The general decline of German medical conduct and the poisoning of
German medical ethics which the Nazis brought about laid the basis for
the atrocious experiments of which the defendants are accused.
Many of these were experiments in name only; we will show them to have
been senseless and clumsy and of no real value to medicine as a healing
art. The Nazi medical world was flooded with preposterous and wicked
notions about superior and inferior races and developed a perverted
moral outlook in which cruelty to subjugated races and peoples was
praiseworthy. Training in SA and SS formations was hardly calculated to
develop physicians who could comprehend even the bare elements of the
doctor-patient relationship. In this noxious garden of lies, the seeds
of the experiments were planted. In the climate of Nazi Germany, they
grew with horrible rapidity.
CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION; MURDER OF
POLISH NATIONALS
From the preaching of Guett and others sprang the notions which underlie
the crimes to which we will now turn. Here we leave behind all
semblance, however fictitious, of science and research. Under these
teachings, life and livelihood became the birthright of no one. The weak
and the physically handicapped are in the way and must be pushed aside.
Inferior peoples are born to be exterminated by the Herrenvolk.
The charges in paragraphs 8 and 13 of the indictment concern the
defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt. The original impetus for this
terrible mass murder came from a fiend named Greiser, who was the German
Governor of the northwest portions of Poland, which had been absorbed
into the Reich under the name “Wartheland.” Early in 1942, Greiser was
in the process of exterminating thousands of Jews in his territory, and
he decided to turn his attention next to Poles infected with
tuberculosis. I call the Tribunal’s special attention to the German word
“Sonderbehandlung.” In the next document, as will be shown, it occurs
frequently in Nazi correspondence and was used by them to mean
extermination. In May 1942, Greiser wrote to Himmler as follows
(_NO-246_):
“The special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of about 100,000 Jews
in the territory of my district approved by you in agreement
with the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, SS
Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, can be completed within the next 2
to 3 months. I ask you for permission to rescue the district
immediately after the measures are taken against the Jews, from
a menace, which is increasing week by week, and to use the
existing and efficient special commandos for that purpose.
“There are about 230,000 people of Polish nationality in my
district who were diagnosed to suffer from tuberculosis. The
number of persons infected with open tuberculosis is estimated
at about 35,000. This fact has led in an increasing frightening
measure to the infection of Germans, who came to the Warthegau
perfectly healthy. In particular, reports are received with
ever-increasing effect of German children in danger of
infection. A considerable number of well-known leading men,
especially of the police, have been infected lately and are not
available for the war effort because of the necessary medical
treatment. The ever-increasing risks were also recognized and
appreciated by the deputy of the Reich Leader for Public Health
(Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer) Comrade Professor Dr. Blome as well
as by the leader of your X-ray battalion SS Standartenfuehrer
Professor Dr. Hohlfelder.
“Though in Germany proper it is not possible to take appropriate
draconic steps against this public plague, I think I could take
responsibility for my suggestion to have cases of open TB
exterminated among the Polish race here in the Warthegau. Of
course only a Pole should be handed over to such an action, who
is not only suffering from open tuberculosis, but whose
incurability is proved and certified by a public health officer.
“Considering the urgency of this project I ask for your approval
in principle as soon as possible. This would enable us to make
the preparations with all necessary precautions now to get the
action against the Poles suffering from open tuberculosis under
way, while the action against the Jews is in its closing
stages.”
Greiser’s proposal was supported in a letter from one, Koppe, the SS and
police leader in that region, to the defendant Rudolf Brandt, to which
Brandt replied stating that the matter was under consideration and that
the final decision would rest with Hitler. Late in June, Himmler sent a
“favorable” reply to Greiser cautioning him, however, that the
exterminations should be carried out inconspicuously. Thereafter,
consultations as to how to carry out the measure occurred between
Greiser, Dr. Hohlfelder, and the defendant Blome. The views of Blome are
embodied in a letter from him to Greiser written in November 1942. This
letter contains an indescribably brutal analysis of the situation, in
which Blome expresses agreement with the view that extermination of the
tubercular Poles is the simplest and most logical solution, and
expresses doubt as to its desirability only in that it would be
difficult to keep such widespread slaughter secret, and that Hitler
might think the program politically inexpedient if the facts should ever
come out.