BY DR. FRITZ (defense counsel for the defendant Rose):
Q Professor, what did Dohmen do in his civilian capacity, in what institute, and where else did he work before he was conscripted?
A He was assistant of the Hamburg Clinic for Internal Diseases.
Q Can you tell me the reason that he was especially selected for hepatitis research?
AAt some earlier period Dohmen apparently had been assistant of Gildemeister or worked with him. I personally do not know that exactly. However, I believe that was the case. I believe that at the time Dohmen was recommended by Gildemeister as somebody who was acquainted with hepatitis research and I have stated earlier that in the course of the clinic work with reward to hepatitis, the necessity had resulted to appoint a physician who was acquainted with virus research in order to find the cause for the jaundice.
Q Professor, can yo.u tell me when Dr. Dohmen was assigned to the Robert Koch Institute?
AApparently that was in the year 1942.
Q And do you know how long he was assigned there?
A Until the destruction of the Robert Koch Institute, until the loss of the cultures which had been cultivated by Dohmen. I believe this was in the fall of 1943. I do not know the exact month any more.
Q And with when did Dr. Dohmen collaborate in the Robert Koch Institute?
A He worked in the laboratory of Professor Gildemeister and was advised and supported by Professor Gildemeister in his work.
Q Do you know if Dr. Dohmen had anything to do with Professor Rose?
A I have never heard anything of it. I do not know.
Q Do you know after the destruction of the Robert Koch Institute, do you know where Dohmen continued his hepatitis research?
AAfter the destruction of the Robert Koch Institute Dr. Dohmen went to Giessen by order of the Commander of Army Group C, to whom he was subordinated, and in Giessen he worked in a laboratory which had been placed at his disposal there by the German University.
Q Can you tell me, Professor, when and where and why Dr. Dohmen lost his hepatitis cultures?
A In trying to find the cause for hepatitis on animals Dr. Dohmen in the course of the experiments was very unfortunate. Already in the year 1942 he frequently had had difficulties by animal epedimics and plagues and in the year 1943 he suffered from bombing attacks and then he always lost his material and his cultures. And then when he finally went to Giessen it was again attempted to transfer human material on animals by puncturing livers of patients suffering from jaundice and these cultures did not have any effect on the animals because apparently the available animals were unsuited and there were also difficulties in procuring the animals. Various races of mice reacted differently to these vaccination experiments. These are the apparent reasons: When Giessen was completely destroyed through air attacks again all material which then existed was destroyed.
Q Do you remember the incident between Professor Hogen and Dr. Dohmen which was caused by the fact that Dr. Dohmen refused to hand over his cultures?
AAt the conference in May 1943 Dohmen spoke about his experiments an animals and his cultivation of the bacteria and Hogen also attended this conference. After the conference Hogen ordered Dohmen to hand over his cultures to him so that he likewise could carry out such experiments. At the time Dohmen felt toward Hogen exactly the same way toward Grawitz. He refused to turn over the cultures to him in order to avoid putting the material into hands which would be removed from his control.
MR. HARDY: If the Tribunal please, this same ground has been covered by the witness when being questioned by Dr. Nelte and I can't see any reason for further questioning along these lines.
THE PRESIDENT: Since the Tribunal considers that the position of Prosecution is correct that the witness has testified at considerable length these matters, the Tribunal does not desire to limit your cross examination but it should be confined to any material which is not already in the record.
BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. Professor, did you ever collaborate with the defendant Rose on hepatitis?
A. No.
Q. As far as you know did Professor Rose take any active part in hepatitis research?
A. I did not hear anything about it.
Q. Do you know that Professor Rose did not participate at the hepatitis conference at Breslau?
A. I believe that he was not there.
Q. At that Breslau conference ail the leading hepatitis research men had been invited of the Wehrmacht and who from the members of the Luftwaffe can you remember attended?
A. I already stated that Hogen was there. Then Kolb attended. also Buechner. And there was the pathologist Lester there because it as also a pathologist's meeting. There were certainly other members of the Luftwaffe but I do not know the exact names. If I would be asked for certain names I might be able to give you more information about them.
Q. That Professor Rose, as a scientist and member of the Robert Koch. Institute, had to be interested in the result of your hepatitis research, just like for any other progress in the fields of infections disease, is of course natural, Now, I want to ask you, Professor, in excess of that would you consider Professor Rose as a specialist for hepatitis and would you mention his name if you mentioned all the German hepatitis specialists?
A. No, I would not consider him a hepatitis scientist.
Q. Have you ever heard a lecture by Professor Rose about hepatitis?
A. No.
Q. Have you ever seen any scientific article in medical literature on the subject by Professor Rose?
A. No.
Q. Have you ever heard him speak in any discussion during any scientific meeting about the subject of hepatitis?
A. No, I can't recall such an occasion.
Q. Do you know anything about human experiments on hepatitis by Professors Hogan and Kelb?
A. I do not know anything about the execution of such experiments.
Q. You have previously stated, Professor about the intended human experiments which were planned at Breslau. What else do you know about hepatitis experiments on human beings?
A. I know only of two experiments. One was carried out in 1942 by assistants of my clinic. In these experiments it was discovered for the first time that with the duodenal liquid of the patients and by placing it in the stomachs of the people that this disease could be caused. That was the basic experiment in order to show that hepatitis can be transferred through duodenal liquid and that it is infectious when transferred from one human being to another. This experiment was carried out by assistants and students of my clinic as a uniform group. The second experiment was carried out on me personally. I experimented on myself. That was at the beginning of 1943. I bearly infected myself with the bacteria cultivated by Dohmen because I wanted to be able to judge whether the bacteria cultivated by Dohmen were the actual cause of hepatitis. The result was a very light case of the disease on myself and that the whites of my eyes became slightly yellow. In that respect I was certain that the cultures were the actual cause of hepatitis. From any other side I did not hear about such experiments on human beings, whether such assistant experiments or personal experiments were carried out.
In any case I do not know anything about it.
Q. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross-examination of this witness by defense counsel?
BY DR. BOEHM (Counsel for defendant Poppendick)
Q I'm going to submit to the witness a publication regarding the typhoid treatment with acridin by Dr. Ding. This is Document No. 582, Exhibit No. 286.
JUDGE SEBRING: What book, please?
DR. BOEHM: Exhibit No. 286. It was not in any document book. It was presented singly.
BY DR. BOEHM:
Q Professor, did you have sufficient time to investigate the acridin work by Ding so that you can state your expert opinion before the Tribunal today?
A I read it, yes.
Q Among others, you particularly dealt with questions of infectious diseases?
A Yes, that's right.
Q Is it correct to say that you wrote a book regarding infectious diseases where in particular you worked on experiences made during the last war?
A Yes.
Q As a consulting physician in the Army Inspectorate you must have gained experience in the field of typhus research, in particular, regarding the circumstances which deal with the originating of epidemics.
A Yes, I dealt with that question.
Q The document which was submitted to you bears the stamp "No objection from a medical point of view". There is a signature, i.a. Poppendick - by order of Poppendick, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Well, is that thesis a typical report as it is made to a superior agency or does it have the form of a publication in a professional periodical
A It has the form of a publication in a professional periodical.
Q How do you see that?
A I can see this by the letter head - by the head of this work. Furthermore, I can see it because of the scientific discussion which deals with use of other authors regarding the same field. That is at the end of this thesis.
Q Was it customary with the army to approve scientific works in that form?
A With the army it was customary to establish the medical harmlessness of the work.
Q Now, as an expert in typhus research, if one looks through this work does one have to come to the conclusion that one is here concerned with intentional artificial infection of human beings as it is described in this work?
A One does not have to come to that conclusion of necessity. The only passage which may perhaps indicate that is List No. 1 where the treatment there used is laid down in the case of two patients where it was started on the first and third days of the incubation period. That is only possible when one is concerned with a small epidemic which is carefully observed and where one can exercise the daily control regarding the lice with reference to all the affected persons and where a louse was still found in the person of some human being who appears to be healthy. If therapy is started on that day, then you can find out on the first or second incubation day and you can start treatment. For instance, in the case of transport where delousing has taken place -- that is, carefully delousing -- and where these people arrived at their destination with lice, you can, during a typhus period, assume that the infection took place on the day the journey took place. That is to say, in the case of well-observed epidemics it is possible that treatment starts on the first or second incubation day but there are only only very few such occasion
Q Thank you, that is sufficient.
According to your knowledge is Poppendick an expert in the field of typhus research?
A Poppendick is a physician dealing with internal diseases - internal medicine. I don't know that he specially dealt with typhus cases.
Q Now, if you just examine this thesis as a non-expert and if you read it through could you come to a conclusion or suspicion that criminal experiments are being described in that thesis?
A I don't think that is possible.
Q Thank you, I have no further question.
A Because in that thesis you can, at no passage, find that there is any artificial epidemic in question. It says here "typhus research with acridin" and then it further says "within the framework of an epidemic".
DR. BQEHM: Thank you, I have no farther question.
BY DR. STEINBAUEK (Counsel for the Defendant WILHELM BEIGLEBOCK):
Q. Witness, last week you shortly mentioned liver punctions. In a publication of the First University in Vienna, I read the following sentence: "The Liver punctions, when local anesthetic is used, is painless and hardly interferes with the patient's health." I ask you, do you share that opinion?
A. Yes, that is also my opinion.
Q. Do you know that especially at the Clinic Eppinger in Vienna this method was worked upon a great deal?
A. In the Clinic of Eppinger, as they became known, liver punctions were often used.
Q. Do you know from literature or personally, the Defendant Dr. Beiglbock?
A. I know him personally, and because of attending scientific meetings.
Q. Would you say that he scientifically exercised this method and that he is fully acquainted with it?
A. I think that everybody can learn that method who is skillful manually.
Q. Is is correct that the Danish scientists, Evensen and Roholm, performed this liver punction on even quite healthy human-beings?
A. I do not remember that exactly. I believe, however, that pictures o quite normal livers are contained in the monography which has appeared on that subject. But I do not remember it quite well. I do not remember whether liver punctions were performed on perfectly healthy human-beings.
Q. Tank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross examination of this witness by any of the defense counsel? There being none, the Prosecution may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. HARDY:
Q. Witness, you have stated in direct examination that you were consulting physician with the Medical Inspectorate of the Army and that Handloser held that position as Medical Inspector from January 1941 to September 1944. Now the Tribunal has asked you how many times did you consult with Handloser. I ask you again, how many times did you physically contact Handloser in the course of your duties as a consulting physician to him?
A. I have already said that I cannot say that I spoke to him once a week; sometimes it occurred once in 3 weeks, other times once in 4 weeks, and sometimes I saw him one week after the other. That is, a physical contact, as you said.
Q. Well, the, witness, would you say that you saw Handloser 10 times a year?
A. Yes, I could quite say that.
Q. More or less? Witness, I am simply asking you how many times do you estimate that you saw Handloser in the course of a year 5, 10, 15, or 30 times? That isn't too difficult to remember, is it?
A. I should say that I met him 10 times a year, but it may well have been 13 or 14 or 15 times; I am sure that it differed in the individual years.
Q. Thank you. You were also attached to the Military Medical Academy as I understand it?
A. Yes.
Q. You have stated that Generalarzt Dr. Schreiber was the commanding officer of the Military Medical Academy and that you were subordinate to him in that connection. Is that correct?
A. Yes. He was not the commander of the Military Medical Academy but the commander of the so-called Training Group C of the Military Medical Academy which is a part of it.
Q. Now the Military Melical Academy was under the control of the Medical Inspector of the Army, was it not?
A. The Training Group C was subordinated to the Military Medical Academy and its commander; and the Military Medical Academy and with it this Training Group C, was subordinated to the Army Medical Inspectorate. The head of the Army Medical Inspectorate was the Army Medical Inspector.
Q. Hence, Dr. Schreiber, as chief of this department in the Military Medical Academy, was, in fact, a subordinate of the Medical Inspector, Handloser, during the time Handloser held that position as Medical Inspector, is that correct?
A. Yes. In the final analysis, all medical officers were subordinates of the highest medical officer; that, of course, also includes Generalarzt Schreiber; as the commander of the so-called Training Group C he was the subordinate of the Army Medical Inspector.
Q. Now, witness, in addition to the duties you have outlined in the direct examination, did you ever receive questions in scientific research from the Reich Research Council?
A. Would you please repeat that question more precisely? I did not quite understand.
Q. Did you ever receive requests or questions from the Reich Research Council on matters of scientific research?
A. On occasions I was asked by the Reich Research Council on numerous medical matters; this was mostly done by writing and I then defined my position to the questions by writing. These questions concerned numerous fields. For instance, I remember one question about a proposed treatment of typhus. It was intended to treat it with certain bathing processes -- warm bathing processes. There were also other questions I had to deal with -- questions concerning certain treatment of diseases, whether a certain method of treatment proposed by some one had any value according to my opinion so that it could generally be exploited and used. The selection of certain drugs was dealt with by me by request of the Reich Research Council.
Q. Now these various research tasks that were assigned to you-were they assigned to you by Professor Dr. Rostock of the Reich Research Council?
A. Research assignments were not received by me from the Reich Research Council. These were merely inquiries about proposals which may have come from any side and on the basis of my experiences I had to state my opinion. I myself, however, did not receive any certain research assignments. However, this was not the case in the case of hepatitis. During the Hepatitis work, after having worked on that for a long time, 1943 or 1944, I don't remember exactly, the Reich Research Council gave me such an assignment. I did not ask for that assignment. It was merely handed to me.
CORRECTION SHEET - Page 2742
Q Just a moment, witness. I am not interested in the nature of your assignment at this point. My question is: were these inquiries or tasks assigned to you -- did they originate from Professor Dr. Rostock?
A These were inquiries. I said inquiries. I said nothing about any c*** tain assignments. At least I do not remember anything about them. I just sa** they were inquiries about proposals which came from one side and it was my du*** to make statements about their execution. I gave you an instance before. Any ** medical officer might have suggested a certain form of typhus treatment. I subsequently was asked whether it was also my opinion that this typhus treatment should be used generally; experiences were to be collected on that point. That is just an example. These also eminated from professor Rostock.
Q Regarding yellow juandice, what are the dangers and possible complications of Hepatitis?
A I already stated the danger of Hepatitis during my previous examination. With reference to the life of the patient, the danger is very small. The figures shown in literature about so-called mortality in the case of jaundice is loss than one thousand, Jaundice, in itself, with reference to the mortality figure is a harmless disease. Jaundice, on the other hand, cannot be avoided through any safeguard whatever its nature may be. There is no possibility of preventing the infection and extension of that disease. The average length of illness is usually four to eight weeks. There are very easy cases where patients are restored to health within a few days and there arc more severe cases where patients arc yellow for weeks and sometimes months. During the war we learned aftereffects and complications of this disease are very very rare. Patients usually become ill, they feel badly. Generally, they have no pain, but after a certain period of time, as I said, six to eight weeks, they are completely restored to health.
Q Does it not often cause severe damage to the liver?
A That was a belief which was held before the war. Such cases occurred before the war sparadically, that is singly. In the case of these single diseases, there are certainly a number of cases of infectious jaundice. In the same way, however, there are quite a number of cases
A These were inquiries. I said inquiries. I said nothing about any certain assignments. At least I do not remember anything about them. I just said they were inquiries about proposals which came from one side and it was my duty to make statements about their execution. I gave you an instance before. Any medical officer might have suggested a certain form of typhus treatment. I subsequently was asked whether it was also my opinion that these typhus treatment should be used generally; experiences were to be collected on that point. That is just an example. These also eminated from Professor Rostock.
Q Regarding yellow jaundice, what are the dangers and possible complications of Hepatitis?
A I already stated that the danger of Hepatitis during my previous examination. With reference to the life of the patient, the danger is very small. The figure shown in literature about so-called mortality in the case of jaundice is less than one thousand. Jaundice, in itself, with reference to the mortality figure is a harmless disease. Jaundice, on the other hand, cannot be avoided through any safeguard whatever its nature may be. There is no possibility of preventing the infection and extension of that disease. The average length of illness is usually four to eight weeks. There are very easy cases where patients are restored to health within a few days and there are more severe cases where patients are yellow for weeks and sometimes months. During the war we learned after-effects and complications of this disease are very very rare. Patients usually became ill, they feel badly. Generally, they have no pain, but after a certain period of time, as I said, six to eight weeks, they are completely restored to health.
Q Does it not often cause severe damage to the liver?
A. That was a belief which was held before the war. Such cases cured before the war sporadically, that is, singly. In the case of these single diseases, there are certainly a number of cases of infectious jaundice. In the same way, however, there are quite a number of cases which have nothing whatsoever to do with the infectious jaundice.
These are liver inflictions of another kind which have existed from the very beginning and which may have been caused by food poisoning or other poisons. During the war we learned that the infectious disease leaves no damage to the liver. That is the result of a number of liver punctures as they were performed in a number of cases. They were performed in order to be able to tell the patient concerned, with certainty, that the liver damage during the jaundice, is completely over.
We physicians and also pathologists were very surprised at the changes of the liver as they occured during the jaundice period. They completely disappear within a relatively short period time. Pictures of the liver after jaundice has disappeared do not at all differ from the pictures of a normal liver.
Q What are the causes and conditions of death in Hepatitis?
A. In most cases, death during jaundice is not caused by jaundice itself, but by other diseases. For instance, if a person is heavily wounded, and then a so-called sepsis develops, and then he becomes infected with jaundice; the person concerned will die because of sepsis. In these cases where jaundice is added to another severe illness, one can always judge them as jaundice death cases. That is how it is done in literature. In reality, they are not dead because of jaundice unless one wants to put it that way. It is merely an optical science. A death case merely from jaundice is something which has never been observed with certainty.
Q Doctor, is there any difference between Hepatitis as it occurs in epidemics and sporadically and that produced by innoculation?
A May I repeat once more, did you ask me whether there was a difference between spontaneous disease and a disease caused by innoculation?
Q That is correct.
A Is that correct?
Q Yes. Is there any difference?
A. According to my opinion, there can be no difference. A differ once cannot be expected.
If the cause of jaundice against which I am innoculating is that very cause, the disease must be the same as the spontaneous disease. However, I have to add that there is a difference between an infection and a innoculation. You innoculate by means of a vaccine, that is to say, a dead excitor, a dead infector. During these innoculations, diseases of jaundice are not to be expected at all. If, however, the virulent cause is bein****red as in the case of animals and if it then infected into a human being, then the well-known jaundice comes about as it is known in its spontaneous cause.
Q Now witness, you have told me that during the course of the war, you did not know of a single case where a patient died from jaundice. How do you justify the fact from the document Dr. Nelte exhibited to you this morning? That is the letter from Grawitz to Himmler requesting permission to conduct these hepatitis experiments on human beings. These innoculations were to be made from virus cultures, and death cases were to be anticipated?
A I can only explain it by thinking that Grawitz, himself, was not sufficiently informed about jaundice, its cause and its danger. Grawitz was not a specialist in jaundice matters because Reichsarzt-AA, he was not in touch with practical medicine.
Q. Now, witness, is there any difference between hepatitis of man and that of experimental animals?
A. The differences are great. The animal, for instance-- well, let me start again, The animal experiments, the animal does not receive jaundice at all, does not contract it at all. The yellow coloring never appears in the case of tho animal. However, changes of the liver are noticeable in the case of the animal which was infected, and they arc very similar as in tie c so of a man who is infected with the same virus. Then there are further differences, I already said that yellow fever never has a fatal result, whereas in the case of animals, at any rate a part of them, die as a result of this disease. That is true as in the case of other comparisons between animal experiments and human experiments, namely that the external appearance of the disease in the case of man or animal by using the same virus can be completely different and in addition the danger of the animal disease and the human disease can differ completely, although one is concerned with the very same virus.
Q. Is hepatitis more dangerous in overworked or undernourished people?
A. Speaking on the whole the figures of the disease and its danger in the case of well nourished or undernourished people contracting jaundice are the same. When jaundice occurs as a complication of another severe infectious disease the cause of the original disease by virtue of the added jaundice is not influenced whatsoever. That is contrary, for instance, to other infectious diseases. I shall give you one example, typhus has a very definite course and we know mortality figures in the case of typhus. Now, if within such a typhus epidemic, and that is something that was frequently observed during the War, a jaundice epidemic comes into appearance in addition, so that people inflicted with typhus at the same time they are inflicted with jaundice then the typical cause of the typhus illness is not at all changed by this addition of jaundice and no larger amount of mortality figures can be observed during this typhus epidemic.
In the case of other infectious disease this is basically different, for instance if typhus diseased persons contract diptheria, which happens on numerous occasions, then this additional contraction of diptheria, this additional infection practically means a death sentence for the person concerned, whereas in the case of jaundice it is entirely different.
Q. What special facilities are necessary to treat hepatitis adequately?
A. The methods of the treatment of hepatitis can only be done on the basis of symptoms. I already mentioned earlier that there is a specific kind of therapy, -- that there is no specific kind of therapy, such as serum therapy. Many persons inflicted with hepatitis who are not severely ill received no treatment whatsoever, and in parts continued their civilian and military duties. In other cases they were told to go to bed and received a light diet. Sometimes there was some warm treatment. On the whole treatment of drugs showed no particular success in the case of jaundice.
Q. Considering the physical conditions of concentration camp inmates, and the hygienic conditions cf concentration camp hospitals, wouldn't it have been more dangerous to perform hepatitis experiments on concentration camp inmates than on well nourished volunteers?
A. In all the camps, and that included concentration camps, jaundice illnesses, spontaneous illnesses occurred to a large extent. I mentioned the jaundice epidemic, for instance, in prisoner of war camps. These were persons with a very much deteriorated constitution. They had endured hard a battles and they had a very bad nourishment, and even in the case of these spontaneous epidemics within the camps a higher mortality figure than the one already mentioned, or after effects which had complications of jaundice did not become known.
In the case of an entire division in Russia, which was sent from the Crimea to Northern Russia, I personally saw high disease rates of human beings who had deteriorated in health, who were undernourished, overworked and exhausted, and where the cause of jaundice was secondly the same as in the case of other human beings with good conditions of nourishment and who lived under good conditions.
Q. Are states of mental confusion or delirium ever associated with hepatitis?
A I personally didn't see it.
Q. Are any lasting or disappearing neurological changes ever associated with liver disease, and if so are they also associated with cases of hepatitis, especially in individuals who are undernourished or deficient in vitamins?
A. May I ask once more, what kind of a condition are you suggesting?
Q. I will repeat my question. Are any lasting or disappearing neurological changes ever associated with a liver disease, and if so are they also associated with cases of hepatitis, but especially in individuals who are undernourished and deficient in vitamins?
A. I know of no disease or nerve degenerations, and that is probably something that you mean by the neurological conditions, rather I didn't know of any such cases in dealing with hepatitis, and they are never described in literature. No matter whether the people concerned are healthy or strong, or whether in any way undernourished, and whether there is a deficiency in vitamins, we only know one disease that is a liver disease during the course of which at the same time neurological symptoms appear. This disease firstly is very rare, and secondly has nothing at all to do with hepatitis epidemica. We are not concerned with an infectious disease, but we are concerned with a primary simultaneous degeneration of liver tissues, and brain nerve tissues. For the most part these diseases are mostly hereditary.
Q. You have compared the liver punctures with the lumbar spinal and the sub-occipital puncture; isn't it true that with the various kinds of spinal puncture you only remove the fluid which surrounds the spinal cord or brain, while with the liver puncture you actually enter the organ itself; isn't that dangerous?
A. There are two cases here. In one case you take away some juice where tissues are available at the same time. That is in the so-called spine puncture. In the other case you only take tissues away. Now, you could compare the liver puncture with the so-called gland puncture. In that case organs are being punctured in order to take out certain small parts of tissue. Both kinds of punctures are considered harmless, as the gland puncture is today used in hospitals and clinics for diagnostical reasons.