English: Colour plate from The German Police, a publication on the Police forces of Nazi Germany, issued by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) and printed in London in April 1945. The book covers the regular, uniformed Order Police (Ordnungspolizei, OrPo), the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei, SiPo) and the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD) which were all included in the general term "Police" 1936–1945. It also contains nine plates on OrPo uniforms with illustrations copied from German Police uniform panels 1939.

• Plate VII Greatcoats and Tunics
  • Greatcoat for Orpo Generals
    • Double breasted greatcoat (Mantel, overcoat) with coloured collar and lapels
  • Greatcoat (Officer's) for Wasserschutzpolizei
    • Wasserschutzpolizei, "river and water protection police"
  • Greatcoat for OR (EM) other than Wasserschutzpolizei
    • Front and back
  • White tunic (Officer's)
    • Waffenrock, German military tunic, uniform coat with external buttoned patch pockets, coloured collar and turn-back cuffs with two buttons, and decorative double fly at back
  • Tunic for branches other than Wasserschutzpolizei
  • Tunic for Wasserschutzpolizei

Police in Nazi Germany

In 1936 the separate German state police forces were restructured into a single national police force divided in two main departments: the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police or Uniformed Police, OrPo) and Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police, SiPo).

OrPo consisted of Schutzpolizei (protection police, SchuPo), Gemeindepolizei (municipal protection police) and Gendarmerie, the state rural police and military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The Schutzpolizei included Einzeldienst (Patrol branch ), Kasernierte Polizei (Barracked police), Verkehrspolizei (Traffic police), Wasserschutzpolizei (Water police), Polizei-Reiterstaffeln (mounted troops), Polizei-Nachrichtenstaffeln (police signal squads), etc. SiPo included Gestapo, Nazi Political Police, and Kriminalpolizei, Kripo.

Feldgendarmerie was military field police units of the Wehrmacht.

Ordnungspolizei uniforms

The Ordnungspolizei (OrPo) was also called Grüne Polizei ("green police"); The standard Waffenrock (service tunic) was grey-green with contrasting dark brown collar and cuff facings and had two pleated patch breast pockets and two unpleated skirt pockets.

In addition to collar and shoulder rank insignia, all OrPo wore the Polizeiadler ("police eagle"), i.e. a wreathed national eagle with swastika (Reichsadler mit Hakenkreuz), as a cap badge and an arm badge on the upper left sleeve.

The collar patches and shoulderboards on OrPo tunics were backed, and the sleeve eagle (below the rank of Leutnant) was embroidered (except for a black swastika), in the Truppenfarbe, a colour code indicating the branch. Tunics and caps also had piping (Paspelierung) in these branch colours:

• Schutzpolizei (protection police) – bright ‘police-green’
• Schutzpolizei der Gemeinden (municipal protection police) – wine-red
• Gendarmerie (rural) – orange
• Feuerschutzpolizei (fire brigades) – carmine-red
• Wasserschutzpolizei (Waterways protection police) – bright yellow (gold)
• Verwaltungspolizei (administrative police) – light grey
• Medical and veterinary personnel wore cornflower-blue and black respectively.

From 1942, dual Police and SS ranks were adopted by Police generals, who from then on would wear SS pattern rank insignia, albeit in Police colours.

SiPo personell within Germany wore civilian clothing.

Cropped and brightened image from scanned book.

No known copyright.