Applied and Operational Psychology for Military Police in the German Armed Forces Bundeswehr

Combined with professional skills and abilities, resilience – the ability to withstand psychological adversity – plays a key role for successfully executing police tasks. The importance of resilience is largely amplified by demographic change, as well as by other influencing factors, such as the demand for highly specialised qualifications, and increasing digitalisation. Against this backdrop, an assignment-specific concept for resilience was developed and subsequently evaluated in Military Police training. This handbook was written to supplement the training, to elaborate on the training subjects, and to serve as a comprehensive resource on resilience. Apart from applied military and operational psychology, this book also includes insights gained from year-long and fruitful cooperation with police of German Federal states, with the Federal Republic of Germany, and with the German Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Office). Therefore, this handbook provides an overview of relevant issues, which can be applied in the training of specialised forces of both military and civil police: • The Bundeswehr Military Police • Applied military psychology and operational psychology • Resilience in special assignments • Psychotraumatology • Stress management • Cybercrime • Sexual offences • Psychology of firearm use • Psychology of close combat Each of the relevant topics will be presented by chapter with particular emphasis on resilience. The latter and its relevance in training constitute the golden thread of this handbook, as they are considered crucial factors to success. For each topic, there is a brief presentation of essential characteristics and implications for the scope of the Bundeswehr Military Police. Assignment-specific information is complemented with instructions for independent study, which are both practical and specific to training. Overall, this is an indispensable resource for soldiers of all rank categories deployed in the scope of the Bundeswehr Military Police.