The Bavarian Police () is the

state police State police, provincial police or regional police are a type of sub-national territorial police force found in nations organized as federations, typically in North America, South Asia, and Oceania. These forces typically have jurisdiction o ...

force of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

state of

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

under the umbrella of the

Bavarian Ministry of the Interior The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, Sport and Integration () is the interior ministry of Bavaria. It is headquartered in Munich, and was established on November 21, 1806 as the ''Departement des Innern''. The first Minister of the Interior wa ...

. It has approximately 33,500 armed officers and roughly 8,500 other civilian employees.

Organization

The 10 regional police authorities in Bavaria are: *Munich ( Polizeipräsidium München) * Central Franconia:

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

Lower Franconia Lower Franconia (, ) is one of seven districts of Bavaria, Germany. The districts of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia make up the region of Franconia. It consists of nine districts and 308 municipalities (including three cities). History After ...

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

Upper Franconia Upper Franconia (, ) is a (administrative 'Regierungs''region 'bezirk'' of the state of Bavaria, southern Germany. It forms part of the historically significant region of Franconia, the others being Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia, wh ...

Bayreuth Bayreuth ( or ; High Franconian German, Upper Franconian: Bareid, ) is a Town#Germany, town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 11 ...

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (; , , ) is an administrative district in the east of Bavaria, Germany. It consists of seven districts and 226 municipalities, including three cities. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and nume ...

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

Lower Bavaria Lower Bavaria (, ; ) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany, located in the east of the state. It consists of nine districts and 258 municipalities (including three cities). Geography Lower Bavaria is subdivided into two ...

Straubing Straubing (; Central Bavarian: ''Strauwing'') is an independent city in Lower Bavaria, southern Germany. It is seat of the Districts of Germany, district of Straubing-Bogen. Annually in August the Gäubodenvolksfest, the second largest fair in Ba ...

Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (, ; ) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat of the district gove ...

-South:

Rosenheim Rosenheim () is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is an independent city located in the centre of the Rosenheim (district), district of Rosenheim (Upper Bavaria), and is also the seat of its administration. It is located on the west bank of the Inn ...

*Upper Bavaria-North:

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (; Austro-Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an Independent city#Germany, independent city on the Danube, in Upper Bavaria, with 142,308 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2023). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan ...

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

-North:

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

*Swabia-South:

Kempten Kempten (; ) is the largest town of Allgäu, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. The population was about 68,000 in 2016. The area was possibly settled originally by Celts, but was later taken over by the Romans, who called the town ''Cambodunum''. K ...

Bavaria reorganised hierarchy structures between 2005 and 2008 to reduce bureaucracy, changing from a four-tier hierarchy (

Interior Ministry An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

– Regional administration – Police Department – Police Station) to three levels (Interior Ministry, Regional Police Authority, Police Station). The seven ''Polizeipräsidien'' in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and

Oberbayern Upper Bavaria (, ; ) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat of the district gove ...

(HQ in Munich) gave way to the 10 new areas and the ''Polizeidirektionen'' disappeared. The reorganisation required the rewiring of all police radio and emergency notification networks which are not located only at each regional police authority. In 2021 the official name was changed from ''Bayerische Staatliche Polizei'' (Bavarian State Police) to ''Bayerische Polizei'' (Bavarian Police).

State Police Units

Bavarian Border Police

Due to the

European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and Human migration, migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request Right of asyl ...

in 2015, the Bavarian State Government re-established the Bavarian Border Police in 2018 to support the

Federal Police A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...

to protect the border to

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, to the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and at the

Nuremberg Airport Nuremberg Airport ( ) is an international airport of the Franconian metropolitan area of Nuremberg and the second-busiest airport in Bavaria after Munich Airport. The year 2018, with 4.5 million, was the year with the highest passenger volume t ...

Bereitschaftspolizei

The Police Support Group HQ (''Bereitschaftspolizeipräsidium'') in Bamberg employs 6,000 officers and civilian staff at seven ''Bereitschaftspolizeiabteilungen'' (BPA), the police schools, the police orchestra and the police helicopter squadron. The BPAs are situated in Munich,

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Dioce ...

, Würzburg, Nuremberg,

Königsbrunn Königsbrunn ( Swabian: ''Kenigsbrunn'') is the largest town in the district of Augsburg, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the left bank of the Lech, approx. 10 km south of Augsburg. As of 2023, the population of Königsbrunn was 28,3 ...

Dachau Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

and

Sulzbach-Rosenberg Sulzbach-Rosenberg () is a municipality in the Amberg-Sulzbach district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated approximately 14 km northwest of Amberg, and 50 km east of Nuremberg. The town consists of two parts: Sulzbach in the west, and ...

and have 10 companies as the state’s mobile police reserve. The helicopter squadron has nine modern choppers stationed at Munich Airport and Roth Airfield near Nuremberg. Bavaria has two basic training schools, one professional development school and a

police dog A police dog, also known as a K-9 (phonemic abbreviation of canine), is a dog that is trained to assist police and other law enforcement officers. Their duties may include searching for drugs and explosives, locating missing people, findin ...

school.

Special Units

Bavaria has different special units, which are the * two ''

Spezialeinsatzkommando ''Spezialeinsatzkommando'' (SEK, "Special Task Force") are police tactical units of each of the 16 German Landespolizei, state police forces that specialize in a quick response with SWAT unit tactics to emergencies. Along with the ''Mobiles Einsa ...

s (SEK)'' (

police tactical unit A police tactical unit (PTU) is a specialized police unit trained and equipped to handle situations that are beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement units because of the level of violence (or risk of violence) involved. The tasks of a ...

s), one is stationed in Nuremberg for use in the north of the state and one is attached to the Munich Police Department to cover the south of Bavaria. The SEK of South Bavaria has a mountain detachment for operations in the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

. * three ''Mobile Einsatzkommandos (MEK)'' (mobile response units), one of which is attached to the SEK based in Nuremberg and the other two to the Munich SEK, * two ''Technische Einsatzkommandos (TEK)'' (technical response units), one at Nuremberg and the other at Munich, * four ''Unterstützungskommandos (USK)'' (Special Support Groups) attached to the Police Support Group and based in Dachau, Munich, Nuremberg and Würzburg * an ''Alpine Einsatzzug'' (Alpine Operations Platoon), based in Rosenheim.

Bavarian Security Watch

Citizens in Bavaria have been participating in public safety since 1994. This commitment to civic action is seen in the '' Sicherheitswacht'', an auxiliary state police program, where approx. 800 citizens in 125 Bavarian towns (July 2016) voluntarily assist their local police.Bavarian Auxiliary Police homepage http://www.polizei.bayern.de/wir/sicherheitswacht/index.html/309 They have very limited powers (identity verification, questioning and can prohibit people from staying in a certain area) under the principle of proportionality. The only armament is a

Pepper spray Pepper spray, oleoresin capsicum spray, OC spray, capsaicin spray, mace, or capsicum spray is a Tear gas, lachrymator (tear gas) product containing as its active ingredient the chemical compound capsaicin, which irritates the eyes with burning ...

Water Police

The Bavarian

Water police Water police, also called bay constables, coastal police, harbor patrols, marine/maritime police/patrol, nautical patrols, port police, or river police are a specialty law enforcement portion of a larger police organization, who patrol in wate ...

is directly subordinate to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. The headquarters is located in Nuremberg and has 10 river police stations along the

Main Main may refer to: Geography *Main River (disambiguation), multiple rivers with the same name *Ma'in, an ancient kingdom in modern-day Yemen * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *Spanish Main, the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territ ...

and

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

rivers and the Main-Danube Canal. It also supports 14 police stations that cover major lakes in Bavaria.

State Investigation Bureau

The Bavarian ''

Landeskriminalamt The State Criminal Police Office, or Landeskriminalamt ((LKA) ) in German, is an independent law enforcement agency in all 16 German states that is directly subordinate to the state's ministry of the interior. Missions Investigations LKAs sup ...

'' (State Investigation Bureau) is directly supervised by the Bavarian Interior State Ministry situated in Munich and employs 1,800 officers and civilian staff. Its missions are: witness protection, state security, undercover investigations, statistics, monitoring the development of crime, crime prevention, criminal investigations analysis, exchange of information with foreign countries and forensic science.

Equipment

Bavarian police car in hamburg during g 20 summit 2017 20170707-IMG 9414

The most used car brand is

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

. On duty, officers carry their duty handgun (

Heckler & Koch VP9 The Heckler & Koch VP9 (known as SFP9 in Europe and Canada) is a polymer-framed semi-automatic striker-fired handgun. The VP designation in the name refers to ''Volkspistole'', which translates to “civilian pistol” (literally “people’s pis ...

) and many other tools, such as handcuffs, pepper spray, a flashlight, an expandable baton and (since 2019) Axon 2 bodycameras. There are

Heckler & Koch MP5 The Heckler & Koch MP5 (, ) is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including selective fire, Se ...

submachine guns for high risk calls in all patrol cars. On top of that, some patrol officers are trained as specialized tactical officers and are skilled in the use of their issued

Heckler & Koch G3 The Heckler & Koch G3 () is a selective fire, select-fire battle rifle chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO developed in the 1950s by the German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch, in collaboration with the Spanish state-owned firearms manufacturer CE ...

and

FN SCAR The FN SCAR (SOF (Special Operations Forces) Combat Assault Rifle) is a family of gas-operated short-stroke gas piston automatic rifles developed by Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal (FN) in 2004. It is constructed with modularity for the United ...

rifles.

Notable cases

* 12 May 1972: Bomb attack on the main building of the Bavarian State Investigation Bureau in Munich by the

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (, ; RAF ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang ( ), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a terrorist organisat ...

, 3 people were injured and 60 police cars were damaged. * 5 September 1972: Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli team during the Olympic Games in Munich, known as the Munich massacre. * 10 August 1994: Discovery of 363g of plutonium on a smuggler at Munich's Franz Josef Strauss airport; the so-called plutonium affair. * July 1998: Giorgio Basile who killed 30 people was arrested in

and turned state witness providing testimony for the arrest of 50 Mafia members in Germany. * 14 January 2005: The fashion designer

Rudolph Moshammer Rudolph Moshammer (27 September 1940 – 14 January 2005) was a German fashion designer. He built a reputation for the extravagant clothes he designed and wore, and was well known in Germany's celebrity circuit. Moshammer was murdered in 2005 i ...

was found murdered in his house. One day later the murderer, Herisch Ali Abdullah, was arrested through a

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

analysis match and sentenced to life imprisonment.

References

External links

Official website

Polizei.de
{{Authority control State law enforcement agencies of Germany Organisations based in Bavaria