18 Dec. 45

the comrades Leipart and Imbusch; and should they some day ask me to return their money, then it will be found that I have put it into buildings or otherwise spent it. But they shall never again find their property in the condition in which they handed it over to me. Therefore I should have to be convicted.'

"The Führer laughed then and remarked that apparently I felt extremely well in this condition.

"It was very difficult for us all. Today we laugh about it ... "
The plan of the Nazi conspirators to eliminate the free trade unions was advanced by the enactment, on 19th May 1933, of a law which abolished collective bargaining between workers and employers and replaced it with a regulation of working conditions by labor trustees appointed by Hitler. I refer to Document 405-PS, which is the text of the law, 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt 1, Page 285. After providing in Section I for the appointment by Hitler of trustees of labor, this law provides, and I quote from Section 2 of the English translation of Document 405-PS:

"Until a new revision of the social constitution, the labor trustees are to regulate the conditions for the conclusion of labor contracts. This practice is to be legally binding for all persons and replaces the system founded on combinations of workers, of individual employers, or of combinations of employers ... "
Having destroyed the independent unions and collective bargaining, the next step of the Nazi conspirators was to secure the Nazification in the field of industrial relations. I refer to Document Number 1861-PS, which is the text of the law of 20 January 1934, 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt I, Page 45. This law was entitled the "Law Regulating National Labor"; and it imposed the leadership principle upon industrial enterprisers and provided, in Section I, Paragraph 1, that the enterpriser should be the leader of the plant and the workers would constitute his followers. I now quote from Section I, Paragraph 2, of the first page of Document Number 1861-PS:

"The leader of the plant has full authority over the employees in all matters concerning the enterprise, as far as they are covered by this law.

"He is responsible for the well-being of the employees. The employees owe him loyalty in keeping with the principles of factory solidarity."
The trade unions having been dissolved and the leadership principle superimposed upon the relationship of management and labor, the members of the Leadership Corps joined in and directed measures designed to replace the independent unions by the German Labor Front, the DAF, an affiliated Party organization. On