Berlin Police


The Berlin Police is the German Landespolizei force for the city-state of Berlin. Law enforcement in Germany is divided between federal and state agencies.
The Berlin Police is headed by the Police President, Barbara Slowik. Her deputy is Police Vice-President Michael Krömer. They are supported in the management of the force by the Staff Office of the Police President, the Commanders of the six Local Divisions, the Division for Central Tasks, the Criminal Investigation Department and the Central Services Division.

History

The Royal Prussian Police of Berlin was founded on 25 March 1809 with Justus Gruner as the first chief of police.
In March 1848 Berlin was one of the places where the Revolution of 1848 took place. At this time just a small number of police officers with limited authority, the so-called Revierpolizei existed. To fight the revolution, the chief of police, police commissioner Dr. Julius Freiherr von Minutoli asked the Prussian Army for help. They sent two guard cavalry regiments, the 1. Garde-Dragoner Regiment "Königin Victoria von Großbritannien und Irland" ), and three guard infantry regiments.
Approximately 230 citizens were shot or killed by sabers because the guard troops had orders to, "Immer feste druff!".
After a couple of days the troops withdrew and a militia with a strength of 20,000 men was founded. In short, the militia was worthless.
Shortly after the revolution, King Frederick William IV of Prussia founded the "Königliche Schutzmannschaft zu Berlin" in June 1848. It was the first modern police force in Germany from the viewpoint of then and today. It consisted of 1 Oberst, 5 Hauptleuten, 200 Wachtmeister and 1,800 Schutzleute, 40 of them mounted.
In 1936, during the Nazi regime it was dissolved like all other German police forces, and absorbed into the Ordnungspolizei or Orpo. The Orpo was established as a centralized organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed forces that had been organised on a state-by-state basis. Eventually the Orpo embraced virtually all of the Third Reich's law-enforcement and emergency response organizations, including fire brigades, coast guard, civil defense, and even night watchmen. It was under the overall command of Heinrich Himmler.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification of Germany, the West Berlin police, with 20,000 employees, and the East Berlin police, with 12,000 employees were merged under the direction of the West Berlin chief Georg Schertz. Approximately 2,300 officers changed assignments from the West to the East, and approximately 2,700 from the East to the West. About 9,600 East Berlin officers were checked for being possible collaborators of the MfS. 8,544 of them were cleared, while 1,056 were not. Approximately 2,000 were retired or resigned on their own.
The law on the Freiwillige Polizei-Reserve Berlin : of 25 May 1961 in West Berlin created a paramilitary organization to protect important infrastructure like power plants and drinking water supplies. Since the eighties it became more of a branch in which citizens were able to voluntarily support the Schupo in daily service. It was disbanded in 2002.

Police chiefs

List of police chiefs since 1809:

1809–1920

Greater Berlin: 1920–1948

Divided Berlin: 1948–1990

Since 1990

Organization

Directorates

Berlin Police is divided into 6 local directorates. Each local directorate is responsible for one to three Berliner districts:
Each Direktion had several Abschnitte where the patrol car staff is located. Other sub departments of a Direktion are :
Dedicated to the LKA:
The directorate central operations has the following sub branches: