I shall quote from Himmler’s Posen speech, our Document Number 1919-PS, Page 3 of the translation, next to the last paragraph; Page 59 of the original. I quote:
“Now to deal briefly with the tasks of the regular uniformed police and the Sipo—they still cover the same field. I can see that great things have been achieved. We have formed roughly 30 police regiments from police reservists and former members of the police—police officials, as they used to be called. The average age in our police battalions is not lower than that of the security battalions of the Armed Forces. Their achievements are beyond all praise. In addition, we have formed police rifle regiments by merging the police battalions previously drawn up of the ‘savage peoples.’ Thus, we did not leave these police battalions untouched but blended them in the ratio of about 1 to 3.”
The results of this blend of militarized SS police and “savage peoples” will be seen in the evidence which I shall later introduce relating to extermination actions conducted by them in the Eastern Territories—exterminations which were so eminently successful and ruthlessly conducted that even Himmler could find no words adequate for their eulogy.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
MAJOR FARR: Each of the various components which I have described played its part in carrying out one or more functions of the SS. The personnel composing each differed. Some were part-time volunteers; others professionals enlisted for different periods of time. But every branch, every department, every member, was an integral part of the whole organization. Each performed his assigned role in the manifold tasks for which the organization had been created. No better witness to this fact could be called upon than the Reichsführer SS whose every endeavor was to insure the complete unity of the organization. I quote his words, taken from his Posen speech, our Document 1919-PS, Exhibit Number USA-170. I read from Page 103 of the original, third line from the bottom of the page, from the English translation, Page 8:
“It would be an evil day if the main offices, in performing their tasks with the best, but mistaken, intentions made themselves independent by each having a downward chain of command. I really think that the day of my overthrow would be the end of the SS. It must be, and so come about, that this SS organization with all its branches—the General SS which is the common basis of all of them, the Waffen-SS, the regular uniformed police, the Sipo, with the whole economic administration, schooling, ideological training, the whole question of kindred is, even under the 10th Reichsführer SS, one bloc, one body, one organization.”
And continuing about the middle of Page 8 of the translation and at the bottom of Page 104 of the original speech:
“The regular uniformed police and Sipo, General SS and Waffen-SS, must now gradually amalgamate, too, just as this is and must be the case within the Waffen-SS. This applies to matters concerning filling of posts, recruiting, schooling, economic organization, and medical services. I am always doing something towards this end, a bond is constantly being drawn around these sections of the whole to cause them to grow together. Alas, if these bonds should ever be loosened, then everything—you may be sure of this—would sink back quickly into its old insignificance within one generation.”
I now turn to the underlying philosophy of the SS, the principles by which its members were selected and the obligations imposed upon them. To understand this organization the theories upon which it was based must be kept clearly in mind. They furnish the key to all its activities. It is necessary, therefore, to consider them in some detail.