They actually did not have any office. They did not have any official stamp. They did not have any command authority. So, that actually the position of the consulting physician basically varied from the other persons of the military system. The activity of the consulting physician consisted of several functions. It is set forth in the so-called directives for consulting physicians. It represents part of the directives for the collection of military medical experiences. According to these directives the consulting physicians, first of all, had a consulting function. Secondly, they had a collecting function for the effect of experiences which had accumulated within the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht. And, finally, the function was to teach and to lecture in order to raise the level of training of the medical officers. Point two of this activity, the activity pertaining to the collection of experiences and the effects, is also known as scientific research work.
Q We will refer to this later on. Is it correct that all those consulting physicians who were with the Army and Army groups, who for the most part had a collecting activity, and who at home in particular, those who worked with the Army Medical Inspectorate had a utilizing function at home?
A That may well be said but it is still not quite correct. The consulting physician in the Army and in the Corps Areas had a utilization activity as well as a collection activity.
Q Is it perhaps so that local problems were also utilized at the front and that more extensive problems were utilized at home?
A That is correct.
Q How do you know that the army medical regulations have contained the fact that the consulting physicians, and this is the technical expression-- since the question of the establishment of groups plays a certain role in this trial, I would like to ask you the following question. Does a group of specialist physicians, with all the officers an charge, indicate that they amongst themselves constituted a group? That is that they subjectively were connected with each other? Or is this only a statement as to the existence of a number of physicians with equal objective narks?
A The latter is correct.
Q Was the entirety of the consulting physicians at the front as well as at home amongst themselves, -- were they connected with each other?
A No, in many cases they did not even know each other.
Q Now do you know that the consulting physicians met at conferences which also, played a special part in this trial? Now did the consulting physicians come together by agreement?
A No. The consulting physicians were ordered and detached and the army medical inspector selected those consulting physicians who were to attend a conference and then they were sent by their direct superiors, the medical officers in charge, to attend those particular meetings.
Q The prosecution has claimed that these conferences had been typical meetings of conspirators, that is to say, of physicians who met in older to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, and to plan those crimes and to carry then out. You know of those conferences and the composition of these people who attended. What can you say to the accusation of the prosecution?
A The conferences served a purpose, as far as I know, to discuss the experiences which had been gained in the various medical fields in the field and at home, which were gained but the individual consulting physicians, and then to put them down in sort of directives. The consulting physicians then again returned to their offices and they then utilized the experience of which they had been informed in these conferences.
Lectures were given and they were discussed and then directives were issued as to certain methods of treatment and about the diagnosis of certain diseases and the evaluation of the physical condition with regard to the disease. Then these directives were examined by the army medical inspectorate and they were then sent to the front line units in order to have these directives carried out.
Q Do you know whether these printed reports and the printed directives were classified as secret?
A I do not think that most of these reports were classified secret.
Q None of them were classified secret. I only wanted to ask because I thought you might be able to know. Under consideration of the circumstances as they existed in Germany at that time, do you consider these conferences as a necessary institution?
A I am of the conviction that they were. It was the best way in order to collect and accumulate, the experiences which had been gained at all the various sectors and to discuss them amongst representatives of this special field and perhaps to correct them and then to again pass on these experiences to the front line units.
Q You have previously stated that discussions took place. Were these discussions subject to any limitations?
A I do not know of any particular case, only in so far as the meetings had to be concluded within a certain period of time. But I do not know of any military order or of any military prohibition to discuss anything -- I do not know anything about that.
Q I would like to ask you now to tell us about your special activity as an internist with the army medical inspectorate and to give us a picture as to how you have worked within the circle which was presided ever by the Defendant Handloser, what your tasks were and how you carried them out.
A I had to travel a lot. I had to visit many field hospitals and, of course, with special emphasis on those places shore certain important diseases had occurred, in large numbers. In this way I myself have collected experiences.
Q Did you also have certain orders and assignments? Did you receive them from Professor Handloser on what special diseases you were to place particular emphasis?
A These orders and assignments arose from the necessities. already from the particular sector would come the call to take care of certain diseases because the number of such diseases grew enormously. I only want to mention dysentery, typhus and perhaps malaria, although that was not my field, and epidemic jaundice and, during the last years of the war, the so-called war nephritis. In 1940, when jaundice began to grew more frequently to a terrifying figure, I was given the assignment by the army medical inspector to particularly occupy myself with this disease. In pursuance of this assignment I then went to the various theaters of operations, to Greece, to Russia, to France, and I save personally looked at the various cases at the various hospitals. I think in the course of the time. I saw many thousands of such patients. Then I have looked at the causes for the disease and I have personally determined that the reasons which had formerly been considered as being the cause of the disease, for example, food poisoning, climatic influence, bad conditions of drinking water, and other facts, were not the cause if this disease. I saw in the course of time that the disease could be carried from one human being to the next and that this disease belonged in the group of so-called infectious diseases. I further was able to determine that once this disease had been overcome, the person who had overcome it would be protected from it for the rest of his life, so that a person would only be able to be infected with this disease one time during his life. There are only rare exceptions. I was further able to determine that jaundice generally is a harmless disease which does not cause any pain and which causes the patient to be yellow between 2, 4, and 6 weeks and feel very exhausted. It could be further ascertained that no injurious complications would remain after the disease. That was in contrast to the opinion which was previously held, which stated that damages to the liver would remain.
Q May I interrupt you for a minute?
In the speech of General Taylor - in his general speech - in the transcript of 9 December the transcript contains the following sentence on Page 82 of the German version, and the speaker here tells of a letter which Grawitz wrote and in this letter he is alleged to have discussed the over-all importance of a vaccine of extraordinary military value for the treatment of epidemic jaundice and he continues, and I quote: "In several companies there were fatalities up to 70% as a result of epidemic jaundice."
A May I ask you who wrote the letter and to whom it was addressed?
Q It is alleged to have been written by Grawitz to Himmler.
A This statement in in contrast to all experiences. I believe that this is a mistake in printing. It probably should not read 60% fatalities, but it means to say that in some companies 60% of the entire company caught the disease. If any such mentality rate had occurred at any place I believe that it certainly would have come to my knowledge. I consider it completely impossible.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I have tried to obtain the English version. However, I was unable to obtain the English version in the General Secretary office today and I would request the Tribunal to rule if that should be the case what the witness has just said that this word "fatality" in the official version of the German transcript should be changed in such a way as the meaning might be implied. I am told that the word means exemptions and in this case I only want to point out the necessity for a correction of the transcript.
MR. McHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, I take it that General Taylor is permitted to say what he will in his opening statement and it is the func tion of the Prosecution in this case to try to prove his statements. I don't think it is anything to argue about here. The letter they are talking about is Document No. 010 - I don't have the Exhibit number here now - but it very clearly says "The practical importance of the matter in question for our troops, especially in Southern Russia, results from the fact that this disease has spread so extensively during the past years, both among us in the Waffen-SS and Police and in the army, that up to 60% casualties for a period of up to six weeks suffered in some companies."
It doesn't to say that 60% died.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, if General Taylor had added six weeks to the text then, of course, it would have been clear that a mistake had occurred. It is only due to the fact that in the speech of General Taylor the addition for six weeks had been left out. That was the only reason I suggested a mistake had occurred.
THE PRESIDENT: I would state to Counsel that a copy of the English version will be made available to him. Insofar as the statement of General Taylor is concerned, it is clear that some error has been carried through in the record. It is not of any importance, but as stated by Counsel, the opening statement of either the Prosecution or the Defense may contain only what that side cf the case expects to prove. It has no binding force as evidence.
BY DR. NELTE:
Q Witness, attorney Servatius has previously asked you who occupied himself with this problem cf hepatitis epidemica. You had named two officers: and I want to gain a correct picture and I want to pass on this picture to the Tribunal. Just how frequently did this disease occur and also how many officers occupied themselves with this problem?
A May I first of all state that in the years 1940 and 1941 the disease had an enormous increase by numbers. In order to give a picture I would like to name the following numbers which I can still remember. In one single month, I believe it was September, 1943; on the Eastern Front alone - within one month there were 180 or 190 thousand now cases. The annual increase in cases of the disease in Germany, including our troops at the front, is estimated at 11/2 or 2 millions. As has already been stated in one letter, in some places the disease rate re***ed 50% to 60% of the workers or the soldiers in the companies. In the year 1940, I, myself, have seen 95 Morroccans in a French field hospital - that was three-fourths of an entire company. In a prisoner of war camp in Pomerania, where English officers were located, with a very short period of time, 50% of all the people that were there had caught the disease.
In two other prisoner of war camps in Greece and Crete, amongst the three or four thousand inmates, 30% to 40% fell ill with the disease. This already indicated that hepatitis is clearly a camp or community disease and that it appeared everywhere where human beings were located in crowded billets and where the general hygienic conditions did not correspond with those which he had in Germany in times of peace. I believe this indicates the importance of the disease alone already because of the enormous casualties on human beings - first of all, for the combat units, and then for the work at home, Of course, it was quite natural that with an epidemic of such gian proportions - I don't believe the world has ever seen anything like it - every physician who had a laboratory tried to find the cause of the ba* illus by some means in some way. Many thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of bacteriological investigations of the urine, of the stomach juice, of the intestinal juice, and so on, were carried out practically wit! out the least success, and only men of research, who on the basis of their preliminary knowledge, were able to carry on virus research were more fortunate in this respect. In Germany, at least 5 to 6 officers worked in order to find the cause for the contagious jaundice. They included Domen, Haagen, they included the two assistants from Leipzig whom I have already named; then Professor Herzwald from Greifswald, and there are still three or four others whose names I can't recall any more. They all tried to find the virus. If the virus had been found then it would have been possible to first of all treat the disease in accordance with its course, and, secondly to find a vaccine and a protection which would protect millions of people from this disease. Up to now, the treatment of this epidemic jaundice had only been carried out with symptoms. The medical treatment which was given I have named. Drugs, rest -----
Q Do you know how the treatment for hepatitis was carried out abroad?
AAccording to the literature which was available to us up to the beginning of the war and according to the literature which we were able to receive from abroad during the war, the foreign countries did not have any other methods of treatment and protection then we had at the beginning of the war.
Even during the war, as far as I know, no specific therapy and no specific protection was developed in connection with the disease. A number of books have been written abroad which indicate that the foreign countries also tried to find the cause for epidemic jaundice and to apparently develop a protection against the disease. I myself can remember a book from the year 1945 contained in the Journal of the American Medical Association by the authors Neefe Stockton, Knowley and Rhinehart. The book described that within a circle of persons consisting of s-called "conscientious cojectcrs" that the excrements of patients buffering from this disease were mixed with water and then these excrements were given to twenty-five people to drink. They were in three groups with five to a group. Certain chlorides and disinfection drugs were given to them. In the case of two groups such disinfection drugs were not used.
of examination. It equals the so-called lumbar puncture where the spinal fluid is drained in order to examine the fluid secretions and consequently this puncture could not be considered as dangerous. It is not dangerous in the hands of a person qualified to carry it out. It is not more dangerous than lumbar puncture would be in the case of a person who is not experienced.
Q. In your position as consulting internist; have you discussed the hepatitis research with Professor Handloser.
A. I have discussed hepatitis quite a lot.
Q In this respect, did the question ever arise that in the frame of hepatitis research experiments should or would have to be carried out on human beings?
A. As far as I know this question has never been discussed.
Q. But, surely you have also made reports about the progress of your examinations?
A. I have made either written or oral reports when the necessity seemed to arise.
Q. And in that respect, did you on your part ever mention the question of performing experiments on human beings?
A. No, I cannot remember.
Q. Now, have you ever written a letter, which I am going to hand to you. It is a letter dated the 24th of June, 1944 to Professor Haagan and in this letter it is stated, "In line with my statements at the joint hepatitis discussions at Breslau, I have tried to make preparations for experiments on human beings". (Experimentum Crucis der Oebertragung Hominen)."
THE PRESIDENT: What is the Document book?
DR. NElTE: That is the Document book about the hepatitis epidemica and it does not have any number. Yes, it is Document book No. 8, page 11. There you will find the letter which I have just mentioned.
MR. HARDY: It is Exhibit 193.
THE PRESIDENT: The examination of this witness will take how much longer?
DR. NElTE: It will take a little more time. Mr. President, this is one of the most important witnesses for the Defendant Handloser and I have to interrogate him now because he will not be available to me later.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness will be available on Monday morning. The Tribunal will new recess until 9:30 o'clock Monday morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 10 February 1947, at 9:30 house)
In this freezing or hepatitis epidemica ten people became ill, but not of epidemic jaundice. Those people were such an easy case that it could not be counted among the cases of epidemic jaundice; all the others remained healthy. Therefore, that is proof of the fact that the foreign countries likewise occupied themselves for the causes of this disease and they tried to kill the bacteria and excrement and thus protect other people.
Q But, no fatalities occurred in this way?
A Well, that had to be expected.
Q Now, will you please tell the Tribunal about your research and your attempts to find the virus; so far you have not done that. I mean your methods of work.
A I, myself, have never locked for virus as I am not a bacteriologist. Within the sector of the army, Dohmen tried to cultivate this virus. I have attempted to describe these experiments.
Q Well, first of all I am interested in your activities, because you as consulting internist of Professor Handloser to a certain extent belonged to his close surroundings and perhaps he may be held responsible for what you might have done and what may not have been permissible. Therefore, I think you should discribe to us just how you worked, what were your methods in carrying out your activities in regard to hepatitis research.
A. I have actually described it already.
Q Well you please repeat it once more briefly
A I have made observation on patients in the field hospitals, I have listed the case history, subsequent complications and fatalities and from several hundred thousand of case histories, our young physicians and I have determined what damages occur after hepatitis, what is the average degree of the disease and what fatalities occur, what causes the fatalities and I have determined that hepatitis is contagious. I gained this experience from many examinations and I have further determined that the cause is not of bacteria but of virus.
Q Have you carried out punctures of livers during your work.
A Punctures of livers were carried out, but I personally have not carried than out, but punctures of the liver were performed in individual field hospitals. This was a method - a technique, which had been developed by two Danish authorities, Roholm and Iverson. For this puncture of the liver hepatitis could not be treated, however, it could be determined what damages the liver had sustained and what the chances of cure were with this disease. It could be determined if after the epidemic jaundice the liver was again functioning with its organs or if any damages had remained in the liver. This was important for the prognosis, it is also important for the question could such a human being again be returned to work, could he be allowed to serve, or would he further have to undergo treatment.
Q Can this puncturing of the liver be considered as an experiment on human beings?
A The puncturing of the liver is not an experiment, but a method 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 10 February 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Court Room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America, and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain that the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honors, all defendants are present in the Court Room.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.
The witness Gutzeit is still on the stand and the witness is reminded that he is still under oath.
Counsel may proceed.
DR. SERVATIUS (Counsel for the Defendant Karl Brandt): May it please the Tribunal, may I first discuss briefly a technical question. On Friday the two witnesses, Reichsminister Lammers and the witness Generalarzt Dr. Gutzeit were led here in handcuffs. I do not know the reasons why Reichsminister Lammers was handcuffed. I do not know if any special reasons existed for that. Professor Gutzeit is a prisoner of war. At present he is in an open cell in prison and is allowed to move around. I believe that it should be avoided to bring a witness here in such a way so that he will not have the feeling of being under pressure and that he perhaps may refrain from telling the truth here. I would be very grateful if the Tribunal would make a ruling in this case.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a matter concerning which the Tribunal has no information. Neither is the Tribunal advised as to the status of these witnesses. The Tribunal will inquire into the matter but that is, of course a matter for the security officer in charge to determine.
The Tribunal will inquire as to the situation.
Proceed with the examination of the witness:
KURT GUTZEIT -- Resumed.
EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. NOLTE: (For the Defendant Handloser)
Q Witness, at the end of the last session I had document book Number 8 handed to you and I had called your attention to the letter of 24 June 1944 which you addressed to professor Hagen at Strassbourg. This letter is part of correspondence in which the names of Dr. Grawitz, Dr. Dohmen, Generalarzt Schreiber, Professor Hagen and your name is also mentioned in connection with Hepatitis research. Will you please describe to the Tribunal if any and what connections exist between these persons with regard to Hepatitis research and your letter of 29 June 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: Will counsel repeat the number of that document.
DR. NOLTE: I did not understand your question, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Will counsel repeat the number of that document.
DR. NOLTE: It is page 11 of Document Book 8, Document No. NO 142. It is Exhibit 193.
A This letter of 24 June 1944 which was directed from me to Professor Hagan, it is the result of a Hepatitis conference of all research people who were concerned with this problem in Germany. In June 1944 this Hepatitis conference took place at Breslau. Between six and seven -- I do not know the exact number -- various research men were there who had worked on the Hepatitis experiments on animals, and also many other persons interested, physicians. In the course of the conference the experiences which had been collected in the meantime by the individual research men were publicly printed. It became evident that the various research men had reached completely varying results as a result of their experiments on animals. All these research men strove to find the course of Hepatitis through animal experiments. While one part had carried out these experiments with rabbits and the other part had carried them out with mice, the third group carried them out with rats and the fourth group carried them out with canaries.
They were unable to determine if the bacteria which had been cultivated at different places all represented the same group, or if they included a large variety of different bacteria.
If any human material is vaccinated on animals, or if any animals are vaccinated with material of human beings, and if then the animal becomes sick, then in the beginning it cannot be stated with certainty if the disease cf the animal has been caused by the specific bacteria or the disease of the animal has been caused by bacteria which is harmless to human beings.
Then, in the course of the discussion at Breslau which was presided over by Generalarzt Schreiber, Schreiber suggested or ordered that the individual research men and authors should form and follow certain procedures of work, in order to compare the results they had achieved in the course of their experiments on animals. One of these groups consisted of Dohmen, Haagen, myself and several other authors who were very close to Haagen.
The beginning of the letter deals with an assignment of Dohmen to Haagen. This assignment was approved by Generalarzt Haagen as a result of this regrouping, and it was intended that Dohmen, together with Haagen, should compare the results they had achieved in the course of animal experiments in their respective laboratories. That is the first paragraph.
The second paragraph then deals with the fact that during the conference at Breslau I had made a statement which deals with the experiment of crucis hominem. I will have to explain this. In the course of every part of research, medical research, which deals with human being's and which is then continued in the form of experiments on animals, some time the most important part of that research has to be reached; that is, experiments crucis where the results achieved in the course of experiments on animals have to be transferred and applied to the human being because all experiments in animal in the course of research, can only have results when the results of the experiment on an animal are applied to human beings. This part represents the most important phase of the entire research because all research had to be made of use to the human being; the possibilities of diagnosis for the human being, methods of treatment and preventive measures against diseases.
In Breslau I had a number of medical students. I had won them over to the point of view that the virus which had been cultivated by Dohmen after, as is likewise stated in the letter, it had been frozen for a period of week and months, it was tried to be transferred to a human being and it was to be applied to the students and internees to whom I had explained the matter previously.
Since the virus material was frozen and Dohmen did not have any other material, it had to be assumed that these bacteria had already been killed or that with regard to the virulents they had become so weak already that this vaccination became a true vaccination; that is to say, a preventive measure against this hepatitis. It was the same thing, for example, as the small pos vaccine. Since it was not absolutely certain that the bacteria were completely non-virulent it therefor could not cause the infection. It could have happened that in the course of this vaccination, in one or some other case, the real infection still could have occurs in the form of a very weak and very light case of hepatitis.
I then, in the letter, discuss certain criteria which have to be applied if this virus is applied to human beings. Then a certain danger existed that in the case of jaundice, an infection could be transferred from the vaccinated persons to their neighbors. I therefore had to prepare facilities for isolating them so that the people who had been treated in this way were completely isolated from the outside world and these isolation facilities were not so simple to obtain in Breslau at that time because we were subject to severe air raid regulations and the clinic had to be cleared to some extent so that the individual and separate rooms first of all had to be prepared.
as is likewise stated in the letter, it had been frozen for a period of week and months, it was tried to be transferred to a human being and it was to be applied to the students and internees to whom I had explained the matter previously. Since the virus material was frozen and Dohmen did not have any other material, it had to be assumed that these bacteria had already been killed or that with regard to the virulents they had become so weak already that this vaccination became a true vaccination; that is to say, a preventive measure against this hepatitis. It was the same thing, for example, as the small pos vaccine. Since it was not absolutely certain that the bacteria were completely non-virulent it therefor could not cause the infection. It could have happened that in the course of this vaccination, in one or some other case, the real infection still could have occurr in the form of a very weak and very light case of hepatitis.
I then, in the letter, discuss certain criteria which have to be applied if this virus is applied to human beings. Then a certain danger existed that in the case of jaundice, an infection could be transferred from the vaccinated persons to their neighbors. I therefore had to prepare facility for isolating them so that the people who had been treated in this way were completely isolated from the outside world and these isolation facilities were not so simple to obtain in Breslau at that time because we were subject to severe air raid regulations and the clinic had to be cleared to some extent so that the individual and separate rooms first of all had to be prepared.
This experiment was to be carried out during the holidays, during th3 academic vacation which was between the middle of August and the middle of September. Since I had students and medical students at my disposal I had asked in this letter if Haagen would and some of his virus material to me so that I could carry out this experiment on his material, on Dohmen's material, and on my material. The experiment was never carried out because the students concerned and the medical students concerned were conscripted for military service at the beginning of their vacation and thus were removed from my field of authority. That is the explanation for the contents of this letter.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, before I continue my examination I would like to point out that the interpreter has changed the statement by Professor Gutzeit. Professor Gutzeit has stated there and he has translated the statement that the virus was transferred to students and internees. I do not know if the word "internees" in this connection may not perhaps be misunderstood. The doctoranden are students who live in complete freedom. I request that the transcript be corrected if possible.
Q. (By Dr. Nelte) Professor, you spoke about the Breslau conference-
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal understands that medical students are called interns. If the witness referred to these students who were serving their period as interns you can ask the witness if that is what he intended to say.
DR. NELTE: Hr. President, the witness did not say interns, but he said doctoranden. They are persons who were once students and are about to take their medical examination and who have already completed their studies.
Q. (By Dr. Nelte) Witness, you spoke about hepatitis research at the Breslau conference and also the attempt at coordinating the various agencies who occupied themselves with hepatitis research. Did Dr. Dohmen also attend this conference?
