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| Doctors' Trial | |
|---|---|
 Courtroom at the trial, 12 December 1946 | |
| Court | Palace of Justice, Nuremberg |
| Full case name | United States of America v.Karl Brandt et al. |
| Started | 9 December 1946 (1946-12-09) |
| Decided | 20 August 1947 |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting |
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United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al., commonly known as theDoctors' Trial, was the first of the twelve "Subsequent Nuremberg trials" forwar crimes andcrimes against humanity after the end ofWorld War II between 1946 and 1947. The accused were 20physicians and 3SS officials charged for their involvement in theAktion T4 programme andNazi human experimentation.
The Doctors' Trial was held byUnited States authorities at thePalace of Justice inNuremberg in theAmerican occupation zone before USmilitary courts, not before theInternational Military Tribunal.[1] Seven of the accused were sentenced todeath by hanging, five were sentenced tolife imprisonment, four were given prison sentences from 10 to 20 years, and seven wereacquitted.
The judges, heard before Military Tribunal I, wereWalter B. Beals (presiding judge) fromWashington,Harold L. Sebring fromFlorida, andJohnson T. Crawford fromOklahoma, with Victor C. Swearingen, a former special assistant to theAttorney General of the United States, as an alternate judge. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution wasTelford Taylor, and the chief prosecutor was James M. McHaney. Theindictment was filed on 25 October 1946; the trial lasted from 9 December that year until 20 August 1947.
Twenty of the defendants werephysicians and three wereSS officials (Viktor Brack,Rudolf Brandt, andWolfram Sievers), all of whom were accused of being involved inNazi human experimentation and theAktion T4 programme ofinvoluntary euthanasia. The physicians came from a variety of civilian and military backgrounds, and some were members of the SS. Other Nazi physicians such asPhilipp Bouhler,Ernst-Robert Grawitz,Leonardo Conti, andEnno Lolling had died by suicide, whileJosef Mengele, one of the leading Nazi doctors, had evaded capture.
In his opening statement, Taylor summarized the crimes of the defendants.[1]
"The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name ofmedical science. The victims of these crimes numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected. For the most part, they are nameless, dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals."
The accused faced four charges, including:[2]
The tribunal largely dropped count 1, stating that the charge was beyond its jurisdiction.
I — Indicted G — Indicted and found guilty
| Name | Photograph | Function | Charges | Sentence | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||
| Karl Brandt |  | Personal physician to Adolf Hitler;Gruppenführer in the SS andGeneralleutnant (Lieutenant General) in the Waffen SS;Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation (Reichskommissar für Sanitäts und Gesundheitswesen); and member of theReich Research Council (Reichsforschungsrat) | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948[3] |
| Siegfried Handloser |  | Generaloberstabsarzt (Lieutenant General, Medical Service); Medical Inspector of the Army (Heeressanitätsinspekteur); and Chief of the Medical Services of the Armed Forces (Chef des Wehrmachtsanitätswesens) | I | G | G | Life imprisonment; commuted to 20 years; released/died 1954 | |
| Paul Rostock | .jpg) | Chief Surgeon of the Surgical Clinic in Berlin; Surgical Adviser to the Army; and Chief of the Office for Medical Science and Research (Amtschef der Dienststelle Medizinische Wissenschaft und Forschung) under the defendant Karl Brandt,Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation | I | I | I | Acquitted; died 1956 | |
| Oskar Schröder [de] |  | Generaloberstabsarzt (Colonel General Medical Service); Chief of Staff of the Inspectorate of the Medical Service of theLuftwaffe (Chef des Stabes, Inspekteur des Luftwaffe-Sanitätswesens); and Chief of the Medical Service of theLuftwaffe (Chef des Sanitätswesens der Luftwaffe) | I | G | G | Life imprisonment; commuted to 15 years; released 1954; died 1959 | |
| Karl Genzken |  | Gruppenführer in the SS andGeneralleutnant (Lieutenant General) in theWaffen SS; and Chief of the Medical Department of theWaffen SS (Chef des Sanitätsamts der Waffen SS) | I | G | G | G | Life imprisonment; commuted to 20 years; released April 1954; died 1957 |
| Karl Gebhardt |  | Gruppenführer in the SS andGeneralleutnant (Lieutenant General) in theWaffen SS; personal physician toReichsfuehrer-SS Himmler; Chief Surgeon of the Staff of theReich Physician SS and Police (Oberster Kliniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei); and President of the German Red Cross | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Kurt Blome |  | Deputy [of the]Reich Health Leader (Reichsgesundheitsführer); and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in theReich Research Council | I | I | I | Acquitted; died 1969 | |
| Rudolf Brandt | .jpg) | Standartenführer (Colonel); in theAllgemeine SS; Personal Administrative Officer toReichsführer-SSHimmler (Persönlicher Referent von Himmler); and Ministerial Counselor and Chief of the Ministerial Office in theReich Ministry of the Interior | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Joachim Mrugowsky |  | Oberführer (Senior Colonel) in theWaffen SS; Chief Hygienist of theReich Physician SS and Police (Oberster Hygieniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei); and Chief of the Hygienic Institute of theWaffen SS (Chef des Hygienischen Institutes der Waffen SS) | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Helmut Poppendick |  | Oberführer (Senior Colonel) in the SS; and Chief of the Personal Staff of theReich Physician SS and Police (Chef des Persönlichen Stabes des Reichsarztes SS und Polizei) | I | I | I | G | 10 years; released 1951; died 1994 |
| Wolfram Sievers |  | Standartenführer (Colonel) in the SS;Reich Manager of theAhnenerbe Society and Director of itsInstitute for Military Scientific Research (Institut für Wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung); and Deputy Chairman of the Managing Board of Directors of theReich Research Council | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Gerhard Rose |  | Generalarzt of theLuftwaffe (Major General, Medical Service of the Air Force); Vice President, Chief of the Department for Tropical Medicine, and Professor of the Robert Koch Institute; and Hygienic Adviser for Tropical Medicine to the Chief of the Medical Service of theLuftwaffe | I | G | G | Life imprisonment; commuted to 20 years; released 1955; died 1992 | |
| Siegfried Ruff |  | Director of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the German Experimental Institute for Aviation (Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt) and First Lieutenant in the Medical Service of the Air Force; still researching and publishing in the field of aviation as late as 1989[4] | I | I | I | Acquitted; died 1989 | |
| Hans-Wolfgang Romberg [de] |  | Doctor on the Staff of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the German Experimental Institute for Aviation | I | I | I | Acquitted; died 1981 | |
| Georg August Weltz [de] |  | Oberfeldarzt in theLuftwaffe (Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Service, of the Air Force); and Chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich | I | I | I | Acquitted; died 1963 | |
| Viktor Brack |  | Oberführer (Senior Colonel) in theSS andSturmbannführer (Major) in theWaffen SS; and Chief Administrative Officer in the Chancellery of theFührer of theNSDAP (Oberdienstleiter, Kanzlei des Führers der NSDAP) | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Hermann Becker-Freyseng |  | Stabsarzt in theLuftwaffe (Captain, Medical Service of the Air Force); and Chief of the Department for Aviation Medicine of the Chief of the Medical Service of theLuftwaffe | I | G | G | 20 years; commuted to 10 years; released 1952; died 1961 | |
| Konrad Schäfer |  | Doctor on the Staff of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin | I | I | I | Acquitted; died after 1951 | |
| Waldemar Hoven |  | Hauptsturmführer (Captain) in theWaffen SS; and Chief Doctor of theBuchenwald concentration camp | I | G | G | G | Death by hanging, executed 2 June 1948 |
| Wilhelm Beiglböck |  | Consulting Physician to theLuftwaffe | I | G | G | 15 years; commuted to 10 years; released 15 December 1951; died 1963 | |
| Adolf Pokorny |  | Physician, Specialist in Skin and Venereal Diseases | I | I | I | Acquitted[5] | |
| Herta Oberheuser |  | Physician at theRavensbrück concentration camp; and Assistant Physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the hospital at Hohenlychen | I | G | G | 20 years;[6] commuted to 10 years;[7] released 1952;[8] died 1978[9] | |
| Fritz Fischer |  | Sturmbannführer (Major) in theWaffen SS; and Assistant Physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the hospital at Hohenlychen | I | G | G | G | Life imprisonment; commuted to 15 years; released March 1954; died 2003 |
All of the criminals sentenced to death werehanged on 2 June 1948 atLandsberg Prison.
For some, the difference between receiving a prison term and the death sentence was membership in theSS, "an organization declared criminal by the judgement of the International Military Tribunal". However, some SS medical personnel received prison sentences. The degree of personal involvement and/or presiding over groups involved was a factor in others.[citation needed]
Media related toDoctors' Trial at Wikimedia Commons
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