Memorandum on the need to clarify police actions on religious issues, the excessive use of protective custody, political police actions in foreign countires, and need to resolve the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry or Himmler over the Gestapo

[Memorandum of Minister of Interior concerning the Clarification of Police Matters, 1935]
As chief of the department of police in the Reich and Prussian ministry of the interior, I have noticed lately an ever increasing internal political tension which makes a clarification of authority both as regards the general police and more especially the political police, evidently urgently necessary.
1. Fight against the Church
The Reich minister of the interior is the competent authority for general rules on confessional policy. Therefore, the leaders of the diverse confessional groups address their petitions to our office. Lately, half of the political police reports concerned clerical matters. We have untold petitions from all kinds of cardinals, bishops, and dignitaries of the church. Most of these complaints concern matters under the jurisdiction of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, although the respective rules were not decreed by it. It happens very often that we have in our capacity as a court of appeal to settle incidents, about which sometimes we know nothing
at all until we receive the complaint. There does not seem to be any unity any longer between our principles as regards political, ecclesiastical matters and the executives thereof in the states. It is an inexcusable state of affairs to give directions to complainants and make promises to ecclesiastical leaders, if there is no reliability of their being carried out in the states. Therefore, I deem it an absolute necessity that full clarification be given on this controversial philosophical matter not only as regards the principles but also the execution thereof.
I would like to point put that, in my opinion, these principles should be both considered and executed not only from an internal political, but also from the foreign political viewpoint. I enclose an encyclical of the Pope that was submitted to me today. The question arises for instance as to whether the manner of treatment of returning Catholic young people in front of Swiss customs guards has something to do with the unfavorable foreign political commentaries which have been evoked by this action by the political police. .
This concerns not only the political police; the whole police force as such will be implicated by the consequences resulting from the religious struggle. Instances of gross disturbance of congregations are mounting terribly fast lately, often necessitating intervention of the emergency squad. In the long run I cannot carry the responsibility, for officials will become involved and be forced to support one party or the other. The struggle [Kampfzeit] is so recent that we know from our own experience that in the end the police official will be blamed quite often for everything by both warring parties. After discarding the rubber truncheon, the idea of exposing executive officials to situations in which, during gross interruption of meetings, they may be forced to use cold steel, is unbearable.
It is my opinion that everything must be done to prevent the wearing out of the police force as well as the state authority in general with an untimely religous struggle. Should this philosophical conflict continue I would be forced,—incidentally this was proposed to me in a letter from the chief of the Gestapo, to give lectures to the police officials on Christian religions or the particular importance of the religious movement and the attitude of the party to these.
Neither do I believe that it is desirable if the lower grade police authorities carry out the handling and reporting of these religious matters in a certain one-sided manner.
2. Lately, there has been a marked increase of cases of protec-
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tive custody. I demand urgently that in this matter also, final directives be given concerning methods, proof, length of time and manner of execution. The decree on protective custody by the Reich Ministry of the Interior has been made invalid long ago by the actions of the political police. It is almost impossible to receive an adequate report on a case -of protective custody. The petitions, addressed to us in this matter, all stress the same point which I also regard as important. The parties concerned and their relatives accept protective custody as a matter of fact, but not the complete uncertainty as regards the manner and principles by which it may or may not be imposed. This unquestionable lawlessness fosters unrest and antagonism. It is intolerable for the Reich Ministry of the Interior, when there is a different interpretation and application of the law in the respectives states, thereby obstructing a uniform execution of the law. The question must also be settled whether as approved by the judicial association N.S., in agreement with the Reichminister of Justice, in cases of protective custody a person is allowed a lawyer, or as is actually practised by the secret state police this is refused. I refer in this connection to the case of lawyer Puender. He was confined to^protective custody with his colleagues for bringing an action, being forced to do this by a Reich law, after duly informing the Reich Ministry of Justice and our ministry. This complaint could not involve any complications, as it could immediately be legally restrained by us.
3. For official political reasons I must object on principle to the fact that lately once more and without previous knowledge of the superior authorities, officials have been taken into protective custody or what is sometimes even more, they have been subjected to state police investigations. I cite here only the case of my teacher and Kreisleiter at Esterwegen, who was kept in protective custody for 8 days, because he had sent a correct report, as proved afterwards, to his district councillor on abuses by the SS. I remember the investigations by criminal assistants of the Gestapo in Kottbus, lasting two weeks, on the chief of police in that phase, by the way an SS Brigadefuehrer. Likewise I have already presented today a complaint by the Oberpraesident Lohse, concerning the order to an official of the gendarmerie for espionage on superior officials by officers of the political police.
It is intolerable from the point of view of the national socialist authoritarian form of state leadership that subordinate offices procure information on officials in this manner over the heads of their superior office. This will create a great deal of trouble quite
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apart from the fact that information obtained in this manner must be prejudiced and very often even actually false.
4. Abductions by officers of the political police on foreign sovereign territory have lately created severe disturbances in the field of foreign politics. I cite the cases of Berthold Jakob (Switzerland), Gutzeit (Holland) and the latest incident at the Czech frontier. It is my opinion that in consideration of the foreign political complications, the police office should receive orders for such measures from the responsible Reich officer only, and not from subordinate offices.
5. Several times the Reich ministry of economics has pointed out to me the disturbing effect on the economic organization which must result from the various political incidents caused by the police, the atmosphere of insecurity caused by cases of protective custody (particularly in the case of economic leaders) and also in the latest cases of boycott of the Jews (Cologne, Duesseldorf).
6. I can only undertake the creation of the Fuehrer protection in my police department if I am completely responsible for the officials working there, their service, capabilities and their cooperation with the other departments of the criminal police.
7. I propose that it be settled once and for all, not only who is to bear the responsibilities for the directives but also who shall bear the responsibility for the carrying out of these directives in all matters appertaining to the political police.
Either: This responsibility rests with the Reichminister of the interior. Then he has to be vested with altogether different powers to give orders in political matters concerning the police.
Or: This responsibility with all its consequences is borne by the Reichfuehrer SS, who is already actually claiming the management of the political police in the Reich. In this case, I would propose that the law, laid down for Prussia by SS, Himmler, becomes Reich law immediately, elevating the office of the secret state police to the status of a ministry and the chief of the office of the secret state police undertakes the tasks which he—as is already stated in the draft of the law, "determines".