Q. Well, these men that were executed did not volunteer to be executed by use of poison bullers, did they?
A. I don't hardly assume so. I don't know.
Q. Were they promised if they lived through the poison bullet test that they would be pardoned?
A. I can not tell you. We tried to clear up the matter, and for more than three months we looked through the files and we can not find them. The files would have to show the details. I can assure you that we are interested in it for the following reasons, interested in really clearing up things as they were, because I can be cleared only by this evidence which will show exactly what happened.
Q. Now who fired the bullets?
A. An Untersturm-fuehrer who was on this staff of the camp commandant of Sachsenhausen.
Q. In the testimony that I heard in this courtroom that Dr. Ding stated that one of the prisoners attacked Mrugowsky with a knife, or something?
A. Kogon stated that, yes. I was quite interested in the testimony. It was the first time I ever heard about it. If I had been attacked, I probably would have noticed it. That is not true. I was not attacked.
Q. Now will you turn to page 50 of Ding's Diary. The English copy is page 50, which has the entry "Spotted fever vaccine experimental series No. 9."
Under 17 July 1944, it would be on page 50 of the English Document Book, document book No. 12. Do you have that Dr. Mrugowsky?
A. Yes.
Q. It states: "The spotted fever vaccine "Weimar" produced by the department for spotted fever and virus research of the hygiene institute of the Waffen-SS, Weimar, Buchenwald, was tested according to orders for its compatibility on humans." Now, tests for compatibility on humans is not tests in which the Weimar virus is used, is that right, on people who are artificually infected?
A. I don't understand your question.
Q. When you test vaccine for its compatibility on human beings, you did not first infect the person with typhus, did you; there is no artificial infection actually given the person of typhus in connection with the tests for compatibility reason, is there?
A. No.
Q. Now will you turn to the next page, the entry of 6 September 1944, and I strangely note that Dr. Ding had started this compatibility test with vaccine, and then on 6 September 1944 he states that, "The 60 experimental persons were infected by subcutaneous injection of 1.10 cc spotted fever and typhus sick fresh blood each into the right upper arm." Now is not such action as that rather inconsistent with tests for compatibility reasons?
A. It states nothing about compatibility tests here. It is possible that the translation did not come through right. The first paragraph states it is tested for its protective effect. That is not the same as "compatibility."
Q. The English copy, the first paragraph, "The spotted fever vaccine, Weimar, was tested according to orders for its compatibility on humans." Do you see that?
A. Yes, that is in this translation. It states "protective".
Q. Well, now, if you are testing for its compatibility, if this compatibility is a mistranslation, I will ask the interpreters to check that, check the German document, please?
INTERPRETER: It says "Schutzwirkung", which is "protective effect".
Q. Well, now, that is a considerable difference, I would say, isn't it, doctor? If you are testing it for protective effect, then you would have to first give the persons spotted fever or typhus?
A. No, they are first vaccinated and then infected.
Q. I see. Well now, doctor, did you at any time ever order Ding to experimentally determine how infectious slight cases, or how infectious the blood of slight cases is, as compared with very heavy cases of typhus?
A. No.
Q. What I am getting at is in particular the examination of the protectively vaccinated persons to be compared with the persons who were not vaccinated. Did you ever order or suggest that Ding carry out experiments of that nature?
A. Ding's whole work was on this question. Ding did nothing else in his experimental station than to compare the effects of persons who had been vaccinated with the effects on those who had not been vaccinated and I told you this was done on orders from Himmler and I have explained in interrogations what part I took at the time.
Q. Well now, this entry of 6 September 1944 is one where sixty experimental persons were infected with blood after they had been vaccinated, and also twenty people in the control were infected with blood. Those were persons who had not been vaccinated and as a result he states twenty-four deaths, five of the people who had been previously vaccinated and nineteen put into the control group. Did you ever suggest that such a thing be done in Buchenwald?
A. No, where it says according to orders, that does not mean orders from me, that goes back to the basic order from Himmler which says all such vaccines are to be tested.
Q. I now wish to introduce Document 1197, this is No. 1197, which will be offered for indentification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 472. Now this letter only reads - Your Honors, do you have a copy? This letter is dated 12 August 1944. This is a secret memorandum - pardon me a moment, Dr. Mrugowsky, is that your signature on this letter?
A. Yes, I wrote the letter.
Q. Thank you. This is dated the 12th of August 1944 on the stationery of the Reich Physician SS and Police Chief Hygienist, secret memorandum for SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding:
"Wohlrad and Patzer claim that people protectively vaccinated, can, it is true, contact typhus, but that those are not able to infect lice. From that they draw the conclusion that in combatting an epidemic, if delousing is not possible, it suffices to undertake protective vaccination with simultaneous seizure and isolation of all typhus patients. Moser (Swiss Paper for Pathology and Bacteriology, 4, 1941) - that is May 1941 - has on the other hand established that this observation, already made by Weigl eleven years ago is not due to protective vaccination but rather to the fact that only severe cases of typhus can infect lice. Slight, especially sub-clinical cases, though, cannot, Moser concludes from this that typhus cases running a light course cannot represent a virus reservoir in typhus free periods."
And now the last paragraph:
"To decide this question I request that it be experimentally determined how infectious the blood of slight cases is compared with that of heavy cases of typhus. In particular the examination of protectively vaccinated persons is interesting in comparison with persons not vaccinated."
Now that is addressed to SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding, secret memo randum.
A. This memorandum is a model of how I issued such assignments at my institute. It is quite clear that I issued my orders or gave my suggestions in writing and I remember this matter very well, and the position of Wohlrad and Patzer that persons who are vaccinated can become sick but are not infectious, if it had been true, would have had enormous significance for the control of the epidemics. It was, therefore, of great interest to determine whether that was true or not. Therefore, I wrote Ding on 12 August 1944 that he was to investigate this question as it is described here. An oral explanation was given at the same time. The explanation was that he was not to use lice because he had no way of breeding lice. From light and severe cases of typhus he was to take some blood and inject it into guinea pigs. This method was obvious because he daily performed such infections for the purpose of producing his vaccine. There was merely one variation of the customary procedure necessary. He was to determine which of the typhus patients had previously been vaccinated. Those would have been the light eases from whom he usually no doubt did not take blood for his vaccine production. For infecting the guinea pigs he probably always took that from the most serious cases in order to get a strong strain and consequently strong immunity. For this purpose he was to deviate from this custom, and now he was to take the blood from some of the lighter cases and infect the guinea pigs from people who had been vaccinated. I don't know what charge you can find in this matter against me. You find nothing about experiments on human beings and not a word about such experiments was said. It was purely laboratory instruction referring to Block 50, which was to be solved by his work with animals.
Q. We will let the Tribunal decide that, doctor.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats. The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Has Defendant's counsel any re-direct examination of this witness?
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FLEMING:
Q. The Prosecution showed you Document No. NO-1198, Prosecution Exhibit 466. This is a letter from the Reichs Physician SS and Police to you, regarding specific therapy in the case of typhus and secondly the tolerance......
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, before you interrogate the witness about this document I desire to ask him a few questions.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, you have the document before you, have you?
A. No, I do not.
(Document is handed to the witness.)
Q. In the 4th line of the document I note with reference to your letter of 15 August 1944, diary numbers 324 and 326. What does that mean -- what does the word "diary" mean?
A. Grawitz is here referring to a letter which he received from me in this matter, written on 15 August 1944, and carries the number 342 of my diary, that is to say, of the letter file of my institute, and another number, 236, "Secret." Apparently these are two letters that were written on the same day, one of them not secret, No. 342, and the second was put in the secret file as No. 236. That would mean that the first matter, -- namely the specific therapy in typhus to which there is reference, and the matter of treating typhus by intravenous injections was not to be considered a protective vaccine and a method of treatment, -- was not a secret matter.
Q. Witness, I was interested in the use of the word "diary". You say that means letter file, is that correct?
A. Yes, All letters that we sent out or that we received, in other words, all our correspondence, was filed away in specific letter files. That is the meaning of the word "diary".
Q. I understand. That is sufficient. Counsel may proceed.
BY DR. FLEMMING:
Q In the document book under discussion, there is mention of specific therapy in the case of typhus and of the compatibility of phenol in serum; now the Prosecution in the question of testing the compatibility of phenol serum has brought this into connection with Dr. Ding's affidavit, Document No. 257, dated 20 July 1945, which is in Document book 12, page 9 of the German text; in your answer did you take into consideration the fact that Ding's affidavit begins with the words:
"As ordered I answer two questions literally:
1. Witness at an Euthanasia with Phenol at Buchenwald.
At the end of 1942 I took part at a conference in the Military Doctors Academy in Berlin."
Now, this meeting of which he here speaks took place in 1942, whereas the letter which was shown to you here is dated 24 August, 1944; would you please make a statement on that fact?
A These two matters of course are not in any way connected. I said during my cross examination that these are two entirely separate things, in the first place it was a serum for gas gangrene and in view of the time in which it is occurring the document of Professor Killian in my document book proves it. Here it is not serum for gas gangrene but a purely technical discussion of serum in general. That the serum should not have any addition of phenol was a developing work on the part of industries and like all such work this particular question was labelled "secret." That is the reference here and in my recollection these were serums against dyphteria, because these dyphteria serums constituted the great majority of all serum production in Germany.
Q Thank you, that suffices; I simply wished to clear up the fact that this Ding matter of 1942 had nothing to do with the other matter.
The prosecution further introduced the intermediary report by Schilling, which Grawitz showed you and on which you expressed your opinion; the prosecution said you were chief of office 3 under Grawitz; could you in this capacity make any difficulties for Schilling; I should like to ask you were you in a position to make any difficulties for Schilling in his experiments or to interrupt the experiment
A I would only have been in that position if I had some authority over Schilling's experiments or Schilling himself. This was not the case as these experiments had been going on since the year 1942 and had been approved by the highest authority, namely by Himmler himself. These matters were never handled by me and let me say that the position of the Chief Hygienist in the staff of the Reich Physician SS was that of an expert, a referat, without his having any power to issue orders, with the exception of those scientific arrangements which were immediately subordinated. For example, in my case, my own institute. In other words, I had no opportunity of exercising any sound influence on Schilling.
Q When the experiments at Ravensbrueck were under discussion, the prosecution said that you were chief of the Hygienic Institute from which the cultures for the sulfonamide experiments in Ravensbrueck came therefore you must have known of the delivery of those cultures; would you make a statement on this?
A Both from the interrogation of Gebhardt and from my own direct testimony, it can be seen that Grawitz himself orders the delivery of cultures. I, myself, was not in Berlin at all at that time and consequently could neither interfere or find out anything about this matter.
It was not so that the delivery of cultures, so far as these cultures were to be placed in regular German biological institutes and as they were not germs of a dangerous disease, such as cholera or cancer. As I said, the delivery of these cultures was not such an exciting event that the member of the competent department first needed the approval of the chief of the institute; that was neither prescribed nor was it customary in the other large institutes.
Q Later on, I shall submit an official certificate from the Robert Koch Institute, which certifies to this. The prosecution showed you a letter of yours to the Reichs Physician SS and Police of 29 January 1945, in which there is a question of hepatitis experiments. You know Ding's diary very well. After the date of this letter, in other words after 29 January 1945, are there in this diary any references to experiments with hepatitis?
A Ding does not mention any such experiments in his diary, nor have any of the other numerous witnesses you have heard here been heard to mention it, nor do any documents mention it, consequently I am persuaded that no such experiments took place.
Q The prosecution further mentioned the use of Cyclone B for the mass extermination of human beings; I should like to draw to your attention Gerstein's affidavit which the prosecution earlier showed you during the presentation of this evidence; I should like to ask you: did you have anything to do with the matters which Gerstein mentioned in this affidavit?
A. I had nothing to do with these matters. That can clearly be seen from the Gerstein document itself.
Q. The Gerstein document is Prosecution Exhibit 428.
The Prosecution further showed you document NO 1305, Exhibit No. 469. This concerns yellow fever vaccines, and here it is particularly emphasized that yellow fever vaccines contain living virus. Would you please make a statement on this, as to whether this living virus in the yellow fever vaccine is in any way dangerous to the human being's health
A. The situation is as follows. There is no virus disease against which you can conduct protective vaccines with dead virus. When such things are done at all--and they have been done since the middle of the 18th century--living germs have always been used which, however, have been attenuated in their toxicity for the human body in such a way that they cannot cause disease in the human being. In this specific case of yellow fever, it was a question of a virus strain which is extracted from mice. There are two main sorts of this vaccine. In this case they are referring to the virus which is passed on from mouse to mouse in the mouse's brain.
With such a virus it is impossible to infect a human being with a disease. There is simply a reaction in body temperature which, however, has no connection with any of the symptoms of yellow fever. Consequently, this is not yellow fever and it is not possible to induce serious symptoms from this virus extracted from mice. It is a matter entirely without danger. It is much less dangerous than the smallpox vaccination which every child receives.
Q. I made an objection to document NO-1189, Exhibit 471. In connection with that, the Tribunal said that you had already identified the contents of this document to the extent that there could be no objection raised against the document.
I should like to ask you this. In your statements that you made from memory, when you said "I remember the matter", were you taking an attitude towards this Nebe brief; or were you adopting an attitude, when you said that, on what you remembered from that conversation with Nebe?
A. I no longer recalled this conversation with Nebe. However, this document reminded me of it immediately. This was a very brief conversation-
Q. (Interposing) I don't want to know about the conversation with Nebe, but I want to know whether you remember having received this letter. We do not know how it got into the hands of the prosecution.
In other words, do you remember this letter, or is it true that what your testimony meant was that you did not remember the letter itself, but simply remembered the contents of the letter?
A. I do not remember the letter itself, not even now, now that I have seen it. I remember only the short conversation with Nebe on it.
DR. FLEMMING: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: I have a further question for the witness.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Referring again to document No. NO-1198--have you that document before you?
A. No, Mr. President. Is that 1189 or 98?
Q. That is 1198. That is the letter from Gawitz to you.
A. Now I have it.
Q. Will you read the line following Arabic number two?
A. Compatibility of sera containing phenol.
Q. In the English document before the Court the word which is now translated "compatibility" is translated "tolerance". Just what do you mean? What is the meaning of the German word which is so translated?
A. "Tolerance" can be said, yes. What is meant is this: For a man who is sick with diphteria, to what extent can he tolerate a serum containing phenol? The matter of phenol is very carefully regulated in Germany by the State. Secondly, whether another serum, which does not have phenol in it, can better be tolerated.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand. That is sufficient.
Counsel may proceed.
DR. FROESCHNANN (For Dr. Nelte, counsel for the Defendant Handloser)-
MR. HARDY: That did not come through my headphones.
DR. FROESCHMANN: I will repeat.
Since Dr. Flemming submitted to the witness document No. 1305, Exhibit 489, in connection with the questions of yellow fever vaccine put to the witness by the prosecution, representing Dr. Nelte for the defendant Handloser I should like to ask three questions of the witness in this connection.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q. First question -- Do you have the document before you?
A. No, but I am familiar with it.
Q. In this document it says, in paragraph 2: "We assume that President Gildemeister also has tested this on human beings to discover the tolerance for it." Does not this mean that this was simply a testing to find out whether the vaccine is harmful?
A. I said, in my direct examination, that this entire question was a purely technical one. It was not a question its to whether or not this vaccine had any protective value, because that question had already been answered by millions of vaccinations in many nations, and we had the same virus in our protective vaccinations as the other nations had in theirs. This is a purely technical question. Of the tolerance for the vaccine, the witness Bernhard Schuetz said that it was pretty difficult to maintain a normal temperature and that consequently the application of this serum was somewhat difficult. The question, therefore, was whether the doctors using it, first of all, were in command of this technique; and secondly, whether the vaccine was still effective or not, in other words, whether there was any additional effect that should be feared, for instance, if the temperature rose.
In my opinion it was a matter of conscientiousness to test this, but it was not a matter of basic importance, because I do not know, or I had never heard that any such vaccine had caused damage to the human being if, for instance, the virus in the vaccine died.
Q. Witness, I wanted to know something else than what you just said. I wanted to know whether, from paragraph 2, it can clearly be seen that these tests were simply carried on to see whether the vaccine was dangerous or not.
A. Yes, that can be seen from that paragraph.
Q. Then please tell me what you understand under the sign "OP number".
A. That is a sign for the Behring Works and many other laboratories that produce vaccines, and it means operation number. This designation is only used as long as the production of vaccine is still in the research stage. For instance, so far as it is a question of vaccines being manufactured in the plant, you do not use the designation "OP", but you speak of work numbers, the abbreviation for which is "WN".
Q. How many importations are included under such an OP number?
A. That depends on the vaccine, of course. I believe that a capsule alone has 50 such portions of vaccine. Generally the number includes not simply the ampule then being worked with, but it is simply being used as a model for the whole manufacturing series.
Q. Now the last question I have to put to you:
In view of this document 1305, you, witness, have already stated that this was a special case, namely, a special military operation in Africa, in which, roughly, forty thousand men participated. Can you, from this special case, conclude that there was a basic agreement between the Waffen SS and the Army according to which all vaccines went through the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS and were tested, namely, at Buchenwald?
A. There can be no question of that whatsoever. There was a testing station in Germany, namely, one designated by a special order on the part of the Reich Minister of the Interior. This was the Institute for Experimental Therapy, which carried out the State's testing of vaccinations.
DR. FROESCHMANN: No further questions.
DR. GAWLIK: Dr. Gawlik for the defendant Hoven. I should like to ask Dr. Mrugowsky a few questions regarding Document Number 5.
EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. Witness, you still have that document before you?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you know about who was to carry out these injections?
A. Dr. Ding was.
Q. What can you say about why this vaccine was sent to Dr. Hoven?
A. If I recollect correctly, Dr. Ding did not have any postal address of his own. His research station and his experimental station were in Lolling's sector; and I therefore assumed that in the case of this letter, the letterhead for such matters went to the camp physician of Buchenwald.
Q. Did you ever discuss tho carrying out of these vaccinations with Dr. Hoven or have any negotiations on this matter at all with him?
A. You mean in January 1943? At that time I didn't know that Dr. Hoven existed. I only met him in September.
DR. GAWLIK: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other questions of the witness on the part of any defense counsel?
MR. HARDY: If defense counsel have no further questions, I have no further questions, your Honor.
DR. FLEMMING: Mr. President, I ask permission to submit a few documents; but first let me remark that the witness Dietsch I interrogated yesterday evening regarding the points upon which I wanted to interrogate him specifically. About the channel of command for Block 46 he knows nothing. Consequently I don't think it is right, since this Mrugowsky case has already lasted so long, to put him in the box as a witness; but I shall simply submit an affidavit from him.
MR. HARDY: May it please your Honor, first of all I assume now that the defendant Mrugowsky's examination is finished and, secondly, in connection with the witness Otto Dietsch, he has been brought to Nurnberg as a defense witness; and they have no intention of calling him here to the witness stand. I request permission to interrogate Dietsch on behalf of the prosecution if the Tribunal will allow that. He is a prisoner here in the Nurnberg jail.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean to make the witness Dietsch the prosecution witness, or do you desire to cross examine him in connection with the affidavit which Dr. Flemming has mentioned?
MR. HARDY: No, I merely desire to interrogate him for investigation purposes in the same manner that Dr. Flemming has.
THE PRESIDENT: Interrogate him in the prison?
MR. HARDY: In the prison, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that may be done.
MR. HARDY: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand, counsel, that there will be no more questions to the defendant Mrugowsky?
DR. FLEMMING: No, that's true. I simply want to put in documents.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant is excused from his stand and may resume his place.
DR. FLEMMING: Mr. President, regarding the question of the witness Dietsch the prosecution has concluded the presentation of its evidence. Therefore, in my opinion, it cannot call any further prosecution witnesses but could simply cross examine him regarding the affidavit I shall put in.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the prosecution did not suggest at this time that he intended to call the witness Dietsch; he desired to interrogate him in the prison.
DR. FLEMMING: I understood him to mean that he wanted to interrogate him here in court. Then let me submit Document Mrugowsky 42 on Page 216 of the Document Book, as Document Mrugowsky No. 58. I simply draw all these documents to your attention.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the number of this document to which you are referring, counsel?
DR. FLEMMING: Document 42, on Page 216, which I submitted as Exhibit 58. Then as next document, Document Mrugowsky 54 on Page 218.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, counsel, until we can enter this.
DR. FLEMMING: Mrugowsky Document 54, Page 218, Mrugowsky Exhibit 59. Mrugowsky Document 84 on Page 220 becomes Mrugowsky Exhibit 60. Mrugowsky Document 86 on Page 225 I shall not put in.
May I ask whether the Tribunal has Document Book Number 2? I have a document book, Number 2, in which there are extracts from literature.
THE PRESIDENT: No, we have not that document book, Dr. Flemming. In that connection I don't have any notation concerning the offer of Mrugowsky Number 11, Pages 90 and 91. Are we to understand that will not be offered?
DR. FLEMMING: I am not putting that in. The reason for which I intended to was removed.
MR. HARDY: Your Honor, in connection with this Document Book Number 2, we have here some sixty-eight pages of extracts from the books that are on the prosecution table now which have just been turned over to us for examination by defense counsel. Now, these doctors and scientists here in this dock are not accused of experimentation on human beings as such; but, as we the prosecution agree that experimentation is necessary and there are accepted methods of medical investigation, we are charging these defendants with crimes. These crimes are mostly in connection with the use of nonvolunteers in their experiments, the lack of care and skill in the course of their experimentation, and many other such things which we might consider as being guilty of malpractice. In addition, there is a considerable difference between the extracts and information as outlined by these doctors and what is at issue in this case.
Now, this literature here is different from the literature of the accused that we have examined in this Tribunal in that the legitimate authors here openly state that they have made experiments on human beings and that they committed no crime as they had nothing to hide.
They were volunteers. But Mrugowsky on the stand admitted that when they submitted a report of their experiments they falsified the reports because they had something to hide.
Now we are going to try to clutter up the record with sixty-eight pages of scientific literature to prove that other experimentation has been carried out; but this experimentation, your Honor, has no connection whatsoever with what we have charged here. The prosecution deems it immaterial. Hence I do not wish to object to each and every document as it is put in; but I wish the Tribunal to consider this as a blanket objection to all the documents contained in Document Book 2.
DR. FLEMMING: Mr. President, the prosecution has charged the doctors here of having carried out experiments on human beings who had not experimented on human beings who had not volunteered for this experiment. Consequently, in Document Book Number 2 I have not included one single experiment in which there is any mention in literature of the fact that the experimental subjects were volunteers, not even in those cases where the total description of the experiment proves that the voluntary aspect of their participation was probably only assumed. The experiments here described were carried out in part on children, in part in prisons, in part in mental institutions. I consider it necessary to show the Tribunal to what extent throughout the world such experiments are carried out on human beings who do not volunteer for them, in order to prove that the civilized attitude is not contrary to such experimentation and that nowhere in the world are such experiments considered criminal, because otherwise the Court would have to know of many objections in literature or in newspapers where such experiments are repudiated.
