The Consolidation Of Power
[Page 7]
The NSDAP, having achieved power in this way, now proceeded
to extend its hold on every phase of German life. Other
political parties were persecuted, their property and assets
confiscated, and many of their members placed in
concentration camps. On 26th April, 1933, the Defendant
Goering founded in Prussia the Geheime Staatspolizei, or
Gestapo, as a secret police, and confided to the deputy
leader of the Gestapo that its main task was to eliminate
political opponents of National Socialism and Hitler. On
14th July, 1933, a law was passed declaring the NSDAP to be
the only political party, and making it criminal to maintain
or form any other political party.
In order to place the complete control of the machinery of
Government in the hands of the Nazi leaders, a series of
laws and decrees were passed which reduced the powers of
regional and local governments throughout Germany,
transforming them into subordinate divisions of the
Government of the Reich. Representative assemblies in the
Laender were abolished, and with them all local elections.
The Government then proceeded to secure control of the Civil
Service. This was achieved by a process of centralization,
and by a careful sifting of the whole Civil Service
administration. By a law of 7 April it was provided that
officials "who were of non-Aryan descent" should be retired;
and it was also decreed that "officials who because of their
previous political activity do not offer security that they
will exert themselves for the national state without
reservation shall be discharged." The law of 11th April,
1933, provided for the discharge of "all civil servants who
belong to the Communist Party." Similarly, the judiciary was
subjected to control. Judges were removed from the bench for
political or racial reasons. They were spied upon and made
subject to the strongest pressure to join the Nazi Party as
an alternative to being dismissed. When the Supreme Court
acquitted three of the four defendants charged with
complicity in the Reichstag fire, its jurisdiction in cases
of treason was thereafter taken away and given to a newly
established "People's Court" consisting of two judges and
five officials of the Party. Special courts were set up to
try political crimes and only party members were appointed
as judges. Persons were arrested by the SS for political
reasons, and detained in prisons and concentration camps;
and the judges were without power to intervene in any way.
Pardons were granted to members of the Party who had been
sentenced by the judges for proved offenses. In 1935 several
officials of the Hohenstein concentration camp were
convicted of inflicting brutal treatment upon the inmates.
High Nazi officials tried to influence the Court, and after
the officials had been convicted, Hitler pardoned them all.
In 1942 "judges' letters" were sent to all German judges by
the Government, instructing them as to the "general lines"
that they must follow.
In their determination to remove all sources of opposition,
the NSDAP leaders turned their attention to the trade
unions, the churches, and the Jews. In April, 1933, Hitler
ordered the late Defendant Ley, who was then staff director
of the political organisation of the NSDAP, "to take over
the trade unions." Most of the trade unions of Germany were
joined together in two large federations, the "Free Trade
Unions" and the "Christian Trade Unions." Unions outside
these two large federations contained only 15% of the total
union membership. On 21st April, 1933, Ley issued an NSDAP
directive announcing a "coordination action" to be carried
out on
[Page 8]
2ND May, against the Free Trade Unions. The directive
ordered that SA and SS men were to be employed in the
planned "occupation of trade union properties and for the
taking into protective custody of personalities who come
into question." At the conclusion of the action the official
NSDAP press service reported that the National Socialist
Factory Cells Organisation had "eliminated the old
leadership of Free Trade Unions" and taken over the
leadership themselves. Similarly, on 3rd May, 1933, the
NSDAP press service announced that the Christian trade
unions "have unconditionally subordinated themselves to the
leadership of Adolf Hitler." In place of the trade unions
the Nazi Government set up a German Labour Front (DAF),
controlled by the NSDAP, and which, in practice, all workers
in Germany were compelled to join. The chairmen of the
unions were taken into custody and were subjected to ill-
treatment, ranging from assault and battery to murder.
In their effort to combat the influence of the Christian
churches, whose doctrines were fundamentally at variance
with National Socialist philosophy and practice, the Nazi
Government proceeded more slowly. The extreme step of
banning the practice of the Christian religion was not
taken, but year by year efforts were made to limit the
influence of Christianity on the German people, since, in
the words used by the Defendant Bormann to the Defendant
Rosenberg in an official letter, "the Christian religion and
National Socialist doctrines are not compatible." In the
month of June, 1941 the Defendant Bormann issued a secret
decree on the relation of Christianity and National
Socialism. The decree stated that:
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(Part 1 of
2)
[THE PRESIDENT (LORD JUSTICE LAWRENCE, Member for the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland) continues]
"For the first time in German history the Fuehrer
consciously and completely has the leadership in
his own hand. With the Party, its components and
attached units, the Fuehrer has created for
himself and thereby the German Reich Leadership,
an instrument which makes him independent of the
Treaty .. More and more the people must be
separated from the churches and their organs, the
pastor .. Never again must an influence on
leadership of the people be yielded to the
churches. This influence must be broken completely
and finally. Only the Reich Government and by its
direction the Party, its components and attached
units, have a right to leadership of the people."
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