Reichsführer-SS

“ KALTENBRUNNER: The report commences with the words: “The Higher SS and Police Leader East has ...” and so on and so forth, and then, “ordered” or “issued the following order.”
The Higher Police Leader East is a department, which, as a department in an occupied territory, is directly under the jurisdiction of the Reichsführer SS and not under any central department in Berlin. Therefore I could not have had knowledge of that order. The police leaders in occupied territories were immediately subordinate to Himmler. ”

“ Referring again to Page 2, the first full paragraph of the English text of this document, and Page 5, Paragraph 1, of the German text:
“The Reichsführer SS explained that the executive agents put at his disposal are extremely few, but that he would try helping the Sauckel project to succeed by increasing them and working them harder. The Reichsführer SS made immediately available 2,000 to 2,500 men from concentration camps for air raid preparations in Vienna.” ”

“ Even the Wehrmacht has no governmental or official functions here of any kind; it has only security functions and general military duties—it has no political power whatsoever. The same applies to the Police and the SS. There is here no state within a state, but we are representatives of the Führer and of the Reich.”
Later, in 1942, at a conference of the district political leaders of the NSDAP in Kraków on 18 March, Defendant Frank further explained the relationship between the administration and the Reichsführer SS Himmler. ”

“ After the accession of the Nazi conspirators to power, it developed many departments, agencies, formations, and branches and extended its influence and control over numerous fields of governmental and Party activity. Through Heinrich Himmler, as Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, agencies and units of the SS and of the Reich were joined in operation to form a unified repressive police force. ”

“ There is always danger of actual sabotage in such cases, ... the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police has reached an agreement with the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor that all charges of absenteeism against foreign workers shall be dealt with by the Gestapo. ”

“ In agreement with me and the Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, the Reichsführer SS, for reasons of state security, removed from their place of work at the end of February such Jews as were not living in camps and who were working as free workers.
“They have been formed into working units or assembled for deportation. In order not to endanger the efficacy of this measure, I have avoided issuing any notification beforehand, and I have notified only those regional labor offices in whose districts free Jewish manpower was employed in large numbers. ”

“ OHLENDORF: To fight political opponents potentially dangerous to the State.
DR. MERKEL: Do you know how this institution, which was intended originally for Prussia only, was extended to the rest of the Reich?
OHLENDORF: Either in 1933 or in 1934 the institution of the Political Police was created in all of the Länder. These Political Police agencies were officially subordinated in 1934, as far as I remember, to the Reichsführer SS as Political Police Chief of the Länder. The Prussian Secret State Police Office represented the first central headquarters. ”

“ They must be given to the Luftwaffe.
“IV. The order of the Reichsführer SS of 10 August 1943”—which I believe you also testified you know nothing about—“is not being carried out in full, as it has probably not been passed on orally, as ordered, to the subordinate police offices.
“It is therefore repeated: It is not the duty of the police to interfere in conflicts between the Germans and English and American ‘terror-fliers’ who have bailed out.
“V. Near the body of an English airman who had been shot down a brassard with the inscription ‘Deutsche Wehrmacht’ and an official stamp was found. ”

“ The organization of these camps was further intended to exterminate all unproductive forces which could no longer be exploited by German industry, and which in general might hinder Nazi expansion. Evidence for this is furnished by Document Number R-91, Pages 20 and 21 of the second document book, submitted as Exhibit Number RF-347, which is a telegram from the Chief of Staff of the Reichsführer SS, received at 2:10 o’clock on 16 December 1942 from Berlin. ”

“ DR. SEIDL: The first quotation which the prosecutor submitted to you was an entry dated 25 January 1943. He asked you whether you regarded yourself as a war criminal. I shall now put to you another passage from that conference, at which you yourself were present. I quote from Page 7 of that entry in the diary. The Governor General stated:
“State Secretary Krüger, you know that orders of the Reichsführer SS can be carried out by you only after you have spoken with me. ”

“ You will be bearing arms with a corps that embraces the most valuable elements of the young German generation. Over and above that you will be especially bound to the National Socialist ideology.” (3429-PS)
The SS Main Office, through which these recruiting activities were conducted, was one of the principal departments of the SS Supreme Command. ”

“ If the entire corps is actually an order which lives according to these laws and realizes that one part cannot exist without the other—you are unimaginable without the General SS, and the latter is not imaginable without you. ”

“ MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And if you were to combat successfully the Nazi regime, you had to have manpower which only the Army had; is that right?
GISEVIUS: Yes, only people who could be found in the Army; but at the same time we also attempted to influence certain people in the Police, and we needed all the decent officials in the ministries, and the broad masses of the people altogether.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But the Wehrmacht was the source of power capable of dealing with the SS and the Gestapo if the generals had been willing? ”

“ Every pure-blooded German in good health between the ages of 17 and 45 can become a member of the armed forces SS. He must meet all the requirements of the SS, must be of excellent character, have no criminal record, and be an ardent adherent to all Nazi socialist doctrines. ”

“ That sort of thing bears on this question of what men who joined these organizations ought to know. There was no declared and ostensible purpose of the SS, SA, and several of these organizations, except to carry into effect the Nazi program. They would make themselves masters of the streets. ”

“ KEITEL: Yes, I read this document at the time it was submitted, and I remembered it. To explain the origin of this document I must say briefly: After the war in France Hitler planned to give an independent status to the SS units, the Waffen-SS units, or form them into complete military bodies of troops. Until that time they had been parts of infantry troops attached to different Army formations. Now these groups were to be made into independent and fully-equipped units and would thus become independent formations. ”

“ Their mission, aside from the indoctrination of the armed political soldier, is guarding enemies of the State who are held in concentration camps.
“The SS Death Head Units obligate their members to 12 years service. It is composed mainly of men who have already fulfilled their duty to serve in the Wehrmacht. ”

“ The Nazi Leadership Corps consisted of the directors and principal executors of the Nazi Party, which was the force lying behind and dominating the whole German state. The Reichs Cabinet was the facade through which the Nazi Party translated its will into legislative, administrative, and executive acts. The two pillars on which the security of the regime rested were the armed forces, directed and controlled by the General Staff and High Command, and the police forces—the Gestapo, the SA, the SD, and the SS. These organizations exemplify all the evil forces of the Nazi regime. ”

“ We tackle the most thankless tasks and-I must give this its [p. 64] due -- whether in the concentration camps, in Pohl's in- dustrial works, or outside at the offices of the Senior Executive SS and Police Officers or in the workshops of the Head Office of SS administration, one thing is obvious :wherever we are, we are SS-men. Where things are in a bad way, we act. I want every subordinate trained to this end. We want to help, unhampered by quibbles regarding authority, for we want to win the war. What we are doing, we are doing for Germany. ”

“ Leaders and leader aspirants who have successfully finished the non-commissioned officer school in service that is incorporated into the Wehrmacht, will be given a rank which corresponds to their rank, in the armed parts of the SS, or in the police. ”

“ Without pity we shall be a merciless sword of justice for all those forces whose existence and activity we know, on the day of the slightest attempt, may it be today, may it be in decades or may it be in centuries.”
This conception necessarily required an extension of the duties of the SS into many fields. It involved, of course, the performance of police functions. But it involved more. It required participation in the suppression and extermination of all internal opponents of the regime. It meant participation in extending the regime beyond the borders of Germany ”

“ LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO PROPAGANDA, CENSORSHIP, AND SUPERVISION OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
10. MILITARIZATION OF NAZI ORGANIZATIONS. A. The Nazi conspirators placed many of their organizations on a progressively militarized footing with a view to the rapid transformation and use of such organizations as instruments of war.
(1) The Schutzstaffeln (SS) . The SS was militarized beginning in March 1933, when special, volunteer, armed units were created consisting of full-time garrisoned troops. ”

“ In addition, we have formed Police Rifle Regiments by merging the police battalions of the "savage peoples". Thus we did not leave these police battalions un­touched but blended them in the ratio of about 1:3. That is why we have, at the present moment of crisis, a far greater stability than could be seen among the other units made up of natives or local inhabitants.
SS-industrial concerns I now come to other individual great spheres of activity, of which it is important for you all to know [p. 63] . We have huge armament works in the concentration camps. ”

“ In conclusion, I should like to say about the “Landdienst” and the patrol service, that no coercion was ever brought to bear on the young people to enter the SS. Any lad from the patrol service was, of course, free to become a member of the SA or of the NSKK—and frequently did so—or else become a political leader just like any other boy from the farm labor service or the Hitler Youth. ”

“ DR. HAENSEL: If I understand you correctly then, there were many members of the General SS on the one hand who served in the Army; and on the other hand, there were many who belonged neither to the Party nor to the SS but served in the Waffen-SS? ”

“ The evidence has also shown that the SS was not only an organization of volunteers but that applicants had to meet the strictest standards of selection. It was not easy to become an SS member. That was true of all branches of the SS. We clearly recognize, of course, that during the course of the war, as the demands for manpower increased and the losses of the Waffen-SS grew heavier and heavier, there were occasions when some men drafted for compulsory military service were assigned to units of the Waffen-SS rather than to the Wehrmacht. ”

“ It has been established beyond doubt that the Leadership Corps of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, together with the SS-Party machine, represented the most important agency in preparing and realizing the Nazi aggressive and man-hating program. ”

“ Only I think that we could not be answerable for it to Germany, and to Germania, for this Germanic Reich needs the SS organization. She needs it at least for the next few centuries. Then, in a hundred, a thousand, or two thousand years another form will surely be found. When we are dead and gone, some remnant of us with a few of our fundamental ideas will pull through and carry on. ”

“ I have known during the course of these years so many honest, clean, and upright soldiers among the SS, and especially among the Waffen-SS and the police, that when judging here the problem of the SS in regard to the criminal nature of their activities, one can draw the same clear distinction as in the case of any of the other social groups. ”

“ It arises from the conviction that the National Socialist ideology must reign. He who possesses it and passionately supports it, submits himself voluntarily to the compulsion of obedience. Therefore, the SS man is prepared to carry out blindly every order which comes from the Führer or is given by one of his superiors even if it demands the greatest sacrifice of himself. ”

“ On the 16th of January, 1929, Adolf Hitler appointed his tested comrade of long standing, Heinrich Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS. Heinrich Himmler assumed charge therewith of the entire Schutzstaffel totaling at the time 280 men, with the express and particular commission of the Fuehrer to form of this organization an elite troop of the Party, a troop dependable in every circumstance. With this day the real history of the SS begins as it stands before us today in all its deeper essential features, firmly anchored into the national Socialist movement. ”