Summary
The general decline of German medical conduct and the poisoning of German medical ethics which the Nazis brought about laid the basis for the atrocious experiments of which the defendants are accused.
Many of these were experiments in name only; we will show them to have been senseless and clumsy and of no real value to medicine as a healing art. The Nazi medical world was flooded with preposterous and wicked notions about superior and inferior races and developed a perverted moral outlook in which cruelty to subjugated races and peoples was praiseworthy. Training in SA and SS formations was hardly calculated to develop physicians who could comprehend even the bare elements of the doctor-patient relationship. In this noxious garden of lies, the seeds of the experiments were planted. In the climate of Nazi Germany, they grew with horrible rapidity.
CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION; MURDER OF
POLISH NATIONALS
From the preaching of Guett and others sprang the notions which underlie the crimes to which we will now turn. Here we leave behind all semblance, however fictitious, of science and research. Under these teachings, life and livelihood became the birthright of no one. The weak and the physically handicapped are in the way and must be pushed aside. Inferior peoples are born to be exterminated by the Herrenvolk.
The charges in paragraphs 8 and 13 of the indictment concern the defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt. The original impetus for this terrible mass murder came from a fiend named Greiser, who was the German Governor of the northwest portions of Poland, which had been absorbed into the Reich under the name “Wartheland.” Early in 1942, Greiser was in the process of exterminating thousands of Jews in his territory, and he decided to turn his attention next to Poles infected with tuberculosis. I call the Tribunal’s special attention to the German word “Sonderbehandlung.” In the next document, as will be shown, it occurs frequently in Nazi correspondence and was used by them to mean extermination. In May 1942, Greiser wrote to Himmler as follows (NO-246):
“The special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of about 100,000 Jews in the territory of my district approved by you in agreement with the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, can be completed within the next 2 to 3 months. I ask you for permission to rescue the district immediately after the measures are taken against the Jews, from a menace, which is increasing week by week, and to use the existing and efficient special commandos for that purpose.
“There are about 230,000 people of Polish nationality in my district who were diagnosed to suffer from tuberculosis. The number of persons infected with open tuberculosis is estimated at about 35,000. This fact has led in an increasing frightening measure to the infection of Germans, who came to the Warthegau perfectly healthy. In particular, reports are received with ever-increasing effect of German children in danger of infection. A considerable number of well-known leading men, especially of the police, have been infected lately and are not available for the war effort because of the necessary medical treatment. The ever-increasing risks were also recognized and appreciated by the deputy of the Reich Leader for Public Health (Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer) Comrade Professor Dr. Blome as well as by the leader of your X-ray battalion SS Standartenfuehrer Professor Dr. Hohlfelder.
“Though in Germany proper it is not possible to take appropriate draconic steps against this public plague, I think I could take responsibility for my suggestion to have cases of open TB exterminated among the Polish race here in the Warthegau. Of course only a Pole should be handed over to such an action, who is not only suffering from open tuberculosis, but whose incurability is proved and certified by a public health officer.
“Considering the urgency of this project I ask for your approval in principle as soon as possible. This would enable us to make the preparations with all necessary precautions now to get the action against the Poles suffering from open tuberculosis under way, while the action against the Jews is in its closing stages.”
Greiser’s proposal was supported in a letter from one, Koppe, the SS and police leader in that region, to the defendant Rudolf Brandt, to which Brandt replied stating that the matter was under consideration and that the final decision would rest with Hitler. Late in June, Himmler sent a “favorable” reply to Greiser cautioning him, however, that the exterminations should be carried out inconspicuously. Thereafter, consultations as to how to carry out the measure occurred between Greiser, Dr. Hohlfelder, and the defendant Blome. The views of Blome are embodied in a letter from him to Greiser written in November 1942. This letter contains an indescribably brutal analysis of the situation, in which Blome expresses agreement with the view that extermination of the tubercular Poles is the simplest and most logical solution, and expresses doubt as to its desirability only in that it would be difficult to keep such widespread slaughter secret, and that Hitler might think the program politically inexpedient if the facts should ever come out.
I quote from the letter of defendant Blome (NO-250):
“It was calculated that in 1939 there were among the Poles about 35,000 persons suffering from open tuberculosis and, besides this number, about 120,000 other consumptives in need of treatment. * * *
“With the settlement of Germans in all parts of the Gau an enormous danger has arisen for them. A number of cases of infection of settled children and adults occurs daily.
“Therefore, something basic must be done soon. One must decide the most efficient way in which this can be done. There are three ways to be taken into consideration:
1. Special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of the seriously ill persons.
2. Most rigorous isolation of the seriously ill persons.
3. Creation of a reservation for all TB patients.
“For the planning, attention must be paid to different points of view of a practical, political, and psychological nature. Considering it most soberly, the simplest way would be the following: Aided by the X-ray battalion [Roentgen Sturmbann] we could reach the entire population, German and Polish, of the Gau during the first half of 1943. As to the Germans, the treatment and isolation are to be prepared and carried out according to the regulations for Tuberculosis Relief [Tuberkulosehilfe].
“The approximately 35,000 Poles who are incurable and infectious will be ‘specially treated’ [sonderbehandelt]. All other Polish consumptives will be subjected to an appropriate cure in order to save them for work and to avoid their causing contagion.
“According to your request I made arrangements with the offices in question, in order to start and carry out this radical procedure within half a year. You told me, that the competent office agreed with you as to this ‘special treatment’ and promised support. Before we definitely start the program, I think it would be correct if you would make sure once more that the Fuehrer will really agree to such a solution.
“There can be no doubt that the intended program is the most simple and most radical solution. If absolute secrecy could be guaranteed, all scruples—regardless of what nature—could be overcome. But I consider maintaining secrecy impossible. Experience has taught us that this assumption is true. Should those sick persons, having been brought, as planned, to the old Reich supposedly to be treated or healed, and they actually never return, the relatives of those sick persons in spite of the greatest secrecy would some day notice ‘that something was not quite right’.
“Therefore, I think it necessary to explain all those points of view to the Fuehrer before undertaking the program, as, in my opinion he is the only one able to view the entire complex and to come to a decision.”
The prosecution will introduce evidence to show that the program was in fact carried out at the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, and that as a result of the suggestions made by Blome and Greiser, many Poles were ruthlessly exterminated and that others were taken to isolated camps, utterly lacking in medical facilities, where thousands of them died.