If this is the mind of these people today, there can be no more pressing need nor greater justification for branding these guilty as criminal. Observations on the Defense these three Organizations Her which the British Delegation has taken particular responsibility an which, in the considered submission of all the four prosecuting Powers, are criminal. But before dealing with that evidence I trust the Tribunal will bear with me if I make one or two general observations upon the defense which has been put forward on behalf of all these Organizations.
In view of the word of Dr. Boehm, I desire to submit that no one can say hereafter that every opportunity has not been afforded them for their defense. An elaborate procedure has been evolved to obtain and place before you their evidence. 102 witnesses have been heard before your Commissioners - witnesses selected by Defense Counsel from the many thousands of members of the Organizations available. You have the transcripts of their evidence. Of these witnesses Defense Counsel have selected 20 who have given evidence in this Court and whom you have seen and heard yourselves, In addition to this oral testimony, you have also had submitted to you the substance of no less than 136,213 affidavits for the SS, 155,000 for the Political Leaders, 2,000 for the Gestapo, 10,000 for the SA and 7,000 for the SD, a total of 310,213. And you have also had presented before your Commissioners another 1,800 affidavits either in substance or in whole, the majority of which are new contained in the transcript of the Commissioners' proceedings. all the witnesses called before your Commissioners is untrue. You yourselves have seen and heard some of these witnesses, selected by Defense Counsel presumably because they were thought to be the most reliable and the ones most likely to impress you.
Their evi-
29 Aug M LJG 1-3 Perrin dence is no better.
of and participation in, the experiments on human beings and was presented with a file of his own incriminating correspondence. bookstalls and the other amenities of Buchenwald. Dachua, he said was a recreation camp..
Brill, who had served as an Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lt. Col.) in the SS division Leibstandardt from June until August, 1941, on the Eastern front, knew nothing of the Einsatzgruppe, the slaughter of Jews in the Eastern territories, or of the treatment of the peoples of Poland and Russia taken into captivity for forced labour. Had the conditions in June become so changed from what they had been two months before, when Himmler had said to all the officers that vision:
"Very frequently the members of the Waffen SS here.
These thoughts come to me today when your men, who help them a great deal.
Exactly thousands; where we had to have the toughness Poles."
General Hausser, one time Commander of the SS division "Das Reich", and subsequently Commander of a Corps, Army and Army Group, knew nothing of SS atrocities. He had never heard, of the massacre of Lidice. away his order of the 25th of February, 1945, encouraging the lynching of allied pilots, said that the order "slipped out" from his command post after he had refused to issue the draft submitted to him by his Staff Officer.
Organization in Essen during the lather part of the war, and himself responsible for circulating Himmler's orders to ensure "the discipline and output of foreign workers", denied all knowledge of the brutal treatment of slave labour. how "in the Spring of 1933, the S.A. in all German localities streamed into the churches. aged 44, denied having ever heard of the boycott of April 1933. Gestapo. Having seen the documents that were presented to him in crossexamination, can you believe one word of what he said? of almost every witness that has been called to defend these organizations.
Consider this evidence from another angle. We know that so-called "demonstrations" were organized and carried out throughout the whole Reich against the Jews on the night of 9/10 November, 1938, during the course of which 35 Jews were murdered, 20,000 seized and incarcerated for no other offence than that they were Jews; we know that 177 synagogues were destroyed by fire or demolished, that 7,500 stores were destroyed, and that the cost of damage to glass windows alone amount to 6 million Reichsmarks. even the Supreme Party Court reported:
"The public, down to the last man, realizes whether this is admitted or not.
When all must have been organized by the Party."
"Whether this is admitted or not!" Can you find one single man among the 102 witnesses that have been called on behalf of the Party Organizations who is prepared to admit it - or anything like it? Can you find one word of admission from among the affidavits that have been submitted by over 312,000 members of these Party organizations?
If it was not the Political Leaders, if it was not the SA or the SS, if it was not the Gestapo or SD what in the name of all common sense was it that organized and directed these demonstrations? out Germany. We know that in 1943, it even became necessary - necessary only in order to increase production and for no reasons of humanity - to alter "the hitherto prevailing treatment of Eastern workers" and for the Party Chancellery and the RSHA to issue orders to all Political Loaders down to Ortsgruppenleiters, and presumably to all stations of the SD and Gestapo that "injustices, insults, trickery, mistreatments, etc.
, must be discontinued. Punishment by beating is forbidden."
But can you find one single one from among all the 102 witnesses and the persons who have swing affidavits on oath, who has ever seen or heard of the mistreatment of foreign laborers, save only in one or two exceptional instances? of the persecution and annihilation of the Jews, of the dread work of the Gestapo, of the atrocities within the concentration camps, of the illtreatment of slave labour, of the intention and preparation to wage aggressive war, of themurder of brave soldiers, sailors and airmen. And they reply with "the everlasting no". You may be reminded of the words of a great Irishmen:
"Falsehood has a perennial spring". ponsible - the Corps of political Leaders, the SA and the SS. have been made by Counsel and witnesses for the Defense, which it is convenient to mention before dealing with the evidence.
Political Leaders; that they were never regarded as such, and had no authority or political tasks; that they were subordinate to the staff officers on the Ortsgruppe whom the Prosecution has agreed to exclude; that they were completely unimportant and in practice little more than themessenger boys of their Ortsgruppenleiter. When you examine the evidence you find them implicated in criminal activities of many kinds. I would ask you particularly to bear this in mind - that it was the normal procedure in the Corps of Political Leaders to pass nothing in writing below the rank of Ortsgruppenleiter. The Organization Book of the Party prescribed "In principle, the Blockleiter will settle in the same way.
Correspondence will only practicality."
The witness Meyer-Wendeborn confirmed that this was so in practice:
"Between the Blockleiters and Zellenleiters on positions, not to make than too much work."
In view of that, you may well think it remarkable that we have happened, to find so many written documents as we have which directly implicate the Zell- and Blockleiters. In dealing with the evidence I shall draw your attention to these documents. But I would also emphasize the other evidence you hove of the vitally important role the Zell- and Blockleiters played. suggest, and various documents have been submitted by the Defense Counsel to establish this contention.
Be it right or wrong, it matters little. You will remember that they were included as Hoheitstraeger in the Party's Organization Book which states:
"Among the Politische Leiter, the bearers of sovereignty assume a special position."
It is answered that the Organization Book is inaccurate. The same is said of the "SA-Mann" - an equally inconvenient publication for the members of the SA. Is there any official publication issued by the officail Party publishers which is accurate? and Blockleiters formed the essential asis of the whole Party system. Gauleiter Kaufmann admitted:
"Blockleiter and Zellenleiter were the executive organs of the Ortsgruppenleiter."
Zellenleiter Schneider was asked:
"Would you agree with me that without the carried on the tasks they had to perform?"
and answered:
"Yes, that is correct." They were much more than the messenger boys they are now made out to have been Hirt staged that only persons who were "completely politically reliable" were appointed either as staff officers in the Gaus, Kreis, and arts or as Zelland/or Blockleiters and that the people who held the positions of Zell-and Blockleiters appeared to be suppurations the Nazi Party. The evidence shows the kind of tasks with which they were entrusted which included the responsibility of assisting in forming the political judgment" of the members.
their area.
(2) It has been suggested that Political Leaders -- particularly in war time -- were compelled against their Well to assume their appointments. But the whole basis of the system was voluntary service, paid or unpaid, and it is confirmed by their own witness Meyer Wendeborn. Let me quote from his cross-examination before the commission:
Q "May I take it that Political Leaders were all voluntarily occupying their offices?"
A "Yes."
Q "And that also applies, does it not, to the Zellenleiter and Blockleiter ?"A "The Zellenleiter and Blockleiter were appointed through the staff.
However, if a person considered himself not up to not have the time, we looked for another one."
Q "And it was decidedly voluntary on the part of the the position?"
A "Yes." it could only have happened in the most exceptional cases. If the holders of these offices were required to be "completely politically reliable" it would be remarkable to find among them many opponents of the Party forced unwilling: to act.
(3) It is said also that because, as in peace time, their appointments were not confirmed, their oath taken only at irregular intervals and because they were given no uniform, they were not, in the words of the Indictment, "according to common Nazi terminology Politisehe Leiter of any grade or rank."
I submit that there can be no substance in such an argument. They performed the same tasks, were regarded as the same officials and hold the same authority and influence as these whom they replaced.
(4) Again, it is suggested that there was no "corps" or organization of Political Leaders; but the evidence shows that Politische Leiter of all class formed a close and well-defined Corps. They are described as a "Corps" in the Organization Book. Together they had a common purpose:
"the complete penetration of the German nation with the National Socialist spirit."
They were a common uniform. They were issued with a common identity card -common to themselves but distinct from the rest of the population. Yearly they took their common oath to their Fuehrer:
"I pledge eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler. I pledge by him."
And, as the Organization Book says of each one of them:
"The Political Leader is inseparably tied to the ideology and the organization of the NSDAP."
(5) There is one further matter upon which I ought to say a word of explanation. It has been argued by the Defense that a great number of the Amtsleiter on the staffs of the various Hoheitstrager ought not to be included in any declaration of criminality that you make against the Corps of Political Leaders. In the same way as the Blockleiters were said to be innocent, harmless messenger boys, so, too, it is said that these Amtsleiter were harmless and innocent expert advisers to their respective Gau-, Kreis- or Ortsgruppenleiter. They may have been expert advisers, but they were much more besides, and they certainly were neither innocent nor harmless. They were properly appointed political leaders -- persons who were "completely politically reliable" and supporters of the Nazi Party. All of them, just as the Hoheitstrager themselves, took their annual oath of allegiance binding them in blind obedience to their Fuehrer. All of them, although naturally they received their instructions concerning their particular fields of activity from the State Department to which they belonged, nevertheless were subject to the orders of their Hoheitstrager upon all political matters and in all matters of Party discipline. You may think that these men exercised as dangerous an influence as any ether political leader because between them they were in closest contact with all grades of society and with all professions and trades. We have not documents directly implicating every class of these so-called nonpolitical political leaders but a great many are directly involved by the documents you have seen. I will not enumerate them new. I shall draw your attention to them as I discuss the evidence. It is the submission of the Prosecution that from that evidence and from the general evidence of the conditions in Germany and of the influence of the Political Leaders, you are entitled and, indeed, compelled to draw the inference that if the purpose and activity of that Organization was criminal, then every member of the staffs of the Gau, Kreis and Ortsgruppen ought to be included.
Let it not be thought that because we have all deliberately excluded these members of the Ortsgruppenleiters' staffs, no have done so on account of their innocence. That decision was taken for practical rather than any other reason and it may well be that that decision was wrong. various Party organizations such as the DAF, NSV, Labor Welfare, Students' and Womens' organizations who were also known as Politische Leiter. Their numbers are given as one and a half million. Let me once again make it clean that if such political leaders existed the Prosecution do not seek a declaration of criminality against them. We include, only Reichsleiters, Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, Ortsgruppenleiters, Zellenleiters and Blockleiters and the Amtsleiters or heads of offices on the staffs of the Reichsleitung, Gauleitung and Kreisleitung -these Political leaders who, organized on a geographical basis, were responsible for the political control of the people and the execution and administration of Nazi policy.
All others are excluder According to the Party Organization Book for 1943 they number 600,000. It is said by the Defence that that figure allows for no replacements and th the total figure of all who have at any time held these positions is much greater. Upon that I make two points. First, the figures given in the Organization Book show the maximum establishment allowed for each Gau and Krei In Practice not all these offices were filled- in urban districts there would be no Agricultural amt: In Gaus where there were no Universities there would be no Political Amtsleiter for university teachers. Secondly, the 1934 figure of 600,000 includes the Political Leaders of nine foreign Gaus- six Austrian, two Polish and one in the Sudetenland- none of which had existed before 1938, so that during the first five years of the Nazi regime the total possible number of Political Leaders must have been considerably less than 600,000, The extract submitted by the Defence from the pamphlet "Der Hoheitstrager" illustrates the increase which took place in the Hoheitstraeger alone between 1935 and 1939: the figure rose from 291, 671, to 581,650. In view of these considerations it is submitted that, allowing for replacements, the total number of persons who at any time held these positions in the Corps of Political Leaders which we include for the purposes of a declaration of criminality cannot have greatly exceeded the figure of 600,000 which we have submitted. And I add that ample allowance must be made for this, not only through natural causes but through active service and bombings. It was these men and women who constituted the very care of the National Socialism which led the 48 million voters of Germany in the way and to the end which we have seen.
Let us consider the evidence against them under its main headings. We Will see not only how they themselves directly participated in crime but also how they actively and knowingly assisted and co-operated with the other organizations in the execution of their common criminal purpose.
With to the control of the State, Bormann writing to Gauleiters in June 1941 stated :
"For the first time in German history the Fuehrer consciously and compl tely has the leadership of the people in his own hand." We see one of the ways in which the leadership Corps assisted in putting the leadership of the people into the Fuehrer's own hand from the evidence of the Political Leaders'activity during the voting in 1936 and 1938, and we see here the participation of all ranks of Political Leaders. tion with the plebiscite of 1938. Stuetzpunktleiters were to report beforehand all persons in their district whom they might assume with certainty would vote "no". The orders were issued by the SD jointly to the Stuetzpunkleiters and to all heads of sections of the Security Service. The heads of sections were to support the Stuetzpunktleiters locally as much as possible. It was said by the Defence that the Stuetzpunktleiters referred to in that file were Stuetzpunktleiters of the S.D. and not of the Political Leadership. Even if you accept that explanation it makes no difference, for it was expressly stated that the whole matter was to be "carried out with closest collaboration with the Ortsgruppenleiters of the Party." The Political Leader could hardly have had any doubts as to what was in store for the people whom they reported when the orders contain the significant paragraph:
"The tremendous responsibility which the Stuetziunktleiters have, in pa ticular with regard to this report, is stressed once more. The Stuetzpunkleiters must clearly understand the potential consequences for the Persons contained in their report." after the plebiscite had taken place showing the means by which the voting papers of suspected persons were checked by the use of skimmed milk and colourless typewriters. You will remember also the methods employed to free doubtful supporters of the party to vote:
"The wife of the Jew Bielschowski who was dragged along just before closing time and voted "no" as can be proved."
"The labourer Otto Wiegand had to be requested four times to record his vote on the day of the election and finally only voted under force."
"The husband . . . . recorded his vote. To be sure this was probably exclusively for fear of renewed arrest." And yet again in what must be, perhaps, one of the most dreadful documents in all this trial:
"The Jehovah's witness Robert Siering and his wife deposited their vote after both had been advised of their duty to vote by the police in Griefstedt and had been threatened with the removal of their child in case of non-participation." No one can pretend that these things were happening only in Erfurt. In the Gau Coblenz the Kreisgeschaftsfuehrer of Kochem "where supervisory control was ordered in several Ortsgruppen" assured the SD that it was mostly women who voted "no" or invalidly. who had refused to vote, demonstrations which Mr. Justice Jackson so vividly described in his opening speech. was active. It will be remembered that in Bremen, Kreisleiters, Ortsgruppenleiters and Stuetzpunktleiters were concerned in reporting all civil servant who did not vote in the election which took place on 29 1936.
Dr. Servatius brushes this evidence aside with a comment for which the is no scrap of evidence in support he says :
"It is shown that the commanding agency of the Party in no way enters into action. These are merely individual measures of ether agencies. No general practice or knowledge can be deduced from that." It is unnecessary for me to say more.
The control and supervision of the German people was as much the task of the Political Leaders as of the SD and Gestapo. Of all the Political Leaders the Blockleiters were the most essential for this purpose. The kept their index cards of every householder, index cards which famed the basis of the "political judgment," which the Blockleiter, Zellenleiter and Ortsgruppenleit in co-operation with each other, were to pronounce. Again and again the Defence both before the Commission and before the Tribunal have bridled at and denied the suggestion that Blockleiters were used as spies. But what else were they when their index cards were to be completed from information which they would "have sufficient opportunity to obtain by means of conversations with the Germans?" They too were urged to make certain of the accuracy of their reports. played. In the party Organization book the Blockleiter is directed that:
"it is his duty to find, people disseminating damaging rumours and to report then to the Ortsgruppe so that they may be reported to the respective State authorities." by Political Leaders in the persecution of the Churches. In cooperation with the Gestapo and the SD the Political Leaders from the highest to the lowest took active part in suppressing the influence of the Churches. lines of page 18 which deals with Bormann's decree, which is well known to the Tribunal, and I can go on at the words on page 18. leiters and Zellenleiters. You will remember the file of reports for February 1939 of the Ortsgruppenleiters in Darmstadt cn ecclesiastical questions.
"Blockleiter and Party member Kiel informs me that meetings of the confessional front are again taking place."
And another in connection with a Pastor Strack:
"This gentleman should really be rapped on the knuckles seriously for once."
reports. The SD and the Gestapo were informed about the confessional front meetings reported by the Blockleiters. So also was the unfortunate Pastor Strack, the priest who was "sufficiently well known and ripe for the concentration camp or special court." Thuringia who would have to make the reports required on the way in which the results of the 1938 plebiscite were received by the people "particularly in small towns and villages?" out what the Catholic and Protestant Clergy were saying about the Asnchluss during their services? who else but they were in a position to report whether the Church bells were rung in the evening after the Asnchluss speech in Vienna? organized to disrupt the service in Freising Church in 1935 in which the Kreisleiterin of the Nazi Party Women's organization was taking a loading part. that the Nazi Government were enabled to carry out their criminal aims. The Political Leaders were an essential element in the acquisition of this control They supported and executed the orders of a government which they knew from the first pursued policies which were wrong by methods which were criminal. All knew of their avowed purpose to persecute the Jews. All knew of the Gestapo, the Concentration Camps and the Nazi practice of arrest and incarceration without trial. yet they continued actively to support that Government and to tighten its stranglehold upon the German people. The whole of Dr. Servatius' argument as to the position of the Political Leaders after 1933 shows the grip in which Germany was held by the iron framework of the Party -- a political "Iron Maiden" squeezing a people the their death. recognized policy and practice of the Nazi Party, the fact that men voluntarily served their Party in an executive position is in itself sufficient to prove their participation in criminal activity. But we have concrete evidence of the direct participation in the persecution of the Jews by Political Leaders -and again, by Political leaders of all ranks. Within less than a year of the Nazi Government coming to power there is evidence that the Corps of Political Leaders were inciting the people of Germany to persecute the Jews.
It is hardly possible to imagine that in a civilized State in the year 1933 instructions should be issued to the Political Leaders under the title "Jew Baiting." Yet that was happening. Kreisleiters in Gau Koblenz were to check lists of Jewish firms and businesses in their district. Once again the importance of accuracy is emphasized. Committees were to be set up within the various Kreis, Ortsgruppen and Stuetzpunkten which had the "task of directing and supervising the communities" in Jew baiting. They were to contain the policy which had been inaugurated by the party with the boycott in April of that year:
"The Kreisleiter will point out in all gatherings of members or in all public gatherings that the Jew in all countries is again carrying out a low attack which is greatly harmful to Germany. It must be made clear to the masses that no German may buy from a Jew."
In view of this evidence; in view of Dr. Servatius' admission that there was no objection on the part of the Political Leaders to the Nuremberg Decrees and that they welcomed measures which tended to restrict the influence of the Jews; in viewof the part we know they played in the 1938 demonstrations, can th by any doubt that throughout those years they were actively participating in the continuous slander and persecution of the Jewish people? It would be strange indeed if it were not so when we see Heydrich's order to the SD issued on the night of 9/10 November 1938:
"The Chiefs of the State Police or their deputies must get in telephonic contact with the Political Leaders (Gauleitung or Kreisleitung) who have jurisdiction over their districts and have to arrange a joint meeting with the appropriate inspector or commander of the Ordnungspolizei to discuss the organization of the demonstration. At those discussions the Political Leaders have to be informed that the German Police have received from the Reichsfuehrer SS the following instructions, in accordance with which the Political Leaders Should adjust their own measures."
29 Aug M LJG 4-1a Ninabuck It is indeed curious that these instructions should have been issued if all the Gauleiters had been so strongly opposed to such measures as Gauleiters Kaufmann, Streicher, Sauckel and Wahl say they were. of the Political Leaders at these demonstrations, we know that 36 Jews were killed. Of these 36 killed, 4 were murdered other by Ortsgruppenleiters or Blockleiters. It was a Court composed of Gauleiters and other Political Leaders who saw fit to suspend or pronounce only miner punishments in the case of all the murders committed during these demonstrations by members of the Party, the SS, the SA, and of the Corps of Political Leaders. And for what reasons!
"In such cases as when Jews were killed without an not be determined.
At heart the men were convinced the Party."
If these witnesses for the Defense that you have heard here did not understand who was responsible for these demonstrations, it Was perfectly clear to the members of the Supreme Party Court, In France lists of Jews for "collective expatriation" - which meant, of course, deportation to the East - were made out in agreement with the Hoheitstrager.
But knowledge of those deportations and of the treatment of Jews in the occupied territories was not confined to the Political Leaders in France. The August 1944 edition of the information circular, "Die Lage", contained exact particulars of what was happening in Hungary.
"It was a matter of course that the German offices in Hungary did everything possible after March 19th to eliminate the Jewish element as rapidly and as completely as was at all possible. In view of the proximity of the Russian front, they commenced with the cleaning up of the north-eastern area where the Jewish element was the strongest numerically. Then the Jews were collected In the remaining Hungarian provinces and transported to Germany or German controlled territories..... 100,000 Jews 29 Aug M LJG 4-2a Ninabuck remained in the hands of the Hungarians to be employed in labour battalions.
By the appointed day, the 9th July, the Hungarian provinces were without any Jews. Here remarkable consistency and severity were used in the shortest possible time." know that Doenitz contributed and that Gauleiter Kaufmann "might have received it". Moreover, it appears from what has been written on the copy we possess that that copy found its way to the NSDAP in the village of Hochen near Aachen. Doenitz must have known what it contained; so must every other high-ranking Nazi official. Did Kaufmann and all his follow Gauleiters know nothing of this hideous policy that their Government was pursuing? They say so, but they lie. Will you look at Document 49 of the document book which has been submitted in defense of the Corps of Political Leaders. It is a confidential information bulletin issued by the Nazi Party from the Party Chancellery on 9th October 1942. It deals with the preparatory measures for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and rumours concerning the conditions of the Jews in the East. It is a document which bears in the margi the remark "Open only for G and K" which may mean for Gau and Kreis. But it shows beyond all question that knowledge of these things went far below Kreis. Listen to what it says:
"While the final solution of the Jewish question is being worked out, discussions are lately going on among the population of various parts of the Reich territory concerning 'very severe measures' against the Jews, particularly those in the Eastern territories. Investigations have shown that such statements mostly in distorted or exaggerated form - were passed on by men on leave from various armies employed in the East who personally had the opportunity to observe such measures." possible to exaggerate the "very severe measures" which the soldiers on leave from the East were discussing - and must have been discussing ever since September 1941 in every village and homestead throughout Germany. But even if they were exaggerated, 29 Aug M LJG 4-3a Ninabuck they are not denied.
The article, which I append as a footnote, makes 5 main points:
a) The measures curried out up to that date, namely, elimination of Jews from the various walks of the German people, and expelling the Jews completely from Reich territory were no longer possible by emigration.
b) The next generation will no longer consider this question as so vital. Therefore the problem must be served by this generation.
c) The complete segregation and elimination of the millions of Jews residing in the European economic sphere remains a compelling necessity of the German peoples' struggle for existence.
d) Starting with the Reichs territory and then going ever to the other European countries included in the final solution the Jews will in a steady plan be shipped to the East into large camps ... from whore they will be either used for labour or sent still further to the East.
e) Those very difficult problems will only be solved with ruthless severity. If they still deny knowledge of the real fate that awaited those Jews, not one of these defendants, not one of the witnesses who have given evidence before you or before your Commissioners, not one of the members of those Organizations can deny knowledge of their deportation. And what could they have thought was the meaning of the phrase:
"Their complete elimination is no longer possible by emigration"? occupied territory is a war crime. The leadership Corps is being mobilized to ensure that public opinion will not only condone, but support and encourage this war crime. If there were nothing also, this would stamp it as criminal.
responsible as any others for the crimes committed against the local population. Frick on 16 December 1941 in giving Rainer his instructions on his appointment as Gauleiter of Carinthis urged him in the strongest terms to Germanize the Slovenes in the incorporated territory and eradicate the Slovenic language. My Lord, we strongly contest the suggestion of Dr. Servatius that it was admissible to Germanize former German nations. The claim to Germanize any Slav who was held in the old Empire has only to be stated for its preposterous character to be seen."
Gauleiters by themselves could not execute such orders. Their subordinate had to play their part. You will remember the instructions of 30 April 1942 issued by the Kreisleiter in Pettau to all Ortsgruppenleiters for the removal of all Slovenian inscriptions from ail religious and lay sites.
We know that the business discussed at the Gauleiters' Staff Conferences at Marburg included the transfer to Serbia of 2,000, the placing of hundreds id concentration camps and retaliatory shootings. In June of 1942, when the subject was the evacuation of the prison of Cilli it is stated that the prisoners were to be transferred or shot to create the necessary space for a large scale operation. On 13 July half of the 800 arrested are to be rendered harmless through delivery to a concentration camp or shooting. A similar incident, including this time the shooting of a priest, is told in the Minutes for March. treatment of the local people. A letter from the Reich Security N.Q. in November 1942 to the directors of the SD Sections informs them of the iniquitous agreement between Himmler and Thierack by which a trial is to be denied to Poles, Eastern Nationals, Jews and Gypsies. It is based on the impudent theory that they are inferior people living in the German Reichs territory. What is interesting in this argument is that there is to be no hesitation in informing the Gauleiter. What possible need could there be to inform the latter unless it was that his assistance and co-operation might be required? perhaps more clearly than the evidence we have in respect of any other particular crime, how deeply every branch of the Corps of Political Leaders was involved.