The Euthanasia Program
4. The Euthanasia Program was initiated in the summer of 1939. Hitler issued a secret order to Professor Dr. Karl Brandt, Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Matters, and at that time personal physician to the Fuehrer, and to Philipp Bouhler, charging them with responsibility for the killing of human beings who were unable to live, that is, the according of a mercy death to incurably insane persons. Prior to the issuance of this secret order, Bouhler had a conference with Dr. Brandt and Dr. Leonardo Conti, the Reich Chief for Public Health and State Secretary in the Ministry of Interior. On the basis of this order of Hitler, Bouhler and Brandt were to select doctors to carry out this program. Inasmuch as the insane asylums and other institutions were functions of the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Herbert Linden became the representative of the Ministry of Interior. Dr. Karl Brandt and Philipp Bouhler appointed Professor Dr. Heyde and Professor Dr. Nietsche along with several other medical men to aid in the execution of this Euthanasia Program.
5. Professor Dr. Karl Brandt was in charge of the medical section of the Euthanasia Program. In this capacity, as shown in the chart I have drawn, dated 12 September 1946, Dr. Karl Brandt appointed as his deputies Professor Heyde and Professor Nietsche. In charge of the administrative office under Brandt was first Herr Bohne and later Herr Allers. Three different names were used by Brandt’s section in order to disguise the activities of the organization. The names of the organization are as follows:
Reich Association—Mental Institutions.
Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care.
General Patient Transport Company.
6. In the early stages of this program, Dr. Karl Brandt visited Philipp Bouhler and discussed with him many details of this program. As a matter of fact, after such meetings between Brandt and Bouhler, I received many orders, more often from Bouhler than from Brandt directly.
7. In my capacity as Chief of Office II of Bouhler’s Chancellery, I was ordered to carry out the administrative details of the Euthanasia Program. My deputy was Werner Blankenburg, who eventually became my successor, that is, in the beginning of 1942 when I joined the Waffen SS. Von Hegener, Reinh, Vorberg, and Dr. Hevelmann were members of my staff.
8. In the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Linden was in charge of the Euthanasia Program and his deputy was Ministerialrat Franke. The Department for Public Health in the Ministry of the Interior had authority over all insane asylums of the Reich, and in this position, my department as well as the office of Dr. Brandt maintained close liaison in order to operate this Euthanasia Program efficiently.
The Procedure
9. By order of Dr. Linden, the directors of all insane asylums in the Reich had to complete questionnaires for each patient in their institutions. These questionnaires were drafted by Bouhler, Heyde, Nietsche, and others in several of their many conferences. The questionnaires were then forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior to be distributed to the various insane asylums and similar institutions. Theoretically, Dr. Linden’s office had the questionnaires returned and then forwarded them to the administrative section of the office of Dr. Brandt. The program was so arranged that photostats of each questionnaire were to be sent to four experts consisting of about 10 to 15 doctors. I do not remember the names of all the members of this panel, but Dr. Pfannmueller, Dr. Schumann, Dr. Faltlhauser, and Dr. Rennaux are fresh in my memory in this connection. Each of these experts indicated by making a certain comment on the questionnaire whether or not the patient could be transferred to an observation institution and eventually killed. The questionnaire was then forwarded to a senior expert. According to the regulation, the senior expert was only entitled to order the transfer of the patient when all four experts voted for the transfer. This senior expert also marked the questionnaire and then submitted it to Dr. Linden who ordered the insane asylum to transfer the patient to one of the observation institutions. Offhand I can remember, among others, the names of the following observation institutions: Eglfing-Haar, Kempten, Jena, Buch, Arnsberg.
10. At these institutions the patients were under the observation of the doctor in charge for a period of 1 to 3 months. The physician had the right to exempt the patient from the program if he decided that the patient was not incurable. If he agreed with the opinion of the senior expert, the patient was transferred to a so-called Euthanasia Institution. I can recall the names of the Euthanasia Institutions—
Grafeneck—under Dr. Schuman.
Brandenburg—under Dr. Hennecke.
Hartheim—under Dr. Rennaux.
Sonnenstein—under Dr. Schmalenbach.
Hadamar—(I do not remember under whose leadership).
Bernburg—under Dr. Behnke or Dr. Becker.
In these institutions the patient was killed by means of gas by the doctor in charge. To the best of my knowledge, about fifty to sixty thousand persons were killed in this way from autumn 1939 to the summer of 1941.
11. The order issued by the Fuehrer to Brandt and Bouhler was secret and never published. The Euthanasia Program itself was kept as secret as possible, and for this reason, relatives of persons killed in the course of the program were never told the real cause of death. The death certificates issued to the relatives carried fictitious causes of death such as heart failure. All persons subjected to the Euthanasia Program did not have an opportunity to decide whether they wanted a mercy death, nor were their relatives contacted for approval or disapproval. The decision was purely within the discretion of the doctors. The program was not restricted to those cases in which the person was “in extremis”.
12. Hitler’s ultimate reason for the establishment of the Euthanasia Program in Germany was to eliminate those people confined to insane asylums and similar institutions who could no longer be of any use to the Reich. They were considered useless objects and Hitler felt that by exterminating these so-called useless eaters, it would be possible to relieve more doctors, male and female nurses, and other personnel, hospital beds and other facilities for the armed forces.
Reich Committee for Research on Hereditary Diseases and Constitutional Susceptibility to Severe Diseases
13. This committee, which was also a function of the Euthanasia Program, was an organization for the killing of children who were born mentally deficient or physically deformed. All physicians assisting at births, midwives, and maternity hospitals were ordered by the Ministry of Interior to report such cases to the office of Dr. Linden in the Ministry of Interior. Experts in the medical section of Dr. Brandt’s office were then ordered to give their opinion in each case. As a matter of fact, the complete file on each case was sent to the offices of Bouhler and Dr. Brandt in order to obtain their opinions and to decide the fate of each child involved. In many cases these children were to be operated upon in such a manner that the result was either complete recovery or death. Death resulted in a majority of these cases. The program was inaugurated in the summer of 1939. Bouhler told me that Dr. Linden had orders to obtain the consent of the parents of each child concerned. I do not know how long this program continued, since I joined the Waffen SS in 1942.
The Connection between the Euthanasia Program and SS Brigadefuehrer Globocnik
14. In 1941 I received an oral order to discontinue the Euthanasia Program. I received this order either from Bouhler or from Dr. Brandt. In order to preserve the personnel relieved of these duties and to have the opportunity of starting a new Euthanasia Program after the war, Bouhler requested, I think after a conference with Himmler, that I send this personnel to Lublin and put it at the disposal of SS Brigadefuehrer Globocnik. I then had the impression that these people were to be used in the extensive Jewish labor camps run by Globocnik. Later, however, at the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943, I found out that they were used to assist in the mass extermination of the Jews, which was then already common knowledge in higher Party circles.
15. Among the doctors who assisted in the Jewish extermination program were Eberle and Schumann; Schumann performed medical experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz. It would have been impossible for these men to participate in such things without the personal knowledge and consent of Karl Brandt. The order to send these men to the East could have been given only by Himmler to Brandt, possibly through Bouhler.
The Bishop of Limburg
Limburg/Lahm, 13 August 1941
To the Reich Minister of Justice
Berlin
Regarding the report submitted on July 16 (sub. IV, pp. 6-7) by the Chairman of the Fulda Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Dr. Bertram, I consider it my duty to present the following as a concrete illustration of destruction of so-called “useless life”.
About 8 kilometers from Limburg in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home. This institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by concensus of opinion, the above-mentioned euthanasia has been systematically practiced for months—approximately since February 1941. The fact is, of course, known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden because death certificates from the Hadamar-Moenchberg Registry are sent to the home communities. (Moenchberg is the name of this institution because it was a Franciscan monastery prior to its secularization in 1803.)
Several times a week busses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say: “There comes the murder-box again.” After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of depending on the direction of the wind.
The effect of the principles at work here are that children call each other names and say, “You’re crazy; you’ll be sent to the baking oven in Hadamar.” Those who do not want to marry, or find no opportunity, say, “Marry, never! Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine!” You hear old folks say, “Don’t send me to a state hospital! When the feeble-minded have been finished off, the next useless eaters whose turn will come are the old people.”
All God-fearing men consider this destruction of helpless beings a crass injustice. And if anybody says that Germany cannot win the war, if there is yet a just God, these expressions are not the result of a lack of love for the Fatherland but of a deep concern for our people. The population cannot grasp the fact that systematic actions are carried out which in accordance with paragraph 211 of the German Penal Code are punishable with death. High authority as a moral concept has suffered a severe shock as a result of these happenings. The official notice that N. N. died of a contagious disease and, therefore, his body had to be burned, no longer finds credence, and official notices of this kind which are no longer believed have further undermined the ethical value of the concept of authority.
Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interest of public peace, this may be well intended. But the knowledge, and the conviction, and the indignation of the population, cannot be changed by it; the conviction will be increased with the bitter realization that discussion is prohibited by threats, but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law.
Facta loquuntur.
I beg you most humbly, Herr Reich Minister, in the sense of the report of the Episcopate of 16 July of this year, to prevent further transgressions of the Fifth Commandment of God.
[Signed] Dr. Hilfrich
I am submitting copies of this letter to the Reich Minister of the Interior and to the Reich Minister for Church Affairs.
[Initialed by the above]
AFFIDAVIT
I, Waldemar Hoven, being duly sworn, depose and state:
Transfer of Inmates to the Bernburg Euthanasia Station for Extermination
I became aware in 1941 that the so-called Euthanasia Program for the extermination of the mentally and physically deficient was being carried out in Germany. At that time, the camp commandant Koch called all the important SS officials of the camp together and informed them that he had received a secret order from Himmler to the effect that all mentally and physically deficient inmates of the camp should be killed. The camp commandant stated that higher authorities from Berlin had ordered that all the Jewish inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp be included in this extermination program. In accordance with these orders 300 to 400 Jewish prisoners of different nationalities were sent to the euthanasia station at Bernburg for extermination. A few days later I received a list of the names of those Jews who were exterminated at Bernburg from the camp commandant and I was ordered to issue falsified death certificates. I obeyed this order. This particular action was executed under the code name “14 f 13”. I visited Bernburg on one occasion to arrange for the cremation of two inmates who died in the Wernigerode branch (Aussenkommando Wernigerode) of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
[Letterhead: A. HITLER]
Berlin, 1 September 1939
Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M. D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.
[Signed] A. Hitler
[Handwritten note]
Given to me by Bouhler on 27 August 1940
[Signed] Dr. Guertner
CONFIRMATION
In accordance with the decision of the State Ministry of the Interior (Public Health Division), dated 8 January 1940, on orders from the Reich Association of Mental Institutions [Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Heil und Pflegeanstalten] and as responsible chief of the General Sick Transport Company G.m.b.H. [Gemeinnuetzige Krankentransport G.m.b.H.], I have taken charge of the transfer to a Reich institution of the patients enumerated in the list below.
Eglfing, 30 August 1940 [Signature illegible]
Commissioner of General Sick Transport Company G.m.b.H.[110]
TRANSFER MEMORANDUM FOR NIEDERNHART
Handed over were—
1. 149 patients with their own clothing, underwear, money, and belongings.
2. 149 files with personal records (case histories).
3. A list of the amount of money of each patient. A receipt was made out for this purpose.
4. A list of the names. Eglfing-Haar, 30-8-40
[Signed] Head Nurse Lotte Zell
The Reich Minister of the Interior
Berlin, NW 40, Koenigsplatz 6, 16 November 1939
IV g 4178 /39-5100
Telephone:
Dept. Z, I, II, V, VIII 11 00 27
Dept. II, IV, VI
(Unter den Linden 72); 12 00 34
Tel. Address: Reichsinnenminister.
To the Head of the Hospital for Mental Cases
Kaufbeuren
or his deputy in Kaufbeuren.
With regard to the necessity for a systemized economic plan for hospitals and nursing institutions, I request you to complete the attached registration forms immediately in accordance with the attached instruction leaflet and to return them to me. If you yourself are not a doctor, the registration forms for the individual patients are to be completed by the supervising doctor. The completion of the questionnaires is, if possible, to be done on a typewriter. In the column “Diagnosis” I request a statement as exact as possible, as well as a short description of the condition, if feasible.
In order to expedite the work, the registration forms for the individual patients can be dispatched here in several parts. The last consignment, however, must arrive in any case at this Ministry at the latest by 1 January 1940. I reserve for myself the right, should occasion arise, to institute further official inquiries on the spot through my representative.
per proxi: Dr. Conti
Certified:
(Sd.) [Illegible]
Administrative Secretary.
| Registration Form 1 | To be typewritten | |
| Current No. | ||
| Name of the Institution: | ||
| At: | ||
| Surname and Christian name of the patient: | ||
| At birth | ||
| Date of birth: | Place: | District: |
| Last place of residence | District: | |
| Unmarried, married, widow, widower, divorced: | ||
| Religion: | Race[111]: | |
| Previous profession: | Nationality: | |
| Army service when? 1914-18 or from 1-9-39. | ||
| War injury (even if no connection with mental disorder) Yes/No | ||
| How does war injury show itself and of what does it consist? | ||
| Address of next of kin: | ||
| Regular visits and by whom (address): | ||
| Guardian or nurse (name, address): | ||
| Responsible for payment: | ||
| Since when in Institution | ||
| Whence and when handed over: | ||
| Since when ill: | ||
| If has been in other institutions, where and how long: | ||
| Twin? Yes/No | Blood relations of unsound mind: | |
| Diagnosis: | ||
| Clinical description (previous history, course, condition; in any case ample data regarding mental condition): | ||
| Very restless? Yes/No | Bedridden? Yes/No | |
| Incurable physical illness: Yes/No (which) | ||
| Schizophrenia: Fresh attack | Final condition | Good recovery |
| Mental debility: Weak | Imbecile | Idiot |
| Epilepsy: Psychological alteration | Average frequency of the attacks | |
| Therapeutics (insulin, cardiazol, malaria, permanent result: | ||
| Salvarsan, etc. when?) | Yes/No | |
| Admitted by reason of par. 51, par. 42b German Penal Code, etc. through | ||
| Crime: | Former punishable offenses: | |
| Manner of employment (detailed description of work): | ||
| Permanent/Temporary employment, independent Worker? Yes/No | ||
| Value of work (if possible compared with average performance of healthy person) | ||
| This space to be left blank. | ||
| Place, Date | ||
| Signature of the head doctor or his representative (doctors who are not psychiatrists or neurologists, please state same). | ||
General Sick Transport Company, G.m.b.H.
Dept. II/d, H/K
Berlin, W. 9, 12 May 1941
Potsdamer Platz 1.
To the Director of the Hospital
of the District Association of Swabia,
Kaufbeuren/Bavaria.
Dear Director,
By order of the Reich Defense Commissioner, I must remove mental cases from your institution and from the branch at Irrsee to another institution. A total of 140 persons are to be transported, 70 on 4 June and 70 on 5 June. I forward you herewith Transport Lists Nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 in triplicate. The additional names on the lists are intended for possible deficits (discharged meanwhile, died, etc.).
The marking of the patients is most suitably done by means of a strip of adhesive tape, on which the name is written in indelible pencil, to be pasted between the shoulder blades. At the same time the name is to be put on an article of clothing.
The hospital reports and personal histories are to be prepared for the transportation and to be handed to our director of transport, Herr Kuepper; in the same way, the personal possessions of the patients, as well as money and articles of value.
I enclose property information cards and information cards as to the defrayer of the expenses, which must be completed accurately and handed in at the time of transportation. Money and articles of value, besides being noted on the property information cards, must also be noted on separate special lists (in duplicate).
Transportation takes place:
On 4 June, 8:46 a. m. from Kaufbeuren—70 patients
On 5 June, 8:46 a. m. from Kaufbeuren—70 patients
Our director of transport, Herr Kuepper, will visit you the previous day in order to discuss further details with you.
I further request you to provide the patients with food (2-3 slices of bread and butter each and some cans of coffee).
Heil Hitler!
(sd) [Illegible]
General Sick Transport Company, G.m.b.H.
PROVINCIAL ASSOCIATION FOR SOCIAL WELFARE
SWABIA
Address: Augsburg 1, P. O. Box Regierungspraesident
Tel. No. 5842
Cashier’s Office: Principal Govt.
Cashier’s Office Augsburg.
Post Office check account: Munich No. 1624
Director Dr. Faltlhauser, of the Hospital,
Kaufbeuren.
Your reference: 2080. Your letter of 13 November 1940.
Our reference:
(must always be
referred to).
II-B-7-2.
Augsburg, 6 May 1941
Concerning the transfer of patients.
I have the honor to inform you that the female patients transferred from your institution on 8 November 1940 to the institutions in Grafeneck, Bernburg, Sonnenstein, and Hartheim all died in November of last year.
[Signed] [Illegible]
Enclosures:
Copy
No. 5255 c 39
State Ministry of the Interior
Munich, 24 November 1942
to the Director of the
Hospital, Kaufbeuren,
Obermed. Rat
Dr. Faltlhauser.
To: Chief Physician, Dr. W. Leinisch
Guenzburg.
Re letter of 13-11-1942.
Dear Doctor,
In your letter of 13-11-1942 you requested me to send suitable epileptics for the carrying out of your research work. I had an opportunity to discuss this with the Obermedizinalraete Dr. Faltlhauser and Dr. Pfannmueller. Both will willingly deliver suitable patients to you. For various reasons patients from the Institution at Kaufbeuren are primarily to be chosen. If this institution has no suitable material, I agree to the transfer of patients from Eglfing-Haar to Guenzburg for your research work. I request that you get in touch with Dr. Faltlhauser.
Heil Hitler!
[Signed] Gaum
AFFIDAVIT
I, Dr. Ludwig Sprauer, born on 19 October 1884, now living at Konstanz, Baden, Salmannsweilergasse 2, make the following statement under oath:
I passed my state examination for medicine in Freiburg in 1907, and since 1919 was active in the civil service. During the following 14 years I was active as Bezirksarzt in Stockach, Oberkirch, Konstanz. I joined the NSDAP in 1933. From 1934 until 1944 I was the highest medical officer of Baden and held the title Ministerialrat. My highest superior was the Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick. As Frick’s subordinate I traveled several times, perhaps every 2 to 3 months to Berlin, to take part in discussions, conferences, etc., in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
These took place in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Berlin, Unter den Linden 72-74; later in the Reich Ministry of the Interior office on Voss-Strasse. On one such occasion in Berlin, Dr. Linden, Ministerialdirigent in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, stated that it was planned to introduce a euthanasia law. For military-political reasons to create more space, the incurably insane were to be done away with. The asylums thus vacated were in part asked for by the SS to be used for national political educational institutions.
A transportation company was founded for the execution of all these measures. This company worked hand in hand with the so-called Reich Committee for Research into Hereditary Ailments. This Reich concern was managed by Frick’s Ministerialdirigent Dr. Linden.
In the course of these measures from 1941 through 1944, thousands of persons were transferred from Baden’s asylums to places like Hadamar, Grafeneck, etc., and were killed there. The killings, however, were not solely confined to the mentally sick. In the course of the same campaign, steps were taken by order of the Reich Ministry of the Interior to eliminate particularly old but also young people who were ill.
The persons killed in the course of this program included not only those who were mentally sick, but also those who suffered from arteriosclerosis, tuberculosis, cancer, and other ailments. Most of those were older people who were inmates of public institutions at the state’s expense, and who in a respectable society would have been taken care of from public funds. These people were brought from public asylums in Baden to Hadamar, Grafeneck, and other asylums and killed there. In what manner they were killed, I do not know. In this way space was made available in the institutions for the armed forces and for the National Socialist educational institutions.
The whole program was camouflaged on the outside and falsified death certificates were made out.
L. Schlaich, Stetten i. R.
Chief of the Institution
for Feeble-Minded and Epileptics.
Stetten, i. R., 6 September 1940
To the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Frank
Berlin
Dear Reich Minister,
The measures at present being taken with mental patients of all kinds have caused a complete lack of confidence in justice among large groups of the people. Without the consent of relatives or guardians, such patients are being transferred to different institutions. After a short time they are notified that the person concerned has died of some disease. In view of the abundance of death notices people are convinced that these sick people are being done away with.
Since from the institution under my direction altogether 150 of the patients entrusted to me are to be transferred to such an institution (75 on the 10th and 75 on the 13th of September) I take the privilege of asking: Is it possible for such a measure to be carried out without a pertinent law having been promulgated? Is it not the duty of every citizen to resist under all circumstances an act not justified by law, even forbidden by law, even if such acts are carried out by state agencies?
On account of the complete secrecy and camouflage under which the measures are carried out, not only are the wildest rumors circulating among the people (for example, that people unable to work on account of age or injuries received during the World War have also been done away with or are to be done away with), but it seems as if the selection of the persons concerned is performed in a wholly arbitrary manner.
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—a law which would give everyone the assurance of careful examination as to whether he is due to die or entitled to live and which would also give the relatives a chance to be heard, in a similar way, as provided by the law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Affected Progeny?
With regard to the patients entrusted to the care of our institutions in the future, I urgently pray that everything possible be done to suspend the execution of this measure until a clear legal situation has been established.
Heil Hitler!
[Signed] Schlaich
I have forwarded a copy of this letter by the same mail to the chief of the Reich Chancellery, Reichsminister Dr. Lammers.
Subject: Mental Institutions
The following is for your personal information. Please destroy this sheet afterwards.
For some time the inmates of mental institutions have been visited by a commission which functions on orders from some very high office. The commission’s task is to find out which inmates should be selected for transport to certain other institutions. The commission bases its decision on the records of the institution. The patients who are then transferred are examined again in the institution designated by the commission and then the decision is made whether they should be released from their sufferings.
The body itself is cremated and the ashes are placed at the disposal of the relatives. Small mistakes in notifying are naturally always liable to occur, and in the future it will not be possible to avoid them. The commission itself is anxious to avoid all mistakes. I could give you further information but I would like to abstain from it and beg you to look me up when you visit the Gauleitung.
I believe that we National Socialists can welcome this action which is extraordinarily serious for the affected individual. I beg you, therefore, to oppose all rumors and grumblings with the necessary emphasis by representing our point of view in regard to these matters.
Nuernberg, 6 December 1940
Heil Hitler!
[Signed] Sellmer
Gaustabsamtsleiter
[Stamp]
National Socialist German Labor Party
Gau Franconia
Top Secret
19 December 1940