Abstract:
Cases of police misbehaviour and crimes committed by the police, discussed by the German public, raised the doubts about control of the police in Germany. This has led to demands for alternative forms and more democratic mechanism of police control. The paper describes the development of institutions and mechanisms for the control of the police in Germany since World War II, i.e. from Polizeiausschüsse (Watch Committees) in the British Zone of Occupation in the second half of the I 940s, through Polizeibeiräte ( Police Advisory Committee) from the early 1950s on, up to the recently introduced Hamburger Polizeikommission ( Police Commission of Hamburg).