History of the Lower Saxony Police
The history of the Lower Saxony police begins immediately with the end of the Second World War . The British occupying power immediately reorganized the police, which in the first few years had a largely decentralized and communal structure that was marked by occupation law . The Lower Saxony Police was born on April 1, 1951 when the Lower Saxony Police Act on Public Safety and Order (SOG) came into force. The law passed by the Lower Saxony state parliament established a uniform state police under the central leadership of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior .
The Lower Saxony Police Museum in Nienburg / Weser depicts the formation and development of the Lower Saxony state police .
Post-war chaos
After the Second World War in the area of today's Lower Saxony, which was part of the British occupation zone , the occupying power had already set the course for the establishment of a functional police force when they invaded in April 1945. Due to the dissolution of the state order and the chaotic post-war conditions (see also: serial killer Rudolf Pleil ) with food shortages, homelessness, streams of refugees, looting, black market pushing, public safety was no longer given. There was also serious crime by roving gangs who armed robberies and robberies. Many of them included Displaced Persons from Eastern European countries who had been deported to Germany for forced labor . At the end of the war they were liberated from concentration camps , prisoners of war or labor camps by the Allies .
Police build-up by the British
The British military government initially dissolved the police facilities of the Nazi state and took over their tasks. In order to restore public safety, the British reorganized the police in their zone of occupation from mid-1945. For this purpose, German police officers were hired who were equipped with batons instead of firearms. In the first few months there were no uniforms due to the general shortage. The officers wore plain clothes with a white armband labeled "MG Police" (Military Government Police). The British created a unified police force, in which the criminal police, which from 1939 onwards was closely linked to the SS- related Reich Security Main Office, was deprived of its special role. According to the British "Technical Instructions for the Reorganization of the German Criminal Police in the British Zone", the criminal police were a subordinate part of the overall police force. It was only given back the role as an independent division in 1952.
The British military government issued the first written orders for police organization in September 1945. The police were built on the British model with a largely decentralized structure. Reasons for the creation of city and regional police forces under local sovereignty were also the concerns of the British occupying forces that the police could assume a military character or be abused by a totalitarian government. The former administrative police tasks, such as the trade police, registration police, theater police , veterinary police and construction police , were withdrawn from the new German police and transferred to the administrative authorities. The British military government ensured that women were employed as uniformed "female police" for the first time. However, this project was abandoned after a few years. The model of the female criminal police , which existed before the Second World War and was mainly responsible for young people, was continued. This division was incorporated into the criminal police in 1974.
Handover by the British
Through the transitional law of April 23, 1947, the police in Lower Saxony were handed over to German authorities by the British military government. However, as initiated by the British shortly after the end of the war, the police continued to maintain their communal structure with individual police offices. The following police authorities passed:
- 2 city district police forces in Hanover and Braunschweig as cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants
- 8 administrative district police in the area in Aurich, Braunschweig, Hanover, Hildesheim, Lüneburg, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Stade
- Water police group
- Police school
- State criminal police office
The individual police offices were headed by a chief of the police. Police committees, to which the police chief was accountable, were responsible for the responsibility and control of the police. The committees consisted of representatives from the respective local government.
Early formation of supra-regional police facilities
Despite police decentralization, the British military government saw the need to create supraregional police facilities to combat serious crime. The "Zonal Bureau" (German: Kriminalpolizeiamt for the British Zone ) in Hamburg became the central institution of their occupation area . An offshoot for the areas of Lower Saxony that did not exist at the time (states Oldenburg, Braunschweig, Schaumburg-Lippe, Hanover) was the "Regional Records Bureau" (German: Kriminalpolizeizentrale) established in Hanover in early 1946, from which the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office later developed.
Start of training
According to British instructions , a police school was set up in a barracks on Welfenplatz in Hanover for police training in the Hanover region, which at that time corresponded to today's Lower Saxony . It started operations for police officers in September 1945. The duration of the course was initially 2 and later 3 months, as the officers were urgently needed in the executive field. From the spring of 1946, criminal police officers also received brief training.
In May 1946 the police school was moved to Hann on the orders of the British military government . Münden relocated. 27 cities in the British occupation zone had applied for the seat . Main criterion for the selection of Hann. Münden was the generous spatial conditions in the former Gneisenau barracks, which were built for pioneers in 1934 . In 1946 a British battalion cleared the barracks so that police training courses could begin in June 1946. As the State Police School of Lower Saxony (LPSN), the police school was the central location for training and further education for the Lower Saxony police until 1997 and is this until today (2011), but in a different organizational form.
Further development
In the beginning, the police in Lower Saxony, which was established by the Lower Saxony Police Act of 1951, consisted of the two branches:
- Protection police with water police and riot police as uniformed police
- Criminal Police as civil police with the female criminal police
In 1952, the Lower Saxony intelligence police was added as a further division of the non-uniformed police, which was established by decree of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior . In terms of content, the foundation ties in with the police letter from the Allied military governors from 1949 on the supervision of subversive activities.
The following distribution of tasks, which was laid down by a decree by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior in 1952, was essentially retained until the police reform of 1994. The police continued to be responsible for the traffic police tasks. Responsibilities in the fight against criminal offenses were regulated by a decree of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior of April 28, 1952, but also the entire precise organizational structure of the police. The uniformed police were responsible for dealing with minor crimes (simple theft, fraud, bodily harm, receiving stolen goods, coercion) and for the initial security of the crime scene in the case of serious crimes.
The criminal police were instructed to deal with serious crimes that impair public safety (organized crime, murder, manslaughter, sexual crimes, robbery, serious theft, fraud, economic crimes, hostage-taking, kidnappings, attacks, missing persons) as well as crimes committed by professional criminals . In the case of crimes involving minors, the female criminal police were responsible, which were integrated into the criminal police when the Lower Saxony police were reorganized in 1974.
The intelligence police investigated state security offenses and cases of politically motivated crime . They also addressed on the basis of security with anti-constitutional aspirations. During a reorganization in 1974, she was also integrated into the criminal police, to which her tasks were assigned.
Uniform symbols
Sleeve badge of the old blue / gray uniform until 1976
Sleeve badge of the moss green / beige uniform 1977–2005
Sleeve badge of the new blue uniform from 2006
Reforms
The first major police reform after the Second World War took place in Lower Saxony in 1974. The reason was the rapidly increasing crime rate since the early 1960s. The main reform points were:
- Introduction of "round the clock" police operations at the regional district governments and in the State Criminal Police Office, as well as the creation of local crime services
- Spatial adjustment of police responsibility to the new administrative boundaries through the Lower Saxony regional and administrative reform of 1974
- Integration of the intelligence police (today: Police State Security ) into the criminal police
- Formation of search teams
During the next major police reform in 1994, the protection and criminal police departments were merged. In addition, the two-part career path was introduced for law enforcement officers as early as 1992, in which there is only the upper and the higher service .
The current (2008) structure of the police organization in Lower Saxony arose from a major reorganization in 2004. The police were removed from the four district governments (Braunschweig, Hanover, Oldenburg, Lüneburg) that were dissolved in 2004 . This resulted in the current police headquarters in the area; previously there were only two urban police headquarters in the major cities of Braunschweig ( Braunschweig Police Directorate ) and Hanover ( Hanover Police Directorate ). In 2004, Göttingen and Osnabrück were added as additional locations for police headquarters in the area.
On 1 October 2007, were police training and police training reform. The "Police Faculty" at the Lower Saxony University of Applied Sciences for Administration and Justice in Hildesheim and the "Lower Saxony Police Education Institute" were merged to form the Lower Saxony Police Academy .
In 2012, the ordnance disposal service was spun off from the state police and subordinated to the State Office for Geoinformation and State Surveying Lower Saxony (LGLN).
literature
- RdErl. Of MI of October 12, 2004 (Nds. MBl. P. 703), amended by RdErl. Of September 20, 2006 (Nds. MBl. P. 917)
- Lower Saxony and its police, publisher: Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior , July 1979
