dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. STOREY: The Party manual provides, with respect to the power and authority of the Hoheitstrager to requisition the services of the SA-and I quote from Page 11 of this same Document 1893-PS: "The Hoheitstrager is responsible for the entire political appearance of the Movement within this zone. The SA leader of that zone is tied to the directives of the Hoheitstrager in that respect .... The Hoheitstrager is the ranking representative of the Party to include all organizations within his zone. He may requisition the SA located within his zone from the respective SA leader if they are needed for the execution of a political mission. The Hoheitstrager will then assign the mission to the SA.... Should the Hoheitstrager need more SA for the execution of a political mission than is locally available, he then applies to the next higher office of sovereignty which, in turn, requests the SA from the SA office in his sector." According to the Party manual, the Hoheitstrager had the same authority to call upon the services of the SS and NSKK as they possessed with respect to the SA. With respect to the authority of the Hoheitstrager to call upon the services of the Hitler Youth (the HJ), the Party manual states, and I quote from Page 11, the last paragraph of that translation: "The political leader has the right to requisition the HJ"- that is the Hitler Jugend-"in the same manner as the SA for the execution of a political action.... "In appointing leaders of the HJ . . . the office of the HJ must procure the approval of the Hoheitstrager of its zone. This means that the Hoheitstrager can prevent the appointment of leaders unsuited for the leadership of youth. If his approval has not been procured, an appointment may be cancelled if he so requests." An example of the use of the Party formations at the call of the Leadership Corps of the Party is provided by the action taken by the Reichsleiter for Party Organization of the National Socialist Party; Dr. Robert Ley, leading to the deliberate dissolution of the Free Trade Unions on 2 May 1933.
COL. STOREY: I quote from Document 392-PS, Exhibit Number USA-326, which is a copy of the directive issued by the Defendant Ley on 21 April 1933, reproduced on Pages 51-52 of the Social Life in New Germany by Professor Muller. In this directive the late Defendant Ley directed the employment of the SA and the SS in the occupation of trade unions and for taking trade union leaders into protective custody. I now quote from Paragraph 6 of Page 1 of Document 392-PS. It is the third and fourth paragraph from the bottom of the page: "SA as well as SS are to be employed for the occupation of trade union properties and for the taking of personalities, who come into question, into protective custody. "The Gauleiter is to proceed with his measures on a basis of the closest understanding with the competent regional cell director." I also quote from the second paragraph of Page 2 of that same document which reads, quoting: "The following are to be taken into protective custody: All trade union chairmen, the district secretaries and the branch directors of the 'Bank for Workers, Employees, and Officials, Incorporated,' included." I now offer in evidence Document 2474-PS, Exhibit Number USA-327, which is a copy of a decree issued by the Defendant Hess as Deputy of the Fuehrer, dated 25 October,1934, which underwrites the authority of the Hoheitstrager with respect to Party 17 Dec. 45 formations. I quote from the numbered Paragraphs 1, 5, and 6 of Page 1 of Document 2474-PS which reads as follows-Page 1 of the English translation: "The political leadership within the Party and its political representation towards all offices, state or others which are outside of the Party, lie solely and exclusively with the Hoheitstrager"-bearers of sovereignty-"which is to say with me, the Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter....
COL. STOREY: "The departmental workers of the Party organizations, such as Reichsleiter, office directors, et cetera, as well as the leaders of the SA, SS, HJ, and the subordinate affiliations, may not enter into binding agreements of a political nature with State and other offices except when so authorized by their Hoheitstrager. "In places where the territories of the units of the SA, SS, HJ, and the subordinate affiliations do not coincide with the zones of the Hoheitstrager, the Hoheitstrager will give his political directives to the ranking leader of each unit within his zone of sovereignty." It was the official policy of the Leadership Corps to establish close and co-operative relations with the Gestapo. The Tribunal will recall that the head of the German Police and SS, Himmler, was a Reichsleiter on the top level of the Leadership Corps. Without offering in evidence a decree issued by the Defendant Bormann as Chief of Staff of the Deputy of the Fuehrer, dated 26 June 1935, I ask the Court to take judicial knowledge; and I quote: "In order to effect a closer contact between the offices of the Party and its organizations with the Directors of the Secret State Police,"-Gestapo-"the Deputy of the Fuehrer requests that the directors of the Gestapo be invited to attend all the larger official rallies of the Party and its organizations." That is from the 1935 edition, Page 143, dated the 26th June 1935, The Decrees of the Deputy of the Fuehrer. With reference to the meetings and conferences among the Hoheitstrager of the Leadership Corps, it is the contention of the Prosecution that the members of the Leadership Corps constituted a distinctive and identifiable group or organization. It is strongly supported by the fact that the various Hoheitstrager were under an absolute obligation to meet and confer periodically, not only with the staff officers of their own staffs, but with the political leaders and staff officers immediately subordinate to them.
COL. STOREY: For example, the Gauleiter was bound to confer with his staff officers (such as his deputy and so forth, which included the school leader, propaganda leader, press leader, his Gau Party judge, and so on) every 8 to 14 days. Furthermore, Gauleiter was obligated to meet with the various Gauleiters subordinate to him once every 3 months for a 3-day. convention for the purpose of discussing and clarifying Nazi Party policies and directives, for hearing basic lectures on Party policy, and for the mutual exchange of information pertinent to the Party's current program. The Gauleiter was also obligated to meet at least once a month with the leaders of the Party formations and affiliated organizations within his Gau area, such as the leaders of the SA, and SS, Hitler Youth, and others. In support of these statements, I quote from Page 8 of Document 1893-PS. I don't think it is necessary to read all of that: "Leader conferences in the district: "A. District Leaders." If Your Honor please, with your permission I will omit the reading of that because it was really summarized in my previous statement. I will quote Subparagraph (d): "(d) The bearer of sovereignty will meet at least once a month with the leaders of the SA, SS, NSKK, HI, as well as the RAD and the NSFK who are within the zone, for the purpose of mutual collaboration." The Organization Book of the Party imposes a similar requirement of regular and periodical conferences and meetings upon all the other Hoheitstrager, including the Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, Zellenleiter, and Blockleiter.
COL. STOREY: The clear consequence of such regular and obligatory conferences and meetings by all the Hoheitstrager, both with their own staff officers and with the political leaders and staff officers subordinate to them, was that basic Nazi policies and directives issued by Hitler and the leader of the Party Chancellery, the Defendant Bormann, directly through the chain of command of the Hoheitstrager, and functional policies issued by the various Reichsleiter and Reich officeholders down functional and technical channels, were certain to be notified to, received, and understood by the bulk of the membership of the Leadership Corps. If I may digress from my text and call attention to this chart, you will see the dotted lines connecting down from the Party level, Gau level, to similar offices in the lower level. Now I next come to the statistics relating to the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party and the evidence relating to the size of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. As previously shown, the Leadership Corps comprised the sum of officials of the Nazi Party including, in addition to Hitler and the members of the Reichsleitung, such as the Reichsleiter and the Reich officeholders, a hierarchy of Hoheitstrager, which I have described, as well as the staff officers attached to the Hoheitstrager. I now offer in evidence Document 2958-PS, Exhibit Number USA-325; and this is Issue Number 8, 1939, of the official Leadership Corps organ Der Hoheitstrager, similar to the one I exhibited a moment ago, and this is for the year 1939. This shows that there were: 40 Gaue and 1 Foreign Gau, each led by a Gauleiter-that is 41; 808 Kreisleiter; 28,376 Ortsgruppenleiter; 89,378 Zellenleiter; and 463,048 Blockleiter. However, as shown by the evidence previously introduced, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was composed not only of the Hoheitstrager, but also of the staff officers or officeholders attached to the Hoheitstrager.
COL. STOREY: The Gauleiter, for example, was assisted by a deputy Gauleiter, several Gau inspectors, and a staff which was divided into main offices (Hauptamter) and offices (Amter) including such departments as the Gau staff office, treasury, education office, propaganda office, press office, university teachers, communal policy, and so forth. As previously shown, the staff office structure of the Gau was substantially represented in the lower levels of the Leadership Corps organization such as the Kreise, the Ortsgruppen, and so on. The Kreise and the smaller territorial areas of the Party were also organized into staff offices dealing with the various activities of the Leadership Corps. But, of course, the importance and the number of such staff offices diminished as the unit dropped in the hierarchy; so that, while the Kreisleiter staff contained all or most of the departments mentioned for the Gau, the Ortsgruppe had fewer departments and the lower ones fewer still Firm figures have not been found as to the total number of staff officers, as distinguished from the Hoheitstrager or political commanders themselves, included within the Leadership Corps. With respect to the scope and composition of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Prosecution adopts the view and respectfully submits to this Tribunal, that in defining the limits of the Leadership Corps, staff officers should only be included down to and including the Kreis. Upon this basis, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party did constitute the Fuehrer, the members of the Reichsleitung, the five levels of the Hoheitstrager, and the staff officers attached to the 40-odd Gauleiter and the 800 or 900 Kreisleiter. Adopting this definition of the Leadership Corps, it will be seen that the total figure for the membership of that organization, based upon the statistics cited from the basic handbook for Germany, amounts to around 600,000.
COL. STOREY: And by excepting the staff officers of the lower levels, as is provided in the Indictment, and as just defined, and without prejudice to any later individual action against those excepted, we think the figure of around 600,000 is approximately correct. It is true that this figure is based upon an admittedly limited view of the size of the membership of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, for the evidence has shown that the Leadership Corps, in effect, embraced staff officers attached to the subordinate Hoheitstrager; and the inclusion of such staff officers in the estimation of the size of the Leadership Corps, if we had so recommended, would have been considerably enlarged so that the final figure, if we had included staff officers to the Blockleiter, would have been 2,000,000, in round numbers.
MR. FRANCIS BIDDLE (Member for the United States): What reason is there for excluding them?
COL. STOREY: For this reason, Your Honor, a person on the last level of Blockleiter might have called on an individual laborer who might have been on his staff; but he certainly did not have the discretion that a staff leader did, for example, or the Gauleiter, say, as a propaganda man who disseminated information down as well as helped participate in plans and policies of the upper organization. The subordinate staff officers thus excluded were responsible functionally to the higher staff officers with respect to their particular specialty, such as propaganda, Party organization, and so on, and to their respective Hoheitstrager with respect to discipline and policy control and, as I mentioned, likewise such higher staff officers participated in planning and policy and passed those policies down through technical levels or technical channels as opposed to command channels. "The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party joined and participated in the Common Plan or Conspiracy" is the next title. The program of the Nazi Party , proclaimed by Hitler on 24 February 1920, contained the chief elements of the Nazi plan for domination and conquest. I now quote from Document 1708-PS, which is the Year Book for 1941, published by the Party, and edited by the late Robert Ley. This book contains the famous 25 points of the Party which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-324. Diverting from the text-I don't intend to quote these 25 Party objectives, but only refer to a few of them, and I quote from Page 1 of the English translation of Document 1708-PS: Point 1: "We demand the unification of all Germans in Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples." Point 2 of that program which I quote demanded unilateral abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain: "We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations; abrogation of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St.
COL. STOREY: Germain." Point 3: "We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people and colonization by our surplus population." Point 4: "Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood without consideration of confession. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race." Point 6: "We demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county, or municipality, be filled by citizens only. We combat the corrupting parliamentary regime, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities." Point 22-this is from Page 2 of the English translation of Document 1708-PS: "We demand the abolition of the mercenary troops and the formation of a National Army." Back to Page 1-another quotation: "The program is the political foundation of the NSDAP and accordingly the primary political law of the State.... "All legal precepts are to be applied in the spirit of the Party program. "Since the taking over of power, the Fuehrer has succeeded in the realization of the essential portions of the Party program from the fundamentals to the details. " The Party program of the NSDAP was proclaimed on 24 February 1920 by Adolf Hitler at the first large Party gathering in Munich and since that day has remained unaltered. The National Socialist philosophy is summarized in 25 points." As previously mentioned, the Party program was binding upon the political leaders and they were under duty to support and carry out that program. The Party manual states, and I quote again from the middle of Page 1 of Document 1893-PS: "The Commandments of the National Socialists: The Fuehrer is always right.... The program be your dogma; it demands your utter devotion to the Movement....
COL. STOREY: Right is what serves the Movement and thus Germany...." And on Page 2 of the same document another brief quotation: "The Leadership Corps is responsible for the complete penetration of the German nation with the National Socialist spirit...." The oath of the political leaders to Hitler has been previously mentioned. In this connection the Party manual provides, and I quote from the second paragraph on Page 3 of the same document: "The political leader is inseparably tied to the ideology and the organization of the NSDAP. His oath only ends with his death or with his expulsion from the National Socialist community." While the leadership principle assured the binding nature of Hitler's statements, program, and policies upon the entire Party and the Leadership Corps thereof, the leadership principle also established the full responsibility of the individual political leader within the province and jurisdiction of his office or position. The leadership principle applies not only to Hitler as the supreme leader but also to the political leaders under him and thus permeated the entire Leadership Corps. I quote from the middle of Page 2 of Document 1893-PS: "The basis of the Party organization is the Fuehrer idea.... "All political leaders stand as appointed by the Fuehrer and are responsible to him. They possess full authority toward the lower echelons...." The various Hoheitstrager of the Leadership Corps were, in their respective areas, themselves Fuehrer. I quote from the third paragraph of Page 9 of this same document: "Within their sector of sovereignty, the Hoheitstrager have sovereign political rights.... They are responsible for the entire political situation within their sector." I again refer to and quote from Document 1814-PS, Exhibit Number USA-328, which is the Party book.
COL. STOREY: It is just a one-sentence quotation, and it states: "The Party is an Order of 'Fuehrer."' The subjugation of the entire membership of the Leadership Corps to the fiat of the leadership principle is clearly shown in the following passage from the Party manual; it is this same document on Page 3: "A solid anchorage for all the organizations within the Party structure is provided and a firm connection with the sovereign leaders of the NSDAP is created in accordance with the leadership principle." Next is the subject, "The Nazi Party, directed by the Leadership Corps, dominated and controlled the German State and Government." The trial brief dealing with the criminality of the Reich Cabinet sets forth the evidence as to the identity of various ministers comprising the Cabinet, and I shall not deal with that subject. The presence of the Reichsleiter and other prominent members of the Leadership Corps in the Cabinet facilitated the domination of the Cabinet by the Nazi Party and the Leadership Corps. And I omit the next paragraph down to the law of July 14, 1933. A law of 14 July 1933 outlawed and forbade the formation of any political parties other than the Nazi Party and made offenses against this a punishable crime, thereby establishing the one-party state and rendering the Leadership Corps immune from the opposition of organized political groups. I now quote from Document 1388-PS, that being the English translation of the "Law against the Formation of New Political Parties" stated in Reichsgesetzblatt , 1933, Part I, Page 479; and I quote the first two articles of this law, which read as follows: "The National Socialist German Workers' Party constitutes the only political party in Germany. Whoever undertakes to maintain the organizational structure of another political party or to form a new political party will be punished with penal servitude up to 3 years or with imprisonment of from 6 months to 3 years, if the deed is not subject to a greater penalty according to other regulations." I will skip the next paragraph.
COL. STOREY: I now quote from Document 1398-PS, which is the English translation of "Law to Supplement the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service," dated 20 July 1933-1933 Reichsgesetzblatt , Part I, Page 518. On 13 October 1933 "A Law to Guarantee Public Peace" was enacted which provided, inter alia, that the death penalty or other severe punishment should be imposed upon any person who "undertakes to kill ... a member of the SA or the SS, a trustee or agent of the NSDAP ... out of political motives or on account of their official activity."
THE PRESIDENT: Where is that you were reading, 1398-PS?
COL. STOREY: Yes, Sir; 1398-PS. I am in error, Sir, it is 1394-PS just previous.
THE PRESIDENT: Which article are you reading?
COL. STOREY: I am afraid I don't have the reference, but here is the quotation, I think it is on that one page. "A Law to Guarantee Public Peace," and then it has to do-it is Article 2, I believe-Paragraph 2, Article 1. I-next refer to Document 1395-PS, which is the English translation of the Law on Security and the Unity of Party and State l7 Dec. 45 of 1 December 1933, and it was enacted "to secure the unity of Party and state." This law provided that the Nazi Party was the pillar of the German State and was linked to it indissolubly; it also made the Deputy of the Fuehrer (then Hess) and the Chief of Staff of the SA (then Rohm) members of the Reich Cabinet. I quote: "After the victory of the National Socialist revolution the National Socialistic German Labor Party is the bearer of the concept of the German State and is inseparably the State. It will be a part of the public law. Its organization will be determined by the Fuehrer.... "The Deputy of the Fuehrer and the Chief of Staff of the SA will become members of the Reich Government in order to insure close co-operation of the offices of the Party and SA with the public authorities." This law was a basic measure in enthroning the Leadership Corps in a position of supreme political power in Germany. For it laid down that the Party, directed by the Leadership Corps, was the embodiment of the State and in fact was the State. Moreover, this law made both the Fuehrer's Deputy and the Chief of Staff of the SA, which was a Party formation subject to the call of the Hoheitstrager, Cabinet members, thus further solidifying the leadership control of the Cabinet. The dominant position of the Leadership Corps is further revealed by the provision that the Reich Chancellor would issue the carrying-out regulations of this law in his capacity as Fuehrer of the Nazi Party.
COL. STOREY: The fact that Hitler, as Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps, could promulgate rules which would have statutory force and be published in the Reichsgesetzblatt , the proper compilation for State enactments, is but a further reflection of the reality of the Party's domination of the German State. I now refer to Document 2775-PS, which is Exhibit Number USA-330, which is the English translation of certain extracts from Hitler's speeches to the 1934 and 1935 Party Congress at Nuremberg. I quote from the second extract in Document 2775-PS, which is a declaration by Hitler to the 1934 Party Congress and which reads- just one sentence, "It is not the State which gives orders to us, it is we who give orders to the State." Upon the evidence, that categorical statement of the Fuehrer of the Leadership Corps, affirming the dominance of the Party over the State, cannot be refuted. On the 30th of June 1934 Hitler, as head of the Nazi Party, directed the massacre of hundreds of SA men and other political opponents. Hitler sought to justify these mass murders by declaring to the Reichstag that "at that hour I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and the supreme judge of the German 17 Dec.45 people." The evidence relating to these events win be presented at a later stage in connection with the case against the SA. On the 3rd of July 1934 the Cabinet issued a decree describing the murders and the massacre of 30 June 1934, in effect, as legitimate self-defense by the State. By this law the Reich Cabinet moved to make themselves accessories after the fact of these murders. The domination by the Party, however, makes the Cabinet's characterization of these criminal acts by Hitler and his top Party leaders as state measures consistent with political reality.