The Technique of Criminal Investigation in Germany

Abstract

In accordance with the law of the German Reich (Strafprozessordnung), criminal investigation devolves upon three governmental agencies: the police, the Federal prosecutor (Staatsanwalt) and the investigating judge, to whom the police magistrate of AngloSaxon countries offers the closest analogy. For our present purposes, we need not speak in detail of the investigating judge, for he acts only in exceptional cases defined by law. His entry cannot take place until a definite individual is named as the guilty person and until public accusation has already been made by the Federal prosecutor. The Federal prosecutor must take the lead in criminal investigation, according to the letter of the law, while the third of the agencies named above, the police, is assigned a very modest part in criminal investigation. It is merely an auxiliary to the Federal prosecutor. The latter prescribes the course of the investigation to be followed in specific cases, and the police must carry out his orders obediently.2 Only in urgent cases, when the awaital of orders from the Federal prosecutor would imperil the success of the investigation, may the police act independently.3 In practice, however, the situation is the reverse of what one might suppose from the text of the law. Inasmuch as