1947-05-06, #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 6 May 1947, 10930, Justice Beals presiding.

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

The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.

Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.

There will be order in the court.

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

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

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

The Tribunal has another question to propound to the witness.

HANS ROMBERG — Resumed.

EXAMINATION.

BY JUDGE SEBRING:

Q: Dr. Romberg, we were speaking yesterday about the experiments or tests that were conducted by Dr. Rascher and you say that those tests or experiments were under a separate order from Himmler and had nothing to do with the Ruff-Romberg experiments. How many tests did you see Rascher make, either while you were present or while you were in the proximity of the low pressure chamber apparatus?

A: Starting from the middle of April approximately — that is, from the time that I knew about these experiments and he told me about them — he experimented often, referring to the clarification of questions, but these experiments did not lead to any fatal cases.

Q: I understand that, but how many such tests would you think that he ran from the middle of April on, at least while you were there.

A: I saw directly myself or, at least, I was in his proximity when he experimented daily or almost daily. It is very difficult for me to estimate the number of experiments because I didn't pay any particular attention to them at the time. I am sure, however, that between fifty and one hundred experiments were carried out.

Q: That is, from the middle of April until you left there?

A: Yes.

Q: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Has counsel for defendant Ruff any further questions to propound to the witness?

A: No.

THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defense counsel have any questions to propound to the witness. Counsel for the defendant may propound questions to the witness if the answers given to the questions propounded to the defendant by the Court affect his client. Are there any other questions?

DR. VORWERK (Defense counsel for defendant Romberg): Dr. Romberg you replied yesterday to a question of Judge Sebring to the effect that, before the beginning of the Dachau experiments, similar experiments on the same subject were already carried out by you in Adlershof during which you used seven experimental subjects, who were members of your Institute at Adlershof. You further said that these experiments extended over a period of approximately four months and that, during those four months, approximately two hundred such experiments were carried out, during which you reached an altitude of seventeen kilometers.

A: Yes, that's right. These were the explosive decompression experiments.

Q: Did the experimental subjects that you used there exercise any other activity but being experimental subjects.

A: Naturally, and that was the difficulty with our work. That was one of the reasons why we accepted the offer at Dachau. All these persons had their normal jobs to do.

Ruff was the head of the Institute. I had my own activity to fulfill and that was the case with every one else too. The experiments were continuing during our time of duty. At the same time, another difficulty arose because of the fact that we couldn't concentrate on one series of experiments for any long period of time but whenever good flying weather came about we had to carry out a number of experiments in airplanes for several days running. When there was bad weather, we concentrated our work on the low pressure chamber and the centrifugal chamber.

Q: Were other experiments but these two hundred altitude experiments carried out with these experimental subject?

A: Yes, certainly.

Q: Mr. President, I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for prosecution may cross-examine.

RECROSS-EXAMINATION.

BY MR. HARDY:

Q: May it please Your Honors. Dr. Romberg will you kindly explain to the Tribunal, in German medical terms, just what a pathologist is and what his duties are?

A: A pathologist is a physician who has specialized in the changes which are caused by illnesses in the human body and which are determined after death has occurred. To examine these matters carefully is the task of the pathologist.

Q: Then, in order to examine these matters, is it necessary for him to perform autopsies?

A: Yes, in order to examine these matters he has to carry out an autopsy.

MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honor.

DR. VORWERK: I have no further questions, Mr. President, and this concludes the evidence on behalf of the defendant Dr. Romberg. With the approval of the High Tribunal, I should like to reserve the right to submit a number of affidavits which may arrive in the future.

THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may submit affidavits when they are in proper form to be submitted to the Tribunal before the close of the case.

Defendant Romberg will resume his place in the dock.

The Tribunal will now proceed with the case against the defendant Weltz.

DR. WILLE (Defense Counsel for defendant Weltz): Mr. President, with the approval of the High Tribunal, I shall start to submit evidence on behalf of the defendant Weltz. I may perhaps point out the subject of my evidence. The indictment does not charge Professor Weltz to have participated personally and directly in the Dachau experiments conducted by Dr. Rascher. The Prosecution does charge, however, that he participated in the work and is co-responsible for the work of Rascher, Romberg, and Ruff by giving the inventive for these experiments and, for that reason, would also have to bear responsibility for the experiments. The prosecution also believes to have some points regarding freezing and conspiracy with which to charge him, without giving further particulars. I should like to ask you that I be permitted to submit my evidence in the following sequence: At first, I should like to ask the Tribunal to permit me to call the defendant Weltz personally into the witness stand. In addition, the prosecution has approved that the witness Dr. Wendt from Karlsruhe be permitted to testify here. Wendt is the former assistant of Professor Weltz. Furthermore, in order to submit proof, I have submitted two document books to the Tribunal, including twenty-two documents. These documents contain, among others, the affidavits by eleven witnesses, mostly co-workers or professional colleagues of Professor Weltz. Before I start the direct examination of the defendant, I shall read an affidavit of Dr. Werner Knothe at Karlsruhe. Reading this affidavit will make it unnecessary for me to ask the defendant about various phases of his professional life and will, therefore, contribute towards the shortening of the proceedings. I am now handing to the Tribunal the document Weltz #14, which I shall designate as Exhibit #1. I shall only read this document where Professor Knothe mentions the professional life of Professor Weltz.

Professor Knothe was the President of the German X-Ray Association and, for that reason, is a person well in a position to give a characterization of the defendant Weltz. I quote:

Georg August Weltz ranks among the first X-Ray scientists of Germany; his works, particularly on X-Ray physiology, have been recognized at home and abroad to the same extent, and have communicated principles which will never lose their value. Weltz holds a leading position in the field of gastro-intestinal hymography, and the development of hymography can never be mentioned without consideration of his fundamental works. It is a remarkable fact that these works were carried out by him in his private X-Ray institute, which he had fitted up as a proper scientific institute. In recognition of his scientific achievements, he was elected to the board of directors, and the Advisory Council of the German X-Ray Association. In 1936 and 1938 he was sent at Vienna, Prague and Turin, to the meetings of the Austrian, Czechoslovakian, and Italian X-Ray Associations, as official representative of the Association. In 1937, he was at the international X-Ray Congress in Chicago, as official representative of the German X-Ray Association. In 1938, Weltz was appointed Head of the German X-Ray congress at Munich. The form of appreciation Weltz experienced as a scientist and as a moral personality from experts, can best be illustrated by the fact that he was offered the post of Head of the Association in 1938, by Professor Frik, then President of the X-Ray German Association and repeatedly by me in the following years, as the last President of the Association, with full consent of the Board of Directors. He, however, always refused it. Appreciation of Weltz's personality extended far beyond the limits of the German X-Ray Association, to other scientific associations, of which I shall only mention the Association for Surgery, for Circulation Research, and for Internal Medicine.

A fact by which Weltz especially distinguished himself was his constant readiness to help in scientific as well as in personal matters. After a visit to his institute one was always enriched in knowledge; he did not refrain from giving the results of his current scientific works, even if they had not yet been published, and he was pleaded if he was able to exercise an inspiring and stimulating effect on others.

As a pilot during the first world war and as a balloon pilot he had already been engaged in aviation medical problems from a very early date. On account of this aptitude of his he was appointed lecturer of aviation medicine at Munich. He established a department for aviation medicine at the Physiological Institute at Munich, for which he himself furnished the funds to a great extent and which he fitted up with his own apparatus. The work carried out in this institute was also on a high level.

Mr. President, I have finished the affidavit of Knothe referring to some characterizations of Professor Weltz. I should now like to ask you to permit me to call him to the witness stand.

THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Georg Weltz may take the witness stand.

MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, may I inquire of counsel how long he anticipates the defendant will be on direct examination?

DR. WILLE: Mr. President, this is extremely difficult to say. It depends how Professor Weltz will react to my questions. I personally estimate it to last one to two days.

MR. HARDY: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: The defendant George Weltz will take the witness stand.

GEORG AUGUST WELTZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:

BY JUDGE SEBRING:

Q: Held up your right hand and be sworn.

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

You may be seated.

[NOTE: The trial transcript picks up again immediately after the witness was sworn in with an answer, but without the question to which he was responding.]

A: My father was a pharmacist in Ludwigshafen. My grandfather was a physician. A brother of my father was also a physician. I visited various schools in Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. Nothing of any importance can be told about that period of time. I engaged in a great amount of sport, and in the year 1908 I entered the German championship for rowing. In the year of 1908 I was graduated from the Gymnasium and I subsequently studied medicine. The reasons which moved me to the study of medicine at that time I can no longer state exactly today. At that time, as was the case with most students, I had a very incomplete conception of the profession of a physician. I had a great number of wide interests at that time. I had traveled a great deal. In the year of 1911 I visited the United States of America for the first time. I was interested in art and philosophy. At that time all the branches of medicine seemed equally interesting to me. They were all new. I studied at Jena, Kiel, Konenigsberg, and Munich, where I had a great number of excellent teachers. I don't recall that anyone of these teachers exercised any particular influence on me. In the year of 1913 I took my state examination and went to Berlin to the Charite, and I worked with Kuelps at the Medical Polyclinic, and later with Franz at the X-ray Polyclinic. Around that time I learned to fly. I have the International Pilots Certificate No. 824.

As soon as the First World War started I was attached to the Flying Battalion Schleissheim. I participated in the First World War partly as a pilot and partly as a physician. At that time I was concerning myself for the first time with aviation medical problems. The problems concerned the selection of fliers which at that time was an entirely new field. Then we compiled accident statistics and works of similar nature. After the War had ended I went to Romberg, to Munich, to the first medical clinic, and after half a year I went to Sauerbruch to the Surgical Clinic. Working with Sauerbruch I gained the first real conception of what a physician is, and what the medical profession means. My X-ray teachers there were Schaul and Grassei. While with Sauerbruch I saw the human attitude towards a physician.

Sauerbruch placed the patient in the center of interest. He represented the point of view that the medical profession was an art and not a technical skill. He said it was an art in which one had to be talented and he always pointed out that when treating a patient science would have to remain a servant. That, of course, does not exclude that in other fields science becomes an end in itself.

In the year 1923 I settled down in Munich as a specialist in X-ray work, and I want to mention two researchers whom I was fortunate to know, and who exercised some influence on my trend of work. First was the Dutch researcher Storn van Leewen, S-t-o-r-n v-a-n L-e-e-w-e-n. Storn was a physiologist and his special field was the Estmire Branch of study. I visited Storn frequently and we worked together. Our interests then extended to climatic diseases. We took balloon rides together studying that problem. He died in the year 1933. The other significant researcher who was a friend of mine and who exercised influence in my work was Phillipp Romser, a physiologist at the University of Munich. Romser encouraged me to start a little aviation medical department at his Institute, and I have much to thank him for scientifically. I was practicing X-ray physician and collaborated with a theoretical physician, and this is a practice which I followed in the future, prompted by the consideration that the isolation of the individual branches of medicine constitutes a weakness in itself which can be bridged over by such collaboration.

Q: If I understand your statements correctly your main profession is a specialist in X-ray work.

A: Yes.

Q: And you were active at your private institute in Munich?

A: Yes, ever since 1923.

Q: Could you please tell the Tribunal a little more about your professional activity and your memberships in various medical associations?

A: I was a member of the German X-ray Association for Internal Medicine, Association for Research of Circulation, a Member of the Austrian X-ray Association, a member of the Italian X-ray Association, the German Physiological association, the Munich Physicians Society, the Lilienthal Association, and I think this covers all of them.

DR. WILLE: Mr. President, subsequent to these statements of the defendant Weltz I submitted a list of his scientific publications. This list is contained in document Weltz No. 1, and is Document No. 1. I should like to offer it as Exhibit No. 2. This list is certified by Professor Weltz's secretary, who actually compiled it. There are 50 publications of Weltz himself and 41 by his collaborators.

Q: Professor Weltz, I shall have this document handed to you; could you confirm under oath that it represents a complete list of your scientific publications?

A: I tried to check this list as far as it was possible for me to check it and as far as I know it is complete.

Q: Would you be good enough to tell the Tribunal with what your work was concerned?

A: The largest part of my work is of an X-ray nature. I tried to embark on new roads. X-ray work so far had been morphology, which is to say anatomical study of living human being. I tried by using new methods to start an X-ray physiology, that is to say X-ray which does not bother so much with the form of the organs, but with the functions of the organs, consequently I applied methods which concerned themselves with known methods, or kymography and cinematography. Generally I never was interested in the rareness of the disease, but I rather tried to follow the physiological basic reasons of any given disease, and one can see that looking at a number of my published works. Another part of my work concerned itself with aviation medicine.

Q: Now, if I understand you correctly, your work is partly concerned with the field of practical medicine, and partly with scientific realization of that medicine. Didn't you also work on negative subjects, subjects of extermination, subjects as they were designated by General Taylor when he was speaking here?

A: No, I never worked on any such subjects.

Q: Did you concern yourself with politics, sterilization, euthanasia, did you write about these subjects?

A: No, I never published anything.

Q: Later you were active as a lecturer and as a professor at the University of Munich; what subjects were you professor in?

A: I was an extraordinary professor for X-ray physiology.

Q: And how can you explain your activity in aviation medicine at the University?

A: In the year 1935 I received a lecture assignment for aviation medicine at the University of Munich. I lectured two hours a week, and as I already said I had instituted a small experimental department at the Physiology Institute of the University of Munich, which at that time supported me in my work, and this was the occasion for me to qualify as a lecturer.

Q: What was the purpose of your scientific travels?

A: You mean my scientific balloon travels?

Q: Yes.

A: Partly in order to do research in the South Wind problem, mainly from the medical point of view, then there were a number of meteorological questions which had to be clarified, for instance the formation of glorioles. Partly these were sport travels.

Q: Did you connect any military purposes with these travels?

A: No, the balloon at that time had no longer any military significance and this was agreed upon by all circles of the air-force.

Q: Would you briefly describe you activities as a lecturer in aviation medicine?

A: As lecturer in aviation medicine, I started to lecture two hours every week and I used my time, which I could spare from my practice, to work in the experimental department, which I had created. We did there what is designated as basic research work and were concerned with the basic questions concerning aviation medicine and the effect of the lack of oxygen.

Q: And arriving from this activity, the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich was created?

A: Partly, yes. The Institute for Aviation Medicine during the war was a military institute. My private department at the Physiological Institute was an institution of the University and at first had nothing to do with the air force. There is a connection on the other hand, because the Institute for Aviation Medicine had been created by the Luftwaffe because the foundation for it was already present in the civilian department.

Q: What were the questions that the civilian department was working on at the University?

A: These were questions concerned with basic research.

Q: And these questions were mainly of a scientific character?

A: They were exclusively of a scientific character. We did not at all deal with practical questions.

Q: Would you please tell us something about your political past?

A: I never concerned myself very much with politics. When we returned from the first World War, we began to know politics in a very unpleasant form. Revolutions prevailed and afterwards there was inflation. Particularly at this time a number of elements came up in politics which convinced me that politics is a handicraft in the exercise of which one could easily get dirty hands.

I kept away from politics and did not become a member of any party. After 1933 one was faced with decisions which were imposed from the outside and which one could not circumvent. In my personal field I had to make a decision in two factors, first, concerning the German X-ray association. In the X-ray association there was a danger that the leadership of that association would fall into the hands of a few radical persons who up to that point had played no part in X-ray physiology. If we wanted to preserve the international reputation of the association and if we wanted to safeguard our representation abroad, then it was necessary that a number of X-ray workers become members of the Party, because only in this manner was it possible to do away with petty quarrels within the X-ray association.

The other field where I had been forced to make a decision was my department at the Physiological Institute. If I wanted to continue my work there, I could only do so within the Party. In the case of my balloon rides, in which I was very interested, it was possible for me to continue work within the framework of the Party. In the year 1937 I became a member of the Party without identifying myself with all the principles of that party. In particular, I always rejected the racial principles of the Party. I was never an anti-Semite and for that reason I had many Jewish clients in Munich. I continued treating Jews, in spite of the prohibition, up to 1944, but then I was denounced and I had to cease this because otherwise my practice would have been closed.

Q: I now go over to your activities during the war. When were you drafted?

A: I was drafted at the end of August in 1939.

Q: When did you go to the test station for altitude No. 4 in Munich?

A: At first I was in Neubiberg at a pilot's examination post, where I stayed until approximately November of 1939. I went to the test station in January of 1940.

Q: Would you please describe to the Tribunal wherein lies the difference between the test station and a pilot's examination station?

A: The fliers examination post, where I stayed at first, carried out general investigation which is perhaps comparable to the investigation carried out by a life insurance company, whenever one tries to take out a policy. It is a very thorough examination of the circulation, heart, eyes, etc.

The test stations dealt exclusively with the investigation of altitude effects. At the beginning of the war the time had come when machines went up into high altitude and at that time a number of fatalities had occurred as a result of altitude sickness. These fatalities were explained by the fact that altitude sickness, as it has been described here frequently, causes no pain whatsoever, but on the contrary in its first stages has an intoxicating effect on the person, causing him to have high spirits, which leads to an over-estimation of his own powers and which in no way appears to be dangerous to the person involved. Because of these peculiarities of altitude sickness a number of fatalities had occurred. It was therefore decided to cause altitude sickness at certain intervals of time on all the flying personnel in order that one could demonstrate the peculiarities of that sickness to them in that manner and in order to draw their attention to the necessity of recognizing the first symptoms of that sickness in themselves. These examinations were carried out at the test stations in series and normally twenty to thirty persons were examined per day. The persons got this altitude sickness within three to fifteen minutes and in this manner they gained the knowledge which they had to apply when actually flying.

Q: In that case you were the head for the test station for high altitude effect No. 4 up to the creation of the foundation of the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine?

A: Yes.

Q: Well, how did this foundation of the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine come about?

A: Continuing the tradition of my civilian department, we carried out a number of scientific examinations at the test station No. 4. That possibly was the reason for Hippke's suggesting to me in the summer of 1941 that a larger institute should be created in Munich. This institute had been planned on a large scale. It was to be connected with an Ordinariat [Professorship] at the university and a number of new buildings were provided. I had misgivings about this large-scale project because in the final analysis I wanted to remain an X-ray physiologist. All these large-scale plans were dropped anyway because of aerial warfare, and a similar institute was founded which essentially continued the traditions of my civilian department.

Q: Then you were designated as the head of that institute when it was founded?

A: Yes.

Q: What tasks did the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine have?

A: The Military Institute for Aviation Medicine, as I already said, continued the tradition of the civilian department, that is to say, it mainly concerned itself with basic research, animal experiments, whereby particular attention was given to problems with which we had dealt earlier, which was a lack of oxygen and general physiological questions, for instance, collapse.

Q: Was the research program prescribed, which you were ordered to carry out as a certain plan?

A: I discussed the broad outline with Hippke, upon which the institute was to be active, but by and large I had a free hand. There were a few exceptions. The Reich Aviation Ministry and Medical Inspectorate commissioned me with a number of questions which we had to solve, but these were relatively rare cases and the tasks had no particular importance.

Q: What was your relationship to the Reich Research Council?

A: We had no relationship to the Reich Research Council.

Q: You say that you had a free hand. Is it to be attributed to you then, that your institute specialized in the rescue of fliers?

A: Yes, we specialized in finding methods for the rescue of fliers, and this according to my plan; but this plan was worked out in agreement with the intentions of the Medical Inspectorate.

Q: Did the Military Institute also deal with questions of extermination, killing, or the effect of offensive weapons?

A: No, no such questions were ever worked upon by us.

Q: Would you please indicate who your collaborators were?

A: My oldest collaborator was Dr. von Werz. Werz came to me during the beginning of the war because he had reason to change his residence.

He was being looked for by the Gestapo, was persecuted for racial reasons, and for that reason decided to give up his position as a chief pharmacologist in a larger pharmaceutical institution. I was in a position to engage him in my institute through a civilian contract and he succeeded in staying with me throughout the entire war without any interference. There was some question about that from Berlin which threatened his position but Becker-Freyseng managed to save the situation. Werz was a pharmacologist. He originally wanted to qualify as a lecturer but that did not materialize and he came to me afterwards. My second collaborator was Lutz, L-u-t-z. I took Lutz from an ack-ack [Anti-Aircraft] battalion. At that time he was a rather unknown man, but while working with me developed very quickly into a very good and significant scientist. My third collaborator was Wendt, who was an X-ray physiologist, and mostly worked upon the X-ray questions. He took care of the entire correspondence of the Institute and simultaneously was head of the test station after I had become head of the Institute. Later, on under a civilian contract, we employed a physiological chemist, Dr. Sehlkopf, who also came from the pharmaceutical industry. This was the basic staff of the Institute. Then we had a number of collaborators who, however, came and went, and who only became temporary members of the Institute. These were Dr. Ranten, who came from the front and wanted to do his doctor's thesis. And there were a number of people who for other reasons wanted to do scientific work for a time. I had no influence in the selection of these fluctuating and changing collaborators, but in many instances they were just assigned to my Institute without my ever knowing them.

Q: Now would you please briefly describe what your tasks were as head of the Institute?

A: As chief of the Institute I at first reserved for myself a field of work, for my own research work, and in addition it was my duty to establish the policy of the entire Institute. As a rule we had discussions once a week during which we exchanged our experiences. Everybody reported what he had worked upon and a future program was determined. Since we were rather small and since we didn't have enough collaborators, a danger existed that we would disintegrate and go different ways, and for that reason I attached value to the continuity of the whole task being preserved. I wanted to see that a number of essential problems were selected and that we should concentrate our entire energy upon these problems. At the very beginning, particularly, there was an inclination to follow up every idea which was considered to be good, and in this manner a number of tasks were started which were never finished. New ideas originated which meant that old work was put aside. Finally, we drafted a program which had to be observed rigidly and which represented our exact line of work.

Q: I shall now turn to the individual counts of the indictment. You were charged with having participated in a conspiracy. I shall deal with this point only when all of the other points have already been clarified. The next count and almost the only count which is to be taken seriously is your connection with the high altitude experiments at Dachau. They are all centered around the name of Rascher. I therefore ask you at first, when did you first hear of Rascher?

A: I heard of Rascher for the first time in the summer of 1941. I heard of him through Kottenhoff. Kottenhoff at that time told me that Rascher had approached him and had suggested that he carry out the high altitude experiments at Dachau. Kottenhoff, I may explain, was at that time an Oberfeldarzt [Senior Medical Officer] with the Air Gau Command. Kottenhoff in the years 1938 to 1939 had already been with my civilian department.

He received his specialists training at the Physiological Institute at Munich. Later he qualified as a lecturer at my Institute and worked in my department as a guest whenever he visited Munich. Among other matters, he at one time started a series of experiments with a monkey.

Q: Dr. Weltz, I shall now have the letter of Rascher to Himmler, dated 15 May, 1941, handed to you.

THE PRESIDENT: Before starting on that phase of the examination the Tribunal will be in recess.

(A short recess was taken.)