write a letter in these terms to Heydrich: “The Reichsmarschall
desires that the high command be required to order that
adopting Obergruppenführer Heydrich’s own proposal
Wehrmacht soldiers who are in the future committed to insti-
tutions for the mentally ill shall be placed in institutions exclu-
sively reserved for soldiers, so that the said institution attains the
character of a military hospital.”
Besides Philipp Bouhler, who ran the euthanasia “mercy
killing” operation, it was Martin Bormann who forced through
these less merciful campaigns. “Bormann,” testified Göring,
squirming under American interrogation in September ,
“would make everything three times as bad, in order to please
[Hitler]... Bormann used to walk around with his pockets stu-
ffed with notepaper. He used to take down everything the
Führer said, even if it was never intended to be taken seriously.”
By March Göring would be fighting tooth and nail to keep
Bormann out of his own operations. Across one document on
economic policy that Dr. Robert Ley submitted to Hitler
through Bormann Göring scrawled, “This is an area where
decisions until now have been solely in my hands. I recently
mentioned to the Führer that, unless I am informed and in
agreement, no ‘Führer decisions’ are to be requested on any
domain of mine except by me in person.”
But the fanatics no longer heeded Hitler either.
“Reichsminister Lammers,” recorded the Staatssekretär to the
minister of justice in the spring of , “told me the Führer has
repeatedly declared to him he wants to see the solution of the
Jewish problem postponed until after the war.” But the “solu-
tion” had already begun, and Göring, as Hitler’s surviving suc-
cessor, would be called to account for it.