The Nizkor Project

Twenty-Fourth Day: Thursday, 20th December, 1945
(Part 7 of 8)


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COLONEL STOREY: If the Tribunal please, the next presentation will be the Gestapo, and it will take just a few seconds to get the material here.

We are now ready to proceed if your Honour is.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

COLONEL STOREY: We first pass to the Tribunal Document Books marked "Exhibit AA," Your Honour will notice they are in two volumes, and I will try each time to refer to the appropriate volume. They are separated into the D Documents, the L Documents, the PS Documents, etc.

The presentation of evidence on the criminality of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) includes evidence on the criminality of the Sicherheitsdienst (S.D.) and of the Schutzstaffeln (S.S.), which has been discussed by

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Major Farr, because a great deal of the criminal acts were so inter-related. In the Indictment, as your Honour knows, the S.D. is included by special reference as a part of the S.S., since it originated as a part of the S.S. and always retained its character as a Party organisation, as distinguished from the Gestapo, which was a State organisation. As will be shown by the evidence, however, the Gestapo and the S.D. were brought into very close working relationship, the S.D. serving primarily as the information gathering agency and the Gestapo as the executive agency of the police system established by the Nazis for the purpose of combating the political and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime.

In short, I think we might think of the S.D. as the intelligence organisation and the Gestapo the executive agency, the former a Party organisation and the latter a State organisation, but merged together for all practical purposes.

The first subject: The Gestapo and S.D. were formed into a powerful, centralised political police system that served Party, State and Nazi leadership.

The Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo, was first established in Prussia on 26th April, 1933, by the defendant Goering, with the mission of carrying out the duties of political police, with or in place of, the ordinary police authorities. The Gestapo was given the rank of a higher police authority and was subordinated only to the Minister of the Interior, to whom was delegated the responsibility of determining its functional and territorial jurisdiction. That fact is established in the "Preussische Gesetzsammlung," of 26th April, 1933, Page 122, and it is our Document 2104-PS.

Pursuant to this law, and on the same date, the Minister of the Interior issued a decree on the reorganisation of the Police, which established a State Police Bureau in each governmental district of Prussia subordinate to the Secret State Police Bureau in Berlin, and 1 cite as authority, the Ministerial-Blatt for the Internal Administration of Prussia, 193 3, Page 503, and it is Document 2371-PS.

Concerning the formation of the Gestapo, the defendant in " Aufbau einer Nation," 1934, Page 87, which is our Document 2344-PS-I quote from the English translation a short paragraph, of which your Honour will take judicial notice, unless you wish to turn to it in full-the defendant Goering said:

"For weeks I had been working personally on the reorganisation, and at last I alone and upon my own decision and my own reflection created the office of the Secret State Police. This instrument, which is so feared by the enemies of the State, has contributed most to the fact that to-day there can no longer be talk of a Communist or Marxist danger in Germany and Prussia."
THE PRESIDENT: What was the date?

COLONEL STOREY: The date? 1934, sir.

On 30th November, 1933, Goering issued a decree for the Prussian State Ministry and the Reich Chancellor, placing the Gestapo under his direct supervision as chief. The Gestapo was thereby established as an independent branch of the administration of the Interior, responsible directly to Goering as Prussian Prime Minister. This decree gave the Gestapo jurisdiction over the political police matters of the general and interior administration and provided that the district, county, and local police authorities were subject

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to its directives, and that cites the Prussian laws of 30th November, 1933, Page 413, and Document 2105-PS.

In a speech delivered at a meeting of the Prussian State Council on 18th June, 1934, which is published in "Speeches and Essays of Hermann Goering, 1939," Page 102, our Document 3343-PS, Goering said, and I quote one paragraph:

"The creation of the Secret State Police was also a necessity. You may recognise the importance attributed to this instrument of State security from the fact that the Prime Minister has made himself head of the department of the administration, because it is precisely the observation of all currents directed against the new State which is of fundamental importance."
By a decree of 8th March, 1934, the Regional State Police Offices were separated from their organisational connection with the District Government and established as independent authorities of the Gestapo. That cites the "Preussische Gesetzsammlung" of 8th March, 1943, Page 143, our Document 2 11 3-PS.

I now offer in evidence Document 1680-PS, Exhibit USA 477. This is an article entitled "Ten Years Security and S.D.", published in the German Police Journal, the magazine of the Security Police and S.D., of 1st February, 1943. I quote one paragraph from this article on Page 2 of the English translation, Dociiment 1680, which is the third main paragraph:

"Parallel to that development in Prussia, the Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler, created in Bavaria the Bavarian Political Police, and also suggested and directed in the other Federal States outside Prussia the establishment of political police. The unification of the political police of all the Federal States took place in the spring of 1934 when Minister President Hermann Goering appointed Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler, who had meanwhile become Commander of the Political Police of all the Federal States outside Prussia, to the post of Deputy Chief of the Prussian Secret State Police."
The Prussian law about the Secret State Police, dated 10th February, 1936, then summed up the development to that date and determined the position and responsibilities of the Secret State Police in the executive regulations issued the same day.

On 10th February, 1936, the basic law for the Gestapo was promulgated by Goering as Prussian Prime Minister. I refer to Document 2107-PS. This law provided that the Secret State Police had the duty of investigating and combating, in the entire territory of the State, all tendencies inimical to the State, and declared that orders and matters of the Secret State Police were not subject to the review of the administrative courts. That is the Prussian State law of that date, cited on Pages 21-22 of the publication of ihe laws of 1936.

Also on that same date, 10th February, 1936, a decree for the execution of the law was issued by Goering, as Prussian Prime Minister, and by Frick, as Minister of the Interior. This decree provided that the Gestapo had authority to enact measures valid in the entire area of the State and measures affecting that area-by the way, that is found in 2108-PS and is also a published law-that it was the centralised agency for collecting political intelligence in the field of political police, and that it administered the

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concentration camps. The Gestapo was given authority to make police investigations in cases of criminal attacks upon the Party as well as upon the State.

Later, on 28th August, 1936, a circular of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police provided that as on 1st October, 1936, the Political Police Forces of the German provinces were to be called the "Geheime Staatspolizei". That means the Secret State Police. The regional offices were still to be described as State Police.

The translation of that law is in Document 2372- PS, Reichsministerial-Gesetzblatt of 1936, No. 44, Page 1344.

Later, on 20th September, 1936, a circular of the Minister of the Interior, Frick, commissioned the Gestapo Bureau in Berlin with the supervision of the duties of the Political Police Commanders in all the States of Germany. That is, Reichsministerial-Gesetzblatt, 1936, Page 1,343, our Document L-297.

The law regulating and relating to financial measures in connection with the police, of igth March, 1937, provided that the officials of the Gestapo were to be considered direct officials of the Reich, and that their salaries, in addition to the operational expenses of the whole State Police, were to be borne from 1st April, 1937, by the Reich. That is shown in Document 2243-PS, which is a copy of the law of 19th March, 1937, Page 325.

Thus, through the above laws and decrees, the Gestapo was established as a uniform political police system operating throughout the land and serving Party, State, and Nazi leadership.

In the course of the development of the S.D., it came into increasingly close co-operation with the Gestapo and also with the "Reichskriminalpolizei ", the Criminal Police, known as Kripo, shown up there under A.M.T. V. The S.D. was called upon to furnish information to various State authorities. On iith November, 1938, a decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior declared the S.D. to be the intelligence organisation for the State as well as for the Party, to have the particular duty of supporting the Secret State Police, and to become thereby active on a national mission. These duties necessitated a closer co-operation between the S.D. and the authorities for the general and interior administration. That law is translated in Document 1638-PS.

The Tribunal has already received evidence concerning the decrees of 17th and 26th June, 1936, under which Himmler was appointed Chief of the German Police, and by which Heydrich became the first Chief of the Security Police and S.D. Even then Goering did not relinquish his position as Chief of the Prussian Gestapo. Thus, the decree of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of German Police which was issued on 28th August, 1936, which is our Document 2372-PS, was distributed "to the Prussian Minister President as Chief of the Prussian Secret State Police", that is, to Goering.

On 27th September, 1939, by order of Hirmnler in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police, the Central Offices of the Gestapo and S.D., and also of the Criminal Police, were merged in the office of the Chief of the Security Police and S.D. under the name of R.S.H.A., which your Honour has heard described by Major Farr. Under this order the personnel and administrative sections of each agency were co-ordinated in Amt. I and II of the chart shown here, of the R.S.H.A. The operational sections of the S.D. became Amt. Ill, shown in the box

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Amt. III, except for foreign intlligence which was placed over in Amt. VI. The operational sections of the Gestapo became Amt. IV, as shown on the chart, and the operational sections of the Kripo, that is, the Criminal Police, became Amt. V, as shown on the chart.

Ohlendorf was named the Chief of Amt. Ill, the S.D. inside Germany; Mueller was named Chief of Amt. IV, and Nebe was named Chief of Amt. V, the Kripo.

On 27th September, 1939, Heydrich, the Chief of the Security Police and S.D., issued a directive pursuant to the order of Himmler in which he ordered that the designation and heading of R.S.H.A. was to be used exclusively in internal relations of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and the heading "The Chief of the Security Police and S.D." in transactions with outside persons and offices. The directive provided that the Gestapo would continue to use the designation and heading "Secret State Police" according to the particular instructions.

This order is Document L-361, Exhibit USA 478, which we now offer in evidence, and refer your Honour to the first paragraph L-361. That is found in the first volume. I just direct your Honour's attention to the date and to the subject, which is the amalgamation of the " Zentral Arnter " of the Sicherheitspolizei and the S.D., and the creation of the four sections, and then to the words will be joined to the R.S.H.A. in accordance with the following directives . . This amalgamation carries with it no change in the position of the ' Ainter ' in the Party nor in their local administration."

I might say here parenthetically, if the Tribunal please, that we like to think of the R.S.H.A. as being the so-called administrative office through which a great many of these organisations were administered, and then a number of these organisations, including the Gestapo, maintaining their separate identity as an operational organisation. I think a good illustration, if your Honour will recall, is that during the war there may be a certain division or a certain air force which is administratively under a certain headquarters, but operationally, when they had an invasion, may be under the general supervision of somebody else who was operating a task force. So the R.S.H.A. was really the administrative office of a great many of these alleged criminal organisations.

The Gestapo and the S.D. were therefore organised functionally on the basis of the opponents to be combated and the matters to be investigated.

I now invite the attention of the Tribunal to this chart which has already been identified, and I believe it is Exhibit 53. This chart -- I am in error; that is the original identification number. This chart shows the main chain of command from Himmler, who was the Reich Leader of the S.S. and Chief of the German Police, to Kaltenbrunner, who was Chief of the Security Police and S.D., and from Kaltenbrunner to the various field offices of the Gestapo and the S.D.

We now formally offer in evidence this chart, Document L-219, as Exhibit USA 479.

This chart, from which the one on the wall is taken, has been certified by Otto Ohlendorf, Chief of Amt III of the R.S.H.A., and by Walter Schellenberg, Chief of Amt VI of the R.S.H.A., and has been officially identified by both of those former officials.

The chart shows that the principal flow of command in police matters came from Himmler as Reich Leader of the S.S. and Chief of the German

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Police directly to Kaltenbrunner, who was Chief of the Security Police and S.D., and as such was also head of the R.S.H.A., which is the administrative office to which I have referred.

Kaltenbrunner's headquarters organisation was composed of seven Aemter, plus a military office; the seven Aemter shown here.

Under subsection D was Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, who handled technical matters, including motor vehicles of the Sipo and the S.D., to which we will refer later.

Amt Ill was the S.D. inside Germany and was charged with investigations into spheres of German national life. It was the Internal Intelligence Organisation of the police system and its interests extended into all areas occupied by Germany during the course of the war. In 1943 it contained four sections. I would like to mention them briefly. It shows their scope of authority.

Section A dealt with questions of legal order and structure of the Reich.

Section B dealt with nationality, including minorities, race, and health of the people.

Section C dealt with culture, including science, education, religion, Press, folk culture, and art.

Section D dealt with economics, including food, commerce, finance, industry, labour, colonial economics, and occupied regions.

Now, Amt IV, with which we are dealing here, was the Gestapo, and was charged with combating opposition. In 1945, as identified by these two former officials, it contained six subsections.

1. Subsection A dealt with opponents, sabotage, and protective service, including Communism, Marxism, Reaction and Liberalism.

2. Subsection B dealt with political churches, sects and Jews, including political Catholicism, political Protestantism, other Churches, Freemasonry, and a special section, B-4, that had to do with Jewish affairs, matters of evacuation, means of suppressing enemies of the people and State, and dispossession of rights of German citizenship. The head of this office was Eichmann.

3. Subsection C dealt with protective custody.

4. Subsection D dealt with regions under German domination.

5. Subsection E dealt with security.

6. Subsection F dealt with passport matters and alien police.

Now, Amt V, which will be referred to as the Kripo was charged with combating crime. For example, Subsection D was the criminological institute for the: Sipo and handled matters of identification, chemical and biological investigations, and technical research.

Amt VI was the S.D. outside Germany and was concerned primarily with foreign political intelligence. In 1944, the "Abwehr," or Military Intelligence, was joined with Amt VI as military "Amt." Your Honour will recall that the witness Lahousen was in the "Abwehr." Amt VI maintained its own regional organisation.

And finally, Amt VII handled ideological research among enemies such as Freemasonry, Judaism, Political Churches, Marxism and Liberalism.

Within Germany there were regional offices of the S.D., the Gestapo, and the Kripo, shown on the chart at the right. The Gestapo and Kripo offices were often located in the same place and were always collectively referred to as the Sipo. You see that shaded line around

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the Secret Police, and kripo the Criminal Police. These regional offices all maintained their separate identity and reported directly to the section of the R.S.H.A., that is, under Kaltenbrunner, which had the jurisdiction of the subject matter. They were, however, co-ordinated by .Inspectors of the Security Police and S.D., as shown at the top of the chart. The Inspectors were also under the supervision of Higher S.S. and Police Leaders appointed for each "Wehrkreis." The Higher S.S. and Police Leaders reported to Himmler and supervised not only the Inspectors of the Security Police and S.D., but also the Inspectors of the Order Police and various sub-divisions of the S.S.

In the occupied territories, the organisation developed as the German armies advanced. Combined operational units of the Security Police and the S.D., known as Einsatz Groups, about which your Honour will hear in a few minutes, operated with and in the rear of the army. These groups were officered by personnel of the Gestapo, Kripo and the S.D., and the enlisted men were composed of Order Police and "Waffen S.S." They functioned with various Army groups.. The Einsatz Groups -- and, if your Honour will recall, they are simply task force groups for special projects -- were divided into "Einsatzkornmandos," "Sonderkonunandos," and "Teilkommandos," all of which performed the functions of the Security Police and the S.D., with or closely behind the Army.

After the occupied territories had been consolidated, these Einsatz Groups and their subordinate parts were formed into permanent combined offices of the Security Police and S.D. within the particular geographical location. These combined forces were placed under the Kornmandeurs of the Security Police and S.D., and the offices were organised in sections similar to this R.S.H.A. headquarters. The Konimandeurs of the Security Police and S.D. reported directly to Befehlshaber of the Security Police and S.D. who in turn reported directly to the Chief of the Security Police and S.D.

In the occupied countries, the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders were more directly controlled by the Befehlshabers and the Kornmandeurs of the Security Police and S.D. than within the Reich. They had authority to issue direct orders so long as they did not conflict with the Chief of the Security Police and S.D. who exercised controlling authority.

The above chart and the remarks concerning it are based upon two documents which I now offer in evidence. They are Document L-219, which is the organisation plan of the R.S.H.A. of 1st October, 1943, and document 2346-PS, which is Exhibit USA 480.

Now the primary mission of the Gestapo and the S.D. was to combat the actual and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime and to keep Hitler and the Nazi leadership in power as specified in Count 1 of the Indictment. The tasks and methods of the Secret State Police were well described in an article which is translated in Document 1956-PS, Volume 2 of the document book, which is an article published in January, 1936, in Das Archiv, at Page 1342, which I now offer in evidence and quote from. It is on Page 1 of the English translation, 1956. I will first read the first paragraph and then the third and fourth paragraphs. That is in January 1936:

"In order to refute the malicious rumours spread abroad, the Voe1kischer Beobachter published on 22nd January, 1936, an article

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on the origin, meaning and tasks of the Secret Police; extracts from this read as follows:"
Now passing to the third paragraph:
"The Secret State Police is an official machine on the lines of the Criminal Police, whose special task is the prosecution of crimes and offences against the State, above all the prosecution of high treason and treason. The task of the Secret State Police is to detect these crimes and offences, to ascertain the perpetrators and to bring them to judicial punishment. The number of criminal proceedings continually pending in the People's Court on account of high treasonable actions and of treason is the result of this work. The next most important field of operations for the Secret State Police is the preventive combating of all dangers threatening the State and the leadership of the State. As, since the National Socialist Revolution, all open struggle and all open opposition to the State and to the leadership of the State is forbidden, a Secret State Police as a preventive instrument in the struggle against all dangers threatening the State is indissolubly bound up with the National Socialist Leader State. The opponents of National Socialism were not removed by the prohibition of their organisations and their newspapers, but have withdrawn to other forms of struggle against the State. Therefore, the National Socialist State has to trace out, to watch over and to render harmless the underground opponents fighting against it in illegal organisations, in camouflaged associations, in the coalitions of well-meaning fellow Germans and even in the organisations of Party and State before they have succeeded in actually executing an action directed against the interest of the State. This task of fighting with all means the secret enemies of the State will be spared no Leader State, because powers hostile to the State from their foreign headquarters, always make use of some persons in such a State and employ them in underground activity against the State.

The preventive activity of the Secret State Police consists primarily in the thorough observation of all enemies of the State in the Reich Territory. As the Secret State Police cannot carry out, in addition to its primary executive tasks, this observation of the enemies of the State, to the extent necessary, there marches by its side, to supplement it, the Security Service of the Reichsfuehrer of the S.S., set up by his deputy as the Political Intelligence Service of the movement, which puts a large part of the forces of the movement mobilised by it into the service of the security of the State.

The Secret State Police takes the necessary police preventive measures against the enemies of the State on the basis of the results of the observation. The most effective preventive measure is, without doubt, the withdrawal of freedom, which is covered in the form of protective custody, if it is to be feared that the free activity of the persons in question might endanger the security of the State in any way. The employment of protective custody is so organised by directions of the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior and by a special arrest procedure of the Secret State Police that, as far as the preventive fight against the enemies of the State permits, continuous guarantees against the mis-use of the protective custody are also provided."

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THE PRESIDENT: Have we not really got enough now as to the organisation of the Gestapo and its Objective?

COLONEL STOREY: Your Honour, I had finished with the organisation. I was just going into the question of the action of protective custody, for which the Gestapo was famous, and showing how they went into that field of activity and the authority for taking people into protective custody -- alleged protective custody.

THE PRESIDENT: I think that has been proved more than once in the preceding evidence that we have heard.

COLONEL STOREY: There is one more law I would like to refer to, to the effect that that action is not subject to judicial review, .... unless that has already been established. I do not know whether Major Farr did that, or not.

THE PRESIDENT: They are not subject to judicial review?

COLONEL STOREY: Review, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you have told us that already this afternoon.

COLONEL STOREY: The citation is in the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1935 Page 577, which is Document 2347-PS.

I would like, if your Honour pleases, to refer to this quotation from that law.

The decision of the Prussian High Court of Administration on 2nd May, 1935, held that the status of the Gestapo as a special Police authority removed its orders from the jurisdiction of the administrative tribunal, and the Court said in that law that the only redress available was by appeal to the next higher authority within the Gestapo itself.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you told us that, apropos of the document of 10th February, 1936, where you said the Secret State Police was not subject to review by any of the State Courts.

COLONEL STOREY: I just did not want there to be any question about the authority. I refer your Honour to Document 1825-B-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit USA 449, also stating that theory, and also Document 1723-PS, and that is the decree, your Honour, of 1st February, 1938, which relates to the protective custody and the issuance of new regulations, and I would like to quote just one sentence from that law-" . . . as a coercive measure of the Secret State Police against persons.who endanger the security of the people and the State through their attitude, in order to counter all aspirations of the enemies of the people and the State". The Gestapo had the exclusive right to order protective custody and that protective custody was to be executed in the State concentration camps.

Now, I pass to another phase where the S.D. created an organisation of agents and informers who operated through the various regional offices throughout the Reich and later in conjunction with the Gestapo and the Criminal Police throughout the occupied countries. The S.D. operated secretly. One of the things it did was to mark ballots secretly in order to discover the identity of persons who cast "No " and "invalid " votes in the referendum. I now offer in evidence Document R-142, second volume. I believe it is toward the end of Document R-142, Exhibit USA 481.


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