22 million overtime hours were incurred by German policemen in the past year. Despite new jobs, the number of extra work thus remains at a record level, according to the Police Union of Trade Unions (GdP).
This will not change in the foreseeable future, said the chairman of the GdP, Oliver Malchow, the "New Osnabrück newspaper". "We reckon that the situation will not relax in the future, but rather exacerbate it." Because by 2021, about 44,000 civil servants at federal and state retirement age would leave the service.
"That's almost every sixth active police officer," Malchow said. "The countries are building new jobs, but these are not enough to fill the gap."
Continuous use as a reason for overtime
The reason for the many hours of overtime were above all the constant use of large-scale police, said Malchow. He cited examples of 2018 continuous operations at the Hambach Forest, controversial state visits such as that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as thousands of demonstrations and rallies across the country, as well as stakes on football weekends. The load was distributed very differently between the 260,000 police officers in Germany, especially Einsatzhundertschaften were affected.
The chairman of the German police union, Rainer Wendt, called as reasons for the overtime the consequences of the refugee crisis as well as the left and right terror. "The police is a company with ever increasing responsibilities," Wendt told the newspaper. "The state would be well advised to invest heavily in the police, but that does not happen sufficiently."