A study of departmental limitations will afford insight into the nature of the judiciary in its relationship with, and its dependency on, other Reich Ministries and Party offices. An understanding of the reciprocal connection between the Ministry of Justice and the Reich Ministry of the Interior, as well as the limitations imposed upon both will yield enlightening information on many questions. We shall also find these necessary connections with other Ministries existing before 1933 and thereby refute the assumption of the prosecution that these intersectional connections which are to be found in any system of government constitute a creation of the Nazis and were adopted by them for the purpose of achieving their own ends. It will be necessary, in this connection, not only to discuss the strictly legal aspects involved, but also to show what the actual conditions were with respect to power and authority. We will have to reconstruct the events as they occurred at that time in a state under dictatorship and show what legal consequences a necessary examination conducted from the viewpoint of constitutional law will yield. The question will be raised as to what would have been the consequences of a failure to comply with an order, and would obedience, therefore, legally exclude guilt. A factor of great importance in considering that problem is the determination of the relationship between the judiciary and the police. The effective role played by Himmler, as chief of the entire police force, must also be taken into consideration. The full presentation of facts will show how the police interloped in affairs of the judiciary, and how this interference led, during the course of the years, to an appreciable weakening of the position held by the judiciary. We shall see what means were and had to be employed to fight that battle. The contrast between the position of the justice administration which was weak by nature and that of the police which was equipped with all the instruments of power it employed ruthlessly through the offices of Himmler and Hitler will become manifest. Again and again one will perceive how the judiciary was confronted with accomplished facts, how it strove to defend or recapture lost ground, how all of its activities, as a matter of fact, were overshadowed by the constant pressure and expansionistic aims brought into play by the police. It will be shown how everyone in the Ministry sought to retain as a last bulwark the concept of the constitutional state for practical usage. It will be brought out how the police, beginning with the protective custody order and ending up with the establishment of its own preserve in the concentration camps and the subsequent creation of its own SS jurisdiction over its members finally secured their exemption from the judiciary. Yet in spite of the constant rivalry between the judiciary and the police we must not lose sight of the fact that