He wanted to compare what various people thought of the different procedures. The supplying of this purely technical information has now been connected with the renewed suggestion to increase vaccine production to such an extent that all members of the Wehrmacht at the eastern front could be vaccinated. That is the context, that is the meaning of this matter.
Q. Well then Schreiber asked for information for comparative determination of production costs and production material needed for extensive vaccine production?
A. Well less About cost than about the personnel and the material needed.
Q. Where was Schreiber at that time?
A. He was chief of the training group "C" in the academy, I believe the deputy for epidemic control with the Reich Research Council. I wouldn't say that for certain, the date is the 9 June 1943...
Q. It is doubtful whether he already was plenipotentiary of the Reich Research Council?
A. I don't know the date so well.
Q. It was the end of May or the beginning of June when he was given the assignment as plenipotentiary for epidemic control?
A. It is possible but I can say nothing for certain.
Q. This letter does not go to Schreiber, it goes to Haagen, and it shows that you made a suggestion to the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, and that you asked him to pass on this suggestion. The suggestion, which you just mentioned, that there should be a large typhus vaccine drive in the East; do you know personally whether your Chief, Generaloberstabsarzt Hippke did submit that suggestion?
A. I can only express an assumption. In general I did not learn that whether such a thing was passed on I became to know in two ways, if there was any inquiry about it or if I got to see the records later; I cannot remember today whether either of these two possibilities was the case here. I would assume that it went on, but I don't know.
Q. Do you know whether any decision was reached? You say in the letter: "I hope to succeed in this matter." You seemed to be interested in it and I believe that if the suggestion had been successful, if it had been adopted, you would have been informed.
Were you?
A. Well in any case we never achieved the aim of producing enough vaccine for the Eastern front. I cannot remember any specific answer in that connection.
Q. Well then the results which can be ascertained are first, that this letter had nothing to do with research, and, second, that the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service, was in no connection with Haagen and Natzweiler, that is, so far as the letter is concerned.
A. The Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service had nothing to do with instigating this letter. Information is given to him about technical, production matters which he did not ask for at all, and besides they had nothing to do with experiments.
Q. Yes, that is what I want to knows that this material, which may have been brought to the attention of the Wehrmacht Medical Service, said nothing about research and nothing about Natzweiler, only the technical material cor comparison which you spoke of?
A. Yes, and the date shows that too. The first experimental vaccinations, which are reported in Strassbourg, are supposed to have taken place at the end of May or the beginning of June 1943 in Schirmek. There couldn't have been any material on it yet.
Q. I am interested only in facts. What you say is an explanation.
A. In document 305, it says for example that a letter from Mr. Giroud is enclosed. That is the head of the corresponding department at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who gave information, that I need so and so many rabbits per month, and I need so many technical assistants and so and so many untrained workers. That has nothing to do with experiments.
Q. But that was from Haagen to you. That was the basis for what you reported to Haagen or rather to Hippke.
A. Yes, I took these things together and wrote a covering letter and sent it on.
Q. Did you ever talk to Professor Handloser about experiments on human beings of the type which are the subject of the charges here?
A. No.
Q. Or did you ever have an opportunity to discuss experiments with him, that is typhus experiments with human beings?
A. No, I believe Handloser did not discuss typhus questions with mo at all, certainly not experiments. About delousing problems Professor Handloser did not consult me.
Q. When you were in Buchenwald with Professor Gildemeister, did you have an opportunity afterwards to discuss it with Professor Handloser?
A. Generaloberabstabsarzt Handloser was not yet the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service at that time. I had no opportunity to sec him and I did not talk to him about it.
Q. Following the Ding lecture at the May meeting in 1943 where you protested, did you talk to Professor Handloser about the reason for your protest and did you talk to him about the incident at all?
A. No, I did not talk to Professor Handloser about it.
Q. Did you talk to Professor Handloser about research on hepatitis epidemica?
A. No, I was not working with hepatitis.
Q. Did you talk to him about malaria?
A. I talked to Professor Handloser repeatedly about malaria.
Q. Or in connection with the experiments in Dachau with Schilling.
A. No, I knew nothing about them myself. Those were questions of prophylaxis with the troops, dosis of prophylaxis, and then malaria treatment, standard methods of treatment, the time when malaria prophylaxis should begin, the question of general treatment.
Q. Well, questions which were important for protective vaccination and for the carrying out of prophylaxis?
A. No, not vaccination. There is no vaccination for malaria prophylaxis, but drugs.
Q. Did you talk to Handloser about yellow fever experiments?
A. No.
Q. Did you participate in the hepatitis discussion in June 1944 in Breslau?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. I was not invited, and I was quite annoyed because I wasn't invited. I would have been glad to hear what was reported there, but apparently it was only a small group of purely hepatitis specialists, and since I was a general hygienist I was not invited. I only learned subsequently of this meeting. If I had learned about it beforehand I would have tried to get an invitation.
Q. Do you know where Dr. Domen worked on hepatitis research?
A. I learned subsequently that he worked at the Robert Koch Institute, after he had already left: and then later I heard that he was in Giessen, and at some institute, but both of these facts I know only from hearsay and not from my own knowledge, I did not see him at the Robert Koch Institute, and I did not visit him at Giessen.
Q. But you do know that Domen worked at the Robert Koch Institute under Professor Gildemeister on hepatitis?
A. Yes, I heard that.
Q. Well your hearing it was such that you can call it knowledge?
A. Well I considered it quite credible. If I were not under oath I would simply say Domen worked for Gildemeister, but since I am under oath I can only say I heard that Domen worked for Gildemeister.
Q. You worked at the Robert Koch Institute, too, didn't you?
A. Yes, I had my department there.
Q. Then this "hearing" can be evaluated as more important than if someone simply says, in ordinary life, "I heard that he worked at so and so".
A. Yes, certainly. Besides there is an affidavit from Goheimrat Lenz, who is now director of the Robert Koch Institute and it says that Dohmen did work there, and he has access to check up on the files.
Q. I have no more questions to this witness. I thank you.
BY DR. PRIBILLA (Counsel for the defendant Rostock):
Q. Professor Rose, you were Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute of Berlin. Was this institute under the Ministry of the Interior or was it at any time under the Commissioner General for Health and Medical Matters, and consequently under the department for science and research?
A. The institute, until 31 March 1942 was under the Prussian Ministry of Interior, From 1 April 1942 on it was under the Reich Ministry of Interior. But, of course, it was never under the Commissioner General.
Q. Then you never had any orders or instructions directly from the Commissioner General for the Robert Koch Institute?
A. No. I never saw any such instructions.
Q. Were you as Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute, or as Consulting Hygienist of the Luftwaffe, ever under Professor Rostock in his capacity as Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Berlin?
A. No, of course not. I had nothing to do with Professor Rostock as Dean except in my capacity as teacher in the Medical Faculty. But, I was also teacher at the Foreign Science Faculty. Even as in the University he had nothing to do and certainly with my job outside of the University. In practice I merely had to send him a note every six months saying "I will hold a lecture on this subject and on such and such days and at such and such times."
And, then the technical correspondence which a Dean has to exchange with an instructor. He had to have my telephone number, he had to have my address, and he had to know my personal data, too.
Q. In any case, this Institute and the work which was done there, he had no control of?
A. No. It is quite out of the question.
Q. Did you not feel it your duty as a scientist from 1944 on to report to Rostock as head of the Department of Science and Research -- to give reports about your research you had planned or carried out?
A. No, I had enough to write without that. I didn't write to anyone on my own initiative.
Q. Did Rostock ever give you any instructions or requests in this connection?
A. No. I never received any such requests from Professor Rostock.
Q. Thank you.
BY DR. SAUTER (Counsel for the Defendants Blome and Ruff):
Q. Professor Rose, the defendant Ruff, or rather the defendant Blome -- I must correct myself -- as you know, is the only defendant whom the Prosecution brings into any connection with plague experiments. This assumption of the Prosecution, if I may refresh your memory Professor Rose, is based on the file note of Professor Kliebe, which you know, of the 23 February 1944 -- Document 1309, Exhibit 326. I should like to read to you the passage which refers to plague, to recall it to your memory. The file note says:
"Professor Blome is of the opinion that above all a check of our vaccines, and particularly plague vaccine, is necessary. Corresponding experiments on human beings would have to be conducted."
And later it says: "Professor Blome at the end asked whether the Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service of the Inspectorate of the Wehrmacht knew that in European Turken 4,000 cases of plague have occurres."
Following this quotation -- the document of February 1944 --the Prosecution charged the defendant Blome that he was in some connection with criminal experiments with plague which were either carried out or planned. Now, Professor, I have seen from your list of publications that you yourself wrote two papers on plague. Is that true?
A. Yes.
Q. And, from a document in your Document Book I see that you were sent to the Netherlands East Indies and to Kwangsi to deal with plague problems. Is that true?
A. Yes, that is true.
Q. Then I may consider you an Internationally recognized expert in this field and you will be able to give me some information on a few points so the Tribunal may be able to get a picture whether plague experiments with which Blome is charged are permissible and when they are considered criminal?
A. Yes.
Q. Dr. Rose, can you tell me whether according to medical ideas and medical or research practice throughout the world it was generally customary in former decades that in producing plague vaccines experiments on human beings wore carried out?
A. Yes. One must distinguish between two times. The first time when plague vaccination was carried out with killed bacilli. That was quite in the beginning of the study of vaccines. The first experiments had the character of experiments on human beings. They wore carried out by Huffgen in Bombay. On the basis of these experiments it was developed to the point that in the future one had only to make tests of tolerance which cannot really be called experiments on human beings any longer. Nevertheless there was once a very unfortunate incident.
During these tests sixteen people died of tetanus. That is a well known thing historically. That was contamination of the vaccine. Since then there has been a general regulation that vaccines have to be tested beforehand for tetanus. That is because of this incident with the plague vaccine. But then there comes the modern development of plague vaccines which I have already had to mention in describing the historical basis of the work of Professor Haagen. That is the development of vaccines from living avirulent plague bacteria. Since these vaccines have been introduced if one begins with the production of those vaccines an experiment on human beings is always unavoidable. That was done for the first time when the procedure was introduced by Dr. Strong who layed the foundation for all this work. Then all this work was repeated again in the 20s by Dr. Otten in Java. The reason was that this old system of Strong and Otton had been lost. Therefore the whole thing had to be repeated. At the same time he, independently of Otten, the same experiments were carried out in Madagascar.
Q. Professor Rose, I am primarily interested in the following: And that is the reason why I go into this question and I ask you in answering it to consider this purpose of clarification. These experiments which Professor Strong, I believe that ho is an American, and other foreign scientists carried out, reports wore given in Journals by professional Journals. Do you know which ones, primarily?
A. American work was published in the Philippine Journal of Science.
Q. Do you know, Professor, what the reputation of this Philippine Journal is, whether in America, and England it has a high reputation and is read very much or whether it is an obscure paper. Perhaps you will comment on that always remembering, Professor Rose, what influence these publications had on the development of medical ethics, conception of profession of medicine the permissibility or illegadity of such experiments on human beings?
A. That is a very well known, very important paper. Doctors of tropical medicine quite generally read it. Especially if they work in the Far East but, for example, the paper has a representative in Germany and it has a representative in the States.
Q. Then apparently it is a very widespread journal?
A. Well, what do you mean by widespread? As a professional paper in professional circles yes, it is widespread. If you compare it with the circulation of a daily newspaper, then it is, of course, restricted to a very narrow group.
Q. As far as I know, it is read quite a lot in Germany. In any case, I have noticed that all the issues of this journal are available even today in quite a number of medical societies and libraries. Do you know that?
A. Well, we had it in our library in Berlin and then a friend of mine, Professor Ziemann in Berlin, subscribed to it personally, but it was enough for me that it was in our library.
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, it seems to me that defense counsel has gone a bit far afield. I think it might be suggested that defense counsel confine himself to the issues at trial here.
THE PRESIDENT: The questions of counsel are pertinent to certain matters before the Tribunal. He may proceed, of course, confining himself within reasonable limits as to repetition and so on.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I believe that the Tribunal, in this point which we are just dealing with, must show a certain indulgence to the defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal, counsel, overruled the objection by the prosecution. You may proceed.
BY DR. SAUTER:
Q. Professor Rose, do you believe that a scientific journal of the significance and wide-spread importance of this Philippine journal had considerable influence on the development of the conception of the medical profession in regard to such experiments on human beings and still exercises such influence today, and that the things printed in such serious journals, if they are written by internationally recognized scientists, are given special acknowledgment and recognition by the medical world?
A. It is, of course, clear that important scientific journals, in part, reproduce the ethics of the profession and also influence it. That is true.
Q. Professor Rose, you know the publications of the professor whom you just mentioned. You read these publications, and what can you tell us about what this man writes about the quality of the experimental subjects?
A. In the first paper on plague vaccines, he says that he began with criminals condemned to death and that he continued the experiments on other persons. It is not indicated exactly what these other persons were, but according to the whole discussion of the experiments one can assume that they were also prisoners from Billibit and that is likely also because from other works by him one can see it repeated that he worked on prisoners in Billibit. And I have some knowledge of my own on the subject because discussed this whole matter with Filipino doctors when I was in the Netherland Indies to study plague control. I was with two Filipino doctors and, of course, we discussed the foundation of this whole work which came from the Philippines.
Q. Professor Rose, you spoke of Billibit. That is a penitentiary, I believe isn't it?
A. Yes, a penitentiary near Manila.
Q. Does the author, this highly respected Professor Strong, say anything about these experimental subjects being volunteers, or is he silent on that subject?
A. The work on plague says nothing about it and even if it said so, no one would have believe it at that tine, because to inject living plague baccilli, even if it went off well, was criticized by experts and it was said that it was too dangerous. Of course, a layman would not volunteer for such things.
Q. Does Dr. Strong - I believe that this Professor Strong is the same man whom you mentioned a few days ago?
A. Yes.
Q. And you told the Tribunal that you knew him personally, I believe?
A. Yes.
Q. That you knew him as a man of specially high conception Of his duty as a doctor. That is the same man?
A. Yes.
Q. Does Professor Strong write anything about deaths resulting from his experiments on prisoners?
A. Not in the case of the plague experiments, but in his Beri-Beri experiments he does.
Q. Those were also experiments which Professor Strong carried out?
A. Yes, also in Billibit.
Q. And how great was the percentage of deaths? Do you know anything about that?
A. In the beri-beri experiments, one out of twentynine.
Q. Professor Rose, we had this Philippine journal here. We still have it here. We have looked through it thoroughly and we have established - and I should like to know whether you can confirm this - that this report of Professor Strong, which you just told us about, in not the only report of this type but that in almost every issue of this journal there is a report on similar experiments on human beings. Is that true?
A. That is correct. That is one of the reasons why the magazine had such great significance because there were very many fundamental discoveries which were announced in it.
Q. Do you remember, professor, how great the number of experimental subjects in Strong's experiments was? how many people that he said himself he used?
A. In the plague experiments, there wore nine hundred, and I don't remember the other things well enough to be able to give you figures. I, of course, was primarily interested in the plague work. If you still look at the German medical weekly of 1937, there in the Berlin Medical Society, in the discussion, I referred specifically to this plague work of Strong's.
Q. Do you also know from this journal, professor, that for these experiments the Governor of the Philippines expressly gave his permission?
A. That is said in the paper, and that is to be assumed because Strong was not the prison doctor.
Q. You say Strong was a prison doctor?
A. No, I said he was not.
Q. Do you believe, professor, that if Strong - that even if Strong does not go into the question of Volunteering, one can assume that the large number of nine hundred experimental subjects in the plague experiments alone allowed the conclusion that these were all criminals condemned to death, in the first place, and second, that they had all volunteered?
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, this material concerning the experiments of Professor Strong Falls right in the category of other material and experiments in other countries. The Tribunal has ruled that this may be introduced at a later time in the trial and, at that time, the Tribunal will rule as to the admissibility of such evidence. It seems that the publication is available in the Philippine journal and he is merely questioning the defendant on what exists in this publication. I think that may well be introduced at a later date and can be ruled on at that time and not take up the time of the Tribunal now.
THE PRESIDENT: The suggestion of counsel for the prosecution is well-taken. The matter of the contents of this publication in the Philippine journal may be gone into at some later date during, the trial when the copies may be produced and all such publications can be considered at one time.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I ask permission to complete my questions about the Philippine journal. I believe I have only one or two more questions and then I will be finished with the subject and then, Mr. President, I do not want these questions about the Philippine journal to be thrown into the whole group of things that are to be eliminated or the one at the end of the trial. I'm not asking about general experiments in the whole world, I'm asking specifically about plague experiments, and that is because the defendant Blome is the only one who is specifically charged with plague experiments, and because I am interested in determining whether Professor Blome can be declared a criminal for plague experiments which he did not conduct while some foreigner, who had conducted experiments, is not a criminal but is glorified.
I believe this question has to be settled and therefore I ask permission to deal with the one or two questions which are still necessary to settle this matter.
JUDGE SEBRING: Do you contend that this witness knows anything about these experiments other than is written in this journal? If it is simply a question of what is contained in the journal, the Tribunal mast read it for itself. You have been asking him whether he knows what is contained in the journal and if, in his opinion, the language is such as to justify the belief concerning whether these were or were not volunteers. Whether in the last essential if they are written I apprehend that perhaps it is the function of this Tribunal to determine, in the last analysis, whether or not the language is susceptible of the interpretation that they were or were not volunteers.
DR. SAUTER: The situation precisely inconnection with these plague experiments, the witness having talked about is different, because on the one hand Professor Rose knows the author, and the scientist who conducted these experiments personally. He was in the Netherlands -- India and in China himself and studied these questions, that is, he is an expert of the very first language in this field, and the second point is that Professor Strong, who actually did perform such experiments that Blome is accused, of, although he did not perform them, Professor Strong is an internationally recognized scientist who acquired special respect in the medical world for these plague experiments. I am of the opinion that we jurists must be grateful if an internationally recognized authority like Professor Rose can give us information about these medical questions, because he had nothing whatever to do with these plague experiments. For this question he is merely an impartial expert, but I believe I have only two more questions on that subject, and then the chapter will be finished.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Professor Rose, do you know of your own knowledge whether or not the men used for the plague experiments were or were not volunteers?
A. I was not present myself at the experiments, but during my investigation of plague in Java when I cooperated and collaborated with a number of Asiatic doctors, among them Siamese, Chinese and two Phillipines. Since we were interested in plague and since we were studying the problem of living plague vaccine, of course we discussed the foundations of the whole business very thoroughly and two of the Philippine doctors were present, and I remember one conversation when the other Asiatic gentlemen attacked these experiments rather violently and said that was a typical example of the white race misusing the natives, and the two Phillipines who were most interested in this question they observed, they said that even if the experimental subjects had not all been volunteers, and of course there were different opinions on that subject in Manilla, that they as Phillippine doctors who had known Strong, on the basis of this personal knowledge, were perfectly convinced that this was not a misuse of natives but a very reliable work in the interests of the peoples of Asia; not only the Phillippines but the Indians and Siamese as well, who were cursing Mr. Strong.
From this conversation I know what Phillippine doctors thought about these experiments. That is the source of my knowledge, but since we were working on nothing else but plague at the time, we of course discussed these matters in groat detail. Strong's work was the basis on which we did all our work. That was in 1935 in Bandong on Java.
Q. Then it is generally understood in your profession that Strong used prison inmates, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And the opinion is divided in your profession as to whether those prisoners were or were not volunteers, is that correct?
A. Yes, that was expressly said by the Phillippine doctors, that they did not believe that they were volunteers. Professor Strong did not always say so. Many of his papers say nothing about it, but in others he does maintain it, but on the spot the people did net believe it. It is often the case in medical works it says "these are volunteers and ---"
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, was the matter of the proposed interrogation covered by the answers by the witness to the questions propounded by the Tribunal?
DR. SAUTER: I have only one more brief question on this matter of plague, one single question on plague.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed to propound your question to the witness.
BY DR. SAUTER:
Q. Professor Rose, one final question on the problem of plague, did you ever hear that any authority in the whole World, whether the church or the Government or the medical professional organizations or any one, objected to these reports of Strong and similar scientists, for example in the Phillippine Journal, and called these experiments criminal, specifically whether the church, Christian or non-Christian, protestant or Catholic, took this point of view.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may answer that question yes or no.
A. I beg your pardon, unfortunately it is impossible. Very exceptionally there were criticisms, not of Strong specifically but of other work which I know of, but on the whole I never heard such criticism, such criticism was always an exception, I am very sorry that I could not observe your instruction.
Q. One brief final question on another subject, only a correction. It is some thing which the Tribunal asked -- a very brief question, Professor. In the examination of Professor Rostock the Tribunal asked whether immunity can be ascertained by blood test, that is whether an experiment with human beings is absolutely necessary: did you understand the question?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that correct?
A. In the direct examination by Dr. Fritz I have already answered this question. I don't know whether it escaped your notice, Dr. Sauter. I know you have a document, I believe it is No. 24, which you wanted tosubmit on the subject.
DR. SAUTER: Then I have no more questions, Mr. President. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess for a few minutes.
(Thereupon a recess was taken)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other questions to the witness on the part of any defense counsel?
BY DR. WEISGERBER: (Counsel for Defendant Sievers.)
Q. Professor, Document NO. 123, Exhibit 303 of the Prosecution, was the object of discussion yesterday between you and your counsel. This is tho letter from Professor Haagen to Professor Hirt of 9 May 1944, regarding experiments with a dry typhus vaccine; I shall have it put to you in case you don't have it infront of you?
A. Thank you, I have the entire Document Book No. 12 and have it open to the correct page.
Q. The contents of this letter were literally the contents that Sievers sent on 19 May 1944 to the Chief of the SS - W.V.H.A. and this letter was put in by the Prosecution as Exhibit 304. Yesterday you concerned yourself only with the medical importance of this letter; now I ask you, since my client is not a doctor and has no medical knowledge; can a lay-man see from this letter that the vaccinations with tho vaccine developed by Haagen, except for a fever reaction that lasts some time, could have any fatal or infectious effects on the person innoculated; can alay-man see that from this letter?
A. Let me correct this one error first of all, I did not discuss this Document yesterday with Dr. Fritz, the Document discussed yesterday was Document No. 127. The whole question to which this letter refers, however, I went into at great length with Dr. Fritz.
Now, to answer your specific questions. A lay-man can, in my opinion, not deduce such matters as you brought forth from this letter for the simple reason that there is nothing to that effect in the letter; how then could a lay-nan find anything in there if the expert could not.
