LAMMERS: There would have been at most a power to issue orders for Germany but not for the occupied territories, and to what extent this power existed for Germany herself is also problematic.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I shall come to that later in detail. Can you tell me what powers the Minister of the Interior had in the police field during that time when the police were still under the jurisdiction of the provinces of Prussia, et cetera, that is, from 1933 to 1936?
LAMMERS: Well, his powers were in any case very limited, but I cannot tell you the details.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Did the Reich have the right of supervision?
LAMMERS: Yes, the old right, as it was formerly—the Reich had only the ultimate supervision.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Of course, you know that later on, through a decree, Himmler was appointed Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior, do you not? Do you know who created that designation, “Reichsführer SS” and so forth?
LAMMERS: Yes, I had something to do with it at the time. The proposal of such a title originated apparently with Himmler. I objected to this title from the very beginning for two reasons. Two entirely different matters were being lumped together: the Reichsführer SS, which is a Party affiliation, and the Police, which is a State concern. On the one side was the Reichsführer SS who has the rank of a Reichsleiter in the Party, which is equivalent to that of a Reich minister; on the other side the Chief of Police, who has the position of a State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior and who is subordinate to the Minister of the Interior. But Himmler insisted on this designation, and the Führer considered that he was right.
My objections to this designation proved to be correct in practice, for the Minister of the Interior’s right to issue instructions to the Police now became extremely problematic, since Reichsführer Himmler, as far as the police officers were concerned, was, at the same time the SS Führer and could give them orders in his capacity as Reichsführer SS, and the Ministry of the Interior could not interfere. It was also a practice of his that he usually made the other police officials SS leaders. One therefore could never know exactly in what capacity the person concerned was acting, whether he was acting as member of the SS, or as a member of the Police. And the question of authority in the Ministry of Interior afterwards became almost devoid of meaning, because Himmler dropped the last words of the designation, “Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior,” and completely separated himself from the Ministry of the Interior as far as having an office in the building and the mode of procedure were concerned, and no longer felt himself in a subordinate position.
When Minister Frick lodged a complaint about this with me, which I was supposed to take to the Führer, the Führer told me, “Tell Herr Frick that he should not restrict Himmler as Chief of the German Police too much; with him the Police is in good hands. He should allow him as much free rein as possible!”
Thus for all practical purposes, though not by a special decree, the Minister of the Interior’s authority to give orders was very sharply limited, if not even suspended.