Approximately 230 citizens were shot or killed by sabers, because the guard troops had orders to immer feste druff ("strike them hard").

Shortly after the revolution, King Frederick William IV of Prussia founded the Königliche Schutzmannschaft zu Berlin in June 1848.

It consisted of 1 Oberst (colonel), 5 Hauptleuten (captains), 200 Wachtmeister (sergeants) and 1,800 Schutzleute (officers), 40 of them mounted.

After the German Revolution of 1918-19 at the end of World War I, the police fell under the control of the far-left USPD politician Emil Eichhorn.

However, the government of the Free State of Prussia voted to replace him with the Majority Social Democrat Eugen Ernst, an event which led to the Spartacist uprising of 1919.

[2] In the Blutmai violence of 1–3 May 1929, the Berlin Police suppressed a Communist International Workers' Day demonstration, resulting in the deaths of about 30 civilians.

[4][5] After seizing control of Prussia in the 1932 Preußenschlag, Franz von Papen dismissed Police Chief Albert Grzesinski for his Social Democratic loyalties and replaced him with Kurt Melcher, with the political police section falling under the control of Rudolf Diels.

[2] Göring also issued an order to police forces in Prussia, including Berlin, recognizing right-wing paramilitaries such as the SS, the SA, and Der Stahlhelm as Hilfspolizei with authority to help police arrest and harass political dissidents and imprison them in concentration camps.

Eventually, the Orpo absorbed virtually all of the Third Reich's law enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades, coast guard, civil defense, and even night watchmen.

Each local directorate is responsible for one to three Berliner districts: Each Direktion had several police stations ("Abschnitte", all in all 38) where the patrol car staff (Schutzpolizei/Schupo) is located.