During the introduction of the evidence, certain names of important officials recur--Thierack, Freisler, Vollmer, Westphal, Crohne, Laemmle, Haffner, and others. Since these men are not in the defendants’ dock, the Court is entitled to know why. Thierack committed suicide on 26 October 1946. Freisler was killed in an air raid which demolished the People’s Court building in Berlin, early in 1945. Vollmer forsook the Ministry of Justice for the Luftwaffe (air force) during the last days of the battle for Berlin in 1945, and was reported to have died in action. Westphal committed suicide in the Nuernberg prison following service of the present indictment upon him. Crohne, Laemmle, and Haffner cannot be located, despite all efforts. THE GERMAN LEGAL PROFESSION UNDER THE THIRD REICH We have sketched the steps by which the judicial organization of Germany was turned into a mere agent of the criminal policies of the Third Reich, and have outlined some of the crimes which the defendants committed by means of the perverted judicial machinery. Before taking up the fourth and final count of the indictment, which rests upon a somewhat different footing than the first three counts, it is appropriate to examine very briefly the German legal profession and its degradation under the Third Reich. This brief survey, we think, will help to explain why these atrocities came to pass. a. Before 1933 During the pre-Hitler decades, the professional life of German jurists flourished. Independent societies were formed which published law reviews of high caliber and participated in international conferences of jurists and in international legal institutions, such as the International Arbitration Courts. Originally, the judges of the various German States had separate professional organizations, but in 1908 these were combined into the Association of German Judges (Deutscher Richterbund). This organization sponsored lectures on new legal problems, on comparative law, on modernizing penal law, and similar subjects. The association edited the “German Judges’ Times” (Deutsche Richterzeitung), which published court decisions and articles by learned jurists. Another organization of German judges was the Association of Republican Judges (Republikanischer Richterbund), founded in 1926. Its members were primarily interested in the reformation of the German court system and in bringing German legal institutions into line with the democratic principles of the new Weimar constitution. They published the periodical “German Justice” (Deutsche Justiz). Most practicing German attorneys at law belonged to the Association of German Attorneys at law (Deutscher Anwaltsverein), the largest professional organization of jurists. This association, founded in 1871, comprised about 15,000 members in 1933. It published the “Juridical Weekly” (Juristische Wochenschrift), which had thousands of subscribers inside Germany and abroad.