Several months ago, in Munich, a book was published, “The History of the Weimar Constitution.” The author is Professor Willibalt Apelt, now at the University of Munich. We used to be together at the University of Leipzig, and I also had the honor to lecture for him in addition to my lectures when he became the Minister of Interior in Saxony; that is, the Police Minister. He was one of the most outspoken democrats we had in Germany. This book throughout is a [settling of an] account [Abrechung] with Hitler. It altogether lauds the Weimar constitution, and therefore it is particularly important to note that Apelt considers this law the beginning of all the evil in this development and states explicitly that this law cleared the way to that other enabling law of 24 March 1933. * * * The date of the law is 13 October 1923. It appeared in the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1923, volume I on page 943. Since the middle of 1930 one did no more work with enabling law decrees, but one used article 48, paragraph 2. Earlier already that had been applied. If I am informed correctly under Ebert alone, 136 decrees of that kind were passed, that is to say, until 1925 when Hindenburg became President. At first a little less use was made of this means. It was reactivated again when the economic crisis of 1929 was nearing Europe. Conditions in Germany deteriorated from week to week, and under Bruening whole bundles of emergency decrees, of dictatorial decrees, were passed. In 1932 we had progressed so far in that direction that the Reichstag was practically excluded as a legislative body, and the Reich President, together with the Reich government (the Reich cabinet because according to article 50 they had to work together) was really the normal source of legislation. From then on until Hitler’s acts of legislation it is indeed only a short step, and if Hitler himself would not have set out to give the whole matter a triumphant dictatorial aspect, if he had been satisfied with an enabling act like that of 1923, if he had not had laws enacted by the government but decrees, the entire enabling act would not have caused so much rumpus as it did. Q. Professor, may I ask you to explain briefly to the Tribunal who Reich President Ebert was, because we have to assume that the name alone does not give a plain indication. * * * A. We had two Reich Presidents. The first, Friedrich Ebert, who came from the social democratic party of Germany, not elected by the people but by the national assembly, and then the second, von Hindenburg, who was elected by the people. Q. And my second and other request is that you quote to the Tribunal article 48, paragraph 2 of the Weimar constitution.