NMT01-T695
Volume I · Page 695
special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving sterilization experiments (par. 6 (I) of the indictment). In the course of the trial the prosecution withdrew this charge in the ease of the defendants Mrugowsky and Oberheuser. On this charge the defendants Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, and Brack were convicted, and the defendants Karl Brandt, Poppendick, and Pokorny were acquitted.
The prosecution's summation of the evidence on the experiments for mass sterilization is contained in its closing brief against the defendant Rudolf Brandt. An extract from this brief is set forth below on pages 695 to 702. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the final plea for the defendant Gebhardt and closing brief for the defendant Pokorny. It appears below on pages 702 to 708. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 710 to 738.
By 1941 it was the accepted policy of the Third Reich to exterminate the Jewish Population of Germany and the occupied countries.* Because of the pressing need for laborers, sterilization of Jews able to work was considered as an alternative to outright extermination. (NO-205, Pros. Ex. 163.)
In order to ascertain cheap and fast working methods for sterilization, experimentation on concentration camp initiates by means of drugs (NO-036, Pros. Ex. 143), injection of an irritating solution (NO-212, Pros. Ex. 173) and X-rays and surgical operation (Tr. pp. 556-9) were carried out on a large scale. Brandt not only had full knowledge of these experiments, but collaborated actively in all of them.
The purpose of the sterilization experiments is well described by Brandt in his own affidavit:
"Himmler was extremely interested in the development of a cheap and rapid sterilization method which could be used against enemies of Germany, such as the Russians, Poles, and Jews. One hoped thereby not only to defeat the enemy but to exterminate him. The capacity for work of the sterilized persons could be exploited by Germany, while the danger of propagation would be eliminated. As this mass sterilization was part of Himmler's racial theory, particu- [...lar]
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*Trial of the Major War Criminals, International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1947, vol. I, pp. 247-253.
