WesWorld

These elements constitute the national police establishment under the control of the Minister of Justice. They act on a national rather than provincial or municipal scale, though often in concert with provincial or local police authorities.


Kriminalpolizei

The Kriminalpolizei functions as an investigative agency at the national level, responsible for combating organised crime and national/transnational criminal organisations, investigating cases of public corruption, bank robbery, bank, mail and wire fraud, and all crimes where the perpetrator or perpetrators have fled from one provincial jurisdiction to another. The Kriminalpolizei has offices in every major city across the nation, and maintains extensive records of criminal convictions and prosecutions. Its laboratories have extensive forensic capabilities that are available to assist provincial police in their investigations. The Kriminalpolizei is the national entity in charge of liaison with the International Criminal Police Commission.


Autobahnpolizei

The Autobahnpolizei is charged with the management of traffic, the recording of road accidents, eliminating traffic disruption, congestion monitoring and prosecution of offences, principally traffic offenses, committed on the roads of the National Motorways system. Within the Autobahnpolizei there are divisions dealing with specific tasks such as traffic control, road haulage safety and traffic safety. Personnel are recruited and trained on a general basis, and the Autobahnpolizei acts as a unified force in concert with but not subject to provincial police authorities.


Bahnschutzpolizei

The Bahnschutzpolizei is charged with the security and safety of the Reichsbahn railway network. Their mission is to assure the security of railway stations and rail yards from sabotage and to provide protective and safety services to patrons of the national rail network. Personnel are recruited and trained on a general basis, and the Bahnschutzpolizei acts as a unified force in concert with but not subject to provincial police authorities.


Grenzschutzpolizei

The Grenzschutzpolizei is responsible for: policing the national boundaries - land, water and air; police control of cross-border traffic including checking of border papers and permission to cross the border and the border police; and customs inspections and immigration control. The Grenzschutzpolizei operate through a network of stations along all national borders and through ten major passport control offices in the principal ports and transport nodes throughout the country.


Wasserschutzpolizei

The Wasserschutzpolizei is charged with the security and safety of the nation's ports and its extensive inland waterways system. Its tasks include: detection of dangers to navigation and measures for its prevention and mitigation; compliance with safety regulations for ship and barge traffic; the licencing of masters, officers and crews; the safety, security and policing of vessels in seaports, in concert with local elements of the Grenzschutzpolizei. The service is divided into several specially trained departments, many of whose members are recruited from technical maritime professions.

The German Foreign Ministry, or Auswärtiges Amt, utilizes a hierarchical system of codes and ciphers to maintain communications with diplomatic officials stationed abroad. These fall into two broad categories: codes, which are considered to be the most secure method of communication, and ciphers, which are considered less secure.

The codes employed are all two-part codes, codes with no predictable relationship between the code-groups and the ordering of the matching plaintext. While such two-part codes require more effort to develop, and twice as much effort to distribute (and discard safely when replaced), they are harder to break, all other things being equal. The Foreign Ministry maintains several series of such codes, with separate editions for the consular service. Enhancing the security of the code itself is the technique of superencipherment.

In the early 1920s, Werner Kunze, Rudolf Schauffler and Erich Langlotz who were involved in breaking foreign cryptologic systems, realized that such codes could never be broken if a separate randomly chosen additive number was used for every code group. In 1923 they introduced the use of duplicate paper pads printed with lines of random number groups. A page would be used as a work sheet to encode a message and then destroyed. The serial number of the page would be sent with the encoded message. The recipient would reverse the procedure and then destroy his copy of the page.

The cipher systems used by the Foreign Office were of two types  machine-based and manual. The Siemens and Halske T52 Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine combined cipher and teleprinter machine was used where direct teleprinter circuitry was available, principally between the Foreign Office and embassies in Europe. This machine, based on the Baudot, uses pinwheels in a complex non-linear fashion to generate a stream cipher. While some of the early variants of the T52 were cryptologically weak, they have been replaced by much more robust variants in which the movement of the wheels was intermittent, the decision on whether or not to advance them being controlled by logic circuits which took as input data from the wheels themselves.

More widely used, and thus the least secure, cryptologic system used by the Foreign Ministry is the so-called Jefferson-Walze, a design proposed in 1790 by the future American president Thomas Jefferson. Also known as a Bazeries Cylinder, it comprises a set of thirty six wheels or disks, each with the letters of the alphabet arranged around their edge. The order of the letters is different for each disk and is scrambled in a random manner. Each disk is marked with a unique number. A hole in the centre of the disks allows them to be stacked on an axle. The disks are removable and can be mounted on the axle in any order desired. The order of the disks is the cipher key, and both sender and receiver must arrange the disks in the same predefined order.

The small size, portability and ease of use make the Jefferson-Walze a useful cipher device for messages not of critical importance. Its use as a superencipherment tool is forbidden.

The rights of a free citizen include, not least, the right to an effective, coherent social policy, one that, by means of a socially just distribution of wealth, safeguards the human right to work, protects the old, the weak, and the sick and, in particular, provides adequate and dignified support for widows, orphans, and invalids. The goal of this social policy is to prevent material want, to preserve human dignity and personal freedom, and to secure social harmony.

The economy must serve the people and never be viewed as an end in itself. Therefore, in accordance with the needs of the free citizenry, the foremost goal of economic policy is to increase production in all sectors to satisfy the vital needs of a growing population. This goal can only be achieved by maintaining free enterprise and reducing economic bureaucracy. Thus, the planning and guidance that is crucial to overcoming this dire situation must not be bureaucratic; rather, it must manifest itself as the democratic self-management of the economy by its bodies under the controlling influence of the state. Personal initiative and free competition enhance economic performance, and personal property is an essential foundation of a healthy economy.

On the other hand, the freedom of the economy must not be socially abused, and it must not lead to the predominance of the excessively powerful. It is both the task and the obligation of the economy to satisfy the needs of all. To achieve this goal, the economy must be integrated into the global economy with an international division of labor. This system created by freedom and responsibility, which find expression through genuine performance-based competition and the independent control of monopolies. Genuine performance-based competition exists when the rules of competition ensure that, under conditions of fair competition and equal opportunity, the better performance is rewarded. Market-driven prices regulate the interaction between all market participants. It stands in marked contrast to the command economy, which we reject, regardless of whether its guiding agencies are organized in a centralized or decentralized fashion, are part of the state, or are autonomous.

Performance-based competition must be secured by law. Monopolies and holders of economic power must be subject to an institutionally based, independent control authority that answers only to the law. Legal measures that foster genuine responsibility in the business community are necessary safeguards for true economic freedom. Efficient small and medium-sized businesses must be promoted on account of their national economic value and the opportunities they offer for social advancement. In industry, commerce, and the skilled trades, private entrepreneurship must be preserved and further promoted.

Market-driven prices must be allowed to evolve, and they must not be distorted by the state or by private industry through arbitrary action or decree. This type of interference only disrupts the marketplace. However, efforts to organically influence prices by means of economic policy, particularly by means of monetary, credit, and tax policies, so that goods will flow into the market in growing quantities and at sinking prices are just and proper. The fixing of wages and working conditions must be left to the collective agreement system. Performance-based pay and wage increases must be supported within the framework of proper market-economic prices. They increase both purchasing power and demand in much the same way as sinking prices. Together with efforts to organically influence economic development by means of monetary and capital policy, by means of a tax system that improves tax morale and capital formation, and by means of an enhanced labor and economic law and a reformed social law, performance-based competition and the control of monopolies will ensure the ongoing development of the industrial economy. They will create social peace and grant each individual the freedom and opportunity to participate in the economic process in accordance with his or her performance and ability.

What is true of the performance-based economy in general is even truer of agriculture in particular. The primary task of agricultural policy is to increase agricultural production. When and where the right to land ownership inhibits productivity instead of enhancing it, it is the task of a well-considered policy to ensure that this right also includes the obligation to actually utilize the land so as to achieve the highest possible level of production. Only this type of policy – and not arbitrary divestitures or expropriation – amounts to true land reform. The proven capability of German farmers, who are deeply rooted to the land, is the best guarantee of proper land use. A democratic agrarian policy must therefore be based on the preservation and promotion of the free class of farmers.

Technology and science must be strongly promoted. They create new needs and job opportunities. They lower prime costs. The performance-based economy embraces the free choice of profession, the right to establish a business, freedom of trade, and freedom of movement.

The performance-based economy affirms and promotes private property. A just distribution of economic proceeds and a socially anchored legal system must seek to transform, on a large scale, the poorer classes into property owners. The promotion of the accumulation of savings is a vital element in assuring continued economic development and capital formation. Effective safeguards must be put in place to prevent economic crises and mass unemployment. These must include an effective credit and currency policy as well as a public investment policy.

The performance-based economy can only be realized if it enjoys the trust of all strata of society, that is, when entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers are actively involved in its implementation.

Akademische Fliegergruppen (Akafliegen) are composed of aerodynamical engineering students from individual German technical universities who design aircraft, often gliders. Otto Lilienthal published his book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation) in 1889. This described the basics of modern aerodynamics and aircraft construction. Lilienthal then made many successful flights starting in 1891. However attention then shifted to powered flight prior to the Great War

Gliding re-emerged as a sport after the war. The main originator of the gliding movement was Oskar Ursinus, who in 1920 organised the first contest, known as the Rhön-Contest, on the Wasserkuppe. Thereafter the contest was held annually. Students of technical universities brought gliders which they had developed and built themselves for testing to these contests. An esprit de corps developed known as Rhöngeist.

These informal beginnings caused the formation of groups of engineers at universities with the aim of scientific and practical education. The first groups were formed in 1920 in Aachen, Darmstadt and Berlin-Charlottenburg, but others soon followed. Many of the first members had been pilots in the German Air Force. However it was the love of flying rather than militarism or nationalism that motivated them. As a result a fraternal spirit was created that has been maintained to this day.

The activities of the Akafliegen are coordinated by the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt. The aim of the Akafliegen is the development, design and construction of aeroplanes, especially gliders, and scientific research into flight. Much of the practical work is done at the summer meetings in co-operation with the DVL, while the results of the research are presented at the winter meetings. The quality of additional education provided by the Akafliegen is widely respected and so German glider manufacturers recruit almost exclusively from the Akafliegen.

Presently Active Akafliegen

Akademische Fliegergruppe Berlin - Technische Hochschule Berlin – 1920
Flugwissenschaftliche Vereinigung Aachen - Technische Hochschule Aachen - 1920
Akademische Fliegergruppe Darmstadt - Technische Hochschule Darmstadt - 1920
Akademische Fliegergruppe Hannover - Technische Hochschule Hannover - 1921
Akademische Fliegergruppe Braunschweig - Technische Hochschule Braunschweig - 1922
Akademische Fliegergruppe München - Technische Hochschule München - 1922
Akademische Fliegergruppe Dresden - Technische Hochschule Dresden - 1923
Akademische Fliegergruppe Karlsruhe - Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe - 1924
Akademische Fliegergruppe Köln - Universität zu Köln - 1923
Akademische Fliegergruppe Stuttgart - Technische Hochschule Stuttgart - 1923
Akademische Fliegergruppe Frankfurt - Technische Hochschule Frankfurt - 1925

The Technisches Hilfswerk (Technical Relief) is the civil protection agency controlled by the German Government.

It was founded in September 1918 as the Technische Nothilfe (Technical Emergency Help) by Otto Lummitzsch with the stated purpose to protect and maintain vital and strategic facilities (e.g., gas works, waterworks, power stations, railways, post offices, agriculture concerns and food production activities) in the wake of the disruption caused by the Great War. It was formed from former engineering and technical personnel of the former Imperial Army, but soon transitioned into a volunteer civilian organisation under the Ministry of the Interior. This change was required by the demilitarisation requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, in order that it should not be classified as a military organization. In 1921 the organisation was renamed Technisches Hilfswerk.

Based on the nature of its operations, the background of its personnel was mainly conservative middle class, but included many students, especially those in technical studies. As economic conditions improved the Technisches Hilfswerk was able to shift its activities into public welfare areas such as disaster relief with respect to floods, fires, industrial accidents, bridge and railway collapse; as well responding to motor vehicle accidents in the countryside. A mobile Bereitschaftdiest was set up, in order to be able to more readily respond. Air raid protection activities also began in the late 1920s as the Luftschutzdienst.

The principal tasks of the Technisches Hilfswerk can be defined as:

* Civil defence in the event of war
* Technical and logistical support for provincial and municipal authorities such as fire brigades, police or the custom authorities
* Technical or humanitarian relief in foreign countries, as assigned by the government
* Technical relief in Germany as part of national civil protection measures.

Elements of the Technisches Hilfswerk have been deployed to Argentina and to Bharat in the wake of earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Technisches Hilfswerk is stationed all over Germany in more than eight hundred chapters, known as Ortsverbände. The majority of those are volunteers, while about 1,500 work full-time in its administration. Each local chapter maintains one or more Technische Züge (technical platoons), each consisting of one Zugtrupp (command squad), comprising four volunteers, two Bergungsgruppen (rescue units) comprising nine to twelve volunteers, and one to three Fachgruppen (Technical Units), each comprising four to eighteen volunteers. Bergungsgruppen are equipped with heavy tools like chain saws, and pneumatic hammers. Fachgruppen include teams trained and equipped for tasks including bridge building, debris clearance, electricity supply, illumination, communication, search-and-rescue, logistics, and water supply.

For relief in foreign countries, there are four recently established Schnelleinsatzeinheiten Bergung Ausland (Rapid Deployment Unit Search and Rescue Abroad) units, able to go airborne within six hours, and five Schnelleinsatzeinheiten Wasserversorgung Ausland (Rapid Deployment Unit Water Supply and Treatment Abroad) units.