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 authorized 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. The 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 defenseless against the "summary justice of the SS terror." SS Cavalry Shortly after Hitler seized power in 1933, most horse riding associations were taken over by the SA and SS. Members received combat training to serve in the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps). The first SS cavalry regiment, designated SS-Totenkopf Reitstandarte 1, was formed in September 1939. Commanded by then SS-Standartenführer Hermann Fegelein, the unit was assigned to Poland, where they took part in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia. Additional squadrons were added in May 1940, for a total of fourteen. The unit was split into two regiments in December 1939, with Fegelein in charge of both. By March 1941 their strength was 3,500 men. In July 1941, they were assigned to the Pripyat swamps punitive operation, tasked with rounding up and exterminating Jews and partisans. The two regiments were amalgamated into the SS Cavalry Brigade on 31 July, twelve days after the operation started. Fegelein's final report, dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, and 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken. The historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700. The SS Cavalry Brigade took serious losses in November 1941 in the Battle of Moscow, with casualties of up to 60 percent in some squadrons. Fegelein was appointed as commander of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer on 20 April 1943. This unit saw service in the Soviet Union in attacks on partisans and civilians. In addition, SS Cavalry regiments served in Croatia and Hungary. SS Medical Corps The SS Medical Corps were initially known as the Sanitätsstaffel (sanitary units). After 1931, the SS formed the headquarters office Amt