NAZI CONSPIRACY

AND AGGRESSION

VOLUME II

Office of United States

Chief of Counsel For Prosecution

of Axis Criminality

United States Government Printing Office

Washington • 1946

Sold in Complete Sets

by the

Superintendent of Documents

U. S. Government Printing

Office

Washington 25, D. C.

A Collection of Documentary Evidence and Guide Materials Prepared by the American and British Prosecuting Staffs for Presentation before the International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, Germany, in the case of

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, and THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

—against—

HERMANN WILHELM GOERING, RUDOLF HESS, JOACHIM von RIBBENTROP, ROBERT LEY, WILHELM KEITEL, ERNST KALTENBRUNNER, ALFRED ROSENBERG, HANS FRANK, WILHELM FRICK, JULIUS STREICHER, WALTER FUNK, HJALMAR SCHACHT, GUSTAV KRUPP von BOHLEN und HALBACH, KARL DOENITZ, ERICH RAEDER, BALDUR von SCHIRACH, FRITZ SAUCKEL, ALFRED JODL, MARTIN BORMANN, FRANZ von PAPEN, ARTUR SEYSS-INQUART, ALBERT SPEER, CONSTANTIN von NEURATH, and HANS FRITZSCHE, Individually and as Members of Any of the Following Groups or Organizations to which They Respectively Belonged, Namely: DIE REICHS­REGIERUNG (REICH CABINET); DAS KORPS DER POLITISCHEN LEITER DER NATIONAL­SOZIAL­ISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITER­PARTEI (LEADERSHIP CORPS OF THE NAZI PARTY); DIE SCHUTZ­STAFFELN DER NATIONAL­SOZIAL­ISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITER­PARTEI (commonly known as the “SS”) and including DIE SICHER­HEITSDIENST (commonly known as the “SD”); DIE GEHEIME STAATS­POLIZEI (SECRET STATE POLICE, commonly known as the “GESTAPO”); DIE STURMAB­TEILUNGEN DER N.S.D.A.P. (commonly known as the “SA”) and the GENERAL STAFF and HIGH COMMAND of the GERMAN ARMED FORCES all as defined in Appendix B of the Indictment,

Defendants.

CONTENTS

Chapter XV
CRIMINALITY OF GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS

1. THE LAW UNDER WHICH NAZI ORGANIZATIONS ARE ACCUSED OF BEING CRIMINAL

The following argument on the law and policy involved in the prosecution’s charge that certain Nazi groups and organizations should be declared criminal, was delivered by Justice Jackson before the Tribunal on 28 February 1946.

May it please the Tribunal:

The unconditional surrender of Germany created, for the victors, novel and difficult problems of law and administration. Since it is the first such surrender of an entire and modernly organized society, precedents and past experiences are of little help in guiding our policy toward the vanquished. The responsibility implicit in demanding and accepting capitulation of a whole people must of necessity include a duty to discriminate justly and intelligently between opposing elements of the population which bore dissimilar relations to the policies and conduct which led to the catastrophe. This differentiation is the objective of those provisions of the Charter which authorize this Tribunal to declare organizations or groups to be criminal. Understanding of the problem which the instrument attempts to solve is essential to its interpretation and application.

A. The Problem of the Nazi Organizations.

One of the sinister peculiarities of German society at the time of the surrender was that the State itself played only a subordinate role in the exercise of political power, while the really drastic controls over German society were organized outside its nominal government. This was accomplished through an elaborate network of closely knit and exclusive organizations of selected volunteers oath-bound to execute, without delay and without question, the commands of the Nazi leaders.

These organizations penetrated the whole German life. The country was subdivided into little Nazi principalities of about 50 households each, and every such community had its recognized party leaders, party police, and its undercover party spies. These were combined into larger units with higher ranking leaders, executioners and spies. The whole formed a pyramid of power outside the law, with the Fuehrer at its apex, and with the local party officials as its broad base resting heavily on the German population. The Nazi despotism, therefore, did not consist of these individual defendants alone. A thousand little fuehrers dictated, a thousand imitation Goerings strutted, a thousand Schirachs incited the youth, a thousand Sauckels worked slaves, a thousand Streichers and Rosenbergs stirred hate, a thousand Kaltenbrunners and Franks tortured and killed, a thousand Schachts and Speers and Funks administered, financed, and supported the movement. The Nazi movement was an integrated force in city and county and hamlet. The party power resulting from this system of organizations first rivaled, and then dominated, the power of the State itself.

The primary vice of this web of organizations was that they were used to transfer the power of coercing men from the government and the law to the Nazi leaders. Liberty, self-government, and security of persons and property do not exist except where the power of coercion is possessed only by the State and is exercised only in obedience to law. The Nazis, however, set up a private system of coercion, outside of and immune from law, with party-controlled concentration camps and firing squads to administer privately decreed sanctions. Without responsibility to law and without warrant from any court, they were enabled to seize property, take away liberty, and even take life itself.

These organizations had a calculated and decisive part in the barbaric extremes of the Nazi movement. They served cleverly to exploit mob psychology and to manipulate the mob. Multiplying the numbers of persons in a common enterprise tends to diminish each individual’s sense of moral responsibility and to increase his sense of security. The Nazi leaders were masters of this technique. They manipulated these organizations to make before the German populace impressive exhibitions of numbers and of power. These were used to incite a mob spirit and then riotously to gratify the popular hates they had inflamed and the Germanic ambition they had inflated.

These organizations indoctrinated and practiced violence and terrorism. They provided the systematized, aggressive, and disciplined execution throughout Germany and the occupied countries of the whole catalogue of crimes we have proven. The flowering of the system is represented in the fanatical SS General Ohlendorf, who told this Tribunal without shame or trace of pity how he personally directed the putting to death of 90,000 men, women, and children. No tribunal ever listened to a recital of such wholesale murder as this Tribunal heard from him and from Wisliceny, a fellow officer of the SS. Their own testimony shows the responsibility of the SS for the extermination program which took the lives of five million Jews, a responsibility the organization welcomed and discharged methodically, remorselessly, and thoroughly. These crimes are unprecedented ones because of the shocking numbers of victims. They are even more shocking and unprecedented because of the large number of persons who united to perpetrate them. All scruple or conscience of a very large segment of the German people was committed to Nazi keeping, and its devotees felt no personal sense of guilt as they went from one extreme measure to another. On the other hand, they developed a contest in cruelty and a competition in crime. Ohlendorf from the witness stand accused other SS commanders, whose killings exceeded his, of “exaggerating” their figures.

There could be no justice and no wisdom in an occupation policy which imposed upon passive and unorganized and inarticulate Germans the same burdens as it placed upon those who voluntarily banded themselves together in these powerful and notorious gangs. One of the basic requirements, both of justice and of successful administration of the occupation responsibility of the victors, is a segregation of these organized elements from the masses of Germans for separate treatment.

It seems beyond controversy that to punish a few top leaders but to leave this web of organized bodies unscotched in the midst of German postwar society, would be to foster the nucleus of a new Nazidom. The members are accustomed to an established chain of centralized command; they have formed a habit and developed a technique of both secret and open cooperation. They still nourish a blind devotion to the suspended, but not abandoned, Nazi program. They will keep alive the hates and ambitions which generated the orgy of crime we have proved. They are carriers, from this generation to the next, of the infection of aggressive and ruthless war. The Tribunal has seen on the screen how easily an assemblage that ostensibly is only a common labor force can be in fact a military training unit drilling with shovels. The next war and the next pogroms will be hatched in the nests of these organizations as surely as we leave their membership with its prestige and influence undiminished by condemnation and punishment.

The menace of these organizations is the more impressive when we consider the demoralized state of German society. It will be years before there can be established in the German State any political authority that is not inexperienced and provisional. It cannot quickly acquire the stability of a government aided by long habit of obedience and traditional respect. The intrigue, obstruction, and possible overthrow, which older and established governments fear from conspiratorial groups, is a real and present danger to any stable social order in the Germany of today and of tomorrow.

Insofar as the Charter of this Tribunal contemplates a justice of retribution, it is obvious that it could not overlook these organized instruments and instigators of past crimes. In opening this case, I said that the United States does not seek to convict the whole German people of crime. But it is equally important that this trial shall not serve to absolve the whole German people except 22 men in the dock. The wrongs that have been done to the world by these defendants and their top confederates was not done by their will or by their strength alone. The success of their designs was made possible because great numbers of Germans organized themselves to become the fulcrum and the lever by which the power of these leaders was extended and magnified. If this trial fails to condemn these organized confederates for share of responsibility for this catastrophe, it will be construed as their exoneration.

But the Charter was not concerned with retributive justice alone. It manifests a constructive policy influenced by exemplary and preventive considerations. The primary objective of requiring that the surrender be unconditional was to clear the way for reconstruction of German society on such a basis that it will not again threaten the peace of Europe and of the world. Temporary measures of the occupation authorities may, by necessity, have been more arbitrary and applied with less discrimination than befits a permanent policy. Under existing denazification policy, no member of the Nazi party or its formations may be employed in any position, other than ordinary labor, or in any business enterprise unless he is found to have been only a nominal Nazi. Persons in certain categories, whose standing in the community is one of prominence or influence, are required to meet this standard, and those who do not may be denied further participation in their businesses or professions. It is mandatory to remove or exclude from public office, and from positions of importance in quasi public and private enterprises, persons falling within approximately 90 specified categories deemed to consist of either active Nazis, Nazi supporters, or militarists. The property of such persons is blocked.

It is recognized by the Control Council, as it was by the framers of the Charter, that a permanent, long-term program should be based on a more careful and more individual discrimination than was possible with sweeping temporary measures. There is a movement now within the Control Council for reconsideration of its whole denazification policy and procedure. The action of this Tribunal in declaring, or in failing to declare, the accused organizations criminal has a vital bearing on future occupation policy.

It was the intent of the Charter to utilize the hearing processes of this Tribunal to identify and condemn those Nazi and militaristic forces that were so organized as to constitute a continuing menace to the long-term objectives for which our respective countries have spent the lives of their young men. It is in the light of this great purpose that we must examine the provisions of the Charter.

B. The Procedure for Condemning Organizations.

It was obvious that the conventional litigation procedures could not, without some modification, be adapted to this task. No system of jurisprudence has yet evolved any satisfactory technique for handling a great multiplicity of common charges against a multitude of accused persons. The number of individual defendants that fairly can be tried in a single proceeding probably does not greatly exceed the number now in your dock. Moreover, the number of separate trials in which the same voluminous evidence as to common plan must be repeated is very limited as a practical matter. Yet adversary hearing procedures are the best assurance the law has evolved that decisions will be well considered and just. The task of the framers of the Charter was to find a way to overcome these obstacles to practicable and early decision without sacrificing the fairness implicit in hearings. The solution prescribed by the Charter is certainly not faultless, but not one of its critics has ever proposed an alternative that would not either deprive the individual of any hearing or contemplate such a multitude of long trials as to be impracticable. In any case, it is the plan adopted by our respective governments and our duty here is to make it work.

The plan which was adopted in the Charter essentially is a severance of the general issues which would be common to all individual trials from the particular issues which would differ in each trial. The plan is comparable to that employed in certain wartime legislation of the United States (Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S., 414, 64 Sup. Ct. 660). The general issues are to be determined with finality in one trial before the International Tribunal. In this trial, every accused organization must be defended by counsel and must be represented by at least one leading member, and other individual members may apply to be heard. Their applications may be granted if the Tribunal thinks justice requires it. The only issue in this trial concerns the collective criminality of the organization or group. It is to be adjudicated by what amounts to be a declaratory judgment. It does not decree any punishment, either against the organization or against the individual members.

The only specification as to the effect of this Tribunal’s declaration that an organization is criminal, is contained in Article 10 of the Charter, which provides:

“In cases where a group or organization is declared criminal by the Tribunal, the competent national authority of any Signatory shall have the right to bring individuals to trial for membership therein before national, military or occupation courts. In any such case the criminal nature of the group or organization is considered proved and shall not be questioned.”

Unquestionably, it would be competent for the Charter to have declared flatly that membership in any of these named organizations is criminal and should be punished accordingly. If there had been such an enactment, it would not have been open to an individual who was being tried for membership in the organization to contend that the organization was not in fact criminal. The framers of the Charter, at a time before the evidence adduced here was available, did not care to find organizations criminal by fiat. They left that issue to determination after relevant facts were developed by adversary proceedings. Plainly, the individual member is better off because of the procedure of the Charter, which leaves that finding of criminality to this body after hearings at which the organization must, and the individual may, be represented.

The groups and organizations named in the Indictment are not “on trial” in the conventional sense of that term. They are more nearly under investigation as they might be before a grand jury in Anglo-American practice. Article 9 recognizes a distinction between the declaration of a group or organization as criminal and “the trial of any individual member thereof.” The power of the Tribunal to try is confined to “persons,” and the Charter does not expand that term by definition, as statutes sometimes do, to include other than natural persons. The groups or organizations named in the Indictment were not as entities served with process. The Tribunal is not empowered to impose any sentence upon them as entities, nor to convict any person because of membership.

It is to be observed that the Charter does not require subsequent proceedings against anyone. It provides only that the competent national authorities “shall have the right to bring individuals to trial for membership therein.”

The Charter is silent as to the form these trials should take. It was not deemed wise, on the information available when the Charter was drawn up, that the Charter should regulate subsequent proceedings. Nor was it necessary to do so. There is a continuing legislative authority, representing all four signatory nations, competent to take over where the Charter leaves off. Legislative supplementation of the Charter is necessary to confer jurisdiction on local courts, to define procedures, and to prescribe different penalties for different forms of activity.

Fear has been expressed, however, that the Charter’s silence as to future proceedings means that great numbers of members will be rounded up and automatically punished as a result of a declaration of an organization to be criminal. It also has been suggested that this is, or may be, the consequence of Article II, 1(d) of Control Council Act No. 10, which defines as a crime “membership in categories of a criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal.” A purpose to inflict punishments without a right of hearing cannot be spelled out of the Charter, and would be offensive to both its letter and its spirit. And I do not find in Control Council Act No. 10 any inconsistency with the Charter. Of course, to reach all individual members will require numerous hearings. But they will involve only narrow issues; many accused will have no answers to charges if they are clearly stated, and the proceedings should be expeditious and nontechnical.

But I think it is clear that before any person is punishable for membership in a criminal organization, he is entitled to a hearing on the facts of his case. The Charter does not authorize the national authorities to punish membership without a hearing—it gives them only the right to “bring individuals to trial.” That means what it says. A trial means there is something to try.

As to trials of the individual members, the Charter denies only one of the possible defenses of an accused: he may not relitigate the question whether the organization itself was a criminal one. Nothing precludes him from denying that his participation was voluntary and proving he acted under duress; he may prove that he was deceived or tricked into membership; he may show that he had withdrawn; or he may prove that his name on the rolls is a case of mistaken identity.

The membership which the Charter and the Control Council Act make criminal, of course, implies a genuine membership involving the volition of the member. The act of affiliation with the organization must have been intentional and voluntary. Legal compulsion or illegal duress, actual fraud or trick of which one is a victim, has never been thought to be the victim’s crime, and such an unjust result is not to be implied now. The extent of the member’s knowledge of the criminal character of the organization is, however, another matter. He may not have known on the day he joined but may have remained a member after learning the fact. And he is chargeable not only with what he knew but with all of which he reasonably was put on notice.

There are safeguards to assure that this program will be carried out in good faith. Prosecution under the declaration is discretionary, and if there were purpose to punish without trial, it would have been already done without waiting for the declaration. We think the Tribunal will presume that signatory powers which have voluntarily submitted to this process will carry it out faithfully.

The Control Council Act applies only to “categories of membership declared criminal.” This language recognizes a power in this Tribunal to limit the effect of its declaration. I do not think, for reasons I will later state, that this should be construed or availed of so as to try here any issues as to sub-groups or sections or individuals, which can be tried later. It should, I think, be construed to mean, not those limitations which must be defined by detailed evidence, but limitations of principle such as those I have outlined as already implied. It does not require this Tribunal to delve into evidence to condition its judgment, if it sees fit, to apply only to intentional, voluntary, and knowing membership. It does not supplant later trials but guides them.

It cannot be said that a plan, such as we have here, for the severance of general issues common to many cases from particular issues applicable only to individual defendants and for the litigation of each type of issue in separate Tribunals specially adapted to their different tasks, is lacking in reasonableness or fair play. And while it presents unusual procedural difficulties, I do not think it presents any insurmountable ones.

C. Criteria, Principles, and Precedents for Declaring Collective Criminality.

The substantive law which governs the inquiry into criminality of organizations is, in its large outline, old and well settled and fairly uniform in all systems of law. It is true that we are dealing with a procedure easy to abuse and one often feared as an interference with liberty of assembly or as an imposition of “guilt by association.” It also is true that proceedings against organizations are closely akin to the conspiracy charge, which is the great dragnet of the law, rightly watched by courts lest it be abused.

The fact is, however, that every form of government has considered it necessary to treat some organizations as criminal. Not even the most tolerant of governments can permit the accumulation of power in private organizations to a point where it rivals, obstructs, or dominates the government itself. To do so would be to grant designing men a liberty to destroy liberty. It was the very complacency and tolerance as well as the impotence of the Weimar Republic towards the growing organization of Nazi power, which spelled the death of German freedom.

Protection of the citizen’s liberty has required even free governments to enact laws making criminal those aggregations of power which threaten to impose their will on unwilling citizens. Every one of the nations signatory to this Charter has laws making certain types of organizations criminal. The Ku Klux Klan in the United States flourished at about the same time as the Nazi movement in Germany. It appealed to the same hates, practiced the same extra-legal coercions, and likewise terrorized by weird nighttime ceremonials. Like the Nazi Party it was composed of a core of fanatics, but enlisted support of some respectable persons who knew it was wrong, but thought it was winning. It eventually provoked a variety of legislative acts directed against such organizations.

The Congress of the United States also has enacted legislation outlawing certain organizations. A recent example is the Act of June 28, 1940 (c. 439, Title I, Section 2, 54 Stat. 671, 18 USCA 10) which provides in part as follows:

“(a)

It shall be unlawful for any person . . .

“(3)

to organize or help to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence; or to be or become a member of, or affiliate with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.”

There is much legislation by States of the American union creating analogous offenses. An example is to be found in the Act of California (Statutes 1919, Chapter 188, p. 281) which, after defining “criminal syndicalism,” provides:

“Section 2. Any person who . . . (4) organizes or assists in organizing, or is or knowingly becomes a member of, any organization, society, group or assemblage of persons organized or assembled to teach or aid and abet criminal syndicalism . . .

“Is guilty of a felony and punishable by imprisonment.”

Precedents in English law for outlawing organizations and punishing membership therein are old and consistent with the Charter. One of the first is the British India Act No. 30, enacted November 14, 1836. Section 1 provides:

“It is hereby enacted that whoever shall be proved to have belonged either before or after the passing of this Act to any gang of thugs either within or without the territories of the East India Company shall be punished with imprisonment for life with hard labour.”

Other precedents in English legislation are the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 (3 George III, Chapter 79); the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817 (57 George III, Chapter 19); the Seditious Meetings Act of 1846 (9 and 10 Victoria, Chapter 33); the Public Order Act of 1936 and Defense Regulation 18(b). The last, not without opposition, was intended to protect the integrity of the British Government against the fifth-column activities of this same Nazi conspiracy.

Soviet Russia punishes as a crime the formation of and membership in a criminal gang. Criminologists of the U.S.S.R. call this crime the “crime of banditry,” a term appropriate to the German organizations.

French criminal law makes membership in subversive organizations a crime. Membership of the criminal gang is a crime in itself. (Articles 265-268, French Penal Code, “Association de Malfaiteurs”; Garaud, Précis de Droit Criminel, 1934 Edition Sirey, p. 1518 and seq. See also Act of December 18, 1893.)

For German precedents, it is neither seemly nor necessary to go to the Nazi regime. Under the Empire and the Weimar Republic, however, German jurisprudence deserved respect and it presents both statutory and juridical examples of declarations of the criminality of organizations. Among statutory examples are:

1. The German Criminal Code enacted in 1871. Section 128 was aimed against secret associations and Section 129 was directed against organizations inimical to the State.

2. The law of March 22, 1921 against paramilitary organizations.

3. The law of July 21, 1922 against organizations aimed at overthrowing the constitution of the Reich.

Section 128 of the Criminal Code of 1871 is especially pertinent. It reads:

“The participation in an organization the existence, constitution, or purposes of which are to be kept secret from the Government, or in which obedience to unknown superiors or unconditional obedience to known superiors is pledged, is punishable by imprisonment up to six months for the members and from one month to one year for the founders and officers. Public officials may be deprived of the right to hold public office for a period of from one to five years.”

Under the Empire, various Polish national unions were the subject of criminal prosecution. Under the Republic, judicial judgments in 1927-28 held criminal the entire Communist Party of Germany. In 1922 and 1928 judgments ran against the political Leadership Corps of the Communist Party, which included all its so-called “body of functionaries,” corresponding to the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party which we have accused. The judgment included every cashier, every employee, every delivery boy and messenger, and every district leader. In 1930 a judgment of criminality against the “Union of Red Front Fighters” of the Communist Party made no discrimination between leaders and ordinary members.

Most significant of all is the fact that on 30 May, 1924 the German courts rendered judgment that the whole Nazi Party was a criminal organization. This decision referred not only to the Leadership Corps, which we are indicting here, but to all other members as well. The whole subsequent rise to power of the Nazi Party was in the shadow of this judgment of illegality.

The German courts in dealing with criminal organizations proceeded on the theory that all members were held together by a common plan in which each one participated even though at various levels. Moreover, the fundamental principles of responsibility of members as stated by the German Supreme Court are strikingly like the principles that govern our Anglo-American law of conspiracy. Among them were these:

1. “It is a matter of indifference whether all the members pursued the forbidden aims. It is enough if a part exercised the forbidden activity.” (R.G. VIa 97/22 of the 8.5.22.)

2. “It is a matter of indifference whether the members of the group or association agree with the aims, tasks, means of working and means of fighting.” (R.G. 58, 401 of the 24.10.24.)

3. “The real attitude of mind of the participants is a matter of indifference. Even if they had the intention of not participating in criminal efforts, or hindering them, this can not eliminate their responsibility.” (R.G. 58, 401 of the 24.10.24.)

Organizations with criminal ends are everywhere regarded as in the nature of criminal conspiracies, and their criminality is judged by the application of conspiracy principles. The reason why they are offensive to law-governed people has been succinctly stated as follows:

“The reason for finding criminal liability in case of a combination to effect an unlawful end or to use unlawful means, where none would exist, even though the act contemplated were actually committed by an individual, is that a combination of persons to commit a wrong, either as an end or as a means to an end, is so much more dangerous, because of its increased power to do wrong, because it is more difficult to guard against and prevent the evil designs of a group of persons than of a single person, and because of the terror which fear of such a combination tends to create in the minds of people.” (Miller on Criminal Law, 1932, p. 110.)

The Charter, in Article 6, provides that “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.” The individual defendants are arraigned at your bar on this charge which, if proved, makes them responsible for the acts of others in execution of the common plan.

The Charter did not define responsibility for the acts of others in terms of “conspiracy” alone. The crimes were defined in non-technical but inclusive terms, and embraced formulating and executing a “common plan” as well as participating in a “conspiracy.” It was feared that to do otherwise might import into the proceedings technical requirements and limitations which have grown up around the term “conspiracy.” There are some divergences between the Anglo-American concept of conspiracy and that of either Soviet, French, or German jurisprudence. It was desired that concrete cases be guided by the broader considerations inherent in the nature of the social problem, rather than controlled by refinements of any local law.

Now, except for procedural difficulties arising from their multitude, there is no reason why every member of any Nazi organization accused here could not have been indicted and convicted as a part of the conspiracy under Article 6 even if the Charter had never mentioned organizations at all. Voluntary affiliation constituted a definite act of adherence to some common plan and purpose. These did not pretend to be merely social or cultural groups; admittedly they were united for action. In the case of several of the Nazi organizations, the fact of confederation was evidenced by formal induction into membership, the taking of an oath, the wearing of a distinctive uniform, the submission to a discipline. That all members of each Nazi organization did combine under a common plan to achieve some end by combined efforts is abundantly established.

The criteria for determining the collective guilt of those who thus adhered to a common plan obviously are those which would test the legality of any combination or conspiracy. Did it contemplate illegal methods or aim at illegal ends? If so, the liability of each member of one of these Nazi organizations for the acts of every other member is not essentially different from the liability for conspiracy enforced in Courts of the United States against business men who combine in violation of the anti-trust laws, or of other defendants accused under narcotic drugs laws, sedition acts, or other federal penal enactments.

Among the principles every day enforced in Courts of Great Britain and the United States in dealing with conspiracy are these:

1. No meeting or formal agreement is necessary. It is sufficient, although one performs one part and other persons other parts, if there be concert of action, and working together understandingly with a common design to accomplish a common purpose.

2. One may be liable even though he may not have known who his fellow-conspirators were, or just what part they were to take, or what acts they committed, and though he did not take personal part in them or was absent when criminal acts occurred.

3. There may be liability for acts of fellow-conspirators although the particular acts were not intended or anticipated, if they were done in execution of the common plan.

4. It is not necessary to liability that one be a member of a conspiracy at the same time as other actors, or at the time of criminal acts. When one becomes a party to it, he adopts and ratifies what has gone before and remains responsible until he abandons the conspiracy with notice to his fellow-conspirators.

Of course, members of criminal organizations or conspiracies who personally commit crimes are individually punishable for those crimes exactly as are those who commit the same offenses without organizational backing. But the very gist of the crime of conspiracy or membership in a criminal association is liability for acts one did not personally commit but which his acts facilitated or abetted. The crime is to combine with others and to participate in the unlawful common effort, however innocent the personal acts of the participant when considered by themselves.

The very innocent act of mailing a letter is enough to implicate one in a conspiracy if the purpose of the letter is to advance a criminal plan. There are countless examples of this doctrine in Anglo-American jurisprudence.

The sweep of the law of conspiracy is an important consideration in determining the criteria of guilt for organizations. Certainly the vicarious liability imposed in consequence of voluntary membership, formalized by oath, dedicated to a common organizational purpose and submission to a discipline and chain of command, can not be less than that which follows from informal cooperation with a nebulous group to a common end as is sufficient in conspiracy. This meets the suggestion that the prosecution is required to prove every member, or every part, fraction, or division of the membership to be guilty of criminal acts. The suggestion ignores the conspiratorial nature of the charge. Such an interpretation also would reduce the Charter to an unworkable absurdity. To concentrate in one International Tribunal inquiries requiring such detailed evidence as to each member would set a task not possible of completion within the lives of living men.

It is easy to toss about such a plausible but superficial cliché as, “One should be convicted for his activities, not for his membership.” But this ignores the fact that membership in Nazi bodies was itself an activity. It was not something passed out to a passive citizen like a handbill. Even a nominal membership may aid and abet a movement greatly. Does anyone believe that Hjalmar Schacht sitting in the front row of the Nazi Party Congress of 1935, wearing the insignia of the Party, was included in the Nazi propaganda films merely for artistic effect? This great banker’s mere loan of his name to this shady enterprise gave it a lift and a respectability in the eyes of every hesitating German. There may be instances in which membership did not aid and abet the organizational ends and means, but individual situations of that kind are for appraisal in the later hearings and not by this Tribunal. By and large, the use of organization affiliation is a quick and simple, but at the same time fairly accurate outline of the contours of a conspiracy to do what the organization actually did. It is the only one workable at this stage of the trial. It can work no injustice because before any individual can be punished, he can submit the facts of his own case to further and more detailed judicial scrutiny.

While the Charter does not so provide, we think that on ordinary legal principles the burden of proof to justify a declaration of criminality is upon the prosecution. It is discharged, we think, when we establish the following:

1. The organization or group in question must be some aggregation of persons associated in some identifiable relationship with a collective general purpose.

2. While the Charter does not so declare, we think it implied that membership in such an organization must be generally voluntary. That does not require proof that every member was a volunteer. Nor does it mean that an organization is not to be considered voluntary if the defense proves that some minor fraction or small percentage of its membership was compelled to join. The test is a common-sense one: Was the organization on the whole one which persons were free to join or to stay out of? Membership is not made involuntary by the fact that it was good business or good politics to identify one’s self with the movement. Any compulsion must be of the kind which the law normally recognizes, and threats of political or economic retaliation would be of no consequence.

3. The aims of the organization must be criminal in that it was designing to perform acts denounced as crimes in Article 6 of the Charter. No other act would authorize conviction of an individual and therefore no other act would authorize conviction of an organization in connection with the conviction of the individual.

4. The criminal aims or methods of the organization must have been of such character that its membership in general may properly be charged with knowledge of them. This again is not specifically required by the Charter. Of course, it is not incumbent on the prosecution to establish the individual knowledge of every member of the organization or to rebut the possibility that some may have joined in ignorance of its true character.

5. Some individual defendant must have been a member of the organization and must be convicted of some act on the basis of which the organization is declared to be criminal.

D. Definition of Issues for Trial.

The progress of this trial will be expedited by clear definition of the issues to be tried. I have indicated what we consider to be the proper criteria of guilt. There are also subjects which we think are not relevant before this Tribunal, some of which are mentioned in the specific questions asked by the Tribunal.

Only a single ultimate issue is before this Tribunal for decision. That is whether accused organizations properly may be characterized as criminal ones or as innocent ones. Nothing is relevant here that does not bear on a question that would be common to the case of every member. Any matter which would be exculpating for some members but not for all is irrelevant here.

We think it is not relevant to this proceeding at this stage that one or many members were conscripted if in general the membership was voluntary. It may be conceded that conscription is a good defense for an individual charged with membership in a criminal organization, but an organization can have criminal purposes and commit criminal acts even if a portion of its membership consists of persons who were compelled to join it. The issue of conscription is not pertinent to this proceeding but it is pertinent to the trials of individuals for membership in organizations declared criminal by this Tribunal.

We also think it is not relevant to this proceeding that one or more members of the named organizations were ignorant of its criminal purposes or methods if its purposes or methods were open and notorious. An organization may have criminal purposes and commit criminal acts although one or many of its members were without personal knowledge thereof. If a person joined what he thought was a social club but what in fact was a gang of cutthroats and murderers, his lack of knowledge would not exonerate the gang considered as a group, although it might possibly be a factor in extenuation of a charge of criminality brought against him for mere membership in the organization. Even then the test would be not what the man knew, but what, as a person of common understanding, he should have known.

It is not relevant to this proceeding that one or more members of the named organizations were themselves innocent of unlawful acts. This proposition is basic to the entire theory of the declaration of organizational criminality. The purpose of declaring criminality of organizations, as in every conspiracy charge, is punishment for aiding crimes, although the precise perpetrators may never be found or identified. We know that the Gestapo and SS, as organizations, were given principal responsibility for the extermination of the Jewish people in Europe—but beyond a few isolated instances, we can never establish which members of the Gestapo or SS actually carried out the murders. Any member guilty of direct participation in such crimes can be tried on the charge of having committed specific crimes in addition to the general charge of membership in a criminal organization. Therefore, it is wholly immaterial that one or more members of the organizations were themselves allegedly innocent of specific wrongdoing. The purpose of this proceeding is not to reach instances of individual criminal conduct, even in subsequent trials and, therefore, such considerations are irrelevant here.

Another question raised by the Tribunal is the period of time during which the groups or organizations named in the Indictment are claimed by the Prosecution to have been criminal. The Prosecution believes that each organization should be declared criminal during the period referred to in the Indictment. We do not contend that the Tribunal is without power to condition its declaration so as to cover a lesser period of time than that set forth in the Indictment. The Prosecution feels, however, that there is in the record at this time adequate evidence to support the charge of criminality with respect to each of the named organizations during the full period of time set forth in the Indictment.

Another question raised by the Tribunal is whether any classes of persons included within the accused groups or organizations should be excluded from the declaration of criminality. It is, of course, necessary that the Tribunal relate its declaration to some identifiable group or organization. The Tribunal, however, is not expected or required to be bound by formalities of organization. In framing the Charter, the use was deliberately avoided of terms or concepts which would involve this trial in legal technicalities about “juristic persons” or “entities.” Systems of jurisprudence are not uniform in the refinements of these fictions. The concept of the Charter, therefore, is a nontechnical one. “Group” or “organization” should be given no artificial or sophistical meaning. The word “group” was used in the Charter as a broader term, implying a looser and less formal structure or relationship than is implied in the “organization.” The terms mean in the context of the Charter what they mean in the ordinary speech of people. The test to identify a group or organization is, we submit, a natural and common-sense one.

It is important to bear in mind that while the Tribunal no doubt has power to make its own definition of the groups it will declare criminal, the precise composition and membership of groups and organizations is not an issue for trial here. There is no Charter requirement and no practical need for the Tribunal to define a group or organization with such particularity that its precise composition or membership is thereby determined. The creation of a mechanism for later trial of such issues was a recognition that the declaration of this Tribunal is not decisive of such questions and is likely to be so general as to comprehend persons who on more detailed inquiry will prove to be outside of it. An effort by this Tribunal to try questions of exculpation of individuals, few or many, would unduly protract the trial, transgress the limitation of the Charter, and quite likely do some mischief by attempting to adjudicate precise boundaries on evidence which is not directed to that purpose.

The prosecution stands upon the language of the Indictment and contends that each group or organization should be declared criminal as an entity and that no inquiry should be entered upon and no evidence entertained as to the exculpation of any class or classes of persons within such descriptions. Practical reasons of conserving the Tribunal’s time combine with practical considerations for the defendants. A single trial held in one city to deal with questions of excluding thousands of defendants living all over Germany could not be expected to do justice to each member unless it was expected to endure indefinitely. Provision for later, local trial of individual relationships protects the rights of members better than can possibly be done in proceedings before this Tribunal.

With respect to the Gestapo, the United States consents to exclude persons employed in purely clerical, stenographic, janitorial or similar unofficial routine tasks. As to the Nazi Leadership Corps we abide by the position taken at the time of submission of the evidence, that the following should be included: the Fuehrer, the Reichsleitung (i.e., the Reichsleiters, main departments and officeholders), the Gauleiters and their staff officers, the Kreisleiters and their staff officers, the Ortsgruppenleiters, the Zellenleiters, and the Blockleiters, but not members of the staff of the last three officials. As regards the SA, it is considered advisable that the Declaration expressly exclude (1) wearers of the SA Sports Badge; (2) SA controlled Home Guard Units (SA Wehrmannschaften) which were not strictly part of the SA; (3) The Marchabteilungen of the N.S.K.O.V. (National Socialist League for Disabled Veterans); and (4) the SA Reserve, so as to include only the active part of the organization, and that members who were never in any part of that organization other than the Reserve should be excluded.

The Prosecution does not feel that there is evidence of the severability of any class or classes of persons within the organizations accused which would justify any further concessions and feels that no other part of the named groups should be excluded. In this connection, we would again stress the principles of conspiracy. The fact that a section of an organization itself committed no criminal act, or may have been occupied in technical or administrative functions, does not relieve that section of criminal responsibility if its activities contributed to the accomplishment of the criminal enterprise.

E. Further Steps Before This Tribunal.

Over 45,000 persons have joined in communications to this Tribunal asking to be heard in connection with the accusations against organizations. The volume of these applications has caused apprehension as to further proceedings. No doubt there are difficulties yet to be overcome, but my study indicates that the difficulties are greatly exaggerated.

The Tribunal is vested with wide discretion as to whether it will entertain an application to be heard. The Prosecution would be anxious, of course, to have every application granted that is necessary, not only to do justice but to avoid the appearance of doing anything less than justice. And we do not consider that expediting this trial is so important as affording a fair opportunity to present all really pertinent facts.

Analysis of the conditions which have brought about this flood of applications indicates that their significance is not proportionate to their numbers. The Tribunal sent out 200,000 printed notices of the right to appear before it and defend. They were sent to Allied prisoner of war and internment camps. The notice was published in all German language papers and was repeatedly broadcast over the radio. The 45,000 persons who responded with applications to be heard came principally from about 15 prisoner of war and internment camps in British or United States control. Those received included an approximate 12,000 from Dachau, 10,000 from Langwasser, 7,500 from Auerbach, 4,000 from Staumuehle, 2,500 from Garmisch, and several hundred from each of the others.

We undertook investigation of these applications from Auerbach camp as probably typical of all. The camp is for prisoners of war, predominantly SS members, and its prisoners number 16,964 enlisted men and 923 officers. The notice of the International Tribunal was posted in each barracks and was read to all inmates. The applications to the Tribunal were forwarded without censorship. Applications to defend were made by 7,509 SS members.

Investigation indicates that these were filed in direct response to the notice and that no action was directed or inspired from any other source within the camp. All who were interrogated professed no knowledge of any SS crimes or of SS criminal purpose, but expressed interest only in their individual fate. Our investigators report no indication that the SS members had additional evidence or information to submit on the general question of the criminality of the SS as an organization. They seemed to think it necessary to make the application to this Tribunal in order to protect themselves.

Examination of the applications made to the Tribunal indicates that most members do not profess to have evidence on the general issue triable here. They assert that the writer has neither committed, witnessed, nor known of the crimes charged against the organization. On a proper definition of the issues such an application is insufficient on its face.

A careful examination of the Tribunal’s notice to which these applications respond will indicate that the notice contains no word which would inform a member, particularly if a layman, of the narrowness of the issues here, or of the later opportunity of each member, if and when prosecuted, to present personal defenses. On the other hand, I think the notice creates the impression that every member may be convicted and punished by this Tribunal and that his only chance to be heard is here.

In view of these facts we suggest consideration of the following program for completion of this trial as to organizations.

1. That the Tribunal formulate and express in an order the scope of the issues and the limitations on the issues to be heard by it.

2. That a notice adequately informing members as to the limitation on issues and the opportunity for later, individual trial, be sent to all applicants and published as was the original notice.

3. That a panel of masters be appointed as authorized in Article 17(e) of the Charter to examine applications and report those insufficient on their own statements, and to go to the camps and supervise the taking of any relevant evidence. Defense counsel and prosecution representatives should of course attend and be heard before the masters. The masters should reduce any evidence to deposition form and report the whole to the Tribunal to be introduced as a part of its record.

4. The representative principle may also be employed to simplify this task. Members of particular organizations in particular camps might well be invited to choose one or more to represent them in presenting evidence.

It may not be untimely to remind the Tribunal and defense counsel that the prosecution has omitted from evidence many relevant documents which show repetition of crimes by these organizations in order to save time by avoiding cumulative evidence. It is not too much to expect that cumulative evidence of a negative character will likewise be limited.

Some concern has been expressed as to the number of persons who might be affected by the declarations of criminality we have asked. Some people seem more susceptible to the shock of a million punishments than to the shock of 5 million murders. At most the number of punishments will never catch up with the number of crimes. However, it is impossible to state even with approximate accuracy the number of persons who might be affected. Figures from German sources seriously exaggerate the number, because they do not take account of heavy casualties in the latter part of the war, and make no allowances for duplication of membership, which was large. For example, the evidence is to the effect that 75 percent of the Gestapo men also were members of the SS. We know that the United States forces have in detention a roughly estimated 130,000 persons who appear to be members of accused organizations. I have no figures from other Allied forces. But how many of these actually would be prosecuted, instead of being dealt with under the denazification program, no one can foretell. Whatever the number, of one thing we may be sure: it is so large that a thorough inquiry by this Tribunal, into each case, would prolong its session beyond endurance. All questions as to whether individuals or sub-groups of accused organizations should be excepted from the Declaration of Criminality, should be left for local courts, located near the home of the accused and near sources of evidence. These courts can work in one or at most in two languages, instead of four, and can hear evidence which both parties direct to the specific issues.

F. Conclusion.

This is not the time to review the evidence against particular organizations which, we take it, should be reserved for summation after all the evidence is presented. But it is timely to say that the selection of the six organizations named in the Indictment was not a matter of chance. The chief reasons they were chosen are these: collectively they were the ultimate repositories of all power in the Nazi regime; they were not only the most powerful, but the most vicious organizations in the regime; and they were organizations in which membership was generally voluntary.

The Nazi Leadership Corps consisted of the directors and principal executors of the Nazi Party, which was the force lying behind and dominating the whole German state. The Reichs Cabinet was the facade through which the Nazi Party translated its will into legislative, administrative, and executive acts. The two pillars on which the security of the regime rested were the armed forces, directed and controlled by the General Staff and High Command, and the police forces—the Gestapo, the SA, the SD, and the SS. These organizations exemplify all the evil forces of the Nazi regime.

These organizations were also selected because, while representative, they were not so large or extensive as to make it probable that innocent, passive, or indifferent Germans might be caught up in the same net with the guilty. State officialdom is represented, but not all administrative officials or department heads or civil servants; only the Reichsregierung, the very heart of Nazidom within the Government, is named. The armed forces are accused, but not the average soldier or officer, no matter how high ranking. Only the top policy-makers—the General Staff and High Command—are named. The police forces are accused, but not every policeman: not the ordinary police, which performed only normal police functions. Only the most terroristic and repressive police elements—the Gestapo and SD—are named. The Nazi Party is accused, but not every Nazi voter, not even every member; only the leaders, the Politische Leiter. (See Chart No. 14.) And not even every Party official or worker is included; only “the bearers of sovereignty,” in the metaphysical jargon of the Party, who were the actual commanding officers and their staff officers on the highest levels, are accused. The “formations” or strong arms of the Party are accused, but not every one of the seven formations, nor any of the twenty or more supervised or affiliated party groups. Nazi organizations in which membership was compulsory, either legally or in practice (like the Hitler Youth and the Deutsche Studentschaft); Nazi professional organizations (like the Civil Servants Organization, the National Socialist Teachers Organization, and the National Socialist Lawyers Organization); Nazi organizations having some legitimate purpose (like the welfare organizations), have not been indicted. Only two formations are named, the SA and the SS, the oldest of the Nazi organizations, groups which had no purpose other than carrying out the Nazi schemes and which actively participated in every crime denounced in the Charter.

In administering preventive justice with a view to forestalling repetition of these crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, it would be a greater catastrophe to acquit these organizations than it would be to acquit the entire 22 individual defendants in the box. These defendants’ power for harm is spent. That of these organizations goes on. If they are exonerated here, the German people will infer that they did no wrong and will easily be regimented in reconstituted organizations under new names behind the same program.

In administering retributive justice it would be possible to exonerate these organizations only by concluding that no crimes have been committed by the Nazi regime. Their sponsorship of every Nazi purpose and their confederation to execute every measure to attain those ends is beyond denial. A failure to condemn these organizations under the terms of the Charter can only mean that such Nazi ends and means cannot be considered criminal, and that the Charter of the Tribunal is considered a nullity.

2. THE NAZI PARTY LEADERSHIP CORPS

The Nazi Party Leadership Corps—it is proposed to demonstrate—was responsible for planning, directing, and supervising the criminal measures carried into execution by the Nazi Party, which was the central core of the common plan or conspiracy charged in Count I of the Indictment. Moreover, it will be shown, the members of the Leadership Corps themselves actively participated in the commission of illegal measures in aid of the conspiracy. In the light of the evidence to be discussed, the Leadership Corps may be fairly described as the brain, the backbone, and the directing arms of the Nazi Party. Its responsibilities are more massive and comprehensive than those of the army of followers who blindly and faithfully did its bidding.

A. Composition, Functions, Responsibilities, and Powers of the Leadership Corps.

In considering the composition and organizational structure of the Leadership Corps, preliminary reference is made to the organization chart of the Nazi Party (Chart Number 1) as well as a chart of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party appearing at page 9 of a magazine published by the Chief Education Office of the Nazi Party entitled “Das Gesicht der Partei” (The Face of the Party). These charts and the evidence to follow show that the Leadership Corps constituted the sum of the officials of the Nazi Party: it included the Fuehrer; the Reichsleiter and Reich office holders; the five categories of leaders who were area commanders (called Hoheitstraeger, or “bearers of sovereignty”) ranging all the way from the 40-odd Gauleiter in charge of large districts down through the intermediate political leaders to the Blockleiter, charged with looking after 40 to 60 households; and what may best be described as the Staff Officers attached to each of the 5 levels of Hoheitstraeger.

Organized upon a hierarchical basis, forming a pyramidal structure, the principal Political Leaders on a scale of descending authority were:

Fuehrer

Reichsleiter (Reich Leaders) and Main Office and Office Holders

Gauleiter (District Leaders) and Staff Officers

Kreisleiter (County Leaders) and Staff Officers

Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Chapter Leaders) and Staff Officers

Zellenleiter (Cell Leaders) and Staff Officers

Blockleiter (Block Leaders) and Staff Officers

A large part of this and other evidence relating to the composition of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party is to be found in the 1943 edition of the Organization Book of the NSDAP, an authoritative primer on Nazi organizations which was edited by the defendant, Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP, Dr. Robert Ley.

The Reichsleitung of the Leadership Corps consisted of the Reichsleiter or Reich Leaders of the Party, the Hauptaemter (Main Offices) and the Aemter (or Offices). The Reichsleiter of the Party were, next to Hitler, the highest officeholders in the Party hierarchy. All the Reichsleiter and Main Office and officeholders within the Reichsleitung were appointed by Hitler and were directly responsible to him. The Organization Book of the NSDAP puts it as follows:

“The Fuehrer appoints the following Political Directors: “Reichsleiter and all Political Directors, to include the Directors of the Womens Leagues within the Reich Directorate or Reichsleitung.” (1893-PS)

The significant fact is that through the Reichsleitung perfect coordination of Party and State machinery was guaranteed. The Party Manual describes it this way:

“In the Reichsleitung the arteries of the organization of the German people and of the German State merge.” (1893-PS)

To demonstrate that the Reichsleiter of the Leadership Corps included the most powerful coalition of political overlords in Nazi Germany, it is necessary only to mention their names. The list of Reichsleiter includes the following defendants on trial: Rosenberg, Von Schirach, Frick, Bormann, and Ley.

The evidence to be presented will show that Rosenberg was the leader of an organization named for him, the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, which carried out a vast program of looting and plunder of art treasures throughout occupied Europe. The evidence will further show that, as Representative of the Fuehrer for the Supervision of Nazi Ideology and Schooling, Rosenberg participated in an aggressive campaign to undermine the Christian churches and to supersede Christianity by a German National Church founded upon a combination of irrationality, pseudo-scientific theories, mysticism, and the cult of the racial state.

It will be shown that the late Defendant Ley, acting as the agent of Hitler and the Leadership Corps, directed the Nazi assault upon the independent labor unions of Germany and before destroying himself first destroyed the free and independent labor movement; and that he replaced it by a Nazi organization, the German Labor front or DAF, which he employed as a means of exploiting the German labor force in the interests of the conspiracy and to instill Nazi ideology among the ranks of the German workers.

It will be shown that Frick participated in the enactment of many laws which were designed to promote the conspiracy in its several phases. Frick shares responsibility for the grave injury done by the officials of the Leadership Corps to the concept of the rule of law by virtue of his efforts to give the color of law and formal legality to a large volume of Nazi legislation violative of the rights of humanity, such as the legislation designed to stigmatize and eliminate the Jewish people of Germany and German-occupied Europe. As chief of the Party Chancellery, immediately under Hitler, Bormann was an extremely important force in directing the activities of the Leadership Corps. As will be shown, a decree of 16 January 1942 provided that the participation of the Party in all important legislation, governmental appointments, and promotions had to be undertaken exclusively by Bormann. He took part in the preparation of all laws and decrees issued by the Reich authorities and gave his assent to those of the subordinate governments.

The list of Reichsleiter of the NSDAP set forth in the National Socialist Yearbook (1943 Edition) shows that the following 15 Reichsleiter were in office in 1943 (2473-PS):

The principal functions of the Reichsleiter included carrying out the tasks and missions assigned to them by the Fuehrer or by the Chief of the Party Chancellery, Martin Bormann. The Reichsleiter were further charged with insuring that Party policies were being executed in all the subordinate areas of the Reich. The Reichsleiter were also responsible for insuring a continual flow of new leadership into the Party. With respect to the function and responsibilities of the Reichsleiter, the Organization Book of the NSDAP states as follows:

“The NSDAP represents the political conception, the political conscience, and the political will of the German nation. Political conception, political conscience, and political will are embodied in the person of the Fuehrer. Based on his directives and in accordance with the program of the NSDAP the organs of the Reich Directorate directionally determine the political aims of the German people. It is in the Reich Directorate that the arteries of the organization of the German people and the State merge. It is the task of the separate organs of the Reich Directorate to maintain as close a contact as possible with the life of the nation through their sub-offices in the Gau * * *

“The structure of the Reich Directorate is thus that the channel from the lowest Party office upwards shows the most minute weaknesses and changes in the mood of the people * * *

“Another essential task of the Reich Directorate is to assure a good selection of leaders. It is the duty of the Reich Directorate to see that there is leadership in all phases of life, a leadership which is firmly tied to National Socialist ideology and which promotes its dissemination with all its energy * * *

“* * * It is the supreme task of the Reich Organization Leader to preserve the Party as a well-sharpened sword for the Fuehrer.” (1893-PS)

The domination of the German Government by the top members of the Leadership Corps was facilitated by a circular decree of the Reich Minister of Justice, dated 17 February 1934, which established equal rank for the offices within the Reichsleitung of the Leadership Corps and the Reich offices of the government. In this decree it was expressly provided that

“the supreme offices of the Reichsleitung are equal in rank to the supreme Reich Government authorities.”

The Party Manual termed the control exercised over the machinery of government by the Leadership Corps “the permeation of the State apparatus with the political will of the Party.”

Domination by the Leadership Corps over the German State and Government was facilitated by uniting in the same Nazi chieftains both high office within the Reichsleitung and corresponding offices within the apparatus of government. For example, Goebbels was a Reichsleiter in charge of Party propaganda, but he was also a cabinet minister in charge of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. Himmler held office within the Reichsleitung as head of the Main Office for “Volkdom” and as Reichsfuehrer of the SS. At the same time, Himmler held the governmental position of Reich Commission for the Consolidation of Germandom and was the governmental head of the German police system (Chart Number 1). This personal union of high office in the Leadership Corps and high governmental position in the same Nazi Leaders greatly assisted the plan of the Leadership Corps to dominate and control the German State and Government.

In addition to the Reichsleiter, the Reichsleitung (Reich Party Directorate) included about eleven Hauptamter, or Main Offices, and about four Amter, or Offices. The Hauptamter of the Party included such main organizations as those for personnel, training, technology (headed by Speer), “Volkdom,” (headed by Himmler), civil servants, communal policy, and the like. The Amter, or offices, of the Party within the Reichsleitung included the Office for Foreign Policy under Rosenberg which actively participated in plans for aggression against Norway, the Office for Colonial Policy, the Office for Geneology, and the Office for Racial Policy.

Certain of the main offices and offices within the Reichsleitung appeared again within the Gauleitung, or Gau Party Directorate, and Kreisleitung, or County Party Directorate. Thus, the Reichsleiter and main office and office holders within the Reichsleitung exercised, through functional channels running through subordinate offices on lower regional levels, total control over the various sectors of the national life of Germany.

(1) Gauleiter. For Party purposes Germany was divided into major administrative regions, Gaue, which, in turn, were subdivided into Kreise (counties), Ortsgruppen (local chapters), Zellen (cells), and Blocke (blocks). Each Gau was in charge of a Gauleiter who was the political leader of the Gau or district. Each Gauleiter was appointed by and was responsible to Hitler himself. The Organization Book of the NSDAP states:

“The Gau represents the concentration of a number of Party counties, or Kreise. The Gauleiter is directly subordinate to the Fuehrer. He is appointed by the Fuehrer. The Gauleiter bears overall responsibility to the Fuehrer for the sector of sovereignty entrusted to him. The rights, duties, and jurisdiction of the Gauleiter result primarily from the mission assigned by the Fuehrer and, apart from that, from detailed directives.” (1893-PS)

The responsibility and function of the Gauleiter and his staff officers or office holders were essentially political, namely, to insure the authority of the Nazi Party within his area, to coordinate the activities of the Party and all its affiliated and supervised organizations, and to enlarge the influence of the Party over people and life in his Gau generally. Following the outbreak of the war, when it became imperative to coordinate the various phases of the German war effort, the Gauleiter were given additional important responsibilities. The Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, which was a sort of general staff for civil defense and the mobilization of the German war economy, by a decree of 1 September 1939 (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1565), appointed about sixteen Gauleiter as Reich Defense Commissars. Later, under the impact of mounting military reverses and an increasingly strained war economy, more and more important administrative functions were put on a Gau basis; the Party Gaue became the basic defense areas of the Reich and each Gauleiter became a Reich Defense Commissar (Decree of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich of 16 November 1942, 1942 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 649). In the course of the war, additional functions were entrusted to the Gauleiter so that at the end, with the exception of certain special matters, such as police affairs, almost all phases of the German war economy were coordinated and supervised by them. For instance, regional authority over price control was put under the Gauleiter as Reich Defense Commissars, and housing administration was placed under the Gauleiter as Gau Housing Commissar. Toward the end of the war, the Gauleiter were charged even with military and quasi military tasks. They were made commanders of the Volkssturm in their areas and were entrusted with such important functions as the evacuation of civilian population in the path of the advancing Allied armies, as well as measures for the destruction of vital installations.

The structure and organization of the Party Gau were substantially repeated in the lower levels of the Party organization such as the Kreise, Ortsgruppen, Cells, and Blocks. Each of these was headed by a political leader who, subject to the Fuehrer principle and the orders of superior political leaders, was sovereign within his sphere. The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was in effect a “hierarchy of descending caesars.” Each of the subordinate Party levels, such as Kreise, Ortsgruppen, and so on, was organized into offices or Amter dealing with the various specialized functions of the Party. But the number of such departments and offices diminished as the Party unit dropped in the hierarchy, so that, while the Kreise office contained all, or most of the offices in the Gau (such as the deputy, the staff office leader, an organization leader, school leader, propaganda leader, press office leader, treasurer, judge of the Party Court, inspector, and the like), the Ortsgruppe had less and the Zellen and Blocke fewer still.

(2) Kreisleiter (County Leaders). The Kreisleiter was appointed and dismissed by Hitler upon the nomination of the Gauleiter and directly subordinate to the Gauleiter in the Party hierarchy. The Kreis usually comprised a single county. The Kreisleiter, within the Kreis, had in general the same position, powers, and prerogatives granted the Gauleiter in the Gau. In cities they constituted the very core of Party power and organization. According to the Organization Book of the NSDAP:

“The Kreisleiter carries over-all responsibility towards the Gauleiter within his zone of sovereignty for the political and ideological training and organization of the Political Leaders, the Party members, as well as the population.” (1893-PS)

(3) Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Chapter Leaders). The area of the Ortsgruppenleiter comprised one or more communes or, in a town, a certain district. The Ortsgruppe was composed of a combination of blocks and cells and, according to local circumstances, contained up to 1500 households. The Ortsgruppenleiter also had a staff of office leaders to assist him in the various functional activities of the Party. All other political leaders in his area of responsibility were subordinate to and under the direction of the Ortsgruppenleiter. For example, the leaders of the various affiliated organizations of the Party, within his area, such as the German Labor Front, and the Nazi organizations for lawyers, students, and civil servants, were all subordinate to the Ortsgruppenleiter. In accordance with the Fuehrer principle, the Ortsgruppenleiter or Local Chapter Leaders were appointed by the Gauleiter and were directly under and subordinate to the Kreisleiter.

The party Manual provides as follows with respect to the Ortsgruppenleiter:

“As Hoheitstraeger [Bearer of Sovereignty] all expressions of the Party will emanate from the Ortsgruppenleiter; he is responsible for the political and ideological leadership and organization within his zone of sovereignty.

“The Ortsgruppenleiter carries the over-all responsibility for the political results of all measures initiated by the offices, organizations, and affiliated associations of the Party. * * * The Ortsgruppenleiter has the right to protest to the Kreisleiter against any measures contrary to the interests of the Party with regard to an outside political appearance in public.” (1893-PS)

(4) Zellenleiter (Cell Leaders). The Zellenleiter was responsible for four to eight blocks. He was the immediate superior of and had control and supervision over the Blockleiter (Block Leader). His mission and duties, according to the Party Manual, corresponded to the missions of the Blockleiter. (1893-PS)

(5) Blockleiter (Block Leaders). The Blockleiter was the one Party official who was peculiarly in a position to have continuous contact with the German people. The block was the lowest unit in the Party pyramidal organization. The block of the Party comprised 40 to 60 households and was regarded by the Party as the focal point upon which to press the weight of its propaganda. The Organization Book of the NSDAP states:

“The household is the basic community upon which the block and cell system is built. The household is the organizational focal point of all Germans united in an apartment and includes roomers, domestic help, etc. * * * The Blockleiter has jurisdiction over all matters within his zone relating to the Movement and is fully responsible to the Zellenleiter. * * *” (1893-PS)

The Blockleiter, as in the case of other political leaders, was charged with planning, disseminating, and developing a receptivity to the policies of the Nazi Party among the population in his area of responsibility. It was also the expressed duty of the Blockleiter to spy on the population. According to the Party Manual:

“It is the duty of the Blockleiter to find people disseminating damaging rumors and to report them to the Ortsgruppe so that they may be reported to the respective State authorities.

“The Blockleiter must not only be preacher and defender of the National Socialist ideology towards the members of nation and Party entrusted to his political care, but he must also strive to achieve practical collaboration of the Party members within his block zone * * *.”

“The Blockleiter shall continuously remind the Party members of their particular duties towards the people and the State * * * The Blockleiter keeps a list (card file) about the households * * * In principle, the Blockleiter will settle his official business verbally and he will receive messages verbally and pass them on in the same way. Correspondence will only be used in cases of absolute necessity * * * The Blockleiter conducts National Socialist propaganda from mouth to mouth. He will eventually awaken the understanding of the eternally dissatisfied as regards the frequently misunderstood or wrongly interpreted measures and laws of the National Socialist Government * * * It is not necessary to him to fall in with complaints and gripes about possibly obvious shortcomings of any kind in order to demonstrate * * * solidarity * * * A condition to gain the confidence of all people is to maintain absolute secrecy in all matters.” (1893-PS)

There were in Germany around a half million of these Blockleiter. Large though this figure may appear, there can be no doubt that these officials were in and of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. Though they stood at the broad base of the Party pyramid rather than at its summit, where rested the Reichsleiter, by virtue of this fact they were stationed at close intervals throughout the German civil population. It may be doubted that the average German ever looked upon the face of Heinrich Himmler. But the man in the street in Nazi Germany could not have avoided an uneasy acquaintance with the Blockleiter in his neighbourhood. It was the block leaders who represented to the people of Germany the police-state of Hitler’s Germany. In fact, the Blockleiter were little fuehrers with real power over the civilians in their domains. The authority of the Blockleiter to exercise coercion and the threat of force upon the civil population is shown in an excerpt from page 7 of the magazine published by the Chief Education Office of the Party, entitled “The Face of the Party”:

“Advice and sometimes also the harsher form of education is employed if the faulty conduct of an individual harms this individual himself and thus also the community.”

(6) Hoheitstraeger. Within the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party certain of the Political Leaders possessed a higher degree of responsibility than others, were vested with special prerogatives, and constituted a distinctive and elite group. These were the so-called “Hoheitstraeger” (Bearers of Sovereignty) who represented the Party within their area of jurisdiction, the so-called Hoheitsgebiet. The Party Manual (1893-PS) states as follows:

“Among the Political Leaders, the Hoheitstraeger assumed a special position. Contrary to the other Political Leaders who have departmental missions, the Hoheitstraeger themselves are in charge of a geographical sector known as the Hoheitsgebiet [Sectors of Sovereignty].

“Hoheitstraeger are:

“The Fuehrer

The Gauleiter

The Kreisleiter

The Ortsgruppenleiter

The Zellenleiter

The Blockleiter.

“Hoheitsgebiet are:

“The Reich

The Gau

The Kreis

The Ortsgruppe

The Zelle

The Block.

“Within their sector of sovereignty the Hoheitstraeger have sovereign political rights. They represent the Party within their sector. The Hoheitstraeger supervise all Party Officers within their jurisdiction and * * * are responsible for the maintenance of discipline. * * * The directors of offices, etc., and of the affiliated organizations are responsible to their respective Hoheitstraeger as regards their special missions. * * * The Hoheitstraeger are superior to all Political Leaders, managers, etc., within their sector. As regards personal considerations, Hoheitstraeger * * * are endowed with special rights.

“The Hoheitstraeger of the Party are not to be administrative officials * * * but are to move in a continuous vital contact with the Political Leaders of the population within their sector. The Hoheitstraeger are responsible for the proper and good supervision of all members of the nation within their sectors * * *.

“The Party intends to achieve a state of affairs in which the individual German will find his way to the Party * * *.” (1893-PS)

The distinctive character of the Politischer Leiter (Political Leaders) constituting the Hoheitstraeger, and their existence and operation as an identifiable group, are indicated by the publication of a magazine, entitled Der Hoheitstraeger, whose distribution was limited by regulation of the Reich Organization Leader to the Hoheitstraeger and certain other designated Politischer Leiter. The inside cover of this exclusive Party magazine reads as follows:

“DER HOHEITSTRAEGER, the contents of which is to be handled confidentially, serves only for the orientation of the competent leaders. It may not be loaned out to other persons * * *” [then follows a list of the Hoheitstraeger and other Political Leaders authorized to receive the magazine.] (2660-PS)

The magazine states that, in addition, the following were entitled to receive it:

“Commandants, Unit Commanders and Candidates of Order Castles; the Reich, Shock Troop and Gaue Speakers of the NSDAP; the Lieutenant Generals and Major Generals of SA, SS, NSFK, and NSKK; Lieutenant Generals and Major Generals of the HJ.” (2660-PS)

The fact that this magazine existed, that it derived its name from the Commanding Officers of the Leadership Corps, that it was distributed to the elite of the Leadership Corps—that a House Bulletin was circulated down the command channels of the Leadership Corps—demonstrates that the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was an identifiable group or organization within the meaning of Article 9 of the Charter.

An examination of the contents of the magazine Der Hoheitstrager reveals a continuing concern by the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party in measures and doctrines which were employed throughout the course of the conspiracy. The plans and policies of the inner elite of the Leadership Corps gain clarity through a random sampling of articles published and policies advocated in various issues of the magazine Der Hoheitstrager. From February 1937 to October 1938 these included the following: anti-Semitic articles, attacks on Catholicism and the Christian religion and clergy; the need for motorized armament; the urgent need for expanded Lebensraum and colonies; persistent attacks on the League of Nations; the use of the Block and Cell in achieving favorable votes in Party plebiscites; the intimate association between the Wehrmacht and the Political Leadership; the racial doctrines of Fascism; the cult of “leadership”; the role of the Gaue, Ortsgruppen, and Zellen in the expansion of Germany; and related matters.

(a) Organization of Political Leaders. The Political Leaders were organized according to the leadership principle (1893-PS):

“The basis of the Party organization is the Fuehrer thought. The public is unable to rule itself either directly or indirectly * * * All Political Leaders stand as appointed by the Fuehrer and are responsible to him. They possess full authority toward the lower echelons * * * Only a man who has absorbed the school of subordinate functions within the Party has a claim to the higher Fuehrer offices. We can only use Fuehrers who have served from the ground up. Any Political Leader who does not conform to these principles is to be dismissed or to be sent back to the lower offices, as Blockleiter, Zellenleiter for further training * * *

“The Political Leader is not an office worker but the Political Deputy of the Fuehrer * * * Within the Political Leadership, we are building the Political Leadership of the state * * * The type of the Political Leader is not characterized by the office which he represents. There is no such thing as a Political Leader of the NSBO, etc., but there is only the Political Leader of the NSDAP.” (1893-PS)

Each Political Leader was sworn in yearly. According to the Party Manual (1893-PS), the wording of the oath was as follows:

“I pledge eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler. I pledge unconditional obedience to him and the Fuehrers appointed by him.” (1893-PS)

The Organization Book of the NSDAP also provides:

“The Political Leader is inseparably tied to the ideology and the organization of the NSDAP. His oath only ends with his death or with his expulsion from the National Socialist community.” (1893-PS)

(b) Appointment of Political Leaders. The appointment of the political leaders constituting the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party proceeded as follows, according to the Party Manual:

“The Fuehrer appointed the following Political Leaders:

“a. All Reichsleiter and all Political Leaders within the Reichsleitung [Reich Party Directorate], including women’s leaders.

“b. All Gauleiter, including the Political Leaders holding offices in the Gauleitung [Gau Party Directorate], including Gau women leaders.

“c. All Kreisleiter.

“The Gauleiter appointed:

“a. The Political Leaders and women’s leaders within the Gau Party Directorate.

“b. The Political Leaders and directors of women’s leagues in the Kreis Party Directorate.

“c. All Ortsgruppenleiter.

“The Kreisleiter appoints the Political Leaders and the Directors of the Women’s Leagues of the Ortsgruppen including the Block and Cell Leaders.” (1893-PS)

c. Power of Hoheitstraeger to Call Upon Party Formations. The Hoheitstraeger among the Leadership Corps were entitled to call upon and utilize the various Party Formations as necessary for the execution of Nazi Party policies.

The Party Manual makes it clear that the Hoheitstrager has power and authority to requisition the services of the SA:

“The Hoheitstrager is responsible for the entire political appearance of the Movement within his zone. The SA leader of that zone is tied to the directives of the Hoheitstrager in that respect.

“The Hoheitstrager is the ranking representative of the Party to include all organizations within his zone. He may requisition the SA located within his zone from the respective SA leader if they are needed for the execution of a political mission. The Hoheitstrager will then assign the mission to the SA * * *

“Should the Hoheitstrager need more SA for the execution of political mission than is locally available, he then applies to the next higher office of sovereignty which, in turn, requests the SA from the SA office in his sector.” (1893-PS)

The Hoheitstrager also had the same authority to call upon the services of the SS and NSKK (1893-PS).

The Hoheitstrager further, had authority to call upon the services of the Hitler Youth (HJ):

“The Political Leader has the right to requisition the HJ in the same manner as the SA for the execution of a political action.

“In appointing leaders of the HJ and the DJ, the office of the HJ must procure the approval of the Hoheitstrager of his zone. This means that the Hoheitstrager can prevent the appointment of leaders unsuited for the leadership of youth. If his approval has not been procured, an appointment may be cancelled if he so requests.” (1893-PS)

An example of the use of the Party Formations at the call of the Leadership Corps of the Party is provided by the action taken by the Reichsleiter for Party Organization of the NSDAP, Dr. Robert Ley, leading to the deliberate dissolution of the Free Trade Unions on 2 May 1933. A directive issued by Reichsleiter Ley on 21 April 1933 (392-PS) ordered the employment of the SA and the SS in occupying trade union properties and in taking trade union leaders into protective custody:

“* * * SA as well as SS are to be employed for the occupation of trade union properties and for the taking of personalities who come into question into protective custody.

“The Gauleiter (i.e. Regional Director) is to proceed with his measures on a basis of the closest understanding with competent Regional Factory Cells Director. * * *

* * * * * *

“The following are to be taken into protective custody:

“All Trade Union Chairmen; the District Secretaries and the Branch Directors of the ‘Bank for Workers, Employees and Officials, Inc.’ ” (392-PS)

A decree issued by Hess as Deputy of the Fuehrer, dated 25 October 1934, underwrites the authority of the Hoheitstrager with respect to the Party Formations:

“The political leadership within the Party and its political representation towards all offices, State or others, which are outside of the Party, lie solely and exclusively with the Hoheitstrager, which is to say with me, the Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter * * *.

“The departmental workers of the Party organization, as well as Reichsleiter, office directors, etc., as well as the leaders of the SA, SS, HJ and the subordinate affiliations, may not enter into binding agreements of a political nature with State and other offices except when so authorized by their Hoheitstrager.

“In places where the territories of the units of the SA, SS, HJ and the subordinate affiliations do not coincide with the zones of the Hoheitstrager, the Hoheitstrager will give his political directives to the ranking leader of each unit within his zone of sovereignty.” (2474-PS)

It was the official policy of the Leadership Corps to establish close and cooperative relations with the Gestapo. The Head of the German Police and SS, Himmler, was a Reichsleiter on the top level of the Leadership Corps. A decree issued by Bormann, as Chief of Staff of the Deputy of the Fuehrer, dated 26 June 1935, provided the following:

“In order to effect a closer contact between the offices of the Party and its organizations with the Directors of the Secret State Police [Gestapo], the Deputy of the Fuehrer requests that the Directors of the Gestapo be invited to attend all of the larger official rallies of the Party and its organization.”

(d) Meetings of the Political Leaders. The contention of the Prosecution that the members of the Leadership Corps constituted a distinctive and identifiable group or organization is strongly supported by the fact that the various Hoheitstraeger (such as the Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, and so on) were under an absolute obligation to meet and confer periodically, not only with the staff officers on their own staffs, but with the political leaders and staff officers immediately subordinate to them. For example, the Gauleiter was bound to confer with his staff officers (such as his deputy, his staff office leader, his organization leader, school leader, propaganda leader, press leader, his Gau Party Judge, and so on) every 8 to 14 days. Furthermore, the Gauleiter was obligated to meet with the various Gauleiter subordinate to him once every 3 months for a 3-day convention for the purpose of discussing and clarifying Nazi Party policies and directives, for hearing basic lectures on Party policy, and for the mutual exchange of information pertinent to the Party’s current program. The Gauleiter was also obligated to meet at least once a month with the leaders of the Party formations and affiliated organizations within his Gau area, such as the leaders of the SA, SS, Hitler Youth and others. These matters are set forth in the Organization Book of the NSDAP (1893-PS) as follows:

“Leader conferences in the District:

“(a) District Leaders (Gauleiter) with his staff every 8 to 14 days.

“(b) It is further absolutely necessary that the directors of the Gau offices will meet with the county directors of their district once every three months for a three-day convention (possibly at a district schooling castle) where they will have an opportunity to overcome difficulties of personal and professional nature, apart from hearing fundamental lectures, by social gatherings in the presence of the bearer of the sovereignty, by getting to know each other and by a mutual exchange of ideas. Participation in these conferences is compulsory and duty would not constitute an excuse under any circumstances.

“(c) The arrangement of social meeting in the presence of leaders of the organizations of RAD and NSFK of the respective zone of sovereignty. In the course of these meetings differences of opinion may be straightened out in discussions.

“(d) The bearer of sovereignty will meet at least once a month with the leaders of the SA, SS, NSKK, HJ, as well as the RAD and the NSFK who are within the zone for the purpose of mutual orientation.” (1893-PS)

The Organization Book of the Party imposes a similar requirement of regular and periodical conferences and meetings upon all the other Hoheitstraeger, including the Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, Zellenleiter, and Blockleiter.

The clear consequence of such regular and obligatory conferences and meetings by all the Hoheitstraeger, both with their own staff officers and with the political leaders and staff officers subordinate to them, was that basic Nazi policies and directives issued by Hitler and the leader of the Party Chancellery, Bormann, directly through the chain of command of the Hoheitstraeger, and functional policies issued by the various Reichsleiter and Reich office holders through functional and technical channels, were certain to be brought to the attention and understanding of the bulk of the membership of the Leadership Corps. When this fact is coupled with the further fact that all the members of the Leadership Corps under the Leadership Principle and their sworn oaths, were bound to obey blindly and without question orders received from their competent superiors, it is clear that the general membership of the Leadership Corps is responsible for measures taken or ordered by that organization in furtherance of the conspiracy.

(7) Statistics Relating to the Leadership Corps. As previously shown, the Leadership Corps comprised the sum of officials of the Nazi Party, including, in addition to Hitler and the members of the Reichsleitung, such as the Reichsleiter and the Reich office holders, a hierarchy of Hoheitstraeger (ranging from the Gauleiter down to the Blockleiter) as well as the staff officers attached to the Hoheitstraeger. According to page 10 of issue No. 8, 1939 of the authoritative publication of the Leadership Corps, “Der Hoheitstrager,” there were in 1939:

However, as shown by previous evidence, the Leadership Corps was composed not only of the Hoheitstraeger (such as Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, Zellenleiter, and Blockleiter) but also of the staff officers or office holders attached to these Hoheitstraeger. The Gauleiter, for example, was assisted by a deputy Gauleiter, several Gau inspectors, and a staff which was divided into main offices (Hauptamter) and offices (Amter), including such departments as the Gau staff Office, Treasury, Education Office, Propaganda Office, Press Office, University Teachers, Communal Policy, etc. As previously shown in evidence, the staff office structure of the Gau was substantially represented in the lower levels of the Leadership Corps organization such as the Kreise, Ortsgruppen, and so on. The Kreise and the smaller territorial areas of the Party were also organized into staff offices dealing with the various activities of the Leadership Corps. But, of course, the importance and the number of such staff offices diminished as the unit dropped in the hierarchy; so that, while the Kreisleiter staff contained all or most of the departments mentioned for the Gau, the Ortsgruppe had fewer departments and the lower ones fewer still.

Firm figures have not been found as to the total number of staff officers, as distinguished from the Hoheitstraeger or political commanders themselves included within the Leadership Corps.

It is the view of the prosecution that in defining the scope and composition of the Leadership Corps, staff officers should be included only down to and including the Kreise. Upon this basis, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party constituted the Fuehrer, the members of the Reichsleitung, the 5 levels of Hoheitstraeger (ranging from Gauleiter down through the Blockleiter), and the staff officers attached to the 40-odd Gauleiter and the eight to nine hundred Kreisleiter. Adopting this definition of the Leadership Corps, it will be seen that the total figure for the membership of that organization, based upon the statistics cited from the basic handbook for Germany, amounts to around 700,000.

It is true that this figure is based upon an admittedly limited view of the size of the membership of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; for the evidence has shown that the Leadership Corps in effect embraced staff officers attached to the subordinate Hoheitstraeger, and inclusion of such staff officers in the estimation of the size of the Leadership Corps would have very considerably enlarged the final figure estimated to a total of 2,000,000. The Prosecution, however, proposes to exclude such subordinate staff officers for the reason that their participation in and responsibility for the Conspiracy were measurably less extensive than those of the staff officers and office holders on the higher levels of the Leadership Corps. The subordinate staff officers thus excluded were responsible functionally to the higher staff officers with respect to their particular specialty, such as propaganda, Party organization, and so on, and to their respective Hoheitstraeger with respect to discipline and policy control. Likewise, such higher staff officers participated in planning and policy discussions, and also issued orders through technical channels to lower staff officers.

B. Participation of the Leadership Corps in the Conspiracy.

The Program of the Nazi Party, proclaimed by Hitler, the Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps, on 24 February 1920 (1708-PS), contained the chief elements of the Nazi plan for domination and conquest. The first point required the incorporation of all Germans into a Greater German Reich. Point 2 demanded unilateral abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain. Point 3 stated the demand for “land and soil” (colonies). Point 4 proclaimed the Nazi doctrines of racial discrimination and anti-Semitism. Point 6 proclaimed the fight against the democratic-parliamentary system, as follows:

“* * * We demand that every public office, of any sort, whatsover, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to Party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities.” (1708-PS)

Point 22 expressed the Nazi plans and policies for rearmament as follows:

“We demand the abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a National Army.” (1708-PS)

The official Party Program declares on its face that:

“The program is the political foundation of the NSDAP and accordingly the primary political law of the State * * *

“All legal precepts are to be applied in the spirit of the Party Program.

“Since the taking over of control, the Fuehrer has succeeded in the realization of the essential portions of the Party Program from the fundamentals to the details.

“The Party Program of the NSDAP was proclaimed on 24 February 1920 by Adolf Hitler at the first large Party gathering in Munich and since that day has remained unaltered * * * The National Socialist philosophy is summarized in 25 points.” (1708-PS)

As previously stated, the Party Program was binding upon the Political Leaders of the Leadership Corps, and they were under a duty to support and carry out that Program. As the Party Manual puts it:

“The Commandments of the National Socialists:

“The Fuehrer is always right * * *.

“The Program be your dogma.

“It demands your utter devotion to the Movement * * *.

“Right is what serves the Movement and thus Germany.

* * * * * *

“* * * Leader Corps is responsible for the complete penetration of the German Nation with the National Socialist spirit * * *.” (1893-PS)

The oath of the Political Leader to Hitler has been previously referred to. In connection therewith, the Party Manual provides:

“The Political Leader is inseparably tied to the ideology and the organization of the NSDAP. His oath only ends with his death or with his expulsion from the National Socialist community.” (1893-PS)

While the leadership principle assured the binding nature of Hitler’s statements, program, and policies upon the entire Party and the Leadership Corps, the leadership principle also established the full responsibility of the individual Political Leader within the province and jurisdiction of his office or position.

The leadership principle applied not only to Hitler as the supreme leader, but also to the Political Leaders under him, and thus permeated the entire Leadership Corps:

“The basis of the Party Organization is the Fuehrer thought * * * All Political Leaders stand as appointed by the Fuehrer and are responsible to him. They possess full authority toward the lower echelons * * *.” (1893-PS)

The various Hoheitstraeger of the Leadership Corps were, in their respective areas of responsibility, themselves Fuehrer:

“Within their sector of sovereignty, the Hoheitstraeger (Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, Zellenleiter, Blockleiter) have sovereign political rights * * * They are responsible for the entire political situation within their sector * * *” (1893-PS)

As stated in the Organization Book of the NSDAP

“The Party is an order of ‘Fuehrer’.” (1814-PS)

The subjection of the entire membership of the Leadership Corps to the fiat of the Fuehrer Principle is clearly shown in the following passage from the Party Manual:

“* * * a solid anchorage for all the organizations within the party structure is provided and a firm connection with the sovereign leaders of the NSDAP is created in accordance with the Fuehrer Principle.” (1814-PS)

(1) Domination and Control of the German State and Government by the Nazi Party, directed by the Leadership Corps. On 23 March 1933 the Reichstag enacted a law conferring power on the Reich Cabinet to legislate on its own authority (2001-PS). Prominent members of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party were members of the Reich Cabinet. The presence of Reichsleiter and other prominent members of the Leadership Corps in the Cabinet facilitated the domination of the Cabinet by the Nazi Party and the Leadership Corps. For example, a decree of 13 March 1933 established the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. The head of this ministry was Goebbels, who simultaneously was Reichsleiter for Propaganda of the NSDAP (2029-PS). Examples of personal union between high officials in the Leadership and Cabinet membership existed in the case of the Food Minister, the Chief of the German Police, the Reich Labor Leader, the Chief of the Party Organization in Foreign Countries, and the Reich Youth Fuehrer (2473-PS). Moreover, the majority of the Reich Ministries were occupied by leading old Party Members. All Reich Ministers were accepted by the Party on 30 January 1937 and were decorated with the Golden Party Insignia. (1774-PS)

A law of 14 July 1933 outlawed and forbade the formation of any political parties other than the Nazi Party and made violation of this decree a punishable crime. Thereby the one party State was established and the Leadership Corps was rendered immune from the opposition of organized political groups. This Law Against the Formation of New Political Parties reads as follows:

“The National Socialist German Workers’ Party constitutes the only political party in Germany. Whoever undertakes to maintain the organizational structure of another political party or to form a new political party will be punished with penal servitude up to three years or with imprisonment of from six months to three years, if the deed is not subject to a greater penalty according to other regulations.” (1388-PS)

A law was enacted on 20 July 1933 providing for the dismissal of officials who belonged to the Communist Party or who were otherwise active in furthering the aims of Communism. The law also provided for the dismissal of those who were in the future active for Marxism, Communism, or Social Democracy (Law to Supplement the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, 20 July 1933, (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 518)). (1398-PS)

On 13 October 1933 a “law to guarantee public peace” was enacted which provided, inter alia, that the death penalty or other severe punishment should be imposed upon any person who—

“* * * undertakes to kill a member of the SA or the SS, a trustee or agent of the NSDAP * * * out of political motives or on account of their official activity.” (1394-PS)

On 1 December 1933 a law was enacted “to secure the unity of Party and State.” This law provided that the Nazi Party was the pillar of the German State, and was linked to it indissolubly; it also made the Deputy of the Fuehrer (then Hess) and the Chief of Staff of the SA (then Roehm) members of the Reich Cabinet (1395-PS). The pertinent provisions of this law read as follows:

“After the victory of the National Socialist Revolution, the National Socialistic German Labor Party is the bearer of the concept of the German State and is inseparably the State. It will be a part of the public law. Its organization will be determined by the Fuehrer * * *.

“The Deputy of the Fuehrer and the Chief of Staff of the SA will become members of the Reich Government in order to insure close cooperation of the offices of the Party and SA with the public authorities * * *.” (1395-PS)

This law was a basic measure in enthroning the Leadership Corps in a position of supreme political power in Germany. For it laid it down that the Party, directed by the Leadership Corps, was the embodiment of the State and, in fact, was the State. Moreover, this law made both the Fuehrer’s Deputy and the Chief of Staff of the SA, which was a Party Formation subject to the call of the Hoheitstraeger, Cabinet Members. Thus, the Leadership Corps’ control of the Cabinet was further solidified. The dominant position of the Leadership Corps is further revealed by the provision that the Reichs-Chancellor would issue the regulations carrying out this law in his capacity as Fuehrer of the Nazi Party. The fact that Hitler, as Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps, could promulgate rules which would have statutory force and be published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, the proper compilation for State enactments, is but a further reflection of the reality of the Party’s domination of the German State.

In a declaration to the 1935 Party Congress at Nurnberg, Hitler stated:

“It is not the State which gives orders to us, it is we who give orders to the State.” (2775-PS)

That categorical statement of the Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps affirms the dominance of Party over State which the evidence makes undeniably clear.

On 30 June 1934 Hitler, as Head of the Nazi Party, directed the massacre of hundreds of SA-men and other political opponents. Hitler sought to justify these mass murders by declaring to the Reichstag that “at that hour I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and supreme judge of the German people.” (The evidence relating to these events is discussed in Section 4, infra.) On 3 July 1934 the Cabinet issued a decree describing the murders of 30 June 1934, in effect, as legitimate self-defense by the State. By this law the Reich Cabinet made themselves accessories after the fact of these murders. The domination of State by Party, however, makes the Cabinet’s characterization of these criminal acts by Hitler and his top Party Leaders as state measures consistent with political reality. The single article of the law of 3 July 1934 reads as follows:

“The measures taken on 30 June and 1 and 2 July 1934 to counteract attempt at treason and high treason shall be considered as national emergency defense.” (2057-PS)

On 12 July 1934 there was enacted a law defining the function of the Academy for German law:

“Closely connected with the agencies competent for legislation, it [the Academy] shall further the realization of the National Socialist program in the realm of the law.” (1391-PS)

On 30 January 1933, Hitler, the Leader of the Nazi Party and Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps, was appointed Chancellor of the Reich. When President von Hindenburg died in 1934, the Fuehrer amalgamated in his person the offices of Chancellor and Reich President. (2003-PS)

By a decree of 20 December 1934 Party uniforms and institutions were granted the same protection as those of the State. This law was entitled “Law Concerning Treacherous Acts Against the State and Party, and for the Protection of Party Uniforms.” This law imposed heavy penalties upon any person making false statements injuring the welfare or prestige of the Nazi Party or its agencies. It authorized the imprisonment of persons making or circulating malicious or baiting statements against leading personalities of the Nazi Party. And it provided punishment by forced labor for the unauthorized wearing of Party uniforms or symbols. (1393-PS)

By a law of 15 September 1934, the Swastika flag of the Party was made the official flag of the Reich (2079-PS). This law, enacted by the Reichstag, indicates on its face that it issued from Nurnberg on the Party Day of 15 September 1935. Article 2 of this law reads as follows:

“The Reich and National flag is the swastika flag.” (2079-PS) The Swastika was the flag and symbol of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. The law making it the flag of the State constituted a recognition that the Party and its Corps of Political Leaders were the sovereign powers in Germany.

On 23 April 1936, a law was enacted granting amnesty for crimes which the offender had committed “in his eagerness to fight for the National Socialist Ideal.” (1386-PS)

In furtherance of the Conspiracy to acquire totalitarian control over the German people, a law was enacted on 1 December 1936, which incorporated the entire German youth within the Hitler Youth, thereby achieving a “total mobilization of German youth” (1392-PS). The law further provided that the task of educating the German youth through the Hitler Youth was entrusted to the Reichsleiter of German Youth in the NSDAP. By this law a monopoly control over the entire German youth was placed in the hands of a top official, a Reichsleiter, of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the defendant von Schirach.

On 4 February 1938, the Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, Hitler, issued a decree in which he took over directly the command of the whole Armed Forces (1915-PS). In this decree, Hitler declared, in part, as follows:

“From now on, I take over directly the command of the whole Armed Forces.” (1915-PS)

By the decree of 4 February 1938, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. He was, at the time of its issuance, Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. By virtue of the earlier law of 1 August 1934, he combined the office of Reich President with that of the Chancellorship. In the final result, therefore, Hitler was Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Head of the German State, and Fuehrer of the Nazi Party.

With respect to the foregoing point, the Party Manual (1893-PS) states as follows:

“* * * the Fuehrer created the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. He filled it with his spirit and his will and with it he conquered the power of the State on 30 January 1933. The Fuehrer’s will is supreme in the Party.

“By authority of the law about the Chief of State of the German Reich, dated 1 August 1934, the office of the Reich President has been combined with that of the Reich Chancellery. Consequently, the powers heretofore possessed by the Reich President were transferred to the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. Through this law, the conduct of Party and State has been combined in one hand. By desire of the Fuehrer, a plebiscite was conducted on this law on 19 August 1934. On this day, the German people chose Adolf Hitler to be their sole leader. He is responsible only to his conscience and to the German nation.” (1893-PS)

A decree of 16 January 1942 provided that the Party should participate in legislation, official appointments, and promotions (2100-PS). The decree further provided that such participation should be undertaken exclusively by Bormann, Chief of the Party Chancellery and a Reichsleiter of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. The decree provided that the Chief of the Party Chancellery was to take part in the preparation of all laws and decrees issued by Reich authorities, including those issued by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich, and to give his assent to those of the Laender and the Reich governors; all communications between State and Party authorities, unless within one Gau only, were to pass through his hands. This decree is of crucial importance in demonstrating the ultimate control and responsibility imputable to the Leadership Corps for governmental policy and actions taken in furtherance of the conspiracy. (2100-PS)

On or about 26 April 1942, Hitler declared in a speech that, in his capacity as Leader of the Nation, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Supreme Head of the Government, and as Fuehrer of the Party, his right must be recognized to compel with all means at his disposal, every German, whether soldier, judge, State official, or party official, to fulfill his desire. He demanded that the Reichstag officially recognize this asserted right. On 26 April 1942, the German Reichstag issued a decision in which full recognition was given to the rights which the Fuehrer had asserted (1961-PS). The Reichstag decreed as follows:

“At the proposal of the President of the Reichstag, on its session of 26 April 1942, the greater German Reichstag has approved of the rights which the Fuehrer has postulated in his speech with the following decision:

“There can be no doubt, that in the present war, in which the German people is faced with a struggle for its existence or annihilation, the Fuehrer must have all the rights postulated by him which serve to further or achieve victory. Therefore—without being bound by existing legal regulations—in his capacity as Leader of the Nation, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Governmental Chief and Supreme Executive Chief, as Supreme Justice and Leader of the Party—the Fuehrer must be in a position to force with all means at his disposal every German, if necessary, whether he be common soldier or officer, low or high official or judge, leading or subordinate official of the Party, worker or employee—to fulfill his duties. In case of violation of these duties, the Fuehrer is entitled, after conscientious examination, regardless of so-called well-deserved rights, to mete out due punishment and to remove the offender from his post, rank and position without introducing prescribed procedures.

“At the order of the Fuehrer, this decision is hereby made public. Berlin, 26 April 1942.” (1961-PS)

Hitler himself perhaps best summarized the political realities of his Germany, in showing the domination of the German State and Government by the Leadership Corps and its following. The core of the matter was stated by Hitler in his speech to the Reichstag on 20 February 1938, when he declared in effect that every institution in Germany was under the direction of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party:

“National Socialism has given the German people that leadership which as Party not only mobilizes the nation but also organizes it, so that on the basis of the natural principle of selection, the continuance of a stable political leadership is safeguarded forever * * * National Socialism * * * possesses Germany entirely and completely since the day when, five years ago, I left the house in Wilhelmsplatz as Reich Chancellor. There is no institution in this state which is not National Socialist. Above all, however, the National Socialist Party in these five years not only has made the nation National Socialist, but also has given itself that perfect organizational structure which guarantees its permanence for all future. The greatest guarantee of the National Socialist revolution lies in the complete domination of the Reich and all its institutions and organizations, internally and externally by the National Socialist Party. Its protection against the world abroad, however, lies in its new National Socialist armed forces. * * * In this Reich, anybody who has a responsible position is a National Socialist * * * Every institution of this Reich is under the orders of the supreme political leadership * * * The Party leads the Reich politically, the armed forces defend it militarily * * * There is nobody in any responsible position in this state who doubts that I am the authorized leader of this Reich.” (2715-PS)

The supreme power which the Leadership Corps exercised over the German State and Government is sharply pointed up by an article published in the February 1939 issue of the authoritative magazine, “Der Hoheitstrager”. In this article, addressed to all Hoheitstraeger, the Leadership Corps is reminded that it has conquered the State and that it possesses absolute and total power in Germany. The article is significantly entitled, “Fight and Order—Not Peace and Order.” It trumpets forth, in the accents of Caesarism, the battle call of the Leadership Corps of German life:

“Fight? Why do you always talk of fighting? You have conquered the State, and if something does not please you, then just make a law and regulate it differently? Why must you always talk of fighting? For you have every power! Over what do you fight? Outer-politically? You have the Wehrmacht—it will wage the fight if it is required. Inner-politically? You have the law and the police which can change everything which does not agree with you.” (3230-PS)

In view of the domination of the German State and Government by the Nazi Party and the Leadership Corps thereof, as established by the foregoing evidence, the Leadership Corps is responsible for the measures, including legislative enactments, taken by the German State and Government in furtherance of the Conspiracy formulated and carried out by the co-conspirators and the organizations charged with criminality.

For example, as revealed by the above evidence, Point 4 of the original Party Program declared that a Jew was not a member of the German race and, therefore, was not entitled to citizenship. This premise was incorporated into the law of the Third Reich by numerous anti-Semitic and discriminatory laws. Consequently, it is submitted that, by virtue of their control over the German State and Government, the Nazi Party and the Leadership Corps share responsibility for, among other enactments and measures furthering the Conspiracy, discriminatory laws against the Jews.

(2) Overt Acts and Crimes of the Leadership Corps. The membership of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party actively participated in measures designed to further the progress of the Conspiracy. The evidence will show that the participation by the Leadership Corps in the Conspiracy embraces such measures as anti-Semitic activities, war crimes committed against members of the Allied forces, the forced labor program, measures to subvert and undermine the Christian religion and persecute the Christian clergy, the plundering and spoliation of cultural and other property in German-occupied territories of Europe, and plans and measures leading to the initiation and prosecution of aggressive war.

(a) Crimes against Jews. The Gauleiter and Kreisleiter participated in what were disingenuously described by the Nazis as the “spontaneous uprising of the people” against the Jews throughout Germany on 9 and 10 November 1938 in connection with the assassination of an official of the German Embassy in Paris on 7 November. (The evidence relating to these programs is discussed in Chapter XI on the concentration camps, and Chapter XII on the persecution of the Jews.) It will be recalled that in the teletyped directive from SS-Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich, issued on 10 November 1938, to all police headquarters and SD districts, all chiefs of the State Police were ordered to arrange with the political leaders in the Gaue and Kreise the organization of the so-called spontaneous demonstrations against the Jews (3051-PS). Pursuant to this directive, a large number of Jewish shops and businesses were pillaged and wrecked, synagogues were set on fire, individual Jews were beaten up, and large numbers were taken off to concentration camps. These events forcefully illustrate the employment and participation of all the Kreisleiter and Gauleiter in illegal measures designed to further the anti-Semitic program, which was an original and continuing objective of the Leadership Corps.

(b) Crimes against Allied Airmen. The members of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party participated in the murder, beating, and ill-treatment of American airmen who landed in German or German-controlled territory. American airmen who bailed out of disabled planes over Germany were not treated as prisoners of war, but were beaten and murdered by German civilians with the active condonence, indeed at the instigation of the Leadership Corps. Such a course of conduct by the Leadership Corps represented a deliberate violation by the German Government of its obligations, under the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention, to protect prisoners of war against acts of violence and ill-treatment.

Heinrich Himmler was a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party and thus a top official in the Leadership Corps by virtue of his positions as Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Delegate for German Folkdom (2473-PS; Chart No. 1). An order signed by Himmler (R-110), dated 10 August 1943, reads as follows:

“It is not the task of the police to interfere in clashes between Germans and English and American terror fliers who have bailed out.” (R-110)

This order was transmitted in writing to all senior executive SS and police officers, and orally to their subordinate officers and to all Gauleiter.

Joseph Goebbels was a top-flight official in the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party by virtue of his position as Propaganda Leader of the Party (2473-PS; Chart No. 1). In the issue of the Voelkischer Beobachter for 26/29 May 1944, there appeared an article written by Goebbels, the Reichsleiter for Party Propaganda, in which he openly invited the German civil population to murder Allied fliers shot down over Germany (1676-PS). After alleging that Anglo-American pilots have engaged in machine gun attacks against civilians, Goebbels continues:

“It is only possible with the aid of arms to secure the lives of enemy pilots who were shot down during such attacks, for they would otherwise be killed by the sorely tried population. Who is right here? The murderers who, after their cowardly misdeeds, await a humane treatment on the part of their victims, or the victims who wish to defend themselves according to the principle: ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’? This question is not hard to answer.” (1676-PS)

Reichsleiter Goebbels then proceeds to answer his question in the following language:

“It seems to us hardly possible and tolerable to use German police and soldiers against the German people when it treats murderers of children as they deserve.” (1676-PS)

On 30 May 1944, Bormann, Reichsleiter and Chief of the Party Chancellery, issued a circular letter on the subject which furnishes indisputable proof that British and American fliers who were shot down were lynched by the German population (057-PS). After alleging that in recent weeks English and American fliers had repeatedly shot children, women, peasants, and vehicles on the highway, Bormann then states:

“Several instances have occurred where members of the crews of such aircraft, who have bailed out or who have made forced landings, were lynched on the spot immediately after capture by the populace, which was incensed to the highest degree. No police measures or criminal proceedings were invoked against the German civilians who participated in these incidents.” (057-PS)

This letter of Bormann was distributed through the chain of command of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. Express mention on the distribution list is made of Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and leaders of the incorporated and affiliated organizations of the Party. Bormann requested that the local group leaders (Ortsgruppenleiter) be informed of the contents of his circular letter only by oral means. (057-PS)

The effect of Reichsleiter Bormann’s circular letter may be seen in an order dated 25 February 1945 (L-154). This is an order from Albert Hoffman, an important member of the Leadership Corps by virtue of his position as Gauleiter and National Defense Commissioner of the Gau Westfalen-South, and it is addressed to all County Councillors, mayors, and police officials, and to county leaders and county staff chiefs of the Volkssturm. The order reads as follows:

“Fighter bomber pilots who are shot down are not to be protected against the fury of the people. I expect from all police officers that they will refuse to lend their protection to these gangster types. Authorities acting in contradiction to the popular sentiment will have to account to me. All police and gendarmerie officials are to be informed immediately of this, my attitude.” (L-154)

The obligations of belligerents towards prisoners of war are clearly set forth in the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention of 27 July 1929, which was ratified by both Germany and the United States. Article Two of the Convention provides as follows:

“Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile power, but not of the individuals or corps who have captured them.

“They must at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, insults and public curiosity.

“Measures of reprisal against them are prohibited.” (3738-PS)

The Geneva Prisoners of War Convention clearly imposes upon its signatories the strict obligation to protect prisoners of war from violence. The evidence just discussed shows that the German State flagrantly violated its obligations under that Convention to protect captured airmen who were shot down in German hands. The evidence also proves that the entire hierarchy of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party participated in the conspiracy to incite the German civil population to murder Allied airmen and also ordered police and Party officials to take no steps to secure the safety of these airmen.

(c) Crimes against Foreign Labor and Civilians in Occupied Areas. Alfred Rosenberg and Robert Ley were both Reichsleiter of the NSDAP. (2473-PS)

An agreement was concluded between the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Reichsleiter Rosenberg, and the Director of the German Labor Front, Reichsorganisationleiter Ley, relating to the inspection and care of foreign workers. This agreement was based on an earlier agreement of 2 June 1943 between the Deputy General for the Arbeitseinsatz, Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel, and the Leader of the German Labor Front, Reichsleiter for the Party Organization, Dr. Ley, concerning a “central inspection for the care of foreign workers” (1913-PS). The purpose of the two agreements was to coordinate activities of the organizations concerned with respect to the administration of plants and camps in which foreign workers were employed. (1914-PS)

On 17 October 1944, Reichsleiter Rosenberg sent a letter to Reichsleiter Bormann, Chief of the Party Chancery, informing the latter that he had sent a telegram to Gauleiter urging them not to interfere in the liquidation of certain listed companies and banks under his supervision. Rosenberg emphasized to Bormann that any “delay of liquidation or * * * independent confiscation of the property by the Gauleiter would impair or destroy an organized plan” for the liquidation of a vast amount of property. (327-PS)

On 7 November 1943, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces delivered a lecture at Munich to the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter. The Chief of Staff stated that his object was to give a review of the strategic position at the outset of the fifth year of war. He stated his realization that the Political Leaders in the Reich and Gau areas, in view of their burdensome tasks in supporting the German War Effort, were in need of information he could give. He stated, in part, as follows:

“Reichsleiter Bormann has requested me to give you a review today of the strategic position in the beginning of the fifth year of war.

“No one—the Fuehrer has ordered—may know more or be told more than he needs for his immediate task, but I have no doubt at all in my mind, gentlemen, but that you need a great deal in order to be able to cope with your tasks. It is in your Gau, after all * * * that all the enemy propaganda, and the malicious rumors concentrate that try to find themselves a place among our people * * * Against this wave of enemy propaganda and cowardice you need to know the true situation, and, for this reason, I believe that I am justified in giving you a perfectly open and uncovered account of the state of affairs * * *.” (L-172)

Reichsleiter Bormann distributed to all Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, and leaders of Party affiliated organizations, by an undated letter of transmittal, an order of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht relating to self-defense by German guard personnel and German contractors and workers against prisoners of war (656-PS). The order of the Wehrmacht states that the question of treatment of prisoners of war is continually being discussed by Wehrmacht and Party bureaus. The order states that should prisoners of war refuse to obey orders to work, the guard has “in the case of the most pressing need and danger, the right to force obedience with the weapon if he has no other means. He can use the weapon as much as is necessary to attain his goal * * *.” (656-PS)

On 18 April 1944, Reich Commissar Lohse, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in a letter to Reich Youth Leader Axmann, proposed that the Hitler Youth participate in and supervise the military education of the Estonian and Latvian youth (347-PS). Lohse stated in this letter that “in the military education camps, the young Latvians are trained under Latvian leaders in the Latvian language not because this is our ideal, but because absolute military necessity demands this.” Lohse further stated:

“* * * in contrast to the Germanic peoples of the West, military education is no longer to be carried out through voluntary enlistments but through legal conscription. The camps in Estonia and Latvia * * * will have to be under German Leadership and, as military education camps of the Hitler Youth, they must be a symbol of our educational mission beyond Germany’s borders * * * I consider the execution of the military education of the Estonian and Latvian youth not only a military necessity, but also a war mission of the Hitler Youth especially. I would be thankful to you, Party member Axmann, if the Hitler Youth would put itself at our disposal with the same readiness with which they have so far supported our work in the Baltic area.” (347-PS)

The Reichsfuehrer of the SS, as shown earlier, was a Reichsleiter of the NSDAP (2473-PS). An order of the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, dated 22 October 1938, provided as follows:

“The Reichsfuehrer SS and the Chief of the German Police * * * can take the administrative measures necessary for the maintenance of security and order, even beyond the legal limits otherwise set on such measures.” (1438-PS)

This order related to the administration of the Sudeten-German territory.

In a letter dated 23 June 1943 (407-VI-PS) Gauleiter and Plenipotentiary for the Direction of Labor, Fritz Sauckel, wrote to Hitler advising him of the success of the forced labor program as of that date. Sauckel stated:

“You can be assured that the District of Thueringen [Gau] and I will serve you and our dear people with the employment of all strength * * *.” (407-VI-PS)

On 1 September 1939, Hitler wrote a memorandum stating:

“Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M.D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.

“(Signed) A. Hitler.” (630-PS)

A handwritten note on the face of the document states:

“Given to me by Bouhler on 27 August 1940, [signed] Dr. Guertner.” (630-PS)

In a memorandum recording an agreement between himself and Himmler, the Minister of Justice Thierack stated that, on the suggestion of Reichsleiter Bormann, an agreement had been reached between Himmler and himself with respect to “special treatment at the hands of the police in cases where judicial sentences are not severe enough” (654-PS). The agreement related that:

“The Reich Minister for Justice will decide whether and when special treatment at the hands of the police is to be applied. The Reich Fuehrer of SS will send the reports, which he sent hitherto to Reichsleiter Bormann, to the Reich Minister for Justice.” (654-PS)

If the views of the Reich Fuehrer of SS and the Reich Minister for Justice disagreed,

“the opinion of Reichsleiter Bormann will be brought to bear on the case, and he will possibly inform the Fuehrer * * *.

* * * * * *

“The delivery of antisocial elements from execution of their sentence to the Reich Fuehrer of SS to be worked to death. Persons under protective arrest, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukrainians, Poles with more than 3-year sentences, Czechs and Germans with more than 8-year sentences, according to the decision of the Reich Minister of Justice. First of all the worst antisocial elements amongst those just mentioned are to be handed over. I shall inform the Fuehrer of this through Reichsleiter Bormann.” (654-PS)

With respect to the “administration of justice by the people,” the memorandum states:

“This is to be carried out step by step as soon as possible * * * I shall rouse the Party particularly to cooperate in this scheme by an article in the Hoheitstrager [NSDAP publication] * * *.” (654-PS)

At a meeting of the NSDAP in Kiev, the theory of the master race as the basis of German administrative policy in the East was expressed by Koch, Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine:

“We are the master race * * * I will squeeze the last drop out of the country . . . the people must work, work and work. We are a master race * * * the lowest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the people here.” (1130-PS)

A letter from RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) to police chiefs, dated 5 November 1942, recites an agreement between the Reich Fuehrer SS and the Reich Minister of Justice, approved by Hitler, providing that ordinary criminal procedure was no longer to be applied to Poles and members of the Eastern populations (L-316). The agreement provided that such people, including Jews and Gypsies, should henceforth be turned over to the police. The principles applicable to a determination of the punishment of German offenders, including appraisal of the motives of the offender, were not to be applied to foreign offenders. The letter stated:

“* * * the offense committed by a person of foreign extraction is not to be regarded from the view of legal retribution by way of justice, but from the point of view of preventing dangers through police action. From this it follows that the criminal procedure against persons of foreign extraction must be transferred from Justice to the Police. The preceding statements serve for personal information. There are no objections if the Gauleiter are informed in the usual form should the need arise * * *.” (L-316)

With respect to the evacuation, deportation, and Germanization of the civilian population of the incorporated eastern territories, Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, issued several decrees requiring the deportation to Germany of all Germans from such territories who had renounced their nationality during the existence of the Polish State (R-112). These decrees directed that persons affected by the provisions thereof who failed to comply were to be sent to concentration camps. After deportation to Germany, such persons were to be closely supervised by NSDAP “Counsellors” and secret police to insure their Germanization. Certain of the decrees directing such deportation are addressed, inter alia, to the “Gauleiter” and the “Reich Governors in the Reich Gaue.” (R-112)

In a conference with Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Hitler emphasized that he “wished to have the Crimea cleaned out,” and Rosenberg stated that he had given much consideration to renaming the towns in the Crimea in order to invest the area with a German character. (1517-PS)

In a speech to a gathering of persons intimately concerned with the Eastern problem on 20 June 1941, Reichsleiter Rosenberg stated that the southern Russian territories and the northern Caucasus would have to provide food for the German people:

“We see absolutely no obligation on our part to feed also the Russian people with the products of that surplus territory. We know that this is a harsh necessity, bare of any feelings * * *.” (1058-PS)

Rosenberg stated that, as a consequence of the above policy, extensive evacuations of Russians from that Area would have to take place. (1058-PS)

Gauleiter Wagner of the German-occupied Areas of Alsace prepared plans and took measures leading to the expulsion and deportation of certain groups within the Alsatian civil population. His plans called for the forcible expulsion of certain categories of so-called undesirable persons, as a means of punishment and compulsory Germanization. The Gauleiter supervised deportation measures in Alsace from July to December 1940, in the course of which 105,000 persons were either expelled or prevented from returning. A memorandum, dated 4 August 1942, of a meeting of high SS and police officials, convened to receive the reports and plans of the Gauleiter relating to the Alsatian evacuations, states that the persons deported were mainly—

“Jews, Gypsies and other foreign racial elements, criminals, asocial and incurably insane persons, as well as Frenchmen and Francophiles.” (R-114)

According to the memorandum, the Gauleiter stated that the Fuehrer had given him permission “to cleanse Alsace of all foreign, sick, or unreliable elements,” and emphasized the political necessity of further deportation. The memorandum further records that the SS and police officials present at the above conference approved the Gauleiter’s proposals for further evacuation. (R-114)

A second memorandum, dated 17 August 1942, relating to a conference called by SS-Gruppenfuehrer Kaul, held at the Gauleiter office at Karlsruhe for the purpose of considering the deportation of Alsatians into Germany, states that the Gauleiter had reported to the Fuehrer with respect to the proposed evacuation of Alsatians. It is further stated that the Fuehrer verbally declared that “asocial and criminal persons” were to be expelled. The Gauleiter stated at the above conference that the action leading to such evacuation had already begun. The Gauleiter further declared that he intended to offset the loss of population as far as possible by transplantation of people from Baden, “thus creating a uniform race mixture.” (R-114)

A memorandum by Reichsleiter Bormann of a conference called by Hitler at his headquarters on 16 July 1941 (L-221), states, in part, as follows with respect to the maintenance of order in the occupied Eastern areas:

“The Crimea has to be evacuated by all foreigners and to be settled by Germans only * * *. We have now to face the task of cutting up the giant cake according to our needs in order to be able first, to dominate it, second, to administer it, and third, to exploit it. The Russians have now ordered partisan warfare behind our front. This partisan war * * * has some advantage for us; it enables us to eradicate everyone who opposes us. * * * Our iron principle is and has to remain: we must never permit anybody but the Germans to carry arms * * *.” (L-221)

According to the above memorandum, the foregoing conference was attended by Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Reich Minister Lammers, Field Marshal Keitel, Reich Marshal Goering, and Bormann, and lasted about 20 hours. The memorandum states that discussion occurred with respect to the annexation by Germany of various parts of conquered Europe. The memorandum also states that a long discussion took place with respect to the qualifications of Gauleiter Lohse, who was proposed by Rosenberg at the conference as governor of the Baltic country. Discussion also occurred with respect to the qualifications of other Gauleiter and commissioners for the administration of various areas of occupied Russia. Goering stated that he intended to appoint Gauleiter Terboven for the “exploitation of the Kola Peninsula: the Fuehrer agrees.” With respect to the security of the German administration in the eastern areas, the memorandum states:

“This giant area would have to be pacified as quickly as possible; the best solution was to shoot anybody who looked sideways * * * Field Marshal Keitel emphasizes the inhabitants themselves ought to be made responsible for their things because it was, of course, impossible to put a sentry in front of every shed or railway station. The inhabitants had to understand that anybody who did not perform their duties properly would be shot, and that they would be held responsible for each offense.” (L-221)

(d) Subversion of Christian Church and Persecution of the Clergy. The evidence relating to the systematic effort of the conspirators to eliminate the Christian churches in Germany is discussed in Section 6 of Chapter VII. The evidence hereinafter taken up is limited to proving the responsibility of the Leadership Corps and its members for participation in illegal activities against the Christian church and clergy.

Bormann, who was a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Nazi Party Chancellery, issued a secret decree addressed to all Gauleiter, entitled “Relationship of National Socialism and Christianity” (D-75). In this decree Reichsleiter Bormann flatly declared that National Socialism and Christianity are incompatible and that the influence of the churches in Germany must be eliminated:

“National Socialist and Christian concepts are irreconcilable. * * * Our National Socialist ideology is far loftier than the concepts of Christianity, which, in their essential points, have been taken over from Jewry. For this reason also, we do not need Christianity. * * * If, therefore, in the future our youth learns nothing more of this Christianity, whose doctrines are far below ours, Christianity will disappear by itself. * * * It follows from the irreconcilability of National Socialist and Christian concepts that a strengthening of existing confessions and every demand of originating Christian confessions is to be rejected by us. A differentiation between the various Christian confessions is not to be made here. For this reason, also, the thought of an erection of an Evangelical National Church by merger of the various Evangelical churches has been definitely given up, because the Evangelical Church is just as inimicable to us as the Catholic Church. Any strengthening of the Evangelical Church would merely react against us. * * *

“For the first time in German history, the Fuehrer consciously and completely has the leadership of the people in his own hand. With the Party, its components, and attached units, the Fuehrer has created for himself, and thereby the German Reich leadership, an instrument which makes him independent of the Church. All influences which might impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Fuehrer, with the help of the NSDAP, must be eliminated. More and more the people must be separated from the churches and their organs, the pastors. Of course, the churches must and will, seen from their viewpoint, defend themselves against this loss of power. But never again must an influence on leadership of the people be yielded to the churches. This influence must be broken completely and finally.

“Only the Reich Government and, by its direction, the Party, its components and attached units have a right to leadership of the people. Just as the deleterious influences of astrologers, seers and other fakers are eliminated and suppressed by the State, so must the possibility of Church influence also be totally removed. Not until this has happened, does the State leadership have influence on the individual citizens. Not until then are people and Reich secure in their existence for all the future.” (D-75)

On 25 April 1941 a letter was issued from Bormann’s office to Rosenberg, in his capacity as the Fuehrer’s Representative for the Supervision of the Entire Mental and Ideological Training and Education of the NSDAP (070-PS). In this letter Bormann’s office stated that measures had been taken leading to the progressive cancellation of morning prayers and other religious services and their substitution by Nazi mottos and slogans:

“We are inducing schools more and more to reduce and abolish religious morning services. Similarly the confessional and general prayers in several parts of the Reich have already been replaced by national socialist mottos. I would be grateful, to know your opinion on a future national socialist morning service instead of the present confessional morning services which are usually conducted once per week * * *.” (070-PS)

In a letter from Reichsleiter Bormann to Reichsleiter Rosenberg, dated 22 February 1940, Bormann declared to Rosenberg that the Christian religion and National Socialism are incompatible (098-PS). Bormann cited, as examples of hostile divergence between Naziism and the churches, the attitude of the latter on the racial question, celibacy of the priests, monasteries and nunneries, etc. Bormann further declared that the churches could not be subjugated through compromise, but only through a new philosophy of life as prophesied in Rosenberg’s writings. In this letter, Bormann proposed the creation of a National Socialist Catechism, in order to give that part of the German youth which declines to practice confessional religion, a moral foundation, and to lay a moral basis for National Socialist doctrines, which were gradually to supplant the Christian religions. Bormann suggested that some of the Ten Commandments could be merged with the National Socialist Catechism and stated that a few new Commandments should be added, such as: Thou shalt be courageous; Thou shalt not be cowardly; Thou shalt believe in God’s presence in the living nature, animals, and plants; Thou shalt keep thy blood pure; etc. Deputy of the Fuehrer Bormann concluded that he considered the problem so important that it should be discussed with the members of the Reich Directorate, comprising the top leaders of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, as soon as possible. (098-PS)

At one point in this letter, Bormann stated:

“Christianity and National Socialism are phenomena which originated from entirely different basic causes. Both differ fundamentally so strongly, that it will not be possible to construct a Christian teaching which would be completely compatible with the point of view of the National Socialist ideology; just as the communications of Christian faith would never be able to stand by the ideology of National Socialism in its entirety * * *.” (098-PS)

After discussing various proposals for the formulation of a Nazi religious credo for instruction in the German school system, Bormann stated:

“The Fuehrer’s deputy finds it necessary that all these questions should be thoroughly discussed in the near future in the presence of the Reich Leaders [Reichsleiter] who are especially effected by them * * *.” (098-PS)

In a circular letter, dated 17 June 1938, addressed by Bormann as Reichsleiter and Deputy of the Fuehrer to all Reichsleiter and Gauleiter, there was enclosed a copy of rules prepared by Reichsleiter Hierl, setting forth certain restrictive regulations with respect to participation of the Reich Labor Service in religious celebrations (107-PS). Pertinent portions of the directives issued by Reichsleiter Hierl read as follows:

“The Reich Labor Service is a training school in which the German youth should be educated to national unity in the spirit of National Socialism * * *.

“What religious beliefs a person has is not a decisive factor, but it is decisive that he first of all feels himself a German.

“Every religious practice is forbidden in the Reich Labor Service because it disturbs the comradelike harmony of all working men and women.

“On this basis, every participation of the Reich Labor Service in churchly, that is religious, arrangements and celebrations is not possible.” (107-PS)

The position of Bormann as Deputy of the Fuehrer and chief of the Nazi Party Chancellery, and the position of Rosenberg as the Fuehrer’s Representative for the Whole Spiritual and Philosophical Education of the Nazi Party, give to the foregoing views on religion and religious policy the highest official backing. The anti-Christian utterances and policies of these two conspirator-defendants reveal a community of mind and intention amongst the most powerful leaders of the party which was amply confirmed by the actual treatment of the churches since 1933 and throughout the course of the conspiracy. An excerpt from page 514 of “The Myth of the 20th Century,” written by Rosenberg, reads as follows:

“The idea of honor—national honor—is for us the beginning and the end of our entire thinking and doing. It does not admit of any equal-valued center of force along side of it, no matter of what kind, neither Christian love, nor the Free-Masonic humanity, nor the Roman philosophy.” (2349-PS)

In addition to promoting beliefs and practices fundamentally incompatible with Christianity, the Leadership Corps participated in the persecution of priests, clergy, and members of religious orders. A Gestapo telegram, dated 24 July 1938, dispatched from Berlin to Nurnberg, deals with demonstrations and acts of violence against Bishop Sproll in Rottenburg (848-PS). The Gestapo office in Berlin wired its Nurnberg office the following teletype account received from its Stuttgart office of disorderly conduct and vandalism carried out by Nazi Party members against Bishop Sproll:

“The Party on 23 July 1939 from 2100 on carried out the third demonstration against Bishop Sproll. Participants, about 2500-3000, were brought in from outside by bus, etc. The Rottenburg populace again did not participate in the demonstration. This town took rather hostile attitude toward the demonstrations. The action got completely out of hand of the Party member responsible for it. The demonstrators stormed the palace, beat in the gates and doors. About 150 to 200 people forced their way into the palace, searched through the rooms, threw files out of the windows and rummaged through the beds in the rooms of the palace. One bed was ignited * * * The Bishop was with Archbishop Groeber of Freiburg and the ladies and gentlemen of his menage in the chapel at prayer. About 25 to 30 people pressed into this chapel and molested those present. Bishop Groeber was taken for Bishop Sproll. He was grabbed by the robe and dragged back and forth * * *.” (848-PS)

The Gestapo official in Stuttgart added that Bishop Groeber desired “to turn to the Fuehrer and Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick, anew”; and that he had found a full report of the demonstration after “suppressing counter mass meetings.” (848-PS)

On 23 July 1938 the Reich Minister for Church Affairs, Kerrl, sent a letter to the Minister of State and Chief of the Praesidium Chancellery, Berlin, stating that Bishop Sproll had angered the population by abstaining from the plebiscite of 10 April (849-PS). In this letter Kerrl stated that the Gauleiter and Governor of Wuerttemberg had decided that, in the interest of preserving the State’s authority and in the interest of quiet and order, Bishop Sproll could no longer remain in office. The letter reads in part as follows:

“* * * The Reich Governor had explained to the Ecclesiastical Board that he would no longer regard Bishop Sproll as Head of the Diocese of Rottenburg on account of his refraining from the election in the office and that he desired Bishop Sproll to leave the Gau area * * * because he could assume no guarantee for his personal safety; that in the case of the return of the Bishop of Rottenburg he would see to it that all personal and official intercourse with him on the part of State offices as well as Party offices and the Armed Forces would be denied.” (849-PS)

Kerrl further stated in the foregoing letter that his Deputy had moved the Foreign Office, through the German Embassy at the Vatican, to urge the Holy See to persuade Bishop Sproll to resign his Bishopric. Kerrl concluded by stating that should the effort to procure the Bishop’s resignation prove unsuccessful

“* * * the Bishop would have to be exiled from the land or there would have to be a complete boycott of the Bishop by the authorities * * *.” (849-PS)

On 14 July 1939 Bormann, in his capacity as Deputy of the Fuehrer, issued a party regulation which required party members entering the clergy or undertaking the study of theology to leave the party (840-PS). The last paragraph of the regulation reads as follows:

“I decree that in the future party members who enter the clergy or who turn to the study of theology have to leave the party.” (840-PS)

In this directive Bormann also referred to an earlier decree, dated 9 February 1937, in which he had ruled that the admission of members of the clergy into the party was to be avoided. In that decree also Bormann referred with approval to a regulation of the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP, dated 10 May 1939, providing that—

“clergymen, as well as other fellow Germans, who are also closely connected with the church, cannot be admitted into the party.” (840-PS)

In the Allocution of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the Sacred College on 2 June 1945, His Holiness, after declaring that he had acquired an appreciation of the great qualities of the German people in the course of 12 years of residence in their midst, expressed the hope that Germany could rise to new dignity and new life once it had laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism, and after the guilty had expiated the crimes they have committed (3268-PS). After referring to repeated violations by the German government of the Concordat concluded in 1933, His Holiness declared:

“The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become ever more bitter: there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens, and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely-organized propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the faithful, the Church’s institutions, teachings and history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses * * *.

“In the meantime the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them, in clear and energetic language, of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the Concordat. In those critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a Pastor to the long-suffering patience of a father, Our great Predecessor Pius XI fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage.

“But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate violations of a solemn pact, with a religious persecution masked or open, but always rigorously organized, he proclaimed to the world, on Passion Sunday 1937, in his Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, what National-Socialism really was; the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity * * *.

“From the prisons, concentration camps and fortresses are now pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also the crowds of those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless fulfillment of their duties as priests * * *.

“In the forefront, the number and harshness of the treatment meted out to them, were the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945, 2,800 Polish ecclesiastica and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was the Auxiliary bishop of Wloclawek, who died there of typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead except for two or three transferred to another camp. In the summer of 1942, 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be gathered there; of these, 45 were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees, especially from some dioceses of Bavaria, Rhenania and Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of this year, did not surpass 350. Nor should we pass over in silence those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy. Many of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and for their vocation. In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and crowning with thorns of our Redeemer.” (3268-PS)

The Leadership Corps participated in the confiscation of church and religious property. A letter dated 19 April 1941 from Reichsleiter Bormann to Reichsleiter Rosenberg exposes the participation of the Gauleiter in measures relating to the confiscation of religious property (072-PS). The letter reads in part as follows:

“The libraries and art objects of the monasteries confiscated in the Reich were to remain for the time being in these monasteries, insofar as the Gauleiter had not determined otherwise.” (072-PS)

On 21 February 1940, the Chief of the Security Police and SD, Heydrich, wrote a letter to the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler, proposing that certain listed churches and monasteries be confiscated for the accommodation of so-called racial Germans. (Himmler was a Reichsleiter in the Leadership Corps by virtue of his position as Reichsfuehrer of the SS.) After pointing out that, on political grounds, outright expropriation of religious property would not be feasible at the time, Heydrich suggested certain specious interim actions with respect to the church properties in question, to be followed progressively by outright confiscation (R-101-A). Heydrich’s letter makes the following statements:

“Enclosed is a list of church possessions which might be available for the accommodation of Racial Germans. The list, which please return, is supplemented by correspondence and illustrated material pertinent to the subject.

“For political reasons, expropriation without indemnity of the entire property of the churches and religious orders will hardly be possible at this time.

“Expropriation with indemnity or in return for assignment of other lands and grounds will be even less possible.

“It is therefore suggested that the respective authorities of the Orders be instructed that they make available the monasteries concerned for the accommodation of Racial Germans and remove their own members to other less populous monasteries. [Marginal note in pencil opposite this paragraph: “Very good!”]

“The final expropriation of these properties thus placed at our disposal can then be carried out step by step in course of time.” (R-101-A)

On 5 April 1940, the Chief of the Security Police and of the Security Service SS sent a letter to the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of Germandom, enclosing a copy of the foregoing letter from Heydrich to Himmler proposing the confiscation of church properties (R-101-A). The letter of 5 April 1940 stated:

“The Reich Leader SS has agreed to the proposals made in the enclosed letter and has ordered the matter to be dealt with by collaboration between the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service and your office.” (R-101-A)

A letter dated 30 July 1941 (R-101-C) written by an SS-Standartenfuehrer whose signature is illegible, to the Reich Leader of the SS, supplies further evidence of the participation of the Gauleiter in the seizure of church property:

“Further to report of 30 May 1941 this office considers it its duty to call the Reich Leader’s attention to the development which is currently taking place in the incorporated Eastern countries with regard to seizure and confiscation of Church property.

“As soon as the Reich Laws on expropriation had been introduced, the Reich Governor and Gauleiter in the Wartheland adopted the practice of expropriating real estate belonging to churches for use as dwellings. He grants compensation to the extent of the assessed value and pays the equivalent amount into blocked accounts.

“Moreover the East German Estate Administration Limited reports that in the ‘Warthegau’ all real estate owned by the churches is being claimed by the local Gau administration [Gauselbstverwaltung].” (R-101-C)

Another letter, this one from the Chief of the Staff Main Office to Himmler, dated 30 March 1942, dealing with the confiscation of church property, evidences the active participation of the Party Chancellery in the confiscation of religious property (R-101-D). In this letter the Chief of the Staff Main Office reports to Himmler concerning the policy of the SS in suspending all payments of rent to monasteries and other church institutions whose property had been expropriated. The letter discusses a proposal made by the Reich Minister of the Interior, in which the Party Chancery prominently participated, to the effect that the church institutions should be paid amounts corresponding to current mortgage charges on the premises without realizing any profit. The writer further suggests that such payments should never be made directly to the ecclesiastical institutions but rather should be made to the creditors of such institutions:

“Such an arrangement would be in line with the basic idea of the settlement originally worked out between the Party Chancery and the Reich Minister of the Interior.” (R-101-D)

The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party participated in the suppression of religious publications and interfered with free religious education. In a letter dated 27 September 1940, Reichsleiter and Deputy of the Fuehrer Bormann transmitted to Rosenberg a photostatic copy of a letter from Gauleiter Florian to Hess, dated 23 September 1940, which expresses the Gauleiter’s intense disapproval on Nazi ideological grounds of a religious pamphlet entitled “The Spirit and Soul of the Soldiers,” written by a Major General von Rabenau (064-PS). The Gauleiter urges that the religious writings of General von Rabenau be suppressed. Florian also discusses a conversation he had with General von Rabenau at the close of a lecture delivered by the General to a group of younger Army officers at Aachen. This conversation illumines the hostile attitude of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party toward the Christian churches:

“After he had affirmed the necessity of the churches, Rabenau said, with emphasized self-assurance, something like the following: ‘Dear Gauleiter, the Party is making mistake after mistake in the business with the churches. Obtain for me the necessary powers from the Fuehrer and I guarantee that I shall succeed in a few months in establishing peace with the churches for all times.’ After this catastrophic ignorance, I gave up the conversation. Dear Party Member Hess: the reading of von Rabenau’s pamphlet ‘Spirit and Soul of the Soldier’ has reminded me again of this. In this brochure, Rabenau affirms the necessity of the Church straight-forward and clearly, even if it is prudently careful. He writes on page 28 ‘There could be more examples; they would suffice to show that a soldier in this world can scarcely get along without thoughts about the next one.’ Because von Rabenau is falsely based spiritually, I consider his activities as an educator in spiritual affairs as dangerous, and I am of the opinion that his educational writings are to be dispensed with absolutely and that the publication section of the NSDAP can and must renounce these writings * * * The churches with their Christianity are this danger against which the struggle must always be carried on.” (064-PS)

That the Party Chancellery shared the Gauleiter’s hostility to the Christian churches is further revealed by Bormann’s instruction to Rosenberg to “take action” on the Gauleiter’s recommendation that the General’s writings be suppressed. (064-PS)

Another letter from Bormann to Rosenberg, dated 8 March 1940, enclosed a copy of Bormann’s letter of the same date to Reichsleiter Amann (089-PS). Amann was a top member of the Leadership Corps by virtue of his position as Reichsleiter for the Press and Leader of the Party Publishing Company. In this letter to Amann, Bormann expressed his dismay and dissatisfaction that only 10 percent of the 3,000 Protestant periodicals in Germany had ceased publication for what are described as “paper saving” reasons. Bormann then advised Amann that “the distribution of any paper whatsoever for such periodicals” was barred (089-PS). Bormann also instructed Amann to make sharper restrictions in the distribution of paper against religious writings in favor of publications more acceptable to the Nazi ideology:

“I urge you [Bormann is addressing Reichsleiter Amann] to see to it in any redistribution of paper to be considered later that the confessional writing, which according to experiences so far gathered possesses very doubtful value for strengthening the power of resistance of the people toward the external foe receives still sharper restrictions in favor of literature, politically and ideologically more valuable.” (089-PS)

A further letter from Bormann to Rosenberg, dated 17 January 1940, expressed the Party’s opposition to the circulation of religious literature to the members of the German Armed Forces (101-PS). Pertinent excerpts from Bormann’s letter read as follows:

“Nearly all the districts [Gaue] report to me regularly that the churches of both confessions are administering spiritually to members of the Armed Forces. This administering finds its expression especially in the fact that soldiers are being sent religious publications by the spiritual leaders of the home congregations. These publications are, in part, very cleverly composed. I have repeated reports that these publications are being read by the troops and thereby exercise a certain influence on the morale.

“I have, in the past, sought by sounding out the General Field Marshal, the High Command of the Armed Forces, and * * * Reich Director Amann, to restrict considerably the production and shipment of publications of this type. The result of these efforts remains unsatisfactory. As Reichsleiter Amann has repeatedly informed me, the restriction of these pamphlets by means of the * * * paper rationing has not been achieved because the paper * * * is being purchased on the open market.

“If the influencing of the soldiers by the church is to be effectively combatted, this will only be accomplished by producing many good publications in the shortest possible time under the supervision of the Party * * *.

“Thus at the last meeting of the Deputy Gauleiters, comments were uttered on this matter to the effect that a considerable quantity of such publications are not available.

“I maintain that it is necessary that in the near future we transmit to the Party Service Office down to Ortsgruppenleitern a list of additional publications of this sort which should be sent to our soldiers by the Ortsgruppen. * * *” (101-PS)

The Leadership Corps also participated in measures leading to the closing and dissolution of theological schools and other religious institutions. In a letter dated 17 April 1939 Bormann transmitted to Rosenberg photostatic copy of a plan suggested by the Reich Minister for Science, Education, and Training for the combining and closing of certain specifically listed theological faculties (122-PS). In his letter of transmittal Bormann requested Rosenberg to take “cognizance and prompt action” with respect to proposed suppression of religious institutions. The plan to suppress the religious institutions was summarized as follows:

“To recapitulate, this plan would include the complete closing of the theological faculties at Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Munich, the transfer of the faculty of Graz to Vienna, and the vanishing of four Catholic faculties; closing of three Catholic theological faculties or higher schools, and of four evangelical faculties in the Winter semester 1939/1940; closing of one further Catholic and of three further evangelical faculties in the near future.” (122-PS)

A final letter from Bormann to Rosenberg, dated 24 January 1939, enclosed for Rosenberg’s cognizance a copy of Bormann’s letter to the Reich Minister for Knowledge and Education (116-PS). In the enclosed letter, Bormann informed the Minister as to the Party’s position in favor of restricting and suppressing theological faculties. Bormann stated that, owing to the effects of the introduction of military service, the consequences of the Four Year Plan, and the extraordinary lack of replacements, it would become necessary to carry out a reorganization of the German high schools. In view of these developments, he requested the Minister to restrict and suppress the theological faculties:

“* * * I would appreciate it very much if you would restrict the theological faculties in so far as they cannot be wholly suppressed in accordance with the above statement. I request in this instance the omission of any expressed declaration to the Churches or to other places, as well as the avoiding of a public announcement of these measures. Complaints and the like must be answered (if they are to be replied to) in the fashion that these measures are being executed in the course of the economic plan of reorganization and that similar things are happening to other faculties.

“I would appreciate it very much if professional chairs thus vacated can be then turned over to the newly created fields of inquiry of these last years, such as Racial Research, Archeological Studies, etc.” (116-PS)

From the foregoing evidence it is clear the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party shares in the responsibility for the measures taken to subvert the Christian churches and persecute the Christian clergy, both in Germany and in German-occupied territories of Europe. The Prosecution stresses the significance of the appointment of Rosenberg, whose anti-Christian views are open and notorious, as the Fuehrer’s Representative for the Whole Spiritual and Philosophical Education of the Nazi Party. It was precisely this position which gave Rosenberg his seat in the Reichsleitung. But emphasis is placed not merely upon the fact that anti-Christs such as Bormann and Rosenberg held directive positions within the Leadership Corps, but upon the further fact that their directives and orders were passed down the chain of command of the Leadership Corps and caused the participation of its membership in acts subversive of the Christian Church.

(e) Destruction of the Free Trade Unions, Imposition of Nazi Control over the Productive Labor Capacity of Germany. The evidence relating to the destruction of the independent trade unions is discussed in Section 5 of Chapter VII. The evidence hereinafter taken up is offered to prove the responsibility of the Leadership Corps for participation in the smashing of the unions and the imposition of Nazi Party control over the productive labor capacity of the German nation.

Soon after the seizure of power (mid-April 1933), Reichsleiter Robert Ley was directed by Hitler to smash the independent unions. Reichsleiter Ley, in his speech to the Nurnberg Party Congress of 1936, declared:

“* * * My Fuehrer! When you, my Fuehrer, ordered me in mid-April 1933 to take over the trade unions, I could not understand why you gave this order to me since I could not see any connection between my task as Organizational Leader of the Party and my new task. Very soon, however, your decision, my Fuehrer, became clear to me and I recognized that the organizational measures of the Party could only come to full fruition when supplemented by the organization of the people, that is to say, by the mobilization of the energies of the people and by their concentration and alignment. If the Party represents the concentration of the Political Leaders of the people—as you, my Fuehrer, have told us again and again—then the people is the retinue and must be organized and trained according to the same principles. Leader and retinue, elite and community at large—these were the clear directives for my work. These were the consequences:

“(1) My tasks as Organizational Leader of the Party and as the leader of the German Labor Front were a completely homogeneous task: in other words, in everything I did I acted as Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP.

“(2) The German Labor Front was an institution of the Party and was led by it.

“(3) The German Labor Front had to be organized regionally and professionally according to the same principles as the Party.

“That is why trade union and employer associations had to be smashed unrelentingly, and the basis of construction was formed, as in the Party, by the cell and the local section [Ortsgruppe].

* * * * * *

“National Socialism has conquered the factory. Factory troops [Die Werkschar] are the National Socialist shock troops within the factory, and their motto is:

‘THE FUEHRER IS ALWAYS RIGHT’.” (2283-PS)

In furtherance of the Nazi policy to destroy the independent trade unions of Germany, Ley issued a Party directive on 21 April 1933 outlining what was termed a “coordination action” scheduled for 2 May 1933 against the General German Trade Union Federation and the General Independent Employee Federation (392-PS). This directive ordered the SA and the SS to occupy trade union premises, seize trade union funds, and take into protective custody the higher union leaders.

Pertinent portions of Ley’s order provide:

“On Tuesday, 2 May 1933, the coordination action of the free trade unions begins.

* * * * * *

“The essential part of the action is to be directed against the General German Trade Union Federation and the General Independent Employees Federation.

“Anything beyond that which is dependent upon the free trade unions is left to the discretion of the Gauleiter’s judgment.

“The Gauleiter are responsible for the execution of the coordination action in the individual areas. Supporters of the action should be members of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organizations * * *.

“SA as well as SS are to be employed for the occupation of trade union properties and for taking into protective custody of personalities who come into question.

“The Gauleiter is to proceed with his measures on a basis of the closest understanding with competent gau or regional factory cells directors.

* * * * * *

“In the Reich, the following will be occupied:

The directing offices of the unions;

The trade union houses and offices of the fur trade unions;

The Party houses of the Socialist Democratic Party of Germany in so far as trade unions are involved there;

The branches and paying offices of the ‘Bank for Workers, Employees and Officials, Inc.’

The district committees of the General German Trade Union Federation and of the General Independent Employees Federation.

The local committees of the General German Trade Union Federation and of the General Independent Employees Federation.

“The following are to be taken into protective custody:

All trade union chairmen;

The district secretaries and branch directors of the Bank for Workers, Employees and Officials, Inc.

* * * * * *

“Exceptions are granted only with the permission of the Gauleiter.

* * * * * *

“It is understood that this action is to proceed in a strongly disciplined fashion. The Gauleiter are responsible in this respect. They are to hold the direction of the action firmly in hand.

“Heil Hitler!

“(signed) Dr. Robert Ley.” (392-PS)

Ley’s order for the dissolution of the independent trade unions was carried out as planned and directed. Trade union premises all over Germany were occupied by the SA and the unions dissolved. On 2 May 1933, the official NSDAP Press Service reported that the National Socialist Factory Cells Organization (NSBO) had “eliminated the old leadership” of “Free Trade Unions” and taken over their leadership (2224-PS):

“National Socialism, which today has assumed leadership of the German working class, can no longer bear the responsibility for leaving the men and women of the German working class, the members of the largest trade organization in the world, the German Trade Union Movement, in the hands of a people who do not know a fatherland that is called Germany. Because of that, the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) has taken over the leadership of the trade unions. The NSBO has eliminated the old leadership of the trade unions of the General German Trade Unions League and of the General Independent Employees’ Federation * * *.

“On 2 May 1933, the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) took over the leadership of all trade unions; all trade union buildings were occupied and most stringent control has been organized over financial and personnel matters of the organization.” (2224-PS)

This assault on the independent unions directed by Ley in his capacity as Reichsleiter in charge of Party Organization, assisted by the Gauleiter, and Party Formations, included the seizure of trade union funds and property. In a speech on 11 September 1937 to the 5th Annual Session of the German Labor Front (1678-PS), Ley admitted the confiscation of trade union funds.

“Once I said to the Fuehrer: ‘My Fuehrer, actually I am standing with one foot in jail, for today I am still the trustee of the comrades “Leipart” and “Imbusch,” and should they some day ask me to return their money, then it will be found that I have spent it, either by building things, or otherwise. But they shall never again find their property in the condition in which they handed it over to me. Therefore I would have to be convicted.’

“The Fuehrer laughed then and remarked that apparently I felt extremely well in this condition.

“It was very difficult for us all. Today we laugh about it * * *.” (1678-PS)

The plan of the Nazi conspirators to eliminate the Free Trade Unions was advanced by the enactment on 19 May 1933 of a law which abolished collective bargaining between workers and employers and replaced it with a regulation of working conditions by Labor Trustees appointed by Hitler (405-PS). After providing in Section 1 for the appointment by Hitler of trustees of labor, this law provides, in Section 2:

“Until a new revision of the social constitution, the trustees are to regulate the conditions for the conclusion of labor contracts. This practice is to be legally binding for all persons and replaces the system found on combinations of workers, of individual employers or of combinations of employers * * *.”(405-PS)

Having destroyed the independent unions and collective bargaining, the next step of the Nazi conspirators was to Nazify industrial relations. The Law of 20 January 1934, entitled “Law Regulating National Labor,” imposed the Leadership Principle upon industrial enterprisers (1861-PS). Section I, paragraph 1, provided that the enterpriser should be the leader of the plant and the workers would “constitute his followers.” Section 1, paragraph 2 reads as follows:

“The Leader of the plant makes the decisions for the employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise, as far as they are regulated by this law.

“He is responsible for the well-being of the employees and laborers. The employees and laborers owe him faithfulness according to the principles of the factory community.” (1861-PS)

The trade unions having been dissolved and the Leadership Principle superimposed upon the relationship of management and labor, the members of the Leadership Corps joined in and directed measures designed to replace the independent unions by the German Labor Front, the DAF, an affiliated Party organization. On the very day the Nazi conspirators seized and dissolved the Free Trade Unions, 2 May 1933, they publicly proclaimed that a “united front of German workers” would be formed with Hitler as honorary patron at a workers’ congress on 10 May 1933 (2224-PS). A release of the Nazi Party Press Agency stated:

“The National Socialist Party Press Agency is informed that a great workers’ congress will take place on Wednesday, 10 May, in the Russian House of Lords in Berlin. The United Front of German workers will be formed there. Adolf Hitler will be asked to assume the position of Honorary Patron.” (2224-PS)

The action committee, which supervised the smashing of the unions under Reichsleiter Ley, met with Hitler and reported that the independent unions had been effectively dissolved. The Fuehrer then consented to be Honorary Patron at the Great Workers’ Congress. (2224-PS)

The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was not only employed in measures taken to dissolve the independent unions, but certain of its members were given important and directive positions within the German Labor Front, the Nazi Organization which replaced the free trade unions. On 10 May 1933, Hitler appointed Ley Leader of the German Labor Front (DAF) (1940-PS). By the same edict, Hitler appointed Gauleiter Forster as Leader of the Employees’ Associations, and Schumann, Leader of the Nazi Factory Cell Organization (NSBO), as Leader of the Workers’ Associations. The Hitler edict stated:

“The Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, has issued the following edict:

“I appoint the Chief of Staff of the Political Organization of the NSDAP, Dr. Robert Ley, as leader of the German Labor Front.

“I appoint Gauleiter Forster, Danzig, as leader of the Employees’ Associations.

“I appoint the leader of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organizations (NSBO), Schumann, as leader of the Workers’ Associations.

“Berlin, 10 May

“Adolf Hitler.” (1940-PS)

The Nazi conspirators employed the German Labor Front (DAF) as an instrument for propagandizing its millions of compulsory members with Nazi ideology. The control of the Leadership Corps over the German Labor Front was assured not only by the designation of Reichsleiter Ley as head of the DAF, but by the employment of a large number of Politischen Leiter (political leaders) charged with disseminating Nazi ideology to the large membership of the DAF. These facts are apparent from pages 185-187 of the Organization Book of the NSDAP (2271-PS):

“The National Socialist Factory Cells Organization [NSBO], is a union of the political leaders [Politischen Leiter] of the NSDAP in the German Labor Front.

“The NSBO is the carrier of the organization of the German Labor Front.

“The duties and responsibilities of the NSBO have passed over to the DAF.

“The political leaders who have been transferred from the NSBO to the German Labor Front guarantee the ideological education of the DAF in the spirit of the National Socialistic idea.” (2271-PS)

The foregoing evidence fixes upon the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party responsibility for participation in the measures leading to the destruction of the independent trade unions and to Nazi Party control over the productive capacity of the German Labor Movement. Not only were these actions directed by Ley in his capacity as Reichsleiter, but they were supervised on a regional basis by the Gauleiter as district representatives of the Leadership Corps. Moreover, the German Labor Front (DAF) which replaced the dissolved trade unions was an affiliated organization of the NSDAP and, as such, remained under the control of the Leadership Corps and was employed by it to nazify the labor population of Germany.

(f) Plunder of Art Treasures. The Leadership Corps of the NSDAP is also responsible for the plundering of art treasures by Reichsleiter Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab Rosenberg, the activities of which are discussed in full in Chapter XIV.

LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE NAZI PARTY LEADERSHIP CORPS

3. THE REICH CABINET

The Reich Cabinet, or Reichsregierung, unlike most of the other Nazi organizations, was not especially created by the Nazi Party to carry out or implement its purposes. The Reichsregierung had, before the Nazis came to power, a place in the constitutional and political history of the country. As with other cabinets of duly constituted governments, the executive power of the realm was concentrated in that body. The Nazi conspirators well realized this fact. Their aim for totalitarian control over the State could not be secured, they realized, except by acquiring, holding, and utilizing the machinery of the State. And this they did. Under the Nazi regime the Reichsregierung gradually became a primary agent of the Nazi Party, with functions and policies formulated in accordance with the objectives and methods of the Party itself. The Reichsregierung became—at first gradually and then with more rapidity—polluted by the infusion of the Nazi conspirators sixteen of whom are accused in the Indictment. Its purpose came to be to clothe every scheme and purpose of the Party, however vile, with the semblance of legality.

A. Composition and Nature of the Reichsregierung.

The term Reichsregierung literally translated means “Reich Government”. Actually, it was commonly taken to refer to the ordinary Reich Cabinet. In the Indictment the term Reichsregierung is defined to include not only those persons who were members of the ordinary Reich Cabinet, but also persons who were members of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich (Ministerrat fuer die Reichsverteidigung) and the Secret Cabinet Council (Geheimer Kabinettsrat). The most important body, however, was the ordinary cabinet. Between it and the other two groups there was in reality only an artificial distinction. There existed, in fact, a unity of personnel, action, function, and purpose that obliterated any academic separation. As used in the Indictment, the term “ordinary cabinet” means Reich Ministers, i.e., heads of departments of the central government; Reich Ministers without portfolio; State Ministers acting as Reich Ministers; and other officials entitled to take part in Cabinet meetings. Altogether, 48 persons held positions in the ordinary cabinet. 17 of them have been indicted as defendants. Of the remaining 31, eight are believed to be dead.

(1) The Ordinary Cabinet. Into the ordinary cabinet were placed the leading Nazi trusted henchmen. Then, when new governmental agencies or bodies were created, either by Hitler or by the Cabinet itself, the constituents of these new bodies were taken from the rolls of the ordinary cabinet.

When the first Hitler Cabinet was formed on 30 January 1933, there were 10 ministries which could be classified as departments of the central government. This fact appears from the minutes of the first meeting of that cabinet, which were found in the files of the Reich Chancellery and bear the typed signature of one Weinstein, who is described in the minutes as “Responsible for the Protocol—Counsellor in the Ministry” (351-PS). The ten ministers who attended are set forth:

“Reichs Minister of Foreign Affairs (von Neurath); Reichs Minister of the Interior (Frick); Reichs Minister of Finance (Graf Schwerin von Krosigk); Reichs Minister of Economy; Reichs Minister for Food and Agriculture (Dr. Hugenberg); Reichs Minister of Labor (Seldte); Reichs Minister of Justice [no name given; the post was filled two days later by Gurtner]; Reichs Defense Minister (von Blomberg); the Reichs Postmaster General; and Reichs Minister for Transportation (Freiherr von Eltz-Ruebanach).” (351-PS)

In addition, Goering attended as Reichs Minister (he held no portfolio at that time) and Reichs Commissar for Aviation. Dr. Perecke attended as Reich Commissar for Procurement of Labor. Two state secretaries were present—Dr. Lammers of the Reichs Chancellery and Dr. Meissner of the Reich’s Presidential Chancellery. In addition, Funk was present as Reichs Press Chief, and von Papen was present as Deputy of the Reichs Chancellor and Reichs Commissar for the State of Prussia. (351-PS)

Not long afterwards new ministries or departments were created, into which leading Nazi figures were placed. On 13 March 1933, the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was created, and Paul Josef Goebbels was named as Reich Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (2029-PS). On 5 May 1933 the Ministry of Air (2089-PS), on 1 May 1934 the Ministry of Education (2078-PS), and on 16 July 1935 the Ministry for Church Affairs (2090-PS) were created. Goering was made Air Minister; Bernhard Rust, Gauleiter of South Hanover, was named Education Minister; and Hans Kerrl was named Minister for Church Affairs. Two Ministries were added after the war started. On 17 March 1940 the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions was established (2091-PS). Dr. Fritz Todt, a high party official, was appointed to this post. Speer succeeded him. The name of this department was changed to “Armaments and War Production” in 1943 (2092-PS). On 17 July 1941, when the seizure of Eastern territories was in progress, the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created. There was no published decree for this act. A file found in the Presidential Chancellery contains a typewritten copy of the decree of Hitler establishing that post (1997-PS). The decree provides:

“Decree of the Fuehrer concerning the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern Territories dated 17 July 1941.”

“In order to maintain public order and public life in the newly-occupied Eastern territories I decree that:

“As soon as the military operations in the newly-occupied territories are over, the administration of these territories shall be transferred from the military establishments to the civil-administration establishments. I shall from time to time determine by special decree, the territories which according to this are to be transferred to the civil administration and the time when this is to take place.

“The Civil Administration in the newly occupied Eastern territories, where these territories are not included in the administration of the territories bordering on the Reich or the General government, is subject to the ‘Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern territories.’

* * * * * *

“I appoint Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. He will hold office in Berlin.” (1997-PS)

During the years 1933 to 1945, one ministry was dropped—the Ministry of Defense (later called War). This took place on 4 February 1938, when Hitler took over command of the whole Armed Forces. At the same time he created the office of the “Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces” or Chief of the OKW. This was held by Keitel. The decree accomplishing this change provides in part as follows:

“He [the Chief of the supreme command of the armed forces] is equal in rank to a Reich Minister. At the same time, the supreme command takes the responsibility for the affairs of the Reichs Ministry of War, and by my order, the chief of the supreme command of the Armed Forces exercises the authority formerly belonging to the Reichs Minister.” (1915-PS)

Another change in the composition of the cabinet during the years in question should be noted. The post of vice-chancellor was never refilled after the departure of von Papen on 30 July 1934.

In addition to the heads of departments mentioned above, the ordinary cabinet also contained Reich Ministers without portfolio. Among these were Frank, Seyss-Inquart, Schacht (after he left the Economics Ministry), and von Neurath (after he was replaced as Ministry of the Interior). Other positions also formed an integral part of the cabinet. Those were the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Hess, and later his successor, the Leader of the Party Chancellery, Bormann; the Chief of Staff of the SA, Ernst Roehm, for the seven months prior to his assassination; the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Lammers; and, as already mentioned, the Chief of the OKW, Keitel. These men had either the title or rank of Reich Minister.

The Cabinet also contained other functionaries, such as State Ministers acting as Reich Ministers. Only two persons fell within this category—the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery, Otto Meissner, and the State Minister of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Karl Hermann Frank. In addition, as named in the Indictment, the ordinary cabinet included “others entitled to take part in Cabinet meetings”. Many governmental agencies were created by the Nazis between the years 1933 and 1945, but the peculiarity of these creations was that in most instances the new officials were given the right to participate in cabinet meetings. Among those entitled to take part in Cabinet meetings were the Commanders in Chief of the Army and the Navy; the Reich Forest Master; the Inspector General for Water and Power; the Inspector General of German Roads; the Reich Labor Leader; the Reich Youth Leader; the Chief of the Foreign Organization in the Foreign Office; the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior; the Prussian Finance Minister; and the Cabinet Press Chief. These posts and officials comprising the ordinary cabinet all appear on the chart entitled “Organization of the Reich Government,” and authenticated by Frick (Chart Number 18). The persons who held these posts in the ordinary cabinet varied between the years 1933 to 1945. Their names are listed in the chart (Chart Number 18), which discloses that 17 of these officials are defendants in these proceedings.

(2) The Secret Cabinet Council. Proof that there was only an artificial distinction between the ordinary cabinet, the Secret Cabinet Council, and the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, is shown by the unity of personnel among the three subdivisions. Thus, on 4 February 1938, Hitler created the Secret Cabinet Council (2031-PS):

“To advise me in conducting the foreign policy I am setting up a secret cabinet council.

“As president of the secret cabinet council, I nominate: Reichsminister Freiherr von Neurath

“As members of the secret cabinet council I nominate: Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop

Prussian Prime Minister, Reichsminister of the Air, Supreme Commander of the Air Forces, General Field Marshall Hermann Goering

The Fuehrer’s Deputy, Reichsminister Rudolf Hess

Reichsminister for the Enlightenment of the people and of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels

Reichsminister and Chief of the Reichs Chancellery Dr. Hans-Heinrich Lammers

The Supreme Commander of the Army, General Walther von Brauchitsch

The Supreme Commander of the Navy, Grand Admiral Dr. (honorary) Erich Raeder

The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Wilhelm Keitel.” (2031-PS)

It will be noted that every member of this group was either a Reichsminister or, as, in the case of the Army, Navy, and OKW heads, had the rank and authority of a Reich Minister.

(3) The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. On 30 August 1939 Hitler established the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich (better known as the Ministerial Council). This was the so-called war cabinet. The decree establishing this Council provided (2018-PS):

“Article I

“(1) A Ministerial Council for Reich Defense shall be established as a standing committee out of the Reich Defense Council.

“(2) The standing members of the Ministerial Council for Reich Defense shall include: General Field Marshall Goering as chairman; Fuehrer’s Deputy [Hess]; Commissioner General (or Plenipotentiary) for Reich Administration [Frick]; Commissioner General (or Plenipotentiary) for Economy [Funk]; Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery [Dr. Lammers]; Chief of the High Command for the Armed Forces [Keitel].

“(3) The chairman may draw on other members of the Reich Defense Council including further personalities for advice.” (2018-PS).

Again, all members of this group were also members of the ordinary Cabinet.

The Reich Defense Council, for secret war planning, was created by the Cabinet on 4 April 1933 (cf. the unpublished Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935 (2261-PS)). The membership of that Council when first created is shown by the minutes of the second session of the working committee of the delegates for Reich Defense, dated 22 May 1933 and signed by Keitel (EC-177):

“Depending on the case: The remaining ministers, other personalities, e.g., leading industrialists, etc.” (EC-177)

All but the Chiefs of the Army and Navy Command Staff were at that time members of the ordinary cabinet.

The composition of this Reich Defense Council was changed by an unpublished law on 4 September 1938, which provided as follows (2194-PS):

“* * * (2) The leader and Reich Chancellor is chairman in the RVR. His permanent deputy is General Field Marshall Goering. He has the right to call conferences of the RVR. Permanent members of the RVR are

“The Reich Minister of Air and Supreme Commander of the Air Force,

The Supreme Commander of the Army,

The Supreme Commander of the Navy,

The Chief of the OKW,

The Deputy of the Fuehrer,

The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery,

The President of the Secret Cabinet Council,

The Chief Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration,

The Chief Plenipotentiary for Economics,

The Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs,

The Reich Minister of the Interior,

The Reich Finance Minister,

The Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,

The President of the Reichsbank Directorate.

“The other Reich Ministers and the Reich offices directly subordinate to the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor are consulted if necessary. Further personalities can be called as the case demands.” (2194-PS)

On that date all the members also belonged to the ordinary cabinet, for by that time the supreme commanders of the Army and Navy had been given ministerial rank and authorized to participate in cabinet meetings (2098-PS). It is also worth noting that two members of the Reich Defense Council also appear in the Ministerial Council under the same title—The Plenipotentiary for Administration, and the Plenipotentiary for Economy. The former post was held by Frick, while the latter was first held by Schacht and then by Funk. These facts are verified by Frick on the Nazi governmental organization chart (Chart Number 18). Many other ministries were subordinated to these two posts for war-planning aims and purposes. These two officials, together with the Chief of the OKW, formed a powerful triumvirate known as the “Three-Man College” (Frick, Funk, and Keitel) which figured prominently in war plans and preparations.

B. Functions of the Reichsregierung.

The utilization of the ordinary cabinet as a manpower reservoir for other governmental agencies, the chronological development of the offshoots of the ordinary cabinet, and the cohesion between all of these groups, is apparent from the Nazi governmental organization chart (Chart Number 18). The chart shows the following offshoots of the ordinary cabinet: 1933, the Reich Defense Council; 1935, the Three-Man College; 1936, the Delegate for the Four Year Plan; 1938, the Secret Cabinet Council; 1939, The Ministerial Defense Council; and 1944, the Delegate for Total War Effort (Goebbels). In every case these important Nazi agencies were staffed with personnel taken from the ordinary cabinet.

(1) The Ordinary Cabinet. The unity, cohesion, and interrelationship of the sub-divisions of the Reichsregierung was not the result of a co-mixture of personnel alone. It was also realized by the method in which it operated. The ordinary cabinet consulted together both by meetings and through the so-called circulation procedure. Under the latter procedure, which was chiefly used when meetings were not held, drafts of laws prepared in individual ministries were distributed to other cabinet members for approval or disapproval.

The man primarily responsible for the circulation of drafts of laws under this procedure was Dr. Lammers, the Leader and Chief of the Reich Chancellery. Lammers has described that procedure in an affidavit (2999-PS):

“* * * I was Leader of the Reich Chancellery (Leiter der Reichskanzlei) from 30 January 1933 until the end of the war. In this capacity I circulated drafts of proposed laws and decrees submitted to me by the Minister who had drafted the law or decree, to all members of the Reich Cabinet. A period of time was allowed for objections, after which the law considered as being accepted by the various members of the Cabinet. This procedure continued throughout the whole war. It was followed also in the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich (Ministerrat fuer die Reichsverteidigung).” (2999-PS)

A memorandum dated 9 August 1943, which bears the facsimile signature of Frick and is addressed to the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, illustrates how the circulation procedure worked (1701-PS). Attached to the memorandum is a draft of the law in question and a carbon copy of a letter dated 22 December 1943 from Rosenberg to the Reich Minister of the Interior, containing his comments on the draft:

“To the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, in Berlin W8.

“For the information of the other Reich ministers.

“Subj: Law on the treatment of enemies of the society.

“In addition to my letter of 19 March, 1942.

“Enclosures: 55.—

“After the draft of the law on the treatment of enemies of the society has been completely rewritten, I am sending the enclosed new draft with the consent of the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Thierack, and ask that the law be approved in a circulatory manner. The necessary number of prints is attached.” (1701-PS)

(2) Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. The same procedure was followed in the Council of Ministers when that body was created. And the decrees of the Council of Ministers were also circulated to the members of the ordinary Cabinet. A memorandum found in the files of the Reich Chancellery and addressed to the members of the Council of Ministers, dated 17 September 1939, and bearing the typed signature of Dr. Lammers, Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, states (1141-PS):

“Matters submitted to the Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense have heretofore been distributed only to the members of the Council. I have been requested by some of the Reichsministers who are not permanent members of the Council to inform them of the drafts of decrees which are being submitted to the Council, so as to enable them to check these drafts from the point of view of their respective offices. I shall follow this request so that all the Reichsministers will in future be informed of the drafts of decrees which are to be acted upon by the Council for the Reich Defense. I therefore request to add forty-five additional copies of the drafts, as well as of the letters which usually contain the arguments for the drafts, to the folders submitted to the Council.” (1141-PS)

Von Stutterheim, who was an official of the Reich Chancellery, comments on this procedure at page 34 of a pamphlet entitled “Die Reichskanzlei”:

“* * * It must be noted that the peculiarity in this case is that the subjects dealt with by the Cabinet Council—(Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich), are distributed not merely among the members of the Cabinet Council, but also among all the members of the Cabinet (Kabinett) who are thereby given the opportunity of guarding the interests of their spheres of office by adding their appropriate standpoints in the Cabinet Council legislation, even if they do not participate in making the decree.” (2231-PS)

For a time the Cabinet consulted together through actual meetings. The Council of Ministers did likewise, but those members of the Cabinet who were not already members of the Council also attended the meetings of the Ministerial Council. And where they did not attend in person, they were usually represented by the state secretaries of their Ministries. The minutes of six meetings of the Council of Ministers, on 1, 4, 8, and 19 September 1939, on 16 October 1939, and on 15 November 1939, demonstrate this procedure. (2852-PS)

At the meeting held on 1 September 1939, which was probably the first meeting since the Council was created on 30 August 1939, the following were in attendance:

“Present were the permanent members of the Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense: The Chairman and Generalfield Marshall, Goering; the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Hess

These were the regular members of the Council. Also present was the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, Darré, and seven State Secretaries: Koerner, Neumann, Stuckart, Posse, Landfried, Backe, and Syrup (2852-PS). These State Secretaries were from the several Ministries or other supreme Reich authorities. Koerner was the Deputy of Goering in the Four-Year Plan; Stuckart was in the Ministry of the Interior; Landfried was in the Ministry of Economics; Syrup was in the Ministry of Labor.

The minutes dated 8 September 1939 (2852-PS) note that in addition to all members of the Ministerial Council, the following also were present:

“The Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture * * * Darré; State Minister * * * Popitz;”

Then come the names of nine State Secretaries from the several Ministries, and then:

“SS Gruppenfuehrer * * * Heydrich;”

The close integration of the Ministerial Council with the ordinary Cabinet is seen by the following excerpt from the minutes of the same date (8 September 1939):

“The Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense ratified the decree for the change of the Labor Service Law which had already been passed as law by the Reich Cabinet. (Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1744.)”

The minutes of the meeting of 19 September 1939 (2852-PS) show the following Reich Ministers to be present in addition to four members of the Council:

“Also: The Reich Minister for Finance, Count Schwerin von Krosigk.

The Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, Darré.

The Reich Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels.

State Minister * * * Dr. Popitz.” (2852-PS)

Then come the names of eight State Secretaries. Others present included:

“SS Gruppenfuehrer * * * Heydrich; General of the Police (Ordnungpolizei) Daluege.” (2852-PS)

The minutes dated 15 November 1939 show the same co-mixture of Ministers, State Secretaries, and similar functionaries. In addition, the following were also present:

“Reichsleiter, Dr. Ley; Reichsleiter, Bouhler; Reichsfuehrer SS, Chief of German Police in the Reich Ministry of Interior, Himmler; The Reich Labor Service Leader, Hierl * * * Reich Commissioner for Price Control, Wagner * * * as well as experts (Sachbearbeiter) of the German Labor Front and the Reich Labor Service.” (2852-PS)

Some of the decrees passed and matters discussed at these meetings of the Ministerial Council are significant. At the first meeting of 1 September 1939 14 decrees were ratified by the Council. Decree No. 6 concerned

“* * * the organization of the administration and about the German safety police in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. (RGBl, I, page 1681).” (2852-PS)

At the meeting of the Council on 19 September 1939 the following occurred;

“The Chairman of the Council, Generalfieldmarshall Goering, made comments regarding the structure of civil administration in the occupied Polish territory. He expressed his intentions regarding the economic evacuation measures in this territory. Then the questions of decreasing wages and the questions of working hours and the support of members of families of inducted workers were discussed.”

* * * * * *

“The Chairman directed that all members of the Council regularly receive the situation reports of the Reichsfuehrer SS. Then the question of the population of the future Polish Protectorate was discussed and the placement of Jews living in Germany.” (2852-PS)

Finally, at the meeting of 15 November 1939 the discussion concerned, among other things, the “treatment of Polish Prisoners of War”. (2852-PS)

The minutes of these meetings (2852-PS) not only establish the close working union between agencies of the state and the party, especially the SS, but also tends to establish that the Reichsregierung was responsible for the policies adopted and put into effect by the government.

C. Powers of The Reichsregierung.

But mere working alliances would be meaningless unless there was power. And the Reichsregierung had power. Short of Hitler himself, it had practically all the power a government can exercise.

(1) The Ordinary Cabinet. The Nazi conspirators secured the passage by the Reichstag of the “Law for the Protection of the People and the Reich,” of 24 March 1933 (2001-PS), which vested the Cabinet with legislative powers even to the extent of deviating from previously existing constitutional law. These powers were retained even after the members of the cabinet were changed, and the several states, provinces, and municipalities, which had formerly exercised semi-autonomous powers, were transformed into mere administrative organs of the central government. The ordinary cabinet emerged all-powerful from this rapid succession of events. Frick waxed eloquent upon that achievement in an article which he wrote for the 1935 National Socialist Year Book:

“The relationship between the Reich and the States has been put on an entirely new basis, never known in the history of the German people. It gives to the Reich cabinet (Reichsregierung) unlimited power. It even makes it its duty, to build a completely unified leadership and administration of the Reich. From now on, there is only one national authority: The one of the Reich! Thus, the German Reich has become a unified state, and the entire administration in the states is only carried out by order or in the name of the Reich. The state borders are now only administration, technical are boundaries but no longer boundaries of sovereignty! In calm determination, the Reich Cabinet (Reichsregierung) realizes step by step, supported by the confidence of the entire German people, the great longing of the Nation. The creation of the national socialist German, unified state.” (2380-PS)

The heightened legislative power of the Cabinet is also emphasized in an article written by Dr. Franz Medicus, an official in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and published in 1939 in Volume 4 of “Das Dritte Reich in Aufbau”:

“* * * Worked out by the Reich Minister of the Interior, the ‘Law for Alleviation of the Distress of People and Reich’, in short called ‘Enabling Law’, was issued on 24 March 1933, broke with the liberal principle of ‘division of power’ by transferring the legislature from the Reichstag to the Reich Cabinet, so that legislation by personally responsible persons took the place of ‘anonymous’ legislation.” (2849-PS)

When the Ministerial Council was formed in 1939, it too was given legislative powers (cf. Article II of the decree of 30 August 1939 (2018-PS)). The ordinary cabinet also continued to legislate throughout the war. Because of the fusion of personnel between the Ministerial Council and the ordinary cabinet, questions were bound to arise as to what forum should lend its name to a particular law. Dr. Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery and a member of both agencies, wrote a letter on 14 June 1942 to the Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration about these questions (352-PS):

“To the Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration (Generalbevollmaechtigter die Reich Verwaltung)

“Subject: The Jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich (Ministerat fuer die Reichsverteidigung)

“Your letter of 3 June 1942, No. 493/42/2882.—Recently the Fuehrer announced in accord with the opinions of the Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich as shown in my letter of 20 Feb. 1940-RK. 624-B—that he believes it practical to reserve certain legislative missions for the Reich Cabinet. With this he has not limited the competency of the Council of Ministers for the defense of the Reich but given a directive as to how legislation should be handled under the point of view of practicability. I have no doubt that the Fuehrer, as well as the Reich Marshal, have not changed their point of view, in particular, regarding the fact, that at the present there should be only legislation important in the cause of war, and that they will stress the fact that the Fuehrer himself and the Reich Cabinet should not be eliminated from the powers of legislation. It will have to be tested from time to time what measures will be reserved for the Reich Cabinet. My letter of 20 February 1940, and the opinions of the Fuehrer therein expressed may serve as a directive even if the limitations indicated by me are no longer applicable in their full meaning. I would therefore suggest not basing the discussions with the Reich Minister of Finance on the question of competency of the Reich Cabinet or the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich, but on the question of whether it would be practical to achieve settlement through either Reich law or a Decree from the Council of Ministers for the defense of the Reich in the sense of the opinions voiced by the Fuehrer.

(signed) Dr. Lammers” (352-PS).

Other officials possessed legislative powers. Hitler was of course one. Goering, as Deputy of the Four Year Plan, could and did issue decrees with the effect of law. The Cabinet delegated power to issue laws deviating from existing law to the Plenipotentiaries of Economy and Administration and the Chief of the OKW, the so-called Three-Man College. This was done in the Secret Defense Law of 1938 (2194-PS). These three officials—Frick, Funk, and Keitel—however, were also members of the Council of Ministers and of the ordinary cabinet as well. It can therefore be said, in the language of the Indictment, that the Reichsregierung “possessed * * * legislative * * * powers of a very high order in the system of the German government.”

The executive and administrative powers of the Reich were concentrated in the central government primarily as the result of two basic Nazi laws that reduced the separate states (called Laender) to mere geographical divisions. One was the law of 30 January 1934, known as the Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich (2006-PS). By that law the States were deprived of their independent status as States, their legislative assemblies were abolished, and their sovereign powers were transferred to the Reich. The other was the Reich Governor’s Law, enacted by the Cabinet on 30 January 1935 (2008-PS), which made all Reich Governors (Statthalters) permanent delegates of and subject to the order of the cabinet and, more especially, of the Reich Minister of the Interior. As a result, the ordinary cabinet was possessed of wide powers, which are set forth in “Administration Law,” periodical published in 1944 which was edited by Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and Dr. Harry V. Rosen-v. Hoewel, an Oberregierungsrat in the Reich Ministry of the Interior (2959-PS). The description of the powers and functions of all the ministries of the ordinary cabinet illustrates the extent of control vested in the Reichsregierung:

III. The Reich Ministers

“There are at present twenty-one Reich Ministers, namely:

“I. 15 Reich Ministers with a definite portfolio.

The Ministries of the Reich Ministers mentioned under 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are united with the corresponding Ministries of Prussia.

“1. The Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Office).

(a) He handles all matters touching on the relations of the Reich to foreign countries.

(b) Under him are the diplomatic and consular representatives as well as the Reich office for Foreign Trade.

“2. The Reich Minister of the Interior.

(a) To his portfolio belong general administration, local administration, police administration, administration of officials, public health, welfare, geodetic system, sport system and the Reich Labor Service.

(b) Under him are the general and internal administrations, for example, the Reich Governors, the state governments (Landesregierung) the superior Presidents, the governmental Presidents, as well as police officials and the Reich Labor Service.

Furthermore, there are under him numerous central intermediary boards, for example, the Reich Health Office, the Reich Archives, the Reich Genealogical Office.

“3. The Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

(a) To his portfolio belong the intellectual influences on the nation, recruiting for the state, culture and economics, and the instruction of domestic and foreign public opinion.

(b) Under him are, among other things, the Reich Propaganda Offices and the film censorship offices. Furthermore, he exercises supervision over the Reich Chamber of Culture, the Recruiting Council of German Economics, the Reich Radio Company, and the Institute of Politics (Hochschule fuer Politik).

“4. The Reich Minister of Aviation and Supreme Commander of the Air Force.

He administers civil and military aviation.

“5. The Reich Minister of Finances.

(a) To his portfolio belong the budget and financial system of the Reich, as well as the administration of taxes; monopolies, and tariffs.

(b) Under him are namely: the administration of taxes and tariffs, as well as the administration of Reich monopolies.

“6. The Reich Minister of Justice.

(a) He is in charge of all matters related to the judicial system.

(b) Under him are all judicial agencies and the Reich Patent Office.

“7. The Reich Ministry of Economics.

(a) To his portfolio belong the basic economic political questions of German economy, the supply of the civilian population with goods for consumption and the regulation of their distribution, the handling of foreign economic questions in the framework of policy on foreign trade of the Reich and the supreme supervision over the institutes of credit.

(b) Under him are the Reich administration of mines, the Reich office of Statistics, the Supervisory Office for Private Insurance, the Gau Chambers of Economy, the State Economic Offices, (Landeswirtschaftsamt) the Savings Banks, and the State Insurance Offices.

“8. The Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture.

(a) He is in charge of all farmers and of the agriculture, as well as the food administration.

(b) Under him are the State Food Offices (Landesernaechrungsamt) the State Administration of Large Estates (Domaenen verwaltung) the Administration of Rural Affairs and the Agricultural Credit Offices. Furthermore, he exercises state supervision over the Reich Food Supply of which he is the leader.”

* * * * * *

“14. Reich Minister for Armament and War Production.

He has to bring to a level of highest production all offices active in producing arms and munitions. Furthermore, he is responsible for the field of raw materials and production in industry and manual labor.

“15. The Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

(a) He administers the recently occupied (i.e. former Soviet-Russian) Eastern territories, insofar as they are under civil administration and not subordinated to the Chief of Civil Administration for the district of Bialystok (cf. page 70) or insofar as they are incorporated in the General Gouvernment (cf. page 100).

(b) Under him are the Reich Commissars, the General Commissars, Head Commissars, and District Commissars, in the recently occupied Eastern territories.” (2959-PS)

Other important powers and functions contained in the ordinary cabinet were not included in the foregoing list. For example, upon the creation of the People’s Court on 24 April 1934, it was placed within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice (2014-PS). With the acquisition and occupation of new territories, the integration and coordination thereof were placed within the Ministry of the Interior. The Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, (in some cases in cooperation with other Reich Ministers) was, by law, given regulatory powers over such territories. The territory and the applicable law may be listed as follows:

(1)

The Saar (1935, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 66).

(2)

Austria (1938, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 237).

(3)

Memel (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 54).

(4)

Bohemia and Moravia (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 485).

(5)

Sudetenland (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 780).

(6)

Danzig (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1547).

(7)

Incorporated Poland (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 2042).

(8)

Occupied Poland (1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 2077).

(9)

Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet (1940, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 803).

(10)

Norway (1941, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 765).

Such were the powers and functions of the ordinary cabinet.

(2) The Secret Cabinet Council. Of the other two subdivisions of the Reichsregierung—the Secret Cabinet Council and the Ministerial Council—the Secret Cabinet Council had no legislative or administrative powers. It was created by Hitler on 4 February 1938

“To advise me in conducting the foreign policy * * *.” (2031-PS)

Its position in the Nazi regime is described by Ernst Rudolf Huber, a leading Nazi Constitutional Lawyer, in his book entitled “Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches” (“Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich”). In this book, which was an authoritative, widely used work on Nazi Constitutional Law, Huber states (1774-PS):

“A privy cabinet council, to advise the Fuehrer in the basic problems of foreign policy, has been created by the decree of 4 February 1938 (RGBl. I, 112). This privy cabinet council is under the direction of Reich Minister v. Neurath, and includes the Foreign Minister, the Air Minister, the Deputy Commander for the Fuehrer, the Propaganda Minister, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, the Commanders-in-Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. The privy cabinet council constitutes a select staff of collaborators of the Fuehrer which consists exclusively of members of the Government of the Reich; thus, it represents a select committee of the Reich Government for the deliberation on foreign affairs.” (1774-PS)

(3) The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. The powers concentrated in the Ministerial Council, which did possess legislative and administrative functions, at its creation in 1939, are best expressed by the lecture which Frick gave before the University of Freiburg on 7 March 1940. The lecture, published in a pamphlet entitled “The Administration in Wartime,” contains these statements (2608-PS):

“* * * The composition of the Ministerial Council for the defense of the Reich shows the real concentration of power in it. General Field Marshal Goering is the chairman and also the Supreme Director of the War Economy and Commissioner for the Four Year Plan. He is joined by the Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration, who directs the entire civilian administration with the exception of the economic administration, and the Plenipotentiary General for Economy. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces is the liaison man to the Armed Forces. It is primarily his duty to coordinate the measures for civilian defense in the area of administration and economy with the genuine military measures for the defense of the Reich. The Deputy of the Fuehrer represents the Party, thus guaranteeing the unity between Party and State also within the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich. The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery is in charge of the business management of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich.”

* * * * * *

“The Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, the highest legislative and executive organ in wartime next to the Fuehrer, created a subordinate organ for the purpose of the defense of the Reich: The Commissioners for the Reich Defense, who have their headquarters at the seat of the individual corps area.” (2608-PS)

With such power concentrated in the Reichsregierung and to such a high degree, the Nazi conspirators possessed a formidable weapon to effectuate their plans.

D. Acts and Decrees of the Reichsregierung.

Under the Nazi regime the Reichsregierung became the instrument of the Nazi party.

(1) Execution of the Nazi Party Program. In the original Cabinet of 30 January 1933 only three cabinet members were members of the Party—Goering, Frick, and Hitler. As new Ministries were added to the Cabinet, prominent Nazis were placed at their head. On 30 January, 1937, Hitler accepted into the Party those Cabinet members who were not already members. This action is reported in the Voelkischer Beobachter, South German Edition, of 1 February 1937 (2964-PS):

“In view of the anticipated lifting of the ban for party membership, the Fuehrer, as the first step in this regard, personally carried out the enlistment into the party of the members of the Cabinet, who so far had not belonged to it and he handed them simultaneously the Gold Party Badge, the supreme badge of honor of the party. In addition, the Fuehrer awarded the Gold Party Badge to Generaloberst Freiherr von Fritsch; Generaladmiral Dr. H. C. Raeder; the Prussian Minister of Finance, Professor Popitz; and the Secretary of State and Chief of the Presidential Chancellery, Dr. Meissner.

“The Fuehrer also honored with the gold party badge the party members State Secretary Dr. Lammers, State Secretary Funk, State Secretary Koerner and State Secretary General of the Airforce Milch.” (2964-PS)

It was possible to refuse the party membership thus conferred. Only one man, von Eltz-Ruebenach, who was the Minister of Post and Minister of Transport at the time, did this. His letter from von Eltz-Ruebenach to Hitler, dated 30 January 1937, reads as follows (1534-PS):

“My Fuehrer:

“I thank you for the confidence you have placed in me during the four years of your leadership and for the honor you do me in offering to admit me to the party. My conscience forbids me however to accept this offer. I believe in the principles of positive Christianity and must remain faithful to my Lord and to myself. Party membership however would mean that I should have to face without contradiction the steadily aggravating attacks by party offices on the Christian confessions and those who want to remain faithful to their religious convictions.

“This decision has been infinitely difficult for me. For never in my life have I performed my duty with greater joy and satisfaction than under your wise state leadership.

“I ask to be permitted to resign.

“With German Greetings:

Yours very obediently,

“(signed) Baron v. Eltz” (1534-PS).

But the Nazis did not wait until all members of the cabinet were party members. Shortly after they came to power, they quickly assured themselves of active participation in the work of the Cabinet. On 1 December 1933, the Cabinet passed a law securing the unity of party and state (1395-PS). In Article 2 of that law the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Hess, and the Chief of Staff of the SA, Roehm, were made members of the Cabinet (1395-PS). Lest mere membership in the Cabinet would not be effective, Hitler endowed his deputy with greater powers of participation. An unpublished decree signed by Hitler, dated 27 July 1934, and addressed to the Reich Ministers, provides (D-138):

“I decree that the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Reich Minister Hess, will have the capacity of a participating Reich Minister in connection with the preparation of drafts for laws in all Reich Administrative spheres. All legislative work is to be sent to him when it is received by the other Reich Minister concerned. This also applies in cases where no one else participates except the Reich Minister making the draft. Reich Minister Hess will be given the opportunity to comment on drafts suggested by experts.

“This order will apply in the same sense to legislative ordinances. The Deputy of the Fuehrer in his capacity of Reich Minister can send as representative an expert on his staff. These experts are entitled to make statements to the Reich Ministers on his behalf.

“[signed] Adolph Hitler” (D-138).

Hess himself made pertinent comment on his right of participation on behalf of the party, in a letter dated 9 October 1934, on the stationery of the NSDAP, addressed to the Reich Minister for Enlightenment of the People and Propaganda (D-139):

“By a decree of the Fuehrer dated 27 July 1934, I have been granted the right to participate in the legislation of the Reich as regards both formal laws and legal ordinances. This right must not be rendered illusory by the fact that I am sent the drafts of laws and decrees so late and am then given a limited time, so that it becomes impossible for me to deal with the material concerned during the given time. I must point out that my participation means the taking into account of the opinion of the NSDAP as such, and that in the case of the majority of drafts of laws and decrees, consult with the appropriate departments of the Party before making my comment. Only by proceeding in this manner can I do justice to the wish of the Fuehrer as expressed in the decree of the Fuehrer of 27 July 1934.

“I must therefore ask the Reich Ministers to arrange that drafts of laws and decrees reach me in sufficient time. Failing this, I would be obliged in future to refuse my agreement to such drafts from the beginning and without giving the matter detailed attention, in all cases where I am not given a sufficiently long period for dealing with them.

“Heil,

“[signed] R. Hess.” (D-139).

A handwritten note attached to the letter reads:

“1. The identical letter seems to have been addressed to all Reich Ministers. In our special field the decree of 27 July 1934 has hardly become applicable so far. A reply does not seem called for.

“2. File in file 7B (?)

“[signed] “R” (D-139).

The participating powers of Hess were later broadened, according to a letter dated 12 April 1938 from Doctor Lammers to the Reich Ministers (D-140):

“* * * The Deputy of the Fuehrer will also have participation where the Reich Ministers give their agreement to the State Laws and legislative ordinances of States under paragraph 3 of the first decree concerning reconstruction of the Reich of Feb 2nd 1934 (Reich Law Gazette I 81). Where the Reich Ministers have already, at an earlier date been engaged in the preparation of such laws or legislative ordinances, or have participated in such preparation, the Deputy of the Fuehrer likewise becomes participating Reich Minister. Laws and legislative decrees of the Austrian State are equally affected hereby.

“[signed] Dr. LAMMERS” (D-140).

After Hess’ flight to England, Bormann, as Leader of the Party Chancellery, took over the same functions. He was given the authority of a Reich Minister and made a member of the cabinet. (2099-PS)

The Nazi constitutional lawyer, Ernst Rudolf Huber, has this to say about the unity of party and Cabinet (1774-PS):

“Unity of party and Reich-Cabinet (Reichsregierung) is furthermore secured by the numerous personal unions i.e. association of Central State Offices with corresponding party offices. Such personal unions exist in the cases of Food Minister and the Propaganda Minister, the Chief of the German Police and the Reich Labor Leader, the Chief of the Organization in foreign countries, and the Reich Youth Fuehrer. Furthermore, the majority of the Reich Ministries is occupied by leading old party members. Finally, all Reich Ministers have been accepted by the party on 30 January 1937 and have been decorated with golden party insignia.” (1774-PS)

In 1943, out of 16 Reich Leaders (Reichsleiters) of the NSDAP, eight were members of the Cabinet: Martin Bormann; Walter Darré; Otto Dietrich; Wilhelm Frick; Paul Josef Goebbels; Constantin Hierl; Heinrich Himmler; Alfred Rosenberg (2473-PS). Through its domination of the Cabinet the Nazi Party strove to secure the fulfilment of its program under a facade of legality.

(a) Decrees of the Ordinary Cabinet. To the Nazi Cabinet, the Nazi Party program of 25 points (1708-PS) was more than a mere political platform; it was a mandate for action. And the Cabinet acted.

Point 1 of this program declared:

“We demand the inclusion of all Germans in a greater Germany on the grounds of the right of self-determination.” (1708-PS)

In implication of this demand the Nazi Cabinet enacted, among others, the following laws: the law of 3 February 1938 concerning the obligation of German citizens in foreign countries to register (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 113); the law of 13 March 1938 for the reunion of Austria with Germany (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 237) (2307-PS); the law of November 1938 for the reintegration of the German Sudetenland with Germany (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1641); the law of 23 March 1939 for the reintegration of Memel in Germany (1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 559).

Point 2 of the Party platform stated in part:

“We demand * * * the cancellation of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.” (1708-PS)

The following acts of the Cabinet supported this part of the program: The proclamation of 14 October 1933 to the German people concerning Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 730); the proclamation and law of 16 March 1935, for the establishment of the Wehrmacht and compulsory military service (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, pages 369, 375) (1654-PS); and the defense law of 21 May 1935 implementing the last-named law (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 609).

Point 4 of the Party platform read as follows:

“Only those who are members of the ‘Volk’ can be citizens. Only those who are of German blood, without regard to religion, can be members of the ‘Volk’. No Jew, therefore, can be a member of the ‘Volk’.” (1708-PS)

Among the cabinet laws which implemented this point were these: the law of 14 July 1933 for the recall of naturalization and the deprivation of citizenship (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 480); the law of 7 April 1933 permitting persons of non-Aryan descent to be refused permission to practice law (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 188) (1401-PS); the law of 25 April 1933 restricting the number of non-Aryans in schools and higher institutions (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 225) (2022-PS); the law of 29 September 1933 excluding persons of Jewish blood from the peasantry (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 685) (1402-PS); the law of 26 June 1936, forbidding people of Jewish blood to hold positions of authority in the army (1936 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 518) (1398-PS); the law of 19 March 1937 excluding Jews from the Reich Labor Service (1937 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 325); the law of 28 March 1938 on the legal status of Jewish religious communities (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 338); and the law of 6 July 1938 prohibiting Jews from participating in six different types of business (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 823).

Point 23 of the platform proclaimed:

“We demand legislative action against conscious political lies and their broadcasting through the press.” (1708-PS)

To carry out this point numerous Cabinet laws were passed, of which the following are merely examples: the law of 22 September 1933 for the establishment of the Reich Culture Chamber (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 661) (2082-PS); the law of 4 October, 1933 regarding editors (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 713) (2083-PS); and the law of 15 May 1934 regarding the theater (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 411).

All the laws referred to above and hereafter were enacted specifically in the name of the Cabinet (Reichsregierung). A typical introductory paragraph reads:

“The Reich Cabinet (die Reichsregierung) has enacted the following law which is hereby promulgated. * * *” [Law of 1 August 1934, 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 747]. (2003-PS)

In furtherance of the Nazi plans to acquire totalitarian control of Germany (cf. Section 1-2 of Chapter VII), the Cabinet passed the following laws: Law of 26 May 1933, providing for the confiscation of Communist property (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 293) (1396-PS); Law of 14 July 1933 against the new establishment of parties (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 479); Law of 14 July 1933 providing for the confiscation of property of Social Democrats and others (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 479) (1388-PS); and Law of 1 December 1933 securing the unity of party and state (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1016). (1395-PS)

In the course of consolidating Nazi control of Germany, (cf. Section 3 of Chapter VII) the following laws were enacted by the Cabinet: Decree of the Cabinet, 21 March 1933, creating special courts (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 136) (2076-PS); Law of 31 March 1933 for the integration of States into the Reich (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 153) (2004-PS); Law of 7 April 1933 for the reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 175) (1397-PS); Law of 7 April 1933 for the integration of states into the Reich (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 173) (2005-PS); Law of 30 June 1933 eliminating non-Aryan civil servants or civil servants married to non-Aryans (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 433) (1400-PS); Law of 20 July 1933 providing for the discharge of Communist officials (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 518) (1398-PS); Law of 24 April 1934 creating the People’s Court (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 341) (2014-PS); Law of 1 August 1934 uniting the office of President and Chancellor (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 747) (2003-PS); Law of 30 January 1935, Reich Governors Law, further reducing the independence of the states (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 65); Law of 30 January 1935 providing for the abolition of representatives or deliberative bodies in the municipalities (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 49) (2008-PS); Law of 26 January 1937, the comprehensive civil service law (1937 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 39); and Law of 18 March 1938 providing for the submission of one list of candidates to the electorate for the entire Reich (1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 258). (2355-PS)

Nazi extermination of political internal resistance in Germany, through the purge of political opponents and through acts of terror, (cf. Section 4 of Chapter VII), was facilitated and legalized by the following Cabinet laws: Law of 14 July 1933 against the new establishment of parties (containing a penal clause) (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 479) (1388-PS); Law of 3 July 1934 concerning measures for emergency defense of the State (legalizing the Roehm purge) (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 529) (2057-PS); Law of 20 December 1934 on treacherous acts against state and party and for the protection of party uniforms (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1269) (1393-PS); Law of 24 April 1934 making the creation of new or continuance of existing parties an act of treason (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 341) (2014-PS); Law of 28 June 1935 changing the Penal Code permitting punishment under analogous law (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 839) (1962-PS); Law of 16 September 1939 permitting second prosecution of an acquitted person before a special court, the members of which were named by Hitler (1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1841). (2550-PS)

The destruction of the free trade unions in Germany, (cf. Section 5 of Chapter VII), was made possible by the following Cabinet laws: Law of 4 April 1933 concerning factory representative councils and economic organizations (controlling employee representation) (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 161) (1770-PS); Law of 19 May 1933 concerning Trustees of Labor (abolishing collective bargaining) (1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 285) (405-PS); Law of 20 January 1934 regulating National Labor (introducing leadership principle into industrial relations (1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 45) (1861-PS); and Law of 26 June 1935 establishing Reich Labor Service (compulsory labor service) (1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 769). (1389-PS)

Even the anti-Jewish Nurnberg laws of 15 September 1935, although technically passed by the Reichstag, were nevertheless worked out by the Ministry of the Interior. Dr. Franz A. Medicus, who served as Ministerialdirigent in the Ministry of the Interior, made this statement in a book published in 1940 (2960-PS):

“* * * The work of the Reich Ministry of Interior forms the basis for the three Nurnberg Laws passed by a resolution of the Reichstag on the occasion of the Reich party meeting of Freedom.

“The ‘Reich Citizenship Law’ as well as the ‘Law for the protection of German blood and German honor’ (Blood Protection Law) opened extensive tasks for the Ministry of Interior not only in the field of administration. The same applies to the ‘Reich Flag Law’ that gives the foundation for the complete re-organization of the use of the flag * * *” (2960-PS).

(b) Decrees of The Council of Ministers. Decrees of the Council of Ministers similarly supplied the “legal” basis for other criminal actions of the Nazi conspirators. Among these laws are the following: Decree of 5 August 1940 imposing a discriminatory tax on Polish workers in Germany (1940 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1077); Decree of 4 December 1941 regarding penal measures against Jews and Poles in the occupied Eastern Territories (1941 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 759) (2746-PS); and Decree of 30 June 1942 concerning the employment of Eastern Workers (1942 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 419). (2039-PS)

Almost immediately upon Hitler’s coming to power, the Cabinet participated in the Nazi conspiracy to wage aggressive war. This fact appears clearly from the minutes of the second session of the working committee of the Delegates for Reich Defense, dated 22 May 1933 and signed by Keitel (EC-177); from a letter dated 24 June 1935 and signed by von Blomberg, the Reichs Minister of War, which transmits a copy of the secret, unpublished Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935 and also a copy of the decision of the Reich Cabinet of 21 May 1935 in the Council for the Defense of the Reich (2261-PS); and from a letter dated 5 September 1939 transmitting a copy of the secret, unpublished Reich Defense Law of 4 September 1938 (a note dated 4 September 1938 attached to this law states that the Reich Defense law of 21 May 1935 and the decisions of the Cabinet previously mentioned are repeated) (2194-PS). These three documents, important in the conspiracy to wage aggressive war emphasize the participation of the Reich Cabinet and Reich Ministers, through legislative enactments, in the conspiracy.

The Reich Defense Council was a creation of the Cabinet. On 4 April 1933 the Cabinet decided to form that agency (2261-PS). The circumstances of its creation were discussed at the meeting of 22 May 1933 (EC-177):

“Thoughts about a Reich Defense Council

“All great European powers which are at freedom to arm, have a RVR. One does not have to refer to history to prove the necessity of this institution. The war has shown conclusively that the cooperation with the various ministries has not been close enough. The consequences did not fail to materialize. The soldier is not in a position to have a say in all matters. The disadvantages of the past system were caused by parallel efforts of the various ministries in matters of the Reich defense. To avoid these mistakes a central agency has been created which occupies itself already in peacetime in the widest sense with the problems of Reich Defense. This working staff will continue its existence in time of war.

“In accordance with the cabinet decision of the 4 April 1933 the Reich Defense Council, which until now had been prepared for war emergency, will go into immediate action.

“In time of peace its task will be to decide about all measures for the preparation of the defense of the Reich, while surveying and utilizing all powers and means of the nation.” (EC-177)

The composition of the Reich Defense Council is thereupon set out. Hitler was President; the Minister of Defense was his deputy; and he, plus six more ministers (there were only ten at that time) and the Chiefs of the Army and Navy Command Staffs were permanent members. The remaining ministers, as well as “leading industrialists”, were subject to call. Of the defendants who were then members of the Council, there was von Neurath as Foreign Affairs Minister; Frick as Interior Minister, Goering as Air Minister; and Raeder as Chief of the Navy Command Staff. (EC-177)

The presence of Cabinet ministers was indispensable. The cabinet by that time could legislate for the Reich. It had a definite role to play in this planning, as Keitel pointed out (EC-177):

“Col. Keitel:—Points out once more the urgency of the tasks, since it had been possible to do only very little in this connection during the last years. He asks the delegates to consider the Reich Defense at all times and represent it accordingly at the drafting of new laws. Experiences of the wars are available and are at the disposal of the various ministries; (e.g. Reich Archives, Memorandum of an administrative official about gasoline supply). All these sources must be taken advantage of for the future. The task of the full time delegates is also to bring about a close cooperation of the ministries with each other.” (EC-177)

Each separate ministry, moreover, was scheduled for a definite task.

“* * * In the work plans the questions and ideas are laid down, which have come up in the Reichswehr Ministry and must be considered in case of mobilization. Up to the present time the support on the part of other Ministries was frequently based only on personal helpfulness since any authority from above was lacking. The following work plans are finished.

“a. Work Plan for the Reich Ministry of Economics.
Work Plan for the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
Work Plan for the Reich Ministry of Labor.

“These three are composed in one work plan for the preparation of a war economy.

“b. Work Plan for the Reich Postal Ministry.

“c. Work Plan for the Reich Traffic Ministry.

“Request the plans to be worked through carefully by the competent Ministries. The plans will be discussed beginning of June, when proposals for improvements may be made. The other Ministries which have no work plans yet will receive them later on. The Office of Air Raid Protection will work out a work plan in conjunction with the Reich Commissariat for Aviation.” (EC-177)

The secrecy of all undertakings was stressed:

“Security and Secrecy.”

“Question has been brought up by the Reich Ministries.

“The secrecy of all Reich Defense work has to be maintained very carefully. Communications with the outside by messenger service only, has been settled already with the Post Office, Finance Ministry, Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Reichswehr Ministry. Main Principle of security: No document must be lost since, otherwise, the enemy propaganda would make use of it. Matters communicated orally cannot be proven; they can be denied by us in Geneva. Therefore, the Reichswehr Ministry has worked out security directives for the Reich Ministries and the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.” (EC-177)

As time went on and greater concentration of power was needed, the Cabinet made changes and additions to this secret war planning body. Article 6 of the Secret Defense Law of 1935 (2261-PS) provided:

“(1) The Fuehrer and Reichschancellor will appoint a plenipotentiary-general for war economy to direct the entire war economy.

“(2) It is the task of the plenipotentiary-general for war economy to put all economic forces in the service of carrying on the war and to secure the life of the German people economically.

“(3) Subordinate to him are:

The Reichsminister for Economy.

The Reichsminister for Food and Agriculture.

The Reichs Labor Minister.

The Reichs Forest Master, and all Reichs’ agencies immediately subordinate to the Fuehrer and Reichschancellor. Furthermore the financing of the war effort (in the province of the Reichs Finance Ministry and of the Reichsbank) will be carried on under his responsibility.

“(4) The Plenipotentiary-General for War Economy is authorized, within his realm of responsibility to issue legal regulations, which may deviate from the existing laws.” (2261-PS)

Schacht was named as Plenipotentiary for War Economy. It will be noted that the Reich Ministers for Food and Agriculture and for Labor, and the Reichs Forest Master (who by this time had Cabinet rank) had not been included in the original membership of the Reichs Defense Council. Darré was Minister for Food and Agriculture, Seldte for Labor, and Goering was Reich Forest Master.

On the same day the Law was passed, the Cabinet made these decisions covering the newly-created Plenipotentiary-General for War Economy (EC-177):

“1. The Plenipotentiary-General for War Economy appointed by the Fuehrer and Reichschancellor will begin his work already in peacetime * * *.

“2. The Reichsminister of War and the Plenipotentiary for War Economy will effect the preparations for mobilization in closest cooperation on both sides.

“3. The Plenipotentiary-General for War Economy will be a permanent member of the Reich Defense Council (Reichsverteidigungsrat). Within the working committee he represents through his leadership staff the interests of war economy.” (EC-177)

The complete reorganization of this Reich Defense Council took place in 1938, under the Secret Defense Law of 4th September of that year. By that time, there had been a reorganization of the Armed Forces: the chief of the OKW had been created and the War Ministry had been abolished (2194-PS). The Reich Defense Council in 1938 was composed of Goering, as permanent deputy and Minister of Air and Supreme Commander of the Air Force; Raeder as Supreme Commander of the Navy; Hess as Deputy of the Fuehrer; von Neurath as President of the Secret Cabinet Council; Frick as Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration; Keitel as Chief of the OKW; Funk as Plenipotentiary for Economics; Ribbentrop as Minister of Foreign Affairs; Schacht as President of the Reichsbank directorate (2261-PS). An important part of the Reich Defense Council was the Working Committee. The minutes of the twelfth meeting of the Reich Defense Working Committee, on 14 May 1936, read (EC-407):

“1. The National Minister of War and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, General Field Marshal von Blomberg, opened the 12th meeting of the Reichs Defense Committee by expressing thanks for the work accomplished and pointing out in principle the necessity of a preparation for a total mobilization with emphasis on the most important measures to be taken at this time. (Among others; mobilization schedule, legal basis, preparations in the demilitarized zone.) He further indicates the assignment of the national resources (Reichsressort) to finance its measures for preparation of the Reichs defense out of its budget.

“2. The chairman of the Reichs Defense Committee, Lieutenant General Keitel, states:

“In today’s and future meetings of the Reichs Defense Committee a cross section of the general situation concerning all matters of the national defense is presented. The picture of the situation does not appear in the reports of the meetings.

“The open discussion of State secrets before our large committee gives the special obligation to the chairman of the Reichs Defense Committee of pointing out its secrecy.

“Today’s sessions takes place under the auspices of the restoration of the State authority in the demilitarized zone.

“The difficulties of the economic situation, which are presented today, must be mastered.” (EC-407)

This Working Committee was still functioning in 1939. The Mobilization Book for Civil Administration of 1939 states, in part (1639-A-PS):

“D.

Terms for Mobilization Preparations by the Civil Administration.

“The acceptance of all new measures in the Mobilization Book for Civil Administration must be requested from the Chief of the Reich Defense Committee (Department of State Defense in the Armed Forces High Command).” (1639-A-PS)

The composition of the Working Committee was redefined by the Secret Law of 1938 as follows (2194-PS):

“The Reich Defense Committee [Reichsverteidigungsausschuss] (RVA):

“(1) The Reich Defense Committee is the working Committee of the RVR. It prepares the decisions of the RVR, sees to their execution, and secures collaboration between armed forces, chief Reich offices, and party.

“(2) Presiding is the chief of the OKW. He regulates the activity of the committee and gives the directions to the GBV and GBW and to the Reich ministries not subordinated to them and to the chief Reich offices according to the decisions of the RVR, which directions are necessary for securing their uniform execution.

“(3) The RVA is composed of the OKW, deputy of the commissioner for the four year plan, the leader staffs of the GBV and GBW, and the Reich Defense officials.

“(4) Chief office officials for the Reich defense (RV-Referenten) and their deputies are commissioned by the deputy of the leader, by the Reich Chancellery, by each Reich Ministry, by the Reich Leader of the SS and chief of the German police, by the Reich work leaders, by the Reich Forest Master, by the Chief Inspector for the German Road Net, by the Reich Office for Regional Order, by the Reichsbank directorate, and in the Prussian state ministry. RV-Referent and his deputy are immediately subordinate to the minister or the state secretary, and to the chief of the Reich office, resp.” (2194-PS)

The GBV and the GBW mentioned in the portion quoted above are, respectively, the Plenipotentiaries for Administration and for Economy. Under them were grouped other ministries, some of which were already permanent members of the Council. By paragraph 3 of the Secret Law the following were made subordinate to the Plenipotentiary for Administration: the Ministers of the Interior, Justice, Science and Education, Churches; the Reich Authority for Spatial Planning; and, for limited purposes, the Minister of Finance. Subordinate to and under the direction of the Plenipotentiary for Economy (a position formerly held by Schacht under the title “War Economy” and later held by Funk) were the ministers of Economics, Food, Agriculture, Labor, and for limited purposes, the Reich Finance Ministry and the Reichsbank; the Reich Forest Master; and the Commissioner for Price Control from the 4-Year Plan.

Paragraph 5 of the law (2194-PS) shows that subordinated to the Chief of the OKW were the Reich Postal Minister, the Reich Transportation Minister, and the General Inspector for German Highways.

This concentration of power by the Cabinet was for one purpose only: to plan secretly with the strongest means at hand for the waging of aggressive war. Further evidence of this objective is contained in an affidavit by Frick covering the place, activities, and scope of the Reich Defense Council, including the Three-Man College (2986-PS):

“I, Wilhelm Frick, being first duly sworn, depose and say:

“I was Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration (Generalbevollmaechtigter fuer die Reichsverwaltung) from the time when this office was created, until 20 August 1943. Heinrich Himmler was my deputy in this capacity. Before the outbreak of the war my task as Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration was the preparation of organization in the event of war, such as, for instance, the appointment of liaison men in the different ministries who would keep in touch with me. As Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration, I, together with the Plenipotentiary for Economy and OKW formed what was called a ‘3-Man College’ (Dreierkollegium). We also were members of the Reich defense Council (Reichsverteidigungsrat), which was supposed to plan preparations and decrees in case of war which later on were published by the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich. Since, as soon as the war started, everything had to be done speedily and there would have been no time for planning, such measures and decrees were prepared in advance in case of war. All one then still had to do was to pull out of the drawer the war orders that had been prepared. Later on, after the outbreak of the war, these decrees were enacted by the Ministerial Council for the defense of the Reich.

“(Signed) Dr. Wilhelm Frick” (2986-PS).