Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation

Formed in May 1946 as a successor agency to the Munich Criminal Investigation Department dissolved in April 1945, the ‘Landeserkennungsamt’ (State Identification Office) was the predecessor of the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation (BLKA). Since the Allies were initially hesitant to establish a supra-regional, central police authority after the experience of the Nazi police state, the Identification Office (and then the ‘Central Bureau’) initially only operated as an intelligence collection point. It did not receive executive powers until 1952, when it was renamed the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation.

Its personnel were recruited from various law enforcement agencies. The number of employees grew considerably, from 50 (in 1947) to 380 (in 1956). This made the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation by far the biggest State Office of Criminal Investigation in the Federal Republic of Germany. In addition to the ‘Central Agency for Vagrants’ which monitored the Sinti/Sintize and Roma/Romnja in Bavaria, the BLKA also had a state security department, among other things, from December 1953. This department was first headed by the former senior Gestapo official Joseph Schreieder. In 1958, the BLKA also gained a Special Division, long understaffed, which prosecuted Nazi crimes.