In the course of this paper, I will attempt to examine a number of key questions relating to the overall subjects of German law and legal system as it stood on the eve of Hitler's accession to the Chancellorship, the Nazi view of law that accompanied Hitler into office, the clash of these two partially opposing forces that commenced literally the day after Hitler took office, and moral responsibility for the human and material destruction authored by Germany during the Hitler era. These questions will include the following: What was the status of the German law and legal system on January 30, 1933? To what degree did Germany value and practice the concept of the rule of law? What was the Nazi rule of law? Was there a Nazi philosophy of law? To what degree did the Nazi view of law reflect the principles of Social Darwinism? What was the relationship between Nazi legal philosophy and doctrine of legal positivism? Are any of the roots of Nazi law to be found in the legal system of the Weimar era? What steps did the Third Reich take in the first 18 months of its existence with respect to evicerating and corrupting the German law and legal system? How did the Third Reich contend with the concept of the rule of law? How, if at all, did the Nazi approach to the concept of the rule of law differ from that of other dictatorships? How did the Third Reich's cadre of legal experts justify the Nazi attack on existing German law? What, if any, implications for the future may still be important to note with respect to Germany's descent into a state of lawlessness and barbarism under the Hitler dictatorship? What, if anything, does this bleak chapter in human history have to say about the notion of human progress?