Sicherheitspolizei (Weimar Republic)
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The Sicherheitspolizei, or security police, was a militarized German police group set up in most states of the Weimar Republic at the end of 1919 and largely financed by the central government. In its anti-riot role it can be seen as roughly analogous to the Bereitschaftspolizei in today's Federal Republic.
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In view of the unstable internal political situation in the early Weimar Republic, especially in the Reich capital, Berlin, Hauptmann Waldemar Pabst of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division considered a barracked and militarily armed and trained police group necessary to control political violence.[citation needed] The Prussian Interior Ministry envisaged a militarily armed and trained police group to control political violence a more useful tool in the fight against insurrection than the existing police forces inherited from the monarchical era.[1] In the course of the German Revolution of 1918–19, extensive general strikes and street violence in March 1919 led Pabst to propose a corresponding concept to the Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske. Noske approved the plan and promoted its formation together with Wolfgang Heine.[2] According to Noske's wishes, the police group thus constituted the nucleus of the new Reichswehr,[3] officially founded on 6 March 1919. In September 1919, 2,500 local and municipal police officers protested against the formation of the new national-police service.[4] In contrast to local police, who usually wore blue uniforms, the Sipo were called the "green police" after the color of their uniforms.