Secret Cabinet Council
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The Secret Cabinet Council (
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
: ''Geheimer Kabinettsrat'', also translated " Privy Cabinet Council") in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
was a nine-member governmental body created on 4 February 1938. The Council was established by decree of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
with the supposed purpose of advising him in the conduct of
foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
. It was established ostensibly to be a sort of “super cabinet” of close foreign policy advisors. In reality, the Council was a paper organization without any real power and never actually met.


Background

In a 5 November 1937 meeting at the
Reich Chancellery The Reich Chancellery () was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared since 1875, was the fo ...
with his top foreign policy and military advisors, documented in the
Hossbach Memorandum The Hossbach Memorandum is a summary of a meeting in Berlin on 5 November 1937 attended by German dictator Adolf Hitler and his military and foreign policy leadership in which Hitler outlined his expansionist policies. The meeting marked the beginn ...
, Hitler unveiled his plans for a more assertive foreign policy, including his aggressive designs against
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
and
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
. At this meeting, the ''
Reichsminister Reichsminister (in German singular and plural; 'minister of the realm') was the title of members of the German Government during two historical periods: during the March Revolution of 1848/1849 in the German Reich of that period, and in the mode ...
'' for Foreign Affairs,
Konstantin von Neurath Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German politician, diplomat and convicted Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Born to a Swabian noble famil ...
, expressed his concerns over this new policy. Neurath sought a follow-up audience with Hitler who rebuffed him and left Berlin for an extended holiday at the Berghof, his mountain retreat in
Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps. South of the town, the Be ...
. When Neurath finally saw Hitler again on 14 January 1938, he reiterated his opposition to Hitler’s plans, indicating that if Hitler persisted with his expansionist plans he would have to find a new Foreign Minister. In fact, Hitler had already made up his mind to replace Neurath. On 4 February 1938, as part of a reshuffle of the Reich cabinet and armed forces resulting from the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, Neurath was sacked and replaced by
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. ...
, an ardent Nazi. Conversely, Neurath was a long-time professional foreign service officer, having served in posts in both the
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
and the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
since 1901, and had headed the
Reich Foreign Ministry The Federal Foreign Office (, ; abbreviated AA) is the foreign ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign policy and its relationship with the European Union. It is a cabinet-level ...
since June 1932. In order to assuage concerns in foreign capitals about the removal of Neurath, a known-quantity in international diplomatic circles, Hitler cloaked the departure as a promotion, naming the long-time diplomat as President of the newly created and impressive-sounding Secret Cabinet Council.


Composition

The 4 February 1938 Decree establishing the Council enumerated the following nine members:


Existence

The Council was officially in existence from its inception in February 1938 until the end of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945. It was established as a select advisory committee of the Reich government for the deliberation of foreign affairs and was granted neither legislative nor administrative functions. The image of an important deliberative body was presented to the world by Nazi propaganda, which depicted the Council as a type of “super cabinet.” In reality, the Council was an empty façade and never even convened. At the
Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...
on 14 March 1946, Hermann Göring testified about the creation and existence of the Council:
“In order to avoid a lowering of Herr von Neurath's prestige abroad, I myself was the one to make a proposal to the Führer. I told him that in order to make it appear abroad that von Neurath had not been entirely removed from foreign policy, I would propose to appoint him chairman of the Secret Cabinet Council. There was, to be sure, no such council in existence, but the expression would sound quite nice, and everyone would imagine that it meant something. The Führer said we could not make him chairman if we had no council. Thereupon I said, "Then we shall make one," and offhand I marked down names of several persons .... I declare under oath that this Cabinet Council never met at all, not even for a minute; there was not even an initial meeting for laying down the rules by which it should function. Some members may not even have been informed that they were members.”
On 24 June 1946 Neurath himself also testified that the Council “was set up for the sole purpose of masking the reorientation in foreign policy and the changes on the military side” and that it, in fact, never convened. The above demonstrates, as with so much else in the Third Reich, how Hitler presented the outward appearance of establishing formal governmental institutions and procedures while retaining all actual decision-making authority in his own hands.


Postwar indictment as a criminal organization

The Secret Cabinet Council was indicted as a criminal organization as part of the larger Reich government (''Reichsregierung'') by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. However, the Tribunal found that no declaration of criminality could be made, as the Council never actually met and never acted as a group or organization.


Fate of Council members

Goebbels had committed suicide on 1 May 1945 and Brauchitsch died in British captivity in October 1948 before being brought to trial. The surviving members of the Council all were indicted individually and convicted of war crimes. Göring, Ribbentrop and Keitel were sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal in October 1946. Göring committed suicide the night before his scheduled execution but the other two were hanged on 16 October. Hess and Raeder were sentenced to life imprisonment. Raeder was released in 1955 due to ill health and died in 1960; Hess committed suicide in 1987 while still incarcerated at
Spandau prison Spandau Prison was a former military prison located in the Spandau borough of West Berlin (present-day Berlin, Germany). Built in 1876, it became a proto-concentration camp under Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, it held seven top Nazi l ...
. Neurath was sentenced to 15 years, but released in 1954 due to ill health and died in 1956. Lammers was sentenced to 20 years in the Ministries Trial in 1949, with the term later commuted to 10 years. He was released in 1951 and died in 1962.


References


External links


Decree of 4 February 1938
i
The Avalon Project


Sources

* * * *{{cite book , last= Faber , first= David , title= Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II , publisher= Simon and Schuster , year= 2009 , isbn= 978-1439149928 1938 establishments in Germany 1945 disestablishments in Germany Foreign relations of Nazi Germany Government of Nazi Germany