Karl Brandt (Nazi physician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Karl Brandt | |
 Brandt as a defendant at the Doctors' Trial.
|
|
| Born | January 8, 1904 Mülhausen |
|---|---|
| Died | July 2, 1948 (aged 44) |
| Nationality | German  |
| Known for | Major General Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation |
| Political party | Nazi |
Karl Brandt (January 8, 1904 – June 2, 1948) was selected the personal physician of Adolf Hitler in August 1944 and headed the administration of the Nazi euthanasia program from 1939. As Major General Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation he was involved in human experimentation, along with his deputy Werner Heyde and others.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Brandt was born in Mülhausen in the then German Alsace-Lorraine territory (now Mulhouse, France), but his parents were not Alsatians. He became a medical doctor in 1928. He joined the Nazi Party in January 1932, and became a member of the SA in 1933. He became a member of the SS in July 1934 and was appointed Untersturmführer. From the Summer of 1934 he was Hitler's "Escort Physician".
[edit] Career in the Third Reich
In the context of the 1935 Nazi law Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of hereditary offspring and for the protection of the mothers), he was one of the medical scientists who performed abortions in great numbers at women deemed genetically disordered, mentally or physically handicapped or racially deficient, or whose unborn fetuses were expected to develop such genetical defects. These abortions had been legalized by the law, as long as no healthy Aryan fetuses were aborted.[1]
On September 1, 1939, Brandt was appointed by Hitler co-head of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, with Philipp Bouhler.[2] He received regular promotions in the SS; by January 1943 he was a major general. On April 16, 1945 he was arrested by the Gestapo for moving his family out of Berlin so they could surrender to American forces. He was condemned to death by a court at Berlin. He was released from arrest by order of Karl Dönitz on May 2, 1945. He was placed under arrest by the British on May 23, 1945.
[edit] Trial and execution
Brandt was tried along with twenty-two others at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. The trial was officially titled United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al., but is more commonly referred to as the "Doctors' Trial"; it began on December 9, 1946. He was charged with "special responsibility for, and participation in, Freezing, Malaria, LOST Gas, Sulfanilamide, Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, Sea-Water, Epidemic Jaundice, Sterilization, and Typhus Experiments... [also] in connection with the planning and carrying out of the Nazi's T-4 Euthanasia Program of the German Reich... [and] with membership in the SS".
Judgment was pronounced on August 19, 1947. Brandt and six others were sentenced to death by hanging (all carried out at Landsberg Prison on June 2, 1948), nine were given prison terms of fifteen years to life, and seven were found not guilty.
[edit] Life in the Inner Circle
Karl Brandt and his wife Anni Brandt were members of Hitler's inner circle at Berchtesgaden where Hitler maintained his private residence known as the Berghof. This most exclusive of groups in Nazi Germany functioned as Hitler's de facto family circle, and also included Eva Braun, Albert Speer and his wife Margret Speer, Dr. Theodor Morell, Martin Bormann, Hitler's photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, and Hitler's adjutants (and their wives) and secretaries. As members of this inner circle, the Brandts had a residence near the Berghof and spent extensive time there whenever Hitler was present. In his memoirs, Speer described the familial but numbing lifestyle of Hitler's intimate companions who were forced to stay up most of the night--night after night--listening to the Nazi leader's repetitive monologues or to an unvarying selection of music. Despite Brandt's personal closeness to Hitler, the dictator was furious when he learned shortly before the end of the war that the doctor had sent Anni and their children toward the American lines in hopes of evading capture by the Russians. Only the intervention of Heinrich Himmler and others in the inner circle saved Brandt from execution in the war's closing days. However, his involvement in euthanasia and human medical experimentation led to his conviction and execution by the Allies in 1948.
[edit] See also
- Nazi Germany
- Theodor Morell, another personal physician of Hitler.
- Doctors' Trial
[edit] References
- ^ 1935: Das Gesetz zur Änderung des Gesetzes zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses führt eine von der nationalsozialistischen Haltung zu Eugenik und Sterilisation motivierte Option auf Schwangerschaftsabbruch bei einer zu Sterilisierenden (Sechs-Monats-Fristenregelung) ein. Formale Bedingung für eine straffreie Abtreibung war unter anderem die „Einwilligung der Schwangeren“; in der Praxis dürften die Wünsche und Vorbehalte von als „minderwertig“ definierten Frauen allerdings oft missachtet worden sein.
- ^ Thompson, D.: The Nazi Euthanasia Program, Axis History Forum, March 14, 2004. URL last accessed April 24, 2006.
Schmidt, Ulf: Karl Brandt - The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich, Hambledon Continuum 2007.
