Polizei is the German word for

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

. Police in Germany, Austria and Switzerland consist of different agencies. It might refer to:

National agencies

Bundespolizei (Germany) The Federal Police (''Bundespolizei'' or BPOL) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the German Federal Government, being subordinate to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (''Bundesministerium ...

, Federal Police of Germany *

Bundespolizei (Austria) The Federal Police ( de-AT, Bundespolizei) is the national and principal law enforcement agency of Austria. The Federal Police was formed in July 2005 as one formal unit of police. In 2005, the Federal Police replaced the Austrian Federal Gendar ...

, Federal Police of Austria *

Bundeskriminalamt (Germany) The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (in German: ', abbreviated ') is the federal investigative police agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. It is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Hesse, and mai ...

, Federal Criminal Office of Germany, comparable to the FBI *

Bundeskriminalamt (Austria) The Directorate General for Public Security (''Generaldirektion für die öffentliche Sicherheit'', "GDföS") is the governing body of general law enforcement in Austria and a division of the Ministry of the Interior. It oversees the Federal Polic ...

, Federal Investigation Bureau of Austria *

Polizei beim Deutschen Bundestag Polizei beim Deutschen Bundestag ( en, Police at the German Bundestag), also known as Parlamentspolizei or Bundestagspolizei, is a separate police force for the premises of the Bundestag (the German parliament's lower house) in Berlin. The police ...

, the German Parliament Police

State agencies

* Landespolizei, state police of Germany *

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 superv ...

, an independent agency in most German states that is subordinate to the state ministry of the interior

Police units

Autobahnpolizei is the term in Germany for the highway patrol. Heavy traffic and high-speed accidents resulted in the creation of special police units to patrol the expressways known as ''Autobahnen''. Organisation Although the autobahns are federal roads, t ...

, highway police *

Bahnpolizei ''Bahnpolizei'' is the term in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland for the Railway police. Germany ''Bahnpolizei'' was the name of the former Railway police of West Germany and fell under the jurisdiction of the ''Deutsche ...

, railway police *

Bereitschaftspolizei The ''Bereitschaftspolizei'' (literally 'Readiness Police'/On-Call Police (Reserve); effectively riot police) are the support and rapid reaction units of Germany's police forces. They are composed of detachments from the Federal Police and ...

, police support group and riot police of Germany *

Kriminalpolizei ''Kriminalpolizei'' (, "criminal police") is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal polic ...

, criminal Investigation Police in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; similar to the British Criminal Investigation Department *

Schutzpolizei The ''Schutzpolizei'' (), or ''Schupo'' () for short, is a uniform-wearing branch of the ''Landespolizei'', the state (''Land'') level police of the states of Germany. ''Schutzpolizei'' literally means security or protection police, but it is b ...

, a branch of the Landespolizei, the state (land) level police of the German states * Spezialeinsatzkommando, specialized operation armed response units of the sixteen German state police forces *

Wasserschutzpolizei The ''Wasserschutzpolizei'' (WSP - literally translated "Water Protection Police" in German) is the river police that patrols the waterways, lakes and harbours of Germany around the clock. The WSP are part of the ''Landespolizei'' (State Pol ...

, water police that patrols the waterways, lakes and harbours of Germany

Defunct agencies

Volkspolizei The ''Deutsche Volkspolizei'' (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the ''Volkspolizei'' or VoPo, was the national police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a h ...

, the People's Police in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) *

Transportpolizei The ''Transportpolizei'' (German for "Transport Police") was the transit police of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), whose officers were commonly nicknamed TraPos. It was part of the '' Volkspolizei'' and dealt with all modes of tra ...

, the transit police in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) * Polizei der Freien Stadt Danzig, state constabulary of the Free City of Danzig, including the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' (1919-1921) and the ''Schutzpolizei'' (1921-1945) *

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...

, regular police force of National Socialist (Nazi) Germany ** 4th SS ''Polizei'' Panzergrenadier Division, SS unit formed by Ordnungspolizei members *

Sicherheitspolizei The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the ...

, secret police in Germany until the outbreak of World War II *

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

(Geheime Staatspolizei), secret police of the Nazi regime *

Geheime Feldpolizei The ''Geheime Feldpolizei'', short: ''GFP'' (), , was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of the Second World War (1945). Its units carried out plain-clothed security work in the field - such as counter-espionage, ...

, secret military police of Nazi Germany * Preußische Geheimpolizei, the Prussian Secret Police {{disambiguation