Until 1939 the word “euthanasia” was unknown to Brack as well as to large circles of the German population. That this word originally meant the “art” of dying, or to meet death with serene calm, had remained the secret of those scientists who were interested in the Greek language.
During the course of centuries the meaning of this word changed. It first became the expression for the attempt of the physician—originating in human compassion, developed by medical science—to alleviate the end of a dying person by soothing his pain. But then the meaning of the word, and with it the concept of euthanasia, was expanded, and towards the end of the 19th century it meant assistance in dying through an abbreviation of life if the life of the suffering person had lost its value in view of immediate and painful death, or as a result of an incurable disease.
It is a fact that this kind of euthanasia has been applied throughout the world since time began and can be traced back to the Twelve Tables of Ancient Rome and to the epoch of state socialism in antiquity.
The assertion of the prosecution that euthanasia was the product of National Socialism and its racial theories can be indisputably refuted by history.
Even if the prosecution is of a different opinion, the Tribunal cannot overlook the fact that the testimony of Karl Brandt, Brack, Pfannmueller, Hederich, Schultze, Grabe, Gertrud Kallmeyer, and Walter Eugen Schmidt, all stated independently that the measures started according to Hitler’s will in the autumn of 1939 only applied to incurable, mentally ill persons, and were suspended in 1941. For these measures, the participants used the word and the concept of “euthanasia” in the meaning of the final medical assistance, whether justly or injustly, will be discussed later.
It is not uninteresting to note that the word “Euthanasia Program” appears for the first time in the Brack affidavit (NO-426, Pros. Ex. 160), which was drawn up by the prosecution after several interrogations; Brack at that time was in a state of physical and mental exhaustion and, therefore, not in a position to realize clearly what he said.
The defense, in agreement with the prosecution, refrained from presenting an expert medical opinion, but did not, as the prosecution now asserts, refuse to present it.
I regret very deeply that the prosecution, when using the word “Euthanasia Program” coined by them, characterizes without sufficient proof the euthanasia applied in 1939-1941 for the incurably sick as the conscious and deliberate precursor of the different actions of annihilation which mark the milestones of the mental and moral ruins left to the German people by men who had become insane.
If the prosecution had been sure of their assumption, they would not have had to submit those extremely doubtful documents with which they tried to prove in cross-examination that the defendant Brack participated in planning the mass extermination of the Jews.