18 Dec. 45
The points I have been making are illustrated on the
chart. We are not offering this chart in evidence, although all facts
thereon already have been or will be proved. The chart is also designed
to depict — to the left of the line running down the right center —
the chronological development of the offshoots of the ordinary Cabinet.
Thus in the main box entitled "Reich Cabinet" — which
appears directly under Hitler — certain dates appear.
I believe I will skip the part that describes those lines because it is
self-evident.
The Ministerial Defense Council was created in 1944; the Delegate for
Total War Effort was Goebbels. These agencies were, next to Hitler, the
important Nazi functionaries. In every case, as the chart shows, they
were occupied by persons taken from the ordinary Cabinet. The arrow
running from the Reich Defense Council to the Ministerial Defense
Council is intended to reflect the fact, shown previously, that the
latter was formed out of the former. We will, for other points of this
presentation, refer again to the chart, especially to that portion to
the right, which relates to ministries.
The unity, cohesion, and inter-relationship of the subdivisions of the
Reichsregierung were not the result of a co-mixture of personnel alone.
It was also realized by the method in which it operated. The ordinary
Cabinet consulted together both by meetings and through the so-called
circulation procedure. Under this procedure, which was predominantly
used when meetings were not held, drafts of laws prepared in the
individual ministries were distributed to the other Cabinet members for
approval or disapproval.
The man primarily responsible for the circulation of drafts of laws
under this procedure was Dr. Lammers, the Leader and Chief of the Reich
Chancellery. I have here an affidavit executed by him concerning that
technical device, which, we offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-391,
Document 2999-PS. It is short and I should like to quote all of it:
"I, Hans Heinrich Lammers, being
first duly sworn, depose and say:
"I was Leader of the Reich Chancellery from 30 January 1933
until the end of the war. In this capacity I circulated drafts of
proposed laws and decrees, submitted to me by the minister who had
drafted the law or decree, to all members of the Reich Cabinet. A
period of time was allowed for objections, after which the law was
considered as being accepted by the various members of the Cabinet.
This procedure continued throughout the entire war. It was likewise
followed also in the Ministerial Council for