1947-02-03, #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 Murnberg, Germany, on 3 February 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.

THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal.

Military Tribunal 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.

There will be order in the court.

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 court.

The defense may proceed.

MR. McHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, prosecution wishes to announce that in order to shorten the trial and to eliminate argument it voluntarily removes as issues in this action, the following charges contained in the indictment. Against the Defendant Karl Brandt, the Charge in paragraph, 6a concerning participation in the high-altitude experiments; against the Defendant Handloser, the Charge in paragraph 6a concerning participation in high-altitude experiments. We will have further announcements of this sort to make in the course of the next few days we expect. It is understood that the removal of these issues from the case with respect to the foregoing-defendants constitutes no admission by the prosecution that such defendants did not as a matter of fact participate in these experiments.

THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the elimination of the Charges as stated by the prosecution.

The defense may proceed.

DR. SERVATIUS (Counsel for the Defendant Karl Brandt): On behalf of the Defendant Karl Brandt, and with the permission of the Tribunal I shall call the defendant to the witness stand at once.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal grants the permission. Defendant Karl Brandt will take the witness stand.

MR. McHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, we have no objection to the defendant Brandt taking the witness stand at this time. However, I wish the record to show that the prosecution has not been advised that the Defendant Brandt would take the stand at this time and henceforth I will ask that all defense counsel comply with the rule of the Tribunal which requires that a minimum of 24 hours notice be given to the prosecution. It is to be expected that prosecution will have a few questions to put to one or the other of the witnesses to be called by the defense and we would like to have some time to consider those questions.

THE PRESIDENT: In the future the defense counsel will observe the rule and give the prosecution 24 hours notice of the calling of any witness whether a defendant or a witness.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, on Saturday the Marshal of the court asked me who the witnesses would be that I was going to call and I told him that the defendant himself would be the first to take the stand. I assumed that the prosecution too would be informed accordingly. That is how the error arose.

KARL BRANDT, a defendant, took the stand and testified as follows:

BY JUDGE SEBRING:

Hold up your right band and be sworn, repeating after me:

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SERVATIUS:

Q: Witness, state your name and when you were born.

A: My name is Karl Brandt and I was born on January 8, 1904.

Q: Will you describe to the Tribunal an element of your life until you started studying at the University.

A: First of all, in my home town at Muehlhausen I visited school and secondary school. In 1919 when Muehlhausen and Alsace had been occupied by the French I was instructed to leave and I temporarily took up residence in Thuringia, where I visited a prep school for secondary school, and the last two years until my matric I spent at Dresden in a boarding school where I passed my matriculation examination. I passed my matriculation in 1923.

Q: What did you decide to study and how did you arrive at that decision.

A: On my mother's side my family was one of doctors. So that it was a fairly obvious thing to me to study medicine. A brother of my mothers has been a pupil of the first psychologist in Zurick, Professor Borel, recently mentioned by Professor Leibbrand.

A: Where did you study until the completion of your studies?

A: First of all at Jena. I should like to point out that those days were very difficult ones for us. It was the time of inflation with all its social complications. My studies at Jena did not proceed altogether too smoothly. Since I was studying medicine and was intending to become a doctor. I was short of connections with real patients during the pre-clinical part of my studies. Just as soon as my fourth term I visited the clinical lectures and in that manner I got into touch with my later chief. Professor Magnus, who in those days was the Chief medical officer at the surgical clinic at Jena. I owe it to him that after four terms I succeeded in passing my physicum examination so that I actually arrived at the clinic prematurely. After I had passed this physicum examination, I first of all preceded to Freiburg where I continued my studies, and since even in those days I had already decided I would he a surgeon, my further studies were adjusted accordingly to this surgical teaching and I changed universities quite frequently. I went to Berlin where I studied most of all under August Bier. I went to Munich because there Professor Sauerbruch was lecturing. And finally, for the purpose of passing my State examination, I returned to Freiburg where I was during 1927 and 28, during the winter terms, to pass my examination. I immediately proceed did to pass my doctor examination so that the spring of 1928 for the conclusion of my studies at universities.

Q: Then where did you actually receive your practical instructions as a practical doctor?

A: I had previously mentioned the name Professor Magnus who at the time had been medical officer at the surgeons university clinic at Jena and in the meantime he had become chief doctor at the hospital at Bergmanns Heil at Bochum which was a large hospital with a great deal of accident surgery, accident cases. From there I went upon completion of my study and temporarily during my year of practice I also practiced at Chemnitz and at a General Hospital in Weimar. And from the beginning of 1929 I became assistant doctor at the surgeon's department at Bochum. Work in that hospital had the particular characteristic that the medical department was closely connected with the places of work where the actual accidents had occurred. As far as the coal mining industry is concerned, that and the steel industry, was leading there.

Q: Did you have any special training in any medical branch?

A: During this accident surgery, injuries to the skull played a particularly leading roll; surgery upon extremities; and, one important chapter, injuries to the spine. Perhaps I shall have to go into this more thoroughly. Every assistant doctor at the hospital at Bergmanns Heil found it his most difficult task having to take care of patients with injuries to the spine. These people were usually paralyzed in the lower organs of their bodies. And they meant to us the greatest human demands. Every one of these patients knew there was no help for him, and that his fate during a period of weeks, months, or in exceptional cases, years, would be ended. There was a tremendous neuralgic pain, never leaving the patients a moment's peace, day or nights. And, to all of us it was a great effort, again and again, having to visit these patients, having to step up to their beds, and having to say a few words of greetings, which practically were nothing other than just words. After a certain time, again and again, these patients would make the same request. "Doctor, give me an injection! I cannot stand it any more." I think that any description of this situation, however extensive it might be, would always fail to live up to reality. I did not intend, when I first went to Bochum, to remain there for good. I was intending to complete my training as a surgeon. During my period of studies I had already made contact with a man known not only in Germany, but beyond the borders of this country a doctor named Albert Schweitzer. And, I intended, once trained as a surgeon, to assist him with his work as a doctor in Lambarene, French Kongo; when, in 1932, I was ready for the carrying out of this plan it was no longer possible since a request was made that I should serve in the French army, which probably would have meant having to adopt French citizenship.

Q: So, you dropped the plan?

A: Yes, that was the reason why I abandoned that plan.

Q: So, one could say there was a national consideration?

A: Yes.

Q: Then, what did you do after your time at Bochum?

A: There was one particular interruption during the time I spent at Bochum. In 1933, more by accident than by design, I was present when a car accident occurred, during which the Fuehrer's Adjutant, Vilhelm Brueckner, suffered a severe fracture of the skull. And, a niece of Hitler's was traveling in the same car, and other passengers also being injured. At that time, I carried out immediate care on the persons, and certain surgical treatments, and by request of the Fuehrer, I spent six weeks in a small village hospital attending to Wilhelm Brueckner, as a doctor, and then in the autumn of 1933, I went back to Bochum. In 1934, in January, my chief at Bochum, Professor Magnus, was called to join the University Clinic at Berlin, meanwhile having been vacated by Professor Bier.

Q: You, yourself, were at Bochum. And, who became your chief then?

A: Professor Magnus went to Berlin, and I went to Berlin with him, and likewise, Professor Rostock to Berlin, and again he became the first assistant to the chief; so that altogether I have been with him now for 19 years.

Q: And, then until the beginning of the war, you remained in Berlin; did you not?

A: I was in Berlin, yes, until the beginning of the war. There I worked at that clinic, where I was, first of all, the head of one station. And, beginning in 1936, I think, I took charge of the accident section, and the Polyklinik which I headed. The Polyklinik had a large intake of patients, amounting to approximately 18 to 20 or 21,000 patients per annum passing through.

Q: What happened at the beginning of the war? Did the situation change at all?

A: I shall have to come back to that at a later time, showing, which after 1934, I acted as Escort Physician to Hitler; which meant, that during the period of the war I had a special task, that of Inspector of the Armed Forces, attached to the Headquarters of the Fuehrer.

Q: Did that mean your complete separation from the clinic?

A: No, I did not separate from that Clinic. I tried everything I could to remain in contact. And, later on, when I become General Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, and even as Reich Commissioner, I had my office there. I was doing my work and directing it from that clinic.

Q: Which personalities in the medical field, had influence upon you in your medical profession?

A: If I am to give you the names of my teachers once again, passing through them quickly; then, first of all the Surgeon Lexer, von Moeller, Hiss, and the general psychiatrist, Hocher and Freiburg in Munich, were the decisive personalities in my medical training.

Q: Through having met these outstanding experts, did you ever find your, self drawing toward scientific activities?

A: No; in the first place I was interested in the clinical work, and as far as scientific work was concerned it was more or less a hobby with me.

Q: Did you work on any scientific things at all?

A: Together with my chief, Prof. Magnus, I did carry out a certain amount of work, writing works about surgery on skulls, injuries of the spine; and there were certain special examinations which I carried out during inspections of choice. But it would be wrong to say that I had played any leading part at all in any scientific field.

Q: Did you carry out any laboratory work?

A: Apart from the fact that temporarily I was the head of the laboratory at the clinic, I did not carry out any laboratory work. Maybe I might and at this point that approximately in 1936 I spent some extra time working in laboratories due to the fact that an event occurred outside which influenced the situation.

May I refer you to the testimony given here recently by Prof. Leibrand, which might mean that it is important that I should go in to detail. There was a man called Von Brehmer who had appeared, Stating that he had found, the cause of cancer. Through those channels he went to Goering with this story; and Goering took this tremendous discovery to Hitler, who in turn instructed me to discuss the affair with Herr Von Brehmer. In order to give the matter scientific and expert background, we obtained my chief's permission, the permission of Prof. Magnus, to ask Brehmer to come to Berlin, where investigations carried out on his instructions produced no unanimous results, no clear-cut results, so that the idea had been and could be turned down by experts, meaning that cause or one of the causes of cancer appeared not to have been found. Then the results from Brehmer were taken under the wing of Mr. Streicher right here in Nurnberg. Streicher established patients' department, to which he gave the name Paracelsus Institute; and there one can well say in the most irresponsible manner examinations and observations were carried out. The result, however, was that the seriousness of these experiments of Brokmer's was pointed out to Hitler, this time by Streicher.

Therefore, once again I was instructed to carry out certain observations, this time here in Nurnberg, and to confirm if possible what Von Brehmer had already stated. In order to be quite sure of these observations, I brought along with me a photographer; and the findings on the cancer patients were photographed and recorder over periods of weeks. The result was absolutely negative. Although this was so, Streicher used this opportunity to make public statements without criticism, without responsible dealing with these possibilities for treatment produced by Brehmer. He was not even shamed to publish photographs which I had made. For instance, in the case of one scientific cancerous infection of the breast of a women, a photographed was taken in order to check the diseased one; but a healthy one was published in the reverse, saying that this was the cured previously diseased breast.

In that connection, of course, I had a very serious arguments with Streicher, which, as far as I was concerned, had two practical results, Firstly, the president of the police suggested to me that if possible I should avoid coming to Nurnberg, where as on the other hand I received the information from the Fuehrer never to go to Nurnberg without him, in other words only when accompanied by him. This I carried out.

In order to demonstrate how in fact this charleton business was actually progressing in Germany after 1933, then after Brohmer had discontinued his work here in Nurnberg, on the strength of the documentary evidence Himmler first of all took him under his wing I was still receiving photographs in connection with which Himmler himself was making statements in relation to the investigation of fact as to whether the person was either suffering from cancer or might have become a cancer patient.

Q: Witness, did you have any additional surgical training?

A: I have told you that in them in my training as adjutant surgeon took place mostly in Bechum. I had further surgical training in Berlin, which, as years went on, was supplemented by the fact that I was working under Geheimrat Reichel where a special method of operating on stomachs was being used. In addition to that, with an order to acquire additional knowledge of stomach surgery, I spent several months at the University Clinic of Bonn. In order also to collect experience with breast surgery, I spent several months with Sauerbruch.

Q: Just before that you had mentioned these special tasks with reference to the Brehmer-Streicher matter. Did you have any other special tasks given to you which actually fell outside your normal scene of activity?

A: The work in Berlin had the difficulties which the construction of the task from the point of view of space brought with it. It meant to us at the clinic in Berlin the task of having to plan new buildings. In 1937 I received the task at the time in collaboration with Speer, the plenipotentiary of the reconstruction of the capital, and the special task of architects of developing plans first of all only for a surgical clinic and later for the entire university clinic at Berlin. This was work which extended over a period of years and which led to the result that during the first years of the war there was a final plan concluded. I Shall give you the cost of the building so as to give you an idea about the matter. It amounted to approximately two hundred eighty million. The buildings which reached the height of the radio tower in Berlin and which could house all the students in addition to four thousand patients belonging to the various clinics, all the pre-clinical institutes were there, the pathological and anatomy institutes, and so on. Arising from this connection were building plans.

I carried out the planning for the evacuation hospitals during the war which then received the special name of special evacuation hospitals.

Q: We shall come back to that matter later. During the planning of these works in Berlin for the Clinic, did you have any other medical assistance?

A: It was necessary to carry through this building program and it was necessary to have assisting physicians. My closest collaborator was prof. Rostock. At that time Professor Rostock had become my clinical chief since Professor Magnus in the meantime had transferred to Munich. I asked Professor Rostock to give me his assistance mainly because of his organization of talent. In addition, I knew that because of the personal friendship which existed between us there could be found a special reliability. Here perhaps I may point out the personality of Professor Rostock. Every person who had any dealings with him will at first say, and the expression used in Germany would be that Rostock is a good man, and as our common teacher Magnus he had a consciously human attitude towards patients and then this attitude can be found in Rostock, and it originates from a born friendliness. With reference to the treatment of his subordinates in the clinics and the nurses or assistants, it is a fact that they, as well as the patients, respected him. He is medically absolutely reliable, and all of his activities were devoted to the benefit of the patient, and he was superb teacher for the students. The prosecution has already pointed out the respect which has to be granted to him as a scientist and rightly so. How magnificent it is may be seen from the fact that the faculty of Berlin nominated as their Dean and with that they showed very clearly and with that he became very clearly representative of all the German medical faculties.

Q: Witness, I shall now turn to your political career. When did you join the NSDAP?

A: I became a member of the National Socialist party in January, 1932.

Q: And what was the reason which load you to it?

A: For me a decisive reason was the conception of the social question. At that time I was an assistant in the Ruhr territory and every person who records these years will imagine the hopeless situation which existed at that time. There was unemployment and suffering, a very unclear prospect of the future. There was unreliability. All of this in a country of this red earth demanded something from us. From the start, because of family acquaintances, I was close the the circles of Friedrich Naumann, and arising from this connection the decision to become a member of the Party was not very difficult.

Q: Did you belong to any other medical association?

A: I became a member of the National Socialist League of Physicians, but I came into no closer connection with them. Apart from this membership, I did not attend a single meeting and it may have been an oversight on my part that I remained a member. I then joined the League of Physicians with a condition which I put in writing, that I would not exercise any active duty in any SS or SA formation. I thought it was necessary at the time, so that as a physician I would not be considered a politician by my patients who followed devious political lines.

Q: So then you exercised no activity in that association?

A: No.

Q: Well how did you come into contact with the Fuehrer in spite of that?

A: I formerly pointed out the motor car accident of Brueckner and it was in 1934 when the first meeting of Hitler and Mussolini took place in Venice, and Hitler himself needed an escort Physician then because there was the possibility of an attempted assassination. Remembering this motor car accident his Adjutant Brueckher telephoned me in Berlin and ordered me to come to Munich and I flew with him to Venice, and this event really was the beginning of my subsequent function as the escort physician of Hitler. I should like to point out the differentiation which I made between the personal physician and escort physician. The personal physician is perhaps a physician who occasionally is called in cases of illness. In my case as an escort physician I had to be in readiness, at his disposal, and whenever Hitler had to leave Berlin it was my duty to accompany him. That, of course, entailed, at any rate after the beginning of the war, that I needed two representatives for this function, one was in Berlin and the other in Munich. Otherwise, I could not have remained in Berlin at all.

Q: Were you at that time already a member of the SS?

A: In 1933 I was a member of the SA, and only after the visit to Venice, I was transferred to the SS. This was for merely external reasons. Then all persons accompanying Hitler wore SS uniforms and I had civilian clothing and in order to present a uniform picture he wanted me to wear a uniform.

Q: Where did you serve your military duties?

A: I served with the Army — it was in 1935 — at first with the Infantry Regiment. It was in Blankenburg/Hars and later after I became medical officer in the Army I served in hospitals where I served my yearly duties. I have been assigned to Berlin as a surgeon.

Q: And what activities did you exercise during the War?

A: By order of the Army Inspectorate I was assigned to the Fuehrer's Headquarters in the year of 1940 and also, because of former reasons, I was transferred to the Waffen-SS by the general SS without holding a command and also without leading a unit. Since I was still serving in the Army and Exercise thereto my promotions were approximately parallel. Usually I was first promoted by the Army. My last rank in 1943 was Generelarzt, and in accordance with that the SS promoted me.

Q: Was such a combination of activities, both in the SS and in the Army, something customary?

A: With the exception of my own case I know no other.

Q: How was your relationship to Himmler? Did you belong to his closer circle?

A: I had no personal relationship to Himmler. I pointed out before that I really had serious medical differences with him — von Bremmer and Streicher. And also during the War when a closer contact might have taken place there was certain personal tension of the circle around Hitler and the circle around Himmler.

Q: Were you always officially asked to attend Gruppenfuehrer discussions held by Himmler?

A: As I said, I had no relationship to Himmler. This also extended to the official field. I took part in none of these so-called Gruppenfuehrer or SS leaders' discussions. I was never invited to attend any one of them. Even professionally there was no contact between us. Sometimes it even went so far, and documents will probably confirm that, that Himmler consciously tried to remove me from his circle and his path and sometimes even pronounced prohibition to get into any contact with me.

Q: How was contact of the staff belonging to Hitler and Himmler? Was there a close cooperation?

A: They did not collaborate, they hardly saw one another, and even from the point of view of location were very far a apart. At several occasions the word "Guehrer Hauptquartier" is used here and one may gain the impression that it was a little camp where everyone was together. That wasn't the case at all. Himmler's Headquarters or the Institute of the OKW, the Institute of the Wehrmacht Operation Staff and the real Fuehrer Headquarters — and that was the only one that could bear that name — were very far apart, sometimes 20 to 30 kilometers apart and numbered a large amount of personnel each. I remember that at one time when we had to move from the Ukraine to another territory we had the transport something like 18,000 human beings.

Q: And how did these two staffs collaborate personally? Did you have any closer relation with Reichsarzt SS Grawitz?

A: I had no personal contact with Grawitz. He was a typical subordinate of Himmler, judging from general utterances, one who was completely devoted and subordinate. During the last part of the War in 1945 I had a few discussions with him but not in the capacity as Reichsarzt SS but as President of the Red Cross, since at that time together with the Chief of the Army Medical Service I tried to designate certain cities as hospital cities in order to keep them away from the War in that manner, and for this purpose we needed Grawitz in order to use his connection with the German Red Cross and thereby establish connections with the International Red Cross in Geneva.

Q: Then what were your political ties in your office?

A: In my office from a political point of view I was left completely alone up to the autumn of 1944, and by that I mean my office which I held ever since 1942 after I became General Commissioner for Health and Medical Services, not a single one of my co-workers, neither in my office Planning and Economy or Science and Research, was a member of the SS, not even a member of the general SS. In the Department of Planning and Economy, even up to November 1944, I had two Jewish workers out of ten secretaries I had and who came from industry, together with their section chief. I chose my collaborators only going by their professional knowledge — everything else did not matter to me.

Q: Did you then reject the SS on principle?

A: No. I never saw in the SS a gathering of men who had only met in order to commit crime, above all in the thinking of the Waffen SS. I saw in these units a lead through. And if I think of the young officers who were members of the Waffen SS who worked in Hitler's Headquarters as Ordnance Officers, then I think of these four men, three have died, and the fourth was heavily wounded. I, whenever I wear the uniform, always wear it with an idea to have a special moral obligation and I did not wear it without pride.

Q: Witness, I now come to another subject, something which we have already touched upon, namely, these special hospital institutes we have already discussed, specific task of hospital planning. Will you shortly define your attitude to that?

A: I pointed out that arising from the planning of the Berlin University Institute I had a special study of hospital buildings of the entire Germany. Before the beginning of the War I made many journeys abroad with an architect and I inspected hospital buildings and studied their organizational frame work and that needed certain knowledge of the situation of hospitals in Germany itself. before the War, and I am just giving you the round figures, we had approximately 550 to 600,000 hospital beds in Germany. And you have to take away approximately 250,000 and 250,000 belonged to General Hospitals, that is to say, general hospitals, surgical clinics, etc. The same amount, that is approximately 250,000 beds up to approximately 300,000 comprised the mental institutes. Beds for tuberculosis cases — we only had 27,000 beds in spite of the large number of tuberculosis illnesses. This was a bad situation which probably now has become much worse. There were certain centers of gravity in this hospital concern which were mainly at points where industry was concentrated, that is, in the Ruhr territory and central Germany. In consequence there was a lack of hospital space in these territories and it was especially serious there. In the year 1941 the first English air raid took place on the town of Emden. At that time the entire hospital was destroyed. Dr. Todt who was carrying out the repair work and the rebuilding as far as possible and who was supposed to be in charge of that work came to the Fuehrer's Headquarters with a demand that a new hospital be built in Emden.

On the same day when making this demand I was assigned by the Headquarters to designate evacuation hospitals for other cities which were in danger. These plans, which in the beginning were comparatively small, extended in the subsequent years, that is up to 1942-43, and from this whole question there developed even later after Todt had died.

Then, in connection with Speer and his department, Building, there developed the task of the building of the special Hospital Institution Action Brandt. Up to the year of 1944 approximately 30 institutions which at that time had operated, were being used. In every case there were complete hospitals with 500 beds each which were built according to a system of villas and were located approximately 20 kilometers outside the limits of the city in danger. Starting from the year of 1943, these hospitals had to accept mainly such patients whose treatment would probably last for some considerable time, in order to use the space inside these cities in danger for patients where illness was only anticipated for a short time.

In this connection I should like to point out that it was necessary to start a special transport system of the sick which was intended for these hospital institutions which were all under my administration. These were busses and trucks which were rebuilt in accordance with its purpose and which had on their outside the designation Hospital Institution Action Brandt. There wasn't one of our destroyed cities where these busses were not used — these busses for the sick — and it frequently occurred that they not only collected sick people and injured people who were effected by the last raid, but they also had to take care of evacuating other people, I assume that this was submitted here, I think it was in the form of an affidavit by Weser, where the question of general sick transportation came up.

Q: Witness, this was a special assignment belonging to the building system which you received for the institution of these special hospitals. Did you administrate this work from the Fuehrer Headquarters and did this take up much of your time?

A: I exercised this activity, which at first was a planning activity, certainly up until the year of 1942, and I directed it from the Fuehrer Headquarters since I was tied to that Headquarters. It was only in the year of 1942, in the summer, when I took over the Office of the Commissioner General, that I received a representative so that I was in a position to move about more freely. In addition, the situation was that the Fuehrer himself currently wanted to be informed about these building operations. It was a hobby on his part to build and the building of hospitals and bunkers was really a thing which played an essential role during the last years of the war.

Q: Did these assignments extend to other fields?

A: Later, certain connections began with the entire air raid precaution medical program, which really had more to do with the defense against poison gas, but still established a certain connection with hospitals.

Q: Was this poison gas decree in any relation to the assignment to the hospitals?

A: No.

Q: And that took place in the year of 1943 — 1944 and that was the situation as it was then. At that time you had already become the Reich Commissioner General for Health and Medical Services?

A: I became Reich Commissioner for Health and Medical Services through a Fuehrer Decree of July 1942.

THE PRESIDENT: At this time the Tribunal will recess.

(A recess was taken.)