A Yes, I turned to the head of the special field branch and asked him for some research assignments.
Q These were the research assignments that were in connection with some study of tissue that you mentioned this morning?
A Yes, these were tissue cultures.
Q Well then, there was an additional contact. You will recall that you asked the Reich Research Council to advise you in your capacity as chief the office for science and research about the special research assignments they had made?
A No, I don't think I have expressed myself clearly. At that time we also had discussions with the men from the Reich Research Council what larger fields we describe as requiring further research, also in view of conditions which had become increasingly difficult through the war, and the members of the, Reich Research Council also participated, in those discussions.
Q Well, when were these meetings held and who participated in them?
A That may have been around the middle of 1944. Schreiber was there. I do not know exactly anymore if Dr. Blome was there, but I assume that he was and i know that Dr. Sauerbruch was not there. He was unable to come, but Dr. Breuer came as his deputy, and I believe that this name has already been mentioned here.
Q All right. You had a conference then with Schreiber and Breuer of the Reich Research Council. When did this conference take place?
A In this summer of 1944. I would say in the summer of 1944.
Q How many such conferences took place?
A There were one or two such discussions, but there were not only the members of the Reich Research Council there. A man attended from the Krauch Agency. That was the Reich office for the extension of the economy.
Q What was the purpose of this meeting?
A I have already stated that. We wanted to find out what larger field we should continue to describe as requiring research urgently during times of war.
Q Well, I take it then that you had some influence over what research assignment was to be considered urgent and what was not; is that right?
A I had the sane influence as all the other men there. We just consulted each other there. There were views for and against voiced.
Q Did just one such meeting take place?
A I believe I can remember that two such meetings took place.
Q Where were these meetings hold?
A These meetings took place at Bielitz.
Q That is in your office in Bielitz; is that right?
A Yes.
Q Couldn't you decide in agreement with these other gentlemen that the research work of August Hirt was urgent and should be supported?
A I stated already yesterday or today that it was not a question of saying that any specific research assignment was important or not important, but it was only a question of determining these things within the large framework.
Q. Did you ask the Reich Research Council to tell you who they had working on special assignments in these urgent fields?
A. No, I stated that the card index filed with respect to research was just being started. The Reich Research Council had answered my question and had sent me some lists.
Q. Well, what was decided at these two conferences?
A. I have already stated yesterday or today that we agreed on what field should be given the most priority. There may have been a dozen or three or four more.
Q. Well, let's mention a few of them. I am interested in what fields you regard as being urgent.
A. It's too difficult to express or give an opinion about that under oath and it is especially difficult for me because I do not have a single piece of paper to support myself on. I have not had the possibility to confront myself or to discuss this question with one of my collaborators and I understand my oath in such a way that I can only testify about something which I know with the utmost certainty and in this way I have answered the question yesterday, that I consider that it is probably that the Chemical Warfare Agencies were contained in the list. I also say that today and under the same prerequisite I can name the penicillin, the combatting of epidemics and similar matters. All of these things, I believe were included in the list but if you ask me today under oath that I am to name these twelve fields to you, then I must say under this condition I am unable to do that. If I could consult with my collaborators I certainly would be able to give you these things in detail.
Q. Well, you have mentioned Chemical Warfare and combatting of epidemics a which, I assume, includes research on typhus vaccine?
A. I do not believe that it was late in the war especially but we said typhus, typhoid and diptheria, etc., so it isn't expecially probable and just stated the question of epidemics.
Q. All right; you decided in this conference that this or that field required urgent research and priorities to a certain field. What did you do then? Did you take any further action?
A. May I ask you -- did I hear clearly that I decided it?
Q. Well, doctor, you decided it along with others; Schreiber and Breuer I think you mentioned, and some other gentlemen. I suppose you reached an agreement but a decision was made and you participated in the decision. Now, I am asking you if it was decided what fields were important and urgent. What did you do then?
A. After this list had been compiled I wrote to the Ministry for Armament that under special consideration of the war conditions we would also consider research in these fields as important for the continuation of the war and that is the technical term of that kind. We considered it as being of decisive influence in this respect. I must say that this was decided for the war. It is also an administrative term. I do not believe that any such research in any field would have had any decisive influence on the way any other way but it was only a term which was used in administrative work.
Q. I am curious to know, professor, how you can decide whether this or that field or research is urgent without being advised as to what man you are working with in that field and what they are doing with respect to it.
A. That wasn't the important factor. The important factor was to maintain the possibility that work could be continued in any field.
Q. Didn't you make any inquiry at all as to who was working in these fields and whether or not what they were doing was apt to produce anything worthwhile?
A. The decision about it, if something was valuable or not, this was afterwards decided with the other agencies. That is to say, when we had considered these 12 units as important then it was really the branch head and the Commissioner of the Reich Research Council now to say from the list I have here I shall now cross out a certain number of research assignments but then let us consider the way this would be done in practice; the head of the branch could only cross out the financial support which was given but nobody could prevent him from further working himself in that field. That would be the same thing if I was to tell somebody who was present here, you are not allowed from now on to think about this or that subject any more. And I do not think that anybody would consider me as stupid as that to say anything of that kind.
Q. Well, professor , I think you can push the other point a little too far. Now, as a matter of fact, if Haagen down at Strassburg and Natzweiler weren't getting money from the Airforce or from the Reich Research Council to carry on his typhus research the chances are he is just going to have to quit carrying them on, isn't it, doctor?
A. No. First of all this was not in the field of my competence. I was not allowed to permit it or prohibit it. Not, let us take a concrete case; Hagen had a certain such assignment with such and such a number and it was filed about typhus research. The head of the branch could have had him sent a notification from that and that would mean you will not receive your monthly financial support any more. Then this would have had the result that Hagen would have had to dismiss an assistant or collaborator because he could not have continued to pay him any more but after all, a research assignment did not have any other consequence and continue on with this experiment. The possibility to tell Hagen, you are not allowed to do anything any more in the Concentration Camp of Natzweiler, that wasn't the authority of the branch head of the Reich Research Council and the Medical Inspector of the Luftwaffe did not have that authority either but as far as I know that the only man who had that authority and decided that a man was to enter a concentration camp or not that was, in my opinion, the responsibility of the individual agencies and I assume it was correct.
Q. Well, I don't want to pursue this too far, professor, but if the Luftwaffe sent an order down to Hagen, who was a consulting hygienist, and said you shall quit working on yellow fever vaccine because it looks like the German Wehrmacht is not going to get into best Africa but we are very much concerned about typhus problems in the East, you will devote your efforts to typhus vaccine research, I suggest to you that Hagen would start working on typhus vaccine.
A. He probably would have but that -- I do not know that.
Q. And as a matter of fact, if the Reich Research Council were subsidizing Hagen for yellow fever experiments carried out on inmates of the Natzweiler Concentration Camp and they decided that that was no longer necessary in 1943 because it didn't appear you were going to need any yellow fever vaccine and said I no further give you any money, only for working on a typhus vaccine, don't you think as a practical matter that Dr. Hagen would work on typhus?
A. Well, that may be the case but I am not of the opinion that the man in the Reich Research Council, who gave Hagen the assignment to work on typhus, that this man would have told Hagen in the very words, that you are going to work in such and such a concentration camp and I assume today that was the case. I believe that Hagen turned to the Reich Research Council and said the following; --this is, of course, a hypothetical assumption on my part. I do not know what Hagen said but I Relieve that he said the following: "I would like to work on a new typhus vaccine; please give me a research assignment and support my work", but I will never believe that Hagen told the Reich Research Council or one of the men there: "I would like to infect people with typhus in Concentration Camp Natzweiler." Of course, I have to assume that this has taken place at all. I cannot say that but my personal opinion is that such negotiations actually never took place.
Q. Well, Professor, if it is any consolation to you, I rather doubt that Dr. Hagen would be that indelicate myself. If you decided in the first meeting with Schreiber and Breuer in that twelve fields of special research were urgent, for what reason did you hold the second meeting?
A. We had not clarified this matter completely. The first session was a preliminary one, because I had heard through other ways that the Ministry for Armaments had made some plans, had intended to do something, but afterwards we received instructions, not an order, and then we had to occupy ourselves with these concrete questions once more.
Q. We will return to this point a little later, but for clarity, let's start at the beginning of your position in the Office for Science and Research. How frequent was your contact with Karl Brandt after September 1943?
A. That varied. It may have been once per week or several times per week.
Q. Where was Brandt's office located?
A. first of all, it was located in the clinic, and then the office which he has mentioned in the Reich Chancellery and then again at Bielitz.
Q. Well, he maintained throughout the period from '43 until the end of the war an office in the University Clinic, didn't he?
A. He had his office there, yes.
Q. And where was your office located with respect to his?
A. It was located in the same clinic.
Q. In the same building?
A. Yes, in the same building.
Q. How close were the offices physically within the building?
A. Between our two offices there was one waiting room and two writing rooms.
Q. But physically, very close together? Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. You spent most of your time in the office at Segelstrasse, didn't you?
That is, the office in the clinic?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, I am not quite clear on the purpose for which the Office for Science and Research was created. What was the fundamental concept which gave rise to this office?
A. I gave the exact reasons for that yesterday.
Q. Professor, as I told you before I began my questioning, there would necessarily be a bit of repetition in this, for which we are all sorry, but in order that the picture is perfectly clear to me and the Tribunal, I think it is necessary that we have a little of this repetition, so will you tell me again what was the basic purpose of this Office for Science and Research?
A. I was trying to help German science, as I stated yesterday. It was threatened in an important part, namely, in the research that was carried out by these schools of higher learning. It was endangered with regard to its possibility of carrying out research, in its literature at home and also the foreign literature. This was one complex.
The other complex was that Brandt needed somebody for the economic questions, which in reality caused quite a lot of work. If I only mention one example in that sector, then that was only one example, but there were quite a number of those examples. This was very difficult. You can imagine that if you want to cause the chemical industry to reduce the production of some item, a large number of influences make themselves felt, and Brandt was trying to handle this matter from the clinical point of view as well as possible.
Q. Was not the basic principle that of coordination, as it says in these decrees?
A. The coordination, as I have already expressed several times here -- That always was caused by the bad economic situation.
Q. Didn't it go a bit further than the economic situation? Weren't you concerned with the coordination of research itself?
A. No. I have already stated that for me the most important thing was to maintain the fundamental questions of research. Basic research will always be carried out, as a side product. It will not need any support, but the factor in which Germany had been great so far was about to be destroyed, systematic, unlimited research. I believe that it was in the interest of many men to maintain this work.
Q. But you never in the course of your activities with this office exercised control over research in the sense that duplication in special research or basic research would be eliminated, to the end of more effective use of personnel and material?
A. No, I did not do that. I failed to do so for the following reasons? First of all, I considered it as something good when several people were working on the same project. That is the basis. It was not simple and still is not simple to make this situation clear to bureaucrats in the ministries. Therefore, I have actually never intervened Therefore, if from the Ministry for Armaments -- This is again hypothetical deduction on my part -- If I had been told, "why don't you see that in this place or such a place the same thing is being done?", then I probably would have looked for reasons in order to be able to explain why it was necessary that both places engage in the same kind of work. That is the way I would have approached the problem. I would not have stated, "I have something to say here, and I am going to prohibit, and only this one place is going to do this work".
I believe that it is necessary throughout the world in order to achieve a goal that sometimes not absolutely straight ways be followed. Very frequently you con get further if you make a small deviation to the right or the left.
Q. Herr Professor, I am not inclined to disagree with what you have said. It makes considerable sense, but I also put it to you that it make equally good sense to coordinate those persons who are working in the same field, to bring them together, study the work being done by the others and to make a close-knit research group out of them. Did you never have that idea or use your influence in that direction?
A. I have carried out the idea, as I have already told you, in arranging discussions where scientists who were working in the same field of research were brought together and where they had to listen to lectures, who then had personal discussions and were able to discuss all these problems. Therefore, in order to further a problem, I would put two scientists together who were working on the same field of research, but I would consider it as an absolute mistake to tell one, "You can not work on this problem because another person is doing it," and I have never had the possibility, and I have never had myself informed at some institutions what such and such a professor is doing at that institute. First of all, that is not done with academicians. I would not consider this as honorable.
Furthermore, I would like to state, just where am I supposed to have gotten the time to do that. If I take a very small university, let us call it Abhausen, if I wanted to gain information as to what work was being done at that university, then I believe that four weeks would not have been sufficient for me to do that. How should I be able to do that, besides all my other activities? That would have been practically impossible. I believe that there is a somewhat wrong idea about the amount of work that a man can do, especially with regard to the conditions that prevailed in Germany in 1944. I do not knew how conditions are now, but then it took two days for us to go from Berlin to Munich, and perhaps it may be that things are even worse today; I don't know.
Q. That is very possible. Her Professor, did you ever undertake to coordinate with scientists working in the special research field, such as chemical warfare?
A. Yes.
Q. If you had been a member you heard of these names mention, I dare say, you know the. You heard the name of Hirt, and you heard the name Beckenbach?
A. Hirt, yes of course, he was known to me because he was consultant of the pharmacologist with the Army Medical Inspectorate.
Q. Let's take the name of Wirth?
A. Yes, Beckenbach and Wirth. Let's take Hirt who was at Strassbourg, who may have carried out the Lost experiments, that I did not even know, and I actually hesitate to say anything about a person who is dead, but I have all respects about the Generalarzt Wirth in the field of combatting chemical warfare agent. I did not think his results which he achieved was very outstanding, because what is contained in his report was generally known. He did not tell anything new to any practitioner or any surgeon. He stated in a report here of a certain protection for the liver which is appropriate in the case of injury; these are facts which even most of the laymen know in Germany today, and no new examinations are needed in order to find that out. If Beckenbak and Hirt knew each other, I don't know.
Q. In any event you never made any effort to bring them together?
A. I never tried that, no.
Q. You swear that you did not know the name of August Hirt in the period of 1943 to 1945?
A. Of course I knew the Anatomist Hirt, the name of the Hirt who was working at Strassbourg. That August was his first name, I Don't know.
Q. Did you know he was working in the field of chemical warfare?
A. No, I did not know that.
Q. You heard mentioned of Beckenback, and his experiments on monkeys, which Karl Brandt went to great trouble to fly all the way from Spain, if I recall. What do you know about Beckenback
A. Of Beckenback I know that he was not in turn a professor at Strassbourg; that he had been sent by the former chief Stein from Heidelberg to Strassbourg, and I was interested in him. That there was a cyclothrone at Strassbourg, which was under the care of Stein, and another physician, whose name I do not know, and, since in the field of isotopes i was particularly interested, that is the reason I was thing of Strassbourg. with respect that there was another one in Germany I only found out in a later period of time.
Q. There had been some mention here made by the defendant Brandt that Beckenback was working on phosgenes. Do you know about that?
A. I do not know anything at all about it.
Q. You said something about your jurisdiction over science and research being limited to Brandt's special tasks, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. I take it then that insofar as Brandt's office undertook the work, connected with science and research for September 1943, that you were inform is that right?
A. Well, for example, as to the chemical warfare matter I was not informed. If I remember correctly Brandt had testified about it.
Q. He testified to some extent about it, but he did not testify to your knowledge of it, and it seems to me strange that if Brandt were given a task in the field of science and research at the time you would know nothing about it, inasmuch as your power as derived from Dr. Brandt. You were not mentioned in the September 1943 decree. That office of science and research was set up by Brandt, and I put it to you, that you must have been informed about Brandt's work in science and research, and that by virtue of your job, is that right?
A. No, that is a mistake. I did not have to deal with everything that dealt with science and research. I had to do this as you have describe here, and Brandt has testified to quite a number of other tasks that were handled by him alone, and one of them was combatting of chemical warfare age I perhaps may point out in this connection that this order for secrecy, which my defense counsel has presented I believe as Exhibit 3, it is clearly indicated that information was only to be passed on to another person if it was necessary for him to know it, and, if a person had the assignment to work in one field here, then he was not allowed to pass on the information which he had to the other person, even if that person was located in the next room.
Q. It is quite true Herr Professor that secrecy decree is a much used document by the defense. Suppose you were to receive a report on a scientific research, would it be passed on to you?
A. Not necessarily. May I point out a report of Hirt which had been mentioned, it was given to Brandt and I never received it. I have seen it here for the first time.
Q. Although you had designated chemical warfare research as being urgent, you never saw a report on chemical warfare research?
A. At the moment I can not remember exact dates, and I do not know the date of this report. I do not know when It may have been submitted. It is possible that was submitted previously, but I do not remember the date. I did not receive the report.
Q. Did you ever receive any medical report?
A. I have already stated today that every half year I received this booklet from the Reichs Research Council. Perhaps it may have contained the report of Hirt, but I do not know that any more today. I believe that it is asking too much that I should know all of that. I don't believe that one of the defense counsels could be asked to know of an article that were contained in a jurist weekly journal in 1944. I believe that this exceeds somewhat the power of cpncentration of a human being.
Q. Professor, you were laboring your own memory with that problem. I had not put the question to you. Did you ever receive any other medical reports, that is, other than these reports published every six months by the Reich Research Council?
A. It is quite possible. However, I would like you to consider that I must make my defense here without having any documents to measure it on, without having spoken one word that my collaborators for a period of two years. Therefore, it can perhaps be understood that I can not remember any details about a minor matter which occurred about three years age, that I should still remember it exactly at this time, in order to be able to testify to that fact under oath. But the fact, if I have to make my testimony in such a way that one day the same prosecutor confronts me, or some other prosecutor, to tell me I have committed perjury, then those details I can not remember.
Q. Well, Herr Professor, you can rest assured that I am not going to try to trap you or trip you up with any petty contradictions, and, if I should make an effort to do so, I am quite sure that the Tribunal will not be influenced by it. Now can you remember whether you received from any scientist working on a research problem a report?
A. That is quite possible, that may very well be the case, but if you were to ask me now, could you name any such report, I would be unable to do it, however, I received it.
Q. I thought that you might have personally be interested in a given research problem, and to have received reports on it. Did you have any such interest that you now remember?
A. My interests naturally were concentrated for the most part in surgical problems, and fields similar to it. If you need to have an example I can tell you that I had a rather lively correspondence with Mr. Kilian who occupied himself as to finding the formula in his research in order to find penicillin, because he did not have the penicillin sources of the United States in Germany, and persons who went ahead to take part in this discovery, and, since we were interested, we naturally were trying to find such a mold also. Killian at Breslau, and several men at Darmstadt, Posen and Berlin were trying much to discover that, and in order to come back to the other chapter, since sulfanilamide solutions did not seem as miraculous to us, I had the greatest interest to see that penicillin would be at hand.
Well, the fact that we were not successful was due to fate.
MR. MCHANEY: Does the Tribunal wish to recess at this time?
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess for a few minutes.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Tribunal is again in session. May it please Your Honors, defendant Oberheuser, having been excused by this Tribunal, is absent for the balance of this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the atsence of defendant Oberheuser, pursuant to excuse.
PAUL ROSTOCK - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - (Continued) BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q. Professor, you drew a distinction between basic research and special research. When was it that you started looking into special research?
A. Of course one cannot specify that to a date, namely that up to one point I had one interest in mind and from another point I started with my other interest. Essentially my interest was with basic research and in the background there were other interests.
Q. Well, when did you start compiling an index on special research assignments, do you remember?
A. You mean this research card index? I think that was summer 1944.
Q. Well, had you received any information prior to the summer of 1944 concerning special research assignments?
A. That is quite possible that somebody informed me about it but this matter was never listed systematically before summer 1944.
Q. Were basic instructions sent out to the various branches of the Wehmacht to report to you concerning their special research assignments?
A. Basic directives I could never issue. I requested to be informed.
Q. And when did you request to be informed?
A. That happened about at the same time.
Q. Well, what about Schroeder's statement in his affidavit that he sent you copies of research assignments? I understood his statement to indicate that he started doing that around the first part of 1944, when he took office as Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.
A. I said before that was an agreement between us, and oral agreement.
I might use the expression "gentlemen's agreement". Whether that was in April 1944 or May I cannot tell you, but Schroeder, as far as I am informed, became inspector on the 1st of January 1944, and I think it is highly improbable that he immediately went to me. He had a number of other things to do in addition to visiting me. During such a personal meeting we discussed this question and agreed that this matter would be handled in this fashion.
Q. Did you have such gentlemen's agreements with the Medical Inspectorate of the Army Handloser?
A. Yes, that is true.
Q. What about the SS?
A. I already said that a request went out to the SS and I think this morning I described the answer which I received.
Q. A similar request to the Reich Research Council?
A. Yes, to the Reich Research Council, too.
Q. And the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute?
A. No. I only spoke once to Professor Pockenmueller of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in view of the brain research work which was mentioned yesterday already. He was one of the leading men in Germany in this field since Berger had died.
Q. Did these requests go out to the universities?
A. No.
Q. Well, were there any other agencies to which you sent these request other than the ones we have enumerated?
A. I already mentioned the Reich Department for Economic Building. I think this was an authority of the Four Year Plan but I am not quite sure about that.
Q. Will you tell me again what the purpose of your interest in these special research assignment was?
A. I wanted to get material in order to be able to deal concretely with the Armament Ministry whenever such intervention which I disapproved of actually took place.
Q. Well, what use did you expect to make of this mere statistical information which you received with the Armament Industry? What did you exp. be able to tell them with respect to these special research assignments?
A. For instance, whenever the Armament Industry would have carried such an interference I would have had some material basis in order to be a to tell these gentlemen for what special reasons I thought it was advisable that this kind of work be continued. As I said before, these interference were only possible by circumvention; namely, the economic sphere.
That is, the material contingents which we received up to that time, iron, etc., could have been stopped or the personnel which we used could have been drafted to some other agency or compulsory service or something like that. In this connection there was, shall I say, a very unobjective opinion for what was demanded by a few agencies; namely, the saving of personnel hardly came into question. These few hundred people that they could have drafted and could have used in an unskillful manner really played no part at all. Seen on the whole, we Germans, compared to the Englishment, and I think the same applied to the United States, did this matter in a basically wrong manner. The Englishman at the beginning of the war furthered and assisted his scientific institutions and built up a very strict organization concerning England, as it was once published in an article in an English newspaper. We, or a few leading Germans, were of the opinion that the scientist would have to carry a rifle, and they did not realize that this man could do much more in his institution than as an infantryman or a clerk or some other duty at the front. This wrong conception which we had throughout the entire war I tried to correct. That, of course, could not be demonstrated publicly in any way but through little efforts this man and this man would have to be taken out from whatever he was doing. And may I perhaps relate an example to you how this was handled. In Germany some protese for seeing was introduced. That is, in order to enable a blind man to get some view of space. It can be compared to another apparatus which gives a flier some picture of the air through clouds. We tried to get that but we didn't quite make it. One man who was working on it, a physician, was drafted. When we tried to find out what he was doing, we saw that he belonged to some kind of a front formation who were digging ditches or something like that. And we had great efforts to get this qualified technician who could pursue this work, to get him on of what he was doing and place him back into his laboratory. That could be done by the general orders but we just had to get them out singly, one after the other. And what I am describing here now within a half minute the work of months and months. And this was a further part of the work.
Q. Professor, I can understand that, but in the example you gave us, I submit that it took a knowledge on your part as to what this technician had been doing which was so important, an appreciation of his real value in a scientific work, and with that information you can then try to prevent his being drafted. You can try to make an effort to get him back into his research work, but that kind of effort requires some knowledge of what he was doing and how he was doing it. If I have understood you correctly, you have protested at great length that you had no such information with respect to the scientists working on the special assignments, so I am at a loss to understand how you expected to use this mere statistical information that August Hirth was working on chemical warfare at Strassbourg, that he had a special assignment from the Reich Research Council, and that it had priority number 4,000. What good is such information as that to approach the Armament Ministry, or anyone else, for that matter?
A. I don't know whether Hirth had a Priority number 4,000 and I do not know what that means. That was a science in itself. I only know that the SS degree, that is something that had nothing to do with the SS formation, was subordinated to the BG degree. But within these degrees, for instance, it meant that the numbers 500 to 1000 were less urgent than the numbers 3,000 to 4,000, which perhaps were very important. But that is just an example. Whether Hirth had priority number 4000 I don't know, And if I had found it out at that time, there would have been nothing I could have imagined by it. Perhaps Mr.. Blome or Sievers could speak about this organization of priority numbers. I don't even know whether they know it. I, at any rate, do not.
Q. Herr Frofessor, let's see if we can't make this thing perfectly clear. Quite frankly, I don't understand it and I think it is to your interest to try to make us understand it. You have stated, that you feared that the Armament Ministry was going to shut down a lot of essential research work. Because of that fear you sent out requests to the various branches of the Wehrmacht exclusive of the SS - well, you included the SS - and also to the Reich Research Council. As a result of these requests you got in reports from them which stated that this or that men was working in a certain field of scientific research.