“The suffering and misery of the times, the lack of work and food within Germany, cannot divert attention from the fact that about 30 million Germans, living outside of the present contracted borders of the Reich, are an integral part of the entire German people; an integral part, which the Reich Government is not able to help economically but to which it considers itself under an obligation to offer cultural support through the organization primarily concerned with this task—the League of Germans Abroad.”
In the documents from Number 16 to 24 inclusive of the document book, which I need not read in detail, I have placed together the legal decrees which deal with the competence of the Reich Ministry of the Interior as a central office for certain occupied territories. The tasks of this central office, which had no authority to issue orders and no executive authority in any occupied territories, have already been described by the witness Dr. Lammers; and these tasks are specially entered in Number 24 of the document book. I do not need to submit it in evidence. It is an official publication of the Reichsgesetzblatt and has, in addition, already been submitted as 3082-PS. In accordance with the fact that the central office had no authority to issue orders in the occupied territories, there is in the diary of Dr. Frank a confirmation that the Governor General alone had authority to issue orders for the administration of his territory. I do not need to quote this passage as it has already been submitted to the Tribunal.
Police authority in the occupied territories was transferred to Reichsführer SS Himmler; but Frick as Reich Minister of the Interior had nothing to do with this either, since that authority was vested exclusively in Himmler in his capacity as Reichsführer SS. That can be seen from Number 26 of the document book, which also already has been submitted as Exhibit USA-319 (Document Number 1997-PS).
The Prosecution further considers the Defendant Frick responsible for the crimes committed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia since August 1943, on the grounds that Frick had been Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia since August 1943. In this connection, I refer to Numbers 28 and 29 of the document book (Documents Number 1366-PS and 3443-PS), from which it is evident that, at the time that Frick was appointed, the former powers of the Reich Protector had been subdivided between a so-called German State Minister in Bohemia and Moravia—who, under the immediate supervision of the Führer and Reich Chancellor, had to manage all government affairs—and the Reich Protector Frick who was given some special powers and in principle had the right to grant reprieves on sentences passed by the local courts.
Frick has also been accused of being responsible for the Political Police, that is, the Secret State Police, and the concentration camps. Until 1936 police matters were the affair of the individual states in Germany; consequently in Prussia, Göring as Prussian Prime Minister, and Prussian Minister of the Interior, built up the Political Police and established the concentration camps. Frick, therefore, as Reich Minister of the Interior, had no connection with these things.
In the spring of 1934 Frick also became Prussian Minister of the Interior. Previously, however, Göring had by a special law taken the affairs of the Political Police out of the jurisdiction of the office of the Prussian Minister of the Interior and placed it under the immediate supervision of the Prime Minister, an office which Göring retained for himself.
The corresponding decrees have already been submitted by the Prosecution as Documents Number 2104-PS, 2105-PS, and 2113-PS.
The same is evident from Document Number 30 in the document book, which has also been submitted as Exhibit USA-233 (Document Number 2344-PS).
Thus, in the Political Police sphere, Frick, until 1936, had only a general right of supervision, such as the Reich had over the individual states. He had, however, no special right of command in individual cases, only the authority to issue general directives; and in Numbers 31-33 of the document book I have entered a few of these directives issued by Frick.
I quote Number 31, which will be Exhibit Frick-6 (Document Number 779-PS):