Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression THE POLITICAL, POLICE, AND MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS
Accused before this Tribunal as criminal organizations are
certain political and police organizations which the
evidence will show to have been. instruments of cohesion in
planning and executing the crimes I have detailed. Perhaps
the worst of the movement were the Leadership Corps of the
NSDAP, the Schutzstaffeln or "SS", and the Sturmabteilungen
or "SA", and the subsidiary formations which these include.
These were the Nazi Party leadership, espionage, and
policing groups. They were the real government, above and outside
of any law. Also accused as organizatiOns are the Reich Cabinet and the
Secret State Police er Gestapo, which were fixtures of the
Government but animated solely by the Nazi Party.
Except for a late period when some compulsory recruiting was
done in the SS, membership in all these militarized
formations was voluntary. The police organizations ere
recruited from ardent partisans who enlisted blindly to do
the dirty work the leaders planned. The Reich Cabinet was
the governmental facade for Nazi Party Government and in its
member's legal as well as actual responsibility was vested
for the entire program. Collectively they were responsible
for the program in general, individually they were
especially responsible for segments of it. The finding which
we ask you to make, that these are criminal organizations
will subject members to punishment to be hereafter
[Page 170]
determined to appropriate tribunals, unless some personal
defense-such as becoming a member under threat to person, to
family, or inducement by false representation, or the like-
be established. Every member will have a chance to be heard
in the subsequent forum on his personal relation to the
organization, but your finding in this trial will
conclusively establish the criminal character of the
organization as a whole.
We have also accused as criminal organizations the High
Command and the General Staff of the German Armed Forces. We
recognize that to plan warfare is the business of
professional soldiers in every country. But it is one thing
to plan strategic moves in the event war comes, and it is
another thing to plot and intrigue to bring on that war. We
will prove the leaders of the German General Staff and of
the High Command to have been guilty of just that. Military
men are not before you because they served their country.
They are here because they mastered
it, along with these others, and drove it to war. They are
not here because they lost the war but because they started
it. Politicians may have thought of them as soldiers, but
soldiers know they were politicians. We ask that the General
Staff and the High Command, as defined in the Indictment, be
condemned as a criminal group whose existence and tradition
constitute a standing menace to the peace of the world.
These individual defendants did not stand alone in crime and
will not stand alone in punishment. Your verdict of "guilty"
against these organizations will render prima facie guilty,
as nearly as we can learn, thousands upon thousands of
members now in custody of the United States forces and other
Armies.
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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Volume
I Chapter V
Justice Jackson's Opening Address for the United States of America
(Part 16 of 17)