In all these occurrences which did not happen sporadically as in the case cf the combat officer, but happened continuously to us, those events lasted throughout months and months, and this is the way I answered the question at the end of the war. I believed that this war had been so dradful that it could only be concluded after the last man had fallen. That was the impression that we had at that time because one asked oneself again and again: where do these young healthy people come from? At that time the man who was not completely inarticulate about things or hardened to them and who did not simply have the wish to regard himself as an individual and to save himself, such a person found himself in a critical spiritual condition because everything that happened and was experienced took place according to laws which one did not know of from peacetime.
We had been raised in the belief in order, order in which man occupied the central point, and we saw man as a creature who stood in a personal and direct relationship with God. Now we experience day after dry that human beings whom one know and of which one know that they did not hate the enemy, that those non obeyed orders and in obeying these orders committed deeds or were wounded or died although we knew that they had not been particularly obliged to do this rather than someone else, but that they did this only because they did not disobey the laws of the State. Thus, the person who analyzed these conditions from a spiritual point of view went through a very essential change if he saw that there was such a thing as a law of war, a moralethical law of war, and that this law of war was not only different from the law of peace but that it was actually the diametric opposite of the law of peace.
In peacetime the individual stood in the center and the State was simply the organization for the individual security, and unless one wanted to be an anarchist, one could allow in warfare only that law which put the State in the center and adopted a supra-individual attitude, however, without being able to avoid the conclusion that the individual occupied a secondary position.
There were also philosophic bases for this point of view.
One referred to Hogel who saw history as the manifestation of Divine Will and the State on the one hand as the highest ethical norm, and on the other hand saw in the State the instrument for the execution of this historical process. Thus, two laws confronted one another which really had no contact with each other but stood in a contradiction to one another. Beth were ba* on ethical principles. The justification of each of them could net be denied. They were based both on concern for the suffering cares and deaths of the soldiers in relation to reality. At that time I felt the wish in myself to defend myself against these terrible occurrences, but I could net have granted myself the right of accepting any fate but that which the others next to me were to experience, but after tho war I wanted to appear before the youth of our country and speak against war as an institution because I believed that it was the root of all evil, and I though that this would be more convincing if I did not do it from a comfortable armchair but did it after I myself had experienced the hardships of war as a brave soldier.
At that time it was clear to me that it was a particularly tragic situation that would result if a man had to act in a moment in which the laws of war and those of peace were working in him simultaneously and if he experienced within himself the difference and the contradiction between these two laws, both of which were based on ethical bases and demands.
Q How did the leadership of the SS Division differ from that of others?
A. Counsel can certainly advise me on this since I was only under the Waffen SS. I only saw the other divisions next to me but was not actually in them. One thing I do know that they were essentially characterized by the personalities of their commanders. These commanders were men and personalities who, as history will report, were determined and courageous and they gave an example of such qualities to their soldiers. I had experiences with two divisional commanders. They both were the decoration for close fighting, from which it could be seen that they had not directed tank attacks from their headquarters, but they were actually on hand in the first tanks themselves, and actively participated in the fighting. This resulted in a very particular command relationship within the division, because a man who acted in this way and of whom it was known he was a courageous man and had experienced everything the common soldier had experienced. It was impossible to refuse to obey such a man and it was impossible not to give such a commander implicit obedience. These personalities and personal courage of these men was really the essential characteristic of these men, although they may have been in tactical respects very skillful.
Q. What were your impressions at that time on the Eastern front regarding the medical and the medical military problems?
A. The first thing that I experienced was that the situation here was quite different from that in peace. For example in 1941 and 1942 there was mention of a winter catastrophe on the Russian front and I heard at that time with interest that this catastrophe was traced back to some extent to ** difficulties in organization. We troop physicians saw a different picture of this and we thought the main reason for this was a different one. The situation was characterized by the fact that the medical power, even that in the ambulances was not sufficient to fill the duties that were placed on us, particularly when a main dressing station had four doctors and cannot under any circumstances take care of more than twenty or twenty-five seriously wounded persons, and perhaps as many as fifty slightly wounded persons in one day. The problem of which I spoke came up when not sixty wounded persons turned up, but 150 and 200 and I have experienced 400 wounded persons which had to be taken care of at the dressing station. Secondly, the situation was characterized by the fact that the war was a war of movement, which made the connections between the various units much more difficult, where as the main emphasis in the medical care with the individual unit in the case of wounds from high velocity weapons, the troop physician was not to take care of the wounded.
This could not have been forseen, and later that a symptom arose which was known as the their stage of molecular disturbance. The first care for these wounded persons was insufficient and the troop physicians could only sterilize the wounds. Their main task and their main concern was to transport the wounded from the from lines to the rear area, the main dressing stations in the rear area, so that the real surgical treatment took place only at the main dressing stations in the rear area and they were successful. From this it can be seen that unfortunate conditions arose which it was impossible to solve because of one division which consisted of 15,000 men there were two main dressing stations and one front line dressing station. In those two main dressing stations there were four surgeons and they were the ones who had to do the main surgical treatment. I think that even this is problematic, and that if one is clear regarding the fact that in this war a misproportion existed between the destructive power on the one hand and the static potentialities of the physician, then the answer is given to the question which has frequently been asked here and which people tried to solve along organizational lines. When our division stood over against a Russian division and there was a Stalin-Orgel(organ) in this Russian division with rocket guns, and one of those Stalin organs, these rocket shooters, had a direct hit in a group of soldiers, thirty or forty soldiers fell, and that corresponded to the number which it would take a physician in the main dressing station a whole way to attend to. Unfortunately they did not shoot just one Stalin organ but hundreds at a time, of which not all hit home, but even if ten hit then the number of wounded reached as high as four or five hundred. This was a number of casualties against which the physician working with his hands could do simply nothing. At that time because of this attitude and because of the necessity and of this problem the report regarding the effectiveness of sulfonalimi*e was particularly striking, and made a great impression, because if I simply wanted to relax into desperation and watch how our soldiers and the enemy's soldiers simply fell to their fate without any help and saw the technical development of the destructive weapons, then, of course, I wanted to do something.
Psychologically, it was very difficult for a surgeon at a main dressing station to stay there without feeling that the task which he was presented with was simply beyond his powers no matter what he might do. He who was not ready to resign himself to the current situation that this also was peace work over against the growth of these modern weapons. Then the hope and possibility arose that many embraced in deceiving themselves and in being very critical, namely, the hope that with therapeutic methods it would be possible to equal the technical growth of destructive weapons equivalent to the growth in methods of therapy. These speculations were not without their consequences because if in this way a large number of wounded persons could be cared for they were cared for and no one concerned himself subsequently with these treated persons because there were still enough who were in need of acute surgical care. These persons who had been treated took the long and arduous journey back to the interior. But the relations in the East were much different from those in the Vest. I also went through the war in the best. There in the first place we were protected by the Red Cross because our opponent was a fair one. We could rely on the Red Cross sign and the wounded transports could move without interference. In the East on the other hand, the situation was different. Red. Cross cars were shot at as much as any other, but that was not the most difficult matter. The most difficult matter was the roads. I recall a specific experience. I was once commissioned to send my wounded from the main dressing station to a field hospital and we had to put our men in school houses and we had to have more room. At that time I hoped that the transport would have help from the trucks from the munitions depot and that the transport could, be carried out in one day, but it turned out quite differently. These 18 kilometers could be covered only in three days because the trucks had to move arduously through these soft muddy roads, and during, these three days the patients were without any care and the necessity alone of meeting their human bodily needs caused difficulties. In other words, this was an enormously important matter, whether we could succeed with the help of sulfonamide of finding a reliable chemical treatment for that enormous number of wounded persons who otherwise would not have been treated or at least insufficiently treated.
Because of this mis-proportion of the destructive power of the weapons and the manual potentialities of the surgeons this was what characterized the medical situation in the war in the East.
Q. Where did you then go to from this main dressing station?
A. I fell sick in December 1941 of jaundice and went back through medical channels to the rear area, to Hohenlychen.
Q. What impression did Hohenlychen make on you in December 1941?
A. I arrived at the beginning of 1942 and found Hohenlychen quite different from what it was a year ago. This change was not in external matters or facts, but was rather a more internal matter. In 1940 Hohenlychen was a hospital, in which sportsmen or others were to be found, and the basic tone there was cheerful and almost happy. In 1942 Hohenlychen was an Army hospital. The sportsmen had become less and they were mostly wounded soldiers who were being cured there and who had the opportunity there of being cured. This basic change affected also the clinic. I would like to say that everything was more serious in time.
Q. What position did you have there in the Army Hospital in Hohenlychen?
A. I was Obersturmfuehrer, that corresponds to Lieutenant in the American Army. And, at the beginning was in charge of the Septic Station, and then was assistant in private station No. I and in the Officer's Station P-2. Also it was my task to take care of the ambulatory civilian patients who came at the rate of about thirty a day to Hohenlychen to consult with Gebhardt and be introduced to him. It was my task to introduce them to Gebhardt.
Q. In July 1942 your Chief, General in the SS, Gebhardt gave you the order to carry out human experiments. Professor Gebhardt has described these experiments in detail. Would you like to make some statements regarding them? But, first I should like to ask you, did you previously concern yourself with this basic problem, namely, whether medical experiments on human beings were justified or not?
A. Counsel, before I answer that question I should like to point out that the sentence "you received the order" was translated "you received the permission".
Q. You did not receive permission, rather you received a specific order from your superior officer and chief of the clinic who was then Obersturmfuehrer and General in the SS Gebhardt.
A. Yes. I had concerned myself almost not at all with the question of human experiments heretofore. I had known that there were experiments on human beings in the course of medical history but I never looked into this matter and had the conviction and wish never to concern myself with that problem. I knew that there were human beings and doctors, who even in normal times acted as free individuals and held human experiments to be necessary. And I knew that these were doctors who were not so much clinical doctors or followed a clinical direction which can be traced back to the old art of Priest craft and assisted in observing the symptoms of sickness, but were doctors who in normal times followed their own initiative. They represented natural scientific attitude and felt themselves ethically justified in what they did, because in natural science the final proof lies in observation. And, in the natural science applying to biology proves itself in the last analysis observation of human beings. But, this was of no practical importance to me. These questions had been only academic considerations for me and had never had any real basic influence on me. At that time I did not even remember that I had ever concerned myself with this problem heretofore.
Q. To this question Professor Leibbrandt and Rostock expressed opinions. They testified that they would not have carried out such experiments on human beings. What is your basic attitude toward that problem?
A. When Professor Rostock gave this answer I envied him and I consider him happy - that at the height of his surgical career he could say such a thing. I had always believed that I, could say such a thing, because it would never have occurred to me to consider such an experiment necessary. I should never have carried them out, I, as a person who could make his own decision. So, I should like to say in summary that I have exactly the same attitude as those two gentlemen.
And in this particular trial, I see the question differently only so far as it was not a question of my initiative and basic attitude, but that these matters arose from the situation which was characteristic of War and the condition at that time, and was conditioned only by the War.
Q. Professor Leibbrandt's testimony and Rostock's testimony referred to 1947. How did the situation seem to you at that time?
A. The situation in 1942 was so different from the situation in 1947 during peace that in describing these things it is difficult for me to recall what the situation was at that time, namely 1942. Both the external and internal conditions I cannot describe sufficiently, unless I take up the development that ld to these conditions. I was born shortly before the first World War and was educated in the period just subsequent to it. During this period of schooling we heard from our teachers of the situation that Germany was in after the first World War, namely poverty, because the old hereditary disease of Germany of particularism had its sacrifice again. Whatever the political orientation of the teachers was, they all agreed that through work fate could be improved on but that, secondly, unity and, as a demand on the individual citizen, subordination to the State were an integrated and necessary prerequisite and a better fate in the future. All the parties, who got in touch with unity at that time, emphasized this point of view, and differences between parties themselves were periphery as far as we were concerned. Despite this wish for order and unity, despite this wish for a State, in which obedience and submission were paramount, disunity became greater and greater until 1933 when, to the surprise of most of us Hitler came on the scene. Ther personal orientation toward this occurence could be as different among individuals as possible. Nevertheless the strength of the State was again organized, the economic problem of unemployment was solved, and all this was a convincing argument and brought many people into a benignant attitude toward National Socialist party.
None of us believed at this time that there would be a War, but we knew, that if a War came about, the economic limitations under which Germany lived and had to live made defeat very likely. And, the only antidote against this fate seemed to us to be the moral strength of unity itself There was a very essential change at the moment when the War began, of which I should like again to emphasize the fact that all of us, whether or not we were politically active, all of us did not greet it. I considered myself politically inactive at that time. The situation changed to this extent, that at that time we now considered ourselves no longer able to free ourselves from this total fate.
The National Socialistic state made propaganda to us, stating that the situation was that we were like the crew on a ship descending into a maelstrom, and the individual no longer had the right to follow his own wishes, because his fate was the fate of all, and it could only be a question either of the ship's floundering or that, through common efforts, it would be able to reach the shore. I believe that this was the most convincing argument, that persuaded many who were in opposition, or simply endured National Socialism, then actually took part in it actively, abandoned their passivity and regarded the Fuehrer not as the leader of the Party or as the exponent of a political system, but as tho chief of state of the German Reich and as the commander-in-Chief in the war whom they obeyed implicitly in that capacity. The whole situation during that period, which we all knew in the year 1942, was Germany's fight - life and death struggle - and I knew that this has not yet been expressed by witnesses at this trial - that was a characteristic that I, as a man of the people, experienced and did not so experience as a person in high position. This we saw as members of the German people. For us the State was characterized by the clear chain of command from the top to the bottom, to which was attached the responsibility and the duty to accept responsibility, and the duty from below upwards to be obedient. I should like to mention something else as characteristic for that situation. When I mentioned my front line experiences I spoke about how this law of war was obligatory ethically when one saw friends and also persons, one did not know, losing their lives during the war. In my effort to recognize the spirit and philosophic situation, I saw that it was not possible for the individual to recognize it, because it took place in an order that was above the individual and embraced a whole state, and so the situation in 1942 was characterized by the individual's recognition that he must obey the orders of the state, no matter where they might reach him, without always demanding that he should understand the individual measures, and without it being domanded that he should consider them just.
There are many parallels to these occurrences not only from the purely military sphere, but this law of war, which previously had been sharply discriminated between combat and rear area soldiers * now this law applied not only to front line soldiers but also to the hinterlands, and with this extension of the effectiveness of weapons, automatically the law of war, of which I have been speaking, also became extended; and so it happened that in other fields of life * for example, in labor allocation, all the individual peaceful laws were relinquished and were supplemented by new laws and regulations, which one could not understand from the purely peaceful point of view or orientation. The duty to work was obligatory for everyone, including women, and so in various spheres, life became loosened up, so to speak, so the individual was no longer able to discriminate at what point the law of peace applied and where it was ever-lapped by the law of war. We also know at this time that other persons, who wore engaged in the pursuit of science * for instance, in the preparation of chemical war or in increasing the effectiveness of explosives - that these men certainly were not acting as individuals with a positive aim, but, on the contrary, with a destructive intention; and vis-avis these tusks, the individual who received orders to do such work was not in a position to refuse or even to ask himself whether it was permissible.
Q What was the contents of the order which, in connection with the sulfonamide experiments, Professor Gebhardt issued in July, 1942?
A Professor Gebhardt came, in the middle of July, 1942, from the Fuehrer's Headquarters, called me to him, and told me briefly and definitely that he had received an order from the Fuehrer via Himmler to test the effectiveness of a few new sulfonamide preparations, of which he justifiably hoped that they would succeed in controlling wound infections, and which, for that reason, should be used as preventive means in the German Wehrmacht as widely as possible.
He told me that for this reason, in order to be able to answer this decisive question entirely clearly, this order had come from the Fuehrer via-* Himmler and that the testing was to be carried out on human beings. Gebhardt told me that he was the person who had received part of this order; namely, the medical part and that he was going to carry it out and wanted to make use of my services as his assistant and he told me that I was as much obligated by this order as he was, since it was a Fuehrer Order, and that it was not my responsibility - what I did in obeying it.
Q You testified that it was a Fuehrer Order; namely, an order which you felt particularly obliged to obey. Did you otherwise, in your military career, receive a Fuehrer Order?
A In my military career I three times received Fuehrer Orders. Through the explanation I tried to give, regarding Germany's inner structure at that time, I wanted to point out the particularly obliging nature of such a Fuehrer Order. In November, 1941, when the German Front, for the first time, was brought to a standstill, my division was before the Russian city of Rostow on the Don River. The German forces were exhausted, and in order to mobilize them again, the Fuehrer went to the front to Mariepol and gave our divisional commander the order that the city of Rostow was to be taken. My division consisted at that time of roughly 1000 men in four battalions. Two battalions, totaling 500 men, were put together and I was given the order to conduct the main dressing station for them. For a military tactician this would have been an enormous task to command such a group. The fact that it was a Fuehrer Order excluded any possibility of discussion and, on the morning of the 30th of November, the two divisions went into attack as ordered, broke through the Russian defense, and, on tho same day, took the city of Rostow on the Don.
Out of the 500 men, 300 were lost, and four days later they were thrown out of the city again. In the winter of 1943-1944, the German front in the Ukraine collapsed. The First German Army was inclused, surrounded, dispersed and fled into the rear regions. At this time, my division received a second Fuehrer Order. We were unleaded at Lemberg and entered a territory in which there were no more German soldiers; went 120 kilometers through the bitter Russian cold to the East. The tanks begged down so that at the end we, consisting of infantry alone, had to try to gain our goal. This order was only carried out, because it was an order from the highest commander-in-chief; and, in this case also, we succeeded in doing what we were ordered to do. We freed tho 230,000 people who had been surrounded, but this order also was carried out at the expense of great losses.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will new recess until 9:30 o'clock tomorrow morning.
(A recess was taken until 0930 hours 11 March 1947)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 11 March 1947, 093*, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court room.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, with you ascertain that the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in court with the exception of the Defendant Oberhauser, absent due to illness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court save the Defendant Oberhauser, who has been excused on account of her illness.
Counsel may proceed.
FRITZ ***SCHER * Resumed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued).
BY DR. SEIDL (Counsel for the Defendant Fischer):
Q. Yesterday you spoke of the Fischer Order which Dr. Gebhardt informed you of; I ask you now to tell the court what the contents of this order were and what was to be ascertained through these experiments.
A. When in the middle of July 1942 I was called to Dr. Gebhardt, who was to tell me about these experiment, he told me that this Fuehrer Order was an order on the part of the State, in which a new series of new sulfonami preparations were to be tested. This testing was particularly important in that preparatory investigations on animals, and also a clinical testing, had demonstrated tee particular effectiveness of the sulfonamide preparations, so there was the justified hope that a decisive turn in the therapy of wound infections would be achieved through these reparations. He pointed out to me that the decisive improvement was so important because, as I said yesterday, the therapeutic situation regarding persons wounded was very difficult.
On the basis of documents he told me that there were in essence four prepa rations, one of which was cibazol, a sulfatiazol prepared by a Swiss firm; and a Swiss professor's, Dr. Brunner's work on this subject he showed to me, who had tested this preparation in a clinic. This clinical testing of the preparation really seemed to justify the hopes. He had carried out experiments on normal wounds, such as turned up in the accident clinic, and treated a total of 109 patients exclusive with sulfonamide and without the usual academic wound treatment according to Friedrich. His results were surprising in that of these 109 patients in the accident clinic, 106 recovered without complications, although in the case of 15 of these patients gas bacillus had been identified in the patient. This meant, in other words, a success of 97% i.e. for practical purposes 100% success.
Our clinic itself was sceptic 1 regarding sulfonamide therapy in general, but the wish had of gradually entered into our critic for a means of combatting wound infections, which were taking greater and greater sacrifices.
The second paper, shown to me as a basis for this experimentation, was a work by Professor Domak with marfanil experiments on animals. Marfenil is a sulfonamide preparation. It was introduced into the German Army, a mixture with Prontalbin. It was known as an M.P. Powder, but in this M.P. Powder one part was marfanil and nine parts prontalbin. In the work that I was shown by this professor the preparation consisted solely of marfanil. Experiments were carried out on animals, and they had taken place as follows: There were a number of animals who were infected with gas gangrene without being treated surgically. In all these cases without surgical treatment death resulted. The animals treated with marfanil recovered in 82.5% of the cases. Gebhardt said thus, if marfanil therapy was used in association with surgery on the front, 100% success could be expected.
The third preparation was an entirely now one, Katoxin. It was particularly characterized by the fact that it was a colloidal solution, a combination of oxygen and silver; and of this preparation it was expected that it would be a vacercide because of the silver, and because of the oxygen was to have particular effect on those bacilla which react to oxygen during their growth.
There were animal experiments to substantiate this also, which had been carried out by the staff of the firm that manufactured katoxin, and the results of these naimal experiments showed, for practical purposes, 100% success.
The last preparation was ultraseptil. That was also a sulfathiazol. There was only a short paper on this preparation, but Professor Gebhardt explained that this preparation was said to be particularly effective from what he had heard from Professor Morell in the Fuechrer's headquarters. From the explanation that I heard there, these preparations before they were introduced into the Wehrmacht -- Which was to be done on a very broad basis -- should once more be tested as to their certain and reliable effectiveness. In order to achieve this goal, as Professor Gebhardt told me, the order had come to Professor Gebhardt from Hitler via Himmler and Grawitz, to test these preparations on human beings, so that a perfectly a clear answer could be given to these questions. And he told me that since this order had been given, and once it had been given, he felt perfectly justified in carrying it out.
He described this order to me an a commission on the part of the State and said that he as the medical part of it would carry out only the medical part, and that the other members of the State would take care of the legal and other aspects of the problem.
Since this whole matter was extraordinary surprising to me, and I was totally unprepared for it, I asked him at that time not to choose me to participate in it, because I was reluctant to operate on men under such circumstances; but I was told in the usual form at that time, namely, in a strict and factual manner, that this was a military order and that Professor Gebhardt had received this order; what he was responsible for what I did; that I was in no way responsible and that I in a certain sense should be his righthand.
Q What was told you about the experimental persons?
A I was told that a number of male German professional criminals who had been condemned to death were to be used for these experiments who would thus have a chance for pardon; and in addition Gebhardt told me how he imagined the experiments would take place. He told me that the healing effect of the chemotherapeutics would be completely confirmed, so that we would not have to count on having fatalities. A few of the patients for purposes of comparison would have to be left untreated chemotherapeutically. However, he would try to keep the resulting inflammation localized and isolated to such and extent in these untreated persons, that the physician would always be in a position to interrupt this inflammation through surgical means.
I must add one thing: at that time I was told that these experiments were not to be kept secret. I received this order from Gebhardt within the scope of our hospital perfectly publicly, nor did I see any writing that was marked secret. Professor Gebhardt did not keep these experiments secret, and I myself carried out these experiments perfectly openly; and I was also told at that time that reports were to be published on these experiments. Then, in other words, there was no secret character to this any way. In addition, I was always assured that this was a legal State action, the State having during the War taken the right to carry out such experiments.
Q You have now described your participation that you were to have according to the Fuehrer Order. Did you not also wonder in what situation the experimental persons, on whom the experiments were to be carried out, would find themselves?
A Yes, I did. At the beginning I stated that the thought of doing something that was not really in accordance with basic middle medical principles, namely, to treat a man not with the first aim of helping but a secondary one. I said that this was counter to my basic feelings, and that for that reason I did not want to take part in these experiments; but, at the same time I could not deny the effectiveness of Professor Gebhardt's argument. He told me that I had been chosen for this as his assistant, because he wished that the experiments should be carried out by him and the assistant who was close to him and within his same circle.
Regarding the fate of the experimental subjects involved, I did not think of them in a legal way, but thought of myself as part of a State whole as a soldier who not always had the opportunity, the possibility, and the right to fully realize and see the individual act he has been ordered to do in its full extent and to justify it to himself. I believe that these experimental subjects who as condemned to death were faced with certain death and, therefore, had a chance for life by going through with these experiments seemed to me some justification. It seems to me that if I were in the same situation as these experimental subjects, I would seize such an opportunity as was being presented to them.
Q The expectations, with which these experiments were undertaken, were that they would provide an effective means for front-line treatment. You expected from the experiments a positive result, namely, that the sulfonamides that were there tested could be used successfully in fighting wound infection
A When the experiments began, I, at least, was firmly persuaded that, on the basis of the writings on the subject that we already had, there would only be minor inflammatory reactions, namely, in the experimental persons who were to be treated with sulfonamide. The writings on this subject seemed to justify this assumption on my part.
We were also convinced that the inflammation, that would result without the effect of the therapeutic means, could be combatted simply by keeping them resting in plaster casts, and that the inflammation would not spread.
I must go into this in some detail for the doctor and for the surgeon An inflammation is deprived of its serious consequences if it is split open; and also in the case og gas gangrene we thought we could control inflammation if the patient was kept resting in bed, and if we stood next to the bed with the surgical knife in order to be able to combat the inflammation immediately by surgical means if necessary.
Q In other words, you did not expect fatalities?
A No. This fear of fatalities was not the reason why I asked not to participate in these experiments. Rather, I did so only because of my inner resistance to doing something in contrary to basic medical principles; but we were of the opinion that in the individual cases the inflammation would be no worse than a boil, and we believed that in the patients not treated with sulfonamide a locally limited phlegmone might arise which, however, could be effectively combatted through surgical means.
We did not expect fatalities.
Q How far is Ravensbrueck from Hohenlychen?
A Twelve kilometers.
Q Then it was always possible in the case of a fatality for you or Professor Gebhardt or another doctor to be fetched to Ravensbrueck?
A Yes, and Professor Gebhardt also told me that he had reached this arrangement precisely so that here would be assurance that he would be there at any time available to assist.
Q At that time when the order was given to you, did you know anything about the prehistory of this order such as it was described in this courtroom by Dr. Gebhardt?
AAt that time I was Obersturmfuehrer in Hohenlychen, one of the youngest and lowest in rank of the assistants. Professor Gebhardt was the absolute chief of Hohenlychen, a very active and energetic man. He never discussed these matters with me. The prehistory of it such as it was here described I had no knowledge of.
Q Did you take part in any preparatory discussions of this with any officers?
A No.
Q Had you previously been in a concentration camp?
A No, never previously. My first visit to a concentration camp I made in the company of Professor Gebhardt, namely, at Ravensbrueck.
Q You heard Professor Gebhardt's description of the experiments in Group 1, namely, those carried out on fifteen male prisoners. Would you like to add anything to that description?
A It was as Professor Gebhardt described it. So far as I recall, twelve of these patients were given sulfonamide and three were treated only surgically as check patients. As in the later cases, a cut was made in the outer surface of the lower leg about three centimeters deep, and into this incision the bacilli were introduced, and, as I said, in the case of twelve patients sulfonamide was later added or given intravenously, and in the other three, they were simply observed surgically.