Equally it is unlikely that that order, which presumably was issued by Himmler, ever became known to the mass of Gestapo members. August 10, 1943 (Document RF 1419, USA 333), stating that it was not the task of the police to interfere in controversies between Germans and bailed-out English and American terror fliers, and the Prosecution concluded from that that the Gestapo approved of lynch justice. However, it is of significance that the order of Himmler's was addressed to all of the German police, above all to the order police. For in the case of the bailing-out of Allied aircrews, as a rule it was not Gestapo officials who made an appearance, but members of the order police, the Gendarmery, or the local police office. Only those branches of the police system were in charge of street patrols, and not the Gestapo. not informed of this order, but rather learned of it only through the statement Goebbels made over the radio. to the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe, shows in a characteristic manner that that order was generally sabotaged. He stated: "In the spring of 1944 the civilian losses through air attacks rapidly increased. Apparently this made Hitler issue orders not only of defense but of measures against the aviators themselves. As far as I know, Hitler advocated the most severe measures. Lynchings were to be permitted most liberally. The supreme commando and the chief of the General Staff did, it is true, condemn the attacks on the civilian population in the sharpest terms, but yet they did not desire the execution of special measures against the aviators; lynchings and the refusal to give shelter to the crews who had bailed out were to be refuted." And his further statement is of particular importance: I quote:
"The measures ordered by Hitler were not carried out by the Luftwaffe.
The Luftwaffe did not receive any orders to shoot enemy aviators or to transfer them to the SD". Gestapo members were present when allied fliers bailed out, not only did not kill them but protected them against the population -- compare Gestapo Affidavit No. 81 -- and if they were wounded they saw to it that the fliers were given medical care. The few instances when higher Gestapo officials ordered and executed the shootings of crews who had bailed out have already found their just penalty before the courts of the occupying powers. It would be unjustified to hold the whole of the Gestapo responsible for them.
7. The next point of the indictment states: The Gestapo and the SD brought civilians from occupied countries into Germany to bring them before secret courts and sentence them there.
According to this decree persons who had transgressed against the Reich or against the occupying power in the occupied areas would, as a measure of intimidation, be taken to the Reich where they were to be put before a special court. If, for any reason whatsoever this was not possible, the transgressors were to be placed in protective custody in a concentration camp for the duration of the war. order went only to the offices of the Wehrmacht and not to the offices of the Gestapo -- with exception of Amt IV of the RSHA itself. The execution of this decree was a task of the Wehrmacht, not of the Gestapo. According to directives contained in Document 833-PS, it was for the Counter Intelligence Offices to determine the tire of arrests of individuals suspected of espionage and sabotage. order was to be carried out therefore by the Wehrmacht which exercised police power through its own men or those of the Security Police who were directly subordinated to the Wehrmacht Commanders-in-Chief. execution of this order, The Gestapo, which was numerically very weak in the occupied Western areas, was only drawn in to the extent that the RSHA. established a STAPO office, which had to take charge of the arrestees. Through the STAPO offices in agreement with the competent Counter Intelligence offices, the detail of the transporting off to Germany was determined and particularly whether a transport was to be conducted by the Secret Field Police, the Field Gendarmerie, or by the Gestapo. The Gestapo had no other tasks assigned to it by the Nacht-and-Nebel Decree. in the carrying through of this decree has not been determined in this proceeding. On the contrary, according to the testimony of witness Hoffman, it has bean established that Amt IV rejected this decree and that it was not applied at all in Denmark, for instance. from the highest Wehrmacht offices, we may assume with assurance that only the most intimate circle of individuals, those charged with its actual handling, knew the contents of this decree and its significance.
The officials handling, knew the contents of this decree and its significance. The officials of the STAPO offices charged with the transport received instructions to see to it that the arrestees were brought to a certain place in Germany without being told for what purpose the arrest had taken place, or on the strength of which decrees. you cannot make the entire Gestapo responsible for it; that prisoners were turned ever to some offices in occupied territory in order to take them to Germany on the strength of orders. also not be read by me, but I beg the Tribunal to take judicial notice of itI should now like to continue on page 60 with the figure 10.
10. The next point of the indictment concerns the killing of prisoners upon the approach of Allied troops. has been submitted. Again it is an order by the Commander of the SIPO and the SD for the Radom district by which he informs his subordinates of the order of the Chief of the SIPO and the SD in the Government General that in the case of unforeseen developments which would make impossible the transfer of the prisoners, they should be liquidated. were known elsewhere, and to what extent such orders were carried out, which is the main problem for me to establish, the participation of the Gestapo, has not been cleared. On the basis of the affidavits before me, and the statements by the witnesses Straub and Dr. Knochen, the Gestapo only in a few places had prisons of its own. As a rule, there existed only one police prison to be used by all local police branches. The administration and supervision of these police prisons was always the task of the local police administrator, in the occupied territories of the Army, too. At any rate, the Gestapo had no right to interfere with the conditions in which the prisoners found, themselves. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Gestapo should have carried out the killings of the prisoners upon the approach of the enemy.
On the other hand, it has been established with certainty that in many places the prisoners either were dismissed or were handed over to the Allied troops when they occupied the locality. (Compare Gestapo affidavits 12, 63, and 64). proceedings: The witness, Hartmann Lauterbacher has given evidence concerning an order in accordance with which the inmates of the prison at Hameln in Westphalia, supposedly had been killed upon the approach of the enemy. The person who issued the order, however, was not a Gestapo official, but the Kreisleiter of Hameln who, for doing so, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by the Fifth British Division, and those who were to execute that order were not Gestapo officials, but prison employees, who, however, refused to carry it out. in Bavaria. I refer to the evidence given by Bertus Gardes, the former Gaustagamtsleiter under Gauleiter Giessler of Munich (USA 291). It states that in April 1944, the inmates of the Dachau concentration camp and of the Jewish work camps Muehldorf and Landsberg were to be liquidated; that means, killed by order of Hitler. It is certain that the order was not given to the Gestapo and most of all, that both of these actions, due to the declining attitude on the part of the Air Force and the witness, Gerdes -for their exoneration this must be stated here -- was not carried out. Thus, at least, in this case, crimes did not take place; the frightful planning of which alone would contort our innermost sentiments. What is of importance, for the organization of the Gestapo, which I represent, is something to which it is my duty as its defense counsel to draw to your attention: The order was given to the competent Gauleiter in Munich, who discussed it with the head of the Gau Staff and the competent Kreisleiters. Not with a word was there any mention that the Gestapo should be used for its execution. and private property, I beg the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it and I shall continue on page 63 of the original, number 12.
12. The Prosecution accuses the Gestapo of having employed the third degree method of interrogation. I had already spoken about this when I discussed the question whether the methods employed by the Gestapo were criminal. At this point I have the following to say with reference to this accusation: it was only permissible to employ third degree methods of interrogation only in exceptional cases, only under observance of certain protective institutions, and only by order of superior agencies. Furthermore, it was not permissible to use these methods in order to force a confession; they could only be employed in the case of the refusal for giving information vital to the interest of the State, and finally, only in the event of the existence of certain evidence of the perpetration being available. border police have never carried out third degree interrogations. In the occupied territories where occupation personnel were daily threatened by attempts on their lives, more severe methods of interrogation were permitted. If one believed that in this manner the life of German soldiers and officials might be protected against such threatening attempts. Torture of any kind was never officially condoned. It can be gathered from the affidavits submitted, for instance, numbers 2, 3, 4, 61 and 63, and from the testimony of witness Dr. Knechen, Dr. Herrman, Straub, Albath, and Dr. Best, that the officials of the Gestapo were continuously instructed during training courses and at regular intervals, to the effect that any ill-treatment during interrogations, in fact any ill-treatment of detainees in general, was prohibited. Violations of these instructions were prosecuted by ordinary courts and later by SS and Police Courts, in fact, in the strictest manner. (See amongst others, Gestapo affidavit No 76). USA-319, the camp commandant at Auschwitz, has been credibly rectified by witness Rudolf miner, the former chief of the leading Gestapo department, Kattowitcz, in that he stated under oath (See Gestapo Affidavit Number 28), that a STAPO or KRIPO criminal official had been posted to every main concentration camp who had clearly defined orders, none of which included third degree methods of interrogation.
shall continue on page 65 with the discussion of the plans of which the Gestapo is new accused. I turn to my third and last group -- crimes against humanity.
the foremost instrument for the persecution of the Jews. The Nazi regime had considered the Jews as the chief obstacle for the police state, by means of which it had intended to pursue the ends of aggressive war. The persecution and extermination of Jews is supposed to have served this aim too. The National Socialist leaders had regarded anti-Semitism as the psychological spark to influence the populace. The anti-Jewish actions had led to the murder of an estimated six million human beings.
Truly a scattering accusation. What has been unveiled during this trial, and confirmed by the witnesses Hoess and Ohlendorf, forms the basis of a guilt which, unfortunately, will forever adhere to Germany's name. Yes what must still be examined after these such facts are ascertained is the question in new far the Gestapo has participate in this persecution and extermination of the Jews. made regarding the activity of the Gestapo, taking into consideration the point of view of time. of laws punishing the Jews. As far as those loyal regulations contained penal clauses, possibly necessitating the employment of force by the police, the Gestapo may, under certain circumstances have been connected with them. Infringements of such penal laws by Jews were comparatively few, and only the Number laws, announced in 1935, caused increasing police activity, whereby, however, during the first period, every case was handed to the proper courts for the passing of proper sentences. A change only occurred in the last years of the war. That the Gestapo *--*an to act in these cases cannot be held against them; because it, too, had to comply with the existing laws of the State, that is to say, had to obey the orders of the State just like the soldier must obey his orders. Interior of the Reich Finance Administration and the communal administration, have become active against the Jews to a much larger degree than the Gestapo; that is to say, both regarding their personal local status as well as their property, houses, etc.
, without being accused here. considerably were acute. It has been ascertained beyond doubt that this revolting action did not originate in the Gestapo. In fact, the prosecution do not implicate the Gestapo in this connection, or only by saying that they had not intervened. Information on this point is contained in the testimony of the witness Vitzdamm, according to which during the conference on the 9th of November, 1938, in the evening, in Munich, with Gestapo chiefs present, Heydrich had declared quite openly that this action did not have its origin in the Gestapo. Over and above this, he explicitly forbade the Gestapo to participate in the action, and gave instructions to the Gestapo chiefs present to return to their departments at once and take all steps to step the action. The contradiction contained in this testimony, and the contents of Heydrich's teleprint letter, sent to all Stapo Departments during that night (Document USA 240), can be explained by the fact that between this conference of Heydrich with the Gestapo Chiefs and the issuing of the order, a development had taken place which could only be limited but no longer rescinded. Then the Gestapo offices received Heydrich's circular, the holocause of senseless destruction already had swept over Germany. Nothing remained to be done but the prevention of further excesses; that was done.
In this connection I refer also the affidavit No. 5 of witness Luitpold Schallermeier, which also has been submitted by the defense counsel for the SS, stating that Himmler himself had dedicated the order to the Stapo offices and revealed his conversation with Hitler from which one learned that Hitler had ordered the safe keeping of Jewish property and the protection of the Jews. As shown by the evidence given by the witness Vitzdamm and as proved by the numerous other affidavits, this order was carried out universally. I refer to the Gestapo affidavits Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8. Hitler (Document USA 240) and was as a rule carried out by the Kreis and local police authorities. The overwhelming majority of the Jews, however, were not transferred into concentration camps and were released gradually. This is proven for the entire territory of the Reich by Gestapo affidavit No. 6.
nature by the arrest of the Jews in November, 1938. The Gestapo - as shown by the evidence given by the witnesses Dr. Best and Hoffmann - would never have executed or suggested these arrests which were considered unnecessary from a police point of view. The fact at the arrested Jews were soon discharged, justified the assumption of the Gestapo officials that it was but a one-time gesture and not the overture for worse to come. elevated to a point of its program originally was to be solved by the migration of the Jews. For this reason, in 1938, there had been founded in Vienna, the central office for Jewish migration which succeeded in the emigration of a large number of Jews. During the war, too, the emigration was continued according to plan as shown by the documents USA 304 and 410. In addition to it, there started the evacuations of Jews which were carried out in accordance with a detailed, decree of the Chief of the German police. On the basis of that decree, the local Stapo offices had to prepare the evacuation and to cooperate with the Jewish communities. To their task belonged particularly the equipment of these evacuees with clothing, shoes, tools, etc. In most eases the transports were not accompanied by Gestapo officials, the personnel was rather composed of members of the Security Police, the Criminal police, and the Gendarmerie. The destination was not announced in most cases. The evacuations were carried out without friction and unnecessary harshness. of Jews profoundly; yet the part played by the Gestapo in them consisted in tine carrying out of the decrees and orders originating from the highest authorities. Actually, the competence of the Gestapo in regard to the Jewish question had not at all the importance generally attributed to it. In the Jewish department of the Gestapo, both in the RSHA and in the individual Gestapo offices, only a very few employees more active. Polish Ghettoes. This resettlement of the Jews was the task of the Higher SS and police Leader and was carried out by the regular police.
When Hitler's policy toward Jewry up to 1941 aimed only at the elimination of the Jews from Germany by emigration and later evacuation, it gained in sharpness after America's entering the war. In April 1942 Hitler ordered the "final solution of the Jewish question", i.e., the physical extermination, the murdering of the Jews. The proceedings have shown in how terrible a manner this order was carried out. The tool which was used by Hitler and Himmler for the carrying out of that order was SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann, who, with his Jewish department, in an organizational manner belonged to Amt IV of the RSHA, who however actually had an entirely independent and autonomous position with the Gestapo. The preparation and carrying out of the order to murder the Jews was kept strictly secret. Only a few persons knew the order to its full extent. Even the members of Eichmann's office were left ignorant on the order and learned of it only gradually. The evacuation and the transfer into the extermination camps was carried through by Eichmann's Sonderkommandos. They were composed of native police, almost exclusively regular police. The police were not permitted to enter the camps but were replaced immediately upon arrival at the railroad station of the point of destination. In the camps themselves the circle of persons carrying out the murder orders was kept small. Everything was done to conceal the crimes. Wisliceny and Dr. Hoffmann, is supplemented in a surprising fashion by the evidence of Dr. Konrad Morgen. He declared that three persons were charged with the extermination of the Jews, Wirt, Hoess and Eichmann. Stuttgart, known as "Murder Commissioner for terroristic investigation methods", had for his special task his headquarters together with his staff in Hitler's Chancellery. His task was at first the mass extermination of insane persons in Germany, then, secondly, the extermination of Jews in the Eastern countries. The Commando which was set up by Wirth himself for the purpose of extermination of Jews was known an "Action Reinhard", and was extremely small. Before the beginning of the action Himmler personally took the oath of the members, and declared explicitly that any one who would say something about the action would be put to death.
This Commando Reinhard stood outside any police office. It did not belong to the Gestapo and wore a uniform and carried the credentials of the Security Police in order to allow members of this Commando free circulation in the rear of armed forces. This Commando started its activities with the extermination of Jews in Poland, and extended later on its diabolic work to further work within the Eastern territories, by setting up of special extermination comps in inconspicuous places. By a hitherto unknown camouflaged system those camps were run by Jews themselves. The fact must be stressed that it was the Security Police of Dublin, which reported to the RKPA Wirth's misdeeds and thus enabling the discovery of these hideous crimes. This fact corrects the testimony of Hoess, who declared that the extermination camps of Maidanek and Treblinka had been under the orders of the Security Police. In fact, they were under Wirth.
According to Dr. Morgens testimony, Auschwitz was made a center of mass extermination of Jews by Hoess at a later date. He is said to have been called an unworthy pupil by Girth because of his methods.
According to Dr. Morgen's testimony, the organization Eichmann, was separated from these two Kommandos. That task consisted of deporting of European Jews to the concentration came. According to witness Wisliceny, Eichmann had personally full powers and was personally responsible for the carrying out of the extermination order. He established special Kommandos in the occupied countries. Though economically under the Chief of the Security Police, they could not receive any instruction or orders from them. was done in such a way that only very few people of Eichmann's surroundings knew about it. In this way and furthermore by the use of Jewish collaborators, the knowledge of those killings was restricted to very few Germans and thus the secret maintained. details in the organization of the extermination program, but one thing is clear beyond any doubt; the Gestapo As a whole did not participate in this horrible mass murder and with very few exceptions, could and did not knew anything about it. The few leading persons who knew about it, such as, Eichmann, Mueller, Himmler, kept strictest silence about their tasks and intentions, and in death, they took their secret with then.
This is confirmed most clearly by Dr. Morgen's testimony. For hew could the limitation of knowledge to the above mentioned group of persons be made more evident than by the fact tint the criminal police itself started investigations and discovered the crimes and that oven the Chief of the Security Police and Nebe were astonished, while Mueller seemed to have been informed, as his behavior indicated. But this being the case, how can it be assumed that the minor Gestapo official knew about the secret? I ask you to take note of the statements. I continue to page 73 Roman Numeral Four. collective organization have been accused by the Prosecution. As to the question whether the crimes as far as they were permitted by Gestapo-men have to be blamed onto the entire Gestapo, I finally come to the following result, so far as I did not arrive at it when dealing with individual crimes. to the existing laws. The fact that the Gestapo officials during the twelve years' of the existence of that institution essentially carried out quite normal police work is not sufficiently taken into consideration. The working day of most of the Gestapo officials was occupied with official business which is in no way in reference to the crimes alleged here. Third degree interrogations were only carried through by a small fraction of the officials; the decree with reference to that was in the safe of the departmental chief marked "Secret Reich matter". Therefore, the average working day of the Gestapo officials presented a completely different picture as is imagined. Furthermore, the officials by the exploitation of the traditional duty of obedience nave been used for measures by the highest governmental posts which went beyond the actual aims of the Gestapo. Thereby it is of decisive importance that only a small part of Gestapo officials participated in these tasks alien to police duties.
since the most serious accusations against the Gestapo refer to its activity in the occupied territories, it follows that only a comparatively small percentage, at most 15 % of the executive agents, but not the Gestapo as a while, can be charged with it. special importance whether the aims, tasks and methods of the organization or group were public knowledge. The publication, or, in other words, general knowledge, must include two things; knowledge of the objective fact of the criminal action, and the knowledge of the illegal, criminal character. The judgement of whether this knowledge existed in both senses has to be based on sound human understanding. It is to be assumed, even if the individual members of the organization did not learn anything of the criminal incidents. the individual crime. crimes committed lies in the following: Hitler from the beginning knew how to surround himself with a veil of secrecy to conceal his true intentions, to see to it that no minister and no department and no official learned too much about any other. The well-known Fuehrer Order No. 1 which was submitted as Gestapo Exhibit No. 25 is only the actual realization of a long-established practice. view of the feeling of inviolability of all his orders, which can be explains only through the demoniacal aspect of his character, and in view of the fear of the serious consequences of life and limb in the event of failure to carry out a so-called Fuehrer Order, was there any wonder that precisely this secrecy order was scrupulously observed? examined here have actually just learned of all these Heinous crimes. It is significant that, for example, the driver of a special vehicle was condemned to death by the SS and Police Court in Minsk because in an intoxicated condition he had spoken about the purpose of the vehicle against his orders. Gestapo affidavit 47. Even a Dr. Gisevius had to admit that Heydrich endeavored to keep his actions secret, and the defendant Jodl characterized the system of secrecy in the nest striding manner, with the words that the secrecy had been a masterpiece of Hitler's art of concealment, and a masterpiece of deception by Himmler.
It is a recognized legal principle that ignorance through one own's neglect is not sufficient in crimes; therefore, it is necessary, in order to declare an organization criminal, that the members of this organization actually knew of and approved of the criminal aims and methods. But that cannot be proved in our case, and cannot be assumed according to all the facts established during the trial, no matter how strange the contrary assumption may seem to a person looking backward today, who cannot appreciate conditions in Germany. mitted are to be ascribed to the Gestapo as a whole, the further fact must not remain unconsidered that the members of this commission did not act on their own initiative but on orders. had refused to carry out orders, they would have been threatened not only with disciplinary proceedings, loss of civil service rights, and so forth, but also with concentration camps, and, on war assignments, with courtmartial and execution. Do they thereby invoke a reason for clearing them of guilt? occupational emergency. The state of occupational emergency is not a category of written law. Rather it represents a concept which cannot be dispensed with in legal life. Where written law is not adequate, as when a state of emergency exists, sensible and practical considerations most fill up the gap. Public opinion approved this, and judgment of law and jurisprudence have recognized the so-called extra-legal state of emergency as a reason far absolving from guilt. It is true. Cowardice is not a virtue; but it is equally true that heroism and martyrdom in the world of human beings are the exception. Should the Gestapo members form this exception? Could one, from a purely human point of view, really expect them to take upon themselves loss of livelihood, family suffering, concentration camp, and perhaps even a disgraceful death? Besides, the resistance movement in the occupied territories, in their killing of members of the German occupa tion, repeatedly referred to the orders of their superiors and to the state of emergency of the terrorists under these orders.
was actual danger for life and limb of the perpetrator in the sense of Paragraph 54 of the German Penal Code. Here there existed what Justice Jackson on called "physical compulsion". of the strictest obedience to orders and instructions from higher authority. Perhaps as nowhere else in the world the official in Germany is failed with the thought of authority. He was trained in the attitude, correct in itself that a state dissolves if the orders issued by it are no longer followed, and that theological result of the denial of state authority is anarchy. made particularly the little officials tools without a will of their own. All of these motives were added to the threat emanating from the very nature of the job, and they all together created an occupational emergency so depressing that they didn't retain the freedom of decision to examine a criminal order as to its legal and moral evaluation and to refuse obedience. Taking these conditions into account it hardly appears justifiable to attribute these proved crimes to the totality of the Gestapo so as to declare the Gestapo criminal. of the indictment -- that the crimes were not isolated acts committed independently from each other, but rather parts or aspects of a criminal policy, either as part of a common plan or as means of carrying out that common plan. The contention is that this very plan was directed towards too unloosening and conduct of an aggressive war. The aim of that war was the enslavement of Europe and the peoples of Europe to gain living space. Everything important that was carried on within that conspiracy characterize as such by the indictment is described as having had only one aim and purpose, to secure for the Nazi state a place in the sun and to push all internal and external adversaries into the darkness. The very essence of the individual crimes was the intentional participation in the planning and carrying out of the plan.
The crime of the individual consisted in his having joined the common plan of the conspiracy. It was claimed that plan and purpose of the conspiracy were universally known. conspiracy. defendants, but supposedly they are also valid for the indicted organization It is claimed that the role played by the Gestapo within the conspiracy consisted in aiding the Nazi conspirators by creating a police state, set up to break every resistance, to exterminate Jews and faithful Christians, as well as political undesirable persons, as the main terrorists of the resistance movement; furthermore, to enslave the employable inhabitants of foreign countries and to eliminate and suppress by cruelty and horror all of those who might resist German lust of conquest within the Reich or in the conquered territories. sidered as assistants to the crime of conspiracy against world peace, it will be recommendable to study the activity of the Gestapo before the war, and to examine its work during the war in regard to the individual characteristics. Without repeating myself unnecessarily I believe I can state that the tasks and methods of the Gestapo before the war were the expressions of state institutions existing in all civilized countries without which the state cannot even exist; there existence means in no way an aggressive war of the planning of any other conspiracy against world peace. The individual Gestapo officials filled his duty as he had learned as a civil servant. Equally, in the upper strata of the political police it is unlikely that another thought should have been present other than to guarantee peace and security within the state should have been present. One must not identify the knowledge and action of the Gestapo with those of Himmler and Heydrich, those men alien to the police. If those men acted only on the basis of political considerations their subordinates cannot be blamed for it. Taking into account the well-known system of secrecy, the individual Gestapo official and the overwhelmning majority of all Gestapo members could not have the least knowledge that their work aimed at the preparation of ar*--* aggressive war and created the basis for it.
I believe that every Gestapo official when hearing that contention or when facing the question about the knowledge of the attack of world peace would not even understand it. the crimes committed during the war only when these -- apart from their general knowledge -- were committed only with the knowledge of participating in a plan to bring to a victorious ending the aggressive war, even by the employment of the most horrible means in conflict with international law. Such proof cannot be carried out successfully either. The first condition again would be that the Gestapo officials who participated in the crimes know that the war which we waged was an aggressive one. Yet we all know that a propaganda master fully carried even to the remotest hamlets, never talked in other terms than of a war forced upon us criminally, that Hitler himself always spoke of the war which the others desired, not we. Although it may have been that some considering people, who had not entirely last their sound judgment, had their doubts, and might have thought that our government was not free of guilt, yet in face of the greater probability of the opposite it might not be stated that this opinion or certainty filled all Gestapo members.
activity of the Party, but, above all, its fight against the Jews, individuals holding different political opinions and against the churches, was derived from the intention and the plan to eliminate all tendencies which opposed the war of aggression it proposed. The national socialist struggle against Jewry sprang from the doctrine of anti-semitism which had become a point of the party program, a doctrine which saw an element destructive to the State in all Jews. Because this fight was not a moral one, the Christian churches protested against it with right. This way, in turn, the fight of the Party against the Church may be explained at leas to a large extent, and the steps taken by the Party against those who hold different political views - especially against the Communists - in all probability took place, first of all, in order to maintain and to protect the State; in any event, that was the way in which the German people and therefore the Gestapo officials looked upon the state of tension which existed. It did not occur to anyone to see in it the source of a conspiracy against world pence in this relationship. overlooked in this connection. The German soldier, the German official, the German workingman, and every German man, know that the war had placed us in a situation which meant a struggle to the death. The war in its gradual stages showed us with terrifying clarity that it was a question of "to be, or not to be." Indeed, it would mean that you would misjudge the soul of the German people if you wanted to overlook the fact that every decent German at this juncture felt himself obligated to do everything which was expected of him in order to save his country. And, when we judge the behavior of the German people and its political police, we must take those points of view into consideration in order to do them justice. to establish a restriction in its decision on declaring the organization collective -- be it with reference to certain sub-groups, or be it with reference to time. The organizational structure, the variety of the group of individuals active within the Gestapo, and the results of the evidence presented in reply to the assertions made by the prosecution concerning criminal activities of the Gestapo, form the basis for a possible limits.
either of personnel or of time - which I should like to have taken into account should the High Tribunal arrive at a verdict of guilty. with a punishable participation in the crimes listed under Article 6 of the Charter for neither did they themselves commit crimes, nor did they intend to commit crimes or realize such intent, nor could they have had knowledge of criminal plans and activities end, in fact, did not have knowledge to that effect.
First, administrative officials. They did not receive their practical instructions from the office of the Secret State Police or from Amt IV of the RSHA, but rather from Ants I and II of the RSHA whose members do not fall within the charges raised against the Gestapo. The offices of the administrative offices, and the offices of the Executive officials were novel situated next to each other. Administrative officials had no insight into the activities of Executive officials -- in part because of the fact of secrecy which has been mentioned many times and which was observed especially strictly in the Gestapo -- in part because the Administrative officials were looked upon by the Executive officials as merely belonging to the Gestapo nominally, and were treated with marked reserve. administrative official of the Police, and criminal inspector of the executive must be pointed out, to stress the fundamental difference between those two categories of officials. conditioned by the activities of the administrative officials, this argument is as invalid as if I said that the activities of the officials of the Reich's Finance ministry which secured the funds for the salary and other expenses of the Gestapo has been the cause of the activities of the executive officials.
Employees and wage-earners. Chief Justice Jackson, in his speech of the 1 March 1946, excepted two groups of persons from the indictment against the organizations. Firstly, the SA Reserve, and than the office employees, stenographers, and general laborers, of the Gestapo. A part of the groups of persons which I have dealt with, are excepted from the indictment, but I deem it nevertheless my duty to point out that this group of persons, because of their subordinate positions, as well as the resulting impossibility of acquiring detailed knowledge of the Gestapo's activites, has been very justly excepted from the indictment.