“Field Marshal Keitel has given permission to build; Reichsfuehrer SS and Generalarzt Professor Brandt have assured him of vast support. By request of Field Marshal Keitel the armed forces are not to have a responsible share in the experiments, since experiments will also be conducted on human beings.” It is significant that Hitler’s Chief of Staff should deem it advisable to direct that the Wehrmacht should have nothing to do with experiments on human subjects. EUTHANASIA Defendant Karl Brandt is charged under counts two and three of the indictment with criminal activities in connection with the euthanasia program of the German Reich, in the course of which thousands of human beings, including nationals of German occupied countries, were killed between 1 September 1939 and April 1945. On his own letterhead Hitler, at Berlin, 1 September 1939, signed a secret order reading as follows: “Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M.D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.” Bouhler was holding a high office in the NSDAP. He was not a physician. The foregoing order was not based on any previously existing German law; and the only authority for the execution of euthanasia was the secret order issued by Hitler. The evidence shows that Bouhler and Karl Brandt, who were jointly charged with the administration of euthanasia, entered upon the duties assigned them in connection with the setting up of processes for carrying out the order. A budget was adopted; the method of determining candidates for euthanasia was established; a patients’ transport corporation was organized to convey the selected patients to the gassing chambers. Questionnaires were prepared which were forwarded to the heads of mental institutions, one questionnaire to be accomplished concerning each inmate and then returned to the Ministry of the Interior. At the Ministry the completed questionnaires were examined by so-called experts, who registered their professional opinions thereon, returned them to the appropriate office for final examination, and orders were issued for those patients who by this process were finally selected for extermination. Thereafter the condemned patients were gathered at collection points, from whence they were transported to euthanasia stations and killed by gassing. Utmost secrecy was demanded of the executioners throughout the entire procedure. Persons actively concerned in the program were required to subscribe a written oath of secrecy and were warned that violation of that oath would result in most serious personal consequences. The consent of the relatives of the “incurables” was not even obtained; the question of secrecy being deemed so important.