“Gentlemen:
“I am sending you enclosed a Fuehrer decree which I received from Professor Dr. Brandt.
“Communications having bearing on the Fuehrer decree should be directed to the following address: Professor Doctor Karl Brandt, Personal Attention, Berlin W8, Reich Chancellory.
“It is left to the discretion of the physician who is handling the case whether he wishes to acquaint the patient with the information himself.”
Hitler’s decree, bearing date 23 December 1942, reads as follows:
“I not only relieve physicians, medical practitioners and dentists of their pledge to secrecy towards my Commissioner General Professor Dr. med. Karl Brandt, but I place upon them the binding obligation to advise him—for my own information—immediately after a final diagnosis has established a serious disease, or a disease of ill-boding character, with a personality holding a leading position or a position of responsibility in the State, the Party, the Wehrmacht, in industry, and so forth.”
Concerning this matter Karl Brandt testified that the decree “in special cases” relieved German physicians from one of the generally accepted principles of medical practice.
From the year 1942 to the end of the war Karl Brandt was a member of the Reich Research Council and was also a member of the Presidential Council of that body.
Karl Brandt, then, finally reached a position authorizing him to issue instructions to all the medical services of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht concerning medical problems (Hitler Decree bearing date 25 August 1944). The above decrees of Hitler disclose his great reliance upon Karl Brandt and the high degree of personal and professional confidence which Hitler reposed in him.
It may be noted that by the service regulation governing the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, issued by Keitel 7 August 1944, the chief of those medical services was required to pay due regard to the general rules of the Fuehrer’s Commissioner General for Medical and Health Departments. The regulation contained the following: