text stringlengths 282 15k | source stringclasses 885 values | word_start int64 0 7.81M | word_end int64 210 7.81M |
|---|---|---|---|
This is a corrected copy of transcript for 5 December 1946. Please destroy your old copies Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 5 December 1946, 1015-1200 hours, Justice Beal presiding. THE PRESIDENT:Members of Military Tribunal No. 1 meet this morning informally in chambers to hear arguments upon the motion of certain defense counsel for a continuance of case No. 1 pending before the Tribunal. Counsel will be allowed thirty minutes, on each side, to present their arguments. Two counsels for the defendants may argue upon the motion. The defense counsel will open and close the arguments, and the defendants may divide their thirty minutes between the opening and closing as they please. You may proceed with the arguments upon the motion. DR. SERVATIUS:The counsel here for the defendants presents an application for the postponement of the beginning of the trial. They are the counsel who happened to be present at the time, who drew up the application, and I am convinced that most of my colleagues who are not present also approve. There are technical reasons which lead to this application. It is the concern which we have as defense counsel that our witnesses cannot be here in time since we are not able to make our application soon enough to have the witnesses brought here. The reason for this is that the material which can give us occasion to call a witness has not been in our hands long enough so that we can work on it. Only on Saturday afternoon were documents available, and others came in the next few days. For many of the defense counsel it is not possible with these few documents, in a short time, to speak to all of the defendants. Especially we still lack a list of the documents so that we can be able to select which documents are significant for each individual. Therefore, we have to look into the documents themselves to determine which are important; this takes hours. During this time other defense counsel, of course, cannot obtain information about these documents. In my application I stated the consequences of this condition. In order to get a witness here we would need several weeks. I as defense counsel for the first defendant must expect to have my witnesses called to the stand here first. General Taylor has been kind enough to say that he assumes that the prosecution's case will take two or three weeks. That would mean, if one includes the Christmas recess, that I must be ready by the beginning of January. According to the experience in the previous trial it will hardly be possible to get my witnesses here in that time since I do not know where some of them are. There is the same difficulty with the experts. They would have to be here from the beginning of the trial. Whoever is inclined | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 0 | 500 |
in the previous trial it will hardly be possible to get my witnesses here in that time since I do not know where some of them are. There is the same difficulty with the experts. They would have to be here from the beginning of the trial. Whoever is inclined to appear as an expert and who is possible as an expert for the individual case must be discussed carefully. The court is supposed to be represented by the experts; the same goes for the witnesses. I do not want to call witnesses who will prove to be useless. It is my endeavor through sworn statements to replace the testimony of a number of witnesses and shorten the proceedings. That took a great deal of time in the previous trial; as far as I recall it took an average of two months until a sworn statement was available here. Then I cannot make my application yet, it will be unavoidable. In January there will be a period after the prosecution has finished its case -- that is, there would be an interruption which should be avoided not only in the interest of the defense but in the interest of all. This interruption would be better at the beginning. I ask for three weeks, considering the possible one week Christmas holiday, that would in effect be two weeks. Perhaps there will be one week recess at Christmas, and that would be a delay of two weeks, and in this three weeks, I believe it would be possible to get the witnesses here. I do not want to go into all the minor differences which exist for the defense. I do not think this is the right place to present such matters. I have finished my statement. THE PRESIDENT:Counsel for the prosecution. GENERAL TAYLOR:The prosecution believes that this motion is entirely without foundation -- without legitimate foundation. One of the principal points which appears to be made here is that some one-hundred documents have been made available to the defense and that an additional 150 have not been made available. This motion was written December 3rd and was received by me yesterday afternoon. I checked with the document room and the Defendants' Information Center the moment I received this and was told that some 240 documents were already in the Defendants' Information Center. I am told that there is a list of 296 documents which has been furnished to the Defendants' Information Center. It appears, therefore, there was some 50 missing so we put a special staff on last night and after this morning 284 documents are in the Defendants' Information Center. So far as I know there is no rule or requirement that we furnish these documents. We are indeed bound by custom here to give them all documents 24 hours in advance of their use. They have received these documents nearly a week in advance of the trial and it is just a privilege which we extend because we are | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 450 | 950 |
requirement that we furnish these documents. We are indeed bound by custom here to give them all documents 24 hours in advance of their use. They have received these documents nearly a week in advance of the trial and it is just a privilege which we extend because we are in a position to do so and think it will assist the trial and is a matter for the rights of the defendants. It is discouraging to see our attempt to extend this privilege as extensively as we can, carried into an attempt to put the trial off. Furthermore, these documents in the Defendants' Information Center are all in German, a language which counsel understands and I, myself, in preparing this case have been unable to get most of the documents because it is difficult to get them translated into English for me to use then. In that respect the defense is in a much better position than the prosecution. The point about location of witnesses which Dr. Servatius makes is worthless and unspecified in his motion. We are not told that there is any particular witness he wants; that it is difficult to locate. From his experience in Case No. 1 -- I must point out this case is different from Case No. 1. The subject is more defined and the problems will be much easier and solve themselves. Until some substantial defense is brought to the Court's attention with respect to procurement of witnesses it seems that there is no possible reason for us to postpone the trial for purely speculative diffi culties. The same, I think, applies to the question of experts which the defense has raised. It does seem, and surely they have had time to lood into that matter fully. The Indictment gives them the information as to what kind of expert they want to have here and if they have difficulty in getting him here by December 9th a transcript will be served and inform the expert of what was going on. It seems to us there has been sufficient time for them to get experts. Some point is made this motion about the rooms which have been furnished. We have done our best on that. Certain rooms were made available to Defense Counsel, and they found them unsatisfactory. As a result of their request, other rooms which are better have been made available as of yesterday and are set up, and working conditions are possible there. As far as typewriters are concerned, it is difficult to procure German typewriters. We are today putting into this room a selection of English and German typewriters and are doing all we can to aid Counsel to perform their duties. In many respects, because of the language situation in this trial, I think their difficulties are no greater than our own on the Prosecution side. I must finally point out that a postponement of this trial means a postponement of other trials which are to follow this | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 900 | 1,400 |
perform their duties. In many respects, because of the language situation in this trial, I think their difficulties are no greater than our own on the Prosecution side. I must finally point out that a postponement of this trial means a postponement of other trials which are to follow this one. Under Ordinance Number 7, this is a continuing program, and if this trial does not start as scheduled, it will result in postponement of those which are to follow. I think that is all I have to say, Your Honor. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): General Taylor, are you in a position to say now how many documents will be used in the prosecution in its case in chief? GENERAL TAYLOR:In its case in chief? It will come very close to the figure 300, Your Honor. I think Mr. McHaney can answer that question in more detail than I can. MR. McHANEY:If Your Honor please, we have made an effort to give them documents which we definitely plan to use. In other words, we have not sent to the Defendants' Information Center a mass of documents which we do not think that we will use. We have not sent them all of the documents which we plan to use for two reasons: Firstly, we have obtained a rather substantial number of affidavits from certain of the defendants. Those documents have not been made available in the Defendant's Information Center, and we do not plan to make them available until approximately 24 hours prior to the time that they will be used in court. In the same category falls a number of charts showing the organization of various offices with which the Court will be dealing, such as the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht, the Medical Service of the SS, and so forth. Those charts have not been made available to them. They shall on Saturday morning, since we plan to use them on Monday in our presentation here. There are naturally other documents which will be used in the course of the trial in the case in chief which have not been sent to the Defendants' Information Center as yet. I think that there are some documents dealing with euthanesia which will be the last matter taken up in the case in chief which have not been sent down because we have not as yet had the time to decide definitely which of those documents we plan to use. There are a rather substantial number of them, and we wish to select only those few that we would use here. There are also, of course, those instances in which we will find documents in Berlin or in other places which we do not now have, which, of course, are not in the Defendants' Information Center, but a few instances will come up where we will find documents that we will want to use, but, by and large, I think that the 300 which we made | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 1,350 | 1,850 |
or in other places which we do not now have, which, of course, are not in the Defendants' Information Center, but a few instances will come up where we will find documents that we will want to use, but, by and large, I think that the 300 which we made available will pretty well cover the case in chief. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): By 300 documents, do you mean that those documents will also comprehend the affidavits? MR. MCHANEY:No, we have now given them 280-odd out of the total of 294. Those are all photostatic copies of the original German documents. Now, in addition to that, I would say that we have, oh, in the neighborhood of 25 affidavits taken from the defendants. Additionally, we have at least an equal number of affidavits taken from witnesses. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): What equal number? MR. MCHANEY:I say we must have at least 25 affidavits also, taken from witnesses; that is, people other than the defendants. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): So that, perhaps, you have 50 affidavits, altogether? MR. MCHANEY:I should think so. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring); Can you say at this time how much time will be taken in the introduction of documents, as you anticipate it? MR. MCHANEY:You mean to put in our case in chief? THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): So much of it as is comprehended by the documents. MR. MCHANEY:Well, that is difficult to say. The manner in which we will present the case is more or less on a topical basis, in accordance with the order that we have set up in the Indictment. In other words, after the opening statement and certain procedural matters are taken care of, we will start introducing documentary evidence consisting of affidavits by the defendants and German documents on the high altitude experiments. More or less at the conclusion of the introduction of documentary evidence on that topic, we will call certain witnesses to the stand to testify with respect to these matters. We will than proceed to the next experiment, which is the freezing experiment. In the high altitude experiment we have, roughly, 40 or 45 documents dealing with that matter. As far as I recall, we have only two witnesses. I should think that it would probably take us in excess of a day to put in those documents. Of course, the examination of witnesses may prove to be a rather time-consuming matter because there are quite a number of Defense Counsel here, and roughly half of them, I think, are charged with the high altitude experiments, and I assume that there will be considerable cross examination. THE PRESIDENTS:Defense Counsel may proceed with the closing argument. Twenty-two minutes remain. DR. SERVATIUS:I wanted to reply quite briefly to the argument made by General Taylor. It is a matter cf course that as far as the claim is concerned, we have none for the presentation of such documents. In practice, the situation is different. It is such that during the proceedings we will have to make | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 1,800 | 2,300 |
quite briefly to the argument made by General Taylor. It is a matter cf course that as far as the claim is concerned, we have none for the presentation of such documents. In practice, the situation is different. It is such that during the proceedings we will have to make our applications. I must be in a position to present my evidence, and the sooner the Prosecution gives me those documents, the sooner I shall be ready. The purpose is merely to avoid an interruption of the proceedings, and I don't want to come in with continuous motions during the proceedings. It would be better if we could postpone the proceedings in the beginning so as to be able to go ahead afterwards. As for as the practical use of the documents is concerned, I should like to point cut that there is no list of documents so that, in practice, this pile of documents is of no use to me. I should have to look through each individual document in order to ascertain what it contains, and everybody else would have to do the same, so I should like to ask the Tribunal to convince themselves just how difficult it will be to carry this out in practice. In practice, we do not have the documents in our hands, and we can not use them. If we had a list, we could have shared them out, and each Defense Counsel could have had 20 documents copied, which we would have had at our disposals. I am convinced that the Prosecution is doing everything to help us, but the situation is that even this morning we do not have a room in which to work. In practice, we are short the documents, we are short of the typewriters. I did not want to put this to the Tribunal because I did not think that this was a suitable place, but that is the situation. We do not have the things. I should like to put the emphasis on the pertinent difficulties: namely, that witnesses and experts can not be brought here in practice in time, and the postponement which I am requesting is in practice no more than a fortnight's delay. It would be to everybody's benefit, as subsequently we would be able to go ahead with the proceedings at a greater speed, whereas, these are practical questions which can not be overlooked. THETRIBUNAL (Judge-Sebring): May I ask Counsel a question, please? I note that in your motion for a continuance, you say that it is necessary to have expert witnesses present during the entire course of the Prosecution's case in chief. Can you tell me what there is in the Prosecution's case that would require the presence of your expert witnesses throughout that phase of the Prosecution? DR. SERVATIUS:According to German legal procedure, the expert ought to be present during the entire proceedings, and the expert, in particular, ought to be in a position to judge from his own | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 2,250 | 2,750 |
the Prosecution's case that would require the presence of your expert witnesses throughout that phase of the Prosecution? DR. SERVATIUS:According to German legal procedure, the expert ought to be present during the entire proceedings, and the expert, in particular, ought to be in a position to judge from his own expert knowledge what the implication is and what the accusations are. During the proceedings documents, too, will be presented and also witnesses will be appearing, and the expert will certainly have questions to put to the witnesses -- probably very relevant and important ones. It is for that reason that it would be suitable, in my opinion, and also in accordance with German law if the expert were here in good time, but, then, in particular, it would be difficult to obtain a suitable export in time. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): You have merely said in your motion that you intend to produce certain witnesses -- an expert to what facts or phase of knowledge? DR. SERVATIUS:As to just what point the experts will have to speak, that will differ in the case of each individual defendant, and we in our capacity of Defense Counsel will have to agree which expert will cover the largest territory on the strength of hid knowledge so that we do not produce large numbers of experts here. Many experts today are not allowed to practice since they no longer hold their professorships of are not appointed by a university. Others are busy and can not get away, and it will be necessary to do and see them and ask them if they are able and willing to appear. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): I do not believe you understood my question. You are proposing to call experts in what field, the field of medicine and research? MR. SERVATIUS:Yes, that is right. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Sebring): Do you know where potential expert witnesses are living or residing? Do you have that information. MR. SERVATIUS:I have not dealt with that problem myself. My colleague, Dr. Nelte, will probably be able to answer that question. DR. NELTE:Gentlemen of the Tribunal, with reference to what my colleague, Dr. Servatius, has said I should like to add the following, and else as a reply to what has been said earlier, namely, that the difficulties we had were of a figurative nature and were not of a concrete nature. May I please point cut to you that on the 26th of November I had already submitted application, to which even today I am still without a reply. In that application, dated 26th of November, I had named six experts and witnesses who are of general and great importance to this trial. In consideration of the fact that the trial was scheduled to start as early as 9th of December I had requested to be given the possibility of calling these doctors who reside in Heidelberg, Wurtzberg, Cologne, and as far as I know, Tuebingen, and that I night be given the opportunity to visit | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 2,700 | 3,200 |
the fact that the trial was scheduled to start as early as 9th of December I had requested to be given the possibility of calling these doctors who reside in Heidelberg, Wurtzberg, Cologne, and as far as I know, Tuebingen, and that I night be given the opportunity to visit there. I still have not received a reply to this application today. I have not been able to visit these important witnesses and I believe that the raising of the points which Prosecution have submitted in today's letter cannot be applicable to my case. They state that the Defense had ample time in order to call experts. It might have been possible to visit these doctors in the course of this week, if my application dated 26th of November had received an early decision. I, also, on the 2nd of December submitted an application to the High Tribunal in which I referred to five experts capable of dealing not only with general medical questions but also with the limits and dividing lines of what might be considered legal and medically sound in each individual case, or not permissible. Quite often it would be possible that the decision could be made with reference to the application as early as today. What I was trying to express was the time which we, the Defense, had at our disposal considered from the point of view of advancing the proceedings and the point of view of preparation had been utilized by you although could no more beyond time and circumstances, as they have been described by my colleague, Dr. Servatius, and present that. I hope that this High Tribunal will believe us, the Defense counsels, when we say that everything we do and everything we apply for will be raised in the connection that with it and through it we act in general best interest, not only of ourselves but the Tribunal and Prosecution, since it is our aim and our ambition to assist in the greatest possible clarification of the real circumstances and material throughout this case. It is for that reason that the objection raised by the Prosecution, namely, that there is no legal regulation according to which the documents and any other material should be submitted in good time is not, I think, quite applicable in our case, because we, both the Prosecution as well as the Defense, have the mutual duty to contribute everything we can in order to elucidate and investigate the circumstances throughout and place at your disposition, your Honor, material as complete and as necessary to finding the truth. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Beals): The Court has a question to propound upon the Prosecution. I understand that Counsel for Defense, Dr. Servatius, I believe, has said that although many of these documents are now in the Defense Information Center, yet there is no list of the documents and from which they can work adequately. Can you advise the Court about that, sir? GENERAL TAYLOR:Prosecution furnished the Information Center with | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 3,150 | 3,650 |
Defense, Dr. Servatius, I believe, has said that although many of these documents are now in the Defense Information Center, yet there is no list of the documents and from which they can work adequately. Can you advise the Court about that, sir? GENERAL TAYLOR:Prosecution furnished the Information Center with a list of these documents in numerical order. The list does not break the documents down into an index by subject, but does list the documents by numbers. As far as I know there is no reason why the Defense Counsels could not have divided them among themselves and dealt them around so those applicable in each case would come into the hands of the lawyer in that particular part of the case. Such a list was forwarded to the Information Center. Furthermore, I stopped by there on my way to Court and very cursory locked around and saw the document file in a drawer in numerical order. I say that hesitantly because it was a cursory lock but that is what appeared to me to be. DR. SERVATIUS:Mr. President, may I answer briefly. There is a list of documents, yet -- but it does not correspond to what we had formerly. It is only a list of numbers and reads 001, 005, 200. I see the numbers but I do not know what they mean. I can't select what is of importance for me but I might see "Letter to Himmler". That is important to me. I see only 005. I can't see that on the documents. A list of numbers is useless to me. It is only of use to the person in charge of the documents as he knows which documents are there. I cannot exchange with my colleagues because I do not know who has the important documents. I believe if the Tribunal would investigate the question the documents are there but, in short, in going through them on Saturday with the assistance of Lt. Garrett I checked them. It took an hour and a half to go through the documents -- about one hundred documents. As long as I was working there no one else could use them. In practice they are not really available to us. GENERAL TAYLOR:I believe what Dr. Servatius has said confirms what I said about the list: That list is a check list. We are certainly, I believe, under no obligation to give the Defense Counsels an index from which they can determine a document's importance. There is no way we can save them from work. They have to go through and we which document relates to each part of the case. I say again they are in a very much better position to review because they can understand them. They do not have to deal with translators. Sometimes if is very late when they are translated. I have had access to very few documents. May I make a comment while at the podium about Dr. Nelte's point about expert | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 3,600 | 4,100 |
much better position to review because they can understand them. They do not have to deal with translators. Sometimes if is very late when they are translated. I have had access to very few documents. May I make a comment while at the podium about Dr. Nelte's point about expert witnesses. I do not know of circumstances concerning two particular requests for experts that he has mentioned. All those requests come to the Prosecution and I am informed in every case, except two, we have indicated approval. We have no objection to requests and sent back to the Information Center. Those two or three cases where we have not given consent was because awaiting call of witness from London, Paris, or some distant point. In all cases we have said we had no objection to calling of witnesses in Germany. I cannot believe any objection by Prosecution has been put in from securing witnesses from Heidelberg, Cologne, or elsewhere. THETRIBUNAL (Judge Beals): The Marshall will clear the Court while the Judges come to a decision of this motion. All persons remain at attention until summoned into the Court Room. THE PRESIDENT:The court has considered the briefs filed in connection with this matter and the argument of counsel; the Tribunal rules that the motion for a continuance will be denied without prejudice, however, to the rights of the defendants to present any appropriate motions during the course of the trial for any necessary reasonable recess, either to secure expert witnesses or consultants to be present during the course of the Prosecution's case in chief; or to secure other witnesses or documents. The Tribunal will attempt to dispose of all motions or applications for the presence of witnesses or production of documents no later than tomorrow. Will the counsel for the Prosecution step to the podium? The Tribunal is interested, General, in whether or not you could supplement this list of documents which has been filed so that as to each document which is listed, there might be, in connection therewith, a short general statement as to the subject matter of that document. GENERAL TAYLOR:I will ask Mr. McHaney to answer that question. MR. McHANEY:If your Honor, please, would it be necessary that this descriptive list of documents be translated into German? I think that possibly we could get up such a list without too much difficulty in English, but our translation facilities at the present time are extremely burdened; and if possible, we would like to be relieved of the task of having this translated into German; or if Defense counsel would also take considerable more time, we could provide it to them in English within, I think, 24 hours or 48 hours, I should think, at least. THE PRESIDENT:It is not the idea of the Tribunal that the statement should be very long. I know nothing of your translation facilities. I would assume that if a brief statement in English were filed, it would probably materially assist the counsel for | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 4,050 | 4,550 |
48 hours, I should think, at least. THE PRESIDENT:It is not the idea of the Tribunal that the statement should be very long. I know nothing of your translation facilities. I would assume that if a brief statement in English were filed, it would probably materially assist the counsel for the defendants, just to give each one a brief notice of the contents and the nature of the document so that the defendants who are interested in certain specifications under the charge would know from that that document did or did not concern them. MR. MCHANEY:Yes, indeed, we shall do that. JUDGE BEALS:I would like to ask Defense Counsel a question. Do you think, Counsel, that the filing of a brief statement in English would be of material assistance to you and would be sufficient until possibly a German translation could be provided? DR. SERVATIUS:It would be of great assistance to us. If a number of Defense Counsel have difficulties, we would be able to help each other. We would be very glad to get it soon. May I ask about the number of documents, if we could have twenty-three lists, one for each defendant? There are twenty-three defendants, if we could have twenty-three copies. JUDGE BEALS:I would ask Counsel for the Prosecution to furnish that if possible. You are excused. JUDGE SEBRING:General Taylor, is it mechanically possible to do that? GENERAL TAYLOR:Yes, Your Honor, I believe it would be by stenciling it. JUDGE SEBRING:Within what period of time? GENERAL TAYLOR:Well, we will do our best to have it in within twenty-four hours. Until I check with the clerical facilities I am a little reluctant to say definitely that we can do it in twenty-four hours, but we will shoot for that and I think we will certainly be able to have it in forty-eight. JUDGE BEALS:This informal session of the Tribunal will now adjourn. (The Tribunal adjourned until 9 December 1946, at 1000 hours.) Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 9 December 1946, 1000-1700, Justice Beals, presiding. THE MARSHAL:Military Tribunal No. 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the Court. THE PRESIDENT:The Secretary General will ascertain that all the defendants are present. THE MARSHAL:The Secretary General will call the roll of the defendant. (The Secretary General: Karl Brandt, Siegfried Handloser, Paul Rostock, Oskar Schroeder, Karl Genzken, Karl Beghardt, Kurt Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Helmut Poppendick, Wolfram Sievers, Gerhard Rose, Siegfried Ruff, Hans Wofgang Romberg, Victor Brack, Hermann BeckerFreyseng, Georg August Weltz, Konrad Schaefer, Waldemar Hoven, Wilhelm Beiglb?? Adolf Porkorny, Herta Oberhauser, Fritz Fischer.) THE SECRETARY GENERAL:All of the defendants are present and accounted for. THE PRESIDENT:The Secretary General will note for the record the prose of the defendants. I have two questions now to propound to the defendants. As the name of each | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 4,500 | 5,000 |
Waldemar Hoven, Wilhelm Beiglb?? Adolf Porkorny, Herta Oberhauser, Fritz Fischer.) THE SECRETARY GENERAL:All of the defendants are present and accounted for. THE PRESIDENT:The Secretary General will note for the record the prose of the defendants. I have two questions now to propound to the defendants. As the name of each defendant is called he will rise in his place and proceed to the center in front of the microphone and answer the questions which I shall propound to him. Karl Brandt. Your name is Karl Brandt? KARL BRANDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? KARL BRANDT:I have read the indictment, yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty? KARL BRANDT:Yes, I am not guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Paul Rostock. PAUL ROSTOCK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? PAUL ROSTOCK:I have read the indictment, THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty and do you now plead not Guilty to the indictment? PAUL ROSTOCK: I am Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Oskar Schroeder. OSKAR SCHROEDER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? OSKAR SCHROEDER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty? OSKAR SCHROEDER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Karl Genzken. Is your name Karl Genzken? KARL GENZKEN:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? KARL GENZKEN:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plea Not Guilty to the indictment? KARL GENZKEN:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Karl Gebhardt. Is your name Karl Gebhardt? KARL GEBHARDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? KARL GEBHARDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to his indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to the indictment? KARL GEBHARDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Kurt Blome. Is your name Kurt Blome? KURT BLOME:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? KURT BLOME:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to the indictment? KURT BLOME:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Rudolf Brandt. Is your name Rudolf Brandt? RUDOLF BRANDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? RUDOLF BRANDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to the indictment? RUDOLF BRANDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Siegfried Handloser. Is your name Siegfried Handloser? SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER:Yes THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 4,950 | 5,450 |
to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to the indictment? RUDOLF BRANDT:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Siegfried Handloser. Is your name Siegfried Handloser? SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER:Yes THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to the indictment? SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Joachim Mrugowsky. Is you name Joachim Mrugowsky? JOACHIM MRUGOWSKY:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? JOACHIM MRUGOWSKY:I have read it. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? JOACHIM MRUGOWSKY:I plead Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:Helmut Poppendick. Is your name Helmut Poppendick? HELMUT POPPENDICK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed in this case against you? HELMUT POPPENDICK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? HELMUT POPPENDICK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Wolfram Sievers. Is your name Wolfram Sievers? WOLFRAM SIEVERS:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? WOLFRAM SIEVERS:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? WOLFRAM SIEVERS:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:You may seated. Gerhard Rose. Is your name Gerhard Rose? GERHARD ROSE:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? GERHARD ROSE:Yes. THEPRESIDENT: have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? GERHARD ROSE:Yes, Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Siegfried Ruff. SIEGFRIED RUFF:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed in this case against you? SIEGFRIED RUFF:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? SIEGFRIED RUFF:Yes, Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:Hans Wolfgang Romberg. Is your name Hans Wolfgang Romberg? HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Viktor Brack. Is your name Viktor Brack? VIKTOR BRACK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? VIKTOR BRACK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? VIKTOR BRACK:I plead Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Hermann Becker-Freyseng. Is your name Hermann Becker-Freyseng? HERMANNBECKER-FREYSENG: Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 5,400 | 5,900 |
VIKTOR BRACK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? VIKTOR BRACK:I plead Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Hermann Becker-Freyseng. Is your name Hermann Becker-Freyseng? HERMANNBECKER-FREYSENG: Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? HERMANNBECKER-FREYSENG: Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? HERMANNBECKER-FREYSENG: Yes. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Georg August Weltz. Is you name Geog August Weltz? GEORG AUGUST WELTZ:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? GEORG AUGUST WELTZ:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? GEORG AUGUST WELTZ:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Konrad Schaefer. KONRAD SCHAEFER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? KONRAD SCHAEFER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? KONRAD SCHAEFER: I plead Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:Waldemar Hoven. Is your name Waldemar Hoven? WALDEMAR HOVEN:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? WALDEMAR HOVEN:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? WALDEMAR HOVEN:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Wilhelm Beiglbock. Is your name Wilhelm Beiglbock? WILHELM BEIGLBOCK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? WILHELM BEIGLBOCK:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? WILHELM BEIGLBOCK:I plead Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:Adolf Pokorny. Is your name Adolf Pokorny? ADOLF POKORNY:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? ADOLF POKORNY:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? ADOLF POKORNY:Nor Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:Herta Oberhauser. Is your name Herta Oberhauser? HERTA OBERHAUSER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? HERTA OBERHAUSER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? HERTA OBERHAUSER:Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Fritz Fischer. Is you name Fritz Fischer? FRITZ FISCHER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you received and have you had an opportunity to read the indictment filed against you? FRITZ FISCHER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? FRITZ FISCHER:Yes, Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:The Secretary General will note the questions and answers propounded to the defendants. THE | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 5,850 | 6,350 |
to read the indictment filed against you? FRITZ FISCHER:Yes. THE PRESIDENT:Have you entered your plea of Not Guilty to this indictment and do you now plead Not Guilty to this indictment? FRITZ FISCHER:Yes, Not Guilty. THE PRESIDENT:The Secretary General will note the questions and answers propounded to the defendants. THE PRESIDENT: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 thirty minutes to each defendant. 3. The prosecution shall, not less than twenty-four 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 twenty-four hours before a witness is called to the stand either by the prosecution or by any defendant, the party who desired 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 6,300 | 6,800 |
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 who 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 who it desires to call, the defendant shall at the same time 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, ask this Tribunal to judicially notice such documents, rules, or regulations, place a copy thereof in writing before the Tribunal. This Tribunal has learned with satisfaction of the procedure adopted by the prosecution with the intention to furnish 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 One, pursuant to law, through properly empowered Military authorities, and the defendants having been brought before Military Tribunal One, pursuant to indictments filed October 25, 1946, in the Office of the Secretary General of the Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, 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 indictments having been served upon each defendant for more than thirty days prior to this date, and a copy of the indictments in the German language having been furnished to each defendant, and having been in his possession more than thirty days, and each defendant having had ample opportunity to read the indictments, and having regularly entered his plea of not guilty to the indictments 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 6,750 | 7,250 |
days, and each defendant having had ample opportunity to read the indictments, and having regularly entered his plea of not guilty to the indictments 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 precedence 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 court room. Passes will therefore be issued by the appropriate authorities to those who may enter the court room. 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 had each day this week commencing at 9.30 o'clock through Friday. The Tribunal will reconvene at 9.30 o'clock, Monday December 16, 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, January 2, 1947, on which day the Tribunal will convene at the usual time. I should have stated that on Saturday of next week the Tribunal will recess at 12:30 o'clock. The Prosecution may now commence its opening statement. GENERAL TELFORD TAYLOR: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 hundred 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. They are owed not only to the victims, and to the parents and children of the victims, that just punishment be imposed on the | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 7,200 | 7,700 |
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. They are owed not only to the victims, and to the parents and children of the victims, that just punishment be imposed on the guilty, and not only 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 7,650 | 8,150 |
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 do they know the consequences to Germany. Defeat, ruin, prostration, and utter demoralization. Most German children will never, so 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 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 worth while, 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 Nurnberg were, indeed, reduced to rubble by Allied bombs, but in a deeper sense Nurnberg 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 Nurnberg 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 8,100 | 8,600 |
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 other 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. THE STATE MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE THIRD REICH I pass now to the facts of the case in hand. There are twenty three defendants in the box. All but three of them -- Rudolf Brandt, Sievers, and Brack -- are doctors. Of the twenty-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, 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 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 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 will, in opening the presentation of evidence on behalf of the prosecution, 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 which I am now directing to 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 referring 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 8,550 | 9,050 |
those which Mr. McHaney will offer in evidence. The chart in the front of the courtroom to which I now referring 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 as 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. Hit title as head of the government was Reich Chancellor. He was the "Fuehrer" of the Nazi Party, and the "Supreme Commander-in-Chief" 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 includes 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-in-Chief 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 (for 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 Supreme Commands of the three branches of the Wehrmacht-the Navy(OKM), the Army (OKH), and the Air Force (OKL). Grand Admiral Eric 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 Reichsmarshall, 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. Walther. The chief of the medical service of the German | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 9,000 | 9,500 |
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. Walther. 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 Reichsfuehrer 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 thirty SS Divisions in the line. The head of the medical services 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 Secretary of State 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 Chancery, the chief of which was Martin Bormann. As the Court will see from the chart, 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 9,450 | 9,950 |
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 Services 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 Chancery. 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 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 coordinates and direct the problems and activities of the entire administration for sanitation and health. This authority was explicitly extended to the field of medical science and research. Finally, in August 1944, Hitler appointed Dr. Brandt Reichkommissar for Sanitation and Health, and stated that in this capacity Brandt's office ranked as the "highest Reich authority." 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 Fickentscher, 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, Fickjentscher dealt with the principal lab | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 9,900 | 10,400 |
activities of the medical societies, the medical colleges, and the Reich Research Council. Brandt also appointed Admiral Fickentscher, 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, Fickjentscher dealt with the principal lab authorities, the Ministry of Economics, and the Ministry for Armament and War Production. As chief of the medical service of the German Air Forces, 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 Generaloberstabs 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, 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 advisor 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 Beiglbock will appear as we proce** with the presentation of the evidence. I will likewise passover 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 government 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 (paragraph 6 (I) of the Indictment. The three defendants who are not doctors are shown in the top righthand corner of the chart. Two of them--Rudolf Brandt and Brack--are administrative officers. Rudolf Brandt had the rank of Colonel in | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 10,350 | 10,850 |
appear in the course of presenting the evidence concerning sterilization experiments (paragraph 6 (I) of the Indictment. The three defendants who are not doctors are shown in the top righthand 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 tho Ministry of the Interior. Viktor Brack was the chief administrative officer in Hitler's personal chancery, the head of which was Phillip 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 service 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 ten of the defendants were members of an organiza 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 La 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 all persons who had been officially accepted as members of any branch of the SS and who remained members after September 1, 1939. The prosecution will show that all ten 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 position 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', capacity as Reichsfuehrer 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 10,800 | 11,300 |
defendant Rudolf Brandt held the rank of Colonel in the general (Allgemeine) SS, and was a personal assistant to Himmler in Himmler', capacity as Reichsfuehrer 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, 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 appear 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 Fourtheld 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 (pp. 16952-53 of the Official Transcript): "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 (p.16955 of the Transcript): "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, Paragraphs 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 crimed alleged to have been comm in the name of medical or scientific research. The charges with respect to "euthanasia" and the slaughter of tubercular Polesobviously 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 crime against humanity in Paragraph 11 of the Indictment, and the murders committed so-called anthropological purposes which are charged as war crimes | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 11,250 | 11,750 |
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 crime against humanity in Paragraph 11 of the Indictment, and the murders committed so-called anthropological purposes which are charged as war crimes in Paragraph 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 wh*** 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. Experiment concerning high altitude, the effect of cold, and the potability of processed s** water have an obvious relation to aeronautical and naval combat and rescue problem The mustard gas and phosphorous burn experiments, as well as those relating to healing value of sulfanilimide for wounds, can be related to air-raid and battle field medical problems. It is well known that malaria, epidemic jaundice, and typhus (spotted fever) were among the principal diseases which had to be combattby 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 Forces, 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 militarist 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 them 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 must rapidly to kill prisoners and subjugated people in large numbers. The 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 "euthenasia" program and in the widespread 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 11,700 | 12,200 |
the techniques for genocide, a policy of the Third Reich exemplified in the "euthenasia" program and in the widespread 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. Next is sub-paragraph "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 ra** 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." 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 subject 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." 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 provide. The victims were locked in the low pressure chamber, which was an airtight balllike 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 to duplicate the atmospheric conditions which an aviator might encounter in falling great distances through space without a parachute and without oxygen. | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 12,150 | 12,650 |
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 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. I quote: "The third experiment of this type took such an extra-ordinary 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 km 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 five minute intervals electrocardiograms from 3 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 1/2 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. Upon opening of the pericardium, 80 ccm 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 cf the auricle of the heart stepped for 40 seconds. It then renewed its action, coming to a complete standstill eight minutes later. A heavy subarchnoid edema 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." After seeing this report, Himmler ironically ordered that if a subject | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 12,600 | 13,100 |
later. A heavy subarchnoid edema 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." 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 Raschner inquired whether Himmler's benign mercy extended to Poles and Russians. A teletyped 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. 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: (A recess was taken) GENERAL TAYLOR:I was about to quote from a report written in May 1942 describing one of these high altitude tests on a Jewish subject. Proceeding with the quotation: "Some of the experimental subjects died during a continued high altitude experiment; for instance, after on-half hour at a height of 12 kilometers. After tie 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 psychical 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." 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, | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 13,050 | 13,550 |
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". 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 on 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 may 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, who is 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. 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 nine to fourteen hours. In other cases, they were forced to remain in a tank of iced water for three hours at a time. The water experiments are described in a report by Rascher written in August 1942. I quote: "Electrical measurements gave low temperature readings of 26.4° in the stomach and 26.5° in the rectum. Fatalities | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 13,500 | 14,000 |
they were forced to remain in a tank of iced water for three hours at a time. The water experiments are described in a report by Rascher written in August 1942. 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 these 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 victim 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 Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. When the women had arrived, rewarming was attempted by placing the chilled victim between two naken women. A voluminous report on the freezing experiments conducted in tanks of ice water written in October 1942 contains the following: "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 five 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 twitchings. 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 five to ten 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 breathint set in with or without narcosis. It was reported that, so to speak, an iron ring was placed about the chest. | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 13,950 | 14,450 |
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 breathint 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 dilation of the nostrils occurred. The expiration was prolonged and visibly difficult. This difficulty passed over into a rattling and snoring breathing." During the winter of 1942 to 1943, experiments with "dry" cold were conducted. And Rascher reported on these in another letter to Himmler: "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 one hour, I put these subjects in a hot bath. Up to now, every single patient was completely warmed up within one hour at most, although some of them had their hands and feet frozen white." The responsibility among the defendants from the freezing experiments is substantially the same as for the high altitude tests. The results were, if anything, even more widely known in German medical circles. In October 1942, a medical conference took place here in Nurnberg 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 he Dachau Concentration Camp concerned immunization for the 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. Shilling, with whom the defendant Sievers and other 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, neo-salvarsan, pyramidon, antipyrin, and several combination of these drugs. Many deaths occurred from excessive doses of neo-salvarsan and pyramidon. According to the findings of the Dachau court, malaria was the direct cause of 30 deaths and 300 to 400 other died was the result of later subsequent complications. D. Mustard Gas Experiments The | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 14,400 | 14,900 |
and several combination of these drugs. Many deaths occurred from excessive doses of neo-salvarsan and pyramidon. According to the findings of the Dachau court, malaria was the direct cause of 30 deaths and 300 to 400 other died was the result of later 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 of 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 allege 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. Ravensbrick Experiments concerning Sulfanilimade and Other Drugs; Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation. The experiments conducted principally on the female inmates of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp were perhaps the most barbaric of all. These concerned bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration and bone transplantation, and experiments with sulfanilimide and other drugs. They were carried out by the defendants Fischer and Oberhauser under the direction of the defendant Gebhardt. In one set of experiments, incisions were made in 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 sulfanilimade. Grawitz, the head of the SS Medical Service, visited Ravensbruck 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 more completely similar to these prevailing at the front lines would be more completely simulated. Bullet wounds were simulated on the subjects by trying off the blood vessel at both ends of the incision. A gangrene-producing culture was then placed in the wounds. Severe infection resulted within twenty-four hours. Operations | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 14,850 | 15,350 |
more completely similar to these prevailing at the front lines would be more completely simulated. Bullet wounds were simulated on the subjects by trying off the blood vessel at both ends of the incision. A gangrene-producing culture was then placed in the wounds. Severe infection resulted within twenty-four hours. Operations were then performed on the infected area and the wound was treated with sulfanilamide. In each of the many sulfanilamide experiments, some of the subjects were wounded and infected but were not given sulfanilimade, 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 Ravensbruck. The defendant Gebhardt personally ordered that bone transplantation experiments be carried out, and in one case the scapula of an inmate at Ravensbruck 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 Oberhauser's duties at Ravensbruck 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. Sulfanilimide was also administered to some and withheld from other inmates who had been infected with the pus from a phlegmondiseased person. Blood poisoning generally ensued. After infection, the victims were left untreated for three or four days, after which various drugs were administered experimentally or experimental surgical operations were performed. Polish Catholic priests were used for those 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. Seawater Experiments For the seawater 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 seawater 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 a greed to conduct a series of experiments in which the subjects, fed only with ship-wreck emergency rations, would be divided into four groups. One group would receive no water at all; the second would drink ordinary seawater; | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 15,300 | 15,800 |
Farben. The defendants Becker-Freyseng and Schaefer were among the participants. It was a greed to conduct a series of experiments in which the subjects, fed only with ship-wreck emergency rations, would be divided into four groups. One group would receive no water at all; the second would drink ordinary seawater; the third would drink seawater processed by the so called "Berka" method, which concealed the taste but did not alter the saline content; the fourth would drink seawater 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 form his letter: "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 resolution: The Luftwaffe has simultaneously developed two methods for making seawater drinkable. The one method, developed by a Medical Officer, removes the salt from the seawater and transforms it into real drinking water; the second method, suggested by an engineer, only removes the unpleasant taste from the seawater. 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 four 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 concentration camp Dachau, 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 great ly 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 question 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 Beiglbeck 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 Sachesenhausen and Natzweiler concentration | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 15,750 | 16,250 |
a check. The tests were actually begun in July 1944. The defendant Beiglbeck 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 Sachesenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps, were instigated by the defendant Karl Brandt. A letter written in 1943 by Grawitz stresses the enermour 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% casualties from epidemic jaundice had occurred. Grawitz further informed Himmler that, and I quote: "The General Kommissar of the Fuehrer, SS Brigadefuehrer Prof 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 recorse the procedure and inoculate human beings with germs cultivated in animals. Casualties (Todesfalle) 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: "Approve the 8 criminals condemned in Auschwitz (8 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 Ravensbruck, 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. Nadaus 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 Pokerny 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: "If, on the basis of this research, it were possible to produce a drug which after a | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 16,200 | 16,700 |
the defendant Pokerny 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: "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 Belsheviks, who are at present German prisoners, could be sterilized so that they could be used as laborers but 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 fourteen subjects of these experiments, at least two died. The defendant Gebhardt also personally conducted sterilizations at Ravensbruck 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 part of the body, if the 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: "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 two or three minutes. The official attendant who sits behind the counter can operate the apparatus in such a manner than he works a switch 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 "..... 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 16,650 | 17,150 |
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 "..... 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 these 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: "Among ten millions of Jews, in Europe there are, I figure, at least two to three million of men and women who are fit enough to work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labor problem presents us with, I held the view that these two to three 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 purposes. I would like to recall those 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 camps 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 diptheria. 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 17,100 | 17,600 |
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 objected 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 blood-stream 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 ever to and filled by the defendant Hoven. The bulk of the actual work was done by an infamous physician know 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 December 29, 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: "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 three years, and give some idea of the mortality among the victims. "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 to establish a sure means of infection were sent to Berlin. 1 death out of 5 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 Maj.Gen. of the Waffen SS, Dr. GENKEN, the hitherto | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 17,550 | 18,050 |
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 Maj.Gen. of the Waffen SS, Dr. GENKEN, 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 April 43: Unit of SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding ordered to I G Farbenindustrie A.G., Hoechst. Conference with Prof LAUTENSCHLAEGER, Dr. WEBER and Dr. FUSSGAENGER about the experimental series 'Akridin Granulat and Rutenol' in the concentration camp Buchenwald. Visit to Geheimrat Otto and Prof PRIGGE in the institute for experimental therapeutics in Frahkfurt-on-Main. 24 April 1943: Therapeutic experiments Akridin-Granulat (A-GR2) and Rutonol (R-2) To carry out the therapeutic experiments Akridin-Granulat 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 June 1943: Charts of case history completed. The experimental series was concluded with 21 deaths; of these, 8 were in Buchenwald, 8 at Rutene 1 and 5 control. 7 September 1943: Chart and case history completed. The experimental series was concluded with 53 deaths. 18 March 1944: It is suggested by Colonel of the 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. 20 persons were vaccinated for immunization by intramuscular injection. 10 persons were contemplated for control and comparison. 16 April 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. 9 persons from the control: 2 medium, 7 seriously. 13 June 1944: Chart and case history completed and sent to Berlin. 6 deaths (3 'Kopenhagen') (3 control) 4 November 1944: Chart and case history completed. 24 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 prisoner 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 18,000 | 18,500 |
Poisons were administered to Russian prisoners-of-war in their food and German doctors stood behind a curtain to watch the reactions of the prisoner 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 provide us with a record of another experiment in which the victims were shot with p***** poisoned bullets, and I quote: "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." I now turn to the charges in paragraphs 7 and 11 of the indictment. L. Incendiary Bomb Experiments THE PRESIDENT:At this time we'll take our noon recess and reconvene at 1:30 o'clock, p.m. AFTERNOON SESSION GENERAL TAYLOR: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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 18,450 | 18,950 |
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: "We have a nearly complete collection of skulls of all races and peoples at our disposal. Of the Jewish race, however, only very few specimens of skulls 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, 9-12-46 - A - 10-2 - LJG - Lesser 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 gluid. "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 tho 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 parts: " I wish to inform you that our associate, Dr. Boger, who was in change 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 18,900 | 19,400 |
to inform you that our associate, Dr. Boger, who was in change 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 9-12-46 - A - 10-3 - LJG-Lesser the Allied armies were racing across France and were nearing Strasbourg where this monstrous exhibit of the culture of tho master race reposed. Alarmed, Sievers sent a telegram to Rudolf Brandt in September 1944, from which I quote: "According to the proposal of February 9, 1942, and your approval of February 23, 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 Anatomie, in case Strasbourg should be endangered. The collection can be de-fleshed 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 Anatomie 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 tho 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." Those men, however, reckoned without tho 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 tho charnal house which was the Anatomy Institute of tho 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 19,350 | 19,850 |
of witnesses and see pictorial exhibits depicting tho charnal house which was the Anatomy Institute of tho 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. Cut 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 Aerztovereinsbund) 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 interests 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 (Reicbsgesundheitsamt) 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 was rather standardized but good. The students spent five or six years at one or 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 internes were licensed, and permitted to | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 19,800 | 20,300 |
and training was rather standardized but good. The students spent five or six years at one or 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 internes 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. The 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 Nationalist 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. April, 1, 1933, the notorious "boycott day" in Berlin, 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 lincensing was 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 20,250 | 20,750 |
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 these related by marriage to Jews. At first, they were removed from their practice and sent off to posts under inferior party doctors. In 1946, 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. The 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", Gütt announced that "the ill-conceited 'love of thy neighbor' has to disappear, especially in relation to inferior or a social 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 as, 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. Gütt, 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 20,700 | 21,200 |
concentrated under Dr. Gütt, 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 Physician's Chamber. This National Physicians' Chamber was placed directly under a medical "fuehrer" with the title of Reichsaerztefuehrer. This position was also hold 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 Altrhose in Mecklenburg, which had been organized by the defenda Blome. There physicians were indoctrinated in the national socialis point of view and way of life. The so-called comradely association and sports activity were merely window dressing for political apying. 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 duo 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 student's 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 Nurnberg laws was not sufficient would fail his medical examinations. Chaiers in the universities were filled in many cases by Nazi so-called "professors" who might or might not have a scienttific background. The | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 21,150 | 21,650 |
organizations to which they were forced to belong. A student whose knowledge of the racial theories and Nurnberg laws was not sufficient would fail his medical examinations. Chaiers in the universities were filled in many cases by Nazi so-called "professors" who might or might not have a scienttific 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 Naze professors would on 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 occurance. Particularly deplorable was the degradation of psychiatry. Psychiatric university teaching declined to the level of a more rehearing of the Nurnberg 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 neurosis, on the part of their own medical personnel, drove many of them to surrender to the enemy; efforts to rehabilitate then and restore them to duty were frustrated by the ruin us 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. THE PRESIDENT:Will you kindly slow down you reading? GENERAL TAYLOR: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 worlds was flooded with preposterous and wicked notions about superior and inferior races and developed a perveryed moral outlook in which cruelty to subjugated races and peoples was praiseworthy. Training in SA and SS formation 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 grow with horrible rapidity. CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION: "EUTHANASIA" AND THE MURDER OF FOLISH NATIONALS From the preaching of Gutt and others sprang the nations | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 21,600 | 22,100 |
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 grow with horrible rapidity. CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION: "EUTHANASIA" AND THE MURDER OF FOLISH NATIONALS From the preaching of Gutt and others sprang the nations which underly the crimes to which we will now turn. Here we leave behind all semblance, however, ficititious, 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 absorved 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 decidet to turn his attention next to Poles infected with tuberculosis. I call the Tribunal's special attention to the German word "Sonderbehandlun". In the next Document, as will be shown, it occurs frequently in Nazi correspondence and was used by them to mean extermination. In May 1944, Greiser wrote to Himmler as follows: I quote from the letter of Defendant Blome: "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. *** "Wit 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 regorous 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 is 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 teated' (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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 22,050 | 22,550 |
infectious will be 'specially teated' (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 of the intended program's being 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 simply maintaining secrey 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 greates secrecy would some day notice 'that somethin 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 intruduce 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 insolated camps, utterly lacking in medical facilities, where thousands of them died. "The special treatment", and the German word is Sonderbehandlung," of about 100,000 Jews in the territory of my district approved by you in Agreement with the Chief of the Reich-Main-Security-Office, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer HEYDRICH, can be completed within the next two to three months. I ask you for permission to rescue the district immediately after the measures are taken against tho Jews, from a menace, which is increasing week by week? and to use the exiting 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 infectet 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 wareffort 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 22,500 | 23,000 |
A considerable number of well known leading men, especially of the police, have been infected lately and are not available for the wareffort 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 priciple 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 obodied 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 sulution, 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 plitically inexpedient if the facts should ever come out. Euthanasia (Indicktment, paragraphs 9 and 14) On September 1, 1939, the very day of the German attack on Poland, and after a great deal of discussion between Dr. Karl Brandt, Dr. Leonardo Conti, Phillip Bouhler, the Chief of the private Chancery of the Fuehrer, and others, Hitler issued the following authority to the defendant Karl Brandt: "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 Phillip Bouhler the administrative | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 22,950 | 23,450 |
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 Phillip 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 Bernberg. 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 Patient 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 come 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 Wurttembergian 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 Wurttemberg. Have the lists of two | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 23,400 | 23,900 |
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 Wurttemberg. Have the lists of two months ago examined and submitted to you, check upon the inmates who are there now and ask where the missing persons went to. For seven years now this gang of murderers 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 know it was nothing but murder. This is brought out very clearly in a Getter from Himmler to the defendant Brack in December 1940: "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 all 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 from the transcript, pp. 16916-17, 17007: "Reference should also be made to | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 23,850 | 24,350 |
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 from the transcript, pp. 16916-17, 17007: "Reference should also be made to the policy which as in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all aged, insane and incurable people, 'useless eater', 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 no more paragraph from the decision, pp. 17007: "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 Czech slovak War Crimes Commission estimated that 275,00 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 subordinate to the eastern occupied territories to assist in the mass extermination of Jews. This will be shown by abandon 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 Rech-Leader BOHHLER I placed some of my men at the disposal of Brigadefuehrer GLOBOCNIK to execute his special mission. On is renewed request I have now transferred additional personnel. On this occasion Brigadefuehrer GLOBOCNIK ....../.... stated his opinion that the whole Jew-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, Reichsfuehrer, 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. 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 24,300 | 24,800 |
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." I have outlined the particular charges against the defendants under Counts 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 too look again at the defendants and their **art in the conspiracy. What manner of men are they, and what was their major role? The twenty 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 principle **************************************** 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, | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 24,750 | 25,250 |
government. All of them violated the Hippocratic commandments which they had solemnly sworn to uphold and abide by, including the fundamental principle **************************************** 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. Hanloser 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, Beiglbock, 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 fact 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 became "master over life and death." The part that each of these twenty physicians and their three lay accomplices played in the conspiracy and its execution corresponds closely to his professional interest and his place in the hierarchy of the Third Reich as shown in the chart. The motivating source for this conspiracy came from two principal sources. Himmler, as head of the SS, a most terrible engine 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 to epidemic jaundice experiments, Schroeder demanding "40 healthy test subjects for the seawater experiments, Handloser providing the impetus for Ding's fearful typhus researches, and Milch and Hippke at the root of the freezing tests. 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 25,200 | 25,700 |
providing the impetus for Ding's fearful typhus researches, and Milch and Hippke at the root of the freezing tests. 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 machiner 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 Beiglbock for seawater. In the important but sinister typhus researches, the eminent Dr. Rose appeared for the Luftwaffe to give expert guidance to Ding. The proper stops were taken to insure that the results were made available to those who needed to know. Annual meetings of the consulting physician of the Wehrmacht held under Handloser's direction were favored with lectures on some of the experiments. The report on the high altitude test 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 Nurnberg, 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. We 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 nay have said or signed before their turtures 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 25,650 | 26,150 |
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 Stake; everyone lived in fear and acted under dur** I fervently hope that none of us here in the court room will have to suffer in silence while it is said on the part of these defenants that the wretched and helpless people whom they froze and drowned and burned and poisoned were volunteers. If such a shame less lie is spoken here, we need only remember the four girls who were taken from the Revensbruck concentration camp and made to li** 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 those defendants performed depart 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 1933 for the protection of animals. This law states explicitly that it is designed to proven 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 more 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 26,100 | 26,600 |
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 tho war lords who assembled and drove the German military machine, nor the industrial barons who made tho parts, nor tho Nazi politicians who debased and brutalized the mines 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 those defendants pursued 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. No 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 throats. 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 gew. At a meeting of Bavarian psychiatrists hold 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 Bunke 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, | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 26,550 | 27,050 |
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 crisis. 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 consequences of the thought that for financial reasons all these human being 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 nonAryans, 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 ???? 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 | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 27,000 | 27,500 |
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 sixty 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 advances 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 stop 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 nay have to pay for a cat, they night 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 then 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 pre-investigation. A particularly striking example is the seawater experiment. I believe that three of the accused -- Schaefer, Becker-Freyseng, and Beiglbueck -- will today admit that this problem could have been solved simply and definitively within the space of one afternoon. On May 20, 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 jolly, a semipermeable membrane and a salt solution, and the German Armed Forces would have had the answer on May 21, 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 ment. What time, effort, and staff did it take to get that machinery in motion! Letters had to be written, physicians, of whome dire shortage existed in the German Armed Forces whose soldiers went poorly attended, had to be taken out of hospital positions and | Harvard: Medical Case (Karl Brandt et al.) | 27,450 | 27,950 |
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
README.md exists but content is empty.
- Downloads last month
- 13
Size of downloaded dataset files:
168 MB
Size of the auto-converted Parquet files:
168 MB
Number of rows:
120,385