Editing Karl Brandt (section)

==Trial and execution==
{{See|Doctors' trial}}
[[Image:Karl-Brandt.jpg|300px|thumb|Brandt on trial, 20 August 1947]]

Brandt was tried along with twenty-two others at the Palace of Justice in [[Nuremberg trials|Nuremberg]], Germany. The trial was officially titled ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al.'', but is more commonly referred to as the "[[Doctors' Trial]]"; it began on 9 December 1946. He was charged with four counts:

#Conspiracy to commit war crimes and [[crimes against humanity]] as described in counts 2 and 3; 
#War crimes: performing medical experiments, without the subjects' consent, on prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts.  Also planning and performing the mass murder of prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, stigmatized as aged, insane, incurably ill, deformed, and so on, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums during the [[involuntary euthanasia|Euthanasia]] Program and participating in the mass murder of concentration camp inmates; 
#Crimes against humanity: committing crimes described under count 2 also on German nationals; 
#Membership in a criminal organization, the SS. The charges against him included special responsibility for, and participation in, Freezing, [[Malaria]], [[Mustard gas|LOST Gas]], [[Sulfanilamide]], Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, Sea-Water, Epidemic [[Jaundice]], Sterilization, and [[Typhus]] Experiments.<ref>National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, 15 vols. See vol 1 and 2, ''Karl Brandt: The Medical Case'' (Washington DC: National Archives and Records Service, 1951–1952).</ref>

As chief of counsel for the prosecution [[Telford Taylor]] put it:<blockquote>"The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science. The victims of these crimes are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected. For the most part they are nameless dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals."</blockquote>After a defence led by [[Robert Servatius]], on 19 August 1947, Brandt was found guilty on counts 2-4 of the indictment. With six others, he was sentenced to death by hanging. Pleas for clemency on Brandt's behalf were made by dozens of people, including representatives of the churches, such as [[Eugen Gerstenmaier]], the chairman of the relief organization of the [[Evangelical Church in Germany]]. Amongst Brandt's advocates were numerous medical health professionals, such as surgeon [[Ferdinand Sauerbruch]], renowned pathologist Robert Roesle, pharmacologist Wolfgang Hübner, gynaecologist Walter Stoeckel, and historian of medicine [[Paul Diepgen]]. Other noted petitioners included various other physiologists, pathologists and surgeons. Ultimately, [[Lucius D. Clay]], the governor of the [[American occupation zone in Germany]], rejected all pleas for mercy. He confirmed the death sentence for Brandt, as well as those for his codefendants.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weindling |first=P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2L4WDAAAQBAJ |title=Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical Warcrimes to Informed Consent |date=2004-10-29 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-50605-3 |pages=303–304 |language=en}}</ref>

Clay stated:
<blockquote>"Regardless of what inner convictions Dr Brandt may have held, he was directly responsible for much of the suffering and death caused to the unfortunate concentration camp victims chosen to be used as subjects in brutal medical experiments. In justice to these persons who underwent torture and death, I am unable to grant clemency in this case."</blockquote>

Brandt had previously boasted that he was "the one Germans the Americans will never hang." After being sentenced, he offered his body to be used for medical experiments. To his surprise, however, the request was rejected.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code |last=Annas |first=George J. |year=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=United States |isbn= 0-19-507042-9 |page=106 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4P04DuPIfAYC&q=karl+brandt+political+revenge&pg=PA106 |access-date=2015-03-03}}</ref> Brandt and six other defendants were executed at [[Landsberg Prison]] on 2 June 1948.{{sfn|Hamilton|1984|p=138}}<ref>{{cite web|publisher=U.S. Library of Congress|title= Nuremberg Tribunal Indictments |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_Indictments.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090329134633/http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_Indictments.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-29 |url-status=live}}</ref>

While on the gallows, Brandt denounced his execution as hypocrisy:<blockquote>"How can the nation which holds the lead in human experimentation in any conceivable form, how can that nation dare to accuse and punish other nations which only copied their experimental procedures? And even euthanasia! Only look at Germany, and the way her misery has been manipulated and artificially prolonged. It is, of course, not surprising that the nation which in the face of the history of humanity will forever have to bear the guilt for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that this nation attempts to hide itself behind moral superlatives. She does not bend the law: Justice has never been here! Neither in the whole nor in the particular. What dictates is power. And this power wants victims. We are such victims. I am such a victim."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ernst |first=Edzard |date=February 10, 2024 |title=Die grauenhaften Verbrechen des Doktor Karl Brandt |url=https://www.derstandard.at/consent/tcf/story/3000000206537/die-grauenhaften-verbrechen-des-doktor-karl-brandt |access-date=2025-05-14 |website=DER STANDARD |language=de-AT}}</ref>

"It is no shame to stand upon this scaffold. This is nothing but political revenge. I have served my Fatherland as others before me."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Julian Weindling |first=Paul |url=http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/handle/123456789/57217 |title=Nazi Medicine and theNuremberg TrialsFrom Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent |date=2004 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4039-3911-1 |pages=305-306 |language=en}}</ref>
</blockquote>

As Brandt continued to talk, the executioner told him that he'd run out of time and needed to end his speech. However, he refused to stop. After the executioners ran out of patience, the hood was placed over Brandt's head as he continued to talk and he was hanged.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2 June 1948 |title=7 NAZIS HANGED BY U.S. FOR THEIR MEDICAL MURDERS |page=1|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-post-dispatch/111726711/ |access-date=2023-10-10|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>