The Policing of Berlin as a Post-Conflict City

Abstract

The essay explores the difficult transition from war to peace in the defeated capital of Hitler’s Third Reich. Not only did Soviet forces exact terrible revenge on the civilian population, but conditions of desperation and hunger led to a spike in blackmarket activity and crime. The Unconditional Surrender, ratified by Potsdam, set up a significant imbalance of power between the occupiers and the occupied. Amid conditions of continued hunger, in the sheets as well as on the streets, such a blatant asymmetry encouraged exploitation and immorality. As a wounded and postconflict city, Berlin posed special problems for the police authorities. With many policemen having tainted themselves through participation in illegitimate oppression and war crimes, policing had to be begun again from scratch. Although the Allies had lofty ideals of how to reform policing (reflecting their national traditions, but also progressive ideas about the employment of women), their lack of unity, together with the scale of the practical difficulties the city faced, meant that such reforms became watered down and ineffectual. The former capital’s need to regenerate and heal was sacrificed to the needs of the cold war. Women and antiNazis were increasingly marginalized, while former Gestapo men found favour.