Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
As a department of the police, the state protection division (which constitutes our point of focus in this issue of CILIP) is responsible for counter-espionage, the protection of politicians and business leaders as well as for both investigating and pursuing all crimes classified as being „politically motivated“. Yet public awareness of this division of the police is nearly non-existent. The role of „political police“ has long since been assumed by the country’s domestic intelligence service, the Constitutional Guard. ‚Reason enough, to take a closer look at this special division of the police.

Protection of the State in Divided Germany
by Falco Werkentin
No common policy was ever developed for the future status of the police forces of Germany among the four occupation powers. Each occupation power plowed its own field. Fully aware of the power the Communists assumed control of the ministries of the interior and the police in the Soviet zone from the very start. In 1948, the system of Political Commisars  based on the Soviet example was introduced throughout the police forces of the Soviet zone, which ultimately led to the establishment of the K5 division of the criminal divisions of the police tantamount to the establishment of a secret political police force. In the Western zones all such attempts were met with the veto of the Western allies. Yet, the Federal Republic had just been released into limited sovereignty when efforts resumed to establish a new state protection system. The article deals with the historical and political activities behind the scenes in connection with this development.

State Protection Divisions of the Police
by Otto Diederichs
Time ago police aparatures like the state protection divisions were openly called the „Political Police“ – and everybody knew who was who. In postwar (West) Germany, in accordance with the mandatory separation of activities set forth by the military governors of the occupation forces in their message to the Parlamtentary Council, the ‚Police letter‘ of 1949, some changes were effected. The dual authority of police protection of the state and the intelligence services of the Constitutional Guard which resulted in part directly from this legislative situation has led to a situation in which the state protection divisions of the police have partially sunk into oblivion. The article describes the development and tasks of the state protection divisions of the police.

The „Coordination Group Against Terrorism“
by Otto Diederichs
By an unanimous decision of the Conference of the Federal and State Ministers of the Interior the „Coordination Group Against Terrorism“ (Koordinie-rungsgruppe Terrorismusbekämpfung = KGT) was called to life on May 3, 1991. Central coordination authority was delegated to the Federal Crime Bu-reau. Since then, delegates from the police, the state and federal Constitutio-nal Guard Bureaus and the state and federal Ministries of Justice have been convening on a weekly basis for the purpose of developing common concepts for fighting terrorism. Such meetings are devoid of any legal mandate and thus undermine the mandatory separation of police and intelligence services. That a certain accustomizing-effect has been achieved can be seen in the fact that the first voices seeking to define a new field of responsibility for the KGT in the field of right-wing extremism can be heard.
(with the documentation of the Report of the Establishment)

„The Security Group Bonn“
by Hans Peter Bordien
The „Security Group“ of the state protection division of the Federal Crime Bureau in Meckenheim near Bonn has the responsibility for providing personal and interior protection for members of constitutional organs and for guests of the state. This is done in close coordination with the state police units, the Federal Border Guard, the Police and Security Service of the German Parliament and foreign secret services. The author describes the responsibilities and tasks of the protectors of prominent people from Bonn.

Police Protection of the State in Competition with the Constitutional Guard
by Lothar Jachmann
During the first twenty years subsequent to the founding of the Federal Re-public relations between the Constitutional Guard and the state protection di-visions of the police responsible for dealing with crimes directed against the state were, for the most part, unproblematic. Problems in counter-espionage as well as in the persecution of „politically motivated crime“ arose rarely. However, with the rise of terrorism and violence-oriented left-wing extremism in the early Seventies the boundaries began to become unclear. The author, vice-president of the Constitutional Guard in the city-state of Bremen, describes the causes and effects of such unclarities from the perspective of a secret service professional.

Does the State Protection Division of the Police Profit from a Reduction in the Secret Services?
by Renate Künast
Shortly prior to conclusion of Germany’s provisional constitution, the Basic Law, the Allied military governors in their so-called Police Letter of 1949 to the President of the Parliamentary Council summarily rejected the pleas of the minister presidents in the Western zones to grant them permission to re-establish a secret political police division prescribing as follows: „The federal government will be permitted to establish an agency responsible for collecting and disseminating information about activities aimed at overthrowing the federal government. This agency shall have no police authority.“ Since the 3rd of October 1990 and the signing of Two-plus-Four Agreement on September 1990 the question arises as to the on-going validity of Allied law (particularly the notorious Police Letter) in Germany. What relevance does the letter have today in terms of defining the scope of authority for the police and the Constitutional Guard? The article attempts to provide an answer.

‚State Protection‘ – Statistically Speaking
by Falco Werkentin
An annotated analysis of the state protection statistics provided by the Fede-ral Crime Bureau for the period 1974-1989.

Police Protection of the State and Criminal Proceedings
by Hartmut Wächtler
Lawyers being educated during the Sixties rarely heard anything about crimes committed against the state and they hardly played any role at all in the day-to-day administration of justice and the maintenance of law and order – sub-sequent to the repression and disappearance of the wave of anti-Communist trials which took place during the 50’s and early 60’s into oblivion. This changed dramatically during the mid-60’s as soon as the first larger demon-strations of the general student revolt began to take place in the 1966/67 season. Criminal proceedings emanating from these activities (pre-dominantly for aggravated disturbance of the peace and resisting the police) were percei-ved of as political trials by all persons involved and dealt with as such. The author, a Munich attorney, describes his experiences as a criminal defense attorney over the past twenty years.

Local (Netherlands) Police in the Service of the Intelligence Service
by Eveline Lubbers
In every local police force and every state police district of the Netherlands officers perform their service not only by performing normal policing duties, but spend the other half of their duty time performing special intelligence duties. These divisions, termed „Politieke Inlichtingen Dienst“ (PID) work in close coordination with the most important of the intelligence service of the Netherlands, the „Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst“ (BVD). The PID officers work at the local scene level using, at least partially, their own informants, thus becoming in many cases the ’sensors‘ of the BVD on a day to day level.

Security State Protection in Austria
by Benjamin Davy
Within the span of only a few years estimates of the State Police in Austria would appear to be reversing themselves. In 1987, the Minister of the Interior rejected the charge of a lack of legal grounds for the activities of the state police and praised the „well-tried system“. By 1989, however, a parliamentary investigating committee was calling for a clear legal framework in conformity with the constitution with reference of the authority of the state police. In 1991 this act, the „Federal Law Concerning the Organisation of the Security Administration and the Activity of the Security Police“ passed through parliament. The author describes the essential elements of the new legislation, popularly called the Security Police Law which will go into effect in the middle of 1993.

Swiss State Protection
by Beat Leuthardt
Never has it been possible to so completely compromise the surveillance ac-tivities of a state apparatus as happened in Switzerland. Files on more than 900.000 persons were compromised in 1989 in the course of the so-called Fichen scandal as having been registered by the political police as potential enemies of the state. The furor was tremendous. Roughly every twentieth resident on Swiss soil (approximately 350.000 of a total of 6.9 million) requested information as to whether information on his or her person was included in these files, divulgence and relinquishment of the so-called Fichen copy. In the meantime the indignation has given way to resignation and the protectors of the state are more tightly in the saddle than ever before. The undermining of civil rights in the spook state, Switzerland, marches on, is being equipped with improved legal codification and high tech perfectionism.

„Black Beetles“ Train with the GSG 9
by Heiner Busch
In March 1992 Federal German Government placed an embargo on any further shipment of tanks from the former National People’s Army (NVA) of the GDR to Turkey under the auspices of NATO defense aid. The reason: Turkish special units were annihilating the Kurdish population. That this decision astonished the Turkish NATO partner is hardly surprising. In as much as the Federal German government has provided training aid for special Turkish units including the infamous „black beetles“ – as recently became known – for years, allowing them to train together with the GSG 9. Up until now such training aid had consistently been officially denied by the German government.

The Death of a Soccer Fan
by Andreas Klosé
In April of 1992, the state’s attorney’s office in Leipzig terminated its investigation of ten police officers. The subject of the investigation involved the violent confrontation between so-called soccer-hooligans and the Leipzig police on November 3, 1990. A total of 58 shots were fired in the course of the confrontation. One soccer fan was killed, five others were wounded, some of them seriously.
The author, a sociologist and a staff member of the „Soccer FAN Project“ in Berlin, describes the effects the discontinuation of the investigation has had on the fans who were involved at the time.