1. Belcec, on the Lublin-Lvov road, in the sector of the Russian demarcation line. Maximum 15,000 persons a day. Seen!
2. Sobiber, I do not know exactly where it is located. Not seen. 20,000 persons per day.
3. Treblinka, 120 kilometers NNE of Warsaw. 25,000 persons per day. Seen!
4. Maidanek, near Lublin. Seen—in the state of preparation.
Globocnik then said: “You will have to handle the sterilization of very large quantities of clothes, 10 or 20 times the amount of the clothing and textile collection, which is only arranged in order to conceal the source of these Jewish, Polish, Czech, and other clothes. Your other duties will be to change the method of our gas chambers (which are run at the present time with the exhaust gases of an old Diesel engine), using more poisonous material, having a quicker effect: prussic acid. But the Fuehrer and Himmler, who were here on August 15, the day before yesterday, ordered that I personally should accompany all those who are to see the installations.”
Then Professor Pfannenstiel asked: “What does the Fuehrer say?” Then Globocnik, now Chief of Police and SS, from the Adriatic Riviera to Trieste, answered: “Quicker, quicker! Carry out the whole program!” And then Dr. Herbert Linden, Ministerialdirektor in the Ministry of the Interior said: “But would it not be better to burn the bodies instead of burying them? A future generation might think differently of these matters!” * * * Globocnik replied: “But, gentlemen, if after us such a cowardly and rotten generation should arise that it does not understand our work which is so good and so necessary, then, gentlemen, all National Socialism will have been for nothing. On the contrary, bronze plaques should be put up with the inscription that it was we, we who had the courage to achieve this gigantic task. And Hitler said: ‘Yes, my good Globocnik, that is the word, that is my opinion, too.’ ”
The next day we left for Belcec, a small special station of two platforms against a hill of yellow sand, immediately to the north of the Lublin-Lvov road and railway. To the south, near the road were some service houses with a signboard: “Belcec, Service Center of the Waffen SS.” Globocnik introduced me to SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Obermeyer from Pirmasens, who with great restraint showed me the installations. No dead were to be seen that day but the smell of the whole region, even from the main road, was pestilential. Next to the small station there was a large barrack marked “Cloakroom,” and a door marked “Valuables.” Next to that, a chamber with a hundred “barber’s” chairs. Then came a corridor, 150 meters long, in the open air and with barbed wire on both sides. There was a signboard: “To the baths and inhalations”! Before us we saw a house, like a bathhouse, with concrete troughs to the right and left containing geraniums or other flowers. After climbing a small staircase, we came to 3 garage-like rooms on each side, 4 × 5 meters in size and 1.90 meters high. At the back were invisible wooden doors. On the roof was a Star of David made out of copper. At the entrance to the building was the inscription, “Heckenholt Foundation.” That was all I noticed on that particular afternoon.
Next morning, a few minutes before 7, I was informed that in 10 minutes the first train would arrive. And indeed, a few minutes later the first train came in from Lemberg [Lvov]; 45 cars, containing 6,700 persons, 1,450 of whom were already dead on arrival. Behind the little barbed-wire openings were children, yellow, half scared to death, women, and men. The train stopped; 200 Ukrainians, forced to do this work, opened the doors and drove all the people out of the coaches with leather whips. Then, through a huge loud-speaker, instructions were given to them to undress completely and to hand over false teeth and glasses—some in the barracks, others right in the open air. Shoes were to be tied together with a little piece of string handed to everyone by a small Jewish boy of 4 years of age; all valuables and money were to be handed in at the window marked “Valuables”, without receipt. Then the women and girls were to go to the hairdresser who cut off their hair in one or two strokes, after which it vanished into huge potato bags “to be used for special submarine equipment, door mats, etc.”, as the SS Unterscharfuehrer on duty told me.
Then the march began. To the right and left, barbed wire; behind, two dozen Ukrainians with guns. Led by a young girl of striking beauty they approached. With Police Captain Wirth, I stood right in front of the death chambers. Completely naked, they marched by, men, women, girls, children, babies, even one-legged persons, all of them naked. In one corner, a strong SS man told the poor devils in a strong deep voice: “Nothing whatever will happen to you. All you have to do is to breathe deeply; it strengthens the lungs. This inhalation is a necessary measure against contagious diseases; it is a very good disinfectant!” Asked what was to become of them, he answered: “Well, of course the men will have to work, building streets and houses. But the women do not have to. If they wish they can help in the house or the kitchen.” Once more, a little bit of hope for some of these poor people, enough to make them march on without resistance to the death chambers. Most of them, though, knew everything, the smell had given them a clear indication of their fate. And then they walked up the little staircase—and behold the picture: Mothers with babies at their breasts, naked, lots of children of all ages, naked too; they hesitate, but they enter the gas chambers, most of them, without a word, pushed by the others behind them, chased by the whips of the SS men. A Jewess of about 40 years of age, with eyes like torches, calls down the blood of her children on the heads of their murderers. Five lashes in her face, dealt by the whip of Police Captain Wirth himself, drive her into the gas chamber. Many of them say their prayers; others ask, “Who will give us the water for our death?” Within the chambers, the SS press the people closely together; Captain Wirth had ordered “Fill them up full.” Naked men stand on the feet of the others. 700-800 crushed together on 25 square meters, in 45 cubic meters! The doors are closed!
Meanwhile the rest of the transport, all naked, waited. Somebody said to me: “Naked, in winter! Enough to kill them!” The answer was: “Well, that’s just what they are here for!” And at that moment I understood why it was called the Heckenholt Foundation. Heckenholt was the man in charge of the Diesel engine, the exhaust gases of which were to kill these poor devils. SS Unterscharfuehrer Heckenholt tried to set the Diesel engine going, but it would not start! Captain Wirth came along. It was obvious that he was afraid because I was a witness of this breakdown. Yes, indeed, I saw everything and waited. Everything was registered by my stop watch. 50 minutes—70 minutes—the Diesel engine did not start! The people waited in their gas chambers—in vain. One could hear them cry. “Just as in a synagogue,” says SS Sturmbannfuehrer Professor Dr. Pfannenstiel, Professor for Public Health at the University of Marburg/Lahn, holding his ear close to the wooden door! Captain Wirth, furious, dealt the Ukrainian who was helping Heckenholt 11 or 12 lashes in the face with his whip. After 2 hours and 49 minutes—as registered by my stop watch—the Diesel engine started. Up to that moment the people in the four chambers already filled were still alive—4 times 750 persons in 4 times 45 cubic meters! Another 25 minutes went by. Many of the people, it is true, were dead by that time. One could see that through the little window as the electric lamp revealed for a moment the inside of the chamber. After 28 minutes only a few were alive. After 32 minutes all were dead! From the other side, Jewish workers opened the wooden doors. In return for their terrible job, they had been promised their freedom and a small percentage of the valuables and the money found. The dead were still standing like stone statues, there having been no room for them to fall or bend over. Though dead, the families could still be recognized, their hands still clasped. It was difficult to separate them in order to clear the chamber for the next load. The bodies were thrown out blue, wet with sweat and urine, the legs covered with excrement and menstrual blood. Everywhere among the others were the bodies of babies and children. But there is no time!—Two dozen workers were busy checking the mouths, opening them with iron hooks—“Gold on the left, no gold on the right!” Others checked anus and genitals to look for money, diamonds, gold, etc. Dentists with chisels tore out gold teeth, bridges, or caps. In the center of everything was Captain Wirth. He was on familiar ground here. He handed me a large tin full of teeth and said: “Estimate for yourself the weight of gold! This is only from yesterday and the day before! And you would not believe what we find here every day! Dollars, diamonds, gold! But look for yourself!” Then he led me to a jeweler who was in charge of all these valuables. After that they took me to one of the managers of the big store, Kaufhaus des Westens, in Berlin, and to a little man whom they made play the violin. Both were chiefs of the Jewish worker units. “He is a captain of the Royal and Imperial Austrian Army, and has the German Iron Cross 1st Class,” I was told by Hauptsturmbannfuehrer Obermeyer.
The bodies were then thrown into large ditches about 100 × 20 × 12 meters located near the gas chambers. After a few days the bodies would swell up and the whole contents of the ditch would rise 2-3 meters high because of the gases which developed inside the bodies. After a few more days the swelling would stop and the bodies would collapse. The next day the ditches were filled again, and covered with 10 centimeters of sand. A little later, I heard, they constructed grills out of rails and burned the bodies on them with Diesel oil and gasoline in order to make them disappear. At Belcec and Treblinka nobody bothered to take anything approaching an exact count of the persons killed. Actually, not only Jews, but many Poles and Czechs, who, in the opinion of the Nazis, were of bad stock, were killed. Most of them died anonymously. Commissions of so-called doctors, who were actually nothing but young SS men in white coats, rode in limousines through the towns and villages of Poland and Czechoslovakia to select the old, tubercular, and sick people and have them done away with shortly afterwards in the gas chambers. They were the Poles and Czechs of category No. III, who did not deserve to live because they were unable to work. Police Captain Wirth asked me not to propose any other kind of gas chamber in Berlin, but to leave everything the way it was. I lied—as I did in each case all the time—and said that the prussic acid had already deteriorated in shipping and had become very dangerous, that I was therefore obliged to bury it. This was done right away. The next day, Captain Wirth’s car took us to Treblinka, about 75 miles NNE of Warsaw. The installations of this death center scarcely differed from those at Belcec, but they were even larger. There were eight gas chambers and whole mountains of clothes and underwear about 35-40 meters high. Then a banquet was given in our “honor,” attended by all the employees of the institution. The Obersturmbannfuehrer, Professor Pfannenstiel, Hygiene Professor at the University of Marburg/Lahn, made a speech: “Your task is a great duty, a duty useful and necessary.” To me alone he talked of this institution in terms of “beauty of the task”; “humane cause”; and speaking to all of them he said: “Looking at the bodies of these Jews, one understands the greatness of your good work!”
“Draft” [penciled notation]
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Territories
Referent AGR. Dr. Wetzel
Berlin, 25 October 1941
Secret
Re: Solution of the Jewish Question.
To the Reich Commissioner for the East.
Re: Your Report of 4 October 1941 Concerning Solution of the Jewish Question.
Referring to my letter of 18 October 1941, you are informed that Oberdienstleiter Brack of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer has declared himself ready to collaborate in the manufacture of the necessary shelters as well as the gassing apparatus. At the present time, the apparatus in question are not on hand in the Reich in sufficient number; they will first have to be manufactured. Since in Brack’s opinion the manufacture of the apparatus in the Reich will cause more difficulty than if manufactured on the spot, Brack deems it most expedient to send his people directly to Riga, especially his chemist Dr. Kallmeyer, who will have everything further done there. Oberdienstleiter Brack points out that the process in question is not without danger, so special protective measures are necessary. Under these circumstances, I beg you to turn to Oberdienstleiter Brack, in the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, through your Higher SS and Police Leader, and to request the dispatch of the chemist Dr. Kallmeyer, as well as of further aides. I draw attention to the fact that Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, the Referent for Jewish questions in the RSHA, is in agreement with this process. On information from Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, camps for Jews are to be set up in Riga and Minsk to which Jews from the old Reich territory may possibly be sent. At the present time, Jews being deported from the old Reich are to be sent to Litzmannstadt [Lodz], but also to other camps, to be later used as labor in the East, so far as they are able to work.
As affairs now stand, there are no objections against doing away with those Jews who are not able to work—with the Brack remedy. In this way occurrences would no longer be possible such as those which, according to a report presently before me, took place at the shooting of Jews in Vilna [Vilnyus] and which, considering that the shootings were public, were hardly excusable. Those able to work, on the other hand, will be transported to the East for labor service. It is self-understood that among the Jews capable of work, men and women are to be kept separate.
I beg you to advise me regarding your further steps.
“N. d. H. M.”
[Lightly penciled notation, meaning copy for the Minister.]
“Wet 25/10” [in ink]
As a former medical officer of the Waffen SS, I had in 1939 a clinical assignment as medical assistant in the University Clinic of the Charité in Berlin. In September 1939 Reich Physician SS Dr. Grawitz summoned me and asked me to make a list of the German lunatic asylums and the number of their inmates, based on the data in the Reich medical calendar. The reason, I was told, was the fact that, due to the evacuation of the West Wall zone, the inmates had to be transferred to other asylums. After I had finished compiling the list and had handed it in, Grawitz sent me to Dr. Hevelmann at the Chancellery of the Fuehrer. There I learned that it was actually a matter of euthanasia of the insane, and that the transfer was only a pretext. It was pointed out to me that it was on direct orders from the Fuehrer and that Reichsleiter Bouhler had been instructed to carry it out.
At first, three institutions in different parts of Germany were mentioned. The insane people who were to come under the program were to be selected, and Heyde, as chief expert, reserved the final decision for himself. Everything was to be based on strictly medical views and only such persons were to be selected who in a psychiatric sense could be called “siech” (incurably ill).
During all the negotiations the names which were mentioned of the persons who took part were Grawitz, Hevelmann, Heyde, Blankenburg, Brack, and Bouhler. Not a single word was said about Dr. Karl Brandt. Everything at that time was still in the early stages.
Later the problem arose again, when I was department head with Reich Health Leader Dr. Conti; that was at the end of the summer of 1941 when the Fuehrer’s order came that euthanasia should be stopped. But here too the name of Professor Dr. Karl Brandt was never mentioned.
I, Alfred Rueggeberg, factory owner in Marienheide, have been told by the certifying notary that I am liable to punishment if I make a false statement under oath.
I declare under oath that my statement is true and is being made to be presented as evidence to the Military Tribunal I, at the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg, Germany:
In summer 1945 I listened to a BBC broadcast from England, which was an interview between the English radio commentator (as far as I remember it was Mr. Robert Graham) and Pastor von Bodelschwingh of Bethel.
In the course of this interview Pastor von Bodelschwingh pointed out that a number of years ago the place now occupied by the radio commentator had been occupied by Professor Brandt and Herr Bouhler who, under Hitler’s orders, were discussing questions on euthanasia.
Questioned by the commentator, Pastor von Bodelschwingh said almost literally—in any case in effect—the following:
“You must not picture Professor Brandt as a criminal, but rather as an idealist.”
This radio talk left me under the impression that Pastor Bodelschwingh did not agree with the nature of Professor Brandt’s activities, yet he had a favorable opinion of his human qualities.
Gummersbach, 23 January 1947.
[Signed] Alfred Rueggeberg
The Director of the Institution Bethel
Dpt. Bethel-office
Bethel, near Bielefeld, 18 January 1947
AFFIDAVIT
I, the undersigned Pastor Eduard Woermann in Bethel near Bielefeld, have been informed that I am liable to punishment if I should give a false statement under oath. I hereby affirm the following:
The director of the Bodelschwingh institutions in Bethel near Bielefeld, Pastor D. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, who died 4 January 1946, had several discussions with Professor Dr. Karl Brandt on the question of “the extirpation of life not worth living”, in February 1941 and during the following months. Pastor D. Bodelschwingh reported about this only very discreetly within a very close circle of coworkers, to which I belonged.
He emphasized then that—
1. Though they held fundamentally different views of these measures, he had met a willingness on Professor Dr. Brandt’s part to hear the objections.
2. Professor Dr. Brandt had talked about “completely extinguished life”, while other exponents of these measures based them upon the formula “incurable” or “hopeless”.
3. Professor Dr. Brandt was aware of the fallibility of these measures, and he was prompted to act, not by brutality, but by a certain idealism which was inherent in his conception of life.
I give my permission for this statement to be presented as evidence to the International Military Tribunal I in the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg.
[Signed] Eduard Woermann
I, the undersigned, Professor Dr. Helmuth Weese, resident of Wuppertal-Elberfeld, have first been duly warned that I shall be subject to punishment if I give a false affidavit. I declare under oath that my statement is true and was made to be introduced as evidence before the Military Tribunal I in the Palace of Justice of Nuernberg, Germany.
When the question is put to me whether it is to be assumed that a doctor, after studying the monograph by G. Madaus and Fr. E. Koch: “Studies of Animal Experiments,” pertaining to the question of sterilization by medication (by means of caladium seguinum (dieffenbachia seguina)), Journal for the Entire Experimental Medicine, vol. 109, p. 68, 1941, could become convinced that human beings can be sterilized with caladium seguinum, I have the following to say about it:
It is pointed out in the investigation referred to above that the authors succeeded in sterilizing rats by feeding them with extract of caladium seguinum. This is proved by mating experiments as well as by anatomical investigations. In order to effect this sterilization of both female and male rats, daily doses of ½ cc. for each rat weighing from 150-180 grams had to be administered 30-50 times and 40-90 times daily, respectively, without being certain of successful results. To apply this to a man weighing 70 kilograms, it would mean administering 200 grams of extract daily.
The investigations show abundantly that a considerable number of animals treated perished from the poisonous effects of the caladium extract. The extract therefore has no specific effect on the reproductive system. It is still completely unknown whether these harmful secondary effects are due to an element in the extract or some kind of accompanying ingredients.
Such types of unspecific injuries of the reproductive system are known to be caused in man in a similar manner also by other agents, for example, by the excessive misuse of nicotine, morphine, and the like, in which case, however, they too appear only along with most severe impairment of other functions.
First of all every doctor faces the question as to whether these experiments on rats are at all applicable to men. Madaus and Koch reject this from the start, because for them it is merely a question of determining whether the popular medical practice of making men impotent by administering sizable quantities of caladium extract can be corroborated by animal experiments.
The prerequisite for administering caladium extract to human beings in our countries would be the planting in Central Europe of caladium seguinum, the habitat of which is in tropical South America. This seems extremely improbable even to an only moderately experienced natural scientist. Even if the planting were successful, this would not necessarily mean that it produces, in our moderate zone, the same effective agents in a sufficient quantity.
Because of the unspecific effect of the caladium extract, its virulently poisonous quality, the doubt as to whether it can be planted and used in our moderate zone, I consider it extremely improbable that even a doctor of only average education will attempt with conviction the experiment of sterilizing human beings with caladium extract on the basis of the work of Madaus and Koch. Convincing papers for the problem referred to other than the work of Madaus and Koch are not known to me.
Wuppertal-Elberfeld
19 March 1947
[Signed] Prof. Dr. Helmuth Weese
DIRECT EXAMINATION
Mr. McHaney: Doctor, were all the concentration camp inmates selected actually insane?
Witness Mennecke: No.
Q. Will you explain your answer please?
A. By insanity we mean a disease which shows characteristic interferences with mental activity. I will not describe them but merely call them characteristics. That is what we mean by insanity. This condition was not prevalent in the majority of cases among inmates in the concentration camps.
Q. Were any inmates selected only for the reason that they were unable to work?
A. That is possible.
Q. Were people selected who had diseases other than those of the mind, such as tuberculosis?
A. Yes. Such people were also included.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION
Mr. McHaney: The last question, Dr. Mennecke. Would you be willing to tell the Tribunal how you now feel about your participation in the “euthanasia” program?
Witness Mennecke: Yes. I am willing to say something on that subject. I deeply regret the fact that I was drawn into this program in 1940. After the collapse, when the total extent of the extermination of human beings became known to the public—and to me for the first time—I was ashamed that I had ever had any part in this program (even though in a subordinated position), and I am still ashamed today. That is what I have to say.
Mr. McHaney: Thank you, Dr. Mennecke. I have no further questions.
EXAMINATION
Judge Sebring: Witness, when adult persons were selected for euthanasia and sent by the transport to euthanasia stations for that purpose, by what methods were the mercy deaths given?
Defendant Brack: The patients went to a euthanasia institution after the written formalities were concluded—I need not repeat these formalities here, they were physical examination, comparison of the files, etc. Then the patients were led to a gas chamber and were there killed by the doctors with carbon monoxide gas (CO).
Q. Where was that carbon monoxide obtained, by what process?
A. It was in a compressed gas container, like a steel oxygen container, such as is used for welding—a hollow steel container.
Q. And these people were placed in this chamber in groups, I suppose, and then the monoxide was turned into the chambers?
A. Perhaps I had better describe this in some detail. Bouhler’s basic requirement was that the killing should not only be painless, but also imperceptible. For this reason, the photographing of the patients, which was only done for scientific reasons, took place before they entered the chamber, and the patients were completely diverted thereby. Then they were led into the gas chamber which they were told was a shower room. They were then in groups of perhaps 20 or 30. They were gassed by the doctor in charge.
Q. Have you ever been present when a mercy death was accorded to these people by that process?
A. Yes. I had to be present because Bouhler wanted a report on whether things were being done according to his orders, and in a dignified and not a brutal fashion.
Q. And you found from your inspection and witnessing these ceremonies that they were being done in accordance with Bouhler’s orders, in a dignified and painless sort of way?
A. Yes. But let me say I was already convinced that the method was painless. And I also saw that by this method the patient did not realize that he was about to be killed. There were benches and chairs in the chamber. A few minutes after the gas was let in, the patient became sleepy and tired and died after a few minutes. They simply went to sleep without even knowing that they were going to sleep, and that was one of the most essential requirements.
Q. When was the first time that you witnessed one of these procedures?
A. The first time was on the occasion of an experiment with four such patients. I think it must have been December 1939 or January 1940. I know there was snow on the ground at the time. That is why I remember these months. Bouhler, Conti, and I don’t know who else was there, there were a few other doctors witnessing it for the first time. On the basis of this experiment Hitler decided that only carbon monoxide was to be used for killing the patients.
Q. Well now, before or after that time had you tried any other gases or any other means of administering euthanasia to these people?
A. No, we—and by this I mean Bouhler’s organization—never used any other gas or any other means.
Q. You found the carbon monoxide quite satisfactory, so you never had to resort to any other means?
A. Yes. You can put it that way.
Q. Now, where was it that these four people were accorded the privilege of a mercy death in December, 1939 or 1940?
A. That was in the first euthanasia station in Brandenburg.
Q. And who were the subjects that were used for that experiment?
A. They were four mentally incurable persons.
Q. Do you know what institution they came from?
A. No. That I don’t know.
Q. Were they men or women?
A. Men.
Q. All men. What were their ages, were they young men, middle-aged men, or elderly men; how would you classify them?
A. I really don’t remember that.
Q. What can you say in regard to their nationality; do you know anything about that?
A. They must have been Germans, they could not have been anything but Germans, because according to regulations only German mentally defective persons were used for euthanasia.
Q. And you say Hitler was there?
A. No. Hitler was not there, Bouhler was there.
Q. Bouhler?
A. Bouhler was there, Conti was there, and I believe Brandt.
Q. Karl Brandt?
A. Yes, Karl Brandt.
Q. Do you remember any of the other defendants who were there?
A. None of the defendants here was present except myself.
Q. Well, then you remember that you, Bouhler, Conti, and Karl Brandt were there; now do you remember any of the other gentlemen there at the time?
A. Yes. I said there were some more doctors there, but none of the defendants here.
Q. Dr. Pfannmueller, perhaps?
A. No. Dr. Pfannmueller was certainly not there. They must have been Berlin doctors.
Q. When after December of 1939 or January of 1940 was it that you again witnessed a euthanasia procedure?
A. I should say that during 1940 in all the euthanasia institutions existing at that time I personally assured myself once or twice that the euthanasia was being correctly carried out. But I think I recollect that the Hadamar Institute was only set up in 1941 and in that year I did not witness euthanasia being carried out, so that this would eliminate the Hadamar Institute.
Q. The Institute at Hadamar, I think you said there were five other stations?
A. Yes. There were six altogether.
Q. So that during the year 1940, you assured yourself that each of the five stations on perhaps one, two or perhaps more visits that the procedure insisted upon by Bouhler was being carried out in a humane manner, in a painless manner by carbon monoxide?
A. Completely imperceptible.
Q. And now who were the people—let me put it this way—the first time at Brandenburg there were four people, all men?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, can you remember on your subsequent visits in 1940 to the other euthanasia stations who the people were, men or women?
A. Both, sometimes men and sometimes women.
Q. And what can you say in regard to their nationality?
A. I can only say that they were only Germans, because I am perfectly convinced that Bouhler’s regulations, which rested on an order from Hitler, namely that no foreigners were to be given euthanasia, were observed strictly by all the euthanasia institutions.
Q. Where were these stations located, Witness?
A. I don’t understand what you mean, where they were?
Q. In what part of Germany or in what part of Poland, or in what part of Czechoslovakia, in what part of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, in what part of Denmark, in what part of Holland, in what part of France, and in what part of Europe were these stations located?
A. Now I understand you correctly. The first one was in Brandenburg on the Havel in the neighborhood of Berlin about 70 or 80 kilometers away. The next was the Grafeneck Institute, that was in Wuerttemberg. Another institution was Sonnenstein and that is near Pirna near Dresden. There was the Hartheim Institute which was near Linz on the Danube in Austria. Then there was the Bernburg Institute on the Saale River near Dessau. The Hadamar Institute is in Hesse.
Q. Were any of these stations located in that portion of Poland which was occupied by the Germans in military occupation?
A. No.
Q. And the six stations you have just named were all the stations known to you that existed; there were just six?
A. Those were the only ones, yes.
Q. Witness, can you approximate the population of Germany as it existed in the year of 1939 or the year of 1940? Were there some fifty or sixty million people?
A. No, roughly eighty to eighty-five million.
Q. Now by that, when you say eighty to eighty-five million, you include the entire German Reich, including Austria, the Sudetenland, and the occupied territory?
A. Austria and the Sudetenland, but not the occupied territory.
Q. And you estimate roughly there were eighty-five million people?
A. Yes.
Q. Of that eighty-five million, how many Jews would you say were living in Germany at the time who were German nationals?
A. Maybe two or three million.
Q. You are talking now about the Greater German Reich, including Austria and the Sudetenland?
A. Yes.
Q. You estimate there were between two or three million who were German nationals?
A. Roughly, yes.
Q. Now with two or three million German Jews amalgamated into the German population of eighty-five million people who were German nationals, explain, if you will, to the Tribunal why it was that the German Jews were excluded from the Euthanasia Program, if as you say it was a salutary program according to people the privilege of a mercy death for taking them out of their misery; why was it that the German Jews were not included in that program?
A. I have already stated that. As Bouhler explained it, the blessing of euthanasia should be granted only to Germans.
Q. I understand that, but I thought you said at that time there were between two and three million Germans in Germany, German citizens who were Jews?
A. Yes. That is so.
Q. Why were they not included in the program, if the privilege of the program was going to be accorded to all Germans?
A. The reason possibly lies in the fact that the government did not want to grant this philanthropic act to the Jews.
Q. They wanted to grant this philanthropic act to all Aryan Germans, but did not want to grant it to German Jews, and they did not want to grant this philanthropic act to German soldiers of the first war, who had received mental injuries growing out of their war wounds. Is that correct?
A. As I have already said, that was a great inconsistency in this procedure and we often protested. However, it was determined by considerations of a military and psychological nature.
Q. Thank you.
Q. Witness, I think you said yesterday afternoon that these six euthanasia stations were located at Bernburg, Brandenburg, Hadamar, Hartheim, Grafeneck, and Sonnenstein, is that correct?
A. Yes. That is correct.
Q. When were the gas chambers at these euthanasia stations built?
A. When the institutions were set up as euthanasia institutions.
Q. Can you remember the approximate dates?
A. No. I cannot remember the dates. I just know the years when the institutions became euthanasia institutions—approximately. I know that Grafeneck and Brandenburg were the first institutions to become euthanasia institutions. It began at the end of 1939 at the earliest, the beginning of 1940 at the latest. Sonnenstein and Hartheim were set up in the early summer 1940. In the early summer or spring. The institution at Bernburg was established in the fall or winter of 1940, Hadamar, in the winter or spring of 1941. This is as accurate as I can give it.
Q. You said the winter or spring of 1941. Do you mean the winter of 1940 or the spring of 1941? You said the winter or spring of 1941.
A. If I say winter ’41, I mean January ’41, but it might have been March too, I don’t know.
Q. And you think that Hadamar was the last one that was set up?
A. I am quite certain that Hadamar was the last one.
Q. Now, of what materials were these gas chambers built? Were they movable gas chambers, very much like the low-pressure chambers that Professor Dr. Ruff talked about, or were they something that was built permanently into the camp or installation?
A. No special gas chamber was built. A room suitable in the hospital was used, a room of necessity attached to the reception ward and to the room where the insane persons were kept. This room was made into a gas chamber. It was sealed, given special doors and windows, and then a few meters of gas piping were laid, or some kind of piping with holes in it. Outside this room there was a container, a compressed gas container with the necessary apparatus, that is a pressure gauge, etc.
Q. Now what department had the responsibility for constructing or building these gas chambers, what department of the Party or of the government?
A. No office of the Party. I don’t understand the question.
Q. Somebody had to build these chambers. Who gave the orders and who had the responsibility of building them, was that your department?
A. I assume the orders were given by the head of the institution, but I don’t know who actually did give the orders.
Q. In other words, were these chambers not built according to some specifications, plans and specifications?
A. I can’t imagine that, every chamber was different. I saw several of them.
Q. Do you know what department gave the order for having the chambers built? Was that your department under Bouhler?
A. No. It was Bouhler himself.
Q. And he gave the order to the various heads of institutions to install this chamber, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, how would the heads of each of these institutions know how to install a gas chamber unless there were certain plans and specifications given to them?
A. I never saw any such plan. I don’t know of any.
Q. Would you know how to go out and build a gas chamber unless some engineer or planner had told you? Certainly I wouldn’t.
A. I don’t know whether I would either. Presumably he called in an engineer.
Q. That’s what I’m trying to say. What engineer or group of engineers was responsible for seeing that these gas chambers were built so that they would do the job they were supposed to do?
A. There was certainly no group of engineers. I presume there was somebody at the institutions who had enough technical ability to do it. I don’t know.
Q. Then, so far as you know, someone at one of these institutions would be told by Bouhler to construct a gas chamber and he would call—the head of the institution then would call on someone, you don’t know whom, to go out and build the chamber? Is that correct?
A. That is how I imagine it.
Q. Well, wouldn’t it make a considerable difference whether the chamber was to be constructed for euthanasia by carbon monoxide or by some other means? Wouldn’t there have to be some technical information available to the head of the institution so that he could give directions to his mechanic to build the thing to do the thing it was supposed to do?
A. I must say honestly I really don’t know anything about that. I can’t judge.
Q. Do you know whether or not any department of the government, under Bouhler, or under Brandt, or under anybody else, was responsible for seeing that the gas apparatus was installed properly?
A. I don’t know, but I don’t believe so because I would probably have heard of it.
Q. How large were these gas chambers?
A. They were of different sizes. It was simply an adjoining room. I can’t remember whether they were 4 × 5 meters, or 5 × 6 meters. Simply normal sized rooms, but I can’t tell you the exact size. It was too long ago. I can’t remember.
Q. Were they as large as this courtroom?
A. No. They were just normal rooms.
Q. Well, a man of your intelligence must have some idea about the size of these rooms. The assertion “normal size” doesn’t mean anything in particular.
A. By that I mean the size of the normal room in a normal house. I didn’t mean an assembly room or a cell either. I meant a room, but I can’t tell you the exact size because I really don’t know it. It might have been 4 × 5 meters, or 5 × 6 meters, or 3½ × 4½, but I really don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to it.
Q. Have you ever visited a concentration camp or a military camp of any kind?
A. I visited a concentration camp, and I was once in a military camp as a soldier.
Q. Have you ever seen a shower room or shower bath built into a camp of that kind where the inmates of concentration camps, or where soldiers in a military barracks, can take showers?
A. Yes, I have. In my own barracks.
Q. And would you say that this euthanasia room at the various institutions was about that dimension?
A. I think it was much smaller.
Q. Well, perhaps we can get at it this way. I thought perhaps you knew something about the mechanical construction that I supposed everybody knew something about. This room of yours that you talk about, how many people would it accommodate?
A. Yesterday I said that according to my estimate it might have been twenty-five or thirty people.
Q. And that is still your estimate today? I remember yesterday that you said that, and that is still your estimate today, it could comfortably take care of twenty-five or thirty people?
A. Yes. That’s my estimate.
Q. Now, the carbon monoxide gas that was used for the purpose of euthanasia, where did it come from? I know you said yesterday that it came out of tubes very much like oxygen came in, but where did the tubes come from? Do you know?
A. I don’t know. They were the normal steel containers which can be seen everywhere.
Q. Do you know how they reached the camp?
A. That I don’t know.
Q. Do you know whether any department of the government was responsible for furnishing the gas to the camp?
A. No. They were probably bought.
Q. You think then that perhaps the superintendent of the institution, if he wanted some carbon monoxide gas, would just walk down-town and walk into a store and buy a steel tube of it and put it under his arm and carry it on back to the camp; pay for it out of his pocket?
A. No, not out of his own pocket but through the institution. The institutions bought them, I mean.
Q. Do you know from what sources the institution bought it?
A. Yes. All the funds came from the Reich Ministry of the Interior. They were advanced by the Party treasurer.
Q. Well, now, at that time, wasn’t virtually everything in Germany of a critical nature on some sort of priority? Do you understand what I mean?
A. No.
Q. Would not the diversion of this carbon monoxide in tubes to the various institutions have to be given a priority rating and approved by someone or by some department in the government and thus be made available to the hospitals? Don’t you understand what I mean?
A. Yes, I understand. I have no idea, but I don’t believe so. Why?
Q. What was done with the bodies of these people after mercy deaths were given?
A. When the room had been cleared of gas again, stretchers were brought in and the bodies were carried into an adjoining room. There the doctor examined them to determine whether they were dead.
Q. Then what happened to the bodies?
A. When the doctor had determined death, he freed the bodies for cremation and then they were cremated.
Q. After he had freed the bodies, had determined that they were dead, they were then cremated? Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. There was a crematory built for every one of these institutions?
A. Yes. Crematoriums were built in the institutions.
Q. Do you know whether or not—what department or agency, either under the government, that is, the Reich government, or under the superintendent of the various institutions, was responsible for this detail of cremation?
A. I don’t understand. Bouhler ordered the cremation. Bouhler ordered, on principle, that the bodies were to be cremated after death. There was no office for that.
Q. Was there any report made to anyone of the fact that certain people, who had been selected for euthanasia had finally arrived at these institutions, had actually been accorded the privilege of mercy deaths and then had been cremated?
A. No. I know nothing about that.
Q. No records were kept at all?
A. Oh, I thought you said reports. Now you mean records?
Q. I don’t care what you call it. There must have been a report or record of some kind kept of these people. Was there?
A. Yes, of course. Not only the case histories, but the personal data of the individual patients were collected at the euthanasia institution and there the death records were added and whatever else was available. In my direct examination I pointed out that there were announcements to the agencies concerned, for example, the guardianship court. All these files were sent to Tiergartenstrasse 4.
Q. They were finally sent to Tiergartenstrasse 4?
A. Yes.
Q. Isn’t it true that only in that way could an accurate record or report of this program be made?
A. I didn’t understand. Whether this fact created accurate records about the people, or whether records were kept?
Q. Records were kept, were they not, of this entire transaction of each individual from the time he was expertized?
A. Yes.
Q. Until finally he was cremated?
A. Yes.
Q. And those records were filed with T-4?
A. Yes. They were kept there.
Q. Now, I believe you said that these euthanasia chambers were built to resemble shower rooms?
A. Yes. That’s how I remember it.
Q. And the only people that were accorded euthanasia were people who were incurably insane, I think you said?
A. Yes.
Q. These were people who, as you put it, on ethical grounds did not have the mental capacity either to consent or to resist the decision to grant them euthanasia, and that consequently as you viewed it, it was a humane procedure to accord them a mercy death; is that correct, did I understand you correctly?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, were these people, the ones whom you saw, so insane as not to understand where they were or what was going on around them?
A. I can only say that of course I am not a doctor and therefore not in a position to judge the condition of such patients, but when I was at such institutions I myself saw that the patients, in as far as they were able to walk, went into these chambers or rooms where they were told to go without any objection and sat down on the benches or lay down and were quite quiet.
I don’t know to what extent they realized where they were. I do know, however, that they were not in any way worried, but perfectly calm. Bouhler had ordered that the doctors were to arrange things so that the patients would not realize what was being done to them.
Q. And that was the reason that the gas chambers were constructed to resemble shower rooms, I suppose?
A. Yes.
Q. And these people thought that they were going in to take a shower bath?
A. If any of them had any power of reasoning, they no doubt thought that.
Q. Well now, were they taken into the shower rooms with their clothes on, or were they nude?
A. No. They were nude.
Q. In every case?
A. Whenever I saw them, yes.
Q. And you said, I believe, yesterday that you witnessed perhaps some 10 to 12, or 15, or 20 occasions when groups were accorded mercy deaths?
A. No. I said that I visited each of the institutions, with the exception of Hadamar, at least once, perhaps twice.
Q. And on each occasion did you witness the according of a mercy death to a group?
A. Yes.
Q. And I believe you said yesterday that some of these groups were adults, that some groups were men, other groups were women, and that on some occasions the groups were made up of both men and women, is that correct?
A. No. Apparently I did not express myself clearly. They were either men or women, but I saw both.
Q. And you think perhaps you saw as many as 20 to 30 comfortably accommodated in the chamber?
A. Yes, quite comfortably. There was plenty of room.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Dr. Hochwald: You never cooperated in the program of extermination of the Jews, is that correct?
Defendant Brack: No. I personally never did.
Q. Is the name Eichmann, Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann, familiar to you?
A. Yes. I know the name now.
Q. You did not know him before? That is, during the war?
A. No, not to my knowledge.
Q. Did you know anything about his activities during the war from your own knowledge, not what you heard now?
A. I cannot remember ever having heard the name Eichmann before.
Q. In order to keep the record straight I would like to offer Document NO-2737. This is an excerpt from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal about the activities of Eichmann, and I would like to ask the Tribunal whether I should give an identification number to this document or whether the Tribunal will take judicial notice of the document.
Presiding Judge Beals: While the Tribunal will take judicial notice of the document mentioned, it would be convenient to have an identification number for the purpose of identification only.
Dr. Hochwald: So it will be Prosecution Exhibit 505 for identification; extract from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal:[116]