Did the Thin Blue Line distinguish German Police Officers from Nazis?

CN: Nazis, ICE, police, family stories

This pops into my head quite often when we see police officers supporting ICE. They claim a fine line divides them from ICE and other immigration officers. They are there to protect the public. But that often looks like manhandling citizens protesting to keep ICE safe. Preserving public safety and order would clearly involve active resistance of federally mandated kidnapping of innocent people who thrown into concentration camps.

I don’t think history will preserve that thin blue line. History will show law enforcement and military as part of the overarching ICE/Nazi side and private citizens as the Resistance with the victims in the middle.

I’m a layperson, not a historian.

My understanding of Nazi Germany and German occupied places is based on school, movies, books, and the accounts of my family elders. My grandparents were born before 1922. Their children were all born before 1945. My great-grandparents were born between 1886–1894. All but one lived to at least 1958.

Factor in their siblings and cousins, etc. Lots of first person accounts. My grandmonster and his brother served in WWII. My paternal grandfather did not serve (unsure why) but both of his brothers did. So did both of his in-laws. Their experiences and stories trickled down to my generation, not always intentionally but in the soft conversation at the end of family gathering when I’m presumed asleep.

Most impactful of all was the husband of my great-aunt, my father’s uncle. He and his family had fled Germany in the 1920’s settling in Wilkinsburg. That uncle’s brother in law was Fritz Keitel. The two men were instrumental in the life of my own father. Uncle Fritz also fled Nazi Germany, but he did serve in WWI as a pilot and he did work in the banks, traveled through Europe and had a much deeper understanding of the big picture.

Again, those stories trickled down, shaping my generation’s understanding of this period of time.

While broad strokes are expected when describing a horrific experience, especially to young children, one thing was clear. There were Nazis, there were victims, there were Allies, and brave citizens who resisted.

There was never any distinction between a Nazi guard at an concentration camp and the secret service or the police in these narratives. Any mention of a “good German” meant a civilian who was part of the Resistance. And those who fled.

It was clear to my young mind that the police were on the side of the Nazi regime. They were instruments of horror just like the SS and the Gestapo. I found several articles from the Holocause Museum that tease out the various police forces of Nazi Germany. While the duties differed, the complicity was consistent.

Good cops who did nothing were not good cops. They were Nazis.

As I watch US police forces and the National Guard “protect” ICE and suppress civilian protestors, I wonder if they ever think about the way history — and their descendants — will remember them. No act of kindness offsets the complicity anymore than it did for German police officers. They were Nazis.

American police officers are neo-Nazis or White Supremacists/Nationalists. That is how they will be remembered. In ten or twenty years when I am describing my own experiences and what I witnessed, I will not draw a thin blue line between the FOP and ICE. That line has been eradicated and deserves only to be remembered for historical accuracy. I think many will do the same. We may remember individual actions, but collectively there’s no distinction.

What I will always remember is the December 2025 action where the Pittsburgh Police assisted ICE in detaining a neighbor. They directed traffic. But they also offered to detain other people, they moved cars, they joked and seemed pleased to involved in this atrocity.

Those quiet moments when cigarettes are lit and coffee swallowed that the masks come off these police officers. They know body cameras are running, but they don’t care. They know the level of immunity they have and I’m sure they know they understand that ICE has even more. Their eagerness to do the most basic lackey tasks revels a level of servitude and collusion that no civilian and no legislation can break.

I’m sure they grew up on similar stories as me, perhaps without the input of German refugees who married into the family. Did they miss the part where German police officers were merged into the legacy of Nazis? Does anyone think about this?

I’m confident they don’t divide people from that era into Nazi, Allies, the Resistance, the victims, and the police.

Karl Silberbauer was the SS officer who arrested Anne Frank and her family. After the war, he became a police officer in Vienna from 1946 until 1963 when he was hunted down by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. His post-Nazi career was police officer. That’s chilling.

There’s another chilling reality.

After the war, many detectives and lower-ranking officers with Gestapo or SS backgrounds transitioned directly into local police forces. Since we know ICE is filled with police wanna-be’s, it is terrible to think that profession would welcome them with open arms. Terrible, but not surprising.

Again, we need only look at video of police officers protecting ICE while suppressing citizen’s civil rights. This video suggests that the tie binding police officers to immigration agents will not be severed if we elect more Democrats. Policing is the problem.

I don’t know what this means for me on a personal level. Would I cooperate with a police officer investigating say the dogs that bit my neighbor or a car accident I witnessed or if they came to my door? Do my own personal experiences of the Pittsburgh police denying me my rights because of the influence of other parties involved prevent me from making good decisions?

I don’t have good answer, but ignoring the question is more risky.

Originally published at https://www.pghlesbian.com.