Greek Auxiliary Police Battalion (Poulos Verband)

Greek Auxiliary Police Battalion

(Poulos Verband)

The Higher SS and Police leader in Greece formed a so-called Volunteer Gendarmerie (Ethelontiki Chorophylaki) which was independent to the Special Security Battalions (Ellinika Tagmata Asphaleias). The Poulos Verband was one notorious battalion of it. They wore German uniform, a mixture of German police and army. On the left upper arm they had a facsimile of the Greek flag. Poulos (a regular Greek army officer), himself wore his Greek army uniform.

It served in Ljubljana, Slovenia during the period November 1944 - March 1945 with Field post number 17 571 under the German Order Police and the Higher SS & Police Leader Alpenland. It had some 400 men when it encountered with Assault Battalion from 31st Slovenian Division of NOVJ and was suppose to close direction to the partisans at Babna gora (this is an area-mountain in Dolomiti area, NW from Ljubljana I think) and towards border. It seems that partisans managed to slipped away and that then came to some mistake when Slovenian Domobran forces attacked accidentally Greek battalion, which suffered few killed and wounded men. After this the Greek battalion was sent towards areas near border (author has in mind old Royal Yugoslav-Italian border 1918-1945).

After that it was withdrawn to Kitzbuehl, Austria where there was a "Greek National Committee" that had been established there. There the unit guarded Greek "exiled" collaborators and Serbian such as His Holiness Gavrilo Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian Prime Minister Milan Nedic.

After that the men of the unit returned to Greece. Many of the them continued fighting communist guerrillas with Greek army and police during the Greek Civil War 1946-1949. Poulos himself was hanged by the Greek government as a traitor 1946 after spending almost a year in American captivity. The same story came for sergeant Schubert who also was hanged in Greece. Let it also be known that there was a small amount of German soldiers in the Poulos Verband.

Greek Auxiliary Police Battalion (Poulos Verband) - Fieldpost number: 17 571
Order of Battle - February, 1945
Commander - Colonel George Poulos

HQ Company

1st Rifle Company

2nd Rifle Company

3rd Rifle Company

Number of men: 250-400?

Sources:

Dimitrios Anastasiadis - most from "Herakles and The Swastika Greek Volunteers in the German army, SS and police" by Antonio Munoz. Messages from the Online Forum and " How the Greek Civil War Started" by Perikles Rodakis and Babis Grammenos.

Klemen - from book written in 1977 about Assault Battalion of 31st Slovenian Division NOVJ

Messages from the Online Forum

Researched by Dimitrios Anstasiadis & Klemen

This page is also available in the following languages:
• SlovenÅ¡Äina •