CONCLUSION: I have now reached the end of my observations. I believe I have proved 1. That the 129 military leaders, which the Prosecution want to indict, were in no respect an "organization" or "group", and represented even less a united will for the execution of criminal acts--these men are not a gang of criminals.
2. That the collection of these officers by the Prosecution under the invented collective term "General Staff" and "High Command", represents in reality a purely arbitrary combination of holders of the most varied service posts from quite different periods, and from fundamentally different branches of the Armed forces. Chosen without any real justification, and without legal necessity, the collection of these officers under this collective term, can only be considered as a deliberate slander on the institution of the General Staff, which has been taken as a model by so many Nations. What a slogan, indeed, for the International press: "The German General Staff, a criminal organization;" I, furthermore believe I have proved:
That the military leaders in Hitler's State did not even have the possibility to participate in a political plan, or a political conspiracy, with the object of waging of war of aggression, and even less, actively to assist in it. They constantly uttered warnings, and warned again and again, and were finally themselves overun by the political leadership. I believe finally, I have proved: sistance against Hitler's methods, which disregarded the rules of warfare and of humanity. They, thereby, practically prevented the commission of crimes against the rules of war and of humanity as much as it was possible, and maintained as soldiers the spirit of Christianity. they will know how to account for themselves. The group as a whole is not guilty of the crimes which were committed. On the contrary, this circle of officers was one of the strongholds of decent, humane, and Christian thought. Only an observer who witnessed from nearby the enormously difficult situation in which everyone of these men found himself, can do justice to their attitude. They had to settle the conflict of their consciences quite alone, and could not seek assistance in their distress, and the torment of their consciences by resorting to the deputies of a Parliament, to the editors of a free Press, or to prominent influential men of public life, -- as it was possible for the military leaders of the other side.
These men were persecuted with derision and hatred. They were openly, and even more in secret they were branded as "reactionary generals", not as "dust-covered knights of a medieval code of honor."
"Not the great Hitler", but they were made responsible by Party propaganda for every military setback, they were the traitors and saboteurs to whose sinister influence all misfortunes were due. without them, Hitler would have won his war. is persecuting them even in this courtroom, and endeavors by lies and distortions, to drag them into the disaster awaiting these people, and the Prosecutor does not realize how much he contributes by his theory that Hitler had been driven by instigators and advisors further and further, and that everything was ultimately the generals' fault, to revive the hale around Hitler, so that Hitler may one day appear, not as the political criminal and the mass murderer of millions of people, but as the tragic here who was pushed into the abyss by the gray figures who surrounded him. such a way?
History has its own method of judgment. The summary kind of judgment demanded in this case is practically unique in the history of the world. There is practically only one parallel, and it is both a warning and a lesson. On the 16th of February, 1568, a verdict rendered by the Holy Office condemned all inhabitants of the Netherlands to die as heretics, with the exception of a few specially named cases. The Duke of Alba who was devoted to his Royal master in blind fanatical obedience, was appointed executor of this mass verdict. The judgment of history on this first great manifestation of the idea of collective guilt is well-known. are here concerned, and the German generals believe that they will be able to stand their ground before its verdict. Today, however, we are concerned with the verdict to be rendered by this International Military Tribunal. May it please the Tribunal not to neglect the fact that the knowledge which it possesses today of the whole development of events -- both as regards their external course and their background, was something these men did not have when they made the decisions, for which they are to be rendered responsible today.
all its forms -- but their anxiety is concerned with justice. May it please the tribunal of Nurnberg to render a verdict which, as I said in my opening remarks, is uninfluenced by the passions of every day life, far removed from blind hatred and vengeance and the petty instincts of retaliation, and which, standing out, pure and unfalsified in the face of eternity and of a better future of the nations is nothing but just.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1000, 28 August 1946.)
NURNBERG, GERMANY, ON * AUGUST 1946, 1000-1700,
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My Lord might I mention the letter from General Warliment which we discussed yesterday in connection with Dr. Laternser's application to call Buerker. The prosecution had the opportunity of considering the letter and they are quite prepared to admit that the part of the letter which relates to Colonel Buerker; that is, division "A" of the letter contains what Colonel Buerker would say if he were called. We are quite prepared to make the admission or stipulation which your Lordship suggested yesterday. The other parts of the letter, "B" and "C" relate to a statement of General Warliment himself and a statement of a Major Meier. Dr. Laternser has not made any application with regard to these parts and he is quite prepared that they should not be read. Dr. Laternser is prepared to agree with out suggestion that the first part relating to Colonel Buerker be treated as the evidence that Colonel Buerker would have given if he were called.
THE PRESIDENT: Then perhaps you will read paragraph "A" of the letter
DR. LATERNSER: I shall read from a letter from General Warliment: "Nurnberg, 23 August, 1946. To Attorney Dr. H. Laternser." Then I shall leave out part of it and I shall start with paragraph "A". :"About ten to fourteen days ago, early in the morning, there appeared before me in the general office camp at Dachau, Colonel of the General Staff of the German Army, Buerker, who was also being detained there, and whom I had known for many years. He told me that he had learned through the radio news the evening before of the Russian accusation against the OKW of an alleged preparation for bacterial warfare. In this connection, he recollected an incident during his short activity as Chief of the Organization Department of the Wehrmacht.
Leading Staff, which he related to me more or less as follows : And now there is a direct quotation :
"During the autumn of 1943, probably in late September, there appeared before me in my office three gentlemen unknown to me, one of whom belonged to the Army Senitation Inspection, the second supposedly belonged to the Research Office of the Army Ordnance, but I can no longer recall the name of the third nor to which office he was attached. They explained to me that in their opinion the research work for counter-attacking any bacterial warfare was not or was no longer adequate. Their mission which was exclusively limited to research for defense purposes would have to be extended. They were convinced that it was essential to exhaust every possibility even to the extent of a counter attack which would take place in any case. The gentlemen thanked me to have an interview with the Chief of the OKW, in fact, with Keitel in this connection. I had first taken over the position of the Chief of the Organization Department in the beginning of September 1943, after a preparatory training period of two months with my predecessor Colonel Muenz (who fell in the war) and up to then had not heard the slighest mention of this matter. When at the next conference with the Chief of the OKW I brought up the matter, he was extremely upset, angry. He ordered me in a unusually sharp term in more or less these words 'That has long ago been prohibited and there can be no question of such a thing'."
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kubuschok.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Mr. President, gentlemen of the Tribunal. organizations are in many respects a nevum. For the first time there are organizations with millions of members before the judge of a criminal court for the first time a judgment is expected covering all of the civilian and military leaders of a State. This brings to light the importance as well as the complexity of proceedings of that kind. From this also arises the duty for the defense counsel of the individual organization to concern himself with all actual and legal problems of these proceedings in general.
The Prosecution bases it *--*ve on the hypothesis that according to general principles of law there exists a collective criminal responsibility and that in consequence a criminal condemnation of a community as such is also possible. If it attempts to justify this criterion of law by examples from penal laws of various civilized countries, it must thus be cleared up concerning this that all of the examples mentioned do not prove the criminal condemnation of the organizations as such but only the condemnation of the single individual because of his membership in an organization termed criminal. Nor could it be otherwise. Criminal responsibility can only be given for the individual only. Every criminal law proceeds from the concept of guilt, from the recognition of a criminal act as such and from the unswering formation of will to accomplish this set of factured elements. The faculty to recognize and to form a will, and with it the concept of guilt, as such is possible for a natural person only. responsibility of the organization is established for the domain in which because of its very nature it is bound to violate the interests of the State. This is the domain of irregularity, not the domain of criminality rooted in ethics. Laws were created to prevent these irregularities, to punish the organizations as such because of their responsibility in the fields experiencing their pernicious influence by means which could effect the organizations as such. A punishment under administrative law and a fine because of violation of State interests by an organization is practica ble and for the sake of expediency the laws of various countries have ruled on it.
These proceedings based on a merely objective establishment, independent from an examination of the question of guilt which is not possible. ficance of the declaration which the Prosecution demanded. torical valuable contents. presents a retroactive boycott for the organization which in the meantime was legally and actually dissolved, beyond that it involves especially a prescription of all organization members. That declaration embraces them all and as its effect, using Mr. Justice Jackson's words, the "bad" element are segregate from the"good" elements. critical import of that declaration : By virtue of the Control Council Law No. 10 it creates a far-reaching establishment of guilt for the individual member. At this time the Control Council Law No. 10 is as yet a skeleton law, so to speak. The provision of Article II d makes membership in organizations declared criminal by the Tribunal liable to punishment. Once the Tribunal has given such a verdict, thus the former gap in the criminal provision is accordingly filled out. The name of the convicted organizations then is, so to speak, admitted into the wording of the provision of the penal code. The criminal nature of the organization now vanishes as a characteristic of the elements of the fact. Therefore, there is no need for the individual perpetrator to be possessed by this characteristic of the organization. The criminal action now to be adjudicated by the Court of the Control Council Law arises from mere membership. Therefore, only the objective and subjective elements of the membership as such, are subject to adjutication by the Court. The individual member who in this trial is called to account faces a decision incidentally, already mad which deprives him of all other subjective and objective pleas not concern with his membership as such.
He can no longer plead that he was not inform as to the criminal goals of the organization, that he did not foster them, nor can the motives for his entry or continued membership in the organization be validated any more in connection with the question of his guilt. tual elements of Article II, figure 2 e of the Control Council Law, according to which the member of the organization adjudged criminal shares also in the responsibility for all the crimes which the condemned organization is charged to have committed. constitutes a conviction of the individual member who belonged to the organization. The fiction of criminal responsibility of the organization thus brings about what no system for criminal procedure heretofore in existence has recognized : the guilt of the members is abstractly disassociated from them, to be transferred in tote to the organization, with the result that establishment of the guilt of the organization obviates the requirement for complete proof of the guilt of the individual member. will be the unavoidable effect of the declaration for all members, the definition of "criminal character" - used by the Court for the organization because of the absence of provisions of law - can have but one result: the individual member will by force be included in the Court's argumentation ; the concept of the organization can be understood merely as the sum total of individual members. This means that the proceedings against the individual members cannot be handled as what is abstractly termed an organization. From this recognition arises the difficulty of the present proceeding which, according to statements made by the Prosecution, are expected to facilitate the subsequent proceedings technically; but according to the generally adopted viewpoint for individual guilt of the perpetrator this merely means shifting of the deciding principles to a different Court. Nevertheless, that Court enjoys the advantage that because of its connecting with the proceedings against the 21 main defendants it will find it easier to get a complete picture of the actual basis questions.
To shift basic decisions to a Court which of necessity must take a global view of all the historical events is in itself a wholesome thought. One should not fail however, to recognize the limits set for what is practically possible. If the Court had merely been given the task of determining historical events and of judging whether a group of members of the indict organizations participated in them, this task could be solved with comparative ease. In this case, however, the Court is given the task of making a statement on the total aims and effect of an organization, a decleration which in the light of the foregoing must take into consideration the knowledge, will and action of each individual member of the organization. From this arises the difficulty for finding a basis for a judgment which answers the wording of the proposed motion. at the definition of the concept of "criminal organization". tion in this trial, and by reason of the decisions incidentally made which is to be valid for the subsequent proceedings - the member of the organization is embraced membership is the thing for which he is outlawed and for which he is to be punished. The law which establishes criminality retroactively, arising from membership in the organizations under discuss. is undoubtedly a new law. The legal aspect of the retroactive law has already been dealt with in the trial against the 21 individual defendants. The Prosecution then declared that in the application of a retroactive law there is justification for comprising actions of which the perpetrator at the time of committing them knew that they constitute an infraction of the general moral and ethical standards or the world order. However, the case is different when it comes to indictment of the organizations. The judgment is now concerned not with the fact that an individual perpetrator committed a criminal act regardless of his awareness of its general condemnation although at the time of commission a law again it did not exist, but the point now to be decided is whether a person incriminates himself by reason membership in an organization.
Assuming that the organization in question actually had and carried out aims which were contrary to the general law of ethics or to world order, this does not of itself establish for the member of the organization the recognition of guilt through becoming a member or continuing to be a member. An organization can be criminal; its activities can be criminal and nevertheless the individual member who joins or remains - even though he may have knowledge of it need not under all circumstances take upon himself the burden of guilt resting upon those who set the criminal goals and who were active in carrying them out. This becomes particularly evident in the case of an organization whose purpose was originally legal and subsequently established for itself and pursued a goal partly or entirely illegal. A member which than continues to remain may do so because of a variety of motives, not necessarily immoral. It is quite conceivable that such a member resolves to main in the organization because he believes that in so doing he may be able to influence the execution of the illegal goals, either in the hope of preventing them totally or partly, or at least to attenuate them. As regards the criminality with which he is charged, such a member is not aware of a criminal or even a moral wrong arising from the mere fact of membership in the organization. He can judge his membership in one organization merely in the light of the law which was in force at the time his action was committed. This can only be the law of his own country. A member can be incriminated only on the basis of what the laws and legislation of his country have established in terms of criminal responsibility arising from membership in organizations. I therefore must confine myself to discussion of that which so far formed part of the abstract knowledge of a German national about the law and verdicts in connection with that question. membership in an organization. In his speech of 28 February 1946, Mr. Justice Jackson discussed these laws. All these Laws always govern only individual trials of a member.
The established opinion of German jurisprudence and adjudication of paragraphs 128 and 129 of the penal code and other similar provisions of law dealing with the question of membership provide that formal membership is not sufficient to establish the facts involved in a case of criminal law but rather a continued activity for the illegimate purpose of the organization. The member must prove his membership through his deed, and he must consciously advance the prohibited purposes through his actions. It is not deemed sufficient that the member who has knowledge of the illegimate aims of the organization outwardly displays them thus expressing outwardly his approval of the purposes endorsed by his membership but he must participate in the carrying through its goals through his own activity in the organization. Therefore, according to German law, it is immaterial whether by outward appearances his membership can be construed that he approves of the goals of the organization and that he thus supposedly enhances the reputation of an organization before the world in any measure whatsoever. Thus it eliminates all cases where proof of the knowledge of criminal goals or even active participation by the member in the execution of these goals has not been obtained; but going further it particularly eliminates cases in which the member disapproved of the goals and di all in his power to prevent execution of the goals or in any case tried to attenuate them. unobjectionable reasons to enter or leave an association, rely on this abstract German legal principle. A retroactive law which make simple membership punishable can therefore in no case find its justification sought by the prosecution in the case of individual defendants. we here have no infraction against a general legal disposition or general moral principles which makes one conscious of the illegality of one's conduct. Such a violation is, insofar, as only the reasons for entering or remaining are not morally objectionable, not established.
In order to establish to concept of "criminal organization" underlying its judgment - the Court must take into consideration the knowledge and activity of the individual members.
It must be established that through his membership in the organization the member approved of its criminal purpose and actually advanced it through his own activity. crimes of Paragraph 6 of the Charter concern forbidden war, that especially the crimes against humanity, Paragraph 60 must be connected with the planning or execution of such a war. An organization can be declared criminal only if all of the individual members conceived a common plan for an outlawed war, or if they joined in a war from which the crimes of the Charter would arise as anticipated by the planners. The individual members not only must have joined the organization with such knowledge but they also must have consciously advanced these purposes by participation.
28 Aug M LJG 3-1 Perrin I do not ignore that the Tribunal faces a very difficult task on account of this legal argumentation. In my deduction I started from the Prosecution's concept that the proposed statement comprises also the question of guilt of the individual member, and that in later proceedings this member can restrict himself merely to the objections which refer to the fact of the membership itself. An absolutely necessary sequence of this concept is that the Tribunal has to restrict its decision to the number of cases of the individual members, in order to avoid that the decision issued now, contains already also the verdict of guilt of all individual members without an individual examination of the question of guilt having been carried through for each individual, and consequently to avoid also that the innocent in fact are declared accomplices indiscriminately, without having been heard. In order to avoid this the only means would be that a modified verdict would merely establish objective historic events without thereby at the same time taking a decision as to the individual member and his subjective guilt. It is clear to me that such a modification would face legal scruples with regard to the law of he Control Commission. We can approve of such a solution only if the Court can eliminate these scruples and actually secure thereby that in later proceedings the case of the individual member is examined to the extent which I have mentioned. If one starts from the presumption that the organization finally represents the bulk of the individual members, it leads to the conclusion that the shaping of its purpose presupposes a general training of the will of all members. Without the totality of the members, a change in the purpose of an existing organization cannot be realized. All members must at least know the now aim and must be determined to sponsor it. Should otherwise, of this now aim be a criminal one, the previous legal organization would be split into two, one with legal tendency and another with a criminal one. It would then be impossible for the entire organization to be a criminal one.
28 Aug M LJG 3-2 Perrin sufficient for the definition of a criminal character of an organization, that a further criminal purpose is added to a hitherto legal one. Here also the previous conclusion should be considered that the definition "criminal" must comprise the total aim of the organization as a body. Should the criminal purpose be only a part of the aim and should it be sufficient for the purpose of declaring the whole of the organization a criminal one, the legal aim would be at the same time discredited by this general definition. Must not these acts then, which were committed for the purpose of the fulfillment of the legal aims be illegal ones as acts of an entirely criminal association? In respect to the case of the Reich Cabinet it seems impossible to me to declare this institution as such, is indubitable criminal, if at the same time there can be no doubt that at least the legal acts were valid. This legislation of the Heidi Cabinet since 30 January 1933, which comprises all State administrations, has still today its predominent legal force. It would be an absurdity to consider these legislative acts as valid, If the aim of the Cabinet was an unrestricted criminal one. A voluntariness which must not only be present at the joining of the organization but particularly at the changing of the original aim, also when remaining in the organization. It must therefore be actually examined just as must be the spontaneous remaining in the Cabinet was always guaranteed or whether the legal and real conditions have abolished them at least from a certain date onwards. Finally the question to be examined as to whether there existed as permanent cohesive connection between the persons who are charged as members of the Reich Cabinet. Such a connection only would justify the consideration of any acts, the Reich Cabinet is charged with to have been committed by the community. This problem is already evident, because the Prosecution, which also, from its own point of view, considers a cohesive collaboration of the members of the organizations that has legally obtained the right to take part in the Cabinet sessions together with the body designated as Reich Cabinet, as necessary.
As these Cabinet sessions were discontinued in the course of time, it remains to be examined whether afterwards, in their stead, the members were bound in the same way by any other tie during the performance of the activity under consideration by the Prosecution. Starting from these general considerations dealing with the organizational problem as such, and the special problem of the case of the Reich Cabinet, the result of the evidence must not be examined in order to establish whether the requirement for a sentence exist as argued. defendants. The Prosecution starts from the right to participate in the Cabinet sessions. They thereby suppose that the criminal activity assumed by them took place within the framework of the personal connection quaranteed by the sessions. They thereby overlook, however, that a number of persons mentioned by them in appendixes A and B of the Trial-Brief, were merely entitled to participate in those deliberations of the Cabinet sessions which concerned their administrative sphere. If the Prosecution obviously aims at collecting the decisions of all the participants, particularly in question of general politics, those members who had the right to attend the conferences only occasionally and in part, must, as a matter of course, be excepted from the community in question. I therefore refer to appendixes A and B where the Prosecution stated the extent of their right of participation for each of the persons mentioned by them. in-Chief of the Wehrmacht branches, that is, Fritzach, Brauchitsch, Raeder, and Doenitz, were only entitled to participate in cabinet meetings on the basis of the Fuehrer directive of November 25, 1938, that is to say, not generally. with reference to the question of law in the case of Keitel, I refer to Doctor Nelte's plea. Also Shirach had only the right to participate when his sphere of activities was involved. Appendix B shows this fact correctly in the case of Axmann; it has however, been overlooked in the case of Shirach. In this respect, therefore, we have to supplement the list in appendix B with reference to Fritzach, Brauchitsch, Raeder, Doenitz, Keitel, and Shirach.
From the above conclusions, I believe that Reich Commissioner Gerecke's right of participation was also restricted. Moreover, this case seems equally worthy of mention because Gerecke had already resigned in April, 1933. of participation in the Cabinet session but had no right of voting and were only present for information. This is the case of Chief of the Press Dietrich and State Minister Meissner. ment cannot be answered uniformly. For the question of voluntary entry into the Government, these cases will have to be particularly considered, in which State Secretaries who previously did not belong to the circle of the persons included by the Prosecution were, through the resignations of their superior Ministers, immediately charged with the conduct of ministerial affairs and thus entitled to participation in the Cabinet sessions. These have to a certain extent become organized in their official career in their new posts.
The question of a member's permanence in the Cabinet is for the moment to be judged differently. Legally, the following must be borne in mind in this respect. According to Article 11 of the Reich Minister Act of 27 March 1930, the Reichsminister could request their discharge at any moment. An alteration of the legal position could already have occurred in virtue of the ministers Allegiance Act of 17 October 1934, which is document No. 22. According to this, the Ministers were to answer fidelity and obedience to Hitler. A breach of fidelity and obedience could be assumed from a letter of resignation and therefore considered legally inadmissible. The question can however actually remain undecided, the legal consequence deriving from the Ministers oath is in any case expressly and legally established by the German Civil Service Act of 26 January 1937 -- 2340 PS put into effect on the 1 July 1937. By this law, the Reich Minister Act of 27 March 1930 is cancelled. By its Article 161, it is now stipulated that the Reich Ministers can now be discharged by Hitler alone.
possible since the 1 July 1937. It will be objected that cases nevertheless exist where Cabinet members have obtained their discharge. The cases of Gerecke, Hugenberg, Papen, Schmitt and Eltz von Ruehenach which are anterior to this time must in this respect be excluded. obtain their dismissal. They have mostly failed, as we have heard on many occasions in the depositions of the individual defendants. Many only succeeded in being discharged from their department but were vest all over again with a new title or a new function, Whereby they subsequently fall under the category of the persons implicated by the Prosecution. Darre was relieved from his official functions and even expelled, but could not obtain his official dismissal as Minister. Schacht had for this reason been preparing to break with Hitler for a long time; State Minister Popitz was executed as participant in the plot of 20 July 1944.
So we see that in spite of the legal situation, there was actually no possibility of a member of the Cabinet resigning against Hitler's will. a cohesion cooperation of the members must be established so as to consider the Reich Cabinet as an organization or group with in the meaning of the Charter. It means that this cohesion association must be guaranteed by the Cabinet meetings and the circulating procedure. I shall show by the following, that a collective cooperation of the members of the Cabinet did not exist, that moreover in its development even an absolute division of the Cabinet resulted. According to the evidence it results that that factors which overlap, have brought about the splitting of any internal cohesion of the Cabinet. These are the three factors which follow:
1.) The carrying through of Hitler's undivided way, which increases more and more up to an absolute dictatorship.
2.) The establishment of upper and lower ranks among the Cabinet ministers having equal rights within the Cabinet itself, through the authority to use orders of the General Plenipotentiary, Special Delegate etc.
3.) A carefully guarded secrecy, which closed to the individual Minister any view beyond his Department, and which accordingly precludes every possibility of a super-departmental coordination. In this relation it is necessary to consider the resulting development historically and to exhibit its principles. One could be inclined to assume With the Reich Cabinets until 1932 a "Cabinet solidarity". At that time Cabinet meetings were continuously talking place, where all bills and also differences of opinion on questions which effected the sphere of several ministers were submitted for consideration and decision. Majority of votes settled the decision. And, nevertheless, already for the situation of practice and science of that period, a collective responsibility of Ministers was rejected. In the authoritative "Book of reference of German constitutional Law" (Handbuch des deutschen Staatsrechts) by Anschuetz and Thoma, well-known lecturer on Constitutional Law, Freiherr Marschall von Biberstein wrote in 1930 on page 529: "General principles threw a most doubtful light upon the affirmation of collective responsibility for majority decisions, as, altogether, in jurisprudence the point of responsibility can only be in regard to rational beings.
A firm State practice in the sense of such in affirmation cannot be proved for the Reich; on the contrary: The competent ministers make themselves personally responsible.... Above all, German political practice does not know the principle of "Cabinet Solidarity" as it is acknowledge abroad, above all in England, with the consequence of a collective guarantee for all individual actions..." responsibility of minister to the Reichstag, but also in the proceedings before the State Tribunal, where the ministers could be indicted and sentenced for their activity - largely patterned after the English impeachment. of decisions by the Cabinet and thus on the free decisions of the ministers: in the right of the Reich Chancellor to determine policy, for which he then bore the sole responsibility. Chancellor; they were binding for the ministers. Biberstein wrote about this in his thesis, page 528: "Otherwise, in the encroachments which ... his (the minister's) free decision endured, through the inviolability of the Chancellor's directives. Since it was his duty to conform therewith, he stood in a position similar to that of a subordinate in the hierarchy of authorities in regard to the decrees of a superior: the individual test of the compliance with duty of his conduct was thus ... taken away from him, and, as far as this was in effect, his solo responsibility was, whether he had acted according to orders, and not whether he had acted correctly. For that, the responsibility was shifted to the one giving the orders." impeachment. democratic German form of state and practice of state that "Cabinet solidarity" did not exist, in spite of regular Cabinet meetings, and that the Ministers certainly did not work in cohesive cooperation when the Reich Chancellor in the Cabinet meeting utilized his right to determine policy.