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Volume II · Page 140
a doctor and I see the law of nature as being the law of reason. In my heart there is love of mankind, and so it is in my conscience. That is why I am a doctor!
When I talked at the time to Pastor Bodelschwingh, the only serious admonisher I knew personally, it seemed at first as if our thoughts were far apart; but the longer we talked and the more we came into the open, the closer and the greater became our mutual understanding. At that time we were not concerned with words. It was a struggle and a search far beyond the human sphere. When the old Pastor Bodelschwingh left me after many hours and we shook hands, his last words were: "That was the hardest struggle of my life." For him as well as for me that struggle remained; and the problem remained too.
If I were to say today that I wish this problem had never come upon me with its convulsive drama, that would be nothing but superficiality in order to make me feel more comfortable in myself. But I am living in these times and I see that they are full of antitheses. Somewhere we all must make a stand. I am fully conscious that when I said "Yes" to euthanasia I did so with the deepest conviction, just as it is my conviction today, that it was right. Death can mean deliverance. Death is life — just as much as birth. It was never meant to be murder. I bear a burden, but it is not the burden of crime. I bear this burden of mine, though with a heavy heart, as my responsibility. I stand before it, and before my conscience, as a man and as a doctor.
During my first interrogations here in Nuernberg, in August 1946, the interrogator declared to me:
First, you have been the Chief of the Army Medical Service. Whether or not you knew of inadmissible experiments does not matter here. As the Chief, you are responsible for everything.
Secondly, do not make the excuse that among other nations the same or similar things have happened. We are not concerned with that here. The Germans are under indictment, not the others.
Thirdly, do not appeal to your witnesses. They, of course, will testify in your favor. We have our witnesses, and we rely upon them.
Those were the guiding principles of the prosecution up to the last day of these proceedings. They have remained incompre- [...hensible]
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*Tr. pp. 11315–11316.
