Q. May I ask a question? On whom were these experiments made?
These were all experiments on themselves that Dr. Ruff and his assistants, Dr. Romberg, carried out on themselves, I believe also using his own working personnel there, because there were always other doctors or physicians who took part in these experiments. These experiments were, however, insufficient to determine fundamentally which height was the safety limit, for the cabin plane. And we were confronted with the decision, what group of experimental persons could now be used.
It was always my point of view that such experiments should be carried out on Doctors themselves. We had a number of such very dangerous partly even dangerous to life experiments which were made on our researchers. They included altitude experiments and also experiments on centrifugal force . Doctors, through self experimentation have been working on questions of pressure as in the Avaiation Medical Institute, Professor Strughold.
I saw only one difficulty confronting us: The circle of Doctors working in avaiation medicine was so small, that each was heavily burdened with his own special task, so that we had to enlarge our circle in other ways. Something of a technical nature had to be added. The researchers, because of the many experiments carried out upon themselves, had developed such a tolerance for altitude, and that is possible and even at a high degree, that the results of the tests carried out upon themselves, were too favorable. They could not be applied to general conditions.
A. Pilots, being confronted, for the first time, with lack of oxygen, would find that previous statistics would not apply to him. The result of tests on researchers gave a false and too favorable picture.
This was the situation in which we found ourselves, and about which every one who was definitely concerned knew about. This was the situation when Dr. Rauscher, in May, 1941, came to me. It was a question of a doctor who previously belonged to the SS and who had now become a reserve medical inspector of the Luftwaffe. As such, he became involved in this entire problem of high-altitude experimentation.
He proposed to me in a discussion that he brought about, and I did not even know him previously, that for this purpose penal prisoners should be used, that is those who had already been condemned to death, in other words, those who were to die anyway.
Q. Witness, one question. Should these men volunteer?
A. I believe I said that already, sir. It was always to be a volunteer. There were only volunteers.
Q. Which prospects were given them in the event that they did volunteer?
A. I discussed that later with Rauscher, but even here, his point of view was predominant, that they should be pardoned if they volunteered. That 772a was promised to them in the very beginning.
In this way they had a chance through these experiments to save their lives which otherwise they could not do. I asked him how he would be able to obtain such persons for experimentation. and he explained himself by saying that he had connections with the SS who had charge of such penal prisoners. There were such penal prisoners in Dachau, and he would be in a position to obtain them for these purposes. I, myself, because of my inner personal feelings on the matter, was very much against these experiments, even in the event that I should say yes it would be against my principle namely that such experiments should in the first place always be taken upon them themselves by doctors.
THE PRESIDENT: The court will recess for a few minutes.
THE MARSHALL: The Military Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(Thereupon a recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: All persons in court please find your seats. The Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, you referred to your talk with Rascher. Did Rascher on this occasion tell you what the purpose was in this work or task?
A Yes, on occasion of that meeting in this talk I did not mention this before. I must now tell you this. Maybe I should explain in the question I think what he tells me. He wanted to become a university lecturer, and later become a permanent member of the university, and it was important for that purpose for him to work on new scientific subjects which he could show to us finally, and for that reason wanted to work in that particular field.
Q Witness, what effect did your talk have with him?
A From my attitude, and as to the whole complex of the question, I was against experiments being carried out on human beings, such experiments, because such experiments were never carried out by the Luftwaffe of new experiments before, and I always referred to the particular experiments that it was not the ethics of the German doctors, if necessary, particularly, could not experiment only on themselves. In order to point that out, and emphasize this point of view, I myself when I joined the Luftwaffe after being in the army, I myself experimented on myself, both in the low pressure chambers and exposed myself to high altitudes; several times I was myself thrown out of the Centrifugal up to the danger point; and I pointed out of other tests of aviation which could be carried out in an airplane on myself which I referred to the pilot as too dangerous. Also the fact that I was nearly fifty years of age when I learned, how to fly, and in the expedition flying I tested the particular dangerous tests that confront the pilot, and took over the particular assignment of unpleasant tests for the pilot.
MR. DENNEY: Is the witness telling his personal experience now, or relating what Dr. Rascher said?
DR. BERGOLD: These are experiments which the witness made on himself.
THE PRESIDENT: One more question.
Q. Will the witness tell the Tribunal again when he had first talked to Dr. Rascher about these experiments?
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, will you tell the Court once again when did you have your first talk with Rascher?
A. With Rascher? When this conversation took place was in May 1941. at that time though nothing final had been decided, and I made my own point of view against such experiments quite clear to Dr. Rascher, it was that I was apposed to human experiments. I told Rascher of the basic conditions of all experiments which are made by the doctors on themselves; aside from that we always mentioned that they were of prisoners under sentence of death, and I used the expression "murder" to make my attitude quite clear. These persons had to report voluntarily for these experiments, and had to be told that the death sentence was to be comuted into some more lenient punishment, or acquittel. The final decision on these questions remained open at that time, because I was against such experiments even under these limitations. I have so much in opposition that I could not make up my mind to say yes.
W. Witness, did you report to your superior officer Ruedel, or Herr Milch, of this conversation with Rascher?
A. No, not at that time, but only a little later, A little later we discussed this question of human experiments once more without Racher in Munich, on the occasion of a meeting in the summer of 1941 with Professor Weltz, his collaborator Kottenhof, and myself. This question was discussed. This was a meeting of many people in the evening in a restaurant where we had a special table to ourselves and where this very worrying question was discussed. The question was opened by Dr. Kottenhof who reported that Dr. Rascher had contacted him and proposed to him to take part in such work. Kottenhof took the view that such experiments with about the limitations which I mentioned before could be answered for all the more so, as people sentenced to death--murderes--were given a chance to save their lives; all the more so, as the danger of these experiments did not appear to be considerable. Professor Weltz took the view that such experiments could be justified for the reason because in the international literature of the great countries, such experiments were frequently described and were declared to be admissible everywhere. He named here, as I recall, the United States of America.
Q. May it please the court, I would ask to be allowed to read a brief document at this point from the Document Book of the Prosecution 5-B. This is Exhibit No. 122, NOKW-419 in the last volume submitted by the Prosecution. NOKW-419. It is the interrogation of Weltz of 8 November 1946.
MR. DENNEY: Page 188 of Prosecution Document Book 5-B, if your Honor Please in English.
DR. BERGOLD:
I will start on page 1.
"Question: Did you think about the conversation with Hippke?
"Answer: Yes.
"Question: When did it take place?
"Answer: In the summer of 1941.
"Question: 1941?
"Answer: Yes, because we were then in the period of 1941-'42, the second half.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, we don't have this page 188, Exhibit 122.
MR. DENNEY: Again, Your Honors, we only used a portion of the exhibit.
776a I believe Dr. Bergold is familiar with the rule.
We gave him the entire affidavit and he is now reading from a part which doesn't appear in the Document Book, and I assume that the Court will make the same ruling that Dr. Bergold can furnish the English translation to the Court and to the Prosecution Staff.
DR. BERGOLD: Let me do so, Your Honor.
"Answer: Yes, we were then in the period of 1941-'42, the second half. This was a sociable, beer-drinking evening in the Preysing Palace, and on that occasion, Kottenhof said that permission could be expected for Rascher. I believe, although I am not quite certain, whether at that time I did or did not know Rascher and he was not then ordered to serve in my office. I could not say that for certain. There was a discussion between Kottenhof and Hippke."
MR. DANNY: If Your Honor please, I object to the reading of this document here. I don't know what its purpose is. Either he is trying to refresh the witness' recollection or he is trying to show something that is contrary to what the witness is stating. He is calling the witness; he is vouching for his credibility; and I submit that he can't impeach him at this time. There is nothing to indicate that the witness is hostile, and what purpose is served by reading an affidavit of Weltz with reference to a meeting by which the witness obviously has a clear recollection, I can't see.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I am doing this because, as in the case of the International Military Tribunal, solicitors were allowed to support what the witness said by a document to show that he is correct. This is not supposed to be a reproach. I have no further questions to the witness. I only want to show, by reading this document, what the witness said is perfectly true. That was allowed in the first case. Should the Court decide to give up the rule, I would have to read this document some other time. I leave that to the Court's judgment.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the confusion arises from the order with which this proof is submitted. It is not intended either to impeach this witness nor to refresh his recollection, but as an independent offer of proof.
MR. DENNY: If Your Honor please, not having the document, I didn't know what he was going into, and I would suggest if Dr. Bergold has affidavits or other things that he wants to bring forward to substantiate the witness' proof or testimony, that he offered them at the conclusion of a session rather than interrupting the witness' testimony to say, "I will now show that by an affidavit of someone else, that what this witness said is just true."
All the affidavit says is that someone else says what he says.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, as I said, that the confusion arises from the fact that this is introduced at this time. I would suggest, Dr. Bergold, that you withhold the offer of this affidavit until the cross examination of this witness is concluded.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Witness, I should like to ask you a question. Your last statement just before Dr. Bergold began to read a document in which, I assumed, would have something to do with that statement, was to the effect that in the United States experiments of a similar nature were performed. Is that correct?
THE WITNESS: No.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, what did you say?
THE WITNESS: I don't know what type of experiments these were. I presume, however, high altitude experiments. I was informed that high altitude experiments were organized in the United States because when I was in the States myself in 1939, in Boston, I inspected the low-pressure chamber and it was reported to me that on these very questions of developing cabins, a lot of work was being done because that was particularly important to them. Whether the experiments which I mentioned concerned that work in the States, I do not know; but the general principle applied that in such experiments which are put on a bigger basis, only prisoners were used.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You didn't intend to convey the impression that you had heard that in the United States the high altitude experiments were conducted in a way to jeopardize human life?
A The danger in this experiment I always considered to be small because, despite such experiments, we never had one case of death. The only case of death which happened in the Luftwaffe Medical Service was on a completely different field. It was one of our research men who had gone with a Himolaya expedition. In the altitude there he was killed by the cold and lack of air, but that was an altitude expedition in the mountains and not in the field of altitude research work within the low pressure chamber.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: There is no need to prolong this. You merely wanted to say that in the United States scientific experiments were conducted in this field, not in any way jeopardizing human life; is that correct?
A Whether and to what extent such experiments were made in the United States I do not know. All I know is that human experiments were made in the United States which might have been dangerous and for which certain prisoners were used. That is what I meant when I said that these experiments were justified, and Professor Weltz mentioned that on this occasion.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Where did you see reference to these American experiments?
A I would ask to see Professor Weltz. He mentioned certain books and even the dates when they appeared.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Then, of your own personal knowledge, you know nothing about American experiments?
A No, not from my own personal knowledge.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Court, I shall make this quite clear as to what sort of experiments were made on criminals who had volunteered, what experiments of that sort were made in the United States. For that purpose I shall call Dr. Alexander, the American expert.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q After this talk in the summer of 1941, what happened?
A I should add something here. Although I was reluctant, I made up my mind to go ahead with these experiments, with the limitation that have been mentioned, from the point of view that we could save lives which had been sentenced to death. At least it was very probable that we could, because 779A the experiments were not very dangerous anyway.
In any case, the arguments which Kottenhof put up were more important to me that the arguments which Weltz produced, because, in the last analysis, the responsibility for that decision not to go forward with such experiments -- I had to answer for that decision with my conscience, and literature alone would not have been enough for me.
At the time I also said to Professor Weltz that if experiments were made he should supervise them because he as a scientist and as a man guaranteed, as far as I was concerned, that everything would be done to safeguard everything as much as possible. He himself was not strongly inclined toward these experiments, just as I was not.
Q. Witness, did you say before that Professor Buechner collaborated in this?
A. I had the idea to take him into the work because I knew that he was very strict morally and as regards humanity. Buechner was a strict Catholic, which again seemed to play a part in this, insofar as precautions were concerned. Weltz was also a strict Catholic, just as I myself am a strict and very active Protestant. This I hoped would mean added precautions in the experiments.
Q. Witness, did you make any preparations on the question of whether these experiments, apart from danger to life, would entail other dangers to the experimental subjects, such as very intense pain or diseases which would go on after the experiments had been finished?
A. After we separated from that meeting and when I finished the conversation, I raised this question in regard to certain experiments, and I said at the time, "Please, children, go carefully." Afterwards I thought quite a lot about this. I said to myself that the question of pains during the experiments should not play a very important part because when you alter pressure you lose consciousness in a very few seconds -- in any case within twenty seconds at the latest. Let's strike out the "at latest" because I can not commit myself to that precise figure. Therefore, you can not say that it hurts.
When you wake up again, if there is an abnormal condition at all afterwards, there is a state of drunkenness which follows, during which you can not speak of pains, just as you can not when you are drunk from alcohol.
The person concerned will probably be very confused after the experiments. After the experiments he suffers from loss of memory for the period when he is in the state of drunkenness. Memory will not worry him because of the drunkenness. As far as pain and memory of pain were concerned, I saw nothing to worry about.
I also thought of the question of whether it would not be possible to take in different groups of persons, but I said to myself that for soldiers, the general principle existed, which at that time was emphasized with great severity, that all soldiers should be used only for their actual military purposes and that they should not be used for any other tasks.
As far as other civilians were concerned, such as volunteers, whether they be men or women, I saw the necessity of starting a bigger action, but also from the point of view of secrecy for the results obtained in the experiments and also from the point of view of the special interest that such experiments would raise, I decided that this was undesirable.
Therefore, I could not make up my mind and preferred the other way, where all these guarantees of safeguards were taken, and I decided to answer for that method.
Q Witness, how did you know that in such experiments there would not be any pains?
A That can be seen from the way the experimental subjects behave, when they wake up from unconsciousness, for their behavior is mainly confused and does not give the impression that they are suffering pains. When they make any noises and scream, I may remind you that when you are drunk you might do similar things without the person concerned feeling any pains, but also, the loss of memory does not always apply, but that the experimental subjects who underwent the experiments, took the view that the question of pain is not an important one in this context.
Q You said this morning that you yourself made experiments on yourself. Did you make any observations in these questions there?
A The lesson of the experiment which I had made on myself was a different one, inasmuch as a slowly -- I had a slowly increasing reduction of oxygen on myself -- what is known as a climbing experiment. You go through a phase of lack of oxygen getting stronger and stronger, what you feel, apart from feeling very tired depends entirely upon the individual constitutions, what you feel. You may feel weak. In my case, in these experiments, I hear noises in my ears, which I also feel when I have drunk alcohol, and my muscles tremble, particularly when I write, which is not connected with feeling pain, this shaking of my muscles, he decided that the shaking of muscles means that altitude sickness has set in, but these are minor symptoms. Secondly, they have nothing to do with the experiments of lowering pressure rapidly, as there consciousness is lost suddenly. In my own case, when I took more oxygen, what we call the descent, I never felt any pains; on the contrary when oxygen is being taken in again, immediately from the bottle, my normal faculties were immediately restored to me, so that the shaking of muscles, and such symptoms disappeared immediately, and also the power to see, which before was reduced a little, was restored to me at once.
Q Witness, when you climbed into certain altitudes slowly, you probably put yourself to more pain, although I don't know much about these things, but if you pass out suddenly, is that not always so?
A If in such experiments a slow climbing is done, this has its effect on the body much more intensively than when, as far as symptoms of illness are concerned, or not really diseased complaints, than when through a sudden rapid reduction of pressure, you immediately lose consciousness.
Q Thank you. Witness, will you describe to us now what you know of the experiments after the conversation in Munich?
A In the course of 1941, in the affair of the Dachau experiments, I heard nothing, only in 1942. In 1942 the old precedent has approached me again. In the beginning of 1942, I talked with Dr. Ruff on the conditions under which I would give my permission for such experiments. I talked to him on one occasion, and I know that Dr. Ruff intended to take part in these experiments, whereas, I, in my turn, did not only not have any objection, but what I considered to be the reasonable and understandable, because Dr. Ruff was a scientist, who had the greatest personal experience in rapid reduction of pressure experiments in Germany, and had experimented on his own person in that respect. I can also recall that I myself carried out a rapid reduction of pressure experiment. I looked at such an experiment under his direction, within the frame of the DVL.
Q. Witness,---
A. May I just finish my sentence? This experiment had no incidence whether he made the experiment on his own body or Dr. Romberg's, his collaborator, who---I don't know whether he did the experiment himself or Dr. Romberg, but I do know that Dr. Ruff was present himself.
Q. Witness, was the experimental person a so-called alien person; that is to say, a criminal?
A. Oh, no. It was either Dr. Ruff or Dr. Romberg, or, perhaps another member of his staff. He had several doctors with him, but in any case, purely from the circle of doctors who carried out experiments on themselves.
Q. Witness, after your conversation in 1942, what happened then?
A. In my field of vision, the whole business came again into my field of vision, roughly, on 15 April. I don't know when the experiments were began. I was not informed of this, nor was this necessary, as, in that respect, DVL was quite independent, and did not need to report to me when they began experiments. In the middle of April, however, I was sent a letter by Obergruppenfuehrer Wolf, who was a member of the staff of the SS, in which he asked that the Rascher commend in Dachau should be granted.
Q. May I interrupt you here? Witness, before we go on here, I shall ask you two questions. Who gave Rascher the orders to do these experiments?
A. Rascher wanted to make these experiments within the framework of the SS and he acted always so that the SS should have the leadership and the direction of those experiments, that we ourselves impose conditions to safeguard and guarantee the experiments, and for that purpose, should supply the experts, for Rascher was always only an assistant doctor to our own experts, and he was ---- I decided that he should be nothing more than an assistant.
Q. Witness, that is not a very exact answer to my question.
THE PRESIDENT: Can we have an answer to your question, Dr. Bergold? The answer is just one word, isn't it? Who gave Rascher permission to perform these experiments? That included Himmler, didn't it?
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. "Witness, Rascher was a reserve officer of the Luftwaffe, wasn't he? What office in the Luftwaffe did release him to join the SS?
A. The first assignment of Rascher, which was clear to me at the time, was given by Luftgau Kammando 7, and we had to decide the extention of his powers for Rascher belonged to the framework of the Luftgau Kommando 7, and near Dachau, he had his office near Dachau, and Dachau is also part of the Luftgau Kommando 7. Now Rascher had to be released from Dachau, somehow, and from there, Himmler reserved the right to himself to decide these things, because he made these people available, and he wished to reserve the whole direction of this business. That was explained to me by Rascher every time.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, this is the witness' character; he's apt to be a bit exuberant.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, for oratorical or expository, or prolifics, or any number of other words, but I wonder if we can't confine him a little bit to some approximation of an answer to the question.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes. Perhaps I may be allowed to give some thought on this. As I understand him to say, Rascher was freed to go to the SS, was made by Luftgau Kommande 7. Permission to do the work and the experiments was given by Himmler.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor please, I object to Dr. Bergold interpreting the witness' testimony. I submit, I'm as much, perhaps, in doubt as to who (785-a) ordered the experiments from the witness' standpoint as is the Court, and I suggested that the witness be allowed to answer the question and I appreciate Dr. Bergold's trying to offer, but decline it.