This project investigates how security cultures changed after 1945 through the early 1970s, influenced by shifting ideas with regard to security and the state, and continuity regarding to the personnel involved. This approach, spanning a cross-section of state agencies, allows researchers to see, at the state level, how the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, the State Criminal Police Office (Landeskriminalamt), and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz) all reacted to changing perceptions of security and uncertainty. What did they perceive as threats and what potential for action did they conclude from that? The heterogeneity here with regard to security administration emerges clearly when comparing the three different institutions.

The study first looks into the development of security structures and policies and into the personnel involved in post-1945 Bavaria, with special attention to their activities during the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and the post-war years. Taking into account the work processes, scopes of action, and the self-understanding of the officials and the expectations placed on them, the institutions will be examined as a social space along with their particular administrative cultures. Selected areas of work of the institutions will be in the focus for the final part of the study. This section will show which threats were primarily perceived among the institutions and the general populace and what strategies were developed in response. Personnel decisions were also justified by dint of these threat scenarios. Within the context of the federalism debate and its influence on the formation of security structures, especially in the early years of the Federal Republic, this study will take into account the general political, social, and economic developments at the state and federal levels.