. NMT02-T0196
Volume II · Page 196
had been conducted in the field of human medicine; but that such experiments were necessary and were in contemplation. The memorandum continues:
"Field Marshal Keitel has given permission to build; Reichsfuehrer SS and Generalarzt Professor Brandt have assured him of vast support. By request of Field Marshal Keitel the armed forces are not to have a responsible share in the experiments, since experiments will also be conducted on human beings."It is significant that Hitler's Chief of Staff should deem it advisable to direct that the Wehrmacht should have nothing to do with experiments on human subjects.
EUTHANASIA
Defendant Karl Brandt is charged under counts two and three of the indictment with criminal activities in connection with the euthanasia program of the German Reich, in the course of which thousands of human beings, including nationals of German occupied countries, were killed between 1 September 1939 and April 1945.
On his own letterhead Hitler, at Berlin, 1 September 1939, signed a secret order reading as follows:
"Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M.D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death."Bouhler was holding a high office in the NSDAP. He was not a physician.
The foregoing order was not based on any previously existing German law; and the only authority for the execution of euthanasia was the secret order issued by Hitler.
The evidence shows that Bouhler and Karl Brandt, who were jointly charged with the administration of euthanasia, entered upon the duties assigned them in connection with the setting up of processes for carrying out the order. A budget was adopted; the method of determining candidates for euthanasia was established; a patients' transport corporation was organized to convey the selected patients to the gassing chambers. Questionnaires were prepared which were forwarded to the heads of mental institutions, one questionnaire to be accomplished concerning each inmate and then returned to the Ministry of the Interior. At the
