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Apparently Brandt handled the medical needs of Bruckner well because Hitler made him "…his personal physician" and in time Brandt was given the rank of "major-general in the Waffen-SS" (Spartacus Educational).
Brandt helped establish the "Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health," which was a smokescreen for "compulsory sterilization" -- and in fact Brandt was in charge of the program ("Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenially-Based Diseases") that basically was established to kill those who were "insane" and the "physically handicapped" (Spartacus Educational). The JVL explains that Brandt's euthanasia program began in 1939, and deformed children along with the very old and insane were murdered by gas or lethal injections in "…nursing homes, hospitals and asylums" (JVL, 1).
During the Nuremberg Trials the prosecutors were "caught off guard by the numerous affidavits submitted by the defense" that testified to the quality of Brandt's "personal character" (Spiro, 382). If the defense thought there were be a positive response to all those affidavits -- notwithstanding the "…wholesale murder and cruel torture of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings" -- they were disappointed. Indeed, the chief counsel for the prosecution, Brigadier General Telford Taylor announced that the Nazi doctors had "willfully and without remorse" committed many murders, committed brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities and other heinous acts (Spiro, 381).
Eighty-five witnesses testified at the Trials, backing up the prosecution's assertions; in addition there were 1,471 pieces of "documentary evidence" and a total of 11,538 pages of testimony. The behavior of Brandt and the other Nazi doctors on trial was, according to General Taylor, "…the inevitable le outcome of that sinister undercurrent of German philosophy that preaches the supreme importance of the state and the complete subordination of the individual" (Spiro, 381). Brandt's lawyer "repeatedly" argued that the life of any individual "…was expendable if it helped ensure the continued existence of the community," Spiro continued. Everything done by Brandt was done "…in the interests...
In fact the euthanasia program was extended to include: "Jewish patients"; those in concentration camps who became ill; and a group of what the Nazis called "asocials" (juvenile delinquents, tramps, prostitutes and panhandlers) (Bryant, 861). Bryant writes that Brandt's assertion that he was "motivated by high ideals" did not matter to the Tribunal; he was sentenced to death on August 19, 1947 (870).
Interestingly, while waiting to be hanged (he was executed on June 1, 1948) Brandt was imprisoned at the Landsberg fortress, where Hitler was incarcerated when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (Spiro, 383). Brandt offered his "living body for medical experiments," but the American authorities (heading the Trials) turned down his request (Spiro, 383).
Works Cited
Bryant, Michael. (2009). "Only the National Socialist": Postwar U.S. And West German
Approaches to Nazi "Euthanasia" Crimes, 1946-1953. Nationalities Papers, 37(6), 861-888.
Glaser, Edmund. (2008/09). Ulf Schmidt's Karl Brandt -- the Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich and Justice at Nuremberg: Alexander and the Nazi Doctors' Trial.
Journal of Hate Studies, 7(1), 109-116.
Harvard Law School Library. (2005). Nuremberg Trials Project / a Digital Document
Collection / Introduction to NMT Case 1 U.S.A. v. Karl Brandt et al. Retrieved July 22,
2012, from http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu.
Jewish Virtual Library (JVL). (2009). Karl Brandt (1904-1948). Retrieved July 23, 2012, from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
Spartacus Educational (2007). Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor. Retrieved July 22, 2012, from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.
Spiro, Jonathan Peter. (2009). Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of…
Works Cited
Bryant, Michael. (2009). "Only the National Socialist": Postwar U.S. And West German
Approaches to Nazi "Euthanasia" Crimes, 1946-1953. Nationalities Papers, 37(6), 861-888.
Glaser, Edmund. (2008/09). Ulf Schmidt's Karl Brandt -- the Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich and Justice at Nuremberg: Alexander and the Nazi Doctors' Trial.
Journal of Hate Studies, 7(1), 109-116.
2012, from http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu.
Jewish Virtual Library (JVL). (2009). Karl Brandt (1904-1948). Retrieved July 23, 2012, from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
Spartacus Educational (2007). Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor. Retrieved July 22, 2012, from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.
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