“A further training and examination of the candidate is accomplished through ideological indoctrination. The camp directors are aware, of course, that national socialism can neither be learned nor taught. National socialism must completely determine an individual’s attitude; when this is not the case, the individual can never become a real National Socialist. There are many people, however, who in their social relations or in their way of living have not become acquainted with national socialism or were even opposed to it, yet in these people there exists an unconscious National Socialist sentiment which only needs stimulation to develop. The appropriate method for this is the ideological indoctrination. The latter is therefore particularly used in the camp, not only for this purpose but also for training purposes, to strengthen and develop the National Socialist ideology.

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“The day of Horst Wessel’s death was also a remarkable day. This day was commemorated in a particular manner. At 4 o’clock a trumpeter blew reveille. At 4:07 all the camp inmates were already assembled in the courtyard. A brief order, ‘column right, forward march.’ Then the various platoons of the school took different routes across the drilling field and marched on into the country.”

After the dissolution of the Prussian Ministry of Justice in 1934, the Gemeinschaftslager Hanns Kerrl was brought under the supervision of the Reich Ministry of Justice. The illustrated pamphlet to which I have just referred contains photographs of Reich Minister Guertner, Under Secretary Freisler, and others visiting the camp. The photographs also show a gallows from which was suspended a symbol of German statutory law, the sign for the paragraphing of legal codes. Guertner and Kerrl are both photographed standing under the gallows. It would be hard to conceive a more appropriate symbol for the degradation of the legal profession under the Third Reich.

COUNT FOUR

MEMBERSHIP IN CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS

General Taylor: The fourth and final count in the indictment contains the charge that seven of the defendants are guilty of membership in organizations declared to be criminal in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal. Four of the defendants, Altstoetter, Cuhorst, Engert, and Joel are accused of membership in the SS. The defendant Joel is also accused of membership in the Sicherheitsdienst (commonly known as the SD). The defendant Cuhorst is also accused, together with three others, Oeschey, Nebelung, and Rothaug, of membership in the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. All three of these organizations were declared criminal in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal.

The legal basis of the charges in count four is quite distinct from that of the first three counts in the indictment. The charge derives from article 9 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which authorized that Tribunal, under specified circumstances, to declare that certain “groups” or “organizations” were “criminal organizations.” The prosecution before the International Military Tribunal sought such declarations in the case of each of the three organizations involved in count four of this indictment, and the International Military Tribunal rendered such declarations. In the meantime, it had been provided in article II of Control Council Law No. 10 that “membership in categories of a criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal” should be “recognized as a crime.” Paragraph 3 of article II of Control Council Law No. 10 specifies the punishments which may be imposed for membership in such organizations.

In its decision, the International Military Tribunal set forth certain limitations upon the scope of its declaration that these organizations were criminal.[68] Under these limitations, in order to render membership criminal, two things, in addition to membership, must be shown—

1. That the individual in question became or remained a member of the organization after 1 September 1939, and