A. No. There was no medical personnel.

Q. You said something about the excesses with reference to the program.

A. One must differentiate between how things were until the action was stopped in 1941, and how it was later on.

Q. What excesses do you know of before the action was stopped in 1941?

A. You mean individually?

Q. Yes, in your institution.

A. There were none at all in our institution. The people were transported away.

Q. You acted according to directives?

A. Yes. I personally was not in charge of thus action. My chief was in charge. But as far as I know no excesses were committed by the nursing personnel. Of course, some of the obstinate patients refused to enter the busses. That is natural.

Q. Were these all extreme cases which were sent for under this Euthanasia Program?

A. Of course, it depends where the limit is drawn. One can maintain the view that a large part of the patients, perhaps, might have undergone a certain change through modern shock treatment or some other modern method of treatment. But with those cases therein which the mental disease was in a very advanced stage, in my opinion, most of the patients no longer had any chance to enjoy life.

EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT KARL BRANDT*

DIRECT EXAMINATION

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dr. Servatius: Witness, you are charged with participation in the Euthanasia Program. I shall show you the decree of 1 December [1 September] 1939. (NO-630, Pros. Ex. 330.) Please describe how this decree came about.

Defendant Karl Brandt: After the end of the Polish campaign in about October [sic], the Fuehrer was at Obersalzberg. I was called to him for some reason which I can no longer remember and he told me that because of a document which he had received from Reichsleiter Bouhler, he wanted to bring about a definite solution in the euthanasia question. He gave me general directives on how he imagined it, and the fundamentals were that insane persons who were in such a condition that they could no longer take any conscious part in life were to be given relief through death. General instructions followed about petitions which he himself had received, and he told me to contact Bouhler

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*Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Feb 1947, pp. 2301-2661.