LAMMERS: First of all, the Führer and the Reich Government had been given, by the well-known Enabling Act of the Reichstag, the power to alter the Constitution. The Reich Government made use of this power in their actual legislation and, of course, use was also made of it by way of passive endurance and by creating a state customary law as was actually recognized in all countries. Thus in the course of the first years, and also during the later years, it came about quite naturally by way of a state customary law, that the Führer acted more independently than would actually have been possible according to the Weimar Constitution. From the beginning important political questions were all removed by the Führer from the jurisdiction of the Cabinet.
Even in 1933 and 1934, when Hindenburg was still alive, the Führer did not wish general political questions to be raised in the Cabinet by any minister. I repeatedly had to have various ministers informed that they were to refrain from bringing up questions which did not directly affect their department for discussion in the Cabinet.
For instance, I had to pass on such information to those gentlemen who wanted to discuss church policy. I had been forbidden to put any general political questions on the agenda of a Cabinet meeting. If, in spite of that, a minister raised a political question during a meeting of the Cabinet, then the Führer generally interposed and silenced the minister concerned, or referred him to a private discussion. Things developed in this way in the course of time.
After Von Hindenburg’s death, when the Führer became the Head of State, such debates in the Cabinet were stopped altogether. Nothing of this sort could be debated any more. The ministers were not allowed to feel that they were political ministers. I had to inform various gentlemen repeatedly, by order of the Führer, that they were requested to refrain from voicing their opinions in regard to such questions during Cabinet meetings.
Then came the time, which I have already described, during which the larger-scale actions took place and there were no more Cabinet meetings. In this connection the Führer acted alone, and all declarations which were made on behalf of the Reich Government were made by him alone, acting on his own and without previous consultation with the Cabinet. I must admit that the Cabinet very often complained about that but could not prevail against the Führer.
Thus gradually the governmental power—if I interpret “Regierung” according to the conception of “government” laid down in Anglo-Saxon law—then after 1936 there was no longer any complete Reich Government at all consisting of the Reich Chancellor and the Reich Ministers, that is, a collective, unified body. The Führer was the Reich Government, and this power had slipped into his hands—and one will naturally say that it should not have slipped into his hands. All I can say to this, is that it may have been wrong, it may have been stupid, but it was not a crime. It was a political development such as has happened repeatedly in history. I might recall the fact that in ancient Rome, where the senate had the power and that there...
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal really does not want to hear a history of ancient Rome.
LAMMERS: Very well.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, you have described the development of the transfer of governmental powers into Hitler’s hands...
LAMMERS: Yes, but not completely.