“We shall unremittingly fulfill our task, the guaranty of the security of Germany from the interior, just as the Wehrmacht guarantees the safety of the honor, the greatness, and the peace of the Reich from the exterior. We shall take care that never again in Germany, the heart of Europe, will the Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of sub-humans be able to be kindled either from within or through emissaries from without. Without pity we shall be a merciless sword of justice for all those forces whose existence and activity we know, on the day of the slightest attempt, may it be today, may it be in decades or may it be in centuries.”
This conception necessarily required an extension of the duties of the SS into many fields. It involved, of course, the performance of police functions. But it involved more. It required participation in the suppression and extermination of all internal opponents of the regime. It meant participation in extending the regime beyond the borders of Germany; and therefore came to mean eventually participation in every type of activity designed to secure a hold over those territories and populations which, through military conquest, had come under German domination.
The expansion of SS duties and activities resulted in the creation of several branches and numerous departments and the eventual development of a highly complex machinery. Those various branches and departments cannot be adequately described out of the context of their history. That description I hope will emerge fully as evidence of the activities of the SS is presented. But it may be appropriate to anticipate; and at this point, to say a word about the structure of the SS.
For this purpose, a glance at a chart depicting the organization of the SS as it appeared in 1945 may be helpful. There are being handed to the Tribunal small copies of this chart, two in English, one in French and one in Russian. In addition, there are handed eight larger copies of the chart in the original German, bearing on it the photostat of the affidavit of Gottlob Berger, formerly Chief of the SS Main Office, who examined the chart and stated that it correctly represented the organization of the SS.
I now offer in evidence the chart of the Supreme and Regional Command of the SS, as Exhibit Number USA-445.
At the very top of the chart is Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, who commanded the entire organization. Immediately below—running across the chart and down the right hand side, embraced within the heavy line—are the 12 main departments constituting the Supreme Command of the SS. Some of these departments have been broken down into the several offices of which they were composed, as indicated by the boxes beneath them. Other departments have not been so broken down. It is not intended to indicate that there were not subdivisions of these latter departments as well. The breakdown is shown only in those cases where the constituent offices of some department may have a particular significance in this case.
These departments and their functions are described in two official Nazi publications. The first is the Organization Book of the NSDAP for 1943, our Document Number 2640-PS, already introduced in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-323. The description, which I shall not read now, appears on Pages 419-422 of the original and Pages 2 to 4 of the translation. The second is an SS manual, which bears the title, The Soldier Friend-Pocket Diary for the German Armed Forces—Edition D, Waffen-SS. It was prepared at the direction of the Reichsführer SS and issued by the SS Main Office for the year ending 1942. It is our Document Number 2825-PS. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-441. The description to which I refer appears on Pages 20 to 22 of the original and Pages 1 and 2 of the translation. I will later have occasion to read the description of the functions of some of the departments in full. But I assume that the Court will take judicial notice of the entire passages to which I have referred. In addition, the departments are listed in a directory of the SS, published by one of the main departments of the SS. This document was found in the files of the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS, the first department from the left of the chart. It is entitled Directory for the Schutzstaffel of the NSDAP, 1 November 1944. It is marked “restricted” and bears the notation “Published by SS Führungshauptamt,” (Command Office of the General SS), which is the fifth box from the left. It is our Document Number 2769-PS. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-442. It is simply a list of the names of the departments and offices with their addresses and telephone numbers, and corroborates the statements in the two earlier publications to which I referred.
Returning now to the chart—following down the central spine from the Reichsführer SS to the regional level—we come to the Higher SS and Police Leader, commonly known as HSSPF, the Supreme SS Commander in each region. I shall refer to his functions at a later point. Immediately below him is the breakdown of the organization of the Allgemeine or General SS. To the left are indicated two other branches of the SS—the Death’s-Head Units (Totenkopf Verbände) and the Waffen-SS. To the right, under the HSSPF, is the SD. All of these components, together with the SS Police regiments, are specifically named in the Indictment—Appendix B, Page 36—as being included in the SS.
Now a word as to these components. Up to 1933 there were no such specially designated branches. The SS was a single group—a group of “volunteer political soldiers.” It was out of this original nucleus that the new units developed.
The Allgemeine, that is, General SS, was the common basis, the main stem, out of which the various branches grew. It was composed of all members of the SS who did not belong to any of the special branches.