Through these activities, however, as a military physician, not through

my own initiative, I was brought into contact with concentration camps.

I can understand how heavily that deadly shadow must lie upon anyone who

was ever active there. In the ghostly phenomenon of that sphere, which

at that time was unknown to me as well, we can now in retrospect begin

to realize the frightfulness of the negative ideology of extermination

becoming combined secretly with the negative selection of the guards.

Only from the documents of the international trial have we been able to

see definitely that of the 35,000 guard troops, only 6,000 were SS men

who were unfit for combat. The rest were scum, conscripts, foreigners,

etc., who with the greatest injustice and to our bitter shame were given

the same Waffen SS uniform as we wore at the front. As head of a

well-known clinic, known for its measures of safety, in the interest of

the experimental subjects, within the framework of my duty as an expert

as I saw it, I got in touch with concentration camp doctors. As far as

it was at all possible I tried to exclude that atmosphere from my sphere

of work. That my counter-actions went beyond purely clinical safety

measures for the experimental subjects may, I think, be seen from the

following fact: Of the several thousand foreign inmates of this

concentration camp—among whom, as we were told here, there were at

least seven hundred Polish women—only 200 were turned over to the Red

Cross at the end of the war. Of these two-hundred, however, sixty were

my experimental subjects, as was proved.

Just as I have tried to clarify my actions as a doctor and to explain my

good intentions and possibilities for influence, so my final thought

should be devoted to self-criticism, above all as regards on my moral

obligation.

In a parody on the words of Heinrich Heine we see today that: “Just to

have been an SS man is fate in itself”. Although I believe and hope that

in that terrible confusion between the decent Waffen SS and the

executive organization, I did my duty as a specialist, an officer, and a

human being, I still feel bound to make every form of reparation for

this confusion. My possibilities for doing that of course are limited.

Without seeking sensation I offered to undergo an experiment on myself

as proved, and that without any surgical safety measures, as soon as the

first opportunity arose. My responsibility for the execution of the

experiments carried out with good intention, and especially for those

who were my subordinates, I have emphasized. I have a further criticism

and responsibility, which I spoke of not only now in the dim light of my

own defense but already in May 1945 on the day when Himmler released us

from our oath and from our orders, and he himself left his post without

reserve. It was my endeavor with others to prevent any illegal

continuation of an SS conception, and for that purpose to take the

burden off the shoulders of our credulous youth by making the SS

generals responsible.

Today as a private individual I can only repeat what I am ready to do,

at least as far as my former professional standing is concerned.

Where, in spite of my earnest endeavors, reproach and guilt seem to

cloud the picture in the sphere for which I was responsible, may the

consequences affect me in such a way that I may make the path easier for

the younger men who, believing in me, also joined the SS as surgeons. I

believe that this pile of rubble, Germany, with its wasted biological

material, cannot afford to let these fine young doctors perish in camps

and in other inactivity. Also I know every measure which would make the

work easier for the old German universities and their respected

teachers.

I have summarized my point of view in order to help avoid possible

mistakes. From unwholesome social conditions it is a pathological and

deceptive escape, then as well as today—here and everywhere, to unite

and combine spiritual with economic and political concepts. It is a

disastrous error to confuse the organized unanimity of voices with

harmony. Destructive criticism only brings intolerant lack of

cooperation, which interrupts all cohesion. The private as well as the

public conscience cannot be subjugated to any official virtue, nor to

any temporal moral principles. It can only find its place within a

God-given order.

In the spirit of “earthly constructive pessimism”, as I wrote before the

war, in this alone consideration for the painful reality of this social

catastrophe seems to be found.

My last sentence is to express our personal gratitude to Dr. Seidl who

has stood by the side of my colleagues and myself so conscientiously and

with such human kindness.

G. Final Statement of Defendant Blome[39]

I have testified quite openly before this high Tribunal that

particularly up to the outbreak of war I was a confirmed National

Socialist and follower. I have also explained why I became a Party

member in 1931, and that because political conditions in Germany at the

time were moving with giant strides towards a final conflict between

Communism and National Socialism, as a result of the economic chaos and

the impotence of the German governments after 1919. I have said that I

joined the National Socialist Party because I rejected the dictatorial

form of the Communist system. In my book “The Doctor in the Struggle”,

which was put to me by the prosecution here in cross-examination, I also

explained why I went over to National Socialism. This book, however,

which was published in 1941, at the time of Germany’s greatest

victories, clearly shows my repudiation of the Second World War, to

which I do not refer with a single word, not even a hint, although my

experience in the First World War takes up considerable space in this

book.

After the First World War, Germany was in great difficulties. The

situation became progressively worse and more unbearable, when at the

turn of the thirties the economic crisis spread throughout the world and

even seized hold of the United States. At that time I realized that in

such hard times a nation which is drifting toward despair seeks a leader

and follows him in blind confidence as soon as he can show great

successes.

That in the case of Hitler these were only sham successes or temporary

successes the German people realized only gradually, only step by step,

and only at a time when it was too late to shake off the dictatorship

again by their own strength. For years the German people were deceived

by the leaders as to the true situation. With deliberately lying

propaganda, Hitler’s governmental system until the last moment kept

proclaiming final victory to the German people, even in the winter of

1944, and even in the spring of 1945, when the Reich cabinet and the

Party leaders long knew that a terrible collapse was imminent. This

governmental system thus irresponsibly imposed on the exhausted body of

the German nation still further useless losses of life and property.

Since the collapse, particularly since the International War Crimes

Trial at Nuernberg, we see clearly that this frivolous method of

betrayal of their own people was a fitting part of the systematical

murder of foreign peoples and races by the millions.

I believe that there is no other example in history of the boundless

confidence of a people in their leader being so boundlessly misused and

disappointed.

The German people were blinded in their faith in their Fuehrer, in a

leader who constantly pretended to them and the world a love of peace, a

humane character, a selfless care for the people. Thus the German people

became the victim of a political gambler. His unrestrained supreme power

apparently knew only the choice between ruling and destroying. Hitler’s

ambition, as I know and judge it today, had only one aim: _At any price_

to go down in history as a great man. Hitler achieved this goal 100

percent. He went down in history as one of the greatest tyrants of all

time, tremendous in his mania for ruling, tremendous in his brutality in

the achievement of his ends, not hesitating even at the murder of his

best friends, his oldest followers, if they were in his way.

Relying upon the blind confidence of his deceived people, Hitler created

a system in which all individualism, all sentiment of freedom, all

personal opinion of the citizens was nipped in the bud and turned into

slavery.

He succeeded in this with the aid of a very small circle of closest

associates, who had fallen under his hypnotic influence, in part perhaps

themselves deceived by this man, but who became willing tools in his

hand for the enslavement of the German people and the decimation of

whole nations.

Under the fatal influence of a clever, deliberately lying propaganda,

against which even other countries were as good as powerless, the German

people and the German doctor, too, believed that they were following an

honorable leader and serving a good cause; they all considered it the

highest moral duty not to desert the Fatherland in times of emergency

and particularly in wartime, but to do their duty to the very extreme,

especially since in this war the life or death of the nation was at

issue.

During the times of total warfare, the times of air raids, hunger, and

the danger of epidemics, working conditions for the German doctor were

terribly hard; so difficult that today one can hardly imagine what

German doctors accomplished in those days for friend and foe alike.

Whether we twenty doctors here in this dock are accused justly or

unjustly, it is a great injustice in any case to defame German doctors

in general in public, as is constantly being done. As former Deputy

Reich Physicians’ Leader I know conditions in the German medical

profession during the Hitler period, and I must say even today that in

its _totality_ the German medical profession was efficient, decent,

industrious, and humane. Their willingness to work under the most

difficult conditions that one can imagine, their unselfishness to the

utmost, their courage and their helpfulness were exemplary. Beyond all

praise were in particular the numerous old doctors who were already

living in retirement and who, in spite of their great age, returned to

the service of the sick, and those innumerable women doctors who,

married, and often the mothers of many children, deserted their

household duties for the difficult work of medical practice during

wartime.

The whole German people knew this, in whose midst and under whose eyes

the German medical professions spent the years of distress and fright,

and who, therefore, will continue to place unlimited confidence in

German doctors.

Of myself I can say that I have always, particularly during the Hitler

period, devoted all my efforts to keeping the medical profession at a

high scientific and ethical level and to developing it. And I found in

this effort the full support of all German doctors, including the most

famous scientists and chief physicians of medical institutions.

Well-known scholars throughout the world supported this work, which was

_above_ [unintelligible] parties and enjoyed an international

reputation.

But in the course of this trial it has become clearer to me day by day

just how criminal the Hitler system was, to which I sacrificed in good

faith many years of my life, and I am so deeply moved inside me that I

must confess to myself: For years I held a responsible position in a

system which today I must curse just as much as I curse all those who

forced upon the German people such a tyranny of crime and debasement of

man.

It was my mistake that I stayed in the post where fate had placed me and

in which I had hoped to be able to do good for our people and my

profession. It would often have been simpler to give up this post when I

began to realize, step by step, the depravity of the Third Reich. If I

did not do so, but stayed at my post until the bitter end, I did this

because I considered it my duty, especially in the hard times of total

war, and because again and again I succeeded either in protecting the

medical profession from harm or in preventing crimes against humanity.

Even today I would have to consider it cowardice if I had left my post

in 1941 or 1942 only to bring myself to safety or to evade threatened

responsibility.

I feel myself free of the guilt of ever having committed or furthered

crimes against humanity.

H. Final Statement of Defendant Mrugowsky[40]

My attorney and I made every effort during my examination on the witness

stand and by means of the considerable evidence which we submitted to

refute the charges which have been raised against me, just as much as we

tried to assist in ascertaining the truth.

The outcome of the trial and the evidence against me is in the hands of

the Tribunal and the closing brief, and in the reply to comprehensive

documentation of the prosecution. I am firmly confident on the basis of

this trial that this high Tribunal will examine the evidence objectively

and carefully. Thus in my final speech I merely would like to draw your

attention to the fact that my life in its entirety was solely devoted to

my profession and my science. It was my aim, not by any means to

represent some political ideology, but to go to the university and to

reach the position of a free and independent doctor and scientist.

The prosecution has charged us, the defendants, with destructive

tendencies which were supposed to have been the causes of our actions. I

know that I am free of such tendencies. They never occurred to my

collaborators and myself at any time. In the Waffen SS too, the troops

of which were among the bravest divisions of the German Armed Forces,

such tendencies never played a part.

As far as my own concepts of the ethical duties of the doctor are

concerned, they are contained in my book regarding medical ethics, and I

believe always to have acted according to the principles of that book

and lived according to them. My life, my actions, and my aims were

clean. That is why now that at the end of this trial I can declare

myself free of personal guilt.

I. Final Statement of Rudolf Brandt[41]

Now, after this trial has reached its final stage, my conscience is

confronted with the question of whether I consider myself guilty or

innocent. My responsibility, in my opinion, is to be tested by a

threefold question:

First, did I participate in the experiments directly and

actively?

Second, did I at least have any knowledge of the criminal

character of the experiments on human beings?

Third, what, if I had known, could have been my attitude towards

Himmler?

What my basic opinion is of crimes against humanity I did not only

declare myself on the witness stand but this has also been testified to

by a very competent foreign witness, a Swedish medical counsellor, Felix

Koersten.

Before this Tribunal and in the full knowledge of what I say I confess

that I abhor—and did abhor—any crime against humanity in the years

past and during my activity as a so-called personal Referent of Himmler.

But I also frankly declare that perhaps during the course of these last

years my way of thinking was not always in my conscious mind as it is

today. But I never participated in a crime against humanity knowingly,

intentionally, or with premeditation when passing on the letters,

orders, etc., which Himmler issued to third persons, and the result of

which was the commission of cruelties on human beings.

I am confident that from the evidence and from the content of the

various defense affidavits the Tribunal will be convinced that in truth

my real sphere of power did in no way correspond to the face value of my

official position. My real sphere of power was extremely small. It did

not exceed that of a well-paid stenographer in the office of an

influential man in Germany. If the Tribunal were to start from this

fact, it would approach reality much closer than the prosecution did in

its indictment.

I got into contact with Himmler when I was a young, immature man who

came from a family in modest circumstances. Nothing else but my ability

as a stenographer, which I had obtained through my industry, was the

reason for that, and this was my position until the last days of the

German collapse, in spite of promotions in rank. At that time I was only

too glad to get that job because it enabled me to support my parents

financially.

When I started work with Himmler, I got, without intermediate stages,

into an agency, the chief of which was to combine, among other

functions, the highest executive powers in his hands a short time

afterwards.

I am convinced that I would not sit here under a grave indictment if I

had had the opportunity to continue my education, if I had made a start

in a subordinate agency, and had risen little by little into a higher

position. Unfortunately, I have always been a lone wolf as long as I

lived, and I never was fortunate enough to have an older friend who

could have corrected my political inexperience and my gullibility.

If, however, through all those years, I represented Himmler’s ideology,

I did so only because I did not know the criminal part of Himmler’s

character. Since I lived, so to speak, divorced from the world around me

and was only devoted to my more than plentiful work, I only learned

after the collapse what stupendous crimes are to be booked on Himmler’s

account.

The evidence has shown that I neither knew a concentration camp nor had

anything to do with concentration camps in my official capacity; nor had

any influence on the system of the concentration camps, their

administration and management, nor on the treatment of prisoners. For

this reason I didn’t know the measure of the tragedies which were

enacted there.

Those matters, into which I had sufficient insight during my restless

daily activities to permit me to distinguish between good and evil, were

on a plane where they need not shun the light of sun.

I do not deny that some of the documents submitted here by the

prosecution went through my hands, but I do deny—and I pray the

Tribunal may believe me—that I knew the contents of the documents

particularly the reports and therefore the essential core of the human

experiments.

I know that appearances are against me. Only these external appearances

led the prosecution to indict me in this trial and to pass their comment

on me during their closing speech, without penetrating to the bottom of

matters. This way they arrived at a completely wrong appraisal which

does not correspond to the facts and overrates my position and my

activities.

These appearances which speak against me will be dispelled as soon as my

real position will be considered in which I found myself as

[administrative officer] so-called personal Referent of Himmler for many

years. On the witness stand I testified to the truth, which has been

confirmed by witnesses who knew the real facts from their own

experience.

It does not run counter to experience that among thousands of incoming

and outgoing items of mail—that is, hundreds of thousands during the

course of the years—there should be an insignificantly small number of

documents which a personal Referent on the orders of his chief, passes

on to third persons without knowing their contents more closely, the

more so if they concern matters which have nothing to do with the normal

duties of the personal Referent.

I believe that an American tribunal will know how to appraise the

foregoing, though I am rather afraid that the situation as it existed in

Germany during the years before the collapse and prevailed in high

government agencies will never really be brought home to American

judges.

Therefore, I refuse to discuss again my position at that time and the

ignorance of criminal experiments on human beings which was the

consequence thereof. In this respect I agree with my defense counsel.

Neither need I fear Professor Ivy’s statement who declared that even a

layman must have been outraged by reading the reports of Rascher,

because the fact that the layman should have read the passages of the

reports wherefrom the obvious violation of human dignity is evident was,

as a matter of fact, the natural prerequisite for Professor Ivy’s

opinion, and that prerequisite did not exist in my case.

In accordance with the truth I repeat what I have said in the witness

stand, that I had a general knowledge of experiments on human beings, I

can no longer say when and on what particular opportunity I gained that

knowledge. But this fact alone does not deserve death, because I never

had the feeling that I had participated in such crimes by my activity in

the personal Referat [administrative office].

Such a knowing participation demands that the personal Referent knows

the contents and the import of Himmler’s letters, orders, etc., and

passes them on in spite of this knowledge of the contents and their

import. I just said that appearances are against me, but I believe I did

prove that I did not possess that knowledge. I pray the Tribunal to

follow the line of this evidence and, I think, this is not asking too

much since the experience of everyday life speaks in my favor.

The various affidavits which I have submitted and which were the subject

of excited argument have found their explanation. In some points I have

erred and I have tried to correct my errors. I did not want to speak an

untruth knowingly which might be detrimental or unfavorable to a third

person. I ask the Tribunal not to forget that I was in a very low

general condition when I signed these affidavits. Only a few months

previously I weighed only forty-four kilograms; consequently my mental

power was reduced to a minimum.

During my activities which stretched over many years I exclusively acted

on the express orders of Himmler without ever making a decision on my

own initiative. I may take it that this fact has fully been proved.

The question what attitude I should have assumed had I known the details

of inhuman experiments I can only answer in a hypothetical way. Had I

had an approximate knowledge, as I have it today, I would have struggled

against passing on such an order by virtue of my general view on

questions of humanity. Since, however, I did not have that knowledge it

could not come to any opposition on my part. I ask that consideration be

given to the fact that during all those years, I regarded matters which

were in my field from my own point of view, and tried to live up to my

own ideals. I saw my duty in carrying out my task faithfully and in the

conduct of a clean, personal life. I always strove not to cause any

damage to any human being, but to understand the situation of any person

in need of help, and then to help him as I myself would have wished to

be helped or treated had I been in his position. I remind you of the

statement of the witness Meiner, on 21 March 1947.

The fact that my signatures are on the documents which have been

submitted by the prosecution has moved me deeply because my entire view

of humanity and the principles of humanity is quite opposed to that.

What I understand by humanity, also begins to apply to the small details

of life also for me.

In spite of my good intentions, and this I say in answer to a question

put in the beginning—in spite of my good intentions I was drawn into a

guilt, I see it as a guilt into which human beings can be involved by

tragic circumstances without any intention on their part. But the

recognition of this guilt was sufficient to shake severely my mental and

moral balance.

J. Final Statement of Defendant Poppendick[42]

I joined the SS at a time not to commit crimes, but because a number of

my friends whom I knew to be idealists were members of the SS. Their

membership caused me to join. That I thereby became a member of a

criminal organization was unimaginable for me at that time, just as it

is incomprehensible for me today.

My activity in the Main Race and Settlement Office was devoted to the

problem of the family, an activity which in view of the destructive

tendencies during the period of the First World War seemed important to

me. If my expectations as a physician were disappointed in more than one

point, at least I considered myself justified to hope that in the end

this activity would have positive results. The intentions were always

toward a constructive policy for the good of the family. Never did I

have anything to do with negative population policies, such as the

sterilization program of the state. The assertion of the prosecution

that positive and negative population policies belong together as the

two sides of one and the same program, is erroneous.

Then there were purely organizational reasons which brought about my

direct subordination under the office of that man whose name today has

such an inhuman sound—I mean Grawitz. The impression which the

prosecution has rendered of my activity and position in Grawitz’ office

is not in accordance with the facts, in spite of some features which

seem to support the assertions made by the prosecution.

As for medical experiments on inmates—experiments on human beings were

nothing surprising to me, nor anything new. I knew that experiments were

carried out in clinics. I knew that the modern achievements of medical

science had not been brought about without sacrifices. However, I do not

recall that in experiments in clinics the voluntariness of the person to

be experimented on was an absolute requirement, which now seems to be

taken as a matter of fact, according to the discussions in this trial. I

knew furthermore, that some scientific problems can only be solved by

experiments in series with conditions remaining constant, and that

therefore soldiers and particularly soldiers in camps are used for

experiments in all countries. Under these circumstances it did not

appear surprising to me that during the war, scientists also carried out

experiments in series in concentration camps. I did not have the least

cause to assume that these scientists in the camps would go beyond the

scope of that which otherwise everywhere in the world of science was

customary. What I knew about medical experiments in the SS was, in my

opinion, as little connected with criminal matters as those experiments

of which I knew from my clinical experience before 1933.

In March of this year a young doctor, Dr. Mitscherlich, in a very

one-sided way, published material for an indictment under the already

prejudiced title, “The Dictates of Contempt for Human Life”. Of the

problematic there was little in this book. The basis for a judgment and

a conviction were clearly given. During the very last days, however, the

chief of Dr. Mitscherlich, a well-known Professor from Heidelberg,

Weizsaecker, published a study on the fundamental questions belonging to

this subject under the title “Euthanasia and Experiments on Human

Beings”, which he submitted to the defendants. But here now fortunately

we find an entirely different language. The problem itself becomes

obvious. If one reads this booklet then the extent of the problem with

its complications becomes clear.

The oath of Hippocrates, according to Weizsaecker, has nothing to do

with the problem. Weizsaecker applies entirely different ethical norms.

Rightly, medicine of today as a whole is studied, not only the German

medicine under Hitler. It shows that experts who consider themselves

competent even today are only in the middle of their endeavor to clarify

the problems at the basis, that being the first requirement for their

solution.

Before this trial all of these matters were no problems for me. I did

not know of any transgressions. Moreover, I was always convinced that

anything which came to my knowledge about experiments on human beings in

clinics of the state before 1933, and within the scope of the SS in

later years, were conscientious efforts of serious scientists to the

good of mankind.

The ethical foundation of these matters also seemed to be there until

this trial. Therefore, after sincere examination of my conscience, I

cannot find any feelings of guilt and expect with a clear and peaceful

conscience the verdict of the Tribunal.

K. Final Statement of Defendant Sievers[43]

Your Honors, in his opening plea, my defense counsel already stated

quite openly and frankly that all events were going to be presented with

which I was in any way connected, and in this hour which is so important

to me, I can state to the best of my conscience that when I furnished my

defense counsel with information, and during my own examination on the

witness stand, I always spoke the full truth.

I have, in fact, had the satisfaction to hear my testimony confirmed by

a witness for the prosecution. During my examination as a witness on the

stand, I said quite truthfully that the experimental subjects to whom I

had talked in connection with the last experiment in Natzweiler had

confirmed to me that they were voluntary subjects. Witness Nales,

witness for the prosecution, confirmed my testimony during his

examination on the 30th of June in this courtroom.

With regard to the charge of participation in the malaria experiments, I

have stated that I had nothing to do with malaria experiments. Witness

Vieweg, called by the prosecution, confirmed this testimony of mine, as

also did witness Stoehr.

I testified that the two experimented subjects whom I met in connection

with the altitude experiments, in reply to a question by me, confirmed

specifically that they had volunteered. Witness Neff of the prosecution

confirmed this voluntary status of the witnesses. Likewise Dr. Romberg

during his direct examination stated on the strength of his own

knowledge that my testimony was correct. The only experimental subject

whom I met in connection with the typhus experiments upon my definite

question regarding the voluntariness of his testimony, confirmed that

this was so. My testimony was also confirmed through the affidavit of a

former prisoner, and witness, Grunzenhuber, contained in my second

document book.

The prosecution believed that they had to charge me with having placed

myself at the disposal of the IMT on the behalf of the SS. This was

rather a peculiar statement considering my own defense in this trial. I

explained when I was on the stand that without my own initiative, in

fact against my own will, the defense counsel for the SS called me in

order to use me as a witness. Attorney Pelckmann, then defense counsel

of the SS, has confirmed the correctness of my statements in an

affidavit. According to that, I immediately informed Pelckmann at the

time in writing regarding my former membership in the resistance

movement against the National Socialist regime and told him I was not a

suitable witness. At the same time I presented attorney Pelckmann with a

copy of my letter, in which I placed myself at the disposal of the

International Military Tribunal as a witness as early as 20 December

1945, as the IMT record shows. I have stated my regrets on this same

witness stand, that my preparedness to aid justice and to help in

prosecuting past crimes was not accepted and that considerable evidence

was thus destroyed.

As early as August last year, I furnished the prosecution with a report

about my activities in the resistance movement, indicating again my

willingness. This was passed over, however, when I stated that I was not

prepared to sign affidavits which were not completely true. I openly and

frankly stated at that point that I did not understand this action. I

had to do this, and I could do it because I had been looking for truth

and right at the risk of my life, undaunted, even during the time of

tyranny. Was one now to be a collaborator in methods which I thought had

passed with the National Socialist regime; and which, as remains my firm

conviction, would never lead to a true pacification of this world such

as we all desire? I am mentioning this with regret and only because I

have always claimed that I myself, and my statements, in responsible

situations, deserve to be believed. The prosecution did not only feel in

a position to doubt my credibility, but they even consented to call me a

liar during their argument, against their better knowledge and their

better conscience. Consequently, I had to draw your attention to the

testimony of various witnesses which confirmed, in full, my testimony on

the stand in these complicated matters. I can truly be satisfied that it

was not up to me, but to the prosecution’s own witnesses, to contradict

the incorrect statements made against me. History will honor such

action, and judge the persistent attempt to stick to preconceived ideas.

There is no blessing connected with it. I am only sorry for those who

are misguided by false ideas. My firm conviction that this high Tribunal

will fully believe my testimony during my defense is based on these

facts.

In this connection, with reference to the experiences which I have just

described, I am forced to say how on the other hand it calmed and

strengthened me, and gave me confidence to see with what wisdom, calm,

and patience this high Tribunal stood above matters and disclosed a

conduct of trial in which one could feel sheltered; all my friends, who

fought in the secret resistance movement with me and repeatedly attended

this trial in the audience, share these sentiments with me.

I have explained to you, your Honors, for what reasons I was in

immediate, direct contact with the NSDAP and the SS. I have told you how

I always tried to prevent the Ahnenerbe from becoming involved in

medical research. This attempt failed, due to the ambitious attitude of

Himmler. Only on the strength of my own feelings had I to find an

attitude with regard to this new question of experiments on human

beings. I did not approve of them, and I attempted to take the

consequence, which could only be that I immediately resigned from my

post as the Reich manager of the Ahnenerbe. I think the testimony of the

witness Hielscher, in this stand, and the affidavits from witness

Deutelmoser, witness Dellmann, witness Schmitz, and others prove beyond

doubt that I had the true intention of resigning from the Ahnenerbe. And

these witnesses have also clearly testified why I didn’t do so, not

because of personal ambition, not for reasons of comfort, or for what

other low reasons might be attributed to me in this point. It was due to

the persistent urging on the part of my political friends that I

remained, in order to serve further the task which had taken me to the

NSDAP and the SS. Inwardly I rejected contact with human experiments

even as I refused to be a follower of the NSDAP and of the ideology they

represented. Outwardly, I had to live up to the name of a National

Socialist if I was to hold on to the political ideal to which I had

devoted myself since 1929 and not endanger it. In his affidavit, witness

Niebhausen, who was the most important member in the circle of the

secret German resistance, and who has acted on behalf of Dr. Kempner

too, and who is obviously a personality beyond reproach, says that his

illegal activity which continued for five years would have been quite

impossible without my assistance. I do not, indeed, know what the

prosecution is prepared to recognize as being a resistance against the

Nazi regime, if not even such activities as these. It is not necessary

to relate again all the details which have been testified to in this

courtroom.

That in true recognition of the consequences which might be daily

expected for myself and my family I devoted myself to resistance,

continued in it undaunted, and never abandoned it, is now the only

reason why I find myself in this dock. For that reason, I look forward

to the judgment of this Tribunal with confidence, due to my conviction

that I have lived for a good cause and acted on it, on behalf of

something which—then as today—filled me with true belief.

L. Final Statement of Defendant Rose[44]

Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, the scientists who are among

the defendants in this trial are confronted with a principal difficulty,

the fact that purely scientific questions have been made political,

ideological questions by the prosecution. In the opening speech by the

Chief of Counsel, General Taylor, the political and ideological nature

of the indictment has been expressed as clearly as possible.

A subject of the personal charges against myself is my attitude toward

experiments on human beings ordered by the state and carried out by

other German scientists in the field of typhus and malaria. Works of

that nature have nothing to do with politics or with ideology, but they

serve the good of humanity, and the same problems and necessities can be

seen independently of any political ideology everywhere, where the same

dangers of epidemics have to be combated.

Just as Claus Schilling, in his malaria research, had to make

experiments with human beings, before him and after him malaria

scientists of various nations had to carry out experiments on human

beings. Just as Haagen, on his own initiative, but with the approval of

competent authorities of the state, tested the value of a new, living

typhus vaccine, before him that was done in the course of fighting

plague by your great compatriot, Richard B. Strong, when he experimented

on natives of the Philippines, who were not American citizens, with the

approval of your government.

Just as Dr. Ding, on the instruction of the highest and decisive

authorities of the German civilian health administration, tested the

value of the typhus vaccine on humans in times of greatest typhus

danger, others have done so before him in less pressing emergencies,

sometimes in agreement with, sometimes upon the instruction of their

governments.

From the witness stand I testified about the actual role which I played

in regard to the charges of human experiments with malaria and typhus.

And I have explained from the witness stand the legal evaluation of my

actions, and they have been submitted to you by my defense counsel, Dr.

Fritz. I need not add anything to it. But, as a matter of principle, I

stated my attitude towards the experiments on human beings in medical

research, not first of all in this courtroom, but also when the National

Socialist German Government was at the height of its limitless power. At

that time I was cut short by a man, Professor Schreiber, who about a

year ago in this very courtroom, claimed to be a defender of medical

ethics.

The fact is undoubted that human experiments, which were exactly the

same as those, the participation in which I am unjustly charged with,

have been carried out in other countries, above all, in the United

States which has indicted me. That has led the prosecution to place the

center of gravity of its charges upon the outside conditions of the

persons put at my disposal for experiments by the German authorities. In

that connection the question of whether they were voluntary was put into

the foreground. I shall not discuss the question as to what extent the

doctor who is charged with the experiments is responsible for these

external, formal questions, at least a doctor who was so far removed

from the experiments themselves as I was. But in connection with the

principal question of subjects being volunteers, I have to make a few

statements. A trial of this kind presents probably the most unsuitable

atmosphere to discuss questions of medical ethics. But since these

questions have been raised here, they have to be answered. Everyone who,

as a scientist, has an insight into the history of dangerous medical

experiments, knows with certainty the following fact. Aside from the

self-experiments of doctors, which represent a very small minority of

such experiments, the extent to which subjects are volunteers is often

deceptive. At the very best they amount to self-deceit on the part of

the physician who conducts the experiment, but very frequently to a

deliberate misleading of the public. In the majority of such cases, if

we ethically examine facts, we find an exploitation of the ignorance,

the frivolity, the economic distress, or other emergency on the part of

the experimental subjects. I may only refer to the example which was

presented to the Tribunal by Dr. Ivy when he presented the forms for the

American malaria experiments.

You yourselves, gentlemen of the Tribunal, are in a position to examine

whether, on the basis of the information contained in these forms,

individuals of the average education of an inmate of a prison can form a

sufficiently clear opinion of the risks of an experiment made with

pernicious malaria. These facts will be confirmed by any sincere and

decent scientist in a personal conversation, though he would not like to

make such a statement in public. That I myself am, on principle, an

opponent of the idea of dangerous experiments on human beings is known

to you gentlemen of the Tribunal.

The state, however, or any human community which, in the interest of the

well-being of the entire community, did not want to forego the

experiments on human beings, only bases itself on ethical principles as

long as it openly assumes the full responsibility which arises

therefrom, and imposes sacrifices on enemies of society to atone for

their crimes and does not choose the method of apparent voluntary

submission, which imposes the risk of the experiment on the experimental

subjects, who are not in a position to foresee the possible

consequences.

The prosecutor in his plea criticized the preponderance of affidavits

during the presentation of evidence on the part of the defense. The

difficulties which exist for a defendant in prison in the Germany of

today to acquire other documents are almost prohibitive. In order to

give a few examples: When the malaria experiments of Schilling were

discussed, the prosecution, among other material, submitted to the

Tribunal an excerpt from the well-known Dachau sentence concerning the

statements contained therein about the number of victims in these

experiments. I have stated in the witness box that I would rather sit

here as a defendant than put my signature on the opinion which would

confirm these statements. How right I was in making that statement can

be seen from a letter by Professor Allenby of the University of London

which, unfortunately, has only now been received by my defense counsel,

in which he termed the statement that 300 experimental subjects had

died, a grotesque untruth. My defense counsel in his final plea has

quoted the passage of that letter.

The prosecution at that time when the excerpt of the Dachau sentence was

submitted, promised that the entire files of the Dachau trial would be

put at our disposal. Unfortunately, all my efforts to gain an insight in

these files have been in vain.

When State Secretary Dr. Conti during the war was toying with the idea

to commission Professor Schilling, who was at that time in Italy, with

malaria research in Germany, I, at that time, Chief of the Tropical

Medical Department of the Robert Koch Institute, was first of all

assigned by the Reich Ministry of the Interior to give an opinion. In

this opinion, for reasons which I have explained in the witness box, I

rejected Schilling’s plan. Had one followed my advice, the experiments

by Schilling in Dachau would never have taken place. In the course of

these proceedings I made all efforts to come into the possession of that

opinion but in this case also I was unsuccessful, although that opinion

in two copies is in the hands of the military government, possibly even

in this building.

Also, in vain, I attempted to get the file note, so important for my

defense, which I dictated to the witness Block about my conferences with

State Secretary Conti and President Gildemeister, after I had gained

knowledge about the conduct of the typhus experiments in Buchenwald.

What little correspondence I had with Professor Haagen is apparently

entirely in the hands of the prosecution. In spite of that, it has been

submitted only in part to you. That fact offered an opportunity to the

prosecution to interpret passages taken out of the context incorrectly.

Unfortunately, I have no opportunity to force anyone to submit the

missing documents which would clarify matters in my favor.

To evaluate the work of Haagen, and my defense counsel has pointed that

out already, the statement of an unbiased expert would have been of

decisive importance. Therefore, I can only regret that the interrogation

of the Frenchman Georges Blanc for whom I applied and who has the best

knowledge in this field, did not take place, although he had volunteered

to appear before this Tribunal as an expert.

Professor Lecrout, Director of the Institute Pasteur in Paris, was

frequently in Nuernberg during this trial. After an interview, the

prosecution refrained from calling him as an expert witness to clarify

some difficult questions resulting from the work of Haagen. I ask the

high Tribunal to draw its conclusions from these facts and to assure

that the lack of these pieces of evidence should not result in a damage

to my interests.

Prosecutor McHaney has explained in his plea that one still had to find

that doctor among the defendants who would have subjected himself to

such experiments as are covered by the indictment here. I do not feel

that that concerns me. Not only from the statement which I have made

here before you but also from my case history, which was available to

the authorities of the prison long before indictment, it can be seen

that not only did I repeatedly offer myself as an experimental subject

to test vaccines but that frequently in my official capacity and in my

research work I gave myself injections with cholera, typhus, malaria and

hepatitis epidemica and that I am still suffering from the consequences.

Finally, Prosecutor McHaney has asserted in his plea that all of those

indicted here are guilty of murder, and that includes me too. If the

Tribunal were to look at the present problem from this point of view, I

would regret having said a single word in my defense. However, if you

believe me, that in all actions of mine which have been discussed here,

I was only moved by sincere devotion to duty, then I put my fate with

confidence into your hands.

M. Final Statement of Defendant Ruff[45]

May it please the Tribunal: As far as the written and oral statements of

my defense counsel are concerned which deal with the points of the

indictment, and as far as my activities as a doctor and scientist are

concerned, I have nothing or hardly anything to add. I can only repeat

today what I said at the end of my examination when I was on the stand.

After detailed inquiry into my conscience, I still today hold the belief

that I never sinned against my duty as a man and as a doctor.

N. Final Statement of Defendant Brack[46]

Your Honor, I cannot be described as one of the earliest followers of

Hitler. In 1929, I joined the NSDAP when more than six million German

voters were already backing Hitler. His later successes during the years

of peaceful reconstruction consolidated my conviction that he had

forever liberated Germany from the misery in which it seemed to have

fallen. For all those years I had no reason to have any misgivings with

regard to Hitler’s personality. Therefore I also believed in the

legality of the euthanasia decree as it emanated directly from the head

of the state. The state officials and doctors, competent for me at that

time, told me that euthanasia had always been an endeavor of mankind and

was morally as well as medically justified. Therefore, I never doubted

the legal character of the euthanasia decree.

In this connection, however, I was assigned duties, the extent and

importance of which I could not foresee. Neither my training nor my

qualifications sufficed for this task. Nobody can deny, however, my good

faith in its justification. I frankly admitted what I did in the

framework of the euthanasia measures and tried to prove that my

collaboration was merely of a subordinate nature and exclusively

directed by human aspects. I cannot be made responsible for later

actions carried out by other offices and without my knowledge. These

were the measures which I deeply regretted, in which the prohibition of

the inclusion of foreign nationals and Jews was infringed.

Through my activity in the Fuehrer’s Chancellery, I early became

acquainted with the Gestapo terror. The testimonies of my witnesses

prove how I fought against them and the concentration camp system. I did

so because I felt that I was obliged to help those who suffered from

arbitrariness and oppression. I did not do it because I already

recognized in it at that time symptoms of a leadership that always and

only knew arbitrariness and oppression.

But this is particularly the reason why I was so shocked about the

misuse of some of the euthanasia institutions for the Action 14 f 13;

this action affected particularly those persons whose detention I

considered unjust, and which I therefore opposed. It was only in this

courtroom, however, that I learned of this action.

That I did not hate the Jews has been proved by numerous documents.

Without hatred of the Jews, however, participation in the extermination

of Jews is unthinkable. The measures of suppression to which the Jews

were subjected forced me to give them the same assistance within my

competence as I accorded to the political persecutees. Thus during the

course of the years I helped hundreds of thousands of persons by my

activity. Thus only could the sterilization suggestions come into

existence. They were nothing but an attempt to prevent the extermination

of innumerable Jews.

In spite of all the efforts of my defense counsel, it was impossible to

procure the witnesses who could testify to this effect. They preferred

to evade their responsibility of serving the truth. I am utterly alone.

I must leave it to this high Tribunal to ascertain on the basis of the

presented expert scientific opinions that all my proposals were actually

so formulated as to show my convictions of their harmlessness, and the

impossibility of realizing them.

I must also leave it to the Tribunal to judge whether a man who intended

the extermination of the Jews would apply for service with the army,

just at the moment when the aim which he is alleged to have pursued was

achieved, and the extermination measures had started. Or does it not

appear paradoxical to assume that one and the same man should give his

approval of the extermination of the Jews, and in fact aid such a

program, and, at the same time, save Jews he has never known, such as

Georgii, Passow, Meyer, Warburg, and others, from these measures?

I can only emphasize that particularly the sterilization suggestions to

Himmler appeared to me to be the last possibility to take any action to

save Jewry. Had I been indifferent to the Jewish fate, I would not be

accused today. But I also tried in this respect, as was my habit, to

give assistance and I am still convinced, that it had at least delaying,

if not preventative effect. It is certain that many Jews were in this

way saved from destruction. The realization that such proposals should

never have been made by me on the strength of my medical knowledge, my

capacities, or my position at the time, even to the best of my

intention, is something I could not reach until this trial was in

progress. My good intention, which was the basis of these proposals, and

my good will to help by means of them cannot be denied by anybody, and

can in no event be understood as my conscious cooperation in the

extermination of the Jews.

O. Final Statement of Defendant Romberg[47]

In the course of this trial, I have had full opportunity to speak in my

defense. With special gratitude we realize the great opportunity offered

to us, of which we took advantage, which was given by the possibility of

individually questioning Professor Ivy in this trial. I have seen how

the Tribunal itself, by a precise questioning, clarified the facts, and

to the statements made by my defense counsel I have nothing to add,

because they are the truth.

P. Final Statement of Defendant Becker-Freyseng[48]

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: I also was given opportunity

to submit all the statements and the evidence required to refute the

charges of the indictment. For that I have to thank the Tribunal and my

defense counsel, Dr. Tipp. But I have nothing to add to it. For all the

irrelevant, spiteful talk with which outside circles believed they had

to twist around the objectivity of these proceedings like thorn bushes,

the verdict of this Tribunal must be and will be the appropriate answer.

I look forward to it with the firm conviction that I never failed in my

duty to mankind as a physician and scientist, and as a soldier to my

Fatherland.

Q. Final Statement of Defendant Weltz[49]

I have nothing to add to the statement made by my defense counsel. I

thank Dr. Wille for his efforts made in my defense.

R. Final Statement of Defendant Schaefer[50]

May it please the Tribunal, since I consider myself entirely innocent, I

have nothing more to add. I ask to be acquitted, if possible, even

before the verdict.

S. Final Statement of Defendant Hoven[51]

I have nothing to add to Dr. Gawlik’s plea of yesterday. I would at this

point like to thank my defense counsel for the considerable help he has

given me.

T. Final Statement of Defendant Beiglboeck[52]

May it please the Tribunal, the experiments which I conducted, I did not

carry out on my own initiative, neither according to the plans of my

own, nor spontaneously. The medical part was played with the knowledge

and approval of my clinical teacher, and civilian superior for more than

ten years, I was a disciple of Eppinger. During those ten years I had

come to know and respect his ways of thought and his superior knowledge.

My relations to him were based on deep personal gratitude and

awe-inspired devotion. If there was anything which he considered right

and important, then for psychological reasons alone, it would have been

difficult for me to believe the contrary.

The experiments were to solve the problem of saving human life and that

had to be approved. It was a military order which compelled me to carry

them out in the atmosphere of a concentration camp. I struggled against

it, and was inwardly opposed to it, and tried to avoid the task, but I

was not successful. So I had to carry it out.

May it please the Tribunal, in your evaluation of this fact, please do

not fail to consider that this did not happen in times of peace, nor in

a country which granted its citizens individual freedom of decision in

all matters, personal and professional, but during the bitter days of a

most horrible war. What I carried out, I did in accordance with a plan

previously determined and specified. I did not overstep the limits of my

task. I had to require of my experimental subjects to undergo hardships;

they suffered from thirst with all of its unpleasant sensations, with

its physical and mental characteristics. It was in the nature of the

experiments, and this could not be avoided. I did not, however, do this

without first informing myself by an experiment on my own system of what

I expected them to undergo, nor did I expect it of anyone else, unless I

was firmly convinced that he undertook it voluntarily. It is not true to

say that I might have forced anybody to do it, neither psychologically,

by reprisals, nor by threat, nor by force of arms. Many eyewitnesses

have agreed that my conduct was never brutal or inhuman towards any of

the experimental subjects under my care. Among these witnesses are even

some who were brought here to testify against me.

At last, in the final stage of this trial, one experimental subject

could be found who thought it appropriate to introduce a dramatic note

in an atmosphere artificially created. You will decide how much

credibility you will attribute to this witness. Based on a layman’s

misinterpretation of nondangerous, indeed harmless medical procedures,

combined with the uncertain recollection emotionally presented by more

or less distorting and misconstruing my motives, the attempt was made to

lend an impression to my experiments and to my own personality.

In contradiction to that, a few others who came from the concentration

camp and who loved the truth have painted another picture which reveals

that my behavior in the medical sense, as well as from the human point

of view, was correct, to say the least. By my experiments, no human life

was sacrificed, nor did they result in any lasting damage to their

health. I also believe, I have proved that I intervened for the inmates,

as far as that was within my power and that I did not consider my

experimental subjects as individuals of an inferior type whom I could

well afford to ill-treat, for ideological reasons, as has been charged.

For over 15 years as a physician, I always felt the strongest

responsibility for those entrusted to my care. Thousands who were my

patients will confirm it. My assistants and colleagues have testified to

it. I was never directed by any sentiment other than that of a human

being and of a physician. The experiments as they were actually

conducted never went beyond what can be justified by the physician. I

consider myself free of guilt as a physician and as a human being.

U. Final Statement of Defendant Pokorny[53]

Your Honors, during this trial I have often asked myself what I should

have done at the time in order to record my true motive for the letter I

had written to Himmler. But I believe that at the time when I dispatched

this letter, I could not do anything else but to talk to the people in

whom I had confidence and who I knew would not betray me, and confide in

them my true reasons.

If today, this letter, which is against me, may seem objective, then

this is a fact with which I must bear, although to the end I must say in

correspondence with the truth that selfish reasons were not the cause of

my writing this letter, but that letter was written because at the time

I had heard facts about Himmler’s plans, and, because at that time in my

position, standing lonely and slandered because of my family

implications in a small town in Czechoslovakia, I felt that I was able

to take the action described.

I retain the hope that you, my judges, will draw your conclusions from

my conduct and the situation in which I found myself at the time, and

will come to the conviction that the true motive was a different one

than that which is objectively shown by this letter, and that you will

not sentence me but will believe me in what I have not only told you, my

judges, but others previously during my interrogations and what I have

told my friends, at a time when this present situation had not arisen,

in order to clarify my motives as being true.

With this hope I am looking forward to your judgment, and in that

connection I am thinking of my children who, for years now, have lived

under the protection of an allied power, and who will not believe that

their father, after everything that he has suffered, could possibly have

acted as an enemy to human rights.

V. Final Statement of Defendant Oberheuser[54]

I have nothing to add to the statements I have made from the witness box

under oath. In administering therapeutical care, following established

medical principles, as a woman in a difficult position, I did the best I

could. Moreover, I fully agree with the statements made by my defense

counsel and will refrain, at this late stage of the trial, from making

any further statements.

W. Final Statement of Defendant Fischer[55]

Your Honors, when this war began I was a young doctor, 27 years of age.

My attitude towards my people and my Fatherland took me to the front

line as an army doctor. I there joined an armored division, where I

remained until I was incapacitated due to the loss of an arm. For only a

very brief period, during these years of war, I worked as a medical

officer in a military hospital back home. There too, my conception of my

duties was directed by the wish to serve my country. During this time of

my work at home, I received the order, the execution of which made me a

subject of the indictment of this trial.

The order for my participation in the experiments originated from my

highest medical and military superior and was passed on to me, as the

assistant and first lieutenant, through Professor Gebhardt. Professor

Gebhardt was the famous surgeon and much honored creator of Hohenlychen.

He was a scientific authority whom I looked up to with reverence and

confidence. As a general of the Waffen SS he was my unconditional

military superior. I believed him, that I had been earmarked by him to

assist in the solution of an urgent medical problem which was to bring

help and salvation to hundreds of thousands of wounded soldiers, and

which was to be a cure for them; and I believed that this problem would

mean a question of life and death to my people who were fighting for

their existence. I believed unconditionally that this order had come to

me from the head of the state, and that its execution was a necessity

for the state. I considered myself first as bound by this order, as were

the thousands of soldiers whom I had seen walk to their deaths during my

years at the front, following an order by the state. This moving

impression from the front bound me doubly, particularly since I had had

the privilege during that time of working in a hospital at home. I

considered myself, particularly at home, doubly bound like every soldier

at the front to obey the order of my Fatherland unconditionally.

What this order demanded from me had been introduced as a method of

modern medicine in all civilized countries. I was only concerned in the

clinical part of it, and that was taking place just as a course of

treatment in the institute of Hohenlychen, or any other clinic. What I

did was what was ordered, and I did nothing beyond that order. I

believed that I, as a simple citizen, did not have the right to

criticize the measures of the state, particularly not at a time in which

my country was engaged in a struggle for life and death.

I hope that through my unconditional service at the front and through my

two wounds, I have shown that I did not only expect others to make

sacrifices at this time, but that I was prepared at any time to

sacrifice myself with my life and my health. Within the scope of the

order given to me I did what I could, in my limited position as an

assistant doctor, for the life of the experimental subjects and for an

exact and proper clinical development of the experiment. I never could

expect and foresee that deaths would occur. When such fatalities did

occur, contrary to all expectation, I was as shaken by that event as I

was by the death of a patient in our clinic. After that, the experiments

were immediately discontinued, and I went back to the front.

Together with Professor Gebhardt, I reported about these experiments to

the German public. Like many other Germans, there are many things which,

in retrospect, I see more clearly today and in another light than in the

past years. In my young life I have tried to be a faithful son of my

people, and that brought me into this present miserable position. I only

wanted what was good. In my life I have never followed egotistical aims,

and I was never motivated by base instincts. For that reason, I feel

free of any guilt inside me. I have acted as a soldier, and as a soldier

I am ready to bear the consequences. However, that I was born a German,

that is something about which I do not want to complain.

-----

[33] Tr. pp. 11311-11314.

[34] Tr. pp. 11315-11316.

[35] Tr. pp. 11316-11317.

[36] Tr. p. 11318.

[37] Tr. pp. 11318-11319.

[38] Tr. pp. 11319-11324.

[39] Tr. pp. 11325-11328.

[40] Tr. pp. 11328-11329.

[41] Tr. pp. 11330-11335.

[42] Tr. pp. 11335-11338.

[43] Tr. pp. 11338-11342.

[44] Tr. pp. 11342-11347.

[45] Tr. pp. 11347-11348.

[46] Tr. pp. 11348-11351.

[47] Tr. p. 11351.

[48] Tr. p. 11352.

[49] Tr. p. 11352.

[50] Tr. p. 11352.

[51] Tr. p. 11352.

[52] Tr. pp. 11352-11355.

[53] Tr. pp. 11355-11356.

[54] Tr. p. 11356.

[55] Tr. pp. 11356-11358.

XII. JUDGMENT

Military Tribunal I was established on 25 October 1946 under General

Orders No. 68 issued by command of the United States Military Government

for Germany. It was the first of several military tribunals constituted

in the United States Zone of Occupation pursuant to Military Government

Ordinance No. 7, for the trial of offenses recognized as crimes by Law

No. 10 of the Control Council for Germany.

By the terms of the order which established the Tribunal and designated

the undersigned as members thereof, Military Tribunal I was ordered to

convene at Nuernberg, Germany, to hear such cases as might be filed by

the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes or his duly designated

representative.

On 25 October 1946 the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes lodged an

indictment against the defendants named in the caption above in the

Office of the Secretary General of Military Tribunal at the Palace of

Justice, Nuernberg, Germany. A copy of the indictment in the German

language was served on each defendant on 5 November 1946. Military

Tribunal I arraigned the defendants on 21 November 1946, each defendant

entering a plea of “not guilty” to all the charges preferred against

him.

The presentation of evidence to sustain the charges contained in the

indictment was begun by the prosecution on 9 December 1946. At the

conclusion of the prosecution’s case in chief the defendants began the

presentation of their evidence. All evidence in the case was concluded

on 3 July 1947. During the week beginning 14 July 1947 the Tribunal

heard arguments by counsel for the prosecution and defense. The personal

statements of the defendants were heard on 19 July 1947 on which date

the case was finally concluded.

The trial was conducted in two languages—English and German. It

consumed 139 trial days, including 6 days allocated for final arguments

and the personal statements of the defendants. During the 133 trial days

used for the presentation of evidence 32 witnesses gave oral evidence

for the prosecution and 53 witnesses, including the 23 defendants, gave

oral evidence for the defense. In addition, the prosecution put in

evidence as exhibits a total of 570 affidavits, reports, and documents;

the defense put in a total number of 901—making a grand total of 1,471

documents received in evidence.

Copies of all exhibits tendered by the prosecution in their case in

chief were furnished in the German language to the defendants prior to

the time of the reception of the exhibits in evidence.

Each defendant was represented at the arraignment and trial by counsel

of his own selection.

Whenever possible, all applications by defense counsel for the procuring

of the personal attendance of persons who made affidavits in behalf of

the prosecution were granted and the persons brought to Nuernberg for

interrogation or cross-examination by defense counsel. Throughout the

trial great latitude in presenting evidence was allowed defense counsel,

even to the point at times of receiving in evidence certain matters of

but scant probative value.

All of these steps were taken by the Tribunal in order to allow each

defendant to present his defense completely, in accordance with the

spirit and intent of Military Government Ordinance No. 7 which provides

that a defendant shall have the right to be represented by counsel, to

cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and to offer in the case all

evidence deemed to have probative value.

The evidence has now been submitted, final arguments of counsel have

been concluded, and the Tribunal has heard personal statements from each

of the defendants. All that remains to be accomplished in the case is

the rendition of judgment and the imposition of sentence.

THE JURISDICTION OF THE TRIBUNAL

The jurisdiction and powers of this Tribunal are fixed and determined by

Law No. 10 of the Control Council for Germany. The pertinent portions of

the Law with which we are concerned provide as follows:

ARTICLE II

“1. Each of the following acts is recognized as a crime:

* * * * *

“(_b_) _War Crimes._ Atrocities or offenses against persons or

property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war,

including but not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or

deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose, of civilian

population from occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of

prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages,

plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of

cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by

military necessity.

“(_c_) _Crimes against Humanity._ Atrocities and offenses,

including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement,

deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts

committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on

political, racial or religious grounds whether or not in

violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated.

“(_d_) Membership in categories of a criminal group or

organization declared criminal by the International Military

Tribunal.

“2. Any person without regard to nationality or the capacity in

which he acted is deemed to have committed a crime as defined in

* * * this Article, if he (_a_) was a principal or (_b_) was an

accessory to the commission of any such crime or ordered or

abetted the same or (_c_) took a consenting part therein or

(_d_) was connected with plans or enterprises involving its

commission or (_e_) was a member of any organization or group

connected with the commission of any such crime * * *.

* * * * *

“4. (_a_) The official position of any person, whether as Head

of State or as a responsible official in a Government

Department, does not free him from responsibility for a crime or

entitle him to mitigation of punishment.

(_b_) The fact that any person acted pursuant to the order of

his Government or of a superior does not free him from

responsibility for a crime, but may be considered in

mitigation.”

The indictment in the case at bar is filed pursuant to these provisions.

THE CHARGE

The indictment is framed in four counts.

COUNT ONE—_The Common Design or Conspiracy._ The first count of the

indictment charges that the defendants, acting pursuant to a common

design, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did conspire and agree

together to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as defined in

Control Council Law No. 10.

During the course of the trial the defendants challenged the first count

of the indictment, alleging as grounds for their motion the fact that

under the basic law the Tribunal did not have jurisdiction to try the

crime of conspiracy considered as a separate substantive offense. The

motion was set down for argument and duly argued by counsel for the

prosecution and the defense. Thereafter, in one of its trial sessions

the Tribunal granted the motion. That this judgment may be complete, the

ruling made at that time is incorporated in this judgment. The order

which was entered on the motion is as follows:

“It is the ruling of this Tribunal that neither the Charter of

the International Military Tribunal nor Control Council Law No.

10 has defined conspiracy to commit a war crime or crime against

humanity as a separate substantive crime; therefore, this

Tribunal has no jurisdiction to try any defendant upon a charge

of conspiracy considered as a separate substantive offense.

“Count I of the indictment, in addition to the separate charge

of conspiracy, also alleges unlawful participation in the

formulation and execution of plans to commit war crimes and

crimes against humanity which actually involved the commission

of such crimes. We, therefore, cannot properly strike the whole

of count I from the indictment, but, insofar as count I charges

the commission of the alleged crime of conspiracy as a separate

substantive offense, distinct from any war crime or crime

against humanity, the Tribunal will disregard that charge.

“This ruling must not be construed as limiting the force or

effect of Article 2, paragraph 2 of Control Council Law No. 10,

or as denying to either prosecution or defense the right to

offer in evidence any facts or circumstances occurring either

before or after September 1939, if such facts or circumstances

tend to prove or to disprove the commission by any defendant of

war crimes or crimes against humanity as defined in Control

Council Law No. 10.”

COUNTS TWO AND THREE—_War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity._ The

second and third counts of the indictment charge the commission of war

crimes and crimes against humanity. The counts are identical in content,

except for the fact that in count two the acts which are made the basis

for the charges are alleged to have been committed on “civilians and

members of the armed forces [of nations] then at war with the German

Reich [* * *] in the exercise of belligerent control”, whereas in count

three the criminal acts are alleged to have been committed against

“German civilians and nationals of other countries.” With this

distinction observed, both counts will be treated as one and discussed

together.

Counts two and three allege, in substance, that between September 1939

and April 1945 all of the defendants “were principals in, accessories

to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with

plans and enterprises involving medical experiments without the

subjects’ consent * * * in the course of which experiments the

defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures,

atrocities, and other inhuman acts.” It is averred that “such

experiments included, but were not limited to” the following:

“(_A_) _High-Altitude Experiments._ From about March 1942 to

about August 1942 experiments were conducted at the Dachau

concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Air Force, to

investigate the limits of human endurance and existence at

extremely high altitudes. The experiments were carried out in a

low-pressure chamber in which the atmospheric conditions and

pressures prevailing at high altitude (up to 68,000 feet) could

be duplicated. The experimental subjects were placed in the

low-pressure chamber and thereafter the simulated altitude

therein was raised. Many victims died as a result of these

experiments and others suffered grave injury, torture, and

ill-treatment. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder,

Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Ruff,

Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz are charged with special

responsibility for and participation in these crimes.

“(_B_) _Freezing Experiments._ From about August 1942 to about

May 1943 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration

camp, primarily for the benefit of the German Air Force, to

investigate the most effective means of treating persons who had

been severely chilled or frozen. In one series of experiments

the subjects were forced to remain in a tank of ice water for

periods up to 3 hours. Extreme rigor developed in a short time.

Numerous victims died in the course of these experiments. After

the survivors were severely chilled, re-warming was attempted by

various means. In another series of experiments, the subjects

were kept naked outdoors for many hours at temperatures below

freezing. * * * The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser,

Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick,

Sievers, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz are charged with special

responsibility for and participation in these crimes.

“(_C_) _Malaria Experiments._ From about February 1942 to about

April 1945 experiments were conducted at the Dachau

concentration camp in order to investigate immunization for and

treatment of malaria. Healthy concentration camp inmates were

infected by mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the

mucous glands of mosquitoes. After having contracted malaria the

subjects were treated with various drugs to test their relative

efficacy. Over 1,000 involuntary subjects were used in these

experiments. Many of the victims died and others suffered severe

pain and permanent disability. The defendants Karl Brandt,

Handloser, Rostock, Gebhardt, Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky,

Poppendick, and Sievers are charged with special responsibility

for and participation in these crimes.

“(_D_) _Lost (Mustard) Gas Experiments._ At various times

between September 1939 and April 1945 experiments were conducted

at Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, and other concentration camps for

the benefit of the German Armed Forces to investigate the most

effective treatment of wounds caused by Lost gas. Lost is a

poison gas which is commonly known as mustard gas. Wounds

deliberately inflicted on the subjects were infected with Lost.

Some of the subjects died as a result of these experiments and

others suffered intense pain and injury. The defendants Karl

Brandt, Handloser, Blome, Rostock, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, and

Sievers are charged with special responsibility for and

participation in these crimes.

“(_E_) _Sulfanilamide Experiments._ From about July 1942 to

about September 1943 experiments to investigate the

effectiveness of sulfanilamide were conducted at the

Ravensbrueck concentration camp for the benefit of the German

Armed Forces. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the experimental

subjects were infected with bacteria such as streptococcus, gas

gangrene, and tetanus. Circulation of blood was interrupted by

tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a

condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. Infection was

aggravated by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into the

wounds. The infection was treated with sulfanilamide and other

drugs to determine their effectiveness. Some subjects died as a

result of these experiments and others suffered serious injury

and intense agony. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser,

Rostock, Schroeder, Genzken, Gebhardt, Blome, Rudolf Brandt,

Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Becker-Freyseng, Oberheuser, and Fischer

are charged with special responsibility for and participation in

these crimes.

“(_F_) _Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration and Bone

Transplantation Experiments._ From about September 1942 to about

December 1943 experiments were conducted at the Ravensbrueck

concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces,

to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone

transplantation from one person to another. Sections of bones,

muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects. As a result

of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony,

mutilation, and permanent disability. The defendants Karl

Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Oberheuser,

and Fischer are charged with special responsibility for and

participation in these crimes.

“(_G_) _Sea-Water Experiments._ From about July 1944 to about

September 1944 experiments were conducted at the Dachau

Concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Air Force and

Navy, to study various methods of making sea water drinkable.

The subjects were deprived of all food and given only chemically

processed sea water. Such experiments caused great pain and

suffering and resulted in serious bodily injury to the victims.

The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder,

Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers,

Becker-Freyseng, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck are charged with

special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.

“(_H_) _Epidemic Jaundice Experiments._ From about June 1943 to

about January 1945 experiments were conducted at the

Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps, for the

benefit of the German Armed Forces, to investigate the causes

of, and inoculations against, epidemic jaundice. Experimental

subjects were deliberately infected with epidemic jaundice, some

of whom died as a result, and others were caused great pain and

suffering. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock,

Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick,

Sievers, Rose, and Becker-Freyseng are charged with special

responsibility for and participation in these crimes.

“(_I_) _Sterilization Experiments._ From about March 1941 to

about January 1945 sterilization experiments were conducted at

the Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck concentration camps, and other

places. The purpose of these experiments was to develop a method

of sterilization which would be suitable for sterilizing

millions of people with a minimum of time and effort. These

experiments were conducted by means of X-ray, surgery, and

various drugs. Thousands of victims were sterilized and thereby

suffered great mental and physical anguish. The defendants Karl

Brandt, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Brack,

Pokorny, and Oberheuser are charged with special responsibility

for and participation in these crimes.

“(_J_) _Spotted Fever (Fleckfieber)[56] Experiments._ From about

December 1941 to about February 1945 experiments were conducted

at the Buchenwald and Natzweiler concentration camps, for the

benefit of the German Armed Forces, to investigate the

effectiveness of spotted fever and other vaccines. At

Buchenwald, numerous healthy inmates were deliberately infected

with spotted fever virus in order to keep the virus alive; over

90 percent of the victims died as a result. Other healthy

inmates were used to determine the effectiveness of different

spotted fever vaccines and of various chemical substances. In

the course of these experiments 75 percent of the selected

number of inmates were vaccinated with one of the vaccines or

nourished with one of the chemical substances and, after a

period of 3 to 4 weeks, were infected with spotted fever germs.

The remaining 25 percent were infected without any previous

protection in order to compare the effectiveness of the vaccines

and the chemical substances. As a result, hundreds of the

persons experimented upon died. Experiments with yellow fever,

smallpox, typhus, paratyphus A and B, cholera, and diphtheria

were also conducted. Similar experiments with like results were

conducted at Natzweiler concentration camp. The defendants Karl

Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Genzken, Gebhardt, Rudolf

Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Rose, Becker-Freyseng,

and Hoven are charged with special responsibility for and

participation in these crimes.

“(_K_) _Experiments with Poison._ In or about December 1943 and

in or about October 1944 experiments were conducted at the

Buchenwald concentration camp to investigate the effect of

various poisons upon human beings. The poisons were secretly

administered to experimental subjects in their food. The victims

died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in

order to permit autopsies. In or about September 1944

experimental subjects were shot with poison bullets and suffered

torture and death. The defendants Genzken, Gebhardt, Mrugowsky,

and Poppendick are charged with special responsibility for and

participation in these crimes.

“(_L_) _Incendiary Bomb Experiments._ From about November 1943

to about January 1944 experiments were conducted at the

Buchenwald concentration camp to test the effect of various

pharmaceutical preparations on phosphorus burns. These burns

were inflicted on experimental subjects with phosphorus matter

taken from incendiary bombs, and caused severe pain, suffering,

and serious bodily injury. The defendants Genzken, Gebhardt,

Mrugowsky, and Poppendick are charged with special

responsibility for and participation in these crimes.”

In addition to the medical experiments, the nature and purpose of which

have been outlined as alleged, certain of the defendants are charged

with criminal activities involving murder, torture, and ill-treatment of

non-German nationals as follows:

“7. Between June 1943 and September 1944 the defendants Rudolf

Brandt and Sievers * * * were principals in, accessories to,

ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected

with plans and enterprises involving the murder of civilians and

members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the

German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in

exercise of belligerent control. One hundred twelve Jews were

selected for the purpose of completing a skeleton collection for

the Reich University of Strasbourg. Their photographs and

anthropological measurements were taken. Then they were killed.

Thereafter, comparison tests, anatomical research, studies

regarding race, pathological features of the body, form and size

of the brain, and other tests were made. The bodies were sent to

Strasbourg and defleshed.

“8. Between May 1942 and January 1944[57] the defendants Blome

and Rudolf Brandt * * * were principals in, accessories to,

ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected

with plans and enterprises involving the murder and mistreatment

of tens of thousands of Polish nationals who were civilians and

members of the armed forces of a nation then at war with the

German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in

exercise of belligerent control. These people were alleged to be

infected with incurable tuberculosis. On the ground of insuring

the health and welfare of Germans in Poland, many tubercular

Poles were ruthlessly exterminated while others were isolated in

death camps with inadequate medical facilities.

“9. Between September 1939 and April 1945 the defendants Karl

Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven * * * were principals in,

accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and

were connected with plans and enterprises involving the

execution of the so-called ‘euthanasia’ program of the German

Reich in the course of which the defendants herein murdered

hundreds of thousands of human beings, including nationals of

German-occupied countries. This program involved the systematic

and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of

deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections,

and divers other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums.

Such persons were regarded as ‘useless eaters’ and a burden to

the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were

informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart

failure. German doctors involved in the ‘euthanasia’ program

were also sent to the eastern occupied countries to assist in

the mass extermination of Jews.”

Counts two and three of the indictment conclude with the averment that

the crimes and atrocities which have been delineated “constitute

violations of international conventions * * *, the laws and customs of

war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal

laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries

in which such crimes were committed, and of Article II of Control

Council Law No. 10.”

COUNT FOUR—_Membership in Criminal Organization_: The fourth count of

the indictment alleges that the defendants Karl Brandt, Genzken,

Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Brack, Hoven,

and Fischer are guilty of membership in an organization declared to be

criminal by the International Military Tribunal, in that each of these

named defendants was a member of the SCHUTZSTAFFELN DER NATIONAL

SOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (commonly known as the SS)

after 1 September 1939, in violation of paragraph 1 (_d_) Article II of

Control Council Law No. 10.

Before turning our attention to the evidence in the case we shall state

the law announced by the International Military Tribunal with reference

to membership in an organization declared criminal by the Tribunal:

“In dealing with the SS the Tribunal includes all persons who

had been officially accepted as members of the SS including the

members of the Allgemeine SS, members of the Waffen SS, members

of the SS Totenkopf Verbaende, and the members of any of the

different police forces who were members of the SS. The Tribunal

does not include the so-called riding units * * *.

“The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the

Charter the group composed of those persons who had been

officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the

preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the

organization with knowledge that it was being used for the

commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the

Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the

organization in the commission of such crimes, excluding,

however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in

such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had

committed no such crimes. The basis of this finding is the

participation of the organization in war crimes and crimes

against humanity connected with the war; this group declared

criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to

belong to the organizations enumerated in the preceding

paragraph prior to 1 September 1939.”

THE PROOF AS TO WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES

AGAINST HUMANITY

Judged by any standard of proof the record clearly shows the commission

of war crimes and crimes against humanity substantially as alleged in

counts two and three of the indictment. Beginning with the outbreak of

World War II criminal medical experiments on non-German nationals, both

prisoners of war and civilians, including Jews and “asocial” persons,

were carried out on a large scale in Germany and the occupied countries.

These experiments were not the isolated and casual acts of individual

doctors and scientists working solely on their own responsibility, but

were the product of coordinated policy-making and planning at high

governmental, military, and Nazi Party levels, conducted as an integral

part of the total war effort. They were ordered, sanctioned, permitted,

or approved by persons in positions of authority who under all

principles of law were under the duty to know about these things and to

take steps to terminate or prevent them.

PERMISSIBLE MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

The great weight of the evidence before us is to the effect that certain

types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within

reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical

profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human

experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments

yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other

methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic

principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal

concepts:

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give

consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of

choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit,

duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion;

and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements

of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding

and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the

acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there

should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the

experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all

inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects

upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation

in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent

rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the

experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be

delegated to another with impunity.

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the

good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and

not random and unnecessary in nature.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of

animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the

disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will

justify the performance of the experiment.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary

physical and mental suffering and injury.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an _a priori_ reason

to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps,

in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as

subjects.

6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by

the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the

experiment.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided

to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of

injury, disability, or death.

8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified

persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through

all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the

experiment.

9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at

liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical

or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be

impossible.

10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be

prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably

cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and

careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment

is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental

subject.

Of the ten principles which have been enumerated our judicial concern,

of course, is with those requirements which are purely legal in

nature—or which at least are so clearly related to matters legal that

they assist us in determining criminal culpability and punishment. To go

beyond that point would lead us into a field that would be beyond our

sphere of competence. However, the point need not be labored. We find

from the evidence that in the medical experiments which have been

proved, these ten principles were much more frequently honored in their

breach than in their observance. Many of the concentration camp inmates

who were the victims of these atrocities were citizens of countries

other than the German Reich. They were non-German nationals, including

Jews and “asocial persons”, both prisoners of war and civilians, who had

been imprisoned and forced to submit to these tortures and barbarities

without so much as a semblance of trial. In every single instance

appearing in the record, subjects were used who did not consent to the

experiments; indeed, as to some of the experiments, it is not even

contended by the defendants that the subjects occupied the status of

volunteers. In no case was the experimental subject at liberty of his

own free choice to withdraw from any experiment. In many cases

experiments were performed by unqualified persons; were conducted at

random for no adequate scientific reason, and under revolting physical

conditions. All of the experiments were conducted with unnecessary

suffering and injury and but very little, if any, precautions were taken

to protect or safeguard the human subjects from the possibilities of

injury, disability, or death. In every one of the experiments the

subjects experienced extreme pain or torture, and in most of them they

suffered permanent injury, mutilation, or death, either as a direct

result of the experiments or because of lack of adequate follow-up care.

Obviously all of these experiments involving brutalities, tortures,

disabling injury, and death were performed in complete disregard of

international conventions, the laws and customs of war, the general

principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all

civilized nations, and Control Council Law No. 10. Manifestly human

experiments under such conditions are contrary to “the principles of the

law of nations as they result from the usages established among

civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of

public conscience.”

Whether any of the defendants in the dock are guilty of these atrocities

is, of course, another question.

Under the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence every defendant in a

criminal case is presumed to be innocent of an offense charged until the

prosecution, by competent, credible proof, has shown his guilt to the

exclusion of every reasonable doubt. And this presumption abides with a

defendant through each stage of his trial until such degree of proof has

been adduced. A “reasonable doubt” as the name implies is one

conformable to reason—a doubt which a reasonable man would entertain.

Stated differently, it is that state of a case which, after a full and

complete comparison and consideration of all the evidence, would leave

an unbiased, unprejudiced, reflective person, charged with the

responsibility for decision, in the state of mind that he could not say

that he felt an abiding conviction amounting to a moral certainty of the

truth of the charge.

If any of the defendants are to be found guilty under counts two or

three of the indictment it must be because the evidence has shown beyond

a reasonable doubt that such defendant, without regard to nationality or

the capacity in which he acted, participated as a principal in,

accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, or was

connected with plans or enterprises involving the commission of at least

some of the medical experiments and other atrocities which are the

subject matter of these counts. Under no other circumstances may he be

convicted.

Before examining the evidence to which we must look in order to

determine individual culpability, a brief statement concerning some of

the official agencies of the German Government and Nazi Party which will

be referred to in this judgment seems desirable.

THE MEDICAL SERVICE IN GERMANY

Adolf Hitler was the head of the Nazi Party, the German Government, and

the German Armed Forces. His title as Chief of the Government was “Reich

Chancellor”. As Supreme Leader of the National Socialist German Workers’

Party, commonly called the NSDAP or Nazi Party, his title was “Fuehrer”.

As head of Germany’s armed military might he was “Supreme Commander in

Chief of the German Armed Forces [Supreme Commander of the German Armed

Forces], or Wehrmacht”.

The staff through which Hitler controlled the German Armed Forces was

known as the “Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht” (OKW). The chief of this

staff was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

Under the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht were the Supreme [High]

Commands of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Supreme [High] Command of

the Navy (OKM) was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. The Supreme

[High] Command of the Army (OKH) was headed by Field Marshal Walter von

Brauchitsch until December 1941, and thereafter by Hitler himself. The

Supreme [High] Command of the Air Force (OKL) was headed by Reich

Marshal Hermann Goering.

Each of the three branches of the Wehrmacht maintained its own medical

service.

_Army Medical Service._ The defendant Handloser was the head of the Army

Medical Service from 1 January 1941 to 1 September 1944. While in this

position he served in two capacities, namely; as Army Medical Inspector

and as Army [Heeres] Physician. These positions required the maintenance

of two departments, each separate from the other. At one time or another

there were subordinated to Handloser in these official capacities the

following officers, among others: Generalarzt Professor Schreiber and

Professor Rostock; Oberstabsaerzte Drs. Scholz, Eyer, Bernhard Schmidt

and Craemer; Oberstabsaerzte Professor Gutzeit and Professor Wirth;

Stabsarzt Professor Kliewe and Professor Killian, and Stabsarzt Dr.

Dohmen. Under his supervision in either or both of his official

capacities were the Military Medical Academy, the Typhus and Virus

Institute of the OKH at Cracow [Krakow] and Lemberg [Lvov], and the

Medical School for Mountain Troops at St. Johann.

_Luftwaffe Medical Service._ From the beginning of the war until 1

January 1944 Hippke was Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.

On that date the defendant Schroeder succeeded Hippke and remained in

that position until the end of the war.

Subordinated to Schroeder as Chief of the Medical Service of the

Luftwaffe were the following defendants: Rose, who was consulting

medical officer on hygiene and tropical medicine; Weltz, who was chief

of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich; Becker-Freyseng, a

consultant for aviation medicine in Schroeder’s office; Ruff, the chief

of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in the German Experimental

Institute for Aviation in Berlin; Romberg, Ruff’s chief assistant, who

toward the end of the war attained the position of a department head at

the Institute; Schaefer, who, in the summer of 1942, was assigned to the

staff of the Research Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin to do

research work on the problem of sea emergency; and Beiglboeck, a

Luftwaffe officer who performed medical experiments on concentration

camp inmates at Dachau in July 1944 for the purpose of determining the

potability of processed sea water.

Under Schroeder’s jurisdiction as Chief of the Luftwaffe Medical Service

was the Medical Academy of the Luftwaffe at Berlin.

_SS Medical Service._ One of the most important branches of the Nazi

Party was the Schutzstaffel of the NSDAP, commonly known as the SS.

Heinrich Himmler was chief of the SS with the title of Reichsfuehrer SS,

and on his personal staff, serving in various and sundry official

capacities was the defendant Rudolf Brandt.

The SS maintained its own medical service headed by a certain Dr.

Grawitz, who held the position of Reich Physician SS and Police.

_Medical Service of the Waffen SS._ The SS branch of the Nazi Party, in

turn, was divided into several components, of which one of the most

important was the Waffen, or Armed, SS. The Waffen SS was formed into

military units and fought at the front with units of the Wehrmacht. Such

medical units of the Waffen SS as were assigned to the field, became

subordinated to the Medical Service of the Army, which was supervised by

Handloser.

The Chief of the Waffen SS Medical Service was the defendant Genzken.

His immediate superior was Reich Physician SS and Police Grawitz.

Six other defendants in the dock were members of the Medical Service of

the SS, under Grawitz, namely; Gebhardt, who in 1940 became surgical

adviser to the Waffen SS and who in August 1943 created and took over

the position of chief clinical officer of the Reich Physician SS and

Police; Mrugowsky, who became Chief of the Hygiene Institute of the

Waffen SS under Genzken in November 1940, and when the Institute was

taken from Genzken’s supervision on 1 September 1943 and placed under

direct subordination to Grawitz, remained as chief; Poppendick, who in

1941 was appointed Chief Physician of the Main Race and Settlement

Office in Berlin and who in 1943 also became chief of the personal staff

of the Reich Physician SS and Police; Hoven, who from the beginning of

1941 until July 1942, served as the assistant, and from then to

September 1943, as chief physician at the Buchenwald concentration camp;

Fischer, an assistant physician to the defendant Gebhardt; and finally

the defendant Oberheuser, who in December 1940 became a physician at the

Ravensbrueck concentration camp, and thereafter, from June 1943 until

the end of the war, served as an assistant physician under the defendant

Gebhardt at Hohenlychen.

_Civilian Medical Service._ Throughout the war the Civilian Medical

Services of the Reich were headed by a certain Dr. Leonardo Conti. Conti

had two principal capacities (1) he was the State Secretary for Health

in the Ministry of the Interior of the Government; in this capacity he

was a German civil servant subordinated to the Minister of the

Interior—first Wilhelm Frick and later, Heinrich Himmler; (2) he was

the Reich Health Leader of the Nazi Party; in this capacity he was

subordinated to the Nazi Party Chancellery, the Chief of which was

Martin Bormann. In his capacity as Reich Health Leader, Conti had as his

deputy the defendant Blome.

_Reorganization of Wehrmacht Medical Service._ In 1942 a reorganization

of the various medical services of the Wehrmacht was effected. By a

Fuehrer decree of 28 July 1942, Handloser became Chief of the Medical

Services of the Wehrmacht, while at the same time retaining his position

as Chief Physician of the Army and Army Medical Inspector. Under the

decree referred to, Handloser was given power and authority to supervise

and coordinate “all tasks common to the Medical Services of the

Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and the organizations and units subordinate or

attached to the Wehrmacht.” He was also commanded “to represent the

Wehrmacht before the civilian authorities in all common medical problems

arising in the various branches of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and

organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht” and

“to protect the interests of the Wehrmacht in all medical measures taken

by the civilian authorities.”

Handloser thus became supreme medical leader in the military field, as

was Conti in the civilian health and medical service.

By a subsequent Fuehrer decree of 7 August 1944 Handloser was relieved

of his duties as Chief Physician of the Army and Army Medical Inspector,

but retained his position as Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service.

By the decree of 28 July 1942 pursuant to which Handloser became Chief

of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, the defendant Karl Brandt

became empowered, subordinate only to, and receiving instructions

directly from, Hitler “to carry out special tasks and negotiations to

readjust the requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies,

etc., between the military and the civilian sectors of the Health and

Medical Services.” The decree also directed that Brandt “is to be kept

informed about the fundamental events in the Medical Service of the

Wehrmacht and in the Civilian Health Service” and “is authorized to

intervene in a responsible manner.”

A subsequent decree issued 5 September 1943 extended the powers of the

defendant Karl Brandt by providing: “The plenipotentiary for the Medical

and Health Services * * * is charged with centrally coordinating and

directing the problems and activities of the entire Medical and Health

Service according to instructions. In this sense this order applies also

to the field of medical science and research, as well as to the

organizational institutions concerned with the manufacture and

distribution of medical material. The plenipotentiary for the Medical

and Health services is authorized to appoint and commission special

deputies for this sphere of action.”

By a later decree of 25 August 1944 Karl Brandt was made Reich

Commissioner for Sanitation and Health for the duration of the war; the

decree providing:

“In this capacity his office ranks as highest Reich Authority”

and he is “authorized to issue instructions to the offices and

organizations of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht which are

concerned with the problems of the medical and health services.”

Thus, by this series of decrees, the defendant Karl Brandt, within this

sphere of competence, became the supreme medical authority of the Reich

subordinate to no one but Hitler.

Three of the defendants are not physicians.

The first is the defendant Brack who became subordinated to Bouhler at

the time the latter was appointed Chief of the Chancellery of the

Fuehrer, in 1934, and remained with Bouhler throughout the war.

The second is the defendant Rudolf Brandt who, from the time he joined

the staff of Himmler in 1933, served for a twelve-year period in varying

capacities. At first Rudolf Brandt was a mere clerk in the staff of the

Reichsfuehrer SS but by 1936 had risen to chief of the personal staff of

Himmler. In 1938 or 1939 he became Himmler’s liaison officer to the

Ministry of the Interior and particularly to the Office of the Secretary

of the Interior. When Himmler became Minister of the Interior in 1943

Rudolf Brandt became Chief of the Ministerial Office; when Himmler

became President of the Ahnenerbe Society, Rudolf Brandt became liaison

officer between Himmler and the Reich Secretary of the Ahnenerbe

Society, defendant Wolfram Sievers.

The third is the defendant Sievers, who was a member of Himmler’s

personal staff and Reich Business Manager of the Ahnenerbe Society from

1 July 1935 until the end of the war.

THE AHNENERBE SOCIETY

The Ahnenerbe Society, of which Sievers was Reich Business Manager, was

in existence as an independent entity as early as 1933. On 1 July 1935

the Ahnenerbe became duly registered as an organization to conduct or

further “research on the locality, mind, deeds and heritage of the

Northern race of Indo-Germans and to pass on the results of this

research to the people in an interesting manner.” On 1 January 1942 the

Society became part of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and

thereby a section of the SS. Its management was composed of Heinrich

Himmler as President, Professor Dr. Wuest, Rector of the University of

Munich, as Curator, and the defendant Sievers as Reich Business Manager.

Subsequently, during the same year, the Institute of Military Scientific

Research was established as a part of the Ahnenerbe. Its purposes are

defined in a letter written by Himmler to Sievers, which directed the

following with reference to the Ahnenerbe:

“1. To establish an Institute for Military Scientific Research.

2. To support in every possible way the research carried out by

SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Professor Dr. Hirt and to promote all

corresponding research and undertakings.

3. To make available the required apparatus, equipment,

accessories and assistants, or to procure them.

4. To make use of the facilities available in Dachau.

5. To contact the Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative

Main Office with regards to the costs which can be borne by the

Waffen SS.”

In its judgment, the International Military Tribunal made the following

findings of fact with reference to the Ahnenerbe:

“Also attached to the SS main offices was a research foundation

known as the Experiments Ahnenerbe. The scientists attached to

this organization are stated to have been mainly honorary

members of the SS. During the war an institute for military

scientific research became attached to the Ahnenerbe which

conducted extensive experiments involving the use of living

human beings. An employee of this institute was a certain Dr.

Rascher, who conducted these experiments with the full knowledge

of the Ahnenerbe, which were subsidized and under the patronage

of the Reichsfuehrer SS who was a trustee of the

foundation.”[58]

We shall now discuss the evidence as it pertains to the cases of the

individual defendants.

The evidence conclusively shows that the German word “_Fleckfieber_”

which is translated in the indictment as “spotted fever” is more

correctly translated by “typhus.” This is admitted, and in this

judgment, in accord with the evidence, we use the word typhus instead of

“spotted fever.”

KARL BRANDT

The defendant Karl Brandt is charged with special responsibility for,

and participation in, Freezing, Malaria, Lost Gas, Sulfanilamide, Bone,

Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, Sea-Water,

Epidemic Jaundice, Sterilization, and Typhus Experiments, as alleged

under counts two and three of the indictment. He is also charged in

counts two and three with criminality in connection with the planning

and carrying out of the Euthanasia Program of the German Reich. Under

count four of the indictment he is charged with membership in the SS, an

organization declared criminal by the judgment of the International

Military Tribunal.

Karl Brandt was born 8 January 1904 at Muehlhausen, Alsace, then a

portion of Germany, studied medicine, and passed his medical examination

in 1928. He joined the National Socialist Party in January 1932, and

became a member of the SA in 1933. He became a member of the Allgemeine

SS in July 1934 and was appointed Untersturmfuehrer on the day he joined

that organization. During the summer of 1934 he became Hitler’s “Escort

Physician”—as he describes the office.

He was promoted to the grade of Obersturmfuehrer in the Allgemeine SS on

1 January 1935, and in 1938 was classed as deferred in order that in

case of war he might be free to serve on the staff of the Reich

Chancellery in Hitler’s headquarters. During the month of April 1939

Karl Brandt was promoted to the rank of Obersturmbannfuehrer in the

Allgemeine SS. In 1940 he was transferred from the Allgemeine SS to the

Waffen SS, in which commissions were equivalent to those of the army. On

30 January 1943 he received a grade equivalent to that of major general

in the Waffen SS, and on 20 April 1944 was promoted to the grade of

lieutenant general in that organization. Having at some previous date

been relieved as Hitler’s escort physician, he was again appointed as

such in the fall of 1944. On 16 April 1945 he was arrested by the

Gestapo, and the next day was condemned to death by a court at Berlin.

He was released from arrest by order of the provisional government under

Doenitz on 2 May 1945. On 23 May 1945 he was placed under arrest by the

British authorities.

By decree bearing date 28 July 1942, signed by Hitler, Keitel, and

Lammers, Karl Brandt was invested with high authority over the medical

services, military and civilian, in Germany. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of this

decree, referring to Karl Brandt, read as follows:

“3. I empower Professor Dr. Karl Brandt, subordinate only to me

personally and receiving his instructions directly from me, to

carry out special tasks and negotiations to readjust the

requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, etc.,

between the military and the civilian sectors of the Health and

Medical Services.

“4. My plenipotentiary for Health and Medical Services is to be

kept informed about the fundamental events in the Medical

Service of the Wehrmacht and in the Civilian Health Service. He

is authorized to intervene in a responsible manner.”

By decree bearing date 5 September 1943, signed by Hitler and Lammers,

Brandt’s authority was strengthened. This decree reads as follows:

“In amplification of my decree concerning the Medical and Health

Services of 28 July 1942 (RGBL. I, P. 515) I order:

“The plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health Services,

General Commissioner Professor Dr. med. Brandt, is charged with

centrally coordinating and directing the problems and activities

of the entire Medical and Health Services according to

instructions. In this sense this order applies also to the field

of medical science and research, as well as to the

organizational institutions concerned with the manufacture and

distribution of medical material.

“The plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health Services is

authorized to appoint and commission special deputies for his

spheres of action.”

By further decree bearing date 25 August 1944, signed by Hitler,

Lammers, Bormann, and Keitel, Karl Brandt received further authority.

This decree reads:

“I hereby appoint the General Commissioner for Medical and

Health matters, Professor Dr. Brandt, Reich Commissioner for

Sanitation and Health [Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health

Services] as well, for the duration of this war. In this

capacity his office ranks as highest Reich authority.

“The Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Services is

authorized to issue instructions to the offices and

organizations of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht, which are

concerned with the problems of the Medical and Health Services.”

Prosecution Exhibit 445, a letter bearing date at Munich, 9 January

1943, signed by Conti and marked “Strictly Confidential” directed to the

Leaders of Public Health Gau Offices of the National Socialist German

Workers’ Party, refers to a decree of the Fuehrer on “Suspending the

Pledge to Secrecy in Special Cases.” The letter continues:

“For your strictly confidential information I am sending

attached Fuehrer decree and the circular letter I am writing on

that subject to the heads of the medical chambers.”

Another portion of the exhibit consists of a copy of Conti’s letter,

also bearing date 9 January 1943, to the heads of the medical chambers,

and reads as follows:

“Strictly Confidential.

“Subject: Fuehrer decree on suspension of pledge to secrecy in

special cases.

“Gentlemen:

“I am sending you enclosed a Fuehrer decree which I received

from Professor Dr. Brandt.

“Communications having bearing on the Fuehrer decree should be

directed to the following address: Professor Doctor Karl Brandt,

Personal Attention, Berlin W8, Reich Chancellory.

“It is left to the discretion of the physician who is handling

the case whether he wishes to acquaint the patient with the

information himself.”

Hitler’s decree, bearing date 23 December 1942, reads as follows:

“I not only relieve physicians, medical practitioners and

dentists of their pledge to secrecy towards my Commissioner

General Professor Dr. med. Karl Brandt, but I place upon them

the binding obligation to advise him—for my own

information—immediately after a final diagnosis has established

a serious disease, or a disease of ill-boding character, with a

personality holding a leading position or a position of

responsibility in the State, the Party, the Wehrmacht, in

industry, and so forth.”

Concerning this matter Karl Brandt testified that the decree “in special

cases” relieved German physicians from one of the generally accepted

principles of medical practice.

From the year 1942 to the end of the war Karl Brandt was a member of the

Reich Research Council and was also a member of the Presidential Council

of that body.

Karl Brandt, then, finally reached a position authorizing him to issue

instructions to all the medical services of the State, Party, and

Wehrmacht concerning medical problems (Hitler Decree bearing date 25

August 1944). The above decrees of Hitler disclose his great reliance

upon Karl Brandt and the high degree of personal and professional

confidence which Hitler reposed in him.

It may be noted that by the service regulation governing the Chief of

the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, issued by Keitel 7 August 1944,

the chief of those medical services was required to pay due regard to

the general rules of the Fuehrer’s Commissioner General for Medical and

Health Departments. The regulation contained the following:

“3. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht will

inform the Fuehrer’s Commissioner General about basic events in

the field of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht.”

By a pre-trial affidavit made by the defendant Handloser and put in

evidence by the prosecution, Handloser makes the statement that Karl

Brandt was his “immediate superior in medical affairs.”

SULFANILAMIDE EXPERIMENTS

Certain sulfanilamide experiments were conducted at Ravensbrueck for a

period of about a year prior to August 1943. These experiments were

carried on by the defendants Gebhardt, Fischer, and Oberheuser—Gebhardt

being in charge of the project. At the Third Meeting of the Consulting

Physicians of the Wehrmacht held at the Military Medical Academy in

Berlin from 24 to 26 May 1943, Gebhardt and Fischer made a complete

report concerning these experiments. Karl Brandt was present and heard

the reports. Gebhardt testified that he made a full statement concerning

what he had done, stating that experiments had been carried out on human

beings. The evidence is convincing that statements were also made that

the persons experimented upon were concentration camp inmates. It was

stated that 75 persons had been experimented upon, that the subjects had

been deliberately infected, and that different drugs had been used in

treating the infections to determine their respective efficacy. It was

also stated that three of the subjects died. It nowhere appears that

Karl Brandt made any objection to such experiments or that he made any

investigation whatever concerning the experiments reported upon, or to

gain any information as to whether other human subjects would be

subjected to experiments in the future. Had he made the slightest

investigation he could have ascertained that such experiments were being

conducted on non-German nationals, without their consent, and in

flagrant disregard of their personal rights; and that such experiments

were planned for the future.

In the medical field Karl Brandt held a position of the highest rank

directly under Hitler. He was in a position to intervene with authority

on all medical matters; indeed, it appears that such was his positive

duty. It does not appear that at any time he took any steps to check

medical experiments upon human subjects. During the war he visited

several concentration camps. Occupying the position he did, and being a

physician of ability and experience, the duty rested upon him to make

some adequate investigation concerning the medical experiments which he

knew had been, were being, and doubtless would continue to be, conducted

in the concentration camps.

EPIDEMIC JAUNDICE EXPERIMENTS

Karl Brandt is charged with criminal responsibility for experiments

conducted for the purpose of discovering an effective vaccine to bring

about immunity from epidemic jaundice. Grawitz, by letter dated 1 June

1943, wrote Himmler stating that Karl Brandt had requested his

assistance in the matter of research on the causes of epidemic jaundice.

Grawitz stated that Karl Brandt had interested himself in this research

and desired that prisoners be placed at his disposal. The letter further

stated that up to that date experiments had been made only on animals,

but that it had become necessary to pursue the matter further by

inoculating human beings with virus cultures. The letter stated that

deaths must be anticipated, and that eight prisoners who had been

condemned to death were needed for the experiments at the hospital of

the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. Under date of 16 June 1943

Himmler acknowledged the letter from Grawitz and directed that eight

criminals in Auschwitz, Jews of the Polish Resistance Movement condemned

to death, should be used for experiments which should be conducted by

Dr. Dohmen at Sachsenhausen. Karl Brandt’s knowledge of experiments on

non-German nationals is clearly shown by the foregoing.

LOST (MUSTARD) GAS EXPERIMENTS

It is clear from the record that experiments with Lost gas were

conducted on concentration camp inmates throughout the period covered by

the indictment. The evidence is that over 200 concentration camp

inmates, Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Germans, were used as experimental

subjects. At least 50 of these subjects, most of whom were

nonvolunteers, died as a direct or indirect result of the treatment

received.

Karl Brandt knew of the fact that such experiments were being conducted.

The evidence is to the effect that he knew of Lost gas experiments

conducted by Bickenbach at Strasbourg during the fall of 1943, in which

Russian prisoners were apparently used as subjects, some of whom died.

A letter written by the defendant Sievers to the defendant Rudolf

Brandt, dated 11 April 1944, points to the fact that Karl Brandt knew of

still other such experiments. The letter states, that in accordance with

instructions he, Sievers, had contacted Karl Brandt, at Beelitz, and had

reported to him concerning the activities of a certain Dr. Hirt, who the

evidence shows had been experimenting with Lost gas upon concentration

camp inmates at Natzweiler. In the letter, Sievers states, further, that

Karl Brandt had told him that he would be in Strasbourg in April and

would then discuss details with Dr. Hirt.

Knowledge of the conduct of at least some of the experiments was

confirmed by Karl Brandt when he testified in his own behalf. He stated

that pursuant to competent authority he had engaged in studies

concerning defense measures against poison gas. He admitted receiving a

report from Hirt, and that one reading the report could reach the

conclusion that human beings had been experimented upon in connection

with injuries from Lost gas.

FREEZING, MALARIA, BONE, MUSCLE AND

NERVE REGENERATION AND BONE TRANSPLANTATION,

SEA-WATER, STERILIZATION,

AND TYPHUS EXPERIMENTS

The evidence does not show beyond a reasonable doubt that Karl Brandt is

criminally responsible on account of the experiments with which he is

charged under these specifications.

The defendant Karl Brandt certainly knew that medical experiments were

carried out in concentration camps upon human subjects, that the

experiments caused suffering, injury, and death. By letter bearing date

26 January 1943 Karl Brandt wrote to Wolff at the Fuehrer’s (Hitler’s)

headquarters asking if it were possible to carry out “nutritional

experiments” in concentration camps. The nature of the desired

experiments does not appear, nor does the evidence show whether or not

such experiments were ever made. The letter, however, indicates Brandt’s

knowledge of the fact that human subjects could be made available for

experimentation.

Defendant Rudolf Brandt, by letter dated 4 September 1944, wrote

Baumert, evidently a member of Himmler’s staff, stating that Karl Brandt

had telephoned and requested that Himmler direct that 10 prisoners from

Oranienburg should be made available as of the next day for two days to

test a certain drug. The letter stated that the prisoners would not be

injured by the test.

It appears from an official note filed by Kliewe of the Army Medical

Inspectorate, dated 23 February 1944, referring to a conversation with

the defendant Blome on that date, that experiments concerning biological

warfare connected with plant parasites, etc., had been made; that up to

that date no experiments had been conducted in the field of human

medicine; but that such experiments were necessary and were in

contemplation. The memorandum continues:

“Field Marshal Keitel has given permission to build;

Reichsfuehrer SS and Generalarzt Professor Brandt have assured

him of vast support. By request of Field Marshal Keitel the

armed forces are not to have a responsible share in the

experiments, since experiments will also be conducted on human

beings.”

It is significant that Hitler’s Chief of Staff should deem it advisable

to direct that the Wehrmacht should have nothing to do with experiments

on human subjects.

EUTHANASIA

Defendant Karl Brandt is charged under counts two and three of the

indictment with criminal activities in connection with the euthanasia

program of the German Reich, in the course of which thousands of human

beings, including nationals of German occupied countries, were killed

between 1 September 1939 and April 1945.

On his own letterhead Hitler, at Berlin, 1 September 1939, signed a

secret order reading as follows:

“Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M.D., are charged with the

responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians

to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who,

according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most

careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a

mercy death.”

Bouhler was holding a high office in the NSDAP. He was not a physician.

The foregoing order was not based on any previously existing German law;

and the only authority for the execution of euthanasia was the secret

order issued by Hitler.

The evidence shows that Bouhler and Karl Brandt, who were jointly

charged with the administration of euthanasia, entered upon the duties

assigned them in connection with the setting up of processes for

carrying out the order. A budget was adopted; the method of determining

candidates for euthanasia was established; a patients’ transport

corporation was organized to convey the selected patients to the gassing

chambers. Questionnaires were prepared which were forwarded to the heads

of mental institutions, one questionnaire to be accomplished concerning

each inmate and then returned to the Ministry of the Interior. At the

Ministry the completed questionnaires were examined by so-called

experts, who registered their professional opinions thereon, returned

them to the appropriate office for final examination, and orders were

issued for those patients who by this process were finally selected for

extermination. Thereafter the condemned patients were gathered at

collection points, from whence they were transported to euthanasia

stations and killed by gassing.

Utmost secrecy was demanded of the executioners throughout the entire

procedure. Persons actively concerned in the program were required to

subscribe a written oath of secrecy and were warned that violation of

that oath would result in most serious personal consequences. The

consent of the relatives of the “incurables” was not even obtained; the

question of secrecy being deemed so important.

Shortly after the commencement of operations for the disposal of

“incurables”, the program was extended to Jews, and then to

concentration camp inmates. In this latter phase of the program,

prisoners deemed by the examining doctors to be unfit or useless for

labor were ruthlessly weeded out and sent to the extermination stations

in great numbers.

Karl Brandt maintains that he is not implicated in the extermination of

Jews or of concentration camp inmates; that his official responsibility

for euthanasia ceased at the close of the summer of 1941, at which time

euthanasia procedures against “incurables” were terminated by order of

Hitler.

It is difficult to believe this assertion, but even if it be true, we

cannot understand how this fact would aid the defendant. The evidence is

conclusive that almost at the outset of the program non-German nationals

were selected for euthanasia and exterminated. Needless to say, these

persons did not voluntarily consent to become the subjects of this

procedure.

Karl Brandt admits that after he had disposed of the medical decisions

required to be made by him with regard to the initial program which he

maintains was valid, he did not follow the program further but left the

administrative details of execution to Bouhler. If this be true, his

failure to follow up a program for which he was charged with special

responsibility constituted the gravest breach of duty. A discharge of

that duty would have easily revealed what now is so manifestly evident

from the record; that whatever may have been the original aim of the

program, its purposes were prostituted by men for whom Brandt was

responsible, and great numbers of non-German nationals were exterminated

under its authority.