Q. Professor, that was the question about the development up to the point when this one man, Hitler, held everything in his hand. I would say the result of historical development. We are interested in explaining to the Tribunal, if I may say so, the dogmatical position of the Hitler decree as a legislator. Therefore, my question concerning your statements up to now concerned the development of constitutional law up to that historical point. But now, the Hitler decree and the act of lawmaking became actually one and the same. What was the effect of that on the legislative, on the executive, and on all forms of the state life after that time? A. Perhaps I may begin with the procedure of the Hitler decrees, that is to say, with the exterior manifestations. I have shown that in German constitutional law we had the difference between statute, in the formal sense, and ordinance. The one was the act of the legislature--the other of the executive. On account of the enabling act and as a consequence of the first acts of the Hitler government, the procedure of legislation became a dual one. We still had more or less--for Sundays only, so to speak--the procedure of legislation through the Reichstag. The normal course of legislation was the statutes enacted by the Reich government, which should not have been called that way. We also had, from the imperial days, and we kept it up during the days of the president, the decree by the head of state, especially distinguished in the way of ordinance, for instance the organization act and we had the ordinance by the government. Hitler, by and by--but it happened rather quickly--emancipated himself from those regulations of the laws which were previously valid and concerning the various forms of norms, he used them arbitrarily. As to whether a statute passed by the Reichstag, as I described it, was brought in by suggestion of the National Socialist Party with Hitler as the first mover of the motion, was passed by way of acclamation, without debate; or whether the law was decided on by the government--that happened very quickly by way of circulation--or whether Hitler called it “Decree by the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor”--later called “Fuehrer Decree” or ordinance, such as the famous ordinance on the Enforcement of the Four-Year Plan--for the legal value that did not matter at all. In all cases Hitler alone decided, whether he would take advice or not, whether there was a cosignature or not, for genuine cosignature in the constitutional meaning, of course, could not exist any more. There have been many arguments as to what the cosignatures which weren’t always affixed meant. People have tried very hard to find a meaning, but the only thing that is really certain is that these cosignatures did no longer have the meaning or significance of the proper countersignature. There was nobody toward whom one could have assumed any responsibility by countersigning. Therefore, all fixing of norm, signed by Hitler’s