Reserve Police Battalion 101

Reserve Police Battalion 101
ActiveFounded 1939
Enlarged 6 May 1940 (1940-05-06)
Countryoccupied Poland
AllegianceNazi Germany
TypeOrder Police battalion under SS command
RoleCriminal policing then expulsion of Poles, liquidation of ghettos, mass murder of Jews
Commanders
CommanderWilhelm Trapp

Reserve Police Battalion 101 (German: Reserve-Polizei-Bataillon 101) was a Nazi German paramilitary formation of the uniformed police force known as the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police, Orpo), the organization formed by the Nazi unification of the civilian police forces in the country in 1936, placed under the leadership of the SS and grouped into battalions in 1939.[1] One of many such Nazi German Order Police battalions, 101 was formed in Hamburg and was deployed in September 1939 along with the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) in the invasion of Poland.

Reserve Police Battalion 101 guarded Polish prisoners of war and carried out expulsion of Poles, called "resettlement actions", in the new Warthegau territory around Poznań and Łódź.[2] Following a personnel change and retraining from May 1941 until June 1942, it became a major perpetrator of the Holocaust in occupied Poland.[3][1][4] The battalion gained attention from the public due to the work of the historians Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen.

  1. ^ a b Struan Robertson. "Hamburg Police Battalions during the Second World War". Archived from the original on 22 February 2008. Retrieved 24 September 2009.
  2. ^ Browning 1998, p. 39.
  3. ^ Goldhagen 1996, pp. 203, 232–3.
  4. ^ Nowak, Anna (2014). "Działania eksterminacyjne batalionu policyjnego 101" [Police Battalion 101 Extermination Actions]. WWW Holocaust Myoptimus Com (in Polish). Uniwersytet Marii Curie Skłodowskiej. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014.