Instructions to officials in Hessen-Nassau to maintain popular morale, enforce discipline, to destroy files on purges, the concentration camps, and killings, and to shoot or hang those who fail to resist the enemy's advance

8AS024
COPY
NSDAP Gau Leadership
Hessen-Nassau
Ref. No. 11/35/-B5768 Secret
To the Kreisleiters of the Gau of Hessen Nassau.
Subject: Action by the Party to keep Germans in check until the end of the War.
Reference: Order of the party Chancellery dated 10.2.45 secret.
I request the Kreisleiters to discuss the following with the Ortsgruppenleiters at the next official discussion and simultaneously draw attention hereby to the need for secrecy and radical action in these measures.
1. Every German must be subjected to strict supervision regarding his political firmness and will-power.
2. If during this supervision weaklings are found, i.e. Germans who perhaps have or might have the idea that we are losing the war or that the best thing would be to stop fighting, etc., these Germans are to be given fresh strength, and faith in Adolf Hitler is to be aroused in them again.
3. If Germans are found who spread the story that we have lost the war and that we are on the brink, this rumour is to be
174
D-728
D-728
countered with all available means. The Kreisleiters are to have these Germans reported to them and are to ask the Gestapo to arrest them, according to the position of the rumour.
I consider an occasional arrest or the transfer of some Germans to concentration camps as the best method of eliminating such rumour-mongers.
4. The Ortsgruppenleiter must without fail keep all Germans in check and must without fail see to it that they all keep a stiff upper lip to the end because if courage and anger against the enemy fail behind the front, we shall lose the war. ^
5. It is clear to me that our enemies are crossing the Rhine and entering our Gau too, but they will not conquer the whole of Greater Germany and above all not National Socialism.
6. The Kreisleiters are given strict and secret orders to withdraw, on the approach of the enemy in every area, to the centre of Greater Germany.
All files, particularly the secret ones, are to be destroyed completely. The secret files about post-war reconstruction, purges among party members, the administration, enlargement, installations and deterring work in the Concentration Camps must be destroyed at all costs. Also the extermination of some families, etc. These files must under no circumstances fall into the hands of the enemy, since they were after all secret orders by the Fuehrer. I also hereby give the order that Germans who do not defend themselves on the approach of the enemy or who wish to flee, are to be shot down ruthlessly, or, where suitable, hanged to frighten the population. *
[sgd] Sprenger
Gauleiter & Commissar for Reich Defense
[in pencil]
terrific.
COPY
To the Kreisleiters of the Gau of Hessen-Nassau.
Ref. No. I/B 37869/8
Subject: Discussion in the Fuehrer's H.Q. about measures still to be carried out before the end of the war and ones that must be carried out very rapidly after the victorious conclusion of the war.
1. National Health.
After the national X-ray examination, the Fuehrer is to be given a list of sick persons, particularly those with lung and heart diseases.
175
On the basis of the new Reich Health Law, which is still being kept secret to begin with, these families will no longer be able to remain among the public, and can no longer be allowed to produce children. What will happen to these families will be the subject of further orders by the Fuehrer. The Gauleiters are to make suggestions.
2. The Party as a Model for Work.
All Germans in good public or private appointments must, as far as possible, be pushed out of these jobs under all circumstances and replaced by Party members. An Armed Forces exchange of Party members and other Germans is shortly to be carried out. The names of Non-Party members who could eventually be considered for the Armed Forces and called up in exchange for Party members, are to be sent immediately to the Recruiting District H.Q. Those Party members who, after the victorious termination of the war, are to form the foundation-stone of Greater Germany, are to be kept back from the front up to the last moment. Party members who are not entirely unobjectionable are to be released.
3. Legal Proceedings.
No Party member may be brought before a court. In case of criminal proceedings, these are to be conducted by the Kreisleitungen. Party members are to be got off under all circumstances, even when they are inculpated. The good reputation of the Party must under no circumstances be stained publicly, as the party is and remains the model. It is always the Non-Party members who are to be inculpated. To the eyes of foreigners, one must always show a solid party which can never be split up and whose leadership corps and Party members are unity itself.
4. Food Supply.
The Fuehrer has again pointed out that the special weekly food ration cards are to be used in strict secrecy and that the supplies are always to be bought at different places. The cards will in future be distributed by the Gauleiter.
Further weekly increases for the Party leadership are coming into force shortly:
Meat, approx. 12500 grams and fat approx. 500 grams.
Ortsgruppenleiters who are not down as self-providers, can also send in requests to the Kreisleitungen. I again point out the need for strict secrecy.
Sprenger
Gauleiter.