Editing Schutzstaffel (section)

===SS Court Main Office===
The [[SS Court Main Office]] (''Hauptamt SS-Gericht'') was an internal legal system for conducting investigations, trials, and punishment of the SS and police. It had more than 600 lawyers on staff in the main offices in Berlin and Munich. Proceedings were conducted at 38 regional SS courts throughout Germany. It was the only authority authorised to try SS personnel, except for SS members who were on active duty in the ''Wehrmacht'' (in such cases, the SS member in question was tried by a standard military tribunal). Its creation placed the SS beyond the reach of civilian legal authority. Himmler personally intervened as he saw fit regarding convictions and punishment.{{sfn|McNab|2009|pp=37, 40, 41}} Historian [[Karl Dietrich Bracher]] describes this court system as one factor in the creation of the Nazi totalitarian police state, as it removed objective legal procedures, rendering citizens defenceless against the "summary justice of the SS terror."{{sfn|Bracher|1970|p=214}}