THE PRESIDENT: What is that?
COL. STOREY: It is, if Your Honor pleases, Document 2986-PS. It is Exhibit USA-409. It is the original affidavit, signed by the Defendant Frick. I believe Defendant Frick sums up pretty well how the work was carried on.
“I, Wilhelm Frick, being first duly sworn, depose and say:
“I was Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration from the time when this office was created until 20 August 1943. Heinrich Himmler was my deputy in this capacity. Before the outbreak of the war my task as Plenipotentiary General for Reich Administration was the preparation of organization in the event of war, such as, for instance, the appointment of liaison men in the different ministries who would keep in touch with me. As Plenipotentiary General for Reich Administration I, together with the Plenipotentiary General for Economy and the OKW, formed a so-called ‘Three-Man College.’ We were also members of the Reich Defense Council, which was to plan preparations and decrees in case of war, which later were published by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich. Since, as soon as the war had started, everything would have to be done speedily and there would be no time for planning, such war measures and decrees were prepared in advance. All one then had to do was to pull out of the drawer the war orders that had been prepared. Later on, after the outbreak of the war, these decrees were enacted by the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich.”—Signed and sworn to by Dr. Wilhelm Frick, on the 19th of November 1945.
To sum up this particular phase of the proof, the Cabinet by its own decision and its own laws created a large war-planning body—the Reich Defense Council—the members of which were taken from the Cabinet. Within the Council they set up a small working committee, again composed of Cabinet members and certain defense officials, a majority of whom were appointed from the Cabinet members. And to streamline the action, they placed all of its ministries—except Air, Propaganda, and Foreign Affairs—into the groups headed respectively by the Plenipotentiaries for Economy and Administration, and the OKW; and everything was organized in and for the greatest of secrecy.
That is this Three-Man College.
Now, in conclusion, if Your Honor pleases, I would like at this time to summarize briefly the proof concerning the Reichsregierung.
From 1933 to the end of the war, the Reichsregierung comprised the dominant body of influence and leadership below Hitler in the Nazi Government. The three subdivisions were included in the term Reichsregierung in the Indictment: the ordinary Cabinet, the Secret Cabinet Council, and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich. Yet in reality there existed only an artificial, illusory boundary between the three.
The predominant subdivision was, of course, the ordinary Cabinet, which was commonly referred to as the Reichsregierung. In it were the leading political and military figures in the Nazi Government. Seventeen of the 22 defendants before this Tribunal were integral parts of the ordinary Cabinet.