As far as the relation of the Police to the question of Polish policy was concerned, it was Krüger’s view that, in connection with work in non-German territory, police considerations would have to play a predominant role and that with police methods everything could be achieved and everything could be prevented. This overestimation of the Police led, for instance, to the fact that, during later arguments between the Police and the administration regarding their respective spheres of work, matters concerning non-German groups were listed among the competences of the Police.
DR. SEIDL: Do you know that as early as 1939 Reichsführer SS Himmler issued a restricted decree, according to which the handling of all police matters was his own concern or the concern of his Higher SS and Police Leader?
BÜHLER: That this was the case became clear to me from the actions taken by the Police. I did not see a decree to this effect, but I can state this much: The Police in the Government General acted exactly as in the directives which I have described before.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, in 1942, by decree of the Führer, a State Secretariat for Security was instituted. At whose instigation was this instituted and what was the position taken by the Governor General in that connection?
BÜHLER: This decree was preceded by a frightful campaign of hatred against the person of the Governor General. The institution of the State Secretariat for Security was considered by the Police a step, an important step, in the fight for the removal of the Governor General. The matters specified in that decree, or at least the majority of them, were not being transferred to the Police now for the first time, but the actual state of affairs was—the actual course of events had already been—in conformity to the contents of this decree before it was issued.
DR. SEIDL: In the decree implementing this Führer decree and dated 3 June 1942 all the police spheres of activities which were to be transferred to the State Secretary were given in two lists; in an Appendix A, the tasks of the Regular Police; and in an Appendix B, the tasks of the Security Police. Were these police matters at that time transferred completely to the State Secretary and thus to the police sector?
BÜHLER: The administration did not like giving up these matters; so where the Police had not already got hold of them, they were given up only with reluctance.
DR. SEIDL: You are thinking first of all of the spheres of the so-called administrative police, health police, et cetera, are you not?
BÜHLER: Yes, that is to say, the police in charge of communications, health, food, and such matters.
DR. SEIDL: If I have understood your statements correctly, you mean that the entire police system, Security Police as well as SD and Regular Police, was directed by the central office, either by Himmler himself or by the Reich Security Main Office through the Higher SS and Police Leader?