The Bavarian Border Police (German : Bayerische Grenzpolizei or GrePo) is a police division within the Bavarian State Police (Polizei Bayern). It is the third arm of the police force alongside the state police and the riot police ( Bereitschaftspolizei ). It existed from 1946 (independently from 1952) to 1998 and was responsible for the federal borders in Bavaria. It was re-established as an independent arm in 2018, having no responsibility for border control.
In 1945 the Bavarian Border Police – then known as the Bavarian State Border Police (Bayerische Landesgrenzpolizei) – was reformed. The latter had existed from 1919 to 1934 in the shape of a Bavarian Border Police Commissariat on the borders between Lindau on Lake Constance and Eger. Its reformation was authorised by VA No. 72 on 15 November 1945 which established a Bavarian State Border Police force, the order taking effect from 1 March 1946. The first units were deployed by the American occupation powers as "Border Police".
On 15 March 1947, the overall responsibility for border control and implementation of Military Government Law No. 161 was transferred to the Bavarian Border Police. However, the border police continued to receive their orders from the Military Government. The responsibility for checking members of the allied military forces and their dependents was exclusively carried out by American military personnel.
On 28 October 1952, the Bavarian Police Organisation law was passed (Polizeiorganisationsgesetz). Articles 34 to 41 of this law governed the border police and their mission, which was: "the supervision and policing of the state borders, especially supervision of border traffic and carrying out the dispatch and reception of people, including the supervision of passengers at airports". Their departments were given descriptions that corresponded to those of the state police.
The last agreement over responsibilities vis-à-vis the Bundesgrenzschutz was spelt out by an administrative agreement, dated 16 July 1975, between the Interior Ministry and the Bavarian State Government, which dealt with the exercise of tasks by the border police arm of the police service in Bavaria.
The only other German state that had its own border police in the post-war era was Hesse, whose border force was operational on the Soviet, British and French zones from 1945 until 1 October 1950, when it was incorporated by the state police. Events in the late 1980s signalled the end of the Bavarian Border Police. Austria's entry into the EU on 1 January 1995 and on 28 April 1995 to the Schengen Treaty fundamentally changed the situation on the Bavarian-Austrian border.
From 1 January 1997, border controls on traffic from Austria were lifted in stages.
With the incorporation of the Bavarian Border Police into the Bavarian State Police, their history came to an end on 31 March 1998. They were replaced by police departments that almost exclusively deal with cross-border traffic. These include: the Missing Persons Police Department (Polizeiinspektion Fahndung or PIF) with border police stations (GPS) and the Search and Inspection Force (Fahndungs- und Kontrolltrupp or FKT). FKT officials are civilian and also work outside Bavaria, in areas near the border. The border officers (Grenzbeauftragter) are the only vestige of the old border police that remains.
Due to the European migrant crisis in 2015 and the establishment of border controls on the Austrian border, the state border police was re-established in 2018. [2] [3] The police force's headquarters are in Passau. The strength of the force will be approximately 1,000 officers. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of 70,550.19 km2 (27,239.58 sq mi), it is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and with over 13.08 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous German state, behind only North Rhine-Westphalia; however, due to its large land area, its population density is below the German average. Major cities include Munich, Nuremberg, and Augsburg.
Braunau am Inn is a town in Upper Austria on the border with Germany. It is known for being the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
The Landtag of Bavaria, officially known in English as the Bavarian State Parliament, is the unicameral legislature of the German state of Bavaria. The parliament meets in the Maximilianeum in Munich.
Bavarians are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern, roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.
The Innviertel is a traditional Austrian region southeast of the Inn river. It forms the western part of the state of Upper Austria and borders the German state of Bavaria. The Innviertel is one of the four traditional "quarters" of Upper Austria, the others being Hausruckviertel, Mühlviertel, and Traunviertel.
The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books, it ranks among the leading research libraries worldwide. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek furthermore is Europe's second-largest journals library. Furthermore, its historical holdings encompass one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 totals almost one million units.
Bayerische Landesbank, also known as BayernLB, is a publicly regulated bank based in Munich, Germany and one of the six Landesbanken. It is 75% owned by the Free State of Bavaria and 25% owned by the Sparkassenverband Bayern, the umbrella organization of Bavarian Sparkassen. With a balance of €285,70 billion and 7,703 employees, it is the seventh-largest financial institution in Germany.
The Bavarian State Police is the state police force of the German state of Bavaria under the umbrella of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. It has approximately 33,500 armed officers and roughly 8,500 other civilian employees.
The Royal Bavarian State Railways was the state railway company for the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded in 1844. The organisation grew into the second largest of the German state railways with a railway network of 8,526 kilometres by the end of the First World War.
The Royal Bavarian Eastern Railway Company or Bavarian Ostbahn was founded in 1856. Within just two decades it built an extensive railway network in the eastern Bavarian provinces of Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) and Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern) that had previously been largely undisturbed by the railway. Much of this network is still important for local and long distance rail traffic operated by the Deutsche Bahn today.
The Bavarian Maximilian Railway was as an east–west line built between the Bavarian border with Württemberg at Neu-Ulm in the west via Augsburg, Munich and Rosenheim to the Austrian border at Kufstein and Salzburg in the east as part of the Royal Bavarian State Railways. The Munich–Augsburg section of the line had already been built by the Munich-Augsburg Railway Company and opened in 1840. The line was named after the reigning King of Bavaria from 1848 to 1864 Maximilian II.
The border guards of the inner German border comprised tens of thousands of military, paramilitary and civilian personnel from both East and West Germany, as well as from the United Kingdom, the United States and initially the Soviet Union.
Markus Thomas Theodor Söder is a German politician serving as Minister-President of Bavaria since 2018 and leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) since 2019.
The 2018 Bavarian state election took place on 14 October 2018 to elect the 180 members of the 18th Landtag of Bavaria. The outgoing government was a majority of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), led by Minister President Markus Söder.
The Kreuzpflicht is a requirement for a cross to be mounted at the entrance of public buildings in the German federated state of Bavaria. The regulation was enacted by the state government of Bavaria in 2018. Colleges, museums and theaters are exempt from the rule, but the state government still recommends that they should display crosses.
The Bavarian Political Police, BPP, was a police force in the German state of Bavaria, active from 1933 to 1936. It served as a forerunner of the Gestapo in Bavaria, the secret police during the Nazi era, and was predominantly engaged in the persecution of political opponents of the Nazis.
The Bayerisches Armeemuseum is the Military History Museum of Bavaria. It was founded in 1879 in Munich and is located in Ingolstadt since 1972. The main collection is housed in the New Castle, the permanent exhibition about the First World War in Reduit Tilly opened in 1994 and the Armeemuseum incorporated the Bayerisches Polizeimuseum in the Turm Triva in 2012. Today, part of the former Munich Museum building is the central building of the new Bayerische Staatskanzlei.
The 2023 Bavarian state election was held on 8 October 2023 to elect the members of the 19th Landtag of Bavaria. The outgoing government was a coalition of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) and the Free Voters of Bavaria (FW) led by Minister-President of Bavaria Markus Söder. The 2023 Hessian state election was held the same day.
Florian Herrmann is a German lawyer and politician (CSU). He has been a member of the Bavarian State Parliament since 2008, Head of the Bavarian State Chancellery and Bavarian Minister of State for Federal and European Affairs and the Media since 2018, and for Federal Affairs and the Media since 2021.
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