Talk:1st SS Police Regiment

Yerger Reference

The book makes no reference to this unit.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

It's in the biographies of one of the police generals who served as a Polizei Abschnitt commander which had authority over the 1st SS Police Regiment. Its also mentioned under the section on Oberabschnitt Spree. At least in the edition that I have. -OberRanks (talk) 15:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Please explain why you believe that the Yerger book should be listed as a source when it contains no references to the unit?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

See above for the two sections in the book that speak of the unit. Schiffer put out a second version of the book in 2007, do you have an older copy? -OberRanks (talk) 15:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I have the '97 edition which is the same one that you listed in the sources. Worldcat doesn't list any 2nd edition so I'm not sure that you're thinking of the same book. There's no entry in the index for the unit and it's not mentioned in the entry in Oberabschnitt Spree on pp. 105–06. I'd be surprised if the unit wasn't mentioned in one of the biographies somewhere, but I question the relevance since the unit was never actually under the command of any of the German-based Oberabschnitts as it was based abroad for its entire existence. Also, be advised that the unit was formed by the redesignation of Polizei-Rgt. 1 when all of the Polizei Regimenter were transferred to the SS in '43. While I haven't seen the two books that you've added to the bibliography, I've heard good things about the Massimo book. I'd be willing to bet that its account of the regiment's history is grossly different that the one that currently there.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

This article could certainly use expansion and flushing out of the references. I am the only one (so far) who has contributed significantly to the SS-Police regiment articles and my knowledge of the police side of the SS is agreeably pretty weak. This area is a vastly under-researched region of SS history and there have been very few serious works published about it. For instance, there were units called Polizie Panzer companies which I have never seen any serious research about except for maybe one or two books. Your own reference to this regiment here deploying abroad is also new info which I would be interested hearing more about. -OberRanks (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Coverage has gotten a lot better in English over the last decade or so as Holocaust historians have started digging into actions outside the camps. The fundamental references to the SS-Polizei are by Georg Tessin: Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei 1936-1945, Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945 (16 vols) and Waffen-SS und Ordnungspolizei im Kriegseinsatz 1939-1945 - Ein Ueberblick anhand der Feldpostuebersicht which cover the organizational histories of the entire Wehrmacht and SS based on postal records, supplemented by unit histories, etc. Their armored units are covered in Phil Nix & George Jerome: The Uniformed Police Forces of the Third Reich 1933-1945 and Werner Regenberg: Armored Vehicles and Units of the German Order Police. Combat operations are covered in Combat Operations of the German Ordnungspolizei, 1939-1945 Polizei-Bataillone SS-Polizei-Regimenter by Rolf Michaelis to some degree although I'm not fond of his work in general. And there's a fair amount of detail available on the web, especially if you read German.

You've done a good job upgrading the article, but I'm not aware of any significant connection to the Berlin area, although I'm not sure where the regimental stab was raised from. The regiment was formed from three existing polizei abteilungen, which should be listed. And one minor point, there should be a hyphen in the unit titles if they're in German, ie SS-Polizei, SS-Panzer, Allgemeine-SS, etc. So I'll be changing this article's title shortly and you should move whatever standarten articles you've done already. And don't forget to update any navboxes, etc.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The Berlin based police forces would have been the bare minimum of reservists and replacements. My understanding of the way the system worked was that when an SS unit deployed, they always maintained a "home base". In most cases these were called the Ersatz troops (replacement forces). Again, my knowledge of the police is not as great as the regular SS, but I think that's the way it worked. -OberRanks (talk) 19:01, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

You are quite correct about the ersatz formations in general, but I don't know how exactly that worked for the Polizei units. I looked up the regiment in Verbände und Truppen and it doesn't list any ersatz unit for it, nor any identification with any particular area or Wehrkreise at all, unlike the Waffen-SS units. I reconsidered the name changes after posting here and have started a topic at WT:Manual of Style#Hyphen for SS units and organizations to get a consensus about how to name these units before making any changes. Feel free to comment.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:10, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Higher Command

I've looked through the Yerger book and haven't found any mention of the 1st Police Regiment. It's definitely not covered in the entry for SS-Oberschnitt "Spree" on pages 105–06. Nor under the Höhere SS und Polizeiführer "Spree" on page 26. Unless you can provide a page number, I'm going to revert your re-insertion as unsubstantiated and partially redundant.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't have the book handy, but recall it was actually Polizei Abschnitt Spree. They were the ones in charge of the police units around Berlin. That should be very non-controversial as its was the senior police command for that geographical region (Berlin) something listed in several separate sources. -O.R.^Comms 22:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Oops, this what I get for not looking at the talk page in a couple of years. I can find no reference to "Polizei Abschnitt Spree" and I don't propose to scour the hundred-odd biographies to see which one you meant. You are right about Berlin, though. There's a passing reference in Tessin & Kanapin. Uncontroversial it may be, but if it's essentially unreferenced...--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Two references are listed now; if Yerger is problematic that can be removed. There is also a new SS book coming out probably next year which would be a good source. If all else fails, RG 242 of the National Archives would have the original organizational charts for the SS police regiments in their captured German records collection, although that's a primary source. -O.R.^Comms 00:38, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I used Arico to build the individual battalions' info. Ya gotta start including pages, so what page(s) supports the text? And match the format of the refs, please.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:13, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: and CC @Kierzek: - I finally got around to looking into this and what I discovered is really interesting. Apparently there is an incredibly rare 2nd edition print of Yerger's book Allgemeine-SS, released around 2001-2002. In it, Yerger apparently tweaks some of the former information, fixes mistakes, and adds in additional information about higher commands. From what I was told (simply word of mouth) from other researchers, is that less than 100 copies were made and they were only directly sold out of Schiffer's publishing house in Pennsylvania. This is apparently because Yerger had some kind of falling out with Schiffer publishing. Knowing what I know today about Schiffer, that's very easy to believe. Anyway, this is a moot point now for this article, since the information looks great, but if ever a copy of that 2nd edition were located, it would be a real treasure house of additional information. -O.R.^Comms 14:22, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Pity that Yerger died two years ago as we could otherwise ask him. I checked online dealers and some of them refer to a 2000 edition, but I'm not willing to risk spending money for something that may just duplicate the existing 1997 edition that I already have.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I was not aware that he was deceased, that's really sad. I knew him and worked with him about 20 years ago, and had lost contact about seven years ago. I tried calling him recently, a voice picked up the phone and said he didn't live there anymore. Now its clear why. :-( -O.R.^Comms 16:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)