1) his work as deputy in the experimental station Block 46;
2) his work as deputy in Block 50.
The evidence of the prosecution has shown beyond any doubt that the experiments were carried out only in Block 46. In Block 50 only the typhus vaccine for tho German soldiers at the front was manufactured. This is shown by tho testimony of tho witness Dr. Kogon, page 1192 of the German transcript.
Only the performance of tho typhus experiments in Block 46, However, can be considered a criminal activity in accordance with Law No. 10. The manufacture of typhus vaccine in Block 50 is beyond any doubt neither a war crime nor a crime against humanity.
Only in Block 50, the section where the vaccine was manufactured, was the defendant Hoven Dr. Ding's permanent deputy. This is shown indubitably by the above mentioned Document NO-265, Document Book 12, pages 38 to 53 of the English and pages 36 to 56 of the German text, particularly by page 41 of the English and the same page of the German text. There is the following entry on 9 January 1943:
"By order of the surgeon general of the Waffen SS, SS Gruppenfuehrer and major General of the Waffen SS, Dr. Genzken, the hitherto existing typhus research station at the concentration camp Buchenwald becomes the "Department for typhus and Virus Research." The head of the department will be SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding.
During his absence the station medical officer of the Waffen SS Weimer, SS Huptsturmfuehrer Hoven, will supervise the production of vaccines."
I draw the attention of the Tribunal especially to the expression "production of vaccines."
The defendant Hoven was Dr. Ding's deputy in tho experimental station only temporarily, during an illness of Dr. Ding's. This is to be seen from the entries on p. 37 and 38 of the German Document Book 12, and p. 38 and 39 of the English Document Book 12.
According to these entries, Dr. Ding vaccinated 135 prisoners in the period from 6 January to 1 February 1942, and afterwards on 3 March 1942, infected these vaccinated prisoners and 10 control persons with culture virus. On 17 March 1942 Dr. Ding, who had infected himself, fell ill with typhus. During this illness the defendant Hoven acted as his deputy, according to the entry in the diary on 17 March 1942. The next infection took place on 15 October 1942 and was made by Dr. Ding. From the entries in the diary one can see without doubt that in the period from March to October 1942, especially during the time when the defendant Hoven acted as deputy for Dr. Ding, no infection were made.
These entries are corraborated by the testimony of the witnesses examined by the prosecution, who stated that the defendant Hoven did not perform any experiments. Witness Dr. Kogon declared that the defendant Hoven could not begin any experimental series on his own initiative, but that only Dr. Ding, as head of the experimental station, could make decisions in this matter (page 1210 of the German transcript). The witness Kirchheimer stated, corroborating the testimony of the witness Dr. Kogon, that all the typhus experiments were begun by Dr. Ding, (page 1360 of the German transcript). Only Dr. Ding infected the experimental subjects. The defendant Hoven, as the witness Kirchheimer explicitly stated, was not in a position to prevent the experiments after the experimental persons had been infected by Dr. Ding. According to Kirchheimer's statements, the defendant Hoven never had a vaccination needle in his hands, and never made any injections on the experimental persons (page 1355 of the German transcript).
Of decisive importance in this regard should be the further testimony of the witness Kirchheimer that during a period of 1¼ years, namely from the end of 1941 until the beginning of 1943, the defendant Hoven entered the ward of Block 46 only twice. The witness hereby left room for the possibility that the defendant Hoven was only visiting the Jewish prisoner Cohn, who was employee in the ward as chief male nurse and whose life the defendant Hoven had saved (page 1355/6 of the German transcript).
If the defendant Hoven had been active in Block 46 as Dr. Ding's deputy, then he would have had to enter the ward more than twice during 1 ¼ years.
So far as the infection through typhus-bearing lice in November 1942 is concerned, the following facts are clear from Dr. Ding's diary - Document NO265, page 36 of the German and page 38 of the English Document Book 12.
1. Through the infection by lice no persons died. The test persons did not even fall sick, for according to diary entry of 4 January 1943 five persons showed only atypical illnesses of short duration, i.e. illnesses which had no causal relation to the infection through lice (Document Book 12, page 40 of the German and page 41 of the English.)
2) Lice were sent to Buchenwald only twice. Both shipments were destroyed (page 39 of the German, page 40 of the English Document Book 12).
Regarding this the witness Dr. Kogon testified that it was the defendant Hoven who ordered the destruction of the lice (page 1203 of the German transcript). The witness Kirchheimer has confirmed these statements by Dr. Kogon (page 1351, 1353 of the German transcript).
It will be proved that the defendant Hoven: a) did not order or carry out any typhus experiments in Block 46 whatsoever;
b) that he consented to Dr. Ding's appointment of him as deputy for Block 50, and for a short time also for Block 46, only upon request of the underground camp government. This was done in order to enable him to accommodate political prisoners who were endangered, especially non-German subjects, in the wares 46 and 50, and it will be proved that his activities as deputy consisted only in this assistance to the political prisoners.
As far as the selection of the persons for typhus experiments is concerned the testimony of the witness Dr. Kogon proved that the defendant Hoven did not select all the test persons for the typhus experiments, (in this connection I refer to page 1197 of the German transcript). According to the transcript, the method of selecting the test persons differed at different times. Volunteers were used in the first two experiments. Later on the test persons were picked by the a) camp physician or SS camp commandant, b) National Criminal Police Bureau (Kripo). Towards the end transports arrived from other camps for these typhus experiments.
Accordingly, the defendant Hoven picked only a small number of the test persons.
I shall now prove:
a) that the defendant Hoven chose only German habitual criminals for the experiments; and furthermore, b) that the defendant Hoven took over the selection of prisoners on the express request of the underground camp government in order to prevent others than German habitual criminals from being used in these experiments.
As to the further charge against the defendant Hoven that he took part in the execution of the euthanasia program, it has already been proven by the testimony of the witness Dr. Mennecke that the defendant Hoven had no part in it whatsoever. Neither did the defendant Hoven select prisoners for euthanasia, nor did he give other orders for the carrying out of the euthanasia program.
According to the testimony of the witness Dr. Mennecke, prisoners of the concentration camp Buchenwald were selected for the execution of the euthanasia program in the years 1940 and 1941 by a medical commission which came from Berlin and of which Dr. Mennecke was a member.
This commission filled out its own reports for every prisoner who was to be killed. Those reports were sent to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, where they were examined by three experts independently of one another (page 1880 of the German transcript of 17 January 1947). After the experts had given their decisions on the basis of the reports, another commission passed final judgment. On the basis of this final judgment the transfer of the persons intended for the euthanasia program to the euthanasia institutions was ordered by Berlin (page 1881 of the German transcript). The Bernburg asylum was decided upon as the one to be used as the euthanasia institution for the prisoners from Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
It is therefore incorrect when the prosecution asserts:
The defendant Hoven as chief physician of Buchenwald Concentration Camp took part in the euthanasia program and personally ordered the transfer of at least 300 to 400 Jewish prisoners of various nationalities to the Bernburg euthanasia station where they were killed (page 107 of the German and page 59 of the English transcript of 9 December 1946). The high Tribunal will remember the chart which was explained in this court by the prosecution. This chart showed the offices that took part in the euthanasia program. The defendant Hoven did not even appear on that chart. These explanations, in connection with the testimony of the witness Dr. Mennecke, show without a doubt that the defendant Hoven could not have given the orders as asserted by the prosecution. The transfer was ordered by Berlin offices after the expert and the final commission had given their decision. The witness Dr. Mennecke testified in addition that the defendant Hoven did not take part in selecting the prisoners for the euthanasia program. I refer in this matter to page 1930 of the German transcript. Dr. Mennecke also testified that the defendant Hoven did not bring the prisoners intended for the euthanasia program before the commission (page 1938 of the German transcript).
According to the testimony of the witness Dr. Mennecke, the entire activity of the defendant Hoven in the program being carried out by Dr. Mennecke consisted in greeting the witness Mennecke in 1941.
He did not even see the defendant Hoven during the previous visit of the witness Dr. Mennecke at Buchenwald in 1940. This is understandable since, according to Document NO-591, submitted by the prosecution, defendant Hoven was not yet working in the concentration camp at Buchenwald in 1940.
Thus it may be accepted as proved by evidence submitted by the prosecution that the defendant Hoven did not participate in the euthanasia program.
Beyond that, on the basis of testimony given by the witnesses Dr. Kogon and Kirchheimer it is to be accepted as proven that the defendant Hoven, in collaboration with the underground camp government at Buchenwald, prevented the execution of euthanasia'program 14 f 13 by substituting counter-action 13 f 14. That persons, designated for euthanasia by Dr. Mennecke, especially the 1200 Jewish prisoners, were not transported to Bernburg is especially due to the intervention of the defendant Hoven (pages 1238, 1292, and 1295 of the German transcript).
I therefore request that the defendant Hoven be acquitted of the charge that he participated in the execution of the euthanasia program.
In the event that this application be rejected, I shall submit further proof that the defendant Hoven did not participate in the execution of the euthanasia, program, and that, moreover, he took counter-measures to keep this program from being into effect.
On the basis of the evidence submitted by the prosecution thus far only the following facts stand:
The defendant Hoven participated in the killing of prisoners. The killing of those prisoners, however, was in no wise connected with the euthanasia program.
With regard to this I shall prove that:
1) the number of these killings was considerably lower then the witness Roemhild, for example, stated;
2) that these persons with out exception, were not political prisoners and especially not foreigners, and, above all not subject to the United Nations, but exclusively German habitual criminals who acted as informers for the SS camp management and the Secret Police;
3) that all these killings were carried out at the instigation of the underground camp government;
4) that by each killing the lives of a great number of persons were saved, i.e. of political prisoners and Jews, and particularly of subjects of the United Nations.
5) that there was no other way to save these endangered persons than to kill these SS and Secret Police informers.
In order to prove this I do not have to refute the evidence submitted by the prosecution; and I do not need to present anything that has not been discussed already in this room. The witnesses whom I shall call and the documents I shall submit will supplement the testimony already given by the witnesses far the prosecution. I shall prove that all the killings in which the defendant Hoven took part were exactly analogous to the case Kushnir Kushnarew described by the witness Dr. Kogon. Dr. Kogon, a person with high C Christion ethical and moral concepts, a witness far superior to the average prosecution witnesses, a witness whose truthfulness cannot be doubted in the slightest, expressed the following opinion about the killing of Kushnir Kushnarew: "I personally as a convinced Christion do not deny these people the right to have killed indisputably dangerous persons in this emergency who in collaboration with the SS endanger the lives of individuals or a large number of persons in the camp." (Page 1298 of the German transcript.)
The Tribunal, however, would have no true picture of the defendant Hoven if I should fail to prove that the defendant Hoven had saved numerous political prisoners from certain death and helped many of them to find freedom, particularly non-Germans, Jews, and subjects of the United Nations, inder peril of his own life. This concerns among others numerous non-German persons endangered by the Night and Fog (Nacht und Nebel) Decree.
Regarding Point 4 of the Indictment (membership in organizations declared criminal by the IMT.
According to the decision of the IMT persons are not to he charged with membership in SS organizations designated as criminal, if a) they withdrew before 1 September 1939; b) the state had placed them in the ranks of the SS in such a way as to leave them no choice whatever in the matter (page 16527 of tho German transcript of 30 September 1946.)
On the basis of this decision of the IMT I shall prove that the defendant Hoven received an order on 26 August 1939 to report for active duty with the Waffen SS and thus: a) left the Allgemeine SS to which he had belonged since 1934; b) was prossed into the ranks of the Waffen SS, compulsorily and against his will.
I shall prove in particular that the order to report for active duty with the Waffen SS had the same legal force as the order to report for active duty with the armed forces, and that it was just as impossible for a member of the Waffen SS to resign during the war as it was for a member of the armed forces.
DR. STEINBAUER (For the Defendant Beiglboeck):
Members of the Court:
In modest and simple language, but I hope none the less effectively, I am going to explain to you in a characteristic outline the principles in accordance with which I am intending to put forward the arguments in favor of my follow countryman, the defendant, Dr. Wilhelm Beiglboeck, university professor in Vienna.
In the big trial against Goering and others, I have had already an opportunity of reliving the growth and the disappearance of Adolf Hitler's Reich which was finally marked by tyranny, enslavement, war and junger, terror and mass murder. In this trial we again had to hear about bloodshed, cruelties, sadism, assassination and mass murder. Both trials have one thing in common, namely, that the victims were chiefly non "behind barbed wire" whose normal fate already was to be deprived of their freedom, to have, to serve as slaves, to suffer hunger, long, drawn-out sickness and early death. Public opinion, being almost crushed by the worries for their daily broad, follows the War Crime Trials which continue one after another with an ever-decreasing interest and views in particular the so-called doctors' trials, as the empty galleries show, with reluctance and inner reserve.
This is due to the fact that the men who are here indicted should not open wounds but heal them, and that they should not kill but prevent death. But this circumstance does not only involve the danger of biased publicity but also that we, the guardians and servants of justice, unconsciously become hard, thus unjust, in view of the strongly optical effects of the facts with which we are here concerned unless we pay the greatest attention also to the so-called inner facts. For this reason I am going to begin by replying in my defense to the question: who is this Dr. Beiglboeck?
1. Personality:
As the son of a country doctor, he had personal experience from the days of his early childhood of the joys and sufferings of the medical profession and chose out of idealism the occupation of a doctor as his life's work. I am going to prove to you by questioning tho defendant himself, by submitting documents, in particular certificates from his teachers, by presenting to you the long list of his works, that the Prosecutor was not wrong when he said of Beiglboeck:
"that he, although still young in years, is, nevertheless, known for possessing remarkable scientific aptitudes." Beiglboeck had the good fortune of meeting among his teachers two people whose names are immortal in the history of medicine. They are the two internists, Franz Chvostek, head of the Third Medical Clinic at Vienna, and Hans Eppinger, head of the First Medical Clinic at Vienna. Chvostek emphasizes at the conclusion of his certificate not only the scientific abilities, the industry of hie student, but, above all, his humane attitude towards the patients entrusted to his care. Eppinger, the famous internist who counted the most prominent statesman like Marshal Stalin among his patients, calls Beiglboeck in his certificate his most capable student. Chvostek and Eppinger are already dead, and the two certificates originate from a period before the experiments which are here under review, therefore, must be considered as correct and unobjectionable documents.
I can, therefore, sum up my remarks about the personality of the defendant by saying that the words apply which Euripides, the great Greek poet of tragedies says about Anaxagoras, the philosopher:
"Happy is the man who achieved knowledge For the benefit of research:
Never he feels the urge to make his neighbor suffer, Nor is he driven to do wrong for such motives!"II.
Order from Above:
My second line of argument is going to be the reply to the question as to how it is possible that a man of such high qualities finds himself in the defendants' dock as an alleged criminal. The same question was asked by the Heidelberg psychiatrist, Dr. Mittscherlich, the head of the German Doctors' Delegation, when he wrote: "In the defendants' dock there are side by side with scientifically meaningless doctors experts of great reputation. From the prison witnesses with prominent names are brought in. Two famous scientists have committed suicide in connection with this trial. These events prove that in passing judgment on the events, considerations of a purely legal and criminalistic nature will not suffice;
that, on the contrary, the question must be asked how it could happen that such men found themselves in the defendants' dock."
I am not going to reply to the question of the ethical motives as a defense counsel until I deliver my final plea, and I am going to limit myself at this stage to the purely legal aspect of the subject. The reply is: Beiglboeck was forced to undertake the sea-water experiments for which he is indicted and has carried them out against his will, acting upon "an order from above" as a soldier. I am, of course, well aware of the fact that the Charter of August, 1945 and Control Council Law 10, which is the more direct basis of this trial, provides in Article 4, Paragraph 2, that the fact that a man acted under the order of his superior does not relieve him of his responsibility, but that this fact may be considered as an attenuating circumstance. This, however, merely means that reference to "an order from above" alone is not sufficient to exonerate a defendant but that this provision is by no means intended to render it impossible to invoke generally valid principles of law such as the exclusion of guilt on the groundsof fear and coercion. Now we, fortunately, have a very remarkable precedent in this question, namely, the verdict of the International Military Tribunal of Nurnberg which declares in respect of Article 8 of the Charter: "that a soldier was ordered to kill or torture in violation of the International Law of War has never been recognized as a defense to such acts of brutality, though the order may be urged in mitigation of the punishment. The true test which is found in varying degrees in the Criminal Law of most nations is not the existence of the order but whether a morale choice was in fact possible."
I shall prove to you beyond doubt by questioning the defendant himself, by producing evidence from superiors and colleagues, by submitting letters written by the defendant during the critical period that the defendant did everything in his power to disassociate himself from the experiments which were contrary to his high conception of the profession of a doctor.
III. The Indictment:
A.) THE CONSPIRACY:
Although it is contrary to the natural sense of justice to render an one responsible under criminal law for offenses committed by other persons, the indictment has, nevertheless, attempted to render the defendant, Beiglboeck, responsible together with the other defendants on all counts. In my final plea 2275 I shall not only Coal from the legal point of view with the question of the "order from above," but I shall also express an opinion on the problem of the legal character of the so-called conspiracy.
At this stage of the proceedings I shall deal only very briefly with the legal aspects saying that the Prosecutor had no justification at all in this trial to use the argument of conspiracy since the most important element, namely, the legal foun dation is lacking: if we turn to 'Control Council Law 10 for a moment, we find that only participation in a common design or a conspiracy in connection with a crime against peace is punishable (Article 2,1a). For this reason I am not going to say one word about the other experiments, although it would certainly be tempting to express an opinion as a jurist on tho question of Euthanasia. At any rate, one this clearly results from the documents, Exhibits No. 129 to 137 submitted by the Prosecution: that the defendant, Beiglboeck, has had nothing to do with the planning of the allowed crimes. I am going to prove by questioning him and his co-defendants that he knew only two of the so-called conspirators. Those were Handloser, who once gave a military medical lecture in Vienna a long time before the war, and Schraoder whom he knew as his supreme superior just as any soldier knows the names of his generals without ever having had any closer associations with them. Beigleboeck subsequently met Becker-Freyseng and Schaefer. All he can be indicted for from the point of view of criminal law, therefore, is his cooperation in the execution of these experiments and this loads me to the next point of the proceedings:
B.) The Criminal Character of the Experiments in General:
1.) The Prosecution considers experiments as
1.) War crimes.
A more prima facie consideration of the Prosecution documents reveals that there can never be any question of war crimes for the simple reason that such war crimes according to Article 11b.
of Control Council Law 10 can only be committed in respect of nationals of allied countries, and the Prosecution have utterly failed to present any proof of this to the Tribunal. I may, perhaps, remind you in this connection of the SOS call addressed by the assistant Prosecutor to the witness, Vieweg: "Of what nationality were the inmates which were used as subjects for sea-water experiments?" and he replied, "I am unable to answer this!"
(Page 473 of the German record). The witness, Vieweg, also testified that the subjects of the experiments were without exception German-speaking gypsies. I shall, therefore, not utter a single word about war crimes at this stage and I am now turning to the question as to whether the sea-water experiments represent so-called crimes against humanity. Control Council Law 10 gives no definition but contents itself with citing examples like murder, rape, and other cases of inhuman treatment of the civilian population.
It is an old experience of law that the prosecutor speaks louder and more emphatically whenever the facts as such furnish only little proof. Therefore, the chief prosecutor said comparatively little about the mass murders which have shocked the civilized world because they snake for themselves, but he has said relatively much about sea-water experiments. I shall, therefore, deal in my arguments of proof in the first place with
a) the character of the experiments
b) the manner of their execution.
As I am going to prove to you by questioning the defendant himself, by producing witnesses and experts, the sea-water experiments which had been prescribed to my client from the outset up to the smallest details and placed under a subsequent check were experiments which could be stopped at any moment. In the same way I am going to prove to you that Beiglboeck, at any rate, actually always did interrupt these experiments early enough to render a damage to the subjects' health quite impossible. A glass of water or a completely harmless injection was sufficient to restore to the subject his full efficiency.
In his opening speech General Taylor said, "The experiments have produced nothing that could be utilized for civilized medicine" (page 119 of the German record). I must very definitely contradict this conception. So long as there are seafaring nations, there exists also the wish, and it has always been an aim, which it was worthwhile to pursue, to render sea water, which is an element available in such large quantities, serviceable to humanity, in other words, to render it drinkable to save men in distress at sea, in particular in times of war, sailors and airmen, is truly serving humanity.
I shall, therefore, prove to you that other scientists of the Allies before Schaefer and Berka have attempted to solve the problem of rendering sea water drinkable. I shall submit to you research work on this point made by the Englishman, A. Parker and W.S.S. Ladell, and of the Ameri can, Elkinton, from which you may see that prominent scientists of the Allies have been engaged in studying in the service of humanity the same problem which is now being used to accuse Beiglboeck of a crime. May I also in this connection point out that it will always be one of the achieve ments of American science that an American professor, Andruss Ivy, was able to bring the same problem in a more perfect way near to its final solution a long time before the German Schaefer tackled it.
One may will turn with horror from the experiments which are the subject of this indictment, such as those performed by the sadist, Dr. Rascher; but one thing will clearly result from the submission of evidence, namely, that the chief prosecutor is wrong when he raises the collective suspicion in front of world public opinion by declaring that none of the experiments with which the indicted physicians are charged has furnished a contribution to civilization and humanity.
I now propose to turn to the last point of my statement considering the criminal character, namely, the manner in which these experiments were carried out. The chief prosecutor has also dealt with this aspect in his opening speech. He mentioned in particular the sea water experiments as a particularly striking example when he said, "Nothing more terrible than a piece of gelatin, a somewhat previous filter, and some salt water would have given the German Wehrmacht within a few hours the reply to the question and a review. If they had had to pay the small price of two dollars for each subject, the same price which American scientists must cry for a cat, they might have considered the matter more carefully and might not have created a big organization and performed experiments on forty-two men who were tortured." Now, I have the greatest respect for the chief prosecutor who proved himself to be an eminent lawyer, an expert on military matters in his great speech against the General Staff, but even he should submit to the principle that it should be left to the competent experts to give replies on special questions of detail.
Document Exhibit Number 132, report of the technical office of the Air Force to the Reichsfuehrer SS, now shows that two methods for rendering sea water drinkable were under discussion. The method invented by Schaefer, which for the mere setting up of the manufacturing plant required two hundred tons of iron and caused an expense of two hundred fifty thousand Reichsmarks, requiring up to three tons of pure silver monthly for the production process, made this method practically impossible in view of the raw material shortage in the German war machine. On the other hand the Berka method required no special manufacturing Plant and no bottle-neck raw materials and thus offered the possibility of speedy introduction by the Luftwaffe and the navy.
As is shown by the Vienna police record (Exhibits Lumber 137, 138, and 139) the Berka method was based on the not unfavorable preliminary experiments carried out by Colonel Sirany. Although this method opened up only negligible prospects of effectiveness, in smite of all the doubts expressed by the medical profession, even such small profit could not be- turned down with sufficient certainty in war at the time when a great nation was fighting for its existence. This also led an internationally recognized scientist like the clinical physician Eppinger to favor the re-examination of the two methods. I shall prove this by the hearing of the defendant and by evidence which the famous pharmacologist of Berlin University, Dr. Huebner, will give. As has already been mentioned, the experimental procedure had been prescribed to my client up to the smallest details. It will further be shown by the above evidence that the performance of these experiments on human subjects, which are in themselves quite harmless, is absolutely justified. The penal lawyer, however, is also interested in the even more important question as to who the subjects were on whom these experiments were carried out. I shall prove by the hearing of the defendant and by witnesses that in the first place, according to Eppinger's proposal, these ex periments were to be performed, in his own clinic or in military hospitals and that this proposal was rejected because of the military emergency and further that my client -- and this I shall also prove -- was explicitly assured that the subjects on which these experiments were performed were volunteers.
In forming an opinion on this question, it will be impossible to neglect the fact that Beiglboeck, as will be proved by his defense, was personally and subjectively convinced that he was dealing with voluntary subjects for his experiments. Beiglboeck had been assigned to combat units in the operation zone while the other experiments were carried on.
The concentration camp and its methods were absolutely unknown to him, and they have come to his horrified knowledge only in the course of this trial. At Dachau they had deliberately kept him apart from everything. And, finally, I am also happy to show with the help of original notes made by the medical assistants in these concentration camp experiments which have been found and by affidavits made by these same persons that Beiglbeock carried out these experiments which he had been ordered against his will as a soldier to perform after experimenting on himself and in accordance with the rules and precautions of medical science.
These documents when examined by experts will show beyond doubt that the experiments had no lasting damaging effects and caused no death among the subjects. They will objectively refute the contradictory evidence of the prosecution witnesses who gathered their knowledge from hearsay.
From this it must be concluded, however, that there can be no question of crimes against humanity either. In conclusion I can therefore say that if the evidence which I shall produce only yield half of what can be expected, the whole structure of charges erected by the prosecution on the subject of sea-water experiments will collapse like a house of cards and give effect to my submission to acquit my client, Prof. Dr. Bieglbeock. I should be happy about this because I would thereby have contributed for my part to preserving an eminent physician and man for my country which needs every man for its reconstruction; and I would furthermore have proved that scientific research and the physician in the more direct sense are not exclusive of each other but that they can well be a synthesis in the service of humanity and for the benefit of suffering mankind.
DR. KARL HOFFMAN: Mr. President, and Your Honors:
The Prosecution has submitted only a single document against Dr. Adolf POKORNY, written by himself. This is his letter to HIM LED. dated October 1941 - Document NO-35, Exhibit No. 142. The other documents which the Prosecution has submitted in this case are outwardly in no connection with the defendant Dr. POKORNY. They even, as Document NO-39, Exhibit No. 153 and the following shows, start a whole new causal series, in which the suggestion of the defendant Dr. POKORNY is overshadowed by the suggestion made by such a powerful agency as the deputy Gauleiter in Niederdonau.
The defendant will now take the witness stand and give the reasons which led to his letter - Exhibit No. 1942. He will point out that as a physician and a person interested in Botany he was convinced, after studying the publications of Dr. MADAUS and Dr. KOCH, that the plant caladium, from the medical point of view, does not have a specifically sterilizing effect, and that, from the botanical point of view, a plant indigenous to North America cannot be grown in Germany on such a large scale that it would be available in large enou -h quantities for sterilization. He will explain why in his letter he said exactly the opposite of what in his opinion was the truth. He will refer to a report which he received, that sterilization by operation was to be carried out on a large scale, but that it might be postponed if there should be any possibility of carrying out such sterilization by means of a drug. The defendant Dr. POKORNY will state that it was his intention to deceive by praising such a drug and thus to postpone the sterilization by operation as long as possible.
The Prosecution has already indicated that it does not propose to acknowledge such an argument. (P. 557 of the German transcript). The defendant Dr. POKORNY, however, will call witnesses to prove that he mentioned these considerations when he wrote his letter, and that he has not just invented them now. The defendant Dr. POKORNY will, in addition, reveal what the Prosecution could not present, the fact that he received an answer to his letter and that he in turn answered once more, so that in all the crimes with which he is charged his active participation involved only letters.
The defense will show that HIMMLER's efforts to produce a sterilization drug from caladium were unsuccessful. The Witnesses to be examined on this point are the responsible men of the MADAUS Firm in Dresden. The chemist of the firm will discuss the analysis and synthesis of a caladium juice. The botanist will testify to the question of growing the caladium plant in the hothouse. Finally, Dr. KOCH, who has already been mentioned several times in the course of this trial, the medical director of the MADAUS Firm, will appear as a witness.