Detailed Statement on the murdering of ill and aged people in Germany
1. the murdering can be traced back to a secret law which was released sometime in Summer 1940.
2. Besides the Chief Physician of the Reich Dr. L. Conti, the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, the Reichs Minister of the interior Dr. Frick as well as other men, the following participate on the introduction of this secret law:
a. The Councillor of the Ministry Dr. Herbert Linden of the Reich's Ministry of the Interior.
b. Dr. Staehle-Nagold, the Chief Physician of Wuerttemberg.
c. Councillor of Medicine /Obermedizinalrat/ Dr. Hermann Pfannmueller, Director of the Sanatorium and Nursing Institution Eglfing-Haar near Munich.
d. Professor Dr. Werner heyde, Director of the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic in Wuerzburg.
3. As I have already stated, there were / after careful calculation/ at least 200,000 mainly mentally deficient, imbeciles, besides neurological casses and medically unfit people / these were not only incurable cases /, and at least 75,000 aged people.
4. The murders were mainly accomplished in Muensingen/Wuerttemberg and Linz o/Danube; several gas-chambers with cremation chambers directly attached were constructed there. As the Gas-chambers are next to the training grounds of the troops in Muensingen, it is believed that the mentally deficient who were murdered there, were used for experimenting with new poison-gases.
5. The transport from the institutions to the gas-chambers is carried out by SS Kommandos. These call themselves "Gemeinnuetzige Transport A. G., Berlin, Luetzowufer." This Limited Company also stores the individual medical case histories of the murdered inmates of the institutions.
6. The inmates of the many smaller and middle-sized institutions were murdered almost without exception. The larger institutions are partly-to keep up the pretence to the outside world- still at hand, but they now only have a fraction of the original number of their inmates; for example there are now only some 500 inmates instead of 2500 in Berlin-Buch; in Stadtroda/Thueringen only about 150 instead of 600; in Kaufbeuren/Bayern only 200 instead of 1000, etc. Of the larger Sanatoriums and nursing institutions the following were already closed down completely some time ago; Illenau/Baden 800 inmates; Berlin/Herzberge 2500 inmates, Kreutzburg/Oberschlesien 1500 inmates; Sonnenstein/Sachsen 800 inmates; Werneck/Unterfranken-Bayern 111 inmates; Steinhof/Wien 3000 inmates, and others, most probably now also Schleswig with 1000 beds. Guenzburg with 400 etc. etc.
Written in December 1941,|
Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality Washington, DC : United States Government Printing Office, 1946 |