The first is this black book—the membership list of the SS as of December 1, 1936. This book contains a list of members of the SS arranged according to rank. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-474 (Document Number USA-474). Turning to Page 8 of this book, line 2, we find the following: The name “Hess, Rudolf” followed by the notation, “By authority of the Führer the right to wear the uniform of an SS Obergruppenführer.” I now offer the 1937 edition of the same membership list as Exhibit Number USA-475 (Document Number USA-475). Turning to Page 10, line 50, we find the name “Bormann, Martin”; and in line with his name on the opposite page under the column headed “Gruppenführer,” the following date: 30 January 1937.
In the same edition on Page 12, line 56, appears the name “von Neurath, Constantin,” and on the opposite page under the column headed “Gruppenführer,” the date “18 September 1937.” The other publication to which I refer is Der Grossdeutsche Reichstag for the fourth voting period, a manual edited by E. Kienast, Ministerial Director of the German Reichstag. This is an official handbook containing biographical data as to members of the Reichstag. It is Document Number 2381-PS, and I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-476. On Page 349 the following appears: “von Ribbentrop, Joachim, Reichsminister des Auswärtigen, SS Obergruppenführer.” On Page 360 the following appears: “Sauckel, Fritz, Gauleiter und Reichsstatthalter in Thüringen, SS Obergruppenführer.” On Page 389 the following appears: “Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, Dr. iur., Reichsminister, SS Obergruppenführer.”
THE PRESIDENT: What was the date of that book?
MAJOR FARR: This book covers the fourth voting period, beginning on 10 April 1938 and covering the period up to 30 January 1947—that is, the voting period covers that course of years. The edition, I think, was in 1943. I might point out that the rank of the defendants mentioned in the 1936 and 1937 editions of the membership list of the SS may not be the final rank they held. They were Gruppenführer at that time, but they were members of the SS, as shown by the book.
It is our contention that the SS, as defined in Appendix B, Page 36 of the Indictment, was an unlawful organization. As an organization founded on the principle that persons of “German blood” were a “master race” it exemplified a basic Nazi doctrine. It served as one of the means through which the conspirators acquired control of the German Government. The operations of the SD and of the SS Totenkopf Verbände in concentration camps were means used by the conspirators to secure their regime and terrorize their opponents, as alleged in Count One. In the Nazi program of Jewish extermination, all branches of the SS were involved from the very beginning. Through the Allgemeine SS as a para-military organization, the SS Verfügungstruppe and SS Totenkopf Verbände as professional combat forces, and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle as a Fifth Column agency, the SS participated in preparations for aggressive war and, through its militarized units, in the waging of aggressive war in the West and in the East, as set forth in Counts One and Two of the Indictment. In the course of such war all components of the SS had a part in the War Crimes and the Crimes against Humanity set forth in Counts Three and Four of the Indictment: the murder and ill-treatment of civilian populations in occupied territory, the murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war, and the Germanization of occupied territories.
The evidence has shown that the SS was a single enterprise—a unified organization. Some of its functions were, of course performed by one branch or department or office, some by another. No single branch or department participated in every phase of its activity, but every branch and department and office was necessary to the functioning of the whole. The situation is much the same as in the case of the individual defendants at the bar. Not all participated in every act of the conspiracy; but all, we contend, performed a contributing part in the whole criminal scheme.
The evidence has also shown that the SS was not only an organization of volunteers but that applicants had to meet the strictest standards of selection. It was not easy to become an SS member. That was true of all branches of the SS. We clearly recognize, of course, that during the course of the war, as the demands for manpower increased and the losses of the Waffen-SS grew heavier and heavier, there were occasions when some men drafted for compulsory military service were assigned to units of the Waffen-SS rather than to the Wehrmacht. Those instances were relatively few. Evidence of the recruiting standards of the Waffen-SS in 1943, which I quoted yesterday, has shown that the membership in that branch was as essentially voluntary and highly selective as in the other branches. Doubtless some of the members of the SS, or of other organizations alleged to be unlawful in the Indictment, might desire to show that their participation in the organization was a small or innocuous one, that compelling reasons drove them to apply for membership, that they were not fully conscious of its aims or that they were not mentally responsible when they became members. Such facts might or might not be relevant, if such a person were on trial. But in any event this is not the forum to try out such matters.
The question before this Tribunal is simply this: whether the SS was or was not an unlawful organization. The evidence has finally shown what the aims and activities of the SS were. Some of those aims were stated in publications which I have quoted to the Court. The activities were so widespread and so notorious, covering so many fields of unlawful endeavor, that the illegality of the organization could not have been concealed. It was a notorious fact, and Himmler himself in 1936, in a quotation which I read to the Tribunal yesterday, admitted that when he said:
“I know that there are people in Germany now who become sick when they see these black coats. We know the reason and we do not expect to be loved by too many.”
It was, we submit, at all times the exclusive function and purpose of the SS to carry out the common objectives of the defendant conspirators. Its activities in carrying out those functions involved the commission of the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter. By reason of its aims and the means used for the accomplishment thereof, the SS should be declared a criminal organization in accordance with Article 9 of the Charter.