Blue Police The Blue Police , more correctly translated as The Navy - Blue Police ( ) was the popular name of the Polish police in the German occupied area of the Second Polish Republic , known as General Government during the Second World War . The official name of the organization was Polish Police of the General Government ( , ) . It was formed by Nazi Germany officially on October 30 , 1939 by reinstating Polish state police ( " Einheimische Polizei " ) existing before the invasion of Poland , with German instead of Polish leadership . It was an auxiliary organization purposed to keep law and order in the General Government territory . Similar police organizations existed in all German occupied countries based on professional local police force . Initially used to deal with purely criminal activities , property crimes and common banditry in occupied Poland , which greatly increased after the invasion ; the Blue Police was later used also to prevent smuggling , which was an essential element of underground economy under Nazism . The organization was officially dissolved and declared disbanded by the Polish Committee of National Liberation on August 27 , 1944 . After a review process , a number of its former members joined the new national policing structure , the Milicja Obywatelska ( Citizens ' Militia ) . Others were percecuted after 1949 under Stalinism . Organization . In October 1939 , General Governor Hans Frank ordered the mobilization of the pre - war Polish police into the service of the Germans . The policemen were to report for duty or face the death penalty . Formally , the " Polnische Polizei " ( PP ) was subordinate to regular German " Ordnungspolizei " ( Orpo ) . The same prewar facilities were used all across occupied Poland with exactly the same organizational structure ; under Major Hans Köchlner ( he was trained in Poland in 1937 ) . They wore the same uniforms , but without national insignia . In spring 1940 , the Ukrainian Police was split off from the Polish Police . The department existed already before 1939 . The German chief of " Ordnungspolizei " ( " KdO " , as well as its entire leadership ) assumed dual role , in charge of both . After the attack on USSR known as Operation Barbarossa , all newly acquired territories in " Distrikt Galizien " were put under the Ukrainian control with headquarters in Chełm Lubelski . Notably , the District of Galicia created on August 1 , 1941 ( Document No . 1997 - PS of July 17 , 1941 by Adolf Hitler ) – although considered by some to be part of the occupied Ukraine – was a separate administrative unit from the actual " Reichskommissariat Ukraine " created on September 1 of the same year . They were not connected with each other politically . According to historian Andrzej Paczkowski ( " Spring Will Be Ours " ) , the police force consisted of approximately 11 , 000 – 12 , 000 officers , but the actual number of its cadre was much lower initially . Emmanuel Ringelblum put the number as high as 14 , 300 by the end of 1942 including Warsaw , Lublin , Kielce and Eastern Galicia . The " Encyclopedia of the Holocaust " reports its manpower as 8 , 700 in February 1940 and states that it reached its peak in 1943 with 16 , 000 members . The statistics are explained by historian Marek Getter . – The initial expansion of the force was the result of expulsion to " Generalgouvernement " of all Polish professional policemen , from the territories annexed by the Third Reich ( " Reichsgau Wartheland " , " Westpreußen " , etc . ) . Another reason was a salary ( 250 – 350 zł ) impossible to obtain elsewhere , augmented by bonuses ( up to 500 zł each ) . Also , the Germans had intentionally eroded moral standards of the force by giving policemen the right to keep for themselves 10 % of all confiscated goods . The Blue Police consisted primarily of Poles and Polish speaking Ukrainians from the eastern parts of the General Government . However , from August 1 , 1941 ( date of incorporation ) the district of Eastern Galicia – as mentioned by Ringelblum – was no longer controlled by etnically Polish division of PP . Instead , the Ukrainian division was put in charge across some 600 precincts , expanded from 242 officers initially , to 2 , 000 by 1942 , and to 4 , 000 officers by 1943 . The Blue Police had little autonomy , and all of its high - ranking officer s came from the ranks of the German police ( " Kriminalpolizei " ) . It served in the capacity of an auxiliary force , along with the police forces guarding seats of administration ( " Schutzpolizei " ) , Railway Police ( " Bahnschutz " ) , Forest Police ( " Forstschutz " ) and Border Police ( " Grenzschutz " ) . The Blue Police was subordinate to German " Ordnungspolizei " with Polish prewar regulations . New volunteers ( " Anwärter " ) were trained at a police school in Nowy Sącz , with 3 , 000 graduates , under Vincenz Edler von Strohe ( real name Wincenty Słoma , a Reichsdeutsche ) while receiving salary of 180 zł . There were additional though separate courses for Polish and Ukrainian enlisted ranks . From the German perspective , the primary role of the Blue Police was to maintain law and order on the territories of occupied Poland , as to free the German police for other duties . As Heinrich Himmler stated in his order from 5 May 1940 : " providing general police service in the General Government is the role of the Polish police . German police will intervene only if it is required by the German interests and will monitor the Polish police . " As the force was primarily a continuation of the prewar Polish police force , it also relied largely on prewar Polish criminal laws , a situation that was accepted as a provisional necessity by the Germans . While the Polish Underground State had its own police force and judiciary ( see National Security Corps and Directorate of Civil Resistance ) , it was unable to provide basic police services for the entire population of the former Second Polish Republic in the conditions of German occupation . Historical assessment . The role of the Blue Police in its collaboration and resistance towards the Germans is difficult to assess as a whole , and is often a matter of dispute . Historian Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert estimates that 10 to 20 % of the policemen were murdered by the Germans for taking part in resistance – on top of those mass - murdered by the Soviets in Mednoye – explained Irena Wollen in her documentary film " Granatowi " for Telewizja Polska ( 1999 ) . Scholars disagree about the degree of involvement of the Blue Police in the rounding up of Jews . Although policing inside the Warsaw Ghetto was a responsibility of the Jewish Ghetto Police , a Polish - Jewish historian Emmanuel Ringelblum , chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto , mentioned Polish policemen carrying out extortions and beatings . The police did also take part in street roundups , but not in the killings of Jews . On June 3 , 1942 during prison execution of 110 Jews in Warsaw they stood and wept , made to watch Germans do it , after they refused to obey the orders of their overseers ( Piotrowski ) . According to Raul Hilberg , " Of all the native police forces in occupied Eastern Europe , those of Poland were least involved in anti - Jewish actions . . . They [ the Polish Blue Police ] could not join the Germans in major operations against Jews or Polish resistors , lest they be considered traitors by virtually every Polish onlooker . " Gunnar S . Paullson agrees that the role of the Blue Police was minimal : " They [ the Jews in the ghettoes ] were rounded up by German police with the aid of Ukrainian and Baltic collaborators , and the enforced co - ooperation of the Jewish ghetto police , but very little participation by Polish police ( mainly in the smaller centres ) . They were taken to killing centres staffed again by Germans , Ukrainians and Balts . " A significant part of the police personnel belonged to the Polish underground resistance organization " Armia Krajowa " , mostly in the counter - intelligence of the Home Army and the National Security Corps . Some estimates are as high of 50 % . In spite of scathing criticism by Ringelblum , the Blue Police are known to have refused German orders , wrote Piotrowski , often " shouting on the streets and breaking doors to give enough time for some people to escape or hide " . The officers disobeying German orders did so at the risk of death . Some of them , who acted against the enactments , were ultimately awarded the Righteous Among the Nations : i . e . Wacław Nowiński , Bronislaw Marchlewicz ( 2004 ) , Wladysław Ciesla ( 1988 ) , Franciszek Banas ( 1980 ) , Piotr Czechonski ( 1999 ) , Jan Fakler ( 1974 ) , Jan Kubicki ( 1976 ) , Stanislaw Slizewski ( 2008 ) i Wladyslaw Szalek ( 1979 ) ( see and compare : Bartoszewski and Lewin , " Righteous Among Nations " and list of awarded by Yad Vashem ) . Additionally , forcible draft among members of the Polish police was conducted to create the " Polnisches Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202 " sent to the East , with 360 men most of whom deserted to the 27th Home Army Infantry Division in defence of ethnic Polish population against the UPA massacres . Similarly , the police were withdrawn from the perimeter of the Ghetto on the eve of its final destruction . Personalities . Warsaw was the biggest city in the " Generalgouvernement " , so the position of commander of Warsaw police was the most important post available for an ethnic Pole anywhere . The first commander was Marian Kozielewski ( brother of Jan Karski ) , imprisoned by Germans and send to Auschwitz concentration camp . The next commander Aleksander Reszczyński was murdered in 1943 by the Communist Gwardia Ludowa . Nevertheless , the 1977 research in the archives of Polish government - in - exile revealed that Reszczyński was a member of underground Armia Krajowa who used to deliver invaluable intelligence . After the collapse of the Soviet empire many PP officers were rehabilitated , and simplified former communist stereotypes revised .