1947-04-25, #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 Nurnberg, Germany, on 25 April 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.

THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.

The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 1. Military Tribunal 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.

There will be order in the courtroom.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you ascertain if the defendants are all present in the court.

THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the court.

THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General rill note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.

Counsel may proceed.

DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the Defendant Brack): With the agreement of the prosecution, Mr. President, I ask the permission that Viktor Brack be freed from attending this afternoons session because he must conduct preparations with me for the case which is coming up.

THE PRESIDENT: Do I understand that counsel asks the Defendant Brack be excused from this afternoon session after the recess?

DR. FROESCHMANN: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Upon request of counsel for the Defendant Viktor Brack that he be excused from attendance before the Tribunal this afternoon there will be no recess this afternoon. Do you mean the recess this morning, or excused from attendance during the afternoon's session?

DR. FROESCHMANN: No, I ask that the Defendant Brack be excused from this afternoon's session so that I can prepare his case.

THE PRESIDENT: Upon request of counsel for Defendant Brack that he be excused from attendance before the Tribunal f or this afternoon's session, the request is granted. Defendant Brack may be excused from attendance before the Tribunal this afternoon.

DR. FROESCHMANN: Then with the permission of the prosecution I should like to make a further question could the President tell me whether the Tribunal has received my application I put in on the 11th of April, concerning submission of the record since I have so far received no information upon that?

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has received the request of counsel for the Defendant Viktor Brack, and the Tribunal adheres to its former ruling, that the stenographic notes which counsel requests to examine may not be consulted by the Defendant Brack or his counsel; but when the Defendant Brack takes the stand, if in the course of the examination it should appear necessary or proper that these notes be examined, the Tribunal will then reconsider the request to determine whether or not the notes than may be produced in court.

GERHARD ROSE — Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued)

BY MR. McHANEY:

Q: May it please the Tribunal. — Herr Professor, going back to your interpretation of the word infection in Haagen's letters, I would like to ask you if you didn't testify before this Tribunal, with respect to the testimony of the witness Eyer, that Mr. Hardy had indeed done a ridiculous thing when he put the question to her whether she had not meant avirulent typhus virus, rather than avirulent typhus vaccine? And then didn't you go on to say, after she had answered, that she meant avirulent typhus virus? You stated what before had referred to vaccinations had now suddenly become infections. Isn't that exactly what you are trying to do now with the word infection used by Haagen? Instead of meaning what it says, you want to tell the Tribunal it means vaccinations?

A: No, Mr. Prosecutor, I believe there is a rather substantial difference. The witness during her examination by the prosecution spoke of a living vaccine and always used the expression "vaccine". Then at the end she was asked whether instead of vaccine she didn't mean a virulent virus. And since she affirmed this question this changed the contents of all her testimony. The injection of a living avirulent virus is just as much an infection as the injection of a living virulent virus. The difference resides in the fact that one of them is an infection that can be controlled, namely, the infection with avirulent virus that is used as a vaccine. Whereas, when virulent virus is injected, the subsequent developments cannot be controlled but are up to date. Of course, excepting the case that the persons concerned was vaccinated in some way before being injected with the virulent virus. For instance, this happened in the experiments of Blanc and Balthasar where they first infected the subjects with a living avirulent virus which could be designated as a vaccination, and then subsequently they infected with a virulent strain the previously vaccinated persons which did not fall ill because they believed the effects of their vaccines were certain enough that they could undertake this infection with virulent virus.

You will find the same procedure described by Vantemilas in American literature, who tested Zinzer's typhus vaccine. He also first injected the vaccine and afterwards infected with virulent virus in order to test the degree of immunity. You cannot compare a vaccine with a virulent virus, but biologically speaking the injection of a living avirulent vaccine is an infection, that can be seen from the fact that when you vaccinate against small-pox, that, too, is infection with cowpox vaccine, and for ten days after the small-pox vaccination, you can still extract that virus and breed it again from the blood of the person vaccinated, and indeed the virus has actually increased in intensity in the subject's blood. This can be seen only in Strong's experiments who after the inoculation again extracted from the tissue of the experimental animals. These experiments were tried out on animals and not on human beings, — as I say, extracted the virus from their blood and bred them again. In other words, there was an infection, although it was not a typical illness. The plague in the normal form did not develop.

Q: Professor, we, I think, all understand, although we don't have the status of an expert as you, that a vaccination with an avirulent vaccine brings about a minor infection; but I just wanted to observe that you berated Mr. Hardy rather severely for having confused "infection" with "vaccination." That is the word you used, and I submit to you that that is exactly what you are now doing with respect to the word "infection" used by Haagen; and I further put to you that the talk of infecting with the vaccine is a bit of nonsense.

A: I said before that first of all I did not make Hardy appear ridiculous, but that I pointed out that he had confused the concepts "virulent virus" and "avirulent living vaccine," and had used the one for the other. These are two concepts that cannot be interchanged; whereas, the expressions "vaccinate" and "infect" can be exchanged with the avirulent virus; and you, yourself, said that you knew that the use of avirulent living vaccine is a form of infection.

Q: Well, I think we have perused this point far enough, Herr Professor. Let's go back to your visit to Buchenwald in March 1942. Did you talk to any of the inmates who were the subjects of these experiments which you saw there?

A: I cannot recall having talked with the experimental subjects. Most of them were seriously ill. Two experimental subjects were brought to me, one after the other, who were not sick, which I already mentioned. They had gone through their typhus sickness before being sentenced in the pre-trial prison, but again I cannot recall that I actually spoke with these two persons. So far as I recall, I spoke with the doctor in charge and didn't speak very much with him either. I spoke, for the most part, with the prisoners who were working on this whole material in the laboratory. That is the way I remember that visit today.

Q: So we can assume that you didn't ask any of the subjects if they had volunteered or if they had been condemned to death; or if they had been condemned to death, for what crime? Is that right?

A: I certainly did not conduct any such conversation, or at any rate, I cannot recall any.

Q: When did you first meet Ding?

A: I cannot remember any personal conversation with Dr. Ding where we talked together. I certainly must have seen Ding when he read his paper at the consulting conference, and then it can be seen from the documents that Ding was present at the dedication of the Typhus Institute at Lemberg. There is mention of an official trip for that purpose, and on this occasion, I read a paper on delousing. This paper is mentioned in my list of publications and was published in the Reich Health Paper. Since the number of those who participated in this typhus conference at the occasion of the dedication of the institute was not very large, perhaps 100 or 150, I must really have seen Ding on this occasion, that is, if the entry in the diary is correct; but I cannot remember it and I certainly didn't speak with him then.

Q: And those are the only two personal contacts which you had with Ding?

A: Those are the only two times in which I can remember having had personal contact with Ding.

Q: Did you ever correspond with him?

A: I can recall no direct correspondence nor any indirect correspondence through official channels with Ding.

Q: Now, Professor, I am having some difficulty with these entries in the Ding Diary. On Page 39 of Document Book No. 12, with which I am sure you are familiar, we find the experimental series. That is, in the entry for 9 August '42, we have a description of the research series No. II, in the course of which 20 persons were vaccinated with the vaccine cantzcuzino, which was made available by Professor Rose, who received it from Navy Dr. Professor Ruge from Bucharest. And on the next page, you will see that subsequently, all the experimental persons were infected with typhus, and that as a result of the experiment, four persons died. Now isn't it a fact that you made this vaccine available to Ding for that series of experiments?

A: I have already discussed this question in my direct examination. I pointed out that those with whom Ding was corresponding on typhus questions have been listed by two witnesses; namely by Dr. Kogon and by Dr. Balachowski, whose testimony is to be found in an affidavit. Neither witness mentioned my name among those with whom Ding was corresponding, but both witnesses do mention Dr. Ruge as one of the persons with whom Ding was in correspondence. I also discussed this Romanian vaccine in my direct examination. I can say nothing precise either nor positive about this vaccine; namely, whether this vaccine passed through my office during the war. It is quite possible because many such typhus vaccines went via my desk and I described in my direct examination just what I did with these vaccines.

Q: What did you do with this vaccine that you got from Ruge? That is the important point right now.

A: I have already said that I do not know for certain whether I ever received this vaccine from Ruge at all. I can only emphasize the fact that Ding reported on the testing of this vaccine at the Third Consulting Conference. Consequently, I had my showdown with him. At that time he said nothing to the effect that this vaccine, on the testing which he had reported, had originated with me. He then published a paper in the periodical for hygiene and infectious diseases, and in this paper, too, there is a report on the testing of the Rumanian vaccine. In this paper a footnote states, expressly, that he had received a particular virus from Prof. Gildemeister. In other words, he is telling his sources here. In the case of the Rumanian vaccine he says nothing to that effect, and Dr. Kogon, too, testified here that Ding concerned himself with our showdown in Berlin when he had returned to Buchenwald; but here, again, he did not say that one of the tested vaccines had gone through my hands.

Q: Now, Professor, you are talking all around the point. I am not interested in what Kogon said, or what he said at this meeting. I am asking you the question. Did you send this vaccine to Ding, directly or indirectly?

A: I have already answered that question. I said that I cannot remember at all, ever having had such a Rumanian vaccine in my hands, but that there is a possibility that I did.

Q: And if there is a possibility that you had the vaccine in your hands, is it not also possible, as it says in the Ding diary, that you sent the vaccine to Ding to be tested in Buchenwald?

A: I think that is altogether improbable, since I had no direct contacts with Ding at all.

Q: Did you have any indirect contacts with him? After all, Professor, we are talking about one of the most fundamental issues in the case. If you sent this vaccine to Mrugowsky, or directly to Ding, or through anybody else, after you had been in Buchenwald, in March 1942, I submit to you that you became a party to the crime.

A: First of all, I told you that I do not know whether or not I ever had this Rumanian vaccine. Now, taking the hypothetical case that I did have this vaccine, and handled this vaccine as I handled all other vaccines that I had during the course of the war — namely, passed it on to other typhus researchers: now, I never sent any vaccines to Ding; and, assuming that one of these typhus research men had connections with Ding, and passes on such a vaccine that he receives from me, that does not mean that I provided the incentive for that. All the vaccines tested in Buchenwald are, with very few exceptions — were produced, with few exceptions, by other people —

Q: That is all very true.

A: — and you cannot make the manufacturers responsible for what is subsequently done with these vaccines. Nor can you make people responsible who happened to have the vaccine in their hands, but who had neither the intention, nor the opportunity, to issue any assignments to Dr. Ding.

Q: Now, Professor, it depends on what the people knew, who supplied these vaccines, as to whether or not they are responsible. Now, there is no question about your knowledge. You were in Buchenwald. You saw what was being done. So it therefore becomes quite important to know what you did with this vaccine from Ruge. Now, is it possible you sent it to Mrugowsky, who you knew to be the superior of Ding?

A: I think that is highly improbable. As I have said, I cannot remember this whole affair, and, consequently, can only speak of possibilities; but I put in one document here on the Ipsen vaccine, and it can be seen from the list of — from the distribution list — what sort of institutes I sent it on to, and neither Mr. Mrugowsky nor Dr. Ding are mentioned here.

Q: As I understand it, you don't exclude the possibility that you sent this vaccine to Mrugowsky, and Mrugowsky sent it to Ding?

A: No, I just said that I consider that highly improbable.

Q: Well, if you sent vaccine to Mrugowsky, and asked him to test it, just what did you think he would do with the vaccine, unless he sent it to Buchenwald?

A: I reiterate, that I consider it highly improbable that I sent it to Mrugowsky; moreover, Mrugowsky was a hygienist, like the rest of us.

Q: Well, the witness Frau Block said you didn't sent anything to Mrugowsky. How credible is her testimony? Do you think she is just on probabilities too, or do you think she knows what she is talking about?

A: Frau Block certainly testified to the best of her knowledge as to what she knew about my correspondence; and, of course, it is very valuable to me, what she said, because you are asking me — after my files have been taken away from me after years and years — that I should give information about every letter that I received or wrote in the last six years; that that is not possible, perhaps even you will grant. Particularly, in the case of a, man who had to write very many letters. And, of course, my secretary's corroborating evidence was very valuable to me, who also remembered what she had done during the four years that she was employed by myself, so far as correspondence was concerned. There was correspondence, of course, now and then with Mrugowsky: for example, Mrugowsky concerned himself with publishing epidemiological predictions, and I corresponded with Mrugowsky on the development of a hot air delousing machine, and the detailing of an engineer who belonged to the Luftwaffe, so that he could work on this for the Waffen-SS.

Q: Now, Professor, we are not dealing with any miscellaneous correspondence now: we are dealing with a very fundamental matter, — and with a man who had been in Buchenwald in March 1942, and had seen what had gone on, and with a man who objected to Ding's experiments in May 1943; and I should think that such a man would be pretty clear in his own mind about whether he had ever supplied any vaccines to the murder camp of Buchenwald.

I shouldn't think there would be any doubt in your mind.

A: I am quite clear in my mind that here, in this court, we are not concerned with the ten or fifteen thousand letters I wrote and received during the war, but are concerned only with a few of the letters from that great number. This does nothing to change the fact that these few letters are only individual letters from the vast mass of that correspondence, and that my capacities of recollection embrace these letters to the same extent, but to no greater extent, than they embrace the other perhaps 14,999 letters in which the Tribunal is not interested.

Q: You cannot remember whether you were connected, directly or indirectly, with the typhus experiments in Buchenwald — is that what you want to say? That is something that slipped your mind?

A: I have testified to this at great length. It took almost a half a day — namely, as to what I knew about these typhus experiments in Buchenwald.

Q: But you have not testified, and you still do not testify, whether you sent this vaccine you got from Ruge to Ding, either through Mrugowsky directly or indirectly; you evade the point; you say you can't remember. I think, then, the Tribunal can take the statements from the Ding Diary, that you did.

A: I can only toll you that I do not even remember the Bucharest vaccine itself. Direct correspondence with Ding is something that I really can't remember. But I must take into consideration the possibility that you are on the point of bringing up some letter to the effect that Dr. Ding sent me some application — a reprint of a paper of his.

Q: I see.

A: And whenever such a piece of correspondence turns up here, then I have laid myself open to you and have testified falsely, and of course such a possibility as that does exist.

Q: Did you get a report from Ding? I am interested to hear about that. You mentioned having received some sort of publication from Ding; let's hear about that; did you get one?

A: No, no, I just said — I was a well known bacteriologist, and many people sent me reprints of their publications. I really can't say anything about this for sure; I would have to take a look through my collection of reprints which contain about ten to twenty thousand individual papers, and in the case of such reprints it is often the case that we don't read them all because one doesn't have the time, but one simply send out a prepared printed card acknowledging receipt of the reprint. These are all possibilities I have to take into consideration, and consequently I have to be very circumspect in my testimony here in order not to lay myself open on account of some stupid matter; for instance, mentioning the example of my correspondence with Schilling in 1941: I had testified to the best of my memory that I did not correspond directly with Schilling during his stay in Italy, and the experiments that Schilling conducted in Italy are not a charge in the indictment, so that I really had no reason to deny a correspondence with Schilling in Florence. Now, since I was so incautious, as to say that I had no correspondence with him in 1941, you then produced a letter from Schilling's files which was dated 1941; and then after I had seen this letter, I, of course, recalled the affair. Now, since that already happened to me once that I committed such an error in memory, I have become a little more cautious gradually, and I do not deny with apodictic certainty matters which are theoretically possible.

Q: Professor, you don't want to get so cautious now that you admit the possibility of having participated in murder. Now, as I understand your direct testimony —

A: No, that possibility I do not admit.

Q: Now, as I understand your direct testimony, you remember you get the vaccine from Ruge; that you experimented on yourself to see whether it contained a living virus, and then you returned it to him.

A: No, that is a misunderstanding. I stated that I do remember for certain that I received one consignment of vaccine from Ruge, but that was not the Bucharest vaccine, and I remember this consignment of vaccine for sure because there were a few peculiarities in this matter. Ruge had asserted that there was a living virus in this vaccine because the reactions to the vaccine were particularly severe on the people on whom he tested it. I looked at the label on this vaccine, and I ascertained that this originated from the same institute whose vaccine I had used two years before to vaccinate the medical personnel working on the resettlement. Thereupon I gave myself a double dose of this vaccine, and saw that the reaction was a perfectly normal one. Then I sent the vaccine to the manufacturer who again tested it, and also reported that the vaccine was perfectly normal. On the basis of these two reports the vaccine was again made available for general use, but as I said, this was not the Bucharest vaccine because I have put in a document here, namely, instructions to the troop doctors in the Luftwaffe, saying that the Bucharest although troop proved its efficacy in Buchenwald, was not to be used by the Luftwaffe because the results of this testing at Buchenwald were at that time not known to the Luftwaffe. To be sure, through Ding's report to the consulting conference, and through his publications in the periodical for hygiene, we found out about this testing, so that thereafter there was no reason for not using this vaccine; but I do not know whether or not it was used in individual cases alter that; at any rate, I found no directive to that effect.

Q: Well, how could you write a letter telling the medical officers in the Luftwaffe not to use the Bucharest vaccine, although it was being tested in Buchenwald, unless you knew it was being tested in Buchenwald?

A: I remember no such letter.

Q: May be I misunderstood you; I thought that was just what you said.

A: No, no, I said just the opposite. If you understood that, it must be an error on the part of the interpreter — strange as that may seen. I shall repeat so this is perfectly clear. In evidence is a document, namely, Directive to Troop Doctors of the Luftwaffe in which ten different typhus vaccines are listed and that are permissible for use in the Luftwaffe. The Bucharest vaccine is not included in that list, and this list was published a long time after, according to Ding's Diary, the testing of this Bucharest vaccine had been concluded and the reports on it had been sent to Berlin. I conclude from this that when this directive was issued, I could not have know of this testing in Buchenwald because the testing in Buchenwald had proved that the vaccine was a good one, that is to say, had I know that we had another good vaccine on our hands, then I should certainly have appended it to the list as No. 11.

Q: Now, how did it happen that Ruge, a Navy officer, would send you typhus vaccine?

A: That is to be explained by the fact that the Fleet Physician, Ruge, was detailed to the Luftwaffe for three years by the Navy -correction, two years — he was consulting hygienist with the Air Fleet 4, and Air Fleet 4 covered the southern area in the east, which included Romania. After Ruge's release to the Luftwaffe had come to an end, which I believe was around 1944, Ruge was detailed to the army and remained in Roumania.

Q: Now, do you recall telling me in an interrogation on 31 October 1946 that you gave this vaccine, which you received from Ruge, to Gildemeister?

A: That is quite possible that we discussed that possibility in an interrogation.

Q: But now you do not remember whether you got the Bucharest vaccine at all?

A: I have said that I cannot testify with certainty on that matter. I have repeatedly said that there is a possibility; you stated to me as a fact at that time that I had this Bucharest vaccine, and then I told you the ways how I sent such vaccine on to other people, but I most assuredly did not tell you of my own knowledge in this interrogation that I had received this Romanian vaccine from Professor Ruge.

Q: Can you remember ever having sent a vaccine to Mrugowsky?

A: No, I cannot remember that.

Q: And you are supported in that by Frau Block in that testimony?

A: Yes, I believe she said something to that effect.

Q: Well, what he out the Copenhagen vaccine that you got; you got that in 1944 — that's only about two and a half years ago.

Do you —

A: You are in error, Mr. Prosecutor — 1943. I already put in the document concerning this.

Q: I remember, I remember.

A: That is in a supplementary document, Document 46, Exhibit No. 20, and also —

Q: I remember, I remember.

A: The document of the Behring Works in Marburg: both these documents mentioned 24 September 1943 as the date, and the date of my report was the 29th of September, 1943, If I had not been able to get a hold of these documents, then I really should not have been in a position to tell you the year in which these events occurred, but now I do have the documents and do have the opportunity to refresh my memory on the basis of these documents.

Q: Well, let's look at the other entry in the Ding Diary which affects this. That is on page 49 of the Prosecution Document Book #12. Do you remember that? The experiment that started on the 8th of March 1944? The first sentence is:

suggested by Oberstarzt [Colonel, Medical Corps.] of the air Corps, Professor Rose, the vaccine Copenhagen (Ipsen-Murine vaccine).

A: Yes, I have this entry before me now and I have also put in the documents that refer to this, including my official report in which there is mention of the suggestion I made in connection with the Copenhagen Vaccine.

Q: Well, do you concede that there is a possibility that this entry is correct?

A: Yes, if Ding is here referring to my official report and referring to it as a suggestion, then the entry is correct, but I believe that if an impartial person reads through this official report he would not see in it a suggestion for experiments on human beings. That is a question of interpretation.

Q: Well, did you send that report to him? I thought the testimony was to the effect that the Copenhagen vaccine only went to about four people and none of the four included either Haagen or Ding or Mrugowsky. Now, are you suggesting the possibility that you did send it to Ding?

A: No, you've completely misunderstood me. It is just the opposite that I wanted to say. The report is available and the list of distributes is in the list to whom the report was sent. Neither Ding nor Mrugowsky is mentioned in that list. Consequently, you cannot understand me to have said that I sent this report to Ding.

Q: No, I didn't but Haagen is not included in that list either, as I recall, is he?

A: Your recollection has deceived you. Haagen is listed there or his Strasbourg Institute. Let me just find the document. This is Document 22, Exhibit 21. The list of those to whom it was distributed is on pages 18 and 19.

First, Robert Koch Institute, attention: Professor Gildemeister; then, second, is the State Institute for Experimental Therapy, Geheimrat [Privy Councilor] Otto; thirdly, Institute for Typhus and Virus Research in Cracow, Professor Eyer; fourth, Hygiene Institute of the University of Strasbourg, Professor Haagen; and then, Behring Institute for Typhus Research in Lemberg, #5; and sixth, Behring Works in Marburg on the Lahn.

Q: What's the date of that?

A: 29th of September, 1943.

Q: Did you later send this vaccine to Ding or Mrugowsky for testing in Buchenwald?

A: No, I have already testified hero that if I had been asked about this directly before Frau Block testified I should have said that I had sent the whole vaccine sample to Professor Schreiber. But, in the meantime, Frau Block has testified here and this assumption on my part was incorrect and the samples that came from Copenhagen were divided up into several parts and sent to several institutes. I consider it possible — I consider it likely that Frau Block's testimony on this matter is more reliable than mine would have been because she had less to do than I did and was concerned especially with the sending off of such things, so it is probable that her recollection of this is more precise than mine.

Q: Well, how can there be any doubt about it? Don't you have this document here which tells exactly what you did with the Copenhagen vaccine?

A: I beg your pardon. I didn't quite understand the question.

Q: Well, I don't understand how there can be any question about what happened to the Copenhagen vaccine in the face of this document that you have submitted?

A: This document states what suggestions I made in connection with this Copenhagen vaccine and with regard to the vaccines themselves I suggested they be used on persons who were in especial danger.

Those persons in especial danger — people who were in particular danger of being infected with typhus — this was a generally current technical expression and the medical officers, both in the civil administration and in the military medical service, were familiar with it, and it is used not only in connection with typhus but in connection with other diseases also. The phrase is used "persons in especial danger ", for example, only sewage workers are vaccinated or minors or people where there is a particular pestilence of rats in the case of the Weil Disease. These people I have just mentioned are in especial danger and are consequently vaccinated whereas other people are not.

Q: Professor, let's not wander off the point. I am not interested in all of this, but do I understand you to say that a sample of the Copenhagen vaccine was sent to each one of those men in the distribution list, along with the letter?

A: No, I don't believe so because the sample couldn't have been large enough for that. As I remember it, the amount was only large enough to suffice for one consignment. Now, Frau Block has said it was divided into three portions.

Q: And who get the portions?

A: I don't remember precisely what Frau Block testified to that effect. I should have to look it up in the record.

Q: We know that Haagen got one of the portions, don't we?

A: That I do not know. It cannot be seen from the correspondence. At any rate, he did net make use of this Copenhagen vaccine or, at least, never reported on it if he did. So there was only correspondence on the question whether this Copenhagen vaccine was to be used as a parallel series in the experiments that were testing to alleviate the reaction of his subjects to the living avirulent vaccine. That interested him particularly because this Copenhagen vaccine was a dead vaccine from murine virus and there was no other such vaccine in Germany, bur Professor Haagen succeeded in weakening this vaccine so that there was no reaction whatsoever and he did so before carrying out his series of experiments, and this meant that he was no longer interested in the Copenhagen vaccine and there was no further correspondence on the subject.

I have attempted to inquire of the Institute at Copenhagen whether he received consignments of their vaccine. That was denied. The Copenhagen Institute believes that this Vaccine was sent only to Danish and Norwegian doctors.

Q: Now, Professor, without pursuing this point much further, how could you suggest to Haagen that he Carry out an experiment with the Copenhagen vaccine unless you had sent him a sample of the Copenhagen vaccine?

A: Any time he wanted to he could write a letter to Copenhagen and ask for a sample. He certainly knew of Ipsen — both of them were research men in typhus, and I am quite sure that they exchange reprints of their scientific publications, In fact, Haagen had the chance to visit Ipsen personally because he was then consulting hygienist with the Air Fleet Reich and Copenhagen fell within the jurisdiction of that Air Fleet Reich. In other words, if the matter interested him, he could have made an official trip to Copenhagen within the framework of his normal activities. He simply would have had to apply for permission to go and take a look at something up there and he would have got permission.

Q: Well, Can you tell the Tribunal what happened to this Copenhagen vaccine? I don't know myself. I haven't found out what happened to it. You got it, but who did you give it to?

A: I said that before. If I were relying on my own memory I should have said that he sent the vaccine, the whole amount of it to Professor Schreiber along with the main report that I wrote. However, Frau Block corrected my memory in this matter to the extent of saying that the vaccine was broken down into three portions which were sent to three offices, including Professor Gildemeister; but as I said, I am not in a position to state that of my own knowledge. In this whole examination we find ourselves in a most unfortunate position in that individual letters and individual consignments which were simply single events in the course of an enormously extensive official activity and were made the subject of inquiry, and we are simply not in a position to refer to our own files or other persons we worked with. Of course it makes a poor impression if you cannot give a straight yes or no answer to a point as important as this, and I am quite clear about that, but that can be explained from the whole position in which I find myself. For two years I have been in custody with no access to any of my files, but you have my files. You got these letters from Schilling from my own file cabinet and you must have the documents. Why are you asking me? You have these documents. You got the letters that you are speculating on the existence of here from my files, because all of these letters must have been in the same drawer where the letters were found that Schilling wrote to me.

Q: Then you know the letters exist too, don't you, Doctor; it is not difficult to tell the truth. The difficult thing is to tell just about half the truth or none at all, and hope to get by with it. Now, you very well know whether you sent any of this vaccine to Mrugowsky or Ding to be tested at Buchenwald, just as well as you well remember that 40 years ago you ran over a man with an automobile and killed him. We are not dealing with miscellaneous letters. We are dealing with unique letters concerning murder. I am asking you to tell the truth about it. If you gave any vaccine to Mrugowsky and Ding, Copenhagen or Bucharest vaccine you would remember it?

A: To the best of my knowledge I have answered all these questions here. I never ran over anybody 40 years ago with an automobile, but I grant you I should probably remember it had I done so, and if I had killed anyone two years age I would certainly remember that too, but correspondence on typhus vaccines that fell within the framework of my whole official activity I cannot remember any more clearly than I can remember the other 15,000 letters that I received and sent, and in addition to that an enormous pile of documents that went through my hands everyday. You are asking somewhat too much of me. That I issued no orders for Buchenwald and could not issue any orders for Buchenwald in view of the general situation, and my position, that is clear.

Q: Certainly that is clear, and it is ridiculous for you to make the statements, but it not so clear for your knowledge that Buchenwald existed and that Ding was testing vaccines there and using avirulent typhus to infect people; it is not so clear with that knowledge whether you sent vaccines there to be tested, and those are the questions I am directing to you and getting no answer. The Ding diary says you did send them where and as I understand your testimony you admit the possibility that you did it?

A: No, I have expressly said that I do not grant that possibility.

Q: You remember the testimony of Kogon, Kogon testified that he remembers very well when Ding got the letter, he didn't say whether from you or Mrugowsky, suggesting Copenhagen vaccine be tested in Buchenwald, and he was very elated; now how do you explain the testimony of Kogon?

A: I should recommend that the Prosecution read through the record of Kogon's testimony. The matter is set forth there materially differently. Kogon said nothing to the effect that Ding had ever received a letter from me. On the contrary in discussing Ding's correspondence he purposes omitted my name. Moreover Kogon said nothing to the effect that I had given the assignment that the Copenhagen Vaccine be tested in Buchenwald.

He testified here that Ding had expressed his satisfaction that a vaccine was to be tested to my suggestion, and the text of this suggestion, which was directed neither to Ding nor to Mrugowsky I have been able to bring in here as a document. By accident one of the six copies of that report could be found, and I deny that that is a suggestion for human being experiments in Buchenwald, but I do admit that a man like Ding, who hated me so violently because of my criticism of his work, as Kogon here described it, and hesitated to repeat the phrasing that Ding used to describe me, as I say he did say that Ding was glad that he had received a vaccine to which I had drawn his attention as something particularly important.

Q: It is the only important —

THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment Counsel.

The Tribunal will be in recess.

(Thereupon a recess was taken.)