1947-07-19, #10: Doctors' Trial (Rudolf Brandt's personal statement)

THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.

The Tribunal is again in session.

THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Rudolf Brandt.

DEFENDANT RUDOLF BRANDT: Now, after this trial has reached its final stage, my conscience is confronted with the question of whether I consider myself guilty or innocent. My responsibility, in my opinion, is to be tested by a three-fold question.

First, did I participate in the experiments directly and actively?

Second, did I at least have any knowledge of the criminal character of the experiments on human beings?

Third, what, if I had known, should have been my attitude towards Himmler?

What my basic opinion is of crimes against humanity I did not only declare myself on the witness stand but this has also been testified to by a very competent foreign witness, a Swedish medical counsellor, Felix Koersten.

Before this Tribunal and in the full knowledge of what I say I confess that I abhor — and did abhor — any crime against humanity in the years past and during my activity as a so-called personal referent of Himmler. But I also frankly declare that perhaps during the course of these last years my way of thinking was not always as present in my conscious mind as it is today. But I never participated in a crime against humanity knowingly, intentionally, or with premeditation.

When passing on the letters, orders, etc. which Himmler issued to third persons, and the result of which was the commission of cruelties on human beings, I am confident that from the evidence and from the content of the various defense affidavits the Tribunal will be convinced that that also corresponds to the truth, that my real sphere of power did in no way correspond to the face value of my official position. My real sphere of power was extremely small. It did not exceed that of a well-paid stenographer in the office of an influential man in Germany. If the Tribunal were to start from this fact, it would approach reality much closer than the prosecution did in its indictment.

I got into contact with Himmler when I was a young, immature man who came from a family in modest circumstances. Nothing else but my ability as a stenographer, which I had obtained through my industry, was the reason for that, and this was my position until the last days of the German collapse, in spite of promotions in rank. At that time I was only too glad to get that job because it enabled me to support my parents with money.

When I started work with Himmler, I got, without intermediate stages, into an agency, the chief of which was to combine, among other functions, the highest executive powers in his hands a short time afterwards.

I am convinced that I would not sit here under a grave indictment if I had had the opportunity to continue my education, if I had made a start in a subordinate agency, and had risen little by little into a higher position. Unfortunately, I have always been a lone wolf as long as I lived, and I never was fortunate enough to have an older friend who could have corrected my political inexperience and my gullibility.

If, however, through all those years, I represented Himmler's ideology, I did so only because I did not know the criminal part of Himmler's character. Since I lived, so to speak, divorced from the world around me and was only devoted to my more than plentiful work, I only learned after the collapse what stupendous crimes are to be booked on Himmler's account.

The evidence has shown that I neither knew a concentration camp nor had anything to do with concentration camps in my official capacity; nor had any influence on the system of the concentration camps, their administration and management, nor on the treatment of prisoners. For this reason I didn't know the measure of the tragedies which were enacted there.

Those matters, into which I had sufficient insight during my restless daily activities to permit me to distinguish between good and evil, were on a plane where they need not shun the light of sun.

I do not deny that some of the documents submitted here by the prosecution went through my hands, but I do deny — and I pray the Tribunal may believe me — that I knew the contents of the documents, particularly the reports and therefore the essential core of the human experiments.

I know that appearances are against me. Only these external appearances led the prosecution to indict me in this trial and to pass their comment on me during their closing speech, without penetrating to the bottom of matters. This way they arrived at a completely wrong appraisal which does not correspond to the facts and overrates my position and my activities.

These appearances which speak against me will be dispelled as soon as my real position will be considered in which I found myself as so-called personal referent of Himmler for many years. On the witness stand I testified to the truth, which has been confirmed by witnesses who knew the real facts from their own experience.

It does not run counter experience that among thousands of incoming and outgoing items of mail — that is, hundreds of thousands during the course of the years — there should be an insignificantly small number of documents which a personal referent passes on to third persons without knowing their contents more closely. The more so if they concern matters which have nothing to do with the normal duties of the personal referent.

I believe that an American tribunal will know how to appraise the foregoing, though I am rather afraid that the situation as it existed in Germany during the years before the collapse and prevailed in high government agencies will never really be brought home to American judges.

Therefore, I deny to myself to discuss again my position at that time and the ignorance of criminal experiments on human beings which was the consequence thereof. In this respect I agree with my defense counsel. Neither need I fear Professor Ivy's statement who declared that even a layman must be outraged by reading the reports of Rascher, because the fact that the layman has read the passages of the reports where from the obvious violation of human dignity is evident was, as a matter of fact, the natural prerequisite for Professor Ivy's opinion, and that prerequisite did not exist in my case.

In accordance with the truth I repeat what I have said in the witness stand, that I had a general knowledge of experiments on human beings. I can no longer say when and on what particular opportunity I gained that knowledge. But this fact alone does not deserve death, because I never had the feeling that I had participated in such crimes by my activity in the Personal Referat.

Such a knowing participation demands that the personal referent knows the contents and the import of Himmler's letters, orders, etc. and passes them on in spite of his knowledge of the contents and their import. I just said that appearances are against me, but I believe I did prove that I did not possess that knowledge. I pray the Tribunal to follow the line of this evidence and, I think, this is not asking too much since the experience of everyday life speaks in my favor.

The various affidavits which I have submitted and which were the subject of excited argument have found their explanation. In some points I have learned and I have tried to correct my mistakes. I did not want to speak an untruth knowingly which might be detrimental or favorable to a third person. I ask the Tribunal not to forget that I was in a very low general condition when I signed these affidavits. Only a few months previously I weighed only forty-four kilograms; consequently my mental power was reduced to a minimum.

During my activities which stretched over many years I exclusively acted on the express orders of Himmler without ever making a decision on my own initiative. I may take it that this fact has fully been proved.

The question what attitude I should have assumed had I known the details of inhuman experiments I can only answer in a hypothetical way. Had I had only a rough knowledge, as I have it today, I would have resisted to pass on such an order by virtue of my general view on questions of humanity.

Since, however, I did not have that knowledge it could not come to any resistance on my part. I asked to take into consideration that during all those years, I regarded matters which were in my field from my own point of view, and tried to live up to my own ideals. I saw my duty in carrying out my task faithfully and in the conduct of a clean, personal life.

I also intended to make sure that I would not cause any damage to any human being, but to try to understand the situation of a person in need of help, and then to help in a manner as I would have wished to be helped or treated if I was in his position.

I would remind you of the statement of the witness Meine, on page 4919 of the German translation of the 21 March 1947, about the fact that my signatures are on the documents which have been submitted by the prosecution. That fact has moved me deeply because my entire view of humanity and the principles of humanity is quite opposed to that. What I understand by humanity, also applies and begins to apply to the details of life.

In spite of my good intentions, and that I say in answer to a question put in the beginning — in spite of my good intentions I was drawn into a guilt — I see it as a guilt, into which human beings can be involved by tragic circumstances without any intention on their part, but to recognize this guilt was sufficient to upset me deeply.