Editorial Announcement
Beginning with the next issue of CILIP, a few changes in the make-up CILIP will be taking effect. For one, we hope to make the journal more current. While we don’t plan to abandon our standing policy of providing solid and re-liable factual material of general topical interest to our reading audience, we shall be devoting our focus in the heart of each issue to keeping our readers abreast of current events. In addition, we shall attempt to augment our reliable in-depth reporting and information by providing a forum for discussion among our reading audience.
That’s the good news, the bad news is that we have been forced to raise our prices. Beginning with our 1/1991 Issue No. 38 of CILIP, single issues will cost 10.00 German marks (plus postage) and our annual subscription rate will rise to 24.00 German marks (plus postage).
Editorial
However we chose to evaluate the sudden collapse of the GDR and the high-speed process of unification, it is certain that one of the more pleasing experi-ences was recognizing that if history has properly ripened even security services can enter into their death throes. The once so-feared STASI and the factory fighting units have long since been dissolved. That the People’s Police was so incomparably less an object of hate and criticism is more than conspicuous. What criticism arose was of a completely different nature, namely that the police neglected to intervene enough in the daily maintenance of law and order. Thus, it is to be feared that once police reorganization has been completed, the police in the new eastern states of Germany will revert back to their old authoritarian ways and seek their revenge for the interim of submissive waiting.
The End of the People’s Police – The Chronology of a Downfall
In concluding our series on the decline of state security forces in the former GDR (cf. CILIP 35/36), CILIP presents a chronology of the downfall of the People’s Police.
In contrast to the STASI, the People’s Police has not completely collapsed. It has merely ceased to exist as an independent law enforcement agency, and has either been incorporated intoan existing Western police force (as is the case in Berlin) or been reorganized to correspond to Western standards with the aid of the German federal and state governments.
The downfall of East Germany’s police force began during the events surroun-ding the mass-demonstrations on the 7th and 8th of October 1989 when People’s Police units brutally intervened against thousands of demonstrators. The anger of the majority of the people which was almost exclusively directed against the STASI now began to also focus on the People’s Police. This anger increased as more and more became known about the high level of cooperation that had existed between the People’s Police and the STASI and as it also became known that former STASI officers were now attempting to join and regroup within the People’s Police.
The „Extension“
While the only effect of unification on most former German states is that some of them have found new neighbouring states, Berlin is in the unique position of having to create a home for two completely differiing state systrems under the same roof. The same, of course, holds true for the two municipal police forces in the city. Partially for oganisational reasons, but primarily in order to circumvent being forced to provide continued employment for the former People’s Police leadership and command cadre, formal areas of command were simply extended into East Berlin. This has resulted in the creation of „mammoth directorates“ encompassing up to one million citizens. The official designation for this policy of expanded police authority has euphemistically been termed the „extension“.
Martina Gerlach – Die Judiciary and Domestic Policies of the Red-Green Senate in Berlin – A First Analysis
The author is a member of the executive board of the expert commission of judges and state’s attorneys in the Union of Public Service, Transportation and Traffic Workers of Germany (ÖTV). In an examination of the fields of aliens‘, domestic security and judiciary policies she attempts an preliminary evaluation of Berlin Red-Green public security policies over the past two years from the perspective of a committed „outsider“. Although firmly convinced that two years are too short a span of time to form any final judgement, she still comes to the conclusion: were it not for the fateful police intervention against squatters on the 12th and 14th of November in East Berlin she would more tend to pass out better than pasisng grade to the Red-Green municipal administration on its civil rights policies. As of now „a bitter taste“ remains.
„We are the champions…“ Police Eviction and the Demise of the SPD-Green Coalition in Berlin
On November 12th, two of a total of 130 apartment buildings being squatted in the eastern half of the city were forcefully cleared by a massive demonstra-tion of force by West Berlin’s police. the whole operation by a total of 600 police was over in half an hour. What nobody expected to happen: squatters from 13 apartment buildings in the Mainzer Strasse in the neighboring district of Friedrichshain began setting up barricades and roadblocks in the Frankfur-ter Allee, a heavily used thoroughfare. As the police attempt to remove the barricades and other traffic obstructions, the most serious fighting in the past years develops, lasting deep into the night. On November 15th, the Alternative List resigns from the SPD-Green coalition in state parliament as a result of these incidents.
Our staff report unravels the background and developments preceding the con-frontation. In specific detail, it retraces police activities during the operation and points to some similarities of the „house-to-house“ fighting in Berlin at the beginning of the Eighties.
Lena Schraut – The Berlin Data Protection Act – Deliberated Porkbarrel Policy-Making
In the fall of 1988, immediately prior to the end of that session of parliament, The SPD Faction in the Berlin state assembly introduced a draft proposal for a new Berlin Data Protectrion Act. Due to the passage of time, it nevere became possible to enter into parliamentary deebate over this legislative parliamentary proposal. In any even, this proposal would not have been acceptable to the Alternative List party. After the surprising election results in the spring of 1989 which led to a coaltion between the SPD and the AL, the AL faction pressured for a revision of the legislative proposal – which up to that point had been corresponded to most of the legislative being considered or enacted throughout the FRG – for revision of the legislation to comply with the restrictions set forth by the German Supreme Court decision on the Census Act. This resulted in Berlin’s passage of the most progressive data protection legislation in the FRG. Our author, who played a key role in the formulation of this revised legislation, provides a brief survey of its most salient points.
A Never-Ending Trial – The Schmücker Murder Case
On the night of June 4th, 1974, a student named Ulrich Schmücker was shot to death in Berlin’s Grunewald forest because he was suspected of being an in-former for the German domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz. For the past 16 years this case has been on trial in the Berlin court system – and is currently being retried for the fourth time. This makes it the longest and most expensive case in the history of the German court system.
One of the most important reasons for the inordinate length of the trial has been Berlin’s state bureau of the Verfassungsschutz itself, in as much as it was inextricably involved in the events leading to the murder through its own undercover agents.
While in the past much of the attention of defense attorneys and journalists was directed at the activities of the Berlin state bureau of the Verfassungs-schutz and its cooperation with the state protection division of the Berlin police force, for quite a while now even the investigating state’s attorneys have come under closer scrutiny.
Particulary the work performed by a special investigating committee set up in Berlin state parliament, the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus, in October of 1989, has caused their past to catch up not only with the Berlin Senate of Justice in general, but also with some of the judges to have formerly served in these proceedings.
Michael in der Wiesche – „CN/CS Gas“
This article is a condensation of the author’s doctoral thesis in medicine in the dermatology and venereology ward of the department of skin diseases at the University of Göttingen on the effects of police use of CN/CS gas against de-monstrators treated at that university’s medical center.
Scientific analysis revealed a broad variety of differing levels toxic reactions in various organs of the body due to exposure to these substances. These include: the eyes, the respiratory tract and the skin in general. Analysis also revealed significant increases in positive reactions to skin allergy testing.
Request for Aid Due to Invalidity Denied
During the years 1980/81 a police officer in the West German state of North Rhine-Westphalia became subject to the effects of the „chemical club“ MACE during the course of his duty as a member of the police force. By 1982 he had begun to perceive diminishing vision. The head of the ophthalmic clinic in Dortmund ascertained that his power of vision has indeed diminished by one percent and his lenses had begun to cloud. The ophthalmologist considered it well within the realm of possibility that this damage was due to „toxic“ exposure such as might have occured while on such duty.
In 1984, the officer was released „unfit for duty“. His suit involving a claim for compensation due to the service invalidity suffered during the course of duty has now been denied. CILIP documents the decision.
Police Use of Firearms 1974-1989
Since 1974, there have been at least 193 fatalities due to police use of firearms. At the same time, the official statistics of the Standing Conference of the Ministeries of the Interior (IMC) indicate some clear trends dating back to 1976. Since then, both the annual number of warning shots fired as well as the number of incidents involving deliberate police use of firearms on duty have continued to decline. However, the decline in fatal police shootings is less marked. In short: The police are shooting less often, but the risk of fatal results has risen.
Fatal Shootings 1988 – A Postscript
In an attempt to clarify a discrepancy documented in Issue No. 33 of CILIP reporting on the number of fatal police shootingsw in 1988, talking with re-presentatives of the offices of IMS has revealed that CILIP had overlooked an incident in 1988. We hereby hustle to cover our tracks.
Violent Crime
That people in the Germany are becoming more violent from year to year and thus life in general more dangerous has become a staple of formed public opi-nion over the past 20 years. Our statistics, provided by the Federal Crime Bu-reau on criminal use of firearms, tell a different story.
Waldemar Burkhard – For A Citizen-Oriented Policing
Former President of the Office for Criminal Investigation in the Federal State of Lower-Saxony, Waldemar Burkhard, reviews the „Conception for a Demo-cratic Restructuring of the Police“ that CILIP staff members have written for the Green Party.
We document his article for the journal „Kriminalistik“ because it seems indi-cative for a tendency on part of the police force to dismiss any critical reflec-tions on the general concept of „Internal Security“ and its ramifications for the police.