Karl Brandt (doctor)

Karl Brandt as a defendant in the Nuremberg medical trial

Title page of Brandt's dissertation 1929, specimen copy from the Freiburg University Library

Commissioned by Hitler by decree of September 1, 1939

Karl Brandt, third row, second from left, on Adolf Hitler's staff in June 1940, presumably in Eselsberg in Bad Münstereifel-Rodert, near the "K stand" of the Fiihrer's headquarters in Felsennest

Karl Brandt during the verdict in the Nuremberg doctors' trial

Karl Franz Friedrich Brandt (born January 8, 1904 in Mulhouse , Alsace ; † June 2, 1948 in Landsberg am Lech ) was a German doctor , surgical "attendant" of Adolf Hitler , SS group leader of the General SS , SS brigade leader and major general the Waffen-SS and General Commissioner for Sanitary and Health Care. He was the highest ranking among the defendants in the trial against doctors in the context of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial.

Life

Karl Brandt was born the son of an officer. He passed his Abitur in Dresden . In 1922 he began studying medicine in Jena , which he continued in Munich , Berlin and Freiburg ; in the summer semester of 1925 and from the winter semester of 1926/27 in Freiburg, where Brandt attended lectures by Ludwig Aschoff , Erich Lexer and Alfred Hoche and completed his studies in 1928 with the medical state examination. In 1929 he received his doctorate under the pediatrician Carl Noeggerath at the University of Freiburg ; Title of the 50-page dissertation: Congenital obstruction of the biliary outlet ducts. During his surgical training at the Bergmannsheil-Kliniken in Bochum, Karl Brandt toied with a subsequent medical activity in the tropical hospital of the famous Alsatian doctor and later Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné in what was then French Equatorial Africa . According to Brandt's own statements at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, this project failed in 1932 due to a lack of approval from the French authorities, as he was not a French citizen and had not done any French military service. Karl Brandt joined the NSDAP in January 1932 ( membership number 1.009.617) and the SA in 1933 . On July 29, 1934, he moved to the SS with the rank of storm leader (SS No. 260.353). In 1933 he treated the Hitler adjutant Wilhelm Brückner after a car accident. He is said to have praised him to Hitler.

Brandt also worked as a senior surgeon at the Berlin University Clinic in the mid-1930s, where he was probably also the assistant to Ferdinand Sauerbruch , who met him again in 1942 at the Führer headquarters in Werwolf .

On June 14, 1934, Karl Brandt became Hitler's attending physician; his deputy was initially Werner Haase and later Hanskarl von Hasselbach . On March 17, 1934, he married the record swimmer Anni Rehborn from Munich, whom Hitler had known since 1925. The marriage resulted in a son, who later became the chief physician at the Accident Clinic in Duisburg , Karl Adolf Brandt (* 1935). Karl Brandt, along with his friend Albert Speer and their families, belonged to the core of the people who constantly surrounded Hitler at his private residence, the Berghof .

From 1 September 1939 he was with Philip Bouhler Hitler's Commissioner for the mass murders of the Action T4 as part of the so-called "euthanasia" in the Nazi death camps Hadamar , Castle Grafeneck , Hartheim , Sonnenstein , Bernburg and in Brandenburg . This is documented in a letter from Hitler, dated September 1, 1939, which was probably not written until October and names Bouhler and Brandt as agents of the murders of the sick (code name "Gnadentod"). In 1940 Brandt was appointed professor.

On July 28, 1942, Brandt was appointed authorized representative and, from 1943, general commissioner for sanitary and health services. In this role he took care of the coordination between civil and military health systems. Part of his tasks was the "creation of beds" for alternative hospitals and military hospitals. For this purpose, in the “ Aktion Brandt ”, which was later named after him, patients were also transferred or killed from sanatoriums and nursing homes.

Brandt knew of some medical human experiments in the concentration camps . He promoted attempts at malaria and suggested those for hepatitis A himself. On September 5, 1943, by decree of Hitler, he became head of the entire medical supply and supply system and coordinator of medical research. The Reichsärzteführer Leonardo Conti considered submitting his resignation because Brandt had overtaken him in his power. Hitler refused. Brandt's political relations with Speer made Bormann an enemy.

In an intrigue about Hitler's personal physician Theo Morell , Brandt was initially dismissed as an attending physician. He was arrested on April 16, 1945. Hitler had learned that Brandt had had his wife and child brought to safety in Thuringia and ordered him to be tried before a court martial and sentenced to death. The v. Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel submitted a petition for clemency. Himmler delayed his execution . Following the so-called Rattenlinie Nord, he appeared in Flensburg in May 1945 . Allied troops soon afterwards arrested him together with the Dönitz government in Flensburg.

He was indicted in the Nuremberg Medical Trial from December 9, 1946 to August 20, 1947 before the First American Military Court in Nuremberg and sentenced to death by hanging on August 20, 1947 . Numerous requests for grace were submitted to Lucius D. Clay by representatives of the churches, including Eugen Gerstenmaier as the chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany, as well as well-known doctors . But on June 2, 1948, Brandt was executed in Landsberg am Lech . Until the end, Brandt found no word of regret for the victims; He assessed the judgment as "an expression of an act of political revenge".

literature

• Ulf Schmidt : Hitler's doctor: Karl Brandt. Medicine and Power in the Third Reich. From the English by Helmut Ettinger. Structure, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-351-02671-4 . (first in English 2007)
• Michael H. Kater : Doctors as Hitler's helpers. Piper TB, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-23407-0 .
• Wolfgang U. Eckart : SS group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS Prof. Dr. med. Karl Brandt. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.): Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war. Volume 2, Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-089-1 .
• Cornelia Lein: Inexcusable weakness. The German doctor Karl Brandt: The life and work of Hitler's personal doctor. Grin-Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-668-23914-2 .
• Robert S. Wistrich : Who was who in the Third Reich? A biographical lexicon. Fischer TB, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-596-24373-4 .
• Götz Aly (ed.): Action T4: 1939–1945. The euthanasia center at Tiergartenstrasse 4. Hentrich, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-43-5 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Brandt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Karl Brandt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Image and biography at Axis Biographical Research ( Memento from June 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• Brandt's documents from the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial at Harvard Law School Library (partly in English)
• ZDF report, 2004 ( Memento from October 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl Brandt: Congenital closure of the biliary outlet ducts. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate in all medicine of the High Medical Faculty of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau. Marburg 1929.
2. ↑ Angelika Ebbinghaus, Klaus Dörner (ed.): Destroying and healing. The Nuremberg Doctors Trial and its Consequences. Berlin 2001, p. 624.
3. ↑ Cornelia Lein: Inexcusable weakness. The German doctor Karl Brandt. The life and work of Hitler's personal doctor. Grin, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-668-23914-2 .
4. ↑ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; used: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, p. 409 f.
5. ^ Heike B. Görtemaker: Hitler's court. The inner circle in the Third Reich and after. Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73527-1 , p. 196 f.
6. ↑ Hitler's letter in facsimile (Nuremberg Document PS-630) with a handwritten note from Reich Minister of Justice Franz Gürtner: “From Bouhler handed over to me on August 27, 1940 Dr. Gürtner "; see also Peter Longerich : The unwritten order. Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, ISBN 3-492-04295-3 , pp. 73 f. And Götz Aly (ed.): Aktion T4 1939–1945. The "Euthanasia" headquarters in Tiergartenstrasse 4. 2., ext. Edition. Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-66-4 , p. 56.
7. ↑ Matthias Meusch: Brandt, Karl. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 204 f.
8. ↑ Michael H. Kater: Doctor Leonardo Conti and His Nemesis: The Failure of Centralized Medicine in the Third Reich. In: Central Europ. Hist. Volume 18, 1985, pp. 299-325.
9. ↑ Gitta Sereny: Albert Speer: His wrestling with truth. Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-15141-4 , p. 607.
10. ↑ Kurt Nowak : Resistance, Approval, Acceptance. The behavior of the population towards "euthanasia". In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 235–251, here: p. 236.
11. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-925856-75-4 , p. 22.
12. ^ Heike B. Görtemaker: Hitler's court. The inner circle in the Third Reich and after. Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73527-1 , p. 351.