"At the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the Tribunal may declare (in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted) that the group or organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal organization."

Article 10 provided that the criminality of such groups and organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal was to be considered proved and not to be questioned in any succeeding proceedings. Control Council Law No. 10 defined membership in any organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal as a crime.

The trial briefs on both sides in this case have devoted a great deal of space to the discussion of Count II in the Indictment. To the extent that the discussion has to do with the facts, it is welcome and helpful. So far as the law on the subject is concerned, it has been stated completely and definitively by the Judgment of the Military Military Tribunal and therefore needs no amplification here. The International Military Tribunal declared the SS, SD and the Gestapo to be criminal organizations within the purview of the London Charter. The pertinent provisions of the judgment declaring these organizations criminal and defining the categories of membership therein, follow:

"The SS was utilized for purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of the occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war.....In dealing with the SS the Tribunal includes all persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS including the members of the Allgemeine SS, members of the Waffen SS, members of the SS Totenkoph Verbaende, and the members of any of the different police forces who were members of the SS.

The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes. The basis of this finding is the participation of the organization in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity connected with the war; this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to belong to the organizations enumerated in the proceeding paragraph prior to 1 September 1939."

" The Gestapo and SD were used for purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities, and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war.....In dealing with the Gestapo the Tribunal includes all executive and administrative officials of Amt IV of the RSHA or concerned with Gestapo administration in other departments of the RSHA and all local Gestapo officials serving both inside and outside of Germany, including the members of the Frontier Police, but not including the members of the Border and Customs Protection or the Secret Field Police, except such members as have been specified above.....In dealing with the SD the Tribunal includes Aemter III, VI, and VII of the RSHA and all other members of the SD, including all local representatives and agents, honorary or otherwise, whether they were technically members of the SS or not, but not including honorary informers who were not members of the SS, and members of the Abwehr who were transferred to the SD.

The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the Group composed of those members of the Gestapo and SD holding the positions enumerated in the proceeding paragraph who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such

crimes. The basis for this finding is the participation of the organization in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity connected with the war; this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to hold the positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph prior to 1 September 1939.

In dealing with the Gestapo the Tribunal includes all executive and administration officials of Amt IV of the RSHA or concerned with Gestapo administration in other departments of the RSHA and all local Gestapo officials serving inside and outside Germany, including the members of the Frontier Police, but not including the members of the Border and Customs Protection or the Secret Field Police, except such members as have been specified above."

In order to avoid unnecessary repetition in the individual judgments the Tribunal here declares that where it finds a defendant guilty under Count II it will be because it has found beyond a reasonable doubt from the entire record that he became or remained a member of the criminal organization involved subsequent to September 1, 1939 under the conditions declared criminal in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal.