“Either the authorities entrusted with the conduct of the military operations must, notwithstanding the actual outbreak of hostilities, be bound by the Constitution and the law, or they must be held at liberty to take such reasonable measures as they consider necessary with a view to the fulfilment of their task. Theoretically, this question must be answered with a bare affirmative or negative. If it be answered in the negative it is hard to say by how many judicial officials every detachment of the fighting force on native soil would have to be accompanied, and what legal formalities gone through in the case of each separate house and person before the military authorities could feel that they were constitutionally within their rights in the course they desired to adopt. If the question is answered in the affirmative, then it must be recognised that it is impossible to codify the regulations governing the discretionary power which must be vested in the military commander in war, in such a manner that the general or soldier who executes his orders on native soil can in every instance refer to the particular paragraph of the Constitution or the law justifying his action. “The Chancellor of the Confederation cannot possibly have had any other intention than to lay down the principles just stated theoretically, since, as a constitutional Prussian Minister of State, it is not competent for him to express any opinion as to whether the military commander has acted rightly in exercising the power vested in him, or as to the extent to which he may have exercised it. The military governors, who are appointed before the outbreak of war, are neither nominated by the Minister nor are they under his control. They are, on the contrary, appointed without his concurrence on the authority of the commander-in-chief, like all other military commanders. The Chancellor of the Confederation and the other Ministers of State are not the superiors of the military governors, and the latter would not obey the directions of the Ministers, but only those of the military authorities which reach them without any Ministerial co-operation.