The men featured in this book originally came from Germany’s big city police forces, where they had previously dealt with traffic control, street crime and the often violent street demonstrations occurring during Germany’s politically turbulent 1920s. They shared their long-standing police traditions and comradeship and held the safety and security of their homeland at heart.

With the rise to power of the Nazi Party and the assimilation of the German police under Himmler’s SS and military control, many members would fight and die in combat on both the Eastern and Western fronts either in anti-partisan actions or frontline engagements with Allied forces. Others would guard railways and industrial installations or patrol city streets.

But some would also take part in ‘the Holocaust by Bullets,’ the face-to-face murder of over 1.5 million men, women and children. After the war’s end, many returned to their civilian police roles, concealing their complicity in the Holocaust. Very few were ever brought to justice.

The photographs seen here, most of which are one of a kind originals, were chosen for both their intrinsic photographic composition and their historical context within the twelve-year lifespan of the Third Reich, including the six years of the Second World War.