19 Dec. 45
into an elite troop of the Party, a troop
dependable in every circumstance.
"With this day the real history of the SS begins as it stands
before us today in all its deeper essential features, firmly anchored
in the National Socialist movement. For the SS and its Reichsführer
Heinrich Himmler, its first SS man, have both become inseparable in
the course of these battle-filled years."
Carrying out Hitler's directive, Himmler proceeded to build up out of
this small force of men an elite organization — to use D'Alquen's
words — composed of "the best physically ... the most
dependable, and the most faithful ... men" in the Nazi movement. I
read another passage from D'Alquen at Page 12 of the original, Page 6 of
the translation, Paragraph 5:
"When the day of seizure of power had
finally come, there were 52,000 SS men, who in this spirit bore the
revolution in the van, marched into the new state which they began
helping to form everywhere, in their stations and positions, in
profession and in service, and in all their essential tasks."
The conspirators now had the machinery of government in their hands. The
initial function of the SS — that of acting as private army and
personal police force — was thus completed. But its mission had in
fact really just begun. That mission is described in the Organization
Book of the NSDAP for 1943. The pages from that book dealing with
the SS — Pages 417 to 428 — are translated in our Document
Number 2640-PS. The organization's book has already been offered in
evidence as Exhibit Number USA-323. The passage to which I refer appears
on Page 417 of the original and on Page 1, Paragraph 2, of the
translation:
"Missions. The original and most
eminent duty of the SS is to serve as the protectors of the Führer
By decree of the Führer the sphere of duties has been enlarged to
include the internal security of the Reich."
This new mission — protecting the internal security of the regime —
was somewhat more colorfully defined by Himmler in his pamphlet The
SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization, published in 1936.
It is our Document Number 1851-PS. I offer this document in evidence as
Exhibit Number USA-440. The definition to which I refer appears in the
original at the bottom of Page 29 of the original, on the third page of
the translation, middle of the paragraph:
"We shall unremittingly fulfill our
task, the guaranty of the security of Germany from the interior, just
as the Wehrmacht guarantees the safety of the honor, the greatness,
and the peace of the Reich from the exterior. We shall take care that