“Your Eminence knows very well the greatest difficulty in the way of opening negotiations comes from the overruling authority which the ‘National Socialist Party Chancery’ exercises in relation to the Chancery of the Reich and to the single Reich ministries. This ‘Parteikanzlei’ directs the course to be followed by the State, whereas the ministries and the Chancellery of the Reich are obliged and compelled to adjust their decrees to these directions. Besides, there is the fact that the ‘supreme office for the security of the Reich,’ called the ‘Reichssicherheitshauptamt’ enjoys an authority which precludes all legal action and all appeals. Under it are the ‘secret offices for public security,’ called ‘Geheime Staatspolizei’ (a title shortened usually to Gestapo), of which there is one for each province. Against the decrees of this central office and of the secret offices there is no appeal through the courts, and no complaint made to the ministries has any effect. Not infrequently the councillors of the ministries suggest that they have not been able to do as they would wish to because of the opposition of these Party offices. As far as the executive power is concerned, the organization called the SS, that is, ‘The Schutzstaffeln der Partei,’ is in practice supreme. . . .
“On a number of very grave and fundamental issues we have also presented our complaints to the supreme leader of the Reich, the Führer. Either no answer is given, or it is apparently edited by the above-mentioned Party Chancery, which does not consider itself bound by the Concordat made with the Holy See.”
I now offer in evidence Document Number 3279-PS, Exhibit Number USA-574. This is an excerpt from Charge Number 17 against the Defendant Hans Frank, Governor General of Poland, entitled, “Maltreatment and Persecution of the Catholic Clergy in the Western Provinces,” submitted by the Polish Government under the terms of Article 21 of the Four-Power-Agreement of August 8, 1945. This gives further figures indicating the extent of the persecution of priests. I quote:
“The extract attached hereto and dealing with the ‘General Conditions and Results of the Persecution’ is taken from the text of Charge 17, Page 5, Paragraph IV, of the Polish Government against the defendants named in the Indictment before the International Military Tribunal, subject: ‘Maltreatment and Persecution of the Catholic Clergy in the Incorporated Western Provinces of Poland.’ It is a true translation into English of the original Polish.
“It is submitted herewith to the International Military Tribunal in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter of the Court.”
Signed: “Dr. Tadeusz Cyprian, Polish Deputy Representative on the United Nations War Crimes Commission in London, signing on behalf of the Polish Government and of the Main Commission for Investigation of German War Crimes in Poland, whose seal I hereby attach.”