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.
Every witness that has been called by the Defense has denied all knowledge of or participation in the mistreatment of foreign laborers; but what is such evidence worth when you consider the documents which have been presented? The treatment of Polish agricultural workers, for whose care the Bauernfuehrers on the staffs of the Gau, Kreis and Ortsgruppenleiters were particularly responsible can be seen from the instructions issued to the Kreisbauernschaften in Karlsruhe in March 1941. They were instructions which were issued as a result of negotiations between the State Peasant Association of Baden, and the Higher SS and Police Officer in Stuttgart, and they were received with "great satisfaction". The Polish laborer was no longer to have any right to complain. He was prohibited transport, entertainment and religious worship; he was forbidden to change his employment; there were to be no time limits to his working hours. I quote:
"Every employer has the right to give corporal punishment towards farm workers of Polish nationality.
....The employer may not be held accountable in any such case by an official agency.
Farm workers of of the home and they can be quartered in stables, etc.
No remorse whatever should restrict such action."
Can it really be possible that instructions of that nature were issued in Karlsruhe and nowhere else? Is it possible that while the Poles in Baden were being treated like animals, in the next door Gau they were being accepted as members of the family? This is the evidence of the witness Mohr called on behalf of the Bauernfuehrers before the Commission. I quote:
"In practically all cases, I think with very few exceptions, the foreign laborer was accepted in the farmer's family unit.
He ate with the family and moved around in the circle of the farmer's family."
workers was in the hands of the DAF Political Leaders. Sauckel had decreed in March 1942:
"The food supply for the industrial workers in transit within the Reich is the duty of the DAF ..... The care for the foreign workers employed in the Reich Trill be carried out.
..by the DAF in the case of non-farm laborers.
....All camps with foreign non-agrarian workers, regardless and controls of the execution of these orders."
workers of Essen barely existed. Once again I ask: is it possible that the Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, Ortsgruppenleiters, Zell and Blockleiters and the Political Leaders of the DAF in Essen were unaware of these conditions when the hutments in which the workers lived and the punishment cells in which they were confined and tortured are situated, as the photographs show, in the very grounds of the Krupp foundries and workshops; with the works railway running within a few feet of their doors; and with the Krupp cranes stretching almost above their roofs? were exceptional and due only to the chaos caused by Allied bombing. But it is not so. Before the bombing of Essen had started, the Office Chief of Krupps Locomotive Construction Works was complaining that "the people came in the morning without bread and tools.
During both for bread, pitifully pointing out their hunger."
manager is charged with the work of his workers in the following paragraphs, and I ask your Lordship to pass on to the top of page 29, and just look at the last two sentences of the quotation, which is typical of all I have said. The last two sentences of that paragraph:
"Side people are a liability to us and not a help to production. To this remark Herr Prior stated that if one was worth nothing then another was, that the Bolsheviks were soulless people and if 100,000 of then died another 100,000 would replace them." only to Essen. In Karen 1943 Goebbels found it necessary to hold a conference on the question of increasing production. The minutes of that conference report:
"The hitherto prevailing treatment of the Eastern workers has led not only to diminished production but has most disadvantageously influenced the political orientation of the people in conquered Eastern Territories and has resulted in the well known difficulties for our troops .... The treatment of foreigners which, until new, was Markedly different for subjects of Western and Eastern Countries, will be put on a uniform basis as much as possible, particularly the living standards of the Eastern workers will be raised." Party Chancellery from which the Corps of Political Leaders received their orders. Its representative -- I quote:- "pointed out the controversies which are already appearing and which would result for the German population if more freedom were granted for the foreigners." notwithstanding the fears his representative had expressed at the meeting in March, on the 5th May 1943 Bormann issued from the Party Chancellery a memorandum to all Reichsleiters, Gauleiters, Verbandefuehrers, Kreisleiters and Orsgruppenleiters. They were instructed that the treatment of foreign labou rers should become more humane although at the sane it was "demanded by members of the German race that they observe the difference between themselves and foreign nationals as a patriotic duty..... Injustices, insults, trickery, mistreatment, etc. must be discontinued. Punishment by boating is forbidden. witnesses for the defence has told? Does it not show more clearly perhaps than any other document the savage brutality with which the Political Leaders of the National Socialist party were encouraging the people of Germany.
Is it not almost beyond our comprehension that in these days of enlightenment in a great and civilized country orders should have been necessary from the Government to its political leaders to discontinue the mistreatment of men and women that they had deported into slavery? Is it not inconceivable that it should have been necessary to forbid their political leaders and their employers to beat the men and women working for then? Now to the next paragraph. issued by the Gaustabsamtsleiter issued from Strasbourg in the Gau BadenAlsace. Foreign women workers induced to sexual intercourse by Germans were to be taken temporarily into protective custody and then sent to another place of work. "In other cases the foreign female worker will be sent to a concentration camp for women." Their children, if they were racially satisfactory and hereditarily healthy, were to be seized from them immediately after birth to "go to homos for foreign children to be looked after by the National Socialist Welfare organization." evidence we already have of the callous brutality which was proscribed by the I arty for the treatment of foreign workers. But it is an important document because it shows how many branches of the political Leaders were involved in this trafficking in slaves. Kreisleiters and the Kreisobmann of the German Labour front were to report cases of pregnancy. In fact, as one might expect, it was the Ortsgruppenleiters that made the necessary enquiries. As well as the DAF and NSV (labor welfare) the order was circulated to the Gau Propaganda loiter, the Gau Press leiter, the Gauamtsleiters for Racial Policy, for National Health, for peasantry, for National Welfare, for questions of race, the Gau Political Leader of the National Socialist Women's Organization and to similar staff officers on the Kreisleiters' staff. It is perhaps worth noting the action --or as it might more accurately be described, the lack of action -- which the National Socialist Welfare Organization took -
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, could you tell us what the word "Kreisobmann" means?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FIFE: It is representative of the Labor Front of the Kreisleiter Staff, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: "As far as I can find out up to now", reports the Kreisleiter of Villigen,"there have been about 21 pregnancies, of these 4 abortions are said to have been carried out, during which 2 of the women died. Of the remaining 17 births, 5 were still born. Welfare by the NSV has not taken place anywhere." with the Security Police and the SD and the Reich Commissar for the consolidation of the German race, another institution over which Himmler reigned supreme.
On this subject it would almost be enough to say: It is admitted by Dr. Servatius that the political Leaders knew that the majority of the workers were forced. It is admitted that they supervised the condition of that labour. Thereafter res ipsa loquitur. on which the murder of sick and aged persons was carried out. That "action" commenced some time in the Summer of 1940, but long before then in pursuance of their racial policy the Nazi Government were taking steps to improve the German race. One document we have dated January 1937 is illuminating upon the part the Political Leaders were expected to take. It is a letter from the Gauleiter of Southern Westfalen setting out Hess's decree of the 14th of January 1937: Here is the quotation:
"The question whether the person is an imbecile cannot be ascertained solely by carrying out an intelligence test but requires detailed evaluation of the whole personality of the human being. This review shall not only take into consideration the knowledge and intellectualabilities of the imbecile but also his ethical, moral and political attitude. A number of civil service doctors have, up to date, attached little importance to the reviewing of the personality as a whole. They have, up to new, hardly ever called for or used information regarding the political conduct of the supposed patient. Now that the Party, by virtue of the decree of the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior, is consulted in the proceedings, on matters of hereditary diseases against Party members, it is the task of all Gauleiters to ascertain that the law regarding hereditary health willin fact be used in the sense in which it was designed.
....He must investigate whether the person about to be sterilized has achieved very outstanding merits for the National Socialist movement. If the Gauleiter reaches this conviction and feels that he must use his influence to prevent the sterilization, he will report to this department." that might be put, abuses which might wellprove a convenient weapon for the Nazi Party. That letter from A Gauleiter went to all Gauamtsleiters, Gau Inspectors and Kreisleiters in his Gau. From the fact that it is stated that the Department for National Health was to carry out preparations for cases to be put before the Gauleiter, it is clear that the Amtsleiters for that Department of National Health were also closely involved. became general knowledge within a few months of its commencement.
By July 1940 Bishop Worm was writing to Frick. In August he was writing to the Minister of Justice. In September having attained no satisfaction he was writing again both to Frick and to the Minister of Justice. Tribunal was addressed on that by the Attorney General, and the facts were called to their attention by my good friend Colonel Griffith-Jones.
May I summarize what the pages contain in the interest of time? My Lord, the remainder of pages 32 and 33 show the church opposition to euthanasia and the Party support, and the addition at the foot of Pages 33, and from there Pages 33-a and 34, with the question of whether euthanasia is a war crime, and show the evidence that it was deliberately used in order to organize the population for war and restrict the number of useless mouths in the country during the war. intervening pages on Page 35, Line 6. My Lord, I just want to show how it is related to the lower groups of the political leaders which we are considering. My Lord, that is after dealing with the various reports and objections to the murder of 270,000 persons on this excuse of euthanasia. Line 6, I go on. The Kreisleiter from Lauf wrote to the Gaustabsamtsleiter:
"The doctor also informed me that it was well known that the Commission consisted of one SS doctor and several subordinate doctors, that the patients were not even examined and that they only pronounced the verdict in accordance with the medical history noted down." Reich Minister of the Interior under what decree they had been killed. The defendant Frick's office passed the matter on to the Gaustabsamtsleiter in Nuremburg. I quotes:
"I request that you investigate whether Kehr is politically reliable, especially whether she does not have Church connections. In case this should be so, for my part there are no misgivings if you give Kehr the desired information orally."
The Gaustabsamtsleiter passed that letter on to the Kreisleiter. The Kreisleiter passed it on to the Ortsgruppenleiter, who reported -- I quote:
"that one can inform Mrs Kehr. She is calm and circumspect".
In February 1941 the Ortsgruppenleiter of Absburg reported on the "wildest scenes imaginable" which had occurred in his village when the local sanatorium had been cleared of patients.
You may think his attitude was typical of the great mass of Political Leaders: I quote:
"These incidents during this action, which is after all necessary, are to be condemned all the more because even Party members themselves did not shrink from joining in the lamentations of the other weeping spectators. It is oven said that these poor victims -- as they are regarded by the clergy and the religious inhabitants of Absburg -- were taken to the Catholic Church for confession and communion shortly before their departure. It seems absolutely ridiculous to want to take away by an oral confession the possible sins of people some of whom completely lack all mental power". Leaders share the views of that Ortsgruppenleiter as to the absurdity of any oral confession. mention that in addition to the Gaustabsamtleiters, the Kreisleiters and Ortsgruppenleiters, the Gauorganizationleiter also becomes involved. The Leadership Corps was up to the elbows in this bloody business.
treatment of Prisoners of war. In September 1941 Bormann circulated to Gauleiters and Kreisleiters the regulations of the OKW for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. From the receipt stamp of that document it appears that the Gau Trainingleiter was the official on the Gau staff chiefly concerned with these matters. You remember the directives contained in those regulations. They were based on the fact that "Bolshevism is the deadly enemy of Nazi Germany... The Bolshevist soldier has therefore lost all claim to treatment as an honourable opponent in accordance with the Geneva Convention... the feeling of pride and superiority of the German soldier ordered to guard Soviet prisoners of war must at all times be visible even in public. The order for ruthless and energetic action must be given at the slightest indication of insubordination especially in the case of Bolshevist fanatics... With Soviet prisoners of war it is already necessary, for reasons of discipline, that the use of arms should be severe." prisoners of war in the P.W. camps in order to discover and eliminate their leader and intelligentsia. These orders circulated to Gauleiters and Kriesleiters explain the purpose and the method of work of those special purpose units and state:
"The Armed Forces must rid themselves of all those elements among the prisons of war which must be considered as the driving force of Bolshevism. The special conditions of the Eastern campaign demand special measures which can be carried out on their own responsiblity free from bureaucratic and administrative influence. Russian prisoners of war were being murdered. instructions. Bormann writing to all Reichleiters, Gauleiters, Verbaendefuehrers and Kriesleiters in September 1944 emphasized: "The co-operation of the Psrty in the commitment of prisoners of war is inevitable, Therefore the officers assigned to the prisoner of war system have been instructed to co-operate most closely with the Hoheitstrager; the commanders at the prisoner of war camps have to detail immediately liason officers to the Kreisleiters, thus the opportunity will be afforded the Hoheitstragers to alleviate existing difficulties locally, to exercise influence on the behaviour of the guard units and better to assimilate the committmen of the prisoners of war to the political and economic demands."
plant owners "again and again politically and ideologically" and this was to be done in co-operation with the DAF. prisoners of war employed by Krupp. The Political Leaders were as callous of their prisoner of war slaves when they died as they had been while they lived. Gauleiter and Kriesleiters received from Bormann Frick's instructions for the burial of Soviet prisoners of war. Tarred paper was to make do for coffins, no burial ceremonies or decorations of the graves were to be allowed, costs were to be kept as low as possible and the "transfer and burial is to be carried out unobtrusively; if a number of corpses have to be disposed of the burial will be carried out ina communal grave." Nazi Government and its political leaders? They mattered just as much or just as little as any recognized form of somple decency or honour. tives for behaviour in case of landings of enemy plants or parachutists. You will remember the order "Likewise enemy parachutists are immediately to be arrested or made harmless". In view of less ambiguous orders which were to follow and of the extraordinary precautions to maintain secrecy in respect of that order, can you now doubt what that somewhat ambiguous phrase was intended to convoy? You remember that it was to be diseminated orally only to Kreisleiters, Ortsgruppenleiters, Zell- and Blockleiters. Transmittal of the order by official orders, poster, press or radio was prohibited and amongst the other security precautions it was declared to be a state secret document. You will remember also that in addition to all the Hoheitstragers being informed, the order went to the Reich Orgnization Directorate the Reich Propaganda Directorate and the Reich Student Leadership offices which each bad their own representaive included in the Amtsleiter of the Gau, Kreis and Ortsgruppen staffs, and that it went also to SS Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, would that be a. good time to break off?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFFE: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
(A recess was taken.)