8 Jan. 46
1933, he directed the entire police force to render
unqualified assistance to the para-military organizations supporting the
new government, such as the SA and the SS, and to crush all political
opponents with firearms, if necessary, and regardless of the
consequences. The Tribunal will take judicial notice of the directives
of the 10th and 17th of February 1933, which are cited on Page 7 of our
brief and which appear in that collection of decrees known as the Ministerialblatt
für die Preussische Innere Verwaltung of 1933.
Göring has frequently and proudly acknowledged his personal
responsibility for the crimes committed pursuant to orders of this
character, and I recall his words which he uttered before thousands of
his fellow Germans:
"Each bullet which leaves the barrel
of a police pistol now is my bullet. If one calls this murder, then I
have murdered; I ordered all this, I back it up. I assume the
responsibility and I am not afraid to do so."
That quotation, may it please the Tribunal, comes from our Exhibit
Number USA-233, already in evidence, our Document 2324-PS.
Soon after he became Prime Minister of Prussia, in pursuance of the
conspiracy, Göring began to develop the Gestapo or Secret State
Police, the details of which organization of terror were presented to
the Court by my learned colleague, Colonel Storey. As early as the 26th
of April 1933, he signed the first law officially establishing the
Gestapo in Prussia; and, pursuant to a decree which he signed, he named
himself Prime Minister, Chief of the Prussian Secret State Police.
Göring was undoubtedly an efficient conspirator. He was impatient
to consolidate the power of the Party at home. Already in spring 1933
the concentration camps were established in Prussia. Men and women,
so-called "Marxists" and other political opponents, taken into
custody by the Gestapo were thrown into concentration camps without
trial. Göring said, "Against the enemies of the state we must
proceed ruthlessly." That statement appears in our Document
2324-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-233.
The range of political terrorism under his leadership was almost
limitless. A glance at a few of his police directives in those early
days will indicate the extent and thoroughness with which every
dissident voice was silenced. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice
of some of these decrees in the same collection I mentioned a short
while ago, entitled the Ministerialblatt für die Preussische
Innere Verwaltung, and we have cited these decrees on Pages 9 and 10
of our brief. These include: