18 Dec. 45

Now, in conclusion, if Your Honor pleases, I would like at this time to summarize briefly the proof concerning the Reichsregierung.

From 1933 to the end of the war, the Reichsregierung comprised the dominant body of influence and leadership below Hitler in the Nazi Government. The three subdivisions were included in the term Reichsregierung in the Indictment: the ordinary Cabinet, the Secret Cabinet Council, and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich. Yet in reality there existed only an artificial, illusory boundary between the three.

The predominant subdivision was, of course, the ordinary Cabinet, which was commonly referred to as the Reichsregierung. In it were the leading political and military figures in the Nazi Government. Seventeen of the 22 defendants before this Tribunal were integral parts of the ordinary Cabinet.

I should like now to name these defendants and to indicate the positions they held in the Reichsregierung:

Martin Bormann, Leader of the Party Chancellery; Karl Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Hans Frank, Reich Minister without Portfolio; Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior, Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration; Walter Funk, Minister of Economics, Plenipotentiary for Economy; Hermann Göring Minister for Air, Reich Forest Master; Rudolf Hess, Deputy of the Führer Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the OKW; Constantin H. K. von Neurath, Minister for Foreign Affairs, President of the Secret Cabinet Council; Franz von Papen, Vice-Chancellor; Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Alfred Rosenberg, Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories; Hjalmar Schacht, Acting Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without Portfolio, President of the Reichsbank, Plenipotentiary for War Economy; Baldur von Schirach, Reich Youth Leader; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Minister without Portfolio; and finally, Albert Speer, Minister for Armaments and War Production.

From the ordinary Cabinet there came not only the members of the Secret Cabinet Council and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich, but also the members of the war planning group, the Nazi secret Reich Defense Council. When it was deemed essential for the purposes of the conspiracy to wage aggressive war, that power was concentrated in a few individuals. Again these individuals were drawn from the ordinary Cabinet. Thus the Plenipotentiaries for Economy and Administration were also Ministers of the ordinary Cabinet, and they were also members of the Reich Defense Council and Ministerial Council.

Under them were grouped practically all the ministers of the ordinary Cabinet.