A Of course, that is the difficult thing. Now, in looking back at the time in Germany, as the head of Hohenlychen, I could see that was a well known clinic. I appeared at every congress with my assistants, and I appeared at this Congress with five others and then presented, with all the clinical evidence so that someone would not go on an assumption that I forged the evidence and on the other hand, one would discuss it openly and frankly if it had any clinical value.
Q It seems to me that what you had to say on this point, had you said so at the time, under the point of view which I just expressed; do you feel if on that occasion you had not said publicly these were political prisoners, if the fact that concentration camp inmates had not been mentioned; if women were not referred to and if on the other hand you explained that you had acted on a special order from the highest authority and that they were only criminals who had been promised pardon if they survived the experiments and if furthermore you had expressed under what conditions you had to carry out these things; don't you think - don't you believe - that those present, the physicians present, would have been convinced that the impression created by your lecture would have been to the effect that they could not suspect anything illegal or medically improper; is that correct?
A I can only agree with you under certain conditions, Dr. Nelts, the word "criminals" was not used.
Q But...?
A It was expressly said that persons condemned to death.
Q But, these must have been criminals?
A That was not my opinion.
Q We don't want to go into a legal discussion.
A I cannot agree with you. I have thought carefully what I was to say at this decisive point in my life and against all orders I discussed it, as I explained yesterday and I described the way the experiments were ordered there; they were prisoners condemned to death and they were given the chance for clemency, that was said.
The Third Reich was at the height of its power. We were soldiers who know about war and about emergency. I was a respected clinician, and there was a definite impression that it was done with sense of responsibility and that a general attempt was made to do something scientifically valuable and to see to it to take care of it therapeutically. That was enough for the listeners. Had I said "criminals", I would not have told the truth. The first half were criminal or less than a third, and others were agents and spies who had been condemned political reasons, that is, no criminals.
Q. But you did not say aLl that when you addressed the physicians.
A. I did not say that in the lecture, but that was in the written evidence.
Q. And apart from this term "criminals" for which you said "prisoners condemned to death", do you agree with my other statements?
A. Honestly, I was so shocked by the word "criminal" that I don't know exactly what I am agreeing with. This is something which I want to have quite clear in the interest of everyone. Please formulate that again carefully. I believe I explained it clearly yesterday. That is how it was.
I consider it more important to come back to the decisive testimony of Fischer because Fischer had only this one point. That was his business. After that I spoke on five other lectures so I can't say anything in detail. The sense was what I told you yesterday.
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, I think that this particular point has been labored long enough. The witness has explained it two or three times, and I think Dr. Nelte's efforts to formulate what was said in his own words, particularly in the form of conclusions which he is assuming were settled in the minds of the listeners, is an improper way of conducting the interrogation. The witness has stated as well as he remembers what he said, and I think that is sufficient.
THE PRESIDENT: The point raised by Counsel for the Prosecution is well taken. That matter has been sufficiently covered by the examination and the cross-examination up to date.
The objection is sustained.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, the witness, as he said himself, has not answered to my last question yet. By your decision do you wish to declare my question improper, or do you wish that the witness does not answer to it?
I would be grateful for a decision.
THE PRESIDENT: The matter has been fully covered both in the direct examination and the cross-examination and the counsel is now proceeding. The matter has been sufficiently elaborated.
DR. NELTE: Then I have no further questions to this witness.
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Sauter for Defendant Blome.
CROSS*EXAMINATION BY DR. SAUTER: For defendant Blome
Q. Witness, I have only one question which refers to a completely different complex of questions than the ones dealt with recently. You must, therefore, switch your mind over to this new problem.
Witness, you recall that the Prosecution, and Professor Leibbrandt, based their statements on the fact that the scientific and ethical level of German Doctors deteriorated strongly during the Hitler regime, and against the Defendant Blome, in particular they raised the accusation that he, as the deputy of the Reichsarzte-Fuhrer, was responsible for the deterioration of the level of doctors, at least more or less.
Witness, whether that accusation is justified or not, I shall not ask you; but in that connection I would like to hear your answer on one definite point, if you remember it at all. Roughly, in October, 1938, a meeting is said to have taken place with Hess at Hess' office. Hess was Hitler's deputy at the time. It was the meeting in Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin with Hess presiding. You are said to have been present at that meeting, and the main topic of that meeting is said to have been whether it should be tried in Germany to remove freedom to cure and also with other doctors, medical practitioners should be admitted to give medical treatment. Medical practitioners are people who treat patients without having scientific training. I ask you do you recall that meet.
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell us what attitude was taken by Dr. Blome towards these problems?
A. Perhaps I may say that I have seen Blome functioning twice in my life, as I can emphasize with complete conviction that I considered him one of the most active doctors working for the interest of the doctors in the Third Reich on both of these occasions.
It must be remembered that the Third Reich, like ever revolution, wanted to take away all the power of the doctors. The first occasion must have been in the very first weeks in May, 1933, when I came to Berlin, and this meeting was also with Hess. I believe there were two meetings. This meeting was called because the medical organization hitherto prevailing-and Mr. Leibbrandt did not bring this out well -- if one considers the doctors officers, then all the enlisted men, that is, the nurses and other types of personnel, were formerly in one big consecutive organization of medicine. In spite of a desperate objection by Blome, who represented the medical profession at the time, it was not possible to have this enlisted personnel, that included thousands of people retained in the medical organization. They were put in the NSV or whatever else was organized, and I consider that one of the main weaknesses which we had after that time is that all the subsidiary organizations became independent. At that time Blome was the only man who advocated keeping all medical personnel together, and I remember the second meeting because I was in a sense the last witness in this disagreement. Hess was an advocate of naturehealing, and like Himmler represented the point of view, that a danger, which existed all the time, that a health ministry should exist in Germany, and that the health ministry should be directed by a layman. As I recall, Gauleite*** Roewer or someone else provided that there should be equal groups underneath, departments. Doctors, nature-healing medical practitioners, and so forth, should be given equal rights next to each other. Blome again represented the doctors, and fought for the superior concept of the doctor, for restrictions on medical practitioners, for keeping them under control but without schools and training new recruits -- that was the important thing -- the ideal was to let them die out and keep them under control. And I was called because Mr. Hess had been injured in the shoulder as a flier, and had been treated successfully for one year by medical practitioners, and then I had restored his health, so that Blome could refer to my example, that it was not advisable to use the services of these medical practitioners unrestrainedly.
I recall that Blome worked for the independent and the superior position of the medical profession. I can't tell you the details of the discussion.
Q. If I have understood you correctly, witness, your statements show that Dr. Blome at that time advocated the suspension of the freedom to cure medically, and he also opposed medical practitioners?
A. And that is what he suggested, and that is what happened, that the freedom to cure was repealed in Germany, that an examination committee was set up consisting of, I believe, half doctors and half medical practitioners -- I don't know the chairman --- and that the rest of the medical practitioners were to be tested. The seventy or sixty -- I don't know how many -- percent were recognized, but they could no longer have any schools, and they were to die out, and those who did not pass the test, they were to be stricken off the list. That is about how it was, but that is more or less outside my memory.
Q. Dr. Gebhardt, a final question. Can you, if you try to recall that meeting, can you remember that the defendant Dr. Blome, at that time when he became afraid that he could not carry his point, said to him, I quote verbatim as Dr. Blome remembers this part:
"If you should decide here that apart from the doctors themselves there should be a second class of medical practitioners which will be admitted, to wit, that of medical practitioners, you, Herr Hess, will be the grave-digger of new German medicine."
This is, Dr. Gebhardt, how Dr. Blome recalls it now and I am asking you as I told you whether you can recall this, whether that had remained in your memory as the attitude which Blome took at that time?
A. I cannot possibly remember the wording but I believe that what he said, the suggestion that was made at the time, more or less corresponds to that. I know that there was a big uproar about a patient, either the doctors walked out and the others stayed, and in any case the health ministry was not created. There were two factions but it is quite impossible to remember the details.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions but there is one mistake in the translation which I wish to correct. When I asked Dr. Gebhardt, I used the term "Stellvertretender Reichsaerztefuehrer", which was Dr. Blome's position, deputy leader of Reich doctors. This was translated as Deputy Reichsarzt, which is a very unfortunate translation because Dr. Blome never was Deputy Reichsarzt. May I just correct this? No other statements.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will show counsel's statement.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you very much.
DR. KAUFMAN: Defense counsel for Rudolf Brandt.
BY DR. KAUFMAN:
Q. Professor, in the last few days you said quite a few things on the character of Himmler and how much Himmler moved about and which would, therefore, also apply to Rudolf Brandt. I should be grateful if you could extend your explanation a little farther and tell the Court how you ob served Rudolf's character, his official position, perhaps also his personality.
How long did you know Rudolf Brandt?
A. I met him for the first time in 1939 when I went to Poland as escort physician. The whole staff of Himmler was on the same train. I can deduce that he was there but Brandt was such an inconspicuous person that I cannot remember. He was just there some time or other, but I certainly did not see him before that.
Q. What were your observations regarding his influence on Himmler? The prosecution describes him as Himmler's personal expert as though he had a very large influence on Himmler. Could you bear out those observations or what do you think Brandt's position was in regard to Himmler?
A. First, don't demand of me that I know all the details of Himmler's staff because Mr. McHaney will say, "We always said he knew that", but as for the rest of it, I can only tell you how it was more or less externally. We never reported to Mr. Brandt when we came or when we left and unfortunately yesterday in my exhaustion I made a statement, which might have been true but not very decent, about his mental qualifications. I withdraw the form but not the content. We reported to the Adjutant and then the Adjutant let us wait forever and a list was made up of who was to come to see Himmler and in all of this time I never saw and never heard from any one else that Brandt was present. The characteristic thing of staffs in the Third Reich, and for all in the revolutionary foundation, it is bitter for us that we always have to mention the bad side here, but first of all we had grandiose names and arrangements and then appointed just anybody to fill the position, and whether he had the name of personal expert I do not know, but in the sense of the old ministerial expert who was present at all technical questions as I know from the days of my farther, that did not exist with Himmler, as then I must have known something about him, and at the decisive moment he would not have been unaware of the most important things, but on the other hand somewhere aside from all of those things and the military form which was even exaggerated, Brandt, of course, did not fit into this background, because he was no soldier at all. There was someone who organized all of the mail and I had contact with him because in the evening or at night the couriers came with enormous mail bags and like myself one does not stick to channels.
One asked Brandt if there was any mail and asked him to get it out and then Brandt sat in his office and everything was full of mail and secretaries and people, and according to a system which I don't know, he brought everything into some kind of disorder, and then the next day he delivered it all. How long it took or what he did I don't know. In the morning everyone was there all night and we had breakfast together in the morning and that was broken off with Brandt coming in with a pile of folders and a couple of orderlies with letters, and then Himmler was inaccessible for hours and we all had to wait because Brandt submitted all of the mail and took dictation personally. There was no secretary there. I don't know whether he dictated all of it or whether he had experts. In any case I know he was originally a stenographer or some such thing and he took care of all of this mail, and then because we all wanted to get away, because we all had important business or something, Brandt disappeared and I never saw him again all day, and he had to carry out work and write out all of these letters which had been dictated in the morning, and in the evening the same Brandt came back for the signatures, and I assume everything was signed. I don't want to offend him but I always considered him a very unimportant personal typewriter, and I had no contact with him, only a few hours when we came back from the front and from operating, and it was an international custom, we sat down with a bottle of cognac and I considered Mr. Brandt a little too stupid for that purpose.
Q. One more question, Professor. Did you observe Brandt's health in all of these years? What can you tell us about this?
A. I believe it happened several times that Brandt was either sent on leave, because of some suspicions of disease of a joint, and had to be called back because Himmler did not want any strange people around him; or else he did not get away because Himmler couldn't dispense with him. There was something about his leaving, about going away for a year. That was certainly discussed.
There was nothing surgical and I don't remember these things very well. I was not directly involved.
Q. Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
DR. FLEMING: Defense counsel for Mrugowsky.
BY DR. FLEMING:
Q. Professor, if I understood you correctly, in the course of your interrogation you said that Mrugowsky had nothing to do with sulfonamide experiments. Would you please confirm that now?
A. Yes, the question of whether the sulfonamides were to be tested through bacteriology, basic research, or whether it was a clinical front problem; I was the clinical man and Mrugowsky was the hygienist, and there were two different conceptions of experts. When I appeared Mrugowsky had no purpose any longer and I certainly did not see him personally. I would remember if he had appeared.
Q. You know that the prosecution alleges that these cultures for these sulfonamide experiments were supplied by the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen SS. Do you know who caused these cultures to be delivered?
A. I can only say they certainly came from Berlin and were sent to us by Grawitz's orders. On the other hand I can say I did not have any bacteriological cultures in Hohenlychen. They did not come from me. That is certain. The other thing is clear with reference to discussing it with Grawitz. I did not have drugs in large enough quantities, they came from Berlin to me. As far as I recall, I can't be so definite about all of these details. From the very beginning, at least in every group, I think more often twelve or so, because for every experimental subject we had to have mixed cultures prepared, which I have described, which is sometimes only two and sometimes one, and sometimes only gangrene, we had to get them, but we had to have agents prepared and so forth and that came from the Grawitz agency and it came from Berlin. It could only have been from the Hygiene Institute, for he would not have got it from a civilian agency. It came by car and from a young man who came from Fischer. I remember it came from Berlin every time. It was not Mrugowsky.
Q. Do you recall when these deliveries of culture began to be supplied for you and when they were finished?
A. I can confirm the details only to the extent that the cultures were there when these experiments were conducted. They were there from the whole time from July until November, but I can't give you any more details.
Q. My final question is: What germs were used?
A. The mixed cultures were streptococci or staphyloccus cultures, plus the gas gangrene, and there was a certain distribution, and they were separated. Other additional germs were not asked for, such as tetanus. They would not have fitted into the experiment and that did not occur through chance experiment either, for we would have noted that in the preliminary experiment.
Q. Tetanus, contrary to what was said by one of the witnesses, has not been used by you?
A. No.
Q. Thank you very much.
DR. FRITZ: Defense counsel for Rose.
BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. Professor, before the collapse did you have contacts with Professor Rose?
A. I believe I have mentioned that already. We had no contact with each other. We worked in quite different fields. I can recall somewhere at a meeting or in preparations for the fourth meeting or some such thing Rose was there; and on the other hand I did not have any personal conversation with him, as we had nothing to say to each other and I had nothing to do with hygienics of the Waffen SS, but I certainly knew him as the famous hygienist Rose.
Q. In the course of your talks with Grawitz and Himmler, Rose did not come into that?
A. I explained I had no personal relation.
Q. Thank you. I have no further questions.
DR. MERKL FOR THE DEFENDANT GENZKEN:
Q Professor, in August 1943 there was a conference in which the reorganization of the Waffen-SS was ordered. In that conference was there said anything of experiments on concentration camp inmates or anything referring to concentration camps?
A I have tried to show that I instigated this discussion and that it had a purely front purpose, that is, the collapse of medical arrangements and the lack of medical reserves, etc., in the Ukraine. The circle which was called together at my request were doctors from the Ukraine, Grawitz and Genzken, Stumpfegger was also there. This all referred to the acute problem at the front. It is true that Grawitz took advantage of this to acquire for himself something which would not have been necessary according to my suggestion. I needed material, doctors, from the police and the Waffen-SS, and a certain connection with hospitals in the rear. There was no point in making an organization from the bottomall we needed was an organization from the top. Four weeks before I had been shot down from a plane, and had come back, there was no other consideration. I cannot remember that any other things were discussed.
Q The defendant Genzken is also accused of his alleged participation in sulfonamide experiments in Ravensbruck. When you talked to Himmler and Grawitz did you take in Genzken in this connection?
A I have explained exactly who the people responsible were. Gruppenfueheres the Reich Fuehrer called - people responsible for building up his big new Waffen-SS. I don't know who was there. Nebe was still there as intelligence man at my time, Grawitz was there, and I was there. That was the group that discussed the whole thing, and carried it out. I had no reason to call in Genzken. That was not the level on which discussions were held.
Q Did you write to him or talk to him orally about these experiments?
A Certainly not. Genzken learned what everyone learned at the Third Meeting - publications and directives. Whether his expert told him anything or not of what was reported I don't know.
Q That is not the point at the moment. All I wanted to know was if you reported to him personally - a final question. Dr. Flemming talked about the supplies of gas gangrene that were alleged to come from the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS, including glass bits. Did you talk to Genzken on that affair?
A I should like to say that, of course, I was glad to deal with the thing on a large scale and I take the responsibility for it. But, I only know that some subordinate officer brought the stuff with which it was carried out. I had more worries than that than to go to Grawitz and ask where the stuff came from which could only have been the case of the Hygiene Institute. It was only a question of delivery - no basic question.
Q Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
DR. SERVATIUS FOR Karl BRANDT:
Q Witness, do you recall the Tenth Anniversary in the autumn of 1944 in Hohenlychen? Do you know whether Karl Brandt was present?
A No. I have already described the Tenth Anniversary Celebration. It was a personal celebration such as every clinic had - the clinical family celebration, that is, teachers and students. My relations to Mr. Brandt were so distant, we did not know each other personally very well, I would never have invited Mr. Brandt.
Q I have no other questions.
DR. BOEHM for the defendant Poppendick:
Q Professor, do you know anything of a Department of Planning in the office of the Reichsarzt-SS - an experimental department V, which dealt with planning or carrying out of experiments, as it is alleged?
A No. How Grawitz carried out his service I don't know. I never heard of "Section V" or "planning." In my sulfonamide experiments I did the planning. I don't know anything else.
Q Did you at any time talk to the defendant Poppendick on the experiments as described in the Indictment, or did you exchange information with him in any sense at all?
A No. It was not that way. They were on the same level with varying weight, Grawitz who had the higher rank. And, when one refers to the Reich physician I certainly had more weight as a personality. But, of course, I was organized in the same way in connection with the Army and taught in the various other agencies; and Genzken was senior and had a certain position from that. It was not so that I had three adjutants and antichambers and I had to report. If I wanted something from Grawitz I called him up, I went in civilian clothes, and I told him I don't like this or I would like that. It is possible, of course, I knew Poppendick, and I certainly saw him, but Poppendick was never in my house. I never invited him. He never took part in a conference with me because I did not discuss these things on this level. I don't know that Poppendick was always there. He had another office too. On the other hand I always came from the front or Hohenlychen. I had other medical experiments. I told Grawitz I will come to Berlin next week. I will possibly come to see you and that is all I said. No one could know when I was coming exactly or whether I was coming for certain. That I went through Poppendick's personal office there is no question of anything like that. I can't tell you what Poppendick actually did.
Q Thank you. No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
KARL GEBHARDT - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
Q. Herr Professor, you have testified very clearly and emphatically as to the efficient and careful way in which the sulfonamide experiments were executed under your supervision. You have stated that you made a substantial contribution to scientific knowledge concerning the use of sulfonamides through these experiments. You insisted on publicizing your experiments for what they were. You stated that you successfully opposed Grawitz' efforts to brutalize and pervert the sulfonamide experiments. You stated that over the years 1942-43 you learned something of other experiments, most particularly Rascher's experiments. You further stated that you finally influenced Himmler to bring order out of chaos in 1944 and that a regulatory system for experiments was set up in which you played a part. All of this, plus your high official rank in the SS, and your knowledge of Himmler and military medical service in Germany, leads me to believe that you can, if you are willing, tell us a great deal about the experiments which are the subject of this trial and perhaps other experiments on human beings. Will you do that?
A. I was perfectly aware of the dangers of my testimony and the attack which you would so clearly aim at attributing to me all the knowledge of every one of these matters. I might have made the hopeless attempt -- something which was humanly rather plausible, to be reticent about my testimony. I chose the other path and I described, roughly speaking, all I know. I am perfectly prepared to supplement my testimony, if you put precise questions to me. But please, will you permit me, during a fair duel, also to say that our conditions of battle and quarters are somewhat different, but that we are also concerned with the fact that you are basing yourself upon the assumption that everything in Germany proceeded in an orderly and obvious manner and that everything could be seen and differentiated clearly.
That was not the situation. In connection with that I would like to emphasize also that with ever increasing dramatic conditions the state of emergency would grow to a point where a number of matters which were points which we would normally have noticed quickly, did not come to my knowledge. Thus, will you please believe me when I say I did not know, I did not conceive it, and that when I say I cannot recollect, it is not because of my being too cowardly to tell you?
Q. Herr Professor, isn't it true that it was generally understood in military medical circles that concentration camps would be made available by the SS for experimentation?
A. That I do not believe to be the case. I believe the expression "generally" is too far reaching. If you want to know the exact details, then put the preliminary question "What did all the others receive? What did one generally know in Germany about concentration camps?" If you don't want to hear that, then I can only tell you that the full realization of what was going on in concentration camps ... the events in an individual concentration camp, were such changing matters, with an everaltering picture, and that the desire, the wish of every individual who was in touch with the concentration camp, to gain distance from this matter as soon as possible was so strong, and that there were cautious men who did not want to know anything about it so that no one might put questions to them -- that you can certainly not say that German medical men knew this or knew that. If that is the general type of answer you want to your question, then I must answer with NO.
Q I understood you to testify that Hitler had approved of medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates, and that disposition was reached by you no later than 1942, and that you specifically learned about it when the sulfonamide experiments were under discussion. Isn't that true?
A Quite. But then it is wrong once more what you said earlier-that I had such clear-cut knowledge about Rascher before-hand. You must allow us to draw a clear dividing line--something which is almost impossible today--regarding the things that we knew beforehand, and what we learned currently, and what I know today through the trial and the number of people who are informing us. I know today, for instance, what I did not know before, that Himmler went to attend Rascher's experiment. He did not talk about that to me. I know today he took the chief of his personal staff along on this journey, Obergruppenfuehrer Wolf, so that he would report to Hitler straightaway, and that subsequent to this Hitler agreed in principle; so that this is really the first occasion when Hitler expressly approved of the matter; but this is knowledge which I have now from the files and because I talked to Wolf.
Once again I am using this to show how these things were running concurrently. For instance, Wolf was my patient, and he did not know anything at the time, and we can say this under oath, about the sulfonamide experiments. On the other hand, that Wolf carried out this contact with Hitler, without telling us about.
Q Let's get this straight. I understood that you talked to Grawitz about the sulfonamide experiments early in July, or shortly prior thereto, and that both Grawitz and Himmler gave you to understand that Hitler had approved in principle the use of concentration camp inmates for purposes of medical experimentation. Isn't that right?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Now, if that decision was made, Herr Professor, and it was considered helpful to perform medical experiments on human beings, why, then, was not that decision by Hitler, the ultimate authority in the state, made known to the authorities in the military medical sector?
After all, you can't use concentration camp inmates for medical experiments unless somebody knows that they are available.
A Will you permit me to tell you that this is a type of question which one can only put if one does not know at all what the role played by concentration camps in Germany was. Believe me, there was a fight until the conception of anonymity and secrecy attached to concentration camps was overcome by me by my report during that Third Congress. I do not believe that this clear form was ever expressed before, nor was this secrecy ever penetrated before, nor could I think afterwards, so that all the authorities which had immediate jurisdiction over concentration camps--which is one of Himmler's executive departments through the RSHA, through Glueck and Pohl and so forth--they, right from the start did not allow anyone to look into their activity, not primarily in order to hide these experiments, but because the entire arrangement, the exploitation of this economic potential, was only possible, after all, by transferring them to the property of SS and arranging them under the control of the SS.
In other words, the situation was not that simultaneously there was now suddenly a current order informing all German official departments regarding the possibility of carrying out experiments in a concentration camp. Neither was it ever the situation that the supervising bodies of concentration camps ever attached any importance to having doctors or men of any other type admitted from the outside. Only Grawitz and the staff under Loehing, had the passes to enter concentration camps.
Q Now, Professor, everyone realizes that the SS had to make these inmates available. The SS had to be approached. No doctor from the Luftwaffe could walk down to Dachau and get in, we all understand that. But it seems to me that you have overemphasized the secrecy aspect of concentration camps and experimentation on inmates when you say that only after your speech in '43 was the matter publicized. I am not interested in whether it was publicized in the board manner that you suggest; but it is not inconceivable that, after Hitler's decision, that inmates could be used for experiments, he might pass the word along to such a man as Hanloser, without breaching the secrecy veil of concentration camps; he might pass the word a long to Milch and to Hipke. He might pass the word along to Conti and Karl Brandt.
Now, you have assumed your responsibility in connection with the sulfonamide experiments. You have no occasion to shield other people from accepting their responsibility. Don't you know, as a matter of fact, that the high authorities in the military-medical services of Germany did know that they could approach Himmler and the SS, and obtain inmates for experimental purposes?
A I think that one can only explain this by means of individual example or experiments as far as I know how they arose. First of all, you are making one principal mistake, to overestimate or underestimate information from Hitler or Himmler, according to how it fits into the particular stage of trial. The situation was certainly not that-- and, mind you that I was not there-- that Hitler might have said, "Now, then, whatever can be cleared up now in the medical field will now be cleared up in a big way through experiments," so that there would have been an order to all official departments that whoever had anything to do with this matter should be consulted.
That certainly was not the situation because then there would have been experiments in many other fields.
On the other hand, I am sure that Himmler--and, mind you, the cause was an initiative coming from outside any channel of orders--and it seems certain--something that I must assume--that I did not know--Rascher did write to Himmler, that Himmler then goes to a concentration camp, and that Rascher is asking Himmler to develop a very productive type of opinion with reference to the whole affair, and that something originated in Himmler's conception, and that be is immediately making a report.
Do you think that history will ever ascertain how cautiously and how generally Hitler's wishes and instructions were expressed?
On the other hand, I am sure that it was enough--and, mind you, this is all assumption on my part--it was necessary for him only to say to Himmler "Good Heavens, you have a wonderful way there. Why shouldn't they experience the same fate as people at the front?" That is was enough for Himmler to take up the matter. Naturally, it is correct for you to say that nobody could enter a concentration camp or report an experiment or order who did not take this matter to Himmler first. I think that, with a certain amount of good will, it is correct to say that in the initial stage we were concerned with individual cases and that eventually it was increased, but surely there are three completely different ways we are concerned with. There was the Air Force, and there we are concerned with the very head of it, where it started, or maybe it started right at the bottom in the double figure of Rascher between Luftwaffe and SS. I am sure that wherever we are concerned with this question, we are concerned with the group Grawitz-Conti. I have described to you the sulfonamide story, and in the case of all the others you always come across the circle of persons I have mentioned, but it is quite sure that Brandt and Handloser, up above, were never touched with a general order, nor that they should look into the matter. At any rate, that never occurred in
Q You testified that you were told of Hitler's decision, I believe, in connection that he made that decision after he had heard of Rascher's experiments, is that right?
A Yes.
Q Grawitz reported this decision of Hitler to you?
A It seems to me I heard it during a conference between Himmler and Grawitz.
Q It was in May or June or July, 1942?
A What I want to say, what I think, it was at the end of May, 1942.
Q So you know about Rascher's experiments before you got the letter from Rudolf Brandt in December, 1942?
A That was, of course, the type of question I had to expect from you, and I can tell you with accuracy, that was no so, that someone went and said, "Here we have this experiment and here we have that one," and so on. Himmler said it is quite clear that experiments are being carried out, and it is equally clear that he talked to Hitler about it, and that what I recollect is the much more important sentence that at that time people, who were there, should suffer the same fate. Just which experiments he was referring to, I can only say, it is quite in detail, why, I admit that, and whether it was mentioned at that time or not, I don't care, but there was much secrecy attached to it all. Experiments were going on at that time, and my objections and careful discussions, no doubt, were not shared by the others. If, on the other hand, you ask me now whether I can exactly and clearly and surely have known at the time that Rascher and the air forces were so involved, then I once again tell you "no".
Q But you have no doubt that Rascher's experiments in Dachau were ordered and sponsored by Milch and Hipke, at least?
A I can tell you that I heard now, heard it through two sources, first of all these proceedings here with their clear cut evidence. This all must have been taken to Himmler. Secondly, Wolf too testified both in the Milch trial as well as when I asked him, and I told him it was important to me to know whether Himmler really could refer the matter to Hitler, and he said, "I saw it myself, and by authority Himmler he reported it to Hitler."