Kriminalpolizei

Kriminalpolizei (ˌkrɪmiˈnaːlpoliˌt͡saɪ̯, "criminal police") is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal police department for the entire Reich. Today, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the state police (Landespolizei) perform the majority of investigations. Its Criminal Investigation Department is known as the Kriminalpolizei or more colloquially, the Kripo. In 1799, six police officers were assigned to the Prussian Kammergericht (superior court of justice) in Berlin to investigate more prominent crimes. They were given permission to work in plainclothes, when necessary. Their number increased in the following years. In 1811, their rules of service were written into the Berliner Polizeireglement (Berlin Police Regulations) and in 1820 the rank of Kriminalkommissar was introduced for criminal investigators. In 1872 the new Kriminalpolizei was made a separate branch of police service distinguishing it from the uniformed police called Schutzpolizei. Based on the experience with this new kind of police force, other German states—such as Bremen in 1852—reformed their police forces and by the end of the nineteenth century the Kriminalpolizei had been established nationwide. During the early part of the 20th century and post-World War I, the Kripo continued to serve as the German state's investigative agency for all criminal activity. Kriminalpolizei (Nazi Germany) After Adolf Hitler assumed national power in January 1933, the Kriminalpolizei came to be under the control of members of the Schutzstaffel (SS). The Nazis began a programme of "coordination" of all aspects of German life, in order to consolidate their hold on power. In July 1936, the Prussian central criminal investigation department (Landeskriminalpolizeiamt) became the central criminal investigation department for Germany, the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt.

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Related concepts (16)

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland. The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space" and seized power in early 1933.

Ordnungspolizei

The Ordnungspolizei (ˈɔʁdnʊŋspoliˌtsaɪ), abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government ("Reich-ification", Verreichlichung, of the police). The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II.

Sicherheitspolizei

The Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police; Kripo) between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe.