1947-02-07, #4: Doctors' Trial (late afternoon)

THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session. May it please your Honors, defendant Oberheuser has availed herself of the permission granted by this Tribunal to be absent and is absent for the latter part of this afternoon.

THE PRESIDENT: I ask the Secretary General to make a note for the record the absence of the defendant Oberheuser because of her physical condition, with permission of the Tribunal. Counsel may proceed.

DIRECT EXAMINATION OF KURT GUTZEIT - Continued

BY DR. SERVATIUS:

Q: Witness, is there any prophylactic measure possible against hepatitis? If such a prophylaxis is given by means of vaccinations, then are vaccinations necessary which can be fatal to the experimental subject?

A: Vaccines against hepatitis as far as I know have not been found and have not been introduced yet. These experiments were under way at that time. In my capacity as a clinical man, as far as I can judge this, the development of the vaccines and the experiments in winning these vaccines are not dangerous. The fact that they are not dangerous shows that the spontaneous disease of jaundice in itself is not dangerous. Like all other vaccines, a vaccine which might be developed against hepatitis could have some slight unimportant reactions at the spot where the vaccination is performed.

Q: Therefore you consider it impossible that fatalities could occur?

A: No, I cannot imagine that.

DR. SERVATIUS: Then I do not have any further questions of the witness.

BY DR. NELTE (for the defendant Handloser):

Q: Witness, you are Consultant Internee with the Medical Inspectorate of the Army?

A: Yes.

Q: First with Professor Waldmann and then afterwards, from the 1st of January 1941 on, with Professor Handloser?

A: That is correct.

Q: During your activities as Consultant Internee with the Army Medical Inspectorate did you maintain your position as professor and director at Breslau?

A: I have maintained my civilian activity at Breslau as far as military duties which had been given to me permitted it. Part of the time I was at the Military Medical Academy in Berlin, at my place of work, and sometimes I was also at the Breslau University Clinic and I have treated the patients which were located there and I have also given lectures.

Q: Was this also the case with other consulting physicians?

A: That was common practice in the case of almost all consulting physician who worked within the zone of the Interior.

Q: That is with all those who here worked with the Medical Army Inspectorate. That was common practice?

A: No. That cannot be said. I was a reserve medical officer and I also had a civilian activity. However, there were also consulting physicians who were active military physicians and they, of course, worked at all times in the military sector.

Q: Well, of course, I only referred to the reserve physicians. All those consulting physicians who were only civilian physicians, did they not also exist?

A: There were several consulting physicians who were not in uniform at all. I can remember Professor von Eichen in Berlin, the director of the Ear University Clinic, and Professor Lohlein, the director of the Eye Clinic of the University of Berlin.

Q: Is it, therefore, correct to say that the consulting physicians who otherwise had a civilian medical activity also during their conscription as consulting physician carried out a double function?

A: Yes, certainly — in a way.

Q: And that also in their civilian sector they were not subordinated that the Army Medical Inspectorate.

A: In civilian medical activities they were not subordinated to the Medical Inspectorate.

Q: Will you please tell the Tribunal about the official positions of the consulting physicians which played an important organizational role in the case of Handloser?

A: There were consulting physicians in the field Army, within the home Army, and furthermore with the Army Medical Inspectorate and were everywhere where so-called medical officers in charge were located. Furthermore, consulting physicians were used for the support of the physician in charge.

Q: Did these consulting physicians have a certain military rank?

A: That was not the case. A certain grade had been provided for the consulting physicians in question. However, he was only able to reach this grade when they had grown into that position on account of their age. For example, there were consulting physicians with the relatively low military grade of the assistant physician and there were other consulting physicians who in accordance with their age or their special skills occupied higher military grades. Actually there were all officer grades represented by consulting physicians.

Q: Is it not militarily un-normal to a certain extent?

A: The whole status of consulting physicians from a military point of view was unusual and it was un-normal. The consulting physicians on the basis of their position actually did not fit in within the small military framework. Already for the reason because they were in part also taking ca of the civilian work. The consulting physicians for example in contrast to other medical officers did not have any authority and they did not have any disciplinary authority either. Their activity consisted, as is shown by their name, of consulting others.

They actually did not have any office. They did not have any official stamp. They did not have any command authority. So, that actually the position of the consulting physician basically varied from the other persons of the military system. The activity of the consulting physician consisted of several functions. It is set forth in the so-called directives for consulting physicians. It represents part of the directives for the collection of military medical experiences. According to these directives the consulting physicians, first of all, had a consulting function. Secondly, they had a collecting function for the effect of experiences which had accumulated within the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht. And, finally, the function was to teach and to lecture in order to raise the level of training of the medical officers. Point two of this activity, the activity pertaining to the collection of experiences and the effects, is also known as scientific research work.

Q: We will refer to this later on. Is it correct that all those consulting physicians who were with the Army and Army groups, who for the most part had a collecting activity, and who at home in particular, those who worked with the Army Medical Inspectorate had a utilizing function at home?

A: That may well be said but it is still not quite correct. The consulting physician in the Army and in the Corps Areas had a utilization activity as well as a collection activity.

Q: Is it perhaps so that local problems were also utilized at the front and that more extensive problems were utilized at home?

A: That is correct.

Q: How do you know that the army medical regulations have contained the fact that the consulting physicians, and this is the technical expression— since the question of the establishment of groups plays a certain role in this trial, I would like to ask you the following question. Does a group of specialist physicians, with all the officers an charge, indicate that they amongst themselves constituted a group? That is that they subjectively were connected with each other? Or is this only a statement as to the existence of a number of physicians with equal objective narks?

A: The latter is correct.

Q: Was the entirety of the consulting physicians at the front as well as at home amongst themselves, — were they connected with each other?

A: No, in many cases they did not even know each other.

Q: Now do you know that the consulting physicians met at conferences which also, played a special part in this trial? Now did the consulting physicians come together by agreement?

A: No. The consulting physicians were ordered and detached and the army medical inspector selected those consulting physicians who were to attend a conference and then they were sent by their direct superiors, the medical officers in charge, to attend those particular meetings.

Q: The prosecution has claimed that these conferences had been typical meetings of conspirators, that is to say, of physicians who met in older to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, and to plan those crimes and to carry then out. You know of those conferences and the composition of these people who attended. What can you say to the accusation of the prosecution?

A: The conferences served a purpose, as far as I know, to discuss the experiences which had been gained in the various medical fields in the field and at home, which were gained but the individual consulting physicians, and then to put them down in sort of directives. The consulting physicians then again returned to their offices and they then utilized the experience of which they had been informed in these conferences.

Lectures were given and they were discussed and then directives were issued as to certain methods of treatment and about the diagnosis of certain diseases and the evaluation of the physical condition with regard to the disease. Then these directives were examined by the army medical inspectorate and they were then sent to the front line units in order to have these directives carried out.

Q: Do you know whether these printed reports and the printed directives were classified as secret?

A: I do not think that most of these reports were classified secret.

Q: None of them were classified secret. I only wanted to ask because I thought you might be able to know. Under consideration of the circumstances as they existed in Germany at that time, do you consider these conferences as a necessary institution?

A: I am of the conviction that they were. It was the best way in order to collect and accumulate, the experiences which had been gained at all the various sectors and to discuss them amongst representatives of this special field and perhaps to correct them and then to again pass on these experiences to the front line units.

Q: You have previously stated that discussions took place. Were these discussions subject to any limitations?

A: I do not know of any particular case, only in so far as the meetings had to be concluded within a certain period of time. But I do not know of any military order or of any military prohibition to discuss anything — I do not know anything about that.

Q: I would like to ask you now to tell us about your special activity as an internist with the army medical inspectorate and to give us a picture as to how you have worked within the circle which was presided ever by the Defendant Handloser, what your tasks were and how you carried them out.

A: I had to travel a lot. I had to visit many field hospitals and, of course, with special emphasis on those places shore certain important diseases had occurred, in large numbers. In this way I myself have collected experiences.

Q: Did you also have certain orders and assignments? Did you receive them from Professor Handloser on what special diseases you were to place particular emphasis?

A: These orders and assignments arose from the necessities. already from the particular sector would come the call to take care of certain diseases because the number of such diseases grew enormously. I only want to mention dysentery, typhus and perhaps malaria, although that was not my field, and epidemic jaundice and, during the last years of the war, the so-called war nephritis. In 1940, when jaundice began to grew more frequently to a terrifying figure, I was given the assignment by the army medical inspector to particularly occupy myself with this disease. In pursuance of this assignment I then went to the various theaters of operations, to Greece, to Russia, to France, and I save personally looked at the various cases at the various hospitals.

I think in the course of the time. I saw many thousands of such patients. Then I have looked at the causes for the disease and I have personally determined that the reasons which had formerly been considered as being the cause of the disease, for example, food poisoning, climatic influence, bad conditions of drinking water, and other facts, were not the cause if this disease. I saw in the course of time that the disease could be carried from one human being to the next and that this disease belonged in the group of so-called infectious diseases.

I further was able to determine that once this disease had been overcome, the person who had overcome it would be protected from it for the rest of his life, so that a person would only be able to be infected with this disease one time during his life. There are only rare exceptions. I was further able to determine that jaundice generally is a harmless disease which does not cause any pain and which causes the patient to be yellow between 2, 4, and 6 weeks and feel very exhausted. It could be further ascertained that no injurious complications would remain after the disease. That was in contrast to the opinion which was previously held, which stated that damages to the liver would remain.

Q: May I interrupt you for a minute?

In the speech of General Taylor — in his general speech — in the transcript of 9 December the transcript contains the following sentence on Page 82 of the German version, and the speaker here tells of a letter which Grawitz wrote and in this letter he is alleged to have discussed the over-all importance of a vaccine of extraordinary military value for the treatment of epidemic jaundice and he continues, and I quote: "In several companies there were fatalities up to 70% as a result of epidemic jaundice."

A: May I ask you who wrote the letter and to whom it was addressed?

Q: It is alleged to have been written by Grawitz to Himmler.

A: This statement in in contrast to all experiences. I believe that this is a mistake in printing. It probably should not read 60% fatalities, but it means to say that in some companies 60% of the entire company caught the disease. If any such mentality rate had occurred at any place I believe that it certainly would have come to my knowledge. I consider it completely impossible.

DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I have tried to obtain the English version. However, I was unable to obtain the English version in the General Secretary office today and I would request the Tribunal to rule if that should be the case what the witness has just said that this word "fatality" in the official version of the German transcript should be changed in such a way as the meaning might be implied. I am told that the word means exemptions and in this case I only want to point out the necessity for a correction of the transcript.

MR. McHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, I take it that General Taylor is permitted to say what he will in his opening statement and it is the function of the Prosecution in this case to try to prove his statements. I don't think it is anything to argue about here. The letter they are talking about is Document No. 010 — I don't have the Exhibit number here now — but it very clearly says "The practical importance of the matter in question for our troops, especially in Southern Russia, results from the fact that this disease has spread so extensively during the past years, both among us in the Waffen-SS and Police and in the army, that up to 60% casualties for a period of up to six weeks suffered in some companies."

It doesn't to say that 60% died.

DR. NELTE: Mr. President, if General Taylor had added six weeks to the text then, of course, it would have been clear that a mistake had occurred. It is only due to the fact that in the speech of General Taylor the addition for six weeks had been left out. That was the only reason I suggested a mistake had occurred.

THE PRESIDENT: I would state to Counsel that a copy of the English version will be made available to him. Insofar as the statement of General Taylor is concerned, it is clear that some error has been carried through in the record. It is not of any importance, but as stated by Counsel, the opening statement of either the Prosecution or the Defense may contain only what that side of the case expects to prove. It has no binding force as evidence.

BY DR. NELTE:

Q: Witness, attorney Servatius has previously asked you who occupied himself with this problem of hepatitis epidemica. You had named two officers: and I want to gain a correct picture and I want to pass on this picture to the Tribunal. Just how frequently did this disease occur and also how many officers occupied themselves with this problem?

A: May I first of all state that in the years 1940 and 1941 the disease had an enormous increase by numbers. In order to give a picture I would like to name the following numbers which I can still remember. In one single month, I believe it was September, 1943; on the Eastern Front alone — within one month there were 180 or 190 thousand now cases. The annual increase in cases of the disease in Germany, including our troops at the front, is estimated at 11/2 or 2 millions. As has already been stated in one letter, in some places the disease rate re***ed 50% to 60% of the workers or the soldiers in the companies. In the year 1940, I, myself, have seen 95 Moroccans in a French field hospital — that was three-fourths of an entire company. In a prisoner of war camp in Pomerania, where English officers were located, with a very short period of time, 50% of all the people that were there had caught the disease.

In two other prisoner of war camps in Greece and Crete, amongst the three or four thousand inmates, 30% to 40% fell ill with the disease. This already indicated that hepatitis is clearly a camp or community disease and that it appeared everywhere where human beings were located in crowded billets and where the general hygienic conditions did not correspond with those which he had in Germany in times of peace. I believe this indicates the importance of the disease alone already because of the enormous casualties on human beings — first of all, for the combat units, and then for the work at home, Of course, it was quite natural that with an epidemic of such giant proportions — I don't believe the world has ever seen anything like it — every physician who had a laboratory tried to find the cause of the bacillus by some means in some way. Many thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of bacteriological investigations of the urine, of the stomach juice, of the intestinal juice, and so on, were carried out practically wit! out the least success, and only men of research, who on the basis of their preliminary knowledge, were able to carry on virus research were more fortunate in this respect. In Germany, at least 5 to 6 officers worked in order to find the cause for the contagious jaundice. They included Domen, Haagen, they included the two assistants from Leipzig whom I have already named; then Professor Herzwald from Greifswald, and there are still three or four others whose names I can't recall any more. They all tried to find the virus. If the virus had been found then it would have been possible to first of all treat the disease in accordance with its course, and, secondly to find a vaccine and a protection which would protect millions of people from this disease. Up to now, the treatment of this epidemic jaundice had only been carried out with symptoms. The medical treatment which was given I have named. Drugs, rest —

Q: Do you know how the treatment for hepatitis was carried out abroad?

A: According to the literature which was available to us up to the beginning of the war and according to the literature which we were able to receive from abroad during the war, the foreign countries did not have any other methods of treatment and protection then we had at the beginning of the war.

Even during the war, as far as I know, no specific therapy and no specific protection was developed in connection with the disease. A number of books have been written abroad which indicate that the foreign countries also tried to find the cause for epidemic jaundice and to apparently develop a protection against the disease. I myself can remember a book from the year 1945 contained in the Journal of the American Medical Association by the authors Neefe Stockton, Knowley and Rhinehart. The book described that within a circle of persons consisting of so-called "conscientious objectors" that the excrements of patients buffering from this disease were mixed with water and then these excrements were given to twenty-five people to drink. They were in three groups with five to a group. Certain chlorides and disinfection drugs were given to them. In the case of two groups such disinfection drugs were not used.

Q: In your position as consulting internist; have you discussed the hepatitis research with Professor Handloser.

A: I have discussed hepatitis quite a lot.

Q: In this respect, did the question ever arise that in the frame of hepatitis research experiments should or would have to be carried out on human beings?

A: As far as I know this question has never been discussed.

Q: But, surely you have also made reports about the progress of your examinations?

A: I have made either written or oral reports when the necessity seemed to arise.

Q: And in that respect, did you on your part ever mention the question of performing experiments on human beings?

A: No, I cannot remember.

Q: Now, have you ever written a letter, which I am going to hand to you. It is a letter dated the 24th of June, 1944 to Professor Haagan and in this letter it is stated, "In line with my statements at the joint hepatitis discussions at Breslau, I have tried to make preparations for experiments on human beings". (“Experimentum Crucis der Oebertragung Hominen”).

THE PRESIDENT: What is the Document book?

DR. NELTE: That is the Document book about the hepatitis epidemica and it does not have any number. Yes, it is Document book No. 8, page 11. There you will find the letter which I have just mentioned.

MR. HARDY: It is Exhibit 193.

THE PRESIDENT: The examination of this witness will take how much longer?

DR. NELTE: It will take a little more time. Mr. President, this is one of the most important witnesses for the Defendant Handloser and I have to interrogate him now because he will not be available to me later.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness will be available on Monday morning. The Tribunal will new recess until 9:30 o'clock Monday morning.

(The Tribunal adjourned until 10 February 1947, at 9:30)