Brandt, Karl was the son of a Prussian major. Afler receiving the Gymnasium diploma, he studied medicine in Jena, Freiburg i. Br., Munich and Berlin and graduated in Berlin, in 1928. He underwent his medical licensure on 1.7.1929. From 1929 he worked as an intern at the "Bergmannsheil" Hospital in Bochum. He transferred as an assistant medical director to the Surgical University Clinic of Berlin in 1935. Brandt joined the NSDAP on 1.3.1932 (No. 1,009,617). In addition, he became active as Head of the Bochum chapter of the Reich Protection League (Reichsschutzbund) and was also active in the SA-Group in Westphalia. Afler having impressed Hitler when called in to give emergency treatment to Hitler's wounded adjutant Wilhelm Brückner, he was appointed escort physician to Adolf Hitler in 1934. Thereupon Karl Brandt embarked on a meteoric career. In July 1934 he transferred as SS Second Lieutenant from the SA to the SS and was rapidly promoted to the rank of SS Major in the Staff of the SS Main Office. Afler the invasion of Poland he was posted as SS Lieutenant-Colonel in the Waffen-SS to the Body Guard Division Adolf Hitler. From mid-May of 1940 until the end of the war he was assigned to Hitler's staff, afler having been appointed professor. From then on Brandt acted as Hitler's special plenipotentiary in all matters relating to the German health system. Afler the invasion of Russia, Hitler entrusted Karl Brandt with the coordination of both the military and the civilian sectors of the health service and on 28.7.1942, appointed him to the post of Plenipotentiary for Health and Medical Services, at the expense of the Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti, whose inlluence was slowly waning. In September 1943 Brandt's field of authority was even expanded: He became General Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, only answerable to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, and was in charge of the coordination of the entire German health system, besides appropriating to himself special powers over medical research. On 25.8.1944, he was appointed Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation and in addition became a member of the Reich Research Council. In the final stages of the Nazi dictatorship he directed, together with Paul Rostock, the entire medical research program and in the last year of the war he even worked as Special Commissioner for Chemical Warfare. From the very beginning Karl Brandt had played an important role in the planning and execution of the "euthanasia" program. In 1939 Hitler appointed him, together with Philipp Bouhler, his personal "Commissioners for Euthanasia." The second stage of the murder of psychiatric patients, which was to provide reserve capacily in hospitals for the wounded of the war in the air, was named after Karl Brandt as "Action Brandt." Furthermore, in his post as General and Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, Brandt was involved in a whole series of the human experimentation in concentration camps that were tried in the Medical Trial, in particular the epidemic jaundice experiments and combat agent experiments. In the last weeks of the war Hitler ordered Karl Brandt to be summarily court-martialed because his Personal Physician and Reich Commissioner had allegedly allowed his wife and his child to be overtaken by American troops who were advancing to Thuringia. He was arrested for "defeatism and cowardice" and was sentenced to death on 17.4.1945. During the following weeks he was transferred several times and was finally transported to Flensburg, where he was released on 3.5.1945 at the instigation of Albert Speer. On 23.5.1945 he was captured by the English, together with the Donitz Government. In 1946 there were strong initiatives in the British military government to make Karl Brandt the principal defendant of an extensive physicians' trial. However, Brandt was handed over to the Americans for interrogation in connection with his involvement in the preparations for chemical warfare and after that Brandt was not sent back to the British from Nuremberg. Karl Brandt and a further twenty-two Nazi functionaries and medical scientists were indicted and tried by American Military Tribunal No. I in August 1947. He was sentenced to death and hanged in Landsberg prison on 2.6.1948.