Karl Brandt - The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich [Hardcover]

I was initially drawn to Brandt by his constant presence near Hitler in early Berghof photos. In fact the Hoffman photos contribute significantly to the author's tracking of this enigmatic palladin.
Those surrounding Hitler invariably make as fascinating reading as the Fuhrer himself. Brandt is no exception. Who was this tall, refined, handsome-looking man and how did he get to become one of Hitler's "inner circle"?
The book combines a very balanced description of Brandt with an intriguing analysis of the system of Nazi government. The latter was a perpetual Darwinian struggle for Hitler's favour where the fittest and most ruthless survived. Brandt was as ambitious as the next Nazi.
He was an extremely idealistic "true believer" who converted a desire to end needless suffering into a strong belief in euthanasia. That debate still resonates today.
However, the programme which he started with good intentions ran wild very quickly as the war consumed all before it. Brandt eventually paid the ultimate price for this.
First to go in the "T-4" action was the ethics, then the caution, the logic, finally the dignity.
Life became as cheap as the daily incineration of German civilians by Allied bombers.
Brandt's ambition dragged him to the top of Hitler's Olympus only to cast him into Hades within 5 months. It is a salutary tale of a man sentenced to death by the Third reich only to die at the hands of their vanquishers.
Brandt was a truly tragic figure who might even have escaped detection had his second name not been the same as Himmler's Chief of Personal Staff! Fate was never on his side.
In fact, the suicides of several more culpable colleagues thrust him into the dock as Defendant No. 1 which he (rightly) knew had sealed his fate.
The author's exhaustive research shines through in a book that walks you through Brandt's life, from cradle to scaffold.
The final verdict is of waste. The waste of a good man's life in the doomed eugenics project of the Third Reich. The circumstantial evidence of the "he must have known" type was enough to decide the kangaroo Military Court against him. He finally offered his own life for one final and fatal medical experiment and on being denied, marched bravely to the scaffold. His final words condemning the United States make salutary reading. They are hard to argue against.
Schmidt does not shy away from giving Brandt's side of the story and he is rightly sceptical when dealing with the hypocritical Allied war crimes "tribunals".
Eugenics and sterilization/euthanasia were commonly accepted viewpoints in the 30's and were endorsed by some surprising names, e.g. George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, Charles Lindbergh etc. In this regard, it is impossible for Brandt's world to be conjured up in the stridently politically correct zeitgeist of today.
Brandt's blind ambition led him to the abyss and Schmidt's book will undoubtedly leave you troubled. In as much as we are all victims of circumstance, Brandt was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good men can do terrible things in war-time. That should be Karl Brandt's epitaph.

This is the only biography of Karl Brandt available. It's also the penultimate biography of Brandt. I ordered this sight unseen, because I study Aktion T-4 -- but also because I know one can depend upon the author's source material. Schmidt's research is impeccable. Much of the book's information hasn't been readily available to English speakers.

Although Brandt claimed otherwise at his trail, he was neck-deep in T-4 and Nazi human medical experiments. For almost every one of Brandt's denials, there is a letter or document to prove He Lied. Brandt obviously believed in "euthanasia" (read: murder) of the mentally and physically disabled. And as he either tacitly and/or directly approved of human experimentation, he falls into the same category as Mengele and Clauburg. With Brandt, it was all about power. He began as one of Hitler's attending physicians and ended up a perfect monster.

Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich should be required reading for all medical ethicists and students of the Holocaust; it should be in every library. I say this not only because the book is superbly written and researched, but also because it illustrates the banality of evil -- and how easy it is for the power-hungry to buy into the idea that one is superior to others.

The photographs of Brandt are disturbing. Brandt was a handsome man with a wife and child. He went on Nazi pleasure trips, which were photographically documented. In every picture, his face is serene. It's eerie.

I'm a disabled person. I'm also a scholar. This is one of four books I'll put in my "run kit" during fire season. It's that important.

This is one of the missing stories of those close to Hitler. It is a sad note that many of these facilitators were true believers in the world that the Nazis were trying to create and even in the end they did not recognize that what they did was out of the norm. It is a sad commentary on what can happened to a very well educated, and well intentioned soul. Brandt is a good representation of the likes of Speer, Stuckhart, Lemmers et al. Very well worth reading.