by Jana Petken
He climbed into the driver’s seat next to Franz, his co-driver, and put the key in the ignition. His hands were shaking. He cursed then punched the steering wheel.
“War is dirty, Wilmot. Get used to it,” Franz said.
“I didn’t like that, Franz. I didn’t like it at all,” Wilmot responded, as he drove out of the camp.
Chapter Thirteen
Paul Vogel
Paul scrubbed his hands and arms with disinfectant soap while looking at the unconscious girl lying on the operating table. Thank God, the surgeon had given her sufficient chloral hydrate to fully sedate her. One of the other doctors had told him not all children were as fortunate.
Paul followed the unconscious girl on the gurney to the ward, then waited until she was tucked in bed. He gazed at her white face: peaceful, sweet, innocent and oblivious of what had just been done to her. She was one of the lucky ones, he reminded himself again. She’d probably be released within a week to live her life safe in her family’s arms for however long that might be.
He headed down the ward to Hilde Weber’s bed. Her condition had become manageable. She’d shown signs of improvement since starting treatment. Her mood swings were less frequent, and she was having longer periods of lucidity.
“Hello, Hilde. How are you today?” he asked, holding her hand.
“I’m feeling better, thank you, Doctor Paul,” she replied. “When can I go home to Judith and Papa? I promise I’ll be good.”
“Soon, Hilde, soon.”
After his shift was over, Paul stood under the shower, washing his hair and letting the powerful water jets batter his crown like needles. Judith Weber came to mind. She had touched his heart. Her passionate fight to keep her sister at home had been admirable and had lasted right up until Hilde was hauled, screaming, into the ambulance. Adel Weber had turned on his heel, dragging his feet into his house and slamming the door behind him. He’d given up as soon as forced labour had been mentioned. But not Judith, no, she’d hung on to the Hilde’s restraint straps until the ambulance men had almost broken her fingers to free them.
Judith Weber was in his thoughts most days, not because he invariably thought back to their first meeting, but because of her weekly, unsuccessful visits to Brandenburg by train. Poor girl, she’d been refused entry on every occasion, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and had hung around the car park bothering doctors and nurses as they’d left the hospital building. On three separate occasions, she had asked for him by name and each time he had met with her as soon as he’d been able to get away. He couldn’t give Judith information about her sister’s release date, but he was able to tell her that Hilde was getting better and that he was keeping her company whenever he had spare time. Judith Weber had got under his skin, and he was determined to do all he could to help her family.
At 8pm, Paul made his way to the conference room for an important meeting. On his way, he passed the admissions desk where the long benches were full, as always, with disabled children and adults suffering physical or psychological illnesses. Nowadays, transportation trucks were used to bring the patients from other hospitals and nursing homes. Gone were the more civilised outings when Rudolph and his team of doctors would visit a prospective patient in his or her own environment to explain to the family why it was necessary to take their child or adult away from them.
Two men and a woman sat behind the desk dealing with the new arrivals. Their cold, impatient faces displayed their distaste for the sick, and their jobs. They had gruelling shifts that were monotonous in the extreme, and they were undoubtedly questioning the huge number of patients being admitted, and the very few leaving. Paul had overheard two of the desk staff whispering in the communal bathrooms a couple of nights earlier. “Where are they putting them all?” one had asked. “Don’t ask me. All I know is that the number of beds in this hospital don’t add up to the number of patients we’re receiving,” the other man had answered.
Paul nodded to two SS soldiers hovering at the main glass doors. They were ever present, watching like hawks. Were they there to keep patients in or families out? Probably both.
“Ah, Vogel, come in, come in,” said Rudolph, waving Paul into the spacious conference room. “This is Dr Hermann Pfannmüller. Doctor, this is Paul Vogel, a prodigy of sorts. He graduated a year early – quite unheard of, don’t you think?”
“Yes, indeed. I hear you’re Dieter Vogel’s son?” Pfannmüller said.
“Yes, sir.” Paul shook Pfannmüller’s hand and was then introduced to another man.
“Vogel, this is Herr Hans Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery. We are very honoured to welcome him. We hadn’t expected him today.”
Lammers studied Paul. Unnerved, Paul gave him the Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler.” He then joined two Nazi medical students and the other ten Brandenburg doctors at the conference table. Hauptsturmführer Leitner was also in attendance, but Paul wondered why. He’d never seen the man treat a patient or lift a scalpel since the day they’d both started working together. The man was hawkish, always watching what others were doing, but seemingly not interested in getting his own hands dirty.
Paul was nervous and acutely aware of being in the company of two very important men who were close to the Führer, both personally and professionally. Every man in the room had taken the time to pin on their Nazi badges. He’d refused to wear his unless he was specifically ordered to, but as he flicked his eyes from one visitor to the other, he now kicked himself for not towing the line.
“Herr Rudolph and I have been corresponding with each other for some time.” Pfannmüller opened the meeting. “But due to the sensitive and classified nature of our new scientific and health programmes, we, Herr Lammers and I, felt it necessary to talk to you all here in person.”
Rudolph nodded. “A good decision. One never knows who might be listening in on telephone conversations or opening confidential letters. I think it’s true to say that delicate matters conducted both orally and in writing during wartime are in constant danger of being used against us by those who seek to do Germany harm. I preferred the communications methods used in the Great War when human couriers passed important messages from hand to hand. I’m not sure how I feel about all these fandangle machines and telephones nowadays.”
Paul recognised that Rudolph loved the sound of his own voice. He prattled on, but instead of telling him to shut up, Pfannmüller waited until he’d finished.
“Herr Rudolph makes a good point, Doctors,” Pfannmüller said. “We must be vigilant. If anyone is caught passing secrets, snippets of conversations or sharing any type of classified information beyond these walls, they will be executed. We can’t afford to slacken security.”
“It will be viewed as treason,” Lammers piped up. “We are standing on a precipice, gentlemen, taking scientific steps that might have been taken many years later were we not at war. But we are at war, and these are extraordinary times.”
“And they call for extraordinary measures and sacrifices,” Rudolph reinforced the point.
Pfannmüller took the floor, perhaps to finally shut Rudolph up or to command attention.
“Doctors, I’ll get straight to the point. It is unbearable to me that the flower of our youth must lose their lives at the front while the feeble-minded and asocial element is permitted a secure existence in our asylums.” Pfannmüller paused, eyeballing every person at the table.
Paul clenched his fists under the table in preparation for what was to come. The faces of the doctors opposite him suggested that his thoughts were mirrored.
“The Führer agrees with my sentiments,” Pfannmüller continued, “as do the majority of those who attended the Berlin conference. We cannot and will not continue to spend money on those who are unworthy of life. So, it has been decided that from now on, until we are instructed otherwise, certain patients will be transferred from their present institutions to centres being completed as we speak. And as a testament to your good work, Doctors, Brandenburg will
be our main test site.”
Paul and his fellow doctors began to scribble notes but Pfannmüller stopped them.
“Do not record what I’m saying. Never write down what can otherwise be stored in your heads … never. I will leave Herr Rudolph a transcript of the Berlin conference, and he will allow you to read the parts deemed pertinent. All I need from you now is your undivided attention.”
“I apologise,” Paul and the others mumbled, putting their pens away.
“The new procedures will be as follows. All hospitals, nursing homes, old-age homes, and sanatoriums will be required to report patients who have been institutionalised for five years or more. There will be no exceptions. None. We will target the criminally insane, those who are of non-Aryan race or who have been diagnosed with the following conditions: epilepsy, schizophrenia, Huntington’s chorea, advanced syphilis, senile dementia, paralysis, encephalitis, Downs Syndrome, and general terminal neurological conditions.”
Minister Lammers took over from Pfannmüller in a bid to put an important point across. “We suspect that many doctors and administrators will assume that the reports are to identify inmates who are capable of being drafted for labour service. Should we be correct in that assumption, they may overstate their patient’s degree of incapacity to protect them from labour conscription. We cannot allow this to happen. So, should any doctor or institution refuse to cooperate, we will send our own teams of doctors, or the Reich’s medical students to compile the lists.”
Rudolph, looking unusually unnerved asked, “How can we be certain that these ... err ... Nazi teams will not be ideologically motivated when they choose who goes on the lists?”
“Are you suggesting that they will be untruthful in their assessments?”
“No,” Rudolph reassured Lammers. “It was just an innocent question that came to mind. After all, as Doctor Pfannmüller said, we will be deciding whether these people have a future by choosing those we deem unworthy of life.”
“We have strict guidelines in place,” said Lammers. “As with child inmates, adult cases will now also be assessed by a panel of experts working at the Tiergartenstraße offices in Berlin. The doctors there will be required to make their judgements based on the reports, not medical histories or examinations, and in each case, they will identify the patient’s future treatment with an a plus symbol for death, an, a minus for life, and occasionally, if they are unsure, an, a, followed by a question mark...”
Lammers was interrupted by a woman carrying coffee cups and saucers on a tray. Behind her, a Wehrmacht soldier carried steaming coffee pots.
Paul used the pause to glance again at Rudolph and the Brandenburg doctors. He felt as though he were in a daze, a nightmare blurring his reality. Were they thinking about their futures as he was? Did they want to run from the room and not look back? It was already crystal-clear that the visitors had come to talk about forced euthanasia, but they had yet to discuss how they were going to carry out the murders, or to pronounce those two words. The word ‘murder’, battered his brain. It was unthinkable, yet evidently, true.
He recalled asking Rudolph at the graduation party if Brandenburg was to become one of those earmarked as euthanasia centres. Rudolph hadn’t replied, at least not with a comprehensive answer, and he, Paul, had stupidly hoped that any plans to start mercy-killings would be put on hold because of the war and the bureaucratic headaches such actions would entail. After all, what sane person would tolerate seeing their loved ones being senselessly killed in their own homes when other family members were being slaughtered on Europe’s battlefields? Germans needed heroes governing them, not murderers telling them that their children were unworthy of living out their lives for however long they might be.
Paul watched Rudolph pour coffee like a hostess at a house party. He felt physically sick, crushed, unable to breathe. His thoughts were scrambled in his head as he battled to come up with a way to extricate himself from the hospital, and the people running it. He couldn’t do what they were asking; he wouldn’t.
After Rudolph had personally served coffee to every man at the table, Lammers continued, “We have arranged for charity ambulance buses to transport the selected patients. They will be called the Community Patients Transport Service, and will be run by teams of SS men wearing white coats to give an air of medical authority.”
Paul remembered Judith’s reaction to Hilde being taken and asked, “What will you do when the patients’ families or doctors object to your SS men removing their loved ones? Will they be told where they’re being taken, and why they’re going to another facility?”
“A good question, Doctor,” Lammers responded. “To prevent the families and the patients’ doctors from tracing the selected persons, the sick will be sent first to transit centres in major hospitals for further assessment, although realistically, further tests will not be necessary. Afterwards, they will be moved again for special treatment,” he concluded.
An excruciating silence filled the room. Paul, slid his eyes towards the doctors sitting beside and opposite him. His breath sounded ragged and laboured in the stillness. He wondered if they were as shocked as he was? It was strange that not one person had objected, including himself, and he wondered if any of the doctors, present, had volunteered to work in this hospital being fully apprised of the insidious nature of the job? Or had they been coerced like him? It was impossible to know. No one talked about anything other than families and spouses.
Apparently unruffled by the effects his speech had had on his audience, Pfannmüller bit into a biscuit and washed it down with his coffee. “Families will be sent letters explaining that owing to wartime regulations it will not be possible for them to visit relatives in the facilities. In most cases the selected patients will be given mercy-deaths within 24 hours of their arrival at the euthanasia centres. Their bodies will later be cremated, and death certificates will be produced for every person killed, giving a false but plausible cause of death. These will then be sent to the affected families along with an urn of ashes.”
Lammers carried on despite the wide eyes and open-mouthed shock. “I suspect you might be concerned about some aspects of the euthanasia programme, but I assure you it is not only a kindness to the sick, it is also necessary under present circumstances. We have thousands of soldiers wounded from the Polish campaign, and they must be our priority. They need and expect to be looked after, and we require the hospital space to meet the demand for beds.”
Paul’s mouth gaped then quickly snapped shut. The doctor sitting next to him asked, “What reason are we to give the families for their loved ones’ deaths?”
Lammers answered. “I would suggest using a variety of illnesses – pneumonia, dysentery, or natural causes. We shall make sure to give believable reasons – will this be a problem for you, Doctor?”
“No, sir.” The man’s expression was unfathomable.
“Good.” Lammers took his time before speaking again. He sipped his coffee, set his cup on its saucer, then picked it up again for another sip while flicking his eyes from one man to the next. “No one in this room should be surprised by what we are about to do for the Reich and benefit of our country. As psychiatric practitioners, you must be aware that the idea of euthanasia is not new.”
Lammers swept his eyes around the table and most of the men nodded. “You say yes with your heads, yet you don’t look convinced. I’ll be disappointed if even one of you has not read the study published twenty years ago dealing with this very subject.” He raised his eyebrows when no one spoke.
Herr Rudolph, now looking as flushed as his staff, cleared his throat. “I’m sure all the Brandenburg doctors have read Karl Binding’s and Alfred Hoche’s papers. Their findings are required reading in all university hospitals, I believe.”
Paul had read the works for the first time only a few months earlier. The written work of the lawyer and psychiatrist just mentioned by Rudolph was one of the reasons he’d chosen psychiatry. He believed he could damage the euge
nics notion by attempting to introduce new, enlightened treatments that could eventually change some conditions from chronic and terminal to acute but curable. He was not a genius, but he was determined to send the erstwhile theoretical practice into oblivion, even if it took him his entire life.
“Tell me, Doctor Vogel, have you read it?”
Paul, whose expression must have displayed some element of disapproval, raised his head and met Lammers’ eyes. “Yes, sir ... yes … I read it again only recently,” he stammered.
“Would you enlighten your colleagues, please. Tell them what you gleaned from it?”
Paul nodded. “Certainly. The papers are entitled Permission for the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living, and as Herr Rudolph stated, the abstract poses the question as to whether a human being that has no character or will should be entitled to enjoy the protection of the law … if its prolongation represents a perpetual loss of value, both for its bearer, and for society?”
“Very good, almost word for word,” said Herr Rudolph, an approving glint in his eye.
Paul arranged his face, aware he was being watched. He relaxed a little more in his chair while Lammers asked another doctor to speak about the authors’ answer to the euthanasia question.
A doctor Paul had come to know as ‘Chalky’ because of his very white skin, responded enthusiastically. “Yes sir, I’d be honoured. The authors described such individuals as being mentally dead on an intellectual level, a state we only encounter far down in the animal kingdom. The authors also emphasized the economic burden of such individuals to Germany, as you so eloquently stated earlier, sir.”
