Chapter VIII: Part 8

To apply the sanctions of the law to those whose conduct is found criminal by the standards I have outlined, is the responsibility committed to this Tribunal. It is the first court ever to undertake the difficult task of overcoming the confusion of many tongues and the conflicting concepts of just procedure among divers systems of law, so as to reach a common judgment. The tasks of all of us are such as to make heavy demands on patience and good will. Although the need for prompt action has admittedly resulted in imperfect work on the part of the Prosecution, four great nations bring you their hurriedly assembled contributions of evidence. What remains undiscovered we can only guess. We could, with witnesses’ testimony, prolong the recitals of crime for years—but to what avail. We shall rest the case when we have offered what seems convincing and adequate proof of the crimes charged without unnecessary cumulation of evidence. We doubt very much whether it will be seriously denied that the crimes I have outlined took place. The effort will undoubtedly be to mitigate or escape personal responsibility.

Among the nations which unite in accusing these defendants the United States is perhaps in a position to be the most dispassionate, for, having sustained the least injury, it is perhaps the least animated by vengeance. Our American cities have not been bombed by day and by night, by humans, and by robots. It is not our temples that had been laid in ruins. Our countrymen have not had their homes destroyed over their heads. The menace of Nazi aggression, except to those in actual service, has seemed less personal and immediate to us than to European peoples. But while the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness as I have recited here.

Twice in my lifetime, the United States has sent its young manhood across the Atlantic, drained its resources, and burdened itself with debt to help defeat Germany. But the real hope and faith that has sustained the American people in these great efforts was that victory for ourselves and our Allies would lay the basis for an ordered international relationship in Europe and would end the centuries of strife on this embattled continent.

Twice we have held back in the early stages of European conflict in the belief that it might be confined to a purely European affair. In the United States, we have tried to build an economy without armament, a system of government without militarism, and a society where men are not regimented for war. This purpose, we know now, can never be realized if the world periodically is to be embroiled in war. The United States cannot, generation after generation, throw its youth or its resources on to the battlefields of Europe to redress the lack of balance between Germany’s strength and that of her enemies, and to keep the battles from our shores.

The American dream of a peace-and-plenty economy, as well as the hopes of other nations, can never be fulfilled if those nations are involved in a war every generation so vast and devastating as to crush the generation that fights and burden the generation that follows. But experience has shown that wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars eventually. And none of the big nations at least can stay out. If we cannot stay out of wars, our only hope is to prevent wars.

I am too well aware of the weaknesses of juridical action alone to contend that in itself your decision under this Charter can prevent future wars. Judicial action always comes after the event. Wars are started only on the theory and in the confidence that they can be won. Personal punishment, to be suffered only in the event the war is lost, will probably not be a sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the warmakers feel the chances of defeat to be negligible.

But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors.

The usefulness of this effort to do justice is not to be measured by considering the law or your judgment in isolation. This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure. One step in this direction is the United Nations organization, which may take joint political action to prevent war if possible, and joint military action to insure that any nation which starts a war will lose it. This Charter and this Trial, implementing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, constitute another step in the same direction—juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally.

While the defendants and the prosecutors stand before you as individuals, it is not the triumph of either group alone that is committed to your judgment. Above all personalities there are anonymous and impersonal forces whose conflict makes up much of human history. It is yours to throw the strength of the law back of either the one or the other of these forces for at least another generation. What are the real forces that are contending before you?

No charity can disguise the fact that the forces which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society—dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and passion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners.

The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators.

But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can be only their hope that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.

Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have “leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn until 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 22 November 1945 at 1000 hours._]

THIRD DAY
Thursday, 22 November 1945

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: Before the Chief Prosecutor for the United States proceeds to present the evidence on Count One, the Tribunal wishes me to announce the decision on the application made on behalf of the Defendant Julius Streicher by his counsel that his condition should be examined. It has been examined by three medical experts on behalf of the Tribunal and their report has been submitted to and considered by the Tribunal; and it is as follows:

“1. The Defendant Julius Streicher is sane.

“2. The Defendant Julius Streicher is fit to appear before the
Tribunal, and to present his defense.

“3. It being the unanimous conclusion of the examiners that
Julius Streicher is sane, he is for that reason capable of
understanding the nature and policy of his acts during the
period of time covered by the Indictment.”

The Tribunal accepts the report of the medical experts and the trial against Julius Streicher will, therefore, proceed.

The other matter to which I have to refer is a motion on behalf of counsel for Bormann, whom the Tribunal have decided to try in his absence in pursuance of Article 12 of the Charter. Counsel for Bormann has made a motion that the trial against him should be postponed, but, in view of the fact that the provisions of the Charter and the Tribunal’s rules of procedure have been strictly carried out in the notices which have been given, and the fact that counsel for Bormann will have ample time before he is called upon to present defense on his behalf, the motion is denied.

I will now call upon counsel for the United States to present the evidence on Count One.

COL. STOREY: May it please the Tribunal, as the first order of business concerning the evidence, it shall be my purpose to outline the method of capturing, assembling, processing, and authenticating documents to be presented in evidence by the United States. I shall also describe and illustrate the plan of presenting documents and briefs relating to the United States’ case-in-chief.

As the United States Army advanced into German territory, there were attached to each Army and subordinate organization specialized military personnel whose duties were to capture and preserve enemy information in the form of documents, records, reports, and other files. The Germans kept accurate and voluminous records. They were found in Army headquarters, Government buildings, and elsewhere. During the later stages of the war, particularly, such documents were found in salt mines, buried in the ground, behind false walls, and many other places believed secure by the Germans. For example, the personal correspondence and diaries of the Defendant Rosenberg, including his Nazi correspondence, were found behind a false wall in an old castle in eastern Bavaria. The records of the OKL, or Luftwaffe, of which the Defendant Göring was Commander-in-Chief—equivalent to the records of the Headquarters of the Air Staff of the United States Army Air Forces—were found in various places in the Bavarian Alps. Most of such Luftwaffe records were assembled and processed by the Army at Berchtesgaden.

When the Army first captured documents and records, they immediately placed the materials under guard and later assembled them in temporary document centers. Many times the records were so voluminous that they were hauled by fleets of Army trucks to document centers. Finally, as the territory seized was made secure, Army zones were established and each Army established a fixed document center to which were transported the assembled documents and records. Later this material was indexed and cataloged, which was a slow process.

Beginning last June, Mr. Justice Jackson requested me to direct the assembling of documentary evidence on the continent for the United States case. Field teams from our office were organized under the direction of Major William H. Coogan, who established United States liaison officers at the main Army document centers. Such officers were directed to screen and analyze the mass of captured documents, and select those having evidentiary value for our case. Literally hundreds of tons of enemy documents and records were screened and examined and those selected were forwarded to Nuremberg for processing. I now offer in evidence an affidavit by Major Coogan, dated November 19, 1945, attached hereto, describing the method of procedure, capture, screening and delivery of such documents to Nuremberg. (Document Number 001 A-PS, Exhibit USA-1)

At this time, if Your Honors please, and in order to present this matter to the Tribunal, I believe it wise to read at least substantial portions of this affidavit. It is dated November 19, 1945.

“I, Major William H. Coogan, 0-455814, Q.M.C., a commissioned
officer of the United States of America, do hereby certify as
follows:

“1. The United States Chief of Counsel in July 1945 charged the
Field Branch of the Documentation Division with the
responsibility of collecting, evaluating, and assembling
documentary evidence in the European Theater for use in the
prosecution of the major Axis War Criminals before the
International Military Tribunal. I was appointed Chief of the
Field Branch on 20 July 1945. I am now the Chief of the
Documentation Division, Office of United States Chief of
Counsel.

“2. I have served in the United States Army for more than 4
years and am a practicing attorney by profession. Based upon my
experience as an attorney and as a United States Army officer, I
am familiar with the operation of the United States Army in
connection with seizing and processing captured enemy documents.
In my capacity as Chief of the Documentation Division, Office of
the United States Chief of Counsel, I am familiar with and have
supervised the processing, filing, translating, and photostating
of all documentary evidence for the United States Chief of
Counsel.”

I skip to paragraph 4.

“4. The Field Branch of the Documentation Division was staffed
by personnel thoroughly conversant with the German language.
Their task was to search for and select captured enemy documents
in the European Theater which disclosed information relating to
the prosecution of the major Axis war criminals. Officers under
my command were placed on duty at various document centers and
also dispatched on individual missions to obtain original
documents. When the documents were located, my representatives
made a record of the circumstances under which they were found
and all information available concerning their authenticity was
recorded. Such documents were further identified by Field Branch
pre-trial serial numbers, assigned by my representatives who
would then periodically dispatch the original documents by
courier to the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel.

“5. Upon receipt of these documents they were duly recorded and
indexed. After this operation, they were delivered to the
Screening and Analysis Branch of the Documentation Division of
the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, which Branch
re-examined the documents in order to finally determine whether
or not they should be retained as evidence for the prosecutors.
This final screening was done by German-speaking analysts on the
staff of the United States Chief of Counsel. When the document
passed the screeners, it was then transmitted to the Document
Room of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, with a
covering sheet prepared by the screeners showing the title or
nature of the document, the personalities involved, and its
importance. In the Document Room, a trial identification number
was given to each document and to each group of documents, in
cases where it was desirable for the sake of clarity to file
several documents together.

“6. United States documents were given trial identification
numbers in one of five series designated by the letters: “PS”,
“L”, “R”, “C”, and “EC”, indicating the means of acquisition of
the documents. Within each series documents were listed
numerically.

“7. After a document was so numbered, it was then sent to a
German-speaking analyst who prepared a summary of the document
with appropriate references to personalities involved, index
headings, information as to the source of the document as
indicated by the Field Branch, and the importance of the
document to a particular phase of the case. Next, the original
document was returned to the Document Room and then checked out
to the Photostating Department, where photostatic copies were
made. Upon return from photostating, it was placed in an
envelope in one of the several fireproof safes in the rear of
the Document Room. One of the photostatic copies of the document
was sent to the translators, thereafter leaving the original
itself in the safe. A commissioned officer has been, and is,
responsible for the documents in the safe. At all times when he
is not present the safe is locked and a military guard is on
duty outside the only door. If the officers preparing the
certified translation, or one of the officers working on the
briefs, found it necessary to examine the original document,
this was done within the Document Room in the section set aside
for that purpose. The only exception to this strict rule has
been where it has been occasionally necessary to present the
original document to Defense Counsel for examination. In this
case, the document was entrusted to a responsible officer of the
Prosecution staff.

“8. All original documents are now located in safes in the
Document Room, where they will be secured until they are
presented by the Prosecution to the court during the progress of
this Trial.

“9. Some of the documents which will be offered in evidence by
the United States were seized and processed by the British Army.
Also, personnel from the Office of the United States Chief of
Counsel and the British War Crimes Executive have acted jointly
in locating, seizing and processing such documents.

“10. Substantially the same system of acquiring documentary
evidence was utilized by the British Army and the British War
Crimes Executive as above set forth with respect to the United
States Army and the Office of the United States Chief of
Counsel.

“11. Therefore, I certify in my official capacity as hereinabove
stated, to the best of my knowledge and belief, that the
documents captured in the British Zone of Operations and
Occupation, which will be offered in evidence by the United
States Chief of Counsel, have been authenticated, translated,
and processed in substantially the same manner as hereinabove
set forth with respect to the operations of the United States
Chief of Counsel.

“12. Finally, I certify that all documentary evidence offered by
the United States Chief of Counsel, including those documents
from British Army sources, are in the same condition as captured
by the United States and British Armies; that they have been
translated by competent and qualified translators; that all
photostatic copies are true and correct copies of the originals
and that they have been correctly filed, numbered, and processed
as above outlined.”

Signed by: “William H. Coogan, Major, QMC, 0-455814.”

After the documents selected by the screening process outlined reached our office, they were again examined, re-screened, and translated by expert U.S. Army personnel, as outlined by Major Coogan.

Finally, more than 2,500 documents were selected and filed here in this Court House. At least several hundred will be offered in evidence. They have been photographed, translated into English, filed, indexed, and processed. The same general procedure was followed by the British War Crimes Executive with regard to documents captured by the British Army, and there has been complete integration and cooperation of activities with the British in that regard.

In order to present our case and to assist the Tribunal, we have prepared written briefs on each phase of our case which cite the documents by appropriate numbers. Legal propositions of the United States will also be presented in such briefs. The briefs and documents will cover each allegation of the Indictment which is the United States’ responsibility. I hold in my hand one of the trial briefs entitled “Reshaping of Education, Training of Youth,” which will be offered later on this day. Accompanying each brief is a document book containing true copies in English of all documents referred to in the brief. I hold in my hand the document book that will be submitted to this Tribunal in support of the brief which I have just exhibited to your Honors. Likewise, copies in German have been, or will be, furnished to Defense counsel at the time such documents are offered in evidence. Upon conclusion of the presentation of each phase or section of our case by counsel, the entire book of documents will be offered in evidence, such as this book. At the same time, Lieutenant Barrett who will sit right here all during the Trial and who is on our staff, will hand to the clerk of this Tribunal the original documents that may be offered in evidence in this form. It will have the seal of the Tribunal, will be Exhibit USA, 2836-PS, and in turn Lieutenant Barrett will hand that original document to the Tribunal. In the same manner, the document book will be passed by Lieutenant Barrett to the clerk of the Court, and these trial briefs for the assistance of the Tribunal will be made available to the Court and to Defense Counsel. Likewise, copies of documents actually introduced in evidence will be made available to the press. Thus, may Your Honors please, it is hoped that by this procedure the usual laborious and tedious method of introducing documentary evidence may be expedited.

May I, therefore, respectfully inquire of the Tribunal and of Defense counsel if there is any objection to the procedure outlined? If not, the United States will proceed with the presentation of the documentary and trial briefs as outlined herein.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has no objection to the course that you propose.

COL. STOREY: If Your Honors please, may I now announce what will be presented immediately following by the United States?

THE PRESIDENT: I think perhaps that I ought to say to counsel for the defendants that their silence will be taken as their assent to the course proposed. In the absence of any objection by them to the course proposed by Colonel Storey on behalf of the Chief Prosecutor for the United States, the Tribunal will take it that they agree that the course is convenient.

Thank you, gentlemen.

COL. STOREY: If Your Honors please, the next presentation will be the briefs and documents on the Common Plan or Conspiracy up to 1939. We will open by presentation of charts of the Nazi Party and Reich Government with exhibits and explanation by Mr. Albrecht. That will be followed by a presentation of the trial briefs and documents on the other phases of the Common Plan or Conspiracy up to 1939.

RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution will now allude briefly to certain facts, which may well be considered to be within judicial purview, the consideration of which the Prosecution has found useful in understanding and evaluating the evidence that will be presented in the course of the Trial, in support of the allegations of the Indictment.

In the opinion of the Prosecution, some preliminary references must be made to the National Socialist German Labor Party, the NSDAP, which in itself is not one of the defendant organizations in this proceeding, but which is represented among the defendant organizations by its most important formations, namely the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, which you will hear referred to as Das Korps der Politischen Leiter der NSDAP, the SS (Die Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP), and the SA (Die Sturmabteilungen) of the Party.

With the permission of the Tribunal the Prosecution will offer at this point, as its first exhibit, a chart showing the structure and organization of the NSDAP, substantially as it existed at the peak of its development in March 1945. This chart has been prepared by the Prosecution on the basis of information contained in important and well-known official publications of the National Socialist Party with which the defendants must be presumed to have been well acquainted. We refer particularly to the _Organization Book of the Party_, (_Das Organisationsbuch der NSDAP_), and to the _National Socialist Year Book_, (_Nationalsozialistisches Jahrbuch_), of both of which, be it noted, the late Defendant Robert Ley was the chief editor or publisher. Both books appeared, in the course of time, in many editions and in hundreds of thousands of copies, throughout the period when the National Socialist Party was in control of the German Reich and of the German people. The chart, furthermore, which we are offering has been certified on its face as correct by a high official of the Nazi Party, namely Franz Xaver Schwarz, its treasurer (Reichsschatzmeister der NSDAP) and its official in charge of Party administration; and his affidavit is being submitted with the chart, and I now wish to offer this chart in evidence. (Document Number 2903-PS, Exhibit USA-2.)

We have been able to have this chart duplicated, and, with the permission of the Tribunal, we are making it available to all concerned.

Before I offer some remarks of explanation concerning the organization of the National Socialist German Labor Party, which, we believe, will be found useful in connection with the Prosecution’s case, I would just like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the larger chart which now appears is a simplification of the duplicated chart which Your Honors have been furnished. For if it had been reproduced in the same detail, I am afraid many of the boxes would not have appeared intelligible from this point.

I would like to call your attention first of all to an organization with which we will have to become very familiar: the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, (the Reichsleiter), which has been named as a defendant organization and which comprises the sum of the officials and leaders of the Nazi Party. If Your Honors will be good enough to follow me down the center line of the chart, we come to the main horizontal line of division where the word “Reichsleiter” appears. That is the first category of the Leadership Corps, I should say, the main category, perhaps, of the Leadership Corps.

The Führer, of course, stands above it. As we follow the vertical line of division to the lower part of the chart, we reach five additional boxes, which may be referred to collectively as the Hoheitsträger, the bearers of the sovereignty of the Party, and those, are the Gauleiter, the Kreisleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter, the Zellenleiter, and the Blockleiter.

The Führer at the top of our chart is the supreme and the only leader in the Nazi hierarchy. His successor-designate was first the Defendant Hess and subsequently the Defendant Göring.

The Reichsleiter, of whom 16 are shown on this chart, comprise collectively the Party Directorate (Reichsleitung). Through them, coordination of the Party and State machinery was achieved. A number of these Reichsleiter, each of whom, at some time, was in charge of at least one office within the Party Directorate, were also the heads of other Party formations and affiliated and supervised organizations of the Party and also of agencies of the State, and they even held ministerial positions. The Reichsleitung may be said to represent the horizontal organization of the Party according to functions, within which all threads controlling the varied life of the German people met. Each office within the Reichsleitung of the NSDAP executed definite tasks assigned to it by the Führer, or by the leader of the Party Chancellery (Chef der Parteikanzlei), who on the chart before you appears directly under the Führer.

In 1945 the chief of the Party Chancellery was Martin Bormann, the defendant in this proceeding, and before him, and until his flight to England in 1941, the Defendant Rudolf Hess. It was the duty of the Reichsleitung to make certain that these tasks assigned to it by the Führer were carried out with expedition and without interruption, in order that the will of the Führer quickly and rapidly was communicated to the lowest Party echelon, the lowliest Zelle or Block. The individual offices of the Reichsleitung had the mission to remain in constant and closest contact with the life of the people through the agency of the subdivisions of the component Party organizations in the Gaue, within the Kreis, or the Ort or the lower group. These leaders had been taught that the right to organize human beings accrued through the appreciation of the fact that a people must be educated ideologically; “weltanschaulich”, the Germans call it, that is to say, according to the philosophy of National Socialism.

Among the Reichsleiter, on trial in this cause, may be included the following defendants:

If Your Honors will follow me to this broad, horizontal line, we start at the extreme left at the box marked with the Defendant Frank’s name. At one time, although not in March 1945, he was the head of the Legal Office of the Party. He was the Reichsleiter des Reichsrechtsamtes.

In the third square appears the Defendant Rosenberg, the delegate of the Führer for Ideological Training and Education of the Party. He was called “Der Beauftragte des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung der NSDAP.” Next to him, to the right, is the Defendant Von Schirach, leader of youth education, (Leiter für die Jugenderziehung). Next to him, appears the late Defendant Robert Ley, at one time head of the Party Organization (Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP) and also the leader of the German Labor Front, the DAF (Leiter der Deutschen Arbeitsfront).

Then, if we cross the vertical line, and proceed to the right—in passing I might allude to the box marked with the name of Schwarz. He was the Party official and Reichsleiter, who certified to the chart before the Tribunal.

As we proceed further to the right, next to the last box, we find the name of the Defendant Frick, who was the leader of the Reichstag fraction (Leiter der NS Reichstagsfraktion).

The next categories to be considered are the Hoheitsträger, at the bottom of the vertical line, in the center of the chart. The National Socialists called them the bearers of sovereignty. To them was assigned the political sovereignty over specially designated subdivisions of the State, of which they were the appointed leaders. The Hoheitsträger may be said to represent the vertical organization of the Party.

These leaders, these Hoheitsträger included all Gauleiter, of whom there were 42 within the Reich in 1945. A Gauleiter was a political leader of the largest subdivision of the State. He was charged by the Führer with the political, cultural, and economic control over all forms and manifestations of the life of the people and the coordination of the same with National Socialist philosophy and ideology.

A number of the defendants before the bar of this Tribunal were former Gauleiter of the NSDAP. I mention, in this connection, the Defendant Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, “Franken-Führer” they called him, whose seat was in the city of Nuremberg. Von Schirach was Gauleiter of Vienna and the Defendant Sauckel was Gauleiter of Thuringia.

The next lower category on the chart were the Kreisleiter, the political leaders of the largest subdivision within a Gau. Then follow the Ortsgruppenleiter, the political leaders of the largest subdivision within the Kreis. And a Kreis consisted perhaps of several towns or villages or, in the case of a larger city, anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 households.

The next Hoheitsträger were the Zellenleiter, the political leaders of a group from four to eight city blocks, or of a corresponding group within country districts, and then follow the Blockleiter, the political leaders of from 40 to 60 households.

Now, each of these political leaders, of these Hoheitsträger, or bearers of sovereignty, was directly responsible to the next highest leader in the Nazi hierarchy. The Gauleiter was directly responsible to the Führer himself; the Kreisleiter was directly responsible to the Gauleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter to the Kreisleiter, and so on.

The Führer himself reserved to himself, in accordance with the philosophy that runs through the Party, the right to name all Führer. It was he, personally, that named the Reichsleiter, all members of the Party Directorate. It was he that appointed all Gauleiter and Kreisleiter and all political leaders, down to the grade of Gauamtsleiter, which was a lower classification of political leader within the Party organization of the Gau.

These Hoheitsträger, together with the Reichsleitung, constituted the all-powerful group of leaders by means of which the Nazi Party reached right down into the lives of the people, consolidated its control of them and compelled them to conform to the National Socialist pattern. For this purpose broad powers were given to them, including the right to call upon all Party formations to effectuate their plans. They could requisition the services of the SA and of the SS, as well as of the HJ and of the NSKK. If I may direct your attention, for the moment, to the Party organizations that appear at the extreme left of the chart, I would just like to say that structurally these organizations were organized regionally to accord with the offices and regions controlled by the Hoheitsträger. If I might be more explicit, let us take the SA. The subsidiary formations of the SA came down and corresponded, in its lower organizations, to the Gau, so that we have a Gauleitung in the SA, and further down, to the Kreis, so that we have a Kreisleitung in the SA, so that the Gauleiter and the Kreisleiter, to cite two examples, charged with a particular duty by the Führer, could call on these organizations for assistance in carrying out their tasks.

These sinister implications of the use of this power will become more apparent as the Prosecution’s case develops, and as the wealth of evidentiary material is introduced into evidence to prove the criminality of the defendant organizations.

The component Party-organizations, called “Gliederungen” within the Party, are shown at the extreme left of the chart, and are the organizations to which I directed the attention of Your Honors a moment ago. These organizations actually constitute the Party itself, and substantially the entire Party-membership is contained within these organizations. The four principal organizations are sometimes referred to as “para-military” organizations. They were uniformed organizations and they were armed. These organizations were the notorious SA and SS, which are named as party-defendants in this case, the HJ (Hitler Youth), and the NSKK—the Motor Corps of the Party (Kraftfahrkorps). Then there were also the National Socialist Women’s Organization, the National Socialist German Students’ Bund (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund), and the National Socialist University Teachers’ Organization (Nationalsozialistischer Dozentenbund).

There are additional organizations that were officially designated within the Party, as affiliated organizations, not Gliederungen or controlled organizations, but affiliated organizations (Angeschlossene Verbände der NSDAP). Among those organizations we have the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront)—the DAF; we have an organization that controlled the civil service (Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten). There were the physicians within the National Socialist Deutscher Ärztebund; there were the teachers in the National Socialist Lehrerbund; there were the lawyers within the National Socialist Rechtswahrerbund, of which, at one time, the Defendant Frank was the head.

There is another group of organizations which was officially known as supervised organizations (Betreute Organisationen der NSDAP), organizations that included certain specialized women’s organizations (Deutsches Frauenwerk), certain student societies (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenschaft), former university students (Altherrenbund der Deutschen Studenten). There was a group that had reference to the German communes (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Gemeindetag), and there was a Reichsbund für Leibesübungen that interested itself in controlling all those interested in physical exercise.

According to the official Party designations applicable to the various organizations and associations that controlled German life there was a fourth category, which is the last organization that appears to the right on the chart before Your Honors, which is sometimes simply called “Weitere Nationalsozialistische Organisationen”, and here, in some respects, we are in “No man’s land”, because the Party was not static, it was dynamic and our latest information is now to the effect that the organizations that ordinarily came within this category, well-known organizations like the RAD (Reich Labor Service) and the NSFK (the National Socialist Fliegerkorps) or Flying Corps may no longer be included there. At least that was the opinion of the Party treasurer, who certified to this chart.

I think with these few remarks, I have given some general impression of the structure of the Party, with which we are dealing in this proceeding before Your Honors.

Before leaving the chart, perhaps I would just like to point out several other instances where some of the defendants appear in this set-up.

At the very top, to the left of the Führer, as marked on the chart before Your Honors, are the successors-designate of the Führer. First is the Defendant Hess, until 1941, and followed by the Defendant Göring. Under the Führer appears the chief of the Party Chancellery, the Defendant Martin Bormann, and then, if we come to the level of the Reichsleiter, and go to the left, opposite Rosenberg’s name, we find that somewhat below that his name is repeated as the head of an office on a lower level, namely, the Foreign Relations Office of the Party, which played such a sinister influence in the early work of the Party, as will later appear in the documentary evidence to be presented to Your Honors.

We then come to the late Defendant Ley’s name, on the main horizontal division, and follow the dotted line to a lower level, and we will find he was the chief of the German Labor Front, and if we come closer to the vertical line, to a lower level, below the Reichsleitung, we find the Defendant Speer in the Hauptamt für Technik (the Office of Technical Affairs), and below that as the chief of the Bund Deutscher Technik (German Technological League).

With the permission of the Tribunal, the Prosecution will now pass to the consideration of the governmental machinery of the German State, which, like the organization of the Nazi Party, requires some brief observations before the Prosecution proceeds with the submission of proof on the Common Plan of Conspiracy, with which the defendants have been charged.

If the Tribunal will allow, the Prosecution will offer as its second exhibit, another chart, delineating substantially the governmental structure of the Reich Government as it existed in March 1945, and also the chief Leadership Corps of the Reich Government and the Reich Administration during those years. (Document Number 2905-PS, Exhibit USA-3)

This chart has been prepared by the Prosecution on the basis of information contained in two official publications, _Das Taschenbuch für Verwaltungsbeamte_, (_the Manual for Administrative Officers_) and the _National Sozialistisches Jahrbuch_, to which I have already alluded, edited by the Defendant Ley.

This chart has been examined, corrected, and certified by the Defendant Wilhelm Frick, whose affidavit is submitted with the chart. In fact, it is reproduced directly on the copies of the charts before Your Honors.

It seems plain that the Defendant Frick, a former Minister of Interior of the Reich from January 1933 to August 1943, was well qualified, by reason of his position and long service in public office during the National Socialist regime, to certify to the substantial accuracy of the facts disclosed in this chart.

Now, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make some brief comments on this chart.

First of all, we refer to the Reichsregierung, which is the big box in the center of the chart on the vertical line, directly below Hitler. The Reichsregierung is a word that may not be translated literally as “government of the Reich.” The word “Reichsregierung” is a word of art and is applied collectively to the ministers who composed the German Cabinet.

The Reichsregierung has been named as a defendant in this proceeding, and as used in the Indictment the expression “Reichsregierung” identifies a group which, we will urge, should be declared to have been a criminal organization.

This group includes all the men named in that center box, who were members of the Cabinet after 30 January 1933, that is, Reich ministers with and without portfolio, and all other officials entitled to participate in the deliberations of the Cabinet.

Secondly, it includes members of the Counsel of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. It is called “Ministerrat für die Reichsverteidigung”, which is the large box to the right of the vertical line.

Then, it includes the members of the Secret Cabinet Council, which is the small box to the left of the vertical line, the Geheimer Kabinettsrat, of which the Defendant Von Neurath was the President.

Unlike the Cabinets and Ministerial Councils in countries that were not within the orbit of the Axis, the Reichsregierung, after 30 January, 1933 when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the German Reich, did not remain merely the executive branch of the Government. In short order it also came to be possessed, and it exercised legislative, and other functions as well, in the governmental system into which the German Government developed while under the domination of the National Socialist Party.

It is proper to observe here that unlike such Party organizations as the SA and SS, the Reichsregierung, before 1933, certainly, was not a body created exclusively or even predominantly for the purpose of committing illegal acts. The Reichsregierung was an instrument of government provided for by the Weimar constitution. Under the Nazi regime, however, the Reichsregierung gradually became a primary agent of the Party, with functions formulated in accordance with the objectives and methods of the Party itself. The Party to all intents and purposes, was intended to be a Führerorden, an order of Führer, a pool of political leaders. And while the Party was, in the words of a German law, “the bearer of the concept of the German State,” it was not identical with the State.

Thus, in order to realize its ideological and political objectives and to reach the German people, the Party had to avail itself of official state channels.

The Reichsregierung, and such agencies and offices established by it, were the chosen instruments, by means of which the Party policies were converted into legislative and administrative acts, binding upon the German people as a whole.

In order to accomplish this result, the Reichsregierung was thoroughly remodelled by the Party. Some of the steps may be here recorded, by which the coordination of Party and State machinery was assured in order to impose the will of the Führer on the German people.

On January 30, 1933, the date that the Führer became Reich Chancellor, there were few National Socialists that were Cabinet members. But, as the power of the Party in the Reich grew, the Cabinet came to include an ever increasing number of Nazis, until by January 1937 no non-Party member remained in the Reichsregierung. New cabinet-posts were created and Nazis appointed to them. Many of these cabinet members were also in the Reichsleitung of the Party.

To give but a few examples:

The Defendant Rosenberg, whose name Your Honors will find in that central box on the vertical line, the delegate of the Führer for Ideological Training and Education of the Party, was a member of the Reichsregierung in his capacity as Minister for the Occupied Eastern Areas, the Reichsminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete.

And if Your Honors will follow me on the vertical line to the main horizontal line and proceed to the very end, you will find a box marked “Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories”, of which the head was the Defendant Rosenberg.

The Defendant Frick, the leader of the National Socialist fraction in the Reichstag, was also Minister of the Interior.

If Your Honors will follow me down to the main horizontal line and two boxes over you will find the Ministry presided over by the Defendant Frick. Goebbels, the Reichsleiter für Propaganda, also sat in the Cabinet as Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda). He is in the next box to the right from the Ministry of the Interior.

After the 25th of July 1934 Party participation in the work of the Cabinet was at all times achieved through the person of the Defendant Rudolf Hess, the deputy of the Führer. By a decree of Hitler the Defendant Hess was invested with the power to take part in the editing of legislative bills with all the departments of the Reich. Later this power of the Führer’s deputy was expanded to include all executive decisions and orders that were published in the _Reichsgesetzblatt_, the official volume in which are contained the decrees of the State. After Hess’s flight to England in 1941, the Defendant Martin Bormann, as his successor, took over the same functions, and in addition he was given the authority of a Reichsminister so that he could sit in the Cabinet.

Now, another item of importance:

On the 30th of January 1937, four years after Hitler became Chancellor, the Führer executed the acceptances into the Party of those last few Cabinet members who still remained out of the Party. Only one Cabinet member had the strength of character to reject membership in the Party. That was the Minister of Transportation and Minister of Posts, Mr. Eltz-Rübenach. His example was not followed by the Defendant Von Neurath. His example was not followed by the Defendant Raeder. And if the Defendant Schacht was not yet at that time a member of the Party, I might say that his example was not followed by the Defendant Schacht.

The chart shows many other instances where Party members on the highest, as well as subordinate levels, occupied corresponding or other positions in the organization of the State. Take Hitler himself. The Führer of the NSDAP was also the Chancellor of the Reich, with which office, furthermore, the office of President of the Reich was joined and merged after the death of President Von Hindenburg in 1934.

Take the Defendant Göring, the successor-designate of Hitler. As Führer of the SA, he sat in the Cabinet as Air Minister (Luftfahrtminister) and he also held many other important positions, including that of Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force) and that of Delegate for the Four Year Plan.

Himmler, the notorious head of the SS, the Reichsführer SS, was also the chief of the German Police, reporting to the Defendant Frick. He himself later became Minister of the Interior after the attempted assassination of Hitler on June 20, 1944, which event also catapulted him into the position of Commander-in-Chief of the German Reserve Army.

Now, at the extreme upper left of the chart is a small box that is labeled “Reichstag” (the former German parliament).

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn for 10 minutes, and 10 minutes only.

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. ALBRECHT: The Reichstag presents an anomaly in this picture. Under the republic it had been the supreme law-making body of the Reich, subject only to a limited check by the Reichsrat (the Council of the Reich), by the President, and by the people themselves by way of initiative and referendum.

Putting their opposition to all forms of Parliamentarianism into effect at once, the Nazis proceeded to curtail the powers of the Reichstag, to eliminate the Reichsrat, and to merge the Presidency with the Office of Chancellor occupied by the Führer. By the Act of 24th of March 1933 the Cabinet was given unlimited legislative powers, including the right to deviate from the constitution. Subsequently, as I stated, the Reichsrat was abolished, and with that act the residuum of the power to legislate in the Reichstag was reduced to a minimum. I say the power was reduced to a minimum because the actual power to legislate was never taken away from the Reichstag, but certainly after the advent of the Party to power it was never permitted to exercise as a legislature.

The Reichsregierung retained its legislative powers throughout, even though from time to time other agencies of the Reichsregierung, such as the Plenipotentiary for Administration, in the upper right of the chart, (the Generalbevollmächtigter für die Reichsverwaltung), the Plenipotentiary for Economy, also in the right-hand corner of the chart, (the Generalbevollmächtigter für die Wirtschaft), and the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, were created. That is the big box to the right of the vertical line. And these agencies of the Reichsregierung received certain concurrent legislative powers.

The development of the Reichstag into an emasculated legislative body was, however, only an intermediate step on the road to rule by Führer decrees. That was the ultimate goal of the Party, and a goal which they achieved.

The Nazis then proceeded to delegate some of the powers of the Reich Cabinet to all sorts of newly created agencies, some of which I have already mentioned. Cabinet functions were delegated first of all to the Reich Defense Council, the Reichsverteidigungsrat, possibly as early as the 4th of April 1933, but we believe certainly not later than 1935. I might say in this connection that with respect to a number of these agencies of the Reichsregierung which received delegated powers, we are moving in a somewhat shadowy land, because in developing this organization we are dealing—to some extent, at least—with decrees and actions that were secret, or secretive, in character.

A number of these decrees were never definitely fixed in time. A number of them were never published and the German people themselves never became acquainted with them. And that is why I say that the Reich Defense Council may possibly have been created as early as two and one-half months after the advent of Hitler to power but we believe that we will be able to show to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that that important body in the Government of the Reich was created certainly not later than May 1935.

I say it is an important body. This was the war-planning group, of which Hitler himself was chairman and the Defendant Göring the alternate. It was a large war-planning body, as Your Honors will note, that included many Cabinet members, and there was also a working committee—the true numerical size of which does not appear from the chart—which was presided over by the Defendant Keitel. That also was composed of Cabinet members and of Reich defense officials, the majority of whom were appointed by Cabinet officers and subject to their control. Other powers were delegated to the Plenipotentiary, whom I have named before, for Administration, appearing at the extreme right of the chart. That was the Defendant Frick, and later the notorious Himmler.

Subordinate to Frick in his capacity as Plenipotentiary for Administration were complete ministries, the Ministry of the Interior (Frick’s old ministry), Ministry of Justice, Education, Church Affairs, and Raumordnung (the Ministry for Special Planning).

Other powers went to the delegate for the Four Year Plan, again the Defendant Göring, whose box appears to the left of the median line, half way to the edge.

There were certain other powers that went to an organization within the shadow-land I mentioned, and which, unfortunately, does not have its name appear on this chart, the Dreierkollegium (the College of Three), which title should really be imposed over the last three boxes in the upper right hand corner; because the Dreierkollegium consisted not alone of the Plenipotentiary for Administration, but also the Plenipotentiary for War Economy, and the chairman of that group who, I believe, was the Defendant Keitel, as the head of the OKW, the Wehrmacht, all the armed forces. The duties of the Dreierkollegium would seem to have included the drafting of decrees in preparation of and for use during war. To the Secret Cabinet Council, the Geheimer Kabinettsrat, of which the Defendant Von Neurath was chairman,—or President, I believe was his title, went other powers. That Secret Cabinet Council was created by a decree of the Führer in 1938.

Certain other delegation of power took place to the Ministerrat für die Reichsverteidigung (the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Realm), which is the smallest box appearing under the large box of the Reich Defense Council, to the right of the vertical line.

The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich was responsible to the Führer alone. Its membership, as would seem to be indicated on the chart, was taken from the Reich Defense Council. It had broad powers to issue decrees with the force of law in so far as the Reichsregierung itself had not legislated on the subject.

It should be stressed that this delegation of Cabinet functions to various groups, composed largely of its own members, helped to conceal some of the important policies of the Reichsregierung, namely, those relating to the preparation of war, which delegated the necessary authority to secret and semi-secret agencies. Thus in a general way, as I have outlined, did the National Socialist Party succeed in putting Nazi policies into effect through its dummy, through the machinery of the State, the Reichsregierung, in its revised form.