I know that in the experiments of Professor Gebhardt and other agents possibly the death of Heydrick in Prague played a role, perhaps as setting the time for this assignment. I said yesterday that I myself was of the opinion that this question should be solved in a different way be establishing a sort of movable hospital which would follow the patients and thus control the effectiveness of the sulfonamide.
Q. What is your opinion about the transplantation and regeneration experiments?
A. According to the one-sided presentation of the prosecution I cannot understand this problem completely. I do not understand the reasons for the type of experiments conducted and I wish to ask that I speak on this after Professor Gebhardt has testified himself.
Q. You have heard of the sea water experiments?
A. The sea water experiments possibly fall within the framework of the two experiments mentioned where the interests of the Luftwaffe were the impulse, which in the last analysis came from Goering and were executed with that impulse. Whether dangerousness played a special role I cannot say.
Q. What is your opinion of Hepatitis research?
A. Hepatitis Epidemica was a disease which effected all the Wehrmacht in the East severely. It is known that certain units lost 40% to 50% by this sickness. The disease, as such, is not dangerous; in the literature which was published only last year, 1946, it is said that special measures for prevention are not necessary because there is no danger to life. I said yesterday that the mortality figure is about one-tenth of that in the case of malaria. If experiments ware conducted, and I assume that they were now, they were no doubt not dangerous and it is probable that the methods used in the investigations, such as the stomach juice investigations or the liver functions, were not dangerous. The disease, as such, in view of the number of losses which the Wehrmacht had from this disease, was of special interest, and I assume that experiments in this connection were conducted in other countries in the same way as I assume they were conducted here.
Q. Sterilization experiments were also mentioned - Schumann and Glauberg - will you please comment on them?
A. The Schumann experiments seemed to me to have been useless experiments. I cannot imagine that with two or three minutes of x-ray treatment one can effect sterilization. I cannot declare myself positively in favor of the principle. There were no medical indications of why the sterilization was to be carried out.
Q. Will you please comment on the Typhus experiments?
A. Typhus is a disease which is to be considered as much more serious than Hepatitis or Malaria. Consequently, because of the actual loss of life through typhus the superior State interest in this disease during war time was all the greater. In order once more to give a comparison of the dangerousness of these diseases, one can assume that Typhus is 100 to 200 times as dangerous as Malaria. An example occurs to me on the question of the experiments. In the first World War a Turkish doctor, in order to study typhus and its transference from one human being to another, infected 310 Turkish soldiers with infected blood.
About 170 of them fell ill. The others had already had typhus and apparently were immune. Of the approximately 170, 65 patients died. The result at that time, it was 1916, was decisive in many respects for the medical service of the Turks and they sought an excuse, a juristic excuse, for this physician who was responsible for these deaths, by declaring him temporarily insane.
Q. Now there remain the phosphorous experiments. Will you please speak about them?
A. The dangerousness of phosphorous experiments, as such, can be judged only as in the case of the Lost experiments. I saw innumerable phosphorous burns on women and children in our cities and the experiments conducted in Buchenwald must have dealt with the same symptoms, since phosphorous came from English incendiary bombs, The wounds healed after suitable treatment by various methods. Death occurred only where there were extensive burn and where the symptoms of the patient were those as in burns in general.
DR. SERVATIUS: Does the Tribunal desire any further information on these individual experiments?
JUDGE SEBRING: Assuming the Prosecution's testimony to be true concerning the charge of extermination of Jews for the purpose of completing a skeleton collection and the later extermination of tubercular Poles, will you have the defendant comment upon what military necessity existed, if any, for conducting those programs?
Q. Witness, you have heard the question of the Tribunal, Will you please comment on the tubercular Poles and the skeleton collection?
A. There was certainly no military interest in question in the skeleton collection. In the case of tuberculosis, I must assume that such things did occur. I would not consider it justified. I consider it necessary that as long as one can help a human-being and as long as there is any prospect whatever, one must help him. That one may consider transfers of tuberculosis patients from one place to another is a thought which is not unfamiliar to me. When I spoke of these special hospital installations yester day I can add that we considered moving tuberculosis patients and concentrating them at certain points in the Allgau and several such installations, hospitals, tuberculosis hospitals, which already existed, or in the southern Black Forest near St. Blasien; but I see no justification because a person is sick or suffering, or because he can no longer work, to kill him, no matter what his nationality is or what his age is.
THE PRESIDENT: I have a question. A question by Judge Beals. I understand the witness, in discussing experiments upon human-beings, to stress the danger to life only. I would like the opinion of the witness upon such experiments which it would be reasonably anticipated or known would result in serious physical injury to the experimental subject, whether internal or external, as to whether that would not also be an element to be considered, as well as danger to life only?
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Will you please comment on that?
A. It is a question of serious sickness and of subsequent symptoms to be considered but in my opinion a distinction must be made between whether there is actual danger to life or possible danger to life. I said before that I consider an experiment as not dangerous if it is not dangerous as far as a human-being can judge. Of course I admit that there is no experiment which actually and under all circumstances is not dangerous, since even in the most simple injury there can be complications. But it is not expected. For example, if a malaria patient, who has contracted malaria through an experiment, cannot get rid of malaria and does not respond to treatment, that has to be evaluated differently than if the malaria could be treated and cured. But the conditions under which one undertakes such experiments is that one assumes that it is not dangerous.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness did not quite answer my question. I intended to request the opinion of the witness as to whether or not the practically certain serious bodily injury, permanent injury, either internal or external to the experimental subject, was not also a serious consideration and that the only consideration is not the possible death of the subject?
That is, in any experiment upon a human-being if it would reasonably be anticipated that the experiment would result not in death but in serious personal injury to the subject, either internal injury or external injury, would not that also be a serious consideration in determining whether or not any experiments should be conducted?
A. Such a point of view is decisive in the selection of experimental subjects. I would consider that of about equal importance with giving a person condemned to death an opportunity to preserve his life under the conditions to be expected. I failed to point out one thing -- that is, that in all experiments one must make it clear to the subject what the experiment is about and what results may be expected. Whether the experiment is dangerous or not, this seems to me to be a decisive factor in the question as a whole.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, now I come to another subject; you were not alone on these things, you were in a circle of officers and associates. In this way you could learn of many events and be informed of them. Will you please explain your relationship to the group, so-called?
A. I must distinguish between several groups. Of the 22 co-defendants, I met nine only here in the prison in Nurnberg. Those are Ruff, Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, Weltz, Shaeffer, Hoven, Biegelbeck, Pokorny and Miss Oberheuser. I know by name, but did not have any closer connection with three, that is Poppendick, Fischer and Rudolph Brandt. With six others, Mrugowsky, Shroeder, Gebhardt, Blome, Rose and Sievers I had only brief and occasional contact, and only with Sievers did I have any contact in connection with the experiments which are the subject of the indictment. I was at a conference with Mrugowsky once on an apparatus for removing poison from drinking water, which had nothing to do with the thing under discussion here. It was a discussion in connection with an assignment to determine the application of apparatus to determine use in chemical warfare. With Shroeder, even before he was Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, I met him once or twice in connection with the question of construction of hospitals, since he too was interested in such matters from the Luftwaffe side. I saw Genzken only once. I no longer remember exactly what year it was, I believe it was 1944 when he approached me in order to get some medical officers for the Waffen SS, whom he had asked for from the Army and not obtained. He thought in this way he could have his wish fulfilled more quickly. I did not know Gebhardt before the war. I met him the first time during the war, at the beginning of the War with Poland when the headquarters leaders and Himmler's Headquarters were in a special train, and the trains were near each other at Gross-Beuern where the troops were on maneuvers. There was a big troop bandaging place where Polish soldiers were being cared for, and Gebhardt and I helped there day and night to take care of the wounded.
It was my first personal contact with him. I saw him several times when Himmler visited the Headquarters, but we did not really talk with each other. I was with him a longer time the first time at Hohenlychen at the meeting in 1944 in the spring. I have known Blome since 1941, I believe. I met him with Mr. Conti. There were the differences which I had mentioned between Dr. Ley, Conti, and so forth, and Blome had taken up a very definite attitude against Conti. I met him occasionally on the same question of leadersship of Wehrmacht physicians, but we never discussed the things which are under discussion here. Rose visited me once in 1944, I believe. Yesterday I mentioned his desire to have the paralytics, whom he was treating with malaria, and put in a hospital, and I was in contact with him a second time, I believe it was in writing though, when he asked for additional food rations for these malaria patients. I passed on his request to the food ministry. I referred to Sievers yesterday. I saw him only once, when in connection with the apparatus against gas he gave me a final report from Hirt He did not tell me about the Ahnenerbe at that time, or about other experiments which were being conducted. Then there is another group of gentlemen, Handloser, Rostock and Brack. I discussed my contact with Professor Rostock yesterday. I worked with him for 19 years. Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser, after 1942, the events over Viasma, I came in contact with him and since that time I have had increasingly close contact with him. At the end of the War, his office as Chief of Medical Service was open in Belitz, a small suburb of Berlin, where I was also located and from the practical necessity of location we came together there. I did not discuss the experiments which are on trial here with him. The last is Brack. I met Brack in 1934 as the Adjutant of Buhle, the head of the Chan cellery of the Fuehrer in Berlin.
I had more closer connections with him later in 1939 or 1940, when the problem of euthanasia had been brought up, and then until he went into the Wehrmacht in 1942 I saw him frequently.
Q. Those were the individual persons; what contact did you have with the medical societies?
A. I did not belong to any medical society until 1933, I was a member of the German Society for Surgery, and in 1933 I resigned so that I had no connections with these societies.
Q. How about the National Socialist League of Physicians, you mentioned it once?
A. In 1933 I joined the National Socialist League of Physicians. Before there was any mooting or discussion I was sent material and with a request to make a speech on racial questions. I refused because in the first place the material given me seemed to me too primitive, and in the second place because I did not have adequate scientific knowledge to say anything basic on this question. I do not mean to say that I would not recognize racial points of view as such and that I do not think on the whole they play an important role in the lives of nations. I did not participate in the first meetings of the National Socialist League of Physicians in Bochum, at that time, and more or less from laziness I continued to remain a member. Other organizations which might be important here, Professor Liebrand mentioned the Altrose organization the other day. I was never there. Neither Conti or Blome asked me or invited me to participate in any of the meetings.
Q. What were your relations with Conti?
A. My relation with Dr. Conti was at first very uninteresting. We had no contact of any kind. From the moment when I had the task of coordinating Wehrmacht and Civilian health matters, a tension arose between us which never ceased. It was well known that I had to be careful whenever we might get in public that it was not expressed.
Q. I have a question about the meetings; were you not invited to meetings, were you not informed there about the questions, the issues?
A. I took part in few meetings during the war. Until 1942 it would not have been possible, because as Escort Physician I was tied to the Headquarters. From 1942 on I was in Marburq, once at a celebration. I then participated in the third meeting of the consultinq physicians of the military Medical Academy, which was in 1942 in the spring. One morning I spent at the meeting of German soldiers in Dresden. In the fall of 1943 on behalf of the Fuehrer, I had to give Sauerbruch the Knights' Cross or War Merit Cross. There was a second meeting of consulting physicians of Hohenlychen in 1944.
Q. At this meeting at Hohenlychen did you hold the welcoming address?
A. Yes.
Q. I will show you this opening speech, which is Document NO 924, which is not in any document book; which was submitted in one of the last sessions. I do not know whether the Tribunal has a copy in English.
A. I must explain the history, the events leading up to this meeting, and point out the reason why it was held in Hohenlychen. In the spring of 1944 it was hardly possible to hold a meeting in a German city, because of constant air raid alarms the execution of a meeting world have been impossible. For a reason which I do not know Gebhardt learned of this. Gebhardt learned it had not been settled where this meeting was to be held and no doubt offered Hohenlychen as the place for holding the meeting, and Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser accepted the invitation.
It was possible to put up the many participants at Hohenlychen and receive them, and there was enough room to hold the individual conferences. Hohenlychen was, at the same time, an SS Hospital. The supreme Chief in this case was Himmler. I had to participate in this conference because a word was to be given on behalf of the Fuehrer by ea.ch one of the representatives from the Luftwaffe, the Army, and the Navy. In order to decide who was to hold the opening speech there, in any case, I had to distribute the decorations. Gebhardt, who was the host, asked mo to hold this speech, and. he said this was in agreement with Himmler. I did not discuss this question with Himmler himself either before or after and for formal reasons I made this speech in the name of the Reichfuehrer. I pointed out the necessity of common work of the doctors, in the interest of the soldiers, and gave this decoration to Gebhardt himself, first. I emphasized the value of Hohenlychen as a place of knowledge where post-operative care was carried out. Hohenlychen had gained a certain reputation in Germany during the Olympics. Gebhardt was in charge of the medical care of the sportsmen and through the nature and method of this treatment he was a man who was known far beyond the borders of the Reich.
That Hohenlychen was to play a special role in this direction was because in the Medical Zone there was a hue and cry for a new Hohenlychen, and it was apparently agreed to establish a new hospital in Luedenscheidt. Hohenlychen, as a sports place of treatment, in the case of Gebhardt, was a well known conflict with us.
As to the other gentlemen who were given an award, there was Gutzeit. Gutzeit was the consulting head of the Wehrmacht Medical Section. And I had expressly given him the award, because, in addition to his good work itself, Internal Medicine, which he represented, was to be honored as the text reading. Gutzeit was the only Internalist that received this award. So far as surgeons were concerned, Gutzeit had already received the Knight's Cross from Gebhardt, and the third was Professor Thoeniss a well known brain surgeon known in German medical circles. Herman Backmeister, at the head of the Medical Center at St. Blasien as I mentioned a while ago, received the award in view of his work and participation in the fight against Tuberculosis.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Now, I should like to conclude this subject. I come to the Reich Research Council; you were a member of the Board of Directors of the Reich Research Council, were you not?
In 1943 I became a member of the Reich Research Council. At that time the Reich Research Council was under the Education Minister, and by a special decree in June of 1942 they removed it from the Education Minister and it was put under Generalartz Schreiber. Scientific work was to be put on a very broad basis of general science and Schreiber seemed the right man to do this. The Reich Research Council consisted of a president and an administrative machine. Then, it had a set of leadership staff, about thirty or forty branches of different types of research. There were heads of each of the specialist groups. Medicine coming under the head of Classical Medicine was placed under Sauer Wach. There were a number of Deputy Ministers. The Deputy at the head of the Reich Medical Control was Dr. Schreiber who was mentioned yesterday. Aside from the Board, and this administrative machine, the Reich Research Council, was a representative arrangement.
There were representatives of the highest Reich Authority, and from agencies of which one could assume that they had some contact with scientific work. The Plenipotentiary Minister was in it. Speer was in it. And I was also one of the members, there were over twenty. The Board did not have any right to issue instructions and could not exert any influence on the heads of the specialist group and the deputies and the Commissioners. This was not possible because the composition of this Board was not from the point of view of Profession but of Agency. And it did not in effect play any important role itself, by reason of the fact that from a military research viewpoint, the Society was founded in July 1944. This fact was not even reported to the members of the Board, and I myself learned of it only on the basis of the document. I must point out that in April 1944, shortly before the end of the War, I received an appointment from Goering himself. That is, as the individual Deputy over a specialist group to take up the point and establish medicine and to take charge of them. I was to be the Deputy General Surgeon within the Reich Research Council. I received the degree only a week before my medical agency was dissolved in 1944.
Q Were you connected with the Reich Research Council through your office of Research?
A It could only be a matter of general names which Professor Rostock has for all office chief director with Prof. Menzel. He had no right to issue instructions to the heads of specialist groups because they were undergoing supervision; there was no other connection. Rostock made all of the appointments himself.
Q What is the Ahnenerbe Society; what was your connection with it?
A Until I was arrested, I considered the Ahnenerbe Society Organization a sort of SS Administrative Agency concerned with Research in connection with antiquities of some sort. I did not know any details or any facts of anything that was done. I never had any contact with the Ahnenerbe at all. The only contact I had with Mr. Sievers is that he did not inform me I did not even know that he came from the Ahnenerbe.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, now I come to the next count of the indictment about Euthanasia. Shall I begin now or after the recess?
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, you may continue with the examination of the Defendant.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Witness, you appear to have participated in the experiments on Euthanasia. I shall show you the decree of the 1st of December, 1939, that is Doc. 360. It is in Document Book No. 14. Please discuss how this decree came about.
AAfter the end of the Polish campaign in about October, the Fuehrer was at Obersalzburg. I cannot longer clearly remember the advance but I was called to him and he told me that because of the Document, which he had received from Professor Bouhler, he wanted to carry out a solution of the Euthanasia question. He gave me general directives of how he imagined it, and the fundamental; insane persons, who were in such a condition that they could no longer take any conscious part in life.
These people were to be given relief by death. General instructions about information which he himself had received followed, and ho told me to get in touch with Boehler himself about the matter. I did so by telephone on the same day, and then I informed Hitler about my talk with Boehler. Then he sent me later the decree, not in the form in which we have it here, but in a similar form, and certain changes were made. My request was that a precaution be introduced for the participation of Doctors, and I used an expression which was familiar to me. It said that Euthanasia could be carried out on persons incurably sick with probability bordering on certainty. Since, this formulation was strange to him, it was added with the most critical judgment of their condition of sickness. This decree was signed about the end of October, which reads as follows: "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M. D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain doctors to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurably ill can on the most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death."
Q. Did you talk to Bouhler?
A. I talked to Bouhler only by telephone at first and after the decree was signed I did not talk to him immediately but sent the decree to him in Berlin.
Q. And what was Hitler's idea of euthanasia? What did he understand by it?
A. The decisive thing for him was what is expressed here in the decree; that incurably ill persons -- really I should have said insane, other persons were always exceptions -- a mercy death could be accorded. That is a measure ** dictated by purely humane considerations, and nothing else could be thought under any circumstances, and nothing else was ever said to me.
Q. You said that the Fuehrer gave you the assignment on the basis of a call from Bouhler. It could not have been a call from Bouhler alone. There must have been other reasons.
A. It was not a call. It was some kind of a documentary procedure which was decisive. It may be that the Fuehrer already had these documents or that Bouhler spoke to him about it. I don't know exactly. But this was not the cause of the euthanasia problems being taken up. In his book, "Kein Kampf", Hitler had referred to it in certain chapters. The law for the prevention of the birth of sick children is proof that Hitler had concretely concerned himself with such problems earlier. The law for the prevention of the birth of children of congenital disease followed the events. It was written because people with congenital diseases existed. It is a problem which affects the whole world. Similar laws have been passed in other countries.
Dr. Gehardt Wagner, who was the predecessor of Dr. Conti, at the Party rally in Nurnberg discussed these questions. I did not talk to Gerhardt Wagner at that time and had nothing to do with these things, but I have heard now that in 1935 Gerhardt Wagner had a film made presenting the problem of the insane.
It was a parently a film made in asylums with insane persons.
Q. Witness, were there not requests received by Bouhler and the Fuehrer?
A. Requests to this effect were certainly received constantly by Bouhler The Chancellery of the Fuehrer always received such things.
I only know that these requests were passed on to the Reich Ministry of the Interior. I myself know of one request in the spring of 1939 which was sent to the Fuehrer himself through his Adjutant's office. The father of a deformed child approached the Fuehrer and asked that this creature should be killed. Hitler turned this matter over to me and told me to go to Leipzig immediately -- it had taken place in Leipzig -- to confirm the fact. It was a child who was born blind, an idiot -- at least it seemed to be an idiot -- and it lacked one leg and part of one arm.
THE PRESIDENT: We will have a recess for a few moments.
(A recess was taken).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, you were speaking about the affair at Leipzig, and regarding this deformed child, what order did Hitler give you?
A. He gave me the order to talk with the physicians who were taking care of the child and to, first of all, test the statements of the father as to their veracity. If they were correct, then in his name I was to inform the physicians that they were permitted to carry out Euthanasia.
It was important in this respect: that this should not happen in the form toward the parents that they themselves at some other period of time should feel incriminated as a result of this Euthanasia, and, therefore, that the parents should not have the impression that they themselves had been the cause for the death of this child. I was further ordered to state that if these physicians should become involved in legal procedures, they should take care by order of Hitler that this procedure should be halted. Then Bormann also was ordered to inform the Minister of Justice, Guertner, in this case.
Q. What did the doctors who were involved say?
A. The physicians maintained the point of view that the keeping alive of such a child could actually not be justified, and it was pointed out in this respect that in maternity wards under circumstances by doctors themselves in such a case Euthanasia would be performed without anything further being said about it. Any precise instructions were not given in that respect.
Q. This problem of deformities, was it treated in any other way?
A. The problem of deformities has probably already been discussed before this case in Leipzig. However, then in the course of the summer there was work done in a more concrete form, first of all, on the part of the Ministry of the Interior, and in this case we were involved as well as special consultant to Dr. Conti -- who became Reich Minister for Health after the death of his colleague, Wagner, and then after that became State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, so that Dr. Linden continued to occupy himself with these matters.
Q Who was Dr. Linden?
A Dr. Linden was Ministerial Counselor in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and he was a physician, and he was a competent official who later on was in charge of all these sanitoriums, and later on in the course of the treatment of the Euthanasia question he was appointed as exponent for all these matters.
Q What was the procedure at the time? Was Hitler informed about all these matters?
A In August of 1944 by his order I participated in a conference which took place between Dr. Linden and Mr. Bouhler and some additional men, and in its course the question of treatment of these deformities was discussed, and which also included a discussion about the method of treating those cases. On the part of the Ministry of the Interior Dr. Linden put forth documents, questionnaires, etc., which had been furnished which were then discussed once more in detail, and in this case it was the preparatory work for the later-established Reich Committee for the dealing with sick persons who were suffering from inherited diseases.
Q Did Conti attend these conferences?
A I have never seen Conti in any conferences of this kind, and I have never heard him speak in this connection at any place.
Q To what extent did Conti deal with these matters in the Ministry of the Interior?
A It certainly is not only the question of this Reich Committee; but it is the question of dealing with deformities; and it was discussed in the Ministry of the Interior as long as the question of Euthanasia was discussed at all. At that time I did not have any knowledge of this purely administrative work, and only now I have had the possibility of getting a certain insight into the existence of all these conditions.
In the course of the Polish campaign around the middle of September, a conference took place between Dr. Conti and Mr. Lammers and the Fuehrer.
This conference took place at Zoppot near Danzig. There the question of the introduction of an Euthanasia law was discussed, and Mr. Lammers maintained the point of view that such a law would have to be worked out through the general Administration. Because of the long administrative channel connected with this, Hitler apparently objected. The whole question at that time was that no result was achieved between Hitler, Lammers and Conti.
Q. Were you at that time already informed about the matter, about the question of the legal problem with the Ministry of the Interior?
A. I was not informed at the time, and I have only been informed about it now. I did not attend these conferences, and I have neither discussed them with Conti later on nor with Lammers about the question of Euthanasia.
Q. Thus, all these incidents took place in the year 1939?
A. This conference near Danzig took place in the middle of September and when I referred to the Decree and its signing, this took place towards the end of October.
Q. Now why was this matter dealt with and started during the war?
A. I must assume that the Fuehrer was of the opinion that such a problem could, first of all, be carried out more smoothly during the war because the opposition which might have been expected from the side of the church would not play such an important part during wartime as it would in other times.
Q. Therefore, there is a large preliminary history to the Euthanasia program.
A. It certainly has been traced back to the time of 1933, and before. It would perhaps be important to point out that the decree was actually pre-dated, and the formulation only took place in October, while the date of the decree was the 1st of September 1939. This pre-dating toward the beginning of the war shows that Hitler actually believed that the introduction of this law would be easier during war time. In 1935 he is alleged to have told the former Reich physician, Wagner, that if war should ever break out, he would deal with the Euthanasia questions and that he would have them carried out.
Q. Now, if you come back once more to the text of the decree; then, you were given orders, together with Bouhler. What official position did Bouhler occupy?
A. Bouhler was Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer.
Q. Just a minute, witness. In connection with this I am handing you the sketch of the Euthanasia program which was presented by the prosecution. It is NO 253; it is located in Part I of Document Book 14. At the same time I am handing to you a document, it is a sketch composed by the defendant, Brack.
Mr. President, the plan has not been translated as yet, and for the time being I have submitted a plan in German; it is not very important because I am not going to deal with details in the plan, but only the top containing the names, so that you will also be able to follow the German copy.
In connection with this sketch, the defendant Brack has given an affidavit and I want to read it. It is Document KB 8, with the sketch belonging to it No. KB 15. I want to submit both of them as Exhibit No. 3. The plan will later be presented to the Tribunal in English, and I hope it will be ready by noon. I shall now read the affidavit: "I, Victor Brack, born 11/9/1904 at Haren, near Aachen, at present a defendant before Military Tribunal 1 at Nuremberg, depos* the following affidavit, after I have been informed that violation of an oath, by standing or making false statements will result in severe punishment.
The plan submitted was Document NO 426, Exhibit No. 106; it is plan No. 253, which I am submitting, was at the time partially composed by my statements and partially according to the suggestions by Dr. Hochwald, who is an interpreter. It was drafted by members of the prosecution. At the time I objected that such an organizational plan had never existed, and now this only can be construed by me, and therefore it may contain incorrect statements. The Prosecution assured me of the fact that the plan had only been composed according to the best of my knowledge. In the meantime, I have discovered by looking at various documents of the Prosecution, and I have obtained a clearer picture than I had at the time; and, therefore, I have composed a near plan about the Euthanasia program and its organization, and it shows the relationships to the persons and offices involved in it and that they actually existed. I am submitting this sketch with the request to now submit this plan to Military Tribunal No. 1. The truth and correctness of the plan I have certified. The plan forms a vital part of this affidavit. Nurnberg, 27 January 1947. Then follows the signature of Victor Brack. And then the document concludes with the certification by Dr. Froeschmann, counsel for the defendant."
Q. Witness, first of all will you give us your opinion as to the sketch of the Prosecution, and only as far as the top agencies were concerned, with which you were connected; that is without first going into the details.
A. In the Plan No. 253, which has been presented, there is a line under my name which connects to the name of Bouhler; and below there is a further line in the program of Euthanasia. This connecting line is incorrect so far as it has been drawn to my name. The administrative machinery for the execution of the Euthanasia program was an establishment which was exclusively subordinated to Mr. Bouhler. It had been established by him and it was administered by him. Likewise, the connecting line from ay name to Dr. Conti, is not correct because it did not exist at all. The upper connecting line from Bouhler to Brandt, which has been struck out in part, and which in part has been continued as a line, to Minister Brack is not correct in this form either because when anything took place as far as the administration was concerned, that is, it all connected to the Ministry of the Interior.