SS Court Main Office

Hauptamt SS-Gericht

The Hauptamt SS-Gericht was an office of the SS.
Agency overview
Formed	c.1933
Preceding agency	SS-Gericht
Dissolved	8 May 1945
Jurisdiction	Germany Occupied Europe
Headquarters	Hauptamt SS-Gericht, Karlstraße, Munich 48°8′35.07″N 11°33′58.10″E / 48.1430750°N 11.5661389°E / 48.1430750; 11.5661389
Employees	650
Minister responsible	Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, (1933–1945)
Agency executives	SS-Oberführer Dr. Ernst Bach, Chef des Hauptamtes SS-Gericht, (1933) SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Scharfe, Chef des Hauptamtes SS-Gericht, (1933–1942) SS-Obergruppenführer Franz Breithaupt, Chef des Hauptamtes SS-Gericht, (1942–1945) SS-Oberfuhrer Dr. Gunther Reinecke, Chef des Hauptamtes SS-Gericht, (1945)
Parent agency	Allgemeine-SS

The SS Court Main Office (German: Hauptamt SS-Gericht) was the legal department of the SS in Nazi Germany. It was responsible for formulating the laws and codes for the SS and various other groups of the police, conducting its own investigations and trials, as well as administering the SS and Police Courts and penal systems.

Early in the Nazi regime SS personnel were charged with breaking the law through the performance of their duties at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934. Under such circumstances, the Nazi regime realised it would be expedient to remove the SS and police units from the jurisdiction of the civilian courts. This was achieved with a petition to the Reich Ministry of Justice.

This legal status meant all SS personnel were only accountable to the Hauptamt SS Gericht. This effectively placed the SS above German law and able to live by its own rules and conventions.

The Hauptamt SS Gericht was an extension of the previous SS Gericht, an organization that administered surveys of the SS and police forces and their codes of honor. The Hauptamt SS Gericht had four departments (German: Ämter or Amtsgruppe):

The Hauptamt SS Gericht headquarters were the high court offices in Munich. The Hauptamt SS Gericht had over 600 lawyers that passed sentences on members of the German armed forces and SS, though Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler would intervene as he saw fit when it came to conviction and the sentencing phase. By 1944, the number of SS-Hauptamt offices within Germany had grown from 8 to 12.

The Hauptamt SS-Gericht administered also 38 regional SS courts throughout Nazi Germany under legal jurisdiction which superseded civilian courts. These laws extended to all SS and police force members operating in Germany or throughout occupied Europe.

The SS and Police Courts were the only authority that could try SS personnel for criminal behaviour. The different SS and Police Courts were as follows: