22 Nov. 45

Kabinettsrat, of which the Defendant Von Neurath was the President.

Unlike the Cabinets and Ministerial Councils in countries that were not within the orbit of the Axis, the Reichsregierung, after 30 January, 1933 when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the German Reich, did not remain merely the executive branch of the Government. In short order it also came to be possessed, and it exercised legislative, and other functions as well, in the governmental system into which the German Government developed while under the domination of the National Socialist Party.

It is proper to observe here that unlike such Party organizations as the SA and SS, the Reichsregierung, before 1933, certainly, was not a body created exclusively or even predominantly for the purpose of committing illegal acts. The Reichsregierung was an instrument of government provided for by the Weimar constitution. Under the Nazi regime, however, the Reichsregierung gradually became a primary agent of the Party, with functions formulated in accordance with the objectives and methods of the Party itself. The Party to all intents and purposes, was intended to be a Führerorden, an order of Führer, a pool of political leaders. And while the Party was, in the words of a German law, "the bearer of the concept of the German State," it was not identical with the State.

Thus, in order to realize its ideological and political objectives and to reach the German people, the Party had to avail itself of official state channels.

The Reichsregierung, and such agencies and offices established by it, were the chosen instruments, by means of which the Party policies were converted into legislative and administrative acts, binding upon the German people as a whole.

In order to accomplish this result, the Reichsregierung was thoroughly remodelled by the Party. Some of the steps may be here recorded, by which the coordination of Party and State machinery was assured in order to impose the will of the Führer on the German people.

On January 30, 1933, the date that the Führer became Reich Chancellor' there were few National Socialists that were Cabinet members. But, as the power of the Party in the Reich grew, the Cabinet came to include an ever increasing number of Nazis, until by January 1937 no non-Party member remained in the Reichsregierung. New cabinet-posts were created and Nazis appointed to them Many of these cabinet members were also in the Reichsleitung of the Party.

To give but a few examples: