In addition, Goering attended as Reichs Minister (he held no portfolio at that time) and Reichs Commissar for Aviation. Dr. Perecke attended as Reich Commissar for Procurement of Labor. Two state secretaries were present—Dr. Lammers of the Reichs Chancellery and Dr. Meissner of the Reich’s Presidential Chancellery. In addition, Funk was present as Reichs Press Chief, and von Papen was present as Deputy of the Reichs Chancellor and Reichs Commissar for the State of Prussia. (351-PS)

Not long afterwards new ministries or departments were created, into which leading Nazi figures were placed. On 13 March 1933, the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was created, and Paul Josef Goebbels was named as Reich Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (2029-PS). On 5 May 1933 the Ministry of Air (2089-PS), on 1 May 1934 the Ministry of Education (2078-PS), and on 16 July 1935 the Ministry for Church Affairs (2090-PS) were created. Goering was made Air Minister; Bernhard Rust, Gauleiter of South Hanover, was named Education Minister; and Hans Kerrl was named Minister for Church Affairs. Two Ministries were added after the war started. On 17 March 1940 the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions was established (2091-PS). Dr. Fritz Todt, a high party official, was appointed to this post. Speer succeeded him. The name of this department was changed to “Armaments and War Production” in 1943 (2092-PS). On 17 July 1941, when the seizure of Eastern territories was in progress, the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created. There was no published decree for this act. A file found in the Presidential Chancellery contains a typewritten copy of the decree of Hitler establishing that post (1997-PS). The decree provides:

During the years 1933 to 1945, one ministry was dropped—the Ministry of Defense (later called War). This took place on 4 February 1938, when Hitler took over command of the whole Armed Forces. At the same time he created the office of the “Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces” or Chief of the OKW. This was held by Keitel. The decree accomplishing this change provides in part as follows:

Another change in the composition of the cabinet during the years in question should be noted. The post of vice-chancellor was never refilled after the departure of von Papen on 30 July 1934.

In addition to the heads of departments mentioned above, the ordinary cabinet also contained Reich Ministers without portfolio. Among these were Frank, Seyss-Inquart, Schacht (after he left the Economics Ministry), and von Neurath (after he was replaced as Ministry of the Interior). Other positions also formed an integral part of the cabinet. Those were the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Hess, and later his successor, the Leader of the Party Chancellery, Bormann; the Chief of Staff of the SA, Ernst Roehm, for the seven months prior to his assassination; the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Lammers; and, as already mentioned, the Chief of the OKW, Keitel. These men had either the title or rank of Reich Minister.

The Cabinet also contained other functionaries, such as State Ministers acting as Reich Ministers. Only two persons fell within this category—the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery, Otto Meissner, and the State Minister of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Karl Hermann Frank. In addition, as named in the Indictment, the ordinary cabinet included “others entitled to take part in Cabinet meetings”. Many governmental agencies were created by the Nazis between the years 1933 and 1945, but the peculiarity of these creations was that in most instances the new officials were given the right to participate in cabinet meetings. Among those entitled to take part in Cabinet meetings were the Commanders in Chief of the Army and the Navy; the Reich Forest Master; the Inspector General for Water and Power; the Inspector General of German Roads; the Reich Labor Leader; the Reich Youth Leader; the Chief of the Foreign Organization in the Foreign Office; the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior; the Prussian Finance Minister; and the Cabinet Press Chief. These posts and officials comprising the ordinary cabinet all appear on the chart entitled “Organization of the Reich Government,” and authenticated by Frick (Chart Number 18). The persons who held these posts in the ordinary cabinet varied between the years 1933 to 1945. Their names are listed in the chart (Chart Number 18), which discloses that 17 of these officials are defendants in these proceedings.

(2) The Secret Cabinet Council. Proof that there was only an artificial distinction between the ordinary cabinet, the Secret Cabinet Council, and the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, is shown by the unity of personnel among the three subdivisions. Thus, on 4 February 1938, Hitler created the Secret Cabinet Council (2031-PS):

It will be noted that every member of this group was either a Reichsminister or, as, in the case of the Army, Navy, and OKW heads, had the rank and authority of a Reich Minister.

(3) The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. On 30 August 1939 Hitler established the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich (better known as the Ministerial Council). This was the so-called war cabinet. The decree establishing this Council provided (2018-PS):

Again, all members of this group were also members of the ordinary Cabinet.

The Reich Defense Council, for secret war planning, was created by the Cabinet on 4 April 1933 (cf. the unpublished Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935 (2261-PS)). The membership of that Council when first created is shown by the minutes of the second session of the working committee of the delegates for Reich Defense, dated 22 May 1933 and signed by Keitel (EC-177):

All but the Chiefs of the Army and Navy Command Staff were at that time members of the ordinary cabinet.

The composition of this Reich Defense Council was changed by an unpublished law on 4 September 1938, which provided as follows (2194-PS):

On that date all the members also belonged to the ordinary cabinet, for by that time the supreme commanders of the Army and Navy had been given ministerial rank and authorized to participate in cabinet meetings (2098-PS). It is also worth noting that two members of the Reich Defense Council also appear in the Ministerial Council under the same title—The Plenipotentiary for Administration, and the Plenipotentiary for Economy. The former post was held by Frick, while the latter was first held by Schacht and then by Funk. These facts are verified by Frick on the Nazi governmental organization chart (Chart Number 18). Many other ministries were subordinated to these two posts for war-planning aims and purposes. These two officials, together with the Chief of the OKW, formed a powerful triumvirate known as the “Three-Man College” (Frick, Funk, and Keitel) which figured prominently in war plans and preparations.

B. Functions of the Reichsregierung.

The utilization of the ordinary cabinet as a manpower reservoir for other governmental agencies, the chronological development of the offshoots of the ordinary cabinet, and the cohesion between all of these groups, is apparent from the Nazi governmental organization chart (Chart Number 18). The chart shows the following offshoots of the ordinary cabinet: 1933, the Reich Defense Council; 1935, the Three-Man College; 1936, the Delegate for the Four Year Plan; 1938, the Secret Cabinet Council; 1939, The Ministerial Defense Council; and 1944, the Delegate for Total War Effort (Goebbels). In every case these important Nazi agencies were staffed with personnel taken from the ordinary cabinet.

(1) The Ordinary Cabinet. The unity, cohesion, and interrelationship of the sub-divisions of the Reichsregierung was not the result of a co-mixture of personnel alone. It was also realized by the method in which it operated. The ordinary cabinet consulted together both by meetings and through the so-called circulation procedure. Under the latter procedure, which was chiefly used when meetings were not held, drafts of laws prepared in individual ministries were distributed to other cabinet members for approval or disapproval.

The man primarily responsible for the circulation of drafts of laws under this procedure was Dr. Lammers, the Leader and Chief of the Reich Chancellery. Lammers has described that procedure in an affidavit (2999-PS):

A memorandum dated 9 August 1943, which bears the facsimile signature of Frick and is addressed to the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, illustrates how the circulation procedure worked (1701-PS). Attached to the memorandum is a draft of the law in question and a carbon copy of a letter dated 22 December 1943 from Rosenberg to the Reich Minister of the Interior, containing his comments on the draft:

(2) Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. The same procedure was followed in the Council of Ministers when that body was created. And the decrees of the Council of Ministers were also circulated to the members of the ordinary Cabinet. A memorandum found in the files of the Reich Chancellery and addressed to the members of the Council of Ministers, dated 17 September 1939, and bearing the typed signature of Dr. Lammers, Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, states (1141-PS):

Von Stutterheim, who was an official of the Reich Chancellery, comments on this procedure at page 34 of a pamphlet entitled “Die Reichskanzlei”:

For a time the Cabinet consulted together through actual meetings. The Council of Ministers did likewise, but those members of the Cabinet who were not already members of the Council also attended the meetings of the Ministerial Council. And where they did not attend in person, they were usually represented by the state secretaries of their Ministries. The minutes of six meetings of the Council of Ministers, on 1, 4, 8, and 19 September 1939, on 16 October 1939, and on 15 November 1939, demonstrate this procedure. (2852-PS)

At the meeting held on 1 September 1939, which was probably the first meeting since the Council was created on 30 August 1939, the following were in attendance:

These were the regular members of the Council. Also present was the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, DarrÉ, and seven State Secretaries: Koerner, Neumann, Stuckart, Posse, Landfried, Backe, and Syrup (2852-PS). These State Secretaries were from the several Ministries or other supreme Reich authorities. Koerner was the Deputy of Goering in the Four-Year Plan; Stuckart was in the Ministry of the Interior; Landfried was in the Ministry of Economics; Syrup was in the Ministry of Labor.

The minutes dated 8 September 1939 (2852-PS) note that in addition to all members of the Ministerial Council, the following also were present:

Then come the names of nine State Secretaries from the several Ministries, and then:

The close integration of the Ministerial Council with the ordinary Cabinet is seen by the following excerpt from the minutes of the same date (8 September 1939):

The minutes of the meeting of 19 September 1939 (2852-PS) show the following Reich Ministers to be present in addition to four members of the Council:

Then come the names of eight State Secretaries. Others present included:

The minutes dated 15 November 1939 show the same co-mixture of Ministers, State Secretaries, and similar functionaries. In addition, the following were also present:

Some of the decrees passed and matters discussed at these meetings of the Ministerial Council are significant. At the first meeting of 1 September 1939 14 decrees were ratified by the Council. Decree No. 6 concerned

At the meeting of the Council on 19 September 1939 the following occurred;

Finally, at the meeting of 15 November 1939 the discussion concerned, among other things, the “treatment of Polish Prisoners of War”. (2852-PS)

The minutes of these meetings (2852-PS) not only establish the close working union between agencies of the state and the party, especially the SS, but also tends to establish that the Reichsregierung was responsible for the policies adopted and put into effect by the government.

C. Powers of The Reichsregierung.

But mere working alliances would be meaningless unless there was power. And the Reichsregierung had power. Short of Hitler himself, it had practically all the power a government can exercise.

(1) The Ordinary Cabinet. The Nazi conspirators secured the passage by the Reichstag of the “Law for the Protection of the People and the Reich,” of 24 March 1933 (2001-PS), which vested the Cabinet with legislative powers even to the extent of deviating from previously existing constitutional law. These powers were retained even after the members of the cabinet were changed, and the several states, provinces, and municipalities, which had formerly exercised semi-autonomous powers, were transformed into mere administrative organs of the central government. The ordinary cabinet emerged all-powerful from this rapid succession of events. Frick waxed eloquent upon that achievement in an article which he wrote for the 1935 National Socialist Year Book:

The heightened legislative power of the Cabinet is also emphasized in an article written by Dr. Franz Medicus, an official in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and published in 1939 in Volume 4 of “Das Dritte Reich in Aufbau”:

When the Ministerial Council was formed in 1939, it too was given legislative powers (cf. Article II of the decree of 30 August 1939 (2018-PS)). The ordinary cabinet also continued to legislate throughout the war. Because of the fusion of personnel between the Ministerial Council and the ordinary cabinet, questions were bound to arise as to what forum should lend its name to a particular law. Dr. Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery and a member of both agencies, wrote a letter on 14 June 1942 to the Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration about these questions (352-PS):

Other officials possessed legislative powers. Hitler was of course one. Goering, as Deputy of the Four Year Plan, could and did issue decrees with the effect of law. The Cabinet delegated power to issue laws deviating from existing law to the Plenipotentiaries of Economy and Administration and the Chief of the OKW, the so-called Three-Man College. This was done in the Secret Defense Law of 1938 (2194-PS). These three officials—Frick, Funk, and Keitel—however, were also members of the Council of Ministers and of the ordinary cabinet as well. It can therefore be said, in the language of the Indictment, that the Reichsregierung “possessed * * * legislative * * * powers of a very high order in the system of the German government.”

The executive and administrative powers of the Reich were concentrated in the central government primarily as the result of two basic Nazi laws that reduced the separate states (called Laender) to mere geographical divisions. One was the law of 30 January 1934, known as the Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich (2006-PS). By that law the States were deprived of their independent status as States, their legislative assemblies were abolished, and their sovereign powers were transferred to the Reich. The other was the Reich Governor’s Law, enacted by the Cabinet on 30 January 1935 (2008-PS), which made all Reich Governors (Statthalters) permanent delegates of and subject to the order of the cabinet and, more especially, of the Reich Minister of the Interior. As a result, the ordinary cabinet was possessed of wide powers, which are set forth in “Administration Law,” periodical published in 1944 which was edited by Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and Dr. Harry V. Rosen-v. Hoewel, an Oberregierungsrat in the Reich Ministry of the Interior (2959-PS). The description of the powers and functions of all the ministries of the ordinary cabinet illustrates the extent of control vested in the Reichsregierung:

Other important powers and functions contained in the ordinary cabinet were not included in the foregoing list. For example, upon the creation of the People’s Court on 24 April 1934, it was placed within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice (2014-PS). With the acquisition and occupation of new territories, the integration and coordination thereof were placed within the Ministry of the Interior. The Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, (in some cases in cooperation with other Reich Ministers) was, by law, given regulatory powers over such territories. The territory and the applicable law may be listed as follows:

Such were the powers and functions of the ordinary cabinet.

(2) The Secret Cabinet Council. Of the other two subdivisions of the Reichsregierung—the Secret Cabinet Council and the Ministerial Council—the Secret Cabinet Council had no legislative or administrative powers. It was created by Hitler on 4 February 1938

Its position in the Nazi regime is described by Ernst Rudolf Huber, a leading Nazi Constitutional Lawyer, in his book entitled “Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches” (“Constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich”). In this book, which was an authoritative, widely used work on Nazi Constitutional Law, Huber states (1774-PS):

(3) The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. The powers concentrated in the Ministerial Council, which did possess legislative and administrative functions, at its creation in 1939, are best expressed by the lecture which Frick gave before the University of Freiburg on 7 March 1940. The lecture, published in a pamphlet entitled “The Administration in Wartime,” contains these statements (2608-PS):

With such power concentrated in the Reichsregierung and to such a high degree, the Nazi conspirators possessed a formidable weapon to effectuate their plans.

D. Acts and Decrees of the Reichsregierung.

Under the Nazi regime the Reichsregierung became the instrument of the Nazi party.

(1) Execution of the Nazi Party Program. In the original Cabinet of 30 January 1933 only three cabinet members were members of the Party—Goering, Frick, and Hitler. As new Ministries were added to the Cabinet, prominent Nazis were placed at their head. On 30 January, 1937, Hitler accepted into the Party those Cabinet members who were not already members. This action is reported in the Voelkischer Beobachter, South German Edition, of 1 February 1937 (2964-PS):

“In view of the anticipated lifting of the ban for party membership, the Fuehrer, as the first step in this regard, personally carried out the enlistment into the party of the members of the Cabinet, who so far had not belonged to it and he handed them simultaneously the Gold Party Badge, the supreme badge of honor of the party. In addition, the Fuehrer awarded the Gold Party Badge to Generaloberst Freiherr von Fritsch; Generaladmiral Dr. H. C. Raeder; the Prussian Minister of Finance, Professor Popitz; and the Secretary of State and Chief of the Presidential Chancellery, Dr. Meissner.

“The Fuehrer also honored with the gold party badge the party members State Secretary Dr. Lammers, State Secretary Funk, State Secretary Koerner and State Secretary General of the Airforce Milch.” (2964-PS)