4 Jan. 46

their functions. But all of them are related, and we believe that they are logically indicted together before the Tribunal because they are the primary agencies and the chief tools by means of which the Nazi conspirators sought to achieve their aims. All six of them were either established by, controlled by, or became allied with the Nazis; and they were essential to the success of the Nazis. They were at once the principal and indispensable instruments: The Party, the Government, the Police, and the Armed Forces. It is my task to present the case in chief against the General Staff and High Command group.

Now, in one respect this group is to be sharply distinguished from the other groups and organizations against which we have sought this declaration. For example, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party — of the NSDAP — is the Leadership Corps of the Party itself, the Party which was the embodiment of Nazism and which was the instrument primarily through which Hitlerism rode to, full power and tyranny in Germany. The SA and the SS were branches — to be sure, large branches — of the Nazi Party. The German Police did, indeed, have certain roots and antecedents which antedated Hitlerism; but it became 99 per cent a creature of the Nazi Party and the SS. The Reich Cabinet was in essence merely a committee or series of committees of Reich Ministers; and when the Nazis came to power, quite naturally these ministerial positions were filled for the most part by Nazis. All these groups and organizations, accordingly, either owe their origin and development to Nazism or automatically became Nazified when Hitler came to power.

Now, that is not true of the group with which we are now concerned. I need not remind the Tribunal that German armed might and the German military tradition antedate Hitlerism by many decades. One need not be a graybeard to have very vivid personal recollections of the war of 1914 to 1918, of the Kaiser, and of the "scrap of paper." For these reasons I want to sketch very briefly, before going into the evidence, the nature of our case against this group, which is unique in the particulars I have mentioned.

As a result of the German defeat in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles, the size and permissible scope of activities of the German Armed Forces were severely restricted. That these restrictions did not destroy or even seriously undermine German militarism, the last few years have made abundantly apparent. The full flowering of German military strength came about through collaboration; collaboration between the Nazis on the one hand and the career leaders of the German Armed Forces-the professional soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

When Hitler came to power, he did not find a vacuum in the field of military affairs. He found a small Reichswehr and a body