4. PURGE OF POLITICAL OPPONENTS AND TERRORIZATION

A. The Nazi conspirators ruthlessly purged their political opponents. Soon after the Nazi conspirators had acquired political control, the defendant Goering, 3 March 1933, stated:

“Fellow Germans, my measures will not be crippled by any judicial thinking. My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here, I don’t have to give justice, my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more! This struggle, fellow Germans, will be a struggle against chaos and such a struggle, I shall not conduct with the power of any police. A bourgeoise state might have done that. Certainly, I shall use the power of the State and the police to the utmost, my dear Communists! So you won’t draw any false conclusions; but the struggle to the death, in which my fist will grasp your necks, I shall lead with those down there—those are the Brown Shirts.” (1856-PS)

In 1934 Heinrich Himmler, the Deputy Leader of the Prussian Secret State Police, stated:

“We are confronted with a very pressing duty—both the open and secret enemies of the Fuehrer and of the National Socialist movement and of our National Revolution must be discovered, combatted and exterminated. In this duty we are agreed to spare neither our own blood nor the blood of anyone else when it is required by our country.” (2543-PS)

Raymond H. Geist, former American Counsel and First Secretary of the Embassy in Berlin, Germany 1929-1939, has stated:

“Immediately in 1933, the concentration camps were established and put under charge of the Gestapo. Only ‘political’ prisoners were held in concentration camps * * *.

“The first wave of terroristic acts began in March 6-13, 1933, accompanied by unusual mob violence. When the Nazi Party won the elections in March 1933—on the morning of the 6th—the accumulated passion blew off in wholesale attacks on the Communists, Jews, and others suspected of being either. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, beating up, looting, and even killing persons * * *.

“For Germans taken into custody by the Gestapo * * * there was a regular pattern of brutality and terror. Victims numbered in the hundreds of thousands all over Germany.” (1759-PS)

The Sturmabteilung (SA) had plans for the murder of former Prime Minister Bruening, but his life was spared through the negotiations and activities of the defendant Hess and Dr. Haushofer, President of the Geopolitic Institute of Munich, because they feared his death might result in serious repercussions abroad. (1669-PS)

From March until October 1933 the Nazi conspirators arrested, mistreated and killed numerous politicians, Reichstag members, authors, physicians, and lawyers. Among the persons killed were the Social Democrat Stolling; Ernst Heilman, Social Democrat and member of the Prussian Parliament; Otto Eggerstadt, the former Police President of Altona; and various other persons. The people killed by the Nazis belonged to various political parties and religious faiths, such as Democrats, Catholics, Communists, Jews, and pacifists. The killings were usually camouflaged by such utterances as “killed in attempting to escape” or “resisting arrest.” It is estimated that during this first wave of terror conducted by the Nazi conspirators, between 500 and 700 persons died. (2544-PS; see also 2460-PS and 2472-PS.)

On 30 June, and 1, 2 July 1934, the Nazi conspirators proceeded to destroy opposition within their own ranks by wholesale murder (2545-PS). In making a formal report of these murders to the Reichstag on 13 July 1934, Hitler stated:

“The punishment for these crimes was hard and severe. There were shot 19 higher SA leaders, 31 SA leaders and SA members and also 3 SS leaders as participants in the plot. Also 13 SA leaders and civilians who tried to resist arrest and were killed in the attempt. 3 others committed suicide. 5 members of the Party who were not members of the SA were shot because of their participation. Finally, 3 SS members were at the same time exterminated because they had maltreated concentration camp inmates.” (2572-PS)

In this same speech, Hitler proudly boasted that he gave the order to shoot the principal traitors and that he had prosecuted thousands of his former enemies on account of their corruption. He justified this action by saying,

“In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people.” (Voelkischer Beobachter (People’s Observer), Berlin ed., issue 195, 14 July 1934, Beiblatt, p. 2.)

The conspirators took advantage of this occasion to eliminate many opponents indiscriminately.

In discussing the Roehm purge, the defendant Frick stated:

“On account of this order, many, many people were arrested * * * something like a hundred, even more, were even killed who were accused of high treason. All of this was done without resort to legal proceedings. They were just killed on the spot. Many people were killed—I don’t know how many—who actually did not have anything to do with the putsch. People who just weren’t liked very well, as, for instance, SCHLEICHER, the former Reich Chancellor, were killed. SCHLEICHER’s wife was also killed as was GREGOR STRASSER, who had been the Reich organization leader and second man in the Party after Hitler. STRASSER, at the time he was murdered, was not active in political affairs anymore. However, he had separated himself from the Fuehrer in November or December of 1932.” (2950-PS)

Such a large scale of extermination could not be carried out without errors. Shortly after the event, the Nazi conspirators arranged for a Government pension to be paid to one of its citizens, because “by mistake” the political police had murdered her husband, Willi Schmidt, who had never engaged in any kind of political activity. It was believed at the time that the man intended was Willi Schmidt, an SA leader in Munich, who was later shot on the same day. (L-135)

The Nazi conspirators formally endorsed their murderous purge within their own ranks by causing the Reichstag to pass a law declaring that all measures taken in carrying out the purge on 30 June and 1-2 July 1934 were legal as a measure of State necessity (2057-PS). Referring to this act of approval on the part of the Nazi-controlled Reichstag, Goering stated:

“The action of the Government in the days of the Roehm revolt was the highest realization of the legal consciousness of the people. Later the action which itself was justified, now has been made legal by the passage of a law.” (2496-PS)

Furthermore, the leader of the Nazi conspiracy on 25 July 1934 issued a decree which stated that because of the meritorious service of the SS, especially in connection with the events of 30 June 1934, the organization was elevated to the standing of an independent organization within the NSDAP. (1857-PS)

B. The Nazi conspirators used the legislative and judicial powers of the German Reich to terrorize all political opponents.

(1) They created a great number of new political crimes. The decree of 28 February 1933 punished the inciting of disobedience to orders given out by State or Reich Government authorities or the provocation of acts “contrary to public welfare.” (1390-PS) A month later, in order to give themselves legal justification for murdering by judicial process their political enemies, the Nazi conspirators passed a law making the provisions of the above decree applicable retroactively to acts committed during the period from 31 January to 28 February 1933. (2554-PS)

Referring to these laws, the defendant Goering stated:

“Whoever in the future raises a hand against a representative of the National Socialist movement or of the State, must know that he will lose his life in a very short while. Furthermore, it will be entirely sufficient, if he is proven to have intended the act, or, if the act results not in a death, but only in an injury.” (2494-PS)

On 21 March 1933 a decree was issued which provided for penitentiary imprisonment up to two years for possessing a uniform of an organization supporting the government of the Nationalist movement without being entitled thereto, or circulating a statement which was untrue or greatly exaggerated, or which was apt to seriously harm the welfare of the Reich or the reputation of the Government, or of the Party or organizations supporting the Government. (1652-PS)

The Nazi conspirators caused a law to be enacted punishing whoever undertook to maintain or form a political party other than the NSDAP. (1388-PS)

The Nazi conspirators enacted a law which made it a crime deliberately to make false or grave statements calculated to injure the welfare or the prestige of the Reich, or to circulate a statement manifesting a malicious or low-minded attitude toward leading personalities of the State or the Party. The law also applied to statements of this kind which were not made in public, provided the offender counted on his statements being eventually circulated in public. (1393-PS)

In commenting on the above law, one of the leading Nazi conspirators, Martin Bormann, stated:

“Although it must absolutely be prevented that martyrs are created, one must take merciless action against such people, in whose attacks a bad character or attitude, decisively inimical to the State, can be recognized. For this purpose, I request the Gauleiters to report here briefly all crimes, which must absolutely be punished, and which have become known to the districts, regardless of the report to be made to the district attorney’s office * * *.

“The district and local leaderships are to be notified accordingly. However, if it should be decided from wherein this or that punishable case, that the miscreant is to be given a simple or strong reprimand by the court, I shall give the directive for the future, that the Districts are informed of the names of the persons.

“I therefore request, to see to it, that these compatriots be especially watched by the Ortsgruppen, and that it be attempted, to influence them in the National Socialist sense. Otherwise, it will be necessary to place the activities of such persons, who do not want to be taught, under exact control. In these cases, it will eventually be necessary, to notify the Secret State Police.” (2639-PS)

On 24 April 1934 the Nazi conspirators passed a law imposing the death penalty for “any treasonable act.” Included in the law was a declaration to the effect that the creating or organizing of a political party, or continuing of an existing one was a treasonable act. (2548-PS)

(2) By their interpretation and changes of the penal law, the Nazi conspirators enlarged their terroristic methods. After the enactment of these new political crimes, the Nazi conspirators introduced into the penal law the theory of punishment by analogy. This enabled them legally to punish any act injurious to their political interests even if no existing statute forbade it. The culpability of the act and the punishment was determined by the law most closely relating to or covering the act which was in force at the time. (1962-PS)

In interpreting this law, Dr. Guertner, Reich Minister of Justice, stated:

“National Socialism substitutes for the idea of formal wrong, the idea of factual wrong. * * * Even without the threat of punishment, every violation of the goals toward which the community is striving is a wrong per se. As a result, the law ceases to be an exclusive source for the determination of right or wrong.” (2549-PS)

Referring to the penal code of Nazi Germany, the defendant Frank stated in 1935:

“The National Socialist State is a totalitarian State, it makes no concessions to criminals, it does not negotiate with them; it stamps them out.” (2552-PS)

The Nazi conspirators also revised the criminal law so that the State could, within one year after a decree in a criminal case had become final, apply for a new trial, and the application would be decided by members of a Special Penal Chamber appointed by Hitler personally. Thus, if a defendant should be acquitted in a lower court, the Nazi conspirators could rectify the situation by another trial. (2550-PS)

In direct contrast to the severity of the criminal law as it affected the general population of Germany, the Nazi conspirators adopted and endorsed a large body of unwritten laws exempting the police from criminal liability for illegal acts done under higher authority. This principle was described by Dr. Werner Best, outstanding Nazi lawyer, in the following terms:

“The police never act in a lawless or illegal manner as long as they act according to the rules laid down by their superiors up to the highest governing body. According to its nature, the police must only deal with what the Government wants to know is being dealt with. What the Government wants to know is being dealt with by the police is the essence of the police law and is that which guides and restricts the actions of the police. As long as the police carry out the will of the Government, it is acting legally.” (1852-PS)

C. The Nazi conspirators created a vast system of espionage into the daily lives of all parts of the population.

(1) They destroyed the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications. They enacted a law in February of 1933 providing that violations of privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications were permissible beyond legal limitations. (1390-PS)

Dr. Hans Anschuetz, the present District Court Director (Landgerichtsdirektor) at Heidelberg, Germany, recently stated:

“Subsequently, the system of spying upon and supervising the political opinions of each citizen which permeated the entire people and private life of Germany, was, of course, also extended to judges.” (2967-PS)

(2) They used the Secret State Police (Gestapo) and the Security Service (SD) for the purpose of maintaining close surveillance over the daily activities of all people in Germany. The Gestapo had as its primary preventive activity the thorough observation of all enemies of the State, in the territory of the Reich. (1956-PS)

The SD was an intelligence organization which operated out of various regional offices. It consisted of many hundreds of professional SD members who were assisted by thousands of honorary members and informers. These people were placed in all fields of business, education, State and Party administration, and frequently performed their duties secretly in their own organization. This information service reported on the activities of the people. (2614-PS)

D. Without judicial process, the Nazi conspirators imprisoned, held in protective custody and sent to concentration camps opponents and suspected opponents.

They authorized the Gestapo to arrest and detain without recourse to any legal proceeding. Officially, this power was described as follows:

“The Secret State Police takes the necessary police preventive measures against the enemies of the State on the basis of the results of the observation. The most effective preventive measure is without doubt the withdrawal of freedom which is covered in the form of protective custody. * * * While protective arrests of short duration are carried out in police and court prisons, the concentration camps under the Secret State Police admit those taken into protective custody who have to be withdrawn from public life for a longer time.” (1956-PS)

The Nazi conspirators issued their own orders for the taking of people into protective custody and these orders set forth no further details concerning the reasons therefor, except a statement such as “Suspicion of activities inimical toward the State.” (2499-PS)

The defendant Frank stated:

“To the world we are blamed again and again because of the concentration camps. We are asked, ‘Why do you arrest without a warrant of arrest?’ I say, put yourselves into the position of our nation. Don’t forget that the very great and still untouched world of Bolshevism cannot forget that we have made final victory for them impossible in Europe, right here on German soil.” (2533-PS)

The defendant Goering said in 1934:

“Against the enemies of the State, we must proceed ruthlessly. It cannot be forgotten that at the moment of our rise to power, according to the official election figures of March 1933, six million people still confess their sympathy for Communism and eight million for Marxism. * * * Therefore, the concentration camps have been created, where we have first confined thousands of Communists and Social Democrat functionaries. * * *” (2344-PS)

U. S. Ambassador George S. Messersmith, former Counsel General in Berlin, Germany, 1930-34, and Raymond H. Geist, former American Counsel and First Secretary of the Embassy in Berlin, Germany, 1929-1939, have recently stated:

“Independent of individual criminal acts committed by high functionaries of the German government or the Nazi Party, such as the murders ordered by Hitler, Himmler and Goering, all high functionaries of the German government and of the Nazi Party * * * are guilty in the highest degree of complicity in and furtherance of the cardinal crimes of oppression against the German people, persecution and destruction of the Jews and all of their political opponents.” (2386-PS)

Commenting further on the Nazi conspirators’ use of concentration camps to destroy political opposition, Raymond H. Geist stated:

“The German people were well acquainted with the goings on in concentration camps and it was well known that the fate of anyone too actively opposed to any part of the Nazi program was liable to be one of great suffering. Indeed, before the Hitler regime was many months old, almost every family in Germany had had first-hand accounts of the brutalities inflicted in the concentration camps from someone either in the relationship or in the circle of friends who had served a sentence there; consequently the fear of such camps was a very effective brake on any possible opposition.” (1759-PS)

The Nazi conspirators confined, under the guise of “protective custody” Reichstag members, Social Democrats, Communists, and other opponents or suspected opponents. (2544-PS; L-73; L-83; 1430-PS.)

E. The Nazi conspirators created and utilized special agencies for carrying out their system of terror.

(See Chapter XV, Sections 5 and 6, on the Gestapo, SS, and SD)

F. The Nazi conspirators permitted organizations and individuals to carry out this system of terror without restraint of law.

(1) Acts of the Gestapo were not subject to review by the courts. In 1935 the Prussian Supreme Court of Administration held that the orders of the Gestapo were not subject to judicial review; and that the accused person could appeal only to the next higher authority within the State Police itself. (2347-PS)

In 1936 a law was passed concerning The Gestapo in Prussia which provided that orders in matters of the Gestapo were not subject to review of the Administrative Courts. (2107-PS)

On the same subject, the following article appeared in the official German Lawyer’s Journal, 1935.

“Once again the court had to decide on the question of whether political measures could be subjected to the review of the ordinary courts. * * * The case in question concerned the official performance of his duty by an official of the NSDAP. * * * The principle of the importance and the mission of the Party and its ‘Sovereign Functionaires’ cannot be overlooked. Therefore, the plaintiff should have been denied the right to be in court.” (2491-PS)

(2) Where no definite law protected terroristic acts of Nazi conspirators and their accomplices, proceedings against them were in the first instance suppressed or thereafter their acts were pardoned. In 1935, proceedings against an employee of the Gestapo accused of torturing, beating, and killing of inmates of a concentration camp were suppressed (787-PS; 788-PS). In June 1935 twenty-three SA members and policemen convicted of the beating and murder of inmates of the Hohnstein concentration camp were pardoned (786-PS). The prosecutor was forced to resign from the SA. (784-PS)

LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO PURGE OF POLITICAL OPPONENTS AND TERRORIZATION

DocumentDescriptionVol.Page
Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6, especially 6 (a).I5
International Military Tribunal, Indictment Number 1, Section IV (D) 3 (b).I19
—————
Note: A single asterisk (*) before a document indicates that the document was received in evidence at the Nurnberg trial. A double asterisk (**) before a document number indicates that the document as referred to during the trial but was not formally received in evidence, for the reason given in parentheses following the description of the document. The USA series number, given in parentheses following the description of the document, is the official exhibit number assigned by the court.
—————
 *784-PSLetters from Minister of Justice to Hess and SA Chief of Staff, 5 June 1935, concerning penal proceedings against merchant and SA leader and 22 companions because of inflicting bodily injury on duty. (USA 732)III559
 *786-PSMinister of Justice memorandum, 29 November 1935, concerning pardon of those sentenced in connection with mistreatment in Hohnstein concentration camp. (USA 734)III568
 *787-PSMemorandum to Hitler from Public Prosecutor of Dresden, 18 June 1935, concerning criminal procedure against Vogel on account of bodily injury while in office. (USA 421)III568
 *788-PSLetters from Secretary of State to the Minister of Justice, 25 June 1935 and 9 September 1935, concerning criminal procedure against Vogel. (USA 735)III571
 1388-PSLaw concerning confiscation of Property subversive to People and State, 14 July 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 479.III962
 1390-PSDecree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State, 28 February 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 83.III968
 1393-PSLaw on treacherous attacks against State and Party, and for the Protection of Party Uniforms, 20 December 1934. 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1269.III973
 1430-PSCompilation of Leading Men of the System Era, June 1939.IV15
 1652-PSDecree of the Reich President for protection against treacherous attacks on the government of the Nationalist movement, 21 March 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 135.IV160
*1669-PSCorrespondence between Dr. Haushofer and Hess, 24 and 28 August 1933. (USA 741)IV184
*1759-PSAffidavit of Raymond H. Geist. (USA 420)IV288
*1852-PS“Law” from The German Police, 1941, by Dr. Werner Best. (USA 449). (See Chart No. 16)IV490
*1856-PSExtract from book entitled “Hermann Goering—Speeches and Essays”, 3rd edition 1939, p. 27. (USA 437)IV496
*1857-PSAnnouncement of creation of SS as independent formation of NSDAP. Voelkischer Beobachter, 26 July 1934, p. 1. (USA 412)IV496
 1956-PSMeaning and Tasks of the Secret State Police, published in The Archives, January 1936, Vol. 22-24, p. 1342.IV598
 1962-PSLaw to change the Penal Code of 28 June 1935. 1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 839.IV600
 2057-PSLaw relating to National Emergency Defense Measures of 3 July 1934. 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 529.IV699
 2107-PSLaw on Secret State Police of 10 February 1936. 1936 Preussiche Gesetzsammlung, pp. 21-22.IV732
 2344-PSReconstruction of a Nation by Goering, 1934, p. 89.IV1065
 2347-PSCourt decisions from 1935 Reichsverwaltungsblatt, Vol. 56, pp. 577-578, 20 July 1935.IV1066
*2386-PSJoint affidavit of George S. Messersmith and Raymond H. Geist, 29 August 1945. (USA 750)V39
*2460-PSAffidavit of Rudolf Diels. (USA 751)V205
*2472-PSAffidavit of Rudolf Diels, 31 October 1945. (USA 752)V224
 2491-PSExtract from Legal Review, published Lawyers’ Journal, 1935.V235
 2494-PSPrime Minister Goering’s Press Conference, published in Voelkischer Beobachter, Berlin edition, 23-24 July 1933, p. 1.V236
 2496-PSExtract from Goering’s address to Public Prosecutors of Prussia on 12 July 1934 from the Archive, 1934, Vols. IV-VI, p. 495.V236
*2499-PSOriginal Protective Custody Order served on Dr. R. Kempner, 15 March 1935. (USA 232)V236
 2533-PSExtract from article “Legislation and Judiciary in the Third Reich”, from Journal of the Academy for German Law, 1936, pp. 141-142.V277
 2543-PSExtract from The Mission of the SS, published in The National Socialist Magazine, Issue 46, January 1934.V288
*2544-PSAffidavit of Rudolf Diels, former Superior Government Counsellor of the Police Division of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. (USA 753)V288
 2545-PSExtract from Hitler’s cleaning up act in Reich, published in Voelkischer Beobachter, Berlin edition, No. 182-183, 1-2 July 1934, p. 1.V290
 2548-PSLaw about changing rules of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure of 24 April 1934. 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 34.V291
 2549-PSExtract from “Germany’s Road to Freedom” as published in Documents of German Politics, Vol. 3.V292
 2550-PSLaw on modification of rules of general criminal procedure, 16 September 1939. 1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1841.V293
 2552-PSExcerpt concerning criminals, published in Journal of the Academy for German Law. No. 3. March 1935.V293
 2554-PSLaw concerning adjudication and execution of the death penalties of 29 March 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 151.V294
 2572-PSHitler’s speech to the Reichstag on 13 July 1934, printed in The Third Reich, Vol. II, p. 247.V302
*2614-PSAffidavit of Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, 5 November 1945. (USA 918)V337
 2639-PSOrdinances of the Deputy of the Fuehrer, published in Munich 1937.V345
*2950-PSAffidavit of Frick, 19 November 1945. (USA 448)V654
*2967-PSAffidavit of Dr. Hans Anschuetz, 17 November 1945. (USA 756)V673
*L-73Affidavit of Bruno Bettelheim, 10 July 1945. (USA 746)VII818
*L-83Affidavit of Gerhart H. Seger, 21 July 1945. (USA 234)VII859
*L-135Affidavit of Kate Eva Hoerlin, 9 July 1945. (USA 747)VII883

5. DESTRUCTION OF THE FREE TRADE UNIONS AND
ACQUISITION OF CONTROL OVER THE
PRODUCTIVE LABOR CAPACITY

A. They destroyed the independent organization of German labor.

(1) Before the Nazis took control, organized labor held a well established and influential position in Germany. Most of the trade unions of Germany were joined together in two large congresses or federations, the Free Trade Unions (Freie Gewerkschaften) and Christian Trade Unions (Christlichen Gewerkschaften). Unions outside these two large groupings contained only 15 per cent of the total union membership. The Free Trade Unions were a congress of two federations of affiliated unions: (1) the General German Trade Union Federation (Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbund, or the “ADGB”) with 28 affiliated unions of industrial workers; (2) the General Independent Employees Federation (Allgemeinen Freien Angestelltenbund, or the “AFA”) with 13 affiliated unions of white collar workers. (392-PS)

The membership of the Free Trade Unions, the affiliated organizations of the Christian Trade Unions, and all other unions at the end of 1931 (the last year for which the official government yearbook gives statistics) was as follows (2411-PS):

Union GroupNumber of membersPercentage of total
Free Trade Unions4,569,87665.9
Christian Trade Unions1,283,27218.5
Others Unions1,081,37115.6
——————
      Total6,934,519100.0

Under the Weimar Constitution, workers were “called upon to take part on equal terms” with employers in regulating conditions of employment. “It was provided that organizations on both sides and agreements between them shall be recognized.” Factory Representative Councils (otherwise known as Workmens or Factory Works Councils) had the right, in conjunction with employers’ representatives, to take an official part in the initiation and administration of social and economic legislation. (2050-PS)

(2) The Nazi conspirators conceived that the free trade unions were incompatible with their objectives.

Hitler stated in Mein Kampf:

“It (the trade union) created the economic weapon which the international world Jew uses for the ruination of the economic basis of free, independent states, for the annihilation of their national industry and of their national commerce, and thereby for the enslavement of free people in the service of the above-the-state-standing, world finance Jewry (ueberstaatlichen Weltfinanz-Judentums).” (404-PS)

In announcing to Germany the seizure of the Free Trade Unions, Dr. Robert Ley, speaking as chairman of the Nazi Committee for the Protection of German Labor, stated:

“You may say, what else do you want, you have the absolute power, but we do not have the whole people, we do not have you workers 100 percent, and it is you whom we want; we will not let you be until you stand with us in complete, genuine acknowledgement.” (614-PS; see also 2224-PS and 2283-PS.)

(3) Soon after coming to power the Nazi conspirators took drastic action to convert the Factory Representative Councils into Nazi-controlled organizations. The Nazi conspirators eliminated the independence of the Factory Representative Councils by giving the Governors of the Laender authority to cancel the membership of labor representatives in the councils; by abrogating the right of the councils to oppose the dismissal of a worker when he was “suspected of an unfriendly attitude toward the state” (1770-PS); and finally by limiting membership in all Factory Representative Councils to Nazis (2336-PS). (After 7 April 1933, the Governors of the Laender were appointed by the Reich President “upon the proposal of the Reich Chancellor,” Hitler, 2005-PS).

(4) Soon after coming to power the Nazi conspirators proceeded to destroy the independent unions. In mid-April 1933, Hitler directed Dr. Robert Ley, then staff director of the PO (Political Organization) of the NSDAP, to take over the trade unions. (2283-PS)

Ley issued an NSDAP circular directive on 21 April 1933 detailing a “coordination action” (Gleichschaltunsaktion) to be taken on 2 May 1933 against the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) and the General Independent Employees Federation (AFA), the so-called “Free Trade Unions” (392-PS). This directive created a special “Action Committee” to direct the entire action and declared that the supporters of the action were to be drawn from the National Socialist Factory Cells Organization or NSBO (Nationalsozialistiche Betriebszellen-Organisation), the NSDAP political leaders (Politische Leiter) in the factories; it named NSDAP commissars for the administration of the larger ADGB unions to be seized in the action; it made the Gauleaders (Gauleiter) of the NSDAP responsible for the disciplined execution of the action in their respective areas and authorized them to nominate additional commissars to administer the unions subjected to the action. The directive ordered that SA and SS were to be used in occupying union offices and the Bank of Workers, Employees and Officials, Inc., and for taking into protective custody the higher union leaders.

The order of seizure was carried out as planned and ordered. On 2 May the official NSDAP press service reported that the NSBO had “eliminated the old leadership” of Free Trade Unions and taken over their leadership. (2224-PS)

On 3 May 1933 the NSDAP press service announced that the Central League of Christian Trade Unions (Gesamtverband der Christlichen Gewerkschaften) and several smaller unions “have unconditionally subordinated themselves to the leadership of Adolf Hitler” (2225-PS). The next day the NSDAP press stated that the German Nationalist Clerks League (DHV) had also “recognized the leadership of the NSDAP in German trade union affairs * * * after a detailed conversation” between Dr. Ley and the leader of the DHV (2226-PS). In late June 1933, as a final measure against the Christian Trade Unions, Ley directed that all their offices were to be occupied by National Socialists. (392-PS)

The duress practiced by the Nazi conspirators in their assumption of absolute control over the unions is shown by a proclamation of Muchow, leader of the organizational office of the German Labor Front, in late June 1933. By this Party proclamation, all associations of workers not yet “concentrated” in the German Labor Front had to report within eight days. Thereafter they were to be notified of the branch of the German Labor Front which “they will have to join”. (2228-PS)

(5) The Nazi Conspirators eliminated the right of collective bargaining generally. During the same months in which the unions were abolished, a decree eliminated collective bargaining on conditions of employment and substituted regulation by “trustees of labor” (Treuhaender der Arbeit) appointed by Hitler. (405-PS)

(6) The Nazi conspirators confiscated all union funds and property. The NSDAP circular ordering the seizure of the Free Trade Unions on 2 May 1933 directed that the SA and SS were to be used to occupy the branches and paying offices of the Bank for Workers, Employees and Officials and appointed a Nazi commissar, Mueller, for the bank’s subsequent direction. The stock of this bank was held entirely by the General German Trade Union Association and its affiliated member unions. The NSDAP circular also directed that all union funds were to be blocked until re-opened under the authority and control of NSDAP-appointed commissars (392-PS; 2895-PS). The Fuehrer’s basic order on the German Labor Front of the NSDAP in October 1934 declared that all the property of the trade unions and their dependent organizations constituted (bildet) property of the German Labor Front (2271-PS). Referring to the seizure of the property of the unions in a speech at the 1937 Party Congress, Ley mockingly declared that he would have to be convicted if the former trade union leaders were ever to demand the return of their property. (1678-PS)

(7) The Nazi conspirators persecuted union leaders. The NSDAP order on the seizure of the “Free Trade Unions” directed that the chairmen of the unions were to be taken into “protective custody”. Lesser leaders could be arrested with the permission of the appropriate Gau leader of the NSDAP (392-PS). In late June 1933 the German Labor Front published a “List of Outlaws” who were to be denied employment in the factories. The List named union leaders who had been active in combatting National Socialism and who allegedly continued to carry on their resistance secretly. (2336-PS)

The Nazi conspirators subjected union leaders to maltreatment ranging from assaults to murder. Among the offenses committed against union leaders are the following: assault and battery; degrading work and work beyond their physical capacity; incarceration in concentration camps; solitary confinement; denial of adequate food; surveillance; arrest and maltreatment of members of their families; murder. (2330-PS; 2331-PS; 2335-PS; 2334-PS; 2928-PS; 2277-PS; 2332-PS; and 2333-PS)

B. The Nazi conspirators introduced the Leadership Principle into industrial relations. In January 1934, a decree introduced the Leadership Principle (Fuehrerprinzip) into industrial relations, the entrepreneur becoming the leader and the workers becoming his followers. (1861-PS)

C. The Nazi conspirators supplanted independent unions by an affiliated Party organization, the German Labor Front (DAF).

(1) They created the German Labor Front. On the day the Nazis seized the Free Trade Unions, 2 May 1933, they publicly announced that a “united front of German workers” with Hitler as honorary patron would be formed at a Workers’ Congress on 10 May 1933. (2224-PS)

Ley was appointed “leader of the German Labor Front” (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, or “DAF”) on 10 May 1933 (1940-PS). The German Labor Front succeeded to the confiscated property of the suppressed trade union. It was an affiliated organization of the NSDAP, subject to the Leadership Principle; Ley was concurrently Reich Organization Leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter) and leader of the German Labor Front (1814-PS). The National Socialist Factory Cells Organization or NSBO contained the political leaders (Politische Leiter) of the NSDAP in the German Labor Front and those political leaders were given first preference in the filling of jobs in the DAF (2271-PS). The German Labor Front became the largest of the Party’s organizations. At the outbreak of the war it had 23 million individual members and about 10 million corporative members who were members of organizations affiliated with it. (2275-PS)

(2) They utilized the German Labor Front as an instrument to impose their ideology on the masses, to frustrate potential resistance, and to insure effective control of the productive labor capacity of Germany. The DAF was charged with the ideological orientation of the broad masses of Germans working in the factories. Its leaders were charged with weeding out potential opponents to National Socialism from the ranks of the DAF and from employment in industry. In its surveillance functions, the German Labor Front relied on Gestapo reports and on its own intelligence service (2336-PS). The German Labor Front took over the leadership of the German Cooperatives with the view to their subsequent liquidation (2270-PS). The Nazi conspirators established Factory Troops (Werkscharen) within the Strength Through Joy branch of the German Labor Front as an “ideological shock squad (Weltanschaulicher Stosstrupp) within the factory” (1817-PS). These shock squads were formed only of voluntary members ready “to fight” for Nazi conceptions. Among their objects were the speeding up of labor effort and the forging of a “single-willed community” (1818-PS). The SA was charged with the promotion and building up of Factory Troops by all means. When a factory worker joined the Factory Troops, he automatically became an SA candidate. Factory Troops were given a special uniform and their physical training took place within SA cadre units. (2230-PS)

During the war, the German Labor Front was made responsible for the care of foreign labor employed within the Reich (1913-PS). Barely two years after the suppression of the independent unions and the creation of the German Labor Front, the Nazi conspirators decreed compulsory labor service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) under which young men and women between 18 and 25 years of age were conscripted for labor service under the administration of the Reich Minister of Interior, Frick. (1389-PS)

After war had been declared, the Nazi conspirators openly admitted the objectives of the Nazis’ control over labor. A publication of the Scientific Institute of the German Labor Front declared that it had been difficult to make the German people understand continuous renunciations in social conditions because all the nation’s strength had been channeled into armaments (Wehrhaftigkeit) for “the anticipated clash with an envious surrounding world” (2276-PS). Addressing workers five days after the launching of war on Poland, Ley admitted that the Nazis had mobilized all the resources and energies of Germany for seven years “so as to be equipped for the supreme effort of battle” and that the First World War had not been lost because of cowardice of German soldiers, “but because dissension and discord tore the people asunder” (1939-PS). Ley’s confidence in the Nazis’ effective control over the productive labor capacity of Germany in peace or war was declared as early as 1936 to the Nurnberg Party Congress:

“The idea of the Factory Troops is making good progress in the plants, and I am able to report to you, my Fuehrer, that security and peace in the factories has been guaranteed, not only in normal times, but also in times of the most serious crisis. Disturbances such as the munitions strikes of the traitors Ebert and confederates, are out of the question. National Socialism has conquered the factories. Factory Troops are the National Socialist shock troops within the factory, and their motto is: THE FUEHRER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.” (2283-PS)

LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO DESTRUCTION OF THE FREE TRADE UNIONS AND ACQUISITION OF CONTROL OVER THE PRODUCTIVE LABOR CAPACITY

DocumentDescriptionVol.Page
Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6, especially 6 (a).I5
International Military Tribunal, Indictment Number 1, Section IV (D) 3 (c) (1).I19
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Note: A single asterisk (*) before a document indicates that the document was received in evidence at the Nurnberg trial. A double asterisk (**) before a document number indicates that the document was referred to during the trial but was not formally received in evidence, for the reason given in parentheses following the description of the document. The USA series number, given in parentheses following the description of the document, is the official exhibit number assigned by the court.
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 *392-PSOfficial NSDAP circular entitled “The Social Life of New Germany with Special Consideration of the German Labor Front”, by Prof. Willy Mueller (Berlin, 1938). (USA 326)III380
 *404-PSExcerpts from Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 456, 475. (USA 256)III385
  405-PSLaw Concerning Trustees of Labor, 19 May 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 285.III387
  614-PSProclamation of the Action Committee for the Protection of German Labor, 2 May 1933. Documents of German Politics, Vol. I, p. 151-3.III447
 1389-PSLaw creating Reich Labor Service, 26 June 1935. 1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 769.III963
*1678-PSSpeech of Dr. Robert Ley. Documents of German Politics, Vol. V, pp. 373, 376. (USA 365)IV190
 1770-PSLaw concerning factory representative councils and economic organizations, 4 April 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 161.IV343
*1814-PSThe Organization of the NSDAP and its affiliated associations, from Organization book of the NSDAP, editions of 1936, 1938, 1940 and 1943, pp. 86-88. (USA 328)IV411
 1817-PSBureau for factory troops, from Organization Book of the NSDAP, 1936 edition, p. 211.IV457
 1818-PSBureau for Factory troops and training, from Organization Book of the NSDAP, 1940 edition, pp. 195-196b.IV457
 1861-PSLaw on the regulation of National labor, 20 January 1934. 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 45.IV497
*1913-PSAgreement between Plenipotentiary General for Arbeitseinsatz and German Labor Front concerning care of non-German workers. 1943 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 588. (USA 227)IV547
 1939-PSSpeech by Ley published in Forge of the Sword, with an introduction by Marshal Goering, pp. 14-17.IV581
 1940-PSFuehrer edict appointing Ley leader of German Labor Front. Voelkischer Beobachter, Munich (Southern German) edition, p. 1.IV584
 1947-PSLetter from von Fritsch, 11 December 1938, concerning need of Germany to be victorious over working class, Catholic Church and Jews.IV585
 2005-PSSecond law integrating the “Laender” with the Reich, 7 April 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 173.IV641
 2050-PSThe Constitution of the German Reich, 11 August 1919. 1919 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1383.IV662
*2224-PSThe End of the Marxist Class Struggle, published in National Socialist Party Press Agency, 2 May 1933, pp. 1-2. (USA 364)IV864
 2225-PSThe Front of German Workers has been Erected, published in National Socialist Party Press Agency, 3 May 1933, p. 1.IV868
 2226-PSThe Labor Front Stands, published in National Socialist Party Press Agency, 4 May 1933, p. 2.IV869
 2228-PSOrder issued by German Labor Front, published in National Socialist Party Press Agency, 26 June 1933, p. 5.IV869
 2230-PSAgreement between Ley and Lutze, chief of staff of SA, published in Organization Book of NSDAP, 1938, pp. 484-485b, 486c.IV871
 2270-PSCoordination of Cooperatives, published in National Socialist Party Press Agency release of 16 May 1933.IV938
 2271-PSThe National Socialist Factory Cells Organization, published in Organization Book of NSDAP, pp. 185-187.IV940
 2275-PSThe German Labor Front, published in Nature-Aim-Means. Footnote on p. 11.IV949
 2276-PSThe German Labor Front, published in Nature-Aim-Means. p. 55.IV950
*2277-PSAffidavit, 17 October 1945, of Gustav Schiefer, Chairman of General German Trade Union Association, Local Committee, Munich, in 1933. (USA 748)IV951
*2283-PSThe Fifth Day of the Party Congress, from Voelkischer Beobachter, Munich (Southern German) Edition, Issue 258, 14 September 1936. (USA 337)IV971
*2330-PSOrder of Protective Custody, Police Directorate of Nurnberg-Fuerth of Josef Simon, Chairman of German Shoemaker’s Union, 29 August 1935. (USA 237)IV1038
*2331-PSDeclaration required of union leader Josef Simon upon his release from Protective Custody by Bavarian Political Police, 20 December 1935. (USA 743)IV1039
 2332-PSDeath certificate, Flossenburg Concentration Camp, concerning union leader Staimer and official letter to his wife, 22 December 1941.IV1040
*2333-PSDeath certificate, Flossenburg Concentration Camp, concerning union leader Herrmann, and official letter to his wife, 29 December 1941. (USA 744)IV1040
*2334-PSAffidavits of Lorenz Hagen, Chairman of Local Committee, German Trade Unions, Nurnberg. (USA 238)IV1041
*2335-PSAffidavits of Josef Simon, Chairman of German Shoemakers’ Union in 1933. (USA 749)IV1046
 2336-PSSpecial Circular on Securing of association of German Labor Front against hidden Marxist sabotage, 27 June 1933.IV1052
 2411-PSChart of unions of workers and employees, from Statistical Yearbook for German Reich, 1932, p. 555.V87
*2895-PSJoint affidavit of union leaders Simon, Hagen, and Lex, 13 November 1945. (USA 754)V563
*2928-PSAffidavit of Mathias Lex, deputy president of the German Shoemakers Union. (USA 239)V594
Statement XIIPolitical Testament of Robert Ley, written in Nurnberg prison, October 1945.VIII742
Statement XIIIOutline of Defense of Dr. Robert Ley, written in Nurnberg prison, 24 October 1945.VIII749