Q The defendant Sievers drew only the conclusion, from what Haagen said, that this was a testing of the vaccine, a protective vaccination such as are given millions of times in protecting against all sorts of diseases. Can any objection be raised to that point of view or could one say he also had to take something else into account?
A No, that is also my conviction, and I am today still firmly convinced that Haagen worked in a completely irreproachable way, and neither from witnesses nor from documents have I been able to find anything that contradicts that. I stated specifically yesterday that only this document 127 -- if I had received this document, I should have become suspicious and would have asked questions, but that is the only one from which it could be deduced that he intended anything that was incorrect.
Q Then no layman who was not an expert could have seen that?
A I don't oven know whether Sievers saw this letter, document 127; and, of course, it is very difficult for a specialist to judge what a layman might deduce from something like this. As a specialist one is always inclined to see matters much mere simply, and to believe that because one understands one's self that others must also understand; but we often find out that is a very considerable error. I consider it quite possible that oven if Sievers had seen this document 127, nothing particularly would have struck him in it.
Q And if he only saw document 123 -
A There is nothing in it at all. There is only mention of vaccines.
DR. EISGERBER: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other questions of this witness by defense counsel?
If not, the Prosecution may cross-examine the witness.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
Q Professor, as an officer in the medical service of the Luftwaffe, were you not ultimately subordinated to the defendant Handloser as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht?
A I was subordinate to the medical office of the Luftwaffe. The Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht I did not regard as my superior officer, in the same way as I did regard my superior in the Luftwaffe.
A I don't care whether you regarded him as your superior in the same way. My question was whether he was not ultimately your superior as Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht?
A No.
Q You did not state such a thing to me on the 31 October 1946?
A No, I certainly didn't say that. He could ask me for professional expert opinion, but that does not mean he was my superior officer by any means.
Q Well was either Hippke or Schroeder your superior officer?
A Hippke and Schroeder were my superiors.
Q And was Handloser the superior of Hippke and Schroeder?
A I am a scientist but not an expert in matters of military organization, and after Generalarzt Hartleben testified on these questions, I as a scientist should prefer not to enter upon this field. I believe that my answers would only cause confusion to the whole question and would not add to the discovery of the truth.
Q We will leave that up to the Tribunal to decide. Did Handloser have any consulting physicians attached to his staff as Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht?
A No, he had no consultants of his own; so far as I know, there was an agreement between the chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht and the Medical Inspectorate of the three branches of the Wehrmacht to the effect that Professor Handlossr could call upon for scientific consultations the consulting medical officers of the three Wehrmacht branches.
Q. If Handloser issued any general instructions as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, you would have been bound to follow those instructions, would you not?
A. For instance, he issued a directive on the inception of the malaria prophylaxis. But here again I cannot testify whether that was a binding order or whether that was simply a proposal. That is a question of military subordination, regarding which I really cannot give you any information. I know only that the date was fixed when the malaria prophylaxis should begin in the Luftwaffe in agreement with this proposal by Professor Handloser. But that took place so that all branches of the Wehrmacht should be working simultaneously on this matter and I do know that is what happened. Now, whether that happened on the basis of an order or a voluntary agreement, that I cannot tell you. As a scientist I never concerned myself with these things and since they are of importance in this trial I would consider it careless to say anything about it.
Q. You also know that Handloser as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht controlled typhus vaccine production for all the branches of the Wehrmacht, don't you?
A. I do not know that he controlled the production but I do know that he had charge of the distribution of the vaccines to various branches of the Wehrmacht. But, before that, the Army Medical Inspectorate had had charge of that because before a chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht existed the three medical chiefs agreed voluntarily that the Army, as the largest branch of the Wehrmacht, should undertake this distribution because, since the vaccine was very scarce, all the branches of the Wehrmacht were trying to get special rights for themselves with various factories that produced vaccines. Thus the danger arose that someone who was particularly clever at this would get a large amount and the branch that needed it most of all, perhaps, but was not quite so clever, would get the short end of the stick. Therefore, at the beginning of 1943 the three medical inspectorates voluntari ly agreed that the Army Medical Inspectorate was to do the distributing.
And, so far as I know, the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht carried on the same policy.
Q. As I recall, in one of the letters to Haagen from the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, I think it was the letter written by Kant and which you admit having some knowledge of, mention was made that the production of typhus vaccine by Haagen would have to be taken up with Handloser. Isn't that right?
A. Yes, that is in the letter and that may be traced back to that old agreement of the year 1942, because at that time it was also agreed, so far as I remember, that in case any branch of the Wehrmacht set up its own production facilities the Army Medical Inspectorate should be informed of this. The reason for this measure was to prevent one branch from producing for itself one hundred thousand doses and still receiving its entire quota as if it had no production of its own at all. But, as I said, these are rather administrative matters, of which I heard incidentally. For instance, I knew that there were individual agreements but I unfortunately do not know the precise text.
A. It is true, is it not, that after the war with Russia began the typhus problem became very acute?
A. Yes.
Q. Typhus was not common in Germany, was it?
A. Before the war there was no typhus in Germany at all.
Q. And to meet this typhus problem you could do two things, couldn't you? One was combat lice with disinfectants such as Zyklon B, and the other was to produce protective vaccines.
A. Yes.
Q. This Committee which you were on with Dr. Peters was very much interested in Zyklon B, was it not?
A. It concerned itself with disinfectants in toto and that included also the interest in Zyklon B. But Zyklon B, namely, prussic acid, was not a very serious problem in this matter. At any rate, from my point of view, I was representative of the civilian consumers and the civilian consumers received no prussic acid at all.
There were only eight firms that were permitted. They had to present their requests for disinfectants and then received their quota. So that prussic acid was the thing that could be settled most easily in this whole matter. It therefore did not Play such a large role. Of course, it did play an important role purely in the production question, but this was not settled by the committee because the committee simply had to distribute those disinfectants and chemicals which were made available by Main Group Chemicals for distribution. And prussic acid is used not only as in insecticide but is also very important in manufacture. For example, in the production of unbreakable glass prussic acid is used and etching and tanning procedures make use of prussic acid. And prussic acid is used in agriculture as an insecticide, and all these matters were decided higher up. This working committee for insecticides received from the whole total available amount of prussic acid that amount of prussic acid that was made available for combatting of insect pests dangerous to human health. The agriculture insect pests were taken care of by another committee and they received amounts of prussic acid from somewhere else; in other words, not prussic acid that we controlled. And industry in its turn received its share.
Q. Was the same type of prussic acid used in insecticide control as in agriculture or manufacturing uses?
A. Regarding the agriculture Insect pests I am not well informed. But, I should like to assume that this is so because the main characteristic of Zyklon B is that it contains an agent that smells. Prussic acid has no smell itself and when we deal with the insect pests dangerous to human lives we added this agent that smelled as a warning that this was prussic acid. Then this, of course, was the same point of view the people fighting agriculture insect pests had, because they were just as interested in being warned by the smell as the disinfectors, but I can't say that for sure because I had nothing to do with combatting of agriculture insect pests.
Q. Now the disinfectors, that is, the insect control people, had to obtain their prussic acid from your committee or through your committee, did they not?
A. The prussic acid was assigned to these eight firms by the committee.
Q. Now, would the extreme necessity for the large scale production of typhus vaccines and the resultant experiments on human beings in concentration camps have arisen had not Germany been engaged in a war?
A. That question cannot simply be answered with "yes" or "no". It is, on the whole, not very probably that without the war typhus would have been introduced in the German camps,but it is not altogether without bounds of possibility because also, in times of peace, typhus has been introduced in individual cases from time to time and the primary danger in the camps is the louse danger, and infections with lice take place also in times of peace. Then, if typhus is introduced into such a camp that is infected with lice, a typhus epidemic can arise in peacetime also, of course.
Q. But Germany had never experienced any difficulty with typhus before the war. Isn't that right?
A. Not for many decades, no?
Q. You stated that nine hundred persons were used in Dr. Strong's plague experiments?
A. Yes, I know that number from the literature on the subject.
Q. What is the usual mortality in plague?
A. That depends on whether it is bubonic plague or lung pest. In one, namely, bubonic plague, the mortality can be as high as sixty or seventy per cent. It also can be lower. In lung pest, the mortality is just about one hundred.
Q. How many people died in Dr. Strong's plague experiments?
A. According to what his reports say, none of them died, but this result could not have been anticipated because this was the first time that anyone had attempted to innoculate living plague virus into human beings, and Strong said in his first publication in 1905 that he himself was surprised that no unpleasant incidents occurred and that there was only this severe fever reaction. That despite this unexpectedly favorable outcome of Strong's experiments the specialists had considerable misgivings about this procedure can be seen first of all from literature where that is explicitly stated; for example, two Englishmen say that, contrary to expectations, these experiments went off well but nevertheless this prodess cannot be used for general vaccination because there is always the danger that, through some unexpected event, this strain again becomes virulent.
Moreover, from other works that Strong later published it can be seen that Guinea pigs and monkeys that he vaccinated with this vaccine, died, not of the plague but of the toxic affects of the vaccine. All these difficulties are the reason why this enormously important discovery which Koller and Otto made in 1903, and Strong in 1905, has only been generally applied, for all practical purposes, since 1926. That is an indication of the care and fear with which this whole matter was first approached, and Strong could not know ahead of time that his experiments would turn out well. I described here the enormous concern that Strong felt during all these months regarding the fact that that might happen which every specialist feared, viz. that the virus would become virulent again. what is an enormous responsibility.
Q. Be that as it may, nobody died. That is a fact, isn't it?
A. If anyone did die, the literature says nothing about it. There were mortalities only among the monkeys and Guinea pigs that are mentioned in the publication. If human beings died, there is no mention in the publication. It is generally known, if there are serious accidents in such experiments as this, they are most reluctant in making them public.
Q. Now, Professor,I have no wish to limit you but, as I understand it, you have explained these things in considerable detail during the four days in which you have already testified. If you can give a short answer to my question that is all I want. If I want any further explanation I'll ask you for it.
Now, what is the normal death rate in beri-beri?
A. That depends on the medical care given. If the care is good, the mortality is zero, and if they have no medical care at all, then a lot of them die.
Q. Sixty to eighty per cent would probably die if they were not treated. Is that right?
A. Beri-beri lasts for many, many months before a person dies and you don't die in sixty days of beri-beri, that has to be a severe case.
Q. How many people did Strong use in his beri-beri experiments? Is twenty-nine all you know about?
A. So far as I know from the literature, the number was twentynine.
Q. Well, it says in the literature that he used only twentynine. Is that right?
A. So far as I know, yes.
Q. And one of those died?
A. According to what the literature says, one of them died.
Q. What is the mortality in typhus?
A. That varies enormously. It depends on the epidemic. In some epidemics the mortality is five per cent. In general, you count on a mortality of twenty per cent. In the Serbian-Albanian epidemic in 1915, there was a mortality of seventy per cent, but that mortality rate is so extraordinarily high that it is generally assumed that probably, in reality, there were more cases of typhus than were actually reported on.
Q. Well, we could take roughly five to thirty per cent as the mortality. Is that right?
A. Yes, that is what the text books generally say.
Q. What was the mortality in the Buchenwald experiments, Professor?
A. In the controlled cases in the experiments that I knew of, the mortality was thirty per cent.
Q. Among the controls, you figured thirty per cent?
A. Yes. There were ten control persons in the first group of experiments, and of them, three died.
Q. Three died? Well, but I assume that you have read through the Ding Diary and let us assume for the moment that it is correct. Didn't you say that they also used control persons in the four or five other series of experiments.
A. In the controlled cases where they were testing the vaccine, the general mortality was thirty per cent. But then there were these therapeutic experiments in which, according to the Diary, blood infections were undertaken and, in this case, the Diary does mention an unusually high mortality rate.
Q. Well, professor,for your information - we have figured out five control series in the Ding Diary, and I mean by controls those that were not treated with anything. The mortality ranges between fifty-four to one hundred per cent and averaged eighty-one per cent. Do you accept those figures as correct? I mean, do you think that's right?
Q. No, that does not correspond with the impression I got from the numbers in the Diary, but I didn't calculate it so precisely as all that. I looked at the individual experiments and it is true that, for instance, in these therapeutic experiments Ding's work mentions a mortality of something like fifty to fifty-five per cent, and then there is one series that deals with blood infection where of twenty people I believe nineteen died.
Q. Let me put it to you, Professor. Isn't it a fact that they weren't dealing with epidemic typhus in Buchenwald, but with a supertyphus, developed from man to man passage, which was much more virulent and much more deadly than any typhus you could expect in an epidemic?
A. That I cannot judge because I have no knowledge of the work done in Buchenwald and can only refer to what Ding's Diary says, which I regard as unreliable.
Q. Well, if you regard it as reliable, Doctor,and if you figure out the deaths among the untreated control persons and find a mortality which averaged eighty-one per cent, won't you, as a scientist and an expert on tropical diseases, concede that they had developed a highly virulent, something we might call a supertyphus, in Buchenwald? Isn't that right, Professor?
A. As a scientist I am accustomed to state my opinion on the basis of reliable documentation, and not on the basis of such falsifications which are produced for a special purpose.
Q. I can appreciate that you don't regard the document as reliable, Professor, but we'll investigate that a little later. Pursuing the same point which I have been putting to you and in reference to your answer about epidemic jaundice, are you prepared, as an expert, to state that a man to man passage of an epidemic jaundice virus could not bring about a new disease which might be quite deadly?
A. I have no personal experience in this since I never tried out any such experiments. I can only rely on what is said in English and American literature where such passage from man to man was carried out in more than six hundred cases, and no increase in virulence was observed. Moreover, the passage from man to man is the normal form of contagion in all infectious diseases which is not transmitted by any intermediate agent. For instance, diphtheria is transmitted only from man to man with no carrier, and meningitis is the same. If a new meningitis epidemic breaks out, then the mortality is, at the beginning, very high. It can be as high, for instance, as fifty per cent in meningitis. Then, after the epidemic has been in any one area for quite a while, the mortal ity drops. This is a pretty general epidemilogical law. That is not true only of meningitis, but of many other contagious diseases; namely, that the epidemic is more dangerous at the beginning than at the end of its course.
Q. Well are you sure that epidemic jaundice is transferred with out any intermediate area agents, is that right: do you know how it is transferred?
A. That is my scientific conviction, which I also stated during my interrogation in Letema. An excerpt of it is here as a document. It says there that we on the bases of our objections were convinced that hepatitis epidemic was not transmitted by a carrier, but that the infection occurs directly from man to man. In case this is important to you I could find you the passage in the document, but perhaps my mention suffices.
Q. Going back to the typhus experiment as an expert, are you prepared to tell this Tribunal it makes no difference in the severity of disease typhus if a man is infected by a bite of a louse in comparison to having two cubic centimeters of typhus infected blood injected intravenously?
A. Certainly. First of all there is a difference in the amount of the infecting agent, and the mass of the infecting agent always plays a great role in any such infectious disease.
Q. Nell, when you have two cubic centimeters of typhus infected blood injected into a man's blood stream, might not a scientist expect the disease would be so severe as to break down any protection?
A. One would have to have experience in this respect. Then one is very much inclined to make that assumption, namely that an infection with two cubic centimeters of blood would cause more serious illness than an injection with say one-tenth of a centimeter of infected blood. That is the assumption one would have about this from the very beginning, but what tho course of the desease really is, that would have to be observed.
Q. And it would take a simultaneous biting from about a million lice to put two cubic centimeters of infected blood into a man, wouldn't it, doctor?
A. I have never figured that out. Moreover the concentration of the typhus virus in the blood is not precisely known to me.
The lice feces contain the virus in great numbers, whereas in the blood these virus is so sparsely present that its presence cannot even be proved with a microscope, and to that extent the amount of two ccs of blood could not be measured with the amount of feces that a louse produced, because I assume you are referring to that the louse's bite does not transmit typhus at all. The saliva of the louse is not infectious, but apparently you were referring to the infectious feces of the louse which then gets into the louse bite.
Q. Professor, as I understand it, you and the co-defendants, regard the experiments of Strong with plague, and beri-beri involving around 950 men with one death, and the experiments of Blanc in Africa where there were no deaths, and the American maleria experiments where there were no deaths, as being quite a good precedent for the Buchenwald experiments with death around 290, with Schilling's experiments, where another Tribunal has found over 400 cases of deaths, either directly or indirectly, or the experiments of Haagen where the truth before this Tribunal shows 50 deaths, is that right?
A. You have referred to quite a number of cases which are partly absolutely not so. For instance no proof has been given yet that in the case of Haagen's experiments...... (no translation, because of sound system).
Q. Will you repeat your answer please. I got no translation.
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, we might take an adjournment at this time, and the witness might have the intermission to consider his answer.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will be in recess until 1:30.
(Thereupon a recess was taken until 1:30 p.m.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 24 April 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. MC HANEY: Before continuing with cross examination, the prosecution requests that the Tribunal order at this time that Document NO1852, which was marked as Prosecution Exhibit 456 for identification. be made available to the defense counsel for Karl Brandt, Dr. Servatius. I understand an order of the court is necessary to have the original exhibit removed from the vault.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal directs that the original of prosecution exhibit for prosecution's identification 456 be brought into the court - be exhibited to counsel for the defendant Karl Brandt.
GERHARD ROSE - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q. You recall the answer I put to you before lunch. Will you please answer.
A. When the sound system broke down this morning, I just said that in the question which was put to me several assumptions are wrong and I must correct them. You said that in Professor Haagen's experiments 52 people died. In reality, that has not been proved, nor did any people die at all there. It believe that I cannot go into detail on this question here since that would be an argument and I was not permitted to do that on direct examination and I assume that I may not do so in cross examination either. You also said that in Professor Schilling's experiments 300 people died. This also is untrue. Through your witness here it was said that not a single person died of malaria in Schilling's experiments. The witness Vieweg said that. He also said that seven persons died from incidents in the course of treatment and errors in treatment. It is true that in Document Book 4 submitted by you the number 300 dead is given. These are supposed to be in some connection with the malaria experiments. I must assume that the court in Dachau had some expert who expressed his opinion to that effect.
I personally should like to say that I would rather be a defendant here than give my signature as a court expert to a document certifying that 300 people supposedly died after a disease which, according to proof, is not fatal like malaria tertiana. And considering the seven dead in Schilling's experiment, I should like to say that I personally should not like to be responsible for seven dead - seven dead would be enough of a burden for me. A single person who died from my negligence as a doctor would be an enormous burden on my conscience. I don't intend to quibble about the number of dead, I just merely wanted to make a correction.
And then you gave figures from the Buchenwald experiments. There again there are great differences between the numbers of dead in the experiment ordered by higher government authorities, and the experiments which Dr. Ding apparently carried out on his own initiative, to judge by his diary. After this correction of the assumptions I come to the answer.
You asked me whether I considered the indicated human experiments as a precedent which justified those experiments which are the subject of the indictment. I may say that of course one can only compare things which are comparable. In my direct examination I did not give any examples of human experiments. I mentioned only two cases of fully permissible experiments where I knew the details, in order to explain what the mental burden on the doctor in charge of the experiment is, and what his responsibility is. But if one wants to use these experiments as a comparison with those which are the subject of this trial, then in one case such a comparison is actually possible. For example, if you take the beri-beri experiments of Professor Strong, a disease was intentionally induced which involved severe suffering for the experimental subjects and one death, in spite of careful medical attention. This death was, of course, not such a great burden on the person in charge of the experiment since the person was already condemned to death as the paper says. As far as I can see, that would more or less correspond to the experiment of Professor Gebhardt.
He had 70 experimental subjects and had the misfortune of having three of them die. The others had severe illness. The mortality was about the same, three percent, and illness was caused with all the subjects. If you take Professor Mrugowsky's aconite, then there is no comparison in the examples which I mentioned, tut one can compare this execution with the poisoning of people condemned to death by carbon tetrachloride. That has not been quoted yet. I have intentionally not mentioned anything of the experiments because I know the ruling of the Tribunal that they had to be discussed only later. But in these poisonings with carbon tetrachloride, instead of hanging the people they were poisoned with carbon tetrachloride, and insofar as the poisoning was not fatal they were hanged later and their livers were examined in order to establish the effect of the carbon tetrachloride. That would be a parallel to this execution.
And if you want to take the Buchenwald passages, if you want to have a comparison, I'd mentioned Adler's experiments where all the experimental subjects died.
One can only compare what is comparable. Schilling's malaria experiments on prisoners can compare only with the American malaria experiments on prisoners. Of course, I cannot tell you in detail how many incidents occurred. I know that work was done with malaria tertiana in particular and no one can die from that in Americanany-more than in Dachau. How many incidents occurred during treatment, I do not know, but I do know that work was done in America with malaria tropica too and since Mr. Simmons did not have my Pfaffenrode tropica strains, which benign and not fatal, but had the normal tropical strains, it is hard to believe that these experiments went off without any casualties.
And now the fatalities of typhus in the experiments ordered by the German Government, one can of course compare the fatalities only with the typhus experiments in American prisons. I cannot give you the figures because they have not been published yet and possibly they will not be published because of the mortality in these experiments. It is generally known that such unpleasant incidents, which are a tragedy against the person responsible for the experiments in the eyes of the public, are not pleasant and such experiments can be made public only in a concealed form. Does that answer your question?
Q Well, of course, if one assumes as you do that the proof of the Prosecution is either falsified or non-existing and that no deaths occurred or if any deaths occurred that they were purely accidental, then of course there is no point at all in talking about comparison with experiments in other countries. The only conclusion then is that the Prosecution has no case and I submit to you that the proof the Prosecution has put in that 250 or more people died in Buchenwald from the typhus experiment and 157 in the experiments themselves and 100 at least in the experimental camp.
I submit to you that the Witness Schmidt has testified that people died in Haagen's experiments, irrespective of whether you believe it and I further submit to you that another Tribunal has held innumerable deaths occurred in Dachau.
I am asking you how you can draw any comparison, if you assume the proof to mean anything and if you don't there is no reason for me putting the question to you. If you assume the proof has some merit to it, how can you testify from that stand how there is any comparison between the experiments of Strong, where at least one person died and the malaria experiments in America where nobody died, etc. I suggest to you that possibly the difference in these experiments is that even in a prison in the Phillipine Islands and even in a prison in America, the prisoners have some rights. They have relatives, they not only vote but can sue in the courts, as can the prisoners them-sieves. If they are mistreated and a death is brought about they can obtain redress. I further put to you that in the concentration camps in Germany that the relatives in most cases, if they were non-German nationals, did not even know where they were; and if they died a falsified death certificate was sent to the relatives and in most cases they were regarded by their incarcerators as sum-human.
Now, doesn't that factual difference indicate to you that perhaps these experiments of Strong are in no way comparable to the experiments with which we are herewith concerned?
A First, I should like to say that I have not mentioned any experiments on human beings which are to be compared with the experiments here and I do not know why you ask me about experiments in concentration camps since you know, and the prosecution in the person of Mr. Hardy has expressly admitted that I not only objected to experiments in concentration camps, but even on experimenting on persons condemned to death. You don't assume that since I protested against it in Himmler's time, now when I am confronted by you, I am not going to change sides and begin to defend experiments in concentration camps; that is asking a little too much. I said that before and that is my stand.
Q Well very well, very well, then we needn't spend any more time on Strong's experiments. Now are you ready to concede that the typhus experiments in Buchenwald were nothing but murder; as I have understood your testimony that is the way you described it in the meeting in May of 1943; is that right?
A No, that is a distortion of my words. At the meeting in 1943 I did not say that this was murder. I said that these were serious medical experiments, which had had results of great significance and this part of my statements has been printed and is available, but in spite of this, on the basis of medical ethics, I protested against the execution of such experiments and especially against the fact that Government agencies assigned such an enormous and unbearable burden to members of my profession. That is what I said. The fact that in addition to the experiments reported at the meeting of consulting physicians, conditions seemed to have prevailed or said to have prevailed at Buchenwald, according to the testimony of the witnesses here. Neither I, nor any other participants in this meeting had any knowledge, on the contrary we were repeatedly assured at that time that the subjects were persons who had been legally condemned to death. In spite of the fact that this assurance was given at the time and there are many living witnesses who can testify to it, nevertheless I protested. Although I admit that for many people who think differently than I do, the fact might be sufficient, the fact that a person is condemned to death and they say, "Well the man has to die anyhow, then it does not make any difference if he dies in a medical experiment or whether he is executed." But, as I say, I admit that other people can have this point of view, I am not the Pope who sets up general ethics. It is not my opinion and I expressed my opinion at the time.
Q Herr Professor, did you or did you not tell Gildemeister when you talked about Gildemeister's experiments, "We might as well set up an execution chamber here at the Robert Koch Institute?"
A Yes, that is exactly what I said and that meant if people condemned to death are used for dangerous medical experiments; then that is the same thing as an execution, that would be an execution section in the Robert Koch Institute if that were the general arrangement of the Government and I did not think that was very desirable.
Q Did your witness Schmidt here before this court room, or not, testify that as he understood your objection, you were objecting to murder; did he say that or didn't he?
A Yes, Mr. Hardy, by clever questioning, succeeded in bringing the witness to make this statement, but I must know better what I expressly said and if I talked about murder at the time, it was invented for the first time by the Prosecution here.
Q Well, whatever we invent, we now want you to ride one horse or the other. Let us assume for the moment, and I know it will tax you, that just a few of these experimental subjects were not condemned to death and further let us assume that they were not volunteers and not rushing forward and saying, "Yes, you can give me typhus." Now, would that constitute a murder in your judgment if against his will he was subjected to an infectious experiment with typhus and he died?
A That is a question of judicial definition. I do not know of a legal case of death in a medical experiment ordered by the Government and approved under the laws. I do not consider myself a legal expert so that I cannot give such a definition.
Q Well, in any event, we can at least conclude that you are not prepared in any event to defend the Buchenwald experiments; is that right?
A I objected to these experiments at the time and here in my direct examination I said what I know about the motives of the doctors who regulated these experiments.
Q And if it is a fact that Haagen killed 150 men in 1944 in Natzweiler, you are also not prepared to defend those either?