I worked as such until November 1945. I joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933. I was also a member of the Reich League of German Civil Servants, the National Socialist People's Welfare, the NS-Altherren Bund, the Reich Colonial Bund, and the league for the Germans Abroad.
"2. By virtue of my knowledge as a psychiatrist and my experience of many years' standing in various Wuerttemberg mental institutions, I am able to make the following statement: As head of the institution in Winnentel I became familiar with the Euthanasia Program; and in February 1940.
"3. From my institution a total of 395 patients were transferred. 24 of them had been transferred shortly before from the institutions of Geppingen, Rottenmunster and Stetten to Winnentel for reasons of camouflage. Among those transferred on 3 June 1940 was also Heinrich Pfauser, born 28 June 1886. Pfauser, who was born in Graz-Austria, was still an Austrian national on the day of transfer. It is possible that other foreign nationals were among the 24 patients who for reasons of camouflage had been transferred to my institution."
DR. GEORG FROESCHMANN: Dr. Froeschmann, counsel for Viktor Brack. The affidavit which was just read is not contained in my document book; and neither is it contained in the document books of the other defense counsel.
MR. ROBBINS: I'm sorry; I did not check the books personally; but I shall obtain that document for the defense counsel. There are only about three more sentences of the document, if I may be permitted to continue reading it.
THE PRESIDENT: The counsel may continue reading the document but will supply copies of the document to the defense counsel at the earliest possible moment.
MR. ROBBINS: Yes. "As I learned from the personnel accompanying the transports, all patients transferred from my institution were brought to the Castle of Grafeneck where euthanasia was to be carried out.
"4. I never received an instruction to the effect that foreign nationals were to be exempted from euthanasia.
"5. On the basis of the questionnaires, it was impossible for the experts or top exports to form an exact medical opinion on the physical state of the patients or to recognize their nationality."
I should like now to turn to the next document, which is 3867-PS, and offer it as Exhibit Number 369. It is found on page 256 of the document book.
"I, Ernest Ganzer, male nurse at Heil- und Pflege Anstalt, Ansbach, after having been duly sworn, do hereby make the following statement:
"I was employed at the Heil- und Pflege Anstalt, Ansbach (a public institution for the care and treatment of the insane), from 1929 to 1945. From 1920 to 1928 I cared for the patients in the wards; but in 1928 until 1939 I was entrusted with the care of the convalescent patients and gradually became fully employed in the office of the institution. The director of this institution was Dr. Hubert Schuch. In the autumn of 1940 a commission of about thirty persons, consisting of doctors and secretarial staff, visited the institution. I knew and it was general knowledge that these people had been commissioned by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Berlin, to visit such institutions as ours. I personally announced the arrival of these persons to the director. The commission stayed about three days and, to the best of my knowledge, did not inspect any of the wards. Instead they were allotted a separate room and the case histories of the patients were brought to them and were discussed with the ward doctors. During the time the commission stayed, individual patients were brought to the administrative building of the institution; and it can only be assumed that it was for the purpose of their being inspected by the commission.
"After the commission left, about three months elapsed and then directives were received. These I saw personally. They came in the form of letters from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschafts Heil - und Pflege Anstalt, Berlin, stating that on a certain date sixty to eighty patients whose names were listed alphabetically, were to be moved from the institution. No destination was given. About a week later the institution delivered the patients to the railway station, together with their full case histories and inventorized personal effects.
They were brought in buses close up to the two coaches, one of which was set aside for the men and the other for the women. As I was engaged in checking the lists of patients and attending to the delivery of their baggage, it is not possible for me to state whether these patients were in a condition to travel; but I do know that some of them had to be carried to the carriages, which were ordinary "Personen-zug" coaches. These were, as far as I can remember, just the two coaches, without a locomotive, located on a siding which was ordinarily used for troop loading and offloading. It struck me as strange that the "male nurses" who received the patient from the director of the institution were silent and gave no direct answers to the questions we put to them out of professional interest.
"At the time this Transport of patients did not appear suspicious because patients were frequently moved from one institution to another in order to make room for troop casualties.
Even the fact that in this case no destination of the transport was given, so that we could notify relatives upon inquiry, did not concern us unduly as everyone acted in accordance with orders received. Probably about a month after this first transport left, our suspicions were aroused because communications arrived from relatives of the patients, complaining that they had been moved without their knowledge or consent and that they had since been notified from Schloss Hartheim, near Linz, and from another institution in Sonnenstein, in Thuringia, that the patients had died. Official and private inquiries as to the whereabouts of the patients had to be answered by us in a standard letter which I believe was officially prescribed. This contained in effect that following information:
"'The management had no jurisdiction over the movement of these patients. For further information, contact the Gemeinnuetzige Krankentransportgesellschaft, Berlin, who directed the transfer of these patients.' (This is as near as I can remember the text of the letter.) In connection with these transports I remember that the name of a Dr. Schmalenbach was frequently mentioned.
"I estimate that in all five transports of this kind were sent out from the Heil- und Pflege Anstalt, Ansback, between the years 1940 and the beginning of 1942. I would like to add that all of our doctors and the entire hospital personnel were firmly opposed to and condemned this action when eventually the truth transpired. (signed) Ernst Ganzer."
I should next like to offer into evidence Document Number 3816-PS as Prosecution Exhibit Number 370. This is found on Page 259 of Document Book Number 3 and is an affidavit of Gerhard Schmidt. It reads as follows:
"I, Gerhard Schmidt, director of Haar-Eglfing I sane Asylum, after having been duly sworn, do hereby make the following statement:
"I was licensed as M.D. by the University of Berlin (1930). In 1935 I became an assistant at the Institute for legal Medicine in Berlin. I worked in Bavaria since 1937 at the Public Hospital, Munich-Schwabing, and also at the Research Institute for Psychiatry in Munich. Since 1935 I have been familiar with the system of public asylums, mental hospitals, and similar institutions in Germany. I know that public institutions of this kind were under the supervision and control of the provincial administration of the Lander at the district level. All these public institutions were under the supervision and control of the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin at the highest level. The Reich Minister of the Interior was, as I know, Dr. Wilhelm Frick. As Reich Minister of the Interior, he was chief of the medical department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior from 1933 until august 1942 when he became Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
"After the beginning of the war in 1939 I learned from a colleague, Dr. Lemberger, who was in charge of an asylum in occupied Poland, that it was planned that the inmates of his asylum should be killed. About 1940 I became acquainted for the first time with the fact that inmates of asylums in Germany itself were being killed. I became acquainted with this fact first through an industrialist. A short time later I learned it from my colleagues and from many other people-- it was a so-called open secret that such killings were not only planned but were actually being carried out.
I was advised about these happenings not only by my colleagues but also by relatives of people who had been killed.
"It is typical that, despite the fact that this whole affair was an open secret, a psychiatrist who was in the Institution of Haar-Eglfing, where such things happened, said he could not give any official answer. The organization of mass killings was as follows:
"First, the physicians of mental and similar asylums had to fill out questionnaires, which were sent to a central agency in Berlin. Then the order came back from the central agency in Berlin that the persons listed should be taken out from one asylum and sent to another asylum where they were killed. The killing was done frequently by injections. For these organized mass killing the authorities used different administrative procedures. I can give the following example for the killing of children:
"The names of newly born children who were deformed or partly paralyzed or mentally deficient were submitted to the health authorities and finally to a Reich agency in Berlin--W.9 P.O.B. 101. A short time after the reports were filed, the county health authorities of the respective districts received an order that these children should be sent to a special institution for special modern therapy. I know from hundreds of cases that this 'special modern therapy! was nothing less than the killing of these children-- for instance, in the institution of Haar-Eglfing and others.
"I read dozens of such orders which said that this procedure of assignment of such children to institutions was 'in agreement with the Reich Minister of the Interior'.
"Another method of killing so-called 'useless eaters' was to starve them. This was done particularly in a period when, for reasons I do not know, the killing itself was not possible because, possibly, of transportation difficul. ties from one institution to another."
"At the end of 1943 a conference took place in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior which is under the direct supervision of the Reich Ministry of the Interior about the procedure for starving such people to death. In this conference, the directors of the asylums were instructed that 'useless eaters' who could not work very much, should be killed by slow starvation. This method apparently was considered very good, because the victims would appear to have died a 'natural death'. This was a way of camouflaging the killing procedure.
"I know from the files of the institution where I am now a director, that several hundred people were starved to death. In analyzing the whole system of these mass-killings, I can state as a psychiatrist, familiar with such cases, that hundreds of the people killed would have been absolutely able to perform a certain amount of simple work under supervision--among them, according to my knowledge, some people who had brain injuries from the First World War. Among the people who were killed were also aged people who were a little feeble-minded. So far as the children were concerned, they had mainly brain diseases, but not hereditary diseases, except in some very few cases. In any normal society, such children, mentally deficient and aged people, would have been treated and cared for in the proper way and not killed as 'useless eaters'.
Signature: Dr. Gerhardt Schmidt (Director of Haar Englfing Insane Institution)
DR. SERVATIUS: Counsel for Karl Brandt:
Mr. President, I should like to reserve the right to cross examine the witness who made this affidavit.
MR. ROBBINS: I think such a procedure is entirely proper. The defense has a right to make application to the Tribunal for examination of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: That is right.
MR. ROBBINS: I should like to stress one point of the affidavit, and that is, that not even veterans of the First World War were exempt from the euthanasia program. This corroborates the statement earlier today, and which appears on page 236 of the Document Book, that World War veterans were subject to the euthanasia program.
According to the Nazis to be a soldier is the greatest of all glories, to be a Nazi soldier and to face the dangers on the field of battle, but when the German soldier returned from the battlefield unable to work, he could find himself classified as a useless eater, destined for the euthanasia station.
The next document which I should like to offer in evidence is document No. 3882 PS, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 371, which is found on page 262 of the Document Book No. 3. It is an affidavit by Dr. Joseph Jordans, and reads as follows:
"I, Dr. Joseph Jordans, born on 19 March, 1901, living now at Emendingen, Baden, Romaniestrasse 4, make the following statement under oath:
"I am a doctor of medicine and a doctor of law. At present I am the Public Health official of the City of Emendingen, Baden. From January 1940 until 31 March, 1942, I was a doctor in an adult section of the public asylum in Wieslach near Heidelberg. There existed in the asylum a section for children as well, in which killing of children were performed during the year 1941. How many children were killed during the year I cannot say. The killings were performed by injection.
"These injections were given by a doctor and nurses, of the socalled National Socialist Nurses Organization, who came for the purpose from Berlin. The orders to perform the killings were issued from the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin. Our asylum was controlled by the Ministry of the Interior of Baden which was under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior at Berlin. But the commission which came to Wieslach for this special purpose came on orders from a certain Dr. Linden, who was an official of the Reich Ministry of the Interior at Berlin.
"The whole manipulation was known to the personnel of the institution. Transports of children came to our asylum from time to time from other institutions. The children who were killed were not all original inmates of our asylum. The children were imbeciles or feeble minded.
"I my self was transferred from Weislacht Emendingen at the end of March 1942 because it became known that I was opposed to the killings. After I left, one of my patients, an adult man, a gypsy, was killed by injections. He was on the list of these persons who were to be shipped out for killing at another asylum, but I saved him four times. Immediately after I left, he was killed according to my wife, who was at that time still at Wieslach. This man was in no way feeble minded. In fact, the institute made 300 marks out of him because he was an expert basket maker. His killing was part of the program to kill psychopaths.
"After I came to Emendingen in March, 1942, I learned from my colleagues that a similar program existed there, though the patients were shipped to the institution at Graveneck to be killed.
/s/ Joseph Jordans."
I should now like to offer in evidence Document 3896 PS, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 372. Since this is partially repetitious of what has already been read I do not propose to read the document in it's entirety.
DR SERVATIUS: Counsel for Dr. Karl Brandt:
This document, as far as I can see, was not sworn to. It says underneath it: "read and approved, and then the signature Dr. Ludwig Sprauer, and then the signature of Robert Kempner, who was counsel for the Prosecution in the procedure before the International Military Tribunal, after that comes an explanation that it was sworn on the 23rd of April, 1946, by Henry Einstein.
Whether this is an Interpreter or not I cannot say. Maybe the counsel for the Prosecution can clarify that matter.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, the affidavit at the beginning shows that it is in the nature of an affidavit, since it states: I, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer, swear to the following Statements, and apparently it was signed before Dr. Kempner, and sworn to before both Mr. Kempner and Captain Auchincloss, and Captain Auchincloss, by the way, is an American Officer, who it appears from the prior affidavit on page 262, was a military adjutant to the executive trial counsel of the International Military Tribunal, Mr. Dodd, and it appears at the bottom of the document referred to that he was a Captain in the Judge Advocate General's Department.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, the document in the original does not tell us any more than the copy does, and I, therefore, object to the submission of this document. In that case, the witness can be called himself. He is an important witness since he held a high position and can make important statements as to how this procedure was actually carried out. It will show itself that a number of actions were run parallel to one another, the euthanasia program according to the decree of the Fuehrer, then the Jewish action, and then the action of the so-called 14 S 13, which was mentioned previously. Apart from that, there was the proceeding of the Reich Executive Counsel, regarding Jewish children. I think that this witness, since he states that he was frequently in Berlin, would be able to make important statements in that regard, and I think it would be more proper if the witness appears here personally and that this affidavit not be admitted into evidence and not be read. It is not a statement which was sworn to, rather it was made in view of an oath.
THE PRESIDENT: You will submit the original document to the Tribunal for examination.
(The document is handed to the Tribunal).
HR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution has no objection whatever to defense counsel making application to the Tribunal to call the witness, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer to Nurnberg.
INTERPRETER: Would ask counsel to repeat the statement. It did not come through in German.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution has no objection whatever to defense counsel making application to the Tribunal for bringing the witness to Nurnberg to testify. That is a right given to him under Military Government Ordinance No. 7. However, I cannot see that it has anything to do whatever with the admissibility of the affidavit. Order or Article 144, I believe, or perhaps it is 144 of the Articles of War passed by Congress, gives an Army Officer, who is detailed to make an investigation, the authority to administer oaths, and it appears from the face of the affidavit that the Captain who administered the oath was a member of the armed forces and was a member of the Judge Advocate General's Department.
THE PRESIDENT: The document is probably admissible in evidence and the objection is overruled.
The Tribunal will now recess.
(A short recess was taken.)
(A recess was taken)
THE PRESIDENT: At this time I desire to announce that Tribunal No. 1 will not convene for the further trial of this case until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, Document 3896-PS reads as follows "I, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer, born 19 October 1884, now living at Konstanz, Baden, Salmannsweilergasse 2, swear to the following statement:
"I passed my state examination as a doctor in 1907 at Freiburg. From 1919 on I worked as a civil servant. During the next 14 years I worked as a district physician at Stockack, Oberkirch, Konstanz. I joined the N.S. D.A.P. in 1933. From 1934 to 1944 I was the highest ranking medical officer in Baden. I had the title of a Ministerial Councillor. My top superior was the Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick. As Frick's subordinate I frequently - about once in every 2 or 3 months- went to Berlin to take part in conferences, meetings, etc. in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. There conferences took place in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Unter den Linden 72-74, later in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Voss-Strasse. At the occasion of such a stay in Berlin, Ministerial Director Dr. Linden of the Reich Ministry of the Interior told me that the introduction of a law on Euthanasia was intended. For reasons pertaining to defense policy the incurably mentally ill were to be liquidated in order to make room for healthy people. The institutions thus freed would be required by the SS to accommodate national political educational homes.
"For the carrying out of all these measures, a transport company was founded which worked together with the so-called Reich committee for Research on Hereditary Susceptibility to Severe Diseases. This Reich company was headed by Ministerial Director Dr. Linden.
"In the course of these measures, from about 1941 to 1944, thousands of persons were brought from institutions in Baden to institutions such as Hadamar, Grafeneck, etc. and liquidated there. These deaths were not only confined to the mentally ill. Under the same program, at the instigation of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, old people especially and also young ones, who were ill, began to be set aside.
"Among the people who were killed in the course of this program were not only mentally ill, but also people who suffered from arteriosclerosis, tuberculosis, cancer, and other illnesses. It had to do mainly with older people who were put in public institutions and, it is true, at the cost of the state, and who were further cared for in suitable company, naturally at general cost. Those people were brought from public institutions in Baden to Hadamor, Grafeneck and other institutions and there put to death. In what manner they were killed. I do not know. In this way, room was made in the institutions, and especially for the Wehrmacht and for the national socialist educational institutions.
"The shole program was camouflaged from inside to out and false death certificates made out.
"In the year 1941 to 1942 I protested energetically twice against the murders. And, it is true, I turned to Frick's deputy, Dr. Conti, who was right in Strassbourg, Conti explained to me at that time that, these were matters concerning the Reich Ministry of the Interior, which had nothing to do with me. I considered this as an order, which I could not counteract. The second time I was rejected by Professor Nitzche in Heidelberg, who was also participating in this program.
"The members of the Reich committee who were acting as art of the program, were frequently composed of SS people. Incidentally, archbishop Groeber also protested against the acts of murder in the institutions, naturally without success, I myself did not get to see this communication, the personal consultant of the Ministry of the Interior of Baden made the reply. Read, approved and signed, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer."
I should next like to offer into evidence Document NO-818 as Prosecution Exhibit Number 373 on page 265 of document book III, which is a supplementary affidavit to the one just read.
"I, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer, being duly sworn, depose and state:
"1. I was born on 19 October 1884, and live at the present time at Constance/Baden, Salmannweilergasse 2.
"This affidavit is an addition to the sworn statement which I made in Nuremberg on 23 April 1946, which statement is known under Document No. 3896PS.
"2. I heard the name of Prof, Dr. Karl Brandt for the first time at a conference in the middle of 1941 in Berlin. At this conference I learned that Karl Brandt and Phillip Bouhler are the leading figures in the Euthanasia Program. The conference was called by Dr. Linden on behalf of the Department of the Interior and problems of institutions and asylums were submitted. Dr. Linden directed the proceedings.
"3. To the best of my knowledge and belief, Phillip Bouhler as well as Prof, Dr. Karl Brandt were the leading figures in this so-called Euthanasia Program from 1941 to the collapse of Germany.
"4. The connection between the Department of the Interior and Prof. Karl Brandt, in the framework of the Euthanasia Program, was that Karl Brandt gave orders to Conti and Linden, which were passed on by these persons on behalf of the Department of the Interior. Brandt was the dominating figure without doubt, "5. I am not familiar with any directives whatever which exclude foreigners from the Euthanasia Program."
The next paragraph merely states that the affiant has read the statement and understands it to be true, and that he has made it voluntarily. Signed, Constance, 19 November 1946, Dr. Sprauer.
I should next like to offer in evidence Document Number NO-520 as Prosecution Exhibit 374 on page 267 of the English document book. It is a letter signed by Schlaich and addressed to the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Frank, dated Berlin, 6 September 1940 -- excuse me, dated Stetten, 6 September, 1940.
"Dear Reich Minister: The measures, which at present are taken on mental patients of all kinds have caused a feeling of a complete lack of confidence in justice among large groups of the people. Without asking their relatives or guardians consent, such patients are being transferred from these to other institutions, from where then after a short while they receive intimation, that the person concerned had died of some disease. Considering the abundance of death notices, the people are convinced, that these ill people are being done away with.
"Since on 10 and 13 September also from the institution under my direction 75 each time of the patients entrusted to me are to be transferred to such an institution, I take the privilege to ask the question: Is it possible that such a measure is carried out, although no pertinent law has been promulgated? Isn't it the duty of every citizen to resist under all circumstances any act not justified by law, even forbidden by law, even if they are carried out by state agencies?
"On account of the complete secrecy and camouflage under which the measures are carried out, not only the wildest rumors are created amongst the people, (for example that also people unable to work on account of age or injuries received during the world war have been done away with or are to be done away with) but also the impression, as if a totally arbitrary manner prevailed at the selection of the persons concerned.
"If the state really wants to carry out the extermination of these or at least of some mental patients, shouldn't a law be promulgated, which can be justified before the people, which would give everyone the assurance of careful examination whether he is due to die or entitled to live, and would also give the relatives a chance to be heard, in a similar way as provided by the law for the prevention of Heriditarily Affected Progeny?
"With regard to the patients entrusted to the care of our institutions in the future I urgently pray to do everything possible to suspend the carrying out of this measure, until a clear legal situation has been established. Heil Hitler, signed Schlaich."
And on the letterhead of "L. Schlaich, Chief of the Institution for Feeble Minded and Epileptics." On the bottom of the letter is a note: "A copy of this letter I forwarded with the same mail to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Reichminister Dr. Lammers."
I now offer in evidence Document Number NO-827 as Prosecution Exhibit Number 375 on page 269 of the English document book.
This is a letter on the letterhead of the Oberpraesident of Brandenburg Province, Administration of Provincial Association, Potsdam, 25 April 1940, signed by v. Armin, Governor, and addressed to the Home for Girls, attention Head of Institution or Deputy in Office, Personal.
"Subject: Transfer of Inmates of Mental Institutions.
"With reference to the circular O.P.I-RV.Pol.80/40 of the Reich Commissioner for Defense for the Corps A??a III, dated 20 January 1940, which is already known to you but a copy of which is a gain attached hereto, I instruct you, by the order of the Reich Commissioner for Defense, to move from your institution the patients enumerated in attached list with two copies which are enclosed likewise. The patients will be fetched on 4 May 1940 noon by busses of the Patient Transport Corporation who will get in touch with you.
"The transport is to be prepared by the institution moving the patients: restless patients are to be treated preliminarily with proper drugs for a transport extending over several hours. The patients are to be handled over as far as possible, in their own underwear and clothing and are to be properly marked so that their identification will be guaranteed. The entire private funds and possibly, the patients' own money is to be handed over, well packed. if there is no private clothing, the institution moving the patients will have to lend underwear and clothing. The patient Transport Corporation will be responsible for the return of the clothing and underwear which have been put at the disposal as a loan; its list has to be submitted. The personal files and case histories of the patients are to be handed over to the transport leader" I should next like to offer into evidence Document D-906 as Prosecution Exhibit Number 376, This is a long document continuing from page 271 to page 294.
It was admitted in evidence before the International Military Tribunal, having been presented by the British Prosecutor. The first part of the document. and I should mention that the Document Number D-906 contains several separate letters and memoranda, is a letter from Linden to Heinrich Sellmer, dated Berlin, 31 December 1940, and reads as follows:
"Dear Party Comrade Sellmer: Enclosed herewith I submit to you an incident concerning the affair about which you have been informed by Party Comrade Blandenburg." Parenthetically I might note that Blandenburg, as the evidence has already shown, was assistant to Brack, and later his successor..." about which you have been informed by Party Comrade Blandenburg from the Chancellery of the Fuehrer. As you may see from the presentation of Frau Marie Kehr, she would like to know whether it is possible by virtue of a Reich law to deliver human beings from their incurable sufferings, I ask you to examine if there are any political objections against Kehr, and especially if eccleisastical ties exist in her case. Should this not be the case, I, for my part, would not raise any objections against your verbal furnishing of the desired disclosures to Kehr, Heil Hitler, Linden."
There is an handwritten note at the bottom. "Ortsgruppenleiter Party Comrade Popp is of the opinion that Frau Kehr can be informed; she is quiet and reasonable." As seen on the face of this letter, that if a person made inquiries to the Reich Minister and if it were determined that there were no political objections against a person, it might be explained to them verbally in case they were quiet and reasonable, just what was taking place.
Turning to page 272, still a part of Document Number D-906, is a file note, signed by Sellmer, dated 1.10.40, and reads as follows:
"Visit from party member Blankenberg, Berlin. Action begins in the near future. So far hardly any mishaps have occurred. 30,000 dispatched. Further 100,000-120,000 are waiting. The circle of those who are initiated is to be kept very small. If necessary the Kreisleiter is to be notified in good time. Initiate ?r. Hummel when possible, supply a statement from the Gau. 1) Institutions; 2) Doctor's attitude; 3) Where is the institution situated? 4) Who is the Kreisleiter? The Fuehrer gave the order. The decree is ready. At present only clear cases, that is, 100% ones, are being settled. Later an expansion will take place. From now on notification will be given in more scholastic form. Informed are: "Two names follow which are illegible. Signed Sellmer.
The next part of Document Number D-906 is found on Page 273 and is a letter from Martin Bormann addressed to the Gauleitung Franconia, dated Berlin, 24.9.40, on the letterhead of the National Socialist German Workers Party, The Fuehrer's Deputy Chief of Staff:
"Your letter of 13 September 1940 was given to me by Party member Hoffmann. The Commission which was working at Neuendettelsau, is under the control of Reichsleiter Bouhler or is acting on his orders.
"The text of the notifications of relatives varies in its composition, as I was once more assured yesterday; it can, however, naturally happen sometimes that two families living close to each other receive similarly worded letters.
"It is natural that the representatives of Christian ideology speak against the Commission's measures; it must be equally natural that all Party Offices should, as much as necessary, support the work of the Commission.
'Heil Hitler.'
"M. Bormann."
On the following page, Page 274, still part of Document Number D-906, is an extract from a report by the Kreisleitung of Erlangen, as can be seen from the original document. It reads as follows:
"2. Elimination of mentally deranged:
"On orders from the Ministry of the Interior, signed Schultz or Schultze, a commission, consisting, among others, of a North German doctor and a number of students, appeared some time ago at the local sanatorium and nursing home. It examined the charts of the patients of the institution. Some time later the director of the institution was informed that a certain number of patients were to be transferred to another institution on orders from the Reich Defence Commissar, that a Berlin Transport Company was to carry out the transfer and that the head of the institution was to follow the directives of this company which was in possession of a list of names. In this way three transports with a total of 370 patients have been transferred in the meantime to Sonnenstein near Pirna and to the Linz district.
A further transport is to leave in January of next year. In the beginning the head of the institution did not know at all where the transports went and he ignores it even now officially. He received no information on the subject from anybody. He merely had instructions to reply to the inquiries of the patients' relatives that the new institution would get in touch with them and inform them of their admission. Strangely enough, various relatives received notification after the transfer that their patients had died. In some cases pneumonia and in others an infectious disease were given as the cause of death. At the same time, the relatives were further informed that it had been necessary to cremate the body and that, if they were interested, they could have the clothing of the deceased sent to them. The registry office of Erlangen was also informed by the institution of the various cases of death, and again either pneumonia or an infectious disease was given as the cause of death--illnesses which had no connection with the previous medical history, so that it is to be assumed that we are confronted with false statements. The population is terribly disturbed about the transfer of patients, because they connect it with the cases of death which are becoming known in rapid succession. They speak, partly openly, partly in secret, about an elimination of patients for which there is no legal foundation. In these war times such unrest among the population has a doubly unfavorable effect. Moreover, the events described above give the church and religious circles cause to revive their attitude against National Socialism."
A handwritten note at the bottom of the report reads as follows:
"Original extract from the situation report of the Kreisleitung of Erlangen of the 26.11.40. A copy was not made....."
The next part of Document Number D-906 is found in the middle of Page 275 and is an extract of a report of the Kreisleiter of Ansbach, as is shown from the original, and reads as follows:
"30. Miscellaneous...."