During the whole period of its existence the NS Riders' Corps also strove to obtain this complete independence, but attained it only in part. In its leadership it remained under the command of the SA. No complete independence was given to the NS Riders' Corps for the reason that the Party leadership did not consider it politically reliable A condemnation of the NS rider corps would, under these circumstances, seem to be a grave injustice, quite apart from the fact that the reproach of preparing for a modern war should rather apply to those who were trained in motor vehicle driving or airplane flying than to those who devoted themselves to horse driving and breeding.
aims than the SA riders is represented by so-called medical units. itself strongly felt. Legal compulsion means that, based on the provisions of a law there exist decrees or statutes making service in an organization, for instance in the SA, compulsory. It applies to the greater portion of the so-called SA doctors. This is seen from the affidavit of Dr. Carrie (Affidavit general SA No. 74). In his affidavit it is stated that when the doctors refused service in these units, they were dismissed from the municipal services.
Moreover, who can find anything criminal in their activity? Their task consisted in training for first aid in case of accidents, in installation of medical aid stations and in sanitary service in case of catastrophies, as well as attending sports events. mostly with the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer, or at least that of Obergruppenfuehrer. The doctors in the SA were, up to the Groups, activein all the offices of the SA in an honorary capacity. As time went on a ?"Sanitaetssturm was established in every SA "Standarte" which on the average comprised 100 members. general, continuously dispatched to the individual SA units. It was practically arranged for each unit to have about 4 - 5 SA medical men. The training of the SA medical men was conducted by physicians within the framework of the Geneva Convention. Part of the medical men were even trained directly by the Red Cross. The duties of the medical personnel corresponded to a large extent to the duties of the Red Cross.
The affidavit of Dr. Menge, Hanover, states that a great number of water-sport-classes were taken over by order of the SA naval-SA stormtroops.
These naval-SA-units differed from other SA units in that hardly an old fighter was found in their ranks.
They are altogether an organization set up after the year 1933. Their duty consists exclusively in a water-sport activity. The compulsory joining of the SA was also due for the frontier protecting units, as we can see from the collection of affidavits. Here we see that we are dealing with a part of the SA which belonged to it only formally and for other than usual reasons. I may underline that it was a matter of joining the frontier protecting units, set up in the fall of 1931 under Bruening and Severin, which was compulsorily incorporated into the SA in the fall of 1933. I may also point out that the duties of the so-called Reich Board of Guardians for Youth Educations founded in 1932 went over to the sphere of the SA. In this Reich Board of Guardians for Youth Education there was a Chief of the Training Section, who is also found in the SA. To his sphere belong the so-called AA tasks, the so-called frontier protection tasks. These AA- tasks are mentioned in a document of the Prosecution. Thus, absolute evidence is furnished of the incorporation of the frontier protecting stormtroops into the SA in 1933. the Supreme SA-Leader of 7 October 1933. It shows that the Reich Minister of the Interior decreed with Law Br. I. A 5400/26.9. of 3 October 1933 that the emergency engineer service of the Technical Emergency Servide was to be transferred to the SA. personnel for the SA Engineer Stormtroops. It is therefore natural for these units to be used in catastrophes as they came from the Technical emergency Service.
A predominant part of SA members who came to the SA after 1933, i.e., members of the upper classes of the secondary Schools, official candidates and also members from industrial works and craft-trades, went into the SA not of their own free will but by reason of orders, decrees and regulations. Not even the Prosecution's subtle but not pertinent interpretation of the indictment can change that. The students, for example, served with the SA University office after they had become members of the local SA stormtroops. All these people could not vote before 1933. The election of March 1933 determined their evolution.
They can, in no way, be made for this responsible. They were born into this time, they are the victims of this time. They are the victims of the election of March 1933, which was carried out by the older generation. They believed they served the State which was recognized by the International World. The greaterpart of these young men were at the front. A large part sacrificed health and life for the Third Reich, which demanded every thing of them. In the belief in their duty, in the belief that they were fulfilling their tasks, they marched out. Deceived and disappointed a part of them returned home after the World War. And now they must be stamped as criminals by the indictment against the Organizations. In my collection of documents I have submitted a large number of decrees and regulations which exhibit the principle for the entry of these young people into the Organizations. I need not enumerate them separately, they are known to the Tribunal. Should these people now be punished because they fulfilled the duties and obeyed the laws, regulations, and statutes which were imposed on them? From this youth which was absorbed in these organizations came the fighters against the Nationalist-Socialist state.
I willshow you an example: State. This youth was born at a time when the first World War inflicted its wounds upon the European countries. This youth suffered most from the consequences of the unfortunate development which shortsighted men created in Versailles. This youth suffered because of this problem which the bulk of the German Nationa, as well as the Supreme SA leadership, always wanted to solve by peaceful means. The witness Gisevius also recognized this clearly. He stated that in theyears until 1938 no other mood could prevail among the masses of SA than in the masses of the German people. And this mood undoubtedly was that the very thought of war was a piece of insanity. He also stated that the assumption that the SA participated in war crimes must likewise be denied.
This treaty of Versailles and the chief postwar events; the blockade of the Republic and its battles against Communism; the currency inflation, the ruin of the middle classes, unemployment, civil warfare, party armies, Parliamentary chaos, laid the foundation for the young generation and for its development.
of the young generation within such organizations who did not vote for Hitler in 1933.
1933 could not be demonstrated to the High Tribunal through statistics. These statistical data are lacking because of the absence of approved witnesses. However, I can give a rather accurate record of the formations to the Tribunal which is necessary so that it may have a clear picture of the SA. This record is covered by the summary of collective declarations in lieu of oath. The Stahlhelm (Steelhelmet) was incorporated upon order as follows : with the first batch came 550,000 " with the second batch came 450,000 " In line with orders the following were transferred: Rider's Country Clubs with 200,000 " Watersport clubs with 50,000 " Frontier guard units with 100,000 " Auxiliary Engineers' units of the technical Energency Service 50,000 " On orders were also added : Medical Aid Associations and other Red Cross Formations; On the strength of Government decrees : medical doctors were transferred to the SA Medical Aid Service 60,000 " Also on orders the Kyffhaeuser Society with 1,500,000 " Incorporated were university students and students of technical high schools, by virtue of legal decree 100,000 " Students of technical and secondary schools -by virtue of decree of 9 September 1933 - and Religious Youth Societies by virtue of order- joined SA with 150,000 " On orders Brigade Erhard was added with 150,000 " Aviation sports Society Oberland and Frontbann 200,000 " Incorporated were civil servants, primarily men of the rising generation, by virtue of Government decree with 200,000 " The Honorary Leaders and Z.V. Leaders (leaders for emergency class) of SA 20,000 " Additional increases to SA 420,000 Of the 420,000 men 200,000 came from organizations of the Left parties, e.g. Red Front and Reichsbanner.
This brings the total membership up to 4,500,000 were as follows: Kyffhaeuser Society 1,500,000 " NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps) 450,000 " SS 250,000 " Political Leaders 150,000 " From 1934 until the time when the number of the members had reached 1 1/2 millions there resigned : War casualties and disabled men 350,000 " As a consequences of legal proceedings 40,000 " By transfer to other organizations 260,000 " Thus number of members reached 1,500,000 " Within the next few years a great change in membership took place. Part of the members dropped out by death and illness. These were replaced by the rising generation. They came mostly from the Reich-Finance-School (14 schools) with about 50,000 members, as well as from students and newcomers among the officials, who were legally bound to serve in an organization, from the Hitler Youth, whence they were transferred to the SA. The conclusion of evidence of 13 March 1946, Paragraph 6 A, Figure 2, enphasizes that it would be of importance whether the membership of the SA was generally a voluntary one or a result of a legal decree. The tenor of the speech proves clearly that there could not be a question of a volun tary membership of the SA in general, but that it is mostly a membership the basis of an order or under legal pressure.
The bulk of the masses were thus incorporated, as such on the basis of administrative decrees or on Hitler's orders, which according to the law concerning the unity of State and Party are legal decrees or have legal * racter. A condemnation therefore of them as a collective organization is not possible, as there is the lack of a uniform aim. was a National Police state. From the affidavits of many convicted member of the Stahlhelm, it can be seen that the attempts to resign from the SA were already, in 1933 and 1934, considered by the States Agencies as the expression of an anti-national attitude, unless the resignation was expl ned by very weighty reasons such as grave illness. Only health reasons were recognized. In this connection the decree SA 222 of the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior is characteristic, in which it says : "In every case an investigation is to be made as to the reasons for the resignation of the official from the party. If he did this because he disapproved of the program or the political tendency, he could not rema an official. But even if this supposition is not realized, the resignat of an employee from the Party can, on account of the close relationship between Party and State, lead to the conclusion that the employee lack the close alliance with the National-Socialist State or the necessary willingness for sacrifice."
is impossible for one to leave the SA after having been sworn in on the Fuehrer as one would any other association, and only s physical disability or another employment would permit one to resign from the SA. Other reasons nl leaves the one possibility: exclusion. The circular decree of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior admist in theory, although the exclusion from the Party and its organizations is designated as a severe punishment, the the possibility that the man in question, with his wife and children, might be deprived of work and broad. That this regulation has already been effectively practiced before appears from a judgment of the provincial labor tribunal, of Bielefeld to the effect that in case of exclusion from the SA, the employer was not authorized to continue to give work. (SA-Document 220). It is not surprising that in the National Socialist State regulations were carried out before they were put into force. the decree of 28 February 1939:
"This sort of legal new order corresponds to the principles of National Socialist State leadership. It is not like the procedure of the system state which first issued high-sounding laws, but could not execute them because the presuppositions hereto were lacking; aside from the fact that the government organs were too weak to do so. But the government of the Third Reich first created the positive necessary circumstances for the execution of a government measure and then issues the corresponding law". the testimony of the witness Hauffe, v. Valdenfels, as well as the affidavits of the SA Nos. 61 and 81 which, stress the impossibility of leaving. exclusion. The consequences of this exclusion were, in addition to an automatic police supervision; endangering or losing one's economic position or profession, especially in the case of officials and employees, or the economic boycott and the danger of imprisonment on account of political unreliability. So-called political reliability was the indespensable assumtion for every profession which was obtainable only within the organization and from which the administration was not inclined to depart with regard to alleged or actually existing professional confirmation or family relations.
Political reliability was demanded by the Third Reich. Therefore, it demanded by regulations, serv. in the organization. If one excluded oneself, then it meant that which was written in the affidavit No. 81:
"It was know in wide circles that a refusal to obey regulations of the state and of the Party led to the supervision of one's activity since it meant excluding oneself from the service for the racial community. as criminal aims, methods and activities of any kind were unknown. This appear clearly from the collection of 17,089 deposition in lieu of oath. Moreover the retaining of membership by enrolled persons on the basis of an order or legal coercion cannot constitute a legal charge if their compulsory enrolment has been proved. To summarize finally once more, I can say 1. It has been proved that when illegal actions occurred, these acts cannot be charged therewith;2. that the SA Leadership did neither order nor suffer these viola tions, and, therefore is not guilty;3. that these excesses are in way to be traced back to a criminal leadership, should not be declared criminal an account of those violations by individual members of the organization, after it has been established that the leadership at no time aimed at criminal actions, and the bulk of the members of the organization never committed criminal acts.
The fact that several of the principal defendants were honorary leaders of the SA in no way alters, the evidence presented in regard to the SA. When Hermann Goering headed the SA for a short time it had only a few thousand men.
At that time it was nothing but the Reichsbanner for the *PD. wreckage. A few leaders -- five altogether -- who had not proved satisfactory, were eliminated in the events of 30 June 1934. This is the only cricism which can be leveled against Roehm, the Chief of Staff at that time, who though in his political actions strove for order and integrity did not get rid of them in due time -- thereby playing into the hands of his opponents. In this, four percent of the High Leader Corps are involved; still a small fraction which never could justify condemnations. Among the salaried Obergruppenfuehrers and Gruppenfuehrers of the period from 1934 to 1945 there was not one who had been previously convicted. This was a requirement which the Supreme SA Leadership had to demand of its members because of the regulation that the ordinary SA member's admission was contingent upon a police certificate. None of them was a so-called ruined career. They all had been trained for a definite profession, with good possibilities for advancement, before they took steps to enter as a salaried member into the Leadership Corps of the SA. been conclusively shown by the evidence. Roehm did everything to strengthen the communal ideas of the German people. His aim was to increase the confidence already won. He waged war on the excesses during the political revolution. He wished to win over the trade unions, not to destroy them. Lutze, in himself a weak personality, repeatedly challenged incidents and measures of the Party. He opposed the party leadership. In an affidavit we submitted in evidence, it is stated that he condemned the so-called Nazism of the NSDAP. This is also the chief explanation of his well-known uncompromising opposition to Himmler and Bormann. There was hardly a question which he, as SA Chief of Staff, agreed with the two men. This applies especially to the question of the Herrenrasse and the attitude towards the Jews; to the Church question and also to the attitude towards political opponents.
unspeakable disaster, which has befallen the whole world, then they might proceed from the individual point of view. This standpoint we also find in a speech of Pope Pius XII, which has made on 20 February 1946: "Erroneous conceptions are circulating in the world which declare a man guilty and responsible solely because he was a member of or belonged to a community, without trying to examine or to investigate whether there really exists a personally responsibility for such acts of commission or omission. Redeemer, who, in the mysterious planning of His always loving Providence, is solely the absolute Master of events, and as such, when He thus decides in His eternal wisdom, links up the fates of guilty and innocent, responsible and irresponsible persons.
DR. PELCKMANN: May I call the attention of the Court for a few minutes.
In my plea on Monday I omitted important statements concerning Germanization, the Einsatzgruppen, the concentration camps, and mass exterminations, etc. Instead of that I referred to my written plea. The President repeatedly stated that the Court would study these written statements of all the defense counsel. Yesterday -
MR. PRESIDENT: When did they receive them. I say, we will start with them when we receive the statements; we have not asyet received them.
DR. PELCKMANN: I was about to say. Today I learned through the General Secretary, and the translation section that the English translation will not be prepared for the President, or the Tribunal; whether there is a Russian or French translation for the Judges, I do not know. My plea without the parts I omitted, and, particularly without the appendix, which I often quoted and I repeatedly mentioned in my plea, is incomplete and can not be understood. I therefore hand the Tribunal a complete copy of my plea with the appendix in German, and ask respectively for a translation.
MR. PRESIDENT: That will be done in every case. Dr. Gawlik?
DR. GAWLIK: I shall accept and I ask permissionto submit a complete copy of my plea for translation as they are submitted.
MR. PRESIDENT: Yes, that will be done. Would the Prosecution like to begin today?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: May it please the Tribunal.
In 1938 Hitler spoke in the Reichstag:
"National Socialism has given the German people and completely ..... There is no institution in this State which is not National Socialist."
German people. We know how and for what purposes the Nazi Party mobilized and organized the German nation - for world dominion at the cost of war and murder. The entire end complete possession of Germany by National Socialism meant the possession of the people, body and soul, by the organizations of the National Socialist Party and Government.
For what purpose were the Nazis seeking this possession of the people?
Their aims were to have a controlled but fanatical police state geared for military aggression. If one imagines an "ersatz" Machiavelli presenting what this required, he well might have considered necessary:
1) A quick method of registering your laws and decrees. For this
2) Quick suppression of any signs of opposition or freedom of thought.
Here you want an espionage service and a police
3) A complete check and control of public opinion. This is pro
4) A Praetorian Guard who will rid you not only of any "turbulent priest" but of any person with a creed of their own, and so
5) A spreading executive hand which will grasp the population in its clutch of physical training and mental preparation for war;general violence is necessary; which will hold it firm in the ideologies of terror at home and abroad.
What could be more suitable than the SA who had just won "the battle of the street'
6) An instrument to turn your existing military forces to your purposes; to make them ready to commit any act even if it qualities; to give unquestining assent to the enslavement of other nations; to cooperate and hold the ring for the agencies human spirit.
This was the function which the General Staff internal suppression, external trained and calculated force. These are the eternal interlocked weapons without which tyranny cannot flourish. These are but other names for the Organizations which we have indicted as criminal and by which these defendants and their colleagues were able to lead and organize and possess a nation.
When Mr. Justice Jackson addressed this Tribunal on 28 February he emphasized that it was not our purpose to convict the whole German people of crime. I say again that we do not seek to convict the people of Germany. Our purpose now is to protect them and to give them opportunity to rehabilitate them selves in the esteem and friendship of the world. But how can this be done if we leave amongst them unpunished and uncomdemned those elements of Nazidom which were most responsible for the Nazi tyranny and crime and which, as this Tribunal may well believe, are beyond conversion to the ways of freedom and righteousness?
Nor is it only the German people that we seek to protect. All Europe needs protection. Consider the position of Europe today. Among the Germans who were Hitler's there are many thousands of men and women who with their own hands have done murder - murder not, perhaps of a single person, but of many. Hundreds of thousands, nay, millions more, became disciples of their Fuehrer's creed of hate and cruelty. Amongst them are those whose profession and training was to command and lead, militarily and politically, men who are still as fanatical and ruthless in their lust for power as at any time during the last 25 years. You remember the words:
"Fight? Why do you always talk of fighting.
regulate it differently! Why must you always talk of fighting?
For you have every power!
Over what do you fight? Outer-politically?
fight if it is required. Inner-politically?
you. We do not mean the fitht of all against all.
We do not fight against the other, but we fight because of the other."
sovereignty. They are not forgotten in a day. people of Europe? Already the difficulties of this unhappy continent are overwhelming. Apart from these who come within the definition of these Organizations, vast numbers of fanatical adherents of Nazidom must in any event remain at large.
We have a whole generation of the German people who kno no other ways than these prescribed for them by their Nazi rulers young men and women whose first lessons were taught by Nazi teachers, whose education was had in Nazis schools, and 28 Aug A LJG 22-1 Gallagher whose sport and recreation were found In the military exercises of the SA.
Are the leaders of Nazi Germany - in the shape of the members of those Organizations - to be let loose to work their influence upon such fertile ground?
The law is a living thing. It is not rigid and unalterable. Its purpose is to serve mankind and it must grow and change to meet the changing needs of society. The needs of Europe today Lave no parallel in history. Never before has the society of Europe faced the problem or the danger of having in their midst millions of ruthless, fanatical men, trained and educated in murder and racial hatred - and in war. It is a situation which, were there or were there not precedents from the past, would justify and indeed compel unusual legal provision. In fact, as the Tribunal will remember from the speech of Mr. Justice Jackson, there are ample precedents for the procedure which we are asking you to institute. If you are satisfied that those Organizations as a whole are criminal, that the great majority of the members of these Organizations knowingly and voluntarily supported the criminal policies, and participated in the criminal activities of the leaders of the Nazi Party, then it is your duty under the Charter to declare them criminal. You may well think that your duty under the Charter is only commensurate with your duty to Germany, to Europe and the World. clear. It is a practical application of the sound theory of punishment which we learnt in our youth - from, among others, that great German thinker, Kant. If men use society merely as a means to their own ends, then society is justified in putting them outside society. The immensity of the problem does not excuse its non-solution. The failure to perform this legal duty may well spell terror and racial persecution throughout a continent, and for the third time in our adult lives, world war. ing what is, if you will allow me to say so, a careful and learned 28 Aug A LJG 22-2a Gallagher argument from Dr. Klefisch.
The criticism, however, which I should venture to make is that it is remote from the essential fact-finding function of this stage of the trial. The first 30 pages are in reality an attack on Articles 9 and 10 of the Charter, and the conclusion which is drawn that the Tribunal should use the word 'may' in Article 9 as a basis for saying on purely a priori reasoning that no Organization can be criminal is, in our submission, to make nonsense of articles 9 and 10, and to fly in the face of their connotation as well as their intendment.
In the succeeding parts of the argument Dr. Klefisch makes certain particular submissions to which attention might be drawn. and by whom must crimes be committed in order to be imputed to the Organization? To this we say that the practical answer presents no difficulties. No one can lay down categorically how many grains make a heap, but equally, no one can deny that he knows a heap when he sees one. Again, it is easy to decide and sensible grounds what crimes are within the general aims of the organization. The Prosecution not only accept but adopt the preposition that in the case of each organization certain crimes can be said to be typical and repetitive, and they draw attention to the number of such typical and repetitive crimes which occur in the evidence.
Similarly, no difficulty is found in the words " in connection with an individual defendant." To say that if an individual defendant committed his crime in a capacity other than that of a member of the organization, Article 9 is not complied with, is to view this case in a non-existent vacuum. It is the whole burden of the prosecution's case that individuals and organizations are so interlocked that the common end of internal and external domination is omnipresent. members were not aware of the criminal purpose of the organizations. Let us once and for all tear aside the artificial suggestion that large sections of the adherents to the Nazi Party were going about 28 Aug A LJG 23-1 Saslaw in blinkers.
It is a travesty of the facts and and insult to their intelligence.
We agree with Dr. Klefisch that non-participation in crimes under Article 6 of the Charter and a lack of will to support the policies and activities of the organization are the preconditions of innocence. It is the basis of our whole submission that, to use Dr. Klefisch's own words, "The members did subordinate and work continually for the aims of the organizations and the Nazis."
THE PRESIDENT: Would be convenient to break off there or do you want to go on a little further?
(The Tribunal adjourned until 29 August 1946, at 1000 hours.)
29 Aug M LJG 1-1 Perrin
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases, when the court adjourned, I was dealing with some points in the memorandum of Dr. Klefisch, and 1 continue to deal with that document, Much emphasis has been laid by Dr. Klefisch and by all Defense Counsel on the serious consequences which will accrue to the persons affected by a declaration of guilt, not only to these against whom subsequent proceedings may be taken but to the others besides.
It is said "that the stigma inflicted upon members of organizations declared criminal would ... prove indelible ... Millions of members of organizations declared criminal would remain branded for the rest of their lives. One would point at them, saying "Look, there goes an SA criminal". But if they are guilt, if they have supported and assisted in a system which entailed throwing the world into war, reviving the horrors of slavery, persecution and mass murder, ought they not to be so branded? This can be no injustice: it is less - far less - than their desert. It is the only hope for Germany and the world that her people realize and repent their responsibility for what has happened. Dr. Servatius has asked you to excuse Ortsgruppenleiters because they are members of the lover middle class who lacked political experience. Can it really be that only the upper classes of the German people are able to recognize aggressive war for world domination, slavery, murder and persecution, as crimes? You have new seen and heard many witnesses who - some on their own admission, were themselves deeply involved in hideous crime. Have you been able to discern a sense of guilt or shame or repentance? Always it is someone who gave the orders that is to blame; never he who puts these orders into execution. Always it is some other agency of the State who was responsible; to support that 29 Aug M LJG 1-2 Perrin state and co-operate with these other agencies is without criticism.