731544 Sold in complete sets by the Superintendent of Documents U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. C. A Collection of Documentary Evidence and Guide Materials Prepared by the American and British Prosecuting Staffs for Presentation before the International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, Germany, in the case of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, and THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS -against HERMANN WILHELM GOERING, RUDOLF HESS, JOACHIM von RIBBENTROP, ROBERT LEY, WILHELM KEITEL, ERNST KALTENBRUNNER, ALFRED ROSENBERG, HANS FRANK, WILHELM FRICK, JULIUS STREICHER, WALTER FUNK, HJALMAR SCHACHT, GUSTAV KRUPP von BOHLEN und HALBACH, KARL DOENITZ, ERICH RAEDER, BALDUR von SCHIRACH, FRITZ SAUCKEL, ALFRED JODL, MARTIN BORMANN, FRANZ von PAPEN, ARTUR SEYSS-INQUART, ALBERT SPEER, CONSTANTIN von NEURATH, and HANS FRITZSCHE, Individually and as Members of Any of the Following Groups or Organizations to which They Respectively Belonged, Namely: DIE REICHSREGIERUNG (REICH CABINET); DAS KORPS DER POLITISCHEN LEITER DER NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (LEADERSHIP CORPS OF THE NAZI PARTY); DIE SCHUTZSTAFFELN DER NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (commonly known as the "SS") and including DIE SICHERHEITSDIENST (commonly known as the "SD"); DIE GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI (SECRET STATE POLICE, commonly known as the "GESTAPO"); DIE STURMABTEILUNGEN DER N.S.D.A.P. (commonly known as the "SA") and the GENERAL STAFF and HIGH COMMAND of the GERMAN ARMED FORCES all as defined in Appendix B of the Indictment, Defendants. TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT 3313-PS VON PAPEN, APPEAL TO THE GERMAN CONSCIENCE [Appell an das deutche Gewissen] Oldenburg, 1933, page 66-68. Address delivered at Stuttgart, March 3, 1933. The principles of German federalism, as far as they have been incorporated in the Weimar Constitution, are thus of a dynastic nature. Therein, in truth, lies the crisis of federalism. Whoever regards the states [Laender] simply as legal successors of the former states of the German union forgets the elimination of the dynasties (ruling houses). The yardstick to measure the vitality and the political as well as legal importance of a state has completely changed since 1918. Whoever does not want to recognize this fact, but deals with the states of today as if they were still the union-states of yesterday's, does condemn to death. federalism as a legal and statebuilding principle. Either this great process of mediation continues until the unified state is accomplished, or one has to underpin the federalist principle anew. The slogan: "Back to Bismarck" really springs from a basically un-Bismarckian attitude, because Bismarck himself would never have tried to construct something for which the real political presuppositions were lacking. It follows then that the federalist principle must be rebuilt legally and politically on a new basis. Its outstanding characteristics, it seems to me, point to two directions: for one to the legal constructions and for another to the administrative method. A construction of a state is a federalist one if it rests to considerable extent upon contract law, and upon the mutual recognition of living legal units which give birth, in a legal fashion, to an all-embracing political being. The principle of force will thus be limited to a minimum; force can only be applied to prevent a decay of unity in behalf of the basic right to live. In addition, federalism will protect us from centralism, that organizational form which focuses all living strength of a nation like a burning mirror onto one point. No nation is less adaptable to being governed centralistically than the German nation. Particularism, on the other hand, leads to a predominance of the members and to a centrifugal movement dismembering the total unit. Such a centrifugal movement has been characteristic for the decay of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, the body of German folkdom, ever since the thirty years war, or even since |