1947-02-25, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 25 February 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court Room 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, the Defendant Oberheuser is absent due to continued illness; all other defendants are present in court.
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 in accordance with a doctor's certificate which has been filed with the Tribunal and which the Secretary-General will note for the record.
Counsel may proceed.
DR. PRIBILLA (Counsel for the Defendant Rostock): Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal. I should like to call the witness Maria Karlstetter to the stand.
MARIA KARLSTETTER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY JUDGE SEBRING:
Q: Will you repeat this oath after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withheld and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q: Witness, please tell the Tribunal your name.
A: Maria Karlstetter.
Q: When and where were you born?
A: On the 30th of July 1912 in Reitmuehle.
Q: You were the first secretary of Professor Rostock?
A: Yes.
Q: In which of his capacities were you his first secretary?
A: I was secretary for the Office of Science and Research.
Q: When did you take this position and how long did you work in that capacity?
A: I took the position at the beginning of May 1944, and in the middle of February 1945 I left.
Q: Had you worked in medical matters earlier?
A: Yes, I had worked for more than six years at the Surgical University clinic in Munich as medical secretary.
Q: Then you are acquainted with all questions connected with medical matters?
A: Yes.
Q: What were your duties as first secretary of Professor Rostock in the Office for science and Research?
A: I had to open the incoming mail and go through it to get the necessary papers out of the files, then I passed the mail on to Professor Rostock and he distributed it to the individual assistants. I was also in charge of registering all incoming and outgoing mail. I had to put a corresponding notation on and my colleague who had to arrange it could see from this notation what the contents were. I also took dictation.
Q: The witness Christensen yesterday testified that he worked on internal medicine and hygiene and received only the mail referring to these fields. The difference with you then is that in your case you saw all the mail, the incoming as well as the outgoing mail?
A: Yes, all the mail went through my hands. Professor Rostock wanted this and in a conference he asked the secretaries and assistants to give all letters and carbon copies to me so that all the correspondence would be in the hands of one person.
Q: So that everything would be in the hands of one person, that is, in your hands?
A: Yes.
Q: Then, in your work did you have to take note of the contents of the correspondence?
A: Yes, I had to take note of the contents because I could see only from the contents what it was about, and because I had to know the contents in order to know where to file the individual letters. Professor Rostock wanted me to know the contents because he relied on my memory.
Q: Do your statements also refer to the secret mail?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, in the correspondence which went through your hands did you ever find any indication that any agency in Germany was conducting experiment on living human beings?
A: No, neither in the research card index, nor in the reports of other agencies used in setting it up, was there over any information which could have led one to conclude that such experiments were conducted; and not in the rest of the correspondence either. I can say this certainly because it is something that I would have noticed and which I would not have forgotten.
Q: In the course of your activities did you encounter any other circumstances which could indicate such illegal human experiments or which could indicate that Professor Rostock know anything about it?
A: No, I never heard of such experiments, not from conversations either of the assistants among each other. They often discussed various official matters and they would certainly discussed it if they had know anything about it, and I never encountered anything that would have indicated that Professor Rostock was informed about such experiments.
Q: Did you activities also extend to the card index?
A: Yes.
Q: And does what you have said apply to that also?
A: Yes.
Q: You worked on this too?
A: Yes, I worked on the research card, index too; I worked on the research card index. I wrote the cards according to the reports, in the form of lists, which we received from various sources. I copied these lists in the card index, after Dr. Christensen had ordered them, according to their contents, according to the field.
Q: Then you had to see the material on which this card index was based?
A: Yes; I had to know this material too.
Q: What indications did these cards and the material on which they were based contain?
A: The name of the research worker, the subject of the scientific works in some cases the value of the assignment, and sometimes a priority rating.
Q: Did they contain any indication about the manner in which the experiments were carried out?
A: No, we had no information about the manner of execution of the experiments. I recall these lists very well. There was never any information given about experiments.
Q: Did the reports of other agencies, on which the card index was based, show that experiments were conducted in concentration camps or on concentration camp inmates?
A: No, the correspondence on which the card index was based did not indicate anything that would have led one to conclude that such experiments were conducted. No concentration camp or prisoner was ever mentioned. This is true of all the other correspondence too in the Office of Science and Research.
Q: Do you believe, then, that it could be proved to the Tribunal if card index were here?
A: Yes, that would no doubt be the simplest thing and the best thing to have the card index here. It would show quite clearly that no illegal experiments on human beings are recorded in it.
Q: Now, witness, you said that you saw all the secret mail, that it went through your hands.
A: Yes.
Q: Did you know the so-called Secrecy Decree, which said that absolute silence was to be maintained about secret matters?
A: Yes, I know that.
Q: Was that also in effect within the circle of associates of Prof Rostock? Or did they exchange opinions, did they discuss the thing?
A: No. Among the employees of the agency, this secrecy order didn't apply; it only applied to people outside the Rostock agency.
Q: What people do you mean when you say people within Rostock's agency.
A: I mean the assistants and secretaries of professor Rostock in the Office for Science and Research.
Q: Was it called to your attention especially, and was this obligation to secrecy in effect as to Professor Brandt's office, for example?
A: Yes, there it was in effect.
Q: Was it kept in effect between the agencies of Rostock and Brandt?
A: Yes, it was kept very carefully.
Q: Did you ever sec correspondence or reports on defense measures against chemical warfare agents in your office?
A: No, in Rostock's office there was no such correspondence.
Q: Do you know of any correspondence with Professor Rostock on behalf of the Reich Research Council — not with the Rich Research Council, but for the Reich Research Council?
A: No. I am sure there was no correspondence for the Reich Research Council. We would have had to use the letter-heads of the Reich Research Council for that purpose; we did not have any.
Q: Was the correspondence of Rostock with the Reich Research Council from your office, very extensive or not?
A: No. The correspondence with the Reich Research Council was not extensive at all.
Q: There was no other clerical worker in the office who could have done such work without your knowledge? All these things went through your hand.
A: No, anyone who took care of matters concerned with the Reich Research Council alone did not exist.
Q: You know Professor Rostock because you worked with him. From your knowledge of his personality, do you believe that he would have, in any for approved unethical human experiments or even know about them?
A: I know Professor Rostock as a very kind person. I cannot imagine that he had any connection with such experiments.
Q: Witness, did you belong to the National Socialist Party?
A: No.
Q: Did Professor Rostock, in his official and unofficial conversation ever speak to you or the other personnel in a propagandistic way for National Socialism?
A: No; Professor Restock never did that. The tone in the whole office was at a level which was quite non-political, and the same tone that I had been used to from my former work in the clinic. I never saw Professor Rostock speaking for National Socialism in a propagandistic sense.
DR. PRIBILLA: Thank you.
I have no further questions for this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any defense counsel desire to cross-examine this witness?
(No response)
There being no cross-examination of the witness by the defense council the prosecution may cross-examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Witness, you have stated that all mail, incoming mail, went through your hands, and after opening the mail you passed the mail on to Rostock himself for distribution.
Is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Then after Rostock received the mail, if it was of interest to some of his assistants he passed it on to them himself?
A: Yes, then Professor Rostock distributed the mail.
Q: Now, witness, you state that you handled all secret mail. Did you also handle the top military secret mail?
A: Top secret? No, we did not have any top secret mail. I cannot remember in detail, and I do not know the difference between "secret" and "top secret".
Q: Well, in what manner did you handle the secret or top secret mail when it come to the office in preference to ordinary mail?
A: The mail was not entered in the general registry — the secret mail — but the individual assistants lock it up in their desks. We did not make a difference between secret mail and very special secret mail.
Q: But in any event, all the secret mail went first to you and then Rostock for distribution; is that correct?
A: Yes.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any redirect examination of this witness by counsel for defendant Rostock? Is there any further examination of this witness?
DR. PRIBILLA: No, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may be excused.
(Witness excused)
DR. PRIBILLA: Mr. president, in conclusion, I have the rest of my documents to submit. First I should like to correct a small error, at mistake. In document Rostock 5, Exhibit 5. I had submitted the list of publications by Rostock from the middle of 1937 on. The document is at page 7 and 8 of the English document book. This is Exhibit 5, as the index shows. Unfortunately, on the two pages that follow, the number 4 is given at the top, at the right hand corner. I ask that be corrected to number 5.
THE PRESIDENT: The corrections, I think, have already been made. If they have not, they will be made.
DR. PRIBILIA: I beg your pardon.
The next document has the number Rostock 6, and I offer it as Exhibit No. 6, After Having had the witness Christensen here, who was the first and most important assistant of Professor Rostock in his small office, I tried to find all the other associates in this office. I succeeded in finding three of the four assistants. The other two assistants are Dr. Hegemann, and Dr. Zettel. In order to avoid repetition, I got affidavits from these two associates. Document 6, Exhibit 6, is an affidavit of Dr. Hegemann, Warburg. I submit the document as a whole and shall read only a few important sentences. Dr. Hegemann says:
From the beginning of 1944 on I worked under Professor Rostock in the Science and Research department under the Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health matters.
During my work with the Science and Research office I obtained a good idea of the work done by Professor Rostock on behalf of this office. Professor Rostock required his co-workers to be informed of current official matters. For this purpose weekly meeting with his co-workers often took place, at which all problems to be dealt with in the office were discussed openly. Besides his activity in this office, Professor Rostock had to devote a great deal of his time to the clinic in Berlin which was under his direction, as well as to other scientific tasks, for instance as editor of the Central Journal for Surgery.
During the whole period of my work with the Rostock office, I never learned anything by virtue of which I could assume or suppose that Professor Rostock had knowledge of experiments on human beings, specifically through offices of the SS.
At the end of this affidavit, No. 6, Dr. Hegemann says:
As medical assistant to the clinic directed by Professor Rostock, I can assure you that Professor Rostock carried out his work in accordance with the noblest conception of the medical professional, and the highest idealism of research. It always struck me, particularly, that he personally supervised medically all patients in the clinic, including many foreigners, Russians and French, with absolutely the same care as Germans.
Experiments on human beings contradict the medical and scientific character of Professor Rostock, as I know him.
Document No. 7 which I do not offer in evidence was an affidavit of the witness Karlstetter. Since she has been examined here it is not necessary to submit this affidavit. The following document, which is document, 8, and which will be Exhibit 7 — this the third assistant, Dr. Zettel of Aurich Ostfriesland. I offer this exhibit as a whole, but shall read only a few important sentences. Dr. Zettel says:
In the autumn of 1943 Professor Rostock asked me to assist him as well in his work with the Science and Research department under the General Commissioner for Medical and Health Matters. I did this, besides my work at the clinic itself, from then, until the department officially took up its work in February 1944 and moved to the offices in Bielitz near Berlin. From that time on, I worked in the department nearly exclusively as Professor Rostock's assistant in his capacity as head of the Science and Research Department.
During this activity I never learned that Professor Rostock instigated, caused, or had knowledge, of such experiments on living human beings against their will. If this had been the case, I would have had to know about it because Professor Rostock talked over all matters on hand with all his co-workers several times weekly. He was of the opinion both formerly in his clinic and later on in the department, that his coworkers should be informed about all pending problems.
The next document, Rostock No. 9, which I offer as Exhibit 8, is an affidavit of the defendant Rudolf Brandt. The Tribunal will perhaps recall that the Prosecution submitted several affidavits from Rudolf Brandt, and in this affidavit he refers to them. He says:
After deliberate consideration and careful examination of all that I know in this connection I make the following statement.
I never met Professor Paul Rostock personally at any time; I saw him for the first time here in Nurnberg. Nor did I ever know his office under the Reich Commissioner for Medical and Health matters.
I have no exact conception therefore of the type or the scope of his work there.
If in my affidavit, Document No. 371, Exhibit 186, concerning hepatitis research (epidemic jaundice), I stated that 'Generalarzt Paul Rostock must have been informed about all research of this kind', I should like to explain that this was pure pure supposition on my part. I have no positive evidence for such a supposition a from my own knowledge of the facts.
The first name, Paul, of the co-defendant Rostock was also unknown to me. It was dictated into the record by the interrogator.
My deposition in affidavit, Document of No. 370, Exhibit 294, concerning typhus experiments, where I stated that Professor Rostock, as Plenipotentiary for Science and Research, must 'surely have known' about Haagen's experiments on human beings, was not based on any concrete evidence. It was again only a supposition of mine, which cannot be supported by any provable facts.
Finally, as to my statement in affidavit, Document No. 372, Exhibit 252, concerning. Lost experiments on human beings, that in March 1944, the Fuehrer ordered Professor Karl Brandt to promote medical research in connection with gas attacks, the conclusion cannot be drawn from this that Rostock's office for Science and Research over initiated any such research work. I know of no facts to support such a supposition.
If I said further in this connection under No. 3, that in addition to Karl Brandt, Rostock too must have known about those Lost experiments, this was also more supposition on my part. I have no factual knowledge. Nor do I know of any circumstances which could prove this.
I no longer remember how the name Rostock happened to be mentioned at all in my various affidavits. The name of Professor Rostock might have been mentioned in one of the papers presented to me by my interrogator in connection with something which has escaped my memory.
I declare, in conclusion, that the statements in my affidavits for the Prosecution were not worded personally by me, but that I signed them as presented to me by the interrogator.
/s/ Rudolf Brandt.
Rostock document 10, Exhibit 9 — I offer an affidavit of defendant Hermann Becker-Freyseng, who says in the following affidavit:
In my affidavit of 24 October 1946, Document No. 448, Exhibit 81, I declared under No. 6 that Dr. Rostock, after he had taken office under Karl Brandt, was perhaps the most influential person in Germany in the field of science and research, and that all branches of the Wehrmacht informed him of the results of their experiments and research work. These he compiled and presented to Brandt for his expert opinion.
This statement only represents my opinion, which is not based on any positive knowledge. I did not know any details of the working methods in Rostock's Office. No. 6 of the affidavit of 24 October 1946 had never been the subject of previous interrogations, but was put before me for the first time in this form in writing. With regard to Nos. 5 and 6, I declared in the presence of Mr. McHaney that these two numbers were not worded with sufficient precision and that I desired to make a further statement in this connection. Mr. McHaney told me that I should have this opportunity.
We research assignments requiring experiments on human beings or containing orders for experiments on human beings were ever given by the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe. No report about such research assignments to the Rostock office was therefore possible.
The sea-water experiment was not a research assignment but was carried out by the Medical Inspectorate itself on its own responsibility, si that no report was made to the Rostock Office about it, as none was necessary under the regulations.
The Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe never receive any instructions or suggestions from the Rostock Office, for carrying out experiments.
/s/ Hermann Becker-Freyseng.
The last document in the Document Book is Rostock No. 11, which I offer as Exhibit 10. It is an affidavit of the defendant Dr. Oskar Schroerder, who says:
My affidavit of 25 October 1946, Document No. 449, Exhibit 130, contains, in No. 3, the statement that Rostick knew about the medical research conducted by the Luftwaffe, and that in order to avoid duplication all assignments had to be via Rostock's office.
This statement does not mean that before a research assignment was given Rostock's approval had to be obtained. In actual fact, a copy would be sent to u Rostock's office after time assignment had been given.
Research assignments involving experiments on human beings were never given by the Medical Inspectorate on principle, under way circumstances.
The Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe received no directions or suggestions whatsoever from Professor Rostock, for planning and performing sea-water experiments or of the scientific experiments.
/s/ Oskar Schroeder
Mr. President, I have reached the end of the evidence on behalf of the defendant, Professor Rostock. In addition to the witnesses examined here, the Tribunal has approved the man, Rudolf Menzel, the chief manager of the Reich Research Counsel. He was to testify to the organization of the Reich Research Counsel, and particularly confirm that Professor Rostock had no influence on the business management of the Reich Research Counsel. The witness is in an English internment camp and, as I have learned, cannot be brought here as yet. According to the evidence, so far, I think it would be sufficient if I attempt to get an affidavit from this witness and dispense with his personal examination here.
The same is true of the witness Margarete Baldow, who was approved. This witness is the chief nurse of Rostock's clinic. She knew nothing of the work of the Office for Science and Research, but she could testify to all Rostock's activity during the war at the clinic, and in particular she could give concrete information about the amount of work and the proportion of Rostock's work which the clinic represented in the last years of war.
Here, too, I believe that I can dispense with the personal examination of this witness, and I ask that the Tribunal permit me later to present affidavits from this witness. If I should succeed in finding the fourth assistant of the Office and thereby all persons who worked which Rostock in the Office for Science and Research, I ask that the Tribunal permit me to hand in affidavits later.
THE PRESIDENT: If the witnesses referred to by counsel are found and brought to Nuernberg, they will be sworn and testify before the case is closed. If the witnesses are not available and are not brought to Nuernberg affidavits on the part of those witnesses may be presented to the Tribunal and offered in evidence.
Is counsel for defendant Schroeder ready to proceed? If counsel desires a few moments, the Court would recess. I asked counsel for defendant Schroeder if he is ready to proceed at this time. The Court would recess for a few moments if counsel is not prepared.
DR. MARX: I beg your pardon, Mr. President, I could not understand the statement of the President because the earphones were not adjusted, but I am told that the question was whether the defense of the defendant Schroeder might need a brief recess for preparation. I would be glad to have this opportunity.
THE PRESIDENT: How long a recess would counsel desire?
DR. MARX: Fifteen minutes, if I might ask, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)