1947-02-12, #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 Nuernberg, Germany, on 12 February 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Honorable, the 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: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain that the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all defendants are present with the exception of the defendant Oberheuser who is absent due to a continuation of her previously existing illness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court with the exception of the defendant Oberheuser who is absent on account of illness as per her physician's certificate.
The Tribunal has considered the application presented yesterday by defense counsel Sauter for a demonstration before the court in connection with the high altitude experiments. The Tribunal has considered the application and the application is denied.
Counsel may proceed with the examination.
SIEGFRIED HANDLOSER — Resumed EXAMINATION (continued)
BY DR. NELTE:
Q: Professor, you said yesterday that the Medical Service of the Army, whose chief medical officer you were, had to care for the health of about ten million members of the armed forces. To clarify this question I should like to ask you: Does this mean only soldiers for whose health you had to care?
A: No, not only soldiers. Of these approximately ten million there were included all the members of the families of the soldiers at home. The military doctors since 1922 had to care for the families of the soldiers as well as the soldiers themselves.
There were also all those persons connected with the Wehrmacht including all the nurses, all the Signal Corps assistants, all staff assistants. Also the population of the occupied territories until the civilian medical authorities were able to take over their care and supervision; also the prisoners of war in the operational area as well as at home.
Q: How many medical officers, active and reserve, belonged to the medical service of the army?
A: I can give exact information about that since I still have records, documents, of the 1st of February 1943. At that time the Army had 2,191 active medical officers, including the reactivated formerly active officers who were 3,242. That makes a total of 5,433. Then there were reserve medical officers, 19,580; together, 25,013. On the 1st of February 1943, and in the following period too, we had the senior medical students as so-called Feldunteraerzte; that is, assistant doctors in hospitals and with the troops. Those were 1,638 at that time. That makes a total of medical officers at home and in the field of 36,651. At this time the Luftwaffe had about 10,000 physicians and dentists. The Waffen SS at the front had about 3,,000 medical officers. That makes a total of 39,651. Unfortunately I do not have any figures from the navy.
This may be a good opportunity to mention an official figure which I have that is the last official report of the OKW including the time from the beginning of the campaign on Russia in 1941 until 31 January 1945. After this time it was no longer possible to compile reports, at least we did not get any reports. The number of dead at that time was 2,100,000. The number of wounded during the campaign in Russia was approximately 5,000,000. The number of prisoners taken during the period of fighting was 2,500,000. This may also be the appropriate opportunity to mention the casualties among the medical officers. I have official figures here too giving insight into the months of June to December 1943. At the front we had 6,048 doctors. In these six months 791 of them fell; that is, about 12.5 percent. 1,533 were wounded; that is, 25 percent. From the year 1943 as Army Medical Inspector I should like to mention that with the disaster of Stalingrad we lost 274 doctors at once.
With the disaster of Tunis we lost about 250 medical officers. I mention this because it was my duty as Medical Inspector to cover these losses, to fill these gaps, and this was an especially difficult and expensive field of work for me.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, counsel. I neglected to remind the witness that he is still under oath, having been sworn yesterday.
Counsel may proceed
Q: As chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service you were the highest medical officer in the Wehrmacht. The prosecution has conclude from this position an organizational responsibility for the actions, the alleged actions of any medical officers.
I should, like to ask you, were you as chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Service responsible for the actions of all medical officers of the Wehrmacht?
A: I must answer this question in was general form with no. I was responsible for the individual medical officer, for what he did on specific orders from me, or what he did as the result of general orders which I had given, nothing else.
Q: Now, it is possible that without such an order or such general orders a medical officer under your command in execution of his profession might commit a punishable action. Must you be responsible for it?
A: If I learn officially or in any ether way of this punishable action and if I did not clear up the situation, and if necessary, take steps against it, then certainly a charge could be made against me.
Q: Now, I should like to exhaust all possibilities in connection with your responsibility. What about the charge of inadequate supervision in this connection?
A: Yesterday I attempted to explain the relationship and the powers of a superior and this includes the factor of supervision, but it was not understood and it cannot be understood to mean that a high or supreme superior who is responsible far all theaters of war and for the homeland, that he can exercise supervision over every individual subordinate That is impossible and. that is not possible anywhere in the world in military or civilian life, and it cannot be demanded.
My supervision, for example, as Army Medical Inspector applied to the army group physicians, to the Wehrkreis physicians, and to the commanding officers of the institutes and organizations directly under my command.
I will mention an example. A medical officer with the troops or in a hospital, just like a soldier in the company or battalion, is under the Curt No. 1 supervision of his immediate superior; that is, the chief physician in a hospital and above him the commanding officer of the medical section, and then the Wehrkreis physician, but that goes very far.
Another example; Stabsarzt Delmen, who has been mentioned repeatedly, was one of the 26,500 medical officers under my command. The commending officer of the training group C is responsible for supervising him and in addition, the commanding officer of the Military Medical Academy. What I said quite generally, of course, applies. If in any way I had learned of anything about an individual medical officer who was far away from me it would have been my duty without consideration of the many superiors between us to take up the case to see that it was cleared up and to take the necessary steps.
Q: Now, I come to another chapter of my examination. As you know, the individual charges which are raised against you concern experiments connected with research. The prosecution alleges that you were not directly connected, but that, because of your position as Army Medical Inspector and chief of the Wehrmacht medical Service you were connected with the experiments which are called illegal, and that you have special responsibility. Does the field medical research belong to the medical matters?
A: Yes, research is connected with any health service.
Q: Is there a special military medical science?
A: Yes, there is. It is called military medicine, or we use the expression, "wehrmedizin", for it. If I am to explain that briefly, explain it to this group, I must make a comparison. Imagine a big strong tree with widespread roots, with a strong trunk, and with many branches and twigs. The roots and the trunk which give strength and which give life to the whole tree, that is general medicine. And the branches and the twigs are the many individual fields which are larger or smaller, which are the specialties. One such branch is military medicine, under medicine in general. This branch is an indispensable and integral part of medicine as a whole. It has a certain life of its own which, however, is (dependent on the strength and the influence which it gets from the roots and the trunk, and it will never have the idea of disassociating itself from this trunk because that would take away the source of its life.
This branch again has branches and leaves and fruit, and in the life of this tree it gives the whole tree a great deal of nourishment. That is how one must understand military medicine as an integral cart of the whole thing which grows out of general medicine and receives an enormous amount from it, but by way of gratitude in a sense and as a natural consequence gives it a number of suggestions and experiences which only military medicine can collect.
Military medicine is determined I by the character of military life and the military sphere. I must sum that up briefly. I can give only a few examples by way of explanation. We have definite military diseases, if I may mention a few surgical ones. There are the well known diseases of the feet which soldiers acquire when marching. The feet swells. Often there is a fracture which is hard to recognize, of a metatarsal bone. In all countries special attention was devoted to this disease. It has always been said the main weapon of the infantryman is not his gun; it is his feet. And the great majority of the German soldiers in the second World War were not driven but were dependent on their feet.
May I bring an example from internal medicine? We speak of the dangers of the special surroundings of the mass accommodations of soldiers which formerly had existed only in the army. This, of course, brings the dangers of the transfer of diseases to a much greater extent than in civilian life. For the scientific senate I worked on epidemic meningitis. At all times we had cases of this frequently fatal disease. I went through all the literature on the subject, and I saw that in many countries military medicine was especially interested in it.
The English in India in their barracks often had actual epidemics of meningitis. They found that the bacteria which caused this disease exist everywhere and that thirty — forty — fifty percent of the people in their nasal passages have these bacteria. Only under special circumstances in cases of colds, special physical efforts such as marching do those bacteria suddenly get the upper hand, as it were, become dangerous, and apparently healthy soldiers fall do and if they are unlucky they are dead in twenty-four or forty-eight tours.
That was the beginning of a long series of experiments which finally led to various measures with with the military doctor is familiar which are still in use today, the most simple one to keep the people separated so that daring sleep the breath does not affect their neighbor.
Q: Professor, may I interrupt you. You have already given two examples of typical military medicine. I believe that a picture has been given to the Tribunal of what it is about. What I am interested in hero in connection with the trial is this: was military medicine a typically German, I might say, militaristic phenomena, or did this military medicine exist everywhere?
A: There was military medicine in all countries wherever there was an army. I personally had the impression because in 1936 after the first World War a German medical delegation consisting of one medical officer of the army, the navy and the Luftwaffe was under my direction which was invited to the International Congress in Brussels.
Q: Was that only a Congress or was it a society, a permanent society?
A: The basis for it was a permanent organization, an international organization which included about fifty countries which had a permanent office in Herstal near Brussels under the direction of the Belgiums.
Q: I think it was at Liege?
A: Yes, at Liege. Every two years those military doctors had a meeting. I attended the meeting in Bucharest. Germany had become a member again after the first World War although I was still a guest at Brussels, and the last Congress in 1939 was in Washington. At those meetings or Congress questions were discussed which were important for military medicine in peace time and also in respect to a possible war, and I believe that the countries concerned brought one or two military doctors who made a speech agreed upon beforehand at his Congress.
Q: Then if I have understood you correctly, at these planned meeting of military doctors of the whole world questions were discussed and the dangers were discussed which threatened soldiers in peace and in war?
A: Yes, that is so.
Q: Was that the same thing that was the purpose of the meetings which the Prosecution has here called meetings of conspirators, the meetings of the consulting specialists of the Wehrmacht?
A: The purpose and the affect of these Congresses were exactly the same as in our meetings. After those meetings, too, a printed report of the meeting was published which was sent to the participants and to the highest medical agencies in the countries concerned.
Then the medical inspectors of these countries and their economic advisers selected those speeches which were of special importance and brought something new, and in each country they were made known to the public, the same thing that we did in a somewhat different form after our meetings.
Q: In those reports which the most famous military doctors of the world made at these meetings in reporting the results of their research, could one always judge how they reached these conclusions?
A: that was possible in many cases and in other cases not.
Q: Now lot us go into your case concretely. What fields of medical research fall under your control as Army Medical Inspector?
A: We will reach our aim most quickly if I mention a few examples. Let us take dysentery, for example, I mentioned this example in my affidavit.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, the Tribunal has listened to the witness for some time on general statements of the military profession which the members of the Tribunal understand, and I think it is about time that more concrete questions are asked and answered. I understood that counsel was about to ask pointed questions concerning the questions now before the Tribunal, but the Tribunal would not be interested in discussions of questions which are foreign to the matters which are now before the Tribunal for consideration.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I have asked, "What fields of medical research came under your control as Army Medical Inspector?" Does not the Tribunal believe that this is a concrete question?
JUDGE SEBRING: Doctor Nelte, perhaps. I can clarify for you what the Tribunal is interested in, which encompasses not only the question you have asked but the entire field of inquiry that the Tribunal would like to know something about and I am going to ask a few questions, to the witness, if I may, and I think perhaps you will see then the type of information we would like to have from this witness, if he can give it.
BY JUDGE SEBRING:
Q: Doctor Handloser, during the course of your presence on the witness stand, you have exhibited a tremendous knowledge of the manner in which the various medical activities of the German Government were organized, and the manner in which they operated during the recent war, and I should like to put this question to you: You have heard the testimony of the Prosecution witnesses, and doubtless have read the documents submitted by the Prosecution, Now, let us assume that such evidence produced by the Prosecution is sufficient to prove that the medical experiments were, in fact, carried out in concentration camps upon non-German nationals without their consent, and that such experimental subjects were killed as a result of such experiments. Let us assume further, for the purpose of pointing up the question, that the evidence submitted by the Prosecution is sufficient to prove that the experiment were conducted by and for the benefit of the Waffen-SS. Now then, in your opinion, gained from your intimate knowledge of the frame work of the German Government under Hitler, what officials or agencies in the German Government; would have been responsible for the deaths resulting to non-German nationals from such experiments?
A: That would have been those who had ordered the experiments. I must assume that they were illegal criminal experiments.
Q: I am assuming that for the sake of this question. That is a matter ultimately the Tribunal must decide, but for the sake of getting your views let us assume that fact.
A: If it had become known to the responsible agencies, that they were criminal, then the agency which had official supervision would have been obligated to interfere. That would have been for the concentration camps. As far as I know, the Reichsfuehrer Himmler, Reichs Physician Grawitz, since they were medical experiments, that would be the actual circle in this sector.
To what extent the Reich Health Leader Conti had anything to do with it or would have had anything to do with it, I cannot judge. He would be effected if such measures had been originated by him or he would have been in a position, as Chief Health Leader of the civilian sector; if he had learned of them he should have brought them up with his Ministers, the Reich Ministry of the Interior or the Reichsfuehrer of the SS.
Q: What would be your answer if we may assume that the evidence of the Prosecution shows that these medical experiments were performed in a criminal manner and were conducted for the benefit of the German Navy?
A: Then, the question would have been to what extent the Navy had participated in this matter. You said, your Honor, that I had an extensive knowledge of the organization of the medical system, and I notice that the Indictment, in speaking of these experiments, frequently says "in the interest of the Wehrmacht"? that is, of course, a very vague term, it is not concrete.
Q: That is precisely the reason that I am asking you these questions and particularizing. The question now is what would be your answer if the experiments were conducted by and for the German Navy?
A: If you say by the Navy, then the Navy must have participated; then the Navy must have known about it? then the Navy ordered it or approved it for certain reasons? that it thereby is made responsible would be beyond doubt.
Q: What would be your answer if we assume that the Prosecution's evidence shows that such experiments were conducted by and for the benefit of the German Air Force?
A: If they were carried out by the Air Force, then, in my opinion, it will again be true here that the Luftwaffe, the Air Force, is responsible for it, but with the limitation that the execution of the experiments proceeded in the way in which the Air Force intended.
Q: Let us assume that the evidence shows that although such experiments were not conducted by the Air Force, that they were conducted for the benefit of the German Air Force, and that the German Air Force accepted the results of the experiments for the benefit of the medical problems in the German Air Forces what would be your answer?
A: If the Air Force learned about it after the experiments were complete and saw that they had been conducted in a form which it did not approve, it would probably have drawn the conclusion for the future, that it would have to proceed much more carefully than in the first case. The second question whether the Air Force had instigated anything is, in my opinion, a theoretic question.
Q: What would be your answer if we assume that the evidence shows that experiments were conducted by and for the benefit of the German Army?
A: If that had been carried out by the German army, as you say for the Germany army, then I assume that there was a clear order from the army, and the one who issued this order cannot escape the responsibility to the extent that the experiment was conducted in the way in which he ordered it. Of course, the question is important here about the experimental subjects. If I recall correctly, you spoke of foreigners.
Q: In posing my question we have assumed, for the sake of the question, that these people are non-German nationals, incarcerated in concentration camps, German concentration camps, and that they were experimented upon without their consent. We assume those three premises for the sake of the question.
A: As far as the question of volunteers is concerned, one would have to say that as far as the experiment was to a certain degree dangerous, that the it is a prerequisite that the experimental subjects be volunteers. And I can not imagine that in the Wehrmacht, according to the customs which prevailed in Germany, the idea would have cone up to use foreigners for these experiments. There must have been social circumstances which I cannot judge.
Q: Then it is your opinion that it would have been impossible for medical experiments to have been carried out upon involuntary subjects in concentration camps who were non-German nationals whereby hundreds of deaths occur without that fact becoming either actually or officially known to the high officials in the respective branch of the service under whose auspices the experiments were conducted. Is that correct?
A: I understood you to say, your honor, that the supreme authorities had ordered them in the interest of the branch of the Wehrmacht concerned. The knowledge of the experiment itself and the place where it was carried out would result from that fact alone.
Q: Let us assume, then, that the head of the — well, the head of the German army could have directly ordered such human experiments to have been conducted at Dachau, let us say. And, that in order to carry op those experiments it was necessary to have the human material sent from Natzweiler, and that it was also necessary to have the apparatus and equipment with which the experiments were conducted sent from some other part of Germany, necessitating a considerable amount of detail in assembling in that one spot the persons who were going to conduct the experiments, the human subjects upon whom the experiments were going to be conducted, and the material with which the experiments were going to be conducted.
And, let us assume, for the sake of the question, that many hundreds of such subjects were killed as a result of such experiments. Would it have been physically possible for such a program to have been carried on and yet the knowledge of that fact be known only to the man at the top who gave the order and the man at the bottom who executed the order? Would not necessary agencies and officials in between the man at the top who gave the order and the man at the bottom who executed the order have known about these things?
A: Your Honor, you said that all kinds of organizational measures were necessary. For example, bringing up instruments and apparatus. Then a subordinate agency must have received orders to have delivered these things, to have delivered them to a certain place, or to deliver then somewhere. I consider it quite possible that such intermediate agencies received such detailed assignments without knowing, or without having to know, for what purposes it was needed. There may be intermediate agencies which carried out particular assignment but where it was not possible to see from the assignment what it was about.
Q: You do not exclude the possibility, however, that those intermediate agencies under certain conditions may have known the reasons for the experiments or why they were being called upon to produce certain equipment and material, do you, Doctor?
A: That they did learn something, I mean that according to this presentation it is quite possible that they did not know anything because in view of the strict secrecy that existed — one must assume that a war was going on — and in view of punishment for breaking secrecy, and in view of repeated orders and Fuehrer orders which were posted in every barracks and in every office, and there were all kinds of placards in trains, etc. In view of these circumstances everyone was allowed to learn absolutely what had to know.
I am of the opinion that an order may very well have been give for a particular action and that the organization, even if a comparatively high agency, would not know the purpose. May I give an example that has just occurred to me? I believe in connection with the chamber it was learned here that the chamber was not delivered to Dachau at all but it was intentional delivered somewhere else to prevent it being made clear that it was to be taken to Dachau because the name Dachau had a certain special notoriety. That would fit into this question.
Q: What do you mean by notoriety?
A: I mean the normal German knew only one concentration camp by name, whether because it was the biggest or oldest, I don't know. But, with the name concentration camp, the normal German of any class associated the name Dachau.
Q: How long had that been going on in the German nation, doctor?
A: We were all surprised and I have already said that after the capitulation until the 23rd of June I was perhaps under observation but still at liberty, and that I was able to read newspapers and that l was able to carry on conversations and I was able to learn that, for example, names like Ravensbruck, Belsen, Buckenwald, and others were unknown to all of the people to whom I talked, even the highest leaders, and I was able to note about the following situation. On the whole, that is, people coming from various districts, the name Dachau was known, and the name Oranienburg. I should like to say that the name Oranienburg must be identical with Saxenhausen — that was the camp north of Berlin. That was the knowledge of concentration camp in the broad mass of the German population. I assume that persons who live at Weimar knew the concentration camp at Buchenwald, similarly in other places. No doubt if Germans had seen the experiences as I have seen maps and the same for Allies — there were dozens of concentration camps that everyone will be just as astonished as I.
Q: How long do you think that the German people knew of Dachau as being a notorious place? When do you think they first began to learn of that fact.
A: Perhaps I Aid not express myself right. Perhaps I should have said that Dachau was better known. I did not mean that there was anything wrong exactly. I merely meant to say that among the population if anyone said anything against a political person there was said, "Be careful, you will be send to Dachau." That did not mean anything especially was wrong about it, especially since assurance was repeatedly given that the people were treated not severely and they were kept in our field and hygienic field and there were exemplary conditions there. Later I heard something like that about Buchenwald, that accordingly everything was done, and whether it was in the hospital or in the whole camp or whatever it was that poor conditions began only as a direct affect of the air war, when, for example, instead of 10,000 there were suddenly 20 to 40,000 crowded there.
Q: At what time did that begin, Dr. Handloser, when the crowded condition began at Dachau, according to your knowledge?
A: I cannot give any exact indication about that. It is, no doubt, connected with the weakening of our front. I had the exact data on that but it was all taken away from me. Otherwise, every 50 kilometers the enemy advanced conditions became worse. Our hospitals were in the sane situation. They were overcrowded three, four, ten times because so much area was lost and we were forced to overcrowd the remaining hospitals. I cannot give any exact figures. That depended on the progress of the war.
Q: You think the knowledge of the condition of Dachau, that is, the overcrowded condition, may have become known to you in 1942-43, along in that period?
A: No.
Q: Later than that?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you say that it was in 1944?
A: Aside from the influence of the withdrawal of the front, the point the evacuation depended on the effects of the air war and I cannot say from my own experiences that that began in 1943 and that we Germans knew, and from American official reports know that November 1943; aside from the Rhineland, from the west which suffered from attacks much earlier, that this began and became more so in the section and in 1943.
Q: I have no further questions at this time, Dr. Nelte.
BY DR. NELTE:
Q: The questions which the Judge asked you were hypothetical, that is, assuming that what the Prosecution has presented is true, and that the experiments were criminal, now I ask for the approval of the Tribunal to ask a general question once more, because I must ask the defendant concretely about the fields of research with which he was concerned as Army Medical Inspector, so that you may see that the subject of the indictment was that experiments were conducted under his control too, but that he had nothing to do with those experiments which are the subject of the indictment. May I ask this question.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the question?
BY DR. NELTE:
Q: Will you please speak concretely and as briefly as possible and indicate the fields of research with which you were concerned as Army Medical Inspector?
A: I cannot give them briefly. There were quite a number of them but I can mention those which have any significance here. First the question of sulfonamides, I can only say that that was important with us since 1937, that we later had a central agency from 1941 on, which was especially interested in it, that was the special hospital of the OKH at Brussels, but I might almost say that all research workers, the specialists at the front, not only surgeons, but also bacteriologists and those especially interested in chemistry devoted special attention to this field, and that there was an unbroken chain of research workers beginning at the front and going deep into Germany, and that if one looks at the reports of our meetings, then one repeatedly finds the subject of sulfonamides, and finally one finds the fact that the question was not settled; that that is a subject, that was a field of research which was continued until the end of the war and beyond, and I personally after the invasion used special research troops in the West, only one of which actually came into action, and what we intended was no longer possible.
Q: What do you mean by "research troops"?
A: They were consulting physicians or specialists who had the assignment to establish special bandaging places at the front and treated the wounded in danger of gangrene with sulfanilamide and from the parts which had to be removed they took samples with them to the test tubes and tested them bacteriologically, and they carried out other experiments in test tubes, and they were not to let these wounded out of their hands, to pass them or to a different doctor every two or three days, but to follow them to a hospital in the west where these people are all collected and where in a large laboratory there is a possibility to complete this primitive research.
Q: Very well, that was the method of the research of the Army in the field of sulfonamides?
A: Yes, it was not completed with that, but I am supposed to be brief here.
Q: Now something else, which was mentioned here, hepatitis?
A: We have heard a great deal about hepatitis already, a field which was especially emphasized because it was new and it lasted until the last day of the war and was not completely settled, and as we heard —
Q: Just a minute. Where and how did you carry on research about hepatitis?
A: Now I must say something about research. One must distinguish between clinical research and laboratory or experimental research.
Q: Professor Gutzeit, I believe, has already told us that.
A: Therefore, I must tell you at the very front, operational areas, there cannot be any experimental research, but there can be clinical research, even in hospitals, which can be continued at home and that was what was done, and research on animals for experiments, that, of course, can only be done at home. Our workers, the consulting physicians did that, whether in the military sector or the civilian sector makes no difference, and other workers did the same.
Q: And concretely you were at the meeting in Breslau as Professor Gutzeit said?
A: Yes.
Q: What was the situation as far as you knew at the time as Army Medical Inspector, and what do you know about experiments which had been conducted up to that time and was anything said about whether others were to be done?
A: My knowledge is limited to the big meeting on internal medicine on the 13th and 14th of October, 1943, in Vienna, where only animal experiments were reported on, and at the Breslau meeting where only animal experiments were mentioned. I went to Breslau from headquarters, especially for that one there and listened to the meeting at which Schreiber presided, and I was glad that Schreiber had succeeded in getting all of these scientists together who were partly in the army and who were partly civilian, and that they had agreed to the work which Schreiber had suggested and the exchange of results from one group to another. Nothing was said about experiments on human beings in concentration camps at this meeting. The meeting was in June, 1944.
Q: Now, another field, how about malaria?
A: Malaria — a disease in which we were greatly interested, of course, not only because of Africa, but because of the Balkans and other areas. The most terrible nest of malaria which I myself saw was in Salonika where it was even worse than in a field of particular interest, in the Caucasus, where I looked at the malaria prophylaxis of the Russians. My malaria expert was Professor Rodenwald. He has his tropical hygiene institute in Berlin at the military medical academy. He had zoologists and entomologists at his disposal there who advised him and he had special malaria training groups which were to go to the front in Africa, Italy and the Balkans and to look for the cause of malaria and combat malaria and held courses for the doctors. A special laboratory train was created which was taken by rail to the worst places and several especially trained doctors helped the troops in their prophylactic measures.
In regard to malaria research we had a closed subject under Professor Rodenwald, who was a former military doctor. Before the war he was a Professor of Hygiene at Heidelberg, and our malaria question, as for as you would speak of it being completed, we had a very good prophylactic measure in atabrine, and for treatment through the new drug such as placimine. We had made considerable advance but I would not want it to be misunderstood, what I said before. The research was not completed and went on, and there were many problems to be solved, a certain advance had been reached from my point of view because I could issue an order regulating prophylaxis and treatment in order to prevent relapses.
THE PRESIDENT: There will be a recess of a few minutes at this time.
(A short recess was taken)