Heil Hitler!
[Signed] POHL
SS Obergruppenfuehrer and General of the Waffen SS
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-046b
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 149
LETTER FROM RUDOLF BRANDT TO POHL, 11 JUNE 1942, ASKING HIM ON BEHALF OF
HIMMLER TO SET UP A LARGE HOTHOUSE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A
STERILIZATION DRUG
The Reich Leader SS
Personal Staff, Diary No. 1230/42, Bra/Bu
Fuehrer’s Headquarters, 11 June 1942
Re: Medical sterilization.
To SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl
Berlin
Dear Obergruppenfuehrer,
I have informed the Reich Leader SS of your letter of 3 June 1942. He
asks you to see to it without fail that a large hothouse is set up as
soon as possible for Dr. Koch. He considers the experiments extremely
important.
The Reich Leader SS asks you to continue to send in further reports.
Heil Hitler
[Signed] B.
SS Obersturmbannfuehrer
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-039
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 153
LETTER FROM GUND TO HIMMLER, 24 AUGUST 1942, CONCERNING RESEARCH IN
MEDICAL STERILIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STERILIZATION DRUGS
Secret
The Deputy Gauleiter of Lower Danube [Lower Austria]
Vienna, 9, Wasagasse 10, 24 August 1942
Ge/Schd—310/42 g
To: The Reich Leader SS Pg. Heinrich Himmler
Berlin SW 1, Prinz Albrecht Strasse 8
Sir,
At the orders of Gauleiter Dr. Jury, his staff have hitherto busied
themselves especially with the problems of population, racial policy,
and antisocial elements. Since the prevention of reproduction by the
congenitally unfit and racially inferior belongs to the duties of our
National Socialist racial and demographic policy, the present Director
of the District Office for Racial Policy, Gauhauptstellenleiter Dr.
Fehringer, has examined the question of sterilization and found that the
methods so far available, castration and sterilization, are not
sufficient in themselves to meet expectations. Consequently, the obvious
question occurred to him whether impotence and sterility could not be
produced in both men and women by the administration of medicine or
injections. So he came to the studies of the Biological Institute of Dr.
Madaus, in Dresden-Radebeul, on animal experiments for medical
sterilization, which became accessible to him through the Madaus Annual
Report, IVth year, 1940, and are of the greatest interest for our
demographic policy. Madaus and Koch found that caladium sequinum used in
homeopathic doses, that is, administered in infinitesimal quantities,
favorably affects impotence, sterility, and frigidity (sexual
indifference), so that clinical and medical research should not proceed
without regard to this fact. It was established by an extensive series
of experiments on rats, rabbits, and dogs that, as the result of the
administration or injection of caladium extract, male animals became
impotent and females barren, and the differences in effect of the
various methods of applying the drug could be seen. From the animal
experiments, it seems that a permanent sterility is liable to result in
male animals and a more temporary one in females.
It is clear that these observations could be of tremendous importance if
alterations of potency or fecundity could also be successfully brought
about in human beings by the administration of a caladium extract.
Research on human beings themselves would, of course, be necessary for
this. The director of my race policy office points out that the
necessary research and human experiments could be undertaken by an
appropriately selected medical staff, basing their work on the Madaus
animal experiments in cooperation with the pharmacological institute of
the Faculty of Medicine of Vienna, on the persons of the inmates of the
gypsy camp of Lackenbach in Lower Danube.
It is quite clear that such research must be handled as a nationally
important secret matter of the most dangerous character, because enemy
propaganda could work tremendous harm all over the world by the
knowledge of such research, should it come by such knowledge.
Since these considerations are only a theory, the fundamental accuracy
of which has already been established by animal experiments and the
possibility of the application of which to human beings is highly
probable, a mere indication only can be given of the prospects of the
possibility of the sterilization of practically unlimited numbers of
people in the shortest time and in the simplest way conceivable.
In this connection, I may perhaps point out that it would surely be
worth while to study the old cults and the knowledge of their priests
concerning the promotion and prevention of human potency and fecundity.
Primitive, primeval populations which are close to nature had, and still
have, a very extensive knowledge of this subject without these things
being known to science. It is known, for instance, that the natives of
South America attempted to destroy the potency of their enemies by
administering caladium seguinum to them.
I should be particularly grateful to you if you would give me your
opinion in this respect when the occasion arises, or even order a
concrete working plan to be submitted to you. Gauleiter Dr. Jury would
personally have approached you with this plan were he not at present
away on a vacation.
Heil Hitler!
Yours faithfully,
[Signed] K. GUND
SS Oberfuehrer
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-203
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 161
COVERING LETTER FROM BRACK TO HIMMLER, 28 MARCH 1941, WITH REPORT ON
EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING STERILIZATION AND CASTRATION BY X-RAYS
Viktor Brack
Oberdienstleiter