Interpol 1933 to 1956 Fighting crime globally between National Socialism and the Cold War

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jens Jäger
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 545929619

Interpol is the oldest (established in 1923) and largest international organization (currently 195 member states) that serves to coordinate the fight against crime worldwide. However, its history is not thoroughly explored and analyzed. A reappraisal of its past is incomplete, in particular the period between 1933 and 1945 - a phase in which the German police controlled Interpol to a large extent and from 1940 absolutely - has been little researched. Likewise, the early post-war history from the revival in 1946 to the first major reform in 1956 lacks scholarly attention. The task of the project is, firstly, to shed more light on the phase between 1933 and 1956. Focus will be on the personal networks that decisively determined the fate of the organization and on the structures of Interpol, which - according to recent organizational theory - not only made it possible for the organization to be taken over by National Socialist Germany, but also decisively determined Interpol's post-war problems. Problems that, incidentally, continue to have an impact today, despite various reforms of the organization, and which facilitate the misuse of global police resources by dictatorial and authoritarian regimes. The project is therefore also dedicated to the fundamental question of how international organizations can act, whose work is deeply intertwined with national arcane areas (such as criminal prosecution) and which have to take into account the very different legal regulations and practices within the member states in order to be able to operate at all. The project has five goals: 1. provide a clear, source-based account of Interpol's history during the period in question, including the organization's takeover by Nazi Germany and its reestablishment in 1946. 2. to explore the circumstances of the 1946 revival and to critically trace the activity up to 1956 under the conditions of global bloc formation, illuminating the role of key figures such as Florent Louwage and others who had helped determine Interpol's fortunes since the 1930s. 3. to trace basic beliefs about (global) crime which made international cooperation feasible, such as common ideas about the development and causes of international crime and strategies to combat it. It is hypothesized that strong continuities existed beyond 1945. 4. Interpol has to be understood primarily as a network of those involved, since the continuity of the organization was characterized by personal contacts, the basis of which was a specific, professional understanding of criminal police work and camaraderie. 5. to make a contribution to transnational and global historiography on a theoretical level, building on recent works on "expert cultures" and transnational research within the framework of "Intelligence Studies" and adding new aspects to the reassessment of the "Cold War".

• DFG Programme: Research Grants