Federal Police (Germany)

Federal Police Bundespolizei
Common name	Federal Police
Abbreviation	BPOL
Logo of the BPOL (since 2009)
Agency overview
Formed	1 July 2005 (11 years ago) (2005-07-01)
Preceding agency	Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS) (Federal Border Guard)
Employees	40,000
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Federal agency	Germany
General nature	Federal law enforcement Civilian police
Operational structure
Headquarters	BPOL-Präsidium, Potsdam
Police Officers	30,000
Civilians	10,000
BPOL-Direktions	9 • Bad Bramstedt covering Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern • Hanover covering Bremen, Hamburg and Lower Saxony • Sankt Augustin covering North Rhine-Westphalia • Koblenz covering Saarland, Rheinland-Pfalz and Hesse • Stuttgart covering Baden-Württemberg • Munich covering Bavaria • Pirna covering Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia • Potsdam covering Berlin and Brandenburg • Frankfurt International Airport
Facilities
Stations	67
Helicopters	132
Website
www.bundespolizei.de (German)

The Federal Police (Bundespolizei or BPOL) is a (primarily) uniformed federal police force in Germany. It is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI)). Ordinary police forces, meanwhile, are under the administration of the individual German states (Bundesländer) and are known as the Landespolizei.

The Bundespolizei was formerly known as the Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS) ("Federal Border Guard"), which had a more restricted role. Prior to 1994 BGS members also had military combatant status due to their historical foundation and border-guard role in West Germany. In July 2005 the law renaming the BGS as the BPOL was enacted.

The BPOL has the following missions

The Bundespolizei can also be used to reinforce state police if requested by a state (Land) government. The BPOL maintains these reserve forces to deal with major demonstrations, disturbances or emergencies, supplementing the capabilities of the State Operational Support Units. Several highly trained detachments are available for crisis situations requiring armored cars, water cannon or other special equipment.

BPOL has investigators conduct criminal investigations only within its jurisdiction; otherwise the cases are referred to the appropriate state police force or to the federal criminal investigative agency, the Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA).

In addition, the Bundespolizei cooperates closely with German state executive authorities, such as prosecutor's offices (Staatsanwaltschaft) in pursuing criminal investigations.

On the night of September 13, 2015, Germany unilaterally reintroduced border controls, under emergency provisions of the Schengen Agreement, due to the 2015 European migrant crisis overwhelming Germany's available resources, law enforcement and otherwise. The nominally temporary border controls were initially put in place just on the border with Austria, but by the following day (Monday, September 14, 2015) they were being put in place at all borders with fellow EU members. The same day, Austria and other EU members who were part of the Schengen Area began to put in place their own border controls (again meant to be temporary) in response to Germany's actions.