Establishment Following the
regaining of independence by Poland after
World War I, there the need to establish unified police force arose. The organization was established in Poland under the act of July 24, 1919 on the state police, which unified the previously existing police formations of the People's Militia (), established by the decree of the
Chief of State,
Józef Piłsudski on December 5, 1918 and the Municipal Police, established by the decree of the Chief of State on January 9, 1919. in
Warsaw, 1929 The provisions of the act initially referred only to the area of the former
Congress Poland. In the territories of the remaining partitions, separate police formations were created by district political centers. In the former
Prussian partition, the People's Guard, later the Home Gendarmerie of the former Prussian District, and in the former Austrian partition, the State Gendarmerie. They were modeled on the organizational experiences of the former partitioning states. Separate Police of the Volhynian Lands and the Podolian Front, the Central Lithuanian State Police, and the Upper Silesian Police and the Upper Silesian Militia in the eastern area of
Upper Silesia were established during the plebiscite period. (saluting), walks in front of the reserve candidates, April 1939 The unification of police formations in the area of the
Second Polish Republic took place gradually. The incorporation of the Galician Home Gendarmerie and the Field Police into the State Police took place on 1 December 1919, but the extension of the binding force of the above-mentioned act to the areas of Eastern and Western Lesser Poland took place only in the first quarter of 1920. In July of that year, the act began to be applied in the areas of
Greater Poland and Gdańsk Pomerania. In the eastern territories it was in force from 8 January 1921, and in the Vilnius region from 18 July 1922. In the eastern
Upper Silesia, an autonomous Silesian Province Police was established by the regulation of the
voivode of Silesian Voivodeship on 17 June 1922. In the 1920s, numerous attempts were made to amend the Police Act. Ultimately, the State Police was reorganized by the regulation of the
President of the Republic of Poland of 6 March 1928.
World War II in September 1939. According to the previously prepared national defense plan, the police were to be transformed into a "military security service corps" additionally performing anti-sabotage and infrastructure protection functions. Due to the incomprehensible activities of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs (some authors even speak of sabotage) during the
Invasion of Poland, the police corps was not included in the defense system. Apart from a glorious episode in the
defense of Warsaw, it played practically no role during this war. The police apparatus as a whole ceased to exist in the first decade of September, disintegrating during endless evacuations. Officers of the Main Command were interned in Romania, the files of the Central Archives of the State Police were taken over by the Soviets, and many officers died as a result of
German and
Soviet repressions after the front had passed. There were about 10,000 policemen in internment camps in
Romania,
Hungary,
Lithuania and
Latvia. One of the larger units that crossed the
border was a unit under the command of Senior Commissioner (Major) Jan Zdanowicz, which consisted of 26 State Police officers and 792 State Police officers. This unit ended up in Romania in the town of
Băile Gavora northwest of Bucharest near
Râmnicu Vâlcea. Later, the State Police units and the army were distributed to several internment camps in Romania (including a camp for State Police privates in
Comișani, as well as in the towns of
Câmpulung,
Călimănești,
Turnu Severin,
Tulcea on the
Black Sea) and Hungary (there were at least three camps with a total of about 500 people). The Romanian population, to the best of their modest abilities, helped the refugees and went out of their way to help them, unfortunately, Polish units often caused brawls, mostly in a drunken state. Therefore, as a result of the riots caused by the military and police, the regulations for some camps were significantly tightened. In September 1939, the State Police units numbered about 60,000 officers. It is difficult to determine the balance of the State Police losses in 1939. The number of those murdered and killed in combat in the country is currently estimated at about 2.5-3 thousand. The largest group, almost 12 thousand, was
taken prisoner by the Soviets, of which almost 6 thousand, who were in the camp in Ostashkov, were murdered. After the
Invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the State Police, together with their families, was gradually withdrawn from areas threatened with direct military operations; only the commander of the capital city police in
Warsaw,
Marian Kozielewski, refused to carry out the order to evacuate, and the State Police corps he commanded took an active part in the
defense of the city. On October 26, 1939, the General Governor
Hans Frank issued a regulation on security and order in the
General Government. On its basis, on October 30, the Higher
SS and Police Commander in the General Government issued a proclamation calling on all State Police officers to report, under threat of severe punishment, to German police offices or
starosta offices. In this way, the Polish Police of the General Government was established, an
auxiliary police formation of the German occupation authorities, colloquially called the
Blue Police. It operated mainly based on pre-war police regulations. The occupier did not rebuild the pre-war police structure. The highest level was the county level. The structure of the Blue Police was both tolerated and to a high degree controlled by the
Polish Underground State through the
National Security Corps. Neither in the
territories directly annexed by Germany nor in the territories annexed by the Soviet Union did any Polish police formations exist, and officers were subjected to repression by both occupiers. In the territory of Poland occupied by the Soviet Union, police officers were arrested en masse immediately after the
Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939 (or murdered on the spot)[18] and are one of the main groups of victims of the
Katyn massacre. The camp in
Ostashkov, whose prisoners were murdered in
Tver in the spring of 1940, was intended by the
NKVD exclusively for officers of the police, Border Guard,
Border Protection Corps and other militarized formations of the Polish state. 169 officers who served in the XII District of the State Police (Pomeranian) based in
Toruń during the interwar period are buried in
Miednoje. The families of the arrested officers were deported by the
NKVD to
Siberia and
Kazakh SSR in January and April 1940. Formally, the State Police Corps was dissolved by the regulation of the
Home Council of Ministers of 1 August 1944. At the same time, the regulation of the National Council of Ministers of 1 August 1944 on the temporary organization of the security service in Article 52 repealed, as of the date of entry into force, the regulation of the President of the Republic of Poland of 6 March 1928 on the State Police. On the other hand, the Polish Police of the General Government (Blue Police) was dissolved by the decree of the Polish Committee of National Liberation of 15 August 1944 on the dissolution of the state police, although it continued to function in the territories still under German occupation. Following the end of the war and the establishment of the
Polish People's Republic, the
Citizens' Militia became the principle police body of the communist state. ==Police brutality==