1947-03-12, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)

Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 12 March 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 in court with the exception of the defendant Oberheuser who is absent due to illness.

THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court save the defendant Oberheuser, who is absent in the hospital on account of illness.

Counsel may proceed.

FRITZ FISCHER — Resumed

MR. HARDY: I have no further questions on cross-examination.

REDIRECT EXAMINATION

BY DR. SEIDL (Counsel for the defendant Fischer):

Q: Witness, assuming that in the year 1942 you had been condemned to death for refusing to obey orders, would you then have given permission that an experiment should be carried out on you, if you were thereby offered the chance to have your sentence commuted?

A: Yes, I would have taken this offer and chance.

Q: The experimental persons, on whom the experiments were carried out, belonged to the Polish resistance movement. They have admitted that all here and also confirmed it in their affidavit. Consequently, they were condemned to death. I ask you now, could you not assume at the beginning of the experiments that these girls also would take advantage of the opportunity and would consent to the experiments, and that they had to arrive at this conclusion, particularly if they made a critical appraisal of their situation?

A: Yes, I assumed that that was so at that time.

Q: The sulfonamide experiments were for the purpose of testing a certain series of preparations, as you described yesterday. Is it correct that one of these preparations was ultraseptil, developed by Dr. Morrell, Hitler's personal physician, and that this was a preparation that had not yet been used by field army physicians?

A: Yes, one of the preparations to be tested was ultraseptil. I did not know about that preparation at that time nor had I heard that it had been us.ed by army physicians.

Q: Did you know that Professor Dr. Gebhardt was ordered by Hitler to treat Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, chief of the RSHA, surgically, after the attempt on his life?

A: Yes, I knew that Gebhardt was absent from Hohenlychen in June and was attending Heydrich on his sickbed.

Q: You yesterday described the contents of the order that Professor Gebhardt gave you at the start of the sulfonamide experiments. Was it clear to you in this matter that the legal aspect of the problem, namely, the question of whether or not the experiments were permissible and who was competent to decide about them, lay not only entirely outside your competence but also outside Gebhardt's competence?

A: Yes, I was clearly told that this was an affair that had been legalized by the state and I had to assume that Professor Gebhardt also was not the person who legally had to decide on it.

MR. HARDY: I submit that we have gone over this same line of question time and time again and I object to this or questions of this sort.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is of the opinion that this matter has been gone into quite thoroughly on examination of counsel. It does not desire to restrict counsel's examination of the witness but repetition should be avoided.

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I shall do my best to avoid repetitions.

BY DR. SEIDL:

Q: The witness Mazka testified here and admitted that she could see the experimental subjects only superficially and relied largely on what others present, namely, the prisoners or the nurses, told her. It does not seem beyond the realm of possibility that it must have been impossible for Dr. Mazka to achieve really a clear picture of the sickness and its course.

A: Yes, because the precise analysis of a case of illness is very difficult and unless you are in the immediate vicinity of that sickness it is almost impossible.

Q: You yesterday described or stated that you felt pity for the Polish girls on whom the experiments were carried out. Was not the decisive thing for both you and Dr. Gebhardt the effort to save the lives of these persons which, with a few regrettable cases, you were successful in?

A: Yes, I know that Professor Gebhardt wished above all, and told me so frequently, that everything should be done to save the lives of those in danger.

Q: According to the allegations of the Prosecution experiments were carried out on 74 Polish girls, of whom according to Prosecutions statement at least 61 lived. The Prosecution states subsequently six were shot for reasons that we do not know. Doesn't it follow from this that the responsible office, namely, the RSHA, kept its promises to Dr. Gebhardt?

A: Yes, I have always been of the opinion that that was proof the assurance given Dr. Gebhardt was kept.

Q: Is it true that Professor Gebhardt commissioned you to concern yourself only with the experimental subjects in the concentration camp Ravensbruck and avoid any other contact with the camp?

A: Yes, I received that precise and definite order from Dr. Gebhardt.

Q: Professor Gebhardt himself went to Ravensbruck a few times. Did he also observe this basis policy and not concern himself with what went on otherwise in the camp?

A: Yes, that is so, so far as I was able to observe him, he only visited the room of the resident physician and the sick bay.

Q: Under these circumstances, therefore, it would have been impossible for you to concern yourself for instance with the work which the Polish prisoners did?

A: That was quite out of the question.

Q: Is it true that in 1943 Dr. Stumpfegger came to Hohenlychen with a special order from Himmler and was to that extent not under the medical supervision of Dr. Gebhardt?

A: That was in 1942. Yes, Dr. Stumpfegger came at that time with a special order from Himmler, whose escort physician he was, to Hohenlychen, and informed Gebhardt about that.

Q: The Prosecution spoke yesterday of the deliberate misleading on the part of Gebhardt, because he undertook a free transplantation, allegedly because of a case of cancer on a patient. Gebhardt in his direct examination only had a limited opportunity to testify regarding this, but it is true that the whole infection or swelling which had infected the whole arm, could only be treated if the operation was carried out, is that not so?

A: I believe Professor Gebhardt stated that in his direct examination that this was a combined operation, which on the one hand was to remove the diseased tissue, supplemented by a second operation aimed at plastic restoration with functional aim, viz the restoration of the remaining joint, namely, for the purpose of saving the arm.

Q: Is it correct that from the publications of Professor Lexer, who had in many cases successfully transplanted joints from one person to another, was it not true you could count on success?

A: Yes, I know that Lexer in the Munich school had carried out transplantation of joints and parts of joints from one person to another, particularly immediately after the first world war, and that his operations were successful. On the basis of Lexer's opinion, whose pupil Gebhardt was, one could count on success, had to count on success.

Q: Do you agree with me when I say that Professor Gebhardt would himself have checked on and published the results of such experiments and operations himself, if you had withdrawn at his requests and that in this case he would not have left it up to Stumpfegger to give a report in the paper published by Veheimrat Sauerbruck about this work.

A: So far as I know Gebhardt concerned himself with the work that lay within his own sphere of interest, he took into his own hands and directed personally, and that if these matters were published, he at least would have written a preface in the case of publication about such work.

Q: After the lecture at the Military Medical Academy in May 1943, you returned to the front, to the Tenth SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg". In August 1943 you were in France. Is it true in August 1943 Gebhardt visited you and your division in France?

A: Yes, the division expected at that time an Anglo-American invasion by land and air, and at that time August—September, I was called to Paris for a conference on military medical matters and there met Professor Gebhardt.

Q: The experimental persons in the sulfonamide series were subsequently examined by you. When did the checking on them cease and what was the diagnosis on them when you turned them back over to the camp physicians?

A: For the most part the acute cases had been arrested and the wounds were healed. A few of them had inflammation of the nature of a boil, and very few had an infection which was of the nature of a camp phlegmone. There was no diagnosis of any case that might have been construed as endangering the life or limbs of the patient at the time that I left the camp and turned the patients over the camp physicians.

Q: In the summer, and especially August of 1943, you were in France, and Professor Gebhardt was there also. If now a Polish prisoner, who apparently was operated on in August 1943 in the bunker there by other physicians still suffered a bone marrow infection, I should draw the conclusion that this was nothing that bore any-connection with your sulfonamide experiments?

A: I am of the same opinion.

Q: The Prosecutor asked you yesterday why cosmetic operations were not carried out on the experimental subjects in order to improve their appearance? When is the earliest date at which such an operation could have been carried out, and were there still possibilities at that time either in Hohenlychen or anywhere in Germany of carrying out such cosmetic operations?

A: I have already said that the school at Hohenlychen represented the principle that before a lapse of at least two years after the operation no plastic or cosmetic operation should take place, because otherwise there is always the danger that the inflammation reappears and thus endangers again the individual. On the basis of this, therefore, a plastic or cosmetic operation could not have been carried out before the end of 1944. At this time in Hohenlychen most assuredly no plastic operations were carried out in Hohenlychen because at that time the whole of Germany was aflame, and all clinics, especially our clinic, were overcrowded with patients in need of surgical care. Plastic or cosmetic operations were certainly not carried out at that time.

Q: One last question. The Prosecutor asked you yesterday whether you would have obeyed Professor Gebhardt's order, even then if the object of the order was to carry out such an experiment on Dr. Oberhauser, and you then said that you could not answer that question.

Should you not, however, attempt go give some reasonable answer to that question?

A: If I make an effort to answer that question, I must point out the essential and decisive differences. In my opinion, the decisive thing, aside from the fact it was an order, was the fact that my motive was that of helping wounded persons, and secondarily, the belief that the persons on whom experiments were to be carried out had been condemned to death. I have already discussed the difficulties embraced in the psychological situation in which one can find oneself, and I can say in addition only that it is asked of soldiers for instance that, let us say, he must shoot at his own home towns, and he carries out this order in the belief of a higher authority on the part of the State and sees in that higher authority his basis and security. Those two factors, the belief in the ethical motive, regarding the helping of wounded persons, secondly, the fact that the State sanctioned this order legally, and, thirdly, that the experiments were to be carried out on persons who had been condemned to death and should now be given a humane chance to save their lives, I believe these three points give an adequate answer to that question.

Q: So the decisive difference lies in the fact that Dr. Oberhauser was not at that time condemned to death?

A: Yes.

A: I have no further questions to the witness.

DR. NELTE FOR HANDLOSER:

Q: Dr. Fisher, Mr. Hardy yesterday discussed with you the question whether the Wehrmacht, and this means in this case Chief of the Medical Inspection Handloser, had any connection with the experiments in Ravensbruck. The Prosecution tried to prove that the Wehrmacht was concerned in these Sulfonamide experiments. You were asked what your opinion of this problem was from a military point of view. And, as I remember it, I don't have the record before me, you answered that you considered this sulfonamide matter an important problem for the Wehrmacht. Is it correct that you said that?

A: Dr. Nelte, I cannot remember the exact sentence but that is what I said substantially.

Q: The trueness of this statement no one will deny, but if you look at this statement without the context isolated, it could be misunderstood. Therefore, I ask you — was the sulfonamide experiment only a Wehrmacht problem?

A: No, Dr. Nelte. It was not. It was a problem that effected medicine as a whole.

Q: In other words, the situation was as follows: In the acute state of the war particular stress was laid on particular aspects of the sulfonamide problem, but that sulfonamide research, as a whole, was a field that embraced both military and civilian life. Now, so far as the acute incentive is concerned that led to the experiments in Ravensbruck you heard from Dr. Gebhardt when he testified as a witness how this order came to be given and what the motives for it were.

A: Yes, I remember that.

Q: The situation was that Professor Gebhardt said at one point, perhaps in summarizing, "The purpose of this order was that under no circumstances to suffer any unnecessary losses in the Waffen-SS." Thus, according to what Dr. Gebhardt said, the SS had a particular interest in this and this interest was definitive and decisive.

Is that the case?

A: I can only answer that to this extent — that what Dr. Gebhardt said to your question concerns only what Dr. Gebhardt said, is that not so?

Q: Yes, that is so but I wanted to make it clear that the general interest in this matter was military and civilian, but the actual incentive for Ravensbruck experiments was interest on the part of Himmler?

A: Yes, according to what Gebhardt said, Himmler was interested on it.

Q: Dr. Gebhardt also said in the witness box clearly that the Wehrmacht was not concerned either in the origin of or the execution of these Ravensbruck experiments. Can you answer that statement?

A: In order to answer that I must say I received from no Wehrmacht officer an order to carry out these experiments but only my superior general Gebhardt who was member of the Waffen-SS.

Q: Then, no department of the Wehrmacht interfered in your experiments in any way?

A: In my field of work no Wehrmacht officer turned up.

Q: Your own clarification of this error in your affidavit regarding the order I do not have to tell you. However, I should like to clarify one thing, namely, when was the order for the Ravensbruck experiments given?

A: I cannot tell you the exact date but I can reconstruct the situation and believe it must have been on the 10th of July 1942. In any case 1942.

Q: At any rate in July of 1942?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you know when the office Chief of Medical Inspection was set up?

A: No, I do not know that.

Q: It was by an order of 23 July 1942. At that time, therefore, the Chief of the Medical Inspection could not have issued orders because he didn't exist at that time.

A: Yes, that is so.

Q: I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: If there are no further questions to be propounded to the witness the defendant Fischer is excused as a witness and will resume his place

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, the hearing of the defendant concludes my presentation of evidence in this case.

THE PRESIDENT: I understood from counsel yesterday that counsel had another document book containing documents to be admitted in evidence. Is that correct?

DR. SEIDL: Yes, that is so. The documents in the supplementary volume are a second document book for all three defendants whom I represent. As in the case of the first document book I shall present all of the documents under the heading "Gebhardt" but should like to retain the right to refer to these documents in the defense of my other defendants.

THE PRESIDENT: Will these further documents be offered when counsel presents the defense of the defendant. Oberhauser?

DR. SEIDL: When the defendant, Oberhauser in the course of two weeks can leave the hospital, or when at a later date she takes the stand, I shall at that time submit these documents.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal understands and the documents may then, of course, be considered in counsel's defense of the defendants Gebhardt and Fischer also.

DR. SEIDL: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Is the defendant Blome ready to present his defense?

DR. SAUTER FOR THE DEFENDANT BLOME:

DR. SAUTER: For the defendant Blome.

THE PRESIDENT: I probably misunderstood the translation. I thought the translator said Nelte for Blome.

DR. SAUTER: Sauter for the defendant Blome. That must have been a mistake. Sauter for Blome.

Mr. President, for the defendant Blome I have submitted a document books some time ago that contains documents number 1 to 8. I then in addition to this document book submitted two supplementary volumes, one number 9 to 14, and the little second containing 15 and 16. In other words, there are in toto only 16 documents. In these 16 documents are also included the affidavits of 9 witnesses. In other words of a large number of witnesses this testimony is relatively brief — so brief that I could content myself with affidavits.

I shall call only two witnesses to the stand in addition to the defendant Blome himself at the conclusion. The first witness whom I wish to call was a certain Perwitschky but I cannot call him today because he has not yet been brought hither. I ask the right to submit an affidavit from this witness Perwitschky or to be permitted to call him to the witness stand as soon as he is brought here and is available.

Now, before I begin with my case for the defendant Blome may I perhaps make a general suggestion — In the case of the Prosecution certain problems were treated that had previously not been part of Prosecution case. We defense counsel are not clear in our minds whether these additional problems which the Prosecution treats are to be made part of the Indictment or not. Consequently, we consider it expedient if the Prosecution makes soon a statement on this subject, namely whether and to what extent they are including these further problems in the charge against the defendant. Because, if that is not the case, then we defense counsel do not need to concern ourselves with these further problem in our defense of the defendants. Perhaps it would be well if the Prosecution made a statement on this subject soon. It would also be well if another point were clarified, to wit: I believe that on the last day of the opening statement the Prosecution stated that it would at the right time state whether and to what extent a charge against one or another of the defendants would be dropped. I should be glad if this point, too, were soon clarified because if the Prosecution is going to drop one or another charge then we of the defense would not have to concern ourselves with it further and would save ourselves considerable time. In this case also perhaps it would be expedient if the Prosecution made a statement.

MR. HARDY: May it please the Court, in connection with Dr. Sauter's concern about the experiments and various crimes outlined by the prosecution in its case in chief, which were not specifically referred to in the indictment, that has been answered here by Mr. McHaney, and I further called the attention of Dr. Sauter to paragraph 6 of the indictment which states in the last sentence:

Such experiments included but were not limited to the following:

The prosecution here has given him a bill of particulars in addition to an indictment, and now he is asking for more and there is no argument, as far as I can see, that we have not included in the indictment everything that has been presented here in the case in chief, and paragraph I believe, covers anything that we have presented. In regard to the dropping of charges on any of the defendants — I conferred with Dr. Sauter yesterday and I told him that I would take it up with Mr. McHaney and have a discussion of dropping charges perhaps against Mr. Blome. I have not yet had an opportunity to see Mr. McHaney, and we may well do so, but, at present, I am include to feel that we will remain in the position that we were in regard, to the defendant Blome and wish that the defense would proceed along those lines.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would suggest that the prosecution, as soon as convenient, determine its position in the matter and advise the Tribunal, but, meanwhile, defendant's counsel may proceed with his defense generally.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I begin the case for the defendant Blome in calling the witness, Dr. Herbert Kosmehl, with the permission of the Court, to the witness stand.

JUDGE SEBRING: Is that Dr. Robert Kosmehl or Dr. Herbert Kosmehl?

DR. SAUTER: Dr. Herbert Kosmehl — H-E-R-B-E-R-T.

DR. HERBERT KOSMEHL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows

BY JUDGE SEBRING:

Q: Hold up your right hand and be sworn, repeating after me the oath:

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

JUDGE SEBRING: You may be seated.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q: Witness, please state your full name.

A: Doctor of Law Herbert Kosmehl.

Q: How old are you?

A: Forty-four years old.

Q: You were last resident in Munich?

A: Stockdorf b/Ganding, in the neighborhood of Munich

Q: You are a Doctor of Law, not a medical doctor?

A: Yes.

Q: You know Doctor Blome?

A: Yes.

Q: How did you meet him?

A: In January 1934 I went to Munich to the Reichs Aerzteschaft.

Q: Please wait a little so that the interpreter can keep up with you, witness. Please repeat the last sentence.

A: The German Aerzteschaft consisted, at that time of the AerzteVereins Bund and the so-called Hauptmann Bund. Dr. Blome was, at that time, leader of the Physicians' Chamber in Mecklenburg and Gau Office Leader for the peoples health. Also chief of Gau Gauebmann of the National Socialist Physicians' Union. In this capacity I made his acquaintance when he came to the Aerzteschaft.

Q: Doctor, what were you before you came to the Chamber of Physicians?

A: Previously, I was an assistant Judge and, previously an adviser or the Landesbrandversicherungsanstalt (Country Fire insurance institute.) at Gotha.

Q: Then, in December 1933 — I may say something also first. You became a Party member?

A: 1933, yes.

Q: You are now automatically under arrest?

A: Yes.

Q: Why?

A: I presume because I had a political rank, I never engaged in any political activity, since, as a legal adviser for the Aerzteschaft naturally I did not concern myself with politics. If I nevertheless had a certain political rank, that was the wish of the Reich Physician Leader, Dr. Wagner, to whom it was very important that the interests of the German Physicians she be represented and upheld. When, in January 1934, I went to Munich, the German Aerzteschaft was not in a precisely favorable position because Reich Minister Hess had, in December 1933, in a large public gathering spoken against the German Aerzteschaft and for the German Lay Healers. Dr. Wagner wished, with respect to the Party and other offices, under all circumstances to restore the great name of the German Aerzteschaft. In the party there were many high leaders, Reichsleiter and Gauleiter, particularly Reichs Minister Hess and Himmler, who had been treated by the aforementioned Lay Healers. It was important to him that I, as a lawyer, should, in my negotiate with governmental and Party offices, have no difficulties, because everywhere where one went there were representatives in uniform, with whom one had to state one's point of view. Dr. Wagner, at that time, saw to it that I was given a political rank.

Q: And that is why you are automatically under arrest now?

A: Yes.

Q: Dr. Kosmehl, since the end of 1933 you were with the doctors' organization which was first called the German League of physicians and, later, the Reichs Chamber of Physicians?

A: Yes.

Q: You always held this post until 1945?

A: April, 1945.

Q: Until the capitulation?

A: Yes.

Q: What were your duties as referent (expert) of the Reich Chamber of Physicians?

A: First, to give them legal advice and to give information to individual physicians if they wished it. Then in the main I had to deal with complication that come from all segments of the population regarding bad conditions in hygiene in general, or the state of general health. Since the leader of the physicians at that time, Dr. Wagner, also occupied party offices, the Main Office for the Peoples' health and the N.S. Doctors' League, I, as a lawyer, also had to sake care of such matters, and such complaints as came from the population to the party. These tasks often overlapped those of the Aerzteburg because Wagner had both offices. This was an honorary position and without remuneration, I worked on these things also.

Q: If I understand your correctly, then, Dr. Kosmehl, you said there we two organizations. One was the Reich Chamber of Physicians and the other organization was the Main Office for Public Health?

A: Yes.

Q: The latter organization, the so-called Main Office for Public Health was a Party organization, and the Reich Chamber of Physicians?

A: Was an organization that represented the German doctors' profession.

Q: Was it a party organization?

A: It was an organization that had no connection with the party but was a professional representative of two great doctors' organizations.

Q: It was an independent legal entity?

A: Yes, that was the case since 1936, after, in December 1935, the law was passed regarding the formation of the Reich Chamber of Physicians.

Q: Dr. Kosmehl, in all the affairs of the Reich Chamber of Physicians the one hand, and the Main Office for Public Health on the other hand, did you as legal adviser of the two organizations, know about all their affairs?

A: I can say that I was perfectly acquainted with both the party organization and the other.

Q: And is it true that in both organizations you worked, together with the Defendant Dr. Blome?

A: That is not entirely correct. In the first period. I had more to do with the Reichsaerzte Fuehrer, Dr. Wagner, and the Munich Medical Socialists than I had to do with Dr. Blome, who at that time was still in Mecklenburg. It was only much later that Dr. Blome entered the Reich physicians Leader-hip itself, roughly 1935 or 1936. Therefore I had seen him in the course of the years at doctors' meetings or saw him if he was on official business in Munich.

Q: But then from 1935 or 1936 on how was it then? How was the relation between you and Dr. Blome then?

A: Very early we made friends at conferences and in other official contents. Our relations were very good and friendly.

Q: Is it true that from 1935 or 1936 on at least, you had a great deal to do with Dr. Blome officially?

A: In 1935 and 1936, no, but only when Blome was commissioned by Dr. Wagner with a special order to reconstruct the medical further instruction. It was then he came into the Reichsaerzteschaft. That was in 1936-37. Blome then came to Munich rather often and in particular after the death of Dr. Wagner I worked with him very often.

Q: Witness, you are speaking of the Reichsaerzte Fuehrer Dr. Wagner. Here in the trial we have almost always hearing Dr. Conti. How about that?

A: Dr. Wagner, the first Reich Physician Leader, died in March of 193*. At that time Dr. Conti became his successor. Originally Dr. Blome was to be his successor and all preparations had been made for that; but after Dr. Wagner was buried he was told that he should —

Q: Witness, I don't think that is very important.

A: Well it is important to the extent that it throws a clear light on the relations between Conti and Blome. At the last moment Hitler, for foreign political reasons, had to leave Munich and go to Memel. In the meantime various party organizations, the SS, the SA, etc., strove for this post of Reichs Physician Leader and each organization wanted to get its own man into that position.

So it happened that Hitler was pressed from all sides to choose such and such an organization's man. He decided consequently and suddenly, not to appoint any of the proposed successors for Dr. Wagner but to appoint Dr. Conti because he was an old P.G. with the gold honorary medal and was known as the doctor who had treated Horst Wessel.

Q: And so you say Dr. Conti become the successor of Dr. Wagner as Reich Physician Leader. What became of Dr. Blome?

A: The party was altogether in favor of the line that Dr. Wagner had pursued, the policy he had pursued, whereas Dr. Conti was not so well liked. If possible they wanted to continue in the tradition as established by Dr. Wagner; consequently they thought they could not do so in any better was by appointing Dr. Blome as deputy for Dr. Conti, as he had belonged to the inner circle around Dr. Wagner. For that reason, by a specific order on the part of Hitler, he was appointed as deputy, something which was in itself not the usual course.

Q: Dr. Kosmehl, we will later deal with the question to what extent the Defendant Dr. Blome knew of the business done by Dr. Conti. But first I must ask you another question as that the competencies are clarified. Can you, as a jurist, tell us exactly what the functions of the Reich Leader of Physician Dr. Conti, were? And when you tell us that, please say in what functions Dr. Conti was represented by the Defendant Dr. Blome, so that we can see the competency clearly, and also the responsibility.

A: For someone who does not know the general situation among German physicians, it is difficult to explain this. Dr. Conti became Reich Health Leader. That was his title. That was the designation which, as the leader the Main Office for Public Health and of the H.S. Physicians' League, was also to include these titles, these functions. As Reich Physician Leader he was part of the Reich Chamber of Physicians. In those two capacities Dr. Blome represented Dr. Conti. Over and above that Dr. Conti was also Staatssekret (State Secretary) in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, in other words, and of the Health Department of the Governmental Health Service. In this capacity, Dr. Blome did not represent Dr. Conti.

He had nothing to do with the Governmental Health Service and later after August 1942 the defendant, Dr. Brandt, became Reichs Commissioner for Public Health. Dr. Conti also became chief of the Civilian Health Service under Dr. Brandt. In this capacity also, Dr. Blome did not represent Dr. Conti.

Q: If I have understood you correctly, Dr. Blome represented Dr. Conti only in the Reichs Chamber of Physicians and secondly in the Main Office for Public Health?

A: That is correct.

Q: But not in the State Health Administration as State Secretary?

A: That is correct.

Q: Now, I come to a concrete point, Dr. Kosmehl, the defendant Dr. Blome is under indictment in the question of Euthanasia; you know what is meant by Euthanasia.

A: Yes, I do.

Q: Did you learn that in the Third Reich during the second World war there was a certain Euthanasia program carried out?

A: Of the Euthanasia program on the part of the German Reich, I heard only in the course of this trial; theretofore I had know nothing of it. I personally concerned myself with the question of Euthanasia, I read a book on the subject entitled: "Thou Shalt Not Kill," the author of which was in favor of Euthanasia. As far as I know, Dr. Blome also treated on this subject in his book entitled: "The Physician in combat" and he has taken the attitude versus Euthanasia without a legal basis. During the war and as time wore on, I believe during the first years of the war individual complaints were brought to me in my official capacity, complaints from members form the people who had relatives in German Mental Institutions and they told me that they had heard that their relatives while being transported from one institution to another had died. Those individual complaints stated that they doubted whether the death was natural. It was requested of the Reichs Physician Leadership that the true cause of death should be checked into. I, who had to deal with such complaints, had, as I said, no notion of a Euthanasia program and had heard nothing of it.

I had first therefore assumed that this perhaps was based on foreign radio propaganda or something of that sort. For this reason I submitted these individual cases to the office of the Deputy of the order, namely Hess, with request that they should be investigated.

Q: Dr. Kosmehl, you say that during the war you received various complaints in this field; to whom were these complaints addressed, were they addressed to you personally or to Dr. Blome or to some office; please tell us.

A: Alright; the complaints there were only two or three, no more. The letters complaining I would say were addressed to the Reich Physician Chamber or to the Main Office for Public Health, today I cannot say for sure which one, but it was one or the other.

Q: Then as the jurisdictional expert, I presume you were given these matters?

A: Yes, they wore in my sphere of competence and I received them to work on personally like all such things.

Q: Well, did the Reichs Chamber of Physicians or the Main Office for Public Health, that is this party agency, did these two organizations have anything whatsoever to do with the Euthanasia program? Just a moment, Doctor, I am asking you this to clear up, to determine why the complaints were sent to these offices.

A: No, neither the Reichs Chamber of Physicians nor the Main Office for Public Health was concerned in this program in any way at all; I already stated that when I said before that the Euthanasia program of the German Reich was entirely unknown to me. If nevertheless these complainants turned to organizations, the Reichs Chamber of Physicians and the Main Office for Public Health, I can only assume that they believed that the Reichs Physicians Leadership must something about such events; on the other hand, they turned to these organizations specifically because a few years priority that, when the law regarding hereditary diseases was passed many persons turned to these two organizations with complaints in cases which did not fall for certain under the terms of that law.

For instances, cases in which the person was not actually mentally ill, but a marginal case. Then Dr. Wagner, the Reichs physician's leader at that time, who in contra-distinction to the State Health Service, was greatly concerned that this law should not be broadly construed, as the state was overdoing it, but more narrowly construe and only those should be sterilized or treated in his opinion whom the law was actually designed to cover. Consequently, he took up these complaints and investigated them. He ascertained at that time that often the failure to answer a so-called intelligence questionnaire was enough for the governmental authorities to persuade than that the person was mentally ill, and to make them suggest sterilization. As Dr. Wagner himself said, this intelligence questionnaire contained matters, which even for a trained persons, would have been very difficult and that it was quite impossible to answer several of those questions in the questionnaire on the spur of the moment. He stated his personal opinion on this matter; that the law as being administered and construed too broadly; he stated this to Hess and Hitler personally and so brought it about that he and his office should be appointed to investigate the excesses being committed in the name of this law.

Q: Dr. Kosmehl, then if I understand you correctly; you mean —

THE PRESIDENT: May I interrupt you for a moment; the Tribunal will be in recess at this time for a few moments.

(A recess was taken)