About Detective Training: Patrick Kurtz, Owner of Kurtz Detective Agency Potsdam, in the “Long Interview” – Part 2.2

For the programme “M19 – The Long Interview” on the radio station Mephisto 97.6, Patrick Kurtz, owner of Kurtz Detective Agency Potsdam and Brandenburg, spoke for an hour with editor-in-chief Paula Drope about the detective profession. This part focuses primarily on training as a private detective in Potsdam and throughout Germany. You can find the first part on typical detective clichés here. Part 2.1 is available here.

Detective Training in Berlin: SAB and ZAD

Paula Drope: “Welcome back to M19, the long interview on Mephisto97.6. My guest today, Patrick Kurtz, is the owner of the Potsdam private detective agency Kurtz. After already talking about the profession of private detective, we are now going to talk about you, Mr Kurtz, and how you came into this profession. You initially studied psychology, comparative literature, German studies and provincial Roman archaeology. Why did you decide on the profession of private detective in Potsdam after this combination of subjects? To me, that sounds a little as if something like Sherlock Holmes might have played a role.”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “It was not in that order. I decided on the detective profession somewhere along the way. For a while I did both at the same time, studying and working as a detective, until it no longer worked because the time commitment simply became too great. I came to the detective profession because, between two degree programmes, I suddenly had far too much time on my hands – I had to bridge a year because an application deadline could no longer be met.

 

So I thought about what I could do during that time and then saw that the profession was being offered as an internship by someone who is now a competitor in the detective trade, and that it was supposedly very well paid – at least according to the advertisement. Whether that was actually true, I still doubt to this day. In any case, after I had applied there first and was rejected without any explanation, I then considered that I could do it myself. The thinking behind it was: if you can earn good money as an intern there, then you should certainly be able to do so as a self-employed person. So I started finding out how one becomes a detective in Germany.

 

I then discovered that basically anyone with a clean criminal record can do it – anyone can register a business and then call themselves a detective. Unfortunately, that is a major problem in our industry, because the lack of training standards means that many people enter the profession without legal knowledge or specialist expertise. I chose a different path by completing professional detective training, more precisely training as an IHK-certified detective in Berlin at the Security Academy. It is a six-month school or course of study, full-time with classroom attendance, at the end of which you obtain the IHK certificate. You get to know a lot of people there, including many interesting colleagues. You can build contacts and enter the profession with prior knowledge, which is absolutely crucial.”

IHK Certification for Private Detectives

Paula Drope: “The Chamber of Industry and Commerce actually offers detective training?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “They do not offer it themselves. Instead, the Security Academy in Berlin does, as does the Central Training Centre for Detectives through a distance-learning programme. Those are the two routes available: distance learning on the one hand, and classroom-based teaching on site on the other. At the end, the IHK comes along and says: if you have completed everything, if you have passed your examinations at the Security Academy or at the ZAD, then we will award you the IHK certificate as a qualified professional detective.”

 

Paula Drope: “And what exactly does the teaching look like? That must certainly be more than tracking footprints, perhaps also law or something like that?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “Law is absolutely crucial. It was the most important aspect of the training, because afterwards you know exactly what you are allowed to do as a detective and what you are not. It was also important to gain some practical experience. Unfortunately, that part was somewhat limited, but we did at least spend a week carrying out field surveillance, and we learned the theoretical foundations in the classroom using various books. One of them, by Glitza, is an excellent manual on surveillance for government employees and private detectives. We worked through that. Beyond that, yes, tracking was also covered to some extent, as were technical aspects such as counter-surveillance against listening devices and IT forensics. It was a relatively broad spectrum that we covered.”

 

Paula Drope: “And all of that in six months?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “All of that in six months. Well, you have eight hours a day, so you can fit quite a bit in.”

Studying Criminalistics as an Entry into the Detective Profession?

Paula Drope: “You cannot only do detective training; you can also study something in that direction, namely criminology. Was that ever an option for you?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “Criminology does not really go in that direction, as it is the science of the statistical recording of crime. Criminalistics would be closer to our detective work. I am not completely up to date, but I believe there is only one degree programme in Hamburg and it is quite expensive – I think around 32,000 euros or something in that range. Studying criminalistics would definitely have been a major financial commitment, especially because there has been no criminalistics degree programme in Germany since the early to mid-1990s, at least not a state-run one.”

 

Paula Drope: “But would it have appealed to you?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “Yes, certainly. I think it would appeal to many people, and it would also significantly raise the standard of crime investigation or detective investigation in general in Germany if we once again had more specialists, more graduate criminalists, as was the case in the past. Unfortunately, politics decided to abolish that, and so far there has been no replacement.”

Qualities of Successful Detectives

Paula Drope: “You have already said that, in principle, anyone can become a detective. But to become a good detective, what qualities are required, let us say, in addition to good perception and analytical skills?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “The intellectual aspect is certainly extremely important for our private detectives in Potsdam. You should have something in your head, and you should be able to react to different situations. You need to be flexible and able to find solutions. That means if you have a difficult case and you are simply standing there not really knowing how to proceed, then you are not suited to the job. If you do not know what to do, which also happened to me in the early phase, then you have to know whom to turn to, whom you can ask, who is experienced and who can help you. And of course you have to be able to deal with clients.

 

Part of the work is naturally acquiring assignments. It is also important to be very secure in report writing. That means spelling and grammar should be correct. You must be able to record precisely what you have observed and describe it in words, because in many cases the reports are used in court. If you provide a superficial description, that is bad, because the judge cannot picture anything from it. Then the investigation reports quickly become worthless.”

How Do You Become a Private Detective?

Paula Drope: “That is already quite a number of qualities that you need to bring with you as a detective in Potsdam. When did you discover them in yourself? Was there a particular event where you said, I can do this?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “No, not really. I never doubted myself in that respect. From the very beginning, I thought that I could do it, and that belief was then confirmed.”

 

Paula Drope: “And how did you come up with the idea of becoming a detective in the first place?”

 

Patrick Kurtz: “As I said, through that internship that was advertised at the time. The formative influence towards becoming a private detective was already there before that, for example through detective novels, especially Sherlock Holmes. Even as a teenager, at 13 or 14, I read and loved those stories and was always preoccupied with them. And since I have been a pipe smoker since I was 14, everything fitted together very well. The cogs meshed.”

Kurtz Investigations Potsdam and Brandenburg

Gregor-Mendel-Straße 15

D-14469 Potsdam

Tel.: +49 331 2785 0052

E-Mail: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-potsdam.de

Web: https://www.kurtz-detektei-potsdam.de/en

Google: https://g.page/kurtz-detektei-potsdam