1947-07-18, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 16 July 1947, 0930 Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHALL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.
The Tribunal will now hear from counsel for the defendant Weltz.
DR. SIEGFREID WILLE (Counsel for the defendant Dr. August Weltz): Mr. President, Your Honors, my written expose regarding the case against August Weltz will assume a changed form by appropriate cuts, without, I hope, becoming unconnected. My aim is to present to the Tribunal those parts of my speech which, according to my understanding, seem to be the most important and I wish to do so without haste nor hurry.
I want to achieve to read my statements without hurry to the Tribunal. My written text I shall keep and use as my documentary material. Until today I have not received the closing brief of the prosecution and I should like to say here I shall reply to it at a later stage.
Paragraph 1 of my document:
The handling of the Weltz case on the part of the prosecutor.
It is part of the peculiarities of this trial — unequalled in kind, and scope by any other in legal history that the means of attack and defense and thereby the possibility of finding justice are distributed unequally. This does not imply a reproach against the court or the prosecution. This is the result of the proceeding historical development. After the collapse of the German front the official German archives were placed in safety by the armed power for the purpose of prosecution. The comprehensive documentary material with which, almost exclusively, this trial is conducted, fell thus to the prosecution.
The inequality between prosecution and defense resulting therefrom was obvious to everyone who was able to follow the course of the trials. It became apparent particularly in the defense of the defendant Professor Weltz, where it was necessary to establish definite dates, conversations and actions, which happened about 5-6 years ago and of the subsequent importance of which the participants were nut aware at that time.
I, as defense counsel of Professor Weltz was therefore not in the position to present to the prosecutor not even a single document belonging to the property of the defendant — on the contrary I was forced to contribute to the invalidation of the incriminating factors by taking recourse to the documents of the prosecutor himself and by affidavits collected with great effort.
Not only was it impossible for me to search in the archives for exonerating material. It was just as impossible to produce exonerating documents the existence of which was well-known to me. I give the following examples:
The letter of Himmler of 24 July 1941, mentioned in document No. 263, exhibit No. 47, page 59 of the German and page 56 of the English document book.
The letter of the same of autumn 1941, which Rascher, in the Munich discussion, presented to Weltz, Ruff and Romberg.
For the first mentioned letter it is probable, for the second one certain that it contains a remark of Himmler concerning the voluntariness of the experimental subjects, which would have been most valuable.
As is known the whole private correspondence of Rascher was also confiscated. The prosecutor would certainly have submitted documents from this correspondence, if it had contained incriminating-material. In view of the decidedly bad relations between Rascher and Weltz, which was the natural consequence of Rascher's removal from the institute, it is difficult to imagine that this correspondence should not contain numerous documents exonerating for Weltz, However, it was not possible for me to get access to this material for the trial.
I am making these introductory remarks before passing on to the defense because I am convinced that the court on duly weighing the matter will consider accordingly the pros and cons of this unequal distribution of strength.
Weltz has been charged with taking part in the altitude and cooling experiments. In my document, I deal with the matter of the legal rights and I come to conditions and to doubt about the Control Council Law. It is sufficient to point out that a direct responsibility of the single defendant is not here concerned. This is on page 3.
I also will do without discussing the term "Crimes against Humanity" and without detailed enquiries into the legal character of the high altitude experiments Ruff-Weltz, which beyond doubt was permissible and unobjectionable, just as Rascher's experiment on his own person was criminal. This excludes an active participation of Weltz from the charges of the indictment, so that there remains nothing but the charge of abetting. This is a term which I chose myself for certain vague terms of the Control Council Law.
This rather sweeping statement leads me to Number V of my Trial Brief which deals with the first development of the relationship between Weltz and Rascher in order to prove that it was not Weltz himself who approached this favorite of Himmler's. Here also, I can be rather short because it is beyond doubt that it was not Weltz who delivered the lecture on the apes and that he was not the man of the confidential conversation to whom Rascher made the proposal to experiment on professional criminals.
Number VI, equally, this is the conversation in the Preysing Palace, is no longer a decisive subject. I think, it needs no more proof that Weltz was not a man of Rascher's character, and was not in favor of criminal experiments and just this fact was to be proved by the conversation with Hippke.
I shall come to further explanations which are of important character from pages in my document book, which deal with the relationship of Weltz and Rascher. This describes the personal relationship, the relationship which the prosecution deal with, the relations between Rascher and Weltz.
The reason for Rascher's assignment to Waltz's office Rascher's independent experiments were not abetted by Weltz.
I first want to point out that Weltz did not personally order Rascher's assignment to his institute. This was proved by the affidavits of Wendt and Kottenhoff. Weltz had no interest whatsoever, neither in Rascher's person nor in his experiments. For this I shall give the following reasons:
The subjects suggested by Rascher for the experiments were refused by Weltz. The subject "Slow ascent to high altitudes" first suggested by Rascher had been dealt with scientifically by Weltz already at an earlier period. He then had discovered in animal experiments the so-called "adaptation effect". Therefore further experiments were not of particular impotence in view of the phase of the war at that time and the developed technique of the fighter planes. That was the reason, why Weltz objected to this suggestion.
But he also objected to Rascher's second suggestion of conducting freezing experiments. Prof. Weltz certainly was the first who recognized the cold problem with regard to the Luftwaffe. However, he objected to human experiments about the cold problem in this case. He did not consider them as being important, being in a position of getting the necessary result through animal experiments.
As he did not know Rascher personally, he had no reason to call him to his institute.
Therefore the assumption that Weltz himself had ordered Rascher's assignment to his institute cannot be substantiated. To this extent therefore one cannot speak of his abetting Rascher.
The fact, how Weltz treated Rascher and his suggestions still more contradicts the assumption that he wanted to push forward Himmler's protege. The facts prove the contrary.
Here I am referring to an incident that happened later. However in consideration of the connection with the abetting problem, I first want to deal with Rascher's removal from Weltz' institute.
Because of Weltz' refusal of Rascher's suggestions for experiments, Rascher had nothing to do in his institute. He therefore continued with his former activity in Schongau, where he had been stationed before. Since he was seen in Munich, without reporting to Weltz, Prof. Weltz ordered him to report twice weekly at his institute, he further categorically demanded that Rascher reported him on the situation at Dachau. It is known, how Rascher resisted to this order. When reporting for the third and last time in Weltz' institute, Rascher showed Weltz the Himmler telegram ordering secrecy even towards Weltz. This was sufficient for Weltz to apply for his immediate dismissal.
How can the Prosecution in view of this situation speak if Weltz abetting Rascher and his intentions? What advantage would it have been for Weltz? At that time he was one of the best reputed X-ray specialists, whose successes were merely and solely due to his personal achievements. Why should he in contradiction to his have had the character intention to make any profit from the scientific results of one of his assistants, who had but little experience? Frau Nini Rascher however, in Doc. No. 265 and No. 264 of the Reichsfuehrung-SS [Reich Leadership] tried to misrepresent the facts this way, and the prosecution obviously accepted her statements. The incorrectness of this is obvious.
Then I come to paragraph 8 of my plea, Lutz as a prosecution witness I shall not deal with here now. Lutz was a prosecution witness of importance.
No. 9 of my document, I would like to substitute for the following explanations, which I have already submitted to the translators.
Considering the evidence which clarified the facts I am content with stating the following facts in my speech about the origin and the agreement in Adlerhof:
Weltz: meeting in Adlershof was neither planned nor prepared.
The experimental series was not criminal.
Before the beginning of his first collaboration Dr. Rascher's person gave no cause for suspicion, neither personally nor from the medical-ethical point of view.
The experiments were approved by the highest authority of the Luftwaffe. Hippke had given his express consent.
Therefore, the conversation in Adlershof is a serious agreement between two physicians of the Luftwaffe about scientific collaboration. The gist has that the two institutes were to be regarded as sponsors. Ruff was to be represented by Romberg who, as far as he was concerned, was to have the immediate direction in Dachau. Since he was a collaborator of long standing one could give him this task with a good conscience.
I now come to Paragraph X:
Penal-juridicial conclusions from the Adlershof agreement.
Considering this agreement from the point of criminal responsibility of its participants, we arrive at the following result: Professor Weltz and Dr. Ruff are the originators of this agreement. They were the first to draft it and to agree on it by mutually talking and thinking it over. Then they called in those persons who were mainly to be entrusted with the carrying out of the experiments and with those, viz.
Romberg and Rascher, they discussed the details and chocked over them. Then they informed the persons in authority in Munich and Dachau, which was Schnitzler and Piorkowski, about the details of the experiments and made sure that the experiments could be conducted under the agreed conditions. This was all the more to be expected since Piorkowski had received the clear order of Himmler to obey these conditions, through Schnitzler.
Therefore no reason can be found anywhere to assume that the two of them had intended to conduct impermissible criminal experiments. This was already set forth before. Just as little it could be their intentions to let Romberg and Rascher make impermissible or criminal experiments. For this reason they familiarized Rascher during the Munich conference with the program of the experiments.
Equally we have to deny the question whether or not Weltz can be held responsible for the criminal experiments conducted by Rascher outside the experimental program "Height" on his own initiative or by order of Himmler. Of the facts stated in Article II, Number 2, of Control Council Law No. 10 only the following can be applied: c) took a consenting part therein), d) (connected with plans or enterprises involving its commission). Only intentional, but not negligent activities are mentioned here; this becomes clear from the whole exceptional position which the Control Council Law occupies in the legal life of the occupied territory. The latter fact excludes any other forms of participation, either of German of foreign Criminal law, as a specialist. A criminal responsibility of Weltz and Ruff is out of the question, because their participation and their suggestions extended only to the permissible experiments and not to the experiments outside the series.
Apart from that the Prosecution seems to raise the question whether or not Ruff or Weltz could possibly prevent Rascher's experiments from being carried out at all, either before or after they started. Of which possibilities the Prosecution thinks is not stated clearly. The nature of the questions, however, and occasional marginal remarks in their statement give us a hint. Quite obviously the Prosecution thinks of an offense by omission, committed by the omission of possible defensive acts.
As regards Professor Weltz only the following questions can be discussed in this connection:
How could Professor Weltz have prevented the getting under way of these criminal experiments of Dr. Rascher's? The Prosecution seems to think of the possibility of preventing them in some form.
What could Professor Weltz have done after the beginning of the experiments in order to prevent their further spreading?
In this latter respect, I may make the remark that an intervention against the continuation and the spreading of the experiments on the part of Professor Weltz was outside the reach of possibility, alone because he had no knowledge of the beginning and the conduct of the experiments, presumably not, because Rascher had left his command.
The following paragraph is devoted to throw light on the question; here I am going to tell that Prof. Weltz did everything possible to obtain some knowledge of the experiments without, however, to succeed and took in some knowledge about the experimental subjects without succeeding.
Weltz fights for the supervision of Rascher's experiments.
It is Point 11.
The Prosecution did not make it clear how Weltz could have prevented Rascher's own experiments. But from various remarks we can conclude again and again that the Prosecution always starts from the idea which we have today of Rascher, Himmler and the concentration camps. In contrast to this, the defense must point out that this knowledge was lacking at that time. Waltz didn't have it, just it, as little as the great majority of the Germans did not have it. By virtue of which reasons should Weltz have presumed that Rascher would turn a criminal at some later date? When the preliminary discussions about the Ruff-Romberg experiments were still on, Rascher had not committed a crime at all, as far as we know. Also, no other persons had conducted any criminal experiments in Dachau before that time. For obvious reasons Weltz regarded the close relations to the Reich Fuehrer SS, of which Rascher boasted, as exaggerated pranks of an ambitious assistant. Weltz could in no way expect or foresee that Himmler would give the order to Rascher to start a series of criminal experiments of his own. Weltz only know that experiments were to be carried out in Dachau along the lines of the unobjectionable Adlershof program. These were to take place under the direction of Ruff and Romberg. Both were from the scientific point of view eminent experts, and from the point of view of character they had the best reputation. How, under those circumstances, could Weltz have had an inkling that Rascher would secretly embark on a second, criminal series of experiments?
Since no period of time was set for the beginning of the experiments, Weltz did not at first notice that Rascher was not in Munich. As soon as Weltz learned, however, that Rascher had been seen in Munich, he called him in twice a week to report. Rascher eliminated Weltz by presenting the telegram from Himmler. This was a complete surprise to Weltz, since Rascher had earlier forced himself upon him and laid great value on his collaboration. As is known, Weltz immediately drew the official conclusions from this situation, he had Rascher's assignment to his institute ended and sent a report about this to the Medical Inspectorate. This action was in every respect correct and expedient. This created clear conditions. Rascher was then again under Air Gau Medical Department VII, which thus had the supervisory duty. If today, with knowledge of the further developments, one examines Weltz's action, one can find no better way. Even the Prosecution was not able to tell Weltz of a better way which he could have taken.
XII When was Rascher's assignment to Prof. Weltz ended?
Rascher doubtless left the institute at the beginning of March 1942, before the beginning of the experiments proper. The Prosecution has attempted, relying on Doc. NO 264 and NO 1359, to set the time he left at the beginning of May 1942 or even later, in order thus to ascribe to Weltz the responsibility for Rascher's own experiments.
To that I can answer the following:
The following considerations show that Rascher's assignment to the Weltz institute ended at the beginning of March 1942:
The experiments in Dachau were suspended from about 22 February till 10 March 1942 in order to exclude Weltz. This can be seen from Document N00263, Mrs. Nini Rascher's letter, and from Ruff's and Romberg's testimony. It is just about out of the question that the experiments were again resumed before Rascher and Schnitzler were certain that they had eliminated Weltz' influence.
Himmler's telegram which Rascher showed to Weltz is obviously the answer to Schnitzler's question in Document NO-263. Rascher had also shown this telegram to Romberg at an earlier stage in the experiments and it is hardly conceivable that for two whole months Rascher made no use of this telegram.
However, the telegram led immediately, after Rascher had submitted it to Weltz, to the conclusion of Rascher's assignment at the Institute for Aviation Medicine.
It can be seen for certain from Document NO-318 that on 16 March 1942 Rascher was no longer at Weltz' Institute. From 16 March until 16 April 1942 he had been transferred directly to Dachau from the Luftgau [Air District]. The probative value of this document is not violated by the fact that Rascher called his office in Dachau by an incorrect title. From the official military point of view Rascher, at any rate, belonged after 16 March 1942 no longer to Weltz' Institute but to the Luftgau Medical Department VII. For practical purposes it was of no consequence for the Luftgau Medical Department what name Rascher gave to his office when he was assigned to Dachau.
From Document NO-296 it can be seen that Hippke had told the Luftgau to extend Rascher's assignment at Dachau by one month. The fact that Hippke gave these instructions to the Luftgau and not to Weltz himself also shows unmistakably that at that time, on 27 April 1942, there was no longer any official connection between Weltz and Rascher. This letter at the same time also refutes the Prosecution's assumption that Weltz had been assigned for the freezing experiments in Dachau because he was still Rascher's superior. Hippke's letter proves the contrary. He must have known that Rascher was no longer with Weltz.
That Rascher's assignment to Dachau was a different assignment from his assignment to Weltz' Institute can further be seen from the fact that Rascher's assignments to Dachau were always limited to one month whereas the original assignment to Weltz' Institute was unlimited.
There is, therefore, complete documentary proof that Rascher, at least after 16 March 1942, no longer belonged to Weltz' Institute. Only two file notes stand in opposition to this proof; namely, Document NO-264 and NO-1359. Both file notes originate from the Rascher couple and were set down simultaneously at two different places.
File notes as such do not possess the probative value of the above-mentioned official communications; and one must be really distrustful if such notes originate from the Rascher couple. Among the numerous letters from the Rascher couple which the Prosecution has nut in evidence, there is hardly one which does not contain gross lies and, distortions of the truth. In his numerous letters, reports and notes, Rascher was always pursuing specific ends, and was willing to use any means. He was particularly successful in camouflaging his real official connections, in order to play one office against another. I may simply mention here his negotiations with Grawitz and Gebhardt. One can therefore in this case also readily assume that Rascher was attempting to have his Dachau assignment extended by asserting that Weltz was still trying to eliminate him from Dachau or to hamper him in his work.
I, therefore, maintain that the two file notes were intentionally untrue assertions by the Rascher couple, which were made for a very specific purpose. Rascher falsified the date of events which had in reality taken place two months previously.
During the cross examination the Prosecution also confronted Weltz with a few alleged statements by a certain Miss Frick. These statements were alleged to prove that in April Rascher was still at Weltz' Institute. However, since the Prosecution produced no proof of this, we need not go into the matter any further. Miss Frick was employed at the Weltz Institute before 15 April 1942 and the date of 15 April 1942 which the Prosecution has stressed was only the date when she was finally put on the payroll.
Under these circumstances I need point out only briefly what legal form these matters would take if one assumed that the file notes were true. In this case also the fact would be that Weltz was not informed of the Dachau experiments, although he repeatedly begged for reports. Under no circumstances would Weltz have known that Rascher, in addition to the Ruff-Romberg experiments, was carrying on an independent experimental series of his own on Himmler's orders.
Therefore, if one were to assume hypothetically (although the contrary has been proved) that Rascher still belonged to Weltz' Institute until the beginning of May 1942, Weltz would still bear no responsibility for Rascher's criminal experiments since he knew nothing about them and also could not assume that aside from the Ruff-Romberg program still another program was being carried out on Himmler's orders. These hypothetical reflections demonstrate that the actual time when Rascher separated from Weltz' Institute is not of such practical importance as the Prosecution asserts.
From this it can be seen that Weltz, who tried in vain to check on the experiments, bears no responsibility for Rascher's entire further experimental activities. One can only understand the situation and the part that Rascher played if one considers Rascher's double position as a doctor. This is No. 13.
XIII Double position of Rascher as a doctor and an SS-Leader.
The fact that the Dachau experiments took quite a different turn than Weltz had planned and expected had its reason in Rascher's double position. Within the Luftwaffe, Rascher was Weltz' subordinate. But it was in no way obvious for Weltz what were the relationships between Rascher and Himmler. Prof. Weltz did not at all expect Himmler to change his attitude and exclude him from the experiments, after having allowed them. Weltz was of course not in a position to exercise any influence upon Himmler's decisions.
This relationship is approximately characterized in the judgment of Military Tribunal No. II in the case against the former secretary of the state Milch. In this case the responsibility of the Luftwaffe for the high altitude and freezing experiments examined from the legal standpoint. The judgment concludes after careful examination of the evidence with the statement that Milch was not in a position to prevent Rascher's and the SS experiments, even if he had known anything of them. I quote the decisive sentences from page 6 because of their importance for the use of Weltz:
I quote:
Did the defendant have the power or the possibility to prevent or to stop the experiments? It cannot be denied that he had the power to either prevent or stop them as far as they were carried out under the sponsorship of the Luftwaffe. It seems to be very probable however, they they would have been continued against his will by Himmler and the SS.
That's the end of my quotation.
This conception results from a correct understanding of Himmler's position at that time. The secretary of state Milch was not in a position to defend his point against Himmler's will.
If this is true, according to the conviction of an American Tribunal, even for Milch, it is even more the case for the Luftwaffe doctors we are concerned with in this trial. With these findings one of the most important prerequisites is cleared up in the case of Weltz. Weltz would have never been in a position to exercise any influence upon the experiments ordered by Himmler, even if he had known of them. However, he did not even know that such experiments were being carried out at all.
However, Rascher's position must not be misunderstood in that sense that Weltz, within the competency of the Luftwaffe, would have allowed Rascher to violate the discipline and would have yielded to Himmler's influence. This is clearly shown by the energy with which he removed Rascher from his institute, regardless, whether he had to do with one of Himmler's friends. Thanks to his energy and his courage, Rascher was prevented from conducting unnecessary experiments between May 1941 and February 1942, although he insisted upon carrying them out. It is quite obvious, however, that Weltz was not in a position to influence the close relationship between Rascher and Himmler. They kept their mutual correspondence outside the official channel so that Weltz was completely uninformed in this respect.
The only means that Weltz could dispose of within his competency against Rascher was to make reports to the Medical Inspectorate. He used it after Rascher's dismissal by going to Berlin and giving a detailed report to Anthony, the deputy of the absent medical inspector.
I come to Chapter XIV. I shall omit this now. The charge against Weltz in this respect cannot be maintained.
For the same reason I shall now omit the paragraph Conspiracy. The attitude to this point has been also changed.
I come now to:
Paragraph XVI, Conclusion, Summary of the Results, Application for Acquittal
— and this is the last paragraph which I want to read.
When at the end of the war the concentration camps were opened, the public learned for the first time of their terror and the crimes which had been committed there.
The general request for a very severe punishment of these crimes, in order to prevent them from being repeated in the future, was more than justified, This is obviously the reason, why General Taylor, in his opening speech, claimed that this trial served as an example, in order to make the German people understand, why it was necessary to destroy cities like Nuernberg.
In answer to this, I want to point out the following: The principals guilty with regard to this special field that is being discussed here, are dead. Rascher, Ding-Schuler, Grawitz, Lolling, Conti escaped the justice of this world. Also Holzloehner and Finke are dead. One would render a poor service to the concept of justice, when sentencing persons, who happened to be in touch with the periphery of these events, because of crimes committed by those who are dead, without examining their guilt quite independently of them.
With this I do not turn, Your Honors, against the infliction of severe punishments, but against the method asked for by the Prosecution, namely to make responsible those, who are still alive, for those who are dead.
A grave reproach was made against the Justice of the Third Reich, by saying that it lacked every consideration for the right of the individual and sacrificed these inalienable rights to a misinterpreted interest of the state. Opposed to this, the democratic principles demand an impartial examination of the guilt of each individual, not influenced by the political situation or the need of political propaganda.
Such an impartial judgment is also necessary in consideration of the unique importance given to the outcome of this trial by the world. The outcome of this trial will be decisive for the character of medical research for the next decades. But, since the medical research in its final aim does not concern the doctors but the sick, the importance of the judgment for the entire civilization cannot be evaluated highly enough. The legal limits of medical research with regard to human experiments will in future have to be conform with the principles set down by the expected judgment. If these limits are too restricted, it will not be the doctors, in the last analysis, who will be prejudiced, but the sick for whose benefit science is meant to serve.
I now sum up the result of my examination as follows:
It has been established that Weltz did not participate in any criminal high-altitude experiments or further any such experiments in any form whatever.
He did not omit doing anything which could have prevented or stopped any criminal experiments of Rascher's.
He did not participate, either directly or indirectly, in Rascher's cold experiments.
He did not participate in any conspiracy.
The conviction which I express with this statement is the result of several years of work, which began with the first day of Prof. Weltz's arrest in June. I personally, after having known Weltz for many years, was convinced from the beginning that he could not have committed any inhumane acts. I therefore expected after beginning this trial to encounter clear and indubitable proofs. The contrary proved to be true. Today, after almost eight months of investigations, the participation of Weltz in medical experiments of a criminal nature has been clearly refuted and the charge of furthering them shrunken to an unfounded assumption. And this is the result of a trial in which the Prosecution were in possession of all the evidence.
But the Prosecutor also made the defense of Prof. Weltz more difficult by his special treatment of the case. Not only by an incomplete and one-sided presentation of documents, whereby exonerating documents were not brought out, but also in the rest of the manner of presenting the case. This could give the Tribunal a completely false picture of conditions in Germany and of the world of ideas of the defendant Weltz and thus of his true plans and intentions. Thus — to give examples — the picture of Rascher was painted during the trial by the Prosecutor in such a way as if, from the beginning, those around him had been able to realize that he was the criminal that he has proved to be today, after years of investigation.
It is similar with knowledge about conditions in the concentration camps. Only after the collapse did conditions there come to light, and at the same time, the terror system of concealment was revealed. The Prosecution, however, assumes that it was generally known at the time.
To this chapter of unscientific treatment belong statements of the Prosecutor's such as this: that Prof. Weltz was responsible for Ruff's and Romberg's being in the dock. As if the Prosecutor did not know very well that these two aviation medicine experts had enough knowledge of the subject and enough common sense to form their own judgment on their decisions. Moreover, they had no intentions of doing anything illegal, any more than Weltz did.
I have emphasized the inequalities in the procedural possibilities also, however, in order to ask the Tribunal to compensate for the severe disadvantages of the defendant in obtaining evidence by corresponding judicial judgment. In all penal procedures in the world, no doubt, the prosecutor has to bring evidence against the defendant, who is presumed innocent — has to show the court that the defendant deviated from the paths of lawfulness, and has to bring this proof all the more clearly, the less grounds for suspicion the defendant has given in his previous life. In doubtful cases, when the Prosecution case does not clarify the state of affairs sufficiently, the previous irreproachable conduct of the defendant, his previous way of life must be the decisive factor.
I have already stated by way of summary that the Prosecution case against Weltz has failed. Nor was even the slightest proof brought that Weltz gave any aid to Rascher's experiments. But where there could be doubts about Weltz's inner attitude, perhaps as to what intentions underlay his actions here and there, his previous conduct, his whole attitude toward the medical profession, toward humanity, should be decisive.
For this reason I have taken the liberty of submitting to the High Tribunal opinions and judgments from various circles, from the medical profession, which awarded him its honors, from his associates, who attested his nobility of character, human kindness, and humanity, and from his employees, on whose behalf he always took action with the whole force of his personality at decisive points in their lives.
Nowhere does this description indicate characteristics toward which the Prosecutor directed the only accusation which he seems to maintain, which is unbridled scientific ambition, favoritism, and above all lack of respect for human feeling and the idea of humanity.
Every healthy feeling revolts against the proposition that it could have been an end in itself for Prof. Weltz to commit crimes, torture human beings, and kill by sadistic excesses. All this fits so poorly into the picture of the man and champion of the progress of medical science, the picture of a person who never cared for egotism and material interests, but only for the promotion of the whole.
In a complete distortion of this picture, the German press, misusing official material, made the assertion that Prof. Weltz had, together with Rascher, killed numerous people in Dachau by cold experiments. That such a statement destroys the honor of a German research scientist in the very field in which he had succeeded in saving thousands of lives by his scientific discoveries, is not only unjust, but it is tragic. This treatment of a man who has served medical progress so well demands just compensation. To award this is in the hands of Military Tribunal I, which is called upon to decide. To this Tribunal, I address the plea to restore, by a verdict of acquittal, the livelihood which was destroyed by Prof. Weltz by the charges of the Prosecution. I ask that Military Tribunal I pass judgment to the effect that Prof. Weltz be acquitted of the charges against him, in whatever form they may have been made.
THE PRESIDENT: Is any of the German counsel advised as to the whereabouts of Dr. Hoffmann, Counsel for defendant Pokorny? We will be prepared to hear from him after hearing from counsel for defendant Brack.
DR. FLEMMING: Your Honor, the defense counsel Hoffmann is in the Pohl Trial this morning. As far as he was informed, the translation was not concluded yet, and he counts on being the last this afternoon, in fact, he is, of course, willing to plead this afternoon, but there are a number of other gentlemen here whose translations are finished and who could come first. It was assumed that counsel for the defendant Pokorny would plead this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: The interpreters have advised me that three translations are available this morning: Willie, whom we have heard; Froeschmann for Brack, whom we shall hear next; and Hoffmann, as counsel for defendant Pokorny. The interpreters have informed me that the translations for the defendant Hoven and Becker-Freyseng are not yet ready.
Dr. Hoffmann will be called upon after counsel for defendant Brack has made his argument.
Prior to calling on counsel for defendant Brack the Tribunal will be in recess for a few minutes.
(A recess was taken)