17 Facts About Karl Brandt

Karl Brandt was a German physician and Schutzstaffel officer in Nazi Germany.

Karl Brandt was later appointed the Reich Commissioner of Health and Emergency Services.

Karl Brandt was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed on 2 June 1948.

Karl Brandt was born in Mulhouse in the then German Alsace-Lorraine territory into the family of a Prussian Army officer.

Karl Brandt became a medical doctor and surgeon in 1928, specializing in head and spinal injuries.

Karl Brandt joined the Nazi Party in January 1932, and first met Hitler in the summer of 1932.

Karl Brandt became a member of the SA in 1933 and a member of the SS on 29 July 1934; appointed the officer rank of Untersturmfuhrer.

Karl Brandt married Anni Rehborn, a champion swimmer, on 17 March 1934.

On 25 July 1939, Karl Brandt authorized the first euthanization of the Nazi eugenics program, that of Gerhard Kretschmar, a 5-month-old disabled German infant.

On 1 September 1939, Karl Brandt was appointed by Hitler as co-head of the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, with Philipp Bouhler.

Karl Brandt received regular promotions in the SS; by April 1944, Brandt was a SS-Gruppenfuhrer in the Allgemeine SS and a SS-Brigadefuhrer in the Waffen-SS.

Karl Brandt was condemned to death by a military court and then sent to Kiel.

Karl Brandt looked at killing "useless eaters" and the disabled as a means to an end, namely in the interest of public health.

Hitler charged him with treason and Karl Brandt underwent a summary trial and was sentenced to death.

Karl Brandt was tried along with twenty-two others at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany.

Amongst Karl Brandt's advocates were numerous medical health professionals, such as surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, renowned pathologist Robert Roesle, the pharmacologist Wolfgang Hubner, the gynaecologist Walter Stoeckel, and the historian of medicine Paul Diepgen.

Karl Brandt confirmed the death sentence for Brandt, as well as those for his codefendants.