Q You know that in the year of 1934 the Reich government issued a law in order to prevent sick and bad heritage. What is your attitude towards this law?
A I came into close connection with this law on the basis of my activity at Hohenlychen. On the one side I had influential foreign patients in Hohenlychen, and by accident also a Jewish group. I just mention this without quoting any names because I am of the opinion that all patients came to me moved by confidence and not in order to appear in evidence on my behalf at a later late.
On the other hand I would like to show that at that time which Hitler visited Hess who was in my institute and could, make it clear, using Hohenlychen as an example, that I must either continue to lead Hohenlychen in the tolerant manner in which I did so far, or that I must close. Hitler, who at that time was still very accessible, gave me two approvals which applied to Hohenlychen for the entire period.
I had the right to accept Jews, to currently accept Jews and my operations could be continued in the case of heritage diseases. I don't mention that because I consider it to be something of importance. I know from the Sauerbruch Clinic, from Rostock, et cetera, that certainly Jewish patients were accepted whenever they approached the clinic. Whether they approached the clinic was a question of political difficulties which had nothing to do with the physicians.
I only mention this matter, of course, because it is being presented here as a miracle if somebody, by exception, had accepted a Jewish patient. Much more difficult was the dispute about the congenitally ill people, because here it is really a question of a limit. Mr. Brandt put it very clearly that he considered it difficult to expertize this child in the case of his euthanasia. When the surgeons had children who had only one congenital injury, just one leg that was crippled or one foot that was paralyzed, the sterilization laws at first in Germany in that connection were very strict. I think that we have to thank Dr. Kreuz and myself that we were able to alleviate that situation essentially.
Q I think that you describe the outlines and the spirit which moved you and according to which you intended to lead Hohenlychen, and I now go ever to your activity within the National Socialist Party. When did you enter the NSDAP and what was your position toward the so called Party ideology?
A Somehow in May or June 1933, after my appointment, at the time when every official and professor had to be a mender of the Party, I became also a member of the Party; that is, I didn't experience the fighting times of the Party and all the initial period that was connected with it because of my neutral social position, but I want to define my position very clearly in connection with this point and want to show what the thoughts were of a certain class of people at that time.
I don't want you to interpret from that that I in any way wanted to incriminate other people, but on the other hand there was not any level of criminals there anywhere that amounted to a thousand or ten thousand men. And Germany really did net see very much about the Third Reich. Two many people had lost their lives. The conflict was too great, and it was our wish to help.
The word, non-political physician, I recognize only when it means that he is not active and is not working politically with any Party. Neither I nor any assistant examine had any political education or anything of a similar nature. On the hand that does not mean that I was completely indifferent in my experiences in the Third Reich, or that I wanted to get an alibi for myself for any later period of time. Even today I am convinced that Germany was in its greatest catastrophe during these two wars, and that it was the duty of every decent German to concern himself actively with the concern and troubles of that time.
Now, there were a number of people, to whom I never belonged, who from the start, recognized the bad way to which the Third Reich was leading because of their insight. This number, I think, was not as large as it appears to be now, and I believe that in order to be just one has to somewhat this was most of all the worker, the man who was on the left, and who understood this opposition in time.
On the other hand there was a certain German spiritual elite, let us say; from Thomas Mann up to Tuchelsky, who, moved by virtue or their own spiritual conviction, went away from the coercion which was exercised by the Third Reich.
I was the physician of Thomas Mann and Tuchelsky and I know all these people. They impressed me deeply as spiritual individuals, but they had no support at the German people in thier need and in their concerns. They had no instrument of power in order to restore order.
I don't want to say very much about the beurgeois side, but I think that as a physician with a number of thousand beds where every patient lies there with his members of his family; with his worries, with his letters, with his concerns, that I could perhaps fill in a certain gap. There was not a political philosophical minimum in the beurgeois side which acted in a a convincing manner and employed and won over the generation on his side. The German was very suspicious and almost in a dream walked into the Third Reich without completely realizing it.
On the other hand one has to say very honestly that I was not a member of the Party until may and June because the political pressure exercised an professors was not as react. I do not want to incriminate this level of population but I do want to say that we all hoped that order and ordinary working program and a certain appeasement would somehow again come about in the country. That was my own idea of the Third Reich, or rather, my idea was given a chance by the Third Reich. I took advantage of this chance and I decently worked for the Third Reich, and when then the need and the war and worry came, I paid for this chance as it was paid by every decent human being. I an not of the opinion that it is possible to be paid by a state and then wait for an opportunity to get out.
Apart from a painter or a secluded research worker, one cannot say that we did not realize and experience the tensions of our period. On the other hand it is wrong, to say that we are guilty of the developments when we tried to bring about pure work and exercise our efforts in the Third Reich.
When the Fartherland is in need there can only be three possibilities. Either yen recognize in time that the leadership is wrong in that case you have to fight it from the very first moment. You don't let yourself be paid, you don't take a chance -- you fight it. I neither realized that, and therefore didn't fight it.
But, there is another possibility; there is the possibility that one believes that a power has come in the Government legally and will survive, even in spite of all the failings of the officers, individuals and all eventually will be steered properly when people who are in the Government who are in the country will advance their criticism, and will then steer the country to the proper goal. May I take the historical example of the French revolution; there it was also the case that the democratic idea of Franklin in France where Lafayette sprang, could only exercise its influence in France when there were people activity opposing it, I don't think that there is a third possibility, that outside any opposition or outside any cooperation, one appeared at the end of a catastrophe with an empty questionnaire without any documents, but having been member of the party. The youth in Germany, our assistant pupils, were only obedient because we were standing in front of them as generals and professors. Now, I may say in my statement I was an outspoken civilian; that I never deceived any money from the State or Wehrmacht, which I think I can prove, that I did everything within my sphere of influence, acting sensibly and socially, so I do not want to get away from the responsibility which I took over as a general and as a professor. I had no position in the party, no special position; there was a possibility to dispute about this matter with higher or lower echelons. I took this opportunity that I can say whether my way was right or wrong. I sacrificed just as much as any one else with reference to family and other sacrifices, and I didn't try to get away from any danger.
Q. Since when had you known the late Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler, and what kind of relationship did you have with him?
A. I know that Himmler's shadow oppresses everybody, and if it was not the case of Dr. Fischer, it would be very ease for me to ask the Prosecution to give their basis of the Indictment in that direction. I can tell you, perhaps, how Himmler approximately affected me, and I think it is important to state that even if there may be a danger to speak about any of my enormous powers and high influence; whoever, dared s ay that knows nothing about the Third Reich.
I am completely convinced of that. Himmler was neither an important man nor was he a pathological peculiar man. Himmler was never a two faced man. Himmler was never interesting. Himmler on the other hand, if you permit me to leave out these unspeakable cruelties from the room, for just a minute, he was a man very simple, a very industrious man, who had a working program which changed as in the case of every simple man from good to bad. Himmler originates from the same city a s I do, that is, from Landshu? and these very notorious relationships of confidence which are being repeated, only existed in so far as my father was Himmler's house physician, and Himmler an the other hand, Himmler's father was my rector at my school; that is, we spent our childhood from 1912 to 1916, together. And, if my patents house was very liberal as to the Himmler house, the Himmler house was that of a strict orthodox schoolmaster that handled their son strictly. My notorious relationship as I find does not always refer to Heinrich Himmler but to his brother who went to school with me. And, now the terrible thing is added to it, that the first name of this brother was also Gebhardt, and therefore, I was called Karl because if the teacher in school would say Gebhardt, Himmler's son and I would simultaneously answer to Gebhardt. So, from 1916 there is a certain letter from Heinrich Himmler to Karl Gebhardt which starts, "Dear Karl." Then the war came about and every decent German went to the service of his country so that my personal contact with Himmler stopped from 1917 to 1937. Naturally we met one another again in certain historical situations, and our attitude changed. I experienced the entire necessity of the first war. I was wounded and I was imprisoned. I know what it means to be a soldier in two wars. Himmler was never a soldier. He was just a soldier without going to the front, but that was all. While my father could force me into a certain bourgeois career, Himmler's father did not succeed. Perhaps one could explain it retrospectively. Himmler's father told his son that he had to go to a farm where he had to be kept extremely strictly in order, to get away from any political influence. Unfortunately near that farm there was a number of officers of the National Socialist Party and that is how his father's intention of necessity failed.
Our student career may have been similar, I think. In 1923 there was the so-called Nazi putsch. Himmler participated actively in some political group there. I participated as a physician and took care of the wounded people and the dead people at the Feldherrnhalle belonging to be the parties, that together with Geheimrat Sauerbruch. Himmeler continued to serve very much in the party, and in 1923 founded his SS together with others. He turned to the circle which we both knew from school. I consciously did not become a member. I do not want to awaken the opinion here that I did net do that because of any certain political insight, but because of the concept which was valid in all schools; namely, that the older never subordinated himself to the younger. Up to the moment the war started, up to that moment, I had my independence toward Himmler. After that moment, however, I became a soldier and I was obedient without question. However, the personality of Himmler came into my different light. Himmler in 1925 founded his SS and, I believe, not because I think my own memory is important, but in order to help keep things straight with facts, I think it is necessary to say a few words about the SS here. Just because I kept away from that up to the year of 1936, the year of the Olympic games, Himmler is not original but enormously industrious, the SS in its principle, irrespective of whether the channel and personality was correct, had a call, which as an instrument of power could be used, misused either f r the best or worst. This call, of course, does not originate from Himmiler, but is a symptom of all foundations of orders prevailing at all times.
It shouldn't be interpreted as a blasphemy if I indicate that Himmler simply stated that in this collective mass I must reproduce once more a form of aristocracy. I am obliged to say that because only in that way can you understand that, you can either find the very best of the German generation with tho SS or the very worst. It is very correct that tho Prosecution points to tho SS oath particularly, but they were not in a position to interpret it correctly and read it correctly if I may criticize. The oath speaks of absolute obedience. I tried to show the German Reich was we experienced it, and if there is one thing which I realized in spite of my position to the Third Reich it was that once more there was a clear conception of obedience and authority, something which, of course, was later mis-used. We had all grown up during a time when there was no oath. I can just remember, just about remember that there was a Kaiser and a King, and that was why after the collapse of 1918, they had become very ridiculous in their authority and the epaulettes of officers were torn from their shoulders and officers were not selected because of their ability but because of their political affiliations. Every little group of people had their won imagination as to how Germany was to be saved. The Oaths were impossible but they were secret and were never kept and where there was a foundation of an order which can clearly be conceived. It was grand if it was an order which is tied to absolute morality. It was danger if it is severely imitated. The oath says: to be absolutely obedient, come what may, that one looks into tho future and gives absolute obedience in order to finally help Germany.
It was said in 1917 we had almost won tho war if w had just been a little more faithful. We have seen how no government can maintain itself because of gross deceit and black market and so on, and every conception of authority was injured, and now a new thought came about, just be obedient, don't ask, no questions, and in this generation to do everything to see to it that Germany is better off in tho future.
That is something you can well believe and have faith in when you are twenty and thirty years old and if you don't try to got away from this responsibility you don't have to be condemned. Such an oath is a terrible burden because I didn't feel that and I didn't go to the SS in a dramatic way. I wanted to be understood in a way where I am just describing in what manner the generation was growing up. That is not for my own concern. I had so much to do with my scientific caroer in Hohenlychen that I had no relationship to tho SS or any political activities.
I was sent to Himmler in order to prepare the Olympic games and these were the circles who were reasonable. These were the bourgeois circles. They were tho ones who sent me and the reason was that the German teams were not to include Jews and the appearance of foreign Jews even was not appreciated politically. The Reich Sports Leader who was absolutely fair, was against the conception with all means at his disposal. It was very difficult for him because the Chief of the German Fencing Teams was Heydrich and he naturally exercised this counter pressure against German intolerance in sport activities and I went to Himmler because of Tschammer's wish in 1935 and convinced him how impossible it was not to be tolerant in medical and sport activities. At that time we thought that it would suffice if we could get through with our fair neutrality in this field and to oppose political grounds of a different nature.
You know that we succeeded and I can claim the credit that I was tho man who could prevent this influence. Now you cannot say on the basis of that that I should have prevented everything that Himmler did throughout my entire life, but I can well differentiate. I could limit Himmler where it was within my sphere of power. On the other hand I couldn't gain any influence where I don't know what was going on and where I had no knowledge of the details. I then was included in a German committee for the Olympic games and an international committee for Olympic games, and as a reward and because of my connec tions to the Reich Sport Leader I became something like an nanirai'y l,adcr cf che SS.
During the time and the subsequent period when Himmler visited Hehenlychen, whether during the Olympic games or after the Olympic games I don't remember, he brought some member of his family with him who was injured and I accepted her.
During my interrogation was tortured and I was asked how can you, a man with your knowledge and your connections abroad, how could you have been in sympathy with Himmler. Himmler very modestly and quite alone came to Hohenlychen. I was the master at Hohenlychen and not Himmler. Himmler only meant as much to me as any other King or Duke I treated. I never rejected any one personally who came to me in my capacity as a physician because of any disease. I accepted his reference to our old family relationship and I started a certain relationship of confidence but with a strictly limited sphere cf tasks. I didn't again anything because of Himmler. I remained of the rank of Gruppenfuehrer. These loose connections suddenly crystallized into a certain medical form when in 1938 Himmler flew to Austria. By same accident he arrived there before the troops had arrived. The political tension was great and a number of officers had to be flown, among them an ill Gruppenfuehrer, without knowing any of the events in Austria I was suddenly telephoned to fly there in order to protect this group which was around. Himmler, located in Vienna, and that is how the conception of escort physician arose. That is, whenever Himmler went into danger or what he thought was danger he asked me or an assistant of mine, after 1941 Dr. Stumpfegger attended, in order to have a surgeon around him. This position became so personal that it had really nothing to do with any political event. In 1939 I was taken along for the purpose of joining him in his journey to the Sudetenland. At that time we were all very ardent in our journey, and who won't admit it must have a bad memory. As his physician there I was at Munich, I saw the negotiations before the Sudetenland and I saw Chamberlain at Munich and we all thought everything was going well.
A. (continued) During this journey Himmler told no about a very personal conflict in his life, and because of the tradition of my father asked one to help him in that task. I wouldn't want to give any hints about that event if I hadn't read so many untruths and bad things in newspaper reports. On the other hand this conflict is characteristic for Himmler personally. On the other hand he was a person who had really no university education. He was areal stable man who just wasn't a student and who didn't know very much and who was in no way supreme. His entire imagination about family and children and everybody having to have children was based on that kind of personality. And, fate played a different game with him. He could have no children and never quite survived this conflict. At any rate, his son and his second daughter were born at Hohenlychen, were under my protection until April 1945, and that is why Himmler under disguise of hospital inspection came to us. And I had tho duty to accept tho oath of Hippocrites where the words can be applied on all sides - the duty of secrecy which does not only concern the relationship to the patient but also refers to everything which one may see around oneself. If it doesn't belong to one's sphere of duty one has to overlook it, at least one has to keep quiet about it and not take up any official position. I know exactly how difficult it is to see just where the limits are, but I may be permitted to describe the relationship to Himmler, that just because of our close youth relationship - over since our youth up to the time I became a professor I didn't need his protection and I didn't approved of his foundling tho SS. Furthermore. I may say that the SS Himmler and the Sport had to come to me and had to ask me to negotiate for them in my sphere of activity. That, contrary to so many who throw themself around Himmler, I kept far from that. The core of our relationship was that I was not his physician, I was not with him, during tho days that ho was healthy except during his short journey to Poland.
But, on the other hand I had to accompany him during one of the other dramatic incidents and that I took care of especially personal affairs of his, which have nothing to do with any political state of dependency out made it very difficult for no to answer the question how I know him, why I know him, and who told me. Nobody at that tine in 1939 know what the future will bring, how difficult the future will be. And, I therefore made this very clear agreement with Himmler as we thought it was. One thing absolutely, the duty of secrecy as it is proscribed by the order. I only concern myself with medical affairs and not with use the hours where ho wont to his wife and children to exorcise any influence with him. On the other hand ho attached a great value to appear to me to be a bourgois, knowing my connections abroad. And since he attached great value to the fact that the nether of his children would see him in that light.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. HARDY: May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution respectfully requests that tho Court admonish the witness to confine himself to questions a sked by defense counsel and be more concise in his answer, furthermore, it is requested that defendant refrain from his lengthy speech making.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is not inclined to admonish the witness. Counsel may proceed.
KARL GEBHARDT - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, in the indictment it is claimed that you had been the personal physician of Himmler. Is that correct?
A. No, I have never been his personal physician. I would be grateful to the Tribunal if it would permit me to describe the relationship in detail because by the use of phrases and brief descriptions so much injustice has also been heapod upon others and I therefor consider it my duty, in tho interest of others, to clarify this matter. The word "personal" physician means that a physician constantly remains with the person he is taking care of and that he is paid by him, just like the personal physician of a king gets his salary from the kin himself and he does not take care of any other patients, or only treats other patients with the approval of his master, however, this institution did not exist with Himmler, in any case it did not exist in this manner. It is shown t at tho influence which Himmler gave to his physicians has to be clarified. Himmler actually was against any medical influence and that was for a very remarkable reason.
his wife had been a senior nurse in a private clinic in Berlin from 1923 until 1933. At that clinic she had seen all the things which private clinics in a large city carry out with cosmetic operations, with abortions, and with cases where money was wrongly use, etc. The concept remained for a long time and it always appeared with Himmler that we, as medical men, considered our profession purely from the point of view of money, and for the duration he never kept a really fully trained physician at his side. The Finnish massage physician was with him most of the time; that was a man who took care of him even in the days when he was healthy and he is what is commonly known abroad as a mesmerist -- a nan who believes in influence which is riven to him from another source -- and from the very beginning suck a nan will not have any understanding for the teaching of Medical Schools. During the war he finally made some concessions in that respect yet he was always influenced by mesmerism and homeopathy and always had a hostile attitude towards teachings of Medical Schools. In Munich he established the Biochemical Institute under Fahrenkamp who certainly was a very clever heart specialist, but who was in a very difficult position because he was not fully Aryan, and for working under Himmler. Like people who are in suck a difficult position, he certainly may have given him some false advise.
Q. I must interrupt you here, witness. The name of this physician who treated Himmler was Kersten ....
A. Yes, Kersten.
Q. And the bio-chemist in Munich was Dr. Fakrenkamp. It is the same person who has already been mentioned in the course of this trial and he was supposed to have been the only physician with suck ideas in che German medical profession.
A. Yes, he was forced upon the German doctors and faced the hostility of the whole medical profession in Germany.
Q. You are also accused of Count 4 in the indictment, that is, that you were a member in a criminal organization, if not the SS. You have already stated your point cf view with regard to the oath of the SS. In view of this point in the indictment do you want to add anything to your previous statement?
A. I believe it is important to describe this manner of giving orders by Himmler and this manner of thinking which becomes transfered in the Waffen SS through Military channels. Himmler's personal position can be described in very few sentences. Every period of revolution has its typical socalled second-man", who takes the whole medium of severity on himself, just as Mehammed smiles and the Caliph carries it out. From his whole attitude Himmler was of the opinion that he was a General cf tho Order who had only one viewpoint and that was Adolf Hitler; that he kept this position so easily because he was the younger and it was probable that he would survive his chief. By careful camouflage he always managed to show every relationship in suck a way that he always recieved directly the order from Hitler, or in any case from that direction. How he had a strange scientific opinion based on political reasons in a State Ideal from Hegel to Lenin, from Stalin to Hitler, that the State in itself is the main object and that the individual has to subordinate himself to it. That Himmler added to this concept of State Virtue and State Order was that from an obscure agricultural and biological education in tho country he did not think of the individual , but what I have called in my writings, the wisdom of race. The prerequisite of suck a system of giving orders and for such an oath is that the order is sacred at the moment in which it is given, that is, that disagreement can only be expressed beforehand, but that in an almost historical ever-breeding of the old concept of soldiering that order had to be obeyed once it has been given.
Today I knew the exact arguments which can be used against these forms of oath and obligations. I would therefore like to bring forth the objections through which the gratesqueness and the incorrectness of this attitude has been proved.
Such an authoritative relationship would only be possible if the person who gives the orders is omniscient, and cleverly bound to the moral concept. That is a conclusion at which we arrive today. However, at that time it just opposite, we didn't have any concept at all about the way of giving orders, and we were glad that we were given a clear arrangement. I am still of the opinion to say that of course it would have been possible to combat such a concept if one understood its false justification, at the time when the Third Reich gave me the chance to work at Hehenlychen, I was unable to understand and that is because I was so far removed from any political activity and burden. however, on the other hand, I am still of the opinion that it is not so that at the very moment a War breaks out, viz. when on previously had an opportunity and developed things and did not realize this conflict that one then suddenly has doubts to obey. I have soon so many people die and be cowards and the cowards always had a philosophical reason for their cowardice if they didn't want to die. At the same moment I went into the field with the Waffen SS, I have tried to maintain my personal independence in the sense of positive criticism, however, on the other land I have complied. with the orders which were given, and I have demanded the same thing from all my subordinates, and that is why today I have to stand by this concept. However, it is something quite different a former SS-man somewhere should believe that the still SS existed with its obligations today, because as a result of the suicide of the commanders and the responsibility which they promised to their subordinates but did not take this form of the oath was carried to absurdity. At the and I will have an opportunity to show that I did everything that Himmler would surrender with no, and on one afternoon all the Generals of the Waffen SS would also surrender, so that we would vouch for it and our subordinates would become free of all responsibility.
At tho time I was the only one who wrote the letter to the English General.
Q. What were the various positions which you occupied within course if time within the medical service of the Waffen SS?
A. 1939 I had one along to Poland as escort physician. This position was very unpleasant. It did not give us the right to intervene in any speciallized field of work. We did not see anything of the war and Medical Activity, so that, just to mention the details which Karl Brandt had hinted, we made ourselves independent. The Brigade of Komolska was perhaps the only cavalry unit which with thousands of injured charged modern weapons and was near Gross-Born. That time Brandt and I, in the first dressing stations at the Eastern Front, took care of the wounded. After all of these unsatisfactory activities I applied to Himmler to establish something for the SS like a consulting physician or a specialist physician for the Waffen SS.
DR. SEIDEL: May it please th.e Tribunal, in Volume II of my Document Dock, there is an order by fha-ler to the defendant Gebhardt, which I shall want to offer as an exhibit. I have the original of this order in my hand.. In view of the fact that t ho order, and the contents of this brief order, are of import", ice for the farther understanding the testimonies, I request that I be g;ivou permission to read these few sentences into he record.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand this order has already been introduced in evidence?
DR. SEIDEL: The document has not yet been submitted. It will appear in Volume II of my Document Book as an exhibit. Right now I only want to rend the few sentences.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand you will offer the document in evidence?
DR. SEIDEL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You may read the sentences now from the document that you wish to read.
DR. SEIDEL: I quote, "The Riechs Fuehrer SS. Berlin, the 17th of May, 1940. I have ordered SS Oberfuehrer, University Professor, Dr. Karl Gebhardt, consulting surgeon to the Waffen SS, to clinically supervise the medical company , the main dressing station, the field and military hospitals, constantly. For this purpose he is ordered to actively intervene with his surgical group, and its special equipment, in case the front dressing stations are overburdened and in the case of especially difficult individual cases. As a special assignment he is charged with creating clinical reception centers, and to direct the transport of badly wounded soldiers or indispensable individuals, (officers or men) over and above the usual means of transportation. The clinical orders given by SS Oberfuehrer Professor Karl Gebhardt are to be observed by military physicians and those in the hospitals of the Waffen SS. At the same time Pro fessor Gebhardt has been told not to intervene with hospital work beyond clinical decisions.
All military authorities are requested to assist Oberfuehrer Professor Gebhardt and his staff. The Reichs Fuehrer and Chief of German Police." Signed "Heinrich Himmler." End of quotation.
Q Witness, it seems to me in this order of Himmler the tasks are described which you carried out within the medical service of the Waffen SS, in the medical service in France, is that correct?
A It is correct. That this order shows what would have corresponded to a desired activity under normal circumstances.