But the one department was important, -- I believe I have to tell this, that when this decree was issued when Hitler signed it the S.S. was not included. Apparently Himmler had already talked to Hitler about it. Since there were basic differences between Himmler and me in our impressions of the duties of a medical officer, and we had quarreled about it on one occasion, I was of the opinion the medical officer is first a doctor and secondly an officer, while Himmler was of the opinion he is first an officer and secondly a doctor. This was made evident by the fact that medical officers of the Waffen SS, not like the Army, Navy and Luftwaffe, and so forth, wore the insignia on their shoulders and could not be distinguished from a regular officer.
Q. Now, in number 1, paragraph 3, the Waffen SS is mentioned. Will you please explain the meaning of this paragraph? It says; "For the purpose of coordinated treatment of these problems a medical officer of the Navy and a medical officer of the Luftwaffe will be assigned to work under him, the latter in the capacity of chief of staff." Now, there follows the sentence: Fundamental problems pertaining to the medical service of the Waffen SS will be worked out in agreement with the medical inspectorate of the Waffen SS."
A. I began to point out before that there was a medical officer of the Luftwaffe and one of the Navy as liaison officers to the newly created chief of the Wehrmacht medical service, but that although the Waffen SS, as long as it was assigned to Wehrmacht units, was under the control of the Wehrmacht medical service, the Waffen SS did not send an officer to Handloser. And later when a request to that effect was made to get closer contact, it was refused.
This is what I just said with reference to myself; that the SS, the General SS as well as the Waffen SS, wore outside this decree for the medical and health service. This is the standard decree. The later decrees for the General Commissioner or the Reich Commissioner were based on this one and it was never repealed.
Q. Now will you please put this decree to one side? Now, did you built up a big agency for these duties?
A. No, In Berlin I had a sort of post mail office in the Reich Chancellery from where we had courier connections and documents were brought to me constantly. The mail which we received was first of a quite general nature, but after a short time, six or eight weeks, it consisted primarily of inquiries and demands from industry. These requests were quite outside of the task as originally intended.
It had been intended that I was to coordinate the existing installations of the medical service.
Q. What was the significance of the fact that industry approached you with many inquiries and requests and opened up problems?
A. I obtained, insight into the production situation in '42 and '43, and on the basis of the information which I received I saw that unless a unified planned economy was established the production of medical supplies would be crippled completely in '43. This was because within the production agencies themselves there was no unified leadership. There were three agencies which conflicted with each other; First, the Ministry of Economics, the actual production agency; then, under Goering, the Four-Year plan; and finally, the Ministry for Armaments and War Production.
Aside from the fact that the limitations of the jurisdiction of these three offices were not clear the organization within these agencies was based on the raw material situation and not adjusted to the demand. The Ministry of Economics and the Speer Ministry had created special committees and working committees, specialist groups which took care of the materials. There was no central agency for medical supplies; for example, our surgical materials, our catgut, was in charge of a group who took care of musical instruments. This group for musical instruments was interested only in getting strings for violins and so forth, but they did not care whether we had surgical catgut or not.
Q. Witness, these demands from industry opened up a new field then. Did that lead to Decree Number 2?
A. Yes, this led to Decree Number 2.
Q. I shall show you this decree. It is Document NO-81, NO-081, also in Document Book 1, page 14, in the English version.
(Document handed to witness).
A. Decree 2 of the 5th of September 1943 was to the effect that I was authorized to take charge -- to coordinate and direct centrally the problems and activities of the entire medical and health science and research as well as to the organizational institutions concerned with the manufacture and distribution of medical materials.
Q. Witness, can you tell me what your collaboration with the civilian and Wehrmacht sectors was?
A. I must distinguish between two things; first, the necessity for me, from the small office of three of four persons which I had at that time, to develop two offices, one dealing with materials, planning and economics, and one with the scientific matters, the office for science and research.
These two offices, together with me, had to coordinate first the material needs between the Wehrmacht and civilian sector. Our position was that of a differential.
Through this second decree the first decree was not repealed. It was outside the authority of material needs as well as science. I did not establish any connection with the SS, and until the fall of 1944 when there was a visit by Genzken, the SS did not attempt any coordination.
My two offices, planning and economics, and science and research, Professor Rostock was in charge of the latter, had assignments which more or less complemented each other. If I referred to the production difficulties before, I did so in order to describe the necessity and the need for that production. The agreement with the three competent production agencies was that I was the only responsible representative of the needs of the Wehrmacht and civilian sector. A plan of demands for civilian supply had to be set up first.
Until 1943 in spite of the war conditions this plan had not been completed. The Ministry of the Interior had no idea of what these demands were. With the aid and support of Wehrmacht agencies and industrial agencies, it was finally drawn up. This plan of civilian demands was worked out in detail and coordinated with the central plan of the Wehrmacht which had been worked out in the meantime. The adjusted plan, coordinated plan between Wehrmacht and civilian was discussed with the production agencies again, and this was the first task of my office for science and research.
Production; that is, industry, attempted to proscribe what we could get. It was Rostock's task to establish what was necessary and not what was offered us, in a very difficult procedure. For example, our pharmaceutical preparations which, up to then, had been produced in numbers of about 35,000 different preparations; they were divided into groups reduced to 12,000 and 6,000. And finally, a program was set up in which only about 40 absolutely essential preparations were contained. The same was true of x-ray machines, instruments, all pieces of equipment of a medical nature. The distribution of the supplies within the Wehrmacht was within the Wehrmacht and within the civilian health service, their own organizations, and I had nothing to do with that.
Q Then the office for science and research gave research assignments itself as they have been discussed here?
A The office for science and research did not give any research assignments in that precise form. It supported research.
It must be considered that in 1943 and '44 in general there were other demands on the medical and health service, not only in thwarting scientific activity, but the Ministry of the Interior and the Propaganda Ministry, the Party Chancellery and others tried to have studies, particularly medical studies, stopped. In 1943 a decree was drawn up and signed that all the universities were to be closed. At that time I tried to have this repealed and as far as the medical faculties were concerned, I succeeded.
The Office for Science and Research under Rostock received from me the assignment to try everything to prevent the interruption of medical studies which was planned in 1944. In individual assignemnts which Rostock supported -- I could mention the attempt to cultivate tissue cultures -- the question was brought up of finding an agar substitute which is necessary in arbitrary work. He supported the work with the electronics microscope and various other things which he himself can describe better than I.
I should only like to say one thing, first of all, that the work which Rostock did, he did on my behalf on my orders, and I myself, if I claimed successes formerly, continued to bear the responsibility for everything alone.
Q. You spoke of attacks on medical studies. That was the position of medical science at that time in general? Please comment briefly and consider what the expert Professor Leibrand has testified here.
A. Mr. Leibrand described the situation quite correctly in many points. I do not want to go very far back. The situation in 1935 was that with the beginning of the influence of politics on everything, an attempt was made to have politics prevail in universities as well. The National Socialist League of Students was clear of all these units and organizations which were formed. That led to a false conclusion. It was believed that if this was achieved, science itself would be furthered, everything that was active in any way, all the active forces available where an attempt was made to direct them into politics. It was not realized that science itself, scientific research and work essentially has nothing to do with politics. A number of men who obtained influence were half educated.
The resulting inferiority feeling they tried to compensate for by trying to push the scientist, the real scientist, aside as unequal to then, and on the other side helped the dilettante. I refer to the description of von Brehmer which I gave this morning.
Now when the war had begun the question of science was overlooked entirely. Deferments for the universities had not been given so that teachers were suddenly drafted, and the training of the students was distorted in some cases. Considerations of basic research had been overlooked, and the idea of research on the basis of expediency prevailed. The lack of interest of the universities themselves led in 1943 to the decision to close the universities altogether, There were a number of doctors with whom I was in contact at that time who exerted their influence to have the universities reopened and continued, the dean of the University of Bonn, for instances Schulemann, and one of Muenster, Siegmund, and Sauerbruch, and, of course, Rostock who was dean of the Berlin faculty and exerted a certain influence in this respect. After that there was an enormous number of little annoying difficulties. Everyone was suddenly interested in these questions of universities, and everyone had something to do with them. The High Commander of the Wehrmacht was interested in it because of deferments. Sauckel as plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment wanted to have students given some sort of labor duty. Contingents for establishing institutions, etc., were in charge of the Ministry of Economics. The Speer Ministry refused to take charge of them. If special papers were to be printed, the Reich Press Chamber opposed it, and in spite of all that there was no person who was really in charge of the universities. I say this only to show that from my Office of Science and Research that this was the primary decisive task, and I attempted to keep physicians free of politics as far as possible.
Without knowing it directly, I found support in the efforts of Dr. Blome essentially directed against Dr. Conti. Professor Leibrand has already described Conti. He was a political exponent and called himself that, and saw the task of the health leadership which he represented entirely from the political point of view.
That the training of the young doctor, the student, suffered especially during the war in Germany I don't believe I need to emphasize especially. Everyone knows how difficult training opportunities were. Nevertheless, a great deal was certainly done for research and actual medical treatment of the doctor at home, and before 1939 the medical officers were on the whole outstanding. There were some scientific successes, the development of sulfonamides in the surgical field because that was the closest to me, the bone treatment according to Fuetscher and the further results of heart surgery are significant.
Q. Witness, I come to a different subject. You were given an assignment called by the Prosecution Chemical Warfare Agent Decree from the first of March 1944. We do not have this Deere itself, but you wrote a letter about it to Himmler, a copy of which is here. It is Document N0-012. That is also in Volume I of the document book. I am not certain where it is in the document book. It is a very brief letter. I shall read it so that the Court may take notice of it.
"Berlin, 8 March 1944. The General Commissioner of the Fuehrer for Medical and Health Service. Top Secret. To the Reichsfuehrer SS and Reach Minister of the Interior, Berlin. Reichsfuehrer. Enclosed you will find the photostatic copy of an order from the Fuehrer which is to be distributed only to a very limited number of persons. On behalf of the Reich Marshal I ask you only to inform the absolutely essential and leading personalities in your field. I will be grateful if you will ask these gentlemen to get in touch with me" -- then there follows the telephone number -- "so that I may be in a position to settle this matter quickly because of its great emergency. Heil Hitler! Karl Brandt."
Will you please explain this letter? What was the meaning of the urgency and the special secrecy? Witness, will you please pause before you answer? The interpreter can't follow otherwise.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, I understood you to say that this document was already in evidence.
DR. SERVATIUS: I do not know the number in the English Document Book, so for the other document I will look up the page numbers during the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you inform me the number of the Exhibit?
DR. SERVATIUS: I will have to find that out. I turned over a list yesterday to Lt. Garrett of the Information Center -- this morning, not yesterday.
Q Witness, will you please explain this letter?
A First I should like to point out that the telephone number which sounds somewhat mysterious was the telephone number of the Reich Chancellery extension 183 was my room in the clinic in Ziegelstrasse.
The order which is mentioned there, which was a decree dated 1 March 1944, was merely a production method of equipment against Chemical Warfare and had the following history: When, in the Fall of 1943 air raids on Germany were intensified and there were certain rumors which caused the fear that there might be gas attakks, Chemical warfare and various agencies obtained gas masks. Since my office, Plans and Economics, was working on a general medical supply, the Red Cross which was one of our customers, and the NSV, had the impression that I might be in charge of gas masks too. I got two inquiries and requests for delivery for about 100,000 masks. As I had nothing to do with these I sent them to the competent office in the Speers Ministry. After about four months, at the beginning of 1944, I received the same requests again. I took them, myself, to the head of the Armament Delivery Office,; his name was Doctor Schieber. I learned from him that he could not deliver the 100,000 gas masks that were asked for because in the previous year the increase in production of such apparatus had not taken place, but production had actually been reduced. Mr. Schieber himself -- this was somewhat embarrassing and unpleasant to Mr. Schieber because in the meantime confidential agents had brought the news that the Americans had shipped special equipment for that purpose, which brought gas to England; and, that gas from the former African Theater of War was being transferred to Italy. Under this situation, Mr. Schieber called a conference about the end of February, and advised me at this conference that all industry and development who had anything to do with this matter participated. The result was that the supply of Chemical Warfare defensive apparatus was disastrous in view of this situation. Within the Wehrmacht, within the Russian area alone, there were about 10,000,000 masks, with two to three times as many filters which had been abandoned there. This was about two--thirds of the total production since 1933. The Airraid Warden Service had about twenty percent of its needs.
And, for kinder gas masks there was about seven or eight percent of the needs available. The production of chlorium calcate was adequate for making it safe for the population of one large city after one large raid. Mr. Schieber asked me to inform the competent agencies, which he could not reach directly, about the result of this discussion. Since I went to the Fuehrer's Headquarters the same night and met Goering, who was really the man responsible for air raid precautions, I informed him. Goering had no idea of this situation at the time. For him it was of the same importance; for him, it meant that after one gas raid over Germany, the war would have been over. And, with this attitude and with the drawn-power of conviction, he informed the Fuehrer, himself.
On the next day, I was called to the joint conference and asked whether I would take the production of gas masks into my office for planning and economics. I took the point of view that such an assignment which might have further developments was not exactly commensurate with my office of Planning and Economics. I said that I, myself, might set up a parallel organization to collaborate with the competent agencies. And, that is how the decree came about, which in addition to gas masks gave me control of gas itself, gas production. This was necessary, because in view of the raw material situation, the previous counter-measures which we had produced could no longer be produced, so a substitute material had to be selected, and these had to be tested with our German gases. It was necessary to be informed about the effectiveness of these gases. On the whole, this assignment was addressed to the Ministry for Armament and War Production at the Production Agency, and to me in a sort of control capacity, for the execution of the program which was to be set up, and where the needs of the Wehrmacht and the needs of the Civilian sector were to be adjusted and coordinated in so far as possible.
Any assignment of our own scientific research was not given in easy sense.
When I returned to Berlin with this assignment and tried to I learn about the situation as a whole, that is, to find out the competent agencies for the productions and distribution and use of this apparatus, I learned that there was no unified command. It was quite confused. Not only were the individual matters in different hands, but, for example, the Airraid Police had the right to take measures during an attack, but at the moment of all clear, their authority ceased, and the measures had to be considered and continued by the Aviation Ministry. These things were impossible since a large number of organizations could be effected by the decree, which I did not know at that time. But, on the other hand, because of the rumors of Chemical Warfare, we had to take every precaution in these defense measures so that they would not become known and thus start new rumors.
I was forced to send all my letters as top secret or as top military secret. I turned to all leading men in Germany so that I would not get in contact with subordinate agencies who might think they had something to do with it, but who actually did not. So, I did not send these letters to the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, but to the Reichs ministry of the Interior because in the Ministry of Interior were the decisive agencies of airraid precaution.
Q. Now, did this activity, on the basis of the decree, take that much of your time?
A. The work with this program was the decisive work for me in 1944. This program developed like an avalanche. One Reich agency and one specialized group, one after the other, joined in it. There was not only the very painful development of a new gas mask for the population, but at the end we had to build airraid shelters, especially these in connection with Speer because of the ventilation argument; they were taken care of together with ventilation problems on the Navy.
It was a program which affected perhaps more people than any otter program of the Ministry for Armament and War Production. I did not establish any special agencies for this work. I worked by collaborating with the competent agencies which actually carried out the work for me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I an coming to another subject now.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will recess until 1330.
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 3 February 1947.)
KARL BRANDT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION-- (Continued) BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Witness, you were speaking about the emergency situation of airraid precautionary measures. Were there other fields where a similar emergency prevailed in fields with which you were in contact?
A. As far as we are concerned with medical matters, I received an additional field of tasks in connection with the so-called Geilenberg program This dealt with a merely industrial program for the rebuilding of a certain works. However, this rebuilding played a decisive role for me. I must say at first how the medical care was handled in industry during the years of the war. When pointing out certain matters about our medical science, I said that we tried to centralize everything and bring it into a certain direction; and I said that the result, of course, was different. It was similar in our civilian medical care. The reason was that the leadership itself within the civilian care was not unified at all, although it was always cleared from political points of view. Industrial work was cared for medically from three different sources which not only had no connection with one another but really quarreled with each other. At first it was the group of works physicians, an institution which was subordinated to the German labor front. That is Dr. Ley, who had really nothing to do with medical matters as such but who from his own initiative and from his medical organization instituted about fifteen thousand such organizations. He had desired to push aside all read medical efforts in industry. These works physicians had to care for the supervision of the work with reference to hygienic institutions, prevention of accidents, et cetera; but they had already started to care for the actual medical treatment of the workers.
This actual medical treatment in factories was the task of the medical insurance companies, an office which was headed by Dr. Grothe, who was a collaborator of Dr. Conti, the Reich Health Leader whom Dr. Leibrandt mentioned recently.
A third institution was added, the medical confidential service, which also carried out expert opinions. This was an institution of the Reich minister of Labor, in this case Dr. Delte, and to which other social institutions were added. These three organizations generally came to the worker in industry; and thus it occurred that in a real case of emergency the jurisdiction was left unclear.
Now, in the year of 1944, the first air-raid against the German ball bearing works started and shortly thereafter started against water works. Since as a result the entire war potential was endangered, the previously mentioned Geilenberg decree was issued by the competent minister and the Fuehrer. In this Geilenberg decree there was a clause which concerned itself with medical care for industrial workers. I was commissioned with the task of carrying that program through. I could only do that with the assistance and support which under the circumstances had to come from the framework of the civilian and perhaps also the military sector since I had no organizational institution of my own.
A justified prerequisite for such a measure was the knowledge of the necessity and the size of the need which might arise. I have already indicate that I had quarreled partly with certain party organizations; and Dr. Ley in this case belonged to that, with reference to his work, medical institutions which were based on a purely political level, and Dr. Conti, who followed the same direction. When a few days later, after this decree was signed, the Leuna works near Merseburg were attacked, I immediately went there in order to look over the situation. I was not introduced to the works physician as soon as I arrived; but I was led to the works manager, who told me that I would not be able to speak to the physician. He explained that, owing to a circular after the issuing of the Geilenberg decree, Dr. Ley had ordered that his works physician not deal with me and that people commissioned by me not speak to me and give me any information.
I then succeeded in speaking to this works physician privately. I happened to find out that under certain circumstances assistance could be brought from other surrounding works so that there was no additional military help necessary, that is, medical offices and materials.
But even for that I needed an insight into the situation as Dr. Conti gained it in medical insurance organizations. I established connection with Dr. Grothe by telephone and asked him to come to me with material about Leuna. He said that he would but did not come personally. He only sent a personal friend, who told me that Conti had forbidden him to speak to me. This meant that the order with which I was commissioned failed completely since I could not do anything in any matter at all.
I then spoke on the telephone to Dr. Conti, who confirmed the fact that he had forbidden his subordinates to speak to me. Consequently, I went to the headquarters of the Fuehrer and told him that I wanted to resign my offices since under these circumstances I was not in a position to perform the tasks which were put to me.
Q And how were these difficulties finally overcome?
AAfter very violent quarrels during the course of which Martin Bermann who was continually in the headquarters played some part, it finally came to the hitherto mentioned decree, about the health and medical service, according to which I was appointed at the same time to Reich Commissioner, which gave me the possibility to deal with an agency concerned with the medical service and to give them directions in order to be able to execute my own part.
Q I shall later come back to this first decree. You were speaking about difficulties in the civilian sector, was it similar with reference to the Wehrmacht?
A Within the Wehrmacht these difficulties were perhaps not so obvious and open but they existed in practically the same way, and above all they were supported by the different concepts which existed about the tasks of the chief of the medical service, that is the leadership, and the medical service itself. In addition the question was never closed about the collaboration between the chief of the Wehrmacht medical service appointed in 1942, and the other medical chief belonging to the Luftwaffe and the Navy.
Q Do you remember the directive for the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service of the 7th of August, 1944, where you too received a special function?
A This official directive was a special directive approved by the Fuehrer on the basis of a decree which he had signed. The decisive thing about it was that a differentiation was made between the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service, the Army Physician and the Army Medical Inspector on the other side, who until that time were concentrated in the hands of Chief Handloser of the Army Medical Service.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, that is Document No. 227. I don't know whether the Tribunal has a copy of this document. I have not been able to find the page in the Document Book during the recess, but I now hear it is contained in Document Book No. 1, and if the document is available I should like to hand it to the witness. (Document is handed to witness) BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Did you define this directive which you received in the basis of this decree?
A To indicate my own tasks I must point to the position which the new Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service received from the strength of this decree. That situation was that within the Wehrmacht the Fuehrer was the Supreme Commander. To him were subordinate, as the next executive agency, the Chief of the OKW, Field Marshal Keitel. The normal channels for the Chief of the Medical Service of the Armed Forces should have been that the Chief of the Medical Service of the Air Force, the Chief of the Medical Service of the Navy and also of the Army should have ended at the highest place, that is, in this case, at the Fuehrer's. That should have been the case through the Chief of the OKW, especially through Handloser, that is to say through Handloser as Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service.
In actual fact, however, the Supreme Commander of the various armed forces circumvented the Chief of the OKW, Kietel, by taking the direct route to the Fuehrer, so that quite obviously Kietel was no active organ within the Wehrmacht leadership. Since Hitler himself was at the same time Supreme Commander of the Army, the newly created Army Physician and Army Medical Inspector were also therewith directly subordinated to Hitler, and the Chief of the Medical Services of the Armed Forces would again be circumvented naturally. In order to find a link for the Chief of the Medical Service of the Armed Forces in this decree of the 7 August, 1944, the directive states: That he, accepting his merely technical order, should lead the medical service according to the general outlines of the Guehrer. These general outlines with which we are concerned were measures which were to be taken in accordance with the Decree No. 1, and which were to be adjusted to the civilian medical service. I give you two precise examples. Since there was a lack of medical equipment, especially because of the inroads of the wartime needs, the Wehrmacht had to put some material at the disposal of the public, and at the same time had to keep free a certain amount of hospital space for the civilian administration, but there are other points of view in this decree which are certainly important. There is the newly created army physician, army medical inspector. He was at that time appointed on the basis of the proposal and if I remember correctly without any influence of GeneralOberstabsarzt Handloser, appointed by Himmler, who in the meantime had become the Supreme Commander of the Reserve Army, since the 20th of July. This was possible, since coinciding with the 20th of July, the Chief Adjutant of the Wehrmacht with Hitler was injured, and his successor, General Schmundt, was in close connection with Martin Bormann, and the General of the Waffen SS, Fegelein, who at the same time was a liaison man of Himmler to the Fuehrer. If it is of importance for the creation of that decree, I should like to point out one sentence with reference to my special view of the decree, that is to say, the Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht, or through, so far as the special field is concerned, the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht, the organization within the frame work of the Wehrmacht.