dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. MERKEL: It has not been possible to -establish clearly how many of them were used within the framework of Counter-Intelligence, that is, in Department TV, but this would hardly be of any decisive importance. Simultaneously, the Foreign Letter Censorship Department and the Foreign Telegram Censorship Department, until then under the jurisdiction of Military Counter-Intelligence, were transferred to the Security Police. This concerned approximately 7500 persons who, on the basis of an order, became subject to the jurisdiction of the Security Police (Affidavit Number Gestapo-36 and Document Number Gestapo-19). As a last group of persons, part of the Customs Police were transferred to the Secret State Police in the autumn of 1944, in the last phase of the war, having until then been part of the Reich Finance Administration. Neither in the organization nor in the tasks of the Customs Police were there any changes after this transfer. According to Affidavit Number Gestapo-31 the strength of these two organizations upon transfer to the Gestapo amounted to approximately 45,OQO men. The above-mentioned State organism of the Political Police with its character as a branch of the State administration was outside the structure of the NSDAP and its organizations. The Gestapo was not dominated by the Party; on the contrary, its independence within the State and outside the structure of the Party was in particular intended to enable it to combat misdeeds of Party members with governmental measures. If Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS, became Chief of the Political Police in all states in 1933, and later in the Reich, then the State Police agencies were without influence in that connection. Nothing important changed at first with regard to their  activities. The Political Police offices in the German Under, when they were reconstituted in 1933, were mostly staffed with officials from existing Police agencies; not even the directing officials were in every case Party members. Even, later these officials who had been taken over were not replaced by Party members.
DR. MERKEL: Only to a small extent, and only as employees and workers for technical duties, such as drivers, teletype operators, and office help, were persons from the Party, the SS, and the SA taken on. This independence of the Party and its affiliated organizations appears to be contradicted by the so-called assimilation of the Gestapo into the SS. This assimilation merely meant a nominal affiliation with the SS. The reason for this assimilation was the following: The system of professional civil servants had been introduced and maintained in the Gestapo. But civil servants were, in part, not particularly respected by the Party because of their political or nonpolitical past. In order to strengthen their authority in the discharge of their duties, in particular when acting against National Socialists, they were to appear in uniform, as the witness Dr. Best has testified-who has described himself as the "motor" of , this assimilation. With this assimilation the Gestapo officials-as, incidentally, also Criminal Police officials, who were equally to be assimilated-were formally listed among the SD formations of the SS, though they remained solely under the jurisdiction of their own superiors without doing any SS or SD service. Besides, the assimilation was only carried out slowly and to a negligible~ degree. At the outbreak of war in 1939 only approximately 3,000 members of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police out of a total of 20, 000 had been assimilated. It is significant that Himmler by no means liked to see the Gestapo appear publicly wearing SS uniforms, as becomes evident from Document USA-447. During the war even nonassimilated persons had to wear the SS uniform on certain assignments, even without being members of the SS. Apart from that the SS did not control the Police or exert any type of influence upon its activities; it was only in Himmler's person that there was personal union in the leadership of the two. With reference to this statement I refer you to the testimony of Dr. Best.
DR. MERKEL: The Gestapo as a whole had nothing to do with the SD, which, as is known, was purely an organization of the Party. Personal union only existed in the person of the Chief of the Sipo and the SD (Heydrich, later Kaltenbrunner), which was accidental, however, and did not signify an organizational or functional interconnection. Certainly the SD were never combined with the Gestapo in order to form a police system. The SD did not have to support the Gestapo in its tasks; it had no police tasks whatever. The officials of the Gestapo by no means considered themselves members of a uniform organization with the SS and the SD. Everyone in each of the three organizations knew that he belonged to an independent institution serving independent purposes. Although the Gestapo was, therefore, in no way organizationally or from the point of view of functions connected with the Party, it was, nevertheless, not altogether detached from the administrative tasks of the State, being a State authority. On the contrary, on every level interconnections existed with the general and interior administration. The higher administrative organizations, the Ministers of the Interior of the states, the provincial presidents and district presidents were entitled to receive reports and issue instructions. Evidence has, indeed, shown that the majority of all Gestapo actions were carried out by the district and local police organizations and the Gendarmerie. This fact in particular furnishes an indication of how serious and questionable it is to indict the Gestapo as an institution of the State. Because, if this concept were followed through, the officials of the aforementioned administrative organizations, to the extent that they worked in a State Police capacity, would have to be indicted together with the Gestapo. If it is impossible for these reasons to speak of a union of persons in the case of the Gestapo, that is, of membership in the sense of the Indictment, the requirement of voluntary membership was even less complied with.
DR. MERKEL: Not one of the witnesses examined was able to uphold the Prosecution's allegation in any way; on the contrary, all witnesses had to testify that, as a matter of principle, member-. ship of the Gestapo was generally not on a voluntary basis. The assignment of officials to the Gestapo took place, to a large extent, by having them transferred to an agency of the Gestapo from a previous organization. The order for transfer had to be obeyed on the strength of the civil service law. Severe disadvantages in one's career would without a doubt have resulted from a refusal, and very probably the loss of the position held; and had such a refusal been based on the statement that for reasons of conscience the official did not sanction the activities of the Gestapo, then he, like any civil servant in a similar case, would have become subject to disciplinary proceedings or even regular penal proceedings, resulting in the loss of his position and hard-earned privileges and, apart from that, he would have gone to a concentration camp. Replacements of civil servants in the Gestapo were regulated in such a way that, in accordance with the police civil service law, 90 percent were drawn from former Regular Police officials who wished to become Criminal Police officials, whereas a maximum of 10 percent could be taken, from other professions. Aspirants from the Regular Police could not, however, freely decide whether to join the Gestapo or Kripo; they were allotted by the Personnel Office of the Police at Potsdam to the Gestapo or the Kripo, according to requirements, and even against their will. Incidentally, we are here concerned with Regular Police officials with 8 to 12 years' service, that is, old police officials who had been in the police service already before 1933. It was almost impossible for an official to break loose from the Gestapo, except for general reasons such as death, sickness, and dismissal because of malfeasance.
DR. MERKEL: During the war the Gestapo, just like the entire Police, was considered as being on active service and was subject to military discipline, so that resignation was totally impossible. It was even prohibited to volunteer for military service at the front. The same principles of assignment and retirement also applied to the institutions under the jurisdiction of the Gestapo, such as Border Police, Military Counter-Intelligence, and Customs Police, not to mention the numerous emergency draftees in wartime, who at times represented nearly one-half of the total personnel strength. From these statements mostly based on the testimony and affidavits particularly of the witnesses Best, Knochen, and Hoffmann, the following becomes apparent: the Gestapo consisted of a multitude of State agencies. But in the case of an agency one cannot speak of members of that agency in the same way as of members of a private organization. For that reason there was no "membership" in the~ Gestapo, much less a voluntary one; there was only the official position of a civil servant. The question, also, as to whether the aim and task of the Gestapo was criminal, must be answered in the negative. The aim of the Gestapo-just like that of any political police-was the protection of the people and the State against attacks of hostile elements upon their existence and unhampered development. Accordingly, the task of the Gestapo is defined in Article I of the Law of 10 February 1936 (Document Number Gestapo-7) as follows; I quote: "The Secret State Police has the task of investigating all tendencies dangerous to the State and of combating them, of collecting and exploiting the result of such investigations, of informing the Reich Government and other authorities of findings important to them, of keeping them informed and supplying them with suggestions." These tasks of the Gestapo had the same character as those of the Political Police before 1933, and as those of any other political police force in foreign countries.
DR. MERKEL: What is to be understood by "tendencies hostile to the State" depends upon the respective political structure of a state. A change in the political leadership cannot retroactively render illegal the activities of a political police force which had been directed against other forces regarded as hostile to the State. The activities of the Gestapo had been regulated by legal instructions issued by the State. Its tasks consisted, in the first place and mainly, of the investigation of politically illegal activity in accordance with the general penal code, in which connection the officials of the Gestapo became active as auxiliary officials of the public prosecutor's department; and it further consisted in warding off such activity through preventive measures. Now, of course, the methods of the Gestapo are made the basis of serious accusations against it in three ways, and even held against it as crimes. One method is the protective custody and transfer of persons to concentration camps. I realize that the mere mention of the name sends a cold shudder down one's spine. Nevertheless, even the imposition of protective' custody was governed by exact regulations. Protective custody, which in addition is not a specifically German or specifically National Socialist invention, was recognized as legal in several findings of the Supreme Reich Court and the Prussian Supreme Administrative Court, that is, fully constitutional courts. A second method-that of the so-called third-degree interrogation-must, to put it mildly, give rise to serious misgivings. On the other hand, this method was only rarely used (see particularly witness Dr. Best), and then only by order from the highest authorities, and never to extort a confession. This method, too, which we shall consider further in connection with the discussion of the individual crimes, was regulated by law, even during the time of the war (compare Document Number Gestapo-60). Finally the Prosecution accuses the Gestapo in particular of the fact that it was not bound by law but rather that it acted purely arbitrarily.
DR. MERKEL: In reply to this I should like to say that if it was established in two laws (dealing with the Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland) that the Chief of the German Police could take measures exceeding the existing laws, this was not done to sanction arbitrary police action; rather do we find ourselves confronted with a typical legal investiture with authority to establish police law. Measures in the meaning of this law did not refer to individual action, but to orders of a general sort to be issued even though in the countries annexed no law existed as yet in this regard, but which were, nevertheless, binding on the population and the executive organs of the Police, because the necessary authority had been granted by the head of the State. The principle that individual action must not be taken arbitrarily, but rather that detailed regulations were to be applied and observed in all executive actions, was strictly maintained (witness Dr. Best). It never even occurred to Gestapo officials, at least not before the war, that they might be accused from abroad of acting arbitrarily. The tasks and methods, which were well-known and legally defined-not only for the members of the Gestapo but for all the world-cannot be considered criminal by the world, a world which not only formally recognized the German Reich Government, which bore the sole responsibility in this matter, but also repeatedly gave visible evidence of its recognition to the German people. If foreign countries had objected to the aims pursued by the Gestapo, it would not have been conceivable for numerous foreign police systems to have worked in close collaboration with the German Gestapo, a collaboration which was not negotiated through diplomatic circles, but obviously with the intention of learning from it (compare Gestapo Affidavits Numbers 26 and 89). In any event, because of this the individual Gestapo official must have considered his activity internationally recognized.
DR. MERKEL: The aims, tasks, and methods of the Gestapo remained basically constant even during the war. Insofar as acts other than the.- ones described were intended for it, they must be considered as acts foreign to the Police and outside the organization. Later we shall deal particularly with the Einsatzgruppen, their composition, their activity, and their ' relation to the Gestapo. Following the structure of the Indictment, I shall now turn to the question of whether the Gestapo participated in a joint plan for the commission of crimes and whether it participated as a deliberate part in the whole so-called Nazi conspiracy in the sense of the Indictment. In order to deal with this question, however, it appears necessary to examine, first of all, just which crimes can be proved to have been committed by the Gestapo. In order to characterize an organization as criminal, just as in characterizing an individual, only typical aspects may be considered, that is, only such actions and characteristics as are in accord with the peculiar nature of the respective organization. Therefore no incidents can be used which, though they took place within the organization, must be considered to, be foreign to the organization, in this case foreign to the Police; and furthermore no actions may be cited which were committed by individual members. In order to determine whether these actions must be considered criminal, German law should be consulted, which does not deviate from the views held by other civilized countries in the definition of general criminality. In line with the method followed in the Indictment, I shall subdivide the crimes of which the Gestapo is accused into Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity. (a) Crimes against Peace. In this connection the Indictment makes the charge that the Gestapo, together with the SD, had artificially created border incidents in order to. give Hitler a pretext for a war with Poland.
DR. MERKEL: Two border incidents are cited, the attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz and a feigned attack by a Polish group at Hohenlinden. The attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz was not carried out with the participation of Gestapo officials. The witness Naujocks, who was the leader of this undertaking but did not belong to the Gestapo, has confirmed unequivocally that no member of the Gestapo participated in this action. Instructions for this undertaking emanated directly from Heydrich and were transmitted orally by him directly to Naujocks. Instructions concerning the feigned attack at Hohenlinden were transmitted by Muller, the chief of Amt IV of the RSHA, to Naujocks; however, Naujocks, who directed this action, has. expressly denied any participation by Amt IV.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Merkel, would that be a convenient time to break off? [A recess was taken until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
DR. MERKEL: Mr. President, I have heard that the French translation of my final plea is not yet available to the interpreters. For that reason I shall have to speak more slowly for the benefit of the interpreters. I have already deleted another 16 pages from my plea in order to comply with the ruling that I adhere to a time limit.
THE PRESIDENT: No doubt your speech will subsequently be translated and we shall have those pages before us.
DR. MERKEL: I had gone as far as the testimony of the witness Naujocks regarding the attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz and the attack of that group near Hohenlinden. He stated that, quite naturally, it was not one of the tasks of Amt IV of the RSHA to engineer border incidents. Nor did Muller select members of Amt IV for the purpose of staging the above-mentioned border incident, but only individuals who were in his confidence; for Heydrich did not trust the Gestapo with respect to secrecy and reliability. Naujocks stated literally: "I cannot identify Muller with the organization of the Gestapo." These border incidents were therefore no concern of the Gestapo, but rather a personal concern of Heydrich, even to the extent to which Muller participated in them. The Gestapo has not been accused of other crimes against peace. (b) War Crimes. One of the gravest accusations raised against the Gestapo deals with the mass murder of the civilian population of the occupied countries through the so-called "Einsatzgruppen." Not only the Defense but the entire German people condemn the inhuman cruelties committed by the Einsatzgruppen. Those who committed atrocities of that kind and thereby defiled the name of Germany must be called to account. Members of the Gestapo also participated in the actions of the Einsatzgruppen. However, I should like to examine the extent to which the organization of the Gestapo in toto can be held responsible for the criminal deeds of the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen had to fulfill the tasks of the Chief of the Sipo and of the SD in rear echelon areas, which meant that they had to maintain law and order along the rear of the fighting units. They were subordinate to the armies, to whom liaison officers were detailed. The Einsatzgruppen were units which had been established for certain purposes. They were composed of members of the SD, the SS, the Kripo, the Gestapo, the Order Police, of emergency draftees, and of indigenous forces.
DR. MERKEL: The members of the SD, of the Kripo, and of the Gestapo were used without consideration of their former membership in their own branch. Purely from the point of view of personnel, we are concerned here with the employment of the entire Police and the SD, not with that of the Gestapo. ' The actual participation of the Gestapo in the Einsatzgruppen amounted to approximately 10 percent. This, of course, was a very small number in comparison with the total figure of Gestapo officials. Their selection for the Einsatzgruppen took place without any application on their part, very frequently against their will and on the strength of orders from the RSFIA. Upon being detailed to the Einsatzgruppen, they were eliminated from the organization of the Gestapo. They were exclusively subordinate to the leadership of the Einsatzgruppe, which received its orders in part from the Higher SS and Police Leader, in part from the High Command of the Army, and in part from the RSHA directly. Connections with their home office and the organization of the Gestapo -were almost completely severed by their being employed in the Einsatzgruppe. They could not receive orders of any kind from the Gestapo, and they were removed from the sphere of influence of the Gestapo. These principles governing the Einsatzgruppen applied particularly to the Einsatzgruppen in the East, which are the ones that have been accused of the largest number of crimes and the most serious ones. To them also applies the fact that service in the East was no Gestapo service either in personnel or in the tasks assigned, but service with a special group drafted from various units specifically for this purpose. The witness Ohlendorf testified to the same effect. The fact that the Gestapo also supplied men for this does not justify the conclusion that it was responsible for deeds committed by the Einsatzgruppen.. Nor is this changed by the fact that the Chief of Amt IV, that is, Miller, the Director of the Gestapo within the RSHA, had an important part in passing on all orders.
DR. MERKEL: He was acting here directly on behalf of Himmler and Heydrich. The activity of Miller cannot be decisive in view of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the agents under him had no knowledge of the events. Had that been the case, the Kripo or the Order Police as units would have to be held equally responsible for the events. But the Gestapo cannot be declared criminal because of Miller's position with regard to the Einsatzgruppen, any more than the Kripo-whose chief, Nebe, by the way, was himself the leader of an Einsatzgruppe in the East-can be held responsible, on the basis of the participation of its chief and individual members, for the mass executions undertaken by the Einsatzgruppen. Therefore mass murders of the civilian population and all other atrocities committed by the Einsatzgruppen cannot be charged against the Gestapo as such. The next charge refers to the execution of politically and racially undesirable prisoners in camps. I beg the Tribunal to take judicial knowledge of this as well as of the third charge, according to which the Gestapo, together with the SD, sent prisoners of war who had escaped and had been recaptured to concentration camps. Decisive is , the agreement between the Chief of the Sipo and the SD on the one hand, and the OKW on the other, of 16 July 1941, the so-called Commissar Order, USSR-14. The directives issued by Muller, the Chief of Amt IV, on 17 July 1941 show in what numbers and in what way the Gestapo participated in the details to be assigned to the prison camps. In the last few weeks the Prosecution produced the correspondence concerning the activity of the Gestapo offices in Munich, Regensburg, and Nurnberg on the subject of the selection of Soviet Russian prisoners of war (Document USA-910). This shows that the selection through*special units (Sonderkommandos) of the Sipo was carried out according to the directives of the Chief of the Sipo and the SD, but their execution in the concentration camps to which those selected were sent was not the affair of the Gestapo.