1947-05-12, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, as Becker-Freyseng's counsel I request that for the purposes of preparing his case that Becker-Freyseng be excused from attending the session this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: On request of counsel for defendant Becker-Freyseng the defendant Freyseng may be excused from attendance before the Tribunal this afternoon. I understand that Becker-Freyseng's case will be called following the case of the defendant Brack. I do not know when the defendant Brack's case will be closed, but defendant Becker-Freyseng may be excused this afternoon.
MR. HARDY: I understand, Your Honor, that defendant Brack —
(German coming through the microphone as well as English, not understood.)
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Becker-Freyseng may be excused before the Tribunal this afternoon, and did counsel ask for tomorrow afternoon also or tomorrow all day?
DR. MARX: Mr. President, I asked also for tomorrow afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Becker-Freyseng may also be excused from attendance before the Tribunal tomorrow afternoon on request of his counsel in order to consult with the defendant in preparation of his case.
HERMANN PFANNMUELLER — Resumed
CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued)
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Br. Pfannmueller, during the recess I presented the photostatic copy of the document No. 1313 — which is found on page 4 of the English Document Book No. 17, Your Honor. After reading that copy does that bring any other thoughts to your mind, Dr. Pfannmueller?
A: No, I see now that the copy of the document corresponds with the photostatic copy, and I see that handwritten remark at the bottom is mine, however, I can not recall that any agreements were made on the basis of this letter. Not at all so. Perhaps this letter was written after the Gutachter conference, or something, I don't know.
Q: Well, then is that your initial on the document, Doctor?
A: Yes. Yes.
Q: Well, now in connection with this document is the writer of the letter referring to your work in connection with the Reich Committee, that is the children, the children patients in this institution?
A: That I don't know any longer. But it could be that he was to be used as a psychiatric expert or something of that sort, but I don't remember any more with the best will in the world.
Q: Well, now, Dr. Pfannmueller, that is all the questions I have on that document. Will you please return it to the page? Now, when you were ordered to fill out questionnaires on each one of the patients in your Institute did such order require you to fill out a questionnaire on each and every last patient or only the patients which you deemed to be incurable?
A: I don't know that for sure any longer, but I do know that in the course of the transports there was a registration required of all the inmates in the institution on the basis of the questionnaire. Then there was some directive by the Reich Minister of the Interior according to which these questionnaires should be filled out whenever new arrivals came.
Q: Well, now, Dr. Pfannmueller, after you completed these questionnaires and they were sent to Berlin, then transports were arranged at your institute and said transports took patients to other homes, is that correct?
A: Yes, those were questionnaires.
Q: Well, now where did you receive patients from, did the patients also come to your institute from other institutes?
A: Beds that became free in my institute in consequence of the transports were again occupied by patients coming from Bavarian nursing homes, and as far as I know Nussberg might have been among it. These beds were transferred to my institute. That was on the order, I believe, of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, I no longer know exactly whose order it was.
Q: Now, how many Jewish inmates did you have there; you had a considerable number of Jewish inmates?
A: I don't know now, how many Jewish patients I had, but there is a Document that I read here — just a moment.
Q: That is in Document Book No. 17, Dr. Pfannmueller cage 6, No. 1310.
A: Just a moment, please. I don't have it here. I am sorry, Page 91?
Q: Doctor maybe I can help you. I have one Document here, which I wish to refer and this may help us. Now if you will kindly read that over once, then I have some questions to put to you. This is Document No. 1310 in Document Book 17, Page 6.
(The Document is handed to the witness.)
Now, Doctor, this letter states under the subject
Transfer of Mentally Ill Jews — Re: Ministerial Decision of 4 September 1940, No. 5236 a 44
can you enlighten us as to the Ministerial Decision that you received?
A: That was the consequence of the Ministerial Decision, the transfer of Jews from my institute to a Jewish institution. I believe, there were about fifty Jewish patients who were in my own institute.
Q: Do you recall, Dr. Pfannmueller, just what this Ministerial Decision said; did you receive an order, a printed order, and do you recall the contents of the decision?
A: This Ministerial-Decision said that all Jewish patients in Bavarian Mental institutes were to be taken into my institution, where they were to be treated and cared for until on orders of the Ministry they were again fetched away. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior would turn these people over to me and then the Jewish patients in Bavarian institutes were to be transferred to Jewish institutes.
Q: How many Jewish patients were sent to you as a result of this decision?
A: This decision had nothing at all to do with Euthanasia.
Q: No, I am not referring to Euthanasia. I am merely trying to clarify the transfer of the Jewish patients were sent to your institute as a result of this order, just fifty or more; do you recall?
A: Those that were sent to my institute from elsewhere?
Q: Yes.
A: There was more than that, there was more than one hundred. I cannot tell you the exact number, but there were more than one hundred. It was all the Jewish patients from all Bavarian institutions, which were transferred to me and were put in a separate building.
Q: Now where did they go after having been received by you; do you know whether they were sent to Lublin, Poland?
A: I cannot tell you that for sure. I know only one thing, I was told to surrender these Jewish patients again because they were taken to a Jewish collective institute. This was to be done on directions from Berlin, it was said they were to be sent to Jewish institutes in Poland. That was never told to me officially by the Ministry, but I asked a man in charge of a transport, where he was going and that is what he told me. They were going to a Jewish institution in Poland. Whether the word Lublin was mentioned, then or later I heard the name Lublin, that I do not know.
Q: Now you say that at that time that is how the name Poland became known to you and later you understood they were transferred to Lublin; when you refer to later, do you mean now or much later; just what do you mean?
A: I mean by that when inquires regarding Jewish patients were made as to where the patients were. Now once when I was in Berlin, I was told that they were sent to a Polish institute and I think that was Lublin. Unless the man in charge of the transport lied.
Q: Well now, were you required to fill out questionnaires on these Jewish patients that passed through your institute?
A: No.
Q: Dr. Pfannmueller, it is my understanding, according to the evidence here and according to a chart drawn by Viktor Brack, later you were made an expert and it was your function to expertise questionnaires from other institutes. And I imagine that the reason for your being an expert was, because of your years of practical experience in your institute, I would like to know just how you happened to become an expert; who requested you to take that position and what your functions were as an expert to expertise these questionnaires sent to you by Professor Heyde or one of the other top experts; do you understand what I am talking about, Doctor?
A: Yes, I get the rough idea. The Reich Ministry of the Interior wrote me personally asking me an expert within the framework of them and this fell to the Reichs Working Union. Then I was set up as an expert, as I said, upon what the basis was decided at the experts conference in Berlin.
I only received a photostatic copy from the various institutes. Plus or minus, all questionnaires were marked by me, but only as a preliminary expert. I think there were three or four preliminary experts, then it went to a file expert in Berlin. Now what the decision was there was not my concern, so I don't know about it.
Q: Well, now you received these questionnaires from other institutions, what were you instructed by higher authorities in Berlin to do with the questionnaires?
A: I was to expertise on the Medical questions that were to be found in the questionnaire. In other words, to make a note in the left lower corner whether I thought that this case was one that should be transferred to a land nursing, home or not. I simply had to judge in the preliminary procedure from the medical psychiatric point of view and to put my observations down.
Q: Well now if you decided they should be transferred to a nursing home—?
A: I had nothing to do with that and I had nothing to do with the transfer of these people, not the slightest. I simply had to make the preliminary expert judgment, whether the case should be transferred or not, or were amenable for transfer, was decided on the basis of my expert opinion. It was not my concern.
Q: Well now what recommendations could you make; could you make one, two, three or four different recommendations on each questionnaire submitted to you?
A: Of course.
Q: Well, now suppose —
A: I had many doubtful cases.
Q: If you received a questionnaire regarding the case of a person who was incurable and the questionnaire completed outlined the conditions attending the patient and you decided upon reading the questionnaire that this particular patient was permanently incurable; what suggestions or recommendations could you make?
A: If he was incurable?
Q: Yes.
A: In my opinion?
Q: Yes.
A: Then I could put down that he was a positive case for transfer either plus or minus was written on the lower left hand corner, no case history was written or any personal examination. I made my judgment on the basis of my opinion of the questionnaire. According to my impression.
Q: When you gave, say, for instance, an opinion, and your diagnosis was that this was a plus case, did you have knowledge as to whether or not that patient, if decided by the top expert and the other experts that it was a plus case, did you have knowledge as to whether or not that patient would be given the privilege of a mercy death?
A: No, I didn't know that, because the final decision rested with the doctor at the institution to which the patient was sent. I found out that patients from my institution who had expert opinions expressed on them by other preliminary experts later died. That I did find out.
Q: Well, did you know at all whether or not a questionnaire which went through all the experts and the top expert and was classified as a plus case, that patient would be accorded a mercy death?
A: No, that was outside my competence. I did not know. I did not decide that.
Q: What I am trying to find out, Doctor, is when you perused and studied one of these questionnaires and you were ordered by Berlin to make recommendations and you had three recommendations to make — plus, minus, and so forth — and you recommended that this particular patient was a plus case, what effect would your recommendation have? Were you informed as to what effect it would have?
A: No, I simply received orders to act as a preliminary expert and to express my medical and psychiatric opinion on the condition of the case which was then to be sent by authorities with whom I had nothing to do, to a nursing home. I had nothing to do with these other things.
Q: Now, when you were finally commissioned by Berlin as a expert, were you told by the top authorities in Berlin or did you have reason to believe that you were acting as an expert within the framework of the so called euthanasia program?
A: That I was working within the framework of the euthanasia program? That is probably what resulted from the whole affair, but directly within the framework of the euthanasia program I did not work. I worked simply as a medical specialist. As I said, I had no effect or influence on the out come of what I happened to do as a medical expert just as any medical expert appearing in a case before a court.
Q: Now, Dr. Pfannmueller, did you have a Dr. Schmidtmann in your institute as your deputy?
A: Yes. He was my first chief physician.
Q: How long did he work as your deputy? Do you recall?
A: From the moment that I was called to the institute at Eglfing-Haar as a director — that was February 1938 — until I was taken away on 1st of May 1945.
Q: Well, now, did you, after you assumed these new duties as an expert to expertise questionnaires of other institutions, did you then have another deputy, or were you able to carry on both your work at the institute as well as your expert work?
A: I did not have a deputy as an expert. I had been personally appointed as an expert. Consequently, I could not have any one else do this same work, and I did not try to. At the beginning I was very overburdened in my work, and the activities as an expert I took care of first because I thought that this was an honorary appointment. I filled out the questionnaires alone. I worked on the photostat copies alone.
Q: How long did it take you to expertise each questionnaire?
A: That question was asked me in Frankfurt. It cannot be answered just off the cuff. Only an expert or a physician can answer that question. If I am working on such a questionnaire and if I have experience in working on such questionnaires, I can under some conditions take care of the questionnaire relatively rapidly according to psychiatric-medical questions. Some of them I get done soon; others I don't get done at all.
DR. FROESCHMANN: Mr. President, I object. The witness has gone into these matters in direct examination at great length. I do not understand why the matter has to be ventilated again. Consequently, I object to the series of questions now being put to the witness.
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, just as Defense Counsel said, these questions were taken up very elaborately in direct examination, and it is my understanding that the purpose of cross examination is for the Prosecution or the cross examiner to go over the material taken up in direct.
I can't go outside the material that was taken up in the direct.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection will be overruled.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: After you had received those new duties as an expert, did that require all your time? Were you able to still devote some of your time to duties as director of the institute?
A: The fact that I was delivering expert opinions did not obligate me to give up my activity as director of the institution. I used every free minute to work on these questionnaires. Usually in the morning I did my regular duties at the institution, and then at night, often until midnight or one o'clock in the morning, I worked on the photostats of these questionnaires. I did not take off any Saturday or Sunday. Even on Sunday afternoon, instead of taking a walk with my wife and children, I sat and worked until late at night.
Q: Well, Doctor, how many hours a day did you work as an expert; can you estimate?
A: No, I can't tell you that. I don't know. I did not keep an eye on the clock, and this business of delivering expert opinions. I emphasize again, is not a matter of time but a matter of the content of the questionnaire. Sometimes I can look at a questionnaire for half an hour without being able to make anything out of it. I also went through every questionnaire twice, and between looking at it for the first and second time, I let a lapse of time of at least a morning or an afternoon take place before the questionnaire finally went out.
Q: Now, Doctor, will you kindly turn to Document NO 1129, which is Prosecution Exhibit 354. I'll send a copy up to you to make it easier for you. This is in Document Book 14, Part 2.
THE PRESIDENT: What page is it on?
MR. HARDY: It is to be found on page 179, Your Honor.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: It will perhaps be easier for you to follow me, witness, if I pass you up the photostatic copies of this document.
A: I'll take your word for it.
Q: The first page of this document is a letter from you to the Reich Association of Hospitals and Nursing Establishments, Berlin, to the attention of Professor Heyde. Exhibit 354.
I might inform the interpreters that for the next two or three days we'll be taking up the problem of euthanasia while the defendant Brack is presenting his case, and it may well be that we'll discuss Document Book 14, Part 1; Document Book 14, Part 2; Document Book 14, Part 3, and Document Books 15, 16, and 17.
Q: Now, this first letter in these series of letters refers to a letter of 12 November wherein Heyde sent to you 300 questionnaires for your expert opinion. Now, he apparently sent those on the 12 November and you are returning them on the 19 November. Then you will see the next letter, Dr. Pfannmueller, is 22 November wherein you are returning 258 questionnaires and the third letter is the 23 November and you are returning 300 questionnaires. The fourth letter is the 26 November and you are returning 300 more questionnaires. And, so on through this entire list you are returning these questionnaires which you have given an opinion on up to the date of 1 December 1940. And then you jump to 13 April 1941. But, up to 1 December 1940, that is from the 12 November, this document indicates that you had between those dates the opportunity to expertise 2058 questionnaires. Now, what I am anxious to know, is how long it would have taken you, as I asked you before, to evaluate one questionnaire because it is obvious from this document, Doctor, that from the period from 12 November to, we will say, the 17 December you had the opportunity to expertise and did expertise 2058 questionnaires. Now, if you had been working ten hours a day on questionnaires you would have been able to do about 121 questionnaires per day, that is, if you took five minutes on each questionnaire — now, would that be a true picture?
A: I don't understand your final question.
Q: Would that be a true picture — what I am presenting to you for your consideration — the length of time?
A: No. I, as a doctor I regret I cannot follow this legalistic trend of thought. From these numbers it cannot be seen at all what would be expertised, where and what the cases were. At the beginning it could have been cases that could have been easily expertised easily and rapidly. These numbers may include lots of cases that I never worked on at all. I could have sent the whole batch back without working on them and I ask your pardon but here I am a doctor confronted with a lawyer and our points of view are completely divergent. You cannot calculate the length of time in working on these questionnaires.
In German law, that is penal procedure, you can find questionnaires that are as long as six weeks in questionable cases that come up before the Court. And after six weeks you can from those come to a conclusion and, if this actually comes to me I would then ask again for several weeks more to expertise this particular case. Sometimes, on the other hand, it takes eight to ten days to expertise questionnaires. As I say, it all depends on the contents of the questionnaire. As I said before, we simply aren't talking the same language. I regret that.
Q: Well, now, Doctor, what I am trying to ascertain from this document is whether or not you expertised over 2000 questionnaires during this period of time. It appears to me quite obvious that from the 12 November to the 1st of December you had the opportunity to expertise over 2000 questionnaires and in fact you state in your letters in each instance that you are returning to Heyde a certain number of questionnaires which you have already examined. Now, then, if during a period from 12 November, that is the first date when these questionnaires were shipped to you from Berlin, and I presume it took a day or two for the questionnaires to get to your institute, from that date to 1 December, which is approximately 20 days, now in that period of 20 days it seems evident to me here that you had the opportunity to expertise over 2000 questionnaires. Now, can' t you see how important it is to a layman like myself and the Tribunal to have you explain to us just what length of time is necessary for a psychiatrist, and a man with your experience, to study one of these questionnaires in order to determine whether or not this should be a plus case or a minus case. Do you understand the import of my questioning, the reason for it, now?
A: I already told you repeatedly — I can't lay down an average length of time to work on any one questionnaire and I don't understand your mathematics here because I had to concern myself with the contents of the questionnaire.
Q: Now, Doctor, let us go to the question of children — the Reich Committee. Now, when did you first receive information and when did you just first become familiar with the Reich Committee for Hereditary and Constitutionally Severe Diseases?
A: That must have been around April 1941. I see that from Document Book 17; page 7. This is the outline of the duties for the nurses in nursing homes. I can't tell you the precise date when it was. It was after a meeting in the Ministry of Interior when I was told to establish a branch of this Reich Committee in my institute.
Q: Well, now was it your opinion —
A: Please?
Q: Was it your opinion that the Reich Committee for Hereditary and Constitutionally Severe Diseases was linked up in any manner with the Euthanasia program?
A: No. I repudiate any connection between the Euthanasia Program and the Reich Committee. The two things had nothing to do with each other nor do I know of any intermediate connection with the Reich Working Union. The Reich Ministry of the Interior was the office that determined to what extent the Reich Committee as such; what it was to be composed of. I don't know. That Euthanasia had anything to do with that I know nothing about. I know a couple of doctors there but whether they had anything to do with that I don't know.
Q: Did you ever hear the name Viktor Brack associated with the Reich Committee for Hereditary and Constitutionally Severe Diseases?
A: No, I know that for sure.
Q: Why I ask you that; doctor; in Document NO-253, which is a chart drawn by the defendant Viktor Brack he stated therein:
I, Viktor Hermann Brack, having been duly sworn hereby declare that I was Oberdienstleiter, Chief of Department 2 in the Chancellery of the leader of the National Socialist Party, headed by Reichsleiter [Reich Leader] Philipp Bouhler. In this office I knew exactly all and was entrusted with the organization's Euthanasia program, and the Reich Committee for Hereditary and Constitutionally 12 Severe Diseases.
And in parentheses:
approval for operations on newly born babies not worthy of life indicated in red spotted line on the chart.
And he further states:
I have carefully studied this plan, etc.
Now, the defendant Brack has outlined in this chart that his organization by the dotted lines was associated with the Reich Committee for Constitutionally Severe Disease and this action with the children. Well, now I am interested in knowing whether or not you had the occasion to have learned of Viktor Brack's association with this program, that is, with the program of the Reich Committee in as much as I recall that you mentioned the name Dr. Hefelmann and on this chart drawn by Viktor Brack he indicates Dr. Hefelmann to be the head of a division under the Chancellery of the Fuehrer. Do you understand what I am pointing out, Doctor?
A: I don't know that document that you have there before you nor do I know what Brack's testimony was, but as to whether I ever knew that Dr. Brack was active in the Reich Committee is something that is entirely unknown to me, absolutely unknown. The name was never named to me in that connection.
Q: Doctor, would you kindly look over that chart which was drawn by the Defendant Brack, and you will see the dotted lines around the blocks wherein his name is contained, and the names of Bouhler, Hefelmann, etc., and that dotted line continues over the top of the chart over to Karl Brandt's and through to Linden, the Ministry of the Interior, and then the outside blocks on the extreme left-hand side of the chart give the organizational set-up of the Reich Committee. Now, this was drawn for us by the Defendant Brack himself, and you will notice the oath by the Defendant Brack in German in the left-hand corner. Now, will you kindly study that and see whether or not this refreshes your recollection to any extent?
A: I never saw this chart before. I only know that the Reich Committee had something to do with the Reich Ministry of the Interior. I see these lines that show that connection, but I never saw this organizational set-up before. I am always under the impression that you believe I took part in organizing these things. I had nothing to do with all these matters.
Q: Well now, did you associate the name Hefelmann with the Reich Committee, or did I misunderstand you earlier today?
A: No. Hefelmann I associated with the Reich Committee, but I don't know anything about his activities in the Reich Working Union. I don't know what his functions were.
I simply know that Hefelmann — that is, this is my opinion — I believe he was in the Reich Committee at the beginning and signed for it, but I don't know.
Q: Thank you. Now, Doctor, in April, 1941, you first heard of this Reich Committee. Now, when did the enterprise develop?
A: Probably that is when I heard about it, yes.
Q: When did the enterprise develop to the extent that the authorities in Berlin, that is the state through the Ministry of Interior, granted the permission that children suffering an incurable disease, children deemed to be in such a condition, that it would be only worthy to accord them a mercy death? When did that start to function, that is the actual according of mercy deaths to children in this category?
A: That was a conference. I received from the Reich Committee, which I never heard of before, knowledge of a conference in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. I was asked to attend this conference. That was in the Ministry of the Interior under the chairmanship of Ministerial Director Schulze, as far as I can recall, and I believe also the deputy of the President of the Upper Bavarian District Association was there. At any rate I was called to this conference. There were present besides those two I just mentioned, well, maybe Von Hegener was there, or Hefelmann, one of these two anyway, I don't know, and Dr. Wenzler. I know that Dr. Wenzler, who was a member of the Board of Directors of the Union of Hospitals for Sick Children, was told by the Reich Committee to take care of the registration of all these sick children. First of all such a station was to be set up in the Children’s Clinic in Munich. This, I believe, was turned down because of lack of space and because they had enough work to do there anyway.
Then they hit on the idea that not only surgical cases of physical deformation were involved but also because mental cases were involved, as I say, they hit on the idea of setting up a department in the children's house at Eglfing-Haar at the expense of the Reich Committee, and this department was to take care of these children. I made space available, and I was given a doctor by the Children's Clinic. I had to send, this doctor to Berlin and he came back with authorization as to just what measures were to be used and things were to be done, like the term of observation or the details about the treatment, all sorts of things, what the vitamin treatment was to be, what the operative treatment was to be, what sort of occupational therapy was to be used, and so forth. These cases were those where the child could be expected to live only for a very short length of time, and it was those who were to be put to sleep somehow.
Q: You mentioned the name Von Hegener. Could you spell that for the record, please?
A: H-a-e-g— H-e-g-e-n-e-r, Von Hegener.
Q: Von Hegener played a big role in this Reich Committee, did he?
A: That I don't know. I only know that he sent me the authorization.
Q: On Friday you stated that after this Reich Committee was established and state authority was granted of given for this purpose that in your institute you had several children who you deemed to be in such a condition that they should be accorded a mercy death. Now, how many such children did you doom to be in that condition in your own institute?
A: That I can not tell you. Children from the institutions and nursing home at Neu-Oetting, Schoenbrunn, etc., all of these children I took over along with the nurses. Now, how many of them were fit I don't know, but the great majority of them were terribly ill. I have never seen children as sick as all that, but just how many there were, that I am sorry I can not tell you.
Q: Can you tell us, Doctor, this is of considerable interest to me, as to what form would the euthanasia take, that is, how would you be able to accord these children a mercy death without too much suffering, etc.? What did you use? Were there certain requirements outlined by the state and the Reich Committee, or was that left up to the discretion of each doctor? Can you enlighten us on that, Doctor?
A: That was left to the discretion of the physician himself obviously. The doctor who came from Berlin certainly had a policy laid down by Berlin, and in my institution luminal was used, I believe. I believe I once said veronal was given but this is wrong, it was only luminal.
Q: How much luminal would be required to accord one of these terribly sick persons a mercy death?
A: Please?
Q: How much luminal would it require?
A: The situation here is exactly as with the question of time involved, it varied greatly. A hydrocephalic can take dose after dose of luminal. The maximum daily dose as set down by law, that dose was, under certain circumstances, not sufficient, and, on the other hand, it could happen in the case of an idiot with a stronger developed heart activity, he is capable of taking more than that dose of luminal.
You just have to give the child enough luminal so that after a few days he just quietly goes to sleep, and I must emphasize this is not a matter of poisoning. The child simply dies of a certain congestion in the lungs, it does not die of poisoning as I said once before, and an interference with circulation in the lungs. I have seen this work myself, and if there is anything such as putting a person to sleep gently then this is certainly it to accord a mercy death.
Q: Now, do you have to apply more luminal to a person that is older? For instance, would it require more luminal with a person one year of age or ten years of age, or is that a factor at all, Doctor?
A: The maximum doses are arranged according to age. It is prescribed that for children up to a certain age we give a dose of luminal which is one-third as small as in the case of adults. These doses are prescribed these maximum doses and vary greatly and are always being revised.
Q: Well now, these children in your institute that were in such a dreadful condition, did you use your own discretion as to whether or not they should be given luminal or did you have to fill out a questionnaire and have that sent to the Ministry, or was it solely up to yourself?
A: The questionnaires had nothing to do with giving the child luminal and putting it to sleep.
Q: No, I am trying to determine whether or not questionnaires were also used by the Reich Committee as well as by the euthanasia program. I am not confusing the two, Doctor. I am merely attempting to find out whether or not a child could be given luminal so as to relieve him from his pain by merely the decision of yourself or another physician of mother institute, or was it necessary to have the opinion of some other psychiatrist or expert?
A: The way things worked was quite different. I did not make the final decision. The child was sent, or was announced in Berlin through the questionnaire, then as I found out these questionnaires were worked on by experts. I don't know how many nor who they were, I only know that Dr. Wenzler was one of these final experts, and what the procedure of expertising was in detail I do not know. I did not have anything to do with it. Then on the basis of the questionnaire a decision was made in Berlin and an authorization was sent back to the institute saying that within the framework of the directives of the Reich Committee the child should be accorded the treatment and then the child was treated accordingly. Despite this authorization from higher up I could still, if I was of a different opinion, namely that the child was not a case for treatment, or to be more exact, a case to be put to sleep, I could nevertheless if such was the case still refuse to follow the authorization and send the questionnaire back. Then after watching and observing the child for a long time with special personnel, two nurses, and then I had the child continually observed by my pediatrician and ascertain exactly what the case is, that the case histories were worked out most meticulously, because there also was a scientific purpose in the procedure, particularly in the case of our feeble mindedness and exogenous and indigenous problems and we discussed this case with all the personnel concerning once more, then finally I could together with my pediatrician, say now "the case can be treated," and then the date for the treatment was determined on. Then I received notice when the treatment began and the relatives were informed not about the treatment, but that they should visit the child.
Q: Now, when the children were set aside for euthanasia did you then?
A: Please?
Q: When you decided that children should be subjected to euthanasia to relieve them from their suffering, did you then notify the parents or guardian of the children concerned?
A: Yes, they were told ahead of time by my departmental physician.
Q: They were told before you applied the euthanasia?
A: Oh, yes. We told the relatives that it would be expedient to visit the child because the child was sick and the relatives did come. In the beginning of luminal treatment the child wakes up from time to time until the final cumulative effect of luminal sets in.
Q: Did you instruct the parents and guardian that you were going to administer luminal treatment to the child?
A: No, no, that was a top secret matter.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions to the witness, Your Honor.
DR. PELKMANN: Mr. President, before this session is recessed may I request that Dr. Schaeffer be excused from attending the session this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, since he is not concerned in the matter now under discussion, for the preparation of his case.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, you are attorney for defendant Schaeffer and you desire to consult with him this afternoon concerning the preparation of his case?
DR. PELKMANN: And tomorrow also, please.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Schaeffer's case will soon be called for trial. Upon request of his counsel defendant Schaeffer will be excused from attendance before the Tribunal this afternoon and tomorrow morning, in order that his counsel may consult with him for the preparation of his case.
Before proceeding with the further examination of this witness I would ask counsel for defendant Brack if he desires to examine this witness any further?
DR. FROESCHMANN: Mr. President, I had intended to conduct a rather extensive redirect examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Before opening the redirect the Tribunal will take a noon recess, and will recess until 1:30.
(Thereupon the noon recess was taken.)