DR. ROBERT SERVATIUS (Counsel for the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party): After the last meeting I received a statement by Justice Jackson with the proposal concerning the taking of evidence and the time for the discussion of certain questions which will arise. I cannot understand the scope of these proposals, and must therefore ask that I may at some time speak about these points again, if it is necessary.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, counsel will have the opportunity of making a full argument in answer to the argument presented on behalf of the Prosecution.
What I understood from Mr. Justice Jackson on Friday was that he proposed that the evidence on the question of criminal organizations should be presented first, and the argument presented afterwards.
Counsel for the organizations will, as I stated this morning, have the opportunity of calling evidence in answer to the evidence of the Prosecution, and will also have the opportunity of making whatever argument they think right in answer to the evidence and argument presented on behalf of the Prosecution.
COL. STOREY: First, what was the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party? What persons made up its membership? What was its size and scope?
In considering the composition and organizational structure of the Leadership Corps it will be convenient for the Tribunal to refer to Document Number 2903-PS, which is this exhibit on the wall and which was introduced by Mr. Albrecht at the opening of the Trial. And, supplementing the chart on the wall, I now offer in evidence Document 2833-PS, Exhibit Number USA-22, which is a chart of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, appearing at Page 9 of a magazine published by the Chief Education Office of the Nazi Party, entitled The Face of the Party. It is this little photostatic copy that you have. Later on we expect to put the big one on the wall.
These charts and the evidence to follow show that the Leadership Corps constituted the sum total of the officials of the Nazi Party. It included the Führer at the top; the Reichsleiter, on the horizontal line; the Reich officeholders, immediately below—the five categories of leaders who were area commanders, called the “Hoheitsträger” or “bearers of sovereignty.” They are in the red-lettered or red-lined boxes at the bottom. They range all the way from the 40-odd Gauleiter in charge of large districts, down through the intermediate political leaders, the Kreisleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter, the Zellenleiter, and finally, to the Blockleiter who were charged with looking after 40 to 60 households and what may be best described as staff officers attached to each of the five levels of the Hoheitsträger.
Organized upon a hierarchical basis, forming a pyramidal structure—as appears from the chart which Your Honors hold in your hands—the principal political leaders on a scale of descending authority were:
The Führer, at the top; the Reichsleiter, as I have mentioned, and the main office and officeholders; the Gauleiter, who was the district leader, with his staff officers; the Kreisleiter, who was the county leader, and his staff officers; the Ortsgruppenleiter, the local chapter leader, and his staff officers; the Zellenleiter, who was the cell leader, and his staff officers; and then, finally, the Blockleiter, with his staff officers.
I now offer in evidence Document 1893-PS. This is Exhibit Number USA-323. And this, if Your Honors please, is the Organization Book of the NSDAP, the National Socialist Party. It was edited by the Defendant, Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP—the late Defendant—Dr. Robert Ley, and it is the 1943 edition. A large part of the evidence to be offered relating to the composition of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party will be drawn from this primer of the Nazi organizations, and I shall later quote from it. And without so requesting the Tribunal each time to take judicial notice, I shall assume, in the absence of questions, that it is so understood. The English translation, to which we will refer, is Document 1893-PS.
I now proceed to offer evidence on the make-up and powers of the Reichsleitung or the Leadership Corps, which consisted of the Reichsleiter or Reich Leaders of the Nazi Party—and they are shown on that long horizontal list at the top of the chart—the Hauptämter (main offices), and the Ämter, or officeholders.
The Reichsleiter of the Party were annexed to Hitler, the highest officeholders in the Party hierarchy. All of the Reichsleiter in the main office and officeholders within the Reichsleitung were appointed by Hitler and directly responsible to him.
I quote from the first paragraph of Page 4, Document 1893-PS:
“1. The Führer appoints the following political directors:
“(a) Reichsleiter and all political directors, to include the directors of the Womens Leagues, within the Reich Directorate (Reichsleitung).”
The significant fact to be grasped is that through the Reichsleitung perfect co-ordination of the Party and State machinery was guaranteed. The Party manual puts it this way—and I quote from the fourth sentence of the third paragraph of Page 20 of that document. You will find the page number at the bottom, Page 20. It is a very short quotation. I quote: “In the Reichsleitung the arteries of the organization of the German people and of the German State merge.”
If Your Honors please, there is a little different translation in that portion in your book. To prove . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, please. It begins, “It is in the Reich Directorate where the strings of the organization of the German people and of the German State merge.” Is that it?
COL. STOREY: Yes, Sir, that is it. This translation says, “the arteries of the organization of the German people and of the German State merge.”
To prove that the Reichsleiter of the Leadership Corps included the most powerful coalition of political overlords in Nazi Germany, it is necessary only to put in evidence their names. The list of Reichsleiter now to be offered in evidence will include the following defendants now on trial before this Tribunal: Rosenberg, Von Schirach, Frick, Bormann, Hans Frank, and the late Defendant Robert Ley.
The evidence to be introduced will show that the Defendant Rosenberg was the leader of an organization named for him, the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg”—which is not shown on this chart, if Your Honor please—which carried out a vast program of looting and plunder of art treasures throughout occupied Europe.
The evidence will further show that, as representative of the Führer for the supervision of Nazi ideology and schooling, Rosenberg participated in an aggressive campaign to undermine the Christian churches and to supersede Christianity by a German National Church founded upon a combination of irrationality, pseudo-scientific theories, mysticism, and the discredited cult of the racial state. It will further be shown that the late Defendant Ley, acting as the agent of Hitler and the Leadership Corps, directed the Nazi assault upon the independent labor unions of Germany and that before destroying himself he first destroyed the bastion of republican society, a free and independent labor movement, replacing it by a Nazi organization, the German Labor Front, or the DAF, and employed this organization as a means of exploiting the German labor force in the interests of the conspiracy and to instill Nazi ideology among the ranks of the German workers.
It will be shown that the Defendant Frick participated in the enactment of many laws which were designed to promote the conspiracy in its several phases.
The Defendant Frick shares responsibility for the grave injury done by the officials of the Leadership Corps to the concept of the rule of law by virtue of his efforts to give the color of law and formal legality to a large volume of Nazi legislation which was violative of the rights of humanity, such as the Nazi discriminatory legislation designed to degrade, stigmatize, and eliminate the Jewish people of Germany and German-occupied Europe.
Though the Defendant Bormann is physically absent from the dock, the evidence as to his responsibility in directing and furthering the course of the Nazi conspiracy is here and expands with the record in this case. As Chief of the Party Chancellery, right under Hitler, the Defendant Bormann was an extremely important force in directing the activities of the Leadership Corps. As will be shown,