The Accused Organisations:
[Page 73]
Criminal Activity: Originally, one of the primary functions
of the Gestapo was the prevention of any political
opposition to the Nazi regime, a function which it performed
with the assistance of the SD. The principal weapon used in
performing this function was the concentration camp. The
Gestapo did not have administrative control over the
concentration camps, but, acting through the RSHA, was
responsible for the detention of political prisoners in
those camps. Gestapo officials were usually responsible for the
interrogation of political prisoners at the camps.
The Gestapo and the SD also dealt with charges of treason
and with questions relating to the press, the churches and
the Jews. As the Nazi program of anti-Semitic persecution
increased in intensity the role played by these groups
became increasingly important. In the early morning of 10th
November, 1938, Heydrich sent a telegram to all offices of
the Gestapo and SD giving instructions for the organisation
of the pogroms of that date and instructing them to arrest
as many Jews as the prisons could hold "especially rich
ones," but to be careful that those arrested were healthy
and not too old. By 11th November, 1938, 20,000 Jews had
been arrested and many were sent to concentration camps. On
24th January, 1939, Heydrich, the Chief of
[Page 74]
the Security Police and SD, was charged with furthering the
emigration and evacuation of Jews from Germany, and on 31st
July, 1941, with bringing about a complete solution of the
Jewish problem in German dominated Europe. A special section
of the Gestapo office of the RSHA under Standartenfuehrer
Eichmann was set up with responsibility for Jewish matters
which employed its own agents to investigate the Jewish
problem in occupied territory Local offices of the Gestapo
were used first to supervise the emigration of Jews and
later to deport them to the East both from Germany and from
the territories occupied during the war. Einsatzgruppen of
the Security Police and SD operating behind the lines of the
Eastern Front engaged in the wholesale massacre of Jews. A
special detachment from Gestapo headquarters in the RSHA was
used to arrange for the deportation of Jews from Axis
satellites to Germany for the "final solution."
Local offices of the Security Police and SD played an
important role in the German administration of occupied
territories. The nature of their participation is shown by
measures taken in the summer of 1938 in preparation for the
attack on Czechoslovakia which was then in contemplation.
Einsatzgruppen of the Gestapo and SD were organized to
follow the Army into Czechoslovakia to provide for the
security of political life in the occupied territories.
Plans were made for the infiltration of SD men into the area
in advance, and for the building up of a system of files to
indicate what inhabitants should be placed under
surveillance, deprived of passports, or liquidated. These
plans were considerably altered due to the cancellation of
the attack on Czechoslovakia, but in the military operations
which actually occurred, particularly in the war against
USSR, Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD went into
operation, and combined brutal measures for the pacification
of the civilian population with the wholesale slaughter of
Jews. Heydrich gave orders to fabricate incidents on the
Polish-German frontier in 1939 which would give Hitler
sufficient provocation to attack Poland. Both Gestapo and SD
personnel were involved in these operations.
The local units of the Security Police and SD continued
their work in the occupied territories after they had ceased
to be an area of operations. The Security Police and SD
engaged in widespread arrests of the civilian population of
these occupied countries, imprisoned many of them under
inhumane conditions, subjected them to brutal third degree
methods, and sent many of them to concentration camps. Local
units of the Security Police and SD were also involved in
the shooting of hostages, the imprisonment of relatives, the
execution of persons charged as terrorists and saboteurs
without a trial, and the enforcement of the "Nacht und
Nebel" decrees under which persons charged with a type of
offense believed to endanger the security of the occupying
forces were either executed within a week or secretly
removed to Germany without being permitted to communicate
with their family and friends.
Offices of the Security Police and SD were involved in the
administration of the Slave Labor Program. In some occupied
territories they helped local labor authorities to meet the
quotas imposed by Sauckel. Gestapo offices inside of Germany
were given surveillance over slave laborers and
responsibility for apprehending those who were absent from
their place of work. The Gestapo also had charge of the so-
called work training camps. Although both German and foreign
workers could be committed to these camps, they played a
significant role in forcing foreign laborers to work for the
German war effort. In the latter stages of the war as the SS
embarked on a slave labor program of its own, the Gestapo
was used to arrest workers for the purpose of insuring an
adequate supply in the concentration camps.
[Page 75]
The local offices of the Security Police and SD were also
involved in the commission of War Crimes involving the
mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war. Soviet
prisoners of war in prisoner of war camps in Germany were
screened by Einsatz Kommandos acting under the directions of
the local Gestapo offices. Commissars, Jews, members of the
intelligentsia, "fanatical Communists" and even those who
were considered incurably sick were classified as
"intolerable," and exterminated. The local offices of the
Security Police and SD were involved in the enforcement of
the "Bullet" decree, put into effect on 4th March, 1944,
under which certain categories of prisoners of war, who were
recaptured, were not treated as prisoners of war but taken
to Mauthausen in secret and shot. Members of the Security
Police and SD were charged with the enforcement of the
decree for the shooting of parachutists and commandos.
Conclusion
The Gestapo and SD were used for purposes which were
criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and
extermination of the Jews, brutalities, and killings in
concentration camps, excesses in the administration of
occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor
program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of
war. The defendant Kaltenbrunner, who was a member of this
organisation, was among those who used it for these
purposes. In dealing with the Gestapo the Tribunal includes
all executive and administrative officials of Amt IV of the
RSHA or concerned with Gestapo administration in other
departments of the RSHA and all local Gestapo officials
serving both inside and outside of Germany, including the
members of the Frontier Police, but not including the
members of the Border and Customs Protection or the Secret
Field Police, except such members as have been specified
above. At the suggestion of the Prosecution the Tribunal
does not include persons employed by the Gestapo for purely
clerical, stenographic, janitorial, or similar unofficial
routine tasks. In dealing with the SD the Tribunal includes
Amts III, VI, and VII of the RSHA and all other members of
the SD, including all local representatives and agents,
honorary or otherwise, whether they were technically members
of the SS or not.
The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of
the Charter the group composed of those members of the
Gestapo and SD holding the positions enumerated in the
preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the
organisation with knowledge that it was being used for the
commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the
Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the
organisation in the commission of such crimes. The basis for
this finding is the participation of the organisation in war
crimes and crimes against humanity connected with the war;
this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore,
persons who had ceased to hold the positions enumerated in
the preceding paragraph prior to 1st December, 1939.
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Gestapo
And SD:
Criminal Activity
(Part 5 of 10)
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