“In this capacity his office ranks as highest Reich Authority” and he is “authorized to issue instructions to the offices and organizations of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht which are concerned with the problems of the medical and health services.” Thus, by this series of decrees, the defendant Karl Brandt, within this sphere of competence, became the supreme medical authority of the Reich subordinate to no one but Hitler. Three of the defendants are not physicians. The first is the defendant Brack who became subordinated to Bouhler at the time the latter was appointed Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, in 1934, and remained with Bouhler throughout the war. The second is the defendant Rudolf Brandt who, from the time he joined the staff of Himmler in 1933, served for a twelve-year period in varying capacities. At first Rudolf Brandt was a mere clerk in the staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS but by 1936 had risen to chief of the personal staff of Himmler. In 1938 or 1939 he became Himmler’s liaison officer to the Ministry of the Interior and particularly to the Office of the Secretary of the Interior. When Himmler became Minister of the Interior in 1943 Rudolf Brandt became Chief of the Ministerial Office; when Himmler became President of the Ahnenerbe Society, Rudolf Brandt became liaison officer between Himmler and the Reich Secretary of the Ahnenerbe Society, defendant Wolfram Sievers. The third is the defendant Sievers, who was a member of Himmler’s personal staff and Reich Business Manager of the Ahnenerbe Society from 1 July 1935 until the end of the war. THE AHNENERBE SOCIETY The Ahnenerbe Society, of which Sievers was Reich Business Manager, was in existence as an independent entity as early as 1933. On 1 July 1935 the Ahnenerbe became duly registered as an organization to conduct or further “research on the locality, mind, deeds and heritage of the Northern race of Indo-Germans and to pass on the results of this research to the people in an interesting manner.” On 1 January 1942 the Society became part of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and thereby a section of the SS. Its management was composed of Heinrich Himmler as President, Professor Dr. Wuest, Rector of the University of Munich, as Curator, and the defendant Sievers as Reich Business Manager. Subsequently, during the same year, the Institute of Military Scientific Research was established as a part of the Ahnenerbe. Its purposes are defined in a letter written by Himmler to Sievers, which directed the following with reference to the Ahnenerbe: “1. To establish an Institute for Military Scientific Research. 2. To support in every possible way the research carried out by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Professor Dr. Hirt and to promote all corresponding research and undertakings. 3. To make available the required apparatus, equipment, accessories and assistants, or to procure them.