Seven circles of responsibility
How the circles work
The seven circles classify a person’s documented place in the chain of decision, coordination, administration and execution. They do not rank suffering, notoriety or numbers of victims. Placement is based on function, formal authority, decision-making power, operational control and proven individual conduct. Roles sometimes overlapped, and a person’s position could change over time; each profile therefore explains the evidence and the limits of attribution.
Circle I of VII
Supreme architect
The initiator and supreme decision-maker who made aggressive war, racial persecution and mass murder state policy.
This circle identifies the highest level of political and military authority. Responsibility rests on setting the regime’s objectives, authorising criminal policy and directing the state apparatus—not on a comparison of victim totals.
1 profileCircle II of VII
Strategic core of the regime
Senior leaders of the state, party, SS, police, armed forces and propaganda apparatus who shaped and coordinated criminal policy.
These figures controlled major institutions and converted the dictator’s aims into strategy, priorities and binding decisions. Their profiles distinguish policy-making authority from the work of subordinate offices and field formations.
8 profilesCircle III of VII
Designers of the machinery of destruction
Officials who designed and managed central systems of deportation, mass killing, concentration camps, forced labour and security policing.
This circle covers the institutional architecture that made persecution and murder systematic. Responsibility is assessed through office, competence, orders, coordination and oversight, without assigning every act of an institution to one official.
22 profilesCircle IV of VII
Territorial rulers and programme chiefs
Occupation rulers and leaders of defined programmes who translated central policy into regional orders, displacement, exploitation and terror.
These figures exercised authority over occupied territories or specialised programmes. Their profiles reconstruct the link between policy, territorial administration, police power and implementation within the period and remit each person controlled.
44 profilesCircle V of VII
Operational commanders
Commanders who directed camps, killing units, police formations and other operations in which persecution and mass violence were carried out.
Responsibility at this level rests on operational orders, deployment, supervision and documented personal conduct. It must remain distinct from both senior policy-making and the acts of every subordinate in a formation.
57 profilesCircle VI of VII
Enablers of war and occupation
Ministers, officers, judges, administrators and industrial managers whose laws, resources and professional decisions enabled criminal policy.
This circle examines the administrative, military, judicial, economic and logistical systems that sustained occupation and persecution. Inclusion depends on documented agency, not on office or professional title alone.
38 profilesCircle VII of VII
Inciters and local perpetrators
Propagandists and local perpetrators who incited persecution or exercised coercion and violence at the point of implementation.
This circle brings together forms of agency located outside the central command structure: public incitement, local authority and direct abuse. Each profile identifies the person’s own conduct and avoids generalising from reputation or institutional association.
8 profiles