. NMT02-T0190
Volume II · Page 190
Transplantation, Sea-Water, Epidemic Jaundice, Sterilization, and Typhus Experiments, as alleged under counts two and three of the indictment. He is also charged in counts two and three with criminality in connection with the planning and carrying out of the Euthanasia Program of the German Reich. Under count four of the indictment he is charged with membership in the SS, an organization declared criminal by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal.
Karl Brandt was born 8 January 1904 at Muehlhausen, Alsace, then a portion of Germany, studied medicine, and passed his medical examination in 1928. He joined the National Socialist Party in January 1932, and became a member of the SA in 1933. He became a member of the Allgemeine SS in July 1934 and was appointed Untersturmfuehrer on the day he joined that organization. During the summer of 1934 he became Hitler's "Escort Physician" — as he describes the office.
He was promoted to the grade of Obersturmfuehrer in the Allgemeine SS on 1 January 1935, and in 1938 was classed as deferred in order that in case of war he might be free to serve on the staff of the Reich Chancellery in Hitler's headquarters. During the month of April 1939 Karl Brandt was promoted to the rank of Obersturmbannfuehrer in the Allgemeine SS. In 1940 he was transferred from the Allgemeine SS to the Waffen SS, in which commissions were equivalent to those of the army. On 30 January 1943 he received a grade equivalent to that of major general in the Waffen SS, and on 20 April 1944 was promoted to the grade of lieutenant general in that organization. Having at some previous date been relieved as Hitler's escort physician, he was again appointed as such in the fall of 1944. On 16 April 1945 he was arrested by the Gestapo, and the next day was condemned to death by a court at Berlin. He was released from arrest by order of the provisional government under Doenitz on 2 May 1945. On 23 May 1945 he was placed under arrest by the British authorities.
By decree bearing date 28 July 1942, signed by Hitler, Keitel, and Lammers, Karl Brandt was invested with high authority over the medical services, military and civilian, in Germany. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of this decree, referring to Karl Brandt, read as follows
"3. I empower Professor Dr. Karl Brandt, subordinate only to me personally and receiving his instructions directly from me, to carry out special tasks and negotiations to readjust the requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, etc., between the military and the civilian sectors of the Health and Medical Services.
