Various

“ Be a man ever so wise, ever so benevolent, ever so trustworthy, there still exists in him the frailty, the fallibility, the susceptibility to temptation that is inherent in every man. If the only protection against the tyranny of an autocrat is his own self-restraint, that is not enough, for power feeds on power, and the temptation to stretch authority to its limit is irresistible.
What, then, of the responsibility of those who bask in the reflected radiance of omnipotence, who get their sustenance from it and who arrogantly carry out its mandates and crush any resistance to it? ”

“ Is not the collective guilt of the whole German nation substantiated by the charge that it witnessed the doings of the Nazi government without interfering at least with a secretly clenched fist in its pocket? Murder and manslaughter, bodily injury and restriction of liberty inflicted upon the potentates and responsible men of such a system are acts of self-defense for the benefit of peace and mankind. They are lawful and exempt from punishment; they are a duty if there is no help possible in any other way. ”

“ Should he really have chosen the path of revolt, this man who was brought up in a world in which, for all ages, military obedience had been an inviolate law, this man who had a passionate love for his people? How many human beings in any country are capable of breaking the chains of their education, and turn against the laws which have been inviolate for them ever since their childhood? ”

“ Before the invasion of Poland, they heard this bloodthirsty tyrant say, “In starting and making a war, not the right is what matters, but victory.” And this defendant, as part of the unholy array, rolled up his sleeves and said, “Let me help. Give me men and more men, no matter where you get them.”
In a civilized state which recognizes the sanctity of human lives and human rights, no man—no group of men—should be endowed with omnipotence. The history of human relations, from Herod to Hitler, has repeatedly demonstrated this to be true. Omnipotence is only for God. ”

“ If society must answer for the actions of men, and not men for the course of society, then, indeed, governments are our masters and not our servants; then, indeed, law dictates but does not express justice. Erhard Milch lived during years of violence and in an evil environment but he was a man well able to overcome these factors and become a force for good. It was by his own free choice that he followed the line of least resistance and became one of the evil spirits who cast a dark shadow of war and crime over Germany and the world. ”

“ Why should one doubt that in the vast German workshop which employed a score of millions, here and there some foreign workers were not abused but in the long run fared well? It would need to be someone wearing spectacles of pitch and groping in a Cimmerian night of prejudice and pique to assert that the German people are incapable of hospitality and generosity. The very fact that there were concentration camps in the land attests to the fact that not everybody accepted Hitler’s and Himmler’s crackpot master race ideology. ”

“ Without exaggerating the importance of my own person, a physician can only be measured according to his conception of medical science. Basically, I was neither a cold technical specialist nor a pure scientist. I believe that I have always tried, for example when carrying out surgical experiments, to see every disease as a human condition of suffering. I did not look on my task as something to serve my own advantage, or as a cheap gesture of theoretical pity, but as a personal active support to the trembling existence of the suffering patient. ”

“ In war, efforts are all alike. Its sacrifices affect us all. They were incumbent upon me. But are those sacrifices my crime? Did I tread on the precepts of humanity and despise them? Did I pass over human beings and their lives as if they were nothing? Men will point at me and cry “euthanasia”, and falsely, “the useless”, “the incapable”, “the worthless”. But what actually happened? Did not Pastor Bodelschwingh, in the middle of his work at Bethel last year, say that I was an idealist and not a criminal? ”

“ Humanity would be in a sad state if again and again there were not volunteers from the ranks of physicians and laymen who made themselves available for experiments, conscious of their contribution toward saving and healing other human beings. But how can a man dare simply to designate others to suffer and die, when they, too, like to live and be free from want and fear, just like he himself? ”

“ The German people were blinded in their faith in their Fuehrer, in a leader who constantly pretended to them and the world a love of peace, a humane character, a selfless care for the people. Thus the German people became the victim of a political gambler. His unrestrained supreme power apparently knew only the choice between ruling and destroying. Hitler’s ambition, as I know and judge it today, had only one aim: At any price to go down in history as a great man. Hitler achieved this goal 100 percent. ”

“ We close today the trial of a major war criminal—a leader in a slaving operation, the enormity of which is without historical parallel; a principal in a crime of murder in the ironic masquerade of scientific progress which has shocked alike the world of medicine and the world of laymen. ”

“ However, when the subjugated peoples perceived at Stalingrad that the unbeatable German army could be beaten, when they heard the roar of American propellers in the sky and the clank of British tanks returned once more to the battle, a light of hope gleamed that it might not be true, as Hitler had said, that his rule and order were to endure a thousand years, and then these people refused the coin and currency of the German Reich. ”

“ You yourselves, gentlemen of the Tribunal, are in a position to examine whether, on the basis of the information contained in these forms, individuals of the average education of an inmate of a prison can form a sufficiently clear opinion of the risks of an experiment made with pernicious malaria. These facts will be confirmed by any sincere and decent scientist in a personal conversation, though he would not like to make such a statement in public. That I myself am, on principle, an opponent of the idea of dangerous experiments on human beings is known to you gentlemen of the Tribunal. ”

“ If a medical scientist breaks the code of medical ethics and says, “Kill the person,” in order to do what he thinks may be good, in the course of time that will grow and will cause a loss of faith of the public in the medical profession, and hence destroy the capacity of the medical profession to do its good for society. The reason that we must be very careful in the use of human beings as subjects in medical experiments is in order not to debase and jeopardize this method for doing great good by causing the public to react against it. ”

“ Gentlemen, I know that not every subordinate can say, ‘For me, the law no longer exists,’ but he has to have someone who covers up for him, not out of cowardice. But if you act according to the spirit of the old field service regulation, ‘Abstaining from doing something hurts us more than erring in the choice of the means,’ and if, moreover, you keep in touch and immediately clarify difficult points, so that something can be done, then we are willing to accept the responsibility, whether this is the law or not. ”

“ From this point of view too the struggle against a criminal government threatening the peace of the world, preparing aggressive wars, ready without any purpose or need to plunge the whole world into immeasurable misery from sheer striving for power, from presumption and conceit; struggle and resistance against such a government and such guidance are lawful and permissible, no matter by what means they may be carried on. Since the end of the war even, the opinion has been maintained more and more that such a struggle is not only lawful and permissible but is even the duty of every individual. ”

“ We Germans have our own opinion about our physicians, we know their conscientiousness and willingness to render help; especially during the war we have been able to observe and appreciate their readiness to sacrifice themselves; we know that the good qualities that made the German physicians and researchers a model in former decades were not lost during Hitler’s time, and it would be a pity if the abuses, which have been revealed and proved by this trial, should serve to undermine the confidence of the German people in their physicians and expose them to the contempt of all civilized nations. ”

“ The Reich was not a country of innocent victims of one tyrant, but rather it was composed of a series of tyrants, each like the master tyrant, each with his own group of subordinates, who carried out the wishes and whims of their respective chiefs. If all men who held positions of authority in the Reich are to be believed when they say that they were personally opposed to criminal excesses, then we have the fantastic conclusion that these crimes were committed in the face of influential and unanimous opposition. ”

“ It would be a travesty on justice to permit those false leaders, including this defendant, to escape responsibility for the deception and betrayal of their people. It would be even a greater injustice to view with complacence the mass graves of millions of men, women, and children whose only crime was that they stood in Hitler’s way. ”

“ No matter how I was faced with the problem, I have never regarded human experiments as a matter of course, not even when no danger was entailed. But I affirm the necessity for them on grounds of reason. I know that opposition will arise. I know things that disturb the conscience of a medical man, and I know the inner distress that afflicts one when ethics of every form are decided by an order or obedience. ”

“ Nor can I transfer the German armament works which still have to release part of their workers, if fit for war service, nor their machines. Here alone 2,500,000 men are in question as has been calculated in the Fuehrer conference. It is the flower of German workers who go to the front and must go there. I have always been one of those who says: If only energetic measures are applied in fetching labor from abroad, then we want to release in God’s name everybody from armaments work whom we can, in order to strengthen our companies. ”

“ Leibbrandt, the protector of medical ethics, would therefore have rendered a good service to German science if, in his capacity as a psychiatrist, we had pointed out that Rascher, this sadist and psychopathist, had nothing whatsoever to do with real science.
It is my duty as a defense counsel to emphasize energetically that it is not permissible to construct from local coincidences any connection between my client and Rascher and his system.
The scientific research worker sees his task in the discovery of the unknown in order to equip the doctor with new weapons in his fight for human life. ”

“ It is not the law that an undercover agent, even an FBI agent, can join a gang of murderers, lay the plans with them, execute the killings, share the loot, and go his merry way. Many are the policemen who have been convicted for taking part in crimes they were entrusted to prevent. No, the sad thing is that this collector of living Jews for transformation into skeletons has only one life with which to pay for his many crimes. ”

“ But if I have to provide you with real workers who will prove efficient in Germany, then in France—and that was just my program—we must do the same as we did in every German plant and in every German enterprise: when a German company is split in two, some of the good workers and some of the bad ones had to be given up and not just the bad workers. And French armaments never were harmed thereby. It is a fact, is it not, that a French worker of quality produces the double amount if he is put in a German factory under German discipline, with German supervision and German welfare? ”

“ Together with Professor Gebhardt, I reported about these experiments to the German public. Like many other Germans, there are many things which, in retrospect, I see more clearly today and in another light than in the past years. In my young life I have tried to be a faithful son of my people, and that brought me into this present miserable position. I only wanted what was good. In my life I have never followed egotistical aims, and I was never motivated by base instincts. For that reason, I feel free of any guilt inside me. ”

“ One of the principal purposes of these trials is to inculcate into the thinking of the German people an appreciation of, and respect for, the principles of law which have become the backbone of the democratic process. We must bend every effort toward suggesting to the people of every nation that laws must be used for the protection of people and that every citizen shall forever have the right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal, before which all men stand equal. ”

“ I agree with your statement, Gauleiter, that it is only the bad organization of our work abroad which is responsible for the fact that you can’t do your job. Too many people meddle in your work. If someone tells you, there is no executive in France and Italy, I consider it an impudence, a foolish and stupid lie uttered by people who either are unable to think or consciously state an untruth. ”

“ I myself am of the opinion that under no circumstances should the commanders of our armies give credence to the Bolshevist propaganda of atrocities and defamation. After all, it is to the interest of the generals themselves that replacements for the troops be made in opportune time.
I take permission to point out that—without wishing to discredit their best will—it is impossible to put German women—entirely inexperienced in work—into the place of hundreds of thousands of excellent workers who now have to go to the front as soldiers. ”

“ I am far from excusing the ghastly crimes that happened in the concentration camps or even minimizing them, but with all my abhorrence for them I cannot help answering: The protection of civilization and humanity deserves preference over the life and health of individuals, deplorable as the inevitable sacrifices may be. So finally it was necessary, absolutely requisite, to put up with the violation of the less valuable legal values and to rescue the more precious, the whole. Sievers’ remaining at his post in the Ahnenerbe was absolutely necessary for the removal of Himmler. ”

“ The universal fear today is that in their desperation they will repeat the vicious process by saying, “Last time we picked the wrong man. Let us seek a new messiah. He will save us.” The lessons of one generation are quickly forgotten by the next, but the inexorable laws of nature are immutable. The tragic fruits of tyranny and intolerance will always be the moral decay of peoples and the degradation of human dignity. ”