Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
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C. FRICK'S PARTICIPATION IN THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF TOTALITARIAN CONTROL OVER GERMANY
Frick's appointment as Reichminister of the Interior in the
first Hitler Cabinet of 30 January 1933 gave him the task of
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"strengthening the power of the government and to secure the
New Regime" (3128-PS).
(1) Powers of Frick as Minister of Interior. To this task
his Ministry was perfectly suited. As Minister of the
Interior Frick became responsible for the realization of a
large part of the conspirators' program, through both
legislation and administration. His Ministry was charged
especially with the following tasks:
(a) Internal Administration (State and local governments;
State and Local Civil Service).
(b) Relations between Nazi Party and State.
(c) Elections.
(d) Citizenship.
(e) Racial Law and Policy (Jewish Question, Eugenics)
(f) Armed Forces and Reich Defense (Conscription).
(g) Establishment of the New Order in occupied and annexed
territories.
(h) Legislation, Constitutional Law (civil liberties).
(i) Police Forces (including Gestapo, protective custody,
concentration camps). (3303-PS; 3475-PS)
The names of the men who, according to (3475-PS), worked
under Frick's supervision are significant. Among the
subordinates of Frick were "Reich Health Leader, Dr. Conti,"
"Reich Fuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, Heinrich
Himmler," and "Reich Labor Service Leader, Konstantin
Hierl." Frick was, therefore, supreme commander of three
important pillars of the Nazi state: The Nazi Public Health
Service, the Police System, and the Labor Service.
The wide variety of the activities of Frick as Reich
Minister of the Interior can be judged from the following
catalogue of his functions: He had final authority on
constitutional questions, drafted legislation, had
jurisdiction over governmental administration and civil
defense, and was the final arbiter of questions concerning
race and citizenship. The Manual for Administrative
Officials also lists sections of his ministry concerned with
administrative problems for the occupied territories,
including annexed Bohemia and Moravia, and the New Order in
the East (3475-PS).
The Ministry of the Interior also had considerable authority
over the civil service, including such matters as
appointment, tenure, promotion and discharge. The Manual for
Administrative Officials (3475-PS) states that Frick's
functions included supervision of the general law of civil
servants, civil servants' policies, civil service aspirants,
education and training of civil
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servants and political and other officials. Frick's Ministry
also had extensive jurisdiction over the German civil
servants detailed to the administration of the occupied
countries. This fact was admitted by Wilhelm Stuckart,
former Under Secretary of Frick's Ministry of the Interior,
who stated in an interrogation:
In the full use of these broad powers, Frick made his
essential contribution to the advancement of the conspiracy.
(2) Nazi seizure of power of German States. His first act
after the Conspirators' accession to power was to install
Nazi governments and administrations in all German States
where they were not already in power. The State governments
which refused to hand over their constitutional authority to
the Nazi successors designated by Frick were removed on
Frick's orders. This was the case in Bavaria, Hamburg,
Bremen, Lueback, Hessen, Baden, Wuerttemberg, and Saxony.
The manner and purpose of this program was clearly stated in
the book, "Dr. Frick and his Ministry," which was published
by his Under-Secretary Wilhelm Pfundner for Frick's 60th
birthday in order to establish the full scope of his
contribution to the creation of the Nazis' "Thousand-Year
Reich"
(3) Abolition of political opposition. Frick then proceeded
to destroy all opposition parties in order to establish the
political monopoly of the Nazi Party over Germany. Here
again he acted by legislative fiat against all parties which
did not dissolve voluntarily. Among the laws which he
initiated for this purpose were the law of 26 May 1933
confiscating Communists' property (1396-PS); the law of 14
July 1933 confiscating property inimical to nation and state
(1388-PS); the law of 7 July 1933 void-
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ing the mandates of all Social Democrat candidates elected
to Reich state and local diets (2058-PS); and the law of 14
July 1933 outlawing all political parties other than the
Nazi Party (1388-A-PS; see 2403-PS).
Frick drafted and administered the laws which assured the
control of the Nazi Party over the State and "placed the
government machinery *** at the disposal of the Party."
Chief among these enactments were the Law to Secure the
Unity of Party and State, of 1 December 1933, which provided
that all government agencies should "lend legal and
administrative aid to the Party agencies" (195-PS), and the
law of 1 August 1934 consolidating the positions of Chief of
State and Leader of the Party (2003-PS; see 3119-PS).
The success of this series of measures was accurately
described b Frick himself in the following terms:
The
original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.
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Individual
Responsibility Of Defendants
Wilhelm Frick
(Part 3 of 11)
"As far as I know, the officials for the new
territories were selected by the Personnel Office [of
the Ministry of the Interior] according to their
qualifications, their physical condition and maybe also
their knowledge of the language." (3570-PS)
"While Marxism in Prussia was crushed by the hard fist
of the Prussian Prime Minister, Hermann Goering, and a
gigantic wave of propaganda was initiated for the
Reichstag elections of 5 March 1933, Dr. Frick prepared
the complete seizure of power in all states of the
Reich. All at once the political opposition
disappeared. All at once the Main [River] line was
eliminated. From this time on only one will and one
leadership reigned in the German Reich." (3119 PS; 3132-
PS)
"In National Socialist Germany, leadership is in the
hands of an organized community, the National Socialist
Party; and as the latter represents the will of the
nation, the policy adopted by it in harmony with the
vital interests of the nation is at the same time, the
policy adopted by the country ***." (3258-PS)