I was removed from the latter office in 1936, because I was still active in the Catholic Parents Association. In my capacity as 2nd chairman of the Catholic College Graduates I had to undergo a house search by the Gestapo.
Relevant Facts:
I made the acquaintance of GEBHARDT, then assistant of the Surgical Clinic (Director Geheimrat Dr. SAUERBRUCH) in 1920, that is 26 years ago, at a meeting of the Young Bavaria association. Young Bavaria originated from the former Bavarian Defense Association. This was founded in 1910, on the lines of lines Boy Scouts Association created by the English General BADEN-POWELL. Aims of the association: the education of youth to physical, mental and moral fitness. Health aim: medical examination and current control of the boys; treatment of defects; separate approve to boys still in need of care or liable to relapse. That is, the care of youth from the athletic, scientific and social aspect.
These long-term objectives, however, assumed a most serious actual importance on account of the consequence of Germany's defeat in World War I. For those tines demanded the creation of a youth capable of the highest possible labor output. And it was the task of this meeting of Young Bavaria in the year 1920, to take immediate measures, to educate its members for this purpose in the shortest possible time.
The joint work between Dr. GEBHARDT and myself originated on this basis.
The work was divided into three main groups over a period of 12 years:
1. The testing of new methods in out-patient treatment, thus bringing about an acceleration of the cure or maintaining the patients fitness for work. These tests chiefly concerned certain kinds of Done fractures and hemorrhages into joints caused by accidents in sport or at work.
The results are set down by GEBHARDT, amongst others, in the works: "Particular Bleeding by Hemorrhage into Joint Capsules; Its Treatment with Limited Fixation", and "Injuries to, and after effects on, the Motoric System from Skiing".
2. Parallel with these aims, GEBHARDT developed new methods for the post-treatment of accidents and sport injuries in his capacity as chief physician of the sport action and the posttreatment ward, as well as on the basis of his experiences in the Hohenaschau training camps. The results are summarized in "Complete Restorative Surgery" by Geheimrat LEXER. They appeared as an introduction to "Surgical Gymnastics" in 1931.
3. The Training Camp. While the results of 1 and 2 tried to remove by modern methods the consequences of injuries which had already occurred, GEBHARDT, in founding the training camp, attempted to realize at last the simple social demand, if only in a small way: to approach possible injuries to health prophylactically by timely medical examination; to treat persons menaced in this way methodically for several weeks in his training camps; to increase their capacity for work and there are their resistance; after the period in the camp, to preserve the results achieved there by continuous medical control or to prevent relapses by timely intervention. That is: precautional care, current-care and after--care! Average stay in the camp 4 weeks! Persons assisted: working juveniles, that is juveniles still healthy, but in need of care; permanently injured people; people with only one arm or one leg, blind people and psychopaths. Number: 100 to 120. Camp Staff: chief physician (Dr. GEBHARDT) specialists, sports instructors; especially trained masseurs and female gymnastic teachers. Results, constantly the same: 1. Striking increase of efficiency, 2. Surprising adaptation of the functionally handicapped and increase of their efficiency, 3. General increase of selfconfidence, 4. intensified conception of comradeship and increase of cheerfulness.
As supervisor (Obmann) of 7 training camps I was charged with the liaison between the highest authorities, especially between the Ministry for Church and Education natters, the highest railroad authorities who were especially interested, the school authorities, the employers and the families of the persons who were to be assisted on the one side, and the surgical clinic and GEBHARDT'S entire working staff on the other. Furthermore, the annual guaranteeing of the financial means needed by the camp. Participation in the camp was free for all persons receiving assistant. The journey to and from the camp, lodging, and food, and to some extent, clothing were paid for from the available funds. The entire camp staff worked on an honorary basis. Any kind of material or financial pro fit was completely impossible.
A person who had once been to a training camp remained under medical control for the duration of his subsequent working years. Under these directives, the training camp in Hohenaschau kept Under extending for 7 years (from, 1925 to 1932). I was it's supervisor (Obmann) the whole time and from GEBHARDT'S most intimate working sphere I was able to participate in the whole development and extension of this organization which served social-medicine in the truest sense of the word, I was also able to observe it's valuable influence in the most varied directions.
Trade Union organizations were the first to follow this example and no establish similar training camps. Combined medical courses served to train suitable colleagues and to further the camp idea in medical circles.
In this way the Gehardt Training Camp became a real synthesis and complete whole in which scientific discovery modern intensified methods of treatment combined prophylactically to protect working youth under industrial and medical control from serious health injuries; to increase by current welfare their working capacity and their resistance to illness; and by after-care, through constant medical control and, or change of profession or temporary leave, to protect them from relapses and new injuries.
Therefore, one may well assert: that the energetic, tenacious determination of a young doctor, ready to make unlimited sacrifices, combined with the constant and interested participation of his two seniors, Geheimrat SAUERBRUCH and Geheimrat Lexner transformed into Pelear, practical reality of Social medicine, an ideal which had previously only been the subject of highly problematic theoretical discussions. A reality of far reaching importance.
Increasing participation and visits to the camp by ministries, universities, Senior school authorities; representatives of important health insurance companies; and of workers' organizations were eloquent testimony of the fact that the synthesis of the training camp was opening a new door in the social-medical sphere and also in the welfare of the entire nation.
The occupants of the training camp had so far been drawn exclusively from working youth circles. It was obvious, after the experiences gained, that they should also be extended to adult circles. Naturally, the question of prophylaxis had to be set aside in favor of current care in the form of treatment, especially after-treatment of previously incurred injuries. There were mainly two groups: sports and industrial accidents. In addition, two forms of disease demanded essential therapeutic care; spinal infantile paralysis with its tragic consequences, and bone and joint tuberculosis.
The considerable expansion of the sphere of duties demanded two things: 1. The promotion of GEBHARDT and his small circle of collaborators to an indictment, leading position. 2. An establishment to meet the requirements of this work, with suitable grounds capable of extension.
Both demands were fulfilled by the assignment of GEBHARDT to the staff of the Reich Sports Leader and his appointment as chief of the Medical Institute of the National Academy for Gymnastics and his simultaneous appointment as chief physician of Hohenlychen sanatorium in the Uckermark. This was in 1933 and it brought to an end our mutual connections as regards work.
Bur on the occasion of two visits to Hohenlychen in later years, I saw that GEBHARDT had tackled his increased sphere of duties which the same energy, and was getting good results. I might only mention: the new and success methods of treating spinal infantile paralysis; a paper written by GEBHARDT's pupil Jr. Hiss. Prevention of Sports Injuries to the Motoris System, and above all the knowledge gained from 1933 to 1938 and sit out in the paper "Treatment of Bone and Joint Tuberculosis" may best illustrate, that under GEBHARDT's new management Hohenlychen tried progressively to enlarge the extensive ground work achieved during the Munich period.
I met GEBHARDT for the last time in 1936 again in connection with mutual work, when he was chief of the accident hospital at the Olympic Games in Berlin. I was in charge of the ophthalmic ward of the hospital and had ample opportunity of observing how sportsmen and physicians from all parts of the world, the former partly as patients, tried out with great interest GEBHARDT's methods on themselves or had those explained to them in well-defined outline. Many of those international guests were transformed to Hohenlychen as in-patients, in order to undergo systematic treatment on the spot.
And so Hohenlychen became a social platform not only in respect of therapeutics, but also in the sense of friendly international relations.
This is a short summary in answer to the four questions asked at the beginning: When and under what circumstances I made the acquaintance of Dr. GEBHARDT, what form this collaboration took; the results of this work; what impressions I gained of Dr. GEBHARDT during this collaboration.
The political note may be missing in this picture. The explanation for it is simple: the years of cur collaboration were entirely free from politics. Not a single word was spoken about politics. Medical aid knows no politics. The noblest policy of tho real physician will always be, readiness to help everybody to the best of his ability. Accordingly, Professor GEBHARDT's care was for all who were in need of it. Strict neutrality with regard to politics was, therefore, a matter of course. In addition, the numerous duties and the abundance of the work, prohibited any deviation which might have caused the slightest injury to the realization of the aims, and which might have disturbed the inner unity of GEBHARDT's working community. This uniform and completely non-political line was adhered to until the last moment, that is until GEBHARDT left for Hohenlychen in 1933. It was also not abandoned in the rare meetings during the years which followed." Munich 30 January, 1947. Dr. Rudolf v. HUESS Generalarzt (Retired) At the bottom is the following test:
"I hereby certify the correctness of the signature of Dr. von Heuss, whom I know personally in Munich."
Munich, 30 January, 1947. Witness: Heinrich Hoppler.
I submit this as Exhibit Gebhardt No. 3.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: I shall now read into the record the order of the Tribunal in connection with the absence of the defendant Oberhauser.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs KARL BRANDT, et al, Order Case No. I.
There having been filed in the Office of the Secretary General, directed to Military Tribunal I, dated February 25, 1947, a written certificate by Charles J. Roska, Medical Corps, United States Army, Prison Surgeon at Number Germany, describing the physical condition of Herta Oberhauser, a defendant now on trial in the above entitled cause; and, Captain Roska, having stated in the certificate that the defendant Oberhauser is laboring under certain described serious physical disabilities, and. is in need of an operation to relieve her.
And, Doctor Alfred Seidl, representing Herta Oberhauser, as Counsel before Military Tribunal I, on the trial of the above entitled cause having, February 28, 1947, filed in the Office of the Secretary General, for the adaption of Military Tribunal I, a written statement in the German language, signed by him personally, stating defendant Oberhauser's serious physical condition, and requesting that defendant Oberhauser be immediately treated in the American Army hospital at Nurnberg; and, that the defendant Oberhauser evidence may be presented to the Tribunal after her release from the hospital, which may be expected within two or three weeks.
And, defendant Oberhauser, herself, having filed in the Office of the Secretary General, March 3, a signed statement in the German language and in the English language, requesting that she be transferred to a hospital for an operation, stating her reasons for desiring that the operation be performed.
And, the Tribunal having been furnished with the above described documents, together with the English translations of the documents written in the German language, the original documents here to attached marked Exhibits A,B, and C, respectively.
And, it appearing to the Tribunal, expresses a finding, from said medical certificate and other documents filed with the Tribunal, concerning the physical condition of defendant Oberhauser; and from the documents here and above referred to, that the defendant Oberhauser is in a serious physical.
condition and in need of medical and surgical attention.
And, that her physical condition has been and is now such that she cannot adequately present her defense to the Tribunal and, if an operation is performed on her, it is to be expected that she will be able to attend the trial prior to its close and present her defense.
And, it appearing to the Tribunal, and the Tribunal finding that the interest of defendant Herta Oberhauser will not be prejudice, but on the contrary, will be best served by granting her request, and that of her Counsel for immediate hospitalization of said defendant.
Now, therefore, it is ordered that the defendant Herta Oberhauser be, and, she is hereby excused from attendance at the trial in the above entitled cause, and, until her physician reports that she is able again to be in attendance at the trial, and, that the surgeon in charge of her case shall proceed in the exercise of this judgment and discretion for the best interest of the defendant Oberhauser.
The Counsel may proceed.
Dr. Seidl: May it please the Tribunal, I now turn to the examination of Dr. Gebhardt, as a witness. And, I request that the witness be called to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Gebhardt will take the witness stand.
BY JUDGE SEBRING:
Q. Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing (The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE SEBRING: You may sit down.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. As Exhibit 25, the Prosecution has presented a document which was given by you. The subject of this affidavit is your history and the position which you occupied within the SS. In addition to this affidavit, I now ask you to please give us a short description of your life history, and please tell the Tribunal what caused you to take up the study of medicine?
A. In order to give an exact answer to the first question, may I use the word "addition", and to take that word from the question of my defense counsel, and I want to give and clarify the efforts and the defense in my description.
Aside from the evidence which has been presented by the Prosecution details of my personal life do not seem to be very important. The most important thing in the situation, as I see it, and the most important thing, to be contained in the situation itself. I want to report about a period which was, in my life, from one war which was lost, that was the defeat in 1913, and the period to the other war, which led to the catastrophe of the present time. And, I take it upon myself to limit certain fields in my description. My medical training, and my expressly medical intentions, my life as a citizen, and that all under the power of the political events; my relationship to Himmler, my military service with the Waffen SS. Then, in order to clarify the matter, I want to draw these lines of limitations without trying to make any excuses; all without over evaluating the human action, the decency, which after all, are only natural. Perhaps I can only site one thing in advance: The I came from a bourgeois family, and that in spite of the worries and hopes, I personally found a bourgeois style of living, and. quite aside from any political considerations and school, it is probably characteristic for the German citizen that an exaggerated faith exists in obedience, in discipline, which comes from above to the lower levels, but which to the contrary, never relieves the top authorities from their responsibilities. To my assistants and to my collaborators, and the soldiers who were at the front under me, I would like, at this time, to say expressly that just because I have represented something else than the average bourgeois in the state, and that I was not at all in the characteristic political line, and just because before 1933 and after 1933, I had international relations to a very great extent, as was really the case with regard to any German physician, and especially because of this all my worries and decisions, and untruth and advice -- I have obtained advice, and I have seen untruth in many countries. May I, in accordance with the question by my defense counsel, give a rather uncertain answer with regard to my medical status.
First of all my life was not such that at the age of eighteen I knew exactly what decency was and that I had gone this way with the utmost feeling and conviction. Later on as a teacher I have always doubted that. The Junk people in that early period know so clearly what the worries are which confront a physician. If, in spite of this, so many physicians are successful, then this is not due to their choice of a profession, but the decisive thing is hat the medical profession offers an opportunity to a man as a scientist, as an official, as a practicing physician and as a person who is earning his own living, and it offers the opportunity to gave a personality more of a manifold picture and in order to go into the details of my beginning it seems more important to me that I came from a bourgeois house and that I fought in the first world war as a little soldier; that I saw the end of the war as a prisoner of war, and that suddenly I was in a mass without any leadership and without any aim or goal and I was given another political education and we obtained the newspapers from the Leftist Party, heard the reports and we heard about the things which were alleged to have happened at home, in which everything that had been regulated in an orderly manner in our previous lives, the Emperor, the King, the oath, the relationship to our superiors, was just stopped and discontinued very un-dramatically and without any resistance on the part of the bourgeois citizens. On the other hand the want was so great for everybody who returned that the choice of a profession was made according to the conditions that prevailed.
My father was a physician and I knew a little bit about the profession and I was able to assist him to some extent. I studied with him and in the Munich schools there was a groat class of teachers but at that tin., the position of the teacher at the schools of higher learning was subjected to some extent to the pressure of political tendency, so that actually it only thanks to my father that I learned the beginning of the medical profession.
I came to the Sauerbruchs Clinic because of my father's influence. My teacher Sauerbruch was always telling us about some political development and had a large staff of assistants around him where he exercised an iron discipline in accordance with his principles.
I received the general surgical training of this classical school for seven years and it will not be necessary to explain that in detail. However, I think it is more essential for me to emphasize that there was a dissatisfaction with the developments of the time and people were assured that the situation would never change in Germany unless the social need of the time was combatted.
Without any political connections I felt the call of a doctor who concerned himself with the social questions of a general nature. The most impressive things at this large clinic were that a patient was clinically cared for in the truest sense of the word, that the many institutions of welfare in that clinic with reference to the individual were intolerant according to political and confessional view point or with us in Bavaria, according to the Landsmannschaft to diminish the welfare.
Today, particularly in my despair, I think that I can well say that I in Germany was the first one to make the attempt of saying that wealthier institutions and clinics as an institution should be cared for by the State, but for the real interest of the people that such a welfare is instituted in the sense that impressed me to help and assist all of the workers and students, everybody who was impoverished, and help them see beyond their mere treatment and bring about a healthy condition of the entire human being, that is to say, it is a declaration of war against the very individual and comfortable and ordinary Activities of the physician, when their aid is dependent upon the money that they may receive from the individual.
From the last war up to this war I never earned considerable amounts of money because of my patients. I was not paid by the Party, the SS or the State, and I remained at Hohenlychen in spite of my international practice for reasons of principle. When I had to defend myself before various honorary courts, I have said that I was of the opinion that one may sell articles of luxury at more expensive prices because people can do without them; one can be very expensive in performing cosmetical luxurious operations on a film star because that woman can be dispensed with.
However, as a specialist as I was one, one cannot apply that to operations which are necessary in the case of people who are impoverished and one cannot just connect it with a public enterprise.
I want to emphasize these principles initially because that explains my position and there was a great many German physicians who thought the same way as I did. We were the men who started the students and who again and again had to interrupt their corners because of the necessity of living to earn money, because of war, events and other incidents. I think that I can say one thing in favor of that group, he were the most outspoken pacifists in Germany because we wanted to connect ourselves with ordinary civil life, but I think we were also the ones who were most ready to make sacrifices. At any rate we didn't embark upon a career where working hard demanded reprimands and burdens could be applied to us. During my career because of the pressure exercised on me at the Sauerbruch clinic I desisted from any political activity. I remained the friend and physician cf the poor and the ones who were in need.
A (continued) I remained the friend and the physician cf the poor and the ones who were in need. My camps had no very special attributes, but, perhaps, I can quote from the early report which is contained in my next document. I would like to quote two or three sentences because they illustrate the tendency of our desire and I think it is my perfect right to defend myself against these slogans against the simplicity of description as if only a black and white, and I feel I have to passionately define my position in that regard and in the interest of the young.
The yearly report states by saying "To help and to be a physician must never have anything to do with money." Many of our officials did not like the sense of this sentence because it effected their personal earnings. The most important thing, it seems to me, is to emphasize the following quotation; "That I see an extreme danger in the fact that in all welfare questions laymen are concerning themselves with judgment of medical affairs and very easily when judging over-estimate external systems - cosmetical and general systems, without understanding the essential point of the development of the disease and to understand things concerning fate, the fateful points of the disease." I think that I repeated the sentences which originated from 1929 up to the year 1945 and I sincerely represented it.
And from trial the year of 1931, that is the time in Munich, when as Dr. Leibbrandt stated, a group came up and only represented the negative side of the physician. My camp of the physically injured for the first time accepts insane persons and I may use this example because it is of some importance with reference to the discussion here, You know that there are countries abroad from cur point of view who speak about the position of the feeble minded. Through this experiment I have proved that even in the case of juvenile feeble minded it is hard to decide what cannot be changed and is born heritage or, on the other hand, what may be the inferences of a bad education which caused him to follow the example of other feeble minded with which he came into contact. During the so-called controlled experiments at the Munich-Augsburg Institute, and I shall later submit proof for all my statements, I included youthful persons into the healthy sport groups, whose feeble mindedness had been finally established from a psychiatric point of view.
By virtue of this living together - this community life with the healthy people - with the good example, people were educated by me - the result was that of 20 feeble minded young persons ten left the institution, were released from the institution and the other half had to return to the institution, either immediately or during the course of the time. I only want to cite this example because this is a medical educational experiment which in many cases even in the United States had been repeated and is only here to prove that we in Germany aren't people who were just cowards and stupid, hut that we had concerns about people who were impoverished and who were in need and we wanted to embark on our bit together with them.
Q During the year of 1942, witness, you became lecturer of surgery at the University of Munich. How did this appointment come about and what was the subject of your habilitation thesis?
A I may give you a few dates because of the year of 1933 which was such an important change and since I am being accused of being stupid, not educated, and having acted without any feeling of responsibility, and that only because of my youthful acquaintance ship with Himmler I achieved my high rank. In 1932 I was a fully pledged surgical assistant. I had professional education in pathology and surgery in 1932 and 1933 and at that time already had two special fields, one of which was the follow-up treatment through gymnastics and the disease itself by surgery. I was the first physician of the Surgical Clinic cf the Sport Clinic. I had connection with all Sport Associations. I was a member of the workers Sport Association by virtue of my camps. I was one of the first professional advisors, medical advisors of Munich, and assisted in cases of retraining, reeducation, etc. I was teacher at the school for gymnastics of patients and I think that the tendency of Germany with reference to surgical gymnastics would not quite be silent about my name and my participation. On the other hand it was never my intention to become a university professor and in the year 1932 I endeavored to go to a little hospital which was in the scope of activity of my father, when in the year 1932 Dr. Lexer offered me a university career.
During the transition period of 1932 and 1933 I already was a member of customary associations. I don't think it is necessary for me to list all these national associations because one just cannot be accepted into Germany society otherwise, just as it is true abroad, one only needs two warrantors. I was also a member of many international associations and societies which was a little more difficult and oven after 1933 remained a member. In the year 1934 I held a speech in Poland about the problems of surgical tuberculosis. It was a common discussion with an Italian and a Frenchman. In the year of 1935 I spoke at the Saubonne at Paris and the French Chairmanship, I was a member of the International Association of Sport Physicians and of the International Surgical Association. All that wasn't very important but at the same time I want to demonstrate these matters in order to show that before 1933, after 1933, until the very end I was a person with whom people were in communication, that I have much to thank the many people abroad for, and that on the other hand I have been a person to help quite a number of people abroad.
Q. I think there is a s light mistake with reference to your professional education between 1923 and 1933.
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, when did you become chief physician at the institute at Hohenlychen and how did this appointment come about? Where were these institutions, what was the special purpose that you had in mind and what was the situation when you took over these institutions as chief physician?
A. The institutions at Hohenlychen were not concentration camps and have nothing to do with the concentration camp of Ravensbruck. My decent collaborators had nothing to do there except under some order which didn't affect the camp Hohenlychen. Hohenlychen had before been under the leadership of Geheimrat Bier who is the third one of the three classical surgeons of Germany - Bier, Sauerbruch and Lexer. This had been a purely tuberculosis institution. It was a privat welfare institution and in 1933, since all the entire tuberculosis movement had undergone a change, it had become no longer necessary because the transportation of tuberculosis diseased to the sea and mountains was preferred. When the Third Reich was created and newly founded, the Reich Sport Leadership originated. That is to say, it was endeavored to comprise the entire sport activities which, on one side, led to many individual limitations but which, on the other hand, over-emphasized the importance of the Reich sport associations - the sport associations of the people who were well off or of the so-called "semi-amateur" who was paid b industry. On the. other hand, the Reich sport leaders Von Tschammer and Osten attempted to further support the sport movement of the youth, the sport association of the worker. My dear friend, Hans Von Tschammer, was an old man who had been wounded during the war and had social interest ../... to care for tho man who had boon wounded.
On tho basis of my work and my experiments in Munich I, who was not a member of tho Party - and that is something I want to mention, b tho way - was appointed as consulting physician of tho German sport and hold this loading position from tho year 1933 to tho end and throughout tho entire war, and that about this time I had no connections with Himmler. That was because of the understanding by the chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service who realized tho necessity of caring for war wounded also by way of sport. That is to say, if they were to be taken out of tho Amy and to be included into sport associationsin very many cases Hohenlychen. In order to be able to carry out my work, I needed support from the Reich sport leader, Hohenlychen, at that time, had great difficulties and I had taken it over as a private chief of a private clinic. The insulting words "the Nazi fortress" certainly is not true of the initial period of time. Hohenlychen was the most tolerant institution of Germany, included a thousand bods, and was organized only to concern itself with the three concepts of disease. That is in contrast to the typical German hospital which concerned itself with general care and of which there were a number already under the leadership of experienced physicians. I tried to limit my institution to three concepts of disease. Tho first; sport accident, and it was not my intention to help only people who had money and who load a comfortable professional life and to alleviate only their lives because of our treatment, but, to the contrary, we were mainly concerned with these pure sport people where had work was connected with the joy of sport but whose external conditions of life were so unfavorable that they exhausted themselves because of hunger and because of need. There by a paradox situation came about; namely, that tho least incident, tho least small accident would load to severe physical injury in tho case of those pooplo who lived under such bad conditions. More important than any other results during treatment seems to me to be one thing and that is something that couldn't just be left out even after my death, and that is to say that I created the German sport aid.
I originated that suggestion between the bureaucratic social insurance of Germany and the private insurance or the money of the individual. I tried to institute an institution of insurance which, while led by the state, could still be generally applied to everybody and that in order to enable any man who are still had joy in sport to care for his injury without having to undergo any sacrifices. Since another example was mentioned before, I may touch upon that too. Every entrance fee that was apid for any sport event in Germany was taxed by 10 or 20 pfennigs and these were placed at the disposal of the Reich sport leader for the purpose of welfare and I want to emphasize that because this shows the contrast of our thinking and our opposition to any old customary state insurance system. The individual, after being injured or after having an accident, received full medical care. However, we didn't want any continual payment of sick money, so to speak. We didn't want any pension and we thereby avoided all that of which Germany is accused by foreign countries - and rightly, in reference to their insurance system; namely, that it paralyzes the working capacity of the individual relying upon some compensation by the state which is far from sufficient. But on the other hand, we created working places for our people who were severely injured. From Hohenlychen, up to the year of 1937, I had 4800 injured workers and sportsmen under my continual control. We created working pairs from them. That is to say, whenever anyone lost his arm we didn't just take him out of his profession as a locksmith or whatever it may have been in order to just let him stand around in some pseudo-activity, but told him to go back to his profession, I left him there in order that his experience would be maintained. But to other with him I added an apprentice who would support his old master who had lost his arm and who would be an additional aid. All these thins have shown their value and they are being re-introduced today under small changes of the names.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until 1:30.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 4 March 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
KARL GEBHARDT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, I was told that some cf what you have said did not come through. I therefore ask you to make shorter sentences and in order to clarify some of the misunderstandings I ask you once more: When you were appointed as Chief Physician in 1933 to Hohenlychen, did you have any relationship to Himmler or did he exercise any influence on that appointment?
A. I think I have said before that I was assigned to this position and that there was no political background connected with it whatsoever. I came over through purely academic channels. I was the consulting physician with the Reich Sport Leadership which was a central medical position. Secondly, I was professor for the Reich Academy for Sport Activities and I was there the leader of the medical department. Thirdly, I was the Chief Physician of the Institute at Hohenlychen. At that time I had n connections at all to the SS or Himmler.
Q. The word "Institute" Hohenlychen was sometimes connected with the word "camp". Was the clinic organized in the form of a camp or how was it really organized?
A. It was a modernly built large clinic with over a thousand beds, 15 to 20 buildings. There were departments for children, for tuberculosis, for sport, for various lung diseases. The buildings were separated according to the various fields.