“* * * a judge who is in direct relation of fealty to the Fuehrer must judge ‘like the Fuehrer.’ In order to guarantee this, a direct liaison officer without any intermediate agency must be established between the Fuehrer and the German judge, that is, also in the form of a judge, the supreme judge in Germany, the ‘Judge of the Fuehrer.’ He is to convey to the German judge the will of the Fuehrer by authentic explanation of the laws and regulations. At the same time he must, upon the request of the judge, give binding information in current trials concerning fundamental political, economic, or legal problems which cannot be surveyed by the individual judge.” In part, this executive control was accomplished by conferences between the prosecutors and the judges, in which the prosecutor advised the judge what measure of sentence the Ministry of Justice thought fitting in a particular case. But an even more effective device was a series of confidential circulars to the judges known as Judges’ Letters (Richterbriefe) which Thierack dispatched, under his own signature as Minister of Justice, to the judges and prosecutors throughout the German judicial system. Thierack announced this forthcoming series in September 1942 in the following letter: “To aid the judge in fulfilling his high duty in the life of our people, I decided to publish the Judges’ Letters. They shall be distributed to all German judges and prosecutors. These Judges’ Letters will contain decisions that seem to be especially worthwhile mentioning, on account of result or argumentation. On these decisions, I will show how a better decision might or should have been found; on the other hand, good, and for the national community, important decisions shall be cited as examples. “The Judges’ Letters are not meant to create a new casuistry, which would lead to a further ossification of the administration of justice and to a guardianship over the judges. They will rather tell how judicial authorities think National Socialist justice should be applied and thereby give the judge the inner security and freedom to come to the right decision. “The contents of these letters are confidential; the chief of an office shall keep them, and let every judge and prosecutor take notice of them against receipt. “For the publication of the Judges’ Letters, the collaboration of all the judges and prosecutors is needed. I expect that suitable decisions from all branches of justice will be presented to me. On publication, neither the judge nor the deciding court will be named. “I am convinced that the Judges’ Letters will help to influence the administration of justice uniformly according to National Socialist doctrines.”