1947-06-06, #3: Doctors' Trial (afternoon)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 6 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
WILHELM BEIGLBOECK — Resumed
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
BY DR. STEINBAUER (Counsel for the defendant Beiglboeck):
Q: Witness, last we discussed that in American literature very little was contained about making sea water potable —
Concerning this chapter, I should like to submit Document Number 21, Exhibit Number 10, pages 73 to 89. That is a scientific study by a Mr. Labell who is a member of the British Medical Research Council. He wrote a study concerning reaction after drinking small quantities of sea water.
A: First, I should not like to read anything from this document but I shall refer to it later. I should like to deal with another question. In this study it is very clearly expressed that up to the year 1944 in medical literature nothing was systematically known about the results, the reaction of sea water.
Q: Since you mentioned this, I should like to Qualify that. It can be found on page 73. There it says:
During the last year work has been carried out in the laboratory, for the Medical Research Council's committee on the care of shipwrecked personnel (MRC War Memorandum No. 8), on the psychology of subjects receiving the same food and water as shipwrecked men in lifeboats.
On page 13 — in my document book on page 85 — Labell says and unfortunately I cannot bring him here because he happens to be in Africa now, in Liberia — he says:
No references have been found in the literature to the physiological effects of drinking sea water but the effect of rectal instillation has been examined in some detail. Experiments have been reported by Foy, Altmann, and Kondi (1942) on this subject, and Bradish and his colleagues (1942) followed the effect of instillation of sea water not only into the rectum but also up into the colon.
To elucidate this, I should like to say that rectum is the anus and colon is the wider part of the anus.
To return to our experiments, you described that immediately after being informed about the order you asked not to be sent to a concentration camp in order to carry out these experiments there. Why were you so much against it, carrying out these experiments there?
A: I had not so much an objection to carry out the experiments but I was against the fact that these experiments should be carried out in a concentration camp. If these experiments had become necessary, I wanted to carry them out in a hospital or in a clinic.
Q: Did you know about these conditions in concentration camps so that you were against them?
A: I did not know any more about concentration camps at that time than that they existed, that it was an institution where political and criminal prisoners were kept. As to what actually occurred behind that barbed wire enclosure, that I only read after the war in the newspapers and the real insight I gained only through this trial. You think it is ridiculous that I say that, and incredible, but although I myself worked at the time in a concentration camp it was also under these circumstances that I had no opportunity of any kind to look behind the scene. The objections I had at that time against the concentration camp was based upon a feeling of some sort which was caused primarily by the fact that it was known to me from the Austrian press before the Anschluss that strict rules and regulations apparently did not exist for that institution.
In the Austrian newspapers at that time I could frequently read that the treatment of inmates was bad. Occasionally there were reports about causalities that had occurred, and one said afterwards that these people had been shot while trying to escape. Of course, those were newspaper reports and nobody, not even in Austria, had an opportunity to make sure whether they were correct. Added to that was the fact that gradually the news stopped in the Austrian press.
The Austrian newspapers gradually took up a more defensive position in their propaganda and in 1938, after the Anschluss had been effected, all news about concentration camps ceased to be published and whatever had been reported in Austrian newspapers was described as an invention and malicious propaganda.
Then in 1941 I became a soldier. Most of the time I was at the front for a long time, a longer period in Russia; there of course, one did not hear anything at all about such matters apart from the fact that our duties as physicians consumed so much of our time, that beyond that we hardly had any opportunity to think about anything else.
Q: Mr. President, in connection with this fact, may I refer again to the affidavit by Dr. Orthner, document book I, page 94, on the bottom of the page. Dr. Orthner says:
If I said that Beiglboeck objected on principle to the selection of a concentration camp as site for the experiments, then it is to be attributed to the fact that he is an idealist throughout, and, on his part, would have rejected every forcible method and every arbitrary action. Especially characteristic of this seems to be the fact that he told me of examples, with which irresponsible 'generosity' the detention in the concentration camp was ordered. I recall that he particularly referred to the medical students who were allocated as prisoners to him for assistance.
Since I have just mentioned the word "prisoner" I should like to ask you, witness, was it your opinion that no experiments should be made on prisoners?
A: That is a question which is very hard to answer, and a question which was also discussed time and again by my teachers. Of course, from medical literature I knew that such experiments on inmates were frequently made. I know, of course, the world famous Plague experiments, the famous Leper experiments by Arning; and from dealing with vitamin research, I knew of experiments with Beri-beri and Pellagra; and I knew from dealing with liver Pathology, liver research, that in the year 1936, eleven criminals who had been sentenced to death were used fur experiments in order to test the reaction of a Liver poison.
In Vienna we were also somewhat opposed to experiments with prisoners. I remember in talking, that my teacher Kossweg, also violently rejected that idea. On the other hand, one has to admit, of course, that certain problems of medicine which are of utmost importance under certain circumstances require an experiment on human beings, which of course, entails a great risk.
I believe, therefore, that it is extremely difficult to obtain an attitude here which would be decisive, and sonce there are no regulations by law, it is probably true that the research man who, with the authorization granted him by the leadership of state, is given the possibility, to make such experiments, has to do that on his own responsibility, and to decide on his own how far this was compatible with his ethical attitude as a physician. I, on my part, was exposed to it in my inner most fooling. And the attempt to get away from these experiments was made by me, based on my innermost feelings against it, and I certainly suffered when I realized that was not possible for me to do. But, I received absolute assurance that the experiment exclusively would be made on volunteer subjects, and since, on the whole, these were experiments, which, if conducted correctly would not entail danger of life and that together with the assurance that I would get voluntary subjects, gave me the pre-requisite that I did not refuse to carry out an order, an order which I could only have refused in a manner which would have the most serious consequences for myself and my family.
Q: Let us deal further with the question of voluntary subjects. Who was it that told you that these subjects were all volunteers?
A: That I would get volunteers for these experiments, that I was told on the occasion of the first conference with Dr. Becker-Freyseng. He assured me of that. In order to give me further assurance on that point, immediately after arriving at Dachau I asked whether those conditions would be kept. Dr. Bloegener, at that time, before witnesses, assured me that voluntary subjects would be used for me experiments. When I reported to the adjutant of the camp commandant, I raised the question again and I had him assure me also once more that there would be voluntary subjects. When the experimental subjects arrived at Dachau a Sturmbannfuehrer [Major] of the SS arrived together with them, who apparently had accompanied that transport. asked him again if these people volunteered, he confirmed that again to me. He also stated that certain advantages had bean promised them, and when this Sturmbannfuehrer left I asked my experimental subjects whether it was true that they had volunteered, and they affirmed that. At that time I had no reason at all to doubt that this information was accurate. Superiors of my office of the SS, and the experimental subjects, themselves, confirmed it and I cannot see what else I should have done in order to make more certain about that fact. It became quite obvious to me that now in the year 1947, a statement on my part, that one had voluntary subjects sounds entirely different that I had to understand it in 1944. I was never accustomed to be told by any officers of the armed forces of any branch of the armed forces, upon a question which I had put to him, anything which was not according to facts.
At any rate as far as I was concerned I had reason to be convinced, absolutely convinced, and I was convinced that I had voluntary subjects in front of me. Apart from that it did not seem incredible or improbable to me at all that somebody would volunteer for an experiment of the kind as I intended to carry out if on the other hand certain advantages were offered. At any rate it is quite clear to me that even soldiers of the armed forces would have volunteered in order to gain certain advantages. Beyond that, of course, I realized that one could not make a camp risen here but if the soldiers volunteered for Dr. Sirany, they certainly did not do that because in the service of science they intended to make certain personal sacrifices. They did it because they obtained other advantages in exchange. And furthermore, they did it because a private first class, if he is asked by an Oberst [Colonel], "do you want to take pert in an experiment for me", he certainly will answer "yes sir". That, of course, is to some extent a limited volunteer, and that this fact of a relatively limited manner of volunteering also applied to the prisoners I had no doubt. That precisely was the reason why I did not want to have any prisoners as experimental subjects.
Q: Witness, were you told, were you ordered to find out about that at Dachau?
A: I did not receive any specific order of that kind, that probably can been seen from the entire discussion with Dr. Becker-Freyseng. I had a definite impression that he also was convinced that the experimental subjects had volunteered for the experiments. I made these inquiries in Dachau on my own because it seemed to me to be a matter of course and for reasons which are to be understood on the basis of the explanations I have given just before.
Q: Did you have influence at all in the selection of the place where the experiments were to take place?
A: No, in no manner at all. I have stated already that everything concerning these experiments, everything down to the last detail of their execution, was stipulated before I was ever ordered to take part in them.
Q: Did you have influence in the selection of the experimental subjects?
A: No, I was told at the medical inspectorate that arrangements had been made with the SS and that the SS in accordance with these arrangements would supply the experimental subjects. I did not have to worry about that.
Q: Did you have the order to find out where the experimental subjects came from and what the specific circumstances and conditions were?
A: No, that also was neither a decision that I could have made, nor did the Luftwaffe.
Q: Did you know before that gypsies had been used?
A: The fact that gypsies were coming I only found out in Dachau by the Camp Commander.
Q: Who were those gypsies?
A: They were mostly half gypsy people who had gypsy blood but were not exactly what one would expect a gypsy to look like, a real Hungarian gypsy, say for instance. They were not pure gypsies. The color of the insignia they had to wear was black. The Sturmbannfuehrer who brought them, said that they were asocial elements and added that for various offenses they had previous criminal records. Thereupon I asked him for what kind of offenses, and he said their records had not been forwarded, but I could rely upon it, and on that occasion he also told me because I had gained the impression that possibly the fact of their descent was the cause for their arrest and their imprisonment, he told me that gypsies were no more kept in the concentration camps on account of their descent or belonging to that race that had been the case previously, and then they were wearing a brown sleeve insignia, and that only these were still interned who were put in the category of an asocial and allegedly came from such families. I should, therefore, like to emphasize that I had no possibility to check on their records and I had relied upon what that man has told me.
I had also received the assignment or rather the explanation of the instructions that I was not to interest myself into any other problems of the concentration camps that had nothing to do with the carrying out of the experiments and the fact that my own interests were in that direction, and the assignment made it much easier for me that I had to worry about nothing else than my experimental place. I, therefore, do not feel that I am responsible either for the selection of the place where the experiments were carried out nor for the selection of those persons who were used.
Q: President, in this connection I should like to refer to the document produced by the Prosecution, No. 179, from the sea water document book No. 5, where SS Gruppenfuehrer [General] Neber stales specifically about the experimental subjects, that asocial gypsies, which is very important for us, had to be healthy. These two terms I should like to derive from that document — asocial and healthy; that the asocials actually had to wear a black triangle and not a brown one. With the permission of the Prosecutor, I should like to show to the Court from the Kogon Bock, — I could not have photostats made, because of course those colors would not come out, — but if the court desires to look at it it can be seen that there is a difference between the brown triangle for gypsies and the black triangle for an asocial. Unfortunately, I have only one copy. Therefore, I cannot submits it in evidence, but only show it for illustration purposes.
THE PRESIDENT: In this instance if defense counsel would prepare a paper containing these triangles and simply describe the colors, write in the colors, the free first, red with F and red with S and next the Jewish sign, a yellow triangle with red triangle reversed over it, just describe them in color.
MR. HARDY: May I ask defense counsel what his purpose is in introducing these various triangles. It seems to me they were elaborately described by the testimony of Kogon when he was here on the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel explained that he desired to call the attention of the Tribunal to the difference between the brown and black and the Tribunal observed the difference in color.
DR. STEINBAUER: May I elucidate briefly upon the objection made by the Prosecutor. My client is charged with having committed crimes against humanity. Control Council Law No, 10 unfortunately does not contain a definition of crimes against humanity. It seems there is also little domestic and foreign, particularly American, literature concerning the term "crimes against humanity" or that can be found, but it has to be persecution against people for political or racial reasons. Therefore, I want to say that we are not dealing with racial persecution, but those are people who for other reasons have been in the concentration camps, and therefore would have the insignia of those persecuted for reasons of their race, but not of those who are persecuted because they were considered asocial. I will repeat that later. I just want to submit it to the Court now to support what I have said.
THE PRESIDENT: Would counsel explain to the Tribunal your understanding of the word "asocial." Proceed, counsel. —
DR. STEINBAUER: "Asocial" is a term, the concept of which is very well known even in the United States, particularly in the United States and that agrees completely with our concept as far as I know it from European literature. The method applied in the Third Reich, of course, went much further in applying that term "asocial" than we used to do it. I want to put the same question to my client, since he can answer it from the medical point of view, but since the Court asked me about it, I want to state frankly and openly that in the Third Reich, of course, that term was applied in the much wider sense than we know it from the American and French law. Incidentally I have here the Austrian book about concentration camps which I really originally intended to submit but I did not want to drag the name of Christ into these proceedings.
The book was written by a Catholic Priest who was here in the concentration camp Buchenwald and today he is a Pryor at Salzburg. About the Asocials at Buchenwald those asocials who were my subject persons he says, the rest of them were mixed from the harmless pauper up to the dangerous vagrant. They wore the black triangle of an asocial. The numerous Jews were marked by the yellow Davis star with differences made between political and asocial inmates. That can also be seen in fact from the color scheme of Kogon's book where he also had added the Star of David to the Jewish asocial insignia.
With the permission of the Court I should like to ask my defendant, now would you like to answer the question from your point of view.
THE PRESIDENTS: Before inquiring of the witness as to what his idea is of the meaning of the word "asocial" the Tribunal would be very glad if you would explain your legalistic idea of the word "asocial".
DR. STEINBAUER: We designated as asocial, the person who consciously commits acts against human society and by these acts is asocial, an enemy to society, that is the concept we have. I believe in English it can be expressed by the terms, a-social is an enemy of society.
THE PRESIDENT: You can proceed with the examination.
JUDGE SEBRING: Under your view of the matter, is it your view that simply one isolated act of criminality might tend to bring a man into the category of asocial or do you understand by that classification that type of individual or class of individuals who constantly and persistently are guilty of anti-social conduct?
DR. STEINBAUER: Your Honor, if I may be permitted to tell you my opinion without that my colleage on the other side Mr. Hardy will use it against me, I wish to say that I personally am of the opinion that one offense never makes any person asocial, one violation of the law, but that particularly in the case of gypsies we are able to make the observation very frequently, that we are confronted there with real asocials; that is with people who resent with all force to be included in the normal process of work.
In studying the problem of the gypsies I came upon a book which covers to that quality that asocial quality and I am also quoting from that book in my document book. It explaint to what extent the gypsies themselves have contributed to term, that concept of the gypsy plague. It is a book published by the Bavarian Government in 1905 and a similar book existed in Vienna, It is a hand book for the use of the police force in both countries in order to establish the citizenship, nationality, and family origin of the gypsies. Later I shall refer to that question again. It is important because Beiglboeck is not only charged with crimes against humanity, but also simultaneously for the same acts he is charged with war crimes and war crimes, in my opinion, can only be committed against Allied nationals. From that book, which I quoted in my document book, I should like to prove that it was just a asocial feature of the gypsies that at all times they deny their nationality, they deny their descent and just wander around.
I am submitting this as my opinion, however, not as the opinion of Beiglboeck, who might not have the same, in order to avoid any undue conclusion on the part of Mr. Hardy. I repeat, however, that the method of concentration carp administrations to consider people who were late for two days or three days, to consider these asocials, to denounce them and to send them into concentration camps that I consider a great injustice.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have that passage in the book?
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, for that purpose I refer to document book 2, page 106, document 28, which I should like to submit to the court as Exhibit 11. The original, which belongs to the University of Erlangen, and which I have to return, I have brought here. The copy is certified by me and is on accurate copy of the original of this document. I should like to point out that I have copied page 5 which indicates where the Gypsies come from, secondly, their asocial activities, which have been termed the "Plague of the Gypsies" and that which seems to me the most important and which I intend to read namely on page 2 the first and second paragraphs:
The greatest difficulty arises in securing a census of gypsies. The majority of them make every effort to obscure their identity through false statements or through a pretense of ignorance —
The number of false census statements and official certificates on the parish register of births and deaths, made by the gypsies, is very extensive.
MR. HARDY: May I inquire of Counsel by introducing this document and by his statement he intends to show the Tribunal that the word "asocial" in this connection means merely that a person may be asocial if he is a Gypsy?
DR. STEINBAUER: That would be absolutely wrong to be of that opinion. I only say persons who were supplied for the experiments had not been brought to the concentration camps for racial reasons, but for reasons of being considered asocial, because as the witness Dorn said yesterday and this morning since 1942 there were no Gypsies persecuted on racial grounds for the simple reason that German laws as I shall describe in great detail in my trial brief, the gypsies are mentioned only twice in the law for the protection of the German race.
In 1942 Himmler who was very mystically inclined was made to believe that the gypsies were really the original type of the Indo-Germans, that they were descendants of the original Indo-Germans and are the pure Indo-Germans in Europe and they were therefore no longer sent to concentration camps, for racial reasons. Is that sufficient, Mr. Prosecutor?
MR. HARDY: On that basis, I must object to the document as being absolutely immaterial to this case.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is overruled, the document will be admitted.
JUDGE SEBRING: Dr. Steinbauer, I understand also that generally there would be included within your concept of asocials; rogues, vagabonds, idlers, drifters, wanderers, and loafers who wander about the country side with no apparent home, respectable vocation or visible sources of livelyhood; is that the general concept?
DR. STEINBAUER: Well, that would mean a to narrow interpretation. Always, especially today, when there are millions of human beings who have lost their homes and have to wander around, that is not sufficient for vagrancy. We in Austria prosecute only those who are anti-social, the pimp for instance. He has his house, lives well and is still asocial.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
BY DR. STEINBAUER:
Q: Witness, I should like to ask you what you as a physician, mean by or would understand by the term "asocial"?
A: As far as I have noticed as a layman in legal matters, there is no absolute legal definition for the term of an "asocial element", and if this was done around the conference table then, of course, we who are scientists cannot be blamed if we have even less definite interpretations or concepts of that term.
In our books on psychiatry where we discuss such matters the chapter on the question of "asocial" and "anti-social" elements is one of those most difficult to deal with. Speaking from the medical point of view, the term "asocial" would cover a person who in most cases has an inborn, sometimes here dietary defect of his ethical instincts; that is, a type who not by reasoning but on the basis of instinct cannot abide by prevailing rules and laws of society.
Furthermore, these people, of course, do not like to work, also one of the requirements of human society, and from these two roots for the individual there derives a vicious cycle. The more criminal he becomes, in the widest meaning of the word, the more he comes in conflict with human society, so society, of course, tries to counteract that. He considers this to be an injustice because he thinks that the demands of society are unjust and inapplicable. Therefore, he considers himself persecuted although innocent and continues to commit further violations against laws and regulations and that brings about the term of the "asocial" and "anti-social" as a sociologic term rather than a medical one. The physician is only interested in that certain inner defect, the lack of a natural, healthy sense of ethics and the fact that in many cases this is hereditary; and as birds of a feather flock together and as just the fact of vagrancy — that is the resentment against settling down, to the same extent as resentment against every type of compulsion belongs into that picture, it happens frequently that two asocials get married. Even more frequently they didn't get married but they have children together and that brings it about that asocial families, entire asocial families, come into existence and on these families studies have been made, especially in the United States, where as far as I know these studies have become very famous, and in these families one can find the entire scale of examples which we considered covered by the term "asocial". These families distinguish themselves in some cases only by hating to work.
Other members of the family are habitual thieves. A third category again may be vagrants. The fourth type may be real criminals all the way to the habitual criminal. Among the female members of these families prostitution is extremely widespread.
All that apparently comes from some psychological aberration which seems to be the clue to the reason why these inclinations show to a different extent in various families. Generally, resentment of every kind of authority is apparent. There are many among them who may have other defects of the intellect but also many who, apart from an ethical defect, have a greater or high degree of intelligence.
As far as I know — and I only know it from occasional reading of medical studies — in Germany especially the question of heredity of such instincts was greatly emphasized, purely from the medical point of view, but how the legal form was found that, of course, I could not say.
Q: Witness, now we can go on from the subject and I ask you after you received that order to carry out sea water experiments you went to Dachau?
A: Yes. When these experiments were supposed to start, I was ordered to go to Dachau and install the laboratory there for the experiments. Originally I had been promised that that would be necessary only to a very small extent because at Dachau there was an excellent and very extensive laboratory available. In fact, I did not find anything there which I could have used for that purpose and piece by piece, laboriously, I had to carry everything together. That was particularly difficult at that time because Munich, where it might have been possible to borrow equipment, was just at that time the subject of heavy air raids and from that smoking heap of rubble one could not get anything.
Q: Witness, what order did you get for the purpose of carrying out the experiments?
A: The order said that these experiments were to be carried out with the instructions that four different groups were to be included in the experiment: one group who were supposed to be starved and suffer from thirst, another group who received only sea water, and another group who were supposed to drink sea water together with the Berka preparation — that is, were given five hundred thousand cubic centimeters each because in the case of all of these groups one would have to count on a loss of water and all of them would be subjected to conditions of nourishment which were unusual. For the purpose of being able to decide how much water is lost, a group would have to be included also in the experiments who received a normal amount of liquid but who received the same solid food as the other groups, and, in regard to this group which was originally supposed to get ordinary drinking water, they later received the Schaefer water in order by that means to assure oneself once again that even in the practical use of this water no changes of any kind became apparent.
Furthermore, as I have already stated, I was instructed exactly what observations were to be made during these experiments and this was a rather extensive program which gave us a great deal of work for that period of time. Very extensive blood analysis were undertaken, not in regard to the amount of the blood but to determine the different constituents of the blood and very exact urinalyses were required so that we could make sure, to a very large extent, what effect the change of the water contents in the body would bring about. That is what I was told. I did not, however, the discussions of the 19th and 20th which have played such an important role here but I knew only the conference of the 25th and only to the extent to which I was concerned with it; namely, first, the unfortunate choice to confirm me as being in charge of the experiments and, secondly, the regulations which were adopted there for the execution of the experiments.
The purpose of the experiments was as follows: first, I was shown experiments carried on so far by Schaefer and Sirany and I also was given an opportunity to study the records of their experiments.
It was pointed out to me expressly that Sirany's experiments were inadequate for the reasons which I have already mentioned in part and that they were of the opinion that they were in no way sufficient to prove the practical suitability of the Berka method. Above all this was so for the reason that Sirany only carried on the experiment for four days and the Luftwaffe wanted to have a method which could be used and would be found valuable, especially if sea distress lasted for a longer period.
For that reason only such a method could be introduced, could be considered for introduction. At that time, 12 days were requested as the minimum requirement to prove the value of such a method for the reason that at that time several cases of sea distress became known who were saved after 12 days. So that I shall not be misunderstood, the requirement was that the method to be introduced could be taken for 12 consecutive days without harming, damaging, the health of the person. The conditions of the experiment were, as far as possible, to be made the same as those existing in sea distress, but only in respect to the amount of water and food; on the other hand, everything else that is at a disadvantage during sea distress, that is the influence of the climate, cold, heat, changes in the weather, etc., the wind which lets the salt of sea water, affect the person by forming a crust on the skin; the inability to sleep in the rescue boat, all these conditions of course were to prevail during the experiments. I have discussed these questions with Becker-Freyseng, these questions which were of importance for my experiments. We also discussed the theoretical basis. He called to my attention specifically the statement of Schaefer which were given in some kind of a report, which was available in a typewritten copy, and also he pointed out to me that Schaefer had made calculations about a certain amount of sea water that could be tolerated for 12 days, but, of course, not without causing changes in the water balance. The question was not whether smaller amount of sea water could be given for a longer period of time, and whether with about 500 cubic centimeters of sea water, one could live for a certain period of time. Our aviators, at that time, were provided with a very small amount of water supply which lasted for only two days. If now, one of them was out for eight or ten days more, drinking small amounts of sea water against his thirst, he had then, of course, the advantage not to endanger his health seriously, and he could survive at sea. The assumption, of course, was also at that time that the Schaefer Preparations would not be introduced.
Well, he told me that this maximum limit of 12 days was a desirable aim in some form or another, but it should not be forced and in the different experimental groups I should try to approach that aim to the extent as I could take the responsibility from the medical point of view examining the persons. We then discussed the question where the danger limit to the loss of water begins, where normally this borderline is, and where one could normally assume that life was endangered. The period between the dangerous border and the border endangering life compared to the former loss of water only the following conditions change originally, only the free water is eliminated, while during the period between ten or twelve percent and about 22 percent, the water from the body cells too, is eliminated. In other words, the intracellular water supply is affected. At the very beginning of the discussion I emphasized that under no conditions would I carry out experiments which would mean damage to the health or would endanger the life of a subject; that I would refuse to do something like that. And, Becker-Freyseng replied immediately that that was also in accordance with his views, and, that, of course, death should have to be avoided in any case, and that the limit should be set where no damage to the health of the subject had to be feared. But, anyhow, the experiments would have to be carried on so far that thirst reactions were noticeable and without any doubt would make it possible to make a comparison between the two groups. As far as I could take the responsibility for that from the medical point of view, under the given circumstances, that is by preventing any damage to the health of subjects, I was supposed to proceed that far. I also discussed with him, discussed with him, that, of course, we would have been quite clearly in our minds that thirst experiment is not a pleasure, and that it asks very much from the will power of experimental subjects if they are required to thirst for several days. And from that point of view, of course, one would have to regard these experiments as connected with some unpleasantness for the experimental subjects, and as a consequence the experimental subject had to be volunteers.
And, experiments on volunteers who made themselves available for these thirst experiments would, of course, make it possible to put these high requirements on them. In order to protect the experimental subjects in other ways, they had to stay in bed. There were two other reasons for this: First, the aviator who is in sea distress is also forced to lie down in the rescue boat; and second, every movement that is by walking around, increases the elimination of water by the lungs. So, that a lack of movement, the quiet lying in bed retains the water of the body somewhat more. In other words, the external conditions were kept in such a way that is, with the exception of hunger and thirst, as far as possible no unpleasantness and no hunger would result for the experimental subjects. The aim of the experiment was to achieve absolute clarity about the following question: First, whether thirsting or the drinking of sea water would be better? whether the abstinence from water or the drinking of sea water would be better, drinking of a small amount of sea water? Secondly, whether the Berka preparation contrary to expectations would bring about an improvement of the tolerability of sea water? Thirdly, whether the Schaefer preparation could be tolerated for 12 days without any damage to the body. And, this group of experiments was supposed to be carried out for 12 consecutive days if the obvious conclusions resulted, i.e. that the preparation proved to be harmless. On the occasion the metabolism of those suffering from thirst and those who drank sea water was to be studied for one might obtain clues whether any changes take place within the body, and one would perhaps obtain hints for the treatment of persons rescued from sea distress. As I have said, this program of experiments was laid down in the meeting of 23 May, I received the respective record and asked whether any one of the Navy, or of the airforce, Luftwaffe, had found any papers on research work about sea water which Becker-Freyseng denied. In medical literature there existed nothing but very nebulous reports and opinions, to the effect, in general, that sea water is dangerous. Nobody concerned himself with the question of why it was dangerous in detail, and it was strange that nobody ever asked whether this was not conditioned by the amount.
I also have to add that in all the reports about cases of sea distress, it becomes apparent again and again that usually one only starts to drink sea water only after one has suffered thirst already for several days. In other words one expects an organism to tolerate sea water, an organism which is under quite different conditions than a healthy organism. Now it is as follows: That a person who has been suffering from thirst already for a few days has already reduced his elimination of water to a minimum; if such a person is now expected to drink about one or two liters of sea water per day, that is a quart of sea water per day, then this dehydrated body is forced to eliminate a multiplicity of the amount of water which he would have lost if he had continued to suffer from thirst.
Since a person who is suffering from thirst and sea distress usually drinks a large amount of water, among the seafarrers the danger of the sea water is known as a dogma and all reports about sea distress which I have found so far, with very small exceptions, indicate that the taking of sea water occurs in an uncontrolled manner and this practical experience in particular was apparently the reason why in the English and American papers on the subject studies were made predominantly on what the effect of sea water is on a body which has been dehydrated already, while we asked ourselves how developments were when from the very beginning one drinks sea water. Speaking from a medical point of view, there is a difference in principle.
Q: Witness, who had to decide when the experiments were to be interrupted?
A: This decision was of course up to my medical expert judgment and I can assure you here that I discontinued the experiments in such a way that the critical limit was not exceeded in any experiment. As far as the subjective elements were considered, I also took them into consideration, but that could take place according to the nature of the experiment only to a certain extent, because the thirst was in those experiments a "Conditio sine qua non," condition without which it could not be carried on. Such an experiment could not have been carried out without waving the experimental subject suffer from thirst. I certainly can understand how it feels to suffer from thirst and I had made sure what the sensations which are caused by this thirst.
Q: With reference to this experiment on yourself, I have already mentioned the animal experiments and I shall refer to them later; but now I want to ask you, witness, did you carry out the experiments yourself alone or did you have medical or other collaborators?
A: It would of course have been absolutely impossible for me to carry out these experiments, which were propounded here, all alone; that would have been impossible. Therefore, three physicians of the Luftwaffe, medical chemists, who were otherwise working in large University institutes and laboratories, helped me carry out the laboratory work. On this occasion, I also want to state that these three physicians carried on the laboratory work and they are only responsible for what they found in the urine and in the blood. In other words, they made analysis of the body fluids I sent to them, but they are not responsible for the experiments in themselves nor for the manner of the execution of the experiments. For that I alone am responsible.
Q: In addition to the medical personnel, did you have any other collaborators?
A: I also had three medical officers of the Luftwaffe, who in part were also working in the laboratory; in addition I received two male nurses who were prisoners to help me and three French medical students, who also helped me to carry out the examination and in the care of the experimental subjects. Furthermore, I consulted specialists from Dachau. They were exclusively prisoner physicians who helped me with the examinations in the specialist's field, and in the reports, which I still have in my possession. Although I made the greatest effort, I did not succeed in procuring one of the French assistants so that here he could testify as a witness about the execution of the experiments.
Please ask me another question.
Q: How did the experiments begin after the experimental subjects had arrived?
A: When the experimental subjects had been handed over to me, first I explained to them very extensively what was at stake in these experiments and what they were about. For me that was natural from the medical point of view. Never in my life did I require a patient or an experimental subject to do something that they did not know anything about, but if I am not believed then I must say that for practical reasons alone it was absolutely necessary to tell the experimental subjects what course matters would take, because an experiment of such a nature cannot be undertaken at all without having the experimental subjects know what they have to do. Such an experiment depends exclusively upon the experimental subject and I did not keep it from the experimental subjects in any way, that the thirst was very unpleasant and that what we were requiring of them would be very difficult for them. I still remember quite exactly that one of them thereupon told me, "Oh, well, a few days of hunger and thirst." I then told him he should not underestimate this at all, how thirst will feel. I then requested them to support me in this experiment and told them also, that with these unpleasant things they would now suffer they might be able to contribute to saving or prolonging the lives of a large number of people later on, and I told the group who were supposed to suffer hunger and thirst in particular and the group who were supposed to drink 1,000 cc of sea water that the were by far in the worst position. For that reason, I selected the strongest ones for these two groups, and contrary to the original orders I had received I kept specifically those groups down to the smallest number of people. That the group that received 1,000 cc of sea water later became larger is not due to the fact that I enjoyed inflicting this torture on another large number of experimental subjects again, but it is by the fact that of this group in particular during all the first experimental series none of them, not one of them, carried out the experiments without in addition to sea water drink a large amount of fresh water.
I also told the experimental subjects I would always be near them and I also kept that promise. Furthermore, I promised them they could have absolute confidence in me that nothing would happen to them, and thirdly I promised them that with the influence I had, due to the nature of things, I would use all of it to see to it that the promised advantages were given to them. I then asked them whether they would agree to submit to the experiments under those conditions and they said yes, they would.
Q: You mentioned before that before the beginning of the experiment you carried out an experiment on yourself; would you please describe that to us briefly?
A: The experiment on myself did not consist in my tasting from the water when it was being administered to the experimental subject or when it was given to them in order to make fun of them, but this experiment on myself was carried out by myself before the beginning of the other experiments and that was at the time when the experimental subjects were not even there yet. I did that for the reason that I wanted to find out first whether Berka's opinion that his preparation quenched thirst was correct, and secondly I wanted to suffer thirst myself, because the director of such experiments would be at a disadvantage if he had no idea what the experimental subjects were feeling when they were undergoing his requirements. Perhaps for an experiment, of another nature, under certain conditions, that might be possible.
For an experiment, however, in which the subjective symptoms of the experimental subjects are predominantly important it is necessary that the person carrying out experiments know how it feels. For that reason, I carried out the experiment on myself to orient myself and to inform myself. I am not very proud of this at all and I am ready at any time to repeat it. But actually this was an experiment on my own person, which was executed in the regular fashion and I believe I know how thirst feels.
Q: Did you carry out this experiment on yourself without any injury to your health?
A: I carried on the experiment for four days and nights, the experiments with seawater. I drank five hundred cubic centimeters a day. Of course, I was thirsty; in fact, I was very thirsty; especially on the third day my thirst was extraordinarily great. I also observed that from the fourth day on I got somewhat drowsy, that my sleep was disturbed by the thirst, that from the moment when the muscles began to lose their water there was a certain lassitude in the muscles and even a weakness of the muscles, a certain heaviness in my limbs, and a great need for rest. I then discontinued the experiment by beginning to drink water and, even though I had lost more than four and a half kilograms — that is more than nine pounds — after two days I was able to make a trip to Vienna from Munich without any complaints.
Q: Witness, after the experiment you carried out on yourself, later on did you occasionally also still drink seawater?
A: Well, not only I myself but also the medical students, the Frenchmen, for instance; and also my assistants occasionally tasted some of the Berka water and, as a rule before the water was handed out to the experimental subjects I drank some of it. I did that especially so that the experimental subjects would not think that in this Berka preparation some kind of a magic was hidden — God knows what kind of a magic —and that it could disagree with them. That was the reason I drank in front of them, not in order to make fun of them.
Q: Well, let us return now to the experimental subjects. You received them. You told them what it was all about, and what did you do yourself?
A: Of course, when the experimental subjects arrived, I understood a very detailed medical examination of each of them, all of them. Originally I had altogether sixty. Of those I immediately eliminated those whose condition of nourishment seemed unsuitable to me. The rest I kept and gave an internal and X-ray examination.
On this occasion, in two or three, I found an infection of the lung. These cases, of course, I turned over to the hospital and I also saw to it that they were received there. Naturally, not a single person was included in the experiment who was not absolutely healthy. Aside from the fact that two or three had some skin disease on the legs, which was quite superficial and healed quite soon.
During the period before these experiments, during the preparatory period, one of the experimental persons fell ill with an acute infection. He got a fever and apparently had bronchial pneumonia. This prisoner — that is, this experimental subject — when he began to run a temperature, I also turned over to the hospital for treatment. I am speaking of the experimental subject who in my record of the experiments has the record number 9, and that is the group that was originally intended to receive Schaefer water. I also want to emphasize again that this happened before the actual experiment began — that is, at the time when the experimental subjects were receiving the food that amounted to about 4,000 calories per day. Thus it was certainly not a consequence of my experiments. But from this one single transfer arose the rumors of the transfer of those who were dealthy ill and of those who were allowed to die in other departments.
Moreover, this man had a brother, and I know that he frequently visited this brother — I know that he did not die, but kept on living, and, as I said, often visited his brother. Nor did I transfer anyone later on because I might have considered it necessary due to my experiments to camouflage the dying of the experimental subjects. Besides, I would not have dared to compete with the physicians of the camp hospital.
Q: What happened with the rest of the experimental subjects? How did they enter into the experiment?
A: First, I received two substitutes for those who as I told you were already eliminated after the first examination, that is, after the xray. These came from the Dachau camp itself, while the other experimental subjects, the gypsies, came from the Buchenwald camp. These two substitutes from Dachau were German gypsies and one of them had escaped from the camp once. Later he was again taken into custody and again brought to the camp. He had a so-called escape insignia. That was the first time I found out that this insignia existed and this escape insignia meant that the prisoner was more strictly guarded. In order to remove that escape insignia the gypsy and a friend of his had volunteered for the experiments, they and a few other prisoners. The prisoner nurse who was at my office at the time and whom I told that I needed two substitutes now, looked for two people on his own initiative and brought these two prisoners to me; and more than anybody he requested that I include those two in particular in the experiment in order to give them, or at least one of them, the opportunity to remove that escape insignia. The witness Viehweg testified here that the male nurse himself was half gypsy, that is the nurse Max, and for that reason he apparently helped those two gypsies. I thus included these two gypsies in the experiment, after the camp officer had given the approval for it, and I know of those two that they were not under any pressure of any kind on my part or on the part of the camp administration but they did this in order to achieve an advantage for themselves. After the conclusion of the experiments I also achieved that the escape insignia was removed.
Q: How was the room in which the experiments were carried out?
A: The room for the experiments was a large room in the principal hospital where the experimental subjects were quite comfortable and for the most part were in individual beds. These beds were kept neatly and had neat and clean linen on them. I was given this large room for the experiments only after I had intervened because originally I had been assigned a smaller room in Dr. Bloedner's station, of whom there is mention in Exhibit 137, the letter by Dr. Sievers.
I refused to take that room because it was too small for the lodging of all the experimental persons, and then I was assigned this larger ward in the prison hospital, and I thought that was part of the hospital. Only from the testimony of the witness Viehweg did I find out this was part of Schillings' experimental station.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, I believe that we can continue on Monday.
DR. GAWLIK: For the defendant Hoven. Mr. President, I ask you that the defendant Hoven be excused from the session on Monday in order to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Hoven's counsel having requested that the defendant Hoven be excused from attendance before the Tribunal next Monday in order that he may prepare his defense, the request is granted and. the defendant Hoven will be excused from attendance before the Tribunal next Monday.
DR. GAWLIK: Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until nine-thirty o'clock Monday morning.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will be in recess until nine-thirty o'clock Monday morning.