 1939 from existing Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei'') units for security duties during the invas ...
and was replaced by a newly formed battalion in July 1944.
All of the police regiments were redesignated as SS police units on 24 February 1943, but this was strictly honorary. IV Battalion was disbanded in 1943 and the remnants of the
9th SS Police Regiment were absorbed into III Battalion in mid-1944. The III Battalion's 9th and 10th Companies committed the
Pirčiupiai massacre on June 3, 1944.
Notes
References
* Arico, Massimo. ''Ordnungspolizei: Encyclopedia of the German Police Battalions'', Stockholm: Leandoer and Ekholm (2010).
*Blood, Phillip W. ''Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe'', Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books (2006).
*Tessin, Georg & Kannapin, Norbert. ''Waffen-SS under Ordnungspolizei im Kriegseinsatz 1939–1945: Ein Überlick anhand der Feldpostübersicht'', Osnabrück, Germany: Biblio Verlag (2000).
{{SS Police Regts
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