Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression D. Without judicial process, the Nazi conspirators
imprisoned, held in protective custody and sent to
concentration camps opponents and suspected opponents.
They authorized the Gestapo to arrest and detain without
recourse to any legal proceeding. Officially, this power was
described as follows:
"The Secret State Police takes the necessary police
preventive measures against the enemies of the State on
the basis of the results of the observation. The most
effective preventive measure is without doubt the
withdrawal of freedom which is covered in the form of
protective custody. *******
While protective arrests of short duration are carried
out in police and court prisons, the concentration
camps under the Secret State Police admit those taken
into protective custody who have to be withdrawn from
public life for a longer time." (1956-PS)
The Nazi conspirators issued their own orders for the taking
of people into protective custody and these orders set forth
no further details concerning the reasons therefore, except
a statement such as "Suspicion of activities inimical to the
State." (2499-PS)
The Defendant Frank stated:
"To the world we are blamed again and again because of
the concentration camps. We are asked, "Why do you
arrest without a warrant of arrest? I say, put
yourselves into the position of our nation. Dont forget
that the very great and still untouched world of
Bolshevism cannot forget that we have made final
victory for them impossible in Europe, right here on
German soil." (2533-PS)
[Page 246]
The defendant Goering said in 1934:
"Against the enemies of the State, we must proceed
ruthlessly. It cannot be forgotten that at the moment
of our rise to power, according to the official
election figures of March 1933, six million people
still confess their sympathy for Communism and eight
million for Marxism. *******Therefore, the concentration camps have
been created, where we have first confined thousands of
Communists and Social Democrat functionaries. *******" (2344-PS)
US Ambassador George S. Messersmith, former Counsel General
in Berlin, Germany, 1930-34, and Raymond H. Geist, former
American Counsel and First Secretary of the Embassy in
Berlin, Germany, 1929-1939, have recently stated:
"Independent of individual criminal acts committed by
high functionaries of the German government or the Nazi
Party, such as the murders ordered by Hitler, Himmler
and Goering, all high functionaries of the German
government and of the Nazi Party *******are guilty in
the highest degree of complicity in and furtherance of
the cardinal crimes of oppression against the German
people, persecution and destruction of the Jews and all
of their political opponents." (2386-PS)
Commenting further on the Nazi conspirators' use of
concentration camps to destroy political opposition, Raymond
H. Geist stated:
"The German people were well acquainted with the goings
on in concentration camps and it was well known that
the fate of anyone too actively opposed to any part of
the Nazi program was liable to be one of great
suffering. Indeed, before the Hitler regime was many
months old, almost every family in Germany had had
first hand accounts of the brutalities inflicted in the
concentration camps from someone either in the
relationship or in the circle of friends who had served
a sentence there; consequently the fear of such camps
was a very effective brake
on any possible opposition." (1759-PS)
The Nazi conspirators confined, under the guise of
"protective custody" Reichstag members, Social Democrats,
Communists, and other opponents or suspected opponents.
(2544-PS; L-73; L-83; 1430-PS.)
The original plaintext version of
part
one or
part
two of this file is available via
ftp.
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Volume
I Chapter VII
Means Used by the Nazi Conspiractors in Gaining Control of the German State
(Part 24 of 55)