Q. The passage in the opinion of the International Military Tribunal, to which the witness referred, is contained in the English transcript on page 16,813.[170] Witness, the prosecution charges you with the fact that the Ministry of Justice was in an official contact with these offices which you have just mentioned. What can you say about this? A. I believe that that contact is inherent in the structure of the State: the distribution of tasks to the various agencies. A cooperation with the police was certainly to a certain extent unavoidable. According to German law of criminal procedure, the prosecution is not in a position at all, without the cooperation of the police, to carry out the required investigations pending trial. If a denouncement has been received by the prosecution, the prosecution has to conduct the necessary investigation first of all. That the prosecution should do all that itself, considering the large number of things to be done, is quite impossible. The prosecution, therefore, has to turn to the local police and, for good reasons, in the German Judicature Act and the German Code for Penal Procedure, the police are designated as an auxiliary organ for the prosecution and directed to cooperate upon request of the prosecution. Apart from the police, frequently the SD is mentioned in the trial. On the part of Hitler, the SD apart from its function within the Party had received important tasks, such as the delivery of information to various Reich agencies, and therefore even the court authorities had to refer to that source of information. Q. In this connection, may I refer to Document NG-219, Prosecution Exhibit 42.[171] Please continue. A. The position of the Party Chancellery, was regulated legally in a way that changes of personnel, that is to say, promotions and appointments could only take place with the cooperation on the part of the Party Chancellery. That I have already pointed out. Added to this was the fact that in 1942, the Chief of the Party Chancellery was given the position of a Reich Minister participating in legislation. It was therefore necessary to let him participate in the preparation of every law. Q. The decree of 16 January 1942, to which reference was just made, I shall submit as Schlegelberger Document 23, Schlegelberger Exhibit 63.[172]