A. No. I did not consider myself an active political element at the time or later. I was a member of the General SS and, thus in a certain sense, I had the attribute with which I could get through the difficulties of public life. I did not belong to any other National Socialist organization until 1939. In 1939 the General SS asked me to join the Party and I did so. I did not belong to the League of Students or the Hitler Youth, and I was not in the Fuehrer school at Altrese. My studies were not shortened. I took the prescribed number of semesters, which was eleven, and a complete year of interne work.
Q. How was the service in the SS or in the Reitersturm which you joined?
A. I was there only for a year and then, for reasons of training, I went to Berlin, Bonn and Leipzig, and then I served in the General SS not in the Reitersturm because there was none. It will be difficult to describe this service because it was completely colorless. It was a mixture of sport with a certain character of military sport. It was, in some ways, like a veterans' organization.
Q. Then, why did you not leave the SS since you were not satisfied with the service?
A. The situation was that in order to fulfill the demands in public life - and I was a Government employee, an employee of the City of Berlin - one had to have some sort of evidence that one was a member of a Nations Socialist organization. That was one reason. The more comfortable reason. And in the second place I always saw a certain justification for this service in the practical solution for the social question the question of social differences. It was actually so that within the residential district, after the organization was set up, the members of the various classes met on a basis of friendship in this service and the members of the laborers' class were next to jurists, and the merchant next to artisans, and in this realization of the overcoming of class differences I saw a definitely positive task which made it possible for me to bear this uninteresting service - and I must add that, at this time, the service consisted of two or three times a month attending such a meeting and there were no further claims.
Q. When and under what circumstances did you join the Waffen-SS?
A. In my civilian position in the Virchow Hospital in Berlin I had so much to do and had such a definite direction of training that I had never got around to doing military service. Consequently, at the beginning of the war I was not in the Wehrmacht. In November, 1939, I was ordered to report as a member of the General who had not yet done military service. I was ordered to report to the Waffen-SS. At the time I was not particularly happy about this. My friends were in the Wehrmacht and I would have preferred to go there. I went to the magistrate of the City of Berlin with this letter and I went to the fraft board with it, but I was told that this had the effect of law and that it was my duty to report in Berlin-Lichterfelde, as instructed. At the time there was a saying that everyone had to do his duty where he was assigned, and I was satisfied with this.
Q. Then you were a reservist in the Waffen-SS?
A. Yes, I was a reservist in the Waffen-SS.
Q. What training did you have in the Waffen-SS?
A. At first, I was in the barracks of Bodyguard Adolf Hitler, at lichterfelde, and then I came to the recruit training regiment in Stralsund and I was given the normal training for three months by the Waffen-SS.
Q. Then how did you come to Hohenlychen?
A. After the end of this training I was given an order to transfer - an order to report to Hohenlychen at the SS Hospital.
W. What impression did you have at the time of the hospitals at Hohenlychen?
A. I had already known the names of the hospitals at Hohenlychen. They played a very important role in the German sport movement and among German sport enthusiasts and, in the second place, they were among those hospitals which supplied operation material for the Rudolf Virchow Pathological Institute for histological examinations.
For that reason, I knew this name and the name of the chief physician. In the spring of 1940, I arrived there for the first time. I was quite astonished at what I found there. This clinic differed in many respects from the picture which I had been accustomed to see at clinics. First of all, it was situated and constructed differently. It was on a lake, in the woods, on a hill, and consisted of fifteen large handsome buildings, and between the buildings there were large expanses of lawn, flower beds and sport places. But the first impression, in addition to this, was the attitude of the patients in contrast to the somewhat lethargic attitude of the patients in the usual city hospitals. It is difficult for me today to remember all this. Much of it is over-shadowed, but it is not exaggerating to say that the patients were distinguished because, in spite of the severe injuries, most of them looked happy, and since I had a relatively critical attitude from having worked in the pathological anatomy I was interested in finding out the secret of the reputation of Hohenlychen. First, I was an assistant doctor at a large septic station and I saw there that the treatment was conducted on the same principle as we had been taught at the university clinic. That did not seem to be a good explanation in the beginning until I discovered that the most important thing at Hohenlychen was that orthodox methods of school medicine, which were known to us, here too were used with special intensity according to a special scheme. After a few months I was in a position to see what these principles were, and these principles did not include any principle that was not preached elsewhere. It was the doctrine of Lexer in the treatment of inflammation, the doctrine of the classical orthopedists Lange and Brandes in the treatment by immobilization and plaster cast, and, the only specific thing originated by Gebhardt, the special type of exercise in which there was an exact balance between rest and active exercise. But the other specific thing was that all doctors acted according to these rules which Gebhardt had laid down.
While otherwise individual choice of assistants is rather high, here everything was coordinated in such a way that the treatment at Station 1 was, in principle and in effect, the same as that of Station 15. And there was another thing that I noticed. That was the deliberate emphasis of nursing care. The Chief Physician, Professor Gebhardt, told us at that time that the essential thing is not operating technique because that could be learned. The most important thing the primary thing was the nursing care given the individual patient who must have the feeling that ho is given personal care by his doctor. And these rules were centralized and directed by the man at the head of this clinic.
Q. What impression did you have, at the time, of the personality of the head of this clinic, the defendant Dr. Gebhardt? Was he a strong personality?
A. The impressions which I had of Gebhardt were composed of impressions of him in his work as a doctor and a scientist, and of the impression which I had of his effect on the patients. I realized that this concept of a special reputation of Hohenlychen among German patients came exclusively from Gebhardt's personality as a doctor. Gebhardt was such a strong man that he transferred this strength of character to his assistants and to his patients. Or, rather, to this patients and to his assistants, in that order. I shall never forget how, of the many thousands of patients whom I saw go through Hohenlychen, the eyes of hundreds were on him in confidence which I had never yet seen devoted to a doctor. I frequently had an opportunity to see it when I was the assistant and visited the patients together with him. He was aware of this strength of his personality and this was an essential factor in his treatment. For this reason, he, who was the head of a thousand bed clinic, had set up an arrangement which I was unaccustomed to.
Hohenlychen was about 100 kilometers from Berlin and the only connection was by railroad. Therefore, three times a day the patients arrived. During the times when patients were arriving, Gebhardt collected his assistants around him and days after day received the patients so that every single patient who was admitted, through an especially skillful organization, cane into the clinic and was immediately under the eyes of the Chief, who listed to his complaints, who decided the course of the treatment, who gave instructions to the assistants for the treatment, and who then always had time to shake hands with the patient and express his assurance that the case would develop favorably. If I analyze those things now, afterwards, they may seen rather bald. For the person who came to the clinic for help it was certainly a deep human experience that he did not have to wait hours or days, even during the war, until someone took an intero in him and that it was not just someone who took an interest in him but it was the famous head of the clinic who came to him in the first hour to ask about his complaint, to examine him, and to express his good wishes.
Q You spoke of a special position of Hohenlychen. What did you mean?
A Well, there was another thing I noticed especially at the time in contrast to other clinics. I had admitted patients at the Virchow Hospital in Berlin frequently and there was something that almost hurt me and that impressed me greatly. that was that the first subject of discussion, the first contact between a patient and the doctor, was always, unfortunately, the question of the financial settlement. First of all it had be established who would pay the expenses and that was something that did not exist at Hohenlychen. There the patients arrived I should like to say, before they realized it they were being et mined, they were being x-rayed, they were examined by the Chief and it is certainly not wrong if I say that some of them were operated on and were in bed for 8 or 10 days before they managed to say that they had financial difficulties and that they did not knew hew they were going to pay.
Then we assistants only had to mention it to the Chief, who was always ready and always able to help them and support them. Thereby the whole climinal experience was given a special breadth and a special centralization on the medical personality of Gebhardt. If I had the impression of a special position, this was due to Gebhardt's announcement to the assistants that Hohenlychen was a clinic which had a special position in Germany. He collected the assistant doctors and all the associates around himself frequently and, at such discussions he said this. He said that the clinic had to keep an especially high level and that therefore we had an especially great duty and he expected very much from us. He took no consideration of any free tine. He had us work from 7:00 in tho morning until late at night and he did not recognize Saturday and Sunday. He opposed attempts to get a certain free time. He opposed that very energetically but in this demand for clinical obedience he always appealed to the duty of the doctor to help and to be interested only in medical care. He never asked us with a harshness which we could not understand. He merely appealed to higher moral virtue and aims within our profossion. The clinic held a high level oven during the war and it was often said that service at Hohenlychen was just as important as service with the divisions, because this clinic, for example, had special tasks regarding the sickness of very high and indispensable personalities. In the second place, this impression was given to me, who came from the middle class and the highest personality I had ever seen during peace times was perhaps the mayor of my home town-- this impression of a special position was given to mo because the patients held the highest positions in the society of Germany and other countries.
I knew that a king of a European country was one of the patients. I know and had seen that members of many European royal families wer patients. International financial magnates were patients. More than half of all German ministers, foreign ministers, foreign ambassadors and international artists came to Hohenlychen. That, too, was because they wanted to be treated by Gebhardt and Gebhardt projected this duty and this honor to all his clinic, that is, to Hohenlychen.
These are the reasons why I came to the opinion that Hohenlychen had a special position. The next thing that impressed me was that those patients of high positions in society were together with the very poor men who formed the majority of the patients. I read once of very famous clinics abroad which prepared to care for especially rich people. In these clinics rich people were al* and then in contrast to that there were proletariat clinics or charitable clinics for poor people. That was in a form which I h* never been able to imagine. That was united in Hohenlychen. In Ward 1, where I was the doctor, there were these whom I mentioned first; in War 15, where I was also the doctor for a long time, there were wounded workers from the highway or minors, or wounded from the army in Ward 7, and Waffen-SS in Ward 7A. Everything was together there and we assistants worked in all wards and all the clinics and know the work in all of them. We know that Private Ward 1 differed from Ward 15 because the minister had a private room and a bathroom and perhaps an anteroom and a telephone and that the soldier was in the same room with 4 other people; but we had to tell ourselves repeatedly that there was no difference whatever in the treatment. Therefore I had a deep respect for the personality of Gebhardt and had enormous confidence in him on the basis of the work which he did there, which * been going on for 10 years.
Q Were you especially impressed in the sense of National Socialist ideology or SS ideology at Hohenlychen?
A No. IN a certain sense Hohenlychen was extremely tolera* There was no doubt it was definitely loyal to the State. I know Hohenlychen only during the war. The duty of loyalty to the State was a matter of course but no one felt obligated to the Party and to the National Socialist ideology. I may note in passing that religious services were held in both denominations in the chapel until the collapse and that the priests cf both religions came t teach religion to the sick children; but that was not the import thing. I should like to say there was enough room at Hohenlychen for catholic thinking and for protestant thinking and from the time when I examined the ambulatory patients I knew that Jews and half-Jews were also treated there and attracted no attention That was the thing which I noticed. Gebhardt sometimes formulate that and said that we are living the National Socialism here of Gebhardt type.
Q How long did you stay in Hohenlychen and then where did you go?
A I stayed in Hohenlychen during 194- and the first half * 1941, until the outbreak of the Russian Campaign. Then I was transferred to the 1st SS Division, the Body Guard Alolf Hitler, and was made the doctor of the 1st Battalion of this Division.
Q This Division was in the campaign against Russia?
A. Yes, this Division took part in the campaign against Russia. It was in the southern sector of the Eastern Front.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal now will be in recess.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q Witness, the war against Soviet Russia you took part in as a Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler; please tell us of your experience during this service in respect to the evidonce being presented in this proceedings?
A I took part in the war against Soviet Russia first as a physician for the First Battalion and second as second surgeon, a H auptverband - Platz is the medical unit in which tho surgical treatment takes place at the closest distance from the front.
At that time I experienced the war for the first time really and there I saw things that you cannot find in books. It mas a very difficult time because it placed the individual under an entirely different law from the law under which he was placed during peace and because not everyone has had this experience personally and many of these who did experience it did not survive it, so that those who had experience in this respect are individuals among a great number and are likely not to be understood. I should have been happy if my generation had been spraed this experience, but that was our task and this is the tragedy of the situation that my generation did participate in this and it would not be right for me to complain about this of course I would have to complain to a German.
This division was a German elite division. From the very first day of the Russian campaign until the day when I had to loave it because of a slight wound and a serious illness on the front lines in actual combat.
At that time the German divisions were still advancing to the cast and the attacks were carried out with no regard for our own losses. The division was 12,000 men strong at the beginning, 12,000 young men no older than twenty four. As troop physician I came to know these men to a large extent so that the difficult thing for me subsequently was that the number of wounded were not impersonal cases of wounded persons, rather they came to me as wounded friends as wounded human beings, whom I know very well and the sort cf persons they were.
I said that the division started with 12,000 men and when I left and I remember the statement, its strength at the end was in toto about 3,000. when I left a large number of these 9,000 fatalities and casualties went through my hands. They dropped out because of death in the field through wounds, through sickness and during winter because of the terrible cold.
My experience as a troop physician basically and in many respects differs from a front line combat officer. The combat officer, of course, also experiences war in all its hardships, but experiences it actively and when his men fall beside him, he tells himself that that simply is the fate of war, when they are wounded he tells himself the same and his position prevents him from inquiring into the individual fate cf these individuals. But, these wounded persons who would come to us troop physicians are the same people with whom perhaps on the dry before we had spoken and had made a particular impression on us. Those people expressing the same hopes for life and wishes as one had within peace in mind in one's own heart.
In all these occurrences which did not happen sporadically as in the case cf the combat officer, but happened continuously to us, those events lasted throughout months and months, and this is the way I answered the question at the end of the war. I believed that this war had been so dradful that it could only be concluded after the last man had fallen. That was the impression that we had at that time because one asked oneself again and again: where do these young healthy people come from? At that time the man who was not completely inarticulate about things or hardened to them and who did not simply have the wish to regard himself as an individual and to save himself, such a person found himself in a critical spiritual condition because everything that happened and was experienced took place according to laws which one did not know of from peacetime.
We had been raised in the belief in order, order in which man occupied the central point, and we saw man as a creature who stood in a personal and direct relationship with God. Now we experience day after dry that human beings whom one know and of which one know that they did not hate the enemy, that those non obeyed orders and in obeying these orders committed deeds or were wounded or died although we knew that they had not been particularly obliged to do this rather than someone else, but that they did this only because they did not disobey the laws of the State. Thus, the person who analyzed these conditions from a spiritual point of view went through a very essential change if he saw that there was such a thing as a law of war, a moralethical law of war, and that this law of war was not only different from the law of peace but that it was actually the diametric opposite of the law of peace.
In peacetime the individual stood in the center and the State was simply the organization for the individual security, and unless one wanted to be an anarchist, one could allow in warfare only that law which put the State in the center and adopted a supra-individual attitude, however, without being able to avoid the conclusion that the individual occupied a secondary position.
There were also philosophic bases for this point of view.
One referred to Hogel who saw history as the manifestation of Divine Will and the State on the one hand as the highest ethical norm, and on the other hand saw in the State the instrument for the execution of this historical process. Thus, two laws confronted one another which really had no contact with each other but stood in a contradiction to one another. Beth were ba* on ethical principles. The justification of each of them could net be denied. They were based both on concern for the suffering cares and deaths of the soldiers in relation to reality. At that time I felt the wish in myself to defend myself against these terrible occurrences, but I could net have granted myself the right of accepting any fate but that which the others next to me were to experience, but after tho war I wanted to appear before the youth of our country and speak against war as an institution because I believed that it was the root of all evil, and I though that this would be more convincing if I did not do it from a comfortable armchair but did it after I myself had experienced the hardships of war as a brave soldier.
At that time it was clear to me that it was a particularly tragic situation that would result if a man had to act in a moment in which the laws of war and those of peace were working in him simultaneously and if he experienced within himself the difference and the contradiction between these two laws, both of which were based on ethical bases and demands.
Q How did the leadership of the SS Division differ from that of others?
A. Counsel can certainly advise me on this since I was only under the Waffen SS. I only saw the other divisions next to me but was not actually in them. One thing I do know that they were essentially characterized by the personalities of their commanders. These commanders were men and personalities who, as history will report, were determined and courageous and they gave an example of such qualities to their soldiers. I had experiences with two divisional commanders. They both were the decoration for close fighting, from which it could be seen that they had not directed tank attacks from their headquarters, but they were actually on hand in the first tanks themselves, and actively participated in the fighting. This resulted in a very particular command relationship within the division, because a man who acted in this way and of whom it was known he was a courageous man and had experienced everything the common soldier had experienced. It was impossible to refuse to obey such a man and it was impossible not to give such a commander implicit obedience. These personalities and personal courage of these men was really the essential characteristic of these men, although they may have been in tactical respects very skillful.
Q. What were your impressions at that time on the Eastern front regarding the medical and the medical military problems?
A. The first thing that I experienced was that the situation here was quite different from that in peace. For example in 1941 and 1942 there was mention of a winter catastrophe on the Russian front and I heard at that time with interest that this catastrophe was traced back to some extent to ** difficulties in organization. We troop physicians saw a different picture of this and we thought the main reason for this was a different one. The situation was characterized by the fact that the medical power, even that in the ambulances was not sufficient to fill the duties that were placed on us, particularly when a main dressing station had four doctors and cannot under any circumstances take care of more than twenty or twenty-five seriously wounded persons, and perhaps as many as fifty slightly wounded persons in one day. The problem of which I spoke came up when not sixty wounded persons turned up, but 150 and 200 and I have experienced 400 wounded persons which had to be taken care of at the dressing station. Secondly, the situation was characterized by the fact that the war was a war of movement, which made the connections between the various units much more difficult, where as the main emphasis in the medical care with the individual unit in the case of wounds from high velocity weapons, the troop physician was not to take care of the wounded.
This could not have been forseen, and later that a symptom arose which was known as the their stage of molecular disturbance. The first care for these wounded persons was insufficient and the troop physicians could only sterilize the wounds. Their main task and their main concern was to transport the wounded from the from lines to the rear area, the main dressing stations in the rear area, so that the real surgical treatment took place only at the main dressing stations in the rear area and they were successful. From this it can be seen that unfortunate conditions arose which it was impossible to solve because of one division which consisted of 15,000 men there were two main dressing stations and one front line dressing station. In those two main dressing stations there were four surgeons and they were the ones who had to do the main surgical treatment. I think that even this is problematic, and that if one is clear regarding the fact that in this war a misproportion existed between the destructive power on the one hand and the static potentialities of the physician, then the answer is given to the question which has frequently been asked here and which people tried to solve along organizational lines. When our division stood over against a Russian division and there was a Stalin-Orgel(organ) in this Russian division with rocket guns, and one of those Stalin organs, these rocket shooters, had a direct hit in a group of soldiers, thirty or forty soldiers fell, and that corresponded to the number which it would take a physician in the main dressing station a whole way to attend to. Unfortunately they did not shoot just one Stalin organ but hundreds at a time, of which not all hit home, but even if ten hit then the number of wounded reached as high as four or five hundred. This was a number of casualties against which the physician working with his hands could do simply nothing. At that time because of this attitude and because of the necessity and of this problem the report regarding the effectiveness of sulfonalimi*e was particularly striking, and made a great impression, because if I simply wanted to relax into desperation and watch how our soldiers and the enemy's soldiers simply fell to their fate without any help and saw the technical development of the destructive weapons, then, of course, I wanted to do something.
Psychologically, it was very difficult for a surgeon at a main dressing station to stay there without feeling that the task which he was presented with was simply beyond his powers no matter what he might do. He who was not ready to resign himself to the current situation that this also was peace work over against the growth of these modern weapons. Then the hope and possibility arose that many embraced in deceiving themselves and in being very critical, namely, the hope that with therapeutic methods it would be possible to equal the technical growth of destructive weapons equivalent to the growth in methods of therapy. These speculations were not without their consequences because if in this way a large number of wounded persons could be cared for they were cared for and no one concerned himself subsequently with these treated persons because there were still enough who were in need of acute surgical care. These persons who had been treated took the long and arduous journey back to the interior. But the relations in the East were much different from those in the Vest. I also went through the war in the best. There in the first place we were protected by the Red Cross because our opponent was a fair one. We could rely on the Red Cross sign and the wounded transports could move without interference. In the East on the other hand, the situation was different. Red. Cross cars were shot at as much as any other, but that was not the most difficult matter. The most difficult matter was the roads. I recall a specific experience. I was once commissioned to send my wounded from the main dressing station to a field hospital and we had to put our men in school houses and we had to have more room. At that time I hoped that the transport would have help from the trucks from the munitions depot and that the transport could, be carried out in one day, but it turned out quite differently. These 18 kilometers could be covered only in three days because the trucks had to move arduously through these soft muddy roads, and during, these three days the patients were without any care and the necessity alone of meeting their human bodily needs caused difficulties. In other words, this was an enormously important matter, whether we could succeed with the help of sulfonamide of finding a reliable chemical treatment for that enormous number of wounded persons who otherwise would not have been treated or at least insufficiently treated.
Because of this mis-proportion of the destructive power of the weapons and the manual potentialities of the surgeons this was what characterized the medical situation in the war in the East.
Q. Where did you then go to from this main dressing station?
A. I fell sick in December 1941 of jaundice and went back through medical channels to the rear area, to Hohenlychen.
Q. What impression did Hohenlychen make on you in December 1941?
A. I arrived at the beginning of 1942 and found Hohenlychen quite different from what it was a year ago. This change was not in external matters or facts, but was rather a more internal matter. In 1940 Hohenlychen was a hospital, in which sportsmen or others were to be found, and the basic tone there was cheerful and almost happy. In 1942 Hohenlychen was an Army hospital. The sportsmen had become less and they were mostly wounded soldiers who were being cured there and who had the opportunity there of being cured. This basic change affected also the clinic. I would like to say that everything was more serious in time.
Q. What position did you have there in the Army Hospital in Hohenlychen?
A. I was Obersturmfuehrer, that corresponds to Lieutenant in the American Army. And, at the beginning was in charge of the Septic Station, and then was assistant in private station No. I and in the Officer's Station P-2. Also it was my task to take care of the ambulatory civilian patients who came at the rate of about thirty a day to Hohenlychen to consult with Gebhardt and be introduced to him. It was my task to introduce them to Gebhardt.
Q. In July 1942 your Chief, General in the SS, Gebhardt gave you the order to carry out human experiments. Professor Gebhardt has described these experiments in detail. Would you like to make some statements regarding them? But, first I should like to ask you, did you previously concern yourself with this basic problem, namely, whether medical experiments on human beings were justified or not?
A. Counsel, before I answer that question I should like to point out that the sentence "you received the order" was translated "you received the permission".
Q. You did not receive permission, rather you received a specific order from your superior officer and chief of the clinic who was then Obersturmfuehrer and General in the SS Gebhardt.
A. Yes. I had concerned myself almost not at all with the question of human experiments heretofore. I had known that there were experiments on human beings in the course of medical history but I never looked into this matter and had the conviction and wish never to concern myself with that problem. I knew that there were human beings and doctors, who even in normal times acted as free individuals and held human experiments to be necessary. And I knew that these were doctors who were not so much clinical doctors or followed a clinical direction which can be traced back to the old art of Priest craft and assisted in observing the symptoms of sickness, but were doctors who in normal times followed their own initiative. They represented natural scientific attitude and felt themselves ethically justified in what they did, because in natural science the final proof lies in observation. And, in the natural science applying to biology proves itself in the last analysis observation of human beings. But, this was of no practical importance to me. These questions had been only academic considerations for me and had never had any real basic influence on me. At that time I did not even remember that I had ever concerned myself with this problem heretofore.
Q. To this question Professor Leibbrandt and Rostock expressed opinions. They testified that they would not have carried out such experiments on human beings. What is your basic attitude toward that problem?
A. When Professor Rostock gave this answer I envied him and I consider him happy - that at the height of his surgical career he could say such a thing. I had always believed that I, could say such a thing, because it would never have occurred to me to consider such an experiment necessary. I should never have carried them out, I, as a person who could make his own decision. So, I should like to say in summary that I have exactly the same attitude as those two gentlemen.
And in this particular trial, I see the question differently only so far as it was not a question of my initiative and basic attitude, but that these matters arose from the situation which was characteristic of War and the condition at that time, and was conditioned only by the War.
Q. Professor Leibbrandt's testimony and Rostock's testimony referred to 1947. How did the situation seem to you at that time?
A. The situation in 1942 was so different from the situation in 1947 during peace that in describing these things it is difficult for me to recall what the situation was at that time, namely 1942. Both the external and internal conditions I cannot describe sufficiently, unless I take up the development that ld to these conditions. I was born shortly before the first World War and was educated in the period just subsequent to it. During this period of schooling we heard from our teachers of the situation that Germany was in after the first World War, namely poverty, because the old hereditary disease of Germany of particularism had its sacrifice again. Whatever the political orientation of the teachers was, they all agreed that through work fate could be improved on but that, secondly, unity and, as a demand on the individual citizen, subordination to the State were an integrated and necessary prerequisite and a better fate in the future. All the parties, who got in touch with unity at that time, emphasized this point of view, and differences between parties themselves were periphery as far as we were concerned. Despite this wish for order and unity, despite this wish for a State, in which obedience and submission were paramount, disunity became greater and greater until 1933 when, to the surprise of most of us Hitler came on the scene. Ther personal orientation toward this occurence could be as different among individuals as possible. Nevertheless the strength of the State was again organized, the economic problem of unemployment was solved, and all this was a convincing argument and brought many people into a benignant attitude toward National Socialist party.
None of us believed at this time that there would be a War, but we knew, that if a War came about, the economic limitations under which Germany lived and had to live made defeat very likely. And, the only antidote against this fate seemed to us to be the moral strength of unity itself There was a very essential change at the moment when the War began, of which I should like again to emphasize the fact that all of us, whether or not we were politically active, all of us did not greet it. I considered myself politically inactive at that time. The situation changed to this extent, that at that time we now considered ourselves no longer able to free ourselves from this total fate.