Listed below are people killed by non-military law enforcement officers in Germany prior to reunification on 3 October 1990, whether or not in the line of duty, irrespective of reason or method. Included, too, are cases where individuals died in police custody due to applied techniques. Inclusion in the list implies neither wrongdoing nor justification on the part of the person killed or the officer involved. The listing simply documents occurrences of deaths and is not complete. It also includes some killings that occurred in the German colonial empire prior to its dissolution in 1920.

Statistics

+YearNumber killed by use of firearms (official statistics)Zahlen ab 1996 nach: Clemens Lorei: Statistiken im Zusammenhang mit dem polizeilichen Schusswaffeneinsatz , Verwaltungsfachhochschule Hessen – Fachbereich Polizei, Stand: 17. August 2014Zahlen von 1963 - 1969, nur BRD nach: Heiner Busch (Mitverfasser) et al.: Die Polizei in der Bundesrepublik, Ausgabe von 1988Number killed by any means (counted)Number ofshots fired on personsZahlen von 1976 - 1983 nach: Heiner Busch (Mitverfasser) et al.: Die Polizei in der Bundesrepublik, Ausgabe von 19881929at least 461930at least 29341931at least 341952 at least 31 (e.g., )1958at least 51963 at least 4 (North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse only)1964 at least 2 (NRW and Hesse only)1965 at least 6 (NRW and Hesse only)1966 at least 6 (Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, NRW and Hesse only)1967 at least 5 (Benno Ohnesorg, otherwise Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, NRW and Hesse only)1968 at least 10 (Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, NRW and Hesse only)1969 at least 6 (Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, NRW and Hesse only)1970 at least 11 (Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, NRW and Hesse only)1971 at least 8 (e.g. Petra Schelm, )1972 at least 4 (e.g. Tommy Weisbecker, Ian McLeod, , Theo Duifhus)1973 at least 13 (e.g. Erich Dobhardt)1974 10 (e.g. Günter Jendrian)1975 15 (e.g. )Records compiled by historians Albrecht Funk and , as well as jurist listed a minimum of 15 fatal police shootings taking place in 1975.1976 8 1411977 17 (e.g. Helmut Schlaudraff) 1601978 8 (e.g. , ) 1111979 11 1041980 16 (e.g. Manfred Perder) 1111981 17 931982 11 1251983 24 (e.g. Jürgen Bergbauer) 531984 61591985 102031986 121691987 7 1651988 9 1701989 10 1611990 6 (pre-reunification) At least 98Sum 229 minimum (1965 to October 1990 in West Germany)

Figures before 1978 can not be compared directly to later numbers. A list of police killings was first compiled 1997; owing to a legal 20-year document retention limit, some files may have been destroyed. Additionally, the numbers here do not include suicides.

Cases

1900s

1900 Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events 1900-03-XX N.N. HagenauElsaß-LothringenA teenage boy who had fled from a juvenile correctional facility was shot by a Prussian gendarme when he attempted to flee across the France-Germany border. French media alleged that both the boy and the officer had passed the boundary marker. The shooting was published amidst a number of other border encounters between German officials and criminal smugglers, poachers and fugitives. 1906 Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events1906-03-11/12N.N.WindhukGroß-Namaland, Deutsch-SüdwestafrikaColonial police caught a trio of cattle thieves slaughtering one of two stolen oxen at a camp near Hohewarte. The officers immediately opened fire, killing a Herero man while the others escaped. 1908 Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events 1908-09-27/28 N.N. RehobothGroß-Namaland, Deutsch-SüdwestafrikaA police patrol consisting of two German colonial policemen and eight Baster auxiliaries ambushed a group of cattle thieves in the mountains, three armed with rifles. One San man was shot and killed, after which three other men, as well as 16 women and children were arrested.1908-11-XXN.N.RamansdriftKlein-Namaland, Deutsch-SüdwestafrikaColonial police sergeant Johannes Becker and native policeman Abraham pursued two armed native men suspected of stealing a goat. One of them was killed with two gunshots.1908-11-XXN.N.RamansdriftKlein-Namaland, Deutsch-SüdwestafrikaA day after the previous shooting, officers Becker and Abraham encountered the surviving man again, still wielding a rifle. He fled on sight and did not stop after verbal command or warning shots. The man was shot five times, the last of which was fatal. 1909 Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events 1909-03-16/17 3 killed MaltahöheGroß-Namaland, Deutsch-SüdwestafrikaA police patrol led by inspection officer Trenk tracked down a group of San tribesmen wanted for the killing of cattle herder Zarus. Two men were apprehended while three, including the suspected murderer, were shot dead when they fled.

1910s 1914 Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events 1914-02-11 Sefo 17-18 MalieUpolu, Deutsch-Samoa Four Samoan fitafita auxiliaries went on a "Cowboys and Indians"-style robbery spree around Apia, after being inspired by an American cowboy movie, targeting Chinese labourers as "Indians". On 8 February, after being admonished by their superintendent for robbing a meeting of Chinese card players, the group went rogue, robbing the home of police commissioner Pusch, stealing 300 rounds of ammunition. The next day, while looking for more Chinese labourers to rob, the outlaws fatally wounded 31-year-old German rancher Otto Treviranus and his assistant Wilhelm Schlitt when they objected to the harassment of their workers. The group were tracked to the hometown of their mothers. where, after a stand-off with police and locals, a shoot-out occurred. 24-year-old civilian volunteer Otto Hellige was fatally shot and officer Motzkus heavily injured before three of the robbers were killed by other fitafita. The remaining robber, Ao, was sentenced to death and hanged on 14 February.FiliFaalili 1919

Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events1919-02-20/21Steinicke, Moritz15GelsenkirchenProvinz WestfalenA teenage USPD member was arrested without cause by two Reichwehr soldiers, two police officers, and a civilian. In Erle, a soldier and a police officer fatally shot the boy, reportedly when he tried to flee, common phrasing by government-aligned agencies at the time to excuse extrajudicial political murders. The soldier was found not guilty while the police officer was never charged. 1919-03-10 Jogiches, Leo 51Berlin BerlinJogiches, a Polish Jewish politician who founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, was arrested at his apartment in Neukölln in early March. He was extrajudicially killed in custody at via gunshot to the back of the head by two police officers, 19-year-old Ernst Tamschick and 35-year-old Werner Grahn. It's suspected that Tamschick, a right-wing sympathiser with involvement in the Freikorps, had committed the murder as Jogiches was investigating the murders of Communist Party of Germany (KPD) co-founders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg by Guards Cavalry Division following the failed Spartacist Uprising; Jogiches was planning to release the details of the killings and names of the shooters. Tamschick died of natural causes in the 1980s while Grahn was executed by hanging in 1947 at Landsberg Prison for his role in the Mauthausen concentration camp.1919-03-11Borchard, RichardBerlinBerlinPolice searched the apartment of a man accused of firing a gun from a window. Officers arrested him when they found a Russian-made bullet casing, despite the item being a World War I souvenir from 1914. On 18 March, the man's wife received his body at the morgue. He had been shot in the head, and his new stockings and shoes had been removed. The man had no ties to any political groups, though opposed to the Spartacus Uprising, and was a civilian supporter of the Imperial German Army.1919-05-04Kling, MarieMünchenMünchner RäterepublikOn 3 May, Weimar Republic police arrested a man because his daughter was carrying ammunition. His other daughter voluntarily joined her father at the police jail in Giesing. She was subsequently criminally charged for carrying a red flag, which an officer interpreted as a possible attack symbol. Both father and daughter were volunteer nurses for the Munich Republic Red Army. A jury exonerated her after convincing witness testimony the same day and she was set for release on 4 May. Without authorisation, police transported the daughter to Stadelheim Prison, where she was "used as a target practice dummy". She was shot in the foot, calf, thigh and finally the head. No one was charged because the case documents were lost.1919-05-1831BerlinBerlinDorrenbach, a German military officer who helped organise the Volksmarinedivision and was a prominent Social Democratic Party of Germany politician, was arrested hiding at a supporter's house in early May for his role in the 1918 Christmas crisis and Spartacist uprising. He was extrajudicially killed in custody at Moabit Criminal Court via gunshot to the back of the head by police officer Ernst Tamschick, who claimed that Dorrenbach had attempted to escape.

1920s 1920

Date(YYYY-MM-TT) Name Age Place State Summary of events 1920-01-13 42 killed BerlinBerlin The Reichstag Bloodbath () occurred in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin during negotiations by the Weimar National Assembly on the Works Council Act (). Sicherheitspolizei shot into a crowd of protesters, killing a minimum of 20 people, but modern estimates place the number of dead at 42. It is regarded as the bloodiest demonstration in modern German history. The event was overshadowed two months later by the Kapp Putsch but remained in the collective memory of Berlin's labour movement and security forces.1920-12-29Hoffmann, PaulFlensburgProvinz Schleswig-HolsteinOn 28 December, a communist was arrested after being implicated by an informant for allegedly planning a coup. The following morning, the prisoner was shot twice in the back while reportedly assaulting an officer and attempting to flee. The unit commander, von Plüskow, was investigated and transferred with no other penalties. 1921