LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO ACQUISITION OF TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL CONTROL
| Document | Description | Vol. | Page |
| Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6, especially 6 (a). | I | 5 | |
| International Military Tribunal, Indictment Number 1, Sections IV (D) 1, 2. | I | 17, 18 | |
| ————— | |||
| 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. | |||
| ————— | |||
| *047-PS | Letter to Rosenberg signed by Hitler, 24 August 1931. (USA 725) | III | 82 |
| *351-PS | Minutes of First Meeting of Cabinet of Hitler, 30 January 1933. (USA 389) | III | 270 |
| *404-PS | Excerpts from Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 456, 475. (USA 256) | III | 385 |
| 1388-PS | Law concerning confiscation of Property subversive to People and State, 14 July 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 479. | III | 962 |
| 1388-A-PS | Law against the establishment of Parties, 14 July 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 479. | III | 962 |
| 1390-PS | Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State, 28 February 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 83. | III | 968 |
| 1393-PS | Law on treacherous attacks against State and Party, and for the Protection of Party Uniforms, 20 December 1934. 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1269. | III | 973 |
| *1395-PS | Law to insure the unity of Party and State, 1 December 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1016. (GB 252) | III | 978 |
| 1396-PS | Law concerning the confiscation of Communist property, 26 May 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 293. | III | 979 |
| 1725-PS | Decree enforcing law for securing the unity of Party and State, 29 March 1935. 1935 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 502. | IV | 224 |
| 2001-PS | Law to Remove the Distress of People and State, 24 March 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 141. | IV | 638 |
| 2047-PS | Law for the extension of the law concerning the removal of the distress of People and Reich, 30 January 1937. 1937 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 105. | IV | 660 |
| 2048-PS | Law for the extension of the law concerning the removal of the distress of the People and Reich, 30 January 1939. 1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 95. | IV | 660 |
| 2050-PS | The Constitution of the German Reich, 11 August 1919. 1919 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 1383. | IV | 662 |
| 2058-PS | Decree for the securing of the State Leadership, 7 July 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 462. | IV | 699 |
| 2059-PS | Decree of the Reich President relating to the granting of Amnesty, 21 March 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 134. | IV | 701 |
| 2103-PS | Decree of Fuehrer on Cabinet Legislation, 10 May 1943. 1943 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 295. | IV | 729 |
| *2168-PS | Book by SA Sturmfuehrer Dr. Ernst Bayer, entitled “The SA”, depicting the history, work, aim and organization of the SA. (USA 411) | IV | 772 |
| *2324-PS | Extracts from Reconstruction of a Nation, by Hermann Goering, 1934. (USA 233) | IV | 1033 |
| 2403-PS | The End of the Party State, from Documents of German Politics, Vol. I, pp. 55-56. | V | 71 |
| 2404-PS | Report of Hitler’s speech in his own defense, published in The Hitler Trial (1934). | V | 73 |
| 2405-PS | Extracts from German Publications. | V | 79 |
| 2412-PS | Extracts from Nature and Form of National Socialism pamphlet by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Berlin, 1935. | V | 88 |
| 2500-PS | “What do we want in the Reichstag?” one of Goebbels newspaper articles. | V | 237 |
| 2511-PS | Statement by Hitler from Voelkischer Beobachter, 24 August 1932. | V | 246 |
| 2512-PS | Hitler’s Testimony Before the Court for High Treason, published in Frankfurter Zeitung, 26 September 1931. | V | 246 |
| *2513-PS | Extract from The National Socialist Workers’ Party as an Association Hostile to State and to Republican Form of Government and Guilty of Treasonable Activity. (USA 235) | V | 252 |
| 2514-PS | Extract from Statistical Yearbook of the German Reich 1933, concerning elections in the Reichstag. | V | 253 |
| 2532-PS | Extract from The Third Reich, by Gerd Ruehle. | V | 268 |
| 2573-PS | Announcement of Official Prussian Press Office, in Frankfurter Zeitung, 1 March 1933. | V | 303 |
| 2579-PS | Extracts from the Frankfurter Zeitung, 24 March 1933, concerning happenings 23 March. | V | 303 |
| 2632-PS | Extracts from The National Socialist Revolution 1933, published in Berlin 1935. | V | 343 |
| 2633-PS | Extracts from Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich, 1939. | V | 344 |
| 2634-PS | Goering to the Condemned, published in Voelkischer Beobachter, 26 August 1932. | V | 344 |
| 2651-PS | Statement by Frick from Voelkischer Beobachter, 14 March 1933. | V | 359 |
| 2652-PS | Speech of Hitler to Reichstag, 23 March 1933, from Voelkischer Beobachter, 24 March 1933. | V | 359 |
| 2741-PS | Speech by Hitler on 9 November 1934, published in Voelkischer Beobachter, 10 November 1934. | V | 382 |
| 2742-PS | Passage written by Frick in National Socialist Yearbook, 1927, p. 124. | V | 383 |
| 2743-PS | Passage written by Frick in National Socialist Yearbook, 1930, p. 178. | V | 383 |
| 2759-PS | Law for the protection of Nationalist Symbols, 19 May 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 285. | V | 394 |
| *2955-PS | Affidavit of Magnus Heimannsberg, 14 November 1945, referring to SA and other Nazi groups posted at polling places. (USA 755) | V | 659 |
| *2962-PS | Minutes of meeting of Reich Cabinet, 15 March 1933. (USA 578) | V | 669 |
| *2963-PS | Minutes of meeting of Reich Cabinet, 20 March 1933. (USA 656) | V | 670 |
| *3054-PS | “The Nazi Plan”, script of a motion picture composed of captured German film. (USA 167) | V | 801 |
| *3740-PS | Affidavit of Franz Halder, 6 March 1946. (USA 779) | VI | 635 |
| *L-83 | Affidavit of Gerhart H. Seger, 21 July 1945. (USA 234). | VII | 859 |
3. CONSOLIDATION OF TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL CONTROL
Between the Accession to Power (early 1933) and the Outbreak of the War (late 1939) the Nazi Conspirators Consolidated Their Control of Germany by Utilizing and Molding Its Political Machinery to Their Own Ends.
A. The Nazi conspirators reduced the Reichstag to an impotent body of their own appointees. Under the Weimar Constitution of the German Reich, adopted by the German people on 11 August 1919, the Reichstag was a representative parliamentary body with broad legislative powers. Article 20 provided that the Reichstag should be “composed of the delegates of the German people.” Article 68 of the Chapter on Legislation provided that:
“Bills are introduced by the government of the Reich or by members of the Reichstag. Reich laws shall be enacted by the Reichstag.” (2050-PS)
In Mein Kampf Hitler stated the conspirators’ purpose to undermine the Reichstag:
“Our young movement in essence and structure is anti-parliamentarian, i.e., it rejects majority voting as a matter of principle as well as in its own organization * * * Its participation in the activities of a parliament has only the purpose to contribute to its destruction, to the elimination of an institution which we consider as one of the gravest symptoms of decay of mankind * * *” (2883-PS).
With the passage of the Law for the Protection of the People and the Reich (also known as the Enabling Act) the Nazi succeeded, in effect, in depriving the Reichstag of its legislative functions. The legislative as well as the executive powers of the government were concentrated in Hitler and the Cabinet (2001-PS; the legislative activities of the Cabinet (Reichsregierung) and its power to contravene constitutional limitations are treated in Section 3 of Chapter XV).
During the period from March 1933 until the beginning of 1937, the Reichstag enacted only four laws: The Reconstruction Law of 30 January 1934 and the three Nurnberg laws of 15 September 1935. The Reichstag was retained chiefly as a sounding board for Hitler’s speeches. All other legislation was enacted by the Cabinet, by the Cabinet ministers, or by decree of the Fuehrer (2481-PS). Hess has admitted the lack of importance of the Reichstag in the legislative process after 1933. (2426-PS)