This volume analyses the history of international police cooperation from the middle of the 19th century until World War II. It is a detailed exploration of international cooperation strategies involving police institutions from the United States and Germany, as well as other European countries.

This volume analyses the history of international police cooperation from the middle of the 19th century until World War II. It is a detailed exploration of international cooperation strategies involving police institutions from the United States and Germany, as well as other European countries. Analysis includes the internationalization of policing in the nineteenth century; the evolution of international policing from political to criminal objectives; the history of Interpol, and other international police organizations; implications of the nazification of the German police; the rise of the FBI; and police aspects involved with World War II and its aftermath. It is argued that international police cooperation is enabled both through police agencies gradually claiming and gaining a position of relative independence from the governments of their respective states, and through expert systems of knowledge on international crime, which police institutions across nations develop and share.

One feature which contributes to the originality of the book is the special attention paid to developments in Germany and the United States, comparisons between them and the growing interconnections between the two systems... Everyone interested in the field of international police cooperation should read this book.