13 Dec.
45
"Order of Protective Custody.
"Based on Article 1 of the Decree of the Reich President for the
Protection of People and State of 28 February 1933 (Reichsgesetzblatt
I, Page 83), you are taken into protective custody in the interest of
public security and order.
"Reason: Suspicion of activities inimical toward the State."
The Defendant Göring in a book entitled Aufbau einer Nation,
published in 1934, sought to give the impression, it appears, that the
camps were originally directed at those whom the Nazis considered
Communists and Social Democrats. We refer to Document 2324-PS, Exhibit
USA-233. This document is an excerpt from Page 89 of the German book. We
refer to the third and fourth paragraphs of the document, which I read
as follows:
"We had to deal ruthlessly with these
enemies of the State. It must not be forgotten that at the moment of
our of power, over 6 million people officially voted for communism.
and about 8 million for Marxism in the Reichstag elections in March.
"Thus the concentration camps were created to which we had to
send first thousands of functionaries of the Communist and Social
Democratic Parties."
In
practical operation the power to order confinement in these camps was
almost without limit. The Defendant Frick, in an order which he issued
on the 25th day of January 1938 as Minister of the Interior, made this
quite clear. An extract from this order is set forth in Document
1723-PS, to which we make reference. It bears Exhibit Number USA-206. I
wish to read Article 1, beginning at the bottom of Page 5 of the English
translation of this order:
"Protective custody can be decreed as
a coercive measure of the Secret State Police to counter all hostile
efforts of persons who endanger the existence and security of the
people and the State through their attitude."
I wish also to read into the record the first two paragraphs of that
order, which are found at the top of Page 1 of the English translation:
"In a summary of all the previously
issued decrees on the co-operation between the Party and the Gestapo I
refer to the following and ordain:
"1. To the Gestapo has been entrusted the mission by the Führer
to watch over and to eliminate all enemies of the Party and the
National State, as well as all disintegrating forces of all kinds
directed against both. The successful solution of this mission forms
one of the most essential prerequisites for the unhampered and
frictionless work of the