Criminal Investigation Department for the British Zone
The Criminal Police Office for the British Zone (KPABrZ) was a police authority for the British Zone of Occupation founded on January 1, 1946 by the Public Safety Branch of the British Military Government and based in Hamburg . The task of the central facility was the exchange of criminal police messages, the investigation of serious crimes and the maintenance of collections for photos and fingerprints .
In different regions of the British occupation zone in today's Schleswig-Holstein , Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , Regional Records Bureaus (German equivalent: criminal police headquarters) were established after the Second World War . They were subordinate to the Criminal Police Office for the British Zone in Hamburg, the Zonal Bureau . The necessity of these police facilities arose from the chaotic post-war conditions with roving gangs and criminals , often displaced persons from Eastern European countries. From these early criminal police headquarters, the state criminal investigation offices soon developed , such as the state criminal investigation office of Lower Saxony in Hanover.
When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded , the tasks of a Federal Criminal Police were laid down in Article 73 No. 10 and Article 87 of the Basic Law . It was therefore decided to found a Federal Criminal Police Office , which was to emerge from the KPABrZ. After the KPABrZ was taken over by the Federal German administration on October 31, 1951, the authority was renamed the Federal Criminal Police Office . The first German head of the KPABrZ was Max Hagemann , who later became the first president of the BKA.