purpose of the SA, to which the whole membership was devoted, was stated in the Organization Book of the Party, "to be the bearer of National Socialists armed will20 and, according to the same Party manual, a member had to withdraw if he no longer agreed with the SA views or was not in a position to fulfill completely the duties imposed upon him as a member of the SA.21

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Like the SA, the SS was beyond question a unified organization. It was established by German law22 as a component of the Party having its own legal personality. It was described in the Organization Book of the Party's as a "homogeneous firmly welded fighting force bound by ideological oaths." It had a clearly identifiable membership which rose to about 600,000 toward the end of the war, composed of persons who met the same basic uniform standards of race ideology.24 Despite its many functions and activities, and its numerous departments and offices and branches, it was an integrated and unified organization and it was, according to Himmler's tirade to the SS Gruppenfuehrers on October 4, 1943,25 "One bloe, one body, one organization." It had of course its own uniform and enjoyed special privileges while pursuing the general purposes of the Nazi conspirators running all the way from neighborhood bullying through political, racial, and religious barbarities to the waging of wars of aggression, and the most violent and revolting crimes against humanity.

From its earliest days, the Nazis always regarded that portion of the police forces called, the "Gestapo" or Secret State Police, as a separate group, a clearly identifiable aggregate performing a common function. The very purpose of Goering's decree of April 26, 1933,20 establishing the Gestapo in Prussia was to create in that province a single body of secret political police, separated from the other Prussian police forces, an independent force having its own particular task, on which he could entirely rely. The same motives led to the establishment of similar identifiable groups of secret political police in other German provinces. The steps by which these groups were all consolidated into a single secret political police force for the whole Reich are fully detailed in the decrees and laws which have been cited to the Tribunal.27 When the RSHA, the Reich Main Security Office, was created in 1939 the Gestapo was not dispersed, but became a distinct department of that central office, as shown by the Chart of RSHA introduced in evidence, 28 and by the testimony of the witnesses Ohlendorf and Schellenberg.30 They easily estimated the number of persons in the Gestapo at from 30,000 to 40,000.

Throughout these proceedings, the Gestapo and the SD have been considered together due to the fact that the criminal enterprises with which each is chargeable were supported, to a greater

framework of the organization have nothing to do with the voluntary character of the membership itself. The willing submission of the SA man to the SA command is not the same thing as compulsory and involuntary entry into the organization.

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Applicants for the SS not only were volunteers but in addition they had to meet the strictest standards of selection, as is illustrated in the SS Soldiers Manual,39 and by Himmler's insistence on free and voluntary applications for membership as set out in his letter of 1943 to Kaltenbrunner.40 The SS characterized itself as an elite and select corps, advertised that it carefully weeded out every applicant who did not conform to its racial, biological, and ideological standards, and made it plain to everyone that unusual qualifications were required for membership. Such in fact was Himmler's boast to the Wehrmacht, "Should I succeed in selecting from the German people for the organization as many as possible who possess this desired blood and in teaching them military discipline and in the understanding of the value of blood and the entire ideology resulting from it, then it would be possible actually to create such an elite organization as should successfully hold its own in all cases of emergency." 41 The "elite" were required to establish Nordic descent, in the case of an officer applicant as far back as the year 1750 and for regular applicants to the year 1800.42 In addition unusual physical standards of height and odd requirements of Nordic appearance were set up and the political and ideological background of every "elite" candidate was carefully scrutinized. It is highly significant that we have proof of insistence on these racial and ideological qualifications as late as 1943, even in the Waffen SS.43 It has been argued that because some men were conscripted into the Waffen SS in the last desperate stages of the war, the organization as a whole was not a voluntary one. Those who were actually forced into divisions of the Waffen SS may have an adequate defense in subsequent hearings, but we insist that compulsion born of a frantic effort to stave off defeat in the closing hours of the war does not change the essentially voluntary aspect of the membership as a whole. Whatever pressures may have been exerted to expand the membership of this organization, it originated and remained basically voluntary and selective.

The SD as a part of the SS was composed of SS men with special qualifications. The deeds of this organization best explain the nature of these qualifications for the record in this case is replete with horrible tales of their doings. The SD man was simply a surcharged SS man. If the membership of the SS was basically and fundamentally voluntary, then it follows automatically that the SD membership was likewise voluntary.