ABSTRACT
Associating the concept of ‘policing’ with that of Adolf Hitler’s proclaimed ‘people’s community’ (Volksgemeinschaft) highlights the deep ambiguity about the relationship of government to governed in the Third Reich. Policing might be seen largely in terms of excluding or eliminating undesirable social groups from the Volksgemeinschaft in the interests of the favoured majority. Like other Continental countries Germany had a long tradition of police surveillance of political affairs. The work of the Political Police inevitably expanded in the turbulent years after 1918 but the absence of a national police force was widely criticized. The National Socialist version of a Volksgemeinschaft was an explicit rejection of what Germany had become. Following the economic crisis from 1929, only a government led by Hitler appeared to offer prospects for funding on that scale. From 1933 the German officers duly worked actively to secure the autonomy of the armed forces.
