The 6th SS Police Regiment (german: SS-Polizei-Regiment 6) was initially named the 6th Police Regiment (''Polizei-Regiment 6'') 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 ...
(''Ordnungspolizei'') 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 in July 1942 in
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 ...
, but the
regiment
A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation.
In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...
al headquarters was not formed until 2 September.
[Tessin & Kanapin, p. 618] Police Battalion 82 (''Polizei-Batallion 82''),
Police Battalion 311 and
Police Battalion 318 were redesignated as the regiment's first through third
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.
[Arico, pp. 256, 436, 467] All of the police regiments were redesignated as SS police units on 24 February 1943.
[Tessin & Kannapin, p. 557]
The regimental headquarters was destroyed in January 1943 and its remnants were withdrawn to Adlershorst, (now
Rusko
Rusko () is a municipality of Finland.
It is located in Western Finland and is part of the Southwest Finland region. The municipality has a population of
() and covers an area of of
which
is water. The population density is
.
The municipali ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
), where they may have been used to form the headquarters of the
24th SS Police Regiment. Its battalions, however, were assigned to different
German Army
The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
security divisions and did not suffer its fate. The Third Battalion was stationed in the rear of the
8th Italian Army The 8th Army ( it, 8ª Armata) was a field army of the Royal Italian Army, which fought in World War I and on the Eastern Front during World War II.
World War I
After the disastrous defeat at Caporetto (November 1917) the Italian Army was compl ...
when it was overrun by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
during
Operation Little Saturn
Operation Little Saturn was a Red Army offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II that led to battles in Don and Chir rivers region in German-occupied Soviet Union territory in 16–30 December 1942.
The success of Operation Uranus, launch ...
in January–February 1943 and may have been destroyed at that time.
[
The 6th SS Police Regiment was reformed in October 1944 in Hungary. Its first and second battalions were formed by the redesignation of II and III Battalions of the 1st SS Police Regiment although its third and fourth battalions were newly raised. The regimental headquarters was destroyed during the ]Siege of Budapest
The Siege of Budapest or Battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet Union, Soviet and Kingdom of Romania, Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital (political), capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the b ...
in early 1945; the survivors were in Soviet prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
camps by 11 February, but its battalions appear to have survived the siege.[
]
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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