17 Dec. 45
of 1 December 1933, and it was enacted "to secure
the unity of Party and state." This law provided that the Nazi
Party was the pillar of the German State and was linked to it
indissolubly; it also made the Deputy of the Führer (then Hess) and
the Chief of Staff of the SA (then Röhm members of the Reich
Cabinet. I quote:
"After the victory of the National
Socialist revolution the National Socialistic German Labor Party is
the bearer of the concept of the German State and is inseparably the
State. It will be a part of the public law. Its organization will be
determined by the Führer ...
"The Deputy of the Führer and the Chief of Staff of the SA
will become members of the Reich Government in order to insure close
co-operation of the offices of the Party and SA with the public
authorities."
This law was a
basic measure in enthroning the Leadership Corps in a position of
supreme political power in Germany. For it laid down that the Party,
directed by the Leadership Corps, was the embodiment of the State and in
fact was the State. Moreover, this law made both the Führer's
Deputy and the Chief of Staff of the SA, which was a Party formation
subject to the call of the Hoheitsträger, Cabinet members, thus
further solidifying the leadership control of the Cabinet. The dominant
position of the Leadership Corps is further revealed by the provision
that the Reich Chancellor would issue the carrying-out regulations of
this law in his capacity as Führer of the Nazi Party. The fact that
Hitler, as Führer of the Leadership Corps, could promulgate rules
which would have statutory force and be published in the Reichsgesetzblatt,
the proper compilation for State enactments, is but a further reflection
of the reality of the Party's domination of the German State.
I now refer to Document 2775-PS, which is Exhibit Number USA-330, which
is the English translation of certain extracts from Hitler's speeches to
the 1934 and 1935 Party Congress at Nuremberg. I quote from the second
extract in Document 2775-PS, which is a declaration by Hitler to the
1934 Party Congress and which reads — just one sentence, "It
is not the State which gives orders to us, it is we who give orders to
the State."
Upon the evidence, that categorical statement of the Führer of the
Leadership Corps, affirming the dominance of the Party over the State,
cannot be refuted.
On the 30th of June 1934 Hitler, as head of the Nazi Party, directed
the massacre of hundreds of SA men and other political Opponents. Hitler
sought to justify these mass murders by declaring to the Reichstag that
"at that hour I was responsible for the fate of the German nation
and the supreme judge of the German