File:WW2 German police rural Gendarmerie Uniform tunic belt dress SA Sports Badge Polizeiadler Nazi eagle-and-swastika bayonet dagger sidearm symbol of authority Polizei Seitengewehr Parade Bajonett Adlerkopfgriff Lofoten Krigsminnemuseum I.jpg

English: Photo taken at the Lofoten War Memorial Museum (Norwegian: Lofoten Krigsminnemuseum) in Svolvær, Norway's largest exhibition of uniforms and smaller items related to the Second World War and the German occupation of Norway 1940 – 1945:

• Uniform of a German gendarm, an officer in the state rural police and part of the Ordnungspolizei, the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945.
  • Waffenrock (tunic) with four patch pockets, turn-back cuffs (Maschetten) and collar (Kragen). Orange branch or corps colour on piping etc. indicates Gendarmerie
    • Wreathed Nazi Reichsadler (German national imperial eagle with swastika), the police version of eagle-and-swastika, as police insignia on upper left sleeve and cap front.
    • SA Sports Badge (SA-Sportabzeichen, SA-Wehrabzeichen) on left breast pocket, a Nazi decoration and physical fitness badge issued 1933–1945, originally only to members of the Sturabteilung (SA), from 1936 to members of all German military and paramilitary organizations.
  • Brown leather belt with support straps and pistol holster. German Third Reich Polizei (police) belt buckle with a mobile Nazi swastika design within a circle with oak leaves and Gott Mit Uns ('God With Us') motto above.

• Poster pst! Feind hört mit! ("The enemy listens in!"), for a German public campaign against loose talk to prevent espionage etc. 1939–1945
  
• Beneath the tunic are seen two shakos, Polizei Tschako being the characteristic headdress ("bump hat") of the Schutzpolizei
• Carved walking-stick with Nazi Police emblem
• Nazi Germany police bayonet (Drittes Reich Polizei Seitengewehr Paradebajonett), a parade sidearm as symbol of authority, with eagle's head pommel (Adlerkopfknauf) and wreathed eagle-and-swastika police emblem, produced by Alexander Coppel, and scabbard with portapee/sword knot

etc.

Gendarmerie (state rural police) were tasked with frontier law enforcement to include small communities, rural districts, and mountainous terrain. With the development of a network of motorways or Autobahnen, motorised gendarmerie companies were set up in 1937 to secure the traffic. (The regular military field police of the Wehrmacht, Feldgendarmerie, was separate from the Ordnungspolizei.)