CHIEF SURGEON OF U.S. ARMY LABELS GERMAN DOCTORS HYPOCRITES
Great retained copy (unsigned) of a letter sent by Maj. Gen. PAUL R. HAWLEY (1891-1965), U.S. Army Chief Surgeon to Dr. K. H. Bauer, surgeon at the University of Heidelberg where T-4 euthanasia practices had been undertaken, 1p. 4to., [n.p.], May 1, 1945. Hawley angrily writes, in part: "...After the revelations of the past few weeks of the brutality and inhumanity of the German people...I am amazed that a man posing as a member of the faculty of a has the effrontery to invoke Christian sentiments in an effort to retain a few hundred hospital beds. Nor are the Nazi salutes and the 'Heil Hitlers' that were universal in the halls of the University of Heidelberg, compatible with your specious plea...You are deluding yourself, Sir, if you believe that...and German...has any friends in America or England as you so hypocritically suggest...". Ragged margins else very good. Interestingly, on Aug. 15, 1949, under Bauer's leadership and with new statutes, the University of Heidelberg was the first German university to re-open. Bauer would later become one of the world's leading oncologists.