Chapter Two. Americans, Bavarians, And The Police Organization Question In 1945

Abstract

By early 1946, an increased American flexibility regarding the pre-Nazi tradition of centralized and bureaucratically autonomous Bavarian state police would drive the occupiers to modify their original radical decentralization agenda. A series of detailed historical studies and summaries of aspects of pre-1933 and pre-1918 rural and urban police organization and operations that the Americans began requesting from Bavarian technical advisors in the summer of 1946 bear witness to this growing interest. As the Americans routinized their occupation throughout the winter of 1945–1946, this growing fund of information about the older Bavarian police tradition began to find its direct reflection in the efforts of the Public Safety officers in the U.S. Military Government to undertake a more systematic and permanent reorganization of the German police. The nature and perception of the threats to public order during the occupation were the broader context for the decisions made about police organization in 1945–1946.Keywords: American regulations; Bavarian police tradition; police organization; public safety officers; U.S. military government