The introductory section notes that modern crime and criminal justice history had a late start in Germany; in the mid- 1970's, Carsten Kuther's study of organized banditry from the 18th to the early 20th centuries and Dirk Blaius's research into bourgeois society and criminality in early 19th-century Prussia marked the beginning of a modern crime and criminal justice history in Germany. Sections of this paper focus on the social history of crime in German historiography; police, criminal justice, and the emerging modern state; rapid socioeconomic transformation and continuing emphasis on "good order," 1789 to 1815-71; the German police during the imperial period (1871- 1918); German police in the Weimar Republic period (1918-1933); criminal justice and police under fascism; and police in Germany after 1945. The concluding section addresses the historiography of crime, police, and criminal justice in Germany in the 1990's. 87 notes