“Very soon your decision, my Führer, became clear to me and I recognized that the organizational measures of the Party could only come to full fruition when supplemented by the organization of the people, that is to say by the mobilization of the energies of the people and by their concentration and alignment. . . . My tasks as Reichsleiter of the Party Organization and as Leader of the German Labor Front were a completely homogeneous task; in other words, in everything I did, I acted as Reichsleiter of the Party Organization. The German Labor Front was an institution of the Party and was led by it. The German Labor Front had to be organized regionally and technically—according to the same principles as the Party. That is why trade union and employee associations had to be smashed unrelentingly, and the basis of construction was formed, as in the Party, by the cell and the local section.”
On 17 October 1944 Reichsleiter Rosenberg sent a letter to Reichsleiter Bormann which I introduce as Document 327-PS, Exhibit Number USA-338, in which he informed the latter that he had sent a telegram to the Gauleiter urging them not to interfere in the liquidation of certain listed companies and banks under his supervision. Rosenberg emphasizes to Bormann that any “delay of liquidation or independent confiscation of the property by the Gauleiter would impair or destroy an organized plan” for the liquidation of a vast amount of property.
On 7 November 1943 the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces delivered a lecture at Munich to the Reichsleiter and the Gauleiter. I now refer to Document L-172, previously introduced in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-34. The Chief of Staff stated that his object was to give a review of the strategic position at the outset of the fifth year of war; and he stated that he realized that the political leaders in the Reich and Gau areas, in view of their burdensome tasks in supporting the German war effort, were in need of information he could give. He stated, in part, as follows:
“Reichsleiter Bormann has requested me to give you a review today of the strategic position in the beginning of the fifth year of war. . . . No one—the Führer has ordered—may know more or be told more than he needs for his immediate task; but I have no doubt at all in my mind, gentlemen, that you need a great deal in order to be able to cope with your tasks. It is in your Gaue, after all . . . that all the enemy propaganda, and the demoralization through malicious rumors that try to find themselves a place among our people concentrate . . . . Against this wave of enemy propaganda and cowardice . . . you need to know the true situation; and for this reason, I believe that I am justified in giving you a perfectly open and uncovered account of the state of affairs.”
Reichsleiter Bormann distributed to all Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, and leaders of Party-affiliated organizations an undated letter, which is Document 656-PS, Exhibit Number USA-339, on the National Socialist Party stationery, signed by Bormann, an order of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht relating to self-defense by German guard personnel and German contractors and workers against prisoners of war. The order of the Wehrmacht referred to states that the question of treatment of prisoners of war is continually being discussed by the Wehrmacht and Party bureaus. The order states that should prisoners of war refuse to obey orders to work, the guard has “in the case of the most pressing need and danger the right to force obedience with the weapon if he has no other means. He can use the weapon as much as is necessary to attain his goal.”
On 18 April 1944 Reich Commissar Lohse, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in a letter to Reich Youth Leader Axmann—I now offer in evidence Document 347-PS, Exhibit Number USA-340—proposed that the Hitler Youth participate in and supervise the military education of the Estonian and Latvian youth. Lohse states in the above letter that:
“In the military education camps the young Latvians are trained under Latvian leaders in the Latvian language, not because this is our ideal but because absolute military necessity demands this.”
Lohse further stated in the above letter, and I quote:
“. . . in contrast to the Germanic peoples of the West, military education is no longer to be carried out through voluntary, enlistments but through legal conscription. The camps in Estonia and Latvia will have to be under German leadership; and as military education camps of the Hitler Youth, they must be a symbol of our educational mission beyond Germany’s borders. I consider the execution of the military education of the Estonian and Latvian youth not only a military necessity but also a war mission of the Hitler Youth, especially. I would be thankful to you, Party Member Axmann, if the Hitler Youth would put itself at our disposal with the same readiness with which they have so far supported our work in the Baltic area.”
An order of the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, dated 22 October 1938, is Document 1438-PS, of which I ask the Court to take judicial notice, and I quote: