4. Obligation to render obedience
Article 7
(1) The civil servant is responsible for the lawfulness of his official acts.
(2) Insofar as nothing else has been legally provided, he has to comply with the official directives given by his superiors or by persons authorized to give him directives by virtue of a special order; the responsibility then rests with him who gave the directive. The civil servant must not comply with an order the execution of which would obviously contravene the criminal laws.
(3) The civil servant may accept directives for his official acts only from his superior or from persons authorized by virtue of a special order to give him directives; his obligation to comply with the law and with such regulations has the precedence of any other obligations to render obedience.
(4) The Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor decides whether and to what extent it is admissible to call a civil servant who is a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party to account before a Party court.
- TRANSLATION OF SCHLEGELBERGER DOCUMENT 127
- SCHLEGELBERGER DEFENSE EXHIBIT 123
DECREE, 10 JULY 1937, OF THE FUEHRER AND REICH CHANCELLOR CONCERNING APPOINTMENT OF CIVIL SERVANTS AND TERMINATION OF CIVIL SERVICE STATUS
1937 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 769
On the basis of Articles 24, 31, 66, and 78 of the German Civil Service Law of 26 January 1937 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, page 39) I hereby order under concurrent suspension of my decree on the appointment and termination of Reich and Land [State] civil servants of 1 February 1935 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, pages 74, 73) and on the participation of the deputy of the Fuehrer in the appointment of civil servants of 24 September 1935 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, page 1203) as follows: