Finally, Prosecutor McHaney has asserted in his plea that all of those indicted here are guilty of murder, and that includes me too. If the Tribunal were to look at the present problem from this point of view, I would regret having said a single word in my defense. However, if you believe me, that in all actions of mine which have been discussed here, I was only moved by sincere devotion to duty, then I put my fate with confidence into your hands.
M. Final Statement of Defendant Ruff[[45]]
May it please the Tribunal: As far as the written and oral statements of my defense counsel are concerned which deal with the points of the indictment, and as far as my activities as a doctor and scientist are concerned, I have nothing or hardly anything to add. I can only repeat today what I said at the end of my examination when I was on the stand. After detailed inquiry into my conscience, I still today hold the belief that I never sinned against my duty as a man and as a doctor.
N. Final Statement of Defendant Brack[[46]]
Your Honor, I cannot be described as one of the earliest followers of Hitler. In 1929, I joined the NSDAP when more than six million German voters were already backing Hitler. His later successes during the years of peaceful reconstruction consolidated my conviction that he had forever liberated Germany from the misery in which it seemed to have fallen. For all those years I had no reason to have any misgivings with regard to Hitler’s personality. Therefore I also believed in the legality of the euthanasia decree as it emanated directly from the head of the state. The state officials and doctors, competent for me at that time, told me that euthanasia had always been an endeavor of mankind and was morally as well as medically justified. Therefore, I never doubted the legal character of the euthanasia decree.
In this connection, however, I was assigned duties, the extent and importance of which I could not foresee. Neither my training nor my qualifications sufficed for this task. Nobody can deny, however, my good faith in its justification. I frankly admitted what I did in the framework of the euthanasia measures and tried to prove that my collaboration was merely of a subordinate nature and exclusively directed by human aspects. I cannot be made responsible for later actions carried out by other offices and without my knowledge. These were the measures which I deeply regretted, in which the prohibition of the inclusion of foreign nationals and Jews was infringed.
Through my activity in the Fuehrer’s Chancellery, I early became acquainted with the Gestapo terror. The testimonies of my witnesses prove how I fought against them and the concentration camp system. I did so because I felt that I was obliged to help those who suffered from arbitrariness and oppression. I did not do it because I already recognized in it at that time symptoms of a leadership that always and only knew arbitrariness and oppression.
But this is particularly the reason why I was so shocked about the misuse of some of the euthanasia institutions for the Action 14 f 13; this action affected particularly those persons whose detention I considered unjust, and which I therefore opposed. It was only in this courtroom, however, that I learned of this action.
That I did not hate the Jews has been proved by numerous documents. Without hatred of the Jews, however, participation in the extermination of Jews is unthinkable. The measures of suppression to which the Jews were subjected forced me to give them the same assistance within my competence as I accorded to the political persecutees. Thus during the course of the years I helped hundreds of thousands of persons by my activity. Thus only could the sterilization suggestions come into existence. They were nothing but an attempt to prevent the extermination of innumerable Jews.
In spite of all the efforts of my defense counsel, it was impossible to procure the witnesses who could testify to this effect. They preferred to evade their responsibility of serving the truth. I am utterly alone. I must leave it to this high Tribunal to ascertain on the basis of the presented expert scientific opinions that all my proposals were actually so formulated as to show my convictions of their harmlessness, and the impossibility of realizing them.