1947-01-30, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
Opening statement on behalf of the Defendant Georg August Weltz
BY DR. SIEGFRIED WILLE:
Mr. President, Your Honors, please permit me first of all to state several words outside of the official text.
In view of the opening statement of the gentlemen before me and the statements of the Prosecution against Professor Welz in the field of circumstantial evidence, because of the lack of proof, in order to counter this it is necessary for me to point out a number of apparently incorrect details in my presentation of evidences.
My presentation will be somewhat enlarged in this way because it justified the actions of the defendant Welz, which are only a very small part of the incidents that occurred. In order to simplify the matter, as far as I can review it at this time. I shall not make fundamental statements about the legal questions because they have been sufficiently treated in the presentation of my colleague.
The prosecution accuses the defendant Weltz of the following criminal acts:
Participation in a conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Participation in the commission of such crimes.
I.
In detail, Weltz is accused by the prosecution of the following:
1. Participation in the High-Altitude Experiments by Dr. Rascher.
Subsequent to a lecture on high-altitude experiments on monkeys Weltz is alleged to have stated confidentially to Rascher, a member of the audience at that time, (Doc. No. 1602-PS) that these experiments ought to be made on human beings. By virtue of his relations with Himmler, Rascher is then allege to have received permission from him, in the summer of 1941, to carry out experiments with 2 to 3 criminals in Dachau.
The prosecutor connects this lecture, as well as the remark, with Weltz, for the reason that Weltz at that time was in charge of the permanent research office on the effects of high-altitude and therefore worked at the same institute as Rascher. (German Transcript p. 217). This is merely an assumption on the part of the prosecutor, I shall prove through witnesses and documents that it is without any foundation.
Other deductions of the prosecutor are based on this assumption. He deduces that Weltz was a starting point for Rascher's further preparations, although Weltz did not yet know Rascher at that time. Here the prosecutor mentions a remark in Rudolf Brandt's affidavit (Doc. No. 191), according to which Himmler had in June 1941 given Weltz, Rascher, and Kottenhof permission for low pressure experiments. In this one-sided statement it was further alleged that Weltz had postponed the experiments again and again for fear that they would give offense to the Medical Inspection. The truth is that Weltz had never asked for nor received this permission. The prosecution then alleges that Weltz used Ruff and Romberg, of the Research Institute Adlershof, as a front. Before that, he is alleged to have vainly offered his assistants, Lutz and Wendt, the opportunity to collaborate with Rascher.
Through the necessary assignments Weltz is alleged to have made a participation in the experiments possible. Because of this attitude of Weltz, who secretly reserved for the Luftwaffe or for himself the credit for the scientific results of the experiments, the Munich representative of the SS Main Office is alleged to have stopped the Dachau experiments without Rascher until Himmler's decision (Mrs. Nini Rascher, Doc. No. 263). Weltz is alleged to have hedged in this way until the spring of 1942. Then Weltz apparently succeeded in overcoming Hippke's objections (German Transcript 220-222). The prosecutor states that Weltz also received information about deaths subsequently. The witnesses Lutz and Neff were to give testimony to prove this, but their statements did not really implicate the defendant. As regards the high-altitude experiments, the prosecutor draws the following conclusion from them.
It is true that Weltz did not actively participate in experiments, but he obtained expert assistants for Rascher, who was not conversant with highaltitude research (German Transcript p. 222).
Freezing Experiments: Weltz is known as the real discoverer of the freezing problem and was aware at an early date of the scientific investigation of it through animal experiments. Hence his basic experiments on small animals, and also the experiments on shaved cats which were treated with irony by Rascher. Himmler offer of an opportunity to experiment on human beings did not seem attractive to him, not to speak of his basic repudiation of experiments on human beings. A co-responsibility of Weltz for the freezing experiments, which only began in May 1942, that is, long after Rascher's dismissal from the assignment, cannot seriously be considered. Therefore, the prosecutor could present here only one single fact. In Document No. 343a-PS, a letter from Milch to Wolff, Milch notes the conclusion of the altitude experiments in Dachau and suggests going over to freezing experiments which Weltz was ordered to carry out. For this purpose Rascher could be made available in the future. I shall prove through witnesses that this order was never given.
II.
The charge against Weltz is not complicity, but instigation and assistance. Weltz is alleged to have given Rascher the idea of making experiments on human beings and afterwards to have helped him in their execution. These accusations are in no small measure the results of the one-sided and noticably prejudiced affidavits by Brandt, Ruff, and Romberg, Lutz also is not an unobjectionable witness, as he is politically too implicated by his SS membership. He therefore avails himself of every opportunity to make himself appear in a more favorable light.
In reputation of the statements of the prosecution I shall prove through documents and witnesses:
Weltz had nothing whatsoever to do with Rascher's assignment to his Institute. It was not Weltz but Stabsarzt Kottenhoff of Luftgau VII, who gave the lecture on the monkey experiments. The suggestion to make experiments in the future, not on monkeys, but on two or three habitual criminals can therefore only have been made by Kottenhoff. I shall substantiate this through presentation of a reprint of Kottenhoff's article in the magazine "Luftfahrtsmedizin" (Aviation Medicine) and through witnesses.
Rascher's assignment to Weltz' Institute took place at his own insistence and with the support of Kottenhoff. Rascher wishes to establish himself in Weltz' good graces.
Outside of the text, may I here clear up a misunderstanding and a false translation into the English language? To habilitate, according to the German concept, that is to gain permission to be an active lecturer in the German Higher School. Now, I continue with the text:The experiments on human beings that Himmler permitted him to carry out were to assist him in this. Weltz, however, repudiated the proposed experimental research, the gradual ascent to high-altitudes and the freezing experiments. The reason for this will be seen in Weltz' basic negative attitude toward freezing experiments on human beings, as set forth by me under 1, 3.
I shall further prove that Weltz, on the occasion of Hippke's visit in the summer of 1941 explicitly, stated to him that experiments on human beings were to be made only in the most pressing cases and only on criminal prisoners serving long terms.
These prisoners would have to make themselves available voluntarily, and be rewarded by a termination or shortening of their sentence.
Thus Rascher's assignment to Weltz from the late summer of 1941 to the beginning of March 1942 meant absolutely nothing. Rascher went to Munich only seldom, without visiting the Institute. Therefore, in fulfillment of his official responsibility, Weltz ordered Rascher to report twice weekly. I shall prove that the second time he reported, Rascher produced a telegram from Himmler stating that he should keep the experiments secret from everyone, even Weltz. I shall further produce witnesses to prove that Weltz discharged Rascher at that very time and requested his immediate transfer back to the Luftgau, at the beginning of March 1942. On the basis of document No. 318 I shall prove that already in this letter Rascher appears after 16 March 1942 as member of the Ruff-Romberg-Rascher experimental group with an assignment for the Research Institute for Aviation, at the Dachau Branch. From this it will be so that the inauguration of high-altitude experiments in Dachau, coincides in point of time with Rascher's separation from Weltz. Thus I shall make clear that Weltz did not call Rascher to him and instigate his experiments, but that on the contrary, he kept Rascher at a distance and discharged him from his assignment when Rascher attempted to withdraw from Weltz' supervision.
In my submission of evidence I shall further take issue with the assumption that Weltz wished to provide Rascher with —— and I must bring out a mistake in the text, it must be Weltz instead of Werz — experienced helpers in the person of his assistants, Lutz and von Weltz while making sure to keep himself at a discreet distance. I shall prove through witnesses that it was customary in Weltz' institute to determine and draw up in writing the working program through joint discussions of the collaborators. If, therefore, Weltz had ever intended that his institute should participate in Rascher's experiments in Dachau, or that his collaborators should seriously concern themselves with it, there would have to exist a written elaboration of Rascher's program.
I shall prove through witnesses that Weltz never suggested such a collaboration of his assistants.
I shall further prove through documents, and also through logical deductions that it was not Wertz' intention to induce Ruff and Romberg to enter into a plot with Rascher. His presence in Adlershof was fortuitous. It was only through this visit that Weltz found out about the work program in progress there involving high-altitude experiments. I shall prove from this that there was no question here of a prearranged meeting. I shall further prove that there were discussions that took place among physicians of equal rank in good faith. The experiments were to be carried out on the doctors themselves or on habitual criminals, who were to be rewarded with a mitigation of their sentences. I shall further prove by witnesses that up until then Rascher had demanded this and that this work program of Dr. Ruoff's was also approved by Hippke. It will be seen from this that this discussion offers no grounds for the contention that Weltz deliberately associated himself with Rascher. The shipment of the low-pressure chamber to Dachau and the advance inspection of Dachau Concentration Camp by Weltz will, in view of this, no longer be incriminating.
I shall further prove by documents and witnesses that the high-altitude experiments in Dachau from March 1942 on lay outside Weltz' responsibility.
a) First, because at the beginning of March, Rascher had separated from his assignment with Welta;
b) Also because the experiments were carried out under the exclusive responsibility of Ruff in his capacity as leader of the medical department of the Research Institute at Adlershof. Among other things, it will be seen that the experiments were carried out under the heading "Adlershof Research Institute, Dachau Branch." This latter I shall prove by documents. (There is a little change in the text there.)
c) I shall further demonstrate by witnesses that Weltz learned nothing of the results. He received neither current reports nor the usual scientific analysis.
It will be seen from this that his Institute was regarded as not taking part.
As incrimination through the freezing experiments the prosecutor merely pointed out that Weltz was intended as a participant in them. In answer to this I shall prove, from documents presented by the prosecution itself, that this intention was not put into execution. Rather, Professor Holzlodhner was commissioned to carry them out in place of Weltz.
I shall clarify Weltz' character said personality through the testimony of his colleagues. Through their testimony, I shall prove that his attitude toward life, as manifested in his many years of activity, does not fit him for the role that the prosecutor ascribed to him. Weltz is not only a scientifically distinguished physician, but also a humane one, upright, without timidity, and without despotism. He is no ambitious in such a way as ever to derive benefit from the work of his assistants.
I shall prove this through affidavits by competent persons. His sense for the healing and constructive activity of the physician cannot be reconciled with experiments on human beings such as Rascher was carrying out. In fact, he opposed these experiments for so long that Himmler threatened to put him in a concentration camp as a traitor to his country. The chief prosecutor defines the goal, of German medical science as killing and extermination; in refutation of that I shall prove that Weltz' life work was devoted exclusively to the preserving and saving of human lives.
Finally I shall bring forth my objections to the charge of conspiracy, In my examination of the defendant and occasionally of the other defendants, I shall prove, that Weltz had almost no connections with the leading doctors of the Wehrmacht and the SS who are gathered here. This circumstance results quite naturally from his position as leader of a purely research institute that had nothing to do with the general medical administration. His only task was the elucidation of scientific problems. Accordingly, it naturally follows that Weltz' participation was only of a scientific character. I know of only one such act of participation; namely, the congress on "Shipwreck and Winter Suffering" (See note and Winternot) on 26 and 27 October 1942 at Nurnberg.
Participation in a conspiracy with such far-reaching goals, however, would also, require proof that the participants were criminal characters. Unpremeditated crimes can be alien to the person's essential character. A crime of sich lous duration as a conspiracy as only conceivable if the perpetrator's character is criminal and if his depravity is manifested also in his entire behavior. The evidence that I have premised to submit regarding Welts' personality and character will make clear the impossibility of such an assumption Outside of the text may I make the following statement.
The defense counsel of the defendants Ruff and Romberg have suggested immediate discontinuance of the trial and I want to join this request at this time.
Finally, I feel it to be my duty to refer in quite general terms to the following objection:
It has how been established, after the submission of the prosecution's documents, that Rascher was a criminal. It would have been a crime to support this Dr. Rascher, whom we now see in all his depravity. In the evaluation, however, of the defendant Weltz's possible guilt and responsibility, we are not concerned with this Dr. Rascher. I have reached the conclusion of my statement.
Opening statement on behalf of the Defendant Viktor Brack
BY DR. GROESCHMANN:
Mr. President, your Honors. The prosecution accuses the defendant Brack of:
taking part in a common conspiracy for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity;
commission of war crimes; and
commission of crimes against humanity by participating in the euthanasia and sterilization measures as well a
remaining a member of the SS, and thus of a criminal organization, after 1 September 1939, although he knew that the SS was used for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In refutation of those accusations counsel for the defendant Brack will present testimony or witnesses, documents, films, and eye witnesses and also by showing the film, "Ich Klage An", "I accuse", to prove the following and show his previous life and also his care of inmates in insane asylums. This is an additional part of my text.
Brack worked in the Fuehrer's Chancellery as specialist for Amt II, where it was his function to handle all complaints and appeals addressed directly to the Fuehrer by persons from all walks of life, and to submit then to Reichsleiter Bouhler for his decision.
In addition to these duties Brack was instructed by Reichsleiter Bouhler in 1939 to assist him in the technical preparation of such measures as were required in the execution of the task that Hitler had assigned to Bouhler; that is shortening the worthless lives of incurably insane persons, after most critical diagnosis, by specifically designated doctors, and in the technical preparation of the excution of these measures. Brack felt no doubts, after the development of German law since 1933, as to the constitutional legality of Adolf Hitler's directives.
Brack carried out the instructions given him and his other duties in his capacity as an administrative official subordinate to Bouhler and subject to the individual instructions of Reichsleiter Bouhler, with no independent power to make decisions.
Brack had no contact whatsoever with any of the defendants who were planning or preparing a war crime or a crime against humanity. Only with the defendant Karl Brandt did he have a few more or less incidental conferences, the purpose of which, however, was not the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The task with which Reichsleiter Bouhler entrusted Brack involved only incurably insane persons. Brack had nothing to do with measures designed to shorten the lives of deformed children (which was within the competence of the so-called "Reich Commission for the Survey of Serious or Inherited afflictions"), nor with measures affecting incurable invalids in general.
The task assigned to Brack involved only German insane persons, excluding persons wounded in the first World War and industrial casualties. It did not include foreign nationals, particularly those of nations at war with Germany, but on the other hand did include Party members and Jews living in Germany.
Brack gave close study to writings on the problem of shortening the worthless lives of incurably insane persons, which has been disputed for centuries by physicians, jurists, philosophers, scientists, and ordinary citizens, and, for ethical reasons and on the basis of a carefully formed conviction deriving from his own experiences, education, spiritual orientation, and personal study, answered in time affirmative the question, which comes up in connection with the above-mentioned problem, as to the justification of euthanasia in such cases.
Brack did not participate in the ether extermination measures with which the Prosecution charges him, which were directed against Germans and non-Germans through a misuse of the organizational apparatus that Bouhler had created.
Never in his life was Brack's attitude anti-Semitic. On the contrary, in many cases he interceded in the interests of Jews even at the danger of personal detriment. Consequently, Brack became an enemy of Heydrick and Borman. Just before the end of the war at the institution of Bormann he was even sentenced to death by a military court martial. And I continue with my criminal test: Consequently Brack was dismayed by his progressively clearer recognition of the radical intentions and extermination plans embraced by Hitler and his advisers.
Brack wished to frustrate these plans at all costs. For this purpose, abusing the confidence he enjoyed, he attempted to induce the men in the control to adopt means and procedure which apparently promised success but which actually, according to the state of research at that time, had to be remarked as useless, and at any rate made a successful application of those plans impossible for a considerable period of time. This is the origin of Brack's correspondence with and sterilization proposals to influential persons in the government in 1941 and 1942. Brack's activity in these years will, in the light of the evidence that the defense will produce, take on an essentially different psychological aspect from that which the Prosecution has presented.
Brack did not furnish personnel for the extermination of Jews.
In the spring of 1942 Brack volunteered for service at the front with the Waffen SS because, after the failure of his efforts and realizing that the radical tendency was new irresistible, he did not wish to be associated with or oven to come into contact with an activity that seemed to have criminal tendencies.
He transferred to the troops in ignorance of facts going to prove that the SS was used for criminal activities.
That is the end of any statements.
Opening statement on behalf of the Defendant Hermann Becker-Freyseng
BY DR. MARX:
Mr. President, your Honors, I am now beginning the opening statement for the Defendant, Dr. Becker-Freyseng.
I.
The Prosecution charges the former Stabsarzt of the Luftwaffe Reserve, Dr. Hermann Becker-Freyseng, first, to have participated on a conspiracy and a joint plan to commit crimes against humanity and war crimes. Those crimes are alleged to have been committed under camouflage as so-called scientific, medical experiments.
The indictment thereby was based on the assumption that in the execution of individual experiments or series of experiments several of the here present defendants or the agencies they represented at that time had taken part or were interested in them or should have had knowledge of them.
However, the Prosecution did not leave any doubt that in its opinion the carrying out of so-called medical experiments was only a pretext to do harm to enemies of the Nazi State, to torture them, even to exterminate them. The Chief Prosecutor, General Taylor, devoted a major portion of his address before the High Tribunal in demonstrating that the basis for such a a conspiracy were the doctrines of the National Socialist German Workers' party (NSDAP) particularly in regard to the race question, and that also the personal basis of the cruel and abominable crimes is to be found in those characters who freely fell for the results of those slogans about Race and State, without inner ties with and religious consideration, true medical calling, genuine science, and the eternal human values.
That is the picture of the conspirator which the prosecution developed before our eyes.
Second, in contrast to that, Counsel for the Defendant, Dr. Becker-Freyseng, will attempt to prove that one latter, as a result of his education and his concept of the medical profession, as well as his general philosophy, for the factual results of which we will offer evidence, is really unable to show such attitude.
Coming from a Christian family, Dr. Becker-Freyseng preserved his religious attitude at later times also as a student, as a husband and family father, he did not abandon his Christian position, even at a time when many Germans broke with church and religion, merely as a matter of expediency, in accordance with the Party trend, and left the church.
Neither did he belong as a student to the Nazi Students Association, nor did he belong, as a physician and young academic teacher, to the Nazi Physicians Association or the Nazi Academic Teachers League; only in serious scientific work and service to the ill did he see the fulfillment of his freely chosen profession. His superiors and teachers were no so-called Nazi Professors but men who today again hold honored positions.
This picture of the Defendant will be completed when I submit evidence to the High Tribunal that Dr. Becker-Freyseng — as far as it was in his power — aided and supported racially and politically persecuted people, thereby certainly not following the principles of the Party.
Already from the beginning of his own scientific career the experiment carried out on himself is of exceptional importance. Already as a young intern he tested new drugs on his own body and studied in experiments on his own person, the results up to the limit of his physical endurance.
At the Research Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin Dr. Becker-Freyseng carried out on himself oven the most dangerous experiments that ever were carried out there and thereby contacted a serious case of pneumonia.
In more than one hundred experiments with lack of oxygen he served as experimental subject for his colleagues, thereby losing his consciousness and exposed himself to other dangers; and when, after the war, he with other German aviation physicians was asked to cooperate at the Areo-Medical Center of the American Air Force in Heidelberg, he carried out almost one hundred dangerous low pressure chamber experiments in less than a year's time, which caused an illness of several months duration to one of the participating colleagues. All these experiments on himself did not bring any material gain to Dr. Becker-Freyseng. His scientific works are regarded as clean and absolutely reliable by today's critical observers, too. He cannot be accuse of an unhealthy ambition, an unfactual fanaticism or reckless egotism, and nothing of the kind could be proven against him.
Never did he carry out any dangerous experiments in his own scientific field any other way than as an experiment on himself or on similar minded co-worker.
The outbreak of the war interrupted the medical-scientific activities of Dr. Becker-Freyseng. In 1940 he was drafted as Unterarzt of the Luftwaffe Reserve and transferred in 1941 to the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe.
The indictment characterizes Dr. Becker-Freyseng as "Chief of the Division for Aviation Medicine" with the Chief of Medical Service of the Luftwaffe. Actually no Division for Aviation Medicine at the Medical Inspectorate has ever existed; thus, this is a contention by the Prosecution that cannot be proved at all.
Within the Division 2 (the Medical Division) there existed only a branch (a referat) for Aviation Medicine. Dr. Becker-Freyseng was working there as an assistant consultant up to the middle of 1944 without authority to sign any papers and without any independent responsibility. Only from May 1944 until the end of the war Dr. Becker-Freyseng was himself the head of the branch (Referant).
May it please the Tribunal! The presentation of evidence will prove that this clarification is more than a merely formal correction. Sphere of activity and mainly responsibility of a division chief were in principle different from these of a chief or even assistant subordinated to him. Amongst all the defendants, who had any function in the civilian or military sector of the German health Service during the war at all, Dr. BECKER-FREYSENG is the only one, whose activities were never autonomous, and who never was authorized to make independent decision.
This, High Tribunal, is the picture of the character of the defendant Dr. BECKER FREYSENG, which the Defense will prove in detail, in order to demonstrate, that in no way Sees it conform with the Description of a criminal conspirator the prosecution has drawn.
Furthermore the Prosecution's assumption that Dr. BECKER FREYSENG participated at the "Consulting Conference" of the year 1943 is incorrect. The Defense is going to prove that he actually participated only at the Conference of 1944.
Most of the defendants he saw for the first time here in the Palace of Justice, others he knew by name on account of their high position. With the members of the Luftwaffe he had naturally official contacts.
II.
In particular, the indictment charges Dr. BECKER FREYSENG of participation or special responsibility for high altitude experiments freezing experiments sea water experiments and the experiments with sulfonamide, epidemic jaundice, typhus and other infectious diseases.
First, the Defense is going to prove, that Dr. BECKER FREYSENG had nothing to do whatsoever with the high altitude experiments and heard about these experiments only after their conclusion, and then only unofficially and by chance.
Furthermore, we are going to prove, that the low pressure chamber used in Rascher's experiment was not furnished to Dr. RASCHER by the Aviation Medicine Branch of the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe, that Dr. BECKER FREYSENG actually saw this chamber for the first time about July 1942, when it already had returned from Dachau, and that he took it over from German Aviation Experimental Station (DVL), as brand new.
Mr. President, I will omit the following paragraph; I request that this paragraph be stricken from the record. I will now continue with the next paragraph.
To illustrate the attitude of the defendant Dr. BECKER FREYSENG to a request of Dr. RASCHER to be furnished with a chamber again, the Defense points out the following, and will submit evidence for it;
During the winter 1942-43, an inquiry from one of the higher SS-offices was received by the Medical Inspectorate, about letting them have a motorized low pressure chamber with a two phase pumping unit. Dr. BECKER FREYSENG had an order to report the position of his branch to his superior.
He commended a negative reply, with the argument, that none of the available chambers could be spared, and that there was no reason for the Medical Inspectorate to have RASCHER conduct high altitude experiments. It is obvious, that his refusal might have had serious consequences for Dr. BECKER FREYSENG. He also saw to it the only German specialized firm would not manufacture any low pressure chamber for the SS and RASCHER.
Second, Freezing experiments.
With the planning and conduct of the freezing experiments. Dr. BECKERFREYSENG had also never to do. Of the fact, that freezing experiments had be conducted on human beings, he personally heard only through the lecture by Prof. HOLZLODHNER during the Nuernberg Conference of Luftwaffe Physicians in October 1942.
Concerning this subject, the Defense is going to prove, that no one could learn from Prof. HOLZLOEHNER'S lecture, from what type of persons the experimental subjects were chosen. The general opinion of the participating physicians was, that the experiments were conducted on criminal sentence to death.
Dr. RASCHER, who was conducting the experiments, had specially requested permission from HIMMLER to handle the matter absolutely secret.
Dr. BECKER FREYSENG after the Nuernberg Conference never saw RASCHER again, and never had any other contacts with him.
The Luftwaffe too, shifted away completely from RASCHER, and thereby got into disfavor with his sponsor, the Reichsfuehrer-SS, HIMMLER.
From documents offered by the Prosecution it become evident that
RASCHER was from the very beginning in very close contact with the SS and particularly with HIMMLER.
That RASCHER continue freezing experiments without any participation of the Luftwaffe for year, and that under really perverted conditions.
Therefore, Dr. BECKER FREYSENG cannot be considered responsible for a participation on the freezing experiments.
Typhus experiments, Hepatitis and Epidemic Jaundice In all these three cases we are concerned with purely hygienic or bacteriological questions, even in the difficult specialized field of virus research.
With this field, Dr. BECKER FREYSENG in his official position at the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe was not at all concerned, he never had to voice an opinion on any of these questions, he never participated o n a conference concerning them, or even heard of other. These questions did not even belong to the field of aviation medicine, which was the exclusive field of activity of this defendant. Scientifically Dr. BECKER FREYSENG never worked on these problems either, and is entirely unfamiliar with this specialize medical field.
Dr. BECKER FREYSENG was in contact with the affair HAAGEN only insofar as his branch formally worked in single cases on research order from other medical fields besides aviation medicine research orders, in order to uniformly control the permanent regulations about allocation of funds, priority rate assignment of personnel, etc. Furthermore, all of these research orders had the same file note, (no. 55!) and, therefore, merely for filing purposes were handled by his branch.
Thus it was nothing but an administrative and file matter! The real, that is the factual contents of the order were handled by the respective consultant for that specialized field.
That is how Prof, Eugen HAAGEN had received research orders about several bacteriological questions, and that already before Dr. BECKER FREYSENG came to the branch in the fall of 1941.
In the case of the defendant Prof. Dr. SCHROEDER I dealt already with the dual position of Prof. HAAGEN the different types of research orders he worked on, and therefore how the ordering agencies opposed each other.
The Defense is going to prove, that Dr. BECKER FREYSENG even in the summer of 1944 never considered the experiments HAAGENS as anything but of an animal experimental type. This is to be deducted from an order submitted to Dr. SUCHALLA, chief of the Breeding institution for such experimental animals.
Dr. BECKER FREYSENG heard first about the Sulfonamide Experiments in November 1946, when he was served the indictment.
The experiments about making sea water potable. As far as these experiments are concerned, the motives, which had been guiding for Dr. BECKER FREYSENG as well as his proposal of carrying out experiments for this purpose on human beings, were already elucidated in my plea for Prof. Dr. SCHROEDER.
The Defense will offer proof, that Dr. BECKER FREYSENG advocated the conduct of these experiments not for vicious planning or with the intent to torture, and to destroy. Only by the attitude of the follower of the other method "Berka" and due to the particular circumstances caused by the war then forced to suggest experiments to be carried out on inmates, after the originally intended experimentation on soldiers of the Luftwaffe in a Luftwaffe or parachutist hospital and in the Military Medical Academy had or proved to be impossible as a result of the war situation in the summer of the invasion.
The Defense intends to be in a position to prove that the planning of experiments, for which from the start the volunteering of experimental subjects had been the first condition, had been so prepared and that the carrying out had been laid down in such detail that according to all medical experience and medical estimates every precaution had been taken to prevent any disturbance of health, but certainly fatal results.
In sharp contrast to experiments the outcome which could no longer be directed by their irresponsible initiators, the nature, the preparations and the carrying out of the so-called seawater experiments guaranteed that at any time when reaching the limit of endurance the single experiments could be broken off. And only in these seawater experiments did the defendant Dr. BECKER FREYSENG participate directly.
The volunteering of experimental subjects was a really necessary requisite for the experiments, was it would have been impossible to obtain an absolutely unobjectionable observation result in forcing persons to take part in. Because the physician and scientist does necessarily depend upon the cooperation of the experimental subjects in evaluating subjective statements, like thirst, hunger and other complaints.
Dr. BECKER FREYSENG, therefore, is of the opinion to have done all that was at all possible according to the well-known standard of medical science, especially as the supervision of the experiments had been put into the hands of an experienced physician and of a blameless character.
This picture of Dr. BECKER FREYSENG shows him as a man whose concern was serious scientific research objective work, who made very high demands upon himself, not sparing this own person, a man who does draw and who may draw a sharp line between himself and such "would be — scientists", who have made tests without considering health and life of their fellow-men, finally as a physician who always endeavored to live up to the high ethical standards set by his vocation.
According to the opinion of the Defense after the hearing of the evidence the picture of the defendant will be an entirely different one from the one which was painted by the Prosecution.
Mr. President, in addition and outside of this written statement I would like to state several words. I am of the opinion that I am entitled to also state for Dr. Becker-Freyseng and also Professor Schroeder, who I am also defending, to make the request in their behalf that the trial be discontinued in so far as this includes their participation in a criminal plan or a conspiracy and even perhaps to a higher degree than is the case with one or the other of the defendant. However, I shall refrain from making such a request because I am of the opinion that the verdict will have to be uniform about all the points with which the defendant is being charged. Therefore, I do not consider it appropriate to decide about part of the Indictment from the very beginning.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess until one-thirty o'clock.
(A recess as taken until 1330 hours.)