1947-02-21, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
PAUL ROSTOCK — (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. PRIBILLA: I have to add something in view of the documents I did not submit before. This document is No. 177, and which will be Exhibit 133.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any of the Defense Counsel desire to cross examine this witness?
BY DR. FLEMMING (Counsel for the defendant Mrugowsky):
Q: Professor, where did you know Mrugowsky from?
A: I knew him as a member of the Medical Faculty in Berlin.
Q: Were you the Dean of that Faculty?
A: Yes.
Q: Was this a close acquaintanceship with Mrugowsky?
A: No, not at all.
Q: With reference to the appointment of Mrugowsky as a professor, can that be based on any intervention of any party or SS agency or did any such agency influence his appointment in any way?
A: No, no such influence was persued. After Mrugowsky had been dean for about five years, he was appointed professor through the ordinary office for Hygiene in Berlin, as a professor, and was suggested as such before the Board. The faculty had confirmed on that suggestion, and then passed the suggestion on to the Ministry. This was the channel used.
Q: That is, no influence was exercised by any SS or party agency?
A: No, no such influence was persued.
Q: Did you ever get into contact with Mrugowsky in any other capacity as Dean of the Medical Faculty in Berlin?
A: I had nothing else to do with him.
Q: Repeatedly the gangrene diseases were mentioned here during the last war. Can you say anything about the frequency and the danger of gangrene?
A: Gangrene, next to tetanus is the most dangerous infection. The frequency changed according to the battle field and the frequency also changed according to the nature of the wound. If it is merely a shot of an infantry rifle, it is not so dangerous. However if it is a grenade wound it is mere dangerous, and I think you can judge the frequency something like under one percent of the wounded.
Q: Were there many fatalities and amputations in the case of gangrene?
A: Yes, whenever gangrene started, the mortality was very high. That varied according to the three groups of virus, so one could say it was approximately fifty percent.
Q: Under these circumstances, was the creation of a vaccine against such gangrene of the utmost importance to the military?
A: Of course, it was of military importance but I would say that the medical and humane importance was even greater.
Q: Well, in this case, it was very important?
A: Yes.
DR. FLEMING: I have no further questions.
BY DR. MARX (Counsel for the defendant, Professor, Doctor Schroeder):
Q: Witness, you stated during the direct examination by your defense counsel how the situation was in Germany during the war, and how the so-called research assignments came about?
A: Yes.
Q: Did I understand you correctly when you said that the research works of the civilian institutes endeavored to receive such research assignments in order to safe guard the continuance of their research work; that is, from a material, and financial, and personal point of view, in view of the difficulties of war. That is my question?
A: Yes, that is true.
Q: Do you know, Witness, whether the prerequisite for the issuance of such an assignment is generally applicable, that is to say, that as a rule the research worker, himself, demanded such a research assignment?
A: I am sure that was true in most cases.
Q: From that, one can conclude, therefore, that the research worker, with the help of such assignments could continue his research work, and especially in the field in which he had worked previously? Naturally, I can see individual questions which arose because of the war.
A: Yes, that was true.
Q: In that case, were these research assignments, as a rule, sent to specialist in the various research fields, who had special knowledge for any individual questions which came up?
A: Yes, that was true.
Q: These research workers were experts in their fields, were they not?
A: Yes, it must be that way. I cannot imagine that a research assignment given to a person who had no idea about the subject.
Q: Those agencies who issued these research assignments, did they have a supervisory duty over the research workers who exercised this function?
A: I do not know any regulation of that sort, and I am of the opinion that the research worker is responsible for the manner in which he deals with the assignment which has been given to him.
Q: Yes, but was he really responsible? He must have been responsible to the civilian supervisory agency?
A: Yes.
Q: Well, let us assume a special case, one man was the director of the Hygiene Institute and in this capacity he received a research assignment; then, of course, he would subordinate it to the dean of the respective university or to the rector of that university or to the lecture of that university.
A: A rector or a dean had no such supervisory rights over those institutions, but the director of the Hygienic Institute was subordinated to his Ministry; maybe the Bavarian Ministry, the Wirtemberg Ministry, or the Prussian Ministry, for this tiral has show he has a penal responsibility.
Q: How about the disciplinary responsibility?
A: It was with the respective county ministries.
DR. MARX: Well I have no further questions.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. DAERR (Counsel for defendant Poppendick):
Q: Professor, you have had extensive experiences and theoretical knowledge in surgery. I should like to put to you the following questions which are in relation to treatment with hormones which Dr. Vernet was supposed to have performed on persons in the concentration camp Buchenwald. Do you know of any publications in medical literature which have something to do with the implantation of hormone crystals or hormone tablets in human beings?
A: There are a number of such publications. I remember a summary and description in a Swiss medical periodical. I think it appeared in the year of 1944. I cannot remember the name of the author at the moment. There the physiological basis and the technical execution were described.
Q: In the case of the implantation of hormone tablets were we concerned with a method which has to be taken seriously, scientifically speaking?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you say who at first introduced this method into medical practice?
A: According to my opinion this method originated from the USA. At the moment I don't know the name but if I remember correctly — I'm afraid I don't know the name by heart any longer.
Q: If I were to give you the name, would you be able to remember then?
A: Perhaps. I don't know.
Q: Do you know the American research recorder Vest?
A: Vest, yes, that's right.
Q: Do you know that the implantation of hormones can also be described as an artificial gland in the international medical literature?
A: Yes.
Q: I ask you now as an expert on surgical questions to give your opinion about the manner in which the implantation of hormone crystals or hormone tablets was performed and about the danger which is connected with that.
A: First anesthetics are given and on the skin of the stomach or thigh a little incision is made. Then this little tablet within which the hormone is concentrated is taken up with a little pincer and inserted into the tissue.
Then the pincer is taken out end this little opening is sewed up. But you asked me about the danger, didn't you?
Q: Yes.
A: You cannot call it a dangerous operation, no more dangerous than any ordinary puncture, and it occurs every day in many thousands of cases, nor can you call it any more dangerous than any intramuscular injection of any drug. I don't know whether that is satisfactory.
Q: Yes, that is quite sufficient, thank you.
DR. DAERR: I have no further questions.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. FRITZ (Counsel for defendant Rose):
Q: Professor, do you know the defendant Professor Rose? And from where do you know him?
A: I know Rose as a member of the medical faculty at Berlin and, in addition, he belonged to these prominent German tropical hygienists whom you can count on the fingers of your hand.
Q: Before the collapse, did you ever speak to him about any one of the counts as laid down by the prosecution, or did you get into contact with him in any other form, directly or indirectly?
A: No, we never spoke about the case. I had hardly any relationships to tropical hygiene. Whenever we met anywhere, we merely said hello but that was all.
Q: When Professor Handloser was on the witness stand, I put a number of questions to him about the position of consulting specialist with the medical inspectorates of the Wehrmacht branches. You heard the answers of Professor Handloser?
A: Yes.
Q: You yourself during some part of the war were consulting surgeon with the army medical inspector, weren't you?
A: Yes.
Q: In accordance with that, can you confirm in the essential parts the answers which were given to me by Professor Handloser?
A: I do not remember the exact wording any longer but I have not noticed that any wrong description was given.
Q: First of all, can you confirm it that the consulting Physician with the medical inspector was in no way the superior of his expert colleagues at the intermediate instances?
A: No, certainly not.
Q: Can you confirm, Professor, that he did not have the right or the duty to exercise official supervision ever any other medical experts and over any of the research assignments which they had taken over?
A: He was not the superior and in accordance with the testimony of Generalarzt Hartloben it can be seen that he had no official supervision whatsoever. He had his own superior. In that case it was the inspector, and it was his duty to advise him but that was all.
DR. FRITZ: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross examination of this witness by defense counsel? There being none, the prosecution may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: Herr Professor, there will be occasions during the examination when you will feel that you have already answered the question, and I will ask you to bear with us on this point for two reasons. Firstly, the interpretation of your statements on direct examination of course was not as lucid as the statements you made in German; secondly, neither I nor the Tribunal have had an opportunity to read the transcript of yesterday's interrogation by your own defense counsel.
Firstly, I would like to out a few questions to you in relation to the subject brought up by Dr. Marx, defense counsel for Schroeder. You were dean of the medical faculty in Berlin University, were you not?
A: Yes, that is correct.
Q: And the defendants Mrugowsky and Rose were also members of the medical faculty of the Berlin University, were they not?
A: Yes.
Q: You do not for that reason take the responsibility for the activities of Rose and Mrugowsky, do you?
A: No, not at all.
Q: And if Rose and Mrugowsky were assigned experimental research tasks by one or the other branches of the Wehrmacht, it's not your responsibility how they carried out those research tasks, is it?
A: No. If one could speak about any responsibility of a dean, it could only refer to the lecturing activities of these gentlemen; that is, with reference to whatever he read during his lecture. But I must honestly say I have no information at all about the penal, legal side of this matter. Some thing like that never occurred during any three years activity as a dean. But I cannot imagine that a dean who has about 370 lecturers under him in Berlin should be responsible for every word and every deed which any one of these 370 gentlemen may have spoked or done during their activities. I cannot imagine that.
Q: Herr Professor, you mentioned this lecture which you gave to the consulting physicians on the chemo-therapeutic treatment of wound infection. You gave that lecture at the meeting of May 1942, did you not?
A: Yes, that is correct.
Q: You were considered something of an expert in this field, weren't you?
A: As far as a surgeon can be an expert about any treatment of wounds.
Q: Do you swear that you had no contact with Gebhardt or any of his associates concerning the sulfanilamide experiments carried out by him prior to the meeting in May 1943?
A: I heard about these experiments for the first time when Gebhardt and Fischer spoke and held that lecture during that meeting in 1943.
Q: It was clear from Gebhardt's and Fischer's speeches, was it not, that the experiments had been conducted by artificially infecting the experimental subjects?
A: Yes.
Q: How many subjects were used for these experiments? Could you tell from the report by Gebhardt and Fischer?
A: In my opinion that did not become known.
Q: Aren't the number of the experiments which were carried out important in evaluating the validity of the conclusions reached?
A: As far as I remember, percentages were given.
Q: Well, Herr Professor, you can give a percentage of six people used; you can give a percentage of sixty people used. I put it to you that it seems to me, a laymen, that it is a matter of critical importance as to the validity of a conclusion reached by a series of experiments to know how many experiments were carried out. Isn't that true?
A: Yes, that is correct in itself, but unfortunately in German Medical Literature the inaccuracy was customary, namely that percentages were laid down even if the entire total figure is very small. The endeavor to speak of percentages only when the total figure is 100 or over a hundred, and otherwise express these figures in fractions, that is 1/2 or 1/3, etc., unfortunately never got through and from my own memory I can only say that I, at least after that lecture, was of the impression that we were concerned with relatively few experiments, that is not to name a figure, perhaps twenty or so, without laying down an exact number.
Q: Well, let's take your figure twenty, since you mentioned it, how reliable do you think your conclusion would be in the sulfanilamide experiments, where they used only twenty subjects, some had to be kept for control, some of the number were injected with gas gangrene and some of the number were infected with something else, how about it? What would the conclusion be from an experiment limited to twenty persons, Professor?
A: Naturally, the experiments numbering small figures are not as valid as those with a large series of people, but as I said, I didn't say that only twenty people were mentioned. The case was that I said the impression that this was somewhere around that figure, whether this was actually the case or not, I don't know.
Q: You remember Handloser testified that you helped re-write the medical instructions for surgery as a result of this meeting in May, 1943, is that right?
A: I didn't quite understand the question, if I may repeat, I heard that after the lecture some sort of directives were worked out, was that your question, or would you please repeat it?
Q: Well that is the sense of it. After these reports were made it was part of your job and the other consulting physicians of the surgery group to work out medical instructions which would be issued and passed down to the doctors working in the field, and General Handloser testified that in fact was the purpose of these meetings, and that in fact every surgeon of the Surgery Meeting in May 1943 helped to write those medical instructions for that year, and I am asking you if that is correct?
A: This is how the situation was. If a number of lectures were held about sulfanilamide, not only Gebhardt and Fischer held lectures, but I think the pathologists and neurologists spoke, there was a surgeon who spoke, and there were some pharmacologists, and all of these lectures, which I think took about a half a day, had to be summarized to one page, and the outlines had to be repeated. This thing was organized and this was done immediately after the lecture, and special periods of the following day were designated for that purpose, when all participants of the surgeon group got together and then conferred upon the subjects of the outline. This is how it was. Discussions were held and changes were suggested. Whenever I dealt with it I dictated in the presence of these gentlemen these matters to a Secretary into her machine, so that all of the gentlemen were in a position to listen to exactly what was laid down as a general directive. That is something that you would call during a scientific Congress, the creation of a summary or resume.
Q: I think we are in substantial agreement, but it is correct, isn't it, you were not engaging in some sort of academic pursuit at these meetings? You were really trying to work up directives in order that the front line doctors would be advised on how to treat troops, isn't that right?
A: No, what we wanted to do was to work out a scientific result of the lectures that were held and the discussions that followed it. How subsequently this was incorporated into the medical services and the directives of the medical services was not our affair, for all of us were really civilians. We were directors of clinics, etc., and were only in the army in a reserve capacity, and our influence with reference to the medical tactical, measures to be taken were only with reference to the advising of our medical superiors.
Q: Well, in order to do that, Professor, you had to evaluate those reports, didn't you?
A: You mean the reports of the lectures that were held during the meeting?
Q: Yes.
A: Yes.
Q: All right, wasn't it necessary to find out all the details of Gebhardt's experiments if they were to be properly evaluated, so that any action the Army Medical Inspectorate or one of the other branches carried out on these experiments, would be reliable?
A: have already said that the Gebhardt lecture was only the first of all the lectures held in that connection. If I remember correctly, the result was that with reference to ordinary wounds, the effect of sulfanilamide was to be considered, doubtful, but that only with reference to ordinary wounds, the effect of sulfanilamide was to be considered doubtful, but that only with reference to a few gangrene viruses a certain effect could be determined.
Q: Now, Professor, don't let's quibble around the edges here. I don't care whether Gebhardt's lectures took up l/5th of the meeting or 1/100th of the meeting, but if I understood it correctly, it seems to me you had to know exactly what Gebhardt did in his experiments if you were to evaluate them in any sort of scientific manner. You had to know how many people he experimented on, precisely what infections were developed in the people, where they were developed and how dangerous the infections were and what treatment he gave and how he put the sulfanilamide in the wound, in what form the sulfanilamide was, whether powder or solid, or whether they took it orally, a thousand questions which you would have to know about and have answers before you could evaluate Gebhardt's experiments. Now didn't you inquire into all of those details?
A: It was not necessary to inquire about these details. The result, if I remember correctly, was demonstrated in the way of curves and whether sulfanilamide was injected into the wound in the form of powder or any other form, is not of such great importance. It is important, whether in addition to the local treatment of the wound, sulfanilamide preparation are being taken orally, or are being injected.
In any case Gebhardt, according to my opinion, followed the results of his experiments in a very clear fashion.
Q: But you didn't inquire and you do not know how many experimental subjects were used?
A: No, I don't know the number.
Q: And you didn't learn of the sex of the experimental subjects?
A: No, I said yesterday that there was never any mention made that these were Polish women.
Q: I suppose it makes no medical difference whether experimental subjects were men or women?
A: No, with reference to the treatment of wounds it makes no difference.
Q: Suppose you had learned that over fifty persons were being used in these experiments, it would not have seemed strange to you that Gebhardt had that many people sentenced to death all at the same place to experiment on.
A: I already said that at that time I was of the impression this much lower figure. I don't even know today how many there were.
Q: I am asking you to suppose that you knew they had used fifty, and I am asking you if under that hypothetical situation it wouldn't have occurred to you at the meeting to ask yourself how in the work Gebhardt got fifty people condemned to death all in the same place to experiment on?
A: At first I didn't know it was all in the same place. Gebhardt said nothing about the place and, as I said before, the question, as you said, is hypothetical. What would I have done if. Such questions, I beg you to excuse me — I am not a lawyer, are very hard to answer. That is a question of opinion but not a fact which has to be testified to under oath.
Q: Well, Professor, it may be that you are correct but I have the intention of putting several more hypothetical questions to you which, I think, are quite valid and I have sufficient reasons for doing that, and while you may find then difficult to answer I would appreciate your best efforts to do so. Now, weren't you really under the impression that these experiments had all been carried out in the same place? Wouldn't it be ridiculous to think that Gebhardt travelled around from one prison to another working on one person here and two there.
A: I must say quite openly at that time I did not have any thoughts about this, namely, local question.
Q: Suppose it had been told you at the meeting that these experimental subjects were women. Would that have disturbed you a little bit or not?
A: It wouldn't have been so comfortable but what I thought myself at the time with reference to the question of people who were condemned to death was the possibility of bringing about a chance for their life. I testified to that yesterday.
Q: We will come to that in a moment. Now, let us suppose that at this meeting in May 1943 you know all the facts, as you now know then, concerning to sulfanilamide experiments of Gebhardt. What world you have done under those circumstances?
A: The way I imagined it to be was an examination of sulfanilamide and how it should be continued to be examined as I said yesterday. In my opinion way in which I thought this waste be dealt with was the correct one.
Q: I assume then that if you had known in March 1943 that in fact Gebhardt had experimented on over fifty Polish women who stated they had not in fact been tried by any German court; that they had resisted these experiments and not consented to them; that at least three of them, by Gebhardt's own admission, he died as a result of the experiments; that, according to these girls' testimony, five died as a result and six were shot later; that as a result of the experiments one woman had the shin bone cut down so there was left less than one quarter inch of bone, that she was forced to walk on that leg before it was healed and that it broke again; that all the women sustained horrible and mutilating scars — am I to understand you would have raised some objection to that at this meeting?
A: What you are saying now was not known to all of us. We knew that Infections were made — we heard in a certain percentage of cases infection was stopped. Everything else you have just said was not known to any of the participants in this meeting. We had been told that the legal foundation of the matter was clarified and done with. We had no reason at all to doubt the statement or the other statement of Gebhardt.
Q: Very well, Professor, We are willing to assume for the moment that you didn't know. But, you see, the question we put to you is of some importance because Prosecution is taking the position that you did know, or should have known or to assert the contrary. But, quite aside from that point I am interested in knowing what you would have done if you had known, which is also an important question in this case. I know that you say you were not told these things but I want you to assume that you did know them — that Gebhardt came there and told you the whole story and he marched these five Polish women across the stage before the consulting physician you saw them yourself. I want to know what you would have done under these circumstances?
DR. SEIDL (for the defendants Gebhardt, Oberheuser, and Fischer): I object to this question for the following reasons: This question does not refer to the fact, neither to the external fact nor to the internal fact. Evidently his question is directed to a hypothetical conclusion which is to have a legal question answered by the witness. Questions to a witness can only be admitted in so far as they refer to facts and not to subjected voicing of opinions and conclusions of laws, which the witness has to conclude with reference to event and this is something that has to be designated as fictitious. I, therefore, ask you not to admit this question.
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, I think everyone understands we put a hypothetical question, that we are calling on the witness to assume certain facts have been here proved and that they did take place. Those are all of course disputed questions but I am trying to elicit from the witness a state as to what he would have done in the situation I posed to him, and I submit that is important.
Prosecution takes the stand that he did know or should have known. Assuming that the Tribunal takes prosecution's position with respect to that I think it important to know what this defendant feels he should have done. In that situation does he feel that he was doing his duty to object, does he feel that it was incumbent on him to go to Handloser, for example, who was not the commander but at last the man in charge of the Military Medical Academy where the subject was given and make a report to him? I think those are important questions and the only way I can possibly elicit an answer is to call upon the witness to assume that he did know the facts as I have hypothetically put them to him. Of course, we are not asking that any of the defendants be bound by these hypothetical questions as I give it.
DR. PROBILLA: Mr. President, as defense counsel of the defendant Rostock I should only like to point out that this question in its core involves a judgment about a co-defendant and that is a very difficult situation in which are bringing him, that is when you ask him — you demand him — to give judgment about any co-defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until 1:30 o'clock and then announce its ruling.