[This affidavit is substantially the same as the testimony given by Blaha on direct examination before the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg, 13-14 January 1946.]
Dachau, Germany 24 November, 1945 Affidavit of FRANZ BLAHA
I, Franz Blaha, being duly sworn, depose and state as follows:
1. I studied medicine in Prague, Vienna, Strassburg and Paris and received my diploma in 1920. From 1920 to 1926 I was a clinical assistant. In 1926 I became chief physician of the Iglau Hospital in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. I held this position until 1939 when the Germans entered Czechoslovakia and I was seized as a hostage and held a prisoner for cooperating with the Czech government. I was sent as a prisoner to the Dachau Concentration Camp in April 1941 and remained there until the liberation of the camp in April 1945. Until July 1941 I worked in a Punishment Company. After that I was sent to the hospital and subjected to the experiments in typhoid being conducted by Dr. Muermelstadt. After that I was to be made the subject of an experimental operation and only succeeded in avoiding this by admitting that I was a physician. If this had been known before I would have suffered because intellectuals were treated very harshly in the Punishment Company. In October 1941 I was sent to work in the herb plantation and later in the laboratory for processing herbs. In June 1942 I was taken into the hospital as a surgeon. Shortly afterwards I was directed to conduct a stomach operation on 20 healthy prisoners. Because I would not do this I was put in the autopsy room where I stayed until April 1945. While there I performed approximately 7,000 autopsies. In all 12,000 autopsies were performed under my direction.
2. From mid 1941 to the end of 1942 some 500 operations on healthy prisoners were performed. These were for the instruction of the SS medical students and doctors and included operations on the stomach, gall bladder, spleen and throat. These were performed by students and doctors of only two years training although they were very dangerous and difficult. Ordinarily they would not have been done except by surgeons with at least four years surgical practice. Many prisoners died on the operating table and many others from later complications. I au-topsied all these bodies. The doctors who supervised these operations were Lang, Muermelstadt, Wolter, Ramsauer and Nahr.
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Standartenfuehrer Dr. Lolling frequently witnessed these operations.
3. During my time at Dachau I was familiar with the many kinds of medical experiments carried on there with human victims. These persons were never volunteers but were forced to submit to such acts. Malaria experiments on about 1,200 people were conducted by Dr. Klaus Schilling between 1941 and 1945. Schilling was personally asked by Himmler to conduct these experiments. The victims were either bitten by mosquitoes or given injections of malaria Sporozoits taken from mosquitoes. Different kinds of treatment were applied including quinine, pyrifer, neosalvarsan, antipyrin, pyramidon and a drug called 2516 Bohring. I autopsied bodies of people who died from these malaria experiments. 80 to 40 died from the malaria itself. 300 to 400 died later from diseases which were fatal because of the physical condition resulting from the malaria attacks. In addition there were deaths resulting from poisoning due to overdoses of neosalvarsan and pyramidon. Dr. Schilling was present at the time of my autopsies on the bodies of his patients.
4. In 1942 and 1943 experiments on human beings were conducted by Dr. Sigismund Rascher to determine the effects of changing air pressure. As many as 25 persons were put at one timé into a specially constructed van in which pressure could be increased or decreased as required. The purpose was to find out the effects of high altitude and of rapid descents by parachutists. I have seen the people lying unconscious on the floor of the van through a window in the van. Most of the prisoners used died from these experiments from internal hemorrhages of the lungs or brain. The rest coughed blood when taken out. It was my job to take the bodies out and to send the internal organs to Munich for study as soon as they were found to be dead. About 400 to 500 prisoners were experimented on. Those not dead were sent to invalid blocks and liquidated shortly afterwards. Only a few escaped.
5. Rascher also conducted experiments on the effect of cold water on humans. This was done to find a way for reviving aviators who had fallen into the ocean. The subject was placed in ice cold water and kept there until he was unconscious. Blood was taken from his neck and tested each time his body temperature dropped one degree. This drop was determined by a rectal thermometer. Urine was also periodically tested. Some men lasted as long as 24 to 38 hours. The lowest body temperature r eached was 19 degrees C, but most men died at 25 degrees C or
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26 degrees C. When the men were removed from the ice water attempts were made to revive them by artificial warmth from the sun, from hot water, from electro-therapy or by animal warmth. For this last' experiment prostitutes were used and the body of the unconscious man was placed between the bodies of two women. Himmler was present at one such experiment. I could see him from one of the windows in the street between the blocks. I have personally been present at some of these cold water experiments when Eascher was absent and I have seen notes and diagrams on them in Eascher's laboratory. About 300 persons were used in these experiments. The majority died. Of those who lived many were mentally deranged. Those not killed were sent to invalid blocks and were killed just like the victims of the air pressure experiments. I only know two who survived—a Jugoslav and a Pole, both of whom are mental cases.
6. Liver puncture experiments were performed by Dr. Brachtl on healthy people and on people who had diseases of the stomach and gall bladder. For this purpose a needle was jabbed into the liver of a person and a small piece of the liver was extracted. No anaesthetic was used. The experiment is very painful and often had serious results as the stomach or large blood vessels were often punctured resulting in hemorrhage. Many persons died of these tests for which Polish, Eussian, Czech and German prisoners were employed. Altogether these experiments were conducted on about 175 people.
7. Phlegmone experiments were conducted by Dr. Schuetz, Dr. Babor, Dr. Nieselwetter and Professor Lauer. 40 healthy men were used at a time of which 20 were given intra-muscular and 20 intravenous injections of pus from diseased persons. All treatment was forbidden for three days by which time serious inflammation and in many cases general blood poisoning had occurred. Then each group was divided again into groups of
10. Half were given chemical treatment with liquid and special pills every 10 minutes for 24 hours. The rest were treated with sulfanamide and surgery. In some cases all of the limbs were amputated. My autopsy also showed that the chemical treatment had been harmful and had even caused perforations of the stomach wall. For these experiments Polish, Czech and Dutch priests were ordinarily used. Pain was intense in such experiments. Most of the 600 to 800 persons who were used finally died. Most of the others became permanent invalids and were later killed.
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8. In the fall of 1944 there were 60 to 80 persons who were subjected to salt water experiments. They were locked in a room and for five days were given nothing to eat but salt water. During this time their urine, blood and excrements were tested. None of these prisoners died, possibly because they received smuggled food from other prisoners. Hungarians and Gypsies were used for these experiments.
9. It was common practice to remove the skin from dead prisoners. I was directed to do this on many occasions. Dr. Rascher and Dr. Wolter in particular asked for this human skin from human backs and chests. It was chemically treated and placed in the sun to dry. After that it was cut into shapes for use as saddles, riding breeches, gloves, house slippers and ladies' handbags. Tattooed skin was especially valued by SS men. Russians, Poles and other inmates were used in this way, but it was forbidden to cut out the skin of a German. This skin had to be from healthy prisoners and free from defects. Sometimes we did not have enough bodies with good skin and Rascher would say, "All right, you will get the bodies." The next day we would receive 20 or 30 bodies of young people. They would have been shot in the neck or struck on the head so that the skin would be uninjured. Also we frequently got requests for the skulls or skeletons of prisoners. In those cases we boiled the skull or the body. Then the soft parts were removed and the bones were bleached and dried and reassembled! In the case of skulls it was important to have a good set of teeth. When we got an order for skulls from Oranienburg the SS men would say, "We will try to get you some with good teeth." So it was dangerous to have a good skin or good teeth.
10. 'Transports arrived frequently in Dachau from Studthof, Belsen, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps. Many of these were 10 to 14 days on the way without water or food. On one transport which arrived in November 1942 I founc}, evidence of cannibalism. The living persons had eaten the flesh from the dead bodies. Another transport arrived from Compiegne in France. Professor Limousin of Clermont Ferrand who was later my assistant told me that there had been 2,000 persons on this transport when it started. There was food available but no water. 800 died on the way and were thrown out. When it arrived after 12 days more than 500 persons were dead on the train. Of the remainder most died shortly after, arrival. I investigated this transport because the International Red Cross complained and the SS men wanted a report that the deaths had
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been caused by fighting and rioting on the way. I dissected a number of bodies and found that they had died from suffocation and lack of water. It was mid summer and 120 people had been packed into each car.
11. In 1941 and 1942 we had in the camp what we called invalid transports. These were made up of people who were sick or for some reason incapable of working. We called them Himmelfahrt Commandos. About 100 or 120 were ordered each week to go to the shower baths. There four people gave injections of phenol evipan or benzine whicl^soon caused death. After 1943 these invalids- were sent to other camps for liquidation. I know that they were killed because I saw the records and they were marked with a cross and the date that they left which was the way that deaths were ordinarily recorded. This was shown on both the card index of the Camp Dachau and the records in the town of Dachau. 1,000 to 3,000 went away every three months so there were about 5,000 sent to death in 1945 and the same in 1944. In April 1945 a Jewish transport was loaded at Dachau and was left standing on the railroad siding. The railroad was destroyed by bombing and they could not leave. So they were just left there to die from starvation. They were not allowed to get off. When the camp was liberated they were all dead.
12. Many executions by gas or shooting or injections took place right in the camp. The gas chamber was completed in 1944 and I was called by Dr. Rascher to examine the first victims. Of the 8 or 9 persons in the chamber there were three still alive and the remainder appeared to be dead. Their eyes were red and their faces swollen. Many prisoners were later killed in this way. Afterwards they were removed to the crematorium where I had to examine their teeth for gold. Teeth containing gold were extracted. Many prisoners who were sick were killed by injections while in hospital. Some prisoners killed in the hospital came through to the autopsy room with no name or number on the tag which was usually tied to their big toe. Instead the tag said "Do not dissect". I autopsied some of these and found that they were perfectly healthy but had died from injections. Sometimes prisoners were killed only because they had dysentery or vomited and gave the nurses too much trouble. Mental patients were liquidated by being led to the gas chamber and injected there or shot. Shooting was a common method of execution. Prisoners could be shot just outside the crematorium and carried in. I have seen people pushed into the ovens while
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they were still breathing and making sounds although if „they were too much alive they were usually hit on the head first.
13. The principal executions about which I know from having examined the victims or supervised such examinations are as follows:
In 1942 there were 5,000 to 6,000 Russians held in a separate camp inside Dachau. They were taken on foot to the Military Rifle Range near the camp in groups of 500 or 600 and shot. These groups left the camp about three times a week. At night they would bring them back in carts drawn by prisoners and we would examine them.—In February 1944 about 40 Russian students arrived from Moosburg. I knew a few of the boys in the hospital. I examined them after they were shot outside the crematory.—In September 1944 a group of 94 high ranking Russians were shot including two military doctors who had been working with me in the hospital. I examined their bodies.—In April 1945 a number of prominent people were shot who had been kept in the bunker. They included two French generals whose names I cannot remember. But I recognized them from their uniform. I examined them after they were shot. —In 1944 and 1945 a number of women were killed by hanging, shooting and injections. I examined them and found that in certain cases they were pregnant. —-In 1945 just before the camp was liberated all "Nacht und Nebel" prisoners were executed. Thesewere prisoners who were forbidden to have any contact with the outside world. They were kept in a special inclosure and were allowed no mail. There were 30 or 40, some of whom were sick. These were carried to the crematory on stretchers. I examined them and found they had all been shot in the neck.
14. The rooms could not be cleaned because they were too crowded and there was no cleaning material. No baths were available for months at a time. Latrine facilities were completely inadequate. Medicine was almost non-existent. But I found after the camp was liberated that there was plenty of medicine in the SS hospital for all the camp if it had been given to us for use. New arrivals at the camp were lined up out of doors entirely naked for hours at a time. Sometimes they stood there from morning until night. It did not matter whether this was in the winter or in the summer. This occurred all through 1943, 1944 and the first quarter of 1945. I could see these formations from the window of the autopsy room. Many of the people who had to stand in the cold in this way became ill from pneumonia and died. I had several acquaintances who. were
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killed in this manner during 1944 and 1945. In October 1944 a transport of Hungarians brought spotted fever into the camp and an epidemic began. I examined many of the corpses from this transport and reported the situation to Dr. Hintermayer but was forbidden on penalty of being shot to mention that there was an epidemic in the camp. No preventive measures were taken at all. New healthy arrivals were put into blocks where an epidemic was already present. Also infected persons were put into these blocks. So the 30th Block for instance died out completely three times. Only at Christmas when the epidemic spread into the SS camp was a quarantine established. Nevertheless transports continued to arrive. We had 200 to 300 new typhus cases a day and 100 deaths caused by typhus a day. ' In all we had 28,000 cases and 15,000 deaths. In addition to those that died from the disease my autopsies showed that many deaths were caused solely by malnutrition. Such deaths occurred in all the years from 1941 to 1943. They were mostly Italians, Russians and Frenchmen. These people were just starved to death. At the time of death they weighed 50 to 60 pounds. Autopsies showed that their internal organs had often shrunk to one third
of their normal size.
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15. Visits from prominent people were common at Dachau. Among those who came I remember Himmler who came three times to see air pressure and cold water experiments, Dr. Gra-witz who was Reichsarzt SS, Wilhelm Frick who came once in 1943 and visited the malaria station and Rascher's experimental station and Walter Funk who also came in 1943 and made a general tour of the camp.
The facts stated above are true: this declaration is made by me voluntarily and without compulsion: after reading over the statement I have signed and executed the same at Dachau Germany this 24th day of November 1945.
- [signed] Dr. Blaha Franz*
DR. BLAHA FRANZ
*Note:
My first name is Franz.
My usual signature is as above.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 25th day of November i945 at Dachau Germany.
s/ John B. Martin JOHN B. MARTIN.
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