1947-04-01, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 1 April 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I 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, you ascertain that the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.
DR. WIDESLAV HORN — Resumed
THE PRESIDENT: Have any of the defense counsel questions to propound to this witness?
BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for the defendant Waldemar Hoven):
Q: Doctor, please describe Hoven's attitude and behavior toward the Poles.
A: Despite the fact that the Poles were in a much worse situation than we were, I never saw that Dr. Hoven behaved otherwise to the Poles than to the others. The best example is the so-called Germanization of the Poles. The Poles who worked in Germany and who had sexual relations with German women were brought to the camp and were hanged. After a certain length of time a regulation appeared which said that suitable Poles could be Germanized. The Germanization consisted of an anatomical examination where the persons were measured all over the heads, their feet, their mouths, their noses. They were given intelligence tests, a certificate was written out, and then the Poles were released and some of them were inducted into the Wehrmacht. Thus, the examination to which they were subjected actually saved their lives. Dr. Hoven usually left this examination up to us non-German doctors and please observe that we were doctors who did not even understand so-called racial medicine, ethnic medicine.
We wrote up the examination and the persons were thereupon Germanized. In this way a few Poles were saved.
Q: Can you describe to the Tribunal measures through which the defendant Hoven protected Czech citizens?
A: Dr. Hoven was in touch with the Czechs largely in connection with the protectorate action. This was the action in which the Gestapo in a few days disposed of a few hundred Czech intelligentsia and workers and sent them to a concentration camp after the 1st of December 1939; in other words, right at the beginning of the war. This group of persons was, to be sure, called an honorable group of prisoners or hostages. They were allowed to keep their hair and they could write home every week, but in this whole Nazi system there was nothing legal and nothing was secure, certain. After a short period of time these prisoners also were given hard labor.
It is a sad thing when an official who sat at his desk for twenty years all of a sudden has to work in a garden. These again were ministers, senators, representatives, leading personages in political life who simply were not able to stand this work without doing themselves serious physical damage.
There was in the camp a so-called stocking repair shoe where stockings could be patched but it was no secret that this stocking mending department was only for the very old inmates who had been in the camp a few months ago. Dr. Hoven formed a branch of this stocking mending section where he employed all the older Czech inmates who weren't able to do physical labor, including Dr. Senker, mayor of Prague and representative of our prime minister, and many others.
In another institution which Dr. Hoven instituted was the so-called Race Research Commando (Ahnenforschungskommando). The SS wanted research carried out as to heredity as far back as the 17th century. It was no easy matter to find these documents. Moreover, the officers of the SS needed crests. They were the new Nazi aristocracy, and since Dr. Hoven had found among the Czechs an expert in heraldry, he formed a team which accommodated many of our painters and other persons.
This team became more important later.
These were the generous measures that Dr. Hoven took to assist Czech citizens.
Q: What was the SS Camp Administration's behavior toward the Czech inmates after Heydrich's death in May, 1942, and what did Hoven then do?
A: The days after Heydrich was killed were the most difficult days that we Czech inmates in Buchenwald went through. We heard from the SS various theories as to how the Czech nation should be handled. We heard it stated that 1939 was the end of the Czech state and 1949 would be the end of the Czech nation. In this difficult and dangerous atmosphere the news arrived of Heydrich's assassination. It is certain that the RSHA had already taken measures in Czechoslovakia because of this, but in various camps we heard that the camp management, on its own initiative, had also taken measures against Czechs. This attitude on the part of the commandant and the Gestapo chief in the camp was a very important matter. On the same day, in the afternoon, when we were waiting to find out what would happen to us, Dr. Hoven came and said, "The political department is quiet," and repeatedly thereafter every day we received such news from Dr. Hoven, and we were assured that neither the Gestapo chief nor the camp commander, on his own initiative, would take measures against us Czech inmates in Buchenwald. Very much happened then which indicated Hoven's attitude towards us Czechs because, in general, we were regarded by the Nazis as an altogether inferior nation occupying a rank just above the Jews. It was not just an SS man or a group, but rather the whole SS was in contact with us and they said to us: "What need do we have for you eight million people. We simply have to exterminate two million, deport two million, and four million that are left, they are then ripe for denaturalization." Dr. Hoven pointed out that the Czech doctors could be used for something, we treated the Fuhrer. Dr. Hoven showed also that in other sectors the camp administration had found ways of using Czechs and all political parties in Czechoslovakia were clear that Dr. Hoven was playing an important role in our behalf in this matter.
Q: How great was the number of Jewish steady inmates in Buchenwald when Hoven took over in September, 1943?
A: What do you mean by steady Jewish inmates?
Q: I do not refer to those who came in later but to those who were always there.
A: These were Jews who simply said that they were masons by trade and thus saved their lives. Also there were Jews in the sick bay detail and in Barracks 50, the vaccination barracks. I should estimate that they were between two hundred and three hundred. There could have been more.
Q: And what do you know about the fact that these steady Jewish inmates were saved by the defendant Hoven?
A: When it was said that the Jews should be removed from the camp it was pointed out, from the statistics of the camp, that there were no masons there. Then the suggestion was made that the Jews who were capable of work should be examined and put in that commando. Thus, many persons were certified by Hoven as masons. These Jews were certified as masons and were used as masons and, in this way, most of them were saved. Those were the two hundred or three hundred Jews I mentioned later.
Q: And what further measures did the defendant. Hoven take to save Jews? Where else did he accommodate Jews?
A: I have already said — in Block 50 and in the hospital.
Q: Were the prisoners interested in seeing to it that Hoven remained in the camp?
A: The old inmates, who had been there for a long time, or inmates who had something to do with the camp administration who knew Hoven's discrimination between decent and non-decent prisoners — they were interested in seeing to it that Hoven remained in the camp.
Q: Why did these inmates want Hoven to stay in the camp?
A: It was never known who his successor would be or how he would behave. By that time, our attachment to Dr. Hoven was too great and I point out this business with the Nacht und Nebel [Night and Fog] action. If Dr. Hoven had not been in the camp, the Dutchmen would have disappeared without our knowing where they went.
Q: Were the inmates also interested in having Dr. Hoven take over the management of Block 50?
A: I described that yesterday.
Q: Did the defendant Hoven only help inmates when he had some personal advantage from it?
A: No, that is not so. Dr. Hoven had many inmates freed whom he did not even know and whom he met perhaps for the first time only when they were being set free. Dr. Hoven certainly received something from the inmates: They spoke well of him, for instance, later. For instance, the Dutchman Pieck who was a typical academician, a painter. He was commissioned to make medical drawings but had no talent for that, nor could he be used in a quarry or any such heavy work of that sort. Dr. Pieck certainly did a great deal for Dr. Hoven but I never had the impression that Pieck was, in any way, exploited. He had been brought to the camp from Holland in a terrible physical state, and recovered Hoven also saw to it that he didn't get into the Nacht und Nebel action. It was also a terrible situation that he tried to do something for a man in the camp hospital and was unable to do so. The other shops were the same. And there was talk in the dairy of sending Hoven eggs and butter. No doubt Hoven had butter, and the whole hospital received butter too. Then later as leader of the TB section or station was Dr. Dupont, a French theologian, he was a leading physiologist in Paris and St. Inferieure — he was surprised what the TB patients received in the camp. What the official allotment was was one thing, but the other thing is what Dr. Hoven did through his connections of an economic nature. I spoke yesterday of the tailor shop which was sufficient both for us and for Dr. Hoven. The Austrians had a rule "Live and let live", and this was true also of Dr. Hoven. He lived, but he also let others live.
Q: What was the inmates' behavior towards Dr. Hoven after the camp was liberated by the Americans?
A: For a long time Dr. Hoven was not in the camp since he had been arrested. Shortly before the liberation, Dr. Hoven returned to the camp. He spoke with us and came several times. When on the 11th of April, 1945, the order came that all SS were to leave the camp, we sent out patrols from the camp which were to find out what the situation was, and I remember that some one came to me and said "Hoven did not run away. Hoven is somewhere in the neighborhood of the camp." Later I found out that Dr. Hoven had allegedly spent the night after the liberation in the camp.
I myself didn't see him, but I heard that said. Also on that very first night I was called by the American military authorities and I was asked if I knew where Dr. Ding lived. I knew only that he lived in Weimar where he had his family. On this occasion I found out that statements by the inmates had already been made about Hoven to the American military authorities.
Q: What do you know about the contents of these statements?
A: I did not read the report, but I had the impression when I spoke to the American authorities that this report on Hoven was an official one
DR. GAWLIK: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any questions to the witness on the part of defense counsel?
BY DR. DOERR (Representing counsel for defendant Poppendick):
Q: Witness, do you remember from your activity in the Buchenwald hospital a Danish doctor who carried out hormone experiments on inmates?
A: Yes, a Danish Sturmbannfuehrer [Major].
Q: A Danish Sturmbannfuehrer, yes. Do you remember his name?
A: I don't remember his name but I remember this was during Dr. Schidlausky's time. One time Schidlausky came to me and said, "We will have to use hormone treatment." I told him that we had very little room. The outer commandos had already delivered patients to us who had been wounded in bombings. Dr. Schidlausky knew this but he thought it was only a very few and that this would be a matter of applying a male crystal hormone and these were to be applied to persons who were being legally sterilized or were homosexual. I asked Schidlausky what sort of drug this was. This matter interested me. Shortly after this conversation the "Schweizerische Medizinische Wochenschrift" [Swiss Medical Weekly] had an article which described the application or use of these hormone crystals by a Swiss doctor. I did not concern myself about the matter any further. Then a group of six inmates arrived. Of course they were very frightened. I could only tell them that this was a male hormone and that I was told that it couldn't be a dangerous process. This was an answer which at first I had no reasons for but I later did find reasons for. This was in the year 1944, the second half, at a time in which the prisoners were not being beaten so often. When they were accused of anything, they were brought before the camp court, and this was the time when Schidlausky would not sign the death certificates unless they had been initialed by chosen prisoner-doctors. So I did answer that I did not think this would be a dangerous matter.
Q: Let me interrupt you. How many people were involved here?
A: The first group was not more than five or six prisoners. The prisoners then came and they were examined. Once, after a few months, they were accommodated on straw sacks in the hallway because we had no room.
Perhaps there were twenty to thirty people lying on these straw sacks in the corridor.
Q: How was this implantation of these tablets carried out?
A: I was not present but my assistant, who was present, said that the work was done very slowly and very carefully. A small 3 centimeter long incision was made and the crystal hormone was inserted, whereupon the incision was again sewed over. My assistant, Franz Frank, an editor from Singen on the Swiss border, already knew about this article in the Schweizerische Medizinische Wochenschrift and he said, "Why do this in such a roundabout way if it could be done so much more simply?"
Q: Were these prisoners all Germans or were there foreigners among them?
A: I believe they were sterilized prisoners and homosexuals but, as I said, I did not concern myself about this matter too much.
Q: Do you know whether these prisoners were told ahead of time what was going to happen to them?
A: In general it was customary in the camp not to tell the prisoners what was going to happen to them. I know that many persons who came for necessary operations were not told that they were going to be operated on until the last moment. It was sort of a mass production. They were sent to us and then we explained to them what the operation was for.
Q: Dr. Schidlausky's affidavit, Document NO-508, says nothing about fatalities that occurred. However, Dr. Kogon testified that he heard from someone else that two persons had died in connection with this treatment. What do you know about this?
A: The first group of six prisoners and the others were treated in another barrack. They were turned loose after six days. The wounds had healed well and from this we can assume that this preparation was not in any way poisonous. The prisoners were released and were observed later. I cannot recall any fatality.
Q: Who carried out this implantation of the tablet? Were they trained persons or were they other persons?
A: There was, among others, this Danish Sturmbannfuehrer you mentioned.
Q: Was he a conscientious man or was he very casual in his work?
A: You could see that he was not a professional surgeon but you could see that he really understood what he was doing in this operation.
Q: So, in connection with this treatment with hormone tablets, you really could not call these experiments but rather call it a method of treatment?
A: The Sturmbannfuehrer used the word "experiments" and delivered long lectures on the subject. Anyone could take the aforementioned Swiss journal and put it on the table in front of him and show him that this method had already been used. Since we never heard anything more about this Dane's method, let me say that this was the whole technique of the SS. Let us say that I am working with hormones and I say, "Mr. Hospital Director, let me try this out, etc." The SS doctors always used the word "experiment". I saw these people during the next three months. They came to the hospital occasionally and so I believe that you cannot speak of experiments but really of the application of a preparation which was well-know and which had long been in use. Even if we did not actually have this preparation in our hands, at least we did know that it was not poisonous and did not kill persons.
Q: Did you yourself talk with Dr. Wernet, who was this Danish doctor who carried out this treatment?
A: When I read the article, and this literature was available to us through Block 50, it did not interest us because it was a well-known matter in the medical world. Only the manufacture of this crystal hormone was new but the general treatment was an old and well-known matter.
Q: Did Dr. Wernet tell you that he had success in this treatment with his own private Danish treatments?
A: I cannot remember that.
Q: In connection with Dr. Wernet's treatment did you ever hear the name of Poppendick?
A: No.
DR. DOERR: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other questions of the witness on the part of any defense counsel? If not, the prosecution may cross-examine the witness.
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Dr. Horn, how many beds did they have in the hospital barracks in the Buchenwald concentration camp?
A: I said yesterday, in December of 1941, when I came to the camp, there were about 300 beds.
Q: Now how many inmates approximately were incarcerated in the Buchenwald concentration camp; that is including the little camps and all the subsidiary camps there?
A: About 6,000 when I got there. The number increased and I believe that when Dr. Hoven was imprisoned there were about 15,000 there, that is September 1943. Then the number grew enormously. I said yesterday that when we were freed there was even a number as big as 140,000.
Q: And still throughout that time there was only one hospital throughout the Buchenwald concentration camp; is that correct?
A: No, we had the main hospital and then we had the small hospital. Unfortunately I cannot tell you when the small hospital was opened, but when the Poles came in great numbers the small hospital was opened.
Q: Well now then throughout all this tine you never had any more than 300 hospital beds available; is that right?
A: Until the small hospital was opened, when the Poles came, they had 300 beds available for patients or sick persons.
Q: Now, Dr. Horn, what was your connection with Dr. Hoven; were you Dr. Hoven's chief surgeon on his hospital staff?
A: Please repeat the question.
Q: Regarding your connection with Dr. Hoven; were you the chief surgeon on the staff in the hospital under Dr. Hoven?
A: Before I arrived the prisoners told me that there was no surgeon at all there. There were locksmiths and bricklayers assistants, who did surgical operations and when I asked how this was possible, I was told that they had a few Jewish surgeons there who had performed surgical operations. There was particularly the Prisoner Kramer who was to learn surgery from the Jewish Doctors there.
Q: Now what qualifications did Dr. Hoven have along the surgical lines?
A: Dr. Hoven openly told us that he had too little medical training and that he would like to learn surgery and other branches of medicine. He assisted me for a time, but he did not have the time or the patience to let himself really be trained.
Q: Did you then make an attempt to teach Dr. Hoven some of your technique in surgery?
A: Yes; I did try to do that.
Q: Now in direct examination, Doctor, I believe you said that Hoven helped considerably certain political and national groups, especially the German Communists and Czechoslovakian inmates and I believe the Dutch hostages during the time he was first camp doctor; this group you speak of, or these groups that you spoke of, were only a very small part of the inmates of the camp; is that correct?
A: That is so; yes.
Q: How did Dr. Hoven act against the other inmates in the camp; was he equally as ruthless as other SS doctors?
A: The situation is this, after our liberation even, we often discussed this matter. We were asked by the American authorities several times asked to define the SS activities. We tried to define the SS for the American authorities and please let me tell you how we defined the SS. The SS was a military group with a Nazistic ideology, which had to be ready to exterminate individuals, groups or whole nations on orders.
Every SS man was permitted to carry out such killings on his own initiative. The group of SS doctors — and this we told the American authorities — we said would be a blemish on medical history; that in the 20th century a group of doctors, trained at the best universities in the world by the best teachers, should have so subjected themselves to Nazistic Ideology that they would not only by order kill certain groups and mass es of people, but even at their own initiative. This we said to the American authorities.
Now, we turn to Dr. Hoven's case; he certainly was an SS doctor, with all the SS attributes, although I never saw any killings by him. Dr. Hoven too could kill inmates, on his own initiative, but Dr. Hoven took the measures that I described in detail, which were of great benefit and help to the inmates.
After the American Army liberated us, we stood before a monument to the prisoners, who had died in Buchenwald, I believe 81,000 prisoners were killed in Buchenwald. At this ceremony, doctors of all nationalities came together and we discussed the question what we had done to mitigate the enormous suffering that took place in Buchenwald; we were clear about the fact that we were to a certain extent successful. I believe ours was the only one of the large camps where the spread of typhus had been fought and I also, knew, Mr. Prosecutor, that my statement on the subject is quite different from statements of doctors from other camps.
I am much concerned with the lives of free prisoners in all countries and I ask myself, why is it what I say is different from what others say; how come competent doctors in other camps did not have the success whereas we could do it and yet our statements are different?
I can simply say that the other doctors simply did not have an opportunity as we did to come in touch with another Dr. Hoven.
Q: Now, in the course of your duties at the hospital barracks in Buchenwald; were you familiar with the room in the hospital number 11?
A: Yes.
Q: To your knowledge, were patients exterminated in room 11?
A: Mr. Prosecutor, as far as I can remember number 11 was in a special barracks called ALM. It was often discussed in the camp, but I never saw anyone killed there; they were collected there for some length of time and then turned loose again. Why did I not see it? There were three camp physicians in the hospital and we received from Dr. Hoven a written order that we had to sign that the sphere named "Alm" was not to be entered by us and we did not enter it.
Q: If I understand it correctly, you would say they assembled patients or inmates in room 11, then eventually the number of inmates were exterminated. Did you hear of this? You never saw it, you don't know of your own knowledge; did you hear of suck exterminations from the other members of the staff?
DR. GAWLIK: I object to this question. The witness said he had never seen it, that he had never entered the room and for that reason he cannot answer the question.
MR. HARDY: The witness said that he heard about it and hearsay is permissible here, as I understand it. I am asking the witness if he ever heard about exterminations in room 11.
THE PRESIDENT: The question in the form propounded to the witness is objectionable and the objection is sustained. The Witness may be asked if he is aware of the general reputation in the camp, in Room 11, what happened there and what happened after people went through there.
Q: Witness, did you ever hear the term Euthanasia in connection with the Buchenwald Concentration Camp?
A: Yes.
Q: What do you know about it?
A: Euthanasia was the word that was used for the killing of the inmates.
Q: What type inmates were killed under the guise of Euthanasia, witness?
A: I never saw that — not this. I don't know what prisoners were chosen or who chose them. Consequently, I cannot answer your question.
Q: Where did this Euthanasia take place, do you know?
A: We who could move about freely in the hospital could see that this Euthanasia could only have been carried out in Room 11.
Q: Do you know whether or not the defendant Hoven carried out these Euthanasia killings?
DR. GAWLIK: I again object to this question. The witness stated that he was never in that room, that he had never seen it. Consequently, he cannot answer that question. He does not have the necessary knowledge to do so.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may answer the question Yes or No — whether he knows.
A: I said yesterday that I did not see Dr. Hoven ever kill anyone.
Q: Did you ever hear that he killed anyone in this Block 11?
A: The prisoners spoke among themselves about the fact that prisoners were killed.
Q: Did you ever hear that such killings were carried out by Dr. Hoven?
A: Yes. It was said that in the hospital the people were killed but you were asking about Dr. Hoven. Dr. Hoven was mentioned as the person responsible for and carrying out these killings but, as I said, I never saw it.
Q: Now, did you ever hear of people that reported to the hospital barracks after a hard days work for medical treatment and after reporting to the hospital barracks they were sent to Room 11 and eventually exterminated? Did you ever hear of such cases as that?
A: I did not hear that.
Q: Now, you are familiar with Block 46 in the Buchenwald Camp, are you not?
A: Yes, I do. I testified about that yesterday.
Q: Did you understand that Dr. Ding was the Chief of Block 46?
A: Yes. I knew that.
Q: Who did you understand to be the superior of Dr. Ding?
A: I was clear in my mind that Dr. Mrugowsky was Dr. Ding's superior or that Dr. Ding belonged to Dr. Mrugowsky's Hygiene Institute but we heard about the question of infection that was being carried out in Block 46.
Q: Was Dr. Hoven considered to be Dr. Ding's Deputy?
A: Please. I said yesterday that I knew nothing about this and had not heard anything of it.
Q: Did you know anything about the selection of inmates to be used for the experiments in Block 46?
A: Mr. Prosecution, when a person is in a camp as long as I was, then one hears a good deal and when you ask what I heard, I can tell you this. In Block 46 —
Q: Just a moment, witness. For your information you may here testify as to what you have heard within the camp and as to what you know about as your actual experience and as to your own knowledge. So, you may continue.
A: I was never there and of my own experience I know nothing. But, it was perfectly clear in the camp that experiments were being performed in Block 46 and that prisoners were chosen for these experiments. I believe that the political department took care of that selection. People in the camp were afraid of Block 46.
Mostly they were prisoners who belonged to the non-friendly group of personalities and we who had some sort of other activities were not afraid that we were going to end up in Block 46, but many did have that fear.
Q: Well, were those experimental subjects used in Block 46 men who had stepped out of line and volunteered to be subjected to these experiments?
A: No, I doubt that.
Q: Witness, in the operating room in which you worked did they keep a large quantity of poisonous substance which could be used for intravenous injections?
A: Mr. Prosecution, I was asked about evipan by the American Military authorities very specifically. Evipan is an intravenous narcotic anesthesia. We have to be very careful in that matter. You have to use a certain amount and then you do a chief anesthetic with evipan. Before I was appointed and when the nurses did the anesthetizing they used Evipan and there were about 400 doses of Evipan there in the surgical department. It is not present medical theory that evipan should be used in such cases as hernia, appendectomy — but I used it as a local anesthesia. I was given it and worked only with local anesthesia. I was asked what had happened to Evipan during operations by the American authorities, for this amount of Evipan got smaller and smaller until after about six months there was none left. Very small amounts might be used but they were very small, indeed, not more than 5 pieces. One must assume that the large amount of this Evipan was taken outside the operating room.
Q: Well, now Dr. Hoven was the direct superior of the operating room wasn't he?
A: Yes, he was chief of the whole hospital and also of the operating room.
Q: Well, did you ever hear of any lethal injections with Evipan?
A: It was said in the camp whenever I mentioned the word evipan it was said that evipan was being used in this way, but I myself did not see it.
Q: How about phenol?
A: I also testified on this subject. This was later. Dr. Hoven had already left the camp. The general discipline relaxed and a prisoner employed by one of the sections came to me and told me "Dr. Horn, take a look at this heart. The heart is very red and smells of phenol." In the autopsy room there I used various drugs and so saw no particular point to the remark by this man and the remark was dropped. Once we had a clinical section — a section that all physicians wanted for our own medical purposes. And again this prisoner brought me a corpse and again showed me a heart where the mucous membrane of the heart was reddened. In view of the fact that in the autopsy room many drugs have a smell I nevertheless did conclude that this was phenol. I tested another corpse, I told the man to open up the stomach of this corpse, the heart of which had smelled of phenol and I ascertained that the stomach contained no signs of phenol. In other words, the phenol must have been brought into the organism some way other than through the mouth. I can conclude from the way the mucous membrane looked, I can conclude that certainly this was a severe case of endocarditis.
Q: Whenever you visited the autopsy room in these cases of death by what you supposed was phenol, could you have ascertained the nationality of the person and whether or not the person was an incurable?
A: No, I cannot answer that question. We saw a corpse which had numbers on the thigh as its only identification. There was nothing attached to them, no name, no indication of nationality. And when I saw that I did not inquire whether the person had another disease. Mr. Prosecution, you must remember that although we occupied a certain position in this camp we were still in the hands of the SS and Gestapo and all questions of that sort could have had a very bad consequence there for us. Surely you will understood it, a doctor in my position, a man with a certain responsibility, too, and you will understand why I was in such matters as this is, superficial as I seem to have been. A man who did become too serious did die of phenol injection. He was injected into a vein, some way or other. I can only tell you this man was killed with phenol.
Q: Now, Dr. Hoven testifies in his affidavit NO-471 that he administered phenol injections to inmates. Did you know that?
A: I never talked with Dr. Hoven about this; and I refer to what I have already testified, that a part of the prisoners, who were afraid accused Hoven of carrying out these killings.
Q: What do you know about the deportation of Jews from Buchenwald to unknown destinations?
A: That is true. At the beginning of 1942 suddenly the Jews were carried out of the hospital; and on this occasion it happened, as I said yesterday, that was the Jew Kohn, the man, whose wife, and child, that I saved this man. These sick Jews were transferred elsewhere.
Q: Now, who selected these six Jews for transfer, or were they just picked at random?
A: Not six, but sick. Mr. Prosecutor, the way these Jews were chosen I am sure that was an order on the part of the political Gestapo department of the camp; and my experience is that this directive must have come from a political authority in the camp.
Q: Well, at the time that these Jews were transferred, they were patients in the hospital, were they not?
A: Yes, the Jews in the hospital were sick most assuredly, those who were taken away.
Q: Well, suppose that a Jew was not too sick; in other words, his condition was one which would be cleared up in a few days. Would he have been transferred away from Buchenwald on this particular action?
A: If I understand you correctly, you are asking whether Jews who could have been cured were taken away also.
Q: Yes.
A: As I heard, the Jews were taken from the details in other words, Jews who weren't sick at all in the camp. I don't believe it was just the sick Jews in the hospitals who were taken away but Jews who were working in the commandos of the camp.
Q: Now, did you ever hear the name Bernburg in that connection?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever hear the code letters "14-F-13" in that connection?
A: No.
Q: Well, now, after these Jews had left for this unknown destination, within a few days were their index cards and names removed from the files?
A: We had our own file of the prisoners in the whole camp. Of course, when we heard that so and so many Jews had been taken from the camp, then, of course, we were very curious to know whether the Jews had been transferred to another commando or whether they had been done away with. After a certain length of time the order came to take the cards from the card indexes, so we assumed that they had been killed; but I am only telling you now what I heard. It was said that the personal effects of the Jews were not used by the Jews themselves; in other words, that they simply were dead so that they couldn't use their personal effects.
Q: Now, were you ever cognizant of the fact that the camp commandant would issue orders that certain people were to be exterminated?
A: Once, it just occurs to me. I was in the corridor to the operation room where I worked. Dr. Hoven used the word "euthanasia"; and in this connections he said that the commandant had approved it that seriously ill patients should have euthanasia applied to them. I never spoke to Dr. Hoven about this further because at that moment I saw the situation which would arise if I as the only surgeon in the camp should fall ill; and so it occurred to me from this title "euthanasia" that I also might be aided via euthanasia; in other words, put out of my suffering, which, of course, I repudiated, as I repudiated any euthanasia because I was and must be in a position to relieve the patients' suffering.
After the bombing of Germany, we had great experience in these whole matters. Persons lay for ten or fifteen days unconscious. They were unable to control their bladders; they were incontinent; they couldn't eat. Finally they regained consciousness. Since I have already mentioned camp justice so much, Mr. Prosecutor, I saw and took prisoners to these people and said to them: "You have been lying here for two weeks unconscious, couldn't eat, couldn't drink." We took the men to these persons, I say, but we were not prepared for such a catastrophe as this. The man would say, "I was unconscious; I felt nothing, felt no pain; and I am surprised that you are bringing these matters up with me."
There is no point, it seems to me, at which it is justifiable for anyone to apply euthanasia and particularly not a doctor in the 20th century. As long as the heart muscles are working, the person is alive; and no one has a right to put him out of what you think is his misery.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, your Honor.
EXAMINATION
BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE SEBRING):
Q: Witness, who did you understand applied euthanasia at Buchenwald?
A: I shall answer you as follows. I said that there was a group of prisoners who held Dr. Hoven responsible for killing inmates. I do not want to use the "euthanasia." Then Dr. Schidlausky came to the camp—he is the SS man whom I described yesterday who changed so drastically; he in Ravensbruck was a ruthless sort of person, and now he had become such an anxious and frightened person that he wouldn't even sign the death certificates. Now we hoped after he came that would not then hear that the persons continued to disappear from the camp. At this time, the end of 1944, it was not necessary to kill the patients in the camp. You simply sent them on a work detail. Such as Dora commando or the S-3 commando, where the eldest transports lasted a maximum of six weeks.
I remember two hundred French industrialists, including the well-known Michelaine, who died after six weeks of such a work commando. In other works, it was not necessary to kill the prisoners. There were other ways of getting rid of them.
The mortality at that time was enormous. We were just under five thousand fatalities a month. Nevertheless, we still heard occasionally that one or another prisoner had disappeared. To be specific, in this period we received the news that from the construction commando the Polish consul in Budapest—his first name is Jan; but I forget his family name—was to come once to the camp hospital and never returned to his work commando. I visited the man, spoke with him. He was entirely normal. After two or three days I went to that same section again; but he was not there any longer. He had been transferred to another; and then all of a sudden he disappeared. I went to the nurse, because at that time it was possible to be a little curious, and I asked what had happened to this follow. The nurse laughed and said, "You won't see him again."
I am convinced that at this time the Polish consul from Budapest disappeared in this way. Dr. Schidlausky certainly didn't do this; and Dr. Hoven wasn't in the camp; and so we must try to find the persons who did this elsewhere. There were other SS and medical men there in the camp; and I am sure that Dr. Schidlausky did not do this.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess.