I now refer to Document 2473-PS, Exhibit Number USA-324. You will find that the English translation contains a list of the Reichsleiter of the NSDAP set forth on Page 170 of this book. It was edited by the late Defendant and Reichsleiter for Party Organization, Robert Ley. The names of the 15 Reichsleiter in office in 1943 will be found on Pages 1 and 2 of Document 2473-PS.
If the Tribunal please, I will not read all of them but will call attention only to certain of them, as follows:
Martin Bormann, Chief of the Party Chancellery; then we skip over to Wilhelm Frick, Leader of the National Socialist faction in the Reichstag, shown on the big chart over at the second box from the end on the right; Joseph Goebbels, Reich Propaganda Leader of the NSDAP, shown also on the same level; Heinrich Himmler, Reich Leader of the SS, the Deputy of the NSDAP for all questions of Germandom; Robert Ley, Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP and Leader of the German Labor Front; Victor Lutze, Chief of Staff of the SA; Alfred Rosenberg, representative of the Führer for the supervision of all mental and ideological training and education of the NSDAP; Baldur von Schirach, Reich Leader for the education of the youth of the National Socialist Party; and then, finally, Franz Schwarz, Reich Treasurer of the National Socialist Party.
The principal functions of the Reichsleiter, which we might call directors, included the responsibility of carrying out the tasks and missions assigned to them by the Führer or by the Chief of the Party Chancellery, the Defendant Martin Bormann. The Reichsleiter were further charged with insuring that Party policies were being executed in all the subordinate areas of the Reich. They were also responsible for insuring a continual flow of new leadership into the Party.
With respect to the function and the responsibilities of the Reichsleiter I now quote from Page 20 of Document Number 1893-PS:
“The NSDAP represents the political conception, the political conscience, and the political will of the German nation. Political conception, political conscience, and political will are embodied in the person of the Führer. Based on his directive and in accordance with the program of the NSDAP, the organs of the Reich Directorate directionally determine the political aims of the German people. It is in the Reich Directorate”—or Reichsleitung—“that the arteries of the organization of the German people and State merge. It is the task of the separate organs of the Reich Directorate to maintain as close a contact as possible with the life of the nation through their sub-offices in the Gau . . . .
“The structure of the Reich Directorate is thus that the channel from the lowest Party office upwards shows the most minute weaknesses and changes in the mood of the people . . . .
“Another essential task of the Reich Directorate is to assure a good selection of leaders. It is the duty of the Reich Directorate to see that there is leadership in all phases of life, a leadership which is firmly tied to National Socialist ideology and which promotes its dissemination with all of its energy . . . .
“It is the supreme task of the Reich Organization Leader to preserve the Party as a well-sharpened sword for the Führer.”
The domination of the German Government by the top members of the Leadership Corps was facilitated by a circular decree of the Reich Minister of Justice, dated 17 February 1934, which established equal rank for the offices within the Reichsleitung of the Leadership Corps and the Reich offices of the German Government. In this decree it was expressly provided that, “. . . . the supreme offices of the Reich Party Directorate are equal in rank to the supreme Reich Government authorities”. The Party Manual termed the control exercised over the machinery of the Government by the Leadership Corps, “the permeation of the state apparatus with the political will of the Party”.
At a later stage in this proceeding it will be shown that the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party incontestably dominated the German State and Government. The control by the Leadership Corps of the German Government was facilitated by uniting in the same Nazi chieftains both high offices within the Reichsleitung and the corresponding offices within the apparatus of the Government. For example, as shown in Document 2903-PS, Goebbels was Reichsleiter in charge of Party propaganda, but he was also a cabinet minister in charge of propaganda and public enlightenment.
Himmler held office within the Reichsleitung as head of the Main Office for Folkdom and also was Reichsführer of the SS. At the same time, Himmler held the governmental position of the Reich commissioner for the consolidation of Germandom, and was the governmental head of the German police system.
As will be shown, this personal union of high office in the Leadership Corps and high governmental position in the same Nazi leaders greatly accommodated the plan of the Leadership Corps to dominate and control the German State and Government.
In addition to the Reichsleiter the Party Directorate included about 11 Hauptämter, or main offices, and about four Ämter, or offices. As set forth in the exhibit, the Hauptämter of the Party included such main organizations as those for personnel, training, technology, headed by the Defendant Speer; folkdom, headed by Himmler; civil servants, communal policy, and the like. The Ämter, or offices, of the Party within the Reichsleitung included the office for foreign policy under the Defendant Rosenberg which, the evidence will show, actively participated in plans for the launching of the war of aggression against Norway, the Office for Colonial Policy, the Office for Genealogy, and the Office of Racial Policy.
As will be shown by the chart of the Leadership Corps in the folder which Your Honors have, certain of the main offices and offices within the Reichsleitung would appear again within the Gauleitung, or Gau Party Directorate, and the Kreisleitung, or Party county directorate. It is thus shown that the Reichsleiter and the main office and officeholders within the Reichsleitung exercised, through functional channels through the subordinate offices on lower regional levels, a total control over the various sectors of the national life of Germany.
I shall next take up the Gauleiter. As will be seen from this organizational chart of the Nazi Party now before the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USA-2, for Party purposes Germany was divided into major administrative regions, Gau, which in turn were subdivided into Kreise (counties), Ortsgruppen (local chapters), Zellen (cells), and in Blocks (blocks). A Gauleiter, who was the political leader of the Gau, was in charge of each Gau or district. Each Gauleiter was appointed by and was directly responsible to Hitler. I quote from Page 18 of this same document, 1893-PS, the Organization Book of the NSDAP:
“The Gau represents the concentration of a number of Party counties”—or Kreise—“The Gauleiter is directly subordinate to the Führer. . . .”
“The Gauleiter bears over-all responsibility to the Führer for the sector of sovereignty entrusted to him. The rights, duties, and jurisdiction of the Gauleiter result primarily from the mission assigned by the Führer, and apart from that, from detailed directives.”
The responsibility and function of the Gauleiter and his staff officers or officeholders were essentially political, namely, to insure the authority of the Nazi Party within his area, to co-ordinate the activities of the Party and all its affiliated and supervised organizations, and to enlarge the influence of the Party over the people and life in his Gau generally. Following the outbreak of the war, when it became imperative to co-ordinate the various phases of the German war effort, the Gauleiter were given additional important responsibilities. The Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, which was a sort of general staff for civilian defense and the mobilization of the German war economy, by a decree of 1 September 1939, 1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 1565, appointed about 16 Gauleiter as Reich Defense Commissars, concerning which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice. Later, under the impact of mounting military reverses and an increasingly strained war economy, more and more important administrative functions were put on a Gau basis. The Party Gaue became the basic defense areas of the Reich, and each Gauleiter became a Reich Defense Commissar by a decree of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich of 16 November 1942, 1942 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 649, of which I ask the Tribunal