The proof submitted by the prosecution has shown beyond controversy that these Polish women _could not have been legally executed_. The right to grant pardons in cases of death sentences was exclusively vested in Hitler by a decree of 1 February 1935. On 2 May 1935, Hitler delegated the right to make negative decisions on pardon applications to the Reich Minister of Justice. On 30 January 1940, Hitler delegated to the Governor General for the occupied Polish territories the authority to grant and deny pardons for the occupied Polish territories. By edict dated 8 March 1940, the Governor General of occupied Poland ordered that— “The execution of a death sentence promulgated by a regular court, a special court, or a police court martial, shall take place only when my decision has been issued not to make use of my right to pardon.” (_NO-3073, Pros. Ex. 534._) Thus, even though we assume _arguendo_, that the experimental subjects had all committed substantial crimes, that they were all properly tried by a duly constituted court of law, and that they were legally sentenced to death, it is still clear from these decrees that these women could not have been legally executed until such time as the Governor General of occupied Poland had decided in each case not to make use of his pardon right. There has been no proof that the Governor General ever acted with respect to pardoning the Polish women used in the experiments, or, for that matter, any substantial number of those not used in the experiments. The only reason these 700 Polish women were transported from Warsaw and Lublin to Ravensbrueck, in the first place, was because the Governor General had not approved their execution. Otherwise they would have been immediately executed in Poland. At the very least, these women were entitled to remain unmolested so long as the Governor General took no action. He may never have acted or, when he did, he may have acted favorably on the pardon. Who is to say that the majority of these 700 women did not live through the war even though they did not undergo the experiments? Certainly it was incumbent on the defense to prove the contrary by a preponderance of the evidence. This it did not do by any evidence. The defendants Gebhardt, Fischer, and Oberheuser certainly cannot claim that they believed in good faith that the Polish women could have been legally executed. Even the camp doctor, Schiedlausky, knew that the Governor General had to approve each execution. Moreover, the large number of 700 women being sentenced to death at this early stage of the war was enough to put any reasonable person on notice that something was wrong.