In the concrete reflection on the relationship to the law of the position of judges and likewise prosecutors, it is of decisive importance to elucidate in public law that the German judge, under any regime, had merely to examine whether a law had been announced in accordance with rules and regulations whereas an examination from other points of view was outside his jurisdiction. In this context it is further necessary to elucidate the significance and import of the judge being subject to the law and the meaning of a sentence in the sense of German public law especially in relationship to the legislative and executive power in an authoritarian state, thus to the governing power. Here we cannot omit to clarify the basic legal principles and corresponding regulations which determine this relationship or to prove the practical application based on files. Thus, the question of the judge’s subjection to the law calls for a clarification of the consequences on his task resulting thereof. It necessitates the recognition of the law as a form of expression of justice, as part of the legal system and as immediate emanation of the ruling state doctrine at any given time, as well as the recognition of the judge’s actual position in this legal system. Therefore, it is also necessary to show in a condensed form the general basis and principle of the legal doctrine which since 1933 was decisive for the German judge in establishing the intentions of the law in a concrete individual case. The accusations which have been made in general or in individual cases concerning Rothaug’s method of handling proceedings or which have been connected with such proceedings become meaningless or lose in importance if their explanation is tackled in general from the angle of the correct basic procedure regulations or from the available records of individual proceedings. This leads, as a matter of course, to a basic discussion of the individual cases which have been particularly stressed by the prosecution, and which lie in the direction of the prosecution’s main thrust. No one knows better than the judge the human inadequacy and fallibility because by the very nature of his profession he deals with that aspect of life. Thus, he would be the last to believe himself immune from human error, least of all at a time of intellectual revolution and under the effect of the very highest wartime pressure. Nevertheless, I beg the Tribunal not to think me presumptuous if I try to prove that the sentences pronounced by the Special Court at Nuernberg were in keeping with the basic principles of jurisdiction of the Reich courts, and that among thousands of cases only very rarely one has been successfully contested or otherwise amended. In this connection, one could discuss the outward development of the judgment and all those legal questions allegedly discussed in individual cases or in general in Rothaug’s circle during the course of 6 years.