Almost immediately upon Hitler’s coming into power, the Cabinet commenced to implement the Nazi conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Three of the documents that establish this point have already been introduced in evidence. They are EC-177, 2261-PS, and 2194-PS, respectively. Document EC-177, which is Exhibit USA-390, is a long copy of the minutes; and I beg the indulgence of the Tribunal for referring to it again. It is EC-177 . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Is it in this book?
COL. STOREY: Yes, Sir, EC-177. Your Honors, I didn’t intend to quote from that. I am simply referring to it as being the minutes of the second session of the working committee of the delegates for Reich defense and being signed by the Defendant Keitel.
Document 2261-PS consists of a letter dated the 24th of June 1935. That transmits a copy of a secret, unpublished defense law of 21 May 1935 and also a copy of a decision of the Reich Cabinet of the same date, in the Council for Defense of the Reich. These have been previously introduced, but they are illustrative laws passed by this Cabinet.
Document 2194-PS also transmits a copy of the secret, unpublished Reich Defense Law, 4 September 1938.
I will skip down to the laws passed by the Reich Defense Council, on Page 50, for the record.
The Reich Defense Council was a creation of the Cabinet. On 4 April 1933 it was decided to form that agency. The decision of the Cabinet attached to Document 2261-PS, which is Exhibit USA-24, Page 4 of the translation, Paragraph 1, proves that fact. The two secret laws contained in Document 2261-PS, as well as 2194-PS, were passed by the Cabinet; nor was this a case of one group setting up an entirely distinct group to do its dirty work. The Cabinet put itself into the picture. This might have been a difficult task to accomplish before the Nazis assumed power, but with the Nazis in control, things could move swiftly; and I now refer again to Document EC-177, but I will not undertake to quote from that, although the quotation is set out here.
There is only one point in that connection which would not be cumulative. It is Page 5 of the translation and Page 8 of the original of EC-177, on the question of security and secrecy, that I think would be pertinent to the criminal nature. I quote:
“The question has been brought up by the Reich Ministries. The secrecy of all Reich defense work has to be maintained very carefully. Communications with the outside, by messenger service only, has been settled already with the Ministry of Posts, Ministry of Finance, Prussian Ministry of the Interior, and the Reichswehr Ministry. Main principle of security: no document must be lost, since otherwise enemy propaganda would make use of it. Matters communicated orally cannot be proved; they can be denied by us in Geneva. Therefore the Reichswehr Ministry has worked out security directives for the Reich Ministries and the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.”
I will skip the next reference. I believe I will skip over to the affidavit of Defendant Frick, on Page 60.
THE PRESIDENT: What is that?
COL. STOREY: It is, if Your Honor pleases, Document 2986-PS. It is Exhibit USA-409. It is the original affidavit, signed by the Defendant Frick. I believe Defendant Frick sums up pretty well how the work was carried on.
“I, Wilhelm Frick, being first duly sworn, depose and say:
“I was Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration from the time when this office was created until 20 August 1943. Heinrich Himmler was my deputy in this capacity. Before the outbreak of the war my task as Plenipotentiary General for Reich Administration was the preparation of organization in the event of war, such as, for instance, the appointment of liaison men in the different ministries who would keep in touch with me. As Plenipotentiary General for Reich Administration I, together with the Plenipotentiary General for Economy and the OKW, formed a so-called ‘Three-Man College.’ We were also members of the Reich Defense Council, which was to plan preparations and decrees in case of war, which later were published by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich. Since, as soon as the war had started, everything would have to be done speedily and there would be no time for planning, such war measures and decrees were prepared in advance. All one then had to do was to pull out of the drawer the war orders that had been prepared. Later on, after the outbreak of the war, these decrees were enacted by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich.”—Signed and sworn to by Dr. Wilhelm Frick, on the 19th of November 1945.
To sum up this particular phase of the proof, the Cabinet by its own decision and its own laws created a large war-planning body—the Reich Defense Council—the members of which were taken from the Cabinet. Within the Council they set up a small working committee, again composed of Cabinet members and certain defense officials, a majority of whom were appointed from the Cabinet members. And to streamline the action, they placed all of its ministries—except Air, Propaganda, and Foreign Affairs—into the groups headed respectively by the Plenipotentiaries for Economy and Administration, and the OKW; and everything was organized in and for the greatest of secrecy.
That is this Three-Man College.
Now, in conclusion, if Your Honor pleases, I would like at this time to summarize briefly the proof concerning the Reichsregierung.
From 1933 to the end of the war, the Reichsregierung comprised the dominant body of influence and leadership below Hitler in the Nazi Government. The three subdivisions were included in the term Reichsregierung in the Indictment: the ordinary Cabinet, the Secret Cabinet Council, and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich. Yet in reality there existed only an artificial, illusory boundary between the three.
The predominant subdivision was, of course, the ordinary Cabinet, which was commonly referred to as the Reichsregierung. In it were the leading political and military figures in the Nazi Government. Seventeen of the 22 defendants before this Tribunal were integral parts of the ordinary Cabinet.
I should like now to name these defendants and to indicate the positions they held in the Reichsregierung:
Martin Bormann, Leader of the Party Chancellery; Karl Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Hans Frank, Reich Minister without Portfolio; Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior, Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration; Walter Funk, Minister of Economics, Plenipotentiary for Economy; Hermann Göring, Minister for Air, Reich Forest Master; Rudolf Hess, Deputy of the Führer; Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the OKW; Constantin H. K. von Neurath, Minister for Foreign Affairs, President of the Secret Cabinet Council; Franz von Papen, Vice-Chancellor; Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Alfred Rosenberg, Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories; Hjalmar Schacht, Acting Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without Portfolio, President of the Reichsbank, Plenipotentiary for War Economy; Baldur von Schirach, Reich Youth Leader; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Minister without Portfolio; and finally, Albert Speer, Minister for Armaments and War Production.
From the ordinary Cabinet there came not only the members of the Secret Cabinet Council and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich, but also the members of the war planning group, the Nazi secret Reich Defense Council. When it was deemed essential for the purposes of the conspiracy to wage aggressive war, that power was concentrated in a few individuals. Again these individuals were drawn from the ordinary Cabinet. Thus the Plenipotentiaries for Economy and Administration were also Ministers of the ordinary Cabinet, and they were also members of the Reich Defense Council and Ministerial Council.
Under them were grouped practically all the ministers of the ordinary Cabinet.
Where political considerations of foreign policy required that another select group be chosen to act as advisors, the secret Cabinet was created and populated with members of the ordinary Cabinet.
The Reichsregierung was dominated by the Nazi Party through the control exercised over its legislation by the Deputy of the Führer, Hess, and later by the Leader of the Party Chancellery, Bormann. Party control was also effected through the individual