The official chart of the German Police system, Document 1852-PS, which has already been introduced into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-449, clearly shows the position of the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, as the supreme commander of the entire German Police system, including the notorious RSHA, of which the Defendant Kaltenbrunner became chief, under Frick, in January 1943.
The Defendant Frick used his authority over the newly centralized police system for the promotion of the Nazi conspiracy. The Tribunal may take judicial notice of Frick’s decree of September 20, 1936, published in the Ministerial Gazette of the Reich (Ministerialblatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern), 1936, Page 1343, Document 2245-PS.
In this decree Frick reserved for himself the authority to appoint inspectors of the security police, subordinated them to his district governors, the Oberpräsidenten, and ordered them to have a close co-operation with the Party and the Armed Forces.
Another example of the use of his activities in the police sphere is in his ordinance of March 18, 1938, concerning the Austrian Anschluss, in which Frick authorized the Reichsführer of the SS and Police, Himmler, to take security measures in Austria without regard to previous legal limitations. This decree is published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Page 262, and appears in the document book as Document Number 1437-PS.
I shall not here repeat the evidence concerning the criminal activities of the German police, over which the Defendant Frick had supreme authority. I should simply like to refer the Tribunal to the presentations already made on the subject of concentration camps and the Gestapo, two of the police institutions under Frick’s jurisdiction. But I should like to show that not only Himmler’s subordinate machine but also Frick’s ministry itself was familiar with these institutions. Therefore, I now offer into evidence Document 1643-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-713.
This document is a synopsis of correspondence between the Reich Ministry of the Interior and its field offices, from November 1942 through August 1943, on the subject of the legal aspects of the confiscation of property by the SS for the enlargement of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. At the bottom of Page 1 and the top of Page 2 of the English translation there appears a synopsis of the minutes of a meeting held on December 17 and 18, 1942, concerning the confiscation of this property. These minutes indicate that a further discussion was to be held on the subject on 21 December 1942, between the representatives of the Reich Minister of the Interior and the Reichsführer SS. On Page 2 there appears also a summary of a teletype letter dated January 22, 1943 from Dr. Hoffmann, representing the Reich Minister of the Interior, to the District Governor in Katowice.
The summary begins as follows, and I quote:
“The territory of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp will be changed into an independent estate”—which means an administrative territory of itself.
The fact that the Defendant Frick demonstrated personal interest in a concentration camp became known through the testimony of Dr. Blaha, to which I should like to refer the Tribunal, in which he testified that Frick visited the Dachau Camp in 1943.
The next aspect of the participation of the Defendant Frick in the Nazi conspiracy concerns his promotion of racial persecution and racism, involving the wiping out of the Jews.