20 Dec. 45
The presentation of evidence on the criminality of the
Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) includes evidence on the criminality of
the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and of the Schutzstaffeln (SS), which has
been discussed by Major Farr, because a great deal of the criminal acts
were so inter-related. In the Indictment, as Your Honors know, the SD is
included by special reference as a part of the SS, since it originated
as a part of the SS and has always retained its character as a Party
organization, as distinguished from the Gestapo which was a State
organization. As will be shown by the evidence, however, the Gestapo and
the SD were brought into very close working relationship, the SD serving
primarily as the information-gathering agency and the Gestapo as the
executive agency of the police system established by the Nazis for the
purpose of combatting the political and ideological enemies of the Nazi
regime.
In short, I think we might think of the SD as the intelligence
organization and the Gestapo the executive agency, the former a Party
organization and the latter a State organization but merged together for
all practical purposes.
The first subject: The Gestapo and SD were formed into a powerful,
centralized, political police system that served Party, State, and Nazi
leadership.
The Gestapo was first established in Prussia on the 26th of April 1933
by the Defendant Göring with the mission of carrying out the duties
of the political police with, or in place of, the ordinary police
authorities. The -Gestapo was given the rank of a higher police
authority and was subordinated only to the Minister of Interior, to whom
was delegated the responsibility of determining its functional and
territorial jurisdiction. That fact is established in the Preussische
Gesetzsammlung of 26 April 1933, Page 122, and it is our Document
2104-PS.
Pursuant to this law and on the same date, the Minister of Interior
issued a decree on the reorganization of the police which established a
State Police Bureau in each governmental district of Prussia,
subordinate to the Secret State Police Bureau in Berlin; and I cite as
authority the Ministerialblatt for the Internal Administration of
Prussia, 1933, Page 503, and it is Document 2371-PS.
Concerning the formation of the Gestapo, the Defendant Göring
said, in Aufbau einer Nation, of 1934, Page 88, which is our
Document 2344-PS, and I quote from the English translation a short
paragraph, of which Your Honors will take judicial notice, unless Your
Honors want to turn to it in full:
"For weeks" — this is Göring
talking — "I had been working personally on the
reorganization, and at last I, alone and upon my own decision and my
own reflections, created the office of the Secret State Police. This
instrument which is so