1947-04-17, #1: Doctors' Trial (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 17 April 1947, 1030, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable 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, will you ascertain if all the defendants are present?
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are present in court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.
The Tribunal will sit this morning until 12:30 without any recess.
Counsel may proceed.
LOTTE BLOCK — Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. FRITZ (Counsel for the defendant Rose):
Q: Witness, I have a question first of all regarding your testimony yesterday —
THE PRESIDENT: I will remind the witness that she is still under oath.
Q: I showed you yesterday Ding's diary and you testified yesterday that you held it unlikely that the entry of March 1944 was correct, according to which the series of experiments with the Copenhagen vaccine was supposedly carried out on the suggestion of Professor Rose. Will you tell the Tribunal briefly how you cane to this conclusion?
A: When in 1943 Rose returned from his trip to Copenhagen, the samples of typhus vaccine were immediately distributed. Professor Rose sent the documents to be filed and regarded the whole matter as settled. The documents were put away. If Professor Rose had wanted to work on this matter further or had expected further shipments of the vaccine, he would have made a note to that effect on the documents. That, however, did not take place.
Professor Rose never inquired further regarding these filed documents and while I was working there no further documents arrived about this matter.
Q: And you were employed by him until the end of December 1943?
A: Yes.
Q: I continue now with my examination. Do you know anything about human being experiments with typhus?
A: No.
Q: Do you know anything about a conversation that Rose had in the Spring of 1943 regarding typhus, or several conversations?
A: No, with the exception of one between Professor Rose and Professor Gildemeister.
Q: Did Professor Rose have a conversation with Staatssekretaer [Secretary of State] Conti?
A: Professor Rose was asked to go on an official trip with Gildemeister and returned from this trip very upset, asked me to arrange for a conversation over the telephone between him and Conti, and then to arrange a date for a conversation with Professor Gildemeister.
Q: Please state this in detail, witness.
A: When he returned from his talk with Professor Gildemeister, he dictated to me a memorandum regarding his talks with Conti and Gildemeister. He was very excited at that time and I can still recall that Professor Rose, along with Professor Gildemeister, had seen typhus experiments on convicts condemned to death in Buchenwald. Rose characterized these experiments as completely useless and unethical to Conti, and that one could discover no more from them than from animal experiments. However, he did not succeed in inducing the Staatssekretaer to have such animal experiments undertaken. In the discussion with Professor Gildemeister there was hardly mention of these experiments. Professor Gildemeister complained to Rose that Professor Rose had acted contrary to discipline and against his orders and behind his back, when without his knowledge he went to have a conversation with Conti and told him that he was intervening in matters that did not concern him and which belonged within the sphere of work that pertained to Professor Gildemeister.
He should have asked Gildemeister to take part in the talk with Conti. I cannot recall further details today. The memo I mentioned was several pages long. I know also that Professor Rose was very earnest and excited and made no side remarks such as he often made when he was dictating. After concluding the dictation he warned me, which is another thing he seldom did, to observe strict silence to everyone, and immediately left the Institute without being seen or talking to his assistants, which is another thing that he did not often do. The conversation between Professor Gildemeister and Professor Rose must have led to serious altercations between the two men because from then on, whenever there were telephone conversations, Rose was very formal in his behavior. Up until then he had always addressed Professor Gildemeister as "Mr. Gildemeister" or "Esteemed Colleague", and now he used the address "Mr. President" and confined himself to the absolute minimum. Also his mode of expression became very circumspect and he avoided making any remark of a drastic nature to Professor Gildemeister, which previously he had often done in conversation.
Q: In your last answer you said that Rose was with Gildemeister in Buchenwald. The interpreter said Dachau.
A: Yes, it was Buchenwald, and not Dachau.
Q: Can you tell us how you saw Rose's work during the war being carried out?
A: In the beginning of the war Rose had militarily little to do. He simply took a few brief official journeys, did a great deal of work in the Institute, and was dressed almost always in civilian clothing.
In the Winter of 1939-1940 and in the Autumn of 1940 Professor Rose resided in Russia for several months working on the transfer of Germans to the East. After his return his military work increased in scope. He set up a second office in the Air Ministry and there was a direct telephone line laid between the office at the Army Institute and the Air Inspectorate.
From 1941 on Professor Rose, because of his time being taken up with military matters, often did not come to the Institute for weeks, even when he was in Berlin. He simply had the mail read to him over the phone, gave instructions by telephone and dictated urgent matters, and discussed technical matters with the assistants, whom I had to call to the phone.
Q: How then did you work as private secretary when Professor Rose was at the Medical Inspectorate and you were in the Robert Koch Institute?
A: As I told you, I had to attend to auxiliary scientific work and to getting extracts of a scientific nature, which I did in the library or in the office. I also discussed the current mail on the telephone and transmitted it when necessary. If something very pressing came up and Professor Rose was unable to come to the Institute, I went out to the Medical Inspectorate. Moreover, Professor Rose dictated to me usually in the evening in his apartment from 7 until 11, dictated his private mail, his scientific work, office correspondence, and sometimes military matters.
Q: How often did Rose come to the Institute after he had taken up his military activity?
A: That depended, sometimes two or three times a week. Sometimes for one or two months he didn't come at all and then there would be weeks when he appeared more frequently.
Q: At the end of 1943, why did you terminate your employment with Professor Rose?
A: Professor Rose was hardly in Berlin any more and the military office was removed elsewhere. I myself wanted to remain in Berlin and I did not want to work with Professor Gildemeister.
Q: Now, witness, another matter; did Professor Rose or one of his collaborators work on yellow fever?
A: No, as long, as I had anything to do with the department there was no work on yellow fever, Yellow fever vaccine was produced in the Robert Koch Institute, out only in the virus department.
Q: And who was in charge of this Virus department?
A: Professor Haagen and after he left, Processor Gildemeister.
Q: Now a few questions on the malaria problem; with whom did Professor Rose work, on the malaria question?
A: On one hand with the assistants in his department, also with Obermedizinalrat [Senior Medical Officer] Dr. Sagel, who was director of a sanatorium at Arnsdorf near Dresden. This was in the course of collaboration, and when the postal service broke down at the end of the war his assistants frequently went there. Professor Rose was also frequently in Arnsdorf near Dresden to discuss problems. From 1942 on he worked also with the Institute Eberswalde near Berlin. He had his own assistant from there come frequently to Berlin and reported to him or to the assistants on the work in Eberswalde. We also corresponded on the question of malaria with industrial firms Bayes in Leverkuseu and Elberfeld, but these were simply prophylactic means of combating malaria.
Q: Did Professor Rose have any malaria work with the Hamburg Tropical Institute on malaria?
A: No, he held lectures at the Hamburg Tropical Institute and was a member of the scientific senate of the Hamburg academy, and he supplied scientific articles to their papers. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Tropical Medicine Society in Hamburg, but regarding his own work he did not have correspondence with these gentlemen.
Q: Did Professor Rose have any correspondence with Dr. Schilling on malaria?
A: No, Dr. Schilling simply corresponded with the assistants on the malaria question.
Q: Did Professor Schilling receive any malaria material from Dr. Rose?
A: When Dr. Schilling set up his laboratory in Dachau, he wanted to visit Dr. Rose in the institute, but did not happen to run into him as Dr. Rose was on an official journey. He then asked the technical assistant, Erna von Falkenhayn to give him anopheles eggs and strain mosquitoes for his work in Dachau. This the assistant did and when Professor Rose returned from his trip, Miss von Falkenhayn told him that Professor Schilling had been there and that she had sent him material to Dachau. Thereupon Professor Rose asked Miss von Falkenhayn not to make any future deliveries to Dr. Schilling, since he was not convinced that Dr. Schillings's research would be successful and he did not want to waste his valuable material for his useless attempts. I was struck at this time by the attitude on Dr. Rose's part, since the delivery and sending of such material was always taken care of in routine fashion by the assistants It was sent to hospitals and such places and was usually called to Dr. Rose's attention afterward.
Q: Then, if I have understood you correctly, the reason was that Professor Rose did no longer wish his material to be sent to Professor Schilling and the reason for this was that he did not approve of Schilling's research activities, or at least did not think they would be successful.
A: Yes, that was so. I was present once when he spoke with Miss von Falkenhayn and he said something to the affect: "Professor Schilling has had no reasonable success so far with his malaria experiments and he won't have any this time." His stock of mosquito strain had been greatly reduced during the war and he wanted them for his own work and for work from which one could expect some sort of scientific success.
Q: Did you see any reports on Schilling's work in Dachau among. Dr. Rose's files?
A: No, there were none.
Q: You saw nothing in writing that had to do with Schilling's activities?
A: Once, Dr. Rose, on request of the Ministry of the Interior, drew up an extensive report on Professor Schilling' research work; I myself wrote this report. Professor Rose categorically repudiated that research work and recommended for economic and practical reasons that research work should no longer be supported by state funds in this work. This report was on a trip when the request for it came and he wont away on another trip right away, it seemed the matter was pressing. I, myself, took the document personally to the Ministry of the Interior.
Q: Do you know when this took place; in what year?
A: At the end of 1941.
Q: Was there mention in this report of work in concentration camps?
A: No and if there had been such mention it would certainly have occurred to me as at that time I had not heard of work in concentration camps and I would have noticed it.
Q: When did you for the first time hear of experiments on human beings in concentration camps?
A: From newspaper reports, after the collapse.
Q: In other words, from Dr. Rose's conversation or in other ways you found out nothing about experiments in concentration camps?
A: No, with the one exception of the conversation between Conti and Gildemeister.
Q: One last question, witness; for what reason did you voluntarily appear as a witness for Professor Rose at this Trial?
A: At the beginning of this trial I found out through a notice in the Zeitung [Newspaper] that Professor Rose was a co-defendant and your name was mentioned as that of his counsel. Then, on my own initiative, I wrote to you and placed myself at your disposal as a witness. I did so because, as Professor Rose's former private secretary, I felt I know so much about him and his work that I, held it to be impossible that Professor Rose should have anything to do with crimes against humanity or war crimes in any form or could have known of them.
Q: Mr. President, for the moment I have no further questions to this witness.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q: Witness, you stated that you first heard of experiments in the concentration camps from newspapers; what newspapers do you refer to?
A: After the collapse I was in Berlin, the Berliner Tagesspeigel, I believe, was the first paper to mention it, then the Neue Zeitung [New Newspaper] had an article on the subject. I also saw something in the Swiss paper that somehow or other was sold in Berlin, but I cannot tell you what that paper was now.
Q: When was that and what time?
A: In 1946.
Q: Does any defense counsel have any questions to propound to this witness?
BY DR. FLEMMING (Counsel for Defendant Mrugowsky):
Q: Witness, in your direct examination, you stated that Professor Rose was very upset when he returned from his trip to Buchenwald and he commissioned you to arrange for a conference with Conti, he then dictated a memorandum to you about this conference with Conti; from this memorandum could it be seen what connection Conti had with the experiments in Buchenwald?
A: No.
Q: Can you tell us anything more about this conference between Dr. Rose and Conti as set down in this memorandum?
A: No, I can only remember that Conti had said that he could not entirely agree with Professor Rose's argument, but that is so long ago that I cannot make any statements now under oath about it.
Q: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further questions to the witness by any other defense counsel? There being none, the Prosecution may cross-examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Mrs. Block, when did you first enter the employ of Professor Rose, the day, the month and the year, please?
A: Between one and ten September 1939.
Q: When did you complete your employment with Professor Rose?
A: At the end of December 1943.
Q: Now you have outlined for the Tribunal the duties which you had while working as a private secretary to Professor Rose, at any time during the course of your duties, did you encounter any secret or top secret correspondence?
A: Never.
Q: If Professor Rose had received correspondence of a secret or top secret nature, would he have permitted you to handle said material?
A: I believe so, yes.
Q: Even top secret material?
A: Yes.
Q: Well now you have stated, that Rose's work did not deal with the field of typhus research, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: You have further stated that the greater part of the work in the tropical disease department of which Rose was the Chief, that breeding activities from mosquitoes, flies and other insects were perhaps a major task?
A: Yes, that is so.
Q: You have stated that the various mosquitoes were handled by Rose at hospital and other research stations, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: Well new in connection with these activities concerning Dr. Schilling, you have stated that Dr. Schilling was working at Dachau. How did you know he was at Dachau?
A: Professor Schilling came to the Robert Koch Institute one day, Professor Rose was not there but Miss Von Falkenhayn, who had previously worked with Professor Schilling, came over to my office and brought Professor Schilling along.
Professor Schilling said he would like to have anopheles eggs and mosquito eggs and then went into some detail saying he wanted to create a research institute at Dachau.
Q: Kindly tell this Tribunal the month and the year that professor Schilling visited the Robert Koch Institute to secure these mosquito eggs?
A: I believe it was 1941.
Q: 1941? Was Professor Schilling working at Dachau in 1941?
A: I seem to remember that he said that he had previously worked in Italy but that because of general difficulties he wanted to work there after in Germany, and that the Ministry of the Interior had offered him a place to work at Dachau?
Q: How many letters did Dr. Rose write Dr. Schilling in care of Dachau?
A: None at all.
Q: Are you certain?
A: I at any rate received none, none were dictated to me.
Q: Would it have been possible for Dr. Rose to write Dr. Schilling at Dachau without having dictated the letter to you?
A: No, because there was no one else who could write for him.
Q: Did Dr. Rose ever write letters himself without dictating them?
A: Well whether he did that or not I don't know, but I don't believe so.
Q: How you stated that Dr. Rose for considerable periods of time would be away from the Robert Koch Institute. Who would he dictate his letter to during that time?
A: Nobody, the mail filed up so far as the assistants could not take care of it and so far as I couldn't, and then if something seemed very pressing, I sent a letter to the person who had sent the letter to us saying that Professor Rose was on a trip and asked him what to do.
Q: Well now you think that Professor Schilling came to the Robert Koch Institute in l94l and secured those eggs for the malaria strain from one of the laboratory assistants, is that right?
A: Yes, Miss Von Falkenhayn.
Q: Did he over come back in 1942?
A: I don't know. I can only remember having soon Professor Schilling once in my life.
Q: Did you see any correspondence in the year 1942 with any one in the Robert Koch Institute concerning Schilling's work at Dachau?
A: No.
Q: Did you see any correspondence in the year 1943?
A: No.
Q: In other words, the only thing you over heard concerning Mr. Schilling's work at Dachau was upon his visit in the year 1941?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, concerning Professor Rose's trip to Copenhagen in what month in the year 1943 did Professor Rose journey to Copenhagen?
A: August.
Q: August, 1943. The purpose of his visit was to discuss the production of typhus vaccine, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: He was sent to Copenhagen by General Schroiber, is that correct?
A: General Schroiber asked him, since he had good connections with foreign institutes. I believe to the Ipson Institute, to go there as a private person in order to got vaccine since we had too little of it, because we needed more vaccines than we could produce.
Q: What type of vaccines were they producing in Copenhagen, do you know?
A: No, I don't.
Q: Did you ever hear what type of vaccine they were producing? Was it from rabbits' lungs or mice lungs or from nice liver?
A: I think mice were involved but whether it was lungs or liver I don't know.
Q: Wasn't it common to use mice lungs to produce vaccines?
A: I don't know.
Q: How you stated that when Rose returned from his trip that he reported that the trip was to no avail; that the people in Copenhagen were unwilling to produce the vaccine as desired, therefore, Rose made a report, and he sent this report to three sources or three authorities, would you kindly tell the Tribunal again to whom professor Rose sent this report?
A: Goheimrat Otto at Frankfurt on the Main, to Leverkusen and to Professor Gildemeister as director of the typhus department and president of the institute.
Q: Would you repeat the second one again? I am sorry I did not understand?
A: Leverkusen or the Behring Works. Leverkusen is a locality.
Q: It was the Behring Works and then he sent a report to Gildemeister at the Robert Koch Institute and one to Goheimrat Otto and he reported no further?
A: That is right. I cannot remember that he reported anywhere else.
Q: He did not report to Professor Conti, did he?
A: I don't think so, but I am not sure today. I do not seem to recall Conti's name in this connection.
Q: Well now you stated that Rose brought back or later received some samples of this vaccine from Copenhagen, and that he transferred those samples to the same people to whom he sent a report, namely, the Behring Worke, the Robert Koch Institute, care of Gildemeister, and to Goheimrat Otto, is that what you wish to tell us?
A: Yes, I don't remember to day any longer, but Dr. Rose either brought samples with him or they were sent to him very shortly there after. However, they were only very small, only a few little test tubes, and he gave instructions that the samples should accompany the report.
Q: Well now you state that Rose never sent any of those vaccines to a concentration camp, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he over send any to the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS?
A: No.
Q: Did he ever send any to Professor Dr. Joachim Mrugowsky?
A: No.
Q: Did he ever send any to Dr. Erwin Ding?
A: No.
Q: You are positive about that witness?
A: As long as I worked with Rose I heard neither the name of Ding which was entirely unknown to me until I heard it now, nor so far as I can remember, the name of Mrugowsky, which to be sure I knew from having road reports in the newspapers, nor did I ever have any correspondence with these gentlemen.
Q: You have never seen any correspondence with Dr. Mrugowsky?
A: No.
Q: Are you certain that Dr. Rose didn't have another Secretary?
A: No, he had a typist with the Luftwaffe.
Q: Do you consider it possible that he could have carried out these matters with Dr. Mrugowsky and Dr. Schilling through his staff in the Luftwaffe?
A: From what I know of the matter I don't believe so. The German army was very peculiar and I do not believe that a German officer could have settled matters that were not of an immediate military nature in his military office.
Q: Well, now you have stated that Rose could not have sent any of these to concentration camps, and he did not send any to an SS office or to Dr. Ding. However, on direct examination you also stated that whether or not Professor Rose sent these Vaccines to other than the three people, or the three organizations you mentioned, that is the Behring-Werke, the Robert Koch Institute in care of Gildemeister, and to Geheimrat [Privy Councilor] Otto, that you could not say. Now, I am asking you to be consistent. Can you definitely state on oath that Professor Rose never sent vaccines of any type to an SS office, to Dr. Ding, to Dr. Mrugowsky, or to a concentration camp?
A: The Copenhagen vaccines were in the Robert Koch Institute at first. Professor Rose never had them first in his hands nor did he send them off. He didn't send them to Ding or Mrugowsky, that I know. They went to the three places that I mentioned before. There was such a small amount no more could have been sent.
Q: Did Professor Rose indicate what happened at the Military Medical conference at the Berlin Academy in May of 1943? after Dr. Ding had reported on his experiments with typhus at the Buchenwald concentration camp?
A: No, not to me.
Q: He never mentioned that to you?
A: No.
Q: You have stated that when Professor Rose returned from his visit to Buchenwald — that is the time when he accompanied Professor Gildemeister — that he was completely dissatisfied with what he saw at Buchenwald. Now realizing, as you have stated, that Professor Rose was a very dramatic and drastic fellow, will you kindly tell the Tribunal just what he said which indicated to you that he was completely dissatisfied with what he saw at Buchenwald?
A: He said nothing at all. When he came back, he said that I should get in touch with Conti and Gildemeister. Then, after having this talk with Conti he returned to the Institute. This was the first time he came to the Institute since returning and without going into anything personally he wrote to Conti.
Q: What do you suppose he wrote to Dr. Conti? Were you able to ascertain why he decided to write to Conti?
A: He wrote at the top something like "Conference with Conti".
Q: What conference was that? Was that the conference that Rose and Gildemeister and several others had with Conti in December 1941?
A: Subsequent to the trip to Buchenwald.
Q: Yes. Do you remember when that conference was that you suggest was subsequent to the trip to Buchenwald? Was that prior to the establishment of the Buchenwald Institute?
A: I know nothing at all about any institute in Buchenwald.
Q: Well, now you state that Dr. Rose was referring to his conference which took place before his visit to Buchenwald and when he returned, after being dissatisfied about what he saw at Buchenwald, he wrote to Conti. Now, can you tell us, with your knowledge of the files, your knowledge of the activities of Professor Rose, can you tell us just when this conference took place that Professor Rose had with Conti prior to his trip to Buchenwald?
A: Before his trip to Buchenwald he didn't talk to Conti at all. He made an official trip after the visit, the purpose of which I was not informed of and I didn't know he was going to Buchenwald, When he came back, he said that he wanted to have a talk with Conti and then from the memoranda I could subsequently deduce that he had been to Buchenwald.
Q: Well, had he ever had any conferences with Conti prior to the trip to Buchenwald? He must have if he had determined that he wanted to see Conti regarding the Buchenwald situation.
A: Of that I know nothing.
Q: Don't know anything about that?
A: No.
Q: Did Professor Rose ever go to any conference with Gildemeister concerning typhus matters? That is, did Gildemeister ever invite him to attend conferences regarding typhus?
A: No. That I know for sure.
Q: How do you know that for sure?
A: Because Professor Rose and Gildemeister, as I have said here, Were not on very good terms.
Q: Well, now just a moment, witness. How do you account for the fact that Professor Rose and Gildemeister visited Buchenwald together?
A: I don't know. They were ordered, I guess.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Has defense counsel any further questions of the witness?
DR. FRITZ: No further questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: There being no further questions to be propounded to the witness, the witness will be excused.
DR. FRITZ: With the approval of the Tribunal I should like to call the witness Professor Dr. Hoering.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will summon the Witness Felix Hoering.
FELIX HOERING: a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE SEBRING: Please hold up your right hand and be sworn.
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. FRITZ:
Q: Professor, won't you please state your full name?
A: Dr. Felix Otto Hoering.
Q: When were you born?
A: On the 22nd of July 1902 at Frankfurt on the Main.
Q: What is your present residence?
A: Tuebingen, Justinus Kernerstrasse 35.
Q: Would you please shortly describe your career to the Tribunal.
A: After having passed my matriculation examination at Stuttgart in the year of 1920 I studied medicine at Tuebingen, Vienna, Kiel, Berlin, and Munich.
I then started to practice at the City Hospital at Mannheim for a period of three years. In the meantime I studied pathology for half a year at the Pathological Institute at Rostock. In 1929 I was hygienist for a half year at Heidelberg. Then for nine years I was assistant for medical clinics at Kiel and Munich. I qualified as a lecturer for internal medicine in the year of 1935 in Munich. In January 1938 I followed a wish which I had long since followed and went abroad. This was due to the fact that as a clinic worker I was always interested in the field of infectious diseases and that ever since the early 1930's I had the desire to study infectious diseases outside of Europe personally. I first went to Antwerp where I gained the diploma in tropical medicine. Then for five months I was in London with the Bureau of Scientific Research. From there I went to Brazil and worked with the Rockefeller Institute for the first part of my stay there at Rio de Janeiro under Dr. Fred L. Sopher.
Q: And what are you doing now, Professor?
A: Ever since the 1st of April, 1944, I am the chief physician of the University medical clinic and the head of the medical polyclinic at Tuebingen. In addition, I am lecturing on medical polyclinic medicine.
Q: So you are now a professor on the medical faculty of the University of Tuebingen?
A: Yes. I hold the title as an extraordinary professor since 1941. In the year of 1944 I changed my residence from Munich to Tuebingen, after having gained my venia logendi in the field of tropical medicine in the year of 1942, which means that I am now a professor for internal and tropical medicine.
Q: You made publications in the tropical medical field, didn't you?
A: Yes, some contributions in periodicals. The best known probably is the book which was published in the year 1938 entitled "Clinical Teaching of Infections". In the tropical medical field I published some work in the field of yellow fever which appeared in English, Brazilian and German periodicals. I further published some work about malaria. A work regarding that subject will soon appear in the journal for tropical medicine in London.
Q: What did you do during the war?
A: At the end of July, 1939, I returned to Germany from Brazil in order to leave again for abroad after a short vacation. In the meantime, however, the war had broken out. I was drafted into the army as an assistant physician. I went through the Polish and French campaigns as a physician with the front troops. In July, 1940, I was transferred to the tropical institute of Professor Rodenwald at Berlin. From May, 1941, onwards I received a number of special assignments, mainly in connection with the combat of malaria. That was in the Balkans and in Southern Russia In 1943 I became consulting internal medical expert with the army in Greece. On the 1st of April, 1944, I was sent to Tuebingen where I headed the hospital and simultaneously carried on in my civilian capacity as a university professor.
In January, 1945, I was again transferred to the army as a consulting expert on internal medicine. On the 8th of May, 1945; I was captured by the Americans in Austria. At the end of May I received the assignment to institute a hospital for DPs at the reception camp of Hoersching and to head it. I was in charge of this hospital, until I was released in July, 1945. I was in charge of this hospital under the supervision of the American physicians.
Q: Since when did you know Professor Rose?
A: I knew Professor Rose since I saw him at the International Tropic Conference at Amsterdam in the fall of 1933 where he held a lecture. As the head of the tropical medicine department of the Robert Koch Institute I had already known him from before.
Q: Do you knows him personally?
A: Yes. I made his acquaintance in the fill of 1940 for the first time. On that occasion I wanted to ask him whether my wife, who is also a physician, could work for him. My wife then, in effect, worked for him at the Robert Koch Institute for a period of approximately two years. I only say him after on a few official occasions. There are no social or personal connections between Professor Rose and I.
Q: You also participated in the Third Meeting of the Consulting Physicians at the military Medical academy, didn't you, which took place in May of 1943? Did you, at that time, take part in the sessions of the Section Hygiene and Tropic Hygiene?
A: Yes, at that time I was mainly active as an internist with the army. At this meeting I was supposed to hold a lecture about yellow fever. This lecture had been included on the program of the tropic hygiene section where yellow fever vaccine was also to be discussed. For that reason I participated in that session on that morning from beginning on and went to the section of this meeting which dealt with hygiene.
Q: Did you, at that time, hear the lecture given by Dr. Ding about the testing of typhus vaccine?
A: Yes, he was supposed to speak before the subject of yellow fever was discussed and, merely by accident, I was already present at that time. As a rule, I had nothing to do with the typhus vaccine questions.
Q: Can you still remember the contents of that lecture?
A: As far as I remember the lecturer spoke about the influence of various typhus vaccines on the course of an illness and proved that a number of vaccines could be used, whereas other vaccines had less effect.
Q: Could it be concluded from that lecture that these reports were based on experiments on human beings? In other words, intentional infections?
A: Whether that became apparent from Dr. Ding's lecture or whether it only became apparent as a result of the subsequent discussion I can no longer say today with any amount of certainty.
Q: Would you please describe to the Tribunal in detail what happened after Ding's lecture?
A: After Dr. Ding's lecture there followed a discussion. The discussion was opened by Professor Rose. He, at first, referred briefly to the material substance of the lecture which he, by and large, recognized. He emphasized, however, that this was a question of experiments on human beings and that a number of people had lost their lives as a result. Using rather strong words, he pointed out that any such procedure was a deviation of procedures used for decades in the research of immunity.
He said that this was an extremely serious matter and that the hygienists would have to maintain their old principles. Professor Rose spoke for a long time and spoke in sharp words. Naturally, I can no longer recall his words in detail, but I am sure that he voiced the substance of what I have just said. In accordance with his temperament, he did this in strong words which went beyond the customary exchange of words used during such discussions. At any rate, every participant in this meeting was well aware that this was an incident of almost sensational character. For that reason, after the end of that session and during the subsequent days, this incident was discussed among small circles and I can well remember that.
Q: What happened as a result of this speech by Professor Rose? I am now referring to the time of the discussion.
A: The lecturer, Dr. Ding, replied to Professor Rose and defended his experiments. He admitted that this was a question of experiments on human beings but he said that the experimental subjects were criminals who had all been condemned to death. Professor Rose there upon once more replied, saying that this didn't change anything in his criticism. He said that we were here concerned with a basical question, There upon the discussion was rather suddenly stopped by Professor Schreiber. Generalarzt [General Physician] Schreiber said that if the gentlemen wanted to discuss basical, ethical questions, then they would have ample opportunity to do that after the meeting. In the printed report of the meeting which I read these discussion remarks were not printed.
Q: Didn't you notice that when reading the printed report? Didn't it come to your attention?
A: No, I would have thought it very surprising if any such discussion at that time would have been printed.
Q: Now this discussion took place during a military meeting, did it not? In your opinion, how could Professor Rose's objections be judged from a military and disciplinary point of view?
A: Well, from a military point of view, his objection constituted an offense against discipline, for he criticized the attitude of persons who held the leading positions and he advocated that other people would resist any such procedure. Considering the situation in Germany at that time, this alone would have sufficed to get him into a rather awkward position, that is, if any official steps had been taken against him in this matter.
Q: Why didn't you yourself adopt any attitude in this matter?
A: I was only a guest at that meeting. This whole incident came as a complete surprise to me. I did not know of all these events. At any rate I could not have said anything more than that I was of the same opinion as Professor Rose. Beyond that, Professor Schreiber had already stopped the discussion.
Q: The Tribunal has a document before it which bears the signature of Dr. Ding. It is a so-called Diary of Dr. Ding. It says there, among other things, that one of the vaccines which was discussed during that meeting was furnished by Professor Ruge and Professor Rose, for the purpose of conducting experiments on human beings. Was anything like that mentioned during that meeting? Did Dr. Ding mention it, or was it brought up during the discussion?
A: I cannot remember anything like that. When replying to Rose's objections the lecturer made no mention of it at all. Such a contradiction would have created attention considering the severity with which Rose expressed himself against the experiments.
Q: In the same document it says further, under a different date, that approximately one year later a vaccine was tested in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, which originated from Copenhagen and that this was done upon the initiation of Professor Rose. Do you knovi about that, Professor?
A: No, I know nothing at all about any Copenhagen typhus vaccine, nor do I know anything about tests carried out in concentration camps. I can hardly imagine that Professor Rose had much to do with typhus vaccine. In professional circles Professor Rose was not connected with questions of typhus vaccines. A small circle of other names were used in that connection and I can mention Otto, Eyer, Gildemeister, Haagen, Wohlrab, all of whom I knew were doing that type of work; perhaps I know a number of other gentlement from the industry and people who were assisting the people whom I just mentioned.
Q: According to your knowledge of matters, do you think that the assertion is probable that Professor Rose instigated vaccines being tested in concentration camps?
A: After the experience during that meeting which I just described, I must consider this as highly improbable. It would have constituted the exact opposite of what he stated during that meeting. For that reason I was so surprised that Professor Rose is indicted here. When I read that in a newspaper I said to friends of mine that I could not understand that in the least — that I could not understand why Professor Rose was indicted— for he is the only person who in my experience, had courage, at a time when Himmlor reigned, to appear in public in the manner I described,
Q: Did you hear about other experiments on human beings which were discussed at that very same meeting? I am now speaking of a lecture held by Professor Gebhardt and Professor Fischer about sulfanilamides. That was presumably done at the surgical section of that meeting.
A: No, I did not participate in the surgical session, and during conversations I heard nothing at all of any such experiments.
Q: Did you participate in the 4th meeting of the consulting physicians in the year of 1944, at Hohenlychen?
A: Yes, I was also present during the rth meeting of consulting physicians because I had to hold a lecture there too. The subject was to deal with the clinical treatment of the sand fly fever.
Q: Do you know what Professor Rose discussed during that meeting?
A: He held a very interesting lecture in the hygiene section about the application of DDT preparations in the combatting of epidemics. In addition, he held a lecture during the general meeting, about damages to health connected with the air war. This lecture, too, demonstrated a great skill in that field which was rather surprising because one assumed that Professor Rose was a little distant to that subject.
Q: During that meeting of 1944 was there any mention made of experiments on human beings?
A: According to my knowledge, no. In the year of 1943 I heard about typhus experiments for the only time and it was my opinion that this was just a single event.
Q: You were saying before, Professor, that in the year 1943, you hold a lecture about the clinical treatment of yellow fever. Yellow fever is also a subject of this trial. Did you, during the war, hear anything about experiments on human beings with yellow fever?
A: No.
Q: During the very same morning you discussed yellow fever, Professor Haagen also held a lecture about yellow fever vaccines. During that lecture of Professor Haagen, was there any mention made of experiments on human beings?
A: No. I naturally heard that lecture. Professor Haagen gave us a general survey about the development of protective vaccination against yellow fever and he subsequently reported on the faccine which he had produced. As far as I remember, he said that he had carried out a number of vaccinations with the vaccine that he had produced, in order to designate the serum during the mouse protection test.
He said that on this occasion he had found similar results as they are generally known in literature. His lecture brought nothing new of general importance. It was merely a summary of the current state of research, which was also the case during my lecture. Both lectures were only designed for general orientation for the purposes of those people who only knew a little about yellow fever. In Germany there had been no previous opportunity to study yellow fever personally.
Q: You, yourself, however, did you study yellow fever and were active in that field, weren't you?
A: Yes. During my stay abroad in the years 1938 and 1339, I directed my attention in particular to that interesting illness and worked on yellow fever questions in Antwerp, London, and Rio de Janiero.
Q: What living German people have gained a reputation in international yellow fever literature?
A: Only professor Haagen. He was the first one to breed the yellow fever strain. He succeeded in doing that in New York, while he was working there with a Rockefeller Foundation. Then there is Professor Hoffmann, of Cuba, but he has been living in America now for decades.
Q: So Professor Rose does not apply to that group, does he?
A: No. I never heard his name or never read his name in connection with yellow fever.
Q: You were saying before that Professor Haagen had made reports about blood tests after yellow fever vaccinations. What kind of blood tests were they, Professor?
A: We are here concerned with the mouse protection tests which I already mentioned.
Q: What kind of a test is that?
A: A vaccinated person or anyone who had survived the illness is used and blood is drawn from his person, from that a serum is created. This serum is mixed with yellow fever virus, and this mixture, after half an hour, is injected into the brain of a mouse, or rather is injected into the brain of a number of mice. If the serum contains enough protection against yellow fever than the mouse concerned will survive that injection. If on the other hand it does not than the mouse will die after a period of a few days. It is probably not necessary to describe this in great detail.
Q: Are you yourself vaccinated against yellow fever?
A: No, in the year 1938 I had a yellow fever infection which occurred at the laboratory. Fortunately, the illness took a good course, and I managed to survive it, and for that reason it was no longer necessary for me to be vaccinated again.
Q: Could you describe to the Tribunal the substance of the yellow fever vaccine; as I understood you before, you were speaking of a living vaccine?
A: Yes, as in the case of all vaccines against virus diseases, the yellow fever vaccine is based on the giving of a living weakened yellow fever virus to a person, attenuated virus. This attenuation can be attained in many different ways. For that reason a number of different vaccines are in use in different countries. From my knowledge I am best acquainted with the method which was developed with the Rockerfeller Foundation. This method proved itself in America already before the War in millions of cases. In that method the virus is bred with the chicken egg, and then the vaccine is gained through careful working on the chicken embryo. In France the breeding is carried on by using the brain of living mice. This vaccination with living vaccines is based on the fact that every person Vaccinated is going through a very light but genuine yellow fever disease. This is true also in the case of vaccine against smallpox, where the vaccination has to be considered the same as though the person were going through a light but genuine disease of smallpox.
Q: I shall now have the Decument Book 12 of the Prosecution shown to you, and you will find Document NO-265, which is the Prosecution Exhibit 287, the so-called Ding Diary, which can be found on pages 36 to 56. Professor, will you please look at page 42 of this book, and you will find entries concerning yellow fever vaccines. Do you know anything about this matter?
A: No, I know nothing about this matter?
Q: Did you know at all Professor, that yellow fever vaccines were produced in Germany?
A: Yes, I know that as a result of Professor Haagen's lecture.
Q: What can you, on the basis of your general knowledge of the yellow fever question imagine about the tests that are described in this document; let us assume that these entries are in accordance with the facts?
A: Well, it is always necessary to test a vaccine, and reading here, — that living virus is underlined, — I am just saying here that living virus is underlined. This does not quite follow that only one single test is being suggested, for the question of whether a vaccine is alive or dead depends on whether that vaccine is durable and durability cannot be ascertained by one single injection. The damages which would occur when injection such a vaccine cannot be determined exactly when using the method as is suggested here. At the most, the direct primary damage could be ascertained, but that is something that could hardly be expected. Of course, the effectiveness could be ascertained, with reference to the protection against yellow fever which the vaccine offered, but I can only make very general assumptions after reading this short document.
Q: Professor, would you please turn to Page 109 in the same Document Book which is before you; you will find the numbers in the right-hand corner. There you will find the Document of the Prosecution N0-304. which is Prosecution Exhibit 315. It is a letter by Professor Haagen to the Inspector of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe in Berlin, and it bears the date of 22 October 1942. On the next two pages you find directions for use of the yellow fever vaccine of the University of Strassbourg. Would you please look at that Document, and give us your opinion as to whether yellow fever vaccination constitutes danger. According to the direction of use, it is here said in detail that any infections which might arise would have to be reported immediately; that is at the end of that Document.
A: Two different types of damages must be distinguished in the case of yellow fever vaccinations. There can be very direct reactions, which at the most last a half a day and have a rather light course. However, when using the American method of yellow fever fascinations and using the English method, one has found in various countries that rather undesirable incidents had occurred. A rather high percentage of people vaccinated in the case of certain vaccines did not fall ill of yellow fever, but of jaundice. This is called the so-called serum hepatitis. As I have learned from American periodicals, this happened to a large extent during this war in the case of American soldiers. It was found out that the reason was the virus of this hepatitis accidentally had gotten into the strain of the yellow fever virus and that is quite possible for certain technical reasons. I read in an American periodical that they succeeded in changing their technique so that this incident can be avoided with certainty. According to these experiences, it was correct that all infections would have to be reported, immediately.
Q: Thank you, and now one last question; Professor, could you tell the Tribunal what reputation Professor Rose held as a scientist and as a human being?
A: Professor Rose, on the basis of his numerous and valuable contri butions in the field of tropical medicine has a wide and good reputation.
His work has always excelled in its exactitude in professional circles. He was furthermore known as a man who could exercise valuable and objective criticism and was often feared as such. He exercised this criticism during discussions by putting forward purely material points of view. That too becomes easily apparent when considering the incident which happened during Ding's lecture in the year of 1943, where in spite of the personal danger which may well have resulted for him, he protested against the experiments on human beings, which were reported during that meeting. It was he who spoke in the same sense as we, the German scientifical field, who were present during that meeting, and he therefore maintained the good, old tradition of the German medical profession.
Q: Thank you, Professor, I have no further question to put to the witness for the moment.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any questions to be propounded to this witness by any Defense Counsel?
BY DR. FLEMMING: (Counsel for the Defendant Mrugowsky.)
Q: Professor, you have just spoken about yellow fever; is yellow fever found in Africa?
A: Yes.
Q: To what extent does the zone in Africa extend toward the north where tropical yellow fever prevails?
A: In the east it goes as far as Sudan and in the west up to the territory of Dakar.
Q: The territory around Dakar belongs to the territory which is endangered by typhus?
A: Dakar is an old yellow fever net.
Q: Is it correct that in the home of yellow fever, this disease is especially feared because of its danger, and that such persons suffer particularly heavily as a result of this disease who are new arrivals in such territories?
A: From a lay-man's point of view, that is correct; scientifically, however, it is not quite true.
Q: On the basis of your tropical medical activities, do you know that in the year of 1943 an advance of the German African Corps was planned on from Tunis to Dakar?
A: No, I did not know that, but from the fact that yellow fever vaccine was produced, I could perhaps assume that this may be the case.
Q: In that case, you knew at that time yellow fever vaccine was produced in Germany, and you concluded therefore that such an advance was in effect planned?
A: Yes, but that advance could also have been directed to the Sudan area.
Q: In the case of any such advance of the troops into a yellow fever endangered territory, would a vaccination of the soldiers become a necessity?
A: Undoubtedly.
Q: Professor, during your direct examination, you mentioned that in the case of the Americans and English yellow fever vaccines, in the form in which it was produced earlier, many, cases of Jaundice occurred; were such or similar complications known when using the vaccine, according to the procedure of say for instance Peltier, which was produced from mice brains?
A: I can only say something based on Peltier's work and the work of his collaborators, and in these cases no such incidents occurred.
Q: Do you know according to what procedure these protective vaccines were produced in Germany; was the Peltier's procedure used?
A: I have just learned from the Document book, where mention is made that the Peltier procedure was applied.
Q: The prosecution asserts that inmates were injected with yellow fever in a concentration camp; according to our material however we were only concerned, with protective vaccinations, using the Peltier method. Would an artificial infection of human beings after such a protective vaccination have been necessary?
A: Do you mean would it have become necessary in order to prove the effectiveness of the vaccine?
Q: Yes.
A: No, it would not have been necessary because in the case of yellow fever one can find out the immunity by using the mice test without infection.
Q: Mr. President, I am being told that an error occurred during the translation. I asked the witness whether it was correct that in the case of vaccinations, jaundice had occurred in the case of these English and American vaccinations, that is hepatitis. The translation is yellow fever and such yellow fever cannot occur after this protective vaccination.
A: No, that never did occur.
Q: I now return to the case of artificial infection of yellow fever do you know whether in Germany there actually could have been diseases of tropical fever or at any rate, do you know whether any virus strain, which could act pathogen to a human being, was available in any laboratory in Germany?
A: I know nothing about that, and I think this is highly impossible that a virulent yellow fever strain was available in Germany during the war.
Q: Did I understand you correctly before, when you said that, when using the Peltier vaccine in vaccinating human beings, it is out of the question that any serious damages to health or even fatalities could occur?
A: According to Peltier publication and the publications of his collaborators, any such incident was never observed.
Q: You have seen the entry in the so-called Ding Diary regarding yellow fever; is it your opinion that in the case of the protective vaccinations used only on small groups of persons was applied according to the Peltier method; we were concerned with a not permissible experiment or rather a matter where the consequences would have been damag ing to the health or perhaps even life to the people involved?
A: This experiment, as you say, could have been carried out on volunteer persons.
Q: I wanted to ask you whether there was any danger to life, or any serious danger to health?
A: As this experiment was already examined by using animal experiments, then according to medical convictions there was no appreciable danger anymore.
Q: In a letter of the Behring works at Marburg, addressed to the Defendant Mrugowsky, which was submitted by the Prosecution, it is stated that the yellow fever vaccine was to be tested in Buchenwald on human beings in order to find out its harmlessness. The Prosecution interprets that in such a manner that there must therefore have been a danger to health when carrying out these vaccinations, but according to the answer which you just gave, one can conclude that this word "harmlessness" contained in the letter of the Behring Works is to be synonymous for a test of its tolerance, because it is a fact that any vaccines emanating from the Behring Works were tested very carefully by using animals before any such vaccines were sent away from the Behring Works and that is generally known in medical circles?
A: I assume that the word "harmlessness" is here to be understood in the same sense as tolerance.
Q: Thank you I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:30 o'clock.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)