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Volume II · Page 88
profession claimed in connection with this trial is connected exclusively with the problem of experiments on human beings and with euthanasia, but that no accusations are made against the professional practice of the German physicians in any other respects; there are especially no accusations referring to the relationship between the sick patient and the physician whom he had chosen as a helper and confidant to restore his health. This confidence in the attending physician felt by the patient has remained completely untouched by this trial.
We Germans have our own opinion about our physicians, we know their conscientiousness and willingness to render help; especially during the war we have been able to observe and appreciate their readiness to sacrifice themselves; we know that the good qualities that made the German physicians and researchers a model in former decades were not lost during Hitler's time, and it would be a pity if the abuses, which have been revealed and proved by this trial, should serve to undermine the confidence of the German people in their physicians and expose them to the contempt of all civilized nations.
Individual researchers, who out of ambition or a passion for research did not value a human being's life more than that of a rabbit, should not be considered representative of the German physicians' profession, nor should those physicians of the concentration camps, who for lack of a conscience or for some other wicked reason gave fatal injections to prisoners or tortured them to death, be regarded as representative of the German medical profession. No. Representative of a model German physician during Hitler's time, too, is the non-political, practicing physician, who, even if he did perhaps formally belong to the Party, strongly opposed from the bottom of his heart all kinds of violence and intolerance, who is closely bound to his nation and its needs, the practicing physician who cared for his patients in the most devoted manner day after day and night after night during the time of total war and fearful bombardments, which is especially hard for a physician; or who as military physician served at the front far from home, from his practice, from his family, fairly sharing all the hardships, dangers, and privations with his soldiers. And the surgeon who, as director of his clinic, operated and cured and helped from morning till night wherever he could help without having time to breathe, let alone to take part in political activity, he also is representative of the model German physician during Hitler's time too.
I do not know what verdict you will arrive at respecting one or the other of these defendants; but, as defense counsel of the former Deputy Reich Physicians' Leader, I beg you to make
