Q. Will you please repeat? I have everything in English here and I did not quite follow.
A. Actually you yourself or the Court are more competent to decide this. I don't know whether you would recognize it or not. I mean that depends on the person who reads it. I think any one familiar with air sea rescue work or the difficulties of pulling in bodies from the sea? I am familiar with this because of my service with the Eighth Air Force, as well as a medical man would probably assume that such measures could not be done on such occasions. But what a complete layman would think I don't know, because I have both medical experience and practical experience as a member of an Army at war and therefore there is the double familiarity, which of course makes it impossible for me to say what a completely uninitiated person would think.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you class a member of the Tribunal as a complete layman?
DR. ALEXANDER: Unless no had military service and would know the difficulties under which the air-sea rescue works, I would say that probably the members of the Tribunal could probably be regarded as unprejudiced medical or military men; these who had been serving in the military forces.
THE PRESIDENT: What you mean is that even the members of the Tribunal could not recognize this report unless they had actual experience? and not actual incidents?
DR. ALEXANDER: I do not know. I mean the Tribunal could probably form an opinion.
THE PRESIDENT: Probably.
DR. ALEXANDER: I did not mean to be disrespectful, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DIRECT EXAMINATION:
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Doctor, take it a little bit slower because this has to go into the record. Thus, the members of this Tribunal, insofar as they are not medical men or former members of a military establishment, could--it would be probably representative of the opinion which other known doctors and now Army officers could form about this statement?
Q. Doctor, you are a psychologist, aren't you; a psychiatrist we call then in German.
A. Yes.
Q. Doctor, don't you think that we all who are here and who have something to do with these trials are no longer in a position to describe unhampered the thinking of all these laymen because we studied these documents thinking that all these experiments, that these things are experiments; and that for that reason nobody of us is unprejudiced? Is that correct or not?
A. That is true. Then I think you should probably put this report to a layman of the degree of initiation which you want to prove.
Q. Doctor, I will put to you a precise question now. In this report there is a sentence -- it was possible now to carry out on people who had been exposed to cold water and rescued to carry out a series of experiments on these people. Isn't it correct, from your knowledge of the German language -- you are a Vienna man, aren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. That the sentence "after long exposure in the cold water saved"-that means rescued or saved people; because "save" and "rescue" is about the same in our German language.--That sentence was probably puzzling for a layman? That sentence was probably put in to cover the origin of the observation; is that right?
A. That is quite correct.
Q. In other words, we are speaking about the layman who believes those things.
DR. BERGOLD: That is all I wanted to know; thank you.
MR. DENNEY: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may be excused.
DR. BERGOLD: Does the Tribunal desire a recess, or do you want me to continue?
THE PRESIDENT: We will continue.
DR. BERGOLD: I ask permission to call the witness Ruff.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will bring in the witness Ruff.
(Witness SEGFRIED RUFF brought into the Courtroom)
Please raise your right hand and repeat after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure 1093-A truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath).
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, I ask you to speak slowly; I ask you further to pause briefly after every question of mine before you answer so that the translation can be concluded. Please give the Tribunal your first and last name?
A My name is Siegfried Ruff.
Q When were you born witness?
A I was born on the 19th of February, 1907.
Q What was your last position in the German government?
A Until September, 1946, I was active in the Aeromedical of the American Air Force.
Q I mean when you were in the German Reich; I meant, of course, under the German government.
A I was director in the Aeromedical Institute in Berlin, Adlershof.
Q Was this a part of the DVL?
A It was an institute in the DVL among many others.
Q Thank you. Witness, do you know Milch personally?
A Yes.
Q Where did you meet him; do you recognize him here in the room?
(Witness pointed out defendant Erhard Milch)
DR. BERGOLD: I ask that the record show that the witness has identified the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will so show.
Q On what occasion did you make his acquaintance?
A I think I made Milch's acquaintance in 1933 or 1934 when he gave me an air medal decoration.
Q When did you meet him personally?
A Subsequently in the course of the years between 1934 and 1945, I met him perhaps three or four times personally on the occasion of his visits in the DVL.
Q. Did you speak with him on these occasions?
A. Briefly.
Q. During the time of the Dachau high altitude and freezing experiments did you negotiate with him personally regarding these experiments?
A. No.
Q. Witness, you have signed an affidavit. Your Honors, this is Exhibit No. 108, NOKW 140, of the 25th of October, 1946, in Document Book 5B of the Prosecution, page 139. Witness, you said the following in a sentence: As chief of the medical inspectorate, General Hippke was the immediate subordinate of Field Marshal Hilch. Do you know that for certain, or is that only an assumption on your part?
A. This subordination relationship so far as I can remember is known to me; to be sure after I signed this affidavit I found out that this subordination relationship had lasted only for a certain length of time in this form.
Q. How long?
A. Until the end of 1941, I was informed.
Q. You have been misinformed again, witness; I asked you where did you acquire the knowledge which you here sat down and swore an affidavit.
A. From conversations with Hippke in the medical inspectorate; from these conferences I understood this subordination relationship to be thus.
Q. But you have no positive proofs?
A. No. I never saw an organization plan or such.
Q. You further stated, regarding the high altitude experiments, Field Marshal Milch was in my opinion informed of the experiments either by Dr. Hippke or by the SS. Is that again certain knowledge or an assumption on your part?
A. An assumption, based on the fact that I knew that the SS, for example, made efforts to show the film on high altitude experiments to Milch; and that also Rascher and Romberg were present at the show in the Air Ministry, at which, to be sure, Milch was not personally present.
On the basis of these facts I base this assumption.
1095a
Q. You then stated the freezing experiments performed in 1942 were carried out in Dachau by Dr. Rascher only without assistance of Dr. Romberg, and there can be no doubt that Dr. Hippke and Field Marshal Milch were informed of the results of the experiments. How do you know that without doubt Milch was informed of the results of the freezing experiments?
A. I assumed this from this collaboration, this is really saying too much, I mean of the contents that existed in the case of high altitude experiments.
Q. So you assume that there was a similar contact in the case of the freezing experiments?
A. Yes.
Q. But a real basis and data, as for instance in the case of Milch, regarding the film on high altitude, that you do not know of?
A. I don't know; moreover, I mentioned it several times when drawing up this affidavit, when this affidavit was drawn up. I could not suspect that it was going to be submitted in this form and alone. This affidavit was drawn up in connection with a long lasting interrogation and I presumed this affidavit to be a short summary of the points which seemed important to the interrogator; and of course assumed that in addition to this affidavit the entire interrogation would be appended, and when I signed this affidavit, which can be seen from the minutes of that -- of that interrogation -- I specifically emphasized that precisely that I had no factual substantiation precisely of this last sentence, but I had to assume it from the knowledge and experience with the high altitude experiments and because of the subordination relationship then between Milch and Hippke.
Q. Witness, I come now to the high altitude experiments. There is a report here which must be known to you of the 28th of July 1942, of the DVL on rescue from a great altitude. In this report, witness, you and your collaborators expressly corroborated the fact that no fatalities occurred and no serious or permanent damage.
A. Yes.
Q. Is that still your opinion now?
A. That is not my opinion but that is a fact.
Q. Witness, in the meantime this trial that is taking place on the next floor has proved, probably to your satisfaction, that Dr. Rascher carried out a number of lethal experiments during the course of these experiments?
A. That I know.
Q. Were they then any part of these experiments that this report is about?
A. No, that was not a part of these experiments described in these reports. The experimental goal of Rascher's experiments is not exactly clear to me today, although Rascher's reports fall within the framework of the documents which are being submitted in the trial upstairs and consequently I have heard them read, but from these reports of Rascher to Himmler one cannot detect the experimental goal of these experiments, although I believe I can assert that in this field I am an expert to a certain degree, namely in the field of aviation medicine.
Q. Witness, you have not yet explained to me why these other experiments fell outside the field of these DVL experiments?
A. What I have said so far is that at least the experimental goals were quite different in the two cases, and as I have already said I am not entirely clear even today as to what the experimental goal of Rascher was in his experiments; but in addition to this, these experiments were carried out on other experimental persons.
Furthermore, in the course of these experiments of Rascher, there was no way in which I could see that the Luftwaffe played a role, that a contribution was trying to be made to save people from high altitude when they bailed out. In all experiments such as are described in this report it was a question 1097a of ascertaining whether up to a specific height, namely, a height of twenty kilometers, a parachute jump was possible, and under what conditions it was possible.
Rascher's investigations had not the slightest thing to do with these things and that is to be seen very clearly from the reports of Rascher to Himmler.
Q. You say "very cleanly", and we have just heard Dr. Alexander who said that all of this fell within one frame-work. How will you please explain to us a little more precisely.
A. When it is said that these experiments fall all within one framework, then this must be a very, very large framework. One can say that both experiments, so far as they arr mentioned in the report to Himmler and so far as they arr mentioned in our report, they had something or other to do with altitude, and that would be the framework within which they both fall, but it can by no means be said that Rascher's experiments had anything in any way to do with bailing out by parachutes.
Q. That was what this task was about, in other words, to find how to save people who jumped out from great heights?
A. Yes, that was the case clearly defined and clearly worked out, the experimental plan with which Romberg went to Dachau.
Q. But in what way did Rascher's experiments deviate from these experiments? You must give a very precise description of this, otherwise we hear empty words and have no clear picture.
A. So far as I can judge, Rascher's experiments, and from the scanty reports to Himmler, he, for instance carried out experiments in which the experimental person was kept at the same altitude for a long period of time. In parachute jumping, of course, from the moment on at which they leave the plane, the person never remains at the same altitude, rather he falls from a great height downward, that would be the point.
Q. But in this report an experiment is described namely, an experiment of Romberg on himself in which he also remains at one height for a long time.
A. I believe because of this experiment and Rascher's experiments explained precisely this fact, and the interpretation attached to the results of the two experiments, that here he described something in the realm of experiments on a person's self which falls entirely outside the framework of this experimentation with the parachute jump. It is expressly stressed, the experiments as stated there for explanation it is the question of experiments in high altitude, and for this reason in the case of the experiments involving the parachute jumps, on the experimental persons there were very few external symptoms, sometimes there were more obvious symptoms, to find out where they came from, these two experiments on themselves were carried out. If such experiments had belonged in the rank of the parachute experiments, then more of them would have been described, and not merely these two self experiments would have been described in the report.
Q. You then wish to persist in your assertion that there were no fatalities within the rank of the Luftwaffe experiments?
A. In these experiments there were no fatalities.
Q. You spoke previously of the fact that Rascher has used other experimental persons. That distinction is to be drawn between the experimental persons who took part in the experiments described in the report and the socalled other experimental persons?
A. Regarding the experimental persons Romberg and Rascher used for the experiments I approved and I can report on them precisely, but on the experimental persons Rascher used, I can only repeat what the Prosecution has told us, and by repeating what Rascher said about his experimental persons.
Q. Please do so.
A. Our experimental persons were condemned and habitual prisoners who had volunteered for these experiments. These experimental persons were housed in a common room, and were taken care of as a group, well taken care of and were given tobacco and so forth. In other words, it was definitely a separate experimental group, and as regards the status of Rascher's experimental persons I can only repeat what the Prosecution said.
They are said to have been members of various nationalities, even prisoners of war and so on. From personal experience I 1099a can say nothing about these experimental persons.
Q. Did you at that time choose the people for your own experiments?
A. No, I did not do so myself.
Q. Who did it for you?
A. The choice of the experimental persons was carried out by the management of the concentration camp Dachau, under the experimental directive for the carrying out of experiments themselves.
Q. Are you sure they were really volunteers?
A. Yes.
Q. How did you assure yourself of that?
A. I was once in Dachau to look at the conduct of these experiments and spoke with the experimental persons in connection with the experiments which had been carried out and asked them what had been their life previously and asked them why they were in concentration camps and also asked how many had volunteered for these experiments, and I must emphasize that there was no doubt in my mind that these were voluntary persons and that I never asked a specific question, such as: Did you volunteer? That question I did not ask. That was simply assumed, taken as a matter of course by myself. I asked, rather, how many had volunteered for these experiments, and I was told approximately sixty.
Q. Witness, how were you so sure they were volunteers?
A. There was no doubt in my mind, since first of all the chief of the medical inspectorate of the Luftwaffe had months previously given his approval in principle and there was no doubt in my mind that he would never have given his approval under any circumstances unless it had been a question of volunteers, and he also informed me of this fact.
Q. Witness, that was not quite an answer to my question. You could have been deceived by the SS Camp Commander?
A. That is possible, of course, but before I went to Dachau I was with Romberg once in Berlin. He informed me of these experiments. Since I had never undertaken previously experiments in a prison or penitentiary or concentration, it is understandable that I first asked him if those things were really being carried out as they were being set down. I asked him what sort of people were really being used for experiments and I was told serious criminals. I asked what "serious criminals" were. Romberg informed me. I asked him if he personally discussed the voluntary aspects of their participation with the prisoners. He answered that he did. I knew ail these things when I went to Dachau.
Q. Witness, did you not have any misgivings about carrying out such experiments even with volunteers because such appoint of view was entirely new in science throughout the world?
A. No. Not at all. In medical research in the whole world, it is customary to carry out experiments in this form and on such persons; on criminals, on prisoners in camps and so on.
Q. It is also described in literature that criminals condemned to death are used voluntarily in such experiments?
A. Yes. It is described in literature in the case of criminals condemned to death who volunteer and even those who do not volunteer. Such cases are described in world literature.
Q. Do you know the passages in world literature because Dr. Alexander is not familiar with them?
A. I personally have read them in literature, although, at the moment, I am not able to cite the passages exactly, but that is not difficult. In the description of small pox vaccinations, which experiments in England finally led to a successful vaccination George I, of England, for this purpose used six criminals who had been condemned to death. The physicians has certain misgivings about this sort of experimentation, however, not medical misgivings though. He said to himself, "If one of these people dies during the experiment, then I have taken over the function of the executioner, and there is then the danger that I will be considered guilty by my colleagues for the death of the experimental person."
However, the experiment was nevertheless carried on. All six survived as far as I know. The experiment was then repeated on six orphans.
Q. In other words, it is set down in literature that such experiments are made on criminals condemned to death?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it not also so that even imprisoned persons who are not condemned to death are subject to such experiments voluntarily?
A. To a very large extent. You do not have to go as far back as I did in my previous example. The fact is that in very important epidemics, many such experiments are carried out, for example, during the war in the United States.
Q. I am only interested in European states at the moment. Were experiments of this sort carried out in European States?
A. In all the cultural states of the world, such experiments have been carried out.
Q. Witness, when did the high-altitude experiments end?
A. They ended at the end of May. May be the first few days of June.
Q. You cannot say for sure?
A. I cannot say that the chamber was already in Berlin before the first of June.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions.
MR. DENNEY: Your Honor, I maybe a little time with this witness. In order that he is not prevented from talking to counsel over the weekend, perhaps I better not start my cross-examination until Monday. There is a rule in Tribunal One, that if any person is being cross-examined, he is not available for interrogations or discussions with counsel. I would rather wait until Monday, if Your Honor please?
THE PRESIDENT: Plainly, you could not finish with him this afternoon, so you would rather not do it piecemeal?
MR. DENNEY: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We have made such good progress, I do not think we will begrudge the ten minutes we could continue.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor wants me to I will ask him some questions
THE PRESIDENT: I think not. Let us have it all in one bite. The Court will recess until 9:30 on Monday morning.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is recessed until 0930, 17 February, 1947 (The Tribunal adjourned until 17 Feb.
1947 at 0930 hours) Official transcript of the the American Military Tribunal in the matter of United States of America against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 17 , February, 1947, 0930.
Justice Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: All persons in tho courtroom please find your seats. The Honorable, tho Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2. Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in tho Court.
SIEGFRIED RUFF - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. May it please Your Honors. Witness, when did you first discuss the altitude experiments?
A. I don't quite understand the question. What do you mean by "discussed"?
Q. Do you know what "discussed" means? When did you first talk about the altitude experiments?
A. Do you mean talked about it to anybody at all or delivered a report on it?
Q. Before the experiments took place.
A. Roughly, the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942.
Q. And with whom did you talk about it?
A. With Professor Weltz.
Q. Where did that talk take place?
A. In my institute.
Q. In Berlin?
A. Yes. In Berlin.
Q. When did you first talk to Dr. Hippke about them?
A. Shortly thereafter -- a few days thereafter; also, in other words, at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942.
Q. And this was all before the experiments started?
A. Yes, before they began, yes.
Q. And at that time you talked About the serious nature of the experiments?
A. With Professor Hippke and Professor Weltz, I spoke of the dangers involved in the experiments: whether or not these existed; other words, discussed the risk involved.
Q. And when did you first learn that concentration camp inmates were going to be used?
