1947-08-19, #4: Doctors' Trial Verdict — Organization of Nazi Germany's medical services

Judgment: A review of the organization of Nazi Germany's medical services

THE MEDICAL SERVICE IN GERMANY

THE PRESIDENT: Adolf Hitler was the head of the Nazi Party, the German Government, and the German Armed Forces.

His title as Chief of the government was "Reich Chancellor". As Supreme Leader of the National Socialist German Worker's Party, commonly called the NSDAP or Nazi Party, his title was "Fuehrer". As head of Germany's armed military might he was "Supreme Commander in Chief of the German Armed forces, or Wehrmacht".

The staff through which Hitler controlled the German Armed Forces was known as the "Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht" (OKW). The chief of this staff was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitell.

Under the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht were the Supreme Commands of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Supreme Command of the Navy (OKM) was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. The Supreme Command of the Army (OKH) was headed by Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch until December 1941, and thereafter by Hitler himself. The Supreme Command of the Air Force (OKL) was headed by Reichmarshal Hermann Goering.

Each of the three branches of the Wehrmacht maintained its own medical service.

Army Medical Service:

The defendant Handloser was the head of the Army Medical Service from 1 January 1941 to 1 September 1944. While in this position he served in two capacities, namely; as Army Medical Inspector and as Army Physician. These positions required the maintenance of two departments, each separate from the other. At one time or another there were subordinated to Handloser in these official capacities the following officers, among others: Generalarzt [General Physician] Prof. Schreiber and Prof. Rostock; Oberstabsarzt [Chief Medical Officer] Drs. Scholz, Eyer, Bernhard Schmidt and Cremer; Oberstabsarzts Prof. Gutzeit and Prof. Wirth; Stabsarzt [Staff Surgeon] Prof. Kliewe and Prof. Kilian, and Stabsarzt Dr. Dohmen. Under his supervision in either or both of his official capacities were the Military Medical Academy, the Typhus and Virus Institutes of the OKH at Cracow and Lemberg, and the Medical School for Mountain Troops at St. Johann.

Luftwaffe Medical Service:

From the beginning of the war until 1 January 1944 Hippke was Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe. On that date the defendant Schroeder succeeded Hippke and remained in that position until the end of the war.

Subordinated to Schroeder as Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe were the following defendants: Rose, who was consulting medical officer on hygiene and tropical medicine; Weltz, who was chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich; Becker-Freyseng, a consultant for aviation medicine in Schroeder's office; Puff, the chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in the German Experimental Institute for Aviation in Berlin; Romberg, Ruff's chief assistant, who toward the end of the war attained the position of a Department head at the Institute; Schaefer, who, in the summer of 1942, was assigned to the Staff of the Research Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin to do research work on the problem of sea emergency; and Beiglboeck, a Luftwaffe officer who performed medical experiments on concentration camp inmates at Dachau in July 1944 for the purpose of determining the potability of processed seawater.

Under Schroeder's jurisdiction as Chief of the Luftwaffe Medical Service was the Medical Academy of the Luftwaffe at Berlin.

SS Medical Service: One of the most important branches of the Nazi Party was the Schutzstaffeln of the NSDAP, commonly known as the SS. Heinrich Himmler was chief of the SS with the title of Reichsfuehrer SS, and on his personal staff, serving in various and sundry official capacities was the defendant Rudolf Brandt.

The SS maintained its own medical service headed by a certain Dr. Grawitz, who held the position of Reich Physician SS and Police.

Medical Service of the Waffen-SS:

The SS branch of the Nazi Party, in turn, was divided into several components, of which one of the most important was the Waffen, or Armed, SS. The Waffen SS was formed into military units and fought at the front with units of the Wehrmacht.

Such medical units of the Waffen-SS as were assigned to the field, became subordinated to the medical service of the Army, which was supervised by Handloser.

The Chief of the Waffen-SS Medical Service was the defendant Genzken. His immediate superior was Reich Physician SS and Police Grawitz.

Six other defendants in the dock were members of the Medical Service of the SS, under Grawitz, namely; Gebhardt, who in 1940 became surgical advisor to the Waffen-SS and who in August 1943 created and took over the position of Chief Clinical Officer of the Reich Physician SS and Police; Mrugowsky, who became Chief of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS under Genzken in November 1940, and when the Institute was taken from Genzken's supervision on 1 September 1943 and placed under direct subordination to Grawitz, remained as Chief; Poppendick, who in 1941 was appointed Chief Physician of the Main Race and Settlement Office in Berlin and who in 1943 also became Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police; Hoven, who from the beginning of 1941 until July 1942, served as the assistant, and from then to September 1943, as Chief Physician, at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp; Fischer, an assistant physician to the defendant Gebhardt; and finally the defendant Oberheuser, who in December 1940 became a physician at the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, and thereafter, from June 1943 until the end of the war, served as an assistant physician under the defendant Gebhardt at Hohenlychen.

Civilian Medical Service:

Throughout the war the Civilian Medical Services of the Reich were headed by a certain Dr. Leonard Conti. Conti had two principal capacities: (l) He was the Secretary of State for Health in the Ministry of the Interior of the Government; in this capacity he was a German civil servant subordinated to the Minister of the Interior — first Wilhelm Frick and later, Heinrich Himmler. (2) he was the Reich Health Leader of the Nazi Party; in this capacity he was subordinated to the Nazi Party Chancellery, the chief of which was Martin Bormann.

In his capacity as Reich Health Leader, Conti had as his deputy the defendant Blome.

Reorganization of Wehrmacht Medical Service:

In 1942 a reorganization of the various Medical Services of the Wehrmacht was effected. By a Fuehrer decree of 28 July 1942, Handloser became Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, while at the same time retaining his position as Chief Physician of the Army and Army Medical Inspector. Under the decree referred to, Handloser was given power and authority to supervise and coordinate "all tasks common to the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and the organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht." He was also commanded "to represent the Wehrmacht before the civilian authorities in all common medical problems arising in the various branches of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht" and "to protect the interests of the Wehrmacht in all medical measures taken by the civilian authorities."

Handloser thus became supreme medical leader in the military field, as was Conti in the civilian health and medical service.

By a subsequent Fuehrer decree of 7 August 1944 Handloser was relieved of his duties as Chief Physician of the Army and Army Medical Inspector, but retained his position as Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service.

By the decree of 28 July 1942 pursuant to which Handloser became Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, the defendant Karl Brandt became empowered, subordinate only to, and receiving instructions directly from, Hitler "to carry out special tasks and negotiations to readjust the requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, etc., between the military and the civilian sectors of the Health and Medical Services." The decree also directed that Brandt "is to be kept informed about the fundamental events in the medical service of the Wehrmacht and in the Civilian Health Service" and "is authorized to intervene in a responsible manner."

A subsequent decree issued 5 September 1943 extended the powers of the defendant Karl Brandt by providing: "

The plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health Services... is charged with centrally coordinating and directing the problems and activities of the entire Medical and Health Service according to instructions. In this sense this order applies also to the field of medical science and research, as well as to the organizational institutions concerned with the manufacture and distribution of medical material. The plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health services is authorized to appoint and commission special deputies for this sphere of action.

By a later decree of 25 August 1944 Karl Brandt was made Reich Commissioner for Sanitation and Health for the duration of the war; the decree providing:

"In this capacity his office ranks as highest Reich Authority" and he is "authorized to issue instructions to the offices and organizations of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht which are concerned with the problems of the Medical and Health Services."

Thus, by this series of decrees, the defendant Karl Brandt, within this sphere of competence, became the supreme medical authority of the Reich subordinate to no one but Hitler.

Three of the defendants are not physicians.

The first is the defendant Brack who became subordinated to Bouhler at the time the latter was appointed Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, in 1934, and remained with Bouhler throughout the war.

The second is the defendant Rudolf Brandt who, from the time he joined the staff of Himmler in 1933, served for a twelve year period in varying capacities. At first Rudolf Brandt was a mere clerk in the staff of the Reichfuehrer-SS but by 1936 had risen to chief of the Personal Staff of Himmler. In 1938 or 1939 he became Himmler's liaison officer to the Ministry of the Interior and particularly to the Office of the Secretary of the Interior. When Himmler became Minister of Interior in 1943 Rudolf Brandt became Chief of the Ministerial Office when Himmler became President of the Ahnenerbe [Ancestral Heritage] Society, Rudolf Brandt became liaison officer between Himmler and the Reich Secretary of the Ahnenerbe Society, defendant Wolfram Sievers.

The third is the defendant Sievers, who was a member of Himmler's personal staff and Reich Business Manager of the Ahnenerbe Society from 1 July 1935 until the end of the war.

THE AHNENERBE SOCIETY

The Ahnenerbe Society, of which Sievers was Reich Business Manager, was in existence as an independent entity as early as 1933.

On 1 July 1935 the Ahnenerbe became duly registered as an organization to conduct or further "research on the locality, mind, deeds and heritage of the Northern race of Indo-Germans and to pass on the results of this research to the people in an interesting manner." On 1 January 1942 the Society became part of the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and thereby a section of the SS. Its management was composed of Heinrich Himmler as President, Prof. Dr. Wuest, Rector of the University of Munich, as Curator, and the defendant Sievers as Reich Business Manager.

Subsequently, during the same year, the Institute of Military Scientific Research was established as a part of the Ahnenerbe. Its purposes are defined in a letter written by Himmler to Sievers, which directed the following with reference to the Ahnenerbe:

1. To establish an Institute for Military Scientific Research

2. To support in every possible way the research carried out by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer [Captain] Prof. Dr. Hirt and to promote all corresponding research and undertakings

3. To make available the required apparatus, equipment, accessories and assistants, or to procure them.

4. To make use of the facilities available in Dachau.

5. To contact the Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office with regards to the costs which can be borne by the Waffen-SS.

In its judgment, the International Military Tribunal made the following findings of fact with reference to the Ahnenerbe:

Also attached to the SS main offices was a research foundation known as the Experiments Ahnenerbe. The scientists attached to this organization are stated to have been mainly honorary members of the SS. During the war an institute for military scientific research became attached to the Ahnenerbe which conducted extensive experiments involving the use of living human beings. An employee of this institute was a certain Dr. Rascher, who conducted these experiments with the full knowledge of the Ahnenerbe, which was subsidized and under the patronage of the Reichsfuehrer SS who was a trustee of the foundation. We shall now discuss the evidence as it pertains to the individual defendants.