Instructions to the police for the prosecution of crimes by Polish and Russian laborers, including confinement in a concentration camp or transfer to a Gestapo penal camp

The Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service (SD) III A 4 (new)-296/44
Berlin, 4th December 1944
To c) the Criminal Police (Head) Offices by way of information Subject: Combating of crime amongst the Polish and Soviet-Russian civilian labourers (authorization for the Criminal Police to independently prosecute cases of minor and medium crimes).
Reference: Decree III A 5 b no. 187/43—176—3 of the 30.6.43
According to the decree of the 30.6.43, crimes committed by Polish and Soviet-Russian civilian labourers are being prosecuted by the State Police (Head) Offices, and even in those cases, where for the time being the Criminal Police had, within the sphere of its competence, carried on the inquiries. For the purpose of speeding up the process and in order to save manpower, the decree of the 30.6.1943 is altered, and the Criminal Police
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(Head) Offices are authorized as from now on to prosecute themselves the crimes they are inquiring into within the sphere of their competence, insofar as they are cases of minor or medium crimes. Included in these are for instance crimes of negligence, damage to property, theft and receiving (unless committed in gangs), fraud, games of chance, as well as all offenses against the war industry regulations, also insofar as in this connection it is a case of being a crime. Cases of doubt are to be arranged by local discussion between the heads of the State Police (Head) Offices and the Criminal Police (Head) Offices.
The following are available to the Criminal Police as a means of prosecution:
Police imprisonment
(See No. 15 in the series of publication of the Reich Criminal Police Department, "Preventive action against crime;" decree by the Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Chief of the German Police S II A 2 No. 57/43—176 of the 19.3.1943, publication of orders, page 86, and directives hereto; decree by the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service V. A. 2 No. 557/43 of the 10.5.1943.)
Admission into a concentration camp for preventive custody as being anti-social or dangerous to the community.
(See No. 15 of the series of publications of the Reich Criminal Police Department "Preventive action against crimes;" decree of the Reich Ministry for the Interior Pol. S.—Kr. 3 No. 1682/37— 2098, and directives hereto, of the 14.12.1937; decree of the Reich Criminal Police Department of the 4.4.1938, in this case of the 8.4.1942; and decree of the Reich Security Department
V. A. 2 No. 387/43 of the 31.3.1943, the first paragraph of which is to be applied to Soviet-Russian civilian labourers too).
Their stay in the concentration camp is normally to be for the duration of the war.
Besides this, the Criminal Police (Head) Offices are authorized to hand over Polish and Soviet-Russian civilian labourers in suitable cases and with the agreement of the competent State Police (Head) Offices to the Gestapo's penal camps for the "education of labour
Where the possibilities of prosecuting an individual case are insufficient because of the peculiarity of the case, the incident is to be handed over to the competent State Police (Head) Office.
Signed: Dr. Kaltenbrunner 65
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