1947-03-13, #3: Doctors' Trial (early afternoon)

AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 13 March 1947.)

THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.

THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.

DR. SAUTER (For the Defendant Blome): I must apologize, Mr. President, that this court was delayed for such a long time.

THE PRESIDENT: I hope it may not interfere any more.

DR. SAUTER: I would like to ask your Honor to permit me to examine Dr. Blome, to have him take the witness stand.

THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Blome will take the witness stand. Before swearing the witness the Secretary will note the witness Kosmehl was excused from the stand last evening. The record will show that.

KURT BLOME, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:

BY JUDGE SEBRING:

Q: The witness will please raise his right hand and be sworn, repeating after me:

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.)

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY DR. SAUTER (Counsel for the Defendant Blome):

Q: Dr. Blome, how old are you?

A: 53.

Q: I would like to have details about your past life, are you married?

A: Yes.

Q: You have three children, from two to seven years?

A: Yes.

Q: You went through a course of studies?

A: Yes.

Q: You became a doctor?

A: Yes.

Q: You studied in institutes and became a professional doctor?

A: Yes.

Q: And you started your own practice in Rostock?

A: Yes.

Q: As practitioner there in dermatology?

A: Yes.

Q: You were in the first world war, you were at the front?

A: Yes.

Q: In what capacity?

A: As a Lieutenant in the Infantry.

Q: You wanted to become an active officer?

A: Yes.

Q: And how did you decide for medicine finally?

A: Before I became a soldier on the 1st of April 1914, I had already studied medicine for four semesters, then I fulfilled my military duty, and on the 2nd of August 1914 the first World War broke out. I went to the front with my regiment.

Q: Please be brief, witness, because these details are not of special interest for the trial. Why did you decide to become a doctor, and why did you not remain in the army? I ask you these questions because in connection with your choice of the profession the prosecution has already made a reproach. Will you please give us your details?

A: Yes. The prosecution reproached me that I had become a doctor in order to be a master over life and death. In this connection the prosecution refers to my book titled "Artz in Kamp," Doctor in Battle, which I wrote in 1940 and finished in the beginning of '41. If the prosecution makes this assertion against me, that is not true. The quotation which the prosecutor has cited when taken from the context, does not justify that interpretation. The basic thought underlying my choice of a profession was the wish to help the sick. If in my book I frequently mentioned the important position which a doctor holds in the population, this was done intentionally and with justification, for the doctor actually is master of life and death. A good doctor means life and a bad doctor means death.

The aim of my work, as I shall prove in the course of my examination, and as is clearly shown by my book, was to create the best trained doctor with high professional ethics. My aim was to help in this great work. What I wrote in my book, from which this accusation is made against me, I should, like to read briefly.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, this quotation from the book of the defendant Dr. Blome, entitled "Arzt in Kampf," Doctor in the Fight, is found in Document Book Blome, page 15, Document No. 5. It is the true quotation from this book. The book itself I have with me here. It is in the possession of the prosecuting authorities.

MR. HARDY: Your Honor, it is suggested that this entire book written by the defendant be introduced under one exhibit number rather than having each extract containing a different exhibit number, in as much as the prosecution may well use sections of this book during the course of cross-examination, and I wouldn't want to be held to giving an exhibit number to various sections of the book.

DR. SAUTER: The whole book, Mr. President", The Doctor in the Fight", is Blome Exhibit No. 1, so that the exhibit number properly includes all further quotations which I shall quote myself and which also will be brought by the prosecution authority, that is Blome Exhibit No. 1

THE PRESIDENT: Do I understand, counsel, you are offering the entire book as Blome's Exhibit No. 1?

DR. SAUTER: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Has the book been translated into English?

DR. SAUTER: No. On our part only those parts have been translated which are reproduced in my book. I could not expect that from the translation department, to translate a whole book on account of a few pages, as I only want to have a few pages.

THE PRESIDENT: I understand counsel's position. Has the prosecution any objection to offering the entire book in evidence?

MR. HARDY: The prosecution desires that the entire book be offered as one exhibit number, and during the cross examination if I see fit to use the book, I may have to just refer to the pages and have the defendant read it into the record in as much as we do not have the facilities at this time to translate some three hundred pages. So it would expedite matters to do it in this manner, your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: There being no objection, the book of which the Defendant Blome is the author will be admitted in evidence as Blome's Exhibit No. 1.

The Tribunal has not received the Blome document books. Are they available here?

DR. SAUTER: They have been submitted some time ago. My document book has been submitted for translation on the 6th of February. That is quite early.

THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q: Dr. Blome, perhaps you will give the exact quotation, with which the prosecution reproached you concerning your choice of profession at that time. As I have told you, it is in the document book Blome, Document Number 5, page 15.

A: After introductory general reflections about the choice of a profession by us school boys, I say the following in this book. I quote:

What brought the medical profession nearer to us was more of a personal experience. Naturally we had no idea of the history of medicine and its great men. But at home, in the needs of life, we know the physician as a personality of special character. So I always remember that from my ninth year I always fell ill with appendicitis with severe pains exactly at Christmas time. The fifth time, however, it was especially bad. The same doctor was always called by my parents and I had great confidence in his skill. This time the operation feared so much by my parents could no longer be avoided. Confidence in the doctor kept me from being afraid.

If until then I had considered kindliness the main characteristic of the doctor, I was now impressed by the clinic and by the doctor as its sovereign ruler. As I saw it, he was the last authority to decide over life and death of every individual. And what at that time impressed me especially, as a boy, was that even emperors and kings needed the doctor, and that their lives also depended on his skill.

Q: This is the quotation from the book of the defendant, which at the time was submitted by the prosecution against Dr. Blome?

A: One cannot make a charge against a lawyer for choosing that profession, and no one will want to accuse a lawyer of having chosen that career so that he could later become the master over the life and death of his fellow citizen.

Q: Witness, you already mentioned that you began your practice as a specialist in Rostock, in Mecklenburg; then, you gave up that practice, why and for what purpose?

A: I set up this practice at the end of 1924. It was the largest practice of this type in all of Mecklenburg. I gave it up in 1934 for reasons which I have explained in my book. When, in 1931 I joined the party and SA, I did so at the expense of great sacrifice, because I wanted to help prevent Germany from becoming Communistic. The National Socialist German Labor Party was, at that time, the only party which was a successful opponent of Communism, as things were in Germany at the time. After the first world war, through the Weimar Constitution, we had received a form of Government which calls itself democratic, but which in reality was merely a distorted picture of a democracy.

In the course of the years from 1919 on until the time which I have just mentioned, 1931, this Government had demonstrated itself inefficient, which is clearly shown from the enormous collapse of economy and from its millions of unemployed; which were not reduced but after some fluctuations always returned to the old level.

My friends and I were convinced that there was only one choice, that was the choice between German Socialist and Communism. In these years, we gave long consideration as to whether we should not join the Communists, as a small party of the so-called intellectual circle of Germans had done. The most important reason for our rejecting Communism was its dictatorial form of Government. That National Socialism would ever develop into an absolute power I did not suspect at the time.

Q: Witness, in this way, and from these motives you joined the Party. What attitude did you developed in the ensuing time in the Party and its institutions, and what rank did you hold in the Party as well as in the SA, and otherwise?

A: In the Party I became Gauobmann [District Chairman] of the National Socialist League of Doctors at the beginning of 1932, and from 1934 on I became Gauamtsleiter [Regional Leader] for Public Health in Mecklenburg. I joined the SA on the 1st of July 1931 as a Medical SA Standartenfuehrer, and a few weeks later I became Medical Oberfuehrer [Supreme Leader]. After I had left active SA service in 1936, in 1941 I received the title of Medical Gruppenfuehrer [Group Leader].

Q: Those were your positions and ranks within the Party and in its institutions?

A: Yes.

Q: Witness, yesterday, it was mentioned that you got the golden party insignia. Can you give us information when, and why, and for what reason you received the golden party insignia? Perhaps you could explain first under what conditions, normally, one received the golden party insignia, and why in your case an exception was made?

A: Normally the golden party insignia was given to people who had a membership number below 100,000, and had belonged to the party without interruption; but in addition golden party insignia were also given in individual cases to persons of special merit, even if they did not belong to the party; and every five years, counted since the seizure of power, they were given to party members of special merit; thus in 1938, on the 30th of January, the Reichsaerztefuehrer [Reich Medical Leader], Dr. Wagner proposed for me this award because of my service in the national and international medical training, but Hitler took my name off the list.

Dr. Wagner reached an a agreement with the Reichsleiter [Reich Leader] Bormann that the next time, of award, that is, five years later, on the 30th of January 1943, I was to get the golden party insigna. This promise was kept against the expressed opposition of my chief, Dr. Conti.

Q: Witness, yesterday your differences with Conti were already mentioned. Dr. Conti unlike you was not a member of the SA but of the SS, an SS Gruppenfuehrer [Group Leader]?

A: Obergruppenfuehrer [Senior Group Leader] finally.

Q: That was the highest rand in the SS, was it not?

A: Yes.

Q: Were you also a member of the SS?

A: No.

Q: In some document I read that you were asked to go from the SA to the SS. Is that correct, and can you explain this point, especially about the motive why you did not join the SS?

A: That is true, that I was on various occasions asked to join the SS. At the end of 1933, or in the beginning of 1934, I was suddenly called to Berlin, and the Office of Reichs Physician SS was offered to me. I refused this because I did not want to give up my independence and practice for the sake of this position. I refused later requests because, according to my information, Himmler played no unobjectionable role in the nurder of Roehm and other SA leaders. Also later the late Reichsarztefuhrer [Reich Medical Guide] shortly before his death told me to see to it that the black column, he meant the SD, does not get into our office. Wagner and I were opponents of the spy system set up by the SD. We refused to have others spied upon and we did not want to be spied upon ourselves.

Q: Witness, in the course of the procedure, we will come to the fact that within the following years you were connected in some way with the Reichsfuehrer SS, that is Heinrich Himmler; I would like to ask you now if you did not like the SS, how was it that later on you received assignments from Heinrich Himmler, the Fuehrer of the SS. Have you an explanation for this?

A: Yes. If I got from Reichmarshal Goering the research assignment for counter measures for biological warfare, I could fulfill this task only if I collaborated with those offices which were responsible for counter measures against such warfare. One of the most important men in this connection was the Reichsminister of the Interior who was in charge of combatting epidemics, and the Chief of the German Police, and these posts were held by Heinrich Himmler. That is the reason why I cooperated with Himmler in this field.

Q: Witness, you were a doctor, and your responsibility in this trial requires that you give us information as to what positions you held in the field of health during the years. Please give us information and tell us in each case whether it was a Government office or whether it was a District Office or whether it was a Party Office or whatever it was.

A: At the end of 1934, about in September, I became Adjutant in the Reichsleitung [Reich Leadership] of the German Red Cross in Berlin. At the same time, I was given a position as Manager in the League of German Physicians which later developed into the Reich Chamber of Physicians. In 1935, I became Deputy for Development of Medical Study (Fortbildongswesen) in Germany. In 1939, I became Deputy Reich Leader Physician (Deputy Reichsaerztefuehrer), and at the same time Nominal Deputy Chief at the main office for Public Health at the Party and of the National Socialist League of Physicians. The Reich Chamber of Physicians was a legal entity. I believe that the German Red Cross was also, but I cannot say for certain. The main Office for Public Health and the National Socialist League of Physicians were Party installations and my position there was of an honorary nature.

Q: Witness, did you apply for these positions which you hold during the course of years, how did you get these positions, and why did the choice of these influential posts fall on you?

A: I did not try to get these offices. In 1934, the late Reich Leader of Physicians, Dr. Wagner, asked me to give up my practice and work for the German Red Cross. I was later to become its President. I agreed because I could not carry on my practice and carry on health politics at the same time, and believed that I would be able to do good work in this new position. In about 1936, I had to leave the Red Cross, because Himmler wanted to get influence over the Red Cross and make Reich Leader SS, Dr. Grawitz, President. It was said that the German Red Cross was supposedly too reactionary in its personnel, and I had not taken the necessary steps against it. Grawitz told me later that he had to clean out the place with the aid of the Gestapo. The question why Wagner happened to select me, I can explain as follows: Wagner was a man with both feet on the ground, who never overestimated his own knowledge and ability. He also had the [illegible], that is, willing tools in the hands of their superiors.

He therefore selected for his close associates men with opinions of their own, and courage. He thought he had found such a man in me, and I do not believe that I disappointed him in this respect.

Q: Witness, the witness whom we heard yesterday, Dr. Kosmehl, told us that it was mainly a matter of instruction for doctors which you were interested in. Was that one of the tasks on account of your office and what most essential accomplishments did you do in this respect? Would you please tell us about this?

A: The post-graduate training of doctors was among my duties as deputy-post-graduate in medical training. Until the law for the establishment of the Reich Chamber of Physicians in 1935, post-graduate studies were up to the choice of the individual doctor. Most doctors had not participated in any such course in their whole life. On the basis of the experience of Dr. Wagner and myself as practicing physicians, we considered it right, in the interest of public health and also in the interest of each doctor, to make post-graduate study a duty for the doctor. That was done in the law which I have just mentioned. Every German doctor had to take a three weeks course every few years. This was in general medicine. All doctors had to participate in this training with the exception of Government officials, university teachers, heads of large hospitals, and similar people. Specialists also had to participate in this general training, for it had been discovered that the specialists, in particular, lost contact with general medicine in the course of years and decades, and considers, more or less, only his own specialized field and neglects the overall picture of the human being; and in addition to this general post-graduate study which was a duty, I created a number of voluntary medical courses.

I knew that in the beginning the doctors would object to this compulsory post-graduate study, but in order to convince myself that my arrangement was right, I openly called upon all German doctors who were taking a post-graduate course to report to me directly, personally, and not through official channels, to tell me their impressions and their experiences in connection with these training courses.

I received hundreds of letters. They said at first we were afraid of it, we opposed it, but all the letters closed with recognition and approval of this new organization. It is interesting to note that in spite of the compulsory post graduate study, voluntary training in special fields increased enormously throughout Germany. This was characterized especially by the fact that more foreigners than ever attended our medical post graduate courses.

Q: Witness, in connection with your aims to raise the standards of the medical profession and of the medical science, the witness Dr. Kosmehl, I believe it was, told us yesterday that an international congress for medical instruction courses in August 1937 was organized by you; is that true?

A: Yes; that is true.

Q: How many nations were there in this congress?

A: After a medical post graduate training in Germany had begun with obvious success, I decided on the third international post graduate medical training congress in Berlin, 1937, I myself was president of this congress. 44 nations participated in this congress. I had an opportunity to acquaint all these foreign representatives with the new medical arrangements in Germany, and on the basis of the recognition of these international circles I decided to submit a motion to the congress; that is, that an international academy for post graduate medical studies should be created. This suggestion was accepted without objection, and for the coming year, that is for 1938, the establishment of the academy in Budapest was decided upon. This ceremony took place in Budapest in 1938, and numerous nations participated; and at this congress, after the charter which I had suggested was accepted, I was elected president of the permanent bureau of this academy.

Q: Witness, about the Third International Congress in the year 1937, which you mentioned, we have a report, which I have in my hands, with contributions of a number of medical scientists, German and foreign. One of these contributions is your own, with the caption: "Organization of the German post graduate medical training." This article is yours?

A: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: For this trial, the most important thing, Your Honor, you will find in the supplement volume of Document book Blome, page 1 to 4, Document 9. It is an excerpt from the report of this congress. I have here, Your honor, this book, which I should submit to the Tribunal, but as I have this letter—I received this book from a library and I have to give it back. I don't know, Your Honor, whether under these circumstances it is necessary to submit this book and not see it again. That I would not like, Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Has this book been exhibited to the prosecution?

DR. SAUTER: The prosecution will not be interested in the latter part of the book. The parts that are of interest are in the Document Book Blome, Document 9.

THE PRESIDENT: I understand that, counsel, but the prosecution will be entitled to know where the printed volumes could be found if they desired to consult it at some future time.

MR. HARDY: Your Honor, I have no objection to an admission of the extract if Dr. Sauter certifies that this is a true extract and gives a sketch of just what the book is, and where it was published and where it may be made available.

DR. SAUTER: If the prosecution authorities would like to borrow this book for some time, in order to examine it or have it examined by the medical experts, and to submit excerpts from it themselves, then of course the book is at the disposal of the prosecution, only I would like to have the book back.

THE PRESIDENT: Is the information requested by the prosecution contained in your document book?

MR. HARDY: Yes, Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well; counsel may proceed.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q: Dr. Blome, in this book, in this report of which we are talking now, you have, as I can see, with special emphasis, pointed out two things, and I herewith ask you whether that is correct? So that I don't have to read the whole report and thus save time, the first point is, that also the practicing physician and the licensed doctor must go through a certain training in order to reach the necessary heights of science, and the other point, which I can see from your reports is your special emphasis that also the specialists must not only treat one part of the body, but that every doctor must always face the problem of wholeness, of completeness of the body, of the human body; is that correct as I see it?

A: Yes; that is correct. The specialist gradually developed to be too specialized, and it is beyond all doubt that an eye disease cannot be considered merely from the point of view of the eye, but that very frequently other parts of the body, Other organs are connected with this disease, and it is the same in the case of other specialties. Therefore, — considered it important that every doctor in this compulsory study should refresh his knowledge, and should learn the new things in the field of medicine as a whole. In addition to this I gave him an opportunity which had never before existed, to train himself as a specialist.

DR. SAUTER: Your Honor, the excerpt from this book, of which I would ask you to take notice so that I do not have to read the whole, is Document No. 9 in the Document Book Supplement, Volume Blome, page 1. With your permission I shall give it Exhibit No. 2.

Q: Dr. Blome, as you have heard from the opening speech of the Prosecution, you are reproached for activities in connection with the home for doctors Altrese. You remember that the witness Dr. Kosmehl spoke about Altrese yesterday. In supplement of this could you tell us some more? Could you tell us some details which would be necessary for the Tribunal — anything of significance?

A: Altrese was the leader school of the German medical profession. It was the institution and property of the medical profession. It was not a matter of the Party. Wagner and other important people in the medical profession after 1933 decided that the training of doctors should be taken into our own hands and not left to any training officials of the Party. The law on the establishment of the Reich Chamber of Physicians says that it is the legal tasked the Reich Physician leader, first of all, to give post—graduate training to doctors, and in the second place, to train them in health politics. This matter was of post-graduate training, the purpose of Altrese. Altrese was under me. The responsibility for what was done there and taught there is borne by me alone and I am glad to bear this responsibility. What was taught there was decent and good. It was morally and medically on a high level and it can be defended before the world. Lectures on human experiments were not given there as the Prosecution assumes. The main purpose of this training was to take the doctor away from materialistic things into which he was unfortunately forced after the period of the first World War by all the unfortunate conditions. In this connection I should like to mention one more thing I have noticed — that two defense counsel have asked their client here on the witness stand "Did you attend any training course at Altrese?" And, the defendant truthfully said, "No." I can understand this question of the defense counsel only for, of course, I have thought about it — to mean that the Prosecution has asserted that everything criminal in the German medical profession was taught to them by the training at Altrese.

I should like to state very briefly in this connection and to make it unnecessary for other defense counsel to ask the same question which two already have asked. None of the twenty doctors in the dock with the exception of myself ever participated in any course at Altrese either as a student or teacher. The Prosecution has asserted that the criminal spirit of doctors of the Third Reich was taught there under my responsibility.

Q: Witness, in connection with this medical school Altrese the Prosecution authority in session of 9th of December, obviously meaning you, have said, I quote:

The so-called comrade relationship and sports activities was only a camouflage for political supervision and espionage and further what the participation in these courses became a duty — one had to go through five years training — every year a few weeks training.

One has reproached you on part of Prosecution authorities. Will you answer this?

A: The Prosecution has apparently been misinformed. Otherwise they would not have said that I am convinced. Participation in courses at Altres was voluntary. There were so many applications for course from Party members and non-Party members that far from all applications could be considered. Moreover, there was no political supervision of those who took these courses. On the contrary Dr. Wagner and I were supervised by the SD at Altrese. Everyone could open [illegible] there and express his opinions openly. Altrese was the place of [illegible] and Wagner and I repeatedly spoke quite openly about everything the we did not consider right in the Third Reich and we quite openly object to things we did not consider right. The result was that Wagner was repeatedly called in to Bormann — was given a reprimand and Bormann said that Wagner and I should be careful — we should keep our mouths shut or something would happen to us. Wagner was not much affected by this. He once said to Bormann; "I don't give a damn. If this goes too far for me I will go to Hitler and will tell him something and he will agree with me." As far as our public opinion was concerned and the training of our doctors we had such an opportunity without the German Reich that all other professions envied us for this position of ours. Besides not only doctors were trained there at Altrese it was also available for midwives, dentists, and pharmacists.

And, if you can imagine that the highest number of participants in the course at Altrese was 128. That we had to have a vacation of three months here in the inter, then one can see that it is nonsense to say that every German doctor had spent a few weeks at Altrese every year. If that had been the case then Altrese would not have been able to accommodate 128 people per course but one would have had to put a few zeros after 128. That is how I figure it according to Adam Riese.

Q: Witness, I would like to ask you — that might be interesting to the Tribunal, what was the number of German doctors, approximately?

A: The number of German doctors in 1933 was about 60,000. At the end of 1944 there was 89 to 90 thousand including the medical officers of the Armed Forces and those doctors who had come to Germany through Austria and the Sudatenland.

Q: Witness, you are charged by the Prosecution, as you remember, to have not let the patient chose his own doctor, even if he is a member of an association of State insurance. If he cannot pay it will be paid by this Association. In this connection one spoke about alleged attempts of the socialization of the medical profession and the elimination of this free profession. What was your attitude to these problems and how did you deal with this?

A: As for the overall question which you have put to me, I should like to add the indirect charge of the corruption of the German medical science. It is true, that in the years after 1933, there were serious misgivings about scientific development of medicine and that they were justified. I shared these misgivings myself. I never made a secret of this. The reasons were a certain opposition of the Party to academicians and also the inclination of many Germans towards nature healing and quacks. Academic medicine, that is, so-called "school medicine", was frequently disavowed by important people and the [illegible] in Germany was admired by these people. Thus, Dr. Warner, from the beginning of 1934, had to invite the lay healer who treated Hess to [illegible] at Munich. Hess took part in the beginning of the meeting himself. But this did not prevent us, and prevent Wagner specifically, during this meeting from having this man who was treating Hess arrested by the police because of fraud which could be proved. This example is only a small contribution to the discussion of the situation in which we found ourselves. To clear up the questions in Germany was an aim of the National Socialist League of Physicians from the time before 1934, and it was Warner's doing that the so-called "new German medicine" was created and this was frequently made fun of, but unjustly. It is the synthesis of school medicine and nature healing, but exact science is the foundation of it.

This immutable principle I frequently printed out in speaking and writing; that nature healing gave us excellent suggestions for scientific medicine and always had. I need give only a few examples that the so-called therapy of experience that is nature healing is a shot of digitalis to scientific medicine. For example: quinine, Vitamins C and D, colchicum, atropine, caffeine, all the opiates, balneology, and the study of climates, which, in spite of centuries of rejection by scientific medicine, proved itself. Then the therapy in precious anemia, and, finally, exercise therapy under water in post-osteomyelitic crippling, a therapy which was introduced by President Roosevelt. Without this basis of the new German medicine with which I worked with the outstanding representatives of science, it would not have been possible that in 1938 I succeeded in having the lay healers deprived by law of their right to practice. When the present law, in October, 1938, was made the subject of a discussion with the leading personalities of the State and Party by Hess personally, I could only make my ideas prevail by referring to this new German medicine.

The defendant Gebhardt here, on the witness stand, briefly referred to this meeting. I should like to add merely that, in addition to Hess, various Gauleiters and Reichsleiters attended this meeting. Among the Gauleiters, for example, was Julius Streicher, the Gauleiter of Roewer Oldenburg and whom it was intended would become Health Minister; and a number of the persons who were more or less opposed to the medical profession, when the few was almost lost I turned to Hess, who was sitting to my right, and I said to him: "It was you yourself, Mr. Hess who stood before the new German medical science by giving your name to the Rudolf Hess Hospital." I completed my statements and I said: "If you gentlemen decide that in addition to the doctor, the lay healer is to be given legal sanction, then you will be the death of the new German medical science." I don't believe that one could speak any more clearly than that. I regret that the Prosecution has not submitted any documents in this connection. The whole course of events concerning this law — I put this to one side. It was not destroyed with the other documents. It was put into American hands at my instigation. I considered it my duty to preserve these documents as a document of medical cultural history from a time when the doctor was fighting for priority in medical science.

It can be proved that I have always endeavored to preserve the rights of German science and I did so with success. All German scientists and specialists of any reputation had a part in the training of the German medical profession. My office chiefs had instructions from me to get the best men as teachers with out consideration of Party membership. I expressly and repeatedly pointed out that medical post graduate training is not an affair of the Party but of specialized knowledge and ability. That training, from 1935 to 1939, was improved there is no doubt at all for any objective observer, and I believe that if German medical post graduate training had been as poor, and the level of the German medical profession as low as our opponents like to say then I would certainly have not, in November, 1938 received an official English invitation to London to give a lecture on German medical post graduate training. I received this invitation through the head of the state English post graduate training, Colonel Proctor, who knew the German training system very well and who was on the Board of the Third International Congress and who was also on the Board of the International Academy.

In connection with the training of the medical profession I must refer to two other circumstances. It is due to me that the students in their pre-clinical studies were given the obligation of performing nursing service. This was an arrangement which the prosecution witness, Professor Leibbrandt, had to acknowledge had its value, and I also introduced a three months' period of working with practicing doctors or in hospitals.

Q: The expression "Famulatur" was not understood by the interpreter. Will you please repeat the expression "Famulatur"?

A: I also introduced the arrangement that every student, during his clinical studies, had to spend at least three months with a recognized practicing physician or in a hospital as a "famulus" — that is, practicing student before his state examination. This was an arrangement which had not existed before which only helped the training of the German doctor.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess.

(A recess was taken.)