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 VI Types of uniform
  • Dienstanzug; Hauptmann der Gendarmerie
    • Polizeitschako (Police Shako); Most German police forces adopted a version of the Jäger shako, after World War I, which replaced the spiked leather helmet (Pickelhaube) identified with the previous Imperial regime. This new headdress was worn by the civilian police forces of the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany, and West Germany into the 1970s.
    • Waffenrock (German military tunic)
    • 'German uniforms of the Third Reich 1933–1945' by B. L. Davis, Blandford Press, 1980: The Gendarmerie or Rural Police was a branch of the Ordnungspolizei. In those communities of less than 2,000 inhabitants and in the open countryside, Order Police protection was afforded by the Gendarmerie. It also included the Motorised Traffic Gendarmerie and the Mountain Gendarmerie. The uniforms of the Gendarmerie personnel were distinguished from those worn by their opposite numbers in the Schutzpolizei. Gendarmerie used light brown leather trimming and equipment in all those parts of the uniform where the Schutzpolizei used black. Cuffs and collars to Gendarmerie tunics were in light brown as compared to dark brown and their piping colour was orange as opposed to the green used by the Reich Protection Police.
  • Dienst(Berg)-Anzug; Hauptwachtmeister der Gendarmerie
    • The personnel of the Hochgebirgs Gendarmerie wore the same basic green uniform as worn by the Schutzploizei but were distinguished as Gendarmerie personnel by having light brown cuffs and collars to their tunics and greatcoats piped in orange piping. They wore long trousers tucked into mountaineering boots and also wore the Mountain Police Gendarmerie Bergmütze (mountain or ski cap) with police insignia in either cloth or metal.
  • Paradeanzug; Revieroberwachtmeister der Wasserschutzpolizei
    • "World War II German Police Units" by Gordon Williamson: Wasserschutzpolizei (Waterways Protection Police) personnel wore a blue naval-style uniform (naval-cut reefer jacket and straight trousers). The peaked Schirmmütze (peaked cap) bears a gilt national emblem, and for this rank a black chin strap. Rank was displayed by a combination of shoulder straps of standard Police design and braid cuff rings, somewhat analogous to the rings worn by company sergeants-major in the armed services. The shoulder boards, Police sleeve eagle and cuff rings were in bright yellow Truppenfarbe.
  • Dienstanzug; Oberleutnant der Feuerschutzpolizei
    • Stahlhelm (steel helmet)
    • etc.

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 August 1942, dual Police and SS ranks were adopted by Police generals, for example SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei. The Police shoulder boards were retained but SS pattern collar patches were to be worn now, albeit in Police branch colours. The SS oak leafes and pips were in gold instead of silver. From January 1943, the same was with Police colonels who held personally the rank of SS-Oberführer of the Allgemeine SS, the two oak leafes of his rank insignia in silver. Those Police colonels were now designated as Oberst der Polizei. Police colonels who held the rank of SS-Standartenführer (or who simply were no SS-members) continued to be designated Oberst der Schutzpolizei (resp. der Gendarmerie etc.). They would retain the traditional Police collar patches with Kapellenlitze. Generally from 1942/43, individual policemen who held a personal SS rank could obtain SS collar patches. But this happened only in a relatively few cases (see: Deuster, Dieter, Deutsche Polizei-Uniformen 1936–1945, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-613-03105-0, p. 149, p. 150-153).

SiPo personnel within Germany wore usually civilian clothing and sometimes the black uniforms of the Allgemeine SS. During WW II, SiPo personnel in german occupied foreign territories wore the field grey uniforms of the Waffen-SS, but with the SD lozenge on the left lower sleeves. Furthermore, all Sipo ranks down from SS-Obersturmbannführer and equivalents wore their right collar patchs empty, i. e. without any insignia (Deuster (2009), p. 368).

Cropped and brightened version of image from scanned book.

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