Q Will you outline for the Tribunal your education?
AAfter I had graduated from the German High School, I studied national economy and state politics at the Munich University. There I made my Volkswirt diploma, and then I studied Sociology at the Florence and Vienna Universities, and I graduated with the work of Cooperative State of the Fascists. From 1927 until '34, that in is the beginning of the year, I was a freelance writer, and a correspondent, and an editor. From 1934, that is March 1934, I was an administrator of a Hungarian-Austrian fortune Prince, Sachsen Coburg Gotha, until the 11 March 1936, and during the night from the 11th to the 12th of March 1938, when the German troops marched into Austria, I was arrested at Vienna by the Gestapo.
Q You said that you were managing a portion of the estate of the Prince Coburg ?
A The Austrian-Hungarian administration of property of a Prince of Sachsen Coburg Gotha Cohary.
Q Was that a responsible position which you had?
A I was the general trustee of the Prince for a fortune that had not been received and now a fortune under the trusteeship.
Q Can you give us some rough idea of the amount of this fortune over which you had done supervision?
A There was the financial administration covering a large domain of mining industry, of engine factories, and of banks.
Q How you said that you were arrested on March 11 1938?
A During the night from the 11th to the 12th of March 1938.
Q By the Gestapo?
A Yes, by the Gestapo, and even on the strength of a list which the Gestapo from Berlin had brought with them to Vienna.
Q And will you tell the Tribunal why you were arrested, and what was done with you following your arrest?
A Mainly on the activity in this administration of the Austrian-Hungarian fortune. During the years 1934 to 1938 I used this administration in order to maintain a most intimate contact with the foreign projects which worked against the National Socialism. I had reported about the happenings in Germany to the enemy of the National Socialism. I had given money, and I had been engaged in the organization of anti-Nazi activities at that time in Germany, as well as in Czecho-Slovakia, and Hungary, and Austria, and in Switzerland. I traveled quite a bit, and the most part of these activities were known to the Gestapo at Berlin.
Q Were you charged with any crime by the Gestapo and tried before a court of law?
A The Gestapo charged me with quite a number of parts in my activities, but without producing substantial proof for it, but a trial against me was not held. After about one and a half -- not quite a year and a half, by the order of the president of the Gestapo prison I was brought to the concentration camp at Buchenwald.
Q When did you arrive in Buchenwald?
A I came to Buchenwald on 22 September 1939.
Q. And how long did you remain in Buchenwald:
A I remained in the concentration camp of Buchenwald until 12 April 1945, that is the day of our liberation by the American troops.
A. Well, from the autumn of 1939 until about May 1941 I was in a mining detail as an earth worker, and later on as a blacksmith.
That is, from May 1941 until March 1943 I worked in the inmate tailor shop. From March 1943 until June 1943 I Was in the pathological department. From 6 June 1943 until 11 April 1945 I was the so-called first medical clerk with Sturmbannfuerher Dr. Ding Schuler in the department for the production of typhus vaccine, which was Block 50 at Buchenwald.
Q. Let's go over briefly your work as a digger, blacksmith and tailor. What sort of work did you do as a digger?
A My activity in the digging was at the troop garage in the area of the command of the concentration camp Buchenwald. As a blackwmith, I had to work more for the CAPO of our detail. As a digger I had very soon reached such a physical condition that after a few weeks I would certainly have perished. Friends of mine in the camp counseled me and advised me therefore to try to bribe the CAPO. I paid him from that moment on every month half of the money which I received from home; that is, half of 30 marks, and also part of what at that time we still could but at the inmate PX. That is the reason I was transferred to the blacksmith department for light work.
In 1941, when I came to the inmate tailor shop, again through the services of some of my comrades, there at first I had to do assistant's work, cutting SS uniforms and some work of that kind, and then from 1942 until 1943 I had to produce the clothes and separate the clothes and underclothes which came from the people who had been killed at Auschwitz and which came to Buchenwald in order to be distributed there. I also had to separate the winter coats of the Russian PW's who had been shot in Buchenwald concentration camp.
Q. Now, you state that during your tenure in the tailor shop you received clothes from Auschwitz.
A. Yes. With some of my comrades, I had altogether 300,000 shirts which I had to select. That is, I had to throw away those which were not to be used anymore, and those which could be used I had to send to the inmate magazine.
Q. How do you know that these clothes came from Auschwitz?
A. Every transport of that kind, transport of clothing and underclothing from Auschwitz, went via the SS administration at Buchenwald and was reported to the magazine. We always knew in advance when such a new transport of clothing arrived.
Furthermore, these transports were accompanied by SS men from Auschwitz.
Third, many pieces of this laundry was stained with blood, or there were signs of shooting, bullet holes from the executions, and from some of our comrades who had been transferred from Auschwitz to buchenwald we knew that this kind of clothing was sent from Auschwitz to Buchenwald and other camps.
Q. Did you find many Jewish stars on these clothes that you received from Auschwitz?
A. I saw all sorts of clothing. The majority were Jews. That could be seen from three reasons. First of all, some of the clothing had the Jewish Star. Second, in the inmate tailor shop there were tailors who knew the tailor marks and collected the tailor marks in the shorts and in the clothing, and these were tailor marks from all the big cities of Europe -- From France, Belguim, Holland, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, and other countries.
Q. Now, witness, were you able to obtain an understanding of the organization and operation of concentration camps by virtue of the positions which you held in Buchenwald?
A. From 1941 I was in close contact with the very small group of political prisoners who were informed of practically every happening in the SS and in the camp itself. Then slowly, and particularly from 1943 on, I got into a position where I myself had quite a survey of the working of the camp. In my position as first medical clerk of Dr. Ding-Schuler, I had in my hands quite a number of secret files.
Dr. Ding-Schuler had at that time three main functions. First of all, from the end of 1941 onwards until 1943 he was department chief in the Medical Office of the Waffen SS at Berlin; that is Department Chief for Special Tasks.
From 1943 until 1945 he was chief of the Department for Typhus and Virus Research at Buchenwald at the Institute of the Waffen-SS in Berlin, and from 1944 until 1945 he was sanitation officer for the socalled Protected area D. Restricted Area D. of the SS, which was under the command of Gruppenfuehrer Hammler. That is an area in the Hartz Mountains.
Furthermore, almost from the very beginning I made very effort to got a knowledge of the system which was behind the concentration camp, from the sociological as well as from the psychological point of view, and to distinguish between reality and more talk, and to gain a real picture of the whole situation.
Q. Have you written a book called "The SS State", which deals with the system of concentration camps in Germany?
A. I have. After I was liberated, when I worked for the Psychological Warfare Division and the Information Control Division, then I wrote a report for headquarters, and this report concerned the concentration camp of Buchenwald. From this report, later on a book came into being concerning the system of German concentration camps, and the title of this book is "Der SS-Staat" -- "The SS State."
Q. What languages has this book been printed in?
A. I wrote the book in German. Toward the end of 1945 it came out in German. It was then translated into English, French, Dutch and Swedish.
Q. Can you give us some idea of the circulation of the book?
A. In German, the first edition had 35,000 copies. The second edition, which is now being printed, consists of 100,000 copies.
Q. Now, you state that you wrote a report on Buchenwald for -What agency did you say?
A. For the Psychological Warfare Division and then Information Control Division, which was its successor. The report at that time went to SHAEF, to Headquarters.
Q. And you had access to captured document?
A. I myself took part immediately after our liberation in collecting all documentary evidence which still existed at Buchenwald. We did that in a so-called Information Office, and we did it systematically. In that manner I also had insight into those files which I had not seen before.
Q. Now, witness, although it is a bit out of chronological order, I would first like to direct a series of questions to you concerning medical experiments carried out in Buchenwald concentration camp. Now, you state that you became first clerk to Dr. Ding-Schuler in April 1943?
A. In April 1943 I was appointed to this position. I was selected and proposed for this position by the inmate self-administration. I started to work in that position on 6 June 1943 and kept it until the end.
Q. And Dr. Ding-Schuler was the head of the typhus and virus institute in Buchenwald?
A. Dr. Ding, who later on assumed the name of Schuler -- therefore, Dr. Ding-Schuler, first of all Was in charge of Block 46 at Buchenwald, which was the research station for human experiments. From 1943 onward there was a special vaccine block, which was the station for the production of typhus vaccines. Both these blocks -- that is Block 50 for vaccine production and Block 46 as surgical station for the medical experiments, were united in the department for typhus and virus research at Buchenwald. From that moment on, Dr. Ding-Schuler was chief of both departments.
Q. You state that the medical experiments were performed in Block 46, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. And in 1943 Block 50 was abandoned and was used for the production of typhus vaccine?
A. We entered the block on the 15th of August, 1943. It had been arranged especially for the purposes of production of typhus vaccine, and the production had been changed.
Q. Do you know when construction work was performed on Block 50 and 43?
A. When or by whom did you ask?
Q. Do you remember the fact of the construction?
A. Yes.
Q. And by whom was that construction work carried out?
A. Well, the construction work was done by inmates of the concentration camp Buchenwald while the directives came from Berlin. The material, the building material came from the material deposit in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. However, the orders were made with Berlin. Block 50 was under the supervision, not of the administration of the Buchenwald concentration camp directly, but rather -
Q. But rather what? You say that Block 50 was not under the direction of the camp commander at Buchenwald. Under whose direction was it then?
A. The block was under the sanitation department of the Waffen SS at Berlin. The medical department of the Waffen SS, in order to have the block constructed, that is according to what Dr. DingSchuler told me, this department collaborated with the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office.
Q. In other words, you can say that the construction of Block 50 was carried out under the direction of the WVHA?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know what Amtsgruppe within the WVHA was in charge of the construction?
A. We had repeatedly dealings with several departments of the WVHA, and mainly with the departments C, D and W. As for the Department C, we had to deal with them when the block was erected. We had to deal with Department D also when the block was constructed, and when specialized labor was sent to Block 50 and assigned to work there. As for Department W we had to deal with them when there was a matter of getting guinea pigs for the human experiments in Block 50. At that time a representative of Department W came to Buchenwald. That was an untersturmfuehrer, Schlesinger, and I myself conducted the correspondence with a hauptsturmfuehrer, I think it was Hauptsturmfuehrer Ungler.
Q. Was that HauptsturmfuehrerVogler?
A. Yes, Vogler, I think.
MR. McHANEY: Does the Tribunal wish to take its afternoon recess?
THE PRESIDENT: At quarter after three.
Q. Now, will you tell the Tribunal what types of experiments were conducted on concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald?
From the end of 1941 until 1945 quite a number of experiments were conducted at the experimentation station in these human experiments, mainly typhus experiments, but also experiments with yellow fever, with smallpox, with intestinal typhus, with paratyphus A and B, also poison experiments, and experiments with the compounds of phosphor kautschuk, and bombs, incendiary bombs, and eventually in connection with station 46, Block 46, hormone experiments, and furthermore the testing of large preserves of the military medical station in Berlin with the serum of typhus convalescents, and then via Block 50 we had the taking of blood preserves from incapacitated persons in the camp for the SS Hospital at Berlin. The typhus experiments were split up in quite a number of series of experiments according to the type of typhus vaccine which was to be tested, and typhus vaccines were received from the lungs of mice and rabbits and also from the livers of mice, and chemo-therapeuthicals as, for instance, nitro-acridine, polygal, rutenol and blue of methylane, all these were tested.
Q. Now, Dr. Kogon, can you tell us how the actual experimental subjects were selected?
A. The choice of persons for the human experiments was made differently at different times. During the first series of experiments, and also during a part of the second series voluntary inmates were recruited in the camps. It is true that the reason for their recruiting was kept secret. The people were promised better food and they were to be released from work without their knowing that experiments on human beings were involved. Already up to the first experiment in the camp, without anybody being quite informed about the happenings in Block 46, it was known in the camp that something terrible was involved, and for the second experiment there were only very few inmates who volunteered. In the second sector which then started, the experimentation persons were then requested by the camp doctor. They were requested of the camp commanders. The SS camp doctors then selected from the inmates of Buchenwald the inmates which seamed appropriate for them, or such inmates as were especially ill in their favor, from all the categories of inmates, and they were handed over to Block 46.
Towards the end of 1943, the beginning of 1944, the SS camp doctors ordered to take over the selection of the inmates didn't want to carry the responsibility for their selection any longer. From that moment onward Dr. Ding-Schuler approached Dr. Mrugowsky in Berlin, and via his service he approached the Reich Criminal Office at Berlin, and Gruppenfuehrer Nebel, and it sent the inmates from other concentration camps, and penitentiaries to Buchenwald to the experiment station. During this third period the experimentation subjects were almost exclusively criminal inmates. According to a directive which I have read they had to be sentenced to at least ten years of penal servitude, at least have been sentenced to such a term of penal servitude. 730
Q. Doctor, you stated that in the first series of typhus experiments which began in January 1942, is that right?
A. Yes, that is correct. It perhaps had already started in December, 1941.
Q. Now, you stated that in that first series there were some volunteers, and I would like to investigate that for just a moment. Do you know whether these so-called volunteers were informed that they were to be subjected to typhus experiments in which they would be artificially infected with typhus?
A. No, they had not the slightest knowledge of that. They were only told that there was a slight fever which was to be produced.
Q. Can you further testify as to whether these so-called volunteers were told that there was a very good chance that they would die during the course of these experiments?
A. No, certainly not.
Q. In short we can assume that the word "volunteers" is hardly the proper way to describe these persons who were induced to come into the typhus clinical station?
A. If I make somebody think something quite wrong and induce him to commit something and he reports in, then I can only call him a volunteer theoretically, but practically, of course, he is no volunteer.
Q. Now, Dr. Kogon, were some of these experimental subjects nonGerman nationals?
A. Yes, repeatedly.
Q. And were there political prisoners who were experimented upon?
A. During the second period which I have mentioned, that is, as from about spring, 1942, until the end of 1943, there were also quite a number of political prisoners amongst those who were sent to Block 46.
Q. And did it also happen that in the third period, when the criminal prisoners predominated, that political prisoners were also included for one reason or another, perhaps by the illegal camp management?
A. Yes; always during the third period foreigners were brought to Block 46 for different experiments; had been against the measures of the Reich Criminal Office, or also directly, for instance, as far as Russian prisoners of war were concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal II is again in session.
Q Mr. Kogon, were any or all of the experimental persons condemned to death?
AAs far as I know, none of the prisoners who was taken to Block 46 was ever sentenced to death. Later on I was told four or six Russians prisoners of war who had been used for experiments were said to have been sentenced to death, that is to say, sentenced to death by shooting.
Q But other than these four or five Russian prisoners of war, you can say that none of the experimental subjects had been condemned to death; is that right?
A Yes, I can say that none was ever sentenced to death.
Q Now, you have mentioned four or five Russian prisoners of war. Were any other prisoners of war used in any of the experiments in Buchenwald?
AApart from the Russian PW's I know no other category of PW's who were taken to Block 46.
Q Well, were there any Russian PW's other than these four or five that you have already mentioned?
A Yes, these were two experiments; in one case, four Russian PW's; in another case, six were used. I don't know in which case four were used and in which case six.
Q Were they used in the typhus experiments, or do you now have reference to the poison experiments?
A In one case it was a poison experiment; and in the other case the Russian PW's were used, as Dr. Ding-Shuler told me, for being shot at with poisoned bullets.
Q The poisoned bullet experiment, however, was not one which took place in Buchenwald, was it?
A That was an experiment which was carried out in Sachsenhausen in the presence of Mrugowsky. But there was another poison experiment which was carried out on Russian prisoners of war in Buchenwald in the crematorium.
Q Suppose we come back to the poison experiments a little later. Now, will you tell the Tribunal how the typhus experiments were performed?
A For a typhus experiment between twenty and sixty experimental subjects were selected. Some of them were injected with a typhus Vaccine which had to be tested. Another part were not vaccinated as a protective measure. It happened also that there were tests on twenty experimental persons, each injected with various vaccines, and there were ten so-called control persons who were not injected. After about three weeks all participants, whether they had been vaccinated or not, were infected with typhus. Then at various times in various ways at the beginning persons were injected with live virus which had been supplied by the Dehring works. When that material did not produce the illness, that is to say, on the control persons who had not been vaccinated, some went over to a different method.
Now ten cubic centimeters of fresh blood were used, blood which was taken from patients who had reached a high degree of typhus infection. These ten cubic centimeters then were injected intravenously into the experimental person. The person became ill; and from the comparison among the person not vaccinated, the control person, and the person who had been vaccinated, the necessary conclusions were arrived at as to the efficacy of the vaccine which had to be tested.
Q Now, is it not true that they also tested certain drugs which were regarded as a good prophylaxis against typhus? I'm thinking of methylen blue and acridine.
AAs I mentioned before therapeutical methods were used, and products which came from I. G. Farben, products put at our disposal by a naval medical officer, Ruge, the name of the produce being Persicol. These methods were used in a way so that the patient was given these drugs before they were infected; or when the efficacy of this drug was to be tested, the experimental persons were infected first and then were given this drug.
These were drugs which were taken through the mouth.
Q Do you know what the source was of the typhus infected blood which was used as a means of infection?
A From a number of sources. The tainted lice were supplied by the Typhus Institute of the OKH in Cracow to Buchenwald; and persons were infected with these lice. Secondly, infected lungs of lice were also supplied from Cracow to Buchenwald; and they were put in water and then used. Thirdly, blood from so-called transient persons was used, that is to say, persons in Block 46 were infected only for the purpose of keeping alive the typhus virus in order that there would be live material all the time. The blood was taken from these persons who had a very high degree of typhus and transferred to other experimental subjects.
Q About how many passage persons were used each month?
A From summer 1942 up to the spring of 1945 about three to five persons each month.
Q And approximately how many of these passage persons died?
AAlmost all of the passage persons died. The percentage was certainly about ninety per cent.
Q The passage persons were used simply as a source of typhus infected blood, is that right?
A Only for that purpose, yes.
Q Can you tell us whether the experimental subjects who were subjected to typhus suffered very much?
A Typhus is with the exception of Eastern Europe, that is to say, Russia, one of the worst diseases a population can suffer from. It is connected with fits and very high temperatures; and if a European survives it, it usually damages his whole system badly. Almost fifty per cent of Europeans infected with typhus usually die.
Q Now, can you tell us over what period of time the typhus experiments continued -- when they started and when they ended?
A The typhus experiments in Buchenwald camp lasted from the beginning of 1942 up to the spring of 1945. The last series of experiments started in March 1945; but this series was not carried out in the spring of 1945.
Q Can you tell us approximately the total number of inmates used in the typhus experiments?
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q Can you tell us approximately the total number of inmates used in the typhus experiments?
A The total figure of inmates taken for the typhus experiments of Block 46 for experimental altogether I am in a position to tell you. They were a total of one-thousand; several hundred of them were used only for passage purposes and about seven-hundred for experiments on passage persons; if the typhus experiments were made up in a bigger part of it, the biggest part of the seven-hundred persons were used for the typhus experiments. So far as I remember, however, the yellow fever experiments were about 145 persons, but the biggest part of them were used for typhus experiments.
Q Now can you tell us how many of the inmates died as a result of the typhus experiments?
AAgain I can give you the figure only of the whole of the experiments. The over all passage purpose from among the other experimental series were, that died, about 155 people.
Q Now the figure 155 persons does not include the deaths among the passage persons, is that correct?
A No, it does not include the passage persons.
Q Now Dr. Kogon, you are familiar with the so-called Ding Diary, are you not?
A Yes, indeed.
Q And that Diary records the results of typhus experiments in Buchenwald, does it not, as well as certain other experiments?
A Dr. Ding-Schuler's Diary reports all important events which took place in Block 46 from his time up to the end of the camp - - shortly before the end of the camp.
Q I want to be sure that the record is clear in the recording of this oral testimony, because as the result of this testimony in the medical case certain of the defense attorneys have stated that a large number of persons volunteered, so I want to be pretty clear about that question. In the Ding Diary the entry for 5 January 1942 shows that an experiment Court No. II, Case No. IV.
was carried out to determine a sure way of infecting the experimental subject. Five persons were used and no infection resulted; that was on 5 January. On 10 January another infection test was carried out which used five persons, and as the result of that by the 20th of February there was one death. Then between 6 January and 1 February a rather large experiment was started which involved 145 inmates. 31 were first vaccinated with the Vigl vaccine; 34 with the Cox-Gildemeister & Cox vaccine; 35 with the Behring Normal vaccine, and, 31 with the Behring Strong vaccine, and 10 were control-persons. Now were all of those 145 persons volunteers, as you have described the word "volunteers" heretofore?
A No. The figure of volunteers in March so far as I can recall at the most were two dozen. I am entirely certain of this part, but this was how it worked: For the first two experimental series - - in the first three series a large number of prisoners were taken to Block 46 for the third series, only after where the people had been called into the first two, and for the first two series about two dozen people were volunteers. Then a large number of persons were simply told to be in Block 46, and as was done later in the first series, which had taken place at the same time, that was a small percentage of volunteers, and a very large percentage of non-volunteers.
Q Those so-called volunteers had not been previously informed that they were to undergo the dangers of the experiments, is that right?
A Yes.
Q Now will you describe briefly the process of taking blood from typhus convalescence to produce a serum to be used as an anti-toxin?
A If I remember it, at the beginning of the year of 1944 a Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ellenbeck did work in Block 46, and he was given orders, as at his own suggestion, to take blood from patients in Block 46, and where they were re-convalescing, and to produce a serum for the SS in Ber lin. For this he used those patients who were suffering from typhus, and were in Block 46. There were two categories there. One category Court No. II, Case No. IV.
where those whom I mentioned before were volunteers, and the other category were patients who were suffering from typhus after they arrived on a transport over from the west, and that was how from then onwards a large percentage, particularly of the Frenchmen, were used for such purposes.
Q Did any of them die?
A I do not know the precise detail of the percentage of the fatalities, because those experiments went on all the time, and there were complications, as there were no more diseases, and no more cases of typhus, and other experiments, therefore, one could never find out what the persons had died from, or which part of the experiments they would belong to.
Q Well, there were deaths among those persons from whom blood was taken?
A Yes, that happened on re-convalescing patients, who under the conditions of the concentration camp also had blood taken from him and was half way in a position to recovery on the contrary he was destined for death in that case.
Q Did they take a very large quantity of blood from those typhus convalescents?
A It would take from 150 to 300 centimeters each time.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q Now, did Ellenbeck also take blood from inmates in the small camp at Buchenwald, out of which blood plasma was made?
A Yes. In the so-called small camp of Buchenwald, which was a sort of transient camp, conditions were particularly horrible. There was an invalid block. That is to say, a hut, where invalids and old people were billeted, and these invalids and old people were asked to volunteer for blood donations so that they could be used in Berlin, and they were promised a piece of bread and sausage. In most cases they were given that bread and sausage. These people were in such a condition that they availed themselves of that possibility greedily.
Q Did many of the persons who submitted themselves for these blood plasma tests die?
A Here again the situation is that causes were mixed up a bit, especially in the small camp, where conditions were very bad indeed, and they were further weakened by losing blood, and there were more deaths in the small camps--the percentage of fatalities in the camp was on an estimate four times the rest of the camp. The exact figures, however, I am unable to give you.
Q Can you describe for us just a little more graphically the conditions in the small camp?
A From 1942 onward bigger transports arrived in the concentration camp, particularly in the years of 1942 and 1943 from the West and in the second half of 1944 from the East where other camps were evacuated. By and by the camp was overcrowded. People were crowded together by the thousands in these so-called small camps, which consisted merely of a small area. At first they were under canvas and later on, started by the illegal work of the inmates who wished to help their comrades, one toilet was established. Later on, wooden huts, with perhaps 400-450 persons in one hut would have had one, but the overcrowding was such and grew to such an extent that up to 1900 or 2000 persons were crowded together in one hut. The hygienic conditions of the small camp were appallingly bad. Every morning the naked bodies would lie on the dirty Court No. II, Case No. IV.
streets of the small camp until the body collectors would pick them up. The inmates of the small camp, as far as they did not die in Buchenwald, were usually sent to outside camps because the SS took the view that they did not wish to keep that sort of person.
Q Were there experiments which also tested old blood plasma for the Military Medical Academy in Berlin?
A Yes. The Military Medical Academy in Berlin, sometimes through the hygiene officer of the Waffen SS, sometimes directly, sent old blood plasma, which in some cases had been stored there for over a year. They did not know whether they were still suitable for use on the members of the German army. Therefore, they were sent to Buchenwald in order to be tried out on the inmates of the concentration camp, to discover whether by using this plasma there would be an effect of shock. These experiments with old blood plasma, as I remember it, lasted until about the autumn of 1944.
Q Did the submission of inmates to this old blood plasma cause shock in some cases?
AA precise report on this was made and sent to Berlin to the highest hygiene officer and to the Military Medical Academy in Berlin. I myself saw some of this report. Shock was caused in many cases, and, together with other causes as I remember it, there were some fatalities. Again it can not be stated with certainly what cause produced death, whether it was the blood plasma or the after effects of other experiments which had been performed on the same subjects earlier.
Q Mr. Kogon, turning to the poison experiments, I find an entry in the Ding diary dated 30-31 December 1943 which reads as follows:
"Special experiments on four persons in the case Koch-Hoven, by order of SS Gruppenfuehrer Nebe. The experiment was carried out in the presence of Dr. Morgen and Dr. Wehner."
Do you know anything about that entry?
A Yes, I know that case. I know it through Dr. Ding-Schuler, and this was connected with the so-called Koch-Hoven proceedings. Koch had Court No. II, Case No. IV.