Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:48:04.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policing the Cold War: The Emergence of New Police Structures in Europe 1946–1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

We have recently been reminded of the existence of a ‘missing dimension’ in national security affairs, namely the whole question of secret intelligence and clandestine operations. It can also be suggested that the question of internal security has traditionally represented another gap, though one that occurs for very different reasons. Traditionally, secret intelligence was often unavailable as a subject for comment or academic study precisely because of its secrecy. Internal security included some areas of sensitive political surveillance that fell into the same category; but continued across the spectrum to regular uniformed police work, a subject apparently too mundane and obvious for inclusion in accounts of political history. Police of all categories belong, it seems, to social rather than political history – the world of ‘history with the politics left out’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1988 , pp. 141 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Andrew, Christopher and Dilks, David, ed., The missing dimension (London, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrew, Christopher, Secret service (London, 1985)Google Scholar. The literature on internal security is growing rapidly: see, for example, many articles in Intelligence and National Security, especially 1986.

2 Works used throughout as reference material on police forces include: Andrade, John, World police and paramilitary forces (London, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Becker, Harold K., Police systems of Europe, 2nd edn (Springfield, IL, 1980)Google Scholar; Shane, Paul G., Police and people. (St Louis, MO, 1980)Google Scholar; Cramer, James, The world's police (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Cole, George F. et al. , Major criminal justice systems (Beverly Hills, 1981)Google Scholar; Terrill, Richard J., World criminal justice systems (Cincinnati, 1984)Google Scholar; Roach, John and Thomaneck, Jurgen, Police and public order in Europe (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

3 Ovendale, R., ‘Britain, the USA and the European cold war 1945–8’, History, LXVII (1982)Google Scholar; Young, John W., Britain, France and the unity of Europe 1945–51 (Leicester, 1984)Google Scholar; Anderson, Terry H., The US, Great Britain and the cold war 1944–7 (Columbia, MO, 1981)Google Scholar; Reynolds, David, ‘The origins of the cold war: the European dimension 1944–1951’, Historical Journal, XXVIII (1985), 497–515CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yergin, Daniel, Shattered peace: the origins of the cold war and the national security state (London, 1978)Google Scholar; McGeehan, Robert, The German rearmament question (Urbana, 1971)Google Scholar; Milward, Alan S., The reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–1951 (London, 1984)Google Scholar; Aronsen, Lawrence and Kitchen, Martin, The origins of the cold war in comparative perspective (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

4 Myant, Martin R., Socialism and democracy in Czechoslovakia 1945–1948 (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCauley, Martin, ed., Communist power in Europe 1944–1949 (London, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taubman, William, Stalin's American policy: from entente to detente to cold war (New York, 1982)Google Scholar.

5 It was during this period, in 1951, that there appeared one of the most influential discussions of the police state and the role of the secret police in a repressive state: Arendt, Hannah, The origins of totalitarianism, new edn (New York, 1973), especially pp. 425–35Google Scholar; see also Chapman, Brian, Police state (London, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Of course, there were earlier revelations and scandals about the Stalinist states, as in debates that occurred in France in the early 1950s. See Conquest, Robert, The great fear (London, 1971), pp. 679–82Google Scholar; Kravchenko, Victor, I chose freedom (New York, 1946)Google Scholar.

7 Liang, H. H., The Berlin police force in the Weimar republic (Berkeley, CA, 1970)Google Scholar; Fosdick, R. B., European police systems (Montclair, NJ, 1969)Google Scholar; Thomaneck, J., ‘Police and public order in the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Roach, and Thomaneck, , Police, pp. 143–84Google Scholar; Neufeldt, Hans-Joachim, Huck, J. and Tessin, G., Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei 1936–1945. Schriften des Bundesarchivs 3 (Koblenz, 1957)Google Scholar; Fairchild, Erika S., ‘Police power and public accountability in the Federal Republic of Germany’, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences meeting (Chicago, IL, 03 1984)Google Scholar; Stead, Philip J., The police of France (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

8 Liang, Berlin police.

9 Corson, William R. and Crowley, Robert T., The new KGB (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Conquest, Great fear.

10 Shane, Police and people.

11 Ibid. pp. 124–5.

12 Stead, Police; le Texier, R., Us C.R.S. (Paris, 1981)Google Scholar; Bowden, Tom, ‘The police and revolutionary protest’, in Bowden, , Beyond the limits of the law (London, 1978), pp. 138–62Google Scholar.

13 Donnison, F. S. V., Civil affairs and military government in north-west Europe 1944–6 (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Peterson, Edward N., The American occupation of Germany (Detroit, 1977)Google Scholar; Barnet, R. J., ‘US-German relations’, New Yorker (10 10 1983), pp. 53–107Google Scholar.

14 McWilliams, John, ‘The protectors: Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics 1930–1962’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1986), pp. 161–6Google Scholar.

15 For Scotland Yard at this time, SirJackson, Richard, Occupied with crime (Garden City, 1967), p. 99Google Scholar; Rolph, C. H., ‘Viscount Trenchard’, in Stead, P. J., ed., Pioneers in policing (Montclair, NJ, 1977), pp. 224, 240Google Scholar; see Chapman, Police stale: this important book suffers somewhat from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, in that its list of essential characteristics of a ‘police state’ includes many features common in democratic Roman law countries – a national force, a centralized riot police and paramilitary gendarmerie, and so on.

16 Fairchild, ‘Police power’.

17 Maier, Charles S., ‘The two post-war eras and the codititon for stability in twentieth century western Europe’, American Historical Review, 86 (1981), 327–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yergin, Shattered peace.

18 Ranelagh, John, The agency (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Powers, Thomas, The man who kept the secrets (New York, 1979)Google Scholar. For the ideological conflict of the era, see Adler, Les k. and Paterson, Thomas G., ‘Red fascism: the merger of nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the American image of totalitarianism 1930s–1950s’, American Historical Review, LXXV (1970), 1046–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Armstrong, Philip, Glyn, Andrew and Harrison, John, Capitalism since world war II (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

20 Ibid. p. 134.

21 For ‘workers' militia’ police units as an enduring nightmare on the right, see Moss, Robert, The collapse of democracy (London, 1977), pp. 23–34Google Scholar.

22 Eudes, Dominique, The Kapetanios (New York, 1972)Google Scholar; Alexander, G. M., The prelude to the Truman doctrine (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar.

23 Ross, G., Workers and communists in France (Berkeley, 1982)Google Scholar; Moore, J., Japanese workers and the struggle for power 1945–7 (Madison, 1983)Google Scholar.

24 Roach, J., ‘The French police’, in Roach, and Thomaneck, , Police, pp. 107–41Google Scholar.

25 Agulhon, Maurice and Barrat, Fernand, C.R.S. à Marseille (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar.

26 McCoy, Alfred W., The politics of heroin in south east Asia (New York, 1972), p. 43Google Scholar.

27 Barnes, Trevor, ‘The secret cold war: the CIA and American foreign policy 1946–1956’, Part 1 in Historical Journal, XXIV (1981), 399–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Part 2 in idem, XXV (1982), 649–70; Galante, P. and Sapin, L., The Marseilles mafia (London, 1979)Google Scholar; McCoy, , Politics of heroin, pp. 36–46Google Scholar.

28 Lewis, Norman, The honoured society (London, 1984)Google Scholar. For other intelligence uses of organized crime, see Block, Alan A., ‘A modern marriage of convenience’, in Kelly, R. J., ed., Organized crime: a global perspective (Totowa, NJ, 1986). pp. 58–77Google Scholar.

29 Sayer, Ian and Botting, Douglas, Nazi gold (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

30 Clinard, Marshall B., The black market: a study of white-collar crime. (Montclair, NJ, 1969)Google Scholar; probably the best study of the political impact of the post-war black market is Kaplan, David E. and Dubro, Alex, yakuza (Reading, MA, 1986)Google Scholar.

There is abundant material available on the British black market, though this remains to be treated systematically. Particularly informative are two murder cases of this era, where the offenders were both major racketeers – Brian Donald Hume (1949) and John Donald Merrett (1954). Their respective careers symbolize a generation of international illegality. See, for example, Wilson, Colin and Pitman, Patricia, Encyclopaedia of murder (New York, 1961)Google Scholar.

31 McCoy, Politics of heroin.

32 Though see Milward, Reconstruction.

33 Fricke, Karl Wilhelm, Die Staatssicherheit D.D.R. (Cologne, 1984)Google Scholar; idem, Politik und Justiz in der D.D.R. (Cologne, 1979); Sandford, Gregory W., From Hitler to Ulbricht: the communist reconstruction of East Germany 1945–6 (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar; McCauley, Communist power.

34 Fricke, Staatssicherheit.

35 ‘40 Jahre, Hiltrup: Von der Zentral-Polizeischule zur Polizei-Fuhrungsakademie’, Schriftenreihe der PFA, 3–4 (1985)Google Scholar; Donnison, Civil affairs.

36 Fairchild, ‘Police powers’.

37 Cobler, Sebastian, Law, order and politics in West Germany (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

38 Finer, S. E., ed., Five constitutions (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Thomaneck, , ‘Police and public order’, in Roach, and Thomaneck, , Police, pp. 143–84Google Scholar.

39 Cerquetti, Enea, Le forze armate Italiane dal 1945 a 1975 (Milan, 1975)Google Scholar; Balton, Michael, ed., European policing (New York, 1978), p. 32Google Scholar.

40 Collin, Richard, ‘The blunt instruments’, in Roach, and Thomaneck, , Police, 185–214Google Scholar; Canosa, Romano, La polizia in Italia del 1945 a oggi (Bologna, 1976)Google Scholar.

41 Bayley, David H., Forces of order (Berkeley, CA, 1976)Google Scholar.

42 National Police Agency, The police of Japan (Tokyo, n.d., c. 1979)Google Scholar; Deacon, Richard, Kempei Tai: a history of the Japanese secret service (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Williams, Justin, Japan's political revolution under MacArthur (Athens, GA, 1979)Google Scholar; Kaplan, and Dubro, , yakuza, pp. 43–100Google Scholar; Moore, Japanese workers.

43 Brown, Anthony Cave, Operation: world war III (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Kaku, Michio and Axelrod, Daniel, To win a nuclear war: the Pentagon's secret war (Boston, forthcoming 1987)Google Scholar.

44 Ranelaugh, Agency; Powers, Man who kept the secrets; Andrew, , Secret service, pp. 492–3Google Scholar.

45 de Lutiis, Giuseppe, Storia dei servizi segreti in Italia (Rome, 1985)Google Scholar.

46 Andrew, , Secret service, pp. 489–91Google Scholar; Allason, Rupert, The Branch: a history of the metropolitan police special branch (London, 1983)Google Scholar; idem (‘Nigel West’), The circus: MI5 operations 1945–1972 (New York, 1983); Miller, Joan, One girl's war (Dingle, 1986)Google Scholar; Bloch, Jonathan and Fitzgerald, Patrick, British intelligence and covert action (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Cockerill, A. W., Sir Percy Sillitoe (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

47 For Labour party attitudes to the police, see Morgan, Kenneth O., Labour in power 1945–1951 (Oxford, 1985), p. 56Google Scholar. Interestingly, Professor Morgan's very wide-ranging account of the Labour government makes virtually no mention of intelligence matters.

In fact, the late 1940s witnessed a number of distinctly un-Conservative innovations in policing, notably a serious drive against white-collar and corporate crime, and the creation of the Fraud Squad. Jackson, Occupied with crime; see also Taylor, Ian, Law and order: arguments for socialism (London, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mannheim, Hermann, Group problems in crime and punishment (London, 1955)Google Scholar.

48 In 1948, the Special Branch were described as ‘the nearest thing to Continental secret police organizations Britain has’ (quoted in Allason, , Branch, p. 93Google Scholar). Note the assumption that secret police are automatically ‘Continental’.

49 Bunyan, Tony, History and practice of the political police in Britain (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Allason, , Branch, p. 152Google Scholar; Hennessey, Peter and Brownfield, Gail, ‘Britain's cold war security purge: the origins of positive vetting’, Historical Journal, XXV (1982), 965–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the rapid expansion of counter-subversion activities in Canada at this time, see Sawatsky, John, Men in the shadows: the RCMP security service (Toronto, 1983), pp. 99–100Google Scholar; Aronsen, Lawrence R., ‘“Peace, order and good government” during the cold war’, Intelligence and National Security, I (3) (1986)Google Scholar.

50 Gehlen, Reinhard, The Gehlen memoirs (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Zolling, Hermann and Hohne, Heinz, Pullach intern – General Gehlen und die Geschichte des BND (Hamburg, 1971)Google Scholar; Cookridge, E. H., Gehlen: spy of the century (New York, 1971)Google Scholar. For the usefulness of the old Nazis to the occupation forces, see, for example, Linklater, Magnus, Hilton, Isabel and Ascherson, Neal, The nazi legacy (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Anderson, Scott and Anderson, John Lee, Inside the league (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Higham, Charles, American swastika (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

51 Cobler, West Germany.

52 Ibid., especially pp. 52–71.

53 Deacon, Japanese secret service.

54 Fejtö, Francois, A history of the people's democracies (London, 1974)Google Scholar.