1952 Building of the Forensic Science Institute
1946: On January 1, 1946 the Criminal Police Office for the British zone (KPABrZ) is officially founded in Hamburg along with a forensic science institute ("Kriminaltechnische Anstalt").
1949: The forensic science institute of the KPABrZ is renamed from “Kriminaltechnische Anstalt” to "Kriminaltechnisches Institut".
1951: The law concerning the establishment of a Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) comes into force. The German Federal Government designates Wiesbaden as the seat of the BKA.
1951: Incorporation of the KPABrZ into the Federal Administration. As the "Hamburg branch", this becomes the foundation of the BKA. Along with the foundation of the BKA the Forensic Science Institute is integrated as an independent division. Initially, no facilities were available in Wiesbaden.
1952: The Forensic Science Institute is the first division to move from Hamburg to Wiesbaden into the former youth hostel. (Today W1, E-building).
1953: Topping-out ceremony of the new building of the BKA in Wiesbaden.
2008 Opening of the new building of the Forensic Science Institute at Location II in Wiesbaden
1972: In November 1972 a majority of the staff of the Forensic Science Institute moves into a new laboratory building in Wiesbaden (today: W1, F-Building). 80 workstations were planned for, but in the course of combating the "Red Army Faction" (RAF) terrorist group, the institute's staff complement mounted rapidly to 150 employees.
June 2005: The foundation stone of the new building for the Forensic Science Institute was laid. In the meantime the department comprises approximately 300 staff.
October 2007: Relocation into the new laboratory building in the Äppelallee 45. An area of 12,500 m² is available for the 340 staff members. In February 2008, its official inauguration is conducted by Federal Minister of the Interior Schäuble.
2009: The KTI celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Spectacular cases in the history of the Forensic Science Institute
1969: In the so-called "Lebach soldiers murder" case, during an assault on an ammunition depot of the German Federal Armed Forces in Lebach/Saarland, four soldiers were killed and ammunition stolen. Examination of the projectiles and cartridge cases recovered at the scene of the crime permitted conclusions to be drawn as to the weapon types used, and this led, among other things, to the successful apprehension of the offenders.
1977: On the way to the Federal High Court, Chief Federal Prosecutor Buback, his chauffeur, as well as the chief of the motor pool of the Federal Prosecutor's Office, were to become the victims of a successful Red Army Faction assassination attempt. As the officials’ limousine pulled up at a red traffic light, two terrorists armed with automatic weapons fired into the car from a motorcycle. By virtue of his signature on the rental contract for the motorcycle, which had been rented under a false name, it was possible to establish one of the offenders, the terrorist Günter Sonnenberg.
1977: Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the Association of German Employers, who was regarded by terrorists as a key-figure of the much despised capitalism, was kidnapped by the Red Army Faction. Letters to his family and writings composed by Schleyer during his kidnapping were examined by handwriting-experts of the KTI to search for hidden information and to determine the authenticity of the "sender". Schleyer was killed by the Red Army Faction after 43 days of captivity on October 19, 1977.
1983: In April 1983 the "Stern" magazine declared that they were in possession of Adolf Hitler’s secret diaries. The alleged diaries were discovered by the reporter Gerd Heidemann, who had bought them from Konrad Kujau for 9.3 million German marks. According to Kujau, 60 volumes of the diaries had been found in an aeroplane which had crashed in Saxony shortly before the end of the Second World War. The forgery of the diaries was established by material analysis. Amongst other things, these showed that the paper contained particular optical brighteners which were not commercially available until 1955.
1984-85: A mysterious series of murders occurred in the province of Swabia. In close vicinity to lonely parking places in the forest, an offender lay in wait for to his victims, killing them with pistol shots to the head. After these murders, he used the victim’s cars in order to hold up banks. He smashed the bank teller windowpanes with a sledgehammer and extorted cash. Shortly before the series was solved, the offender, who was a policeman, murdered his family prior to killing himself. The policeman’s name was Poehlke, and forensic and ballistic investigations of his service pistol confirmed the suspicion that the parking place victims had been killed with the same pistol and that he had used it to murder his family before shooting himself with it. The case went through the press under the headline "The Sledgehammer Murderer".
1989: On the 30th of November 1989, Alfred Herrhausen, the Chief Executive Officer of the Deutsche Bank AG, fell victim to an assassination attempt of the terrorist group Red Army Faction. His car was blown up near his home. The forensic investigation led to the determination of the explosive used, as well as the reconstruction of the assembly and mode of operation of the explosive device. The offender was never identified.
1988-1993: Between 1988 and 1993 the department store blackmailer Arno Funke, alias "Dagobert", committed a total of six attacks on the Berlin department store KDW, and branches of the Karstadt store chain in northern Germany. By the first extortion he collected 500,000 German marks. Afterwards, a series of partly spectacular, but abortive, money handovers followed. He was captured in April 1994 whilst attempting to give instructions for a new handover from a public telephone box. Examination of the various money handover devices provided by the offender, as well as evaluation of voice recordings during his telephone calls, helped to convict the offender.
1991/2001: On the 1st of April 1991 the chairman of the board of the Trust Agency Karsten Rohwedder was shot by Red Army Faction terrorists. Amongst pieces of evidence secured at the scene of the crime were also a few hairs, which not until many years later, thanks to a newly developed method of DNA analysis, led to the Red Army Faction terrorist Wolfgang Grams..
2002: On the 11th of April, a tanker lorry loaded with liquid gas exploded in front of a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, whereupon 19 victims died, and 25 others were seriously injured. Only through investigations carried out by forensic officers and detectives from the BKA could it be confirmed that it was an attack.
2002: On the morning of April 26, 2002 students of the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt were writing their final examinations. Within 15 minutes the unthinkable happened when a former student, 19-year old Robert Steinhäuser, shot twelve teachers, two students, a secretary, and a police officer. Afterwards he killed himself with a shot to the head. KT21 produced a remarkable reconstruction of the course of events.
2004: On December 26, 2004 a tsunami, caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, hits the coast of Thailand, killing over 200,000 people. Among the victims were numerous German tourists. The BKA’s Disaster Victim Identification Team (DVI) and many volunteers, who barely knew about the DVI’s work, were called upon for support.
2012: To clear up a series of murders commited by the "National Socialist Underground" the Forensic Science Institute participates in the so-called BAO Trio, a task force assigned to investigate this series. The suicides of two of the perpetrators before being arrested for a bank robbery initiate the investigation of a massive complex of violent offences. More than 5500 pieces of evidence were collected, stored, and analyzed.
2013: In hundreds of cases since 2008, vehicles travelling on motorways were fired at. Most of the time car transporters were targeted. However, passengers were also hit. By meticulous examination of the seized projectiles investigators were able to determine that all shots were fired from the same weapons, presumably from a truck. After intensive investigative work, the task force "BAO Transporter" was able to convict and arrest the perpetrator.