Q. In the course of this examination I shall ask you to outline in sequence far the Tribunal, the German Medical Organization prior to 1933 relative to the German Medical Association, the Hartmann Bund, professional ethics and mal-practice procedure, certification and licensing of physicians, medical education and then the effect of the Nazi Government on the German Medical Organization after 1933. Now, Professor, was there a National German Medical Association prior to 1933?
A. I shall attempt to describe as briefly as possible the history of the medical profession and its organization in Germany. In Germany, even as early as the middle of the 17th Century, there were individual cases of the forming of unions of medical men, such as, for instance, the so-called Collegium Medicum or the Collegium Chirurgicum, which were organizations formed in various towns such as Schweinfurth, Nurnberg, Bamberg, and other towns; but generally speaking you can consider the personal medical officer Stieglitz at Hanover as being right in saying that the German Medical profession was one of isolation, living in returement and rather like a spider in its web. Later on, for social and political reasons, these matters began to change. The German doctor was, of course, originally living, shall we say, dependant upon the absolutistic order of the State. Consequently, the German medical profession was sub-divided into different classes, strictly separated from each other. For instance, there were surgeons of the first and surgeons of the second class. There were about 20 such groups of general practitioners and wound doctors who were strictly separated from the others and consequently the medical man was, in principle, dependent upon the absolute powers of the State.
There is a famous story of the year 1845, approximately, according to which a doctor in Berlin was called to a patient's bedside and that he thought, from a medical point of view, that the visit was not urgent. Half an hour later a policeman appeared at his bedside and forced him to carry out the visit to this patient. All these matters brought it about that the Western ideas of freedom, beginning with the great Revolution of 1789 and coming from France, spreading to Germany, too, particularly in the case of the medical profession, found a great deal of benevolent interest. It appears to me that from the point of view of historic truth there is no doubt whatever that the medical profession in Germany in particular absorbed the democratic ideas of freedom and human rights with particularly great intensity.
This, in order to be brief, led to unions in which the difference of classes were meant to be removed and in which surgeons, doctors, general practitioners, even the students of medicine, were meeting in so-called medical clubs; but the success of these attempts at a unification was, at least first of all, politically much impeded. That, however, was not even changed by the fact that as great a man as Rudolf Virchow, when he was a young doctor, participated in this political movement for the fight for freedom in a very active manner. He was demanding independence for the medical profession, absolute freedom for that profession, independence from all other institutions of the State, such as, for instance, the Profession of Lawyers had, and he demanded, in addition to that, an organization of its own for the medical profession which would be confined to the basis of expert knowledge and the right to issue its own laws.
The Prussian State, after the Revolution of 1848, had considered these ideas as most suspicious. That State was not at all willing to allow such demands to become successful. It impeded the corresponding applications made by this freedom movement and only in 1873 did success come to Dr. Richter in Dresden to unify the existing doctors' clubs, numbering 111, in one great union. That was the German Medical Doctors' Union and that Union, until the Third Reich continued to exist and it was only in 1936 that Conti dissolved it.
Q. Well, witness, you say that the National German Medical Association was formed in the early 1870's, which tied together all the old local medical associations, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. If I understand correctly, the nature of this organization was democratic and its interests included problems of hygiene and public health, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now what was its express purpose -- what was the purpose for forming this organization? Was it to improve public health and hygiene, to foster medical education and science -- is that a correct assumption, Professor?
A. Yes. First of all there was an attempt to shape a union according to the example of the Lawyer's Union, in order to maintain the moral liberty of the medical profession. Lawyers were used as an example for that, and then there was discussion about the social demands of hygiene which, after all the attacks of the industrialization of the 19th century, and considering its rapid development, demanded very considerable steps, both on the part of the doctors and also for poor patients and the general grain proletariat, in the sense of hygiene.
Q. Professor, are you familiar with the organizations known as the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association?
A. Oh yes.
Q. Are these organizations similar and comparable in purpose to the German Medical Association?
A. That is not to be expressed as simply and straightforward as all that. Principally speaking, in America historical developments were different. I mean by that the development from the pioneer doctor, the craftsman of the old days of the 18th century until the formation of the State was in existence. It is for that reason that the medical profession in the United States developed somewhat differently. I mean because the social revolutionary trend such as was in existence among doctors in Germany after their liberation from absolute suppression to a free democracy in 1848, whereas no such development occurred in the United States. But there are certain boundaries to the history of the medical profession in the States, too. The German Doctors' Union which I have mentioned can, up to a point, be compared with the formation founded in 1847 in Philadelphia, which was called the American Medical Association, which on the other hand, later on, and today, bear a different character, such as the one which is shown by the joint organization of medical officers in Chicago today, which simultaneously issues the most important literary periodicals. That is a development which we in Germany did not experience.
Q. Now, Professor, what happened to this National German Medical Association in 1933?
Did it continue to exist in practice or merely in theory? Did the Nazi Government have any influence upon it?
A. No.
Q. Then there was complete disruption among the members of the Medical Association in the advent of the Nazis, is that correct?
A. The German Doctors' Union and the so-called Hartmann Union, which I must mention yet, were, either on the 1st of April 1933 or just a few days later, dealt with by Dr. Gerhardt Wagner, who was appointed State Commissar and coordinated with the so-called National Socialist leadership principles; that is to say, the liberal state development of that union and the Hartmann Union ceased in the course of the general co-ordination(gleichschaltung) under the leadership principle, -- ceased to exist as an independent liberal organization of the German Medical Profession.
Q. Professor, what was the Hartmann Bund and why was it organized?
A. Owing to Bismarck's law of insurance issued in 1882-1883, rather contrary to the development in the United States, the health insurance system developed in Germany. This health insurance system produced a most severe social revolutionary disturbance among the health insurance organizations on one side and doctors and their organizations on the other side. The result was that the very powerful health insurance companies were bullying, socially speaking, the medical profession in Germany and exposing them to a certain amount of a crisis. I shall not go into these facts which ensued in detail because it would be a lengthy story, but the final outcome, from the point of view of organization, was the foundation of a union for the taking care of the economic interests of doctors in Germany by means of the very successful and hard-fighting Dr. Hartmann, so that that union then was named after him, Dr. Hartmann, or Doctors Union, and it was founded in 1900. Once again, it continued to exist until 1933 and once again the Leadership Principles of the State Commissar, Gerhardt Wagner, resulted in its being dissolved.
Q. Professor, now were matters of professional ethics and mal-practice considered and settled prior to 1933?
A. To begin with, even in the unions and clubs which I have mentioned, there were naturally certain general ethical and medical principles which, in the Medical Society of Berlin and its predecessors, during Albrecht von Grace' time, led to a special Council of Honor.
But the professional ethic was not brought into being until, by law, in 1887, the medical chambers were put on a legal basis and when, in 1899, the so-called Courts of Honor for doctors, with their own disciplinary system were being introduced, they had a Chamber of Appeal, too. It was the so-called Court of Honor and in both these disciplinary instances there was one legally trained judicial official. The disciplinary punishments of these Courts of Honor, and this is important from the historical point of view, consisted of the following measures which could be introduced: first of all, monetary fines; secondly, reprimand; and thirdly withdrawal of the active and passive right to vote. These disciplinary courts on the other hand, before 1933 at any rate, did not include questions of a general moral nature, which were matters for the Penal Courts to deal with, and most certainly not religious questions and not political questions.
Q. How ware these matters of professional ethics and malpractice considered and settled after 1933?
A. This question can be answered on the basis of a statement of the ethical change in the medical profession. The Doctor, who for thousands of years, even before the Christian era, had the duty of treating the individual patient to the best of his ability; this doctor was now made a biological state officer by the National Socialist system. This is, he no longer decided according to the ethical principals of pre-Christianity and the pre-Christian world in the interests of the individual patient, but he was the agent of a class of leaders who did not concern themselves with the individual, but considered the individual only as an expression of the maintenance of fictitious biological developments of racial ideas and thus tore the heart out of the medical profession, The doctor, who has no primary interest in the patient, who only gives out orders on behalf of a fictitious collective economy, according to the law of the Hippocratic oath, is not a doctor.
Q. Professor, were the medical societies prior to 1933, representing the various specialties, such as internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, gernotology dermatology, pathology, physiology, etc., as are found in other countries?
A. There were in Germany various medical associations, which one must organize first and there were some professional organizations. These had scientific interests and they discussed the practical questions of medical sci ce. In addition, there were purely scientific organizations of a highly scientific state and high international reputation, such as the Berlin medical Association, the Chemnitz Association, the Fatherland Association in Silesia and the Specialist Scientific Associations for the various specialists. These associations originally, that is in the 1850's and. 1060's of the past century, relied upon professional politics, but in the last decade they withdrew from these politics and essentially devoted themselves to International science.
Q. What happened to these various medical societies after 1933; were they disbanded?
A. They were not disbanded, but their contents changed. The scientific societies, which I have just mentioned, continued to hold meetings until the last years of the war and within the limits and scope of their possibilities continued to do good work, which could have been possible if a free scientific opinion could have been expressed in these societies, but one could not trust one's neighbor. One belonged to the SS, another belonged to the SA and a third might be a spy. Above all, there were a number of scientific subjects, which could not be touched upon at a 11, because they were too dangerous. However, one could not say if one accepted these subjects. All remained at a low level, but it is a matter of course that the scientist, who Was accustomed to servo the cause of trust sincerely, had to lose interest in participation in these societies and consequently in any special field, the attendance at these meetings was reduced an the course of the years.
Q. Professor, how were physicians licensed before and during the Nazi administration?
A. Before 1933, the medical licensing of doctors corresponded to a ruling, which applied since before 1878; that is after graduating from a secondary school there were premedical studies and an examination after five semesters for the so-called Tentamen physician, the Tentamen physician was introduced instead of the Tentamen philosopnicum, which had been used before. The Tentamen physician dealt with medical science, antiseptics, chemicals, zoology, etc. After having passed this examination, the candidate went into the clinical emasters. He went for five semesters and then passed the state examination. After he passed the state medical examination, no became a medical practitioner for one year. After that period, he was licensed as a physician by the Ministry of the Interior and now he could take the Doctor's examination. The Doctor's examination could be taken only after this period.
Q. How was this medical education and training influenced by the Nazi administration?
A. The big structure, which I have just described, did not change essentially after 1933; that is the physician was divided into two parts for a while but otherwise the duties remained the same.
It seems to me, however, to be somewhat synonymous that from the very beginning, after 1933, an attempt was made to shorten the medical studies an, for a very characteristic reason the students would be permitted to marry as quickly as possible. The so-called young marriage was encouraged at the expense of scientific studies; and that is very typical. At the same time, subjects were introduced into the state examinations, such as racial hygiene and hereditary psychology. Also the history of medicine was introduced, but not for purely scientific reasons, but because instructions an medical history were, of course, a fertile field for propaganda in order to indoctrinate the students with typical National Socialistic ideas. There was another very important change in the first semester, there was an organization, the National Socialistic League of Students, a group called National Health or Popular Health. Its purpose was in the first two or three semesters to determine the suitability of the medical students from an ideologi point of view and imports were made. After two semesters, the students would be advised that he was suited or unsuited.
Also there was an essential technical change in the university holidays, which helped the student to digest what he had learned during the course of the year, but duties of the students to participate in work in the country in agriculture and later in factories. Each one included Hitler youth and Service, and S. A. Service and other duties. All these activities did not help to promote scientific studies. But I will not counsel the fact that of course there were other things, those were the arrangements suck as for example the fact that the students were exchanged and spent time there before beginning their studies to take a course in practical nursing, and that other similar students were obliged to work for the Red Cross.
Q Now, Professor, how did did agitation of National Socialism prior to the Third Reich influence physicians' organizations?
A Before 1933 which has not been mentioned yet, and consequently it must be explained, there were political medical organizations. First, the Union of Social Democratic doctors; that was an organization predominately of Socialist Colleagues of a medical class and character, the aim of which was to promote social hygiene among the working class to extend the work of the health officials to hold popular medical lectures. This group was directed by Dr. Kollwitz, the husband of the famous German sculptor, Kaothe Kollwitz, who was famous for her statues of proletarian life. The more radical organization, which was the Socialist League of doctors, the purpose of this League was ideology. The Socialist Democratic and the Marzist doctors, who were doctors with Socialistic ideals who wore independent of any party affiliation, but who believed in Socialist development, they were to be included in this League. The head of this organization was the psychoanalyist, Dr. Simmel, who later immigrated to America, as well as a colleague who had practical experience on hygiene in Russia, whose name was Lothar Wolff. Unfortunately, it must be said historically that this association in the last years before 1933, carried out the struggle between the S.P.D. and K.P.D., the Socialist and Communist parties, and that in this struggle they overlooked one thing, that the danger came from a different side, from National Socialism.
In 1929 at a Nurnberg party rally, the National Socialist League of Physicians was founded, which in 1933 became an executive force of the NSDAP, and assumed the work of terror against doctors with other ideas.
Q Who was the leading character or personality of teat organization?
A The later State Secretary, Dr. Leonardo Conti.
Q What did this all lead to in Berlin on April 1, 1933, after the establishment cf the Third Reich?
A On the 1st of April 1933, I unfortunately was obliged to experience the efforts in Berlin, which is the greatest disgrace of the medical profession which I have been obliged to witness in my life. I had to see colleagues supply their own cars in order to have Socialist doctors and Jewish colleagues pulled out of their beds in the morning, mistreated, taken to an open space near the Lehrter Station, and the Nationalist Socialist colleagues, together with the S. A. men in uniform had the doctors whom they had arrested run around as if in a hippodrome. They laughed about this. Old non of 70 and even older were running around with their tongues hanging out, because they were threatened with revolvers, because they were hit with sticks and because there were shots now and then. They were left without any care. Some of them stayed for 24 or 48 hours, and were then sent home, but many of them were sent to the notarious S. A. Collars in Hedemann Strasse. They returned home after sometime physically and spiritually broken.
Q Did I understand you to say, Professor, that medical men were taken out of their beds in this manner by other medical men?
A It is unfortunately true. And a few days before the first of April it happened that Jewish. colleagues under the pretext that they were being called for consultation were called for in cars which they did not know, were taken to the woods, thrown out of the cars and left there bleeding.
Q Now, Professor, prior to 1933 did men in the medical profession believe that Nazism would load to the disorganization and downfall of the then medical organizations?
A Cf course there were such doctors, for the terror originated from the small group at that time. The majority of the doctors realized that this development had to load to a production of the level of morality.
Q Could a physician conduct any insurance practice if he did not belong to the Nazi medical society?
A Yes, he could.
Q Mas it possible for the Jewish physician to practice medicine under the Nazis?
A The Jewish doctors were at first not seriously restricted purposely; if they were War veterans of 1914 they could remain insurance physicians. At first only those who were not war veterans were eliminated from insurance work, and those doctors were eliminated who belonged to the Socialist League of Physicians which I have described, and because it was a Pacifist organization. For example, that was the reason way I was eliminated in 1933, because I was a pacifist and had belonged to the Socialist League of Physicians. But these restrictions later became of a more and more terroristic nature. After the famous November 1938 the Jews were no longer admitted, no longer licensed. The Jews were no longer doctors, they became healers of the sick, Krankenbehandler. They had to have a sign, a yellow sign with a Star of David on it.
Of course, in view of the basic anti-Semitic terrorism, these signs made these people prey. Of course, the Jewish doctors, as the terror against the Jews increased, were impoverished. The doctors were not able to live from their practice. In about, as far as I recall, about 1941 there was a further disgrace for all Jewish citizens of our country. According to the name regulation they had to add the name Sarah or Israel to their name. These names also had to appear on their signs, Then the whole thing detericrated more and more. These external regulations were not the only thing which affected the lives of the Jewish doctors. They were exposed to constant terroristic actions. From about 1942 on their lives were in serious danger. A person was taken here; a person was taken there; someone disappeared here and finally the colleagues were not seen again because they had been taken away to the East, partly with the pretext that they were to be used as doctors there. And many of these colleagues, many of my own friends, were never heard of again. They are presumably dead.
Q. Doctor, are you yourself Jewish?
A. No, but my wife, and consequently I, was subject to the Nuernberg Laws.
Q. Now, doctor, what happened to the Jewish patients as a result of this purge on the Jewish doctors?
A. The Jewish patients could theoretically in the first years be treated by so-called Aryan doctors. One must, of course, understand that doctors courageous enough to continue to treat Jewish patients could be denounced and that they were terrorized by the National Socialist doctors, but then by special order of the Chamber of Physicians the treatment of Jews was forbidden. This was camouflaged with a humanitarian explanation. It was said the Jewish practictioners must be guaranteed a certain clientele and with such reasons an attempt was made to whitewash these things. It now became very difficult for those Jewish patients who needed hospital treatment, for in small cities there were no Jewish hospitals. In Berlin there was still the famous Jewish hospital which had a very high reputation, but what were conditions like in this hospital? It became more and more a transit station for those who were carried off to an uncertain fate.
It was emptied of instruments, of medicines, and also it was inadequate.
For a time it was still tolerated that Jewish patients, if they took first class accommodations, could be taken into a private sanitorium if, of course, they took their meals in their rooms because the Aryan patients could not be expected, as it said, to eat their meals together with the Jewish patients. But finally that too became intolerable and was forbidden.
There were special difficulties in dealing with insane Jews. It was almost impossible to find a hospital to put them in and there were only a very few courageous owners of sanitariums who attempted to accept such patients. There were a number of denominational hospitals, especially Catholic clinics, which accepted Jewish patients under false names and took care of them very well.
Q. What was the Speer organization and how w t related to physicians who were called foreigners or alleged to have mixed blood?
A. This action was called Action Center. It was the following: About in the summer of 1943 in Berlin a special drive under the pretext of the so-called civil Service obligation, foreign doctors and especially after the Jewish doctors had largely disappeared, the Aryan doctors who were married to Jews and the so-called Mischlinge - that is, persons of mixed blood they were removed from Berlin by order of the main Health Office, together with the ministry of the Interior, by force. By force, for one must not forget that at that time there was an enormous scarcity of doctors; that all these doctors were working from early morning until late at night during the air raids; that many of them were working at hospitals; that many of them had enormous practices and these practices and this work had to be given up within two or three days. They had to take various subaltern positions. I may give the example of my own case because it shows the thing very well. I also had a large practice. I worked as a consultant at a Catholic hospital and I had to give up all this work within a few days and was sent to Munich to the Provincial Chamber of Physicians there. There I was treated in a very unfriendly way, to put it mildly.
That is, in a discriminatory way. I was told that I had to go to the Ministry of the Interior and they would tell me where I was to be sent. The Ministry of the Interior represented, so to speak, the juristic arm of this operation. There was the man in Munich who dealt with these things, a Ministerial Director Jaeger, a medical adviser, Ministerialrat Schmidt. These ordered my appointment as a so-called war assistant physician at the Nuernberg hospital in the nerve clinic. It was noticeable that the men for whom I worked there was a very convinced National Socialist and that of course, since he knew from my record that I was married to a Jew and that I was anything but a National Socialist, that such a chief had to consider me suspicious, and he did.
I do not want to mention things Thick still have to be shown my evidence. I merely want to describe the final result. The attention of the Gestapo was called to me and as a result I had to flee in September of 45. I describe this case only because it is one of many.
And now to come back to the Action Center. This was another step to destroy people in my category; that is, about January 1945 we were disqualified as doctors and we were given special positions in the Organization Speer as laborers. I have heard that some of these colleagues succeeded in being assigned to some sort of medical service but according to the regulation these doctors, including foreigners, were to be used for common labor in the Organization Speer. That was the purpose of the Action Center.
Q. Was the Action Conti connected with these actions Mitte and Speer?
A. It is not quite clear to me from the organizational point of view. The Action Conti, that is, taking the doctors out of their activity and putting them in subaltern positions, this Action Conti went through the Ministry of the Interior, for the mam in the Berlin Ministry of the Interior who was in charge of this matter was a certain Oberfeldarzt Dr. Bernhardt. This Dr. Bernhardt was a Wehrmacht medical officer, supposed to be a Wehrmacht medical officer, but actually he was an executive member of the Party who worked for the Ministry of the Interior end carried out this Conti action.
Q. This Action Conti was the one that started early in 1943, which instigated and directed persecution of doctors who were either foreigners or persons of the so-called mixed blood and also those related by marriage to Jews.
Is that correct, Professor?
A. Yes. It must be emphasized from the sociological point of view that removal of an Aryan, formerly head of a family, from his family meant or could mean a death sentence for his wife. One must realize that the wife, as a Jew, had no right to follow her husband to his new position. She had no permission to travel. She could not leave her home, but on the other hand, under the terror which prevailed at that time she did not claim welfare which might have been due her, so that in effect the Jewish marriage partner who was now isolated might expect new measures which might mean, and this did happen, that such members of mixed marriages were sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. One can imagine with what feelings and with what concentration such an Aryan doctor worked in his subaltern position.
Q. Professor, you have stated that the Health Department came under the Ministry of the Interior, Now when the ministry of the Interior under Frick assumed control of the Health Department, what action did he take regarding reorganization and so forth?
A. We have two historical phases. We have a transition phase from 1933 until about 1935. That was the period of the so-called State Commissariat of Gerhardt Wagner. At that time already Mr. Conti became state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior of Mr. Frick. Conti now through Ministerial Director Guett established Section 4 in the Ministry of the Interior. This organization under the leadership principle included the whole medical profession down to the most insignificant doctor in the following way: The Reich Health Office of Mr. Reiter which had existed for sixty years was incorporated to the Ministry of the Interior. The German Red Cross, which in 1934 had the honor of being put under the protection of Adolf Hitler, was in 1937 attached by law to the Ministry of the Interior.
The third organization was a big racial office. On the other hand, the so-called Reich Committee for Public Health developed from this office. Four: This had two subsections again. One was essentially a propagandistic racial factor where people worked such as Lemme, Ruttke, who wrote on hereditary biology, etc., and, second, the big organization of public health, Then there developed from the Ministry of the interior through the Ober Regierungspaaesidenten, governor, etc., the health offices. Therefore, it is clear that the health offices received their direct instructions through these officers from the Ministry of the Interior, and the health officers were in charge of all social hygiene care with the emphasis on the racial element.
There was also a certain connection with the Reich Labor Ministry, and then from the Reich Labor Ministry there was a connection through tho provincial and Reich insurance organizations to the medical inspections. That is more or loss tho central organization which State Secretary Conti administered through Ministerial Director Guett in Section Four. And I must not forget this part: there were also subsidiary connections to the extra health office, and I call it that of Mr. Ley or the Committee for Health Service of the NSDAP and its subsections, the National Socialist League of Physicians which obtained more and more executive power in the Party and two other organizations such as tho Hitler Youth and tho Reich Labor Service. All these threads came together and were centralized in the Ministry of the Interior.
I should, therefore, like to sum up once more on what keyboard Mr, Conti played. Mr. Conti was, first of all, state Secretory in the Ministry of the Interior. He was, second, Reich physicians loader; that is, he represented the Reich Chamber of Physicians. Third, he was the Chief of tho Public Health Office of tho NSDAP, and, consequently, there was not a single medical question which did not reach Mr. Conti in one form or another and which he did not regulate; and I know the special position which Mr. Brandt held from about 1940 on, I believe. Mr. Brandt was a sort of intermediary physician between the Wehrmackt and the civilian health. His position was legalized by his receiving instructions from the Fuobrer, Adoloh Hitler, personally.
Q Now you have stated, Professor, that Dr. Conti was Reichsaerztofuehrer. Now would you say that all physicians in Germany except those in military duty were subordinate to Conti?
A With the exception of the Wehrmacht and the SS, yes. Yes. Otherwise they wore all under Conti.
Q How did Conti control medical meetings and bring pressure to bear on physicians to join the Nazi Party, tho SR and the SS?
A Conti, of course, in his position had the opportunity to play on all organizational instruments. Above all, he could use the newspapers in a propagandists sense, and ho did so. He issued a number of proclamations in the German Medical Meekly, and he also used the Berlin Medical Association for that purpose if ho had certain political things to put through. For example, I may mention one very important polemic, I believe, about 1942. I said at tho beginning of my testimony that tho German Medical Profession as a democratic development was in favor of tho liberal principle, and it was very funny after the whole medical profession had been put under tho terroristic compulsion of the Fuehrer principle that suddenly in 1942 Conti apparently became afraid that the medical profession might be completely socialized. As far as i can recall, there was an effort in this direction from Ley. Another was a struggle between Loy and Conti, and Conti in a memorable speech in tho Berlin Medical Association appealed to the colleagues present there that they should remember the old ideas of freedom at tho time of Albrecht von Graewe and maintain tho freedom of the medical profession so that the medical profession might not be completely socialized. I mention this example only in order to show that Conti had tho opportunity of playing on all instruments of this mamouth machine, to play wherever he felt it necessary.
Q Do you know the name-
THE PRESIDENT The Tribunal will now be in recess f or a few moments.
(Recess)
BY MR. HARDY:
Q. Professor, do you know the name "Professor Dr. Kurt Blome?
A. Yes.
Q. What was tho relation of Blome to Conti?
A. Blome at first was tho loader of the medical educational system in the Third Reich and then ho became the representative of Conti in his capacity as Reich Loader of Physicians.
Q. Witness, you have stated that the German Rod Cross eventually came under the direction of the Ministry of tho Interior. Can you tell us what was the relation of the German Rod Cross to the Nazi Party and the SC?
A. The German Red Cross was developed in tho sense of tho General National Socialist attitude and coordinated in that manner. As I have mentioned before, in 1934, under tho leadership of Adolf Hitler it was coordinated first. It further had connections with tho Wehrmacht. As far as I remember General Hornemann played a role with reference to the connection with the Wehrmacht. Then approximately in 1942 something new happened. The SS physician, Dr, Grawitz, became at the same time tho managing president of tho German Red Cross and that for the following reason, obviously it was attempted to coordinate the entire German Red Cross under the soveriegnty of the SS even in an organizational basis. I should like to recall tho following event as an example. Dr. Grawitz sent tho SS physician Kimmel(?) to Vienna and ordered him to take over the German Rod Cross Hospital von Billrodt and also the leadership of tho Rod Cros Nursing Organization of the von Billrodt Hospital which meant in effect that Grawitz, as an SS physician, in his capacity as President of tho German Red Cross in 1942 could penetrate organizationally into that affair and thereby bring the German Red Cross under the SS sovereignty.
To what extent Grawitz succeeded doing so, I don't know. I only remember one more thing. I remember that there were a number of chief physicians of the hospitals of tho German Red Cross who really were not Nazis in the Party sense and who being afraid that since the Rod Cross was subordinated to tho SS, quickly joined the Party and they believed that in that manner they could escape any harm.
Q. Did not the defendant Dr. Karl Gebhardt succeed Grawitz as President of the Red Cross?
A. I found too literal basis for that,
Q. Did one have to be a member of the Nazi Party in order to work for the Rod Cross, as they did, if they wanted to work for tho German Government?
A. No.
Q. Then, you stated that the doctors who were working in tho Red Cross immediately became members of the Nazi Party so as to be in an advantageous position; is that correct?
A. I said that only in reference to the machinations of Grawitz, of 1942, and I refer to one concrete case something that I know from my acquaintance, where one colleague of mine joined the Party in order to safeguard his position as chief physician and avoid being exchanged by an SS physician.
Q. Do you know, Professor, of any medical organization or organizations dealing with health and hygiene and public welfare that was not under tho domination of the Nazi Party of the SS?
A. In the same sense, as everybody was under the leadership of Conti, every medical matter, in order to express myself generally, was mastered by the directive of the NSDAP.
Q. Have you over heard of the Fuehrer School of German Physicians at Althaus in Mocklenburg?
A. We are concerned with the Fuehrer School Altlese in Mecklenburg.
According to my estimation, it was created in 1935 under tho leadership of tho defendant Blome, Its purpose was to indoctrinate tho young physicians in tho National Socialist ideology and, as far as I know, this was done during on educational course in the camp in the same way as it was practiced or in the same way as it was demanded of the university lecturers.
Q. Was this course in tho Fuehrer School of German Physicians finally compulsory for all young medical students?
A. I am not very clear about that. I am not sure whether or not it was compulsory. I made the acquaintance of a number of young physicians whom I asked about that matter and who told me that they weren't there.
Q. Now, was it possible for tho young plysician to road and attend scientific meetings, do research work to improve his medical skill and scholarship under the Nazi regime as well as formerly?
A. That, of course, was impossible for tho reasons which I had mentioned before and it became very difficult from a medical point of view. The young medical student had to havo much backbone and had to be courageous if he really wanted to live only for tho completion of his medical education. The many duties in the mentioned Party organization,and the icet that his vacation time could not be used for the completion of his education, ail those matters naturally made the theoretical life of the man who studied, tho literary possibilities, that is to say, the reading of tho periodicals that of course was still something that was possible for him.
Q. Did the medical students havo to belong to Party Organizations?
A. Concretely they did not havo to belong but the case was that whoever did not belong to the National Socialist League of Students was considered a suspect and if a student belonged to no organization whatever and then had the intention to make the State exam he often had no alternative but to join that lea gue.