1947-04-24, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other questions to the witness on the part of any defense counsel?
BY DR. WEISGERBER (Counsel for Defendant Sievers):
Q: Professor, Document NO. 123, Exhibit 303 of the Prosecution, was the object of discussion yesterday between you and your counsel. This is the letter from Professor Haagen to Professor Hirt of 9 May 1944, regarding experiments with a dry typhus vaccine; I shall have it put to you in case you don't have it in front of you?
A: Thank you, I have the entire Document Book No. 12 and have it open to the correct page.
Q: The contents of this letter were literally the contents that Sievers sent on 19 May 1944 to the Chief of the SS — W.V.H.A. and this letter was put in by the Prosecution as Exhibit 304. Yesterday you concerned yourself only with the medical importance of this letter; now I ask you, since my client is not a doctor and has no medical knowledge; can a lay-man see from this letter that the vaccinations with the vaccine developed by Haagen, except for a fever reaction that lasts some time, could have any fatal or infectious effects on the person inoculated; can a lay-man see that from this letter?
A: Let me correct this one error first of all, I did not discuss this Document yesterday with Dr. Fritz, the Document discussed yesterday was Document No. 127. The whole question to which this letter refers, however, I went into at great length with Dr. Fritz.
Now, to answer your specific questions. A lay-man can, in my opinion, not deduce such matters as you brought forth from this letter for the simple reason that there is nothing to that effect in the letter; how then could a lay-nan find anything in there if the expert could not.
Q: The defendant Sievers drew only the conclusion, from what Haagen said, that this was a testing of the vaccine, a protective vaccination such as are given millions of times in protecting against all sorts of diseases. Can any objection be raised to that point of view or could one say he also had to take something else into account?
A: No, that is also my conviction, and I am today still firmly convinced that Haagen worked in a completely irreproachable way, and neither from witnesses nor from documents have I been able to find anything that contradicts that. I stated specifically yesterday that only this document 127 — if I had received this document, I should have become suspicious and would have asked questions, but that is the only one from which it could be deduced that he intended anything that was incorrect.
Q: Then no layman who was not an expert could have seen that?
A: I don't oven know whether Sievers saw this letter, document 127; and, of course, it is very difficult for a specialist to judge what a layman might deduce from something like this. As a specialist one is always inclined to see matters much mere simply, and to believe that because one understands one's self that others must also understand; but we often find out that is a very considerable error. I consider it quite possible that oven if Sievers had seen this document 127, nothing particularly would have struck him in it.
Q: And if he only saw document 123 —
A: There is nothing in it at all. There is only mention of vaccines.
DR. EISGERBER: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other questions of this witness by defense counsel?
If not, the Prosecution may cross-examine the witness.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q: Professor, as an officer in the medical service of the Luftwaffe, were you not ultimately subordinated to the defendant Handloser as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht?
A: I was subordinate to the medical office of the Luftwaffe. The Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht I did not regard as my superior officer, in the same way as I did regard my superior in the Luftwaffe.
A: I don't care whether you regarded him as your superior in the same way. My question was whether he was not ultimately your superior as Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht?
A: No.
Q: You did not state such a thing to me on the 31 October 1946?
A: No, I certainly didn't say that. He could ask me for professional expert opinion, but that does not mean he was my superior officer by any means.
Q: Well was either Hippke or Schroeder your superior officer?
A: Hippke and Schroeder were my superiors.
Q: And was Handloser the superior of Hippke and Schroeder?
A: I am a scientist but not an expert in matters of military organization, and after Generalarzt [General Physician] Hartleben testified on these questions, I as a scientist should prefer not to enter upon this field. I believe that my answers would only cause confusion to the whole question and would not add to the discovery of the truth.
Q: We will leave that up to the Tribunal to decide. Did Handloser have any consulting physicians attached to his staff as Chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht?
A: No, he had no consultants of his own; so far as I know, there was an agreement between the chief of the Medical Service of the Wehrmacht and the Medical Inspectorate of the three branches of the Wehrmacht to the effect that Professor Handlossr could call upon for scientific consultations the consulting medical officers of the three Wehrmacht branches.
Q: If Handloser issued any general instructions as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, you would have been bound to follow those instructions, would you not?
A: For instance, he issued a directive on the inception of the malaria prophylaxis. But here again I cannot testify whether that was a binding order or whether that was simply a proposal. That is a question of military subordination, regarding which I really cannot give you any information. I know only that the date was fixed when the malaria prophylaxis should begin in the Luftwaffe in agreement with this proposal by Professor Handloser. But that took place so that all branches of the Wehrmacht should be working simultaneously on this matter and I do know that is what happened. Now, whether that happened on the basis of an order or a voluntary agreement, that I cannot tell you. As a scientist I never concerned myself with these things and since they are of importance in this trial I would consider it careless to say anything about it.
Q: You also know that Handloser as Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht controlled typhus vaccine production for all the branches of the Wehrmacht, don't you?
A: I do not know that he controlled the production but I do know that he had charge of the distribution of the vaccines to various branches of the Wehrmacht. But, before that, the Army Medical Inspectorate had had charge of that because before a chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht existed the three medical chiefs agreed voluntarily that the Army, as the largest branch of the Wehrmacht, should undertake this distribution because, since the vaccine was very scarce, all the branches of the Wehrmacht were trying to get special rights for themselves with various factories that produced vaccines. Thus the danger arose that someone who was particularly clever at this would get a large amount and the branch that needed it most of all, perhaps, but was not quite so clever, would get the short end of the stick. Therefore, at the beginning of 1943 the three medical inspectorates voluntarily agreed that the Army Medical Inspectorate was to do the distributing.
And, so far as I know, the Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht carried on the same policy.
Q: As I recall, in one of the letters to Haagen from the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, I think it was the letter written by Kant and which you admit having some knowledge of, mention was made that the production of typhus vaccine by Haagen would have to be taken up with Handloser. Isn't that right?
A: Yes, that is in the letter and that may be traced back to that old agreement of the year 1942, because at that time it was also agreed, so far as I remember, that in case any branch of the Wehrmacht set up its own production facilities the Army Medical Inspectorate should be informed of this. The reason for this measure was to prevent one branch from producing for itself one hundred thousand doses and still receiving its entire quota as if it had no production of its own at all. But, as I said, these are rather administrative matters, of which I heard incidentally. For instance, I knew that there were individual agreements but I unfortunately do not know the precise text.
A: It is true, is it not, that after the war with Russia began the typhus problem became very acute?
A: Yes.
Q: Typhus was not common in Germany, was it?
A: Before the war there was no typhus in Germany at all.
Q: And to meet this typhus problem you could do two things, couldn't you? One was combat lice with disinfectants such as Zyklon B, and the other was to produce protective vaccines.
A: Yes.
Q: This Committee which you were on with Dr. Peters was very much interested in Zyklon B, was it not?
A: It concerned itself with disinfectants in toto and that included also the interest in Zyklon B. But Zyklon B, namely, prussic acid, was not a very serious problem in this matter. At any rate, from my point of view, I was representative of the civilian consumers and the civilian consumers received no prussic acid at all.
There were only eight firms that were permitted. They had to present their requests for disinfectants and then received their quota. So that prussic acid was the thing that could be settled most easily in this whole matter. It therefore did not play such a large role. Of course, it did play an important role purely in the production question, but this was not settled by the committee because the committee simply had to distribute those disinfectants and chemicals which were made available by Main Group Chemicals for distribution. And prussic acid is used not only as in insecticide but is also very important in manufacture. For example, in the production of unbreakable glass prussic acid is used and etching and tanning procedures make use of prussic acid. And prussic acid is used in agriculture as an insecticide, and all these matters were decided higher up. This working committee for insecticides received from the whole total available amount of prussic acid that amount of prussic acid that was made available for combatting of insect pests dangerous to human health. The agriculture insect pests were taken care of by another committee and they received amounts of prussic acid from somewhere else; in other words, not prussic acid that we controlled. And industry in its turn received its share.
Q: Was the same type of prussic acid used in insecticide control as in agriculture or manufacturing uses?
A: Regarding the agriculture Insect pests I am not well informed. But, I should like to assume that this is so because the main characteristic of Zyklon B is that it contains an agent that smells. Prussic acid has no smell itself and when we deal with the insect pests dangerous to human lives we added this agent that smelled as a warning that this was prussic acid. Then this, of course, was the same point of view the people fighting agriculture insect pests had, because they were just as interested in being warned by the smell as the disinfectors, but I can't say that for sure because I had nothing to do with combatting of agriculture insect pests.
Q: Now the disinfectors, that is, the insect control people, had to obtain their prussic acid from your committee or through your committee, did they not?
A: The prussic acid was assigned to these eight firms by the committee.
Q: Now, would the extreme necessity for the large scale production of typhus vaccines and the resultant experiments on human beings in concentration camps have arisen had not Germany been engaged in a war?
A: That question cannot simply be answered with "yes" or "no". It is, on the whole, not very probably that without the war typhus would have been introduced in the German camps, but it is not altogether without bounds of possibility because also, in times of peace, typhus has been introduced in individual cases from time to time and the primary danger in the camps is the louse danger, and infections with lice take place also in times of peace. Then, if typhus is introduced into such a camp that is infected with lice, a typhus epidemic can arise in peacetime also, of course.
Q: But Germany had never experienced any difficulty with typhus before the war. Isn't that right?
A: Not for many decades, no?
Q: You stated that nine hundred persons were used in Dr. Strong's plague experiments?
A: Yes, I know that number from the literature on the subject.
Q: What is the usual mortality in plague?
A: That depends on whether it is bubonic plague or lung pest. In one, namely, bubonic plague, the mortality can be as high as sixty or seventy per cent. It also can be lower. In lung pest, the mortality is just about one hundred.
Q: How many people died in Dr. Strong's plague experiments?
A: According to what his reports say, none of them died, but this result could not have been anticipated because this was the first time that anyone had attempted to inoculate living plague virus into human beings, and Strong said in his first publication in 1905 that he himself was surprised that no unpleasant incidents occurred and that there was only this severe fever reaction. That despite this unexpectedly favorable outcome of Strong's experiments the specialists had considerable misgivings about this procedure can be seen first of all from literature where that is explicitly stated; for example, two Englishmen say that, contrary to expectations, these experiments went off well but nevertheless this process cannot be used for general vaccination because there is always the danger that, through some unexpected event, this strain again becomes virulent.
Moreover, from other works that Strong later published it can be seen that Guinea pigs and monkeys that he vaccinated with this vaccine, died, not of the plague but of the toxic affects of the vaccine. All these difficulties are the reason why this enormously important discovery which Koller and Otto made in 1903, and Strong in 1905, has only been generally applied, for all practical purposes, since 1926. That is an indication of the care and fear with which this whole matter was first approached, and Strong could not know ahead of time that his experiments would turn out well. I described here the enormous concern that Strong felt during all these months regarding the fact that that might happen which every specialist feared, viz. that the virus would become virulent again. what is an enormous responsibility.
Q: Be that as it may, nobody died. That is a fact, isn't it?
A: If anyone did die, the literature says nothing about it. There were mortalities only among the monkeys and Guinea pigs that are mentioned in the publication. If human beings died, there is no mention in the publication. It is generally known, if there are serious accidents in such experiments as this, they are most reluctant in making them public.
Q: Now, Professor, I have no wish to limit you but, as I understand it, you have explained these things in considerable detail during the four days in which you have already testified. If you can give a short answer to my question that is all I want. If I want any further explanation I'll ask you for it.
Now, what is the normal death rate in beri-beri?
A: That depends on the medical care given. If the care is good, the mortality is zero, and if they have no medical care at all, then a lot of them die.
Q: Sixty to eighty per cent would probably die if they were not treated. Is that right?
A: Beri-beri lasts for many, many months before a person dies and you don't die in sixty days of beri-beri, that has to be a severe case.
Q: How many people did Strong use in his beri-beri experiments? Is twenty-nine all you know about?
A: So far as I know from the literature, the number was twenty-nine.
Q: Well, it says in the literature that he used only twenty-nine. Is that right?
A: So far as I know, yes.
Q: And one of those died?
A: According to what the literature says, one of them died.
Q: What is the mortality in typhus?
A: That varies enormously. It depends on the epidemic. In some epidemics the mortality is five per cent. In general, you count on a mortality of twenty per cent. In the Serbian-Albanian epidemic in 1915, there was a mortality of seventy per cent, but that mortality rate is so extraordinarily high that it is generally assumed that probably, in reality, there were more cases of typhus than were actually reported on.
Q: Well, we could take roughly five to thirty per cent as the mortality. Is that right?
A: Yes, that is what the text books generally say.
Q: What was the mortality in the Buchenwald experiments, Professor?
A: In the controlled cases in the experiments that I knew of, the mortality was thirty per cent.
Q: Among the controls, you figured thirty per cent?
A: Yes. There were ten control persons in the first group of experiments, and of them, three died.
Q: Three died? Well, but I assume that you have read through the Ding Diary and let us assume for the moment that it is correct. Didn't you say that they also used control persons in the four or five other series of experiments.
A: In the controlled cases where they were testing the vaccine, the general mortality was thirty per cent. But then there were these therapeutic experiments in which, according to the Diary, blood infections were undertaken and, in this case, the Diary does mention an unusually high mortality rate.
Q: Well, professor, for your information — we have figured out five control series in the Ding Diary, and I mean by controls those that were not treated with anything. The mortality ranges between fifty-four to one hundred per cent and averaged eighty-one per cent. Do you accept those figures as correct? I mean, do you think that's right?
A: No, that does not correspond with the impression I got from the numbers in the Diary, but I didn't calculate it so precisely as all that. I looked at the individual experiments and it is true that, for instance, in these therapeutic experiments Ding's work mentions a mortality of something like fifty to fifty-five per cent, and then there is one series that deals with blood infection where of twenty people I believe nineteen died.
Q: Let me put it to you, Professor. Isn't it a fact that they weren't dealing with epidemic typhus in Buchenwald, but with a super typhus, developed from man to man passage, which was much more virulent and much more deadly than any typhus you could expect in an epidemic?
A: That I cannot judge because I have no knowledge of the work done in Buchenwald and can only refer to what Ding's Diary says, which I regard as unreliable.
Q: Well, if you regard it as reliable, Doctor, and if you figure out the deaths among the untreated control persons and find a mortality which averaged eighty-one per cent, won't you, as a scientist and an expert on tropical diseases, concede that they had developed a highly virulent, something we might call a super typhus, in Buchenwald? Isn't that right, Professor?
A: As a scientist I am accustomed to state my opinion on the basis of reliable documentation, and not on the basis of such falsifications which are produced for a special purpose.
Q: I can appreciate that you don't regard the document as reliable, Professor, but we'll investigate that a little later. Pursuing the same point which I have been putting to you and in reference to your answer about epidemic jaundice, are you prepared, as an expert, to state that a man to man passage of an epidemic jaundice virus could not bring about a new disease which might be quite deadly?
A: I have no personal experience in this since I never tried out any such experiments. I can only rely on what is said in English and American literature where such passage from man to man was carried out in more than six hundred cases, and no increase in virulence was observed. Moreover, the passage from man to man is the normal form of contagion in all infectious diseases which is not transmitted by any intermediate agent. For instance, diphtheria is transmitted only from man to man with no carrier, and meningitis is the same. If a new meningitis epidemic breaks out, then the mortality is, at the beginning, very high. It can be as high, for instance, as fifty per cent in meningitis. Then, after the epidemic has been in any one area for quite a while, the mortality drops. This is a pretty general epidemiological law. That is not true only of meningitis, but of many other contagious diseases; namely, that the epidemic is more dangerous at the beginning than at the end of its course.
Q: Well are you sure that epidemic jaundice is transferred with out any intermediate area agents, is that right: do you know how it is transferred?
A: That is my scientific conviction, which I also stated during my interrogation in Letema. An excerpt of it is here as a document. It says there that we on the bases of our objections were convinced that hepatitis epidemic was not transmitted by a carrier, but that the infection occurs directly from man to man. In case this is important to you I could find you the passage in the document, but perhaps my mention suffices.
Q: Going back to the typhus experiment as an expert, are you prepared to tell this Tribunal it makes no difference in the severity of disease typhus if a man is infected by a bite of a louse in comparison to having two cubic centimeters of typhus infected blood injected intravenously?
A: Certainly. First of all there is a difference in the amount of the infecting agent, and the mass of the infecting agent always plays a great role in any such infectious disease.
Q: Well, when you have two cubic centimeters of typhus infected blood injected into a man's blood stream, might not a scientist expect the disease would be so severe as to break down any protection?
A: One would have to have experience in this respect. Then one is very much inclined to make that assumption, namely that an infection with two cubic centimeters of blood would cause more serious illness than an injection with say one-tenth of a centimeter of infected blood. That is the assumption one would have about this from the very beginning, but what the course of the disease really is, that would have to be observed.
Q: And it would take a simultaneous biting from about a million lice to put two cubic centimeters of infected blood into a man, wouldn't it, doctor?
A: I have never figured that out. Moreover the concentration of the typhus virus in the blood is not precisely known to me.
The lice feces contain the virus in great numbers, whereas in the blood these virus is so sparsely present that its presence cannot even be proved with a microscope, and to that extent the amount of two ccs of blood could not be measured with the amount of feces that a louse produced, because I assume you are referring to that the louse's bite does not transmit typhus at all. The saliva of the louse is not infectious, but apparently you were referring to the infectious feces of the louse which then gets into the louse bite.
Q: Professor, as I understand it, you and the co-defendants, regard the experiments of Strong with plague, and beri-beri involving around 950 men with one death, and the experiments of Blanc in Africa where there were no deaths, and the American malaria experiments where there were no deaths, as being quite a good precedent for the Buchenwald experiments with death around 290, with Schilling's experiments, where another Tribunal has found over 400 cases of deaths, either directly or indirectly, or the experiments of Haagen where the truth before this Tribunal shows 50 deaths, is that right?
A: You have referred to quite a number of cases which are partly absolutely not so. For instance no proof has been given yet that in the case of Haagen's experiments...... (no translation, because of sound system).
Q: Will you repeat your answer please. I got no translation.
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, we might take an adjournment at this time, and the witness might have the intermission to consider his answer.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will be in recess until 1:30.
(Thereupon a recess was taken until 1:30 p.m.)