Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 4, p. 231
		20 Dec. 45 The presentation of evidence on the criminality of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) includes evidence on the criminality of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and of the Schutzstaffeln (SS), which has been discussed by Major Farr, because a great deal of the criminal acts were so inter-related. In the Indictment, as Your Honors know, the SD is included by special reference as a part of the SS, since it originated as a part of the SS and has always retained its character as a Party organization, as distinguished from the Gestapo which was a State organization. As will be shown by the evidence, however, the Gestapo and the SD were brought into very close working relationship, the SD serving primarily as the information-gathering agency and the Gestapo as the executive agency of the police system established by the Nazis for the purpose of combatting the political and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime. In short, I think we might think of the SD as the intelligence organization and the Gestapo the executive agency, the former a Party organization and the latter a State organization but merged together for all practical purposes. The first subject: The Gestapo and SD were formed into a powerful, centralized, political police system that served Party, State, and Nazi leadership. The Gestapo was first established in Prussia on the 26th of April 1933 by the Defendant Göring with the mission of carrying out the duties of the political police with, or in place of, the ordinary police authorities. The -Gestapo was given the rank of a higher police authority and was subordinated only to the Minister of Interior, to whom was delegated the responsibility of determining its functional and territorial jurisdiction. That fact is established in the Preussische Gesetzsammlung of 26 April 1933, Page 122, and it is our Document 2104-PS. Pursuant to this law and on the same date, the Minister of Interior issued a decree on the reorganization of the police which established a State Police Bureau in each governmental district of Prussia, subordinate to the Secret State Police Bureau in Berlin; and I cite as authority the Ministerialblatt for the Internal Administration of Prussia, 1933, Page 503, and it is Document 2371-PS. Concerning the formation of the Gestapo, the Defendant Göring said, in Aufbau einer Nation, of 1934, Page 88, which is our Document 2344-PS, and I quote from the English translation a short paragraph, of which Your Honors will take judicial notice, unless Your Honors want to turn to it in full: "For weeks" — this is Göring talking — "I had been working personally on the reorganization, and at last I, alone and upon my own decision and my own reflections, created the office of the Secret State Police. This instrument which is so 231
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 4, p. 231     Last modified: October 10, 1998 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.