On 1 September 1939, Brandt was appointed by Hitler as co-head of the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, with Philipp Bouhler.Thompson, D.: The Nazi Euthanasia Program, Axis History Forum, March 14, 2004. URL last accessed April 24, 2006. Additional power was afforded Brandt when on 28 July 1942, he was appointed Commissioner of Health and Emergency Services (Bevollmächtigter für das Sanitäts- und Gesundheitswesen) by Hitler and was thereafter only bound by the Führer's instructions.Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross, eds., Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 76. He received regular promotions in the SS; by April 1944, Brandt was a SS-Gruppenführer in the Allgemeine SS and a SS-Brigadeführer in the Waffen-SS. On 16 April 1945, he was arrested by the Gestapo for moving his family out of Berlin so they could surrender to American forces. Brandt was condemned to death by a military court and then sent to Kiel. He was released from arrest by order of Karl Dönitz on 2 May. He was placed under arrest by the British on 23 May.
On 1 September 1939, Brandt was appointed by Hitler as co-head of the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, with Philipp Bouhler.Thompson, D.: The Nazi Euthanasia Program, Axis History Forum, March 14, 2004. URL last accessed April 24, 2006. Additional power was afforded Brandt when on 28 July 1942, he was appointed Commissioner of Health and Emergency Services (Bevollmächtigter für das Sanitäts- und Gesundheitswesen) by Hitler and was thereafter only bound by the Führer's instructions.Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross, eds., Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 76. He received regular promotions in the SS; by April 1944, Brandt was a SS-Gruppenführer in the Allgemeine SS and a SS-Brigadeführer in the Waffen-SS. On 16 April 1945, he was arrested by the Gestapo for moving his family out of Berlin so they could surrender to American forces. Brandt was condemned to death by a military court and then sent to Kiel. He was released from arrest by order of Karl Dönitz on 2 May. He was placed under arrest by the British on 23 May.