Chapter XI: Part 11

It was further said that the connection of the anti-Semitic policy with aggressive war was not limited to economic matters. The German Foreign Office circular, in an article of 25 January 1939, entitled “Jewish Question as a Factor in German Foreign Policy in the Year 1938”, described the new phase in the Nazi anti-Semitic policy in these words:

“It is certainly no coincidence that the fateful year 1938 has
brought nearer the solution of the Jewish question
simultaneously with the realization of the idea of Greater
Germany, since the Jewish policy was both the basis and
consequence of the year 1938. The advance made by Jewish
influence and the destructive Jewish spirit in politics,
economy, and culture, paralyzed the power and the will of the
German People to rise again, more perhaps even than the power
policy opposition of the former enemy Allied Powers of the first
World War. The healing of this sickness among the people, was
therefore certainly one of the most important requirements for
exerting the force which, in the year 1938, resulted in the
joining together of Greater Germany in defiance of the world.”

The Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany before the war, severe and repressive as it was, cannot compare, however, with the policy pursued during the war in the occupied territories. Originally the policy was similar to that which had been in force inside Germany. Jews were required to register, were forced to live in ghettos, to wear the yellow star, and were used as slave laborers. In the summer of 1941, however, plans were made for the “final solution” of the Jewish question in Europe. This “final solution” meant the extermination of the Jews, which early in 1939 Hitler had threatened would be one of the consequences of an outbreak of war, and a special section in the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann, as head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo, was formed to carry out the policy.

The plan for exterminating the Jews was developed shortly after the attack on the Soviet Union. Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD, formed for the purpose of breaking the resistance of the population of the areas lying behind the German armies in the East, were given the duty of exterminating the Jews in those areas. The effectiveness of the work of the Einsatzgruppen is shown by the fact that in February 1942 Heydrich was able to report that Estonia had already been cleared of Jews and that in Riga the number of Jews had been reduced from 29,500 to 2,500. Altogether the Einsatzgruppen operating in the occupied Baltic States killed over 135,000 Jews in three months.

Nor did these special units operate completely independently of the German Armed Forces. There is clear evidence that leaders of the Einsatzgruppen obtained the co-operation of Army commanders. In one case the relations between an Einsatzgruppe and the military authorities was described at the time as being “very close, almost cordial”; in another case the smoothness of an Einsatzcommando’s operation was attributed to the “understanding for this procedure” shown by the Army authorities.

Units of the Security Police and SD in the occupied territories of the East, which were under civil administration, were given a similar task. The planned and systematic character of the Jewish persecutions is best illustrated by the original report of the SS Brigadier-General Stroop, who was in charge of the destruction of the ghetto in Warsaw, which took place in 1943. The Tribunal received in evidence that report, illustrated with photographs, bearing on its title page: “The Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw No Longer Exists.” The volume records a series of reports sent by Stroop to the Higher SS and Police Führer East. In April and May of 1943, in one report, Stroop wrote:

“The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could only be
suppressed by energetic actions of our troops day and night. The
Reichsführer SS ordered therefore on 23 April 1943 the cleaning
out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness and merciless
tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy and burn down the
entire ghetto, without regard to the armament factories. These
factories were systematically dismantled and then burnt. Jews
usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the
burning buildings, and jumped out of the windows only when the
heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken
bones across the street into buildings which were not afire
. . . . Life in the sewers was not pleasant after the first
week. Many times we could hear loud voices in the sewers . . . .
Tear gas bombs were thrown into the manholes, and the Jews
driven out of the sewers and captured. Countless numbers of Jews
were liquidated in sewers and bunkers through blasting. The
longer the resistance continued, the tougher became the members
of the Waffen SS, Police and Wehrmacht, who always discharged
their duties in an exemplary manner.

Stroop recorded that his action at Warsaw eliminated “a proved total of 56,065 people. To that we have to add the number of those killed through blasting, fire, etc., which cannot be counted.” Grim evidence of mass murders of Jews was also presented to the Tribunal in cinematograph films depicting the communal graves of hundreds of victims which were subsequently discovered by the Allies.

These atrocities were all part and parcel of the policy inaugurated in 1941, and it is not surprising that there should be evidence that one or two German officials entered vain protests against the brutal manner in which the killings were carried out. But the methods employed never conformed to a single pattern. The massacres of Rowno and Dubno, of which the German engineer Graebe spoke, were examples of one method; the systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camps, was another. Part of the “final solution” was the gathering of Jews from all German-occupied Europe in concentration camps. Their physical condition was the test of life or death. All who were fit to work were used as slave laborers in the concentration camps; all who were not fit to work were destroyed in gas chambers and their bodies burnt. Certain concentration camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz were set aside for this main purpose. With regard to Auschwitz, the Tribunal heard the evidence of Höss, the commandant of the camp from 1 May 1940 to 1 December 1943. He estimated that in the camp of Auschwitz alone in that time 2,500,000 persons were exterminated, and that a further 500,000 died from disease and starvation. Höss described the screening for extermination by stating in evidence:

“We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the
incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched
by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they
walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp.
Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants.
Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by
reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another
improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the
victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and
at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking
that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course,
frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes
had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently
women would hide their children under their clothes, but of
course when we found them we would send the children in to be
exterminated.”

He described the actual killing by stating:

“It took from three to fifteen minutes to kill the people in the
death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when
the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually
waited about one half-hour before we opened the doors and
removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special
commandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the
teeth of the corpses.”

Beating, starvation, torture, and killing were general. The inmates were subjected to cruel experiments; at Dachau in August 1942, victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to 28° Centigrade, when they died immediately. Other experiments included high altitude experiments in pressure chambers, experiments to determine how long human beings could survive in freezing water, experiments with poison bullets, experiments with contagious diseases, and experiments dealing with sterilization of men and women by X-rays and other methods.

Evidence was given of the treatment of the inmates before and after their extermination. There was testimony that the hair of women victims was cut off before they were killed, and shipped to Germany, there to be used in the manufacture of mattresses. The clothes, money, and valuables of the inmates were also salvaged and sent to the appropriate agencies for disposition. After the extermination the gold teeth and fillings were taken from the heads of the corpses and sent to the Reichsbank.

After cremation the ashes were used for fertilizer, and in some instances attempts were made to utilize the fat from the bodies of the victims in the commercial manufacture of soap. Special groups traveled through Europe to find Jews and subject them to the “final solution”. German missions were sent to such satellite countries as Hungary and Bulgaria, to arrange for the shipment of Jews to extermination camps and it is known that by the end of 1944, 400,000 Jews from Hungary had been murdered at Auschwitz. Evidence has also been given of the evacuation of 110,000 Jews from part of Rumania for “liquidation”. Adolf Eichmann, who had been put in charge of this program by Hitler, has estimated that the policy pursued resulted in the killing of 6 million Jews, of which 4 million were killed in the extermination institutions.

_The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity_

Article 6 of the Charter provides:

“(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of
war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to,
murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any
other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied
territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or
persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or
private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or
villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

“(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed
against any civilian population, before or during the war; or
persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in
execution of or in connection with any crime within the
jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the
domestic law of the country where perpetrated.”

As heretofore stated, the Charter does not define as a separate crime any conspiracy except the one set out in Article 6 (a), dealing with Crimes against Peace.

The Tribunal is of course bound by the Charter, in the definition which it gives both of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. With respect to War Crimes, however, as has already been pointed out, the crimes defined by Article 6, Section (b), of the Charter were already recognized as War Crimes under international law. They were covered by Articles 46, 50, 52, and 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907, and Articles 2, 3, 4, 46, and 51 of the Geneva Convention of 1929. That violation of these provisions constituted crimes for which the guilty individuals were punishable is too well-settled to admit of argument.

But it is argued that the Hague Convention does not apply in this case, because of the “general participation” clause in Article 2 of the Hague Convention of 1907. That clause provided:

“The provisions contained in the regulations (Rules of Land
Warfare) referred to in Article I as well as in the present
Convention do not apply except between contracting powers, and
then only if all the belligerents, are parties to the
Convention.”

Several of the belligerents in the recent war were not parties to this Convention.

In the opinion of the Tribunal it is not necessary to decide this question. The rules of land warfare expressed in the Convention undoubtedly represented an advance over existing international law at the time of their adoption. But the convention expressly stated that it was an attempt “to revise the general laws and customs of war”, which it thus recognized to be then existing, but by 1939 these rules laid down in the Convention were recognized by all civilized nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war which are referred to in Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

A further submission was made that Germany was no longer bound by the rules of land warfare in many of the territories occupied during the war, because Germany had completely subjugated those countries and incorporated them into the German Reich, a fact which gave Germany authority to deal with the occupied countries as though they were part of Germany. In the view of the Tribunal it is unnecessary in this case to decide whether this doctrine of subjugation, dependent as it is upon military conquest, has any application where the subjugation is the result of the crime of aggressive war. The doctrine was never considered to be applicable so long as there was an army in the field attempting to restore the occupied countries to their true owners, and in this case, therefore, the doctrine could not apply to any territories occupied after 1 September 1939. As to the War Crimes committed in Bohemia and Moravia, it is a sufficient answer that these territories were never added to the Reich, but a mere protectorate was established over them.

With regard to Crimes against Humanity there is no doubt whatever that political opponents were murdered in Germany before the war, and that many of them were kept in concentration camps in circumstances of great horror and cruelty. The policy of terror was certainly carried out on a vast scale, and in many cases was organized and systematic. The policy of persecution, repression, and murder of civilians in Germany before the war of 1939, who were likely to be hostile to the Government, was most ruthlessly carried out. The persecution of Jews during the same period is established beyond all doubt. To constitute Crimes against Humanity, the acts relied on before the outbreak of war must have been in execution of, or in connection with, any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The Tribunal is of the opinion that revolting and horrible as many of these crimes were, it has not been satisfactorily proved that they were done in execution of, or in connection with, any such crime. The Tribunal therefore cannot make a general declaration that the acts before 1939 were Crimes against Humanity within the meaning of the Charter, but from the beginning of the war in 1939 War Crimes were committed on a vast scale, which were also Crimes against Humanity; and insofar as the inhumane acts charged in the Indictment, and committed after the beginning of the war, did not constitute War Crimes, they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggressive war, and therefore constituted Crimes against Humanity.

_The Accused Organizations_

Article 9 of the Charter provides:

“At the trial of any individual member of any group or
organization the Tribunal may declare (in connection with any
act of which the individual may be convicted) that the group or
organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal
organization.”

“After receipt of the Indictment the Tribunal shall give such
notice as it thinks fit that the prosecution intends to ask the
Tribunal to make such declaration and any member of the
organization will be entitled to apply to the Tribunal for leave
to be heard by the Tribunal upon the question of the criminal
character of the organization. The Tribunal shall have power to
allow or reject the application. If the application is allowed,
the Tribunal may direct in what manner the applicants shall be
represented and heard.”

Article 10 of the Charter makes clear that the declaration of criminality against an accused organization is final, and cannot be challenged in any subsequent criminal proceeding against a member of the organization. Article 10 is as follows:

“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.”

The effect of the declaration of criminality by the Tribunal is well illustrated by Law Number 10 of the Control Council of Germany passed on 20 December 1945, which provides:

“Each of the following acts is recognized as a crime:
. . .
“(d) Membership in categories of a criminal group or organization
declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal.
. . .
“(3) Any person found guilty of any of the crimes above mentioned may
upon conviction be punished as shall be determined by the Tribunal to be
just. Such punishment may consist of one or more of the following:

(a) Death. (b) Imprisonment for life or a term of years, with or without hard labor. (c) Fine, and imprisonment with or without hard labor, in lieu thereof.”

In effect, therefore, a member of an organization which the Tribunal has declared to be criminal may be subsequently convicted of the crime of membership and be punished for that crime by death. This is not to assume that international or military courts which will try these individuals will not exercise appropriate standards of justice. This is a far reaching and novel procedure. Its application, unless properly safeguarded, may produce great injustice.

Article 9, it should be noted, uses the words “The Tribunal may declare”, so that the Tribunal is vested with discretion as to whether it will declare any organization criminal. This discretion is a judicial one and does not permit arbitrary action, but should be exercised in accordance with well-settled legal principles, one of the most important of which is that criminal guilt is personal, and that mass punishments should be avoided. If satisfied of the criminal guilt of any organization or group, this Tribunal should not hesitate to declare it to be criminal because the theory of “group criminality” is new, or because it might be unjustly applied by some subsequent tribunals. On the other hand, the Tribunal should make such declaration of criminality so far as possible in a manner to insure that innocent persons will not be punished.

A criminal organization is analogous to a criminal conspiracy in that the essence of both is cooperation for criminal purposes. There must be a group bound together and organized for a common purpose. The group must be formed or used in connection with the commission of crimes denounced by the Charter. Since the declaration with respect to the organizations and groups will, as has been pointed out, fix the criminality of its members, that definition should exclude persons who had no knowledge of the criminal purposes or acts of the organization and those who were drafted by the State for membership, unless they were personally implicated in the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter as members of the organization. Membership alone is not enough to come within the scope of these declarations.

Since declarations of criminality which the Tribunal makes will be used by other courts in the trial of persons on account of their membership in the organizations found to be criminal, the Tribunal feels it appropriate to make the following recommendations:

1. That so far as possible throughout the four zones of occupation in Germany the classifications, sanctions, and penalties be standardized. Uniformity of treatment so far as practical should be a basic principle. This does not, of course, mean that discretion in sentencing should not be vested in the court; but the discretion should be within fixed limits appropriate to the nature of the crime.

2. Law No. 10, to which reference has already been made, leaves punishment entirely in the discretion of the trial court even to the extent of inflicting the death penalty.

The De-Nazification Law of 5 March 1946, however, passed for Bavaria, Greater-Hesse, and Württemberg-Baden, provides definite sentences for punishment in each type of offense. The Tribunal recommends that in no case should punishment imposed under Law No. 10 upon any members of an organization or group declared by the Tribunal to be criminal exceed the punishment fixed by the De-Nazification Law. No person should be punished under both laws.

3. The Tribunal recommends to the Control Council that Law No. 10 be amended to prescribe limitations on the punishment which may be imposed for membership in a criminal group or organization so that such punishment shall not exceed the punishment prescribed by the De-Nazification Law.

The Indictment asks that the Tribunal declare to be criminal the following organizations; The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; the Gestapo; the SD; the SS; the SA; the Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.

_THE LEADERSHIP CORPS OF THE NAZI PARTY_

_Structure and Component Parts_: The Indictment has named the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party as a group or organization which should be declared criminal. The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party consisted, in effect, of the official organization of the Nazi Party, with Hitler as Führer at its head. The actual work of running the Leadership Corps was carried out by the Chief of the Party Chancellery (Hess, succeeded by Bormann) assisted by the Party Reich Directorate, or Reichsleitung, which was composed of the Reichsleiters, the heads of the functional organizations of the Party, as well as of the heads of the various main departments and offices which were attached to the Party Reich Directorate. Under the Chief of the Party Chancellery were the Gauleiters, with territorial jurisdiction over the major administrative regions of the Party, the Gaue. The Gauleiters were assisted by a Party Gau Directorate or Gauleitung, similar in composition and in function to the Party Reich Directorate. Under the Gauleiters in the Party hierarchy were the Kreisleiters with territorial jurisdiction over a Kreis, usually consisting of a single county, and assisted by a Party Kreis Directorate, or Kreisleitung. The Kreisleiters were the lowest members of the Party hierarchy who were full-time paid employees. Directly under the Kreisleiters were the Ortsgruppenleiters, then the Zellenleiters and then the Blockleiters. Directives and instructions were received from the Party Reich Directorate. The Gauleiters had the function of interpreting such orders and issuing them to lower formations. The Kreisleiters had a certain discretion in interpreting orders, but the Ortsgruppenleiters had not, but acted under definite instructions. Instructions were only issued in writing down as far as the Ortsgruppenleiters. The Block and Zellenleiters usually received instructions orally. Membership in the Leadership Corps at all levels was voluntary.

On 28 February 1946 the Prosecution excluded from the declaration asked for, all members of the staffs of the Ortsgruppenleiters and all assistants of the Zellenleiters and Blockleiters. The declaration sought against the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party thus includes the Führer, the Reichsleitung, the Gauleiters and their staff officers, the Kreisleiters and their staff officers, the Ortsgruppenleiters, the Zellenleiters and the Blockleiters, a group estimated to contain at least 600,000 people.

_Aims and Activities_: The primary purpose of the Leadership Corps from its beginning was to assist the Nazis in obtaining and, after 30 January 1933, in retaining, control of the German State. The machinery of the Leadership Corps was used for the wide-spread dissemination of Nazi propaganda and to keep a detailed check on the political attitudes of the German People. In this activity the lower Political Leaders played a particularly important role. The Blockleiters were instructed by the Party Manual to report to the Ortsgruppenleiters all persons circulating damaging rumors or criticism of the regime. The Ortsgruppenleiters, on the basis of information supplied them by the Blockleiters and Zellenleiters, kept a card index of the people within their Ortsgruppe which recorded the factors which would be used in forming a judgment as to their political reliability.

The Leadership Corps was particularly active during plebiscites. All members of the Leadership Corps were active in getting out the vote and insuring the highest possible proportion of “yes” votes. Ortsgruppenleiters and Political Leaders of higher ranks often collaborated with the Gestapo and SD in taking steps to determine those who refused to vote or who voted “no”, and in taking steps against them which went as far as arrest and detention in a concentration camp.

_Criminal Activity_: These steps, which relate merely to the consolidation of control of the Nazi Party, are not criminal under the view of the conspiracy to wage aggressive war which has previously been set forth. But the Leadership Corps was also used for similar steps in Austria and those parts of Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Yugoslavia which were incorporated into the Reich and within the Gaue of the Nazi Party. In those territories the machinery of the Leadership Corps was used for their Germanization through the elimination of local customs and the detection and arrest of persons who opposed German occupation. This was criminal under Article 6 (b) of the Charter in those areas governed by the Hague Rules of Land Warfare and criminal under Article 6 (c) of the Charter as to the remainder.

The Leadership Corps played its part in the persecution of the Jews. It was involved in the economic and political discrimination against the Jews which was put into effect shortly after the Nazis came into power. The Gestapo and SD were instructed to coordinate with the Gauleiters and Kreisleiters the measures taken in the pogroms of 9 and 10 November 1938. The Leadership Corps was also used to prevent German public opinion from reacting against the measures taken against the Jews in the East. On 9 October 1942, a confidential information bulletin was sent to all Gauleiters and Kreisleiters entitled “Preparatory Measures for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. Rumors concerning the Conditions of the Jews in the East.” This bulletin stated that rumors were being started by returning soldiers concerning the conditions of Jews in the East which some Germans might not understand, and outlined in detail the official explanation to be given. This bulletin contained no explicit statement that the Jews were being exterminated, but it did indicate they were going to labor camps, and spoke of their complete segregation and elimination and the necessity of ruthless severity. Thus, even at its face value, it indicated the utilization of the machinery of the Leadership Corps to keep German public opinion from rebelling at a program which was stated to involve condemning the Jews of Europe to a lifetime of slavery. This information continued to be available to the Leadership Corps. The August 1944 edition of _Die Lage_, a publication which was circulated among the Political Leaders, described the deportation of 430,000 Jews from Hungary.

The Leadership Corps played an important part in the administration of the Slave Labor Program. A Sauckel decree dated 6 April 1942 appointed the Gauleiters as Plenipotentiary for Labor Mobilization for their Gaue with authority to coordinate all agencies dealing with labor questions in their Gaue, with specific authority over the employment of foreign workers, including their conditions of work, feeding, and housing. Under this authority the Gauleiters assumed control over the allocation of labor in their Gaue, including the forced laborers from foreign countries. In carrying out this task the Gauleiters used many Party offices within their Gaue, including subordinate Political Leaders. For example, Sauckel’s decree of 8 September 1942, relating to the allocation for household labor of 400,000 women laborers brought in from the East, established a procedure under which applications filed for such workers should be passed on by the Kreisleiters, whose judgment was final.

Under Sauckel’s directive the Leadership Corps was directly concerned with the treatment given foreign workers, and the Gauleiters were specifically instructed to prevent “politically inept factory heads” from giving “too much consideration to the care of Eastern workers.” The type of question which was considered in their treatment included reports by the Kreisleiters on pregnancies among the female slave laborers, which would result in an abortion if the child’s parentage would not meet the racial standards laid down by the SS and usually detention in a concentration camp for the female slave laborer. The evidence has established that under the supervision of the Leadership Corps, the industrial workers were housed in camps under atrocious sanitary conditions, worked long hours and were inadequately fed. Under similar supervision, the agricultural workers, who were somewhat better treated, were prohibited transportation, entertainment, and religious worship, and were worked without any time limit on their working hours and under regulations which gave the employer the right to inflict corporal punishment. The Political Leaders, at least down to the Ortsgruppenleiters, were responsible for this supervision. On 5 May 1943 a memorandum of Bormann instructing that mistreatment of slave laborers cease was distributed down to the Ortsgruppenleiters. Similarly on 10 November 1944 a Speer circular transmitted a Himmler directive which provided that all members of the Nazi Party, in accordance with instructions from the Kreisleiter, would be warned by the Ortsgruppenleiters of their duty to keep foreign workers under careful observation.

The Leadership Corps was directly concerned with the treatment of prisoners of war. On 5 November 1941 Bormann transmitted a directive down to the level of Kreisleiter instructing them to insure compliance by the Army with the recent directives of the Department of the Interior ordering that dead Russian prisoners of war should be buried wrapped in tar paper in a remote place without any ceremony or any decorations of their graves. On 25 November 1943 Bormann sent a circular instructing the Gauleiters to report any lenient treatment of prisoners of war. On 13 September 1944, Bormann sent a directive down to the level of Kreisleiter ordering that liaison be established between the Kreisleiters and the guards of the prisoners of war in order “better to assimilate the commitment of the prisoners of war to the political and economic demands”. On 17 October 1944 an OKW directive instructed the officer in charge of the prisoners of war to confer with the Kreisleiters on questions of the productivity of labor. The use of prisoners of war, particularly those from the East, was accompanied by a widespread violation of rules of land warfare. This evidence establishes that the Leadership Corps down to the level of Kreisleiter was a participant in this illegal treatment.

The machinery of the Leadership Corps was also utilized in attempts made to deprive Allied airmen of the protection to which they were entitled under the Geneva Convention. On 13 March 1940 a directive of Hess transmitted instructions through the Leadership Corps down to the Blockleiter for the guidance of the civilian population in case of the landing of enemy planes or parachutists, which stated that enemy parachutists were to be immediately arrested or “made harmless”. On 30 May 1944 Bormann sent a circular letter to all Gau- and Kreisleiters reporting instances of lynchings of Allied low-level fliers in which no police action was taken. It was requested that Ortsgruppenleiters be informed orally of the contents of this letter. This letter accompanied a propaganda drive which had been instituted by Goebbels to induce such lynchings, and clearly amounted to instructions to induce such lynchings or at least to violate the Geneva Convention by withdrawing any police protection. Some lynchings were carried out pursuant to this program, but it does not appear that they were carried out throughout all of Germany. Nevertheless, the existence of this circular letter shows that the heads of the Leadership Corps were utilizing it for a purpose which was patently illegal and which involved the use of the machinery of the Leadership Corps at least through the Ortsgruppenleiter.

_Conclusion_

The Leadership Corps was used for purposes which were criminal under the Charter and involved the Germanization of incorporated territory, the persecution of the Jews, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment of prisoners of war. The Defendants Bormann and Sauckel, who were members of this organization, were among those who used it for these purposes. The Gauleiters, the Kreisleiters, and the Ortsgruppenleiters participated, to one degree or another, in these criminal programs. The Reichsleitung as the staff organization of the Party is also responsible for these criminal programs as well as the heads of the various staff organizations of the Gauleiters and Kreisleiters. The decision of the Tribunal on these staff organizations includes only the Amtsleiters who were heads of offices on the staffs of the Reichsleitung, Gauleitung, and Kreisleitung. With respect to other staff officers and Party organizations attached to the Leadership Corps other than the Amtsleiters referred to above, the Tribunal will follow the suggestion of the Prosecution in excluding them from the declaration.

The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those members of the Leadership Corps holding the positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes. The basis of this finding is the participation of the organization in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity connected with the war; the group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to hold the positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph prior to 1 September 1939.

_GESTAPO AND SD_

_Structure and Component Parts_: The Prosecution has named Die Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführer SS (SD) as groups or organizations which should be declared criminal. The Prosecution presented the cases against the Gestapo and SD together, stating that this was necessary because of the close working relationship between them. The Tribunal permitted the SD to present its defense separately because of a claim of conflicting interests, but after examining the evidence has decided to consider the case of the Gestapo and SD together.

The Gestapo and the SD were first linked together on 26 June 1936 by the appointment of Heydrich, who was the Chief of the SD, to the position of Chief of the Security Police, which was defined to include both the Gestapo and the Criminal Police. Prior to that time the SD had been the intelligence agency, first of the SS, and, after 4 June 1934, of the entire Nazi Party. The Gestapo had been composed of the various political police forces of the several German Federal states which had been unified under the personal leadership of Himmler, with the assistance of Göring. Himmler had been appointed Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior on 17 June 1936, and in his capacity as Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police issued his decree of 26 June 1936, which placed both the Criminal Police, or Kripo, and the Gestapo in the Security Police, and placed both the Security Police and the SD under the command of Heydrich.

This consolidation under the leadership of Heydrich of the Security Police, a State organization, and the SD, a Party organization, was formalized by the decree of 27 September 1939, which united the various State and Party offices which were under Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police and SD into one administrative unit, the Reichs Security Head Office (RSHA) which was at the same time both one of the principal offices (Hauptamter) of the SS under Himmler as Reichsführer SS and an office in the Ministry of the Interior under Himmler as Chief of the German Police. The internal structure of the RSHA shows the manner in which it consolidated the offices of the Security Police with those of the SD. The RSHA was divided into seven offices (Ämter), two of which (Amt I and Amt II) dealt with administrative matters. The Security Police were represented by Amt IV, the head office of the Gestapo, and by Amt V, the head office of the Criminal Police. The SD were represented by Amt III, the head office for SD activities inside Germany, by Amt VI, the head office for SD activities outside of Germany and by Amt VII, the office for ideological research. Shortly after the creation of the RSHA, in November 1939, the Security Police was “coordinated” with the SS by taking all officials of the Gestapo and Criminal Police into the SS at ranks equivalent to their positions.

The creation of the RSHA represented the formalization, at the top level, of the relationship under which the SD served as the intelligence agency for the Security Police. A similar coordination existed in the local offices. Within Germany and areas which were incorporated within the Reich for the purpose of civil administration, local offices of the Gestapo, Criminal Police, and SD were formally separate. They were subject to coordination by Inspectors of the Security Police and SD on the staffs of the local Higher SS and Police Leaders, however, and one of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, Criminal Police, and SD was slightly closer. They were organized into local units of the Security Police and SD and were under the control of both the RSHA and of the Higher SS and Police Leader who was appointed by Himmler to serve on the staff of the occupying authority. The offices of the Security Police and SD in occupied territory were composed of departments corresponding to the various Amts of the RSHA. In occupied territories which were still considered to be operational military areas or where German control had not been formally established, the organization of the Security Police and SD was only slightly changed. Members of the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD were joined together into military type organizations known as Einsatz Kommandos and Einsatzgruppen in which the key positions were held by members of the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD and in which members of the Order Police, the Waffen SS and even the Wehrmacht were used as auxiliaries. These organizations were under the over-all control of the RSHA, but in front line areas were under the operational control of the appropriate Army Commander.

It can thus be seen that from a functional point of view both the Gestapo and the SD were important and closely related groups within the organization of the Security Police and the SD. The Security Police and SD was under a single command, that of Heydrich and later Kaltenbrunner, as Chief of the Security Police and SD; it had a single headquarters, the RSHA; it had its own command channels and worked as one organization both in Germany, in occupied territories, and in the areas immediately behind the front lines. During the period with which the Tribunal is primarily concerned, applicants for positions in the Security Police and SD received training in all its components, the Gestapo, Criminal Police, and SD. Some confusion has been caused by the fact that part of the organization was technically a formation of the Nazi Party while another part of the organization was an office in the Government, but this is of no particular significance in view of the law of 1 December 1933, declaring the unity of the Nazi Party and the German State.

The Security Police and SD was a voluntary organization. It is true that many civil servants and administrative officials were transferred into the Security Police. The claim that this transfer was compulsory amounts to nothing more than the claim that they had to accept the transfer or resign their positions, with a possibility of having incurred official disfavor. During the war a member of the Security Police and SD did not have a free choice of assignments within that organization and the refusal to accept a particular position, especially when serving in occupied territory, might have led to serious punishment. The fact remains, however, that all members of the Security Police and SD joined the organization voluntarily under no other sanction than the desire to retain their positions as officials.

The organization of the Security Police and SD also included three special units which must be dealt with separately. The first of these was the Frontier Police or Grenzpolizei which came under the control of the Gestapo in 1937. Their duties consisted in the control of passage over the borders of Germany. They arrested persons who crossed illegally. It is also clear from the evidence presented that they received directives from the Gestapo to transfer foreign workers whom they apprehended to concentration camps. They could also request the local office of the Gestapo for permission to commit persons arrested to concentration camps. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the Frontier Police must be included in the charge of criminality against the Gestapo.

The border and customs protection or Zollgrenzschutz became part of the Gestapo in the summer of 1944. The functions of this organization were similar to the Frontier Police in enforcing border regulations with particular respect to the prevention of smuggling. It does not appear, however, that their transfer was complete but that about half of their personnel of 54,000 remained under the Reich Finance Administration or the Order Police. A few days before the end of the war the whole organization was transferred back to the Reich Finance Administration. The transfer of the organization to the Gestapo was so late and it participated so little in the over-all activities of the organization that the Tribunal does not feel that it should be dealt with in considering the criminality of the Gestapo.

The third organization was the so-called Secret Field Police which was originally under the Army but which in 1942 was transferred by military order to the Security Police. The Secret Field police was concerned with security matters within the Army in occupied territory, and also with the prevention of attacks by civilians on military installations or units, and committed War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity on a wide scale. It has not been proved, however, that it was a part of the Gestapo and the Tribunal does not consider it as coming within the charge of criminality contained in the Indictment, except such members as may have been transferred to Amt IV of the RSHA or were members of organizations declared criminal by this Judgment.

_Criminal Activity_: Originally, one of the primary functions of the Gestapo was the prevention of any political opposition to the Nazi regime, a function which it performed with the assistance of the SD. The principal weapon used in performing this function was the concentration camp. The Gestapo did not have administrative control over the concentration camps, but, acting through the RSHA, was responsible for the detention of political prisoners in those camps. Gestapo officials were usually responsible for the interrogation of political prisoners at the camps.

The Gestapo and the SD also dealt with charges of treason and with questions relating to the press, the churches and the Jews. As the Nazi program of anti-Semitic persecution increased in intensity the role played by these groups became increasingly important. In the early morning of 10 November 1938, Heydrich sent a telegram to all offices of the Gestapo and SD giving instructions for the organization of the pogroms of that date and instructing them to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold “especially rich ones”, but to be careful that those arrested were healthy and not too old. By 11 November 1938, 20,000 Jews had been arrested and many were sent to concentration camps. On 24 January 1939 Heydrich, the Chief of the Security Police and SD, was charged with furthering the emigration and evacuation of Jews from Germany, and on 31 July 1941, with bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish problem in German-dominated Europe. A special section of the Gestapo office of the RSHA under Standartenführer Eichmann was set up with responsibility for Jewish matters which employed its own agents to investigate the Jewish problem in occupied territory. Local offices of the Gestapo were used first to supervise the emigration of Jews and later to deport them to the East both from Germany and from the territories occupied during the war. Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD operating behind the lines of the Eastern Front engaged in the wholesale massacre of Jews. A special detachment from Gestapo headquarters in the RSHA was used to arrange for the deportation of Jews from Axis satellites to Germany for the “final solution”.

Local offices of the Security Police and SD played an important role in the German administration of occupied territories. The nature of their participation is shown by measures taken in the summer of 1938 in preparation for the attack on Czechoslovakia which was then in contemplation. Einsatzgruppen of the Gestapo and SD were organized to follow the Army into Czechoslovakia to provide for the security of political life in the occupied territories. Plans were made for the infiltration of SD men into the area in advance, and for the building up of a system of files to indicate what inhabitants should be placed under surveillance, deprived of passports, or liquidated. These plans were considerably altered due to the cancellation of the attack on Czechoslovakia, but in the military operations which actually occurred, particularly in the war against U.S.S.R., Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD went into operation, and combined brutal measures for the pacification of the civilian population with the wholesale slaughter of Jews. Heydrich gave orders to fabricate incidents on the Polish-German frontier in 1939 which would give Hitler sufficient provocation to attack Poland. Both Gestapo and SD personnel were involved in these operations.

The local units of the Security Police and SD continued their work in the occupied territories after they had ceased to be an area of operations. The Security Police and SD engaged in widespread arrests of the civilian population of these occupied countries, imprisoned many of them under inhumane conditions, subjected them to brutal third degree methods, and sent many of them to concentration camps. Local units of the Security Police and SD were also involved in the shooting of hostages, the imprisonment of relatives, the execution of persons charged as terrorists and saboteurs without a trial, and the enforcement of the “Nacht und Nebel” decrees under which persons charged with a type of offense believed to endanger the security of the occupying forces were either executed within a week or secretly removed to Germany without being permitted to communicate with their family and friends.

Offices of the Security Police and SD were involved in the administration of the Slave Labor Program. In some occupied territories they helped local labor authorities to meet the quotas imposed by Sauckel. Gestapo offices inside of Germany were given surveillance over slave laborers and responsibility for apprehending those who were absent from their place of work. The Gestapo also had charge of the so-called work training camps. Although both German and foreign workers could be committed to these camps, they played a significant role in forcing foreign laborers to work for the German war effort. In the latter stages of the war as the SS embarked on a slave labor program of its own, the Gestapo was used to arrest workers for the purpose of insuring an adequate supply in the concentration camps.

The local offices of the Security Police and SD were also involved in the commission of War Crimes involving the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war. Soviet prisoners of war in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany were screened by Einsatz Kommandos acting under the directions of the local Gestapo offices. Commissars, Jews, members of the intelligentsia, “fanatical Communists” and even those who were considered incurably sick were classified as “intolerable”, and exterminated. The local offices of the Security Police and SD were involved in the enforcement of the “Bullet” decree, put into effect on 4 March 1944, under which certain categories of prisoners of war, who were recaptured, were not treated as prisoners of war but taken to Mauthausen in secret and shot. Members of the Security Police and SD were charged with the enforcement of the decree for the shooting of parachutists and commandos.

_Conclusion_

The Gestapo and SD were used for purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities, and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner, who was a member of this organization, was among those who used it for these purposes. In dealing with the Gestapo the Tribunal includes all executive and administrative officials of Amt IV of the RSHA or concerned with Gestapo administration in other departments of the RSHA and all local Gestapo officials serving both inside and outside of Germany, including the members of the Frontier Police, but not including the members of the Border and Customs Protection or the Secret Field Police, except such members as have been specified above. At the suggestion of the Prosecution the Tribunal does not include persons employed by the Gestapo for purely clerical, stenographic, janitorial, or similar unofficial routine tasks. In dealing with the SD the Tribunal includes Ämter III, VI, and VII of the RSHA and all other members of the SD, including all local representatives and agents, honorary or otherwise, whether they were technically members of the SS or not, but not including honorary informers who were not members of the SS, and members of the Abwehr who were transferred to the SD.

The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those members of the Gestapo and SD holding the positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes. The basis for this finding is the participation of the organization in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity connected with the war; this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to hold the positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph prior to 1 September 1939.

_SS_

_Structure and Component Parts_: The Prosecution has named Die Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as the SS) as an organization which should be declared criminal. The portion of the Indictment dealing with the SS also includes Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführer-SS (commonly known as the SD). This latter organization, which was originally an intelligence branch of the SS, later became an important part of the organization of Security Police and SD and is dealt with in the Tribunal’s Judgment on the Gestapo.

The SS was originally established by Hitler in 1925 as an elite section of the SA for political purposes under the pretext of protecting speakers at public meetings of the Nazi Party. After the Nazis had obtained power the SS was used to maintain order and control audiences at mass demonstrations and was given the additional duty of “internal security” by a decree of the Führer. The SS played an important role at the time of the Röhm purge of 30 June 1934, and, as a reward for its services, was made an independent unit of the Nazi Party shortly thereafter.

In 1929 when Himmler was first appointed as Reichs Führer the SS consisted of 280 men who were regarded as especially trustworthy. In 1933 it was composed of 52,000 men drawn from all walks of life. The original formation of the SS was the Allgemeine SS, which by 1939 had grown to a corps of 240,000 men, organized on military lines into divisions and regiments. During the war its strength declined to well under 40,000.

The SS originally contained two other formations, the SS Verfügungstruppe, a force consisting of SS members who volunteered for four years’ armed service in lieu of compulsory service with the Army, and the SS Totenkopf Verbände, special troops employed to guard concentration camps, which came under the control of the SS in 1934. The SS Verfügungstruppe was organized as an armed unit to be employed with the Army in the event of mobilization. In the summer of 1939, the Verfügungstruppe was equipped as a motorized division to form the nucleus of the forces which came to be known in 1940 as the Waffen SS. In that year the Waffen SS comprised 100,000 men, 56,000 coming from the Verfügungstruppe and the rest from the Allgemeine SS and the Totenkopf Verbände. At the end of the war it is estimated to have consisted of about 580,000 men and 40 divisions. The Waffen SS was under the tactical command of the Army, but was equipped and supplied through the administrative branches of the SS and under SS disciplinary control.