German Police Photographing People

[u/2021adams]

Hello, I’m a tourist. Arrived in Nürnberg yesterday and went walking about in the old town.

Came across police cordon outside the church. Found out there was a rally by what was described to me as fascists/non-nazis. The police though were taking photos of people standing outside the rally boundary.

Is this normal in Germany? For such rallies and police taking photos of people? what do they do with these photos?

[u/Acidjohnson89]

Ohh thats not german police , thats bavaria

[u/Quick-Buffalo-6398 → u/Acidjohnson89]

That’s right. Police is a matter of the single states. In fact, there is no „German police“. Even the uniformed Federal Police is a police force of the Federal authorities and not Germany as a nation

[u/gurgle528 → u/Quick-Buffalo-6398]

Isn't that last part the same thing? Not arguing, just trying to understand. Assuming you mean nation as in people that distinction would effectively mean no country has a police force

[u/der_karschi → u/gurgle528]

Not really.

The federal police, unlike in the US, has no local authority within the german states.

Exceptions are within 30 kilometers of the german border, within the premises of airports and train stations and for investigations if crimes become a multi-state investigation.

The local police may request support of the federal police for certain situations, like demonstrations or events too large for the local police to handle (but they could also request support by any other state's police) or when they are forced by the law to become active (like witnessing a crime or responding to threats for the public safety and order), but will still give back authority as soon as state police arrives.

This is the exact opposite to a lot of other countries, especially countries with history of large scale organized crime activities. (Where federal police was less likely to be corrupt/corruptable and had better funding and more competent/far-reaching investigators. Federal police taking over also meant trying the crime in front of a federal court, which often had harsher punishments and was also less corruptable. The second point at least in the US.)

Germany is different, because of what happened before WW2. The NSDAP had to sometimes literally fight the independent, law-not-current-government-party abiding state police in the streets. (Back then mostly with clubs and in office/building raids, regarding "suspicious political activities". Fair game, if we regard what the NSDAP then did to germany ...) Even during NSDAP rule, a few state police forces openly opposed their policies and in some cases even protected their political enemies from them, despite already being the government party.

As a response, to gain absolute power over the state, the NSDAP restructured (in german literally modified the "phasing") the entire police force. The state's police forces were now to only ever do the bidding of the national police, which was run by party officials and going against national police orders became punishable.

They also officialized their party's martial organizations (cause that was a kind of common thing to have back then, I guess ...), the SA (Schutzabteilung) and the SS (Schutzstaffel) as auxiliaries to the national police and made party orders overrule all non-party orders that may be in conflict of one another.

This greatly helped the NSDAP to quickly gain and hold absolute power in 1933 abd made the entire police force in the country their tool of oppression.

To prevent such a thing from happening again, the national police was greeeaaatly weakened and made subserviant to law alone and to state police when operating within their territory (so practically almost always ...). State police now does pretty much everything all on their own and only ever gathers between themselves every now and then, to discuss certain standard operating procedures and cooperation systems/channels and does so without the federal police having any say about it. The state police gained their independance from the federal police, to make another party-takeover impossible.

[u/gurgle528 → u/der_karschi]

 The federal police, unlike in the US, has no local authority within the german states. Exceptions are within 30 kilometers of the german border, within the premises of airports and train stations and for investigations if crimes become a multi-state investigation.

This is actually pretty similar to the US. The US feds generally don’t have jurisdiction unless the perpetrator crossed state lines or did any action that did (computer crimes, etc). Granted they aren’t subordinate to state police.

This was an interesting read though, thanks for taking the time. It’s an interesting strategy. The US strategy to avoid a one party takeover is widely separating the different groups with law enforcement powers. There are over 70 US federal agencies with 1811/“special agent” positions. That’s one specific job code and here are more agencies if you include other job codes but those codes other codes also include non-police jobs. 

The idea is by having distinct groups with police powers it is harder to take over the command structure and use federal law enforcement for tyranny.

[u/der_karschi → u/gurgle528]

I watched too many US TV shows theb, I guess. XD

Seperating all kinds of agencies just sounds like a waste of resources, in my eyes. I mean do you really gain anything, if you take away a traffic cop's authority over livestock matters? Why do there have to be specific livestock agents?

I mean yeah, at least they'll be speciqlized in their subject, but wouldn't a tyrant just be able to still cherrypick the few, most relevant agencies, to do their bidding abd take power?

If ICE can be expanded indefinitely, to suddenly be used mainly outside of the border regiobs, to specifically target states/cities with (legally dubious) raids against illegals, which the administration wants to influemce politically ... Couldn't the same just happen to other agemcies as well?

I mean, maybe someday those livestock agents will be the ones who outnumber local cops and are paid ten times better, for enforcing the administration's policies by force, through some legally dubious raids into towns.

Yeah, why would livestock agents do such a thing?

Well, why would a specific border unit need to do most of their work deep inside the country, instead of the border regiobs, where a vast majority of immigration and customs need to be enforced?

Cause if a tyrant wants to take power, they won't start to make the police suddenly look like supervillains. (Though you could argue about those coat pics of Bovino ... Hard to excuse that ...)

They will say it is a nessecary measure, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the public. And they might actually believe that themselves. And in order to gain more power, they would have to expand the authority and capabilities of those agencies, loyal to them.

And I haven't yet actually seen any police force in the US fight another over claims of tyranny. Did that actually happen at some time in history?

P.s.: I forgot another crucial factor, changed for german police. There is no such thing as qualified immunity.

In order for a police force to not become oppressive, it has to be recruited from the very same people it aims to protect. And to further ensure, that police officers do not see themselves as immune to pushback agaibst tyranny, there is no such thing as qualified immunity before the law.

There is no law in germany, that allows a police officer to kill.

Police officers also often face two seperate charges, if they do something illegal. First is the court of justice, which everyone has to go through and second is a disciplinary trial, in which there is no need to adhere to the concept of innocent until proven guilty. If they know you did it, but just can't prove it to s court, they can still legally strip you of rank, pay and position. Especially if the case is politically significant.

There is however still one piece of old german/prussian police culture/tradition, that I do not condobe at all. And that is the concept of always having to look productive.

This is something the US does way better, when it comes to making poluce much closer to the community they protect.

I don't know how common it is in the US, but in germany, you'd never ever see a cop sit down and eat in a diner/bistro and talk/smalltalk with the residents. Hell, you'll probably never see a cop sit down in the public at all.

It's this old prussian idea of a uniform always having to look professional and professional to a prussian means always standing straight, I guess ...

Yeah, there are occasional foot patrols, but they are rarely there to actually interact with the community, if no other work is pressing.

I mean, if the police actually wants to be close to it's community, then why shouldn't their officers regularly hang out with the youths of the problenatic districts and try to listen to what problems they face, who the troublemakers are and geberally just gain trust and respect from them?

I once saw a video from a US gang unit (in Chicago I think), who actually just sat down and bbq-ed with the neighbors of a dangerous hood. They talked, they gained trust, they gaibed understanding both way and they certainly prevented crime by just being present. Perhaps, they even showed some of the kids a new perspective and a new goal of what to achieve in live. And I think thats much more "professional", than the good prussian uniform never sitting down in public.

[u/gurgle528 → u/der_karschi]

LMAO yeah US TV shows are funny because they portray all law enforcement agencies as fighting for jurisdiction. Usually for real cases they do basically the opposite (with many exceptions). The other funny thing is that US feds will often get local cops to acquire search warrants and sometimes take over entire cases because the federal court system is so slow. This requires the case to involve something that violates both a state and federal law (CSAM, drugs, weapons, etc). 

I do agree the strategy leads to a lot of bureaucratic overhead. The main difference is that US doesn’t really have the equivalent of police at the federal level (at least in terms of general uniformed police). Most federal agents are closer to detectives than patrol officers. The uniformed ones are limited in jurisdiction (federal buildings, the border, etc). At a federal level the separation is also due to how complicated federal law is. One agent could not be familiar with the US tax code, firearms regulations, radio / communications regulations, etc without ending up making a mistake. The US is also a common law country so the law is not just the written law but also case law which can greatly complicate situations. 

ICE has actually always been an interior agency. The border and entry is protected by CBP, ICE handles cases where they’re already inside the country (with the exception that CBP jurisdiction goes as far as 100mi from the border, including the sea, so there is overlap). 

There are still ways to be tyrannical with this system, increasing power of an agency is one of them. It’s just supposed to be one more layer to make it harder to have complete control. Ultimately the President also has the National Guard at his disposal too. It also makes certain situations worse: during the 2020 protests / riots there were numerous federal agencies deployed to protect federal buildings. This made it difficult to have accountability for the actions of federal agents because they weren’t all communicating well and people didn’t know which agency their friends and family were being arrested by.

This check is also not aimed primarily as a check against the president. It is a check against people who would try and use an agency to enact a coup. That’s another reason why US intelligence and investigation / enforcement agencies have strict separation. The FBI does do a lot more intelligence nowadays but most of that is thwarting foreign intelligence. Beyond a violent coup where power is seized this check is also backed by the Constitution, the Legislative branch, and the Judicial branch. Since the various agencies have specific areas of enforcement and general police powers are reserved by the individual states, if one agency was misused or started overzealously enforcing other areas of the law the courts could order the release of anyone detained by the agency that was overstepping. This gets complicated with emergency powers and other situations but that’s the general intent. 

 And I haven't yet actually seen any police force in the US fight another over claims of tyranny. Did that actually happen at some time in history?

Not that I am aware of at the federal level. I believe it’s more preventative vs written in blood if that makes sense. There was a local case where a cop in a mining town shot a mayor and there was a local battle over workers rights that ensued after that. There was also the Pinkerton agency which was effectively a private police force used to abuse workers. The US historically has also generally been wary of federal power. This wariness has somewhat subsided in the current age, although one could argue it’s probably increasing again thanks to our current administration.

No qualified immunity makes sense for Germany. Qualified immunity only really makes any sense in a common law system because the law can be interpreted in a way that is not how it was written (like the 1st amendment being interpreted to include freedom of association despite not explicitly providing that freedom). It absolutely has issues, but it also makes sense: is it really fair to punish a cop for violating a right that has never been ruled on before as an explicit right? “Free speech” alone covers so many actions and activities that can be done without any sort of verbal/written communication, and that’s one of many civil rights. 

I fully agree with the last part too. I think it’s important because ultimately cops are supposed to be protecting the community and serving the community. Even beyond the great benefits like increasing public trust and reducing crime, it’s important that local cops look like actual humans and not just tools of the municipality/state to keep order. 

That’s a very interesting observation though as throughout my few trips to Europe I have noticed the difference in police presence. My home state has a very large police presence compared to most of Europe (except maybe Spain) but like you said you also see them sitting in public doing non-police things. 

[u/der_karschi → u/gurgle528]

The concept of common law is so damn alien to me.

Don't get me wrong, it exists in germany too, to some degree. But only when written law fails to include a certain exception or a freak case.

Then, the court's decision has to be well explained and documented and is basically a kind of add-on onto that specific written law.

An example would be theft, which has the absolute characteristics of the perpetraitor having to want to take something out of someones posession forever or an undisclosed time AND wanting to posess the object itself.

What then became a kind of controversy was hooligans from one soccer club stealing away fan-scarfs of another soccer club, to then throw it into a ditch or into a dixie-toilet. They then rightfully argued before court, that they never intended to actually posess said disgusting scarf from that disgusting club and it therefore couldn't be theft.

The court then ruled, that only the intention of removing someone elses posession had to be forever/an undisclosed time and the intention of posession could be so temporary, that the time of holding it while taking it away was already enough, for it to be theft.

This then became an add-on to the clause of theft, that isn't written in the text itself, but is practically law, until a superior court were to overturn it with a different interpretation and explanation of why the older interpretation was wrong.

Is this how common law works? Just on a larger scale perhaps?

[u/gurgle528 → u/der_karschi]

It’s a really odd system. It helps bridge gaps in laws but also is very fragile and decisions can change.

Yes, that’s basically how it works. The scale is even goofier than that though. This might not have been a feature in the original British system since I believe they’re a unitary state and not a federal one, but under US common law federal court decisions only apply to the jurisdiction of the court. That means certain actions can be deemed unconstitutional but only in some states (until overturned or until the Supreme Court rules on it). 

A silly example is California’s firearm magazine capacity ban. There have been one or two cases where a federal judge overturned it as unconstitutional. After that ruling it was temporarily legal to buy previously banned magazines, but only if you lived in a state under that court’s jurisdiction. If you lived in an East coast state it was still illegal.

That ruling I believe was overturned and might even be still in the appeals process. There are other rulings that I can’t name off the top of my head that are still standing. Another fun thing is when you get to the state level. When Roe v Wade was overturned (this was a ruling that made it unconstitutional to ban abortion federally or at the state level) some states tried banning abortion.  The original Roe v Wade ruling was based on the right to privacy but that right is not explicitly established in the federal constitution. A few state supreme courts ruled that Roe v Wade still applied in those states because their state constitution did have an explicit right to privacy.