1946-12-20, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, 20 December 1946, 0930-0945,Justice Beals, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session.
God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will ascertain that the defendants are present.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are present.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in the courtroom.
MR. HARDY: May it please the Tribunal, due to some unforeseen circumstances the arrival of the witnesses has been delayed. If it would be possible to recess for ten or fifteen minutes pending the arrival of the witnesses it would be very much appreciated.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until we are notified of the arrival of the necessary witnesses.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: The witness having arrived, the Tribunal will proceed.
MARIA BROEL-PLATER - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SEIDL (Counsel for the defendants Gebhardt, Oberhouser, and Fischer):
Q: Witness, in September 1939 during the war, were you evacuated to Hungary?
A: I was evacuated to Hungary on the 11th of September 1939 800
Q: On the 1st of August you returned to Poland. Did you return to that part of Poland which was described as the general government?
A: Yes.
Q: When did you join the resistance movement?
A: One month after my return to Poland.
Q: In the resistance movement you were the chief of a group of messengers?
A: Yes.
Q: In this capacity did you receive and pass on to loaders of the resistance movement-- did you give and pass on orders to them?
A: Yes, I had my own group and I directed this group.
Q: It was the aim of the resistance movement to remove the German rule in the general government and, therefore, you joined them, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: From your testimony which you gave yesterday it could not be clearly soon what kind--how the trial was conducted to which you were subjected. Was it in that case a so-called court martial in the general government?
A: No.
Q: You stated yesterday that already on the 1st of August 1941 operations were taking place. Arc you quite sure of that? Are you quite sure that you can exactly remember that date?
A: The operations started to be performed in the concentration camp Ravenstruck on 1st august 1042 because I was arrested in 1941.
Q: That is not in 1941 but in 1942.
A: Yes.
Q: You have testified yesterday that several experimental subjects were operated on on several occasions. As a result of the previous operations did they have high fever and severe pains?
A: I was told by then that they had all great pains and high fever.
Q: Witness, you further testified yesterday that the experimental subjects were other prisoners in this block. Where all the people residing in this block members f the resistance movement?
A: I don't know.
Q: How many women of the resistance movement were all together located in this block?
A: I don't know.
Q: Up until 1943, you have made some very general statements. Do you knew why these operations were carried out in the bunker and net in a well furnished operating room and who carried them out?
A: The operations were carried out in the bunker because this was that bind of furnishings an I I don't know by whom they were performed.
Q: You also stated yesterday that it was a general conviction in the camp that the members of the resistance movement would not return to Poland any more and would not be able to leave the camp alive; was this view also expressed by members of the camp administration?
A: Yes, it was said by Binz.
Q: You also stated yesterday that women were being transported to Lublin; these women who had been transferred to Lublin, were they also members of the resistance movement.
A: I did not say yesterday that transports of prisoners were sent to Lublin.
Q: Then, I must have misunderstood the testimony of the witness. On the 23rd of April, 1945, you had loft the camp; was this done under the auspices of the Swedish Red Cross?
A: No.
Q: I do not have any further questions.
BY ATTORNEY FLEMMING FOR THE DEFENDANT MRUGOWSKY:
Q: Witness, you stated that the operations in the Ravensbrueck Camp began on August 1, 1942?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you mean by that the operations on women?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know that before operations were being carried out on women that operations were also carried out on men?
A: I did not hear it.
Q: Does the witness know that before operations were carried out on women, operations were carried out on men at Ravensbrueck?
A: I did not know it.
Q: I thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross examination for this witness on the part of the Defense Counsel? If not, the prosecution may proceed.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: Witness were you over asked to sign a paper in Ravensbrueck, which would show that your injuries to your leg had occurred for reasons other than the operation, which you have described to this Tribunal?
A: I did not sign such a paper, but I was warned and told by Commander Tuchring, who wanted me to sign such a paper. The contents of this paper was as follows: "The undersigned, Marie Breel-Plater, certifies that the scars, which I have en my legs, were caused by an accident at work."
Q: I have no further questions to direct to the witness. I would like at this time, if there is no further cross-examination, to call Dr. Alexander to the stand and have him give his expert medical report on this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross-examination of this witness on the part of any defense counsel? There being none, you may proceed.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q: The witness will state his name?
Q: Lee Alexander.
Q: Will you repeat this oath after me:
I swear that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help no God.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
A: Your name is Lee Alexander?
A: Yes.
Q: When and where were you burn?
A: I was born October 11th, 1905, in Vienna, Austria.
Q: Are you a citizen of the United States?
A: I have been a citizen of the United States since 1938.
Q: Have you studied and practiced medicine?
A: I Have studied and practiced medicine from 1922 to 1934 and practiced since then.
Q: What is your present occupation?
A: My present occupation is that of consulting Neurologist and Psychiatrist in the city of Boston. At the same time I am practicing as a research specialist in Boston State hospital. I am also on the staff of various other private and public hospitals in Boston and its vicinity.
Q: Are you new acting as a special consultant to the Secretary of War?
A: I have new been appointed special expert consultant to the Secretary of War.
Q: Doctor, in answering my questions, will you please pause for a few moments so that the interpreter can interpret the answers into German?
A: Yes sir.
Q: I would like to put a series of questions to you concerning your education and medical experience. Did you receive your A.B. degree in Vienna, Austria in June of 1923?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And from 1923 to 1929 did you study medicine at one University of Vienna medicine School at Vienna, Austria?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And from 1927 to 1928 did you intern in the Second Department of Medicine at the University of Vienna Hospitals?
A: Yes sir.
Q: Did you receive your M.D. degree from the University of Vienna Medical School in July, 1929?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And from 1929 to 1931 did you intern in neuropsychiatry at the Neuropsychiatric Department of the University Hospital, Frankfurt?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And from 1931 to 1932 were you a resident in neuropsychiatry, the Neuropsychiatric Department of the University Hospital in Frankfurt?
A: Yes sir.
Q: Were you a lecturer in psychiatry and neurology at Peiping Union Medical Hospital, Peiping, China in 1933?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And from January, 1934 to October, 1934, a clinical assistant at the Worcester State Hospital, Worcester, Massachusetts?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And from 1934 to 1941 an instructor in neurology at the Harvard Medical School?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And over the same period were you a neuropathologist at the Boston City Hospital?
A: Yes sir.
Q: From 1935 to 1941 a research associate at the Boston State Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And have you also practiced in other hospitals in Boston?
A: Yes sir.
Q: Are you now a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And were you, from 1941 to 1942, an associate professor of neuropsychiatry at Duke University Medical School, Durham, North Carolina?
A: Yes sir.
Q: Have you been on leave of absence from Duke since that time?
A: Until my resignation in January, '46.
Q: Were you, from July 1942 to January, 1946, in the Medical Corps of the United States Army?
A: Yes sir.
Q: What rank did you attain, Doctor?
A: Major, and later appointed Lieutenant Colonel in the Officers Reserve Corps, United States Army.
Q: Did you serve as chief of the section of neuropsychiatry, 65th General Hospital from July, 1942 until May, 1945?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And that was the United States Army General Hospital which served the Eighth Air Force in England?
A: Yes sir.
Q: And were you on detached service with a G-2 Specialist Task Force, Sixth Army Group, in the American occupied zones of Germany on special orders from Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces from May, 1945 until September, 1945?
A: Yes sir.
Q: You state you. resigned from Duke University in January, 1946?
A: Yes sir.
Q: What have you done since that date?
A: I have returned to practice of neurology and psychiatry in Boston, and I have taken over the positions mentioned at the outset of my testimony; namely, those of Associate Director of Research at the Boston State hospital; Consulting Neurologist and Psychiatrist to to Washingtonian Hospital, and various other public and private hospitals in Boston and vicinity.
Q: Now, Doctor, are you a member of a number of medical associations?
A: Yes sir. I am also a Diplomate and former Examiner on the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Q: Could you name just a few of those medical societies of which you are a member?
A: American medical Association, American Neurological association, American association of Neuropathologists, American Association of Psychopathologists, Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, Harvey Cushing Society, American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists, Boston Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, Now England Psychiatric Association, and a number of others.
Q: Thank you. Now, Doctor, what experience have you had with medical legal work, if any?
A: Considerable, both in civilian practice, in university teaching, and in military practice.
Q: Could you describe that experience in just a bit more detail?
A: It consists in serving as an export to courts, both civilian courts and military courts and teaching methods and principles of examination and testimony to medical students.
Q: What experience have you had with cases of trauma or injury with or without subsequent infection?
A: Considerable, especially during my time at the Boston City Hospital and in the Army.
Q: What experience have you had with the reading of X-rays?
A: Likewise a great deal. I served among others as examiner in X-rays of the skull, spine and nervous system on the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry.
Q: Now, Doctor, I will ask you if you have made a physical examination of Maria Drool-Plater, the woman seated to your right?
A: I have.
Q: And were X-rays of the logs of this woman made under your supervision?
A: Yes, at the 385th Station Hospital.
Q: Doctor, I am having handed to you Document NO-1088.
A: Yes sir.
Q: Will you please identify for the Tribunal what this document is?
A: This document is an X-ray and a print made thereof of the right log of the witness, Miss Breel-Plater, which was made by Captain Wunderlich and his assistants at the 585th Station Hospital, and which I studied there with the Captain after those were dried and completed.
Q: And this X-ray was made under your supervision?
A: It was at my request and under my -- I would say --
Q: Under your direction?
A: Yes, at my direction, I have no supervisory function at the 385th Station hospital, but I directed them what to take and told them what I wanted and what it was desired for.
Q: You watched them make it, did you?
A: I did not watch them make it, but I asked them to do it. When I returned to see it it was properly labeled, and I have no doubt that it actually, in effect, is the X-ray of Miss Breel-Plater's logs.
Q: And you identify it as such?
A: I identify it as such.
MR. HcHANEY: I would like to offer Document NO-1088 as Prosecution Exhibit 210. If your Honors please, of course the original of this exhibit is in fact, the negative. However, I understand they are subject to deterioration and I would therefore ask leave of the Court to submit, instead of the original, a print thereof.
THE PRESIDENT: That procedure may be followed.
BY MR. HcHANEY:
Q: Now, Doctor, I would appreciate it if you would simply proceed to explain to the Court what you have done in examining this woman and what you have to report on your examination. I would appreciate it if you would do it in non-technical language Insofar as possible and where technical words are necessary, I wish that you would please explain them to the Court as well as you can.
A: I will, sir. My task could be facilitated by asking the witness, Miss Drool-Plater, to remove her shoes and stockings, if that pleases you and the Court.
Q: And, Doctor, it night be well if she moved her chair around to her left.
A: If she moved her chair here in front where one could see her, it would then appear --
Q: Are you sure that chair is secure?
JUDGE SEBRING: Doctor, suppose you just put the chair over to the side.
A: There is a special reason, for that, sir, because you will see here that the right log, at the calf, is rotated inward and drops down to where you see that rotation. That is due to atrophy, the loss of what is known as --
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: Now, just a minute, Doctor. You are not able to hear?
A: I will stay here. This is due to loss of what is known as the peronei nerve, of the peronei nerve, nervous peronaous. The musculature of the right calf which is supplied by the peronei nerve is strophic, as you will see here.
A: As you see here there are two deep scars, one six inches long over the lateral part of the right calf which you see here, deep, retracted, and hard, and also painful; another one four and a half inches long, lateral to the shin. There is a diminution of touch, pain and tang mature sense in the distribution of the nervous cruris lateralis, which is the skin branch of the peronea. Thank you, Miss Breel-Plater.
The X-rays show as main finding, thickening and irregularity of the middle third of the shaft of the fibula. This has the appearance as a result of direct trauma to this area without fracture, including removal of muscular attachments.
Q: Doctor, can you show that particular area you are talking about on the print so the Tribunal may see it? Hold it up and turn it around so that they can see it.
A: On the print, it is here.
JUDGE SEBRING: Mark it, Doctor, with the letter "A".
A: The beginning and the end.
Q: And how is it you described this area "A," Doctor?
A: As the area showing irregularity of the middle third, or you may call it the more than the upper part of the lower half of the shaft of the fibula.
Q: And what is that irregularity? Did you say it was a thickening of the bone?
A: Thickening, irregularity with thickening which could be --
THE PRESIDENT: Would you talk a little nearer the microphone?
A: Yes. Which is due to trauma without complete fracture.
JUDGE SEBRING: Doctor, may I suggest that the microphone that stands at the Marshal's desk could also be brought over and you could stand on that side, and I should think then you would not have quite so much difficulty. There is a cord on it 40 feet long.
A: It is most likely due to the removal of the muscular attachments in this region of the peronea, the extensor hallucis longus, extensor digitorum longus, the long extensor of the toe, the flexer hallucis longus. They insert at the point of abnormality, and it is their function that is seriously impaired in this patient; hence it is probable that the trauma to which this change is due consisted essentially to the removal or destruction of these muscles in this case.
Q: What effect does this injury which you have described have upon the witness now to your right?
A: It impairs her function of gait and stance, especially, she cannot stand and maintain herself on her toes and the right leg is not as useful as it would naturally otherwise be. It is essentially the picture of peroeneal palsy which is due both to interference with the peroeneal nerve which runs through the region in which this experiment was carried out as well as through necrosi or the removal of the muscles themselves. It is a combined picture of nerve and muscle loss.
Q: Then you would say that there was injury to the bone, to the muscles and to the nerve?
A: Yes, The thickening of the fibula at the pint shows that the pereostum in this region must have reacted to either trauma or the inflammatory process or in view of the exact location, to tearing off or sluffing off of the muscular attachments. At this point we see the effect of the scar without knowing exactly which of these three processes caused it. The exact correspondence to the muscular attachments suggests that the injury to the bone and percostum in this case occurred because of the necrosis or the removal of these muscles.
Q: Do you have any further findings to report, Doctor?
A: No, sir, except the one, that psychologically the patient is of excellen quality, a woman of first rate intelligence and ability as well as character.
MR. McHANEY: I have no further questions, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Does defense counsel have any questions to propound to this witness on cross examination? No examination? When the witness may step down.
MR. HcHANEY: The Prosecution would like at this time to have the witness Karolewska called to the stand.
THE PRESIDENT: Did I understand you to say that the witness Kladislawa Karolewska be called?
MR. McHANEY: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Will the Marshal summon the witness Karolewska?
KLADISLAWA KAROLEWSKA, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q: As the witness her name?
A: Karolewska.
Q: The witness will be sworn:
Do you solemnly swear that the evidence which you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the true, so help you God?
(The witness repealed the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: Be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: What is your name, please?
A: Karolewska.
Q: And that is spelled K-a-r-o-l-e-w-s-k-a?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you born on 15 Larch 1909 at Yeroman?
A: I was born on 15 Larch 1909 in Yeroman.
Q: You are a citizen of Poland?
A: Yes, I am a Polish citizen
Q: And have you come hero is a voluntary witness?
A: Yes, I cam here as a voluntary witness.
Q: What is your home address?
A: Warsaw, Inzynierska Street, No, 9, flat number 25.
Q: Are you married?
A: No.
Q: Are your parents living?
A: No, my parents are dead.
Q: Will you tell the Tribunal what education you have received?
A: I finished elementary school and training school for teachers and I finished it in 1928.
Q: And what did you do between 1928 and the beginning of the war in 1939?
A: I worked as a teacher in a child's school in Grudenz.
Q: And when did you leave that job?
A: I finished my work in June 1939 and I went for my holidays.
Q: And did you go back to this position after your holidays?
A: No, I didn't come back because the war broke out and I stayed in Lublin.
Q: And what did you do while you were in Lublin?
A: I lived with my sister and I didn't work at all.
Q: Were you a member of the English Resistance movement?
A: Yes, I was.
Q: And what did you do in the English Resistance movement?
A: I was a messenger.
Q: And were you ever arrested for your activity in the Resistance movement?
A: I was arrested on the 13th February 1941 by the Gestapo.
A: Was your sister arrested with you?
A: Two sisters and two brothers-in-law were arrested with me on the same day.
Q: What happened to you after you were arrested?
A: I was taken to the Gestapo.
Q: And what did the Gestapo do with you?
A: The first day the Gestapo took my personal data and sent me to the prison in Lublin.
Q: And then what happened? Just go on and tell the complete story about what the Gestapo did with you and where you went?
A: I stayed two weeks in the prison in Lublin and then I was taken again to the Gestapo. There I was interrogated and they wanted to force me to confess what kind of work I used to do in the Resistance movement.
The Gestapo wanted me to give them the names of persons with whom I worked. I did not want to tell them the names and therefore I was beaten. I was beaten by one Gestapo man, with brief intervals, for a very long time. Then I was brought to a cell. Two days later at night I was taken again to the Gestapo for interrogation. There I was beaten again. I stayed in the Gestapo office one week and then I was brought again back into the prison in Lublin. I stayed in the prison till the 21st September 1941. Then I was transported with other prisoners to the concentration camp Ravensbruck where I arrived on the 23rd September 1941.
Q: Now, Witness, before you continue, will you tell the Tribunal whether you were ever tried by any court for the crime of being a member of the Resistance movement?
A: I was only interrogated by the Gestapo and I think that the sentence must have been passed not in my presence because no sentence has ever been read, off to me.
Q: All right. Will you tell the Tribunal what happened to you at Ravensbruck?
A: It Ravensbruck our dresses were taken away from us and we received the regular prison dress. Then I was sent to the block and I stayed in quarantine for three weeks. After thee weeks we were taken to work. The work was hard physical work. In the spring I was given ether work and I was transferred to the work slop, which was called in German Retried. The work done by me was there also very hard and I had to work one week in the daytime and the next at night. In the spring the living conditions in the camp grow worse and worse and hunger began to reign in the camp. The food portions were smaller. We were under-nourished, very exhausted, and we had no strength to work. In the spring of the same year shoes and stockings were taken away from us and we had to walk barefoot. The gravel in the camp hurt our feet. The most tiring work was so-called "roll calls" where we had to stand several hours, sometimes even four hours. If a prisoner wanted to put a piece of paper underneath her feet she was beaten and ill-treated in an inhuman way.
We had to stand on the roll call place at attention and we were not allowed to move our lips, because then we were supposed to pray and we were not allowed to pray.
Q: Now, Witness, were you operated on while you were in the Ravensbruck concentration camp?
A: Yes, I was.
Q: When did that happen?
A: On the 22nd July 1942, 73 prisoners from our transport that came from Lublin were called, summoned to the chief of the camp. We stood before the camp office, and present were Kogel, Mendel and one person in which I later recognized Dr. Fischer. We were afterwards sent back to the block and we were told to wait for further instruction. On the 25th of July, all the women from the transport of Luffin were summoned by Mandel, who told us that we were not allowed to work outside the camp. Also, five women from the transport that came from Warsaw were summoned with us at the same time. We were not allowed to work outside the camp. The next day 75 women were summoned again and we had to stand before the hospital in the camp. Present were Schiedlauski, Oberhauser, Resential, Mogel and the man in whom I recognized afterwards Dr. Fischer.
Q: Now, Witness, do you. see Oberhauser in the Defendants' deck here?
THE INTERPRETER: The witness ask for permission to go near the dock and to be able to see them.
MR. McHANEY: Please do.
(Witness walking to deck and pointing to Mr. Oberhauser.)
MR. McHANEY: And Fischer?
(Witness pointing to Dr. Fischer).
MR. McHANEY: I well ask that the record show that the witness properly identified the Defendants Oberhauser and Fischer.
THE PRESIDENT: The record wall show that the witness correctly identified the Defendants Oberhauser and Fischer.
I think at this time the Tribunal will take a recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)