Archive/File: imt/nca/nca-02/nca-02-15-criminality-07-02 Last-Modified: 1997/09/06 Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume II, Chapter XV [Page 
Archive/File: imt/nca/nca-02/nca-02-15-criminality-07-02 Last-Modified: 1997/09/06 Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume II, Chapter XV [Page 318] A. Composition and Functions of The General Staff and High Command Group. During the first World War there was an organization in the German Armed Forces known as the Great General Staff. This name persists in the public mind, but the Grosse Generalstab no longer exists in fact. There has been no such single organization, no single German General Staff, since 1918. But there has of course been a group of men responsible for the policy and acts of the Armed Forces. The fact that these men have no collective name does not prevent us from collecting them together. Men cannot escape the consequences of their collective acts by combining informally instead of formally. The essence of a general staff or a high command lies not in name but in function. And the men comprised within this group do constitute a functional group, welded together by common responsibility, of those officers who had the principal authority and responsibility under Hitler, for the plans and operations of the German armed forces. (1) Structure and Organization of the German Armed Forces. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the German Armed Forces were controlled by a Reich Defense Minister, at that time Field Marshall von Blomberg. Subordinate to von Blomberg were the chiefs of the army staff (at that time von Fritsch), and of the naval staff, the defendant Raeder. Owing to the limitations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, the German Air Force at that time had no official existence whatsoever. In May 1935, at the time that military conscription was introduced in Germany, there was a change in the titles of these offices but the structure remained basically the same. Field Marshall von Blomberg remained in supreme command of [Page 319] the armed forces with the title of Reich Minister for War and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Von Fritsch became Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Raeder Commander- in-Chief of the Navy. The army and naval staffs were renamed "High Commands" -- Oberkommando des Heeres and Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, from which are derived the initials by which they are usually known (OKH and OKM). The German Air Force came into official and open existence at about this same time, but it was not put und