The Court will observe that the defendants fall into three main groups. Eight of them were members of the medical service of the German Air Force. Seven of them were members of the medical service of the SS. The remaining eight include the defendants Karl Brandt and Handloser, who occupied top positions in the medical hierarchy; it included the three defendants who are not doctors; the defendant Rostock, who was an immediate subordinate of Karl Brandt; the defendant Blome, a medical official of the Nazi Party; and the defendant Pokorny, whom we have grouped under the SS for reasons which will appear later. I will deal first with the military side of the case. Hitler, as Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, exercised his authority through a staff called the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, better known by its German initials, OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). The chief of this staff, throughout the period with which this case will concern itself, was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Under the OKW came the High Commands of the three branches of the Wehrmacht: the Navy (OKM), the Army (OKH) and the Air Force (OKL). Grand Admiral Erich Raeder was the Commander in Chief of the German Navy until 1943, when he was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. Prior to the outbreak of the war, the Commander in Chief of the German Army was Field Marshal von Brauchitsch. In December 1941 Brauchitsch was relieved and Hitler himself took this position. Hermann Goering was the Commander in Chief of the German Air Force with the rank of Reich Marshal, until the very last month of the war. Each of the three branches of the Wehrmacht had its own medical service. For purposes of this case, the medical service of the Navy is not of much importance. During most of the war the defendant Handloser was the Chief of the Medical Service of the German Army; in 1944 he was succeeded in this capacity by Dr. Walter. The Chief of the Medical Service of the German Air Force until 1943 was Dr. Erich Hippke; from January 1944 until the end of the war, it was the defendant Schroeder. Subordinate to the defendant Schroeder are seven other defendants from the Air Force Medical Service, whose functions I will briefly describe later on. I turn now to the second principal group of defendants—those affiliated with the SS. The SS was nominally a part of the Nazi Party, and came under Hitler in his capacity as Fuehrer of the NSDAP. In fact, during the years of the Nazi regime, the SS expanded into a vast complex of military, police, and intelligence organizations. The head of this extraordinary combine was Heinrich Himmler, with the title of Reich Leader SS. The SS had its own medical service, headed by Grawitz, who bore the title Reich Physician SS.