“The judges and public prosecutors were to receive the information through the presidents of the courts of appeal and might have been informed in the meantime. “You are respectfully requested to submit a detailed report on the reception and the effect of this speech on the judges and the chief public prosecutors.” Himmler’s well-known views on the value of non-German human life were thereby made available to all German judges and chief prosecutors. They surely came to the attention of the defendant Cuhorst, in this and numerous other ways. They surely were well known among the higher officials of the Ministry of Justice, including Altstoetter, Engert, and Joel. Indeed, long before Himmler’s speech to this judicial assembly, the Ministry of Justice had been collaborating actively with Himmler in turning over Jews, Poles, Russians, gypsies, and others from the ordinary prisons to the concentration camps. The whole evil process must have been particularly well known to Engert, who was in charge of Division XV of the Ministry of Justice, which was charged with carrying out these transfers. A Justice Ministry document written in October 1942 gives complete information concerning the agreement between the Ministry and Himmler, and specifically delegates the execution of the agreement, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, to Engert and his associates in Division XV. Engert thereafter visited various prisons throughout the Reich, checked over the lists and arranged for the delivery of these unfortunates to the SS. Nor could these arrangements, or other activities of the SS, have been any secret from Altstoetter, who was a division chief of the Ministry of Justice throughout this period. Furthermore, Altstoetter was a particular personal favorite of Himmler’s. Correspondence which we will introduce will show that the most cordial relations existed between Altstoetter and Himmler and between Altstoetter and other high SS officers including Mr. Karl Gebhardt, the Chief Surgeon of the SS. At a conference in 1942 with Thierack, Rothenberger, and other judicial officials, Himmler singled out Altstoetter as being “reliable.” The defendant Joel was not only an officer of the SS, but also a member of the Sicherheitsdienst, the branch of the SS particularly concerned with intelligence and with the extermination of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. Joel was particularly familiar with these murderous activities. A memorandum signed by Joel in 1942 described a plan which Goering had concocted for picking out “daring fellows” from among the prison inmates who would carry out special tasks behind the lines on the eastern front. Joel’s memo recites that Himmler had already selected a large number of such men for his purpose, but that Goering wanted the field picked over again. Joel’s memo goes on to state: