Brandt, Karl Franz Friedrich.

Brandt, Karl Franz Friedrich, born in Mulhouse on 08-01-1904, into the family of a Prussian Army officer. He became a medical doctor and surgeon in 1928, specializing in head and spinal injuries. Karl joined the Nazi Party in January 1932, and first met Adolf Hitler  in the summer of 1932. He became a member of the SA  in 1933 and a member of the SS on 29-07-1934; appointed the officer rank of Untersturmführer.

The Sturmabteilung (also known as SA or Brownshirts) was a paramilitary organization founded by Adolf Hitler in 1921.

The SS (Schutzstaffel) was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that served as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard. Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the group grew into a ruthless elite unit, primarily responsible for the Holocaust and the management of the concentration camps.

From the summer of 1934 forward, he was Hitler’s “escort physician”. Karl Brandt married Anni Rehborn,

a champion swimmer, on 17-03-1934. They had one child, Karl Adolf Brandt (born 04-10-1935). Brandt was of the Protestant faith. Anni Rehborn passed away 15-01-1986 (aged 81) in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Karl Brandt and his wife Anni were members of Hitler’s inner circle at Berchtesgaden where Hitler maintained his private residence known as the Berghof. This very exclusive group functioned as Hitler’s de facto family circle. It included Eva Braun, Albert Speer, his wife Margarete Weber, Theodor Morell,  Martin Bormann, Hitler’s photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s adjutants and his secretaries. Brandt and Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer were good friends as the two shared technocratic dispositions about their work. Brandt looked at killing “useless eaters” and the disabled as a means to an end, namely in the interest of public health. Similarly, Speer viewed the use of concentration camp slave labor for his defense and building projects in much the same way. As members of this inner circle, the Brandts had a residence near the Berghof and spent considerable time there when Hitler was present.

As early as 1933, the law “for the prevention of genetically diseased offspring” was enacted throughout the German Reich, in accordance with the statement of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess:  “National Socialism is applied biology.” “Health courts” ordered forced sterilization. In the camps Auschwitz and Ravensbrück,  horrific experiments were conducted, often with fatal outcomes.

At the beginning of 1940, the regime, under the strictest secrecy, proceeded with the “euthanasia”program: adults (often by gassing) and children. For children, a total of eleven Kinderfachabteilungen – Special Departments – were established. In a psychiatric hospital in Vienna alone, precisely inventoried remains (muscle tissue, brain, spinal cord) of six hundred children who had been murdered in this manner were found. the “euthanasia” program: 

The “mercy killing” – with this euphemism, the political leaders of the Third Reich described the liquidation of what they considered “inferior people”: mentally and physically disabled individuals, the blind and deaf, village fools, and children.

This, of course, could not have been achieved without the structured large-scale cooperation of numerous scientists and doctors.

On 16-04-1945, Brandt was arrested by the Gestapo because he had allowed his family to leave Berlin to surrender to the American forces. The dictator was furious when he learned shortly before the end of the war that the doctor had sent Anni and their son toward the American lines in hopes of evading capture by the Russians. Despite Brandt’s closeness to Adolf Hitler charged him with treason and Brandt underwent a summary trial and was sentenced to death. Only the intervention of Heinrich Himmler and Speer saved him from execution at that time.

Death and burial ground of Brandt, Karl Franz Friedrich.

Brandt was placed under arrest by the British Army on 23-05-1945. From December 1946 to August 1947, 23 Nazi doctors stood trial in a sensational tribunal in Nuremberg. The key figure was Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt.

During the subsequent Doctors’ Trial in Nuremberg, Brandt declared: “Euthanasia is not mass murder, but merciful death, nothing more than consistently applied humanity.” On 19-08-1947, he was found guilty of various war crimes and crimes against humanity, including mass murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging along with six others. The sentence was carried out on 02-06-1948, in the Landsberg prison.

Brandt was 44 years old. He was cremated and the ashes were scattered in a secret place.

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