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Restricted Public Mental Health Practices in Germany Sterilization and Execution of Patients Suffering from Nervous or Mental Diesase Reported by Leo Alexander, Major, M.C., AUS CIOS Item 24 Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee Part II B. Execution of Patients Suffering from Nervous or Mental Disease 1. Information Received from Dr. Anton Edler von Braunmühl, at present acting director of the Heil-und Pflegeanstalt (State Hospital for the Insane) in Eglfing-Haar, near Munich Contact with Dr. von Braunmühl was established through Major Rudolf J Baruch, M.C., of the 93rd Evacuation Hospital, which was then located in Munich. Major Baruch had learned that Dr. von Braunmühl had evidence concerning the killing of the insane, especially of insane and mentally defective children and that he was eager to divulge this information to the American authorities. When Major Baruch and myself went to see Dr. von Braunmühl on 3 June 1945, we found him very co-operative indeed. He not only gave us a good deal of information, but also turned over a number of documents which he had salvaged from the former director’s, namely, Dr. Hermann Pfannmüller’s secret files, when the latter fled at the time of arrival of the American armies. Dr. Pfannmüller had left the contents of his secret files in a room to be burned the next morning, but Dr. von Braunmühl salvaged what he considered the most incriminating documents during the intervening night. Dr. von Braunmühl stated that between January 1940 and June 1941, 1,857 patients were taken away to be killed. When these figures were checked with the lists included in the documents, it turned out that this figure did not include the special transport of Jewish victims dispatched on 20 September 1940 to Lublin, Poland, of which no figures remained available in the files, apart from correspondence with relatives and various interested agencies inquiring of their whereabouts. The correspondence refers to 31 different patients included in this transport, 14 of whom were male, and 17 female. One of the males was a 10 year old child. All but one of the 1,857 victims, whose names and other data are available in the salvaged lists, were non-Jews. In addition to the above mentioned victims, a great number of children (several hundreds) were killed by poison (barbiturates, hyoscin and a special preparation called modiscop), in the institution at Eglfing itself. All this was done in great secrecy. Attendants cooperating in the killings were sworn to secrecy under the threat of death. Signed statements of this nature were included in the file of documents which Dr. von Braunmühl turned over. The people who carried out the transports were members of a branch of the S.S. which went under the alias of "Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H." ("Commonly Useful Transport Company for the Sick"), Berlin, W9, Potsdamer Platz 1. Correspondence concerning the killing of children went through the "Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen erfassung von erb- und anlagebedingten schweren Leiden" ("Realm Committee for the Scientific approach to severe illness caused by heredity or constitution"), Berlin-Frohnau, Enkircher Strasse 13 and Berlin W9, Postschliessfach 101. The chairman of the latter organisation was Dr. Richard von Hegener, Berlin-Schöneberg, Apostel Paulusstr 1. The victims selected for killings were carted off at night from the freight station in freight cars by torchlight by the S.S. men dispatched for the purpose. Relatives of patients were told that they were transported to another institution "which is not known to us" and were told to wait for further communications or to write to the "Transport Company for the Sick". After four weeks they were usually notified that the patient died from appendicitis or a stroke and that the body was burned because of "danger of infection". Of the people responsible for the killings, Dr. von Braunmühl holds the former director of the state hospital for the insane in Eglfing, Dr. Hermann Pfannmüller, as most directly responsible, although he acted in the name of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. Dr. von Braunmühl emphasizes that Dr. Pfannmüller is a brutal fellow who actually enjoyed to dispatch patients to their death. He used to refer to newly admitted patients as "new chunks of meat". Dr. von Braunmühl stated that he considered Dr. Valentin Faltlhauser, director of the Institution for the Mentally Sick in Kaufbeuren, an equally bad type. Dr. Falthauser did most of the killing on his own premises and even had a private crematorium installed, similar to the crematoriums in concentration camps. Dr. von Braunmühl considers both Dr. Pfannmüller and Dr. Falthauser as war criminals and he recommended that they should be tried. The trial should preferably be by a joint American and Bavarian Commission, because Dr. von Braunmühl is a very patriotic Bavarian and feels that the people of Bavaria would like to express their abhorrence of the practices imposed upon them during their period of tyrannic domination by the Nazis. Dr. von Braunmühl also expressed the desire that if the American authorities gave any publicity to these matters it should first of all be given to Kaufbeuren and only later and as little as possible to Eglfing, because he felt that too much publicity focused on Eglfing would interfere with the confidence of the public in the type of treatment available at Eglfing, which he hoped to establish on the highest possible standards as soon as he took over as its new director. He also felt that since he turned over on his own initiative most of the evidence, that some consideration should be shown to his institution. I told Dr. von Braunmühl that I could not make any binding promises in that direction, but I would communicate his point of view to the C.I.C authorities, with whom the final decision would rest. When I turned over the information to the C.I.C investigator, Captain Barbour of the 9th Air Force, on the next day (4 June 1945), after I had deposited the documents at the 7th Army Document Center, I did transmit Dr. von Braunmühl’s views but left it entirely up to C.I.C to act according to their policies in regard to whether or not they wanted to "play ball" with Dr. von Braunmühl. Dr. von Braunmühl then went on to say that Dr. Pfannmüller was now a prisoner of the allies and that he had been held in a camp at Fürstenfeldbruck. However, he learned later that he was recently transferred to a nearby German hospital because of abdominal pain. Of other people responsible for the killings, Dr. von Braunmühl named Professor Dr. Walter Schultze, the departmental director of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. Other organizers of the killings were Professor Heyde in Würzburg and Professor Carl Schneider in Heidelberg. Dr. von Braunmühl stated that Dr. Pfannmüller and Dr. Schultze could probably name some more of the higher-ups in Berlin who were responsible. The killings of children were carried out in a special section of the children’s department at Eglfing. The most popular substance used for the killing was "modiscop", which was a preparation manufactured in Vienna and widely used as an anaesthetic in Vienna, where it had been found to be quite toxic for children. When the lists, including documents, were looked over with Dr. von Braunmühl it was found that 275 children were listed, 213 of which were killed on "authorization". From the documents it became evident that all patients transported away for killing after 20 September 1940 were non-Jews. A letter written by Dr, Pfannmüller on that date reported gleefully that his institution for the insane was now free of Jews, except for one Czechoslovakian Jew who was soon to be transferred to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The number of non-Jews killed during the first 9 months of the killing up to 20 September 1940, was 469. During the second period of 9 months, after completion of the killing of the Jews, 1,388 non-Jews were killed. It is obvious from these figures that the killing of non-Jews was greatly increased after the Jews had been exterminated. As an illustration of the great secrecy in which the killings were carried out, Dr. von Braunmühl pointed to the fact that even county officials and mayors of towns were merely told that the patient had been transferred to an institution of unknown location, and were referred for further information to the above named transport company. As stated above, the documents which Dr. von Braunmühl gave me were turned over by me to the 7th Army Doc.Ctr on 4 June 1945, where they were discussed with Captain Barbour, 9th Air Force, the officially designated C.I.C investigator. Due to the co-operation of Lt. Holger Hagen of the 7th Army Document Center, microfilms of the documents were prepared which are included in this report as appendices to the following chapter, in which the documents obtained from Dr. Pfannmüller’s secret file are discussed and described in further detail. 2. Information Derived from Dr. Hermann Pfannmüller’s Secret File The documents found in Dr. Pfannmüller’s secret file can be divided into five groups:
Looking over these documents one finds that no direct reference to killing was ever made; that the matter in general was veiled with an air of secrecy in which reference was made to certain meetings and agreements. The killing of children was frequently referred to as "treatment", "intensive treatment", or "treatment with all means of medical science". Equally non-committal were the fanciful names of all kinds of organizations whose sole purpose was the killing of the mentally sick, but which went under high sounding names such as "Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H", "Reichsareitagemeinschaft der Heil- und Pflegeanstalten", and "Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaft-lichen Erfassung von erb-und anlagebedingten schweren Leiden". (1). Documents concerning the killing of adult patients of the Heil-und Pflegeanstalt ("Cure and Care Institution", ie. State Hospital for mental and nervous diseases) at Eglfing-Haar. The removal of adult patients to killing centers was initiated by a letter from Dr. Schultze of the Health Department of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior in Munich, dated 8 January 1940 (Appendix I, No.1). In this letter Dr. Schultze stated that at least 200 patients’ beds should be emptied at Eglfing-Haar, that the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Heil-und Pflegeanstalten" had agreed to take over the patients and that the first transport would be called for within the next few days by the "Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H.". The letter went on to say that those responsible for paying the costs should be informed that further payments are not to be made for the time being, until the relatives would be notified from the admitting institution after the transfer. The first transport, consisting of 25 male patients, was dispatched on 18 January 1940 (Appendix I, No.2), and signed for by a representative of the transport company by name of Vorberg (Appendix I, No.3). This receipt and subsequent similar receipts refer to a special decision of the Health Department of the State Ministry of the Interior of 8 January 1940. The second transport, consisting of 22 women, was dispatched on 20 January 1940 (Appendix I, No.4) and was signed for by the same representative of the said transport company (Appendix I, No.5). The third transport, consisting of 47 women, was dispatched on 6 February 1940 (Appendix I, No.6) and signed for by another representative of the "Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H.", by name of Schweninger (Appendix I, No. 7). The fourth transport consisting of 70 men, was dispatched on 10 May 1940 (Appendix I, No.8). This transport list was more elaborate than the previous ones in that a special column headed ‘remarks’ was added. The point covered in the ‘remarks’ was the question as to whether the patient received visitors or not. Most of the patients included in this list received visitors only rarely; a few of them received visitors weekly or monthly. The inclusion of that column definitely indicated concern about the feelings of the relatives of the patients selected for the killing. Apparently the only thing that might have saved the patients was daily visits. This fourth transport was signed for by another representative of the transport company, by name of Lothar Stuhl (Appendix I, No.9). All together, up to 20 June 1941, when the last transport was dispatched, 20 transports were sent during the 18 months during which this system was in effect. Transports were at fairly regular intervals. The number of patients varied between 12-149 per trip. By 20 September 1940, within the first nine months of carrying out of this policy, a total of 469 patients had been dispatched. This number includes only one Jewish victim. The number of Jews dispatched up to that period is not obtainable from the documents in our hands, but it appears that one collective transport of Jewish victims was dispatched to Lublin on 20 September 1940, but no list of that transport is extant. However, letters answering inquiries about these Jewish patients and referring to 31 different people were found in Dr. Pfannmüller’s files. None of the names of these victims are included in the transport lists found, hence it is obvious that there must have been a separate transport list for Jewish patients, which has not been retrieved. On 20 September 1940, however, Dr. Pfannmüller sent a letter to the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, Health Department, Theatinerstrasse, in Munich (Appendix I, No.10). A translation of this letter follows:
Initialled: "Pfannmüller " The lists referred to in the letter were not as yet retrieved. In the later lists, the column indicating the frequency of visits to patients selected for killing was again abandoned and printed forms were used which merely gave the name, the number, and the place and date of birth, such as for instance, transport lists Nos.20 and 23, including 63 men and 54 women (Appendix I, No.11) both of which formed part of the twentieth transport dispatched on 20 June 1941, the total of which comprised 75 men and 60 women. Sometime in April 1941, apparently, the news got around that people were killed in the State institutions for the insane as indicated by a note to the record (Aktennote) concerning the case of a patient by name of Maria Mader (Appendix I, No.12). Translation of that note is as follows:
As a consequence of that intervention, Maria Mader was held back from the transport scheduled for 25 April 1941 (Appendix I, No.13), but the intervention of her mother did not save her for long. Her name was added in handwriting to the bottom of a list of victims sent to a killing center four days later, namely on 29 April 1941 (Appendix I, No.14). It is likewise of interest to note that three other patients - 1 female, 2 males, were held back from the transport on 25 April 1941, because these three patients had a brother or sister on the same transport (Appendix I, No.13). Brothers and sisters were not supposed to be taken together to a killing center on the same transport. I presume that the reason for this policy was that simultaneous receipt of the death notice of more than one child at once may have lent too much emphasis to the fact that they had been killed, rather than having died from disease or accident. Most of the transports were initiated by a form letter from the State Ministry of the Interior, signed by Dr. Schultze, to the effect that the present situation necessitated transfer of about 140 patients, and that the patients would be called for by the transport company from Berlin. The form letter goes on to say that all private property should be given to the patient, that all case histories and personal records have to be handed to the leader of the transport, and that the relatives responsible for payments should be notified that further payments should be suspended until the institution where the patient had been transferred would notify them. If, in the meantime, a relative should ask any questions, he should be told that the name of the institution where the patient had been transferred was not yet known and that the transfer was carried out on orders of the Commissar for Defence of the Realm (Appendix I, No.15). Usually another notification directly from the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. concerning the exact time of arrival of the transports, most of which were carried out in the early hours of the morning, followed (Appendix I, Nos. 16, 17 and 18). Apparently special fees were charged for the killing as indicated by a letter from the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. to the Cure and Care Institution in Eglfing-Haar, dated 25 February 1941 (Appendix I, No.19), to the effect that the institutions should communicate to the transport company the names and addresses of the paying relatives of all those Jewish patients who had been transferred to the general government area of Poland (Presumably Lublin), as well as the daily rates which those relatives had been paying, so that these relatives could be sent a bill according to those rates. |