Is the state to be forbidden to carry out such euthanasia until the whole world is a hospital, while the creatures of nature keep unblemished through what is believed to be the brutality of Nature?
The decision as to whether such an order given by the state is admissible or not depends on the conception of the social life of mankind and is, therefore, a political decision.
Neither the defendant Karl Brandt nor anyone else who participated in legalized euthanasia would ever have killed a human being on his own authority, and in the German sentences passed the blameless former life of the persons stigmatized as mass-murderers is always emphasized.
This is a warning to be cautious. Did they really commit brutalities, or were they sentenced only because they were not in a position to swim against the tide of times and to oppose it with their own judgment?
A Christian believing in dogma will turn away in pity from this way of thinking. But if the order to use euthanasia to the desired limited extent was really in such contradiction to the commandment of God that everyone could realize it, then it is incomprehensible why Hitler, who never withdrew from the church, was not excommunicated.
This must remove the burden of guilt which one now wants to pile up. Then humanity would have clearly realized at the time that in this devilish struggle man cannot prevail for God stands for Justice.
If there are offenders there are many co-offenders, and one understands Pastor Niemoeller saying: “We are all guilty.”
This is a moral or a political guilt, but cannot be shifted to a single person as criminal guilt.
I have thus shown the fundamental lines along which the actions of the defendant Karl Brandt have to be judged.
The primary consideration for the judgment of this Tribunal is that no prisoners of war or foreigners were submitted to euthanasia with the knowledge or the desire of the defendant Karl Brandt.