VOLUME II
VIII. Evidence and Arguments on Important Aspects of the Case F. Necessity G. Subjection to Medical Experimentation as Substitute for Penalties H. Usefulness of the Experiments I. Medical Ethics 1. General 2. German Medical Profession 3. Medical Experiments in other Countries IX. Ruling of the Tribunal on Count One of the Indictment X. Final Plea for Defendant Karl Brandt by Dr. Servatius XI. Final Statements of the Defendants, 19 July 1947 XII. Judgment Sentences XIII. Petitions XIV. Affirmation of Sentences by the Commander of the U. S. Zone of Occupation XV. Supreme Court of the United States Denial of Writs of Habeas Corpus Appendix Table of Comparative Ranks List of Witnesses in Case I Index
TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS BEFORE NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNALS
Case No. _United States against_ _Popular Name_ _Volume No._ 1 Karl Brandt, et al. Medical Case I and II 2 Erhard Milch Milch Case II 3 Josef Altstoetter, et al. Justice Case III 4 Oswald Pohl, et al. Pohl Case V 5 Friedrich Flick, et al. Flick Case VI 6 Carl Krauch, et al. I. G. Farben Case VII and VIII 7 Wilhelm List, et al. Hostage Case XI 8 Ulrich Greifelt, et al. RuSHA Case IV and V 9 Otto Ohlendorf, et al. Einsatzgruppen Case IV 10 Alfred Krupp, et al. Krupp Case IX 11 Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. Ministries Case XII, XIII, and XIV 12 Wilhelm von Leeb, et al. High Command Case X and XI Procedure XV
DECLARATION ON GERMAN ATROCITIES
[Moscow Declaration] Released November 1, 1943
THE UNITED KINGDOM, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by the Hitlerite forces in the many countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled. The brutalities of Hitlerite domination are no new thing and all the peoples or territories in their grip have suffered from the worst form of government by terror. What is new is that many of these territories are now being redeemed by the advancing armies of the liberating Powers and that in their desperation, the recoiling Hitlerite Huns are redoubling their ruthless cruelties. This is now evidenced with particular clearness by monstrous crimes of the Hitlerites on the territory of the Soviet Union which is being liberated from the Hitlerites, and on French and Italian territory.
Accordingly, the aforesaid three allied Powers, speaking in the interests of the thirty-two [thirty-three] United Nations, hereby solemnly declare and give full warning of their declaration as follows:
At the time of the granting of any armistice to any government which may be set up in Germany, those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for, or have taken a consenting part in the above atrocities, massacres, and executions, will be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were done in order that they may be judged and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries and of the free governments which will be created therein. Lists will be compiled in all possible detail from all these countries having regard especially to the invaded parts of the Soviet Union, to Poland and Czechoslovakia, to Yugoslavia and Greece, including Crete and other islands, to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France and Italy.
Thus, the Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian, or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged. Let those who have hitherto not imbrued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three allied Powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done.
The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major criminals, whose offences have no particular geographical localisation and who will be punished by the joint decision of the Governments of the Allies.
[Signed] Roosevelt Churchill Stalin
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9547
=Providing for Representation of the United States in Preparing and Prosecuting Charges of Atrocities and War Crimes Against the Leaders of the European Axis Powers and Their Principal Agents and Accessories=
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, under the Constitution and statutes of the United States, it is ordered as follows:
1. Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson is hereby designated to act as the Representative of the United States and as its Chief of Counsel in preparing and prosecuting charges of atrocities and war crimes against such of the leaders of the European Axis powers and their principal agents and accessories as the United States may agree with any of the United Nations to bring to trial before an international military tribunal. He shall serve without additional compensation but shall receive such allowance for expenses as may be authorized by the President.
2. The Representative named herein is authorized to select and recommend to the President or to the head of any executive department, independent establishment, or other federal agency necessary personnel to assist in the performance of his duties hereunder. The head of each executive department, independent establishment, and other federal agency is hereby authorized to assist the Representative named herein in the performance of his duties hereunder and to employ such personnel and make such expenditures, within the limits of appropriations now or hereafter available for the purpose, as the Representative named herein may deem necessary to accomplish the purposes of this order, and may make available, assign, or detail for duty with the Representative named herein such members of the armed forces and other personnel as may be requested for such purposes.
3. The Representative named herein is authorized to cooperate with, and receive the assistance of, any foreign Government to the extent deemed necessary by him to accomplish the purposes of this order.
HARRY S. TRUMAN THE WHITE HOUSE, _May 2, 1945_. (F. R. Doc. 45-7256; Filed, May 3, 1945; 10:57 a. m.)
* * * * *
LONDON AGREEMENT OF 8 AUGUST 1945
AGREEMENT by the Government of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, the Provisional Government of the FRENCH REPUBLIC, the Government of the =United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland= and the Government of the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS for the Prosecution and Punishment of the MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS of the EUROPEAN AXIS
WHEREAS the United Nations have from time to time made declarations of their intention that War Criminals shall be brought to justice;
AND WHEREAS the Moscow Declaration of the 30th October 1943 on German atrocities in Occupied Europe stated that those German Officers and men and members of the Nazi Party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in atrocities and crimes will be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were done in order that they may be judged and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries and of the free Governments that will be created therein;
AND WHEREAS this Declaration was stated to be without prejudice to the case of major criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical location and who will be punished by the Joint decision of the Governments of the Allies;
NOW THEREFORE the Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (hereinafter called “the Signatories”) acting in the interests of all the United Nations and by their representatives duly authorized thereto have concluded this Agreement.
=Article 1.= There shall be established after consultation with the Control Council for Germany an International Military Tribunal for the trial of war criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical location whether they be accused individually or in their capacity as members of organizations or groups or in both capacities.
=Article 2.= The constitution, jurisdiction and functions of the International Military Tribunal shall be those set out in the Charter annexed to this Agreement, which Charter shall form an integral part of this Agreement.
=Article 3.= Each of the Signatories shall take the necessary steps to make available for the investigation of the charges and trial the major war criminals detained by them who are to be tried by the International Military Tribunal. The Signatories shall also use their best endeavors to make available for investigation of the charges against and the trial before the International Military Tribunal such of the major war criminals as are not in the territories of any of the Signatories.
=Article 4.= Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice the provisions established by the Moscow Declaration concerning the return of war criminals to the countries where they committed their crimes.
=Article 5.= Any Government of the United Nations may adhere to this Agreement by notice given through the diplomatic channel to the Government of the United Kingdom, who shall inform the other signatory and adhering Governments of each such adherence.
=Article 6.= Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice the jurisdiction or the powers of any national or occupation court established or to be established in any allied territory or in Germany for the trial of war criminals.
=Article 7.= This agreement shall come into force on the day of signature and shall remain in force for the period of one year and shall continue thereafter, subject to the right of any Signatory to give, through the diplomatic channel, one month’s notice of intention to terminate it. Such termination shall not prejudice any proceedings already taken or any findings already made in pursuance of this Agreement.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the Undersigned have signed the present Agreement.
DONE in quadruplicate in London this 8^{th} day of August 1945 each in English, French and Russian, and each text to have equal authenticity.
For the Government of the United States of America
ROBERT H. JACKSON
For the Provisional Government of the French Republic
ROBERT FALCO
For the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
JOWITT, C.
For the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
I. NIKITCHENKO A. TRAININ
CHARTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
I. CONSTITUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
=Article 1.= In pursuance of the Agreement signed on the 8th day of August 1945 by the Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, there shall be established an International Military Tribunal (hereinafter called “the Tribunal”) for the just and prompt trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis.
=Article 2.= The Tribunal shall consist of four members, each with an alternate. One member and one alternate shall be appointed by each of the Signatories. The alternates shall, so far as they are able, be present at all sessions of the Tribunal. In case of illness of any member of the Tribunal or his incapacity for some other reason to fulfill his functions, his alternate shall take his place.
=Article 3.= Neither the Tribunal, its members nor their alternates can be challenged by the prosecution, or by the Defendants or their Counsel. Each Signatory may replace its member of the Tribunal or his alternate for reasons of health or for other good reasons, except that no replacement may take place during a Trial, other than by an alternate.
=Article 4.=
(_a_) The presence of all four members of the Tribunal or the alternate for any absent member shall be necessary to constitute the quorum.
(_b_) The members of the Tribunal shall, before any trial begins, agree among themselves upon the selection from their number of a President, and the President shall hold office during that trial, or as may otherwise be agreed by a vote of not less than three members. The principle of rotation of presidency for successive trials is agreed. If, however, a session of the Tribunal takes place on the territory of one of the four Signatories, the representative of that Signatory on the Tribunal shall preside.
(_c_) Save as aforesaid the Tribunal shall take decisions by a majority vote and in case the votes are evenly divided, the vote of the President shall be decisive: provided always that convictions and sentences shall only be imposed by affirmative votes of at least three members of the Tribunal.
=Article 5.= In case of need and depending on the number of the matters to be tried, other Tribunals may be set up; and the establishment, functions, and procedure of each Tribunal shall be identical, and shall be governed by this Charter.
II. JURISDICTION AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES
=Article 6.= The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:
(_a_) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of International treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(_b_) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(_c_) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.[1]
Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
=Article 7.= The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.
=Article 8.= The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires.
=Article 9.= At the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the Tribunal may declare (in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted) that the group or organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal organization.
After receipt of the Indictment the Tribunal shall give such notice as it thinks fit that the prosecution intends to ask the Tribunal to make such declaration and any member of the organization will be entitled to apply to the Tribunal for leave to be heard by the Tribunal upon the question of the criminal character of the organization. The Tribunal shall have power to allow or reject the application. If the application is allowed, the Tribunal may direct in what manner the applicants shall be represented and heard.
=Article 10.= In cases where a group or organization is declared criminal by the Tribunal, the competent national authority of any Signatory shall have the right to bring individuals to trial for membership therein before national, military or occupation courts. In any such case the criminal nature of the group or organization is considered proved and shall not be questioned.
=Article 11.= Any person convicted by the Tribunal may be charged before a national, military or occupation court, referred to in Article 10 of this Charter, with a crime other than of membership in a criminal group or organization and such court may, after convicting him, impose upon him punishment independent of and additional to the punishment imposed by the Tribunal for participation in the criminal activities of such group or organization.
=Article 12.= The Tribunal shall have the right to take proceedings against a person charged with crimes set out in Article 6 of this Charter in his absence, if he has not been found or if the Tribunal, for any reason, finds it necessary, in the interests of justice, to conduct the hearing in his absence.
=Article 13.= The Tribunal shall draw up rules for its procedure. These rules shall not be inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter.
III. COMMITTEE FOR THE INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS
=Article 14.= Each Signatory shall appoint a Chief Prosecutor for the investigation of the charges against and the prosecution of major war criminals.
The Chief Prosecutors shall act as a committee for the following purposes:
(_a_) to agree upon a plan of the individual work of each of the Chief Prosecutors and his staff,
(_b_) to settle the final designation of major war criminals to be tried by the Tribunal,
(_c_) to improve the Indictment and the documents to be submitted therewith,
(_d_) to lodge the Indictment and the accompanying documents with the Tribunal,
(_e_) to draw up and recommend to the Tribunal for its approval draft rules of procedure, contemplated by Article 13 of this Charter. The Tribunal shall have power to accept, with or without amendments, or to reject, the rules so recommended.
The Committee shall act in all the above matters by a majority vote and shall appoint a Chairman as may be convenient and in accordance with the principle of rotation: provided that if there is an equal division of vote concerning the designation of a Defendant to be tried by the Tribunal, or the crimes with which he shall be charged, that proposal will be adopted which was made by the party which proposed that the particular Defendant be tried, or the particular charges be preferred against him.
=Article 15.= The Chief Prosecutors shall individually, and acting in collaboration with one another, also undertake the following duties:
(_a_) investigation, collection, and production before or at the Trial of all necessary evidence,
(_b_) the preparation of the Indictment for approval by the Committee in accordance with paragraph (_c_) of Article 14 hereof,
(_c_) the preliminary examination of all necessary witnesses and of the Defendants,
(_d_) to act as prosecutor at the Trial,
(_e_) to appoint representatives to carry out such duties as may be assigned to them,
(_f_) to undertake such other matters as may appear necessary to them for the purposes of the preparation for and conduct of the Trial.
It is understood that no witness or Defendant detained by any Signatory shall be taken out of the possession of that Signatory without its assent.
IV. FAIR TRIAL FOR DEFENDANTS
=Article 16.= In order to ensure fair trial for the Defendants, the following procedure shall be followed:
(_a_) The Indictment shall include full particulars specifying in detail the charges against the Defendants. A copy of the Indictment and of all the documents lodged with the Indictment, translated into a language which he understands, shall be furnished to the Defendant at a reasonable time before the Trial.
(_b_) During any preliminary examination or trial of a Defendant he shall have the right to give any explanation relevant to the charges made against him.
(_c_) A preliminary examination of a Defendant and his Trial shall be conducted in, or translated into, a language which the Defendant understands.
(_d_) A defendant shall have the right to conduct his own defense before the Tribunal or to have the assistance of Counsel.
(_e_) A defendant shall have the right through himself or through his Counsel to present evidence at the Trial in support of his defense, and to cross-examine any witness called by the Prosecution.
V. POWERS OF THE TRIBUNAL AND CONDUCT OF THE TRIAL
=Article 17.= The Tribunal shall have the power
(_a_) to summon witnesses to the Trial and to require their attendance and testimony and to put questions to them,
(_b_) to interrogate any Defendant,
(_c_) to require the production of documents and other evidentiary material,
(_d_) to administer oaths to witnesses,
(_e_) to appoint officers for the carrying out of any task designated by the Tribunal including the power to have evidence taken on commission.
=Article 18.= The Tribunal shall
(_a_) confine the Trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the issues raised by the charges,
(_b_) take strict measures to prevent any action which will cause unreasonable delay, and rule out irrelevant issues and statements of any kind whatsoever,
(_c_) deal summarily with any contumacy, imposing appropriate punishment, including exclusion of any Defendant or his Counsel from some or all further proceedings, but without prejudice to the determination of the charges.
=Article 19.= The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value.
=Article 20.= The Tribunal may require to be informed of the nature of any evidence before it is offered so that it may rule upon the relevance thereof.
=Article 21.= The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take Judicial notice thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other Tribunals of any of the United Nations.
=Article 22.= The permanent seat of the Tribunal shall be in Berlin. The first meetings of the members of the Tribunal and of the Chief Prosecutors shall be held at Berlin in a place to be designated by the Control Council for Germany. The first trial shall be held at Nuremberg, and any subsequent trials shall be held at such places as the Tribunal may decide.
=Article 23.= One or more of the Chief Prosecutors may take part in the prosecution at each Trial. The function of any Chief Prosecutor may be discharged by him personally, or by any person or persons authorized by him.
The function of Counsel for a Defendant may be discharged at the Defendant’s request by any Counsel professionally qualified to conduct cases before the Courts of his own country, or by any other person who may be specially authorized thereto by the Tribunal.
=Article 24.= The proceedings at the Trial shall take the following course:
(_a_) The Indictment shall be read in court.
(_b_) The Tribunal shall ask each Defendant whether he pleads “guilty” or “not guilty”.
(_c_) The Prosecution shall make an opening statement.
(_d_) The Tribunal shall ask the Prosecution and the Defense what evidence (if any) they wish to submit to the Tribunal, and the Tribunal shall rule upon the admissibility of any such evidence.
(_e_) The witnesses for the Prosecution shall be examined and after that the witnesses for the Defense. Thereafter such rebutting evidence as may be held by the Tribunal to be admissible shall be called by either the Prosecution or the Defense.
(_f_) The Tribunal may put any question to any witness and to any Defendant, at any time.
(_g_) The Prosecution and the Defense shall interrogate and may cross-examine any witnesses and any Defendant who gives testimony.
(_h_) The Defense shall address the court.
(_i_) The Prosecution shall address the court.
(_j_) Each Defendant may make a statement to the Tribunal.
(_k_) The Tribunal shall deliver judgment and pronounce sentence.
=Article 25.= All official documents shall be produced, and all court proceedings conducted, in English, French and Russian, and in the language of the Defendant. So much of the record and of the proceedings may also be translated into the language of any country in which the Tribunal is sitting, as the Tribunal considers desirable in the interests of justice and public opinion.
VI. JUDGMENT AND SENTENCE
=Article 26.= The judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any Defendant shall give the reasons on which it is based, and shall be final and not subject to review.
=Article 27.= The Tribunal shall have the right to impose upon a Defendant, on conviction, death or such other punishment as shall be determined by it to be just.
=Article 28.= In addition to any punishment imposed by it, the Tribunal shall have the right to deprive the convicted person of any stolen property and order its delivery to the Control Council for Germany.
=Article 29.= In case of guilt, sentences shall be carried out in accordance with the orders of the Control Council for Germany, which may at any time reduce or otherwise alter the sentences, but may not increase the severity thereof. If the Control Council for Germany, after any Defendant has been convicted and sentenced, discovers fresh evidence which, in its opinion, would found a fresh charge against him, the Council shall report accordingly to the Committee established under Article 14 hereof, for such action as they may consider proper, having regard to the interests of justice.
VII. EXPENSES
=Article 30.= The expenses of the Tribunal and of the Trials, shall be charged by the Signatories against the funds allotted for maintenance of the Control Council for Germany.
* * * * *
_PROTOCOL_
Whereas an Agreement and Charter regarding the Prosecution of War Criminals was signed in London on the 8th August 1945, in the English, French, and Russian languages.
And whereas a discrepancy has been found to exist between the originals of Article 6, paragraph (_c_), of the Charter in the Russian language, on the one hand, and the originals in the English and French languages, on the other, to wit, the semi-colon in Article 6, paragraph (_c_), of the Charter between the words “war” and “or”, as carried in the English and French texts, is a comma in the Russian text.
and whereas it is desired to rectify this discrepancy:
NOW, THEREFORE, the undersigned, signatories of the said Agreement on behalf of their respective Governments, duly authorized thereto, have agreed that Article 6, paragraph (_c_), of the Charter in the Russian text is correct, and that the meaning and intention of the Agreement and Charter require that the said semi-colon in the English text should be changed to a comma, and that the French text should be amended to read as follows:
(_c_) LES CRIMES CONTRE L’HUMANITE: c’est à dire l’assassinat, l’extermination, la réduction en esclavage, la déportation, et tout autre acte inhumain commis contre toutes populations civiles, avant ou pendant la guerre, ou bien les persécutions pour des motifs politiques, raciaux, ou réligieux, lorsque ces actes ou persécutions, qu’ils aient constitué ou non une violation du droit interne du pays où ils ont été perpétrés, ont été commis à la suite de tout crime rentrant dans la compétence du Tribunal, ou en liaison avec ce crime.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the Undersigned have signed the present Protocol.
DONE in quadruplicate in Berlin this 6th day of October, 1945, each in English, French, and Russian, and each text to have equal authenticity.
For the Government of the United States of America
ROBERT H. JACKSON
For the Provisional Government of the French Republic
FRANÇOIS DE MENTHON
For the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
HARTLEY SHAWCROSS
For the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
R. RUDENKO
[1] See proctocol p. XV for correction of this paragraph.
* * * * *
CONTROL COUNCIL LAW NO. 10
_PUNISHMENT OF PERSONS GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST PEACE AND AGAINST HUMANITY_
In order to give effect to the terms of the Moscow Declaration of 30 October 1943 and the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, and the Charter issued pursuant thereto and in order to establish a uniform legal basis in Germany for the prosecution of war criminals and other similar offenders, other than those dealt with by the International Military Tribunal, the Control Council enacts as follows:
Article I
The Moscow Declaration of 30 October 1943 “Concerning Responsibility of Hitlerites for Committed Atrocities” and the London Agreement of 8 August 1945 “Concerning Prosecution and Punishment of Major War Criminals of the European Axis” are made integral parts of this Law. Adherence to the provisions of the London Agreement by any of the United Nations, as provided for in Article V of that Agreement, shall not entitle such Nation to participate or interfere in the operation of this Law within the Control Council area of authority in Germany.
Article II
1. Each of the following acts is recognized as a crime:
(_a_) _Crimes against Peace._ Initiation of invasions of other countries and wars of aggression in violation of international laws and treaties, including but not limited to planning, preparation, initiation or waging a war of aggression, or a war of violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.
(_b_) _War Crimes._ Atrocities or offences against persons or property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including but not limited to, murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose, of civilian population from occupied territory, murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(_c_) _Crimes against Humanity._ Atrocities and offences, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds whether or not in violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated.
(_d_) Membership in categories of a criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal.
2. Any person without regard to nationality or the capacity in which he acted, is deemed to have committed a crime as defined in paragraph 1 of this Article, if he was (_a_) a principal or (_b_) was an accessory to the commission of any such crime or ordered or abetted the same or (_c_) took a consenting part therein or (_d_) was connected with plans or enterprises involving its commission or (_e_) was a member of any organization or group connected with the commission of any such crime or (_f_) with reference to paragraph 1 (_a_), if he held a high political, civil or military (including General Staff) position in Germany or in one of its Allies, co-belligerents or satellites or held high position in the financial, industrial or economic life of any such country.
3. Any person found guilty of any of the Crimes above mentioned may upon conviction be punished as shall be determined by the tribunal to be just. Such punishment may consist of one or more of the following:
(_a_) Death.
(_b_) Imprisonment for life or a term of years, with or without hard labour.
(_c_) Fine, and imprisonment with or without hard labour, in lieu, thereof.
(_d_) Forfeiture of property.
(_e_) Restitution of property wrongfully acquired.
(_f_) Deprivation of some or all civil rights.
Any property declared to be forfeited or the restitution of which is ordered by the Tribunal shall be delivered to the Control Council for Germany, which shall decide on its disposal.
4. (_a_) The official position of any person, whether as Head of State or as a responsible official in a Government Department, does not free him from responsibility for a crime or entitle him to mitigation of punishment.
(_b_) The fact that any person acted pursuant to the order of his Government or of a superior does not free him from responsibility for a crime, but may be considered in mitigation.
5. In any trial or prosecution for a crime herein referred to, the accused shall not be entitled to the benefits of any statute of limitation in respect of the period from 30 January 1933 to 1 July 1945, nor shall any immunity, pardon or amnesty granted under the Nazi regime be admitted as a bar to trial or punishment.
Article III
1. Each occupying authority, within its Zone of occupation,
(_a_) shall have the right to cause persons within such Zone suspected of having committed a crime, including those charged with crime by one of the United Nations, to be arrested and shall take under control the property, real and personal, owned or controlled by the said persons, pending decisions as to its eventual disposition.
(_b_) shall report to the Legal Directorate the names of all suspected criminals, the reasons for and the places of their detention, if they are detained, and the names and location of witnesses.
(_c_) shall take appropriate measures to see that witnesses and evidence will be available when required.
(_d_) shall have the right to cause all persons so arrested and charged, and not delivered to another authority as herein provided, or released, to be brought to trial before an appropriate tribunal. Such tribunal may, in the case of crimes committed by persons of German citizenship or nationality against other persons of German citizenship or nationality, or stateless persons, be a German Court, if authorized by the occupying authorities.
2. The tribunal by which persons charged with offenses hereunder shall be tried and the rules and procedure thereof shall be determined or designated by each Zone Commander for his respective Zone. Nothing herein is intended to, or shall impair or limit the jurisdiction or power of any court or tribunal now or hereafter established in any Zone by the Commander thereof, or of the International Military Tribunal established by the London Agreement of 8 August 1945.
3. Persons wanted for trial by an International Military Tribunal will not be tried without the consent of the Committee of Chief Prosecutors. Each Zone Commander will deliver such persons who are within his Zone to that committee upon request and will make witnesses and evidence available to it.
4. Persons known to be wanted for trial in another Zone or outside Germany will not be tried prior to decision under Article IV unless the fact of their apprehension has been reported in accordance with Section 1 (_b_) of this Article, three months have elapsed thereafter, and no request for delivery of the type contemplated by Article IV has been received by the Zone Commander concerned.
5. The execution of death sentences may be deferred by not to exceed one month after the sentence has become final when the Zone Commander concerned has reason to believe that the testimony of those under sentence would be of value in the investigation and trial of crimes within or without his Zone.
6. Each Zone Commander will cause such effect to be given to the judgments of courts of competent jurisdiction, with respect to the property taken under his control pursuant hereto, as he may deem proper in the interest of justice.
Article IV
1. When any person in a Zone in Germany is alleged to have committed a crime, as defined in Article II, in a country other than Germany or in another Zone, the government of that nation or the Commander of the latter Zone, as the case may be, may request the Commander of the Zone in which the person is located for his arrest and delivery for trial to the country or Zone in which the crime was committed. Such request for delivery shall be granted by the Commander receiving it unless he believes such person is wanted for trial or as a witness by an International Military Tribunal, or in Germany, or in a nation other than the one making the request, or the Commander is not satisfied that delivery should be made, in any of which cases he shall have the right to forward the said request to the Legal Directorate of the Allied Control Authority. A similar procedure shall apply to witnesses, material exhibits and other forms of evidence.
2. The Legal Directorate shall consider all requests referred to it, and shall determine the same in accordance with the following principles, its determination to be communicated to the Zone Commander.
(_a_) A person wanted for trial or as a witness by an International Military Tribunal shall not be delivered for trial or required to give evidence outside Germany, as the case may be, except upon approval of the Committee of Chief Prosecutors acting under the London Agreement of 8 August 1945.
(_b_) A person wanted for trial by several authorities (other than an International Military Tribunal) shall be disposed of in accordance with the following priorities:
(1) If wanted for trial in the Zone in which he is, he should not be delivered unless arrangements are made for his return after trial elsewhere;
(2) If wanted for trial in a Zone other than that in which he is, he should be delivered to that Zone in preference to delivery outside Germany unless arrangements are made for his return to that Zone after trial elsewhere;
(3) If wanted for trial outside Germany by two or more of the United Nations, of one of which he is a citizen, that one should have priority;
(4) If wanted for trial outside Germany by several countries, not all of which are United Nations, United Nations should have priority;
(5) If wanted for trial outside Germany by two or more of the United Nations, then, subject to Article IV 2 (_b_) (3) above, that which has the most serious charges against him, which are moreover supported by evidence, should have priority.
Article V
The delivery, under Article IV of this Law, of persons for trial shall be made on demands of the Governments or Zone Commanders in such a manner that the delivery of criminals to one jurisdiction will not become the means of defeating or unnecessarily delaying the carrying out of justice in another place. If within six months the delivered person has not been convicted by the Court of the zone or country to which he has been delivered, then such person shall be returned upon demand of the Commander of the Zone where the person was located prior to delivery.
Done at Berlin, 20 December 1945.
JOSEPH T. MCNARNEY General B. L. MONTGOMERY Field Marshal L. KOELTZ General de Corps d’Armée for P. KOENIG General d’Armée G. ZHUKOV Marshal of the Soviet Union
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9679
=Amendment of Executive Order No. 9547 of May 2, 1945, Entitled “Providing for Representation of the United States in Preparing and Prosecuting Charges of Atrocities and War Crimes Against the Leaders of the European Axis Powers and Their Principal Agents and Accessories”=
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, under the Constitution and statutes of the United States, it is ordered as follows:
1. In addition to the authority vested in the Representative of the United States and its Chief of Counsel by Paragraph 1 of Executive Order No. 9547 of May 2, 1945, to prepare and prosecute charges of atrocities and war crimes against such of the leaders of the European Axis powers and their accessories as the United States may agree with any of the United Nations to bring to trial before an international military tribunal, such Representative and Chief of Counsel shall have the authority to proceed before United States military or occupation tribunals, in proper cases, against other Axis adherents, including but not limited to cases against members of groups and organizations declared criminal by the said international military tribunal.
2. The present Representative and Chief of Counsel is authorized to designate a Deputy Chief of Counsel, to whom he may assign responsibility for organizing and planning the prosecution of charges of atrocities and war crimes, other than those now being prosecuted as Case No. 1 in the international military tribunal, and, as he may be directed by the Chief of Counsel, for conducting the prosecution of such charges of atrocities and war crimes.
3. Upon vacation of office by the present Representative and Chief of Counsel, the functions, duties, and powers of the Representative of the United States and its Chief of Counsel, as specified in the said Executive Order No. 9547 of May 2, 1945, as amended by this order, shall be vested in a Chief of Counsel for War Crimes to be appointed by the United States Military Governor for Germany or by his successor.
4. The said Executive Order No. 9547 of May 2, 1945, is amended accordingly.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
THE WHITE HOUSE,
_January 16, 1946_. (F. R. Doc. 46-893; Filed, Jan. 17, 1946; 11:08 a. m.)
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HEADQUARTERS
US FORCES, EUROPEAN THEATER
GENERAL ORDERS } 24 OCTOBER 1946 No. 301 }
Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes I Chief Prosecutor II Announcement of Assignments III
_I_——_OFFICE OF CHIEF OF COUNSEL FOR WAR CRIMES._ Effective this date, the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes is transferred to the Office of Military Government for Germany (US). The Chief of Counsel for War Crimes will report directly to the Deputy Military Governor and will work in close liaison with the Legal Adviser of the Office of Military Government for Germany and with the Theater Judge Advocate.
_II_——_CHIEF PROSECUTOR._ Effective this date, the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes will also serve as Chief Prosecutor under the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, established by the Agreement of 8 August 1945.
_III_——_ANNOUNCEMENT OF ASSIGNMENTS._ Effective this date, Brigadier General Telford Taylor, USA, is announced as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, in which capacity he will also serve as Chief Prosecutor for the United States under the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, established by the Agreement of 8 August 1945.
BY COMMAND OF GENERAL MCNARNEY:
C. R. HUEBNER _Major General, GSC,_ _Chief of Staff_
OFFICIAL: GEORGE F. HERBERT _Colonel_, AGD _Adjutant General_
DISTRIBUTION: D
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MILITARY GOVERNMENT—GERMANY UNITED STATES ZONE ORDINANCE NO. 7
_ORGANIZATION AND POWERS OF CERTAIN MILITARY TRIBUNALS_
Article I
The purpose of this Ordinance is to provide for the establishment of military tribunals which shall have power to try and punish persons charged with offenses recognized as crimes in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, including conspiracies to commit any such crimes. Nothing herein shall prejudice the jurisdiction or the powers of other courts established or which may be established for the trial of any such offenses.
Article II
(_a_) Pursuant to the powers of the Military Governor for the United States Zone of Occupation within Germany and further pursuant to the powers conferred upon the Zone Commander by Control Council Law No. 10 and Articles 10 and 11 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal annexed to the London Agreement of 8 August 1945 certain tribunals to be known as “Military Tribunals” shall be established hereunder.
(_b_) Each such tribunal shall consist of three or more members to be designated by the Military Governor. One alternate member may be designated to any tribunal if deemed advisable by the Military Governor. Except as provided in subsection (_c_) of this Article, all members and alternates shall be lawyers who have been admitted to practice, for at least five years, in the highest courts of one of the United States or its territories or of the District of Columbia, or who have been admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court.
(_c_) The Military Governor may in his discretion enter into an agreement with one or more other zone commanders of the member nations of the Allied Control Authority providing for the joint trial of any case or cases. In such cases the tribunals shall consist of three or more members as may be provided in the agreement. In such cases the tribunals may include properly qualified lawyers designated by the other member nations.
(_d_) The Military Governor shall designate one of the members of the tribunal to serve as the presiding judge.
(_e_) Neither the tribunals nor the members of the tribunals or the alternates may be challenged by the prosecution or by the defendants or their counsel.
(_f_) In case of illness of any member of a tribunal or his incapacity for some other reason, the alternate, if one has been designated, shall take his place as a member in the pending trial. Members may be replaced for reasons of health or for other good reasons, except that no replacement of a member may take place, during a trial, other than by the alternate. If no alternate has been designated, the trial shall be continued to conclusion by the remaining members.
(_g_) The presence of three members of the tribunal or of two members when authorized pursuant to subsection (_f_) _supra_ shall be necessary to constitute a quorum. In the case of tribunals designated under (_c_) above the agreement shall determine the requirements for a quorum.
(_h_) Decisions and judgments, including convictions and sentences, shall be by majority vote of the members. If the votes of the members are equally divided, the presiding member shall declare a mistrial.
Article III
(_a_) Charges against persons to be tried in the tribunals established hereunder shall originate in the Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, appointed by the Military Governor pursuant to paragraph 3 of the Executive Order Numbered 9679 of the President of the United States dated 16 January 1946. The Chief of Counsel for War Crimes shall determine the persons to be tried by the tribunals and he or his designated representative shall file the indictments with the Secretary General of the tribunals (see Article XIV, _infra_) and shall conduct the prosecution.
(_b_) The Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, when in his judgment it is advisable, may invite one or more United Nations to designate representatives to participate in the prosecution of any case.
Article IV
In order to ensure fair trial for the defendants, the following procedure shall be followed:
(_a_) A defendant shall be furnished, at a reasonable time before his trial, a copy of the indictment and of all documents lodged with the indictment, translated into a language which he understands. The indictment shall state the charges plainly, concisely and with sufficient particulars to inform defendant of the offenses charged.
(_b_) The trial shall be conducted in, or translated into, a language which the defendant understands.
(_c_) A defendant shall have the right to be represented by counsel of his own selection, provided such counsel shall be a person qualified under existing regulations to conduct cases before the courts of defendant’s country, or any other person who may be specially authorized by the tribunal. The tribunal shall appoint qualified counsel to represent a defendant who is not represented by counsel of his own selection.
(_d_) Every defendant shall be entitled to be present at his trial except that a defendant may be proceeded against during temporary absences if in the opinion of the tribunal defendant’s interests will not thereby be impaired, and except further as provided in Article VI (_c_). The tribunal may also proceed in the absence of any defendant who has applied for and has been granted permission to be absent.
(_e_) A defendant shall have the right through his counsel to present evidence at the trial in support of his defense, and to cross examine any witness called by the prosecution.
(_f_) A defendant may apply in writing to the tribunal for the production of witnesses or of documents. The application shall state where the witness or document is thought to be located and shall also state the facts to be proved by the witness or the document and the relevancy of such facts to the defense. If the tribunal grants the application, the defendant shall be given such aid in obtaining production of evidence as the tribunal may order.
Article V
The tribunals shall have the power
(_a_) to summon witnesses to the trial, to require their attendance and testimony and to put questions to them;
(_b_) to interrogate any defendant who takes the stand to testify in his own behalf, or who is called to testify regarding another defendant;
(_c_) to require the production of documents and other evidentiary material;
(_d_) to administer oaths;
(_e_) to appoint officers for the carrying out of any task designated by the tribunals including the taking of evidence on commission;
(_f_) to adopt rules of procedure not inconsistent with this Ordinance. Such rules shall be adopted, and from time to time as necessary, revised by the members of the tribunal or by the committee of presiding judges as provided in Article XIII.
Article VI
The tribunals shall
(_a_) confine the trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the issues raised by the charges;
(_b_) take strict measures to prevent any action which will cause unreasonable delay, and rule out irrelevant issues and statements of any kind whatsoever;
(_c_) deal summarily with any contumacy, imposing appropriate punishment, including the exclusion of any defendant or his counsel from some or all further proceedings, but without prejudice to the determination of the charges.
Article VII
The tribunals shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. They shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which they deem to have probative value. Without limiting the foregoing general rules, the following shall be deemed admissible if they appear to the tribunal to contain information of probative value relating to the charges: affidavits, depositions, interrogations, and other statements, diaries, letters, the records, findings, statements and judgments of the military tribunals and the reviewing and confirming authorities of any of the United Nations, and copies of any document or other secondary evidence of the contents of any document, if the original is not readily available or cannot be produced without delay. The tribunal shall afford the opposing party such opportunity to question the authenticity or probative value of such evidence as in the opinion of the tribunal the ends of justice require.
Article VIII
The tribunals may require that they be informed of the nature of any evidence before it is offered so that they may rule upon the relevance thereof.
Article IX
The tribunals shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. They shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of any of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations.
Article X
The determinations of the International Military Tribunal in the judgments in Case No. 1 that invasions, aggressive acts, aggressive wars, crimes, atrocities or inhumane acts were planned or occurred, shall be binding on the tribunals established hereunder and shall not be questioned except insofar as the participation therein or knowledge thereof by any particular person may be concerned. Statements of the International Military Tribunal in the judgment in Case No. 1 constitute proof of the facts stated, in the absence of substantial new evidence to the contrary.
Article XI
The proceedings at the trial shall take the following course:
(_a_) The tribunal shall inquire of each defendant whether he has received and had an opportunity to read the indictment against him and whether he pleads “guilty” or “not guilty.”
(_b_) The prosecution may make an opening statement.
(_c_) The prosecution shall produce its evidence subject to the cross examination of its witnesses.
(_d_) The defense may make an opening statement.
(_e_) The defense shall produce its evidence subject to the cross examination of its witnesses.
(_f_) Such rebutting evidence as may be held by the tribunal to be material may be produced by either the prosecution or the defense.
(_g_) The defense shall address the court.
(_h_) The prosecution shall address the court.
(_i_) Each defendant may make a statement to the tribunal.
(_j_) The tribunal shall deliver judgment and pronounce sentence.
Article XII
A Central Secretariat to assist the tribunals to be appointed hereunder shall be established as soon as practicable. The main office of the Secretariat shall be located in Nuernberg. The Secretariat shall consist of a Secretary General and such assistant secretaries, military officers, clerks, interpreters and other personnel as may be necessary.
Article XIII
The Secretary General shall be appointed by the Military Governor and shall organize and direct the work of the Secretariat. He shall be subject to the supervision of the members of the tribunals, except that when at least three tribunals shall be functioning, the presiding judges of the several tribunals may form the supervisory committee.
Article XIV
The Secretariat shall:
(_a_) Be responsible for the administrative and supply needs of the Secretariat and of the several tribunals.
(_b_) Receive all documents addressed to tribunals.
(_c_) Prepare and recommend uniform rules of procedure, not inconsistent with the provisions of this Ordinance.
(_d_) Secure such information for the tribunals as may be needed for the approval or appointment of defense counsel.
(_e_) Serve as liaison between the prosecution and defense counsel.
(_f_) Arrange for aid to be given defendants and the prosecution in obtaining production of witnesses or evidence as authorized by the tribunals.
(_g_) Be responsible for the preparation of the records of the proceedings before the tribunals.
(_h_) Provide the necessary clerical, reporting and interpretative services to the tribunals and its members, and perform such other duties as may be required for the efficient conduct of the proceedings before the tribunals, or as may be requested by any of the tribunals.
Article XV
The judgments of the tribunals as to the guilt or the innocence of any defendant shall give the reasons on which they are based and shall be final and not subject to review. The sentences imposed may be subject to review as provided in Article XVII, _infra_.
Article XVI
The tribunal shall have the right to impose upon the defendant, upon conviction, such punishment as shall be determined by the tribunal to be just, which may consist of one or more of the penalties provided in Article II, Section 3 of Control Council Law No. 10.
Article XVII
(_a_) Except as provided in (_b_) _infra_, the record of each case shall be forwarded to the Military Governor who shall have the power to mitigate, reduce or otherwise alter the sentence imposed by the tribunal, but may not increase the severity thereof.
(_b_) In cases tried before tribunals authorized by Article II (_c_), the sentence shall be reviewed jointly by the zone commanders of the nations involved, who mitigate, reduce or otherwise alter the sentence by majority vote, but may not increase the severity thereof. If only two nations are represented, the sentence may be altered only by the consent of both zone commanders.
Article XVIII
No sentence of death shall be carried into execution unless and until confirmed in writing by the Military Governor. In accordance with Article III, Section 5 of Law No. 10, execution of the death sentence may be deferred by not to exceed one month after such confirmation if there is reason to believe that the testimony of the convicted person may be of value in the investigation and trial of other crimes.
Article XIX
Upon the pronouncement of a death sentence by a tribunal established thereunder and pending confirmation thereof, the condemned will be remanded to the prison or place where he was confined and there be segregated from the other inmates, or be transferred to a more appropriate place of confinement.
Article XX
Upon the confirmation of a sentence of death the Military Governor will issue the necessary orders for carrying out the execution.
Article XXI
Where sentence of confinement for a term of years has been imposed the condemned shall be confined in the manner directed by the tribunal imposing sentence. The place of confinement may be changed from time to time by the Military Governor.
Article XXII
Any property declared to be forfeited or the restitution of which is ordered by a tribunal shall be delivered to the Military Governor, for disposal in accordance with Control Council Law No. 10, Article II (3).
Article XXIII
Any of the duties and functions of the Military Governor provided for herein may be delegated to the Deputy Military Governor. Any of the duties and functions of the Zone Commander provided for herein may be exercised by and in the name of the Military Governor and may be delegated to the Deputy Military Governor.
This Ordinance becomes effective 18 October 1946. BY ORDER OF MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
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MILITARY GOVERNMENT—GERMANY ORDINANCE NO. 11
_AMENDING MILITARY GOVERNMENT ORDINANCE NO. 7 OF 18 OCTOBER 1946, ENTITLED “ORGANIZATION AND POWERS OF CERTAIN MILITARY TRIBUNALS”_
Article I
Article V of Ordinance No. 7 is amended by adding thereto a new subdivision to be designated “(_g_)”, reading as follows:
“(_g_) The presiding judges, and, when established, the supervisory committee of presiding judges provided in Article XIII shall assign the cases brought by the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes to the various Military Tribunals for trial.”
Article II
Ordinance No. 7 is amended by adding thereto a new article following Article V to be designated Article V-B, reading as follows:
“(_a_) A joint session of the Military Tribunals may be called by any of the presiding judges thereof or upon motion, addressed to each of the Tribunals, of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes or of counsel for any defendant whose interests are affected, to hear argument upon and to review any interlocutory ruling by any of the Military Tribunals on a fundamental or important legal question either substantive or procedural, which ruling is in conflict with or is inconsistent with a prior ruling of another of the Military Tribunals.
“(_b_) A joint session of the Military Tribunals may be called in the same manner as provided in subsection (_a_) of this Article to hear argument upon and to review conflicting or inconsistent final rulings contained in the decisions or judgments of any of the Military Tribunals on a fundamental or important legal question, either substantive or procedural. Any motion with respect to such final ruling shall be filed within ten (10) days following the issuance of decision or judgment.
“(_c_) Decisions by joint sessions of the Military Tribunals, unless thereafter altered in another joint session, shall be binding upon all the Military Tribunals. In the case of the review of final rulings by joint sessions, the judgments reviewed may be confirmed or remanded for action consistent with the joint decision.
“(_d_) The presence of a majority of the members of each Military Tribunal then constituted is required to constitute a quorum.
“(_e_) The members of the Military Tribunals shall, before any joint session begins, agree among themselves upon the selection from their number of a member to preside over the joint session.
“(_f_) Decisions shall be by majority vote of the members. If the votes of the members are equally divided, the vote of the member presiding over the session shall be decisive.”
Article III
Subdivisions (_g_) and (_h_) of Article XI of Ordinance No. 7 are deleted; subdivision (_i_) is re-lettered “(_h_)”; subdivision (_j_) is relettered “(_i_)”; and a new subdivision, to be designated “(_g_)”, is added, reading as follows:
“(_g_) The prosecution and defense shall address the court in such order as the Tribunal may determine.”
This Ordinance becomes effective 17 February 1947. BY ORDER OF THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
OFFICIALS OF THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL
Secretaries General
MR. CHARLES E. SANDS From 25 October 1946 to 17 November 1946. MR. GEORGE M. READ From 18 November 1946 to 19 January 1947. MR. CHARLES E. SANDS From 20 January 1947 to 18 April 1947. COLONEL JOHN E. RAY From 19 April 1947 to 9 May 1948. DR. HOWARD H. RUSSELL From 10 May 1948 to 1 December 1949.
Deputy and Executive Secretaries General
MR. CHARLES E. SANDS Deputy from 18 November 1946 to 10 January 1947. JUDGE RICHARD D. DIXON Acting Deputy from 25 November 1946 to 5 March 1947. MR. HENRY A. HENDRY Deputy from 6 March 1947 to 9 May 1947. MR. HOMER B. MILLARD Executive Secretary General from 3 March 1947 to 5 October 1947. LIEUTENANT COLONEL HERBERT N. Executive Secretary General from 6 HOLSTEN October 1947 to 30 April 1949.
Assistant Secretaries General
[Since many trials were being held simultaneously, an Assistant Secretary General was designated by the Secretary General for each case. Assistant Secretaries General are listed with the members of each tribunal.]
Marshals of Military Tribunals
COLONEL CHARLES W. MAYS From 4 November 1946 to 5 September 1947. COLONEL SAMUEL L. METCALFE From 7 September 1947 to 29 August 1948. CAPTAIN KENYON S. JENCKES From 30 August 1948 to 30 April 1949.
Court Archives
MRS. BARBARA S. MANDELLAUR Chief from 21 February 1947 to 30 April 1949.
Defense Information Center
MR. LAMBERTUS WARTENA Defense Administrator from 3 March 1947 to 16 September 1947. LIEUTENANT COLONEL HERBERT N. Defense Administrator from 17 HOLSTEN September 1947 to 19 October 1947. MAJOR ROBERT G. SCHAEFER Defense Administrator from 20 October 1947 to 30 April 1949.
“The Medical Case”
MILITARY TRIBUNAL NO. 1
CASE 1
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
—against—
KARL BRANDT, SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER, PAUL ROSTOCK, OSKAR SCHROEDER, KARL GENZKEN, KARL GEBHARDT, KURT BLOME, RUDOLF BRANDT, JOACHIM MRUGOWSKY, HELMUT POPPENDICK, WOLFRAM SIEVERS, GERHARD ROSE, SIEGFRIED RUFF, HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG, =Viktor Brack=, HERMANN BECKER-FREYSENG, GEORG AUGUST WELTZ, =Konrad Schaefer=, WALDEMAR HOVEN, WILHELM BEIGLBOECK, =Adolf Pokorny=, HERTA OBERHEUSER, and FRITZ FISCHER, _Defendants_
INTRODUCTION
The “Doctors Trial” or “Medical Case”—officially designated _United States of America_ vs. _Karl Brandt_, _et al._ (Case No. 1)—was tried at the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg before Military Tribunal I. The Tribunal convened 139 times, and the duration of the trial is shown by the following schedule:
Indictment filed 25 October 1946 Indictment served 5 November 1946 Arraignment 21 November 1946 Prosecution opening statement 9 December 1946 Defense opening statement 29 January 1947 Prosecution closing statement 14 July 1947 Defense closing statements 14-18 July 1947 Judgment 19 August 1947 Sentences 20 August 1947 Affirmation of sentences by Military 25 November 1947 Commander of the United States Zone of Occupation Order of the United States Supreme Court 16 February 1948 denying writ of habeas corpus
The death sentences imposed on Karl Brandt, Rudolf Brandt, Karl Gebhardt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Viktor Brack, Wolfram Sievers, and Waldemar Hoven were put into execution on 2 June 1948.
The English transcript of the Court proceedings runs to 11,538 mimeographed pages. The prosecution introduced into evidence 570 written exhibits (some of which contained several documents), and the defense 901 written exhibits. The Tribunal heard oral testimony of 32 witnesses called by the prosecution and of 30 witnesses, excluding the defendants, called by the defense. Each of the 23 defendants testified in his own behalf, and each was subject to examination on behalf of other defendants. The exhibits offered by both the prosecution and defense contained documents, photographs, affidavits, interrogatories, letters, maps, charts, and other written evidence. The prosecution introduced 49 affidavits; the defense introduced 535 affidavits. The prosecution called 3 defense affiants for cross-examination; the defense called 13 prosecution affiants for cross-examination. The case-in-chief of the prosecution took 25 court days and the case for the 23 defendants took 107 court days. The Tribunal was in recess between 18 and 27 January 1947 to give the defense additional time to prepare its case. A further recess was taken from 3 to 14 July 1947 to allow both prosecution and defense time for the preparation of their closing arguments.
The members of the Tribunal and prosecution and defense counsel are listed on the ensuing pages. Prosecution counsel were assisted in preparing the case by Walter Rapp (Chief of the Evidence Division), Fred Rodell, Norbert Barr, and Herbert Meyer, interrogators, and Henry Sachs, Eleanor Anspacher, Nancy Fenstermacher, and Olga Lang, research and documentary analysts.
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Selection and arrangement of the “Medical Case” material published herein was accomplished principally by Arnost Horlik-Hochwald, working under the general supervision of Drexel A. Sprecher, Deputy Chief Counsel and Director of Publications, Office U. S. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes. Catherine W. Bedford, Henry Buxbaum, Emilie Evand, Gertrude Ferencz, Paul H. Gantt, Constance Gavares, Olga Lang, Helga Lund, Gwendoline Niebergall, Johanna K. Reischer, Hans Sachs, and Enid M. Standring assisted in selecting, compiling, editing, and indexing the numerous papers.
John H. E. Fried, Special Legal Consultant to the Tribunals, reviewed and approved the selection and arrangement of the material as the designated representative of the Nuernberg Tribunals.
Final compilation and editing of the manuscript for printing was administered by the War Crimes Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, under the direct supervision of Richard A. Olbeter, Chief, Special Projects Branch, with Alma Soller as editor and John W. Mosenthal as research analyst.
ORDER CONSTITUTING TRIBUNAL I
OFFICE OF MILITARY GOVERNMENT FOR GERMANY (U. S.) APO 742
GENERAL ORDERS } No. 68 } 26 October 1946
Pursuant to Military Government Ordinance No. 7
1. Pursuant to Military Government Ordinance No. 7, 24 October 1946, entitled “Organization and Powers of Certain Military Tribunals”, there is hereby constituted, Military Tribunal I.
2. The following are designated as members of Military Tribunal I:
WALTER B. BEALS Presiding Judge HAROLD L. SEBRING Judge JOHNSON TAL CRAWFORD Judge VICTOR C. SWEARINGEN Alternate Judge
3. The Tribunal shall convene at Nuernberg, Germany, to hear such cases as may be filed by the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes or by his duly designated representative.
4. This order is effective as of 25 October 1946.
BY COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL CLAY:
C. K. GAILEY _Brigadier General, USA_ _Chief of Staff_
OFFICIAL: G. H. GARDE _Lieutenant Colonel, AGD_ _Adjutant General_ DISTRIBUTION: “B” plus 2-NRU USFET
MEMBERS OF THE TRIBUNAL
JUDGE WALTER B. BEALS, Presiding Judge.
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Washington.
JUDGE HAROLD L. SEBRING, Member.
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida.
JUDGE JOHNSON T. CRAWFORD, Member.
Formerly Judge of a District Court of the State of Oklahoma.
JUDGE VICTOR C. SWEARINGEN, Alternate Member.
Formerly Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States.
ASSISTANT SECRETARIES GENERAL
MR. DEHULL N. TRAVIS From 21 November 1946 to 6 June 1947 MAJOR MILLS C. HATFIELD From 17 June 1947 to 14 July 1947 MISS M. A. ROYCE From 15 July 1947 to 20 August 1947
PROSECUTION COUNSEL
_Chief of Counsel_: BRIGADIER GENERAL TELFORD TAYLOR
_Chief Prosecutor_: MR. JAMES M. MCHANEY
_Associate Counsel_: MR. ALEXANDER G. HARDY MR. ARNOST HORLIK-HOCHWALD
_Assistant Counsel_: MR. GLEN J. BROWN MISS ESTHER J. JOHNSON MR. JACK W. ROBBINS MR. DANIEL J. SHILLER
DEFENSE COUNSEL
_Defendants_ _Defense Counsel_ _Associate Defense Counsel_ BRANDT, KARL DR. ROBERT SERVATIUS DR. RUDOLF SCHMIDT HANDLOSER, SIEGFRIED DR. OTTO NELTE ROSTOCK, PAUL DR. HANS PRIBILLA SCHROEDER, OSKAR DR. HANNS MARX DR. WALTER DEHNER GENZKEN, KARL DR. RUDOLF MERKEL DR. ALFRED BRENNER GEHARDT, KARL DR. ALFRED SEIDL DR. GEORG GIERL BLOME, KURT DR. FRITZ SAUTER BRANDT, RUDOLF DR. KURT KAUFFMANN MRUGOWSKY, JOACHIM DR. FRITZ FLEMMING POPPENDICK, HELMUT DR. GEORG BOEHM DR. HELMUT DUERR SIEVERS, WOLFRAM DR. JOSEF WEISGERBER DR. ERICH BERGLER ROSE, GERHARD DR. HANS FRITZ RUFF, SIEGFRIED DR. FRITZ SAUTER ROMBERG, HANS WOLFGANG DR. BERND VORWERK BRACK, VIKTOR DR. GEORG FROESCHMANN BECKER-FREYSENG, HERMANN DR. HANNS MARX DR. WALTER DEHNER WELTZ, GEORG AUGUST DR. SIEGFRIED WILLE SCHAEFER, KONRAD DR. HORST PELCKMANN HOVEN, WALDEMAR DR. HANS GAWLIK DR. GERHARD KLINNERT BEIGLBOECK, WILHELM DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER POKORNY, ADOLF DR. KARL HOFFMANN DR. HANS-GUNTHER SERAPHIM OBERHEUSER, HERTA DR. ALFRED SEIDL DR. GEORG GIERL FISCHER, FRITZ DR. ALFRED SEIDL DR. GEORG GIERL
I. INDICTMENT
The United States of America, by the undersigned Telford Taylor, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, duly appointed to represent said Government in the prosecution of war criminals, charges that the defendants herein participated in a common design or conspiracy to commit and did commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as defined in Control Council Law No. 10, duly enacted by the Allied Control Council on 20 December 1945. These crimes included murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhumane acts, as set forth in counts one, two, and three of this indictment. Certain defendants are further charged with membership in a criminal organization, as set forth in count four of this indictment.
The persons accused as guilty of these crimes and accordingly named as defendants in this case are—
KARL BRANDT—Personal physician to Adolf Hitler; Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant (Major General) in the Waffen SS; Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation (Reichskommissar fuer Sanitaets- und Gesundheitswesen); and member of the Reich Research Council (Reichsforschungsrat).
SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER—Generaloberstabsarzt (Lieutenant General, Medical Service); Medical Inspector of the Army (Heeressanitaetsinspekteur); and Chief of the Medical Services of the Armed Forces (Chef des Wehrmachtsanitaetswesens).
PAUL ROSTOCK—Chief Surgeon of the Surgical Clinic in Berlin; Surgical Adviser to the Army; and Chief of the Office for Medical Science and Research (Amtschef der Dienststelle Medizinische Wissenschaft und Forschung) under the defendant Karl Brandt, Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation.
OSKAR SCHROEDER—Generaloberstabsarzt (Lieutenant General Medical Service); Chief of Staff of the Inspectorate of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe (Chef des Stabes, Inspekteur des Luftwaffe-Sanitaetswesens); and Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe (Chef des Sanitaetswesens der Luftwaffe).
KARL GENZKEN—Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant (Major General) in the Waffen SS; and Chief of the Medical Department of the Waffen SS (Chef des Sanitaetsamts der Waffen SS).
KARL GERHARDT—Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant (Major General) in the Waffen SS; personal physician to Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler; Chief Surgeon of the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police (Oberster Kliniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei); and President of the German Red Cross. KURT BLOME—Deputy [of the] Reich Health Leader (Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer); and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council.
RUDOLF BRANDT—Standartenfuehrer (Colonel); in the Allgemeine SS; Personal Administrative Officer to Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler (Persoenlicher Referent von Himmler); and Ministerial Counsellor and Chief of the Ministerial Office in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
JOACHIM MRUGOWSKY—Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the Waffen SS; Chief Hygienist of the Reich Physician SS and Police (Oberster Hygieniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei); and Chief of the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen SS (Chef des Hygienischen Institutes der Waffen SS).
HELMUT POPPENDICK—Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the SS; and Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police (Chef des Persoenlichen Stabes des Reichsarztes SS und Polizei).
WOLFRAM SIEVERS—Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) in the SS; Reich Manager of the “Ahnenerbe” Society and Director of its Institute for Military Scientific Research (Institut fuer Wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung); and Deputy Chairman of the Managing Board of Directors of the Reich Research Council.
GERHARD ROSE—Generalarzt of the Luftwaffe (Brigadier General, Medical Service of the Air Force); Vice President, Chief of the Department for Tropical Medicine, and Professor of the Robert Koch Institute; and Hygienic Adviser for Tropical Medicine to the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.
SIEGFRIED RUFF—Director of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the German Experimental Institute for Aviation (Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fuer Luftfahrt).
HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG—Doctor on the Staff of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the German Experimental Institute for Aviation.
VIKTOR BRACK—Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the SS and Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) in the Waffen SS; and Chief Administrative Officer in the Chancellery of the Fuehrer of the NSDAP (Oberdienstleiter, Kanzlei des Fuehrers der NSDAP).
HERMANN BECKER-FREYSENG—Stabsarzt in the Luftwaffe (Captain, Medical Service of the Air Force); and Chief of the Department for Aviation Medicine of the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.
GEORG AUGUST WELTZ—Oberfeldarzt in the Luftwaffe (Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Service of the Air Force); and Chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich (Institut fuer Luftfahrtmedizin). KONRAD SCHAEFER—Doctor on the Staff of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin.
WALDEMAR HOVEN—Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain) in the Waffen SS; and Chief Doctor of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
WILHELM BEIGLBOECK—Consulting Physician to the Luftwaffe.
ADOLF POKORNY—Physician, Specialist in Skin and Venereal Diseases.
HERTA OBERHEUSER—Physician at the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp; and Assistant Physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the Hospital at Hohenlychen.
FRITZ FISCHER—Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) in the Waffen SS; and Assistant Physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the Hospital at Hohenlychen.
COUNT ONE—THE COMMON DESIGN OR CONSPIRACY
1. Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants herein, acting pursuant to a common design, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did conspire and agree together and with each other and with divers other persons, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as defined in Control Council Law No. 10, Article II.
2. Throughout the period covered by this indictment all of the defendants herein, acting in concert with each other and with others, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
3. All of the defendants herein, acting in concert with others for whose acts the defendants are responsible, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly participated as leaders, organizers, investigators, and accomplices in the formulation and execution of the said common design, conspiracy, plans, and enterprises to commit, and which involved the commission of, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
4. It was a part of the said common design, conspiracy, plans, and enterprises to perform medical experiments upon concentration camp inmates and other living human subjects, without their consent, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed the murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts, more fully described in counts two and three of this indictment.
5. The said common design, conspiracy, plans, and enterprises embraced the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as set forth in counts two and three of this indictment, in that the defendants unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly encouraged, aided, abetted, and participated in the subjection of thousands of persons, including civilians, and members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the German Reich, to murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts.
COUNT TWO—WAR CRIMES
6. Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants herein unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving medical experiments without the subjects’ consent, upon civilians and members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in exercise of belligerent control, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. Such experiments included, but were not limited to, the following:
(_A_) _High-Altitude Experiments._ From about March 1942 to about August 1942 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Air Force, to investigate the limits of human endurance and existence at extremely high altitudes. The experiments were carried out in a low-pressure chamber in which the atmospheric conditions and pressures prevailing at high altitude (up to 68,000 feet) could be duplicated. The experimental subjects were placed in the low-pressure chamber and thereafter the simulated altitude therein was raised. Many victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered grave injury, torture, and ill-treatment. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Ruff, Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_B_) _Freezing Experiments._ From about August 1942 to about May 1943 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp, primarily for the benefit of the German Air Force, to investigate the most effective means of treating persons who had been severely chilled or frozen. In one series of experiments the subjects were forced to remain in a tank of ice water for periods up to 3 hours. Extreme rigor developed in a short time. Numerous victims died in the course of these experiments. After the survivors were severely chilled, rewarming was attempted by various means. In another series of experiments, the subjects were kept naked outdoors for many hours at temperatures below freezing. The victims screamed with pain as parts of their bodies froze. The defendants Karl Brand, Handloser, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_C_) _Malaria Experiments._ From about February 1942 to about April 1945 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp in order to investigate immunization for and treatment of malaria. Healthy concentration-camp inmates were infected by mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the mucous glands of mosquitoes. After having contracted malaria the subjects were treated with various drugs to test their relative efficacy. Over 1,000 involuntary subjects were used in these experiments. Many of the victims died and others suffered severe pain and permanent disability. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Gebhardt, Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, and Sievers are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_D_) _Lost (Mustard) Gas Experiments._ At various times between September 1939 and April 1945 experiments were conducted at Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, and other concentration camps for the benefit of the German Armed Forces to investigate the most effective treatment of wounds caused by Lost gas. Lost is a poison gas which is commonly known as mustard gas. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the subjects were infected with Lost. Some of the subjects died as a result of these experiments and others suffered intense pain and injury. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Blome, Rostock, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, and Sievers are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_E_) _Sulfanilamide Experiments._ From about July 1942 to about September 1943 experiments to investigate the effectiveness of sulfanilamide were conducted at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for the benefit of the German Armed Forces. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the experimental subjects were infected with bacteria such as streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus. Circulation of blood was interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. Infection was aggravated by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into the wounds. The infection was treated with sulfanilamide and other drugs to determine their effectiveness. Some subjects died as a result of these experiments and others suffered serious injury and intense agony. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Genzken, Gebhardt, Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Becker-Freyseng, Oberheuser, and Fischer are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_F_) _Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation Experiments._ From about September 1942 to about December 1943 experiments were conducted at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplantation from one person to another. Sections of bones, muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Oberheuser, and Fischer are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_G_) _Sea-water Experiments._ From about July 1944 to about September 1944 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Air Force and Navy, to study various methods of making sea-water drinkable. The subjects were deprived of all food and given only chemically processed sea-water. Such experiments caused great pain and suffering and resulted in serious bodily injury to the victims. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Becker-Freyseng, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_H_) _Epidemic Jaundice Experiments._ From about June 1943 to about January 1945 experiments were conducted at the Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to investigate the causes of, and inoculations against, epidemic jaundice. Experimental subjects were deliberately infected with epidemic jaundice, some of whom died as a result, and others were caused great pain and suffering. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Rose, and Becker-Freyseng are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_I_) _Sterilization Experiments._ From about March 1941 to about January 1945 sterilization experiments were conducted at the Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck concentration camps, and other places. The purpose of these experiments was to develop a method of sterilization which would be suitable for sterilizing millions of people with a minimum of time and effort. These experiments were conducted by means of X-ray, surgery, and various drugs. Thousands of victims were sterilized and thereby suffered great mental and physical anguish. The defendants Karl Brandt, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Brack, Pokorny, and Oberheuser are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_J_) _Spotted Fever (Fleckfieber)[2] Experiments._ From about December 1941 to about February 1945 experiments were conducted at the Buchenwald and Natzweiler concentration camps, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to investigate the effectiveness of spotted fever and other vaccines. At Buchenwald numerous healthy inmates were deliberately infected with spotted fever virus in order to keep the virus alive; over 90 percent of the victims died as a result. Other healthy inmates were used to determine the effectiveness of different spotted fever vaccines and of various chemical substances. In the course of these experiments 75 percent of the selected number of inmates were vaccinated with one of the vaccines or nourished with one of the chemical substances and, after a period of 3 to 4 weeks, were infected with spotted fever germs. The remaining 25 percent were infected without any previous protection in order to compare the effectiveness of the vaccines and the chemical substances. As a result, hundreds of the persons experimented upon died. Experiments with yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, paratyphus[3] A and B, cholera, and diphtheria were also conducted. Similar experiments with like results were conducted at Natzweiler concentration camp. The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Genzken, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Rose, Becker-Freyseng, and Hoven are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_K_) _Experiments with Poison._ In or about December 1943, and in or about October 1944, experiments were conducted at the Buchenwald concentration camp to investigate the effect of various poisons upon human beings. The poisons were secretly administered to experimental subjects in their food. The victims died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in order to permit autopsies. In or about September 1944 experimental subjects were shot with poison bullets and suffered torture and death. The defendants Genzken, Gebhardt, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
(_L_) _Incendiary Bomb Experiments._ From about November 1943 to about January 1944 experiments were conducted at the Buchenwald concentration camp to test the effect of various pharmaceutical preparations on phosphorous burns. These burns were inflicted on experimental subjects with phosphorous matter taken from incendiary bombs, and caused severe pain, suffering, and serious bodily injury. The defendants Genzken, Gebhardt, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.
7. Between June 1943 and September 1944 the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the murder of civilians and members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in exercise of belligerent control. One hundred twelve Jews were selected for the purpose of completing a skeleton collection for the Reich University of Strasbourg. Their photographs and anthropological measurements were taken. Then they were killed. Thereafter, comparison tests, anatomical research, studies regarding race, pathological features of the body, form and size of the brain, and other tests, were made. The bodies were sent to Strasbourg and defleshed.
8. Between May 1942 and January 1944[4] the defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the murder and mistreatment of tens of thousands of Polish nationals who were civilians and members of the armed forces of a nation then at war with the German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in exercise of belligerent control. These people were alleged to be infected with incurable tuberculosis. On the ground of insuring the health and welfare of Germans in Poland, many tubercular Poles were ruthlessly exterminated while others were isolated in death camps with inadequate medical facilities.
9. Between September 1939 and April 1945 the defendants Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the execution of the so-called “euthanasia” program of the German Reich in the course of which the defendants herein murdered hundreds of thousands of human beings, including nationals of German-occupied countries. This program involved the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as “useless eaters” and a burden to the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart failure. German doctors involved in the “euthanasia” program were also sent to Eastern occupied countries to assist in the mass extermination of Jews.
10. The said war crimes constitute violations of international conventions, particularly of Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, and 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and of Articles 2, 3, and 4 of the Prisoner-of-War Convention (Geneva, 1929), the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.
COUNT THREE—CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
11. Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants herein unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed crimes against humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving medical experiments, without the subjects’ consent, upon German civilians and nationals of other countries, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. The particulars concerning such experiments are set forth in paragraph 6 of count two of this indictment and are incorporated herein by reference.
12. Between June 1943 and September 1944 the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed crimes against humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the murder of German civilians and nationals of other countries. The particulars concerning such murders are set forth in paragraph 7 of count two of this indictment and are incorporated herein by reference.
13. Between May 1942 and January 1944[5] the defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed crimes against humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the murder and mistreatment of tens of thousands of Polish nationals. The particulars concerning such murder and inhuman treatment are set forth in paragraph 8 of count two of this indictment and are incorporated herein by reference.
14. Between September 1939 and April 1945 the defendants Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed crimes against humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the execution of the so-called “euthanasia” program of the German Reich, in the course of which the defendants herein murdered hundreds of thousands of human beings, including German civilians, as well as civilians of other nations. The particulars concerning such murders are set forth in paragraph 9 of count two of this indictment and are incorporated herein by reference.
15. The said crimes against humanity constitute violations of international conventions, including Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.
COUNT FOUR—MEMBERSHIP IN CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION
16. The defendants Karl Brandt, Genzken, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Brack, Hoven, and Fischer are guilty of membership in an organization declared to be criminal by the International Military Tribunal in Case No. 1, in that each of the said defendants was a member of the SCHUTZSTAFFELN DER NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (commonly known as the “SS”) after 1 September 1939. Such membership is in violation of paragraph I (_d_), Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.
Wherefore, this indictment is filed with the Secretary General of the Military Tribunals and the charges herein made against the above-named defendants are hereby presented to MILITARY TRIBUNAL NO. I.
TELFORD TAYLOR
_Brigadier General, USA_
_Chief of Counsel for War Crimes_
_Acting on Behalf of the United States of America_
Nuernberg, _25 October 1946_
[2] It was definitely ascertained in the course of the proceedings, by both prosecution and defense, that the correct translation of “Fleckfieber” is _typhus_. A finding to this effect is contained in the judgment. A similar initial inadequate translation occurred in the case of “typhus” and “paratyphus” which should be rendered as _typhoid_ and _paratyphoid_.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Indictment originally read “January 1943” but was amended by a motion filed with the Secretary General. See Arraignment, p. 18.
[5] Ibid.
II. ARRAIGNMENT
Extract from the official Transcript of Military Tribunal I in the matter of the _United States of America_ vs. _Karl Brandt et al._, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 21 November 1946, Judge Beals presiding.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: We will now proceed to arraign the defendants on the cause now pending before this Tribunal. As the names of the defendants are called each defendant will stand, and will remain standing until told to be seated. Mr. Secretary General of the Tribunal will call the roll of the defendants.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL: Karl Brandt, Siegfried Handloser, Paul Rostock, Oskar Schroeder, Karl Genzken, Karl Gebhardt, Kurt Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Helmut Poppendick, Wolfram Sievers, Gerhard Rose, Siegfried Ruff, Hans Wolfgang Romberg, Viktor Brack, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, Georg August Weltz, Konrad Schaefer, Waldemar Hoven, Wilhelm Beiglboeck, Adolf Pokorny, Herta Oberheuser, Fritz Fischer. (As their names are called, the defendants rise.)
If the Honorable Tribunal please, all of the defendants are in the dock.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: The defendants will be seated.
The counsel for the prosecution will now proceed with the arraignment of the defendants.
[Here Brigadier General Taylor read the indictment in full. See pp. 8-17.]
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: I shall now call upon the defendants to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges against them. Each defendant, as his name is called, will stand and speak into the microphone. At this time there will be no arguments, speeches, or discussion of any kind. Each defendant will simply plead either guilty or not guilty to the offenses with which he is charged by the indictment.
Karl Brandt.
DR. PELCKMANN: Mr. Chairman, before the defendant pleads guilty or not guilty, may I say a word? I am defense counsel for the defendant Schaefer, number 18.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: For which defendant?
DR. PELCKMANN: Schaefer, number 18.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: We are now receiving the plea of the defendant Karl Brandt. You do not represent him as counsel, do you?
DR. PELCKMANN: No.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Then I see no reason for counsel for another defendant making any remarks at this time.
DR. PELCKMANN: May I speak before the defendant Schaefer speaks? A formal objection.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: When the name of the defendant Schaefer is called, you may address the Court.
Karl Brandt, are you represented by counsel in this proceeding?
DEFENDANT KARL BRANDT: Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: How do you plead to the charges and specifications and each thereof set forth in the indictment against you, guilty or not guilty?
DEFENDANT HANDLOSER: Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Be seated.
Siegfried Handloser, are you represented by counsel in this cause?
DEFENDANT HANDLOSER: No, I have no counsel yet.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Do you desire that the Tribunal appoint counsel for you?
DEFENDANT HANDLOSER: I hope that today or tomorrow I may receive an affirmative answer from a defense counsel.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Are you at this time ready to plead to the indictment, guilty or not guilty?
DEFENDANT HANDLOSER: Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: How do you plead to the charges and specifications and each thereof set forth in the indictment against you, guilty or not guilty?
DEFENDANT HANDLOSER: Not guilty.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Be seated.
[At this point the defendants Paul Rostock, Oskar Schroeder, Karl Genzken, Karl Gebhardt, Kurt Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Helmut Poppendick, Wolfram Sievers, Gerhard Rose, Siegfried Ruff, Hans Wolfgang Romberg, Viktor Brack, Hermann Becker-Freyseng and Georg August Weltz were arraigned. All were represented by counsel. All pleaded not guilty to the indictment.]
DR. PELCKMANN: Your Honor, may I speak?
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: What is the purpose of the remarks you desire to make?
DR. PELCKMANN: I should like to object to the indictment. I should like to say that in my opinion, as far as Schaefer is concerned, the indictment does not conform to Ordinance No. 7. I can explain that.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: How much time do you desire to present your argument?
DR. PELCKMANN: Three minutes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may proceed. First, have you filed in the proceeding any written notice of the objection to the indictment and served it upon the prosecutor?
DR. PELCKMANN: I have not had the indictment long enough. I have just had the written material for 2 days. What I have to say I could submit in writing later. Because of the brief time, I ask to be allowed to make a brief statement now.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may make a brief statement and submit argument in support of your objection within 5 days.
DR. PELCKMANN: Very well. May I now say something?
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may proceed for 3 minutes.
DR. PELCKMANN: Ordinance No. 7, in Article IV (_a_), prescribes the following according to the English text: “The indictment shall state the charges plainly, concisely and with sufficient particulars to inform defendant of the offenses charged.” Schaefer is charged only on one count, count two (_G_). Experiments with sea-water in Dachau are charged against 12 defendants. In two sentences the indictment goes on to say that the 12 persons who are then named are charged with special responsibility for these crimes and participation in them. I am of the opinion that this does not contain sufficient particulars. “Responsibility” and “participation” are legal concepts. There is no evidence of “sufficient particulars,” which implies details.
The indictment, in my opinion, must give facts to indicate how and why each one of these 12 defendants who, ostensibly, participated in these experiments, is responsible and participated. My client cannot tell what the nature of his participation is supposed to have been.
The indictment says, in count one, number 2, that all defendants were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Those also are only legal concepts.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may file a written brief in support of your position.
DR. PELCKMANN: I should like to add, without the knowledge of the indictment, my client is not ready to answer the question as to whether he is guilty or not guilty.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You will serve a copy of your brief upon the prosecution and file it with the Secretary General.
DR. PELCKMANN: Very well, your Honor.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: In connection with this matter, General Taylor, do you desire to make any remarks or suggestions?
BRIGADIER GENERAL TAYLOR: Your Honor, needless to say, we have no objection to the making of this motion or the filing of this brief. It is needless to say, also, that we think the indictment quite adequately specifies the date, place, and type of experiment charged. The defendant’s connection with it is better known to the defendant than to anyone else. There is no reason why he should not enter his plea at this time.
JUDGE SEBRING: That would not go to the jurisdictional aspect of the indictment, but it would go to the question of particulars. The consideration is whether or not upon the showing of the motion, more particulars as to the charges specified, should be included. Do you understand my point?
BRIGADIER GENERAL TAYLOR: Yes, your Honor. That is what I understood. The prosecution will consider the motion, and if need be, submit particulars, although we think the indictment is adequate enough. We think there is no challenge of the jurisdiction. The defendant should be required to promptly plead.
JUDGE CRAWFORD: How do you plead to the charges against you?
DEFENDANT SCHAEFER: Not guilty.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Be seated.
[At this point the balance of the defendants: Waldemar Hoven, Wilhelm Beiglboeck, Adolf Pokorny, Herta Oberheuser and Fritz Fischer were arraigned. All were represented by counsel. All pleaded not guilty to the indictment.]
DR. SERVATIUS: Servatius for the defendant Karl Brandt. Your Honor, may I make an application regarding the submission of documents by the prosecution?
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may state your application.
DR. SERVATIUS: Your Honor, I ask the Tribunal to instruct the prosecution that the documents be submitted to the defense in time, the documents on which the charge is based. This would make the proceedings easier and give the defense an opportunity to examine the documents in time, and to obtain counterproof.
In the first trial before the International Military Tribunal, we were given a list of documents with the indictment; although these documents were not enclosed, we could look at them and we could work on them. Up to now we have nothing on which we can build our defense. In other words, on the 9th of December, we will have proceeded no further than today, and we will not be able to advise our clients.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You may be seated and we will hear from the prosecution, Brigadier General Telford Taylor.
BRIGADIER GENERAL TAYLOR: Your Honor, the counsel for the defense who has just spoken is thoroughly familiar with the procedures used in the prior case. The prosecution in this case plans to follow the same procedures and give the defense counsel the same opportunities and, if possible, more. The Defense Information Center, which is the place where the documents have in the past been made available, will be supplied in advance with copies of the documents on which our evidence is based. I would suggest, your Honor, that after all counsel for the defense are here that it would be most useful if there be a meeting between representatives of the prosecution and the defense so that procedures can be developed. But at the moment only half of the counsel for the defense are here and it would be economical if these matters could be arranged after they are all present.
DR. SERVATIUS: Your Honor, may I ask one question? May I add one thing, that the documents be given to us in German. In the previous trial, there was difficulty at the beginning because we got them in English.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: I believe if counsel for the defense will refer to the rules promulgated by this Tribunal on 2 November 1946, you will see that a requirement is made that all such matters be submitted in a language that is understood by each of the defendants.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, but for technical reasons that was not always done. There were great difficulties. The conferences with the prosecution will make it possible to eliminate the difficulties. If it is not possible, I will address the Court again.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Do you have anything further, General Taylor?
BRIGADIER GENERAL TAYLOR: Your Honor, the prosecution merely wishes to note that it has filed with the Secretary General a motion to amend the indictment in paragraph 8 of count two and paragraph 13 of count three, by changing 1943 to 1944. The motion has been filed with the Secretary General and copies of the motion are in German and are in the hands of defense counsel.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: How many of the defendants are concerned with the amendment to the indictment? My point is that if the—
MR. MCHANEY: If the Tribunal please, the amendment occurs first in paragraph 8 on page 14 of the indictment and it affects only two of the defendants; namely, Blome and Rudolf Brandt. The amendment is also made in paragraph 13 because the same facts are there charged as a crime against humanity. In paragraph 13 only the same two defendants are involved; that is, defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: What are the particulars of the amendment?
MR. MCHANEY: The only change made by the amendment is to say the date January 1944 for the date January 1943; in other words, it extends the period covered by the crime for 1 year. The date 1943 was inserted by mistake in the indictment as filed with the Tribunal.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Are these two defendants represented by counsel here present this morning?
MR. MCHANEY: I think that Rudolf Brandt answered “Yes”.
DEFENDANT BLOME: Yes, your Honor.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Has this motion been served upon counsel for these two defendants?
MR. MCHANEY: Your Honor, my understanding is that the motion for amendment was filed with the Secretary General. If we understand the rules correctly, the Secretary General then serves it upon the defendants.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: I was just asking for information whether they had received copies of the motion.
MR. MCHANEY: That I don’t know. Yes, the counsel for these defendants say “Yes”.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Does counsel for defendant Blome raise any objection to the amendment of the indictment?
DR. SAUTER: No.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Kauffmann for Rudolf Brandt. I have no objection to the change.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You represent Rudolf Brandt?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Well, the other defendant affected is defendant Blome, I understand. Is he represented here?
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Sauter for the defendant Blome. We don’t have any objection.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: The indictment will be amended in accordance with the motion.
Is it agreeable to counsel for these two defendants that the arraignment as to them upon this count which has just been amended be considered as pleas to the count as amended now—their pleas of “Not Guilty”?
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: These matters will appear in the records of the Tribunal. The pleas of the defendants will all be entered in the minutes of the Tribunal.
III. STATEMENT OF THE TRIBUNAL ON THE ORDER OF TRIAL AND RULES OF PROCEDURE, 9 DECEMBER 1946[6]
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: I have a statement which I desire to make for the benefit of the prosecution, defendants, and all concerned: Before opening the trial of Case No. 1, _The United States of America against Karl Brandt, et al._, there are certain matters which the Tribunal desires to call to the attention of the counsel for the prosecution and the counsel for the defendants.
1. The prosecution may be allowed, for the purpose of making the opening statement in this case, time not to exceed one trial day. This time may be allocated by the chief prosecutor, between himself and any of his assistants, as he desires.
2. When the prosecution has rested its case, defense counsel will be allowed two trial days in which to make their opening statements, and which will comprehend the entire theory of their respective defenses. The time allocated will be divided between the different defense counsel, as they may themselves agree. In the event the defense counsel cannot agree, the Tribunal will allocate the time, not to exceed 30 minutes to each defendant.
3. The prosecution shall, not less than 24 hours before it desires to offer any record or document or writing in evidence as part of its case-in-chief, file with the Defense Information Center not less than one copy of such record, document, or writing for each of the counsel for defendants, such copies to be in the German language. The prosecution shall also deliver to the Defense Information Center at least four copies thereof in the English language.
4. When the prosecution or any defendant offers a record, document, or any other writing, or a copy thereof, in evidence, there shall be delivered to the Secretary General in addition to the original document or other instrument in writing so offered for admission in evidence, six copies of the document. If the document is written or printed in a language other than English there shall also be filed with the copies of the document above referred to six copies of an English translation of the document. If such document is offered by any defendant, suitable facilities for procuring English translations of that document shall be made available.
5. At least 24 hours before a witness is called to the stand, either by the prosecution or by any defendant, the party who desires to interrogate the witness shall deliver to the Secretary General an original and six copies of a memorandum which shall disclose: (1) the name of the witness; (2) his nationality; (3) his residence or station; (4) his official rank or position; (5) whether he is called as an expert witness or as a witness to testify to facts, and if the latter, a prepared statement of the subject matter on which the witness will be interrogated. When the prosecution prepares such a statement in connection with the witness whom it desires to call, at the time of the filing of this statement, two additional copies thereof shall be delivered to the Defense Information Center. When a defendant prepares such a statement concerning a witness whom it desires to call, the defendant shall at the same time as the copies are filed with the Secretary General deliver one additional copy to the prosecution.
6. When either the prosecution or a defendant desires the Tribunal to take judicial notice of any official Government documents or reports of the United Nations, including any action, ruling or regulation of any committee, board, or counsel, heretofore established by or in the Allied Nations for the investigation of war crimes, or any record made by, or the findings of, any military or other tribunal, this Tribunal may refuse to take judicial notice of such documents, rules, or regulations, unless the party proposing asks this Tribunal to notice such documents, rules, or regulations judicially, and places a copy thereof in writing before the Tribunal.
This Tribunal has learned with satisfaction of the procedure adopted by the prosecution with the intention of furnishing to the defense counsel information concerning the writings or documents which the prosecution expects to offer in evidence for the purpose of affording the defense counsel information to help them prepare their respective defense to the indictments. The desire of the Tribunal is that this be made available to the defendants so as to aid them in the presentation of their respective defense.
The United States of America having established this Military Tribunal I, pursuant to law, through properly empowered military authorities, and the defendants having been brought before Military Tribunal I pursuant to the indictment filed 25 October 1946 in the Office of the Secretary General of the Military Tribunal at Nuernberg, Germany by an officer of the United States Army, regularly designated as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, acting on behalf of the United States of America, pursuant to appropriate military authority, and the indictment having been served upon each defendant for more than 30 days prior to this date, and a copy of the indictment in the German language having been furnished to each defendant and having been in his possession more than 30 days and each defendant having had ample opportunity to read the indictment, and having regularly entered his plea of “not guilty” to the indictment, the Tribunal is ready to proceed with the trial.
This Tribunal will conduct the trial in accordance with controlling laws, rules, and regulations, and with due regard to appropriate precedents in a sincere endeavor to insure both to the prosecution and to each and every defendant an opportunity to present all evidence of an appropriate value bearing upon the issues before the Tribunal; to this end, that under law and pending regulations impartial justice may be accomplished.
The trial, of course, will be a public trial, not one behind closed doors; but, because of limited facilities available, the Tribunal must insist that the number of spectators be limited to the seating capacity of the courtroom. Passes will therefore be issued by the appropriate authorities to those who may enter the courtroom. The Tribunal will insist that good order be at all times maintained, and appropriate measures will be taken to see that this rule is strictly enforced.
For the information of all concerned, the Tribunal announces that hearings will be held each day this week commencing at 9:30 o’clock through Friday. The Tribunal will reconvene at 9:30 o’clock, Monday, 16 December 1946, and will hold sessions every day of that week including Saturday, on which day, however, the Tribunal will recess until 9:30 o’clock, Thursday, 2 January 1947, when the Tribunal will convene at the usual time.
[6] Tr. pp. 9-11.
IV. OPENING STATEMENT OF THE PROSECUTION BY BRIGADIER GENERAL TELFORD TAYLOR, 9 DECEMBER 1946.[7]
The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science. The victims of these crimes are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected.
For the most part they are nameless dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals. They were 200 Jews in good physical condition, 50 gypsies, 500 tubercular Poles, or 1,000 Russians. The victims of these crimes are numbered among the anonymous millions who met death at the hands of the Nazis and whose fate is a hideous blot on the page of modern history.
The charges against these defendants are brought in the name of the United States of America. They are being tried by a court of American judges. The responsibilities thus imposed upon the representatives of the United States, prosecutors and judges alike, are grave and unusual. It is owed, not only to the victims and to the parents and children of the victims, that just punishment be imposed on the guilty, but also to the defendants that they be accorded a fair hearing and decision. Such responsibilities are the ordinary burden of any tribunal. Far wider are the duties which we must fulfill here.
These larger obligations run to the peoples and races on whom the scourge of these crimes was laid. The mere punishment of the defendants, or even of thousands of others equally guilty, can never redress the terrible injuries which the Nazis visited on these unfortunate peoples. For them it is far more important that these incredible events be established by clear and public proof, so that no one can ever doubt that they were fact and not fable; and that this Court, as the agent of the United States and as the voice of humanity, stamp these acts, and the ideas which engendered them, as barbarous and criminal.
We have still other responsibilities here. The defendants in the dock are charged with murder, but this is no mere murder trial. We cannot rest content when we have shown that crimes were committed and that certain persons committed them. To kill, to maim, and to torture is criminal under all modern systems of law. These defendants did not kill in hot blood, nor for personal enrichment. Some of them may be sadists who killed and tortured for sport, but they are not all perverts. They are not ignorant men. Most of them are trained physicians and some of them are distinguished scientists. Yet these defendants, all of whom were fully able to comprehend the nature of their acts, and most of whom were exceptionally qualified to form a moral and professional judgment in this respect, are responsible for wholesale murder and unspeakably cruel tortures.
It is our deep obligation to all peoples of the world to show why and how these things happened. It is incumbent upon us to set forth with conspicuous clarity the ideas and motives which moved these defendants to treat their fellow men as less than beasts. The perverse thoughts and distorted concepts which brought about these savageries are not dead. They cannot be killed by force of arms. They must not become a spreading cancer in the breast of humanity. They must be cut out and exposed, for the reason so well stated by Mr. Justice Jackson in this courtroom a year ago—
“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.”
To the German people we owe a special responsibility in these proceedings. Under the leadership of the Nazis and their war lords, the German nation spread death and devastation throughout Europe. This the Germans now know. So, too, do they know the consequences to Germany: defeat, ruin, prostration, and utter demoralization. Most German children will never, as long as they live, see an undamaged German city.
To what cause will these children ascribe the defeat of the German nation and the devastation that surrounds them? Will they attribute it to the overwhelming weight of numbers and resources that was eventually leagued against them? Will they point to the ingenuity of enemy scientists? Will they perhaps blame their plight on strategic and military blunders by their generals?
If the Germans embrace those reasons as the true cause of their disaster, it will be a sad and fatal thing for Germany and for the world. Men who have never seen a German city intact will be callous about flattening English or American or Russian cities. They may not even realize that they are destroying anything worthwhile, for lack of a normal sense of values. To reestablish the greatness of Germany they are likely to pin their faith on improved military techniques. Such views will lead the Germans straight into the arms of the Prussian militarists to whom defeat is only a glorious opportunity to start a new war game. “Next time it will be different.” We know all too well what that will mean.
This case, and others which will be tried in this building, offer a signal opportunity to lay before the German people the true cause of their present misery. The walls and towers and churches of Nuernberg were, indeed, reduced to rubble by Allied bombs, but in a deeper sense Nuernberg had been destroyed a decade earlier, when it became the seat of the annual Nazi Party rallies, a focal point for the moral disintegration in Germany, and the private domain of Julius Streicher. The insane and malignant doctrines that Nuernberg spewed forth account alike for the crimes of these defendants and for the terrible fate of Germany under the Third Reich.
A nation which deliberately infects itself with poison will inevitably sicken and die. These defendants and others turned Germany into an infernal combination of a lunatic asylum and a charnel house. Neither science, nor industry, nor the arts could flourish in such a foul medium. The country could not live at peace and was fatally handicapped for war. I do not think the German people have as yet any conception of how deeply the criminal folly that was nazism bit into every phase of German life, or of how utterly ravaging the consequences were. It will be our task to make these things clear.
These are the high purposes which justify the establishment of extraordinary courts to hear and determine this case and others of comparable importance. That murder should be punished goes without the saying, but the full performance of our task requires more than the just sentencing of these defendants. Their crimes were the inevitable result of the sinister doctrines which they espoused, and these same doctrines sealed the fate of Germany, shattered Europe, and left the world in ferment. Wherever those doctrines may emerge and prevail, the same terrible consequences will follow. That is why a bold and lucid consummation of these proceedings is of vital importance to all nations. That is why the United States has constituted this Tribunal.
STATE MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE THIRD REICH
I pass now to the facts of the case in hand. There are 23 defendants in the box. All but three of them—Rudolf Brandt, Sievers, and Brack—are doctors. Of the 20 doctors, all but one—Pokorny—held positions in the medical services of the Third Reich. To understand this case, it is necessary to understand the general structure of these state medical services, and how these services fitted into the over-all organization of the Nazi State.
To assist the Court in this regard the prosecution has prepared a short expository brief [not introduced into evidence] which is already in the hands of the Court and which has been made available to defense counsel in German and English. The brief includes a glossary of the more frequent German words or expressions which will occur in this trial—most of them from the vocabulary of military, medical, or governmental affairs. It also includes a table of equivalent ranks [App. Vol. II] between the American Army and the German Army and the SS, and of the medical ranks used in the German Armed Forces and the SS. Finally, it includes a chart [see p. 30] showing the subordination of the several German medical services within the general framework of the German State. This chart has been enlarged and is displayed at the front of the courtroom.
Following this opening statement Mr. McHaney, in opening the presentation of evidence on behalf of the prosecution, will offer in evidence a series of detailed charts of the various German medical services, which have been certified as accurate by the defendants Handloser, Schroeder, Karl Brandt, Mrugowsky, and Brack. The chart to which I am now directing the attention of the Tribunal is a composite chart based upon those which Mr. McHaney will offer in evidence. The chart in the front of the courtroom to which I now refer will not be offered in evidence; it is intended merely as a convenient guide to the Court and to defense counsel to enable them to follow the opening statement and to comprehend the over-all structure of the German medical services.
All power in the Third Reich derived from Adolf Hitler, who was at one and the same time the head of the government, the leader of the Nazi Party, and the commander in chief of the armed forces. His title as head of the government was Reich Chancellor. He was the “Fuehrer” of the Nazi Party, and the “Supreme Commander” of the Wehrmacht. Immediately subordinate to Hitler were the chiefs of the armed forces, the principal cabinet ministers in the government, and the leading officials of the Nazi Party. The only defendant in the dock who was directly responsible to Hitler himself is the defendant Karl Brandt.
The Court will observe that the defendants fall into three main groups. Eight of them were members of the medical service of the German Air Force. Seven of them were members of the medical service of the SS. The remaining eight include the defendants Karl Brandt and Handloser, who occupied top positions in the medical hierarchy; it included the three defendants who are not doctors; the defendant Rostock, who was an immediate subordinate of Karl Brandt; the defendant Blome, a medical official of the Nazi Party; and the defendant Pokorny, whom we have grouped under the SS for reasons which will appear later.
I will deal first with the military side of the case. Hitler, as Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, exercised his authority through a staff called the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, better known by its German initials, OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). The chief of this staff, throughout the period with which this case will concern itself, was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.
Under the OKW came the High Commands of the three branches of the Wehrmacht: the Navy (OKM), the Army (OKH) and the Air Force (OKL). Grand Admiral Erich Raeder was the Commander in Chief of the German Navy until 1943, when he was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. Prior to the outbreak of the war, the Commander in Chief of the German Army was Field Marshal von Brauchitsch. In December 1941 Brauchitsch was relieved and Hitler himself took this position. Hermann Goering was the Commander in Chief of the German Air Force with the rank of Reich Marshal, until the very last month of the war.
Each of the three branches of the Wehrmacht had its own medical service. For purposes of this case, the medical service of the Navy is not of much importance. During most of the war the defendant Handloser was the Chief of the Medical Service of the German Army; in 1944 he was succeeded in this capacity by Dr. Walter. The Chief of the Medical Service of the German Air Force until 1943 was Dr. Erich Hippke; from January 1944 until the end of the war, it was the defendant Schroeder. Subordinate to the defendant Schroeder are seven other defendants from the Air Force Medical Service, whose functions I will briefly describe later on.
I turn now to the second principal group of defendants—those affiliated with the SS. The SS was nominally a part of the Nazi Party, and came under Hitler in his capacity as Fuehrer of the NSDAP. In fact, during the years of the Nazi regime, the SS expanded into a vast complex of military, police, and intelligence organizations. The head of this extraordinary combine was Heinrich Himmler, with the title of Reich Leader SS. The SS had its own medical service, headed by Grawitz, who bore the title Reich Physician SS.
The SS in turn was divided into many departments, of which one of the most important was the Armed or Waffen SS. The members of the Waffen SS were trained and equipped as regular troops, were formed into regular military formations, and fought at the front side by side with the troops of the Wehrmacht. By the end of the war there were some 30 SS divisions in the line. The head of the Medical Service of the Waffen SS was the defendant Genzken.
Six other defendants were members of the SS Medical Service and therefore subordinated to Grawitz.
The German civilian medical services derived their authority both from the German Government and from the Party. The medical chief on the civilian side was Dr. Leonardo Conti, who committed suicide in October 1945. Dr. Conti occupied the position of State Secretary for Health in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. In this capacity Conti was a subordinate of the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, until 1943, and thereafter to Heinrich Himmler who assumed the additional duties of Minister of the Interior in that year.
Conti also held the title in the Nazi Party of Reich Health Leader. His deputy in this capacity was the defendant Blome. As Reich Health Leader, Conti was subordinate to the Nazi Party Chancellery, the chief of which was Martin Bormann.
As the Court will see from the chart,[8] the three principal people in the hierarchy of German state health and medicine are the defendants Karl Brandt and Handloser, and the deceased Dr. Conti. In July 1942, Hitler issued a decree, a copy of which will later be read before the Court, which established the defendant Handloser as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht. Shown on the chart here Handloser’s name appears in this capacity. Handloser was given supervisory and professional authority over the medical services of all three branches of the Wehrmacht. Inasmuch as the Waffen SS came to constitute an important part of the armed forces, Handloser’s supervisory authority also extended to the defendant Genzken, Chief of the Medical Service of the Waffen SS. In this position Handloser was charged with the coordination of all common tasks of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS. He thus became the principal figure in German military medicine, just as Dr. Conti was the central figure in the field of civilian medicine.
Handloser and Conti, as will be seen from the chart, were not directly responsible to Hitler himself. Handloser’s responsibility ran to Hitler through the OKW, and Conti’s through the Ministry of the Interior and the chief of the Nazi Party Chancellery.
In 1942 Hitler for the first time established a medical and health official under his direct control. This official was the defendant Karl Brandt. A Hitler decree of July 1942 (_NO-080_) gave Brandt the title Plenipotentiary for Health and Medical Services, and empowered him to carry out special tasks and negotiations with reference to the requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, etc., between the military and civilian sectors of the health and sanitation systems. Brandt’s role, therefore, was to coordinate the requirements of the military and civilian agencies in the field of medicine and public health.
Dr. Karl Brandt had been the personal physician to Hitler since 1934. He was only 38 years old at the time he assumed the important duties conferred by the 1942 decree. His rise continued.
In September 1943 Hitler issued another decree which gave Brandt the title of General Commissioner for Sanitation and Health and empowered him to coordinate and direct the problems and activities of the entire administration for sanitation and health. (_NO-081._) This authority was explicitly extended to the field of medical science and research.
Finally, in August 1944, Hitler appointed Dr. Brandt Reich Commissioner for Sanitation and Health, and stated that in this capacity Brandt’s office ranked as the “highest Reich authority.” (_NO-082._) Brandt was authorized to issue instructions to the medical offices and organizations of the government, to the party, and the armed forces, in the field of sanitation and health.
Karl Brandt, as the supreme medical authority in the Reich, appointed the defendant Paul Rostock as his immediate subordinate to head the Office for Scientific and Medical Research. Rostock’s position reached into the activities of the medical societies, the medical colleges, and the Reich Research Council. Brandt also appointed Admiral Fikentscher, who had theretofore been the chief medical officer of the German Navy, as his subordinate to head the Office for Planning and Production. In this field, Fikentscher dealt with the principal labor authorities, the Ministry of Economics, and the Ministry for Armament and War Production.
As chief of the Medical Service of the German Air Force, the defendant Schroeder also held one of the most important positions in the German medical hierarchy. He and the defendant Handloser both held the rank of Generaloberstabsarzt, the highest rank in the German medical service and the equivalent of lieutenant general in the American Army. I do not propose to go into detail concerning the positions held by the seven defendants who were under Schroeder, inasmuch as Mr. McHaney will introduce charts which show in great detail the structure of the German Air Force Medical Service, and which have been authenticated by the defendant Schroeder himself. The defendant Rose held a high rank in the Air Force Medical Service equivalent to that of a brigadier general in the American Army and was appointed special adviser to Schroeder on matters pertaining to tropical medicine, held a chair at one of the most important German medical institutes, and is one of the most distinguished scientists in the dock. The defendant Becker-Freyseng headed Schroeder’s department for aviation medicine. The defendant Weltz was chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine at Munich. The particular functions of the defendants Ruff, Romberg, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck will appear as we proceed with the presentation of the evidence.
I will likewise pass over very briefly the detailed functions of the six SS physicians who were shown on the chart as the subordinates of Grawitz. Detailed charts of the SS Medical Service, authenticated by the defendant Mrugowsky, will shortly be introduced in evidence. The defendant Gebhardt was Himmler’s personal physician and he held a rank in the SS equivalent to that of a major general in the American Army. He became the president of the German Red Cross. He was the chief surgeon on Grawitz’s staff, and also headed the hospital at Hohenlychen, in which capacity the defendants Oberheuser and Fischer were his assistants. The defendant Poppendick was the chief of Grawitz’s personal staff. The defendant Mrugowsky was Grawitz’s chief hygienist and also headed the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen SS. The defendant Hoven was the chief doctor of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
The defendant Pokorny is a private physician who had no official connection with the governmental medical service. We have shown him on the chart underneath the group of SS physicians for reasons which will appear in the course of presenting the evidence concerning sterilization experiments (par. 6 (I) of the indictment).
The three defendants who are not doctors are shown in the top right-hand corner of the chart. Two of them—Rudolf Brandt and Brack—are administrative officers. Rudolf Brandt had the rank of colonel in the SS, was sort of personal adjutant, and held an administrative office both in the SS and the Ministry of the Interior. Viktor Brack was the chief administrative officer in Hitler’s personal chancellery [Chancellery of the Fuehrer], the head of which was Philipp Bouhler.
The defendant Sievers, who held the rank of colonel in the SS, is a special case. He was a direct subordinate of Heinrich Himmler in the latter’s capacity as president of the so-called Ahnenerbe Society. The name of this society literally means “ancestral heritage”, and it was originally devoted to scientific and psuedo-scientific researches concerning the anthropological and cultural history of the German race. Later on an Institute for Military Scientific Research was set up within the Ahnenerbe Society. Sievers was the manager of the society and the director of the Institute for Military Scientific Research.
This concludes the general description of the German state medical services under the Nazi regime, and of the positions which the defendants occupied in the scheme of things. It is convenient at this point to refer to count four of the indictment, which charges that 10 of the defendants were members of an organization declared to be criminal by the International Military Tribunal, and that such membership is in violation of paragraph 1 (_d_) of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. The organization in question is the SS.
This count concerns the defendant Karl Brandt, six of the defendants who were affiliated with the Medical Service of the SS, and three defendants who are not doctors. It does not concern any of the nine defendants on the military side, nor the defendants Rostock, Blome, Oberheuser, or Pokorny.
The International Military Tribunal’s declaration of criminality applies to all persons who had been officially accepted as members of any branch of the SS, and who remained members after 1 September 1939. The prosecution will show that all 10 defendants charged in count four were officially accepted as members of the SS and remained so after that date. The defendants Karl Brandt, Genzken, and Gebhardt held ranks in both the General or Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS equivalent to that of a major general in the American Army. The defendants Mrugowsky, Hoven, Poppendick, and Fischer all held officer rank in the SS or Waffen SS, and all four of them, together with the defendants Genzken and Gebhardt, held positions in the SS Medical Service. The defendant Rudolf Brandt held the rank of colonel in the General (Allgemeine) SS, and was a personal assistant to Himmler in Himmler’s capacity as Reich Leader SS. The defendant Brack held officer rank in both the SS and the Waffen SS. The defendant Sievers held the rank of colonel in the SS, and was manager of the Ahnenerbe Society, which was attached to the SS Main Office.
The declaration of criminality by the International Military Tribunal does not apply when it appears that a member of the SS was drafted into membership in such a way as to give him no choice in the matter. Nor does it apply if it appears that the member had no knowledge that the organization was being used for the commission of criminal acts. For purposes of this case, these questions, the prosecution believes, will be academic. All of the defendants charged in count four held officer rank in the SS, and most of them held senior rank. They were moving spirits and personal participants in murder and torture on a large scale, and in a variety of other crimes. In this connection we respectfully invite the Tribunal’s attention to two statements by the International Military Tribunal which, under Article X of Ordinance No. 7, constitute proof in the absence of substantial new evidence to the contrary. In setting forth the criminal acts committed by the SS, the International Military Tribunal stated:[9]
“Also attached to the SS main offices was a research foundation known as the Experiments Ahnenerbe. The scientists attached to this organization are stated to have been mainly honorary members of the SS. During the war an institute for military scientific research became attached to the Ahnenerbe which conducted extensive experiments involving the use of living human beings.”
And again it was stated:[10]
“In connection with the administration of the concentration camps, the SS embarked on a series of experiments on human beings which were performed on prisoners of war or concentration camp inmates. These experiments included freezing to death and killing by poison bullets. The SS was able to obtain an allocation of Government funds for this kind of research on the grounds that they had access to human material not available to other agencies.”
CRIMES COMMITTED IN THE GUISE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
(Counts two and three, pars. 6, 7, 11, and 12)
I turn now to the main part of the indictment and will outline at this point the prosecution’s case relating to those crimes alleged to have been committed in the name of medical or scientific research. The charges with respect to “euthanasia” and the slaughter of tubercular Poles obviously have no relation to research or experimentation and will be dealt with later. What I will cover now comprehends all the experiments charged as war crimes in paragraph 6 and as crimes against humanity in paragraph 11 of the indictment, and the murders committed for so-called anthropological purposes which are charged as war crimes in paragraph 7 and as crimes against humanity in paragraph 12 of the indictment.
Before taking up these experiments one by one, let us look at them as a whole. Are they a heterogeneous list of horrors, or is there a common denominator for the whole group?
A sort of rough pattern is apparent on the face of the indictment. Experiments concerning high altitude, the effect of cold, and the potability of processed sea-water have an obvious relation to aeronautical and naval combat and rescue problems. The mustard gas and phosphorous burn experiments, as well as those relating to the healing value of sulfanilamide for wounds, can be related to air-raid and battlefield medical problems. It is well known that malaria, epidemic jaundice, and typhus were among the principal diseases which had to be combated by the German Armed Forces and by German authorities in occupied territories.
To some degree, the therapeutic pattern outlined above is undoubtedly a valid one, and explains why the Wehrmacht, and especially the German Air Force, participated in these experiments. Fanatically bent upon conquest, utterly ruthless as to the means or instruments to be used in achieving victory, and callous to the sufferings of people whom they regarded as inferior, the German militarists were willing to gather whatever scientific fruit these experiments might yield.
But our proof will show that a quite different and even more sinister objective runs like a red thread through these hideous researches. We will show that in some instances the true object of these experiments was not how to rescue or to cure, but how to destroy and kill. The sterilization experiments were, it is clear, purely destructive in purpose. The prisoners at Buchenwald who were shot with poisoned bullets were not guinea pigs to test an antidote for the poison; their murderers really wanted to know how quickly the poison would kill. This destructive objective is not superficially as apparent in the other experiments, but we will show that it was often there.
Mankind has not heretofore felt the need of a word to denominate the science of how to kill prisoners most rapidly and subjugated people in large numbers. This case and these defendants have created this gruesome question for the lexicographer. For the moment we will christen this macabre science “thanatology,” the science of producing death. The thanatological knowledge, derived in part from these experiments, supplied the techniques for genocide, a policy of the Third Reich, exemplified in the “euthanasia” program and in the wide-spread slaughter of Jews, gypsies, Poles, and Russians. This policy of mass extermination could not have been so effectively carried out without the active participation of German medical scientists.
I will now take up the experiments themselves. Two or three of them I will describe more fully, but most of them will be treated in summary fashion, as Mr. McHaney will be presenting detailed proof of each of them.
A. High-Altitude Experiments
The experiments known as “high-altitude” or “low-pressure” experiments were carried out at the Dachau concentration camp in 1942. According to the proof, the original proposal that such experiments be carried out on human beings originated in the spring of 1941 with a Dr. Sigmund Rascher. Rascher was at that time a captain in the medical service of the German Air Force, and also held officer rank in the SS. He is believed now to be dead.
The origin of the idea is revealed in a letter which Rascher wrote to Himmler in May 1941 at which time Rascher was taking a course in aviation medicine at a German Air Force headquarters in Munich. According to the letter, this course included researches into high-altitude flying and
“considerable regret was expressed at the fact that no tests with human material had yet been possible for us, as such experiments are very dangerous and nobody volunteers for them.” (_1602-PS._)
Rascher, in this letter, went on to ask Himmler to put human subjects at his disposal and baldly stated that the experiments might result in death to the subjects but that the tests theretofore made with monkeys had not been satisfactory.
Rascher’s letter was answered by Himmler’s adjutant, the defendant, Rudolf Brandt, who informed Rascher that—
“* * * Prisoners will, of course, gladly be made available for the high-flight researches.” (_1582-PS._)
Subsequently Rascher wrote directly to Rudolf Brandt asking for permission to carry out the experiments at the Dachau concentration camp, and he mentioned that the German Air Force had provided “a movable pressure chamber” in which the experiments might be made. Plans for carrying out the experiments were developed at a conference late in 1941, or early in 1942, attended by Dr. Rascher and by the defendants Weltz, Romberg, and Ruff, all of whom were members of the German Air Force Medical Service. The tests themselves were carried out in the spring and summer of 1942, using the pressure chamber which the German Air Force had provided. The victims were locked in the low-pressure chamber, which was an airtight ball-like compartment, and then the pressure in the chamber was altered to simulate the atmospheric conditions prevailing at extremely high altitudes. The pressure in the chamber could be varied with great rapidity, which permitted the defendants to duplicate the atmospheric conditions which an aviator might encounter in falling great distances through space without a parachute and without oxygen.
The reports, conclusions, and comments on these experiments, which were introduced here and carefully recorded, demonstrate complete disregard for human life and callousness to suffering and pain. These documents reveal at one and the same time the medical results of the experiments, and the degradation of the physicians who performed them. The first report by Rascher was made in April 1942, and contains a description of the effect of the low-pressure chamber on a 37-year-old Jew. (_1971-A-PS._) I quote:
“The third experiment of this type took such an extraordinary course that I called an SS physician of the camp as witness, since I had worked on these experiments all by myself. It was a continuous experiment without oxygen at a height of 12 kilometers conducted on a 37-year-old Jew in good general condition. Breathing continued up to 30 minutes. After 4 minutes the experimental subject began to perspire and wiggle his head, after 5 minutes cramps occurred, between 6 and 10 minutes breathing increased in speed and the experimental subject became unconscious; from 11 to 30 minutes breathing slowed down to three breaths per minute, finally stopping altogether.
“Severest cyanosis developed in between and foam appeared at the mouth.
“At 5 minute intervals electrocardiograms from three leads were written. After breathing had stopped Ekg (electrocardiogram) was continuously written until the action of the heart had come to a complete standstill. About ½ hour after breathing had stopped, dissection was started.”
Rascher’s report also contains the following record of the “autopsy”:
“When the cavity of the chest was opened the pericardium was filled tightly (heart tamponade). Upon opening of the pericardium, 80 cc. of clear yellowish liquid gushed forth. The moment the tamponade had stopped, the right auricle of the heart began to beat heavily, at first at the rate of 60 actions per minute, then progressively slower. Twenty minutes after the pericardium had been opened, the right auricle was opened by puncturing it. For about 15 minutes, a thin stream of blood spurted forth. Thereafter, clogging of the puncture wound in the auricle by coagulation of the blood and renewed acceleration of the action of the right auricle occurred.
“One hour after breathing had stopped, the spinal marrow was completely severed and the brain removed. Thereupon, the action of the auricle of the heart stopped for 40 seconds. It then renewed its action, coming to a complete standstill 8 minutes later. A heavy subarachnoid oedema was found in the brain. In the veins and arteries of the brain, a considerable quantity of air was discovered. Furthermore, the blood vessels in the heart and liver were enormously obstructed by embolism.” (_1971-A-PS._)
After seeing this report Himmler ironically ordered that if a subject should be brought back to life after enduring such an experiment, he should be “pardoned” to life imprisonment in a concentration camp. Rascher’s reply to this letter, dated 20 October 1942, reveals that up to the time the victims of these experiments had all been Poles and Russians, that some of them had been condemned to death, and Rascher inquired whether Himmler’s benign mercy extended to Poles and Russians. (_1971-D-PS._) A teleptyped reply from the defendant, Rudolf Brandt, confirmed Rascher’s belief that Poles and Russians were beyond the pale and should be given no amnesty of any kind. (_1971-E-PS._)
The utter brutality of the crimes committed in conducting this series of experiments is reflected in all the documents. A report written in May 1942 reflects that certain of these tests were carried out on persons described therein as “Jewish professional criminals.” In fact, these Jews had been condemned for what the Nazis called “Rassenschande,” which literally means “racial shame.” The crime consisted of marriage or intercourse between Aryans and non-Aryans. The murder and torture of these unfortunate Jews is eloquently reflected in the following report:
“Some of the experimental subjects died during a continued high-altitude experiment; for instance, after one-half hour at a height of 12 kilometers. After the skull had been opened under water, an ample amount of air embolism was found in the brain vessels and, in part, free air in the brain ventricles.
“In order to find out whether the severe psychic and physical effects, as mentioned under No. 3, are due to the formation of embolism, the following was done: After relative recuperation from such a parachute descending test had taken place, however before regaining consciousness, some experimental subjects were kept under water until they died. When the skull and cavities of the breast and of the abdomen were opened under water, an enormous amount of air embolism was found in the vessels of the brain, the coronary vessels, and the vessels of the liver and the intestines.” (_NO-220._)
The victims who did not die in the course of such experiments, surely wished that they had. A long report written in July 1942 by Rascher, and by the defendants Ruff and Romberg, describes an experiment on a former delicatessen clerk, who was given an oxygen mask and raised in the chamber to an atmospheric elevation of over 47,000 feet, at which point the mask was removed and a parachute descent was simulated. The report describes the victim’s reactions—“spasmodic convulsions,” “agonal convulsive breathing,” “clonic convulsions, groaning,” “yells aloud,” “convulses arms and legs,” “grimaces, bites his tongue,” “does not respond to speech,” “gives the impression of someone who is completely out of his mind.” (_NO-402._)
The evidence which we will produce will establish that the defendants Ruff and Romberg personally participated with Rascher in experiments resulting in death and torture; that the defendant Sievers watched the experiments for an entire day and made an oral report to Himmler on his observations; that the defendant Rudolf Brandt was the agent of Himmler in providing the human subjects for these experiments and in making many other facilities available to Rascher and rendering him general assistance; and that the defendant Weltz, in his official capacity, repeatedly insisted on supervision over and full responsibility and credit for the experiments. The higher authorities of both the German Air Force and the SS were fully informed concerning what was going on. Extensive correspondence will be introduced, for example, concerning the availability of the low-pressure chamber which the German Air Force furnished at Dachau, and concerning the availability of Rascher, who was an officer in the Air Force Medical Service, to conduct the experiments. Knowledge of, participation in, and responsibility for these atrocious crimes on the part of the defendants here charged will be clearly shown by the evidence.
B. Freezing Experiments
The deep interest of the German Air Force in capitalizing on the availability of inmates of concentration camps for experimental purposes is even more apparent in the case of the freezing experiments. These, too, were conducted at Dachau. They began immediately after the high-altitude experiments were completed and they continued until the spring of 1943. Here again, the defendant Weltz was directly in charge of the experiments, with Rascher as his assistant, as is shown in a letter written in May 1942 by Field Marshal Erhard Milch, the Inspector General of the German Air Force, to SS Obergruppenfuehrer Wolff, one of Heinrich Himmler’s principal subordinates, and this letter specifically requested that the freezing experiments be carried out at Dachau under Weltz’s supervision. (_343-A-PS._)
The purpose of these experiments was to determine the most effective way of rewarming German aviators who were forced to parachute into the North Sea. The evidence will show that in the course of these experiments, the victims were forced to remain outdoors without clothing in freezing weather from 9 to 14 hours. In other cases, they were forced to remain in a tank of iced water for 3 hours at a time. The water experiments are described in a report by Rascher written in August 1942. (_1618-PS._) I quote:
“Electrical measurements gave low temperature readings of 26.4° in the stomach and 26.5° in the rectum. Fatalities occurred only when the brain stem and the back of the head were also chilled. Autopsies of such fatal cases always revealed large amounts of free blood, up to ½ liter, in the cranial cavity. The heart invariably showed extreme dilation of the right chamber. As soon as the temperature in those experiments reached 28°, the experimental subjects died invariably, despite all attempts at resuscitation.”
Other documents set forth that from time to time the temperature of the water would be lowered by 10° Centigrade and a quart of blood would be taken from an artery in the subject’s throat for analysis. The organs of the victims who died were extracted and sent to the Pathological Institute at Munich.
Rewarming of the subjects was attempted by various means, most commonly and successfully in a very hot bath. In September, Himmler personally ordered that rewarming by the warmth of human bodies also be attempted, and the inhuman villains who conducted these experiments promptly produced four gypsy women from the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. When the women had arrived, rewarming was attempted by placing the chilled victim between two naked women.
A voluminous report on the freezing experiments conducted in tanks of ice water, written in October 1942, contains the following (_NO-428_):
“If the experimental subject were placed in the water under narcosis, one observed a certain arousing effect. The subject began to groan and made some defensive movements. In a few cases, a state of excitation developed. This was especially severe in the cooling of the head and neck. But never was a complete cessation of the narcosis observed. The defensive movements ceased after about 5 minutes. There followed a progressive rigor, which developed especially strongly in the arm musculature; the arms were strongly flexed and pressed to the body. The rigor increased with the continuation of the cooling, now and then interrupted by tonic-clonic twitching. With still more marked sinking of the body temperature, it suddenly ceased. These cases ended fatally, without any successful results from resuscitation efforts.
* * * * *
“Experiments without narcosis showed no essential differences in the course of cooling. Upon entry into the water, a severe cold shuddering appeared. The cooling of the neck and back of the head was felt as especially painful, but already after 5 to 10 minutes, a significant weakening of the pain sensation was observable. Rigor developed after this time in the same manner as under narcosis, likewise the tonic-clonic twitchings. At this point, speech became difficult because the rigor also affected the speech musculature.
“Simultaneously with the rigor, a severe difficulty in breathing set in with or without narcosis. It was reported that, so to speak, an iron ring was placed about the chest. Objectively, already at the beginning of this breathing difficulty, a marked dilatation of the nostrils occurred. The expiration was prolonged and visibly difficult. This difficulty passed over into a rattling and snoring breathing. * * *” [Emphasis not shown.]
During the winter of 1942 and 1943, experiments with “dry” cold were conducted. And Rascher reported on these in another letter to Himmler (_1616-PS_):
“Up to now, I have cooled off about 30 people stripped in the open air during nine to fourteen hours at 27° to 29°. After a time, corresponding to a trip of 1 hour, I put these subjects in a hot bath. Up to now, every single patient was completely warmed up within 1 hour at most, although some of them had their hands and feet frozen white.”
The responsibility among the defendants for the freezing experiments is substantially the same as for the high-altitude tests. The results were, if anything, ever more widely known in German medical circles. In October 1942, a medical conference took place here in Nuernberg at the Deutscher Hof Hotel, at which one of the authors of the report from which I have just quoted spoke on the subject “Prevention and Treatment of Freezing”, and the defendant Weltz spoke on the subject “Warming up after Freezing to the Danger Point.” Numerous documents which we will introduce show the widespread responsibility among the defendants, and in the highest quarters of the German Air Force, for these sickening crimes.
C. Malaria Experiments
Another series of experiments carried out at the Dachau concentration camp concerned immunization for and treatment of malaria. Over 1,200 inmates of practically every nationality were experimented upon. Many persons who participated in these experiments have already been tried before a general military court held at Dachau, and the findings of that court will be laid before this Tribunal. The malaria experiments were carried out under the general supervision of a Dr. Schilling, with whom the defendant Sievers and others in the box collaborated. The evidence will show that healthy persons were infected by mosquitoes or by injections from the glands of mosquitoes. Catholic priests were among the subjects. The defendant Gebhardt kept Himmler informed of the progress of these experiments. Rose furnished Schilling with fly eggs for them, and others of the defendants participated in various ways which the evidence will demonstrate.
After the victims had been infected, they were variously treated with quinine, neosalvarsan, pyramidon, antipyrin, and several combinations of these drugs. Many deaths occurred from excessive doses of neosalvarsan and pyramidon. According to the findings of the Dachau court, malaria was the direct cause of 30 deaths and 300 to 400 others died as the result of subsequent complications.
D. Mustard Gas Experiments
The experiments concerning mustard gas were conducted at Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, and other concentration camps and extended over the entire period of the war. Wounds were deliberately inflicted on the victims, and the wounds were then infected with mustard gas. Other subjects were forced to inhale the gas, or to take it internally in liquid form, and still others were injected with the gas. A report on these experiments written at the end of 1939 described certain cases in which wounds were inflicted on both arms of the human guinea pigs and then infected, and the report states: “The arms in most of the cases are badly swollen and pains are enormous.”
The alleged purpose of these experiments was to discover an effective treatment for the burns caused by mustard gas. In 1944 the experiments were coordinated with a general program for research into gas warfare. A decree issued by Hitler in March 1944 ordered the defendant Karl Brandt to push medical research in connection with gas warfare. The defendant Rudolf Brandt sent copies of this decree to the defendant Sievers, to Grawitz, and others, and transmitted Hitler’s request that they confer soon with the defendant Karl Brandt “on account of the urgency of the order given him by the Fuehrer.” Subsequently, Sievers, who was thoroughly familiar with the mustard gas experiments being carried on in the concentration camps, reported the details of these experiments to the defendant Karl Brandt.
E. and F. Ravensbrueck Experiments Concerning Sulfanilamide and Other Drugs; Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation
The experiments conducted principally on the female inmates of Ravensbrueck concentration camp were perhaps the most barbaric of all. These concerned bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration and bone transplantation, and experiments with sulfanilamide and other drugs. They were carried out by the defendants Fischer and Oberheuser under the direction of the defendant Gebhardt.
In one set of experiments, incisions were made on the legs of several of the camp inmates for the purpose of simulating battle-caused infections. A bacterial culture, or fragments of wood shavings, or tiny pieces of glass were forced into the wound. After several days, the wounds were treated with sulfanilamide. Grawitz, the head of the SS Medical Service, visited Ravensbrueck and received a report on these experiments directly from the defendant Fischer. Grawitz thereupon directed that the wounds inflicted on the subjects should be even more severe so that conditions similar to those prevailing at the front lines would be more completely simulated.
Bullet wounds were simulated on the subjects by tying off the blood vessels at both ends of the incision. A gangrene-producing culture was then placed in the wounds. Severe infection resulted within 24 hours. Operations were then performed on the infected areas and the wounds were treated with sulfanilamide. In each of the many sulfanilamide experiments, some of the subjects were wounded and infected but were not given sulfanilamide, so as to compare their reactions with those who received treatment.
Bone transplantation from one person to another and the regeneration of nerves, muscles, and bones were also tried out on the women at Ravensbrueck. The defendant Gebhardt personally ordered that bone transplantation experiments be carried out, and in one case the scapula of an inmate at Ravensbrueck was removed and taken to Hohenlychen Hospital and there transplanted. We will show that the defendants did not even have any substantial scientific objective. These experiments were senseless, sadistic, and utterly savage.
The defendant Oberheuser’s duties at Ravensbrueck in connection with the experiments were to select young and healthy inmates for the experiments, to be present at all of the surgical operations, and to give the experimental subjects post-operative care. We will show that this care consisted chiefly of utter neglect of nursing requirements, and cruel and abusive treatment of the miserable victims.
Other experiments in this category were conducted at Dachau to discover a method of bringing about coagulation of the blood. Concentration camp inmates were actually fired upon, or were injured in some other fashion in order to cause something similar to a battlefield wound. These wounds were then treated with a drug known as polygal in order to test its capacity to coagulate the blood. Several inmates were killed. Sulfanilamide was also administered to some and withheld from other inmates who had been infected with the pus from a phlegmon-diseased person. Blood poisoning generally ensued. After infection, the victims were left untreated for 3 or 4 days, after which various drugs were administered experimentally or experimental surgical operations were performed. Polish Catholic priests were used for these tests. Many died and others became invalids.
As a result of all of these senseless and barbaric experiments, the defendants are responsible for manifold murders and untold cruelty and torture.
G. Sea-Water Experiments
For the sea-water experiments we return to Dachau. They were conducted in 1944 at the behest of the German Air Force and the German Navy in order to develop a method of rendering sea-water drinkable. Meetings to discuss this problem were held in May 1944, attended by representatives of the Luftwaffe, the Navy, and I. G. Farben. The defendants Becker-Freyseng and Schaefer were among the participants. It was agreed to conduct a series of experiments in which the subjects, fed only with shipwreck emergency rations, would be divided into four groups. One group would receive no water at all; the second would drink ordinary sea-water; the third would drink sea-water processed by the so-called “Berka” method, which concealed the taste but did not alter the saline content; the fourth would drink sea-water treated so as to remove the salt.
Since it was expected that the subjects would die, or at least suffer severe impairment of health, it was decided at the meeting in May 1944 that only persons furnished by Himmler could be used. Thereafter in June 1944 the defendant Schroeder set the program in motion by writing to Himmler, and I quote from his letter (_NO-185_):
“Earlier you made it possible for the Luftwaffe to settle urgent medical matters through experiments on human beings. Today I again stand before a decision which, after numerous experiments on animals and also on voluntary human subjects, demands final solution: The Luftwaffe has simultaneously developed two methods for making sea-water drinkable. The one method, developed by a medical officer, removes the salt from the sea-water and transforms it into real drinking water; the second method, suggested by an engineer, only removes the unpleasant taste from the sea-water. The latter method, in contrast to the first, requires no critical raw material. From the medical point of view this method must be viewed critically, as the administration of concentrated salt solutions can produce severe symptoms of poisoning.
“As the experiments on human beings could thus far only be carried out for a period of 4 days, and as practical demands require a remedy for those who are in distress at sea up to 12 days, appropriate experiments are necessary.
“Required are 40 healthy test subjects, who must be available for 4 whole weeks. As it is known from previous experiments that necessary laboratories exist in the Dachau concentration camp, this camp would be very suitable.
* * * * *
“Due to the enormous importance which a solution of this question has for soldiers of the Luftwaffe and Navy who have become shipwrecked, I would be greatly obliged to you, my dear Reich Minister, if you would decide to comply with my request.”
Himmler passed this letter to Grawitz who consulted Gebhardt and other SS officials. A typical and nauseating Nazi discussion of racial questions ensued. One SS man suggested using quarantined prisoners and Jews; another suggested gypsies. Grawitz doubted that experiments on gypsies would yield results which were scientifically applicable to Germans. Himmler finally directed that gypsies be used with three others as a check.
The tests were actually begun in July 1944. The defendant Beiglboeck supervised the experiments, in the course of which the gypsy subjects underwent terrible suffering, became delirious or developed convulsions, and some died.
H. Epidemic Jaundice
The epidemic jaundice experiments, which took place at Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps, were instigated by the defendant Karl Brandt. A letter written in 1943 by Grawitz stresses the enormous military importance of developing an inoculation against epidemic jaundice, which had spread extensively in the Waffen SS and the German Army, particularly in southern Russia. In some companies, up to 60 percent casualties from epidemic jaundice had occurred. Grawitz further informed Himmler that, and I quote:
“The General Commissioner of the Fuehrer, SS Brigadefuehrer Professor Dr. Brandt, has approached me with the request to help him obtain prisoners to be used in connection with his research on the causes of Epidemic Jaundice which has been furthered to a large degree by his efforts. * * * In order to enlarge our knowledge, so far based only on inoculation of animals with germs taken from human beings, it would not be necessary to reverse the procedure and inoculate human beings with germs cultivated in animals. Casualties (Todesfaelle) must be anticipated.”
Grawitz also had been doing research: on this problem with the assistance of a Dr. Dohmen, a medical officer attached to the Army Medical Inspectorate. Himmler made the following reply to the Grawitz letter (_NO-011_):
“I approve that eight criminals condemned in Auschwitz (eight Jews of the Polish Resistance Movement condemned to death) should be used for these experiments.”
Other evidence will indicate that the scope of these experiments was subsequently enlarged and that murder, torture, and death resulted from them.
I. Sterilization Experiments
In the sterilization experiments conducted by the defendants at Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, and other concentration camps, the destructive nature of the Nazi medical program comes out most forcibly. The Nazis were searching for methods of extermination, both by murder and sterilization, of large population groups, by the most scientific and least conspicuous means. They were developing a new branch of medical science which would give them the scientific tools for the planning and practice of genocide. The primary purpose was to discover an inexpensive, unobtrusive, and rapid method of sterilization which could be used to wipe out Russians, Poles, Jews, and other people. Surgical sterilization was thought to be too slow and expensive to be used on a mass scale. A method to bring about an unnoticed sterilization was thought desirable.
Medicinal sterilizations were therefore carried out. A Dr. Madaus had stated that caladium seguinum, a drug obtained from a North American plant, if taken orally or by injection, would bring about sterilization. In 1941 the defendant Pokorny called this to Himmler’s attention, and suggested that it should be developed and used against Russian prisoners of war. I quote one paragraph from Pokorny’s letter written at that time (_NO-035_):
“If, on the basis of this research, it were possible to produce a drug which after a relatively short time, effects an imperceptible sterilization on human beings, then we would have a powerful new weapon at our disposal. The thought alone that the 3 million Bolsheviks, who are at present German prisoners, could be sterilized so that they could be used as laborers but be prevented from reproduction, opens the most far-reaching perspectives.”
As a result of Pokorny’s suggestion, experiments were conducted on concentration camp inmates to test the effectiveness of the drug. At the same time efforts were made to grow the plant on a large scale in hothouses.
At the Auschwitz concentration camp sterilization experiments were also conducted on a large scale by a Dr. Karl Clauberg, who had developed a method of sterilizing women, based on the injection of an irritating solution. Several thousand Jewesses and gypsies were sterilized at Auschwitz by this method.
Conversely, surgical operations were performed on sexually abnormal inmates at Buchenwald in order to determine whether their virility could be increased by the transplantation of glands. Out of 14 subjects of these experiments, at least 2 died.
The defendant Gebhardt also personally conducted sterilizations at Ravensbrueck by surgical operation. The defendant Viktor Brack, in March 1941, submitted to Himmler a report on the progress and state of X-ray sterilization experiments. Brack explained that it had been determined that sterilization with powerful X-rays could be accomplished and that castration would then result. The danger of this X-ray method lay in the fact that other parts of the body, if they were not protected with lead, were also seriously affected. In order to prevent the victims from realizing that they were being castrated, Brack made the following fantastic suggestion in his letter written in 1941 to Himmler, from which I quote (_NO-203_):
“One way to carry out these experiments in practice would be to have those people who are to be treated line up before a counter. There they would be questioned and a form would be given them to be filled out, the whole process taking 2 or 3 minutes. The official attendant who sits behind the counter can operate the apparatus in such a manner that he works a switch which will start both tubes together (as the rays have to come from both sides). With one such installation with two tubes about 150 to 200 persons could be sterilized daily, while 20 installations would take care of 3,000 to 4,000 persons daily. In my opinion the number of daily deportations will not exceed this figure.”
In this same report the defendant Brack related that, and I quote (_NO-203_):
“* * * the latest X-ray technique and research make it easily possible to carry out mass sterilization by means of X-rays. However, it appears to be impossible to take these measures without having those who were so treated finding out sooner or later that they definitely had been either sterilized or had been castrated by X-rays.”
Another letter from Brack to Himmler, in June 1942, laid the basis for X-ray experiments which were subsequently carried out at Auschwitz. The second paragraph of this letter forms a fitting conclusion to this account of Nazi depravity, and I quote (_NO-205_):
“Among 10 millions of Jews in Europe there are, I figure, at least 2 to 3 millions of men and women who are fit enough to work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labor problem presents us with, I hold the view that these 2 to 3 millions should be specially selected and preserved. This can, however, only be done if at the same time they are rendered incapable to propagate. About a year ago I reported to you that agents of mine have completed the experiments necessary for this purpose. I would like to recall these facts once more. Sterilization, as normally performed on persons with hereditary diseases, is here out of the question because it takes too long and is too expensive. Castration by X-rays, however, is not only relatively cheap but can also be performed on many thousands in the shortest time. I think that at this time it is already irrelevant whether the people in question become aware of having been castrated after some weeks or months, once they feel the effects.”
J. Typhus (Fleckfieber) and Related Experiments
From December 1941, until near the end of the war, a large program of medical experimentation was carried out upon concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald and Natzweiler to investigate the value of various vaccines. This research involved a variety of diseases—typhus, yellow fever, smallpox, paratyphoid A and B, cholera, and diphtheria. A dozen or more of the defendants were involved in these experiments which were characterized by the most cynical disregard of human life. Hundreds of persons died. The experiments concerning typhus—known in Germany as Fleckfieber or “spot fever”, but is not to be confused with American spotted fever—were particularly appalling.
The typhus experiments at Natzweiler were conducted by Dr. Eugen Haagen, an officer in the Air Force Medical Service and a professor at the University of Strasbourg. In the fall of 1943, through the defendant Sievers, Haagen obtained 100 concentration camp prisoners for experiments with typhus vaccines. Two hundred more prisoners were furnished in the summer of 1944. These experiments caused many fatalities among the prisoners.
The general pattern of these typhus experiments was as follows. A group of concentration camp inmates, selected from the healthier ones who had some resistance to disease, were injected with an anti-typhus vaccine, the efficacy of which was to be tested. Thereafter, all the persons in the group would be infected with typhus. At the same time, other inmates who had not been vaccinated were also infected for purposes of comparison—these unvaccinated victims were called the “control” group. But perhaps the most wicked and murderous circumstance in this whole case is that still other inmates were deliberately infected with typhus with the sole purpose of keeping the typhus virus alive and generally available in the bloodstream of the inmates.
The typhus murders at Buchenwald were carried out in 1942 and 1943 under the direction of the defendants Genzken and Mrugowsky. Requests for the human guinea pigs were turned over to, and filled by, the defendant Hoven. The bulk of the actual work was done by an infamous physician known as Dr. Ding, who committed suicide after the war. But Dr. Ding’s professional diary has survived.
The first entry in Ding’s diary, for 29 December 1941, reveals that here again the impetus for these murderous researches came from the Wehrmacht. This entry describes a conference sponsored by the defendant Handloser and Dr. Conti, respective heads of the military and civilian medical services of the Reich, which was also attended by the defendant Mrugowsky. Typhus had been making serious inroads on the German troops fighting in Russia. The account of this conference relates that, and I quote (_NO-265_):
“Since tests on animals are not of sufficient value, tests on human beings must be carried out.”
Other entries in the Ding diary quoted below are typical of those made over a period of 3 years, and give some idea of the mortality among the victims. (_NO-265._)
“_10 Jan 42: Preliminary test B_: Preliminary test to establish a sure means of infection: Much as in smallpox vaccination, 5 persons were infected with virus through 2 superficial and 2 deeper cuts in the upper arm. All of the humans used for this test fell ill with true typhus. Incubation period up to 6 days.
“_20 Feb 42_: Chart of the case history of the preliminary tests to establish a sure means of infection were sent to Berlin. One death out of five sick.
“_17 Mar 42_: Visit of Prof. Gildemeister and Prof. Rose (department head for tropical medicine of the Robert Koch Institute) at the experimental station. All persons experimented on fell sick with typhus, except two, who, the fact was established later, already had been sick with typhus during an epidemic at the police prison in Berlin.
“_9 Jan 43_: By order of the surgeon general of the Waffen SS, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Major General of the Waffen SS, Dr. Genzken, the hitherto existing typhus research station at the concentration camp Buchenwald becomes the ‘Department for Typhus and Virus Research’. The head of the department will be SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding. During his absence, the station medical officer of the Waffen SS, Weimar, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Hoven will supervise the production of vaccines.
“_13 and 14 Apr 43_: Unit of SS Sturmbannfeuhrer Dr. Ding ordered to I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G., Hoechst. Conference with Prof. Lautenschlaeger, Dr. Weber and Dr. Fussgaenger about the experimental series ‘Acridine Granulate and Rutenol’ in the concentration camp Buchenwald. Visit to Geheimrat Otto and Prof. Prigge in the institute for experimental therapeutics in Frankfurt-on-Main.
“_24 Apr 1943_: Therapeutic experiments Acridine Granulate (A-GR2) and Rutenol (R-2) to carry out the therapeutic experiments Acridine Granulate and Rutenol, 30 persons (15 each) and 9 persons for control were infected by intravenous injection of 2 cc. each of fresh blood of a typhus sick person. All experimental persons got very serious typhus.
“_1 Jun 1943_: Charts of case history completed. The experimental series was concluded with 21 deaths; of these, 8 were in Buchenwald, 8 with Rutenol and 5 control.
“_7 Sep 1943_: Chart and case history completed. The experimental series was concluded with 53 deaths.
“_8 Mar-18 Mar 1944_: It is suggested by Colonel of this air corps, Prof. Rose, the vaccine ‘Kopenhagen’, produced from mouse liver by the National Serum Institute in Kopenhagen, be tested for its compatibility on humans. Twenty persons were vaccinated for immunization by intramuscular injection. * * * Ten persons were contemplated for control and comparison.
“_16 Apr 1944_: The remaining experimental persons were infected on 16 April by subcutaneous injection of 1/20 cc. typhus sick fresh blood. The following feel sick: 17 persons immunized: 9 medium, 8 seriously. Nine persons from the control: 2 medium, 7 seriously.
“_13 Jun 1944_: Chart and case history completed and sent to Berlin. Six deaths (3 ‘Kopenhagen’) (3 control).
“_4 Nov 1944_: Chart and case history completed. Twenty-four deaths.”
Copies of each of Dr. Ding’s official reports went to the defendants Mrugowsky and Poppendick as well as to the I. G. Farben laboratories at Hoechst. Nowhere will the evidence in this case reveal a more wicked and murderous course of conduct by men who claimed to practice the healing art than in the entries of Dr. Ding’s diary relating to the typhus experiments.
K. Poison Experiments
Here again the defendants were studying how to kill, and the scene is Buchenwald. Poisons were administered to Russian prisoners of war in their food, and German doctors stood behind a curtain to watch the reactions of the prisoners. Some of the Russians died immediately, and the survivors were killed in order to permit autopsies.
The defendant Mrugowsky, in a letter written in September 1944, has provided us with a record of another experiment in which the victims were shot with poisoned bullets, and I quote (_NO-201_):
“In the presence of SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding, Dr. Widmann and the undersigned, experiments with aconitin nitrate projectiles were conducted on 11 September 1944 on 5 persons who had been condemned to death. The projectiles in question were of a 7.65 mm. caliber, filled with crystallized poison. The experimental subjects, in a lying position, were each shot in the upper part of the left thigh. The thighs of two of them were cleanly shot through. Afterwards, no effect of the poison was to be observed. These two experimental subjects were therefore exempted.
* * * * *
“During the first hour of the experiment the pupils did not show any changes. After 78 minutes the pupils of all three showed a medium dilation, together with a retarded light reaction. Simultaneously, maximum respiration with heavy breathing inhalations set in. This subsided after a few minutes. The pupils contracted again and their reaction improved. After 65 minutes the patellar and achilles tendon reflexes of the poisoned subjects were negative. The abdominal reflexes of two of them were also negative. After approximately 90 minutes, one of the subjects again started breathing heavily; this was accompanied by an increasing motor unrest. Then the heavy breathing changed into a flat, accelerated respiration, accompanied by extreme nausea. One of the poisoned persons tried in vain to vomit. To do so he introduced four fingers of his hand up to the knuckles into his throat, but nevertheless could not vomit. His face was flushed.
“The other two experimental subjects had already early shown a pale face. The other symptoms were the same. The motor unrest increased so much that the persons flung themselves up and then down, rolled their eyes and made meaningless motions with their hands and arms. Finally the agitation subsided, the pupils dilated to the maximum, and the condemned lay motionless. * * * Death occurred 121, 123, and 129 minutes after entry of the projectile.”
L. Incendiary Bomb Experiments
These experiments were likewise carried out at Buchenwald, and the Ding diary gives us the facts. In November 1943 five persons were deliberately burned with phosphorous material taken from an English incendiary bomb. The victims were permanently and seriously injured.
M. Jewish Skeleton Collection
I come now to charges stated in paragraphs 7 and 11 of the indictment. These are perhaps the most utterly repulsive charges in the entire indictment. They concern the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers. Sievers and his associates in the Ahnenerbe Society were completely obsessed by all the vicious and malignant Nazi racial theories. They conceived the notion of applying these nauseous theories in the field of anthropology. What ensued was murderous folly.
In February 1942, Sievers submitted to Himmler, through Rudolf Brandt, a report from which the following is an extract (_NO-085_):
“We have a nearly complete collection of skulls of all races and peoples at our disposal. Only very few specimens of skulls of the Jewish race, however, are available with the result that it is impossible to arrive at precise conclusions from examining them. The war in the East now presents us with the opportunity to overcome this deficiency. By procuring the skulls of the Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars, who represent the prototype of the repulsive, but characteristic subhuman, we have the chance now to obtain a palpable, scientific document.
“The best, practical method for obtaining and collecting this skull material could be handled by directing the Wehrmacht to turn over alive all captured Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars to the Field Police. They in turn are to be given special directives to inform a certain office at regular intervals of the number and place of detention of these captured Jews and to give them special close attention and care until a special delegate arrives. This special delegate, who will be in charge of securing the ‘material’ has the job of taking a series of previously established photographs, anthropological measurements, and in addition has to determine, as far as possible, the background, date of birth, and other personal data of the prisoner. Following the subsequently induced death of the Jew, whose head should not be damaged, the delegate will separate the head from the body and will forward it to its proper point of destination in a hermetically sealed tin can, especially produced for this purpose and filled with a conserving fluid.
“Having arrived at the laboratory, the comparison tests and anatomical research on the skull, as well as determination of the race membership of pathological features of the skull form, the form and size of the brain, etc., can proceed. The basis of these studies will be the photos, measurements, and other data supplied on the head, and finally the tests of the skull itself.”
After extensive correspondence between Himmler and the defendants Sievers and Rudolf Brandt, it was decided to procure the skulls from inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp instead of at the front. The hideous program was actually carried out, as is shown by a letter from Sievers written in June 1943, which states in part (_NO-087_):
“I wish to inform you that our associate, Dr. Beger, who was in charge of the above special project, has interrupted his experiments in the concentration camp Auschwitz because of the existing danger of epidemics. Altogether 115 persons were worked on, 79 were Jews, 30 were Jewesses, 2 were Poles, and 4 were Asiatics. At the present time these prisoners are segregated by sex and are under quarantine in the two hospital buildings of Auschwitz.”
After the death of these wretched Jews had been “induced” their corpses were sent to Strasbourg. A year elapsed, and the Allied armies were racing across France and were nearing Strasbourg where this monstrous exhibit of the culture of the master race reposed. Alarmed, Sievers sent a telegram to Rudolf Brandt in September 1944, from which I quote:
“According to the proposal of 9 February 1942, and your approval of 23 February 1942, Professor Dr. Hirt has assembled a skeleton collection which has never been in existence before. Because of the vast amount of scientific research that is connected with this project, the job of reducing the corpses to skeletons has not yet been completed. Since it might require some time to process 80 corpses, Hirt requested a decision pertaining to the treatment of the collection stored in the morgue of the Anatomy, in case Strasbourg should be endangered. The collection can be defleshed and rendered unrecognizable. This, however, would mean that the whole work had been done for nothing—at least in part—and that this singular collection would be lost to science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts afterwards. The skeleton collection, as such is inconspicuous. The flesh parts could be declared as having been left by the French at the time we took over the Anatomy and would be turned over for cremating. Please advise me which of the following three proposals is to be carried out:
(1) The collection as a whole is to be preserved.
(2) The collection is to be dissolved in part.
(3) The collection is to be completely dissolved.”
The final chapter of this barbaric enterprise is found in a note in Himmler’s files addressed to Rudolf Brandt stating that:
“During his visit at the Operational Headquarters on 21 November 1944, Sievers told me that the collection in Strasbourg had been completely dissolved in conformance with the directive given him at the time. He is of the opinion that this arrangement is for the best in view of the whole situation.”
These men, however, reckoned without the hand of fate. The bodies of these unfortunate people were not completely disposed of, and this Tribunal will hear the testimony of witnesses and see pictorial exhibits depicting the charnel house which was the Anatomy Institute of the Reich University of Strasbourg.
I have now completed the sketch of some of the foul crimes which these defendants committed in the name of research. The horrible record of their degradation needs no underlining. But German medical science was in past years honored throughout the world, and many of the most illustrious names in medical research are German. How did these things come to pass? I will outline briefly the historical evidence which we will offer and which, I believe, will show that these crimes were the logical and inevitable outcome of the prostitution of German medicine under the Nazis.
GERMAN MEDICAL ORGANIZATION Before 1933
Two years after the reconstitution of the German Reich, in 1871, the German Medical Association (Deutscher Aerztevereinsbund) was created, which tied together the older local medical associations. This society existed until it was abolished by the Nazi Government. Its structure was democratic, and its interests included problems of hygiene and public health, and to an increasing extent, socio-medical problems especially in the field of sickness and disability insurance.
Bismarck’s legislation of 1881 established compulsory sickness insurance for workmen. In the course of the ensuing years, the vast bulk of the workmen were insured, and consequently most of the ordinary physician’s patients came to be insured patients. There were lists of physicians authorized to treat insured patients, and it was a matter of vital moment to every practicing physician to be listed. To protect their interest with respect to listing, fees, and other such problems, the German doctors founded a voluntary association for the defense of their economic interests known as the Hartmann Bund.
Questions of professional ethics, medical malpractice, etc., were handled in Germany in two distinct sets of medical boards or “Courts.” An entirely unofficial and voluntary system was established by the German Medical Association. The other, which was endowed with semi-official status, was called the Reich Chamber of Physicians. These chambers were elected by vote of the members and were supported by an assessment.
In addition to these organizations, there existed in Germany purely professional societies of doctors, where papers concerning scientific and practical problems were read and discussed, and which established connections with similar societies abroad. The German Government agencies which supervised the certification and licensing of physicians as well as their professional activities were the Ministry of Education and the Reich Health Office (Reichsgesundheitsamt) in the Ministry of the Interior. The latter supervised medical practice and licensing through the channels of the Ministries of the Interior of the various German states, although licensing was a federal function rather than a state function.
Medical education and training were rather standardized but good. The students spent 5 or 6 years at one of several of the medical universities; they took a final examination covering their clinical studies and then spent a year at an authorized hospital under supervision. Thereafter the interns were licensed and permitted to establish a practice. After two more years they became eligible to treat insurance patients, and, after submitting a thesis, could obtain the degree of doctor from a university.
Immediate Impact of Nazism on German Medicine
In the years immediately preceding the Third Reich, physicians’ organizations devoted to Party politics sprang up. One of these was the National Socialist Physicians’ Society, founded in 1929, in which Conti played a leading role. There was a rival association of Social Democratic Physicians, and a Socialist Society of Physicians. These societies proposed candidates for election to the Physicians’ Chambers, and thus the National Socialist Physicians’ Society and the Socialist associations came to compete with each other.
The notorious “boycott day” in Berlin, 1 April 1933, was a day of disgrace for German medicine. Members of the National Socialist Physicians’ Society, who knew the membership lists of the Socialist societies and the lists of Jewish physicians, broke into the apartments of their Socialist and Jewish colleagues in the early morning hours, pulled them out of their beds, beat them and brought them to the exhibition area near the Berlin Lehrter Station. There, all of them, including men up to 70 years old, were forced to run around the garden, as in a hippodrome, and they were shot at with pistols or beaten with sticks. There they had to stay for several days without sufficient food, and then were handed over to the SA which carried part of them to the cellars at the Hedemannstrasse jail for further tortures.
Thereafter, the members of the Socialist Society of Physicians were barred from all insurance practice because of “Communist and subversive activities.” In the subsequent listings of physicians issued by the insurance companies, the Jewish physicians were included in a separate list headed “Enemies of the State or Jews.” Soon, the insurance companies, even private ones, were no longer permitted to pay fees to the Jewish physicians. Immediately thereafter, Jewish physicians were excluded from all professional and scientific societies. At first, those who were war veterans were nominally allowed to carry on their insurance practice, but patients who kept going to them were threatened and exposed to all kinds of unpleasantness on the part of the insurance officials.
After the war began, certification and licensing were withdrawn from all Jewish physicians and they were degraded to the status of lay therapists. These physicians were forced to wear a blue shield with the Star of David and had to add a middle name such as “Sarah” or “Israel.” Their prescriptions likewise had to bear the Star of David, which exposed their patients to all kinds of unpleasantness when filling them at pharmacies, most of which had signs in their windows reading “Jews not wanted.”
At first, the Aryan physicians were allowed to treat Jewish patients, but finally they were prohibited from doing so. Hospitals refused admission to Jewish patients, apart from a few courageous ones who admitted them in defiance of the law. Jews were admitted to mental institutions in separate wards, but usually were quickly transported elsewhere for extermination.
In the early summer of 1943, Conti instigated and directed a wholesale persecution of doctors who were either foreigners or persons of so-called mixed blood and those related by marriage to Jews. At first, they were removed from their practice and sent off to posts under inferior Party doctors. In 1944, Conti went a step further and forbade these physicians to practice. They were drafted into the Speer organization, in which they were employed solely at manual labor, their living conditions being little better than those of concentration camp inmates.
Prostitution of German Medicine Under National Socialism
The totalitarian structure of the Nazi State demanded fundamental subordination of all principles of medicine to National Socialist population policy and racial concepts. The most emphatic and repelling expression of those new aims and goals came from the Nazi Director of Public Health in the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Arthur Guett, who took office in 1933. In a book published in 1935 entitled “The Structure of Public Health in the Third Reich,” Guett announced that “the ill-conceived ‘love of thy neighbor’ has to disappear, especially in relation to inferior or asocial creatures. It is the supreme duty of a national state to grant life and livelihood only to the healthy and hereditarily sound portion of the people in order to secure the maintenance of a hereditarily sound and racially pure folk for all eternity. The life of an individual has meaning only in the light of that ultimate aim, that is, in the light of his meaning to his family and to his national state.”
The entire public health policy of the Third Reich was put in line with this pronouncement of principles. The Minister of the Interior, Frick, reorganized the Health Department in his ministry in such a way that police, public health, welfare administration and social services were all coordinated in pursuit of these goals. The beginnings of this reorganization started already in the summer of 1933 and were substantially completed by 1936. All these activities were concentrated under Dr. Guett, who was thus enabled to coordinate the practical application of his policy with his theoretical principles. Even psychiatric social service agencies, which did thorough and well-organized work prior to 1933, were reduced to mere screening stations for hereditary and racial selection.
All government-employed physicians had to take a special new course lasting 18 months and had to be Party members. The German Red Cross was likewise drawn into the orbit of the Nazi Party and the SS, in view of Dr. Grawitz’ appointment as president of the Red Cross. In 1945, after Grawitz’ suicide, the defendant Gebhardt succeeded him.
The Third Reich also completely reorganized the professional medical societies. The German Medical Association and the Hartmann Bund were abolished. All German physicians were reorganized through an organization derived from the Reich Physicians’ Chamber. This National Physicians’ Chamber was placed directly under a medical “fuehrer” with the title of “Reichsaerztefuehrer.” This position was also held by Conti. All doctors except those on active military duty were subordinate to him. His regional deputies were selected from the ranks of active National Socialists who terrorized the district branch societies. These deputies, who usually strutted about in SA or SS uniforms, were recruited mainly from the early members of the National Socialist Medical Association. It was their job to bring pressure on physicians to join and take part in various party organizations, such as the SA and SS.
A command performance, especially for younger physicians, was attendance at the so-called Fuehrer-School of German Physicians at Altrehse in Mecklenburg, which had been organized by the defendant Blome. There physicians were indoctrinated in the National Socialist point of view and way of life. The so-called comradely association and sports activity were merely window dressing for political spying. These courses finally became compulsory and had to be attended for several months annually.
The general respect, in which doctors were held, sunk in view of the decreasing level of general education and ability of the doctors. This was partly due to the constant occupation of the physicians’ time with Party functions, especially the time-consuming Party formations and marches which made it impossible for young physicians to develop scientific interests, so that recent graduates increasingly lost understanding and inclination for serious scientific study and long-range research.
Medical School and Medical Training Under the Nazis
On paper, medical training under the Nazis differed little from that of the pre-Nazi era. However, its fundamental spirit was ruinously distorted and medical standards suffered a dismal decline.
Medical students had to be “Aryan,” and were required to belong to the National Socialist Students’ League. The students’ entire course of studies was constantly interrupted by the demands of the various party organizations to which they were forced to belong. A student whose knowledge of the racial theories and Nuernberg laws was not sufficient would fail his medical examinations.
Chairs in the universities were filled in many cases by Nazi so-called “professors” who might or might not have a scientific background. The true scientific societies under the Nazi regime became less and less active, and the Nazi professors in the universities devoted more time and interest to their SA or SS organizations than to the teaching of medicine. These Nazi professors would don their brown SA or black SS uniforms on all possible occasions, exchanging them proudly for their academic gowns at all academic celebrations and meetings.
The worst Nazi politicians, like Streicher, were given the free run of university clinics, such as at Erlangen. This submissiveness to lay politicians led to a general decline of respect for German academic medicine not only on the part of their own public and abroad but even on the part of the very same politicians before whom they kowtowed. This went so far that Streicher, when addressing a full faculty meeting at the University of Erlangen in 1936, called the assembled professors “complete idiots” to their faces. This was by no means an isolated occurrence.
Particularly deplorable was the degradation of psychiatry. Psychiatric university teaching declined to the level of a mere rehashing of the Nuernberg and sterilization laws. The modern techniques of psychotherapy had been abandoned, and treatment deteriorated to pep talks full of Nazi indoctrination admonitions and threats. No wonder that these methods backfired against the best interest of the German war effort which they were foolishly intended to serve. The lack of proper understanding and treatment of German soldiers who developed combat fatigue or neuroses, on the part of their own medical personnel, drove many of them to surrender to the enemy; efforts to rehabilitate them and restore them to duty were frustrated by the ruinous infusion of Nazi doctrine.
Summary
The general decline of German medical conduct and the poisoning of German medical ethics which the Nazis brought about laid the basis for the atrocious experiments of which the defendants are accused.
Many of these were experiments in name only; we will show them to have been senseless and clumsy and of no real value to medicine as a healing art. The Nazi medical world was flooded with preposterous and wicked notions about superior and inferior races and developed a perverted moral outlook in which cruelty to subjugated races and peoples was praiseworthy. Training in SA and SS formations was hardly calculated to develop physicians who could comprehend even the bare elements of the doctor-patient relationship. In this noxious garden of lies, the seeds of the experiments were planted. In the climate of Nazi Germany, they grew with horrible rapidity.
CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION; MURDER OF POLISH NATIONALS
From the preaching of Guett and others sprang the notions which underlie the crimes to which we will now turn. Here we leave behind all semblance, however fictitious, of science and research. Under these teachings, life and livelihood became the birthright of no one. The weak and the physically handicapped are in the way and must be pushed aside. Inferior peoples are born to be exterminated by the Herrenvolk.
The charges in paragraphs 8 and 13 of the indictment concern the defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt. The original impetus for this terrible mass murder came from a fiend named Greiser, who was the German Governor of the northwest portions of Poland, which had been absorbed into the Reich under the name “Wartheland.” Early in 1942, Greiser was in the process of exterminating thousands of Jews in his territory, and he decided to turn his attention next to Poles infected with tuberculosis. I call the Tribunal’s special attention to the German word “Sonderbehandlung.” In the next document, as will be shown, it occurs frequently in Nazi correspondence and was used by them to mean extermination. In May 1942, Greiser wrote to Himmler as follows (_NO-246_):
“The special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of about 100,000 Jews in the territory of my district approved by you in agreement with the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, can be completed within the next 2 to 3 months. I ask you for permission to rescue the district immediately after the measures are taken against the Jews, from a menace, which is increasing week by week, and to use the existing and efficient special commandos for that purpose.
“There are about 230,000 people of Polish nationality in my district who were diagnosed to suffer from tuberculosis. The number of persons infected with open tuberculosis is estimated at about 35,000. This fact has led in an increasing frightening measure to the infection of Germans, who came to the Warthegau perfectly healthy. In particular, reports are received with ever-increasing effect of German children in danger of infection. A considerable number of well-known leading men, especially of the police, have been infected lately and are not available for the war effort because of the necessary medical treatment. The ever-increasing risks were also recognized and appreciated by the deputy of the Reich Leader for Public Health (Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer) Comrade Professor Dr. Blome as well as by the leader of your X-ray battalion SS Standartenfuehrer Professor Dr. Hohlfelder.
“Though in Germany proper it is not possible to take appropriate draconic steps against this public plague, I think I could take responsibility for my suggestion to have cases of open TB exterminated among the Polish race here in the Warthegau. Of course only a Pole should be handed over to such an action, who is not only suffering from open tuberculosis, but whose incurability is proved and certified by a public health officer.
“Considering the urgency of this project I ask for your approval in principle as soon as possible. This would enable us to make the preparations with all necessary precautions now to get the action against the Poles suffering from open tuberculosis under way, while the action against the Jews is in its closing stages.”
Greiser’s proposal was supported in a letter from one, Koppe, the SS and police leader in that region, to the defendant Rudolf Brandt, to which Brandt replied stating that the matter was under consideration and that the final decision would rest with Hitler. Late in June, Himmler sent a “favorable” reply to Greiser cautioning him, however, that the exterminations should be carried out inconspicuously. Thereafter, consultations as to how to carry out the measure occurred between Greiser, Dr. Hohlfelder, and the defendant Blome. The views of Blome are embodied in a letter from him to Greiser written in November 1942. This letter contains an indescribably brutal analysis of the situation, in which Blome expresses agreement with the view that extermination of the tubercular Poles is the simplest and most logical solution, and expresses doubt as to its desirability only in that it would be difficult to keep such widespread slaughter secret, and that Hitler might think the program politically inexpedient if the facts should ever come out.
I quote from the letter of defendant Blome (_NO-250_):
“It was calculated that in 1939 there were among the Poles about 35,000 persons suffering from open tuberculosis and, besides this number, about 120,000 other consumptives in need of treatment. * * *
“With the settlement of Germans in all parts of the Gau an enormous danger has arisen for them. A number of cases of infection of settled children and adults occurs daily.
* * * * *
“Therefore, something basic must be done soon. One must decide the most efficient way in which this can be done. There are three ways to be taken into consideration:
1. Special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of the seriously ill persons.
2. Most rigorous isolation of the seriously ill persons.
3. Creation of a reservation for all TB patients.
“For the planning, attention must be paid to different points of view of a practical, political, and psychological nature. Considering it most soberly, the simplest way would be the following: Aided by the X-ray battalion [Roentgen Sturmbann] we could reach the entire population, German and Polish, of the Gau during the first half of 1943. As to the Germans, the treatment and isolation are to be prepared and carried out according to the regulations for Tuberculosis Relief [Tuberkulosehilfe].
“The approximately 35,000 Poles who are incurable and infectious will be ‘specially treated’ [sonderbehandelt]. All other Polish consumptives will be subjected to an appropriate cure in order to save them for work and to avoid their causing contagion.
“According to your request I made arrangements with the offices in question, in order to start and carry out this radical procedure within half a year. You told me, that the competent office agreed with you as to this ‘special treatment’ and promised support. Before we definitely start the program, I think it would be correct if you would make sure once more that the Fuehrer will really agree to such a solution.
* * * * *
“There can be no doubt that the intended program is the most simple and most radical solution. If absolute secrecy could be guaranteed, all scruples—regardless of what nature—could be overcome. But I consider maintaining secrecy impossible. Experience has taught us that this assumption is true. Should those sick persons, having been brought, as planned, to the old Reich supposedly to be treated or healed, and they actually never return, the relatives of those sick persons in spite of the greatest secrecy would some day notice ‘that something was not quite right’.
* * * * *
“Therefore, I think it necessary to explain all those points of view to the Fuehrer before undertaking the program, as, in my opinion he is the only one able to view the entire complex and to come to a decision.”
The prosecution will introduce evidence to show that the program was in fact carried out at the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, and that as a result of the suggestions made by Blome and Greiser, many Poles were ruthlessly exterminated and that others were taken to isolated camps, utterly lacking in medical facilities, where thousands of them died.
EUTHANASIA
On 1 September 1939, the very day of the German attack on Poland, and after a great deal of discussion between Dr. Karl Brandt, Dr. Leonardo Conti, Philipp Bouhler, the Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, and others, Hitler issued the following authority to the defendant Karl Brandt (_630-PS_):
“Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M. D., are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.
[Signed] ADOLF HITLER”
After the receipt of this order, an organization was set up to execute this program, Karl Brandt headed the medical section and Philipp Bouhler, the administrative section. The defendant Hoven, as chief surgeon of the Buchenwald concentration camp, took part in the program and personally ordered the transfer of at least 300 to 400 Jewish inmates of different nationalities, mostly non-German, to their death in the euthanasia station at Bernburg. The defendants Brack and Blome participated in their capacities as assistants to Bouhler and Conti.
Questionnaires were forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior from the various institutes and were then submitted to Karl Brandt and his staff for an expert opinion in order to determine the status of each patient. Then each of those experts indicated his opinion as to the eventual disposition of the patient; that is, whether or not the patient should be transferred to a killing station. The questionnaires were supposedly returned to the Ministry of the Interior, which, in turn, sent lists of the doomed patients to the different insane asylums, ordering the directors of the asylums to hand over the patients to a thing called the General Sick Transport Corporation for transfer to the particular stations where the killings took place. This Transport Corporation was not a real organization, but one of the code names used to disguise the true nature of the activities. The patients were then transferred to the station where they were immediately killed. This entire procedure took place without the consent of the relatives, but the relatives did receive a death certificate on which the cause of death was falsified.
The Euthanasia Program was an open secret in top Nazi circles. However, every possible effort had been made to keep it from the public in order to avoid intervention by the churches. In spite of all these precautions, it became commonly known in Germany as early as the summer of 1940 that these killings were going on and church authorities, as well as various legal officials, tried in vain to stop the killings.
Typical of the letters reaching the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Interior is the following:
Addressed to The Reich Minister of Justice:
“I have a schizophrenic son in a Wuerttemberg mental institution. I am shocked about the following absolutely reliable information.
“Since some weeks insane persons are being taken from the institutions allegedly on the grounds of military evacuation. The directors of the institutions are enjoined to absolute secrecy. Shortly afterwards the relatives are informed that the sick person has died of encephalitis. The ashes are available if so desired. This is plain murder just as in the concentration camps. This measure uniformly emanates from the SS in Berlin. The institutions dare not inform the authorities. Inquire at once at Rottenmuenster, Schassenried, Winzertal, all in Wuerttemberg. Have the lists of 2 months ago examined and submitted to you, check upon the inmates who are there now and ask where the missing persons went to. For 7 years now this gang of murderers have defiled the German name. If my son is murdered, woe! I shall take care that these crimes will be published in all foreign newspapers. The SS may deny it as they always do. I shall demand prosecution by the public prosecutor.
“I cannot give my name nor the institution where my son is, otherwise I, too, won’t live much longer.
Heil Hitler Oberregierungsrat N.”
If this program had stayed within the bounds set forth in Hitler’s letter to Karl Brandt, it would have been bad enough. We may pass over as quite irrelevant any such question as whether mercy killing may not in some circumstances be desirable, and whether a statute authorizing mercy killings under proper safeguards would be valid.
Such questions may be debatable, but they do not confront us here. No German law authorizing mercy killings was ever adopted. Hitler’s memorandum to Brandt and Bouhler was not a law, not even a Nazi law. It was not intended to be a law or regarded as such even by the top Nazi officials. That is why the program was carried out with the utmost secrecy. The program was known to be utterly illegal by those who were in charge of it; they knew it was nothing but murder.
This is brought out very clearly in a letter from Himmler to the defendant Brack in December 1940 (_NO-018_):
“Dear Brack:
“I hear there is great excitement on the Alb because of the institution Grafeneck.
“The population recognizes the gray automobile of the SS and think they know what is going on at the constantly smoking crematory. What happens there is a secret and yet is no longer one. Thus the worst feeling has arisen there, and in my opinion there remains only one thing, to discontinue the use of the institution in this place and in any event disseminate information in a clever and sensible manner by showing motion pictures on the subject of inherited and mental diseases in just that locality.
“May I ask for a report as to how the difficult problem was solved.”
But there are more fundamental matters here. The program did not stay even within the bounds of the secret Hitler authority. Euthanasia became merely a polite word for the systematic slaughter of Jews and many other categories of persons useless or unfriendly to the Nazi regime. The evidence before the International Military Tribunal proved this clearly, and the judgment states, and I quote:[11]
“Reference should also be made to the policy which was in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all aged, insane, and incurable people, ‘useless eaters’, were transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and their relatives informed that they had died from natural causes. The victims were not confined to German citizens, but included foreign laborers, who were no longer able to work, and were therefore useless to the German war machine. It has been estimated that at least some 275,000 people were killed in this manner in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums, which were under the jurisdiction of the defendant Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. How many foreign workers were included in this total it has been quite impossible to determine.”
I quote one more paragraph from the decision:[12]
“During the war nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums in which euthanasia was practiced as described elsewhere in this judgment, came under Frick’s jurisdiction. He had knowledge that insane, sick and aged people, ‘useless eaters’, were being systematically put to death. Complaints of these murders reached him, but he did nothing to stop them. A report of the Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission estimated that 275,000 mentally deficient and aged people, for whose welfare he was responsible, fell victim to it.”
As stated in the indictment, the defendants involved in the euthanasia program sent their subordinates to the eastern occupied territories to assist in the mass extermination of Jews. This will be shown by abundant evidence, including the following excerpt from a letter from the defendant Brack to Himmler in 1942 from which I quote a paragraph:
“On the instructions of Reichsleiter Bouhler I placed some of my men at the disposal of Brigadefuehrer Globocnik to execute his special mission. On his renewed request I have now transferred additional personnel. On this occasion Brigadefuehrer Globocnik stated his opinion that the whole Jewish action should be completed as quickly as possible so that one would not get caught in the middle of it one day if some difficulties should make a stoppage of the action necessary. You yourself, Reich Leader, have already expressed your view, that work should progress quickly for reasons of camouflage alone.”
Protesting the lawless slaughter which even Himmler sought to “camouflage”, the Bishop of Limburg in 1941 foresaw that such insane carnage spelled the downfall of the Third Reich. (_615-PS._) He wrote:
“And if anybody says that Germany cannot win the war, if there is yet a just God, these expressions are not the result of lack of love for the Fatherland but of a deep concern for our people. * * * High authority as a moral concept has suffered a severe shock as a result of these happenings.”
SUMMARY
I have outlined the particular charges against the defendants under count two, three, and four of the indictment; and I have sketched the general nature of the evidence which we will present. But we must not overlook that the medical experiments were not an assortment of unrelated crimes. On the contrary, they constituted a well-integrated criminal program in which the defendants planned and collaborated among themselves and with others.
We have here, in other words, a conspiracy and a common design, as is charged in count one of the indictment, to commit the criminal experiments set forth in paragraphs 6 and 11 thereof. There was a common design to discover, or improve, various medical techniques. There was a common design to utilize for this purpose the unusual resources which the defendants had at their disposal, consisting of numberless unfortunate victims of Nazi conquest and Nazi ideology. The defendants conspired and agreed together to utilize these human resources for nefarious and murderous purposes, and proceeded to put their criminal design into execution. Numbered among the countless victims of the conspiracy and the crimes are Germans, and nationals of countries overrun by Germany, and gypsies, and prisoners of war, and Jews of many nationalities. All the elements of a conspiracy to commit the crimes charged in paragraphs 6 and 11 are present and all will be clearly established by the proof.
There were many co-conspirators who are not in the dock. Among the planners and leaders of this plot were Conti and Grawitz, and Hippke whose whereabouts is unknown. Among the actual executioners, Dr. Ding is dead and Rascher is thought to be dead. There were many others.
Final judgment as to the relative degrees of guilt among those in the dock must await the presentation of the proof in detail. Nevertheless, before the introduction of evidence, it will be helpful to look again at the defendants and their part in the conspiracy. What manner of men are they, and what was their major role?
The 20 physicians in the dock range from leaders of German scientific medicine, with excellent international reputations, down to the dregs of the German medical profession. All of them have in common a callous lack of consideration and human regard for, and an unprincipled willingness to abuse their power over the poor, unfortunate, defenseless creatures who had been deprived of their rights by a ruthless and criminal government. All of them violated the Hippocratic commandments which they had solemnly sworn to uphold and abide by, including the fundamental principles never to do harm—“primum non nocere.”
Outstanding men of science, distinguished for their scientific ability in Germany and abroad, are the defendants Rostock and Rose. Both exemplify, in their training and practice alike, the highest traditions of German medicine. Rostock headed the Department of Surgery at the University of Berlin and served as dean of its medical school. Rose studied under the famous surgeon, Enderlen, at Heidelberg and then became a distinguished specialist in the fields of public health and tropical diseases. Handloser and Schroeder are outstanding medical administrators. Both of them made their careers in military medicine and reached the peak of their profession. Five more defendants are much younger men who are nevertheless already known as the possessors of considerable scientific ability, or capacity in medical administration. These include the defendants Karl Brandt, Ruff, Beiglboeck, Schaefer, and Becker-Freyseng.
A number of the others such as Romberg and Fischer are well trained, and several of them attained high professional position. But among the remainder few were known as outstanding scientific men. Among them at the foot of the list is Blome who has published his autobiography entitled “Embattled Doctor” in which he sets forth that he eventually decided to become a doctor because a medical career would enable him to become “master over life and death.”
The part that each of these 20 physicians and their 3 lay accomplices played in the conspiracy and its execution corresponds closely to his professional interests and his place in the hierarchy of the Third Reich as shown in the chart. The motivating force for this conspiracy came from two principal sources. Himmler, as head of the SS, a most terrible machine of oppression with vast resources, could provide numberless victims for the experiments. By doing so, he enhanced the prestige of his organization and was able to give free rein to the Nazi racial theories of which he was a leading protagonist and to develop new techniques for the mass exterminations which were dear to his heart. The German military leaders, as the other main driving force, caught up the opportunity which Himmler presented them with and ruthlessly capitalized on Himmler’s hideous overtures in an endeavor to strengthen their military machine.
And so the infernal drama was played just as it had been conceived in the minds of the authors. Special problems which confronted the German military or civilian authorities were, on the orders of the medical leaders, submitted for solution in the concentration camps. Thus we find Karl Brandt stimulating the epidemic jaundice experiments, Schroeder demanding “40 healthy experimental subjects” for the sea-water experiments, Handloser providing the impetus for Ding’s fearful typhus researches, and Milch and Hippke at the root of the freezing experiments. Under Himmler’s authority, the medical leaders of the SS—Grawitz, Genzken, Gebhardt, and others—set the wheels in motion. They arranged for the procurement of victims through other branches of the SS, and gave directions to their underlings in the SS medical service such as Hoven and Fischer. Himmler’s administrative assistants, Sievers and Rudolf Brandt, passed on the Himmler orders, gave a push here and a shove there, and kept the machinery oiled. Blome and Brack assisted from the side of the civilian and party authorities.
The Wehrmacht provided supervision and technical assistance for those experiments in which it was most interested. A low-pressure chamber was furnished for the high-altitude tests, the services of Weltz, Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher for the high-altitude and freezing experiments, and those of Becker-Freyseng, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck for sea-water. In the important but sinister typhus researches, the eminent Dr. Rose appeared for the Luftwaffe to give expert guidance to Ding.
The proper steps were taken to insure that the results were made available to those who needed to know. Annual meetings of the consulting physicians of the Wehrmacht held under Handloser’s direction were favored with lectures on some of the experiments. The report on the high-altitude experiment was sent to Field Marshal Milch, and a moving picture about them was shown at the Air Ministry in Berlin. Weltz spoke on the effects of freezing at a medical conference in Nuernberg, the same symposium at which Rascher and others passed on their devilish knowledge.
There could, we submit, be no clearer proof of conspiracy. This was the medical service of the Third Reich at work. Among the defendants in the box sit the surviving leaders of that service. We will ask the Tribunal to determine that neither scientific eminence nor superficial respectability shall shield them against the fearful consequences of the orders they gave.
I intend to pass very briefly over matters of medical ethics, such as the conditions under which a physician may lawfully perform a medical experiment upon a person who has voluntarily subjected himself to it, or whether experiments may lawfully be performed upon criminals who have been condemned to death. This case does not present such problems. No refined questions confront us here.
None of the victims of the atrocities perpetrated by these defendants were volunteers, and this is true regardless of what these unfortunate people may have said or signed before their tortures began. Most of the victims had not been condemned to death, and those who had been were not criminals, unless it be a crime to be a Jew, or a Pole, or a gypsy, or a Russian prisoner of war.
Whatever book or treatise on medical ethics we may examine, and whatever expert on forensic medicine we may question, will say that it is a fundamental and inescapable obligation of every physician under any known system of law not to perform a dangerous experiment without the subject’s consent. In the tyranny that was Nazi Germany, no one could give such a consent to the medical agents of the State; everyone lived in fear and acted under duress. I fervently hope that none of us here in the courtroom will have to suffer in silence while it is said on the part of these defendants that the wretched and helpless people whom they froze and drowned and burned and poisoned were volunteers. If such a shameless lie is spoken here, we need only remember the four girls who were taken from the Ravensbrueck concentration camp and made to lie naked with the frozen and all but dead Jews who survived Dr. Rascher’s tank of ice water. One of these women, whose hair and eyes and figure were pleasing to Dr. Rascher, when asked by him why she had volunteered for such a task, replied, “rather half a year in a brothel than half a year in a concentration camp.”
Were it necessary, one could make a long list of the respects in which the experiments which these defendants performed departed from every known standard of medical ethics. But the gulf between these atrocities and serious research in the healing art is so patent that such a tabulation would be cynical.
We need look no further than the law which the Nazis themselves passed on the 24th of November 1938 for the protection of animals. This law states explicitly that it is designed to prevent cruelty and indifference of man towards animals and to awaken and develop sympathy and understanding for animals as one of the highest moral values of a people. The soul of the German people should abhor the principle of mere utility without consideration of the moral aspects. The law states further that all operations or treatments which are associated with pain or injury, especially experiments involving the use of cold, heat, or infection, are prohibited, and can be permitted only under special exceptional circumstances. Special written authorization by the head of the department is necessary in every case, and experimenters are prohibited from performing experiments according to their own free judgment. Experiments for the purpose of teaching must be reduced to a minimum. Medico-legal tests, vaccinations, withdrawal of blood for diagnostic purposes, and trial of vaccines prepared according to well-established scientific principles are permitted, but the animals have to be killed immediately and painlessly after such experiments. Individual physicians are not permitted to use dogs to increase their surgical skill by such practices. National Socialism regards it as a sacred duty of German science to keep down the number of painful animal experiments to a minimum.
If the principles announced in this law had been followed for human beings as well, this indictment would never have been filed. It is perhaps the deepest shame of the defendants that it probably never even occurred to them that human beings should be treated with at least equal humanity.
This case is one of the simplest and clearest of those that will be tried in this building. It is also one of the most important. It is true that the defendants in the box were not among the highest leaders of the Third Reich. They are not the war lords who assembled and drove the German military machine, nor the industrial barons who made the parts, nor the Nazi politicians who debased and brutalized the minds of the German people. But this case, perhaps more than any other we will try, epitomizes Nazi thought and the Nazi way of life, because these defendants pursue the savage premises of Nazi thought so far. The things that these defendants did, like so many other things that happened under the Third Reich, were the result of the noxious merger of German militarism and Nazi racial objectives. We will see the results of this merger in many other fields of German life; we see it here in the field of medicine.
Germany surrendered herself to this foul conjunction of evil forces. The nation fell victim to the Nazi scourge because its leaders lacked the wisdom to foresee the consequences and the courage to stand firm in the face of threats. Their failure was the inevitable outcome of that sinister undercurrent of German philosophy which preaches the supreme importance of the state and the complete subordination of the individual. A nation in which the individual means nothing will find few leaders courageous and able enough to serve its best interests.
Individual Germans did indeed give warning of what was in store, and German doctors and scientists were numbered among the courageous few. At a meeting of Bavarian psychiatrists held in Munich in 1931, when the poisonous doctrines of the Nazis were already sweeping Germany, there was a discussion of mercy killings and sterilization, and the Nazi views on these matters, with which we are now familiar, were advanced. A German professor named Oswald Bumke rose and made a reply more eloquent and prophetic than anyone could have possibly realized at the time. He said:
“I should like to make two additional remarks. One of them is, please for God’s sake leave our present financial needs out of all these considerations. This is a problem which concerns the entire future of our people, indeed, one may say without being over-emotional about it, the entire future of humanity. One should approach this problem neither from the point of view of our present scientific opinion nor from the point of view of the still more ephemeral economic crises. If by sterilization we can prevent the occurrence of mental disease then we should certainly do it, not in order to save money for the government but because every case of mental disease means infinite suffering to the patient and to his relatives. But to introduce economic points of view is not only inappropriate but outright dangerous because the logical consequence of the thought that for financial reasons all these human beings, who could be dispensed with for the moment, should be exterminated, is a quite monstrous logical conclusion; we would then have to put to death not only the mentally sick and the psychopathic personalities but all the crippled including the disabled veterans, all old maids who do not work, all widows whose children have completed their education, and all those who live on their income or draw pensions. That would certainly save a lot of money but the probability is that we will not do it.
“The second point of advice is to use utmost restraint, at least until the political atmosphere here in this country shall have improved, and scientific theories concerning heredity and race can no longer be abused for political purposes. Because, if the discussion about sterilization today is carried into the arena of political contest, then pretty soon we will no longer hear about the mentally sick but, instead, about Aryans and non-Aryans, about the blonde Germanic race and about inferior people with round skulls. That anything useful could come from that is certainly improbable; but science in general and genealogy and eugenics in particular would suffer an injury which could not easily be repaired again.”
I said at the outset of this statement that the Third Reich died of its own poison. This case is a striking demonstration not only of the tremendous degradation of German medical ethics which Nazi doctrine brought about, but of the undermining of the medical art and thwarting of the techniques which the defendants sought to employ. The Nazis have, to a certain extent, succeeded in convincing the peoples of the world that the Nazi system, although ruthless, was absolutely efficient; that although savage, it was completely scientific; that although entirely devoid of humanity, it was highly systematic—that “it got things done.” The evidence which this Tribunal will hear will explode this myth. The Nazi methods of investigation were inefficient and unscientific, and their techniques of research were unsystematic.
These experiments revealed nothing which civilized medicine can use. It was, indeed, ascertained that phenol or gasoline injected intravenously will kill a man inexpensively and within 60 seconds. This and a few other “advances” are all in the field of thanatology. There is no doubt that a number of these new methods may be useful to criminals everywhere and there is no doubt that they may be useful to a criminal state. Certain advance in destructive methodology we cannot deny, and indeed from Himmler’s standpoint this may well have been the principal objective.
Apart from these deadly fruits, the experiments were not only criminal but a scientific failure. It is indeed as if a just deity had shrouded the solutions which they attempted to reach with murderous means. The moral shortcomings of the defendants and the precipitous ease with which they decided to commit murder in quest of “scientific results”, dulled also that scientific hesitancy, that thorough thinking-through, that responsible weighing of every single step which alone can insure scientifically valid results. Even if they had merely been forced to pay as little as two dollars for human experimental subjects, such as American investigators may have to pay for a cat, they might have thought twice before wasting unnecessary numbers, and thought of simpler and better ways to solve their problems. The fact that these investigators had free and unrestricted access to human beings to be experimented upon misled them to the dangerous and fallacious conclusion that the results would thus be better and more quickly obtainable than if they had gone through the labor of preparation, thinking, and meticulous preinvestigation.
A particularly striking example is the sea-water experiment. I believe that three of the accused—Schaefer, Becker-Freyseng, and Beiglboeck—will today admit that this problem could have been solved simply and definitively within the space of one afternoon. On 20 May 1944 when these accused convened to discuss the problem, a thinking chemist could have solved it right in the presence of the assembly within the space of a few hours by the use of nothing more gruesome than a piece of jelly, a semi-permeable membrane and a salt solution, and the German Armed Forces would have had the answer on 21 May 1944. But what happened instead? The vast armies of the disenfranchised slaves were at the beck and call of this sinister assembly; and instead of thinking, they simply relied on their power over human beings rendered rightless by a criminal state and government. What time, effort, and staff did it take to get that machinery in motion! Letters had to be written, physicians, of whom dire shortage existed in the German Armed Forces whose soldiers went poorly attended, had to be taken out of hospital positions and dispatched hundreds of miles away to obtain the answer which should have been known in a few hours, but which thus did not become available to the German Armed Forces until after the completion of the gruesome show, and until 42 people had been subjected to the tortures of the damned, the very tortures which Greek mythology had reserved for Tantalus.
In short, this conspiracy was a ghastly failure as well as a hideous crime. The creeping paralysis of Nazi superstition spread through the German medical profession and, just as it destroyed character and morals, it dulled the mind.
Guilt for the oppressions and crimes of the Third Reich is widespread, but it is the guilt of the leaders that is deepest and most culpable. Who could German medicine look to to keep the profession true to its traditions and protect it from the ravaging inroads of Nazi pseudo-science? This was the supreme responsibility of the leaders of German medicine—men like Rostock and Rose and Schroeder and Handloser. That is why their guilt is greater than that of any of the other defendants in the dock. They are the men who utterly failed their country and their profession, who showed neither courage nor wisdom nor the vestiges of moral character. It is their failure, together with the failure of the leaders of Germany in other walks of life, that debauched Germany and led to her defeat. It is because of them and others like them that we all live in a stricken world.
[7] Tr. pp. 12-74.
[8] This chart is contained in Section VI, Organization of the German Medical Service, NO-645, Pros. Ex. 3, p. 91.
[9] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. I, p. 269, Nuremberg, 1947.
[10] Ibid., p. 271.
[11] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol I, p. 247, Nuremberg, 1947.
[12] Ibid., p. 301.
V. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT ON THE PRESENTATION OF EVIDENCE MADE BY THE PROSECUTION, 10 DECEMBER 1946[13]
MR. MCHANEY: May it please the Tribunal:
Before any evidence is presented, it is my purpose to show the process whereby documents have been procured and processed in order to be presented in evidence by the United States. I shall also describe and illustrate the plan of presenting documents to be followed by the prosecution in this case.
When the United States Army entered German territory it had specialized military personnel whose duties were to capture and preserve enemy documents, records, and archives.
Such documents were assembled in temporary document centers. Later each Army established fixed document centers in the United States Zone of Occupation where their documents were assembled and the slow process of indexing and cataloging was begun. Certain of these document centers in the United States Zone of Occupation have since been closed and the documents assembled there sent to other document centers.
When the International Military Tribunal was set up, field teams under the direction of Major William H. Coogan were organized and sent out to the various document centers. Great masses of German documents and records were screened and examined. Those selected were sent to Nuernberg to be processed. These original documents were then given trial identification numbers in one of five series designated by the letters: “PS”, “L”, “R”, “C”, and “EC”, indicating the means of acquisition of the documents. Within each series, documents were listed numerically.
The prosecution in this case shall have occasion to introduce in evidence documents processed under the direction of Major Coogan. Some of these documents were introduced in evidence before the IMT and some were not. As to those which were, this Tribunal is required by Article XX of Ordinance No. 7 to take judicial notice thereof. However, in order to simplify the procedure, we will introduce photostatic copies of documents used in Case No. 1 before the IMT to which will be attached a certificate by Mr. Fred Niebergall, the Chief of our Document Control Branch, certifying that such document was introduced in evidence before the IMT and that the photostat is a true and correct copy thereof. Such documents have been and will be made available to defendants just as in the case of any other document.
As to those documents processed under the direction of Major Coogan which were not used in the case before the IMT, they are authenticated by the affidavit of Major Coogan dated 19 November 1945. This affidavit served as the basis of authentication of substantially all documents used by the Office of Chief of Counsel before the IMT. It was introduced in that trial as USA Exhibit 1. Since we will use certain documents processed for the IMT trial, I would now like to introduce as Prosecution Exhibit 1 the Coogan affidavit,[14] in order to authenticate such documents. This affidavit explains the manner in and means by which captured German documents were processed for use in war crimes trials. I shall not burden the court with reading it as it is substantially the same as the affidavit of Mr. Niebergall to which I shall come in a moment.
I have thus far explained the manner of authenticating documents to be used in this case which were processed under the direction of Major Coogan. I now come to the authentication of documents processed not for the IMT trial, but for subsequent trials such as this one. These documents are authenticated by the affidavit of Mr. Niebergall which I offer in evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 2. Since this affidavit explains the procedure of processing documents by the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, I shall read it in full:
“I, Fred Niebergall, AGO, D-150636, of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, do hereby certify as follows:
1. I was appointed Chief of the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes (hereinafter referred to as ‘OCC’) on 2 October 1946.
2. I have served in the U. S. Army for more than 5 years, being discharged as a 1st Lieutenant, Infantry, on 29 October 1946. I am now a Reserve officer with the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the Army of the United States of America. Based upon my experience as a United States Army officer, I am familiar with the operation of the United States Army in connection with seizing and processing captured enemy documents. I served as Chief of Translations for OCC from 29 July 1945 until December 1945, when I was appointed liaison officer between Defense Counsel and Translation Division of OCC as assistant to the executive officer of the Translation Division. In my capacity as Chief of the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, OCC, I am familiar with the processing, filing, translation, and photostating of documentary evidence for the United States Chief of Counsel.
3. As the Army overran German occupied territory and then Germany itself, certain specialized personnel seized enemy documents, records and archives. Such documents were assembled in temporary centers. Later fixed document centers were established in Germany and Austria where these documents were assembled and the slow process of indexing and cataloging was begun. Certain of these document centers have since been closed and the documents assembled there sent to other document centers.
4. In preparing for the trial before the International Military Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as ‘IMT’) a great number of original documents, photostats, and microfilms were collected at Nuernberg, Germany. Major Coogan’s affidavit of 19 November 1945 describes the procedures followed. Upon my appointment as Chief of the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, OCC, I received custody, in the course of official business, of all these documents except the ones which were introduced into evidence in the IMT trial and are now in the IMT Document Room in Nuernberg. Same have been screened, processed, and registered in accordance with Major Coogan’s affidavit. The unregistered documents remaining have been screened, processed, and registered for use in trials before Military Tribunals substantially in the same way as described below.
5. In preparing for trials subsequent to the IMT trial personnel thoroughly conversant with the German language were given the task of searching for and selecting captured enemy documents which disclosed information relating to the prosecution of Axis war criminals. Lawyers and research analysts were placed on duty at various document centers and also dispatched on individual missions to obtain original documents or certified photostats thereof. The documents were screened by German speaking analysts to determine whether or not they might be valuable as evidence. Photostatic copies were then made of the original documents and the original documents returned to the files in the document centers. These photostatic copies were certified by the analysts to be true and correct copies of the original documents. German-speaking analysts either at the document center or in Nuernberg, then prepared a summary of the document with appropriate references to personalities involved, index headings, information as to the source of the document, and the importance of the documents to a particular division of OCC.
6. Next, the original document or certified photostatic copy was forwarded to the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, OCC. Upon receipt of these documents, they were duly recorded and indexed and given identification numbers in one of six series designated by the letters ‘NO,’ ‘NI,’ ‘NM,’ ‘NOKW,’ ‘NG,’ and ‘NP,’ indicating the particular Division of OCC which might be most interested in the individual documents. Within each series documents were listed numerically.
7. In the case of the receipt of original documents, photostatic copies were made. Upon return from the photostat room, the original documents were placed in envelopes in fireproof safes in the document room. In the case of the receipt of certified photostatic copies of documents, the certified photostatic copies were treated in the same manner as original documents.
8. All original documents or certified photostatic copies treated as originals are now located in safes in the document room, where they will be secured until they are presented by the prosecution to a court during the progress of a trial.
9. Therefore, I certify in my official capacity as hereinabove stated, that all documentary evidence relied upon by OCC is in the same condition as when captured by military forces under the command of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces; that they have been translated by competent qualified translators; that all photostatic copies are true and correct copies of the originals, and that they have been correctly filed, numbered, and processed as above outlined.
[Signed] FRED NIEBERGALL.”
The Niebergall affidavit is in substance the same as the Coogan affidavit which was accepted by the International Military Tribunal as sufficient authentication of documents used in Case No. 1. However, in addition to these affidavits, the prosecution in this case will attach to each document submitted in evidence, other than self-proving documents such as affidavits signed by the defendants, a certificate signed by an employee of the Evidence Division of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, reading, for example, as follows:
“I, Donald Spencer, of the Evidence Division of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, hereby certify that the attached document, consisting of one photostated page and entitled, ‘Letter from John Doe to Richard Rod, dated 19 June 1943,’ is the original of a document which was delivered to me in my above capacity, in the usual course of official business, as a true copy of a document found in German archives, records, and files captured by military forces under the command of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces.
“To the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, the original document is at the Berlin Document Center.”
So much for the authentication of documents to be presented in this trial. I turn now briefly to the distribution of documents which we will use. The prosecution made available to the Defendants’ Information Center approximately a week ago three photostatic copies of the great bulk of the documents which will be used in our case-in-chief. These documents are of course in German. In addition, the prosecution has prepared document books in both German and English which contain, for the most part, mimeographed copies of the documents, arranged substantially in the order in which they will be presented in this court. Each document book contains an index giving the document number, description, and page number. A space is also provided for writing in the index number.
Twelve official copies of the German document books will be filed in the Defendants’ Information Center at least 24 hours prior to the time that particular material will be introduced in court. In addition, defense counsel will receive seven so-called unofficial German document books, which will contain mimeographed copies prepared primarily for the German Press. Six official copies of the German document books will be presented to the Tribunal—one for each of the Justices on the bench and one for the Secretary General. Two of such document books will contain photostatic copies in order that the Tribunal may from time to time refer to the original. Document books will also be made available to the German interpreters and court reporters.
The English document books will contain certified translations of the documents in the German document books. The documents will be numbered and indexed identically in both the English and German versions. The Defendants’ Information Center will receive four copies of the English document books at the same time the corresponding German document book is delivered. A representative group of the defense attorneys have agreed that four of the English document books are sufficient to meet their needs.
The Tribunal will receive six English document books and sufficient copies will also be made available to the interpreters and court reporters. Copies of all documents introduced in evidence will thereafter be made available to the press.
The prosecution will sometimes have occasion to use documents which have just been discovered and are not in document books. In such cases we will try to have copies in the Defendants’ Information Center a reasonable time in advance of their use in court. Now, I must point out to your Honors, and I do so without any embarrassment, that there will surely be some instances during the course of this trial when the prosecution fails to comply with one or the other of the court’s rulings in view of the fact that few of our personnel here were able to obtain experience and training in the technicalities in the course of Case No. 1 before the International Military Tribunal, but be that as it may, we shall constantly endeavor to present our case as fairly, as clearly, and as expeditiously as is humanly possible.
The prosecution, when presenting a document in Court, will physically hand the original, or the certified photostatic copy serving as the original, to the clerk of the Tribunal, and give the document a prosecution exhibit number.
In the IMT trial, the usual practice, to which there were many exceptions, was that only those documents or portions of documents which had been read aloud in Court were considered to be in evidence and part of the record. Now this was due to the fact that the IMT trial was conducted in four languages and only through that method were translations in all four languages ordinarily available. However, the IMT ruled several times, for example on 17 December 1945, that documents which had been translated into all four languages and made available to defense counsel in the Defendants’ Information Center were admissible in evidence without being read in full.
The prosecution believed that, under the circumstances of this trial, which will be conducted in German and English only, and with all the prosecution’s documents translated into German, it will be both expeditious and fair to dispense with the reading in full of all documents or portions of documents. The prosecution will read some documents in full, particularly in the early stages of the trial, but will endeavor to expedite matters by summarizing documents when possible, or otherwise calling the attention of the Tribunal to such passages therein as are deemed important and relevant.
With respect to the order of trial, the prosecution intends to follow, to a large degree, the order in which the various experiments are set forth in the indictment. There will be some exceptions to that; for instance, we will present the sea-water experiments, the proof of sea-water experiments following the malaria experiments, which will be third in order, and in time we will move to the proof of reading the Lost gas experiments because of the overlapping of the testimony of certain witnesses. Insofar as possible, we will endeavor to present all of the evidence relating to a particular experiment at the same time. This will be impossible, of course, where the testimony of a witness overlaps several experiments.
[13] Tr. pp. 75-83.
[14] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. II, pp. 157-160, Nuremberg, 1947.
VI. ORGANIZATION OF THE GERMAN MEDICAL SERVICES
a. Introduction
The opening statement of the prosecution (pp. 27-74) deals rather extensively with the organization of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht, the Medical Service of the SS, and the Civilian Health Service. The Ahnenerbe Society and the Institute for Military Scientific Research, which was set up within the Ahnenerbe, are also mentioned.
Evidence concerning the positions which the prosecution alleged the defendants held is contained in its document book number one. Selections from this document book are set forth on pages 81-91.
b. Evidence
Pros. Doc. No. Ex. No. Description of Document Page NO-080 5 Fuehrer Decree, 28 July 1942, concerning 81 the Medical and Health Services. NO-081 6 Second Fuehrer Decree, 5 September 1943, 83 concerning the Medical and Health Services. NO-082 7 Fuehrer Decree, 25 August 1944, concerning 83 the appointment of a Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Services. NO-227 11 Fuehrer Decree of 7 August 1944, concerning 84 the reorganization of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht. NO-303 32 Table of Organization of the “Ahnenerbe” 88 from the files of the Ahnenerbe Society. NO-422 33 Letter from Himmler to Sievers, 7 July 89 1942, concerning the establishment of an “Institute for Military Scientific Research” within the Ahnenerbe Society. NO-894 38 Fuehrer Decree, 9 June 1942, concerning the 90 Reich Research Council. NO-645 3 Table of organization of the Reich 91 Commissioner for Health and Medical Services, drawn by the defendant Karl Brandt.
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-080 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 5.
FUEHRER DECREE, 28 JULY 1942, CONCERNING THE MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES
1942 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 515
Fuehrer Decree of 28 July 1942, Concerning the Medical and Health Services
The utilization of personnel and material in the field of medical and health matters demands a coordinated and planned direction. Therefore, I order the following:
1. For the Wehrmacht I commission the Medical Inspector of the Army, in addition to his present duties, with the coordination of all tasks common to the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS, and the organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht, as Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht.
The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht is to represent the Wehrmacht before the civilian authorities in all common medical problems arising in the various branches of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS, and organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht, and will protect the interests of the Wehrmacht in all medical measures taken by the civilian authorities.
For the purpose of coordinated treatment of these problems, a medical officer of the Navy and a medical officer of the Luftwaffe will be assigned to work under him, the latter in the capacity of chief of staff. Fundamental problems pertaining to the Medical Service of the Waffen SS will be worked out in agreement with the Medical Inspectorate of the Waffen SS.
2. In the field of the Civilian Health Service, the State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior and Reich Chief for Public Health, Dr. Conti, is responsible for coordinated measures. For this purpose he has at his disposal the competent departments of the highest Reich authorities and their subordinate offices.
3. I empower Prof. Dr. Karl Brandt, subordinate only to me personally and receiving his instructions directly from me, to carry out special tasks and negotiations to readjust the requirements for doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, etc., between the military and the civilian sectors of the health and medical services.
4. My plenipotentiary for health and medical services is to be kept informed about the fundamental events in the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht and in the Civilian Health Service. He is authorized to intervene in a responsible manner.
Fuehrer Headquarters, 28 July 1942 The Fuehrer ADOLF HITLER The Chief of the OKW KEITEL The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery DR. LAMMERS
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-081 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 6
SECOND FUEHRER DECREE, 5 SEPTEMBER 1943, CONCERNING THE MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES
1943 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 533
Second Fuehrer Decree of 5 September 1943, Concerning the Medical and Health Services
In amplification of my decree concerning the Medical and Health Services of 28 July 1942 (RGBL. I, p. 515) I order:
The Plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health Services, General Commissioner Professor Dr. med. Brandt is charged with centrally coordinating and directing the problems and activities of the entire Medical and Health Services according to instructions. In this sense this order applies also to the field of Medical Science and Research, as well as to the organizational institutions concerned with the manufacture and distribution of medical material.
The Plenipotentiary for the Medical and Health services is authorized to appoint and commission special deputies for his spheres of action.
Fuehrer Headquarters, 5 September 1943 The Fuehrer ADOLF HITLER The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery DR. LAMMERS
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-082 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 7
FUEHRER DECREE, 25 AUGUST 1944, CONCERNING THE APPOINTMENT OF A REICH COMMISSIONER FOR MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES
1944 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 185
Fuehrer Decree of 25 August 1944, Concerning the Appointment of a Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Services
I hereby appoint the General Commissioner for Medical and Health matters, Professor Dr. Brandt, Reich Commissioner for Sanitation and Health [Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Services] as well, for the duration of this war. In this capacity his office ranks as highest Reich Authority.
The Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health Services is authorized to issue instructions to the offices and organizations of the State, Party, and Wehrmacht which are concerned with the problems of the medical and health services.
Fuehrer Headquarters, 25 August 1944 The Fuehrer ADOLF HITLER The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery DR. LAMMERS The Head of the Party Chancellery M. BORMANN The Chief of the OKW KEITEL
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-227 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT II
FUEHRER DECREE OF 7 AUGUST 1944, CONCERNING THE REORGANIZATION OF THE MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE WEHRMACHT
Copy The Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht Fuehrer Headquarters, 7 August 1944 Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht [Chief OKW] Ops. Staff of the Wehrmacht (WFSt) Org. (I) No. 5008/44g
To obtain a better concentration of powers in the field of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht, I order in extension of my decree of 28 July 1942:
1. The Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht will direct, as far as the special field is concerned, the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht and the organizations and services installed within the framework of the Wehrmacht. He is authorized to issue orders, within the special field of his jurisdiction.
2. I approve the service regulation for the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht issued by the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht. It will replace the one of 28 July 1942, which was in effect up to now.
3. The personal union of the Chief of Medical Services of the Wehrmacht and the Chief of the Medical Service of the Army/Army Physician [Heeressanitaetsinspekteur/Heeresarzt] is herewith cancelled as of September 1944.
[Signed] ADOLF HITLER The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht Reference No. 5008/44 secret Fuehrer Headquarters, 7 August 1944
SERVICE REGULATION for the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht[15] [Chef W San]
I Subordination and Powers
1. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht will be directly under the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht. He will have the position of an office chief [Amtschef] and the disciplinary power according to paragraph 18 of the Wehrmacht Regulation for Disciplinary Action (WDSTO) and the other powers of a Commanding General.
2. He has authority according to No. 1 of the Fuehrer Decree over the following:
_a._ The Chief of the Army Medical Service, the Chief of the Navy Medical Service, the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, the Chief of the Medical Service of the Waffen SS, and the medical chiefs of the organizations and services employed within the framework of the Wehrmacht while they are acting in the area of command of the Wehrmacht.
_b._ All scientific medical institutes, academies, and other medical institutions of the services of the Wehrmacht and of the Waffen SS.
II Duties
1. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht is the adviser of the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht in all questions concerning the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht and of its health guidance,
2. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht will direct all the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht[16] as far as the special field is concerned, with regard for the military instructions of the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces and the general rules of the Fuehrer’s Commissioner General for the Medical and Health Departments. [page 2 of original]
3. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht will inform the Fuehrer’s Commissioner General about basic events in the field of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht.
He will represent the Wehrmacht to the civilian authorities in all mutual medical affairs and he will protect their interests in connection with the health measures of the civilian administrative authorities.
He will represent the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht to the medical services of foreign powers.
4. Other duties of the Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht will be:
_a. In the medical-scientific field_:
Uniform measures in the field of health guidance, research and the combating of epidemics, and all medical measures which require a uniform ruling within the Wehrmacht. Evaluation of medical experiences.
Medical matters of the recruiting system, of welfare and maintenance and of prisoners of war.
The presidency of the Scientific Senate of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht.
_b. In the organization and training system_:
Uniform and planned direction of the allocation of persons and material.
Unification of the tables of organization and the tables of equipment of the medical troops and the equal provision of the forces with medical personnel.[17]
Direction of a uniform development of the medical equipment.[A1]
Unification in the sphere of hospital matters, balanced planning, and allocation of hospitals.
Direction of the distribution of wounded and sick soldiers to the hospital installations of the Wehrmacht.
Direction of the voluntary sick-nursing within the Wehrmacht.
Assimilation of the organization and of the training of the new generation of medical officers. Balancing of the proportion according to the requirements of the services. Supervision of the ideological and political training of the new generation of medical officers during the course of their studies in cooperation with the Reich Student Leader. Training and advanced training of medical officers.
Direction of a uniform training of the medical subaltern personnel.[A2]
_c. In the field of matériel_:
Centralized procurement and direction of fresh supplies of medical matériel of all kinds for the Wehrmacht.
_d. General and fundamental pharmaceutical matters._
III Special Powers
1. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht is entitled to request from the services all records necessary for the performance of his assignments.
2. He is entitled to express his view on the appointment of medical officers or medical leaders in the Wehrmacht and also in the units of the Waffen SS which are subordinated to the Wehrmacht—if the position is that of a Generalarzt or a higher position. Before filling these positions, his opinion has to be heard.
3. He is entitled to inspect the medical service, the medical units, the medical troops and installations of the Wehrmacht after having informed the high command of the service concerned or the headquarters of the units concerned. He is entitled to give orders on the spot in the field of medical service, if these are necessary for the removal of emergencies and do not disagree with fundamental orders of the services. He has to inform the high commands of the services concerned about the results of the inspections and about the issued orders.
4. Fundamental changes in the organization of the medical service, in the subordination of medical officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men and of the officials and employees of the medical service require the consent of the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht.
5. Deputy of the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht shall be the senior Medical Inspector or the Medical Chief of one of the services. The Chief of Staff will act as his deputy for routine duties.
6. The Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht issues orders necessary for the performance of his assignments under the name:
“Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht.”
As far as necessary the services will execute his orders and requests through army channels.
7. For the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht the new table of organization of 1 April 1944 is taking effect.
The necessary personnel are to be taken from the services, etc., above all from their medical inspectorates or offices.
[Signed] KEITEL
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-303 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 32
TABLE OF ORGANIZATION OF THE “AHNENERBE” FROM THE FILES OF THE AHNENERBE SOCIETY
“THE AHNENERBE”
_The President_ The Reich Leader SS H. HIMMLER
_Trustee_ SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. WALTHER WUEST
_The Reich Business Manager_ SS Hauptsturmfuehrer WOLFRAM SIEVERS
_Reich Business Management_
_Deputy Reich Business Manager_ SS Obersturmfuehrer HERBERT MENZ
_Consultant Secretary_ Dr. GISELA SCHMITZ-KAHLMANN
_The Special Commissioner of the Reich Leader SS_ Sturmbannfuehrer BRUNO GALKE
_Administration_ SS Untersturmbannfuehrer HANS-ULRICH HUEHNE
Graduate of a Business College ALFONS EBEN
The task of the Research and Instruction Group “The Ahnenerbe” is investigation of space, spirit, accomplishments, and heritage of the Indo-Germanic peoples of Nordic race, the vivification of the results of their research and their transmission to the people.
Realization
Establishment of instruction and research centers
Assignment of research work and conduct of research expeditions
Publication of scientific works
Support of scientific work
Organization of scientific congresses
The Ahnenerbe Foundation
The purpose of the Foundation is to further the endeavors of “The Ahnenerbe”, registered society, by donations from the proceeds of the capital of the Foundation and from the capital itself. To interest people who declare themselves willing to put certain contributions either once or at fixed intervals at the disposal of the Foundation.
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-422 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 33
LETTER FROM HIMMLER TO SIEVERS, 7 JULY 1942, CONCERNING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN “INSTITUTE FOR MILITARY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH” WITHIN THE AHNENERBE SOCIETY
The Reich Leader SS Fuehrer Headquarters, 7 July 1942 AR 48/6/42
[Stamp]
1. Personal Staff Reich Leader SS Archives, File No. AR/22/21
SECRET!
1. To the Reich Manager of the Ahnenerbe SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Sievers _Berlin-Dahlem_
I request the Ahnenerbe
1. to establish an Institute for Military Scientific Research,
2. to support in every possible way the research carried out by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Prof. Dr. Hirt, and to promote all corresponding research and undertakings,
3. to make available the required apparatus, equipment, accessories and assistants, or to procure them,
4. to make use of the facilities available in Dachau,
5. to contact the Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office [Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt] with regard to the costs, which can be borne by the Waffen SS.
[Signed] H. H. [HEINRICH HIMMLER]
2. Copy forwarded to the Chief of the Economic and Administrative Main Office,
SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl
Berlin—Lichterfelde—West
with the request to take note.
By order, [Signed] BRANDT SS Obersturmbannfuehrer M. 7.7.
Certified True Copy: Signed M. SS Obersturmfuehrer 7.7.
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-894 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 38
FUEHRER DECREE, 9 JUNE 1942, CONCERNING THE REICH RESEARCH COUNCIL
1942 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 389
Fuehrer Decree of 9 June 1942 Concerning the Reich Research Council
The necessity to expand all available forces to highest efficiency in the interest of the state requires, not only in peace time but also, and especially, in war time, the concentrated effort of scientific research and its channellization toward the goal to be aspired.
Therefore, I commission the Reich Marshal Hermann Goering to establish as an independent entity a Reich Research Council, which is to serve this purpose, to take over its chairmanship himself and to give it a charter.
Leading men of science above all are to make research fruitful for warfare by working together in their special fields. The hitherto existing Reich Research Council which was under the Reich Minister for Science and Education [Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung] is to be absorbed by the new organization.
The means needed for research purposes are to be established in the Reich budget as far as they will not be raised from contributions (for research) of circles interested in research.
Fuehrer Headquarters, 9 June 1942 The Fuehrer ADOLF HITLER The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery DR. LAMMERS
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-645 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 3
[15] To Wehrmacht in this connection belong: Army, Navy, Luftwaffe, the Waffen SS units under orders of the Wehrmacht and the organizations and services engaged within the framework of the Wehrmacht. [Footnote in original document.]
[16] Same as Footnote 15 above.
[17] As to the Navy these rules will not apply or will apply with restrictions only to personnel _on board_. [Footnote in original document.]
VII. EXTRACTS FROM ARGUMENTATION AND EVIDENCE OF PROSECUTION AND DEFENSE
A. Medical Experiments
1. HIGH-ALTITUDE EXPERIMENTS
a. Introduction
The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Ruff, Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz were charged with special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving high-altitude experiments (par. 6 (_A_) of the indictment). During the course of the trial, the prosecution withdrew this charge in the cases of Karl Brandt, Handloser, Poppendick, and Mrugowsky. Only the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers were convicted on this charge.
The prosecution’s summation of the evidence on the high-altitude experiments is contained in its closing brief against the defendants Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz. An extract from this brief is set forth below on pages 92 to 113. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the closing briefs for the defendants Ruff and Sievers. It appears below on pages 114 to 140. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 140 to 198.
b. Selection From the Argumentation of the Prosecution
_EXTRACTS FROM THE CLOSING BRIEF AGAINST DEFENDANTS RUFF, ROMBERG, AND WELTZ_
Early in the war it was deemed necessary to conduct research in the field of high altitudes because of the higher ceilings reached by the Allied fighter planes. This created the problem of availability of human experimental subjects, inasmuch as animal experimentation was considered inadequate. The heights involved were 12,000 meters to over 20,000 meters, hence it goes without saying that such experiments were very dangerous and, as indicated by the evidence, volunteers were not to be had. This difficulty was overcome by the use of concentration camp inmates without their consent. The first indication of this criminal plan appears in a letter from Dr. Sigmund Rascher, a Luftwaffe physician, in a letter to the Reich Leader SS dated 15 May 1941:
“For the time being, I have been assigned to the Luftgau Kommando VII, Munich, for a medical selection course. During this course, where research on high-altitude flying plays a prominent part, determined by the somewhat higher ceiling of the English fighter planes, considerable regret was expressed that no experiments on human beings have so far been possible for us because such experiments are very dangerous, _and nobody is volunteering_. I therefore put the serious question: is there any possibility that two or three professional criminals can be made available for these experiments?” [Emphasis supplied.] (_1602, PS, Pros. Ex. 44._)
It further appears in this Rascher letter of 15 May 1941 that Rascher had conferred with another Luftwaffe physician and that a tentative agreement had been reached wherein it was determined that the experiments on the concentration camp inmates, in which the experimental subjects were expected to die, would be performed at the “Bodenstaendige Pruefstelle fuer Hoehenforschung der Luftwaffe” at Munich:
“The experiments are being performed at the Ground Station for High-Altitude Experiments of the Luftwaffe [Bodenstaendige Pruefstelle fuer Hoehenforschung der Luftwaffe] at Munich. The experiments, in which the experimental subject of course may die, would take place with my collaboration. They are absolutely essential for the research on high-altitude flying and cannot, as it had been tried until now, be carried out on monkeys, because monkeys offer entirely different test conditions. I had an absolutely confidential talk with the representative of the Luftwaffe physician who is conducting these experiments. He also is of the opinion that the problems in question can only be solved by experiments on human beings.” (_1602-PS, Pros. Ex. 44._)
* * * * *
Weltz testified that a meeting took place in the summer of 1941 on the occasion of a visit by Generaloberstabsarzt Hippke to Luftgau VII. (_Tr. p. 7056._) In a discussion between Weltz, Kottenhoff, and Hippke, Hippke gave his approval in principle to the experiments if they were deemed necessary. (_Tr. p. 7065._) In the course of the summer of 1941, Rascher went to Weltz and proposed the slow-ascent experiments, but Weltz turned them down as unnecessary. (_Tr. p. 7176._) This testimony of the defendant Weltz clearly indicates the jurisdiction Weltz had over Rascher’s activities. This refusal to permit the performance of slow-ascent experiments bears out the contention of the prosecution that the defendant Weltz had the power and the authority to intervene at any time. Weltz’ actions throughout the entire development of the plans for the experiments were not merely negative. He was in full accord with the entire enterprise and he realized that Rascher did not possess the necessary qualifications to conduct these experiments without the assistance of a specialist in this particular field of aviation medicine. Furthermore, although Rascher was attached to Weltz’ Institute he had no other definite work. (_Tr. pp. 7078 and 7187._) To find a specialist to collaborate with Weltz and Rascher proved to be a difficult task. Weltz first approached members of his own institute, namely Lutz and Wendt, men of considerable reputation in this field, but to no avail. Wolfgang Lutz appeared before this Tribunal and testified that Weltz requested his assistance, as well as the assistance of Wendt, but that they both refused on moral grounds. (_Tr. p. 269._) Weltz did not deny this, but contended that his questions to Lutz were purely rhetorical. (_Tr. p. 7069._)
The inability to interest a specialist in the field of high-altitude research to collaborate with Rascher explains the cause for the lapse of time between the date of the authorization by Himmler and the actual date of the commencement of the experiments, viz, July 1941 to February 1942. Weltz was not a specialist in high-altitude research. Kottenhoff was transferred to Romania, and Rascher was comparatively a novice in this field.
The next step taken by Weltz, which led to the completion of the plans to conduct the high-altitude experiments on human beings at the Dachau concentration camp, was his invitation to the defendants Ruff and Romberg to collaborate with Rascher. These two men were experts in this field and were interested in further research in altitudes exceeding 12,000 meters. Weltz testified that he made a trip to Berlin and that Ruff accepted his invitation to collaborate with Rascher. (_Tr. p. 7188._) The evidence shows that Weltz approached Ruff and Romberg as he needed expert assistance. (_NO-437, Pros. Ex. 42_; _NO-263, Pros. Ex. 47_; _NO-191, Pros. Ex. 43_.) The defendant Ruff stated that he first heard of the plan to carry out research on inmates of the Dachau concentration camp from the defendant Weltz and that Weltz desired collaboration between Romberg and Rascher and between Weltz’ Institute and Ruff’s Institute. (_Tr. p. 6653._) Furthermore, Ruff testified that Weltz stated:
“It is, of course, best if you or Romberg take part in these experiments because Romberg had already carried out such parachute descent experiments and is therefore the man who knows about the whole problem of rescue from high altitudes.” (_Tr. pp. 6654-5._) Ruff further testified that Weltz suggested that a new series of experiments in parachute descents from great heights should be carried out at Dachau on prisoners. (_Tr. p. 6653._)
From this moment on, the experimental program started to move as a mutual undertaking. This is better stated by the defendant Weltz:
“This was to be a mutual undertaking, during which Ruff was to detail Romberg and I was to detail Rascher. Ruff naturally was to be chief of Romberg and I, as a matter of course, was to be Rascher’s chief. Ruff couldn’t give any orders to Rascher. Rascher was a captain in the Medical Corps and Ruff was a civilian. I couldn’t give any orders to Romberg because Romberg was a civilian while I was a soldier. Naturally, this is how the distribution was. It had to be that way. Furthermore, it was clear that I couldn’t in any way retire. I could not just leave Rascher to Ruff. It was quite clear that I had to participate in these experiments by exercising supervision, but not by actively participating.” (_Tr. p. 7079._)
This evidence certainly rebuts Weltz’ vague contention that he was not in search of specialists in high-altitude research to collaborate with him and Rascher. Without the efforts of Weltz the experiments could never have taken place. In brief, to conduct these experiments at altitudes exceeding 12,000 meters Weltz found it necessary to secure the assistance of experts in the field, as well as a low-pressure chamber which would meet his needs. Ruff and Romberg possessed both, and in the above manner Weltz skillfully engineered the whole plan.
Immediately after Weltz had completed his negotiations with Ruff, he called a meeting at his institute in Munich, wherein discussions of a technical nature concerning the experiments were held. At this meeting, Ruff, Romberg, Rascher, and Weltz were in attendance. This meeting was at Weltz’ Institute and Weltz presided over the meeting. It was further decided that a second meeting was to be held at Dachau a few days later in order to make the necessary arrangements with the camp commander. This trip took place in order to discuss technical preparations with the camp commander, and to arrange details concerning the selection of the experimental subjects. Again, Weltz, Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher were in attendance, in addition to Piorkowski, the camp commander, and Schnitzler of the staff of the Reichsfuehrung SS. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40_; _NO-437, Pros. Ex. 42_; _NO-263, Pros. Ex. 47_; _Tr. pp. 7086-7_.)
After the arrangements with the camp authorities at Dachau had been completed, the shipment of the low-pressure chamber from Berlin was the next problem to overcome. As pointed out earlier, Weltz desired the low-pressure chamber which was possessed by Ruff and Romberg for use in the experiments at Dachau. It is interesting to note that Weltz had had a low-pressure chamber available in his own institute from 1938 on (_Tr. p. 7178._), and that Weltz testified that volunteers from his student body or from the Luftwaffe were available. (_Tr. pp. 7180-83._) Despite this, it was necessary to resort to the concentration camp for inmates and, in order to conduct the experiments, a mobile pressure chamber had to be brought down from the Ruff Institute in Berlin, as the low-pressure chamber in the Weltz Institute was not mobile. The mobile low-pressure chamber from Ruff’s Institute at Berlin was driven to Weltz’ Institute in Munich and arrived in the late afternoon. This chamber was driven to Munich by employees of the DVL and turned over to Weltz. On the following day, SS drivers came from Dachau, received the keys to the chamber and drove it to the concentration camp. (_Tr. p. 7199._) The purpose in camouflaging this activity was to deceive the employees of the DVL because Weltz and Ruff did not want them to know that the low-pressure chamber was to be used in an experimental program at a concentration camp. This is borne out by the fact that a completely new set of drivers came from the concentration camp to take the chamber to Dachau. This particular action of secrecy is noticeable when it is considered that Dachau is merely 12 kilometers from Munich and actually the DVL drivers had to go out of their way to deliver the chamber to the Weltz Institute. Ruff testified that the secrecy in the transfer of the chamber to Dachau was for security reasons. (_Tr. p. 6550._)
From the evidence thus far summarized, and indeed from Weltz’ own admission, it is clear that he must be found guilty of the high-altitude crimes committed in Dachau. This was a criminal undertaking from its inception. It was known to all concerned that the proposed experiments were certain to result in deaths and that they were to be performed on nonvolunteers. That is proved by the very first letter to Himmler. Weltz supported the ambition of his subordinate, Rascher, to perform the experiments on behalf of the Weltz Institute. He secured the collaboration of Ruff and Romberg. He obtained the consent of Hippke and a research assignment from the Referat for Aviation Medicine under Anthony and Becker-Freyseng. He took care of the technical arrangements and participated in conferences with Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher which decided on the experiments to be performed. Weltz did more in having the experiments performed than anyone else. His guilt is clearly established on this evidence alone. It is not disputed that Rascher was subordinated to him until February 1942. Weltz’ main defense is that he had Rascher transferred from his institute late in February 1942 and, hence, cannot be held responsible for what happened thereafter. Even if true, this is no defense. Weltz had long since participated in the criminal enterprise. He cannot be heard to say that “Yes, I did all that, but I’m not responsible for the actual consequences which my acts were expected to bring about.” The deaths which occurred in these experiments were foreseeable from the beginning. Weltz does not escape responsibility for those deaths, even if it were true that Rascher was not subordinated to him when they occurred. But that is not true, as the evidence proves.
The actual date of the commencement of the experiments at Dachau was 22 February 1942, which was recalled by the witness Neff because it was his birthday. (_Tr. p. 606._) From this point on, the defendant Weltz takes the position that he had no knowledge of the work and that, in fact, Rascher was relieved from his command. Weltz admitted that it was his obligation to supervise Rascher and that the existing arrangement between Ruff and Weltz was that this was to be a joint undertaking. Ruff exercised supervision over Romberg, and Weltz was to exercise supervision over Rascher. Weltz conceded that he was Rascher’s disciplinary superior and was responsible for the scientific programs to which he assigned Rascher. (_Tr. p. 7088._) Despite this chain of command and working agreement, Weltz takes the position that Rascher endeavored to work independently and that he did not desire to report to Weltz. (_Tr. pp. 7088-9._) It became necessary for Weltz to order Rascher to report to him twice a week and, as a result of this order, Weltz alleges that Rascher came to him in the middle of February and that they had their first conversation since the meeting in Dachau and on that occasion, Rascher informed Weltz that the experiments had not even started yet and that he had nothing to report. (_Tr. p. 7089._)
Weltz testified that Anthony, under whom Becker-Freyseng worked in the Luftwaffe Medical Inspectorate, in Berlin, telephoned him to inquire how the Dachau experiments were progressing and that he could only reply that nothing had been reported to him. Rascher reported to him for the second time, whereupon Weltz informed Rascher that a telephone call had come through from Berlin and that he wanted to have some clarification as to how things stood at Dachau. Rascher did not want to report anything to Weltz at the second conversation, and Weltz maintains that he told Rascher that he was going to Berlin to clear up the situation and obtain a clear decision whether or not Rascher was to report to him. Then, on the occasion of the third visit from Rascher, Weltz, expecting a sharp argument, asked Wendt of his office to come into the room, and on that occasion he confronted Rascher with the alternative either to report to him or to leave the institute. Weltz asserts that at that time Rascher showed him a telegram from Himmler, which read: “Experiments are to be kept secret from everyone.” (_Tr. p. 7089._) Thereupon, Weltz maintains that he ordered Rascher from his institute and that he then composed a letter, together with Wendt, to the Luftgau and asked for Rascher’s immediate transfer and that within a few days Rascher’s assignment had ended. (_Tr. p. 7090._)
The memorandum of Nini Rascher to Himmler of 24 February 1942 shows that at that time Rascher was still subordinate to Weltz. (_NO-263, Pros. Ex. 47._) She reviewed the history of the experiments and pointed out that on 24 July 1941 Rascher, Kottenhoff, and Weltz were to be in charge. Kottenhoff was transferred to Romania in August and thereby excluded from the group. She stated that it was Weltz’s task to initiate the technical execution of the experiments. Apparently because of a fear of moral objections on the part of Hippke, Weltz had postponed the beginning of the experiments but had finally secured Ruff and Romberg to collaborate with Rascher. A conference took place in Dachau between Piorkowski, Schnitzler, Weltz, Rascher, Romberg, and Ruff. Weltz had given the assurance that he would take care of the authorization for Rascher. Mrs. Rascher complained that on 18 February, after Rascher had carried out all the preparatory work, Weltz stated: “Now that you have removed all obstacles from the path of Romberg with the SS, the authorization must be handled differently.” Mrs. Rascher stated that both Romberg and Rascher agreed that Weltz was not needed anymore and that both opposed his attempts to oust Rascher in favor of himself.
Weltz contended that the truth of the matter was that he wished to get rid of Rascher, and that Mrs. Rascher had misrepresented this to Himmler so that it would appear that he was trying to eliminate Rascher in order to keep the work exclusively to himself. (_Tr. p. 7099._) There can be no question that Mrs. Rascher was quite correct in her analysis of the situation. What possible reason could Weltz have for desiring, just before the experiments began, to eliminate Rascher unless he wished to participate himself personally and thus secure a larger share of the scientific credit? Certainly he had supported Rascher from the very inception of the proposal to perform the experiments. Be that as it may, the proof shows that Rascher continued to participate in the experiments as a subordinate of Weltz. This is clearly proved by a file memorandum of Schnitzler of the SS office in Munich, dated 28 April 1942. (_NO-264, Pros. Ex. 60._) This memorandum shows that Rascher was still subordinated to Weltz, and that Weltz was insisting on active participation in the experiments and full responsibility. The RLM [Reich Air Ministry] had inquired of Weltz how long the experiments would last, and whether it was justifiable to detail a medical officer for so long. Rascher, who was chafing under his subordination to Weltz, requested that his assignment be changed to the DVL [German Aviation Research Institute], Dachau Branch.
Weltz’ only reaction to this document was that the date was wrong and should read 28 February 1942 instead of 28 April 1942. (_Tr. p. 7099 ff._) Weltz conceded on cross-examination that, assuming the date 28 April 1942 was correct, then of course Rascher was still his subordinate at that time. (_Tr. p. 7232._) The file memorandum of Sievers dated 3 May 1942 settled this question beyond any doubt. This memorandum reads as follows:
“SS Untersturmfuehrer Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher reported in Munich on 29 April 1942 about the result of the conference with Oberstabsarzt Dr. Weltz. Weltz requested that Dr. Rascher be withdrawn if by Friday, 1 May 1942 he (Weltz) were not taken into consultation regarding the experiments. The Reich Leader SS was informed accordingly. He ordered SS Obergruppenfuehrer Wolff on 30 April 1942 to send a telegram to Field Marshal Milch requesting that Dr. Rascher be ordered to the German Aviation Research Institute [Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fuer Luftfahrt], Dachau Branch, and there to be at the disposal of the Reich Leader SS.” (_NO-1359, Pros. Ex. 493._)
After having been confronted with this document Weltz in effect conceded that his previous testimony about the transfer of Rascher had been, to say the least of it, incorrect. He said:
“Yes, now the entire matter looks somewhat different. If I had this file note of Sievers in addition to my other documents, I would have known that the note of Schnitzler was correct, and that there must be another possibility to explain Mrs. Nini Rascher’s letter. This letter, on the other hand, cannot be explained now. I can only try to reconstruct the dates from the documents which were available here, since I no longer know them today.” (_Tr. p. 7239._)
On redirect examination by his defense counsel, Weltz was asked again to clarify the situation with respect to Rascher’s subordination, and he replied:
“Since my first attempt to clarify this contradiction came to naught, I should not like to try again. I simply can see no way to clarify it on the basis of the material before me.” (_Tr. p. 7251._)
In a letter of 20 May 1942 from Milch to Wolff it is again made evident beyond any doubt that Rascher was subordinate to Weltz:
“In reference to your telegram of 12 May our medical inspector reports to me that the altitude experiments carried out by the SS and Air Force at Dachau have been finished. Any continuation of these experiments seems essentially unreasonable. However, the carrying out of experiments of some other kind, in regard to perils at high sea, would be important. These have been prepared in immediate agreement with the proper offices; Major (M. C.) Weltz will be charged with the execution and Captain (M. C.) Rascher will be made available until further orders in addition to his duties within the Medical Corps of the Air Corps.” (_343-A-PS, Pros. Ex. 62._)
Thus it is clear that Weltz must be held responsible for the numerous murders which resulted during the high-altitude experiments in Dachau. Not only did he participate in plans and enterprises involving the commission of these experiments, but he also was the direct superior of Rascher who, together with Ruff and Romberg, actually executed the experiments.
_Status of Prisoners Used in the Experiments_
After Weltz had successfully secured the collaboration of Ruff and Romberg, he held a meeting at his institute in Munich late in December 1941, or early in January 1942. (_Tr. p. 6657_; _Tr. p. 7086_.) Ruff, Romberg, Weltz, and Rascher attended this meeting primarily to lay the groundwork for the technical arrangements necessary to perform the work at Dachau. It is alleged by all the defendants that the question regarding the status of the prisoners to be used was discussed and that Rascher had assured them that the subjects would be exclusively volunteers. (_Tr. p. 7086_; _Tr. p. 6232_; _Tr. p. 6869_.) In fact, the defendants state that Rascher exhibited a communication from Himmler which provided that the subjects must be volunteers under all circumstances. (_Tr. p. 6869._) Unfortunately, this letter has not been produced by the defense. Needless to say, the defendants take the position that such experiments were to be performed on habitual and condemned criminals and that considerations were to be offered to said “volunteers” in the event of their surviving the experiments. As a matter of fact, Romberg explicitly states that he saw the “Himmler letter” and he was able to observe the words “criminal” and “volunteer” therein. (_Tr. p. 6870._)
The assertion on the part of the defendants that Himmler had ordered that the criminals used be volunteers is ridiculous and incredible when one considers that Himmler instructed Rascher to pardon these unfortunate inmates only if they could be recalled to life after having been subjected to the type of experiments outlined in Rascher’s first interim report, wherein it is shown that the experimental subjects had stopped breathing altogether and their chests had been cut open, i. e., autopsy had been actually performed on them. (_1971-A-PS, Pros. Ex. 49._)
In this instance, Himmler graciously stated:
“3. Considering the long-continued action of the heart, the experiments should be specifically exploited in such a manner as to determine whether these men could be recalled to life. Should such an experiment succeed, then, of course, the person condemned to death shall be pardoned to concentration camp for life.” (_1971-B-PS, Pros. Ex. 51._)
It is absurd to give any weight to the allegation that Himmler provided that the subjects were to be volunteers. These men knew that volunteers could not be secured and that was the very reason for going to Himmler. This is shown in the letter from Rascher to Himmler requesting that criminals be made available due to the fact that “nobody is volunteering.”
The defendant Ruff admitted on the stand that the experiments conducted on themselves and colleagues in Berlin concerned altitudes up to 12,000 meters and that the question of what would happen between 12,000 and 20,000 meters was subsequently investigated at Dachau. (_Tr. p. 6679._) It is obvious, therefore, that Ruff, Romberg, Weltz, and Rascher were unwilling to perform such investigations on themselves.
The evidence has proved that the subjects used in the high-altitude experiments were not, with a few minor exceptions, volunteers. The inmates were simply selected at random in the camp and forced to undergo the experiments. Russians, Poles, Jews of various nationalities, and Germans were used. Russian prisoners of war were included, as were many political prisoners. Approximately 180 to 200 inmates were experimented on, about 70 to 80 being killed as a result. Not more than 40 of these had been “condemned to death.” Among those killed were political prisoners. (_Tr. pp. 613-18_; _also Tr. p. 432_.) This testimony of Neff, who was the inmate assistant in the experiments and who identified Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz, is corroborated by Rascher’s cable asking if Himmler’s amnesty rule applied to Russians and Poles who had been extensively used in the experiments. (_1971-D-PS, Pros. Ex. 52._) The nationality and status of inmates were easily discernible from the badges worn on their uniforms. Ruff and Romberg could have told from these that foreign nationals and political prisoners were being used. (_Tr. pp. 616-7._)
The witness Neff’s testimony reveals that approximately 10 prisoners were selected as permanent, experimental subjects, but they were not volunteers. (_Tr. pp. 611, 622, and 430._) There were, however, a few “volunteers” according to Neff. He stated that “there were certain volunteers for these experiments, because Rascher promised certain persons that they would be released from the camp if they underwent these experiments.” (_Tr. p. 614._) Neff clearly pointed out that in view of the way the prisoner subjects were selected and used it was not possible to know who were volunteers, if any, and who were not volunteers. (_Tr. pp. 606-26._) They were not brought in and used as a separate group. Moreover, the evidence shows that these promises were not kept. (_Tr. p. 615._) The only evidence of a release is the case of Sabota, as outlined by Neff, and in that case he was sent to an undesirable special SS commando group. No death sentences were commuted.
The defense claims for Ruff and Romberg that the experiments at Dachau were divided into two groups. The first group, the so-called Ruff-Romberg-Rascher experiments, was noncriminal, while the second group, the Rascher experiments, encompassed all the crimes. They contend that the Ruff-Romberg-Rascher experiments were conducted independently of the Rascher experiments and that the 10 original subjects mentioned by Neff and Vieweg were used exclusively for the Ruff-Romberg-Rascher experiments. Despite the testimony of the witnesses and the weight of the documentary evidence, they would have the Tribunal believe that by a wondrous working of fate these were all volunteers and no crimes occurred. This defense is of course inapplicable to Weltz. Rascher was subordinated to and subject to his orders.
It should be noted that Romberg and Rascher who tested themselves in the altitude chamber at Dachau with an air pressure equivalent to 12,500 and 13,500 meters altitude respectively, for 30 to 40 minutes, discontinued these experiments on themselves because of intense pain. (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._) Yet, these men proceeded, as proved by their own joint report, to conduct experiments on prisoners which they would not perform on themselves.
The experimenters took no responsibility or even interest in seeing to it that the alleged promises made to the subjects to induce them to “volunteer” were kept. (_Tr. p. 6993._) Although Romberg said he had no channel to Himmler, he also admitted he visited Himmler with Rascher in July 1942. (_Tr. pp. 7015-6._)
In this connection, we must consider the convenient line of the defense. By limiting the Ruff-Romberg-Rascher experiments to the 10 subjects, we find that they further allege that no deaths occurred in those experiments as opposed to a considerable number of deaths in the Rascher work. But the witness Neff, in describing the first day of the experiments, emphatically stated that the first series of experiments _was not carried out on volunteers_. Furthermore, the defendant Ruff was also present during these experiments. (_Tr. p. 622._) The defendants’ contention that the experiments were in two groups is _explicitly denied_ by Neff. He testified that Romberg not only experimented with Rascher on the original 10 subjects, but also on a large number of other prisoners. The distinction fabricated by the defendants cannot possibly be credited in the light of Neff’s testimony. On being asked the question whether Romberg experimented only on the 10 original subjects, Neff replied:
“Experiments were conducted not only with these ten persons but, for example, in a series of experiments which Romberg also conducted on a large number of other prisoners. The distinction which the defense counsel tries to make between experiments included in the report to the Luftgau or of death—it is impossible for me to make this distinction and to distinguish between those which fell into one category or the other.” (_Tr. p. 691._)
Which is to be believed, the testimony of Neff, plus one’s common sense, or the self-serving statements of the defendants? This is a question the Tribunal must answer. There is no such thing as half a murderer. These defendants are responsible for those murders or they are not responsible. There is not one scintilla of evidence to support the ridiculous contention that a group of volunteers, segregated for use by Romberg, wore different colored shirts so he could tell them apart and were treated with the greatest deference. But that is just what Ruff and Romberg ask the Tribunal to find. It is absolutely impossible in the face of the record.
This, alleged disassociation of Ruff and Romberg from the “crimes committed exclusively by Rascher” is in complete contradiction to the acts of these defendants during the experiments, which after all speak much louder than their present testimony. Neff testified that Romberg personally witnessed at least five deaths during the experiments, and that he made no effort to stop them nor did he even protest after the event. (_Tr. p. 619._) Romberg admitted seeing three deaths and that he knew that five to ten other murders took place in his absence. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40._) The first death Romberg saw, he said, occurred in April. He reported this to Ruff. _Yet the experiments were not discontinued._ They went on to the end of June and still more deaths occurred which Romberg saw. _To say the least of it, these defendants made themselves a party to murder by continuing the experiments._ This is true no matter how innocent they may have been up to the first death. They were duty bound to stop the experiments immediately, remove the chamber, and force a court martial of Rascher. They did none of these simple and obvious things. They did not for the very reason that deaths were expected from the very beginning and were a part of the experimental plan. Romberg saw these men die and did absolutely nothing. It was within his power to save them at the time. He said he was operating the electrocardiograph. He knew precisely by their heart action when the subjects were in danger of dying. He also knew this from his knowledge of reaction to high altitudes. He could see and read the pressure gauges. He could have turned the pressure down and saved their lives by simply moving the gauge which was within arm’s reach. He was a bigger man than Rascher. Force could have been used if necessary. Not only did he do nothing while the helpless victims died before his very eyes, but he assisted in the autopsies.
After all these murders had occurred and were known to them, Ruff and Romberg still went on. They issued a joint report on the experiments in the name of Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher in July 1942. (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._) They were still collaborating with this admitted murderer and gave him the cover of their scientific reputation. Romberg received a medal for his work in the experiments on the recommendation of Rascher. (_1607-A-PS, Pros. Ex. 65._) Romberg was still supporting Rascher in September 1942 and was to have made an oral report to Milch on the experiments with Rascher. He wrote a memorandum on Rascher’s behalf explaining that the report was not given because Milch was unable to receive them at the scheduled time. This same memorandum, signed by Romberg, proves that _he was anxious to continue high-altitude experiments with Rascher and asked for Milch’s permission_.
He wrote:
“Oberstarzt Kalk stated that he was willing to report to the State Secretary (Milch) our wishes concerning the distribution of the report and the continuation of the experiments. * * * Oberstarzt Kalk had transmitted, still on 11 September, our wishes concerning distribution and confirmation of the experiments to the State Secretary. The State Secretary had approved the distribution schedule, and said that a continuation of the experiment was not urgent.” (_NO-224, Pros. Ex. 76._)
In the meantime, the murderous freezing experiments had been started with the Luftwaffe team of Holzloehner, Finke, and Rascher. Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz all heard the report of those experiments in Nuernberg in October 1942. (_NO-401, Pros. Ex. 93._) Hippke himself wrote his special thanks to Himmler on 8 October 1942, and said: “When the work will need once more your sympathetic assistance, may I be allowed to get in touch with you again through Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher?” (_NO-289, Pros. Ex. 72._)
* * * * *
_Analysis of the Experiments_
The experiments at Dachau in the field of high-altitude research were conducted to determine human reactions to altitudes above 12,000 meters. The defendant Romberg stated that four series of experiments were conducted (_a_) slow descent without oxygen, (_b_) slow descent with oxygen, (_c_) falling without oxygen, and (_d_) falling with oxygen. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40._) The first two tests were designed to simulate descent with parachute open while the latter two a free fall from an airplane before the parachute opens. As pointed out in Dr. Rascher’s first interim report on the experiments, an additional problem was to be solved, namely, the determination whether the theoretically established norms pertaining to the length of life of human beings breathing air with only a small portion of oxygen and subjected to low pressure correspond with the results obtained by practical experience. This interim report of Rascher’s states as follows:
“2. Experiments testing the length of life of a human being above the normal breathing limits (4, 5, 6 km.) have not been conducted at all, since it has been a foregone conclusion that the human experimental subject (Versuchsperson-VP) would suffer death.”
The experiments conducted by myself _and Dr. Romberg_ proved the following:
“Experiments on parachute jumps proved that the lack of oxygen and the low atmospheric pressure at 12 or 13 km. altitude did not cause death. Altogether 15 extreme experiments of this type were carried out in which none of VP died. Very severe bends together with unconsciousness occurred, but completely normal functions of the senses returned when a height of 7 km. was reached on descent. Electrocardiograms registering during the experiments did show certain irregularities, but by the time the experiments were over the curves had returned to normal and they did not indicate any abnormal changes during the following days. The extent to which deterioration of the organism may occur due to continuously repeated experiments can only be established at the end of the series of experiments. _The extreme fatal experiments will be carried out on specially selected VP’s otherwise it would not be possible to exercise the rigid control so extraordinarily important for practical purposes._” [Emphasis supplied.] (_1971-A-PS, Pros. Ex. 49._)
Thus, it is clear that the experiments were planned and executed with the _intention_ that some were to terminate fatally. This report covered the period up to the first week in April and mention of deaths and autopsies is made. This quite obviously was the instance when Romberg says he saw his first death and autopsy, although he tends to place the date as the latter part of April. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40._) If the experiments had been stopped there the lives of many subjects would have been saved.
The defendants argue that, while the experiments may have killed persons, they did not involve torture and pain. This is on the theory that the subjects lost consciousness before any sensation of pain. This anomalous defense is completely disproved by the photographic exhibits showing the expressions of pain of the subjects. (_NO-610, Pros. Ex. 41._) as well as the defendants’ own report on the experiments. (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._) The reaction of one subject was described in terms such as “severe altitude sickness, spasmodic convulsions”. In a self-experiment by Romberg and Rascher, the latter’s reactions were described as follows:
“After 10 minutes stay at this altitude, pains began on the right side with a spastic paralytic condition of the right leg which increased continually as though Ra’s [Rascher’s] whole right side were being crushed between two presses. At the same time there were most severe headaches as though the skull were being burst apart. The pains became continually more severe so that at last the discontinuation of the experiment became necessary.” (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._)
There is no case on record where an experiment on an inmate was discontinued because of pain.
Ruff and Romberg take the position that they would be most unwilling to kill prisoners in the course of an experiment. They insist that their experiments with Rascher were concerned with the problem of explosive decompression and on parachute descent from high altitudes, whereas Rascher alone worked on sojourn or a more prolonged stay at high altitudes, and that it was in Rascher’s experiments that prisoners were killed. This again is the artificial division of the experiments into the criminal and noncriminal which has already been proved to be spurious. But here again, the two self-experiments which Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher included in their joint final report as mentioned above _were experiments on prolonged stay at high altitude, a subject which they now claim was exclusively Rascher’s_. The only reason that this experiment did not end fatally was the fact that it was interrupted in time because of intense pain. Moreover, on page 11 of the final report by Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz the following is said: “This is worthy of special attention because in this case a person has fully recovered mentally at an altitude of 8.3 km. (27,230 ft.), after 3 minutes of the most severe lack of oxygen, _while in altitude endurance experiments_ at this altitude severe altitude sickness sets in after about 3 minutes.” [Emphasis supplied.] (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._) Here, again, it is proved from their own report that Ruff and Romberg, as well as Rascher, were concerned with sojourn at high altitudes.
Experiments, in which prisoners were killed, are reported in Rascher’s report to Himmler of 11 May 1942. (_NO-220, Pros. Ex. 61._) Some prisoners were killed by keeping them at 12,000 meters without oxygen for 30 minutes; one was killed at 20,000 meters when exposed there for about 6 minutes without oxygen. These prisoners were autopsied to ascertain if bubbles of gas, called air embolism in Rascher’s report of 11 May 1942, were present in the blood vessels of the brain and other organs when dissected under water. Some “Jewish professional criminals” who had committed “Rassenschande” (race pollution)[18] were killed for another reason:
“To find out whether the severe psychic and physical effects, as mentioned under No. 3, are due to the formation of embolism, the following was done: After relative recuperation from such a parachute descending test had taken place, however before regaining consciousness, some VP’s were kept under water until they died. When the skull and the cavities of the breast and of the abdomen had been opened under water, an enormous amount of air embolism was found in the vessels of the brain, the coronary vessels and the vessels of the liver and the intestines, etc.” (_NO-220, Pros. Ex. 61._)
It should be noted that these murders were committed in connection with the _parachute descending tests_, not prolonged stay at high altitudes, and this was the very subject being studied by Ruff and Romberg. Romberg testified that he was present at the death of three of these prisoners, one in April and two in May 1942, and witnessed an autopsy of one, in which gas bubbles were present in the blood vessels of the brain. He reported these deaths to Ruff. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40._) Neff testified Romberg was present in five cases where fatalities occurred (_Tr. pp. 619, 692._) and Romberg admitted that he knew that five to ten other experimental subjects were killed while he was not present. (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40._) Neff stated that Romberg actively participated in the majority of the experiments. He observed the experiments, took notes, and studied the electrocardiogram and thus was able to determine when an experimental subject in the chamber was about to die. (_Tr. p. 651._)
It is incredible that Dr. Ruff was not informed regarding the finding of bubbles in the blood vessels of the brain since such observations in human beings who have died following too rapid atmospheric decompression is a very, very unique event, though bubbles had been observed many times prior to 1942 in the blood vessels of laboratory animals. It is inconceivable that Dr. Ruff, or anyone else in the field of aviation medicine, had not heard of the bubble theory of the cause of joint pains, coughing, blindness, or paralysis, or the symptoms of the pressure drop sickness, which may occur on exposure to high altitude, since this theory was well known in literature and text books of aviation medicine available since 1938. How else would Rascher have had occasion to look for the bubbles? He either learned of the theory during a course in aviation medicine or was told about it by Ruff and Romberg, who knew much more than Rascher about aviation medicine.
It is fantastic that Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher did not have in mind the observations of bubbles in the blood vessels of the murdered prisoners, when, in the final joint report of 28 July 1942, they wrote:
“In spite of the relatively large number of experiments, the actual cause of the severe mental disturbances and bodily failures (paralysis, blindness, etc.) attendant upon post-hypoxemic twilight state remains something of a riddle. It appeared often as though the phenomena of pressure drop sickness had combined with the results of severe oxygen lack”. (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._)
It has been the theory for some time that the symptoms associated with decompression or pressure-drop sickness may be due to the formation of gas bubbles (air embolism) in the blood vessels of the brain or in the regions of the joints or in the blood vessels of the lungs. When the bubbles collect in the blood vessels of the brain, they are supposed to cause a physical or mental disturbance or paralysis. When the gas bubbles collect in the region of the joints, they are supposed to cause pain in the region of the joints. When the bubbles collect in the blood vessels in the lungs, they are supposed to cause the chokes or attacks of coughing. That has been a theory that has been held for some 15 or 20 years, and an expert in the field of aviation medicine could not have been unaware of it. (_Tr. pp. 9098-9._) Since Rascher had observed bubbles as is described in his report of 11 May 1942, and since Ruff and Romberg had complete knowledge of the deaths, obviously these important findings of Rascher on air embolism did not escape the attention of Ruff and Romberg. It can only be concluded that these findings, which resulted from intentioned deaths, form the basis of the paragraph quoted above from the final report. Because of the nature of the subject matter, and a prior knowledge of the observations in the autopsies in the experiments, the ideas expressed in the paragraph quoted above cannot be separated from those in the Rascher report of 11 May. So testified the expert witness Dr. A. C. Ivy. (_Tr. p. 9151._) All of this proves again that the testimony of Ruff and Romberg to the effect they had nothing to do with the so-called “Rascher experiments” is completely false. Even though deaths are not specifically mentioned in the joint report of 28 July, it is clear from Dr. Ivy’s testimony that the findings in the death cases form the basis for a part of that report.
Ruff and Romberg would have the Tribunal believe that the experiments were completed and the chamber removed from Dachau by 20 May 1942. Since Romberg knew of and reported on the deaths to Ruff in April, there clearly was no excuse whatever to leave the chamber in Dachau for even another day. But according to their own story, it stayed until 20 May and Romberg saw two more men killed. They attempted to gloss over their criminal participation in these later murders by saying that the chamber could not be moved without orders from the Luftwaffe Medical Inspector. Be that as it may, such a technical violation of moving the chamber without orders is hardly comparable to the crime of leaving the chamber for further experiments by a man whom they admit they knew to have been a murderer. Indeed, any decent superior who was not himself a party to the crime, as they actually were, would undoubtedly have court-martialed Ruff and Romberg for leaving the chamber there, not to speak of Rascher.
But it is not true that the chamber left Dachau on 20 May 1942 as they perjuriously stated. They seized upon this date from Milch’s letter to Wolff stating that the chamber was needed elsewhere. (_343-A-PS, Pros. Ex. 62._) There clearly was an intention to transfer the chamber, but it was _not_ in fact moved and this was undoubtedly due to the joint efforts of Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher. Romberg was anxious to continue his criminal work with Rascher in September 1942 as has been pointed out above. In any event, on 4 June 1942, Milch authorized retention of the chamber in Dachau _for two more months_. (_NO-261, Pros. Ex. 63._) On 25 June this order was passed on to Rascher by Heckenstaller, adjutant to Wolff, reference being made to a letter of 5 June from Rascher. (_NO-284, Pros. Ex. 64._) These documents prove beyond doubt that the chamber remained in Dachau until July 1942.
The testimony of Neff not only proves that the experiments continued until July 1942 but also that Romberg was presented with a remarkable opportunity to discontinue the experiments without any trouble whatever. Neff stated that Romberg told him in the latter part of May that the chamber was to be transferred (undoubtedly as a result of Milch’s letter of 20 May which was later countermanded) and, under the impression that Romberg might not be in favor of any continuation of the experiments, he sabotaged the chamber by breaking a glass barometer in order to make sure the chamber would be sent away. Instead of seizing this opportunity for stopping the experiments by removing the damaged chamber, Romberg rushed to Berlin, obtained spare parts, and in a matter of 2 weeks had the chamber functioning again for more murderous experiments. (_Tr. pp. 623-4._) The chamber was used for another 3 weeks after it was repaired and five persons were killed on the last day of the experiments. (_Tr. p. 624._) Although the defense attacked Neff on cross-examination concerning the sabotage of the chamber (_Tr. p. 663_), by the time Romberg took the stand they admitted the chamber was damaged but moved the whole incident to the month of May instead of June. (_Tr. p. 6905._) This was obviously done on the theory that the Tribunal could be deceived into believing that very few experiments could have been conducted in May since they contend the chamber was moved on 20 May. But the documents and Neff’s testimony clearly established that the chamber was there until July. Moreover, it matters little whether the chamber was damaged in May or June. Romberg in no event took the opportunity to stop the experiments on the ground of unavailable spare parts, although this opportunity would not have been needed if he really wanted to discontinue them. He need have done nothing more complex than to have sent the chamber away or left himself.
Ruff’s and Romberg’s guilt is beyond doubt when we consider that they did not take the opportunity to withdraw after the first death of an experimental subject in April 1942. Romberg admitted his presence at the death of this first subject. (_Tr. p. 6924._) He was studying the electrocardiogram at the time of the experiments (_NO-476, Pros. Ex. 40_), but he would have the Tribunal find that he was an innocent bystander who was privileged to do nothing. This was just another “SS experiment” according to Romberg. But Romberg admitted that he was working the electrocardiogram and was studying the point of light that follows the heart. When he saw that the critical point had been reached, he said he spoke to Rascher (_Tr. p. 6927_), but to no avail as Rascher continued the experiment until death resulted. This testimony of assumed impotence when a man was slowly killed before his eyes is an insult to one’s intelligence. Romberg was the senior scientist and was fully aware of the fact that the danger zone had been reached as he was thoroughly familiar with the equipment being used. He has outlined for the Tribunal the proximity of the electrocardiogram to the controls of the chamber (_Tr. p. 6929_), and it is inconceivable that Romberg could not have taken the necessary action to have spared this experimental subject’s life if he had so desired. The inescapable fact is that these deaths were part of the plan and Romberg not only had no desire to interfere but was very much interested in the cause of death through air embolism.
Assuming that Romberg was opposed to this fatal experiment, it is impossible to understand why he did not take the appropriate action to have Rascher prosecuted for this premeditated murder. The fact of the matter is that Romberg merely reported this death to Ruff (_Tr. p. 6932_), and no appropriate action was taken by Ruff either. Although alleging an objection to this fatality, Romberg admits participation in the autopsy of the unfortunate victim. This autopsy clearly bore out the fact that air embolism was the cause of death. When asked if he participated in this autopsy, Romberg answered, “Yes, I watched one autopsy. That was my duty.” (_Tr. p. 6924._) Romberg testified that he saw two other deaths and that air embolism also caused those. (_Tr. pp. 6925-6._)
Ruff and Romberg lay great stress on the point that deaths are not mentioned in the joint report of 28 July 1942 of Romberg, Ruff, and Rascher. This, of course, is a very understandable omission, but it in no way proves that they are not responsible for those murders. Indeed, the joint report of 28 July 1942 (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66_) is identical with Rascher’s report of 11 May 1942 (_NO-220, Pros. Ex. 61_) except for the specific mentioning of the deaths. For example, paragraph 3 of the Rascher report is a summary of part III-1, pages 3 to 18, and part III-2, pages 18 to 19 of the joint final report. Paragraph 4 of Rascher’s report contains results set out in part III-4, pages 21 to 22, of the joint final report. Paragraph 5 of Rascher’s report is identical with part III-3, pages 19 to 21, of the joint final report. Paragraph 6 of the Rascher report where the pervitin experiments are mentioned is alluded to in the pervitin data in the joint final report on page 18. Paragraph 7 of the Rascher report contains the conclusions incorporated in the joint final report and gives details on the gas bubble data which are referred to on pages 16 to 18 of the joint final report, but from which is omitted reference to the autopsy results of the murdered prisoners. These various passages were compared by the witness Ivy and he concluded that they refer to the same subject matter. (_Tr. p. 9097._)
Ruff attempts to explain the omission of mention of deaths in the final report on the ground that the deaths did not occur as a result of their experiments on rescue from high altitudes (i. e., parachute descending tests), but rather in Rascher’s own experiments with which they had nothing to do (i. e., prolonged stay at high altitudes). (_Tr. p. 6592._) It has already been proved that the basic premise to this spurious argument is completely false, since Ruff and Romberg themselves were not interested in sojourn at high altitudes. The self-experiments of Romberg and Rascher were just such tests and they are specifically mentioned in the final report. These involved a stay of 30 to 40 minutes at altitudes between 12 and 13.5 kilometers (39,400 to 44,290 feet). But so also is the minor premise wrong. _Deaths were deliberately brought about in the course of the parachute descending tests._ In these tests it had been noted that the subjects suffered from spasmodic and clonic convulsions together with paralysis. This is reported in paragraph 3 of Rascher’s memorandum of 11 May 1942 on the experiments and also on pages 13 through 18 of the final report. In his memorandum, Rascher stated:
“To find out whether the severe psychic and physical effects, as mentioned under No. 3, are due to the formation of embolism, the following was done: After relative recuperation from such _a parachute descending test_ had taken place, however before regaining consciousness, some VP’s were kept under water until they died. When the skull and the cavities of the breast and of the abdomen had been opened under water, an enormous amount of air embolism was found in the vessels of the brain, the coronary vessels, and the vessels of the liver and the intestines, etc.” [Emphasis supplied.] (_NO-220, Pros. Ex. 61._)
_This proves beyond any doubt that murders were committed in the parachute descending tests of Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher._ Ruff again tried to deceive the Tribunal by testifying that it was substantially impossible for air embolism to form in parachute descending tests. This is obviously disproved by the statement of Rascher quoted above and by the reference in the final report, already mentioned above, which alludes to this same problem. But the lie was also squarely nailed by the expert witness Ivy, who testified that it was possible for air embolism to form in subjects who were at altitudes above 12,000 meters (39,400 feet) only 3 minutes, that is to say, subjects who bailed out at 15,000 meters. Bubbles may form as low as 30,000 feet. (_Tr. p. 9102._) Thus, the defense that no deaths occurred during the experiments concerning rescue from high altitudes is completely spurious.
Moreover, it should be noted that while the joint final report does not describe any of the death cases, it also _does not deny_ that deaths occurred. On page 25 of the original, it says: “In conclusion, we must make it particularly clear that, in view of the extreme experimental conditions in this whole experimental series, no fatality and no lasting injury _due to oxygen lack occurred_.” (_NO-402, Pros. Ex. 66._) The deaths described in Rascher’s report quoted above _were not due to lack of oxygen_ but were deliberate killings to investigate air embolism.
But even the experiments which Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz admit were planned and performed under their responsibility were highly dangerous to the life and health of the subjects. Both Ruff and Romberg agreed that 12,000 meters was the upper limit of safety and that experiments of the type they performed above that altitude were hazardous. The description of the reaction of the subjects as set forth in the final report proves that the subject suffered severe convulsions and prolonged periods of disorientation. The expert witness Ivy pointed out that the experiments described in the final report of Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz were highly dangerous for the following reasons:
“I consider them to be dangerous because of the prolonged period of unconsciousness to which the subjects were exposed. For example, they were unconscious for periods of around twenty minutes, and they were disoriented for periods of around thirty to ninety minutes. That is a dangerous period of oxygen lack to which to expose the brain. I agree that * * * the electrocardiogram demonstrates that the heart of these subjects was not momentarily affected or significantly affected by this prolonged exposure to oxygen lack. But these experiments do not show, or the results do not show that the cells of the brain were not injured. One of the higher faculties of the brain is learning, and we know that the learning process is rather sensitive to oxygen lack, and the only way to check against the possibility of damage of the learning mechanism by prolonged exposure to oxygen lack would have been to have determined the I. Q. of these subjects or the ability of these subjects to learn before and after the subjects were exposed to such a prolonged period of oxygen lack.” (_Tr. p. 9036._)
Dr. Ivy testified that the experiments described in the final report had reached the physiological limit and that work was being done in a very dangerous and hazardous zone as far as the welfare of the experimental subjects was concerned. He said that he should be reluctant to perform such experiments even on himself and that he would prefer to depend upon that degree of accuracy which could be obtained from calculations of the results of animal experiments. (_Tr. pp. 9081, 9112, and 9197._)
Finally it should be noted that the experiments were neither necessary nor a scientific success. “Necessity of the State” has been much used by the defendants as if it were a defense. This is clearly unfounded even though necessity, military or otherwise, be assumed. It is to be supposed that each defendant _thought_ there was some necessity to what he was doing. This is no defense. Rascher thought the same thing. It was deemed necessary to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of persons in concentration camps. It was deemed necessary to murder millions of Jews. The slave labor policy was bottomed on necessity. If that is a defense, then these trials lose all meaning. But, on the other hand if it is proved that these experiments were not necessary, not of scientific value, then it makes the guilty even more guilty. The brutal sacrifice of human life was to no avail. And such was the case here. Hippke, Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, when writing his thanks to Himmler on 8 October 1942 said the following:
“It is true that no conclusions as to the practice of parachuting can be drawn for the time being, as a very important factor, namely, cold has so far not yet been taken into consideration; it places an extraordinary excess burden on the entire body and its vital movements, so that the results in actual practice will very likely prove to be far more unfavorable than in the present experiments.” (_NO-289, Pros. Ex. 72._)
When asked his opinion concerning the necessity for the typical experiment described on page 13 of the final report of Ruff, Romberg, and Rascher, the witness Ivy testified:
“I do not believe that it was necessary to do this experiment in order to determine the equipment to supply aviators who have to bail out of an airplane at high altitude.” (_Tr. p. 9035._)
The witness Ivy stated further that the information which was obtained by these experiments on concentration camp inmates could have been obtained from animals as indicated by the results of Lutz’ and Wendt’s animal work referred to in the final report. The differences in the reactions of human subjects and animals, as reported by Lutz and Wendt, were not sufficient to warrant the carrying out of these hazardous experiments on human beings. (_Tr. p. 9036._)
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