1947-01-17, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 17 January 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session.
God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you ascertain if the defendants are all present in the courtroom.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in the courtroom.
The prosecution will proceed with the witness on the stand.
FRITZ MENNECKE (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
MR. McHANEY: I will ask that the record show that the witness is still under oath.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is reminded he is still under oath.
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: Dr. Mennecke, you had told us yesterday about the meeting in Berlin in February 1940 concerning the Euthanasia Program. You had told us the names of some of the persons present at this meeting and you had also told us where the meeting was held.
A: Yes.
Q: You had also stated that the Defendant Brack was chairman of this meeting.
A: Yes.
Q: I now ask you whether or not instructions were given you as to your duties in connection with the Euthanasia program?
A: The duties and obligations consisted of working according to the plan which had been worked out, that is, we who were called upon as experts were to examine the questionnaires which had been filled out in the mental institutions after they had been photostatted. We were to express medical opinion on them and were to return them with our opinion to the Berlin agency.
Q: Were you also instructed to prepare questionnaires for patients in the asylum at Eichberg?
A: Every German mental institution received from the Reichsministry of the Interior forms and instructions to fill out such forms about each inmate of the institution and to send these forms to the Reichsministry of the Interior. Forms were filled out about the inmates of the Eichberg Institution.
Q: Do you know what office in the Ministry of the Interior you received the questionnaires from, and to which you returned the questionnaire
A: I do not kpow that. These questionnaires did not come directly from the Ministry of the Interior to the Eichberg Institute but through the provincial administration in Wiesbaden and they were sent back again via Wiesbaden to Berlin.
Q: Was Bernatat the head of the county administration in Wiesbaden?
A: Bernotat is the name. He was not the head but the man in charge of the institutions in the provincial administration.
Q: Is the name Dr. Linden familiar to you?
A: Yes.
Q: What was Dr. Linden's connection with the Euthanasia Program, if any?
A: I saw Dr. Linden a few times at meetings and conferences. Every time Dr. Linden made, so to speak, a dead impression on me. He did not take any active part. He was not in the matter. He did not care about what was going on. That is now it seemed.
Q: Is the name Allers familiar to you?
A: Yes.
Q: What was his connection with the Euthanasia Program?
A: When the Euthanasia Program had been divided into various form designations such as Reich Labor Community for Mental Institutions, the head of this organization was Allers for business matters.
Q: Was a man named Bohne one of his deputies.
A: I know the name Bohne from the very first days, from the very first day in the Columbus House. After that I never saw this Mr. Bohne again and I never heard anything about him.
Q: You mentioned the name Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you tell the Tribunal what this Reich association did?
A: The Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft primarily dealt with the supervision of the questionnaire procedure, that is, this Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft saw to it that the questionnaires were filled out and then were photostatted and an opinion expressed on them. In my opinion that was the main test of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft for mental institutions.
Q: Is the name Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care, and the Patient Transport Corp familiar to you?
A: The second, the Transport Corps, I know, but the one which you mentioned first, I do not recognize the expression.
Q: Are you familiar with the Stiftung?
A: Yes.
Q: And, what did these two organization have to do with the Euthanasia Program?
A: The Stiftung, in my opinion, was in charge of the financial side of the whole program. The Transport Corps was used when patients had to be moved from one institution to another in order to bring them closer to the Euthanasia Institution, and finally to the Euthanasia Institution.
Q: Where those three concerns, that is, the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft, the Stiftung, and the Kranken-Transport-Gesellschaft, camouflaged names for the corporation of the Euthanasia Program?
A: The whole thing was doubtless under the supervision of one management. I cannot imagine that these three offices worked independently; they belonged together. They were given these names in order to conceal their activities by the names, but they were all one firm.
Q: You mean the same people were active under all three names?
A: That is not what I meant to say. The actual workers in the three organizations no doubt worked only in one of the firms, but the leaders of the whole thing -- there is no doubt but that they were in one central Office.
Q: Now, Doctor, what do you know about the loaders of this Euthanasia Program?
A: About the loading persons? The first one is Mr. Brack, and he was a loading personality in the program. He was the first one that I get to know, and I also considered him the loader until the time whom I learned that over him was Reichsleiter Bouhler in the same field. Then later, about the beginning of 1941, I learned that Professor Brandt was also active in this program. Up to that time Professor Brandt was known to me only by name. I did not know him personally, but only as the so-called personal physician of the Fuehrer.
Q: Are the names Heyde and Niezsche familiar to you?
A: Yes.
Q: Were they the so-called top experts in this program?
A: They were called Obergutachter -- top experts in the program.
Q: Are the names Blankenburg, von Hegenor, Vorberg and Hefelmann, familiar to you?
A: Blankenburg, Hefelmann, and von Hegener, I know those. There was another name that you mentioned.
Q: Reinhold Vorberg, V-o-r-b-e-r-g.
A: I can remember vaguely a gentleman who might have had the name, but I an not sure whether the person whom I am thinking of was really called Vorberg.
Q: Now, Doctor, are you familiar with the Reich Committee for Research on hereditary and contagious diseases?
A: I know the Reich Committee for hereditary diseases.
Q: What does that organization do?
A: There was a decree from the Ministry of Interior in which midwives, hospitals, maternity hospitals, and doctors, were obligated in case of birth of crippled or feeble minded children, were obligated to report to the Reich Ministry of Interior; that is, through channels, to the district physician and he had to report further, and it went to the Reich Ministry of Interior finally, and then this report reached the Reich Committee. The actual task of the Reich Committee was to see that those children were given a mercy death, and they were put in special children departments in the mental institutions.
Q: Now, Doctor, I am going to have handed to you Document No.253, which has been presented to this Tribunal as Prosecution's Exhibit 351. (The document is handed to the witness.) This Exhibit purports to be a chart of the organization of the Euthanasia Program, and I ask you to look at it for a few moments. Doctor, do you understand what that chart shows?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you explain it to the Tribunal in order that there can be no misunderstanding about what the chart shows?
A: This chart shows in a clear fern the personnel, organization, and the technical organization, or departments of the program. Bouhler, Brack, Blankenburg, von Hegener, Vorberg -- I am not sure of that name, Hefelman, I can confirm these names. Brandt, I can confirm that one from the Winter of 1941 until I left the service in 1942. Then, there is Professor Heyde and Professor Niezsche, the top experts, that is correct. In the beginning of the program there were in addition to those two men other university professors at conferences in Berlin. I assumed that they were also to work as top experts. I remember Professor Diginis fro Berlin and Professor hien in Jena. And, once I saw a professor, whose name I do not remember, from Bonn. Then there are three sections: Reich Association, the Foundation, and the Sick Transport Company; we have already talked about that, and it is correct. Then Allers, in charge of the office; we have talked about that. The roll Doctor Conti, Doctor Linden, and Doctor Blome, in the program; I don't know about that. The experts listed below, that is correct on the whole as far as I understand it; the list corresponds to the facts, as far as I know the program.
Q: The qualification then you have made, considering your knowledge of program, gives a correct picture of the Euthanasia Program, would you say?
A: Yes.
Q: Doctor, before we leave the meeting in Berlin in February of 1940, I want to ask you whether instructions were given that non-German nationals should not be subjected to euthanasia.
A: This question was not discussed at that time as far as I know.
Q: Now, after this meeting in February, Dr. Mennecke, did you then go to Eichberg?
A: Yes; and I took up my activity in Eichberg as director of the institution; and at the same time as I had been asked to do in Berlin. I undertook to fill out questionnaires in other institutions as well. I went to these institutions and filled out the questionnaires there. Thus I was frequently traveling first to one institution and then to another where there were questionnaires to be filled out.
Q: How, doctor, how long were you director of the asylum Eichberg?
A: I left the service as director at the end of 1942 and remained director of the institute on paper until the collapse.
Q: When you went to Eichberg in the beginning of 1940, how many patients were there in the asylum?
A: In the beginning of 1940 there were about thirteen to fourteen hundred patients in Eichberg.
Q: And questionnaires were filled out on all these patients?
A: Yes. There might have been twelve hundred; I can't say exactly.
Q: Where were these questionnaires then sent by you?
A: To the Provincial House at Wiesbaden, that is, the administrative authorities of the province, to Berlin to the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
Q: Were these questionnaires then expertized in Berlin?
A: These questionnaires were photostated in Berlin. The procedure was as follows: Three experts received photostatic copies, the same photostatic copies, and independently of each other they had to express their opinions on the individual cases. After this judgment, the photostatic copies were returned to Berlin. But the director of an institution, if he was an expert, did not receive the questionnaires of the atients of his own institution for his opinion.
Q: After the experts had passed judgment on the basis of the questionnaires, then what happened?
A: The procedure from that point on was that the top experts went into action and expressed their opinions. Whether these top experts were given the opinions of the experts I do not know.
Q: After the top experts had decided, then what happened?
A: I assume that in Berlin a list was made up of the patients who had been judged positively under the program and that arrangements were made to have these patients removed from their institutions to so-called intermediate stations and then from there they were transferred to the euthanasia institutes. From the geographical point of view around an euthanasia institution there were several institutions as so-called intermediate stations, collection institutions. They had to take in such patients, keep them a few weeks, sometimes only days, and then on the basis of lists which came from Berlin ass them on.
Q: Was Eichberg a collecting station in 1940?
A: Eichberg was arranged as a collecting point in the fall of 1940 or the spring of '41, I don't know exactly.
Q: Doctor, how many of the fourteen hundred patients that were in Eichberg in the beginning of 1940 were transferred out to an extermination station?
A: Approximately 650 or 700.
Q: Do you recall when they were sent to the eithanasia station?
A: Between January 1941, that is, from January 1941 on. I don't know how long.
Q: Do you know where they were sent?
A: To Hadamar.
Q: Did now patients come into Eichberg after these 650 to 700 patients had been sent to Hadamar?
A: Yes.
Q: Was the same procedure then followed with the remaining patients; questionnaires filled out?
A: To you mean the ones who were sent to the Eichberg institution, as new patients? About these patients who were sent there to the collection point we did not fill out any questionnaires. These patients were already subject to the program. They had already been transferred there under the program.
Q: How long did they stay in Eichberg?
A: The patients stayed about two weeks; sometimes it was three weeks; and then lists came from Berlin in which the names were given of all the patients who were to be picked up on such and such a day. The Eichberg institution was to see to it that these patients were ready.
Q: How long did this continue, Doctor?
A: It started in January, 1941. It ended, as far as I know, in August 1941.
Q: And that's the date that Hadamar shut down?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, what happened in Eichberg after Hadamar closed for the time being? Did you just continue to keep fourteen hundred or fifteen hundred patients in Eichberg until the end of the war?
A: Whether that many patients were at Eichberg until the end of the war I cannot say because I myself was not at the institution until the end of the war; but as long as I was there, this number is about right; and operations in the Eichberg institution after Hadamar was closed went on as before. That is, the patients were treated; and it was a regular institution for regular treatment.
Q: Now, you had a children's department or a clinic in Eichberg, did you not?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that in charge of Dr. Schmidt?
A: Yes.
Q: Did Dr. Schmidt put children to death there on authorization from the Reichs Committee for Hereditary and Constitutional diseases?
A: As I recently learned from the trial in Frankfurt, yes.
Q: Didn't you know that was happening while you were director of the institution?
A: I knew the purpose of the Reichs Committee out I never took any personal interest in this matter.
Q: You know approximately how many children were put to death at Eichberg?
A: According to the Frankfurt trial it was About 200.
Q: Did Schmidt also receive authorization, so-called special authorizations, with respect to adults?
A: I know nothing about that.
Q: Doctor, let's consider for a few minutes your activities as an expert in the euthanasia program. Did you receive photostatic copies of questionnaires on patients from other institutions?
A: Yes.
Q: And you passed an opinion on the basis of that questionnaire?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you tell us approximately how many questionnaires you passed on from 1940?
A: That's difficult to say. I don't remember.
Q: Were you acting as an expert in 1941, too?
A: Yes.
Q: Can't you give us some idea of the number of questionnaires which passed through your hands over that period? Would a thousand be too high?
A: A thousand is not too high.
Q: What about three thousand?
A: It might be between two and three thousand. That's possible but I cannot say for certain.
Q: Doctor, can you tell us approximately the percentage of these questionnaires on which you gave a positive judgment?
A: That varied greatly. This was in part due to the way in which the questionnaires were filled out. In many cases the questionnaires were inadequate - were not filled out completely - so that one could not form a clear medical opinion but I can say approximately, all together, that in about 35 cases I reached a positive judgment and in other cases a negative or doubtful judgment.
Q: Were you over reprimanded for giving a positive judgment on too few questionnaires?
A: Once at a conference in Berlin Mr. Brack asked me to come to his room at the end of the discussion. In a room then Mr. Brack told me that it had been noticed that my opinions were largely negative and positive ones were lacking. Then I explained to Mr. Brack that I could only act according to my medical questionnaires and according to the information given on the questionnaires. If they were not filled out properly so that one could not get a picture of the case, one could not come to a positive decision. This is now I gave Mr. Brack my answer.
Q: And you did not change your attitude as a result of this talk with Brack?
A: No, I continued to change the questionnaires as I had been doing.
Q: Now, doctor, did this questionnaire which you received on the patients have a blank for the nationality of the patient?
A: Yes.
Q: Did it also have a blank for the race of the patient?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you receive questionnaires on which you passed judgment as an expert which showed that the patient was a non-German national?
A: There were Germans among them and patients who were not Germans.
Q: Were there questionnaires also on Jews?
A: Yes, Jews were also included, but only in comparatively small numbers.
Q: Now, doctor did you ever receive orders to visit concentration camps in order to fill out questionnaires for inmates for the euthanasia program?
A: Yes, such orders were issued.
Q: When did you first receive such orders?
A: In the early summer or summer of 1940.
Q: And who gave you these orders, doctor?
A: Who that was in individual cases I cannot say. Once Professor Nietsche, Professor Heyde, Mr. Brack. It varied.
Q: Do you remember where the orders were given you?
A: That also varied. In the beginning it was orally at conferences in Berlin and later cases it was by telephone. Sometimes by letter.
Q: What were you ordered to do in the concentration camps?
A: The inmates were to be examined. That is, questionnaires were to be filled out about them, about those inmates whom the camp doctors would bring to our attention so that we filled out the questionnaires after the camp doctors had selected the inmates in question.
Q: In other words, before you arrived in the camp doctor had made a list of those eligible for transport?
A: Whether they were considered by the transport I cannot say but the selection had been made.
Q: And on these inmates presented to you by the camp doctor you made, out questionnaires?
A: Yes.
A: Did you visit the concentration camp with other doctors from the euthanasia program?
A: Generally, yes.
Q: Can you tell us some of the names of those persons who went with you to the concentration camps?
A: Professor Neitsche, Steinmeier, Falthauser, Mueller and several others whose names I can't think of at the moment or whose names I don't remember.
Q: How big were those doctors' commissions usually?
A: That also varied. It depended on the number of inmates selected by the camp doctors.
Q: Now, you state you began to go to concentration camps around the summer of 1940. How long did that activity continue on your part?
A: I was in a concentration camp for the last time in the winter of 1941 shortly before Christmas.
Q: Do you remember how many times you visited the Buchenwald concentra tion camp.
A: Twice, as far as I remember.
Q: The first time in the fall of 1940 and the second time in the fall of 1941?
A: No. The two visits were not that far apart. The first time must have been in the winter of 1940 before the end of the year and the second time in the same winter of 1941 - after the beginning of 1941.
Q: Doctor, in order to refresh your recollection on some of those points I want to show you Document NO-907 which has been introduced as Prosecution Exhibit 412. It's on page 45 of the English Document Book, your Honor. Doctor do you recognize this document?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you tell the Tribunal what it is?
A: It's a letter which I wrote to my wife. It was found in my home with other letters and documents and was confiscated. This letter is dated Weimer, 25 November 1941. Yes, I cannot doubt the date if I wrote it. Then I have to correct my testimony that I gave before. What's written in this letter must be right, so that I was in Weimar the second time in November 1941.
Q: Keep the book with you doctor. I will call your attention to it later. Keep the book with you. I will want to call your attention to some of the matters in it. Now, this letter dated 25 November 1941 represents your second visit to Buchenwald?
A: Yes.
Q: And the first visit ovvurred late in 1940?
A: That's probably right too.
Q: Doctor, did you fill out questionnaires on some inmates of the concentration camps who were non-German nationals?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you tell us what concentration camps you visited from the summer of 1940 until the end of 1941?
A: First, Oranienburg-Sachsenhansen, then Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Ravensbruck, Neuengamme. That was all.
Q: Now, Doctor, before I put my next question to you I want again to refresh your recollection. Will you turn to Page 25 of the back before you? This is Page 31 of the English Document Book, Your honors.
A: Page 25?
Q: Yes. Do you find that, doctor?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you read the letter, please?
A: That is a letter from the Reichsfuehrer SS to the camp commandant of Gross-Rosen that I would be there from the 16th to the 17th of January, '42, and would select inmates.
Q: Does the date given in this letter correspond to your recollection on the time you visited Gross-Rosen?
A: Yes, that may be right.
Q: Doctor, I want to call your attention to the reference at the top of this letter where it says "concerning our letter 14 F 13."
A: Yes.
Q: Do you find that?
A: Yes.
Q: Does that mean anything to you?
A: No. May I say something about that? I really cannot understand at all that the Reichsfuehrer SS should make such an announcement about the affairs of the program. That was not customary. This must have been an exception, this letter.
Q: Well, Doctor, don't you know that all concentration camps were under Rimmler, and that -
A: Yes, of course. But that the Reichsfuehrer SS should concern himself with the Euthanasia Program in this manner, I did not know that.
Q: Well, but Doctor wouldn't the SS, the competent office in the SS have to give advance notice that you were coming to the camp, even though you had received your orders from some one also
A: I explain this as follows; The Berlin agency of the Euthanasia Program asked the Reichsfuehrer SS to write to the camp commandant of Gross-Rosen to send this letter to him in order to justify my visit. In other cases, as far as I know, that was never done. Only in this case.
Q: Well, Doctor, didn't they usually have to give the camp management some advance notice so that the list of persons, list of inmates on whom questionnaires were to be filled out could be presented to you immediately after your arrival?
A: Yes, but such announcements to the concentration camps, as far as I understand it, always came directly from the Berlin agency of the program to the concentration camp, not through the Reichsfuehrer SS.
Q: Now, Doctor, I will ask you to turn to Page 16 of the Document Book before you. If Your Donors please, we are dealing with Prosecution Exhibit 411, which is Document1151 PS, and I an now directing his attention to Page 20 of the English Document Book.
A: Page 16?
Q: Yes.
A: That is a list.
Q: Doctor, it appears from this exhibit that this is the list which was made up in the camp before your arrival and those were the inmates which were presented to you in order for you to make your examination.
A: Yes.
Q: I will ask you to turn through this list and look at the headings above each class of inmates. Do you see the head ing "Jews in protective custody" on Page 16?
A: Yes.
Q: Turn to Page 18. Do you see "Jews who were habitual criminals?"
A: Yes.
Q: Then "Jews who were shirkers,"
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what that means?
A: Shirkers, or what do you mean?
Q: Yes. What do they mean by "Jews who were shirkers?" Do they mean they were just lazy, wouldn't work?
A: I can't answer that question. I did not think and act according to the principles of the Gestapo. I don't know.
Q: Will you turn to page 20 of the document book before you?
This is page 24 of the English Document Book, Your Honor.
Do you see "Poles in Protective Custody" on page 20, witness?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you see a notation "S.A.W."?
A: S.A.W.
Q: Do you know what that means?
A: I do not know.
Q: Will you turn to page 21? Do you see the heading "Czechs"?
A: Yes. Czechs.
Q: Will you turn to page 23? Do you see the heading "Poles in Protective Custody"?
MR. McHANEY: It is page 27, Your Honor.
A: Page 23, I see "Poles in Protective Custody".
Q: And on the next page, "Czechs in Protective Custody"?
A: Yes.
Q: Doctor, will you turn to page 27 now?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you see that list?
A: Yes.
Q: The proof shows, Doctor, that this list is the one which was sent to Bernberg in March 1942, after your visit to Gross-Rosen. In short, this list is the one constituting those inmates who were selected for Euthanasia. Doctor, by comparing the list which was made up before you arrived in the camp with this list beginning on Page 27, it is shown that of 214 inmates selected, no less than 51 of them were holes or Czechs. Do you understand that?
A: Yes.
Q: That figure of 51, non-German nationals, out of a total of 114 does not include any of the Jews who may have been of non-German nationality. I would like to put this question to you, Doctor, is this: Does this percentage of approximately 25 percent of non-German nationals selected for Euthanasia in the Gross-Rosen camp the typical and usual percentage of nonGerman nationals selected in other concentration camps?
Do you understand the question?
A: Yes. As for any typical directives of this kind, there were never any such directives. They were never observed. It is a coincidence that it happened like this in this case. The proportion was as it is.
Q: More basically, my question is, can you give us the approximate percentage of the number of non-German nationals included in the concentration camp transports?
A: I cannot give such a percentage.
A: Doctor, was the personal data of the concentration camp inmates already filled out when you arrived at the concentration camp?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that done by the camp doctor?
A: He probably ordered it. The office no doubt did it.
A: On your visits to the concentration camps, did you deal with the concentration camp doctor? Was he the authoritative person you saw?
A: I consulted with him. He told me that he had selected certain inmates. He had drawn up a list for examination. He was not always present at my work but sometimes he came in again, but we were not always together.
Q: But Doctor, you would not have been able to do your work in an expeditious manner unless inmates were presented to you when you arrived at the camp. Is that right?
A: I do not understand the question.
Q: It was necessary for you to perform your work to have these inmates sorted out and presented to you upon your arrival at the camp?
A: Yes.
A: You could not have done your job if you had to select eligible inmates from all the inmates in the camp, could you?
A: If I had had to select them, no, then I would not be able to fulfill my task.
A: Doctor, were all of the concentration camp inmates selected actually insane?
A: No.
Q: Will you explain your answer please?
A: By insanity we mean a disease which shows characteristic interferences with the mental activity which I will not describe but I will call them characteristics. That is what we mean by insanity. That condition, in the majority of cases of inmates in the concentration camps, was not true Q. Were any inmates selected only for the reason that they were unable to work?
A: That is possible.
Q: Were people selected who had diseases other than those of the mind, such as tuberculosis?
A: Yes. Such people were also included.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess for a few minutes.
(A recess was taken.)