Landespolizei (Germany)

Landespolizei (German pronun­cia­tion: [ˌlandəspoliˈt͡saɪ], State police) is the term used to refer to all police of any one of the states of Germany.

The Landespolizei in the meaning of today can trace its origins to the late 19th century Germany, when Germany united into a single country in 1871, under Otto von Bismarck. Various towns and cities also maintained police forces as the increasing number of new laws and regulations made controlling urban life more complicated.

In Nazi Germany, all state and city forces were absorbed into the Ordnungspolizei which existed from 1936 to 1945.

After World War II, massive numbers of refugees and displaced persons, hunger and poverty characterised everyday life in Germany. Attacks by armed gangs, robbery, looting and black-marketing were commonplace and the military police could not cope with this troubling security situation. So each of the Western Allies quickly permitted the formation of civilian police forces, including small numbers of heavily armed and military like organised police forces, in Western Germany under terms that reflected their own police structures and traditions.

In all three Western zones, the emphasis was to decentralise, demilitarise and democratise the police. Some restrictions were lifted as Cold War tensions grew and certain police functions necessitated central rather than local direction. The Landespolizei became the police force for the federal states in the West.

East Germany created a unified national force in the form of the Volkspolizei, however this was reorganized according to the West German police upon the reunification of Germany in 1990.

All state police forces are subordinate to the Land Minister of the Interior. The internal structures of these police forces differ somewhat (which makes generalizations subject to local variation), but usually immediately subordinate to the interior ministries are the regional police headquarters (called Präsidium in most states, Landespolizeidirektion in Baden-Württemberg). These direct operations over a wide area or in a big city and have administrative and supervisory functions.

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