1947-06-11, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)

Official transcript of the American MilitaryTribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 11 June 1947, 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 room.

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

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

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

For the information of all concerned the Tribunal desires to announce that this afternoon it will convene at 1:30 o'clock at the usual time and will recess at 3 o'clock, this afternoon.

Counsel may proceed.

DR. BEIGLBOECK — Resumed
CROSS EXAMINATION — (Continued)

BY MR. HARDY:

Q: Professor Beiglboeck, in the testimony of Vieweg before this Tribunal he elicited that he saw three stretchers leaving your experimental station carrying bodies to the morgue. Do you recall that testimony?

A: Yes.

Q: Now on page 23 of your Document Book No. I. Beiglboeck exhibit 19, we see therein a letter addressed to your mother and father-in-law.

A: Parents-in-law, yes.

Q: The third paragraph, the last sentence — would you kindly read that, please?

A: (reading)

My feelings are those of Pontius in scredo only it mattered less to him than to me.

Q: Who is Pontius?

A: The phrase "Pontius in scredo Kommen" is a German phrase, meaning that you find yourself involved in some action without knowing how you got yourself into that position. What I waited to say was that I found myself obliged to carry out this assignment without doing anything to achieve this. So, quite unexpectedly and against my will, I found myself involved in an action that I didn't wish to pursue. This is a German proverb.

Q: This Pontius here has no connection in Biblical history to Pontius who was responsible for the conviction of three persons?

A: No. When you say Pontius it means he reached this position in which he found himself and he didn't want to do it. Also, let me add that Pontius Pilot did not have anything to do with the crucifixion of three people, the two thieves were crucified, without Pontius playing any part.

Q: Well, then, did three people actually die in your experiments that you really didn't want to happen?

A: Mr. Prosecutor, in my experiments nobody died, not one person and not three persons.

Q: Now, will you kindly tell us, Dr. Beiglboeck whether or not you would have published the results obtained in your experiments at Dachau in a Medical Journal?

A: If these results had been perfectly unexceptionable from a scientific point of view then I should have. As I already said, I had no particular scientific ambitions connected with these experiments and I have told you, I was glad when they were concluded and did not expect to receive any particular praise from them.

Q: Since you have been here in Nurnberg you have prepared several reports on the experiments based on records that you had in your possession and from your memory of the actual work conducted at Dachau. I am going to pass up a photostatic copy of one of the reports prepared by you for identification.

Will you tell me when you wrote that report?

A: I wrote this report after my first interrogation, writing it from memory without documentation.

Q: Now, will you turn to the last page, Doctor, of that report? On the last page we find, 8 lines up from the bottom, the following words:

in exceptional cases also by means of administering water by a stomach sound.

Do you find those words, Doctor?

A: Yes, I have it.

Q: Well now, in these experiments, is that an actual condition that existed as you have written in this report?

A: I drew up this report from memory at that time and I was able to remember what I had put into my concluding report and I remembered those cases of the subjects who had carried out the experimental series in an orderly way. There are some inaccuracies here because I had not concerned myself with this matter for two years and I put down everything in this report from memory. Consequently I can't swear that everything in it is correct. Some small details may be inaccurate, that I admit, but what I have reported here does, by and large correspond with that actually happened. I carried out examinations with a stomach sound for purely external reasons. I wanted to know whether sodium chloride could be eliminated by gastric fluids and, consequently, after the experiments were over I took this occasion to introduce water directly into the stomach without dextrose.

Q: Then that is your explanation for the necessity to give water by stomach sounds?

A: There was no necessity. I could have let them drink it. I had the stomach sound used so I could examine the gastric fluids because literature proves that after the consumption of sea-water there is an increased secretion of gastric fluid, and in order to check on that I used the stomach sound in, I think, five cases, and I did this because I happened to have the stomach sound lying right around at the time.

Q: Well, didn't that cause the subject considerable distress without any due cause inasmuch as the particular activity was unnecessary?

A: Sounding the stomach doesn't cause unpleasantness to anyone. It is a method that is used every day at least twenty times in the clinic.

The moment in which the stomach sound is introduced is perhaps a little unpleasant, but once it's in you can walk around with it in without its bothering you. It's one of the most harmless methods of examination that internal medicine can give witness to.

Q: It has always been my experience, in witnessing, that a patient is much disturbed by the insertion of the stomach tube. Could it have been that this subject was unable to drink the water because of unconsciousness?

A: In my experiments no subjects became unconscious, and if I had a person who was unconscious then, of course, I shouldn't have put a stomach sound into him but should have chosen the much simpler method of giving him the fluid through a vein, because this is quicker. The intravenous injection of fluid brings about a more rapid thinning-out of the blood and this quenches the thirst, because thirst is nothing more than a consequence of the thickness of the body's blood. Now, you can see that there was no reason at all to introduce a stomach into a person even if he had been unconscious since the other way would have been much quicker.

Q: What patients did you give this water by sound to?

A: This was certainly in the second experimental series, one of the patients between 32 and 44, because, in the first group, I had no time to put in stomach sounds because taking care of the patients in other ways took op too much time.

Q: At the final meeting in Berlin in the Zoological Garden in October, 1944, did you report on the experiments as they actually were conducted or did you attempt to camouflage some of the results?

A: I concealed nothing. I described how the state of thirst developed, what the effects of sea-water are. I did this at rather great length and I particularly pointed out that the cases that had used Berkatit were no better than those who had drunk straight seawater, and I particularly emphasized the effectiveness of the Schaefer method in order to point up the contrast between the two groups and to break down the last of the opposition to use the Schaefer rather than the Berka method.

Q: Was Schaefer particularly alarmed when he discovered that you had used his method at Dachau?

A: I am not informed as to the spiritual life of Dr. Schaefer.

Q: Well, Schaefer was at the meeting, wasn't he?

A: Yes.

Q: You were there, weren't you? You reported?

A: Yes.

Q: What did Schaefer say when he found out you used his method at Dachau?

A: As far as I know, he didn't say anything.

Q: Was it your understanding that Schaefer knew you were to use his method at Dachau?

A: I didn't assume anything about this. I have already told you that Becker-Freyseng told me that instead of a control group, with fresh water, we would have a control group with desalinated water, I do not know whether Schaefer before or during or after the experiments found out that his method was used. I can only repeat what he testified to here, namely that before the report he knew nothing about it. I had never spoken with Schaefer previously. I saw him for the first time at this conference, and do not know what he knew about it before.

Q: Would you kindly tell the Tribunal, Dr. Beiglboeck, just what records Professor Vollhardt studied in order to familiarize himself with this subject so that he was in a position to testify as an expert before this Tribunal?

A: Professor Vollhardt saw my fever graphs which you now have.

Q: That is this group of graphs?

A: That's right. I extracted the important data from here and drew them up in a table and he looked at this table and checked on my results from it.

Q: Did you give him any other material?

A: In addition, I only told him that the salt concentration in the urine rose. For this I had no original documentation, but I told him that from memory and I also told him what anybody might expect, namely, that the blood became thicker.

Q: What other records do you have in your possession besides these graphs and these two books? Do you have any other records?

A: No.

Q: Does defense counsel have any other records?

A: As far as I know, no.

Q: At any time, did either one of these books have a black cover?

A: Yes.

Q: Which one?

A: The one in your left hand.

Q: Can you tell me what happened to the cover of this book?

A: My counsel probably had it.

Q: Were the names of the subjects used in the experiments written in this book?

A: Yes.

Q: In the first two pages, I presume?

A: I think it was on the cover.

Q: Will you kindly look at the book to see if they are still there?

A: I don't have to look at it. I can see they are not there right away because the names were on the cover.

JUDGE SEBRING: Mr. Hardy, if this matter becomes important before the Tribunal I would suggest that, for the sake of the record, you put some identifying mark on this book.

MR. HARDY: I intend to, Your Honor, but first I want to find out where this evidence came from.

I intend to mark it for identification later.

JUDGE SEBRING: It seems difficult to look at a cold record.

MR. HARDY: Your Honor, I would like to mark it later. The defense counsel may want to use it himself and may want to mark it with a defense number. I'll have to discuss it with him.

DR. STEINBAUER: I should like to say that these documents are some which I gave to the prosecution only for its information. I should like to have them back. I have not put them in evidence, and I still have to decide whether I intend to. At any rate, I can say that Professors Vollhardt did not see those two booklets. I showed them to Professors Alexander and Ivy and Mr. Hardy. I must object to their being used as incriminating evidence against my client so long as they have not been put to the Tribunal.

MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, inasmuch as defense counsel has asked for the return of the documents that he has presented to the prosecution for study, the prosecution duly requests that these documents be impounded by the Tribunal, be made records by the Tribunal, for use by either the prosecution or the defense. These documents purport to be original records made at Dachau during the course of the experiment. They are fitting absolutely into the proper evidence rule. They are not affidavits or hearsay. They are actual conditions at Dachau and recorded by the defendant himself. In many instances, these documents have been altered. The alterations may have been made at Dachau, they may have been made later. In view of the fact that they have been altered, the prosecution thinks it necessary that they be impounded by the Tribunal and if study of them is required by either defense or prosecution that study should be done before a commissioner. At this time, I wish to use the documents for the purpose of cross-examination. These documents were presented to Professor Vollhardt by the defense. Professor Vollhardt came here and testified as an expert for the defense.

His testimony was based solely on those charts. Due to that fact, I intend to use these charts today in cross-examination of the defendant Beiglboeck. In order to do the same, I would request the Tribunal to move from the bench down to the first defense counsel bench. We will have three microphones sent in. Defense counsel for Beiglboeck may sit beside the defendant and I will cross examine on the documents this morning. Inasmuch as the documents are not constructed so that they may be reproduced because of pencil notations, blue marks, red marks, etc., such a round table discussion of the Tribunal and the defendant and counsel will be necessary. I request that I be allowed to proceed, and if defense counsel requests the documents be returned to him the prosecution petitions the Tribunal to have then impounded.

DR. STEINBAUER: Your Honor, I myself intend to offer these documents to the Tribunal, so there was no reason to impound them. I simply wanted to offer them at the correct moment, and I have left them with the Prosecutor all this time. As I say, there is no reason to impound them. I want to repeat: Professor Volhardt did not see these two booklets, particularly the one that had the black cover. If Mr. Hardy doesn't believe it I can produce three or four witnesses to prove it. I don't think that is necessary. I am making them available.

MR. HARDY: If I could be allowed to cross-examine the defendants using the documents, then at the completion of the cross—examination would be the time for the Tribunal to determine if they would impound the records. I can point out alterations in the documents, which I think have been made since the trials started. In view of that fact the original documents are altered. I do not contend the alterations were made by defense counsel, but inasmuch as they have been altered it is necessary that they be impounded so further alterations will not be made.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now take the documents in its custody. They will be in the possession of the Tribunal from now on. They may be used for cross-examination, and under reasonable circumstances they will be subject to examination by either counsel under such rules as the Tribunal shall later announce. But from now on they are in the custody of the Tribunal until further order.

DR. STEINBAUER: It is perfectly agreeable to me. I simply want to say again that these two little booklets were never in the hands of Professor Vollhardt. Consequently, he didn't use them as a. basis for his testimony.

MR. HARDY: Now that the problem is brought up I would like to put two or three questions to the defendant concerning these records.

BY MR. HARDY:

Q: Can you tell us, Dr. Beiglboeck just where these records have been for the past two years. After you left Dachau in September of 1944 did you take these records with you to Vienna?

A: I took them with me and had them with me in Tarvisio until roughly the end of April 1945; then I put them in a trunk in which I had my books and other papers and gave this trunk to a family to keep for me, and it is from there they were fetched.

Q: Who fetched them from that trunk?

A: My counsel.

Q: Did your counsel bring them here to Nurnberg?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you see them after they arrived in Nurnberg?

A: I paged through them once.

Q: And they have been in possession of your counsel since that time?

A: Yes.

Q: Now, are these the only records that your counsel brought to you from that trunk, that is these charts and these two books?

A: Only the graphs and charts came from the trunk. I already had the two little booklets with me at Christmas. My counsel brought me the charts at Easter and the booklets at Christmas. The little books were not in the trunk.

Q: Did you have any other records here in Nurnberg?

A: Nothing else.

Q: These are the only records?

A: Yes.

Q: Is the information in this booklet, the one which the black cover has been removed from, based on the charts and graphs?

A: The two things were carried on side by side. The one is the laboratory book used in the experimental station, and the other booklet, the grey one, was in the laboratory in the Entomological Institute where the chemical analysis was carried out, namely the examination of the nitrogen. The fever charts were made during the experiments.

Q: Could an analysis be reached as to your experiments by referring to the graphs and charts without reference to these two booklets?

A: The most important aspect of these experiments was the change in weight, that is the decisive factor. From that alone the experiments can be evaluated. Moreover, in the fever charts there are descriptions of a few other things, so that for the specialist they present a pretty clear picture.

MR. HARDY: At this time if the Tribunal could adjourn for a period 10 minutes, I will have the table made up so we can examine these records, and I can continue my cross-examination from this first of the Tribunal, defense counsel bench, if that meets the approval of the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: You have no further cross-examination that will take up the time to the time of recess?

MR. HARDY: No, Your Honor. We are going to proceed to the charts now. It will take a matter of 5 to 10 minutes.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Tribunal will be in recess.

(Thereupon a recess was taken.)