Kriminalpolizei (English: Criminal Police), often abbreviated as Kripo, is the German name for a criminal investigation department. This article deals with the agency during the Nazi era.

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Kripo

Kriminalpolizei
Agency overview
Superseding agency	Landespolizei
Type	Criminal police
Jurisdiction	Germany Occupied Europe
Headquarters	RSHA, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin 52°30′26″N 13°22′57″E
Employees	12,792 c. February 1944[1]
Minister responsible	Heinrich Himmler 1934–1939, Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei
Agency executives	Arthur Nebe July 1936–1944, Chief of the Kriminalpolizei Friedrich Panzinger 1944–1945, Chief of the Kriminalpolizei
Parent agency	Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)

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In Nazi Germany, the Kripo consisted of the Reich Criminal Police Department (RKPA), which in 1939 became Department V of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). There were criminal investigation centers directly subordinated to RKPA as well as criminal investigation divisions of the local state and municipal police departments. In 1943 both the latter became directly subordinated to the criminal investigation centers. The personnel consisted of detectives in the junior, executive, and female careers, as well as criminal investigation employees.

After Adolf Hitler took office in January 1933, the Nazis began a programme of "coordination" of all aspects of German life, in order to consolidate the Nazi Party's hold on power.^[2] In July 1936, the Prussian central criminal investigation department (Landeskriminalpolizeiamt) became the central criminal investigation department for Germany, the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (RKPA). It was combined, along with the secret state police, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo into two sub-branch departments of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), which had a central command office known as the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei.^[3] Reinhard Heydrich was in overall command of the SiPo, including its central command office.^[3][4] Arthur Nebe was appointed head of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt, and reported directly to Heydrich.^[5]

In September 1939, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) was created as the overarching command organization for the various state investigation and security agencies.^[6] The Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei was officially abolished and its departments were folded into the Reich Main Security Office. The Reichskriminalpolizeiamt became Amt V (Department 5), the Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police) in the RSHA.^[6] It was commanded by Nebe until the summer of 1944, when he was denounced and executed subsequent to the failed 20 July plot to kill Hitler. In the last year of its existence, Amt V was commanded by Friedrich Panzinger who answered directly to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Reich Security Main Office after Heydrich's assassination in 1942.^[5][7]

The Kriminalpolizei mostly consisted of plainclothes detectives and agents, and worked in conjunction with the Gestapo, the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; uniformed police) and the Geheime Feldpolizei.^[3][8] The policy directives came from the SS-Hauptamt (SS Main Office) and after 1940, the SS Führungshauptamt (SS Leadership Main Office). The Kripo was organized in a hierarchical system, with central offices in all towns and smaller cities. These, in turn, answered to headquarters offices in the larger German cities which answered to Amt V in Berlin.^[9]

The Kriminalpolizei was mainly concerned with serious crimes such as rape, murder and arson. A main area of the group's focus was also on "blackout burglary," considered a serious problem during bombing raids when criminals would raid abandoned homes, shops and factories for any available valuables. The Kripo was also one of the sources of manpower used to fill the ranks of the Einsatzgruppen when the units were re-formed prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.^[10] Several senior Kripo commanders, Arthur Nebe among them, were assigned as Einsatzgruppen commanders. The Einsatzgruppen mobile death squad units perpetrated atrocities in the occupied Soviet Union, including mass murder of Jews, communists, prisoners of war, and hostages, and played a key role in the Holocaust.^[11]

As part of the Nazi doctrines on crime and race, the Rassenhygienische und Bevölkerungsbiologische Forschungsstelle (English: Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit) headed by psychiatrist and medical doctor Robert Ritter, was attached to the Kripo. Its role was to create racial profiles of non-Aryans, in particular, Roma. Both the Gestapo and the Kripo deferred their policies and guidelines to the criminal biology department on how to deal with "Gypsies".^[12] The Kripo aided in the round ups of Roma and their deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps.

There were two separate criminal investigation officer careers: the junior criminal investigation career (einfacher Vollzugsdienst) and the executive criminal investigation career (leitender Vollzugsdienst).^[14][15] There were also a female criminal investigation career (weibliche Kriminalpolizei).^[16] In addition there were criminal investigation employees, who were salaried public employees but not civil servants.^[17]