The second publication is an article by Himmler entitled, “Organization and Obligations of the SS and the Police.” It was published in 1937 in a booklet containing a series of speeches or essays by important officials of the Party and the State—known as National Political Course for the Armed Forces from 15 to 23 January 1937. The article by Himmler, to which I refer, appears on Pages 137-161 of that pamphlet. Large extracts from it make up our Document Number 1992(a)-PS. I offer the essay by Himmler as Exhibit Number USA-439. The passage to which I referred appears on Page 137 of the original and Page 1 of the translation, our Document 1992(a)-PS. I shall have occasion to quote from both these publications, but with respect to this matter of history, I assume that these references to the pertinent passages in them are enough.
As early as 1929 the conspirators recognized that their plans required an organization in which the main principles of the Nazi system, specifically the racial principles, would not only be jealously guarded but would be carried to such extreme as to inspire or intimidate the rest of the population—an organization in which, also, there would be assured complete freedom on the part of the leaders and blind obedience on the part of the members. The SS was built up to meet this need. I quote from D’Alquen’s book, Die SS, at Page 7; this passage appears in our Document Number 2284-PS at Page 4 of the translation, Paragraph 4:
“On the 6th of January 1929 Adolf Hitler appointed his tested comrade of long standing, Heinrich Himmler, as Reichsführer SS. Heinrich Himmler assumed charge therewith of the entire Schutzstaffel totalling at that time 280 men with the express and particular order of the Führer to form this organization into 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 in the National Socialist movement. For the SS and its Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler, its first SS man, have both become inseparable in the course of these battle-filled years.”
Carrying out Hitler’s directive, Himmler proceeded to build up out of this small force of men an elite organization—to use D’Alquen’s words—composed of “the best physically . . . the most dependable, and the most faithful . . . men” in the Nazi movement. I read another passage from D’Alquen at Page 12 of the original, Page 6 of the translation, Paragraph 5:
“When the day of seizure of power had finally come, there were 52,000 SS men, who in this spirit bore the revolution in the van, marched into the new state which they began helping to form everywhere, in their stations and positions, in profession and in service, and in all their essential tasks.”
The conspirators now had the machinery of government in their hands. The initial function of the SS—that of acting as private army and personal police force—was thus completed. But its mission had in fact really just begun. That mission is described in the Organization Book of the NSDAP for 1943. The pages from that book dealing with the SS—Pages 417 to 428—are translated in our Document Number 2640-PS. The organization’s book has already been offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-323. The passage to which I refer appears on Page 417 of the original and on Page 1, Paragraph 2, of the translation:
“Missions. The original and most eminent duty of the SS is to serve as the protectors of the Führer. By decree of the Führer the sphere of duties has been enlarged to include the internal security of the Reich.”
This new mission—protecting the internal security of the regime—was somewhat more colorfully defined by Himmler in his pamphlet The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization, published in 1936. It is our Document Number 1851-PS. I offer this document in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-440. The definition to which I refer appears in the original at the bottom of Page 29 of the original, on the third page of the translation, middle of the paragraph: