RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. PRIBILLA: (Counsel for the defendant, Professor Restock)
Q. Professor, today we have discussed primarily the research assignments of Bickenbach and Hirt. Yesterday, the Prosecution repeated asked that is Friday, the Prosecution repeatedly asked about similar assignment in the field of chemical warfare agents. Before that, in submitting to Karl Brardt, the prosecution said that your office was in the same builing as his. The Prosecution concluded from this fact and asked whether you did not read these reports. Therefore, I should like to ask once more quite clearly was the field of defense measures against chemical warfare agents among those fields under the office for Science and Research according to decree of the fall of 1943?
A. No, such measures against chemical warfare wore not under the sec for science and research. This field was taken care of by Mr. Brandt personally as he testified too, in connection with a number of other institute in this sector which already existed.
Q. Do you know the basic decree, on account of which Herr Brandt was in charge of chemical warfare defense?
A. The criminal decree of March, 1944, I believe I did not know that such a decree existed. That he had such an assignment I knew.
Q. Then if a report on chemical warfare questions came to Karl Brandt now was it handled in the office as far as you know?
A. Such a report did not come to me. I did not receive Karl Brandt letters. I did not open it. If we received such a report I assumed that passed it on to the persons concerned who w re consultants for this specif sphere.
Q. Then yon confirm Karl Brandt's testimony that was a specialized question which he himself worked on and did not come into your office.
A. Yes, I confirm that.
Q. How I have another question referring to the creation of the *** for science and research. The Prosecutor asked a question of you in this connection.
He asked whether at the beginning of your activities in and winter of 1943-1944, a whole field of science and research was transferred to Brandt. You did not answer this question quite accurately. You said what you did after taking over this office, what you considered your goals and your purposes. It would be interesting to clear up the condition in the office, the procedure. What office was created first, the office of economic planning or the office for economy and research?
A. First, the office of planning and economics existed. That was just as small an office as mine. There were four or five or six men, no more. This office of planning and economics needed a medical expert. There was pharmacist from a large firm and an economic jurist but no medical expert, and this lack in the office for planning and economics was the first cause of the creation of the office for science and research. First, the activity, as I have said here, was to work on the economic basis, to create the medical basis for the production of drugs and to represent the medial interest in this industrial process, and another acute problem was to prevent the closing of the universities. After that had been done, only they had the basis been created which called for another subject to be taken up gradually, as I said here on Thursday or Friday. What I have just said was a prerequisite to what I said on Thursday or Friday. It must be considered as something that happened before.
Q. Do I understand you correctly if you say that at the time of the creation of the office of the Commissioner General as a result of the war emergency economic questions wore in the foreground. The office for planning and economics worked in this field first, and when certain limitations on production were necessary in the field of medical instruments, drugs, etc. whom and only then was the office of science and research created?
A This is true in subject matter and in time.
Q And the aims and intentions of which you spoke were added in the course of time?
A Yes.
Q The Prosecutor asked you about your position as Dean. You were Dean of the medical Faculty of the university cf Berlin. The Prosecutor also asked you about Professors Mrugowsky and Rose, also on the faculty cf the University of Berlin. From the fact that these men were Professors at the University of Berlin and that you were Dean of the Medical Faculty, he concluded that you were informed about the work of these men in the field of research. Can you tell me whether the position of a Dean of a Faculty in Germany necessarily entails the Dean's being informed about the research work of the Professors and does he have any influence on it?
A The Dean cf the German medical Faculty is in no way a superior of ether members of the Faculty in a military sense. He is only primus inter pares, most important, that is the first among others. That is show by the fact that a dean is changed every year or two. One of his duties was to care for the interests of the academic instructions. He had to see to it that the lectures which were prescribed for the course of study in medicine were actually held, and he must tell an instructor to hold a certain lecture but if the man did not want to do that, the Dean had no authority to compel him to. He could report it through the Rector, to the Minis
Q May I interrupt you a moment. You say that the work of the Dean was only in connection with the instructing work, the teaching work of those Professors. Did you know that these two Professors were also in charge of research institutes? Did you as Dean have anything to do with that?
A I was just about to say that as far as the research work of the many members of the Faculty was concerned, the Dean had no influence at all and if the Dean had come to me in my clinic to check what I was doing there in a scientific sense then I would have told him bluntly but firmly 1+ would be better if we discussed something else. I am quite convinced them all ether Professors would have done the same thing, depending on their temperament, but if the Dean had come to me to talk to me as a scientist, then, of course, I would have been glad to let him see what I was doing.
Now to discuss the two examples which Mr. McHaney mentioned on Friday: Rose was a teacher of tropical hygiene. I could have talked to him about some lecture in that field, what he did as a section chief and Vice President in the Robert Koch Institute, and what he did as consulting hygienist in the Luftwaffe had nothing to do with me as Dean, and Rose would probably have refused to let mu intervene, quite rightly.
Mrugowsky was an instructor, and later extra ordinary Professor for Hygiene, and what he did as a member of the SS and as head of the Hygiene Institute of the waffen SS I did not learn and I had no influence whatever on it.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty o'clock.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 24 February 1947.)
MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Tribunal is again in session.
PAUL RESTOCK - resumed RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
MR. PRIBILLA
Professor, the prosecutor already asked you in detail about procedure as it prevailed during the meeting of consulting physicians. In that connection it was said that after Gebhardt's lecture, and after listening to the other lectures on the same sudect, a written summary was made. The prosecutor maintained that this written summery was sent to the front. Is that correct? ***rectives, as we laid them down as a summary of the most important plants of the lectures, were sent to the Army Medical ***tera to by this meeting of consulting physicians. Whether and ***t extent they were sent on from there does not lie within my knowledge. Those directives were printed and were sent on in printed. Whether from there they were sent on again I do not know. *t on do I understand you correctly if I cay tint these summarry which were made at tie end of tic conference, were not the directives to applied in practice but merely a theoretical summary of the results of tie scientific lectures?
A. Yes, that is correct.
How the prosecutor said that if you collaborated in compiling ** summaries you would have had to know exactly the details of experiments and it would have been your duty to examine them. this connection the word "evaluated" was used. I should like you ** to your opinion an whether it was customary to invesinate the Is of those lecturers, or just to take knowledge of the result ***r investigation of what an individual gentleman lectured on not take place. Something like that was not customary at all during German meetings.
Whoever know the persons and the situation would not be able to kelp but smile if they imagine what would have happened if I, for instance, during such a meeting, had asked *** Saucrbruch to present the material basis for what he was lecture on. That would have resulted in a scandal, I think. In order to give a concrete example, I did not tell Mr. Gebhardt or Mr. ***cker to present their case histories before the meeting. That was not something we were concerned with. Whatever was spoken in those lectures was taken as a fact. All of us who sat down together afterwards were merely concerned to talk about the most essential points of these lectures and to **ile them, without investing whether the results in themselves were correct. That is what we a scientific language would call the compiling of an expert summary of a report.
Q. Now, there is last question which I want to put to you which refers to document NO-692, which is Exhibit 457, This is a document which was submitted by the prosecutor. You testified that during the meeting of 26 August 1944, the individual research assignments and research workers were not discussed but that merely large fields were selected and designated as urgent. You said that there was approximately 12, 14, or 16 such large fields. Did you look at the document?
A. Yes, during the recess I examined that document; I made a mistake, in as much as there were not a dozen of suck fields but a **zen and a half. If I classified the more important research fields as to the man or of research tacks mentioned here, there are perhaps 6 or 7 arena then who were represented to a larged extent; the others had only 1 or 2 research assignments.
Q. This meeting took place on the 26th of August 1944. From the document it can be council God that on the 14th of September 1944 the list, as it is in front ofnow, was compiled. Did I understand you correctly that you said that this document showed that after the large fields had been determined a list was a man of whereby schomatically it was decided from the material what individual research institute would work on that special field according to the data available and I mean the fields that were designated as urgent?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q What does the word in parenthesis mean right underneath the heading "Summary According to the 650 research Orders submitted to us; "doesn't that say a certain limitation?
A Yes, certainly. At that time our research index contained 650 research orders. From these were designated as urgent. Speaking figurative ly these 650 orders were looked at in view of the intensified situation of the war, and therefore all but 45 were dropped.
Q The question came up here repeatedly whether your card index had very detailed data and I am asking you now whether it doesn't appear from this limited sentence that to a certain extent an excuse was made and people said, "yes, as far as data is available."
A Yes, that is correct too. Only these fields were selected where the data on the card index would fit into this dozen and a half fields, and what we have here is the result.
Q So from this list one can conclude that you had no detailed data?
A No, we had no detailed data.
DR. PRIBILLA: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any cross-examination of this defendant further on the part of any defense counsel upon the matters he testified on redirect?
DR. SEIDEL: Dr. Seidel, counsel for defendants Gebhardt, Oberhauser and Fischer. Mr. President, in view of the fact during cross-examination a few points were touched upon which were not yet the subject of direct examination I should like to be permitted to ask a few questions of the Witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. SEIDL:
Q Professor, last Friday you testified that you personally held the point of view that medical experiments on inmates who were condemned to death would not be carried out by you personally, and not even then when those inmates would be given another chance to be pardoned, do I understand you correctly that you meant to say by that this was your personal conviction and that you didn't mean to say thereby that the question in issue was one of medical ethics generally?
A I said that I personally wouldn't do that, and this personal, very personal point of view results from the conception that I have about the relationship of a surgeon to a human being upon whom he is operating. In the German law in social insurance there is a possibility to coerce a human being to have an operation performed upon him. That is but true for circumvention, through material pressure, That is to say one can approach a human being who had an accident in a factory and you can tell him that he has to improve his condition by an operation and if he refuses to do that he is deprived of certain rights, and that is a very effective pressure which is put upon him. When I, as a surgeon, am approached with such a demand and a man like that is put into my clinic I try to convince this human being of the necessity of such an operation. If he realizes it and if he is in agreement to it I am performing it. However, if he doesn't realize the necessity then I refuse the execution of that operation. I am doing that on the basis of an experience which I had about 20 years ago in a medical affair, but I am very clear vdien doint that that this is nothing but the shifting of the problem from myself to some other person.
MR. McHANEY: We did not get the last question which was put by defense counsel.
Q I will repeat the question. In view of the fact that this is your personal conviction which you just described, you desisted, or you didn't sec any necessity after this lecture of Gebhardt and Fischer to raise any objection against these experiments?
A Yes, that was my personal conviction. It is still that today, and I naturally know that others are of a different opinion.
Q At any rate it is a fact that during that lecture many hundreds of expert physicians were present, of whom none of them made any objection?
A None of them raised any objection with me, and I never heard this was the case with others.
Q You yourself with reference to experiments to test sulphanilamide you would consider thorn relatively not dangerous, so that you would put yourself at this disposal if you had been condemned to death?
A Yes.
Q Dr. Gebhardt and Dr. Fischer in May 1943 reported on the effectness of sulphanilamide; Professor Gebhardt at that time was Major Geneneral the Waffen SS-? did you at that time gain the impression that Dr. Gebhardt carried through these experiments as a civilian surgeon, a civilian physic or did you gain the impression that ho carried them through in his capacity as a soldier on instructions from a superior agency?
A I had the impression quite clearly that he acted upon some order. I don't know upon whose order.
Q Furthermore, you stated that you made experiments at your clinic to find out the effectiveness of this chemi-tharapeutically, but that this experiment failed because of difficulties of personnel and material; do I understand you correctly that you meant that these experiments became necesary and in spite of any investigation in this field no clarification had been established?
A The stride of sulphamilamide made in the theoretical and practice point of view had been clarified sufficiently.
Q Professor, do you know that shortly before the outbreak of the War, Professor Dr. Kirschner circulated questions to all German accident clinics in order to find opt the effectiveness of sulphamilamide on wounded persons and that this circular had no effectiveness and that no material in the oases of thousands of wounded persons had been evaluated?
A I personally know about this circular by Dr. Kirschner, and It published in the Periodical Publication of Surgeons, and went very much in detail, and it is true that no clarification had been arrived at through that circular.
Q Would you agree with me if I said chemical investigation of occasional wounds during the first few years of the War brought no clarification on this question at all?
A That is true, no such clarification was gained? and I explained that during my lecture of 1942.
Q At that time in that lecture you demanded that a basical research should be carried through; isn't it a fact though that along side of this basical research work a front medical and medical research problem was tbit had to be solved as quickly as possible?
A This problem certainly existed.
Q And this was what caused you to institute research groups; what was the basic thought on which you based those research groups?
A I made the suggestion to the Institute; then I myself couldn't if 3 the basis thought on that question was that these research groups show be committed at the main field dressing stations. These are the places whore the wound was cared for after the first emergency dressing. The gent men who were committed there were to observe these wounded people for so long a time as was necessary in order to survey the development clearly.
Q I concluded from that the decisive thing is to test the effectiveness of sulfanilamide on wounded people and that it should be used as soon as possible after the wound was inflicted and there is no purpose in carrying out any experiments on wounded people many days or weeks after the wound was inflicted?
A The quicker this means is used, the more effective it is.
Q Do you know whether the research group that you suggested was ever committed?
A Only to a very small extent, they came into the whirl of the invasion of Normandy and there, of course, there was no time for any scientific work.
Q Repeatedly the lecture which you, yourself, had in hay of 1942 before Gebhardt and Fischer gave think lectures during the first consulting meeting of physicians. This meeting can be found, in this green booklet, was the lecture printed the same way as you held it, or were you mainly concerned with excerpts?
A He, not every word was printed; just the high-lights and effects are contained therein.
Q In this lecture the following sentence can be found and I am going to read at to you, I quote: "The big danger of chemical therapeutical work as that it cannot lead careful Physicians during the execution of their operative tasks in treating with a sound, that they must not be neglected because certain hope is placed an chemical therapeutical work." Would you agree with me if I said wit! this one sentence the whole problem is described?
A The problem is not quite as simple as ail that. This sentence contains in other words what I think already testified to before noon with reference to Chemical therapeutical treatment and the surgical treatment with knife or scissors, or only chemical treatment. I said at that time that we were not sure if it were one or the other and finally we came to a conclusion, which is usual in life, that somewhere in the middle the solution is to be found, that is the surgical, treatment is to result and 24 Feb **** Meehan that is ****** dead tissues and in addition chemical therapeutical ***** hat of course took some time before are arrived at this time.
Q. I ********** question
THE PRESIDENT: ******** are any further examination of this witness?
BY MR. McHANEY
Q Herr Pr******* can you say that the experiments of Gebhardt and Fischer solved all the problems rotating to the use of sulfanilamide I will repeat the question. Professor, as a result of the experiments carried out by Gebhardt and Fischer were the problems incident to the use of sulfamilamide in treating infected wounds solved, or was it rather one little contribution in clarifying a rather difficult problem?
A It cannot be expected that the solution of such a problem can be arrived at by one single thesis, much more work is necessary than that I have in mind that the results were gained from these experiments that sulfanilamide in the case of the big gangrene viruses has a certain effect in the case of the larger amount of wound viruses and in order to clarify it one has to use two words, streptocecce and streptocecous.
These two viruses will react relatively badly toward this treatment and that is now I remember the results of these experiments.
Q Do you remember when Heydrick was killed?
Yes, I remember that there was an assination, but I don't remember when it was.
Q You don't remember if it was in 1942?
A No, I cannot say that.
Q Do you knew what Heydrick died from?
AAs far as I know he was injured by splinters from a dome and he died either because of the pound infection or from an injury of the stomach or something. I am not quite sure.
Q Do you know who treated Heydrick?
A No.
Q Do you remember Karl Brandt said he was under the impression that the death of Heydrick had something to do with the timing of the Gebhardt and Fischer experiments?
A Did he say that here?
Q You will recall that he said that, yes. I just wondered if you knew whether or not the fact that Heydrick died of a wound infection had anything to do with the timing of these sulfanilamide experiments by Gehhardt?
A I did not Know that rt that time
Q. Did you ever hear any criticism of the handling of the Heydrick case on the gounds that they did net use enough sulfanilamide?
A No.
Q I have no further questions.
DR. PRIBILLA: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, I should like now to call the witness, Hans Christensen to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has some questions to propound to the witness.
JUDGE SEBRING: Dr. Restock, as I understood your testimony, it was that as Chief of the Office for General Science and Research you were concerned with broad, general questions of research as they came up during the war, rather than with particular questions; is that correct?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
JUDGE SEBRING: In ether words; within the sphere of your competence; you would consider in a general way the broad question cf whether or not typhus research should be given a certain priority or certain other types of research without paying particular attention to specialized or particular projects or institutes within that field of research; is that true?
THE WITNESS: Yes, that is true.
JUDGE SEBRING: I am wondering if you could give me some information about this matter. You have testified at length about broad; basic research problems or projects and perhaps you can tell the Tribunal something about the particular or special projects within the bread general field; let us assume, for example, that during the war the question of the most effective means of treating severely chilled or frozen persons became a question of great importance to a certain branch of the Wehrmacht. Let us say it became a question of great importance to the German Army, for example, and let us assume further that in order to find the answer to that important question, it was felt decisive to conduct special research on concentration camp inmates for the purpose cf investigating the treatment or the most effective means of treating persons who had been severly chilled or frozen; do you understand my assumption?
A. Yes, I think I have understood you.
Q. Now then, can you tell me r the Tribunal what governmental agencies or officials within the framework of the German government "would have had the authority to determine, order -r direct that special research, for the purpose f determining the question, should be conducted.
Let us start at the top. For example, I suppose that Hitler, as Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht could have determined or ordered or directed that such experiments be carried out; is that true?
A. In ay opinion, which after all concerns a legal question, the chief of the state, of an authoritarian state system, must have had the possibility to issue such orders. Whether legally or internationally he was authorized to do that, I don't know.
Q. I understand. Now then, would the Chief of the OKV have had the authority to enter such an order, directive or determination?
A. I don't believe so, for the Chief of OKA there were no concentration camps subordinated. He had no influence there at all; that is, from what I know of this organization.
Q. Would the Chief of the OKH have had the authority to determine, order or direct that special research for the purpose of determining a question should be conducted? In other words, what I am interested in is this question: what officials r agencies within the framework of the German government had the power to determine these questions, and then, if so, what official channels would such determinations, orders or directives normally pass to bring them into execution? Do you understand the import of my question?
And in this question, if you take my assumption to be correct, there is the problem; first, of determining that special research shall be conducted. There is the problem, second, of determining that certain specifically named or designated trained personnel, doctors, researchers and the like, should be assigned to such special research problems. Thirdly, there is the question of the determination of the installation or construction of laboratories in which such research should be conducted Fourthly, there is the problem of making concentration camp inmates avoidable, not on paper r not on theory, but actually available to that laboratory as experimental subjects.
And fiftyly, there is the question of the assignment of transportation facilities, not on paper but actual facilities to go to the concentration camps to get those people and to bring them to the laboratories.
Now then, if you have my overall question, can you tell me as a matter of official, executive or administrative routine what government agencies or officials within the framework of the German government would have had the authority to determine, order or direct these things to be done and to be completed with all the facilities available to them for the completion of such project?
A. At first, I am not an authority about any executive or administrative matters as i just heard. For instance, the cold problem, to further this cold problem by way of experiments a directive can emanate from numerous people as long as the human being isn't being considered as a subject. When the human being is being considered as a subject in any form this probably went beyond the normal scope of activity of any scientific institute in Germany.
The director of this institute can experiment on voluntary collaborrators, on his students, on his medical assistants, et cetera, but that, of course, is very lifted. Who, beyond that, had authority to place human beings at this disposal I didn't thing about before. Now, of course I have thought about it. And, when thinking about this problem, I arrived at no solution either how scientifically one could solve that problem without coming into conflict with the penal judge. Here, during the trial, I heard that concentration camps were subordinated to Himmler. Whether he had the unlimited authority to dispose of the people there, or whether he had to ask a yet higher instance; that is, Hitler, is something that is outside my knowledge completely.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further questions to be propounded to the witness?
(No reply)
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Restock is excused from the witness stand and will take his place.
(Witness excused.)
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will summon the witness, Heinz Christensen.
HEINZ CHRISTENSEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE SEBRING: Please raise your hand and take the oath, repeating after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withheld and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE SEBRING: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. PRIBILLA: (Counsel f r defendant Restock)
Q. Witness, would you please give the High Tribunal your personal data?
A. My name is Dr. Heinz Christensen. I am a physician. I live in Husum, Brinkmannstrasse 30.
Q. When were you born and where?
A. I was born on the 9th of April 1911 in Berlin.
Q. Would you please briefly describe your professional career and emphasize how and when you came into contact with Professor Rostock?
A. I studied medicine from 1930 until 1936. I made my medical state examination and concluded my medical studies. This included a three and half year education as a clinical assistant, mostly working on international diseases. On the 1st of April 1940 I was assigned to the medical service of the Army as a reserve soldier. After the customary short military training I was further used exclusively as a physician.
During the spring of 1943 I was temporarily assigned to Professor Rostock, to his surgical clinic. I was to work on that clinic, or rather, at the affiliated reserve hospital department, which was under the leadership of lecturer Dr. Starck and was to gain there experiences of the front that had been made in Russia regarding blood transfusions and was to exploit them during clinical laboratory work.
Professor Rostock, at that time, was the consulting surgeon with the Army Medical Inspector. I furst then made the acquaintance Professor Dr. Rostock. I had only known him before that through his lectures at the clinic. After the conclusion of this work I was assigned to a medical company to Italy for a few months and finally, in December 1943, returned to Berlin. I then worked as a medical assistant at the reserve hospital department and at the surgical polyclinic as well as a lecture assistant with Professor Rostock. Professor Rostock at that time gave me work to be which fell within his scope of scientific activity and that applied to many others of my colleagues too.
For a short time he had taken over at that time the leadership of the department for science and research, and belonging to this scope of activity he gave us work and asked us to help him.
Q. You yourself, along with your other activity, were working as an assistant in order to deal with matters which fell within the department of science and research?
A. Yes, practically this collaboration up until spring 1944 was carried on in such a manner that we medical assistants who had been asked to collaborate, dealt with these relatively few things which Dr. Rostock gave us alongside our other clinical occupation; that is, after the end of office hours.