That in the case of Hitler these were only sham successes or temporary successes the German people realized only gradually, only step by step, and only at a time when it was too late to shake off the dictatorship again by their own strength. For years the German people were deceived by the leaders as to the true situation. With deliberately lying propaganda, Hitler’s governmental system until the last moment kept proclaiming final victory to the German people, even in the winter of 1944, and even in the spring of 1945, when the Reich cabinet and the Party leaders long knew that a terrible collapse was imminent. This governmental system thus irresponsibly imposed on the exhausted body of the German nation still further useless losses of life and property.
Since the collapse, particularly since the International War Crimes Trial at Nuernberg, we see clearly that this frivolous method of betrayal of their own people was a fitting part of the systematical murder of foreign peoples and races by the millions.
I believe that there is no other example in history of the boundless confidence of a people in their leader being so boundlessly misused and disappointed.
The German people were blinded in their faith in their Fuehrer, in a leader who constantly pretended to them and the world a love of peace, a humane character, a selfless care for the people. Thus the German people became the victim of a political gambler. His unrestrained supreme power apparently knew only the choice between ruling and destroying. Hitler’s ambition, as I know and judge it today, had only one aim: At any price to go down in history as a great man. Hitler achieved this goal 100 percent. He went down in history as one of the greatest tyrants of all time, tremendous in his mania for ruling, tremendous in his brutality in the achievement of his ends, not hesitating even at the murder of his best friends, his oldest followers, if they were in his way.
Relying upon the blind confidence of his deceived people, Hitler created a system in which all individualism, all sentiment of freedom, all personal opinion of the citizens was nipped in the bud and turned into slavery.
He succeeded in this with the aid of a very small circle of closest associates, who had fallen under his hypnotic influence, in part perhaps themselves deceived by this man, but who became willing tools in his hand for the enslavement of the German people and the decimation of whole nations.
Under the fatal influence of a clever, deliberately lying propaganda, against which even other countries were as good as powerless, the German people and the German doctor, too, believed that they were following an honorable leader and serving a good cause; they all considered it the highest moral duty not to desert the Fatherland in times of emergency and particularly in wartime, but to do their duty to the very extreme, especially since in this war the life or death of the nation was at issue.
During the times of total warfare, the times of air raids, hunger, and the danger of epidemics, working conditions for the German doctor were terribly hard; so difficult that today one can hardly imagine what German doctors accomplished in those days for friend and foe alike. Whether we twenty doctors here in this dock are accused justly or unjustly, it is a great injustice in any case to defame German doctors in general in public, as is constantly being done. As former Deputy Reich Physicians’ Leader I know conditions in the German medical profession during the Hitler period, and I must say even today that in its totality the German medical profession was efficient, decent, industrious, and humane. Their willingness to work under the most difficult conditions that one can imagine, their unselfishness to the utmost, their courage and their helpfulness were exemplary. Beyond all praise were in particular the numerous old doctors who were already living in retirement and who, in spite of their great age, returned to the service of the sick, and those innumerable women doctors who, married, and often the mothers of many children, deserted their household duties for the difficult work of medical practice during wartime.
The whole German people knew this, in whose midst and under whose eyes the German medical professions spent the years of distress and fright, and who, therefore, will continue to place unlimited confidence in German doctors.
Of myself I can say that I have always, particularly during the Hitler period, devoted all my efforts to keeping the medical profession at a high scientific and ethical level and to developing it. And I found in this effort the full support of all German doctors, including the most famous scientists and chief physicians of medical institutions. Well-known scholars throughout the world supported this work, which was above [unintelligible] parties and enjoyed an international reputation.