June 2,1948 was one of those rare days where justice was actually carried out. So many who were instrumental in the murder of millions during the Holocaust, did either serve no time or very little, leave alone receiving death sentences. Even many of those who did receive a death sentence had their sentence reduced.
But on this day 72 years ago 5 Nazi physicians were hanged. I will not waste too much time on these 5 so called Doctors I will only go into the crimes they were charged with during the ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al. aka Doctor’s Trial’ and some of their final words.
Karl Brandt
1.Conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity as described in counts 2 and 3;
2.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 Euthanasia Program and participating in the mass murder of concentration camp inmates;
3.Crimes against humanity: committing crimes described under count 2 also on German nationals;
4.Membership in a criminal organization, the SS. The charges against him included special responsibility for, and participation in, Freezing, Malaria, LOST Gas, Sulfanilamide, Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, Sea-Water, Epidemic Jaundice, Sterilization, and Typhus Experiments.
His final words
“It is no shame to stand upon the scaffold. This is nothing but political revenge. I have served my Fatherland as others before me.” he went on with his speech but at that stage a hood was placed over his head.While he still was talking he was hanged.
Wolfram Sievers
Wolfran Sievers was charged with being a member of an organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal (the SS), and was implicated in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In his defense, he alleged that as early as 1933, he had been a member of an anti-Nazi resistance movement which planned to assassinate Hitler and Himmler.
Waldemar Hoven
Guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization. Special responsibility of typhus and other vaccine experiments in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Viktor Brack
During the Doctors’ trial, Brack was convicted of murder of victims in the T4 Euthanasia Program. The program was later applied under secret order “Action 14f13”; the extermination of those concentration camp inmates deemed unable to work. Additionally to his crimes in the T4 program he also devised the plan of sterilizing young and strong Jews they were being sterilized without being aware of the process. It was done by using X Ray radiation . These young man were used in forced labour.
Karl Gebhardt
He was personal physician to Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and President of the German Red Cross. He was responsible for medical and surgical experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. In Ravensbrück he carried out a series of experiments on Ravensbrück concentration camp prisoners, breaking their legs and infecting them with various organisms in order to prove the worthlessness of the drugs in treating gas gangrene. basically to proof Himmler wrong.He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity
In total there were 23 defendants at the Doctor’s Trial but only these 5 men received the death sentence and were all hanged on June 2, 1948. They had an easier death then their vicctims.
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sources
https://web.archive.org/web/20071013160628/http://ushmm.org/research/doctors/persons.htm
http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/11-brief-prosecution-closing-brief?q=*#p.7
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/nazi-doctor-victor-brack-on-trial
Wikipedia
http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/4134-extract-from-testimony-of-karl?q=karl+brandt#p.3
History of Sorts 
Victor Brack, looks like a kindly vicar in the C of E.
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Reblogged this on History of Sorts.
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Have you ever wandered why West Germany shortly after the end of occupation by Allies eliminated death penalty while hordes of nazis lived free in the country? Your thoughts
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A good question, but it suited the allies just as much. Just look at Operation Paper clip and Odessa.
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