Służba oraz zadania i obowiązki policjantów Policji Państwowej pracujących na posterunku w Wieluniu w latach 1919-1939
The duty and the tasks and responsibilities of the State Police officers working at the police station in Wielun in the years 1919-1939

Summary/Abstract: This article is devoted to the tasks and duties of police officers of the State Police (hereinafterS.P.) working at the police station on the example of a post in Wieluń. Outposts and policestations were the lowest level of S.P. organization structure. They were led by a commandant who held the rank of leader or senior leader and the duties were done by constables or seniorconstables. The basic task of outposts and police stations was to act as prevention and repression.Responsibilities and activities within the framework of the general security services take mostof the time, among those responsibilities are securing public safety and forestalling crimes. Inorder to fulfill their duties thoroughly police officers need to have a good knowledge of the localenvironment, its characteristic and conditions. The police officers’ tasks are: doing rounds, beingon traffic duty, being on watch, keeping safety during mass meetings or assisting in unfortunateaccidents. Police officers on duty also had to prosecute crimes, conduct investigations, go intothe escort service and work on the railways. In addition to the above duties and responsibilitiesof basic police service in interwar Poland the police officers also had atypical tasks, They hadto fulfill duties which resulted from expediency and broadly understood state’s interest such as:participating in the Polish-Soviet War, protecting the eastern border, protecting state, religiousand foreign dignitaries, securing demonstrations and strikes. Since 1928 the process of lighten-ing the S.P’s duties, that did not have much in common with the public security service, but hadto be performed because of the applicable law and judicial or administrative commands, havestarted. These activities often took a lot of the police officer’s time, and thus prevented the reli-able execution of tasks related to the protection of the right order and public security. To theirduties belonged also serving legal documents, collecting imposed charges and fines, preparingstatements and records, taking census of population, collecting information on the state of theproperty, religion or origin of the selected units, conducting inventories of arable land.Summing up, the Police officers from Wieluń State Police completed the basic tasks whichhad been imposed upon them. Some of the characteristic of the police station in Wieluń, that hadgreatly influenced the police officers’ duties were: its location near the German border, a lot ofJews and a railway line number 181. With a fairly modest state of staff, compared to the area ofoperation and the number of duties of the post in Wieluń, its officers conducted activities aimedat ensuring public safety and order.

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