Q What about the production of the Robert Koch Institute? Did you have any control of that?
A. No, the Robert Koch Institute delivered their vaccines for the civilian sector. It may be at the beginning they sent us a few liters of vaccine but it didn't amount to anything much.
Q Well, witness, we have a letter here which I think is from Gildemeister, dated January, 1943, in reply to a letter which was sent to him by Handloser, in which he was directed not to distribute any typhus vaccine to any branch of the Wehrmacht. It all had to be sent to him or to his Medical Supply Officer, and moreover Gildemeister gave him a report on the production of the Robert Koch Institute.
A The individual Wehrmacht branches were always trying to get vaccines through deviating channels since they were not satisfied with the distribution and in this way a Wehrmacht branch may have approached the Robert Koch Institute. That is quite possible.
Q Witness, about these lice which went to Buchenwald. There were only three places where Buchenwald could have easily obtained lice. As I see it one place was Eyer's Institute in Krakow, and the other place was the OKH Institute in Lemberg and the third place was the Behring Works in Lemberg, only three concerns in all Europe, making Weigl vaccine from the intestines of lice and only three agencies with typhus infected lice readily available, now how can you swear to this Tribunal that Ding didn't get his lice from Eyer?
A I didn't quite understand you. Who is supposed to receive these lice from Eyer?
Q Dr. Ding at Buchenwald.
AAs I said before, that the camp of Buchenwald did not receive any lice from professor Eyer since otherwise I or the Medical Inspectorate would have learned about that situation or we would have been asked for permission. I explained that before, so the vaccine of the OKH cannot be included. In this case there only remains the Behring Works in Lemberg. It may be the Behring Works in Marburg for instance had some lice. I don't know about that.
Q Where did the Behring Works in Lemberg get their lice from, from Weigl when he came over from Eyer's Institute?
A I don't know that. Lice are all ever the world. One only has to have lice suck on any typhus diseased person in order to get such lice, that is all that is necessary.
Q That may be true, witness, but suppose you tell us how many places in Germany were in the business of cultivating typhus infected lice?
A Wherever typhus occurred.
Q Now, witness, you aren't suggesting to go around and look for typhus infected lice, are you, I mean that we should get lice and feed them typhus infected blood, that isn't the way to do that. In other words, how many places in Germany were actually cultivating typhus infected lice, any place besides the OKU in Krakow, the OKU in Lemberg, and the Behring Works in Lemberg. Those are the only three places, isn't that right?
A Yes, they are the only places where lice were cultivated, but you can always build up such a breeding place where you want to.
Q Now I think you told Mrugowsky's attorney that the typhus vaccine situation was so critical in the latter part of 1941, that you only had enough vaccine to innoculate doctors and nurses and other people who were in very exposed places, is that right?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q I, therefore, assume that typhus vaccine must have been allocated with considerable care, is that right?
A Yes, according to the demands of the individual Wehrmacht branches, who naturally had to take all responsibility for these demands. We didn't know anything about the situation.
Q. For instance, if the Waffen SS said then, "we need 100 litres", you just sat back in your chair and said: Okeh, give them 100 litres," and shipped it off to. "Dr. Genzken ever here and didn't pay any attention to what he did with it, is that right?
A. Whenever, the Wehrmacht branch demanded a certain amount of "X" vaccine then we tried to find out whether we had a sufficient amount of vaccine and we distributed the vaccine in accordance with what was available. We distributed it to the Medical Supply Office of that Wehrmacht Branch and that concluded our task.
Q. Witness, I am interested, in knowing how Dr. Ding on the 5th of January, 1942, six days after the meeting on the 29th of December 1941, at which your man Scholz attended, had obtained a sufficient amount of Weigl vaccine to start an experiment, during the course of which he artificially infected a substantial group of people?
A. If we were concerned with the Weigl vaccine it must have come from the main medical supply office from the Waffen SS. When this occurred we couldn't know because we didn't know when the chief medical supply office delivered these vaccines to their group of branches.
Q. Now, nobody go t any of this vaccine except front line troops, did they And you didn't have enough to innoculate the troops? You could just give it to doctors and nurses, couldn't you? Now you tell me you delivered a substantial amount of this vaccine to the SS in Berlin and then forgot about it?
A. We assumed that the SS in the very same way would use that vaccine as it was done by the other Wehrmacht branches, that is to say, give it to the physicians, to the nurses and to the medical personnel.
Q. Now , in view of the critical shortage of typhus vaccine late in 1941, what did you do about remedying the situation?
A. The army Medical Inspectorate, as I mentioned before, tried to interest industry in the production of vaccines. We mentioned that before.
Q. Didn't you fellow that situation pretty carefully. Wasn't the Army going to be a customer of the pharmaceutical industry too?
A. The industry up to that moment obviously had no great interest in the production of vaccine, and it is a matter of course that this was a question of business for industry, and the production of the typhus vaccine is very expensive, and that could have been the reason why industry was not very interested in this matter.
A. Why did you send your man Scholz to this meeting on December 29, 1941?
A. I don't know what you mean by that, Mr. Prosecutor. I didn't send him anywhere.
Q. Witness, you have been shown a document by Dr. Nelte concerning a meeting held in the Ministry of the Interior on the 29th of December 1941, at which typhus production and typhus vaccine testing was under discussion, and that the representative of the Army was there, and his name was Scholz, and you were his immediate superior. For what purpose was Scholz sent to this meeting?
A. I have already said that I didn't send this man there but that this man represented me during by vacation. Of course, I didn't send him to that meeting. I wasn't there to do that.
Q. What was the Army doing there? Why were they interested?
A. According to that invitation I think we are concerned with an invitation of the Reich Minister of the Interior, and circles interested in the production of typhus vaccines were invited, among them the Army Medical Inspectorate, whose representative Dr. Scholz was.
A. Do you remember having received any report on this meeting? What transpired there?
A. I have already said that I was informed about this meeting by Dr. Scholz but I don't remember the report itself. It is very improbable that I read it myself.
Q. Witness, paragraph B in there says something about testing these egg yolk vaccines and somebody has to see Mrugowsky about Denmitz, didn't somebody have something to say about that?
A. I cannot remember these details. I am sure he must have reported that to me. We are very concerned with a Dr. Denmitz, who was representative of the industry and who was to visit Dr. Mrugowsky, but we are not concerned with a member of the Medical Inspectorate.
Q. Witness, to get it rather narrowly now, the whole purpose of contacting Mrugowsky was to test this egg yolk vaccine, of which you were afraid, You had confidence only in the Weigl vaccine. I think the army as a whole her great interest in the egg yolk vaccines produced by the Behring Works at Marburg and by the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. Now, didn't they tell you about that?
A. They told me that the Behring works, as before, insisted that this vaccine which we refused because of its late effectiveness, had been proved successful after their investigation and from that, in my opinion, the note in this document can be explained, where it says that any other party which was not interested, like industry, would have to test this vaccine.
Q. Witness, you see it is not quite so simple because only six days later, January 6, 1942, Dr. Ding in Buchenwald started testing this egg yolk vaccine.
That was the whole purpose of starting the experiments in Buchenwald on living human beings, during the course of which several hundreds of them were killed; that was the very purpose of the Buchenwald experiments to test this egg yolk vaccine. I am suggesting to you the army was very much interested in the testing of this vaccine and that you very well knew they were going to test it at Buchenwald. Isn't that true?
A. No. I must deny that very energetically. I understand this note as I said before by knowing that this is merely an investigation of the vaccine in an animal experiment. I am not convinced at all that any such vaccination on the human being would bring about a result which was of any value, for in this case, for ope can never imitate the biological conditions which apply to the human beings so that to get a biological experiment the result, in my opinion, would be of no value at all.
Q. Do I understand you to state the typhus experiments on human beings are of no value?
A. According to my opinion they are at least of no importance. I cannot explain any importance at all. Personally, I think they are of no value.
Q. I am sure that it will be of interest to Dr. Ding. Now, let's go back to your visit to Buchenwald in February 1943. Just exactly whey, again, did you go there with Dr. Eyer?
A. Initially I said I stated that the question was to send a commission of physicians there to show them how the typhus vaccine was prepared and in order to show them how the difficulties which prevailed UP to that moment, namely to dissolve the dry vaccine, were overcome. This Commission of Physicians, as it was provided, were to vaccinate the troops right there in Africa, because the transport of the vaccine by ordinary channels, that is by medical supply office, was impossible since the vaccine is to perishable and can too easily be destroyed and it could not be preserved under freezing degrees.
Q That is yellow fever vaccine now, and not typhus?
A No, that was yellow fever.
Q And why did you go to Weimar, is that where you went to visit to Weimar?
A I was told that this was to be presented in the vicinity of Weimar, where the SS was. We were to be fetched there by the SS and then sent to the place where this presentation was to take place.
Q You were just seeing the SS doctors in Weimar, is that right?
A I don't quite get you. Would you please repeat?
Q I say, you were seeing only the SS doctors of this Commission in Weimar?
A Yes. We were to present this dissolution of the vaccine to the SS physicians at Weimar.
Q What SS doctors were on this Commission that was going to North Africa? What were their names?
A I only remember the name of Dr. Ding.
Q Witness, are you telling this Commission that Dr. Ding was on a Commission that was going to be flown to North Africa to vaccinate some troops with yellow fever vaccine?
A I do not know whether Dr. Ding was to do that, but I assume that these few physicians who saw that had to train other physicians in order for them to practice this manner of vaccination. There were only a few physicians who witnessed that. I wouldn't assume that only these few physicians were to fly to Africa. I am sure there must have been more than that.
Q What were the names of some of these other SS doctors?
A I regret I can't remember any of the other names.
Q That is unfortunate. And how many were there?
A Five to six, I think.
Q High ranking doctors?
A The gentlemen were dressed in white coats, and I couldn't tell.
Q Where was this demonstration carried out?
A I already said it was in an ante room of the barracks. The camp itself consists of a number of barracks. In one such ante room a table was erected where this presentation took place.
Q This was in the Buchenwald camp itself, it wasn't in Weimar?
A No, we were fetched on from Weimar by car, as I said before, and then driven to Buchenwald, and this presentation occurred in Buchenwald itself.
Q Where did you travel from to get to Buchenwald, did you come from Berlin or come from Cracow?
A No, I came from Berlin.
Q Where did Dr. Eyer come from?
A Dr. Eyer had also been in Berlin before.
Q. What did you do during this demonstration, I remember something about breaking a bottle and putting some water in it and shaking it; is that right?
A No, they is not quite right. I said that this bottle had to be filled, and after that the bottle had to be shaken, end because of the little pieces of glass which ere inside the vaccine is being dissolved. In the use of all vaccine bottles it occasionally happens that the glass broke, since it was too fragile -
Q You are asking this Tribunal to believe that two such distinguished gentlemen as yourself and Dr. Eyer traveled from Berlin to Buchenwald and went into the concentration camp, and demonstrated to five SS doctors, whose names you don't remember, except Dr. Ding, -- demonstrated how to break the neck of the ampule containing the vaccine and how to dissolve it; is that what you want the Tribunal to believe?
A It isn't so simply. You don't just have to break open the ampule, and then dissolve it. You have to work very carefully in a sterile manner. The matter of the dissolution of the vaccine is very important, and it is of much value in presenting this method, especially if any large amount of troops are to be vaccinated.
Q Did you refer this process to anybody else on this Commission, any Army doctors?
A No, the question was never executed, because the problem had been dropped.
Q. Well, you taught the SS men first, then the whole thing was dropped and you did not do anything more. Is that right?
A. We merely trained the SS physicians and then preserved the vaccine in order to be able to use it at a given time.
Q. Witness, did you not see the typhus experimental station when you were in Buchenwald?
A. No, I already said that I did not know that such a station was there.
Q. Dr. Ding did not tell you that he was carrying on a typhus experiment although you were in Buchenwald. Is that right?
A. He did not tell me anything about it.
Q. You know they had an experiment going on the very day you were there; they were testing Akridin and Methylene Blue in the Behring Works. You were actually familiar with these drugs, were you not?
A. No, I know nothing about that.
Q. You never heard of Akridin and Methylene Blue?
A. We were concerned with Methylene Blue, which is something which we used in medicine for many years, but I cannot know for what purpose it was used there. For decades it was used in laboratories for coloring purposes. Akridin is a yellow-colored agent and I do not know what it is used for. It absolutely did not concern my sphere of work.
Q. How long were you in the Buchenwald Camp?
A. I already said that I stayed there for about one and one-half hours.
Q. Yes, I recall you said you saw a group of happy, well-fed workers Marching back to the camp singing.
A. Yes, I saw a column, which marched past as we went out being accompanied by a harmonica or something.
Q. Did they act like happy boy scouts?
A. That I could not judge.
Q. Now, you apparently don't know anything about these yellow fever vaccine tests that Dr. Ding carried out for you in Buchenwald, do you?
A. I already said that Dr. Ding did not do any yellow fever testing for us.
Q. And you suggested the possibility that he kept four or five of these ampules of vaccine after you had been there and he might have conducted some tests of his own with those. Is that right?
A. This possibility exists.
Q. Well, I want to demonstrate it to you that there is no such possibility. Witness, you were there on February 8th, 1943. Witness, look on page nine.
A. Yes.
Q. See there where it says February 8, 1943: "Visit of Oberstabsarzt Dr. Eyer from the Institute for Spotted Fever and Virus Research of the OKH in Crakow and Oberstabsarzt Dr. Schmidt from the Army Medical Inspectorate." Do you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, will you turn back to page 7? Read the entry, 10 January, 1943, which was just about thirty days before you were in Buchenwald. I think you will see that the yellow fever tests were carried out then and that was before you even got there with your yellow fever ampules.
A. That is correct - according to this book, it is correct.
Q. So then the possibility, which you suggested, is really no possibility at all; is it?
A. I don't know what the proof of this matter is.
Q. Witness, direct your attention to this entry on page seven, will you, in the first paragraph there? It seems lice virus is being handled for safety, because for each vaccine a test is to be performed on five persons. You want to tell the Tribunal that Dr. Ding just did not know what he was talking about; there was really no point in testing this yellow fever vaccine?
A. I said that the testing of the yellow fever vaccine was considered to be superfluous by me since the vaccine was produced according to no methods and it was harmless as it was.
Q. Ding just did not know what he was doing; is that right?
A. I do not know.
Q. Let us read two paragraphs down where it says: "The results of the yellow fever vaccine tests are to be sent to Department 16 in the SS Main Headquarters in duplicate; we will forward one to the manufacturer and one to the Supreme Command of the Army, OKH. Attention Oberstabsarzt Dr. Schmidt." Did you ever get any reports on the yellow fever tests?
A. No.
Q Can you offer any explanation for this entry?
A. No, I cannot explain it.
Q. You also testified, witness, that you kept a very careful close watch on these yellow fever vaccines; this same entry under Item 5 shows that they had some yellow fever vaccines from the OKH - Kracow, under Item 5 and Item 8; do you see that?
A. I have not found it yet - page 5?
Q. Page 7.
A. Yes.
Q. Under 10 January 1983, can you see there the tested list of OP Numbers?
A. Page 8, that is right.
Q. Do you see under No. 5 and No. 8 that they had some Yellow fever vaccines from the OKH in Krakow. Do you suppose that they received that through the SS Medical Department to use like they did in the Weigl vaccines?
A. No, no, yellow fever vaccine was not furnished by us at all; I therefore cannot explain this entry at all.
Q. Now, witness, don't you think it is about time you told us the truth concerning this visit to Buchenwald. I have the work report for 1983 of Dr. Ding and he says that 8 February, 1943, you inspected the clinical station in Buchenwald and the clinical station is where they carried out these typhus experimental matters; now don't you want to tell the Tribunal you inspected that Typhus experimental block like Dr. Ding says in the report?
Would you like to see it?
A. I should like to state that I did not see any typhus experimental stations or anything like that; I merely witnessed the presentation and the dissolution of the vaccine, which I mentioned before.
Q. Witness, this form No. 571, Prosecution Exhibit 285 it says: "Visit of Major Dr. Eyer (MC) from the institute for spotted fever and virus research of the OKH in Krakow and Major Dr. Schmidt from the army medical inspectorate." If you don't have this document before you, I will pass it up to you. Right at the bottom of the page, witness.
A. Yes, I can see it.
Q. Did you or did you not inspect the clinical section with Dr. Ding?
A. I did not.
Q. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further re-cross examination of this witness by the Defense Counsel? Any re-direct examination?
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.
BY DR. NELTE: (Counsel for the Defendant Handloser.)
Q. Do you have the work report, which the Prosecutor just mentioned before, the report with the OP Numbers.
A. You mean page No. 8?
Q. Will you please look at Document No. 571?
A. Yes.
Q. On Page 5 of the Work report, under No. 111, you will find an entry of 8 February, 1943. This entry is identical and conforms with the entry in the Ding Diary, which you know. I now ask you to look at the visits listed under No. 111; there are altogether four visits. Read them again, it says on the 8th of February, 1943: "Visit of the clinical station by Oberstabsarzt Dr. Eyer and Oberstabsarzt Dr. Schmidt." and on the 24th of August and 3rd of September and the 29th of September. You always find the designation visit by these various visitors. From the use of the word usually used in military channels, can you say what the basic difference is whether you consider something as a visit or an inspection?
A. The expression "inspection" is only used when one is concerned with official relationships of subordinates and superiors. If somebody visits without any official source, that is to say there can be no official relationship between the visitor and the one that is being visited.
Q. I have no further questions.
DR. FLEMING (Counsel for the defendant Mrugowsky): Mr. President, I ask you to permit me that I could ask another few questions on the basis of the questions put by the prosecutor.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FLEMING:
Q. Witness, you have stated that the testing of typhus vaccines on human beings was of no value. Dig you ever work with typhus?
A. No.
Q. In that case your judgment about the value of the typhus experiments is not derived on the basis of your own personal experience with typhus viruses and typhus vaccines?
A. No.
Q. You said yourself that the testing methods of the typhus vaccines on the animal which were carried out by the institute at Frankfurt an Main were partly attacked by industry. Have you any reason to believe that this interference on the part of the industry was unjustified?
A. I have no reason to believe that - well, you see, this is a scientific question which has not yet been solved. That is why it says in the document that some kind of a unified testing method was to be defined. We, at any rate, kept to the state investigation because that, for us, was the proper authority.
Q. Witness, do you know whether the typhus virus in the case of the animal brings about a disease which in every way can be compared to a disease of a human being?
A. The typhus virus has no such effect.
Q. Then wouldn't one have to say that the testing of typhus vaccines on human beings was not without value and that in addition to experiments on animals, experiments on human beings had to be carried through if there was any intention to produce certain typhus vaccines in the army and in camps in the case of hundreds of thousands of people?
A. We had another safeguard, namely, every soldier who was vaccinated against typhus was registered in his pay book and it could be seen with what vaccine and what production of vaccine this man was vaccinated.
If somebody who was vaccinated contracted typhus, such an entry was taken over into his case history. On the basis of the case history one could establish which vaccine proved to be the better or the worse. I think that this is a method which we carried through and which led us, I am sure, to a good end.
Q. This method, no doubt, is a method which one would have adopted in normal times but didn't it take an extraordinarily long time until one could receive usable results?
A. That is correct.
Q. In the case of the emergency which you have mentioned wasn't it necessary to see to it that one could judge as quickly as possible what vaccines were a valid protection in order to avoid having to vaccinate hundreds and thousands of soldiers with unusable vaccines?
A. In these questions the issue at stake was to decide whether one vaccine is a little more effective than another. We, on the part of production, were only interested in producing as much of it as possible. It is not so important to know whether one vaccine is a little better than the other.
Q. When using this method of testing, wasn't there a danger not only to use vaccines which were a little less effective than others, but also to use vaccines which had no protection value whatsoever?
A. No. We tested these vaccines in animal experiments and one could never say in such a case that one would receive a vaccine which was of no value at all.
Q. Do you know the so-called Ipsen vaccine from Copenhagen?
A. No.
Q. In that case you don't know that this was very effective in the case of animals but of no value in the case of human beings?
A. No, I don't know that.
Q. You don't know it. Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other examination of this witness by defense counsel? Has the prosecution any further questions? The witness may be excused. Does counsel for defendant Handloser desire that the witness Hartleben be called?
The Marshal will summon the witness Hans Hartleben.
HANS HARTLEBEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE SIEBRING: Please hold up your right hand and be sworn, repeating after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE SIEBRING: You may be seated.
THE PRESIDENT: Before proceeding with the examination of this witness the Tribunal will be in recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session. May it please your Honors', the defendant Herta Wberhauser having been excused by the Tribunal this afternoon is absent.
THE PRESIDENT: The secretary General will note for the record that defendant Herta Oberhauser has been excused for the balance of the afternoon.
The Secretary General will file the physician's certificate.
The Counsel may proceed with the examination of the witness.
BY DR. NELTE:
Q. Witness, will you please give your name.
A. Hans Hartlenben.
Q. When and where were you born?
A. On 25 January 1896 at Halle on Salle.
Q. Will you please tell the Tribunal about your career.
A. I attended a high school gymnasium in Halle on Saale, and Studied medicine in Freiburg, Breisgau and Halle. Then, in 1923 I entered the Army of the Reich. I was at various posts as medical officer, and I was trained in internal medicine. Then, I was in charge of the internal medical section in a post hospital in Stuttgart, and on the 1st of January 1937, I was transferred to the Army Medical Inspectorate. Originally I was a consultant there, a referent. Then, I was a group leader, Gruppenleiter, and on the 1st of October 1940, I became section chief of the organizational section of the Medical Inspectorate. In May 1943, I was sent to the front as corps physician with the 38th and later of the 57th Armoured Corps. In July 1944, I became Army Physician for the Third Armoured, and I was this until I was captured.
Q. And, where are you at the moment?
A. At the moment I am on the witness stand in Nurnberg, before this Tribunal.
Q. And, when you are not here?
A. When I am not here, I am in a prison camp at Garmisch.
Q. In a Prisoner of war camp?
A. Yes, a prisoner of war camp.
Q. I am interested in your activities as chief of the Organizational Section in the Army Medical Inspectorate. You said this was from the 1st of October 1940 until May 1943. Will you please describe your work as head of this section?
A. All organizational questions in the field of the medical service were taken care of in addition to basic questions, organizational questions in the wider sense, such as training of the non-commissioned officers and the men, seeing that the personnel in the hospitals and with the units in the field, the medical units it the field, and in addition had to obtain medical equipment during the war. Another group was in charge of development of medical equipment, medical instruments, and-so-forth. A third group was in charge of medical organizational measures of care as well as hospitals and the transport of patients at home. Finally, there was another group in charge of the question of expanding the medical service.
Q. Did the organizational questions include working out regulations for the new office of the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Services?
A. Yes.
Q. We would like to hear from you, who helped in creating this decree, and the instructions in 1942. We are interested in the interpretation of the instructions of 1942. Although, this was published or it must have reached many Wehrmacht units, we have no copy of it, and the Prosecution is very unhappy about this because the powers of defendant Handloser was to have been regulated by this regulation. I do not want to interrupt you by question. Will you please tell us about the decree of 1942; the instructions, how it came about, how it was written because the interpretation is of special importance.
A. The instructions had quite a long history which developed during the war. It came about that in the nature of the thing that the developments for the creation of such an office were urgent. At the beginning of the war the medical service of the army, and no doubt also of the other branches of the Wehrmacht, did not have any superfluity of men and materials. There was a considerable lack in important fields. To give an example - at the beginning of the war to a very large extent we had a lack of trained medical personnel, but also in the field of materials and medical equipment there was a great scarcity. To give an example again - an important group of medical instruments had not been set up at the beginning of the war and in some fields did not even exist, x-ray apparatus was lacking too, and ambulances were lacking and other things. No wonder then that at the beginning of the war the need for all of these things and for trained personnel rose suddenly. In the Army, which was the largest branch of the Wehrmacht, this was most urgent, but in the other branches of the Wehrmacht it was no doubt similar. Moreover raw materials gradually became more and more scarce, and industry was not as efficient in doing away with these scarcities in a relatively short time. There was not only the need of the branches of the Wehrmacht, but also the civilian needs for hospitals and doctors, which at the beginning of the war still had supplies, but as the war went on it needed a great deal of replacement of materials, and there were also difficulties in the medical supplies for the civilian population. These things made it necessary for a certain unity to be created.
Q. Excuse me, the war began on the 1st of September, 1939, and the position of the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service was created by the decree of the 28th of July, 1942. Will you please explain why it took so long, you are speaking of the scarcity in 1939?
A. At the beginning of the war, in the first years, these difficulties could be overcome by one measure or another and improvisation, but then gradually the longer the war lasted the more urgent the need became and the more necessary a certain unification was more necessary also because the branches of the Wehrmacht did not check upon one another and did not know whether one branch of the Wehrmacht, for example, had ordered more medical equipment than another.