The Gestapo on Trial

Evidence from Nuremberg

Bob Carruthers

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781473849433
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

The Nuremberg Trials were held by the four victorious Allied forces of Great Britain, the USA, France and the USSR in the Palace of Justice, Nuremberg from November 1945 to October 1946. Famous for prosecuting the major German war criminals, they also tried the various groups and organisations that were at the heart of Nazi Germany.This fascinating volume is concerned with the trial of the Gestapo and includes all the testimony from the Nuremberg Trials regarding this organisation, including the original indictment, the criminal case put forward for the Gestapo, the closing speeches by the prosecution and defence and the final judgment. The book also includes evidence regarding the S.D. and the defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who was Obergruppenfhrer and General der Polizei und Waffen-SS.The witnesses called for the trial of the Gestapo and the SD include among others, Karl Hoffmann who was head of the Gestapo in Denmark; Dr. Werner Best, head of Department 1 of the Gestapo, who was relied on by Himmler and Heydrich to develop the legalities of their actions against the enemies of the state and the Jewish problem; Rolf-Heinz Hoeppner, who was responsible for the deportation of Jews and Poles and the settlement of ethnic Germans in Wartheland; and Dieter Wisliceny who participated in the ghettoisation and liquidation of many Jewish communities in Greece, Hungary and Slovakia

The Indictment

THURSDAY, 20TH DECEMBER, 1945

COLONEL STOREY: If the Tribunal please, the next presentation will be the Gestapo, and it will take just a few seconds to get the material here.

We are now ready to proceed if your Honour is.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

COLONEL STOREY: We first pass to the Tribunal Document Books marked “Exhibit AA,” Your Honour will notice they are in two volumes, and I will try each time to refer to the appropriate volume. They are separated into the D Documents, the L Documents, the PS Documents, etc.

The presentation of evidence on the criminality of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) includes evidence on the criminality of the Sicherheitsdienst (S.D.) and of the Schutzstaffeln (S.S.), which has been discussed by Major Farr, because a great deal of the criminal acts were so inter-related. In the Indictment, as your Honour knows, the S.D. is included by special reference as a part of the S.S., since it originated as a part of the S.S. and always retained its character as a Party organisation, as distinguished from the Gestapo, which was a State organisation. As will be shown by the evidence, however, the Gestapo and the S.D. were brought into very close working relationship, the S.D. serving primarily as the information gathering agency and the Gestapo as the executive agency of the police system established by the Nazis for the purpose of combating the political and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime.

In short, I think we might think of the S.D. as the intelligence organisation and the Gestapo the executive agency, the former a Party organisation and the latter a State organisation, but merged together for all practical purposes.

The first subject: The Gestapo and S.D. were formed into a powerful, centralised political police system that served Party, State and Nazi leadership.

The Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo, was first established in Prussia on 26th April, 1933, by the defendant Goering, with the mission of carrying out the duties of political police, with or in place of, the ordinary police authorities. The Gestapo was given the rank of a higher police authority and was subordinated only to the Minister of the Interior, to whom was delegated the responsibility of determining its functional and territorial jurisdiction. That fact is established in the “Preussische Gesetzsammlung,” of 26th April, 1933, Page 122, and it is our Document 2104-PS.

Pursuant to this law, and on the same date, the Minister of the Interior issued a decree on the reorganisation of the Police, which established a State Police Bureau in each governmental district of Prussia subordinate to the Secret State Police Bureau in Berlin, and I cite as authority, the Ministerial-Blatt for the Internal Administration of Prussia, 1933, Page 503, and it is Document 2371-PS.

Concerning the formation of the Gestapo, the defendant in “Aufbau einer Nation,” 1934, Page 87, which is our Document 2344-PS-I quote from the English translation a short paragraph, of which your Honour will take judicial notice, unless you wish to turn to it in full-the defendant Goering said:

“For weeks I had been working personally on the reorganisation, and at last I alone and upon my own decision and my own reflection created the office of the Secret State Police. This instrument, which is so feared by the enemies of the State, has contributed most to the fact that to-day there can no longer be talk of a Communist or Marxist danger in Germany and Prussia.”

THE PRESIDENT: What was the date?

COLONEL STOREY: The date? 1934, sir.

On 30th November, 1933, Goering issued a decree for the Prussian State Ministry and the Reich Chancellor, placing the Gestapo under his direct supervision as chief. The Gestapo was thereby established as an independent branch of the administration of the Interior, responsible directly to Goering as Prussian Prime Minister. This decree gave the Gestapo jurisdiction over the political police matters of the general and interior administration and provided that the district, county, and local police authorities were subject to its directives, and that cites the Prussian laws of 30th November, 1933, Page 413, and Document 2105-PS.

In a speech delivered at a meeting of the Prussian State Council on 18th June, 1934, which is published in “Speeches and Essays of Hermann Goering, 1939,” Page 102, our Document 3343-PS, Goering said, and I quote one paragraph:

“The creation of the Secret State Police was also a necessity. You may recognise the importance attributed to this instrument of State security from the fact that the Prime Minister has made himself head of the department of the administration, because it is precisely the observation of all currents directed against the new State which is of fundamental importance.”

By a decree of 8th March, 1934, the Regional State Police Offices were separated from their organisational connection with the District Government and established as independent authorities of the Gestapo. That cites the “Preussische Gesetzsammlung” of 8th March, 1943, Page 143, our Document 2113-PS.

I now offer in evidence Document 1680-PS, Exhibit USA 477. This is an article entitled “Ten Years Security and S.D.”, published in the German Police Journal, the magazine of the Security Police and S.D., of 1st February, 1943. I quote one paragraph from this article on Page 2 of the English translation, Document 1680, which is the third main paragraph:

“Parallel to that development in Prussia, the Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler, created in Bavaria the Bavarian Political Police, and also suggested and directed in the other Federal States outside Prussia the establishment of political police. The unification of the political police of all the Federal States took place in the spring of 1934 when Minister President Hermann Goering appointed Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler, who had meanwhile become Commander of the Political Police of all the Federal States outside Prussia, to the post of Deputy Chief of the Prussian Secret State Police.”

The Prussian law about the Secret State Police, dated 10th February, 1936, then summed up the development to that date and determined the position and responsibilities of the Secret State Police in the executive regulations issued the same day.

On 10th February, 1936, the basic law for the Gestapo was promulgated by Goering as Prussian Prime Minister. I refer to Document 2107-PS. This law provided that the Secret State Police had the duty of investigating and combating, in the entire territory of the State, all tendencies inimical to the State, and declared that orders and matters of the Secret State Police were not subject to the review of the administrative courts. That is the Prussian State law of that date, cited on Pages 21-22 of the publication of the laws of 1936.

Also on that same date, 10th February, 1936, a decree for the execution of the law was issued by Goering, as Prussian Prime Minister, and by Frick, as Minister of the Interior. This decree provided that the Gestapo had authority to enact measures valid in the entire area of the State and measures affecting that area-by the way, that is found in 2108-PS and is also a published law-that it was the centralised agency for collecting political intelligence in the field of political police, and that it administered the concentration camps. The Gestapo was given authority to make police investigations in cases of criminal attacks upon the Party as well as upon the State.

Later, on 28th August, 1936, a circular of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police provided that as on 1st October, 1936, the Political Police Forces of the German provinces were to be called the “Geheime Staatspolizei”. That means the Secret State Police. The regional offices were still to be described as State Police.

The translation of that law is in Document 2372-PS, Reichsministerial-Gesetzblatt of 1936, No. 44, Page 1344.

Later, on 20th September, 1936, a circular of the Minister of the Interior, Frick, commissioned the Gestapo Bureau in Berlin with the supervision of the duties of the Political Police Commanders in all the States of Germany. That is, Reichsministerial-Gesetzblatt, 1936, Page 1,343, our Document L-297.

The law regulating and relating to financial measures in connection with the police, of igth March, 1937, provided that the officials of the Gestapo were to be considered direct officials of the Reich, and that their salaries, in addition to the operational expenses of the whole State Police, were to be borne from 1st April, 1937, by the Reich. That is shown in Document 2243-PS, which is a copy of the law of 19th March, 1937, Page 325.

Section C dealt with culture, including science, education, religion, Press, folk culture, and art.

Section D dealt with economics, including food, commerce, finance, industry, labour, colonial economics, and occupied regions.

Now, Amt IV, with which we are dealing here, was the Gestapo, and was charged with combating opposition. In 1945, as identified by these two former officials, it contained six subsections.

1. Subsection A dealt with opponents, sabotage, and protective service, including Communism, Marxism, Reaction and Liberalism.

2...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• STATEMENT OF CRIMINALITY OF GROUPS AND ORGANISATIONS
• THE INDICTMENT
• THE CASE FOR THE GESTAPO
• SUBMISSION OF DOCUMENTS
• CONCLUDING SPEECH FROM THE DEFENSE
• CONCLUDING SPEECH FROM THE PROSECUTION
• THE JUDGMENT