Beginning last June, Mr. Justice Jackson requested me to direct the assembling of documentary evidence on the Continent for the U. S. case. Field teams from our office were organized under the direction of Major William H. Coogan, who established U.S. liaison officers at the main Army document centers. Such officers were directed to screen and analyze the mass of captured documents, and select those having evidentiary value for our case. Literally hundreds of tons of enemy documents and records were screened and examined and those selected were forwarded to Nurnberg for processing, I now offer in evidence an affidavit of Major Coogan, dated 19 November 1945, attached hereto, describing the method of procedure, capture, screening, and delivery of such documents to Nurnberg. this matter to the Tribunal, I believe it wise to read at last substantial portions of this affidavit. It is dated the 19th of November, 1945.
19 November 1945 I, MAJOR WILLIAM H. COOGAN, 0-455814, Q.M.C., a commissioned officer of the Army of the United States of America, do hereby certify as follows:
Field Branch of the Documentation Division with the responsibility of collecting, evaluating and assembling documentary evidence in the European Theater for use in the prosecution of the major Axis war criminals before the International Military Tribunal. I was appointed Chief of the Field Branch on 20 July 1945. I am now the Chief of the Documentation Division, Office of United States Chief of Counsel. and am a practicing attorney by profession. Based upon my experience as an attorney and as a United States Army officer, I am familiar with the operation of the United. States Army in connection with seizing and processing captured enemy documents. In my capacity as Chief of the Documentation Division, Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, I am familiar with and have supervised the processing, filing translation and photostating of all documentary evidence for the United States Chief of Counsel. personnel thoroughly conversant with the German language. Their task was to search for and select captured enemy documents in the European Theater which disclosed information relating to the prosecution of the major Axis war criminals. Officers under my command were placed on duty at various document centers and also dispatched on individual missions to obtain original documents, When documents were located, my representatives made a record of the circumstances under which they were found and all information available concerning their authenticity was recorded. Such documents were further identified by Field Branch pre-trial serial numbers, assigned by my representatives who would then periodically dispatch the original documents by courier to the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel. indexed. After this operation, they were delivered to the Screening and Analysis Branch of the Documentation Division of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, which Branch re-examined such documents in order to finally determine whether or not they should be retained as evidence for the prosecutors.
This final screening was done by German-speaking analysts on the staff of the United States Chief of Counsel.
When the document passed the screeners, it was then transmitted to the Document Room of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, with a covering sheet prepared by the screeners showing the title or nature of the document, the personalities involved, and its importance. In the Document Room, a trial identification number was given to each document or to each group of documents, in cases where it was desirable for the sake of clarity to file several documents together. in one of five series designated by the letters: "PS", "L", "R", "C", and "EC", indicating the means of acquisition of the documents. Within each series documents were listed numerically. specking analyst who prepared a summary of the document with appropriate references to personalities involved, index headings, information as to the sources of the document as indicated by the Field Branch, and the importance of the document to a particular phase of the case. Next, the original document was returned to the Document Room and then checked out to the photostating department, where photostatic copies were made. Upon return from photostating, it was placed in an envelope in one of several fireproof safes in the rear of the Document Room. One of the photostatic copies of the document was sent to the translators, thereafter leaving the original itself in the safe. A commissioned officer has been, and is, responsible for the security of the documents in the safe. At all times when he is not present the safe is locked and a military guard is on duty outside the only door. If the officers preparing the certified translation, or one of the officers working on the briefs, found it necessary to examine the original document, this was done within the Document Room in the section set aside for that purpose. The only exception to this strict rule has been where it has been occasionally necessary to present the original document to the defendants for examination. In this case, the document was entrusted to a responsible officer of the prosecution staff.
Room, where they will be secured until they are presented by the prosecution to the court during the progress of the trial. United States Chief of Counsel were seized and processed by the British Array. Also, personnel from the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel and the British War Crimes Executive have acted jointly in locating, seizing and processing such documents. was utilized by the British Army and the British War Crimes Executive as that hereinabove set forth with respect to the United States Army and the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel. to the best of my knowledge and belief, that the documents captured in the British Zone of Operations and Occupation, which will be offered in evidence by the United States Chief of Counsel, have been authenticated, translated, and processed in substantially the same manner as hereinabove set forth with respect to the operations of the United States Chief of Counsel. United States Chief of Counsel, including those documents from British Army sources, are in the same condition as captured by the. United States and British Armies; that they have been translated by competent and qualified translators; that all photostatic copies are true and correct copies of the originals and that they have been correctly filed, numbered and processed as above outlined."
" WILLIAM H. COOGAN 0-455814" describing the method of capture, screening, and delivery of such documents to Nurnberg.
reached our office, they were again examined, re-screened, and translated by expert U. S. Army personnel, as outlined by major Coogan . in the Court House. At least several hundred will be offered in evidence. They have been photographed, translated into English, filed, indexed, and processed. The same general procedure was followed by the British Army, and there has been complete integration and cooperation of prepared written briefs on each phase of our case which cite the documents by appropriate numbers. Legal propositions of the United States will also be presented in such briefs. The briefs and documents will cover each allegation of the Indictment which is U. S. responsibility . I hold in my hand one of the trials briefs entitled "Reshaping of Education, Training of Youth," which will be offered later on this day. Accompany each brief is a Document Book containing true copies in English of all documents referred to in the brief. I hold in my hand the German have been, or will be, furnished to Defense Council at the time such documents are offered in evidence. Upon conclusion of the present ation of each phase or section of our case by council, the entire book of documents will be offered in evidence such as this book. At the same time, Lt Barrett who will sit right here all during the trial and original documents that may be offered in evidence in this form. It will have the seal of the Tribunal, will be exhibit U.S.A. 2836-PS, and Tribunal, In the same manner, the document book will be passed by by Lieutenant Barrett to the clerk of the Court, and these trial briefs for the assistance of the Tribunal will be made available to the Court and to Defense Council.
Likewise , copies of documents actually introHonors please, it is hoped that by this procedure the usual laborious and tedious method on introducing documentary evidence may be expedited. Defense Council if there is ant objection to the procedure outlined. If not, the United States will proceed with the presentation of the docu
THE PRESIDENT: Will you wait one moment?
COLONEL STOREY: Yes, Sir,
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has no objection to the course that you propose.
COLONEL STOREY: If I may, if your Honors please, may I now announce what will be presented immediately following by the United States?
THE PRESIDENT: I think perhaps that I ought to say for Counsel for the defendants that their silence will be taken as their assent to the course proposed. In the absence of any objection by them to the course proposed by Colonel Storey on behalf of the Chief Prosecutor for the United States, the Tribunal will take it that they agree that the course
COLONEL STOREY: If your honors please, the next presentation will 1939. We will open by presentation of charts of the Nazi Party and Reich Government with exhibits and explanation by Hr Albrecht. Then will be followed a presentation of the trials briefs and documents on the other phases of the common plan or conspiracy up to 1939.
MR. ALBRECHT: May it please the Tribunal, the prosecution will now allude breifly to certain facts, which may wall be considered to be within judicial purview, the consideration of which the prosecution has found useful in understanding and evaluation the evidence that will be ations of the Indictment.
be made to the National Socialist German Labor Party, the NSDAP, which is not itself one of the defendant organizations in this proceeding, but which is represented among the defendant organizations by its most important formations, viz.
the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, which you will hear referred to as Das Korps der Politischen Leiter der NSDAP, the SS (Die Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP), and the SA (Die Sturmabteilungen der NSDAP). point, as its first exhibit, a chart showing the structure and organization in March 1945 This chart has been prepared by the prosecution on the basis of information contained in important and well-known official publications of the National Socialist Party with which the defendants must be presumed to have been well acquainted. We refer particularly to the Organization Book of the Party (Das Organisationsbuch der NSDAP), and to the National Socialist Year Book (Nationalsozialistisches Jahrbuch), of both of which, be it noted, the late defendant, Robert Ley, was the chief editor or publisher. Both books appeared in the course of time and were printed in many editions and appeared in hundreds of thousands of copies, throughout the period when the National Socialist Party was in control of the German Reich and of the German people. The chart, furthermore, which we are offering has been certified on its face as correct by a high official of the Nazi Party, viz. Franz Xaver Schwarz, its Treasurer (Reichsschatzmeister der NSDAP),and official in charge of Party administration. The first affidavit is being submitted with the chart, and I now wish to offer this chart in evidence. mission of the Tribunal, are making it available to all concerned. tion of the National Socialist German Labor Party, which we believe will be found useful in connection with the prosecution's case, I would just like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the larger chart which now appears is a simplification of the duplicated chart which your Honors have been furnished, for if it had been reproduced in the same detail, I am afraid many of the boxes would not have appeared intelligible from this point.
which we will have to become very familiar, the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, the Reichsleiter, which has been named as a defendant organization and which comprises the sum of the officials and leaders of the Nazi Party. If your Honors will be good enough to follow me down the center line of the chart, we come to the main horizontal line of division where the word "Reichsleiter" appears. That is the first category of the Leadership Corps, I should say, the main category, perhaps, of the Leadership Corps.
The Fuehrer, of course, stands above it. As we follow the vertical line of division to the lower part of the chart, we reach five additional boxes, which may be referred to collectively as the Hoheitstraeger, the bearers of the sovereignty of the Party, and those are the Gauleiter, the Kreisleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter, the Zellenleiter, and the Blockleiter. stands at the top of the Party hierarchy. His successor designate was first, the defendant Hess, and second, the defendant Goering. collectively the Party Directorate (Reichsleitung). Through them, coordination of Party and State machinery was achieved. A number of these Reichsleiters, each of whom at some time was in charge of at least one office within the Party Directorate, were also the heads of other Party formations and of affiliated or supervised organizations of the Party and also of agencies of the State, or even held ministerial positions. The Reichsleitung may be said to represent the horizontal organization of the Party according to functions, within which all threads controlling the varied life of the German people meet. Each office within the Reichsleitung of the NSDAP executed definite tasks assigned to it by the Fuehrer, or by the leader of the Party Chancellery (Chef der Parteikanzlei), who on the chart before you appears directly under the Fuehrer. your Honors please, was Martin Bormann, the defendant in this proceeding, and before him and until his flight to England in 1941, the defendant Hess.
It was the duty of the Reichsleitung to make certain that these tasks assigned to it by the Fuehrer were carried out with expedition and without interruption, in order that the will of the Fuehrer quickly and accurately was communicated to the lowest Party echelon, the lowliest Zelle or Block. The individual offices of the Reichsleitung had the mission to remain in constant and closest contact with the life of the people through the agency of the subdivisions of the component party organizations in the Gau, within the Kreis, or the Ort or the lower group. These leaders had been taught that the right to organize human beings accrued through the appreciation of the fact that a people must be educated idealogically; Weltanschaulich, the Germans call it, that is to say, according to the philosophy of National Socialism.
(Karr follows) Now, among the former Reichsleiter, on trial in this cause, may be included the following defendants:
at the extreme left, at the box marked with the defendant Frank's name. At onetime, although not in March, 1945, he was the Head of the Legal Office of the Party, He was the Reichsleiter des Reichsrechtsamtes. Fuehrer for Idealogical Training and Education of the Party. He was called Der Beauftragte des Fuehrers fur die Uberwachung der gesammten geistigen and weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP. Youth Education, (Leiter fur die Jugenderziehung). the Party Organization, (Reichsorganizationsleiter der NSDAP) and also the Leader of the German Labor Front (Leiter der Deutschen Arbeitsfront). I might allude to the box marked with the name Schwarz. He was the Party Official and Reischleiter, who certified to the chart before the Tribunal. find the name of Frick, who was the leader of the Reichstag fraction,(Leiter des NS Reichstangsfraktion). bottom of the vertical line, in the center of the chart. The National Socialists called them the hearers of sovereignty. To them were assigned the political sovereignty over specially designated subdivisions of the State, of which they were the appointed Leaders. The Hoheitsrager may be said to represent the vertical organization of the Party. there were 42 within the Reich in 1945. A Gauleiter was a political leader of the largest subdivision of the State. He was charged by the Fuehrer with the political, cultural and economic control over all forms and manifestations of the life of the people and the coordination of the same with National Socialist philosophy and ideology.
former Gauleiters of the NSDAP. I mention, in this connection, the defendant Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, Franconian Feuhrer they called him, whose sect was in the City of Nurnberg. Gauleiter of Thuringia. al leaders of the largest subdivision within the Kreis and a Kreis consisted perhaps of several towns or villages or in the case of a larger city, anywhere from 1500 to 3,00 households. 8 city blocks, or of a corresponding group within country districts and then follow the Blockleiter, the political leaders of from 40 to 60 households. of sovereignty, was directly responsible to the next highest leader in the Nazi heirarchy. The Gauleiter was directly responsible to the Fuehrer himself: the Kreisleiter was directly responsible to the Gauleiter; the Ortsgruppenleiter to the Kreisleiter and so on. philosphy that runs through the Party, the right to name all leaders. It was he, personally, that named the Reichsleiter, all members of the Party Directorate. It was he that appointed all Gauleiters and Kreisleiter and all political leaders down to the grade of Gauamtsleiter, which was a lower classification of political leader, within the Party organization of the Gau. all-powerful group of leaders by means of which the Nazi Party reached right down into the lives of the people, consolidated its control of them and compelled them to conform to the National Socialist pattern. For this purpose, broad powers were given to them, including the right to call upon all Party formations to effectuate their plans. They could requisition the services of the SA and of the SS, as well as of the HJ and of the NSKK.
If I may direct your attention for the moment, to the Party organizations that appear at the extreme left of the chart, I would just like to say that structually these organizations were organized regionally to accord with the offices and regions controlled by the Hoheitstrager. If I might be more explicit, let us take the SA, the subsidiary formations of the SA, came down and corresponded, in its lower organizations, to the Gau, so that we have a Gauleitung in the SA, and further down, to the Kreis. Thus, we have a Kreisleitung in the SA so that the Gauleiter and the Kreisleiter, to cite two examples, charged with a particular duty by the Fuehrer, could call on these organizations for assistance in carrying out their tasks. apparent as the prosecution's case developes, and as the wealth of evidentiary material is introduced into evidence to prove the criminality of the defendant organizations.
Party, are shown at the extreme left of the Chart, and are the organizations to which I directed the attention of your Honors a moment ago. These organizations actually constitute the Party itself, and substantially the entire Party membership is contained within these organizations. The four principal organizations are sometimes referred to as "paramilitary" organizations. They were uniformed, military organizations and they were armed. These organizations were the notorious SA and SS, who, are named as party defendants in this case, the HJ, (Hitler Youth) and the NSKK, (The Motor Corp of the Party). Then there were also the National Socialist Women's Organization, the National Socialist German Student's Bund (Deutscher Studentenbund), and the National Socialist University Teachers' Bund. within the Party, as affiliated organizations, not Gliederungen or controlled organizations, but affiliated organizations (Angeschlossene Verbande der NSDAP). Among those organizations we have the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront); we have an organization that controlled the Civil Service (Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten). There , were the physicians in the Deutscher Arztesbund; there were the teach in the Lehrerbund; there were the lawyers within the National Socialist Rechtswahrerbund, of which at one time, the defendant Frank was the head. supervised organizations, (Betreute Organisationen der NSDAP) organizations that included certain specialized women's organizations; (Deutsches Frauenwerk) certain student societies; (Deutsche Studentenschaft) former university students; (Altherrenbund der Deutschen Studenten) there was a group that had reference to the German communes (Deutscher Gemeindetag) and there was a Reichsbund fur Leibesubungen, that interested itself in controlling all those interested in physical exercise. various organizations and associations that controlled German life in all its phases, there was a fourth classification, which is the last organization that appears to the right on the chart before your Honors, which is sometimes simply called Weitere Nationalsozialistische Organisationen, and here, in some respect, we are in "No man's land", because the party was not static, it was dynamic and our latest information is now to the effect that the organizations that ordinarily came within this category, well known organizations, like the RAD (Reich Labor Service) and the NSFK (National Socialist Fliegerkorps) may no longer be included there.
At least that was the opinion of the Party Treasurer, who certified to this chart. ions of the structure of the Party, with which we are dealing in this proceeding. several other instances where some of the defendants appear in this set-up. chart before your Honors, are the successors designate of the Fuehrer. First is the defendant Hess, until 1941, and followed by the defendant Goering. Under the Fuehrer appears the Chief of the Party Chancellory, the defendant Martin Bormann, and then, if we come to the left of the Reichsleiter, and go to the left, opposite Rosenberg's name, we find somewhat below that, his name is repeated, as the Head of an office on a lower level, namely, the Foreign Relations Office of the party, which played such a sinister role in the early work of the Party, as will later appear in the documentary evidence to be presented to your Honors.
We then come to the late defendant Ley's name, on the main horizontal division, and follow the dotted line to a lower level, and we will find he was the Chief of the German Labor Service, and if we come closer to the vertical line, to a lower level, below the Reichsleiter, we find the defendant Speer, Hauptamt fuer Technik, the Office of Technical Affairs, and below that, as the Chief of the Bund Deutscher Technik (German Technological League). to the consideration of the governmental machinery of the German State, which, like the organization of the Nazi Party, requires some brief observations before the prosecution proceeds with the submission of proof on the Common Plan or Conspiracy, with which the defendants have been charged.
second exhibit, another chart, delineating substantially the organizational structure of the government of the Third Reich, as it existed in March 1945 and also "The chief leadership personnel of the Reich Government and the Reich Administration during said years." mation contained in two official publications, The Manual for Administrative Officers, and the National Socialist Year Book, to which I have already alluded, edited by the defendant Ley. defendant Wilhelm Frick, whose affidavit is submitted with the chart. In fact, it is reproduced directly on the copies of the charts before your Honor.
of the Reich, from January 1933 to August 1943, was well qualified by reason of his position and long service in public office during the National Socialist regime, to certify to the substantial accuracy of the facts disclosed in this chart. brief comments on this chart. in the center of the chart on the vertical line, directly below Hitler. The Reichsregierung is a word that may not be translated literally as "government of the Reich". The word Reichsregierung is a word of art and is applied collectively to the Ministers who composed the German Cabinet. and as used in the Indictment, the expression is used to identify a group which we will urge, should be declared to have been a criminal organization. members of the Cabinet after 30 January 1933, that is Reich Ministers with and without Portfolio, and all officials entitled to participate in the declarations of the Cabinet. Defense of the Reich. It is called Ministerrat fuer die Reichsverteidigung, which is the large box to the right of the vertical line. is the small box to the left of the vertical line, the Geheimer Kabinettsrat, of which the defendant von Neurath was the President. not within the orbit of the former Axis, the Reichsregierung, after January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the German Republic, did not remain merely the Executive Branch of the Government. In short order it also came to be possessed, and it exercised, legislative and other functions as well, in the government system, into which the German Government developed while under the domination of the National Socialist Party.
SA and SS, the Reichsregierung, before 1933, certainly, was not a body created exclusively or even predominantly for the purpose of committing illegal acts. The Reichsregierung was an instrument of government provided for by the Weimar Constitution. Under the Nazi regime, however, the Reichsregierung gradually became primary agent of the Party, with functions formulated in accordance with the objectives and methods of the Party itself. The Party, to all intents and purposes, was intended to be a "Fuehrerorden", and order of Fuehrers, a pool of political leaders, and while the Party was -- in the words of a German law - "the bearer of the concept of the German State", it was not identical with the Stats. reach the German people, the Party had to avail itself of official State channels. were the chosen instruments by means of which Party politices were converted into legislative and administrative acts, binding upon the German people as a whole. remodelled by the Party. Some of the steps may here be recorded, by which the coordination of Party and State machinery was assured in order to impose the will of the Fuehrer on the German people. there were a few National Socialists that were Cabinet members. But, as the power of the Party in the Reich grew, the Cabinet came to include ever increasing numbers of Nazis, until by January, 1937, no non-Party member remained in the Reichsregierung. New Cabinet posts were created and Nazis appointed to them. Many of these Cabinet members were also in the Reichsleitung of the Party.
To give but a few examples: central box on the vertical line, the delegate of the Fuehrer for Ideological Training and Education of the Party, was a member of the Reichsregierung, in its capacity as Minister for the Occupied Eastern Areas, the Reichministerium fuer die besetzten Ostgebiete. horizontal line and proceed to the very end you will find a box marked "Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories", of which the head was the defendant, Rosenberg. in the Reichstag, was also Minister of the Interior. two boxes over you will find the Ministry presided over by the defendant, Frick. Goebbels, the Reichsleiter for Propaganda, also sat in the Cabinet as Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Reichsministerium fuer Volksaufklaerung and Propaganda. after the 25th of July, 1934, participation in the work of the cabinet was at all times achieved through the person of the defendant, Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuehrer. By a decree of Hitler the defendant, Hess, was invested with the power to take part in the editing of legislative bills with all the departments of the Reich. Later this power of the Fuehrer's deputy was expanded to include all executive decisions and orders that were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, the official volume in which are contained the decrees of the State. After Hess's flight to England in 1941 the defendant, Martin Bormann, as his successor, took over the same function, and in addition he was given the authority of a Reichsminister so that he could sit in the Cabinet.
Now, another item of importance: