1947-05-20, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)

THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.

HERMANN BECKER-FREYSENG — Resumed

DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)

BY DR. TIPP:

Q: Mr. Becker, when we stopped we were discussing the tasks of the referent for Aviation Medicine in general. You said that he occupied a sort of intermediary position between the theory on one hand, which is invited in the research and the requirements of necessity on the other hand embodied in the troops. I must assume that through such intermediary positions a large number of negotiations were necessary for each side, that is to say negotiations both with the troops and the gentlemen conducting research. Would you please tell us how this was in detail and what duty the referent had in such negotiations?

A: The greater part of our relations with research and the troops took place in writing, of course, but it is clear that in some cases there were also oral communications. Since the departmental chief was in charge of about eight referats and referents, it is quite understandable that many of these negotiations were carried out by the referent alone, particularly in connection with official trips outside of Berlin. Here also, it was a general principle that in such conversations the referent could not make any decisions, but reported the results of such discussions to the departmental chief for confirmation and then this confirmation was given in writing to the person who was involved in these negotiations.

Q: Now, witness, a concluding question. As you said from 1941 until 1944 you were in the medical inspectorate, that is to say at the very top of the German Luftwaffe and you know that in the troops in the field there was the rumor that the men who were active in such positions had great advantages on the basis of their position, either to receive preferential promotion or that they received higher salaries and that they received military decorations. In the course of your activities, which covered years, did you notice any such advantages in your position or benefit from them?

A: No. I received no such advantages, I received no decorations, I received no higher salary and I received no higher rank and let me add that was not customary at all.

Q: Now, I would like to clarify one further point with you, the so-called technical aviation research: what connections were there between the referat or the medical inspectorate as a whole and the technical aviation research?

A: As of 1944, for the sake of brevity at this time, the technical aviation research was under the direction of the so-called research leadership of the ministry. At the head was Professor Georgii, the well known aviation research man. He had a medical referent from 1937 to mid 1944 and that was Dr. Benzinger. In order to avoid the difficulties, of uncoordinated medical research was difficult, having already been noticed in the sea-water experiments. In the summer of 1944, I was made Dr. Benzinger's successor and thus was Professor Georgii's referent.

Q: Now to whom was the research leadership subordinated?

A: It was the chief of the Air Armament, it had nothing to do with the chief of the medical inspectorate.

Q: The activities you just described, as medical referent with the research leadership is not one of the charges in the indictment, consequently, we can ignore that aspect of your activities. I now return to the beginning of your work in 1941, at that time, as you halve already said, you were assigned from the front to the medical inspectorate without your having done anything to achieve that; what was the practical reason for your being called to the medical inspectorate as assistant referent?

A: The reason or reasons are known to me. In the course of 1941 two new fields of work arose. The then inspectorate, Dr. Anthony, was to take over, he was however not particular as it would have meant too much work for him. Dr. Ruff already said that in 1941 in the summer, on the instructions of Hippke, the medical inspectorate at that time, he inspected all low pressure chamber in Germany. He drew up a report on this inspection tour and turned it over to the medical inspectorate and explained in this report that practically all the low pressure chambers were seriously deficient in one way or another and were not completely modern and did not meet modern requirements.

This meant that the medical inspectorate had to take these thirty or so low pressure chambers and modernize them and remodel them. That was the first of the two tasks which I mention. The second new field was the following: when the war began the flying units in the German Luftwaffe received for the first time their own troop physicians. These troop physicians had to turn in every month a so-called aviation experience report and these aviation experience reports were sent to the medical inspectorate in the original along with comments of the people on the way. Since at that time there were three hundred to four hundred flying units — so-called groups — there arrived a similar number of these aviation experience reports every month. In these reports, the air physicians went into all the new experiences that they had had because the air army was being used in the army. For instance, air accidents, high altitude accidents, whether or not certain equipment for correcting purposes would be good, etc., was included. The experiences that had been had had to be evaluated, of course, as soon as possible and put into practice for the general welfare of the flier's health. For this reason, reading through these reports had to be done as rapidly and meticulously as possible; that was the second task.

Q: And these two fields were turned over to you in August of 1941 as assistant referent?

A: Yes, I was commissioned on the one hand to carry on with Dr. Ruff's proposals and to get the modernizing of the low pressure chambers under way. This necessitated an extensive constructive program which took almost two years. I had to make numerous official journeys to the construction sites and to the offices in the field, etc. Secondly, I was commissioned to work over the three hundred to four hundred monthly experience reports from the air physicians and to report on them.

Q: Dr. Ruff, whom the witness has just mentioned, testified in the minutes of 29 April 1947, page 6711 to 6713 in the German record and page 6619 in the English record. Now, witness, during your activities as assistant referent did you have only these two fields of work?

A: As an actual field of work those were the only two that I had. In addition, of course, I had other single assignments of a brief nature but let me remark here that was with the approval of my departmental chief and the medical inspectorate from 1941 until April 1944. In other words, throughout my whole activity as assistant referent I was scientifically active in my own institute and the medical research institute, which Dr. Strughold in his affidavit, which was put in yesterday, corroborates. During this period I did extensive research in oxygen poisoning and in 1944 I qualified as a lecturer. My personal and professional inclinations still remained of a scientific nature. My purely administrative work in the medical inspectorate I always regarded as my soldierly duty and which I was to do decently and for the general welfare of the soldiery under our aegis.

Q: Now, working on the rebuilding of the low pressure chamber and working on these experience reports were the only two fields that were assigned to you, as larger independent fields, as long as you were an assistant referent, is that correct?

A: Yes.

Q: According to that then, the fields that played a decisive role in this trial, namely, one, working on high altitude and freezing problems, were not part of your major fields of work, but certainly, and secondly, the work on the research assignments which you haven't mentioned?

A: Yes, that is correct.

Q: In May of 1944, as you said, Professor Anthony was relieved of his position and you took his job as referent. Did you in your turn receive an assistant referent under you?

A: No.

Q: Now witness, you have described referat for aviation medicine and from this it can be seen that its scope was by no means small. Now, in view of the conditions that prevailed in 1944, were you able to do all of that work alone as referent, whereas previously Professor Anthony had need of an assistant?

A: Yes and no — depending — since some of the work of the referat in the summer and autumn of 1944 on command of the medical chief was transferred to the Lehrgruppe (training group) of the Aerztliche Akademie [Medical Academy] of the Luftwaffe, and this made it possible for me to do all of the work.

Q: Now what part of the referat work was transferred, witness?

A: Let me limit myself to what is of interest to us here. About all the ground work on all research assignments had been worked on in principle in the referat and had been assigned as assignments by the medical inspector. In other words, everything else done on the assignments was done by the Lehrgruppe [teaching group].

Q: Now we are coming, witness, to what constitutes the main charge against you, namely, the so-called research assignments. You know, Dr. Becker, that these research assignments have played a very large role in the interrogation of all the witnesses to date. However, I feel I still must discuss this subject with you. The prosecution has laid particular and main importance on precisely these research assignments. Let me, however, still ask you to be as brief as possible. What was your relationship to the research assignments and what do you have to say about them?

A: Let me refer to what Professor Schroeder has already said about these research assignments, and Professor Rostock. I can corroborate everything they said, but I can supplement them a bit from my point of view as a referent. Aviation research was carried out at first without any research assignments by the aviation medicine institutes and the autonomous Luftwaffe institutes. That was the aviation research institute in Berlin and the institutes for aviation medicine in Hamburg, Munich, and Freiburg, and the medical training department in Jueterbog. Then there was a group of aviation medicine institutes that were not subordinate to the chief of the medical service of the Luftwaffe, including Dr. Ruff's institute and the medical department of the testing station in Rechlin, and a medical institute in the aviation research institute in Munich under Dr. Hentschke.

All of those institutes were occupied by specialists who knew aviation problems at first hand and did not have to receive special instruction for every single piece of research and every experiment, but these institutes also received under certain conditions research assignments which were usually of a more financial or organizational nature. On the other hand, of course, it was even possible that the medical inspectorate either gave research assignments directly to its own institute or told institutes not directly subordinate to work on such assignments. By far most of the research assignments went to civilian research men in civilian institutes. The purpose of these research assignments has already been described at great length by Professor Rostock. In certainly ninety percent of all the cases the research men wanted on his own initiative to receive such a research assignment in order to be able to continue scientific activities during the war and this is also the reason why the institutes which belonged directly to the Luftwaffe did not need such research assignments and consequently worked for all practical reasons without any research assignments at all.

Q: Witness, you said that the civilian institutes made efforts to receive research assignments in order to be able to carry on their work. Now, we know that the civilian institutes were not subordinate to the military authority but to civilian authority in the Reich Ministry of Education. Now these agencies, it seems to me, should have been the ones to give support to these institutes. I know that in America, such institutes received very considerable financial support. Now, let me ask you, witness, was the civilian research in Germany in such a bad situation or was the support so lacking by the civilian sector that in order to further carry on their important research work they had to turn to the armed forces or, as in this case, to the medical inspectorate of the Luftwaffe?

A: Professor Rostock has already answered this question. The university institutes above all received very little financial and personnel support from their superiors.

For example, the Physiological Institute of the University of Wuerzburg had an annual budget of 13,000 marks, another Physiological Institute had an annual budget of 8,000 marks. In addition, during the war there was the difficulty of retaining our scientific personnel and to receive the necessary material, even if we had the financial means to obtain it, because we couldn't get a high enough priority, and, of course, during the war most of this stuff went to military departments and institutes. Now, the institutes of the Luftwaffe quite understood this matter and were only too happy to meet it. On the other hand, I don't want to create the impression that these research assignments were simply somebody doing somebody else a favor. Many applications for research assignments were turned down if there seemed to be some objection either to the person or to the subject. I believe that the 97 research assignments that can be seen from Document 934, Exhibit 458, can maintain themselves against any sort of criticism even today insofar as the person in question and the detail of research is concerned. Each of these 97 research men could show such authority and claim for his research assignment no support.

Q: Now, witness, if we take a list of your research assignments we see that a part of these research assignments are concerned with militarily important matters. Because the work is during war time that is understandable, particularly since the medical Inspectorate is a part of the Luftwaffe. However, one sees also that some of these assignments are concerned with matters that apparently have nothing to to do with military or specifically Luftwaffe matters. Now, witness, was the case not as follows: The Medical Inspectorate assigned only commissions of military importance and only gave financial support to such assignments and, if that is so, how is it that there are assignments in this list which are not of military importance?

A: The reason for this is that both the Medical Chiefs and the departmental chiefs and the referents saw perfectly clearly that applied research is not possible without a very broad foundation in basic research and precisely aviation medicine as applied research always saw itself before the necessity of acquiring basic scientific knowledge as to be foundation of its applied research. If applied science is to be carried out as science in the true sense of the word then there has to be a very broad foundation of what I referred to as basic research. You have already referred to Document 934, exhibit 458. When in the autumn of 1944 I turned over all the research assignments to the training groups in the Military Medical Academy in Berlin there were on that particular day exactly 109 assignments to date. I happen to have a list from that time available which shows the following:

49 of these assignments, that is 45% of the whole, were purely basic research, the applicability of which to practical questions during the was neither considered nor expected to be very likely.

This was a sort of research that had been and would have been carried on during peace time as well. 40 assignments, that is 35% of the whole, concerned the collection and compilation of military experiences in the medical sphere during the War, measures to prevent accidents and disease. Particularly should be mentioned here research into protect on against air raids. 16 assignments, or 15%, concerned the selection and competence of flyers and only 4 assignments, roughly 4% of the whole, concerned the increase of aviation or flying efficiency in War time. I believe that this break down of this list clarifies adequately the purpose of these research assignments during the War. With the help of such research assignments the Luftwaffe alone supported the work of many well known institutes and workers and not only supported it but made it possible at all.

Q: Witness, let me sum up your answer by saying that the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe did not carry out aviation medicine specific research out carried out research on a very, very broad and general basis.

A: Yes, I believe that can be seen from the list of 27 research assignments.

Q: Now witness, another point. You know what the Prosecution has deduced from the themes involved in the research assignments and now I want to ask you how were these research assignments checked on? How were the research men checked on who were working on the assignments?

A: Here again let me refer to what Professor Rostock testified to. Anyone who has ever put his head inside the door of a scientific Institute and who knows the position of a German professor or a German director of an institute knows how such a checking is possible at all.

In view of this list that a s been mentioned several times, document NO-954, exhibit 458, it can be seen that 40% of these assignments were given to ordinary German professors directly.

Q: Witness, let me interrupt, by this word "ordinarius [full professor]" you mean regular professors that regular professors that were teaching in German universities.

A: I was just going to explain that — scientists whose practiced in his specialized field in a clinic or in a university institute — men who were recognized as specialists and authorities in their field. These were men to whom these institutes were given. An additional 43% of these assignments were given to directors of other scientific institutes, for Instance Cherkow Institute at Bad Nauheim, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physiology in Munich, or the Kiazer Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. The remaining 17% of the assignments went to younger associates in the institutes who, however, had all of them been active for years in scientific fields. I believe, one will admit that supervising of these scientists, checking on them and some of them were very difficult persons to deal with, would have been a very difficult matter. If I visited such a scientist in his clinic or his institute then I could not appear before him as his superior somewhere else because the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe could not give orders to a director of such an institute. And, if this scientist is also a member of the medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe, then within his own institute he would have been his own master and would not have been subordinated in that activity to the Army and I believe that every ordinary professor in a German University would have forbidden my supervising him and would have been justified in doing so.

Q: Dr. Becker, you were active in science even during peace time and consequently you can possibly answer the following question: Was such supervision, such as the Prosecution seems to feel was a duty, was such supervision customary at all and secondly was it necessary?

A: No, nobody considered such supervision necessary. The scientists, after all, were mature men and experienced scientists and it was not to be expected of any of them that they would do anything illegal or wrong. Nor was such supervision customary, and during the time that I was an assistant at a university clinic I never was subjected to any sort of supervision by any superior. I can only say then if we had been supervised and we had had something to conceal then you must expect that we would be clever enough to keep it very well concealed so that even a supervisor wouldn't find out about it. There is a special term in German conversational language for this that is known as "cinen Tuerken bauen", that is to say, setting up a sort of Potemkin village before anybody who was going to supervise — put up a false front.

Q: Now tell me, witness, this sort of supervision that the prosecution refers to, would it have been carried out by you as referent or by the Chief of Staff or by the Chief of the Medical Inspectorate or by any or all of them? Could you or the medical chief even have had the possibility of checking on and supervising this work in view of the fact that the research assignments cover just about the whole field of medicine, as can be seen from that list?

A: I can answer several things to this. First of all, we didn't have the time because the research assignments were only one part of our total work. Everyone of us, of course, in the fields in which we were specialists could have carried out a supervision with success, but not in a specialized field in which we had not worked ourselves or in which we had no specialized knowledge or experience. For example, we could never have reproached anybody in the field of high altitude research or in the field of oxygen poison, but, even in another specialized field of aviation medicine, I would have had to rely on what the research man in question told me not being a specialist myself.

Q: Let me say, to sum up, the same was true of the Chief of Staff and the Chief of the Medical Inspectorate himself, because, at the very best, they would have been specialists in only one field with specialized knowledge that would have enabled them to supervise that one field but certainly did not have specialized experience in the dozens of fields that were embraced by this list of research assignments.

A: That is so.

Q: Witness, one additional question. In what form were these research assignments made? Let me say briefly regarding this that the Prosecution seems to have the idea that the research assignment did not contain merely the theme but also precise and exhaustive details as to how the research was to be carried out. That is to say, the researcher, according to the prosecution, was not given only the theme of his research, but also a working plan as to how he should carry it out. Now what do you have to say to that?

A: Basically I can say regarding this that the way by which a scientific goal is to be achieved is usually the most difficult aspect of the whole problem. That is to say, it is precisely this way to the goal that has to be found. Consequently, you are completely misunderstanding research as a whole if you believe that you could prescribe to a research worker ahead of time just how he is to reach his conclusions. At the very moment you can simply tell him what problem he is to attack and what his final goal is to be, but how he achieves this goal that is precisely what his task consists of. If I simply have to tell a man that he should carry out such and such experiments on a thousand guinea pigs or a thousand dogs then I can just as well get a technical assistant. I don't need a research man for that. So it was that research assignments contained only the theme of the research, and usually approval for certain financial support far the research and, from 1943 on, dates were set for brief reports on the progress of the work. These reports were treated in a very generous fashion not only by the Medical Inspectorate but by the research men themselves.

It could be relied on that when the research worker had achieved some positive goal he would himself send in the report. Moreover, we weren't trying to increase the scope of the paper war, but to broaden the basis of the research as a whole, and that is not done by administrative orders. The final reports on the research assignments were usually turned in in the form of reprints from various scientific publications or they were turned in in the form of manuscripts for such publications.

Q: Now, a question about the reports, witness. You spoke of interim reports which were to be submitted at specific regular dates. What did these reports contain? To be specific, did the research man describe exactly what he had done or what he intended to do or just what did he put down in this interim report?

A: First, the interim reports had to give some accounting for how the money had been spent that had been ranted for this research and anyone who had enough scientific experience or knowledge could see from the way time money had been spent what had been worked on. The interim reports on the course of the scientific work were limited mainly to say that "work is being carried on in the direction it was being carried on before. Some results have been achieved but they do not yet suffice for a final decision, consequently it is requested that this research assignment be extended for another year and that sufficient funds for this extension be made available." It is quite easy to understand from a psychological point of view why there was not extensive or detailed reports in these interim reports. First of all, no research man likes to show his hand before the work is finally done, and, secondly, every serious research worker only makes his results public when the program is concluded and when he wants to get his credit.

Q: And, as you said, the final reports were submitted in the form of scientific publications which were intended to be or had already been made public in scientific periodicals?

A: That was the customary way in which it was done.

Q: The next question, witness. During the war what was the policy on the secrecy of these research assignments?

A: As little as possible was to be kept secret. Only matters which would allow persons to derive conclusions of a military or technical nature. During my activities at the Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg I again had opportunity to see the communications from the Chief of the Medical Inspectorate in the field of aviation medicine. Among the twenty-five research reports there were only four or five, at the most, that were indicated as secret. In addition, there are the eight or nine volumes of the periodical "Aviation Medicine" which was printed and distributed perfectly publicly and openly. Both Professors Hippke and Schroeder were of the view that the results of the medical research should be made accessible to the public in the home country and thus be made public even to the population in foreign countries, even while the war was still on, even in cases where Dr. Anthony as referent or later, myself, as referent, thought that we should disagree with this and, without being critical in any way, let me say that according to a communication in the English periodical "Lancet" of 13 April 1946 the English Government ordered that, from 1943 until a considerable period after the end of time war, it was forbidden to publish anything about the new drug penicillin.

Q: Now, witness, in the research assignments according to the prosecution one fact plays a very decisive role. That is the famous file note 44. You know that the prosecution charges you with all the documents carried under the file note 55, and which carried the various referat numbers for the referats in the Medical Inspectorate. Let me point out that this number 44 has thrown the prosecution off in a few points. At any rate, witness, I should like to ask you about this decisive point.

According to the prosecution's charge, all research assignments, under number 55, did not go only through the referat for aviation medicine but were handled there as to their contents. Now, can you tell me something about that?

A: First let me point out that up to May 1944 I had nothing to do with the working on the research assignments as a whole. This belonged within the specialized field of the Referent, namely, Professor Anthony. But Professor Anthony like myself later concerned himself only with the assignments of a purely aviation medical character. Despite this fact all of the research assignments went through there for the following reason: in the Luftwaffe we had the so-called Wehrmacht Unification Plan. That is to say, every field was set down under a rubric. The file number 55 was the one used by the whole field of research. Independently of whether the aviation medicine or aviation technical research or some other field was involved. Let me point out in this connection Ruff's Document No. 5 in Ruff's document book page 16. This is a question of [illegible] a question finding a research professorship for Dr. Ruff and although this is a question involving only the personnel department this letter, because it concerned the research professorship is carried under File No. 55. Had this letter come to the medical Inspectorate, for example, it would automatically have come through the Referent Aviation Medicine, as not only a different Referat but only and wholly a different department was competent for personnel matters on research matters and were carried under this same File No. 55.

Since in the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe 90 or 95% of all research assignments concerning aviation medicine and only a very small part concerning the other fields all documents with this file number simply in order to keep things straightened out in the filing system were sent through our department. This had the great advantage when it came to working on these assignments that if any research assignments was being looked for the Filing Department knew very well that the File No. 55 referred only to matters that went through the Referat for Aviation Medicine and were to be found in that Referat. Another reason was the following: particularly during the war, many offices issued directives regarding distribution of priorities on the use of funds on the employment of personnel for research purposes. Now, it is clear that the Referent who handles 90% of all research assignments or more, is better acquainted with these various directives from other offices, then a referent who has to work on only one or two research assignments and perhaps only once or twice in a year has nothing to do with these matters at all.

In the list of the 97 research assignments, Document No 934, Exhibit 458 of 97 research assignments 8 are not of an aviation medical character. For this reason also, namely, for these purely administrative matters of seeing that these directives are being obeyed-for this reason also all of these file numbers 33 matters went to the Referat for Aviation Medicine. There was a third reason, namely, the following: all of these who received research assignments were, as I said before, Professors or Scientists of long standing. The Referat Aviation Medicine was from 1939 to 1944 always administered by active professors and there is a different point of view of administrative and organizational correspondence and if efforts were to be made to preserve the style of academic circles and so it was that the Referent in this department was concerned with these research assignments and this continued event after 1944 when I became the Referent even though I was not at that time a professor.

DR. TIPP: Mr. President, in this connection I had intended to put on a number of documents — documents regarding the entire research problem. That is to say, the assignment of this research; the form, contents, the supervision, etc. Unfortunately I received these documents so late that they are in Becker-Freyseng Document Book 5 and one if then is in Book 4 and so far as I am informed the Tribunal has not yet received these volumes. However, the Defense Information Center has told me that I may have one translation of one of these affidavits and may receive it during recess. If that is the case I should like to put it in then. It is an affidavit by Professor Dr. Schaefer. Otherwise I ask permission to put in the documents later as soon as they have been translated.

THE PRESIDENT: The documents may be offered when they are available to counsel. I suggest that this examination be somewhat expedited I think we have had very long explanation but doubtless have their importance to the defense counsel but I think that this examination could be expedited somewhat to advantage.

DR. TIPP: Mr. President, I have just concluded the treatment of this theme and I come now to the discussion of the individual counts in the indictment and I should like to ask that perhaps the noon recess be taken now.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:30.

(A recess was taken until 1330 o'clock)