SS and Police Jurisdiction in General Government (survey)

Abstract

The problem of SS and police jurisdiction in GG has not been widely elaborated on so far in the Polish literature. It seems that the research should be further conducted, at least because of the
responsibility before courts of Polish police officers, taking into consideration archival research. At  first criminal liability of Polish police officers was not different from that of other citizens of GG.
In the course of widening of German jurisdiction competences in August 1942 SS, court and police were provided with cases of serious misconduct on duty and non-political crimes committed on  duty at the request of German supervising police authority. Then in September 1943, SS and police jurisdiction took over all criminal cases of Polish police officers. These changes can be well assessed from the point of view of Polish officers. They were in that way protected against arbitrary decisions of security police (e.g. being sent to concentration camps) and were excluded from the competences of police summary courts (whose name is misleading as their activity was based on the principles being opposite to the principles characteristic of contemporary jurisdiction.)