Before leaving the chart, perhaps I would just like to point out several other instances where some of the defendants appear in this set-up.
At the very top, to the left of the Führer, as marked on the chart before Your Honors, are the successors-designate of the Führer. First is the Defendant Hess, until 1941, and followed by the Defendant Göring. Under the Führer appears the chief of the Party Chancellery, the Defendant Martin Bormann, and then, if we come to the level of the Reichsleiter, and go to the left, opposite Rosenberg’s name, we find that somewhat below that his name is repeated as the head of an office on a lower level, namely, the Foreign Relations Office of the Party, which played such a sinister influence in the early work of the Party, as will later appear in the documentary evidence to be presented to Your Honors.
We then come to the late Defendant Ley’s name, on the main horizontal division, and follow the dotted line to a lower level, and we will find he was the chief of the German Labor Front, and if we come closer to the vertical line, to a lower level, below the Reichsleitung, we find the Defendant Speer in the Hauptamt für Technik (the Office of Technical Affairs), and below that as the chief of the Bund Deutscher Technik (German Technological League).
With the permission of the Tribunal, the Prosecution will now pass to the consideration of the governmental machinery of the German State, which, like the organization of the Nazi Party, requires some brief observations before the Prosecution proceeds with the submission of proof on the Common Plan of Conspiracy, with which the defendants have been charged.
If the Tribunal will allow, the Prosecution will offer as its second exhibit, another chart, delineating substantially the governmental structure of the Reich Government as it existed in March 1945, and also the chief Leadership Corps of the Reich Government and the Reich Administration during those years. (Document Number 2905-PS, Exhibit USA-3)
This chart has been prepared by the Prosecution on the basis of information contained in two official publications, Das Taschenbuch für Verwaltungsbeamte, (the Manual for Administrative Officers) and the National Sozialistisches Jahrbuch, to which I have already alluded, edited by the Defendant Ley.
This chart has been examined, corrected, and certified by the Defendant Wilhelm Frick, whose affidavit is submitted with the chart. In fact, it is reproduced directly on the copies of the charts before Your Honors.
It seems plain that the Defendant Frick, a former Minister of Interior of the Reich from January 1933 to August 1943, was well qualified, by reason of his position and long service in public office during the National Socialist regime, to certify to the substantial accuracy of the facts disclosed in this chart.
Now, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make some brief comments on this chart.
First of all, we refer to the Reichsregierung, which is the big box in the center of the chart on the vertical line, directly below Hitler. The Reichsregierung is a word that may not be translated literally as “government of the Reich.” The word “Reichsregierung” is a word of art and is applied collectively to the ministers who composed the German Cabinet.