“The murderer will be punished by death.
“A murderer is one who kills a person out of sheer desire to murder, for the satisfaction of the sexual instincts, for covetousness or other vile motives; one who kills another maliciously or cruelly, or by publicly dangerous means, or to create the preconditions for another punishable action, or to conceal such an action.
“Certain exceptional cases where capital punishment is not appropriate will be punished by life sentence.” (NO-705.[[95]])
For expert commentaries on the legality of euthanasia, see NO-708 and NO-706.[[96]]
The defense witness Hans Lammers, a German legal expert, testified that the Hitler letter to Bouhler and Brandt was not a law, and that official legislation was necessary to legalize euthanasia. (Tr. pp. 2672-2679.) The Reich Minister of Justice, Guertner, on 24 July 1940, wrote a letter to Lammers informing him that, as the Fuehrer had refused to issue a law it was necessary to discontinue immediately the secret extermination of insane persons. (NO-832, Pros. Ex. 393.) A copy of this letter was sent to Bouhler on 27 July 1940. (NO-833, Pros. Ex. 394.)
During Brack’s lecture in the Ministry of Justice, referred to in B above, the legal authorities present were completely misinformed about the extent of the program. From the remarks of the speaker, the impression was obtained that only a very limited circle of persons, at the utmost several hundred, throughout Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, would be affected. The opinion created was that only very dangerous patients and delirious maniacs who might injure themselves would be subjected to the program. (NO-2253, Pros. Ex. 557.) This obviously was done to quiet the misgivings of the persons present. Brack, when questioned as to whether, during the lecture, he gave an approximate number of persons who would be subjected to euthanasia, could or would not give any answer. Contrary to the impression created during the conference in the Ministry of Justice, the defendants Brandt and Brack now admit that about 50,000 to 60,000 people were killed in the Euthanasia Program in Germany and Austria alone. (Tr. p. 2465; Tr. p. 7610.)
Since the end of the war, German and Austrian courts have repeatedly held that the killing of persons of any nationality under the guise of euthanasia was in violation of the German Criminal Code and punishable as murder. The witnesses Schmidt and Mennecke who testified before this Tribunal had themselves been convicted by a German court for participation in the Euthanasia Program and sentenced to life imprisonment and death, respectively.
The Court of Assizes in Berlin, at the session on 25 March 1946, found the defendants Hilde Wernicke and Helene Wieczorek guilty of murder and sentenced them to death.