1947-08-19, #17: Doctors' Trial Verdicts — Dr. Ruff, Dr. Romberg, and Dr. Weltz

Judgment: Siegfried Ruff, Hans Wolfgang Romberg, and Georg August Weltz — NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will be seated.

The Tribunal is again in session.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has determined that the rest of the Judgment will be read this evening. The session will continue until the reading of the Judgment is completed. The sentences will be delivered tomorrow morning. At 10:00 of clock tomorrow morning the Tribunal will reconvene in order to sentence the defendants.

THE CASES OF THE DEFENDANTS SIEGFRIED RUFF, HANS WOLFGANG ROMBERG, AND GEORG AUGUST WELTZ

JUDGE SEBRING: The Tribunal now comes to the cases Ruff, Romberg and Weltz.

The defendants, Ruff; Romberg; and Weltz are charged under Counts Two and Three of the Indictment with special responsibility for; and participation in, High Altitude Experiments.

The defendant Weltz is also charged under Counts Two and Three with special responsibility for, and participation, in, Freezing Experiments.

To the extent that the evidence in the record relates to the high altitude experiments, the cases of the three defendants will be considered together.

Defendant Ruff specialized in the field of aviation medicine from the completion of his medical education at Berlin and Bonn in 1932. In January 1934 he was assigned to the German Experimental Institute for Aviation; a civilian agency; in order to establish a Department for Aviation medicine. Later he became Chief of the Department.

Defendant Romberg joined the NSDAP in Ray 1933. From April 1936 until 1938 he interned as an assistant physician at a Berlin Hospital. On 1 January 1938 he joined the staff of the German Experimental Institute for Aviation as an associate assistant to the defendant Ruff. He remained as a subordinate to Ruff until the end of the war.

Defendant Weltz for many years was a specialist in x-ray work. In the year 1935 he received an assignment as lecturer in the field of aviation medicine at the University of Munich. At the same time he instituted a small experimental department at the Physiological Institute of the University of Munich, Weltz lectured at the University until 1945 at the same time he did research work at the institute.

In the summer of 1941 the experimental department a to the physiological Institute, University of Munich, was taken over by the Luftwaffe and renamed the "Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich."

Weltz was commissioned director of this institute by Hippke, then Chief of the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe, In his capacity as director of this institute, Welts was Subordinated to Luftgau No. VII in Munich for disciplinary purposes. In scientific matters he was subordinated directly to Anthony, Chief of the Department for Aviation Medicine in the Office of the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe.

HIGH ALTITUDE EXPERIMENTS:

The evidence is overwhelming and not contradicted that experiments involving the effect of low air pressure on living human beings were conducted at Dachau from the latter part of February through May 1942. In some of these experiments great numbers of human subjects were killed under the most brutal and senseless conditions. A certain Dr. Sigmund Rascher, Luftwaffe officer, was the prime mover in the experiments which resulted in the deaths of the subjects. The Prosecution maintains that Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz were criminally implicated in these experiments.

The guilt of the defendant Weltz is said to arise by reason of the fact that, according to the Prosecution's theory, Weltz, as the dominant figure proposed the experiments, arranged for their conduct at Dachau, and brought the parties Ruff, Romberg and Rascher together. The guilt of Ruff and Romberg is charged by reason of the fact that they are said to have collaborated with Rascher in the conduct of the experiments. The evidence on the details of the matter appears to be as follows:

In the late summer of 1941, soon after the Institute Weltz at Munich was taken over by the Luftwaffe, Hippke, Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe, approved, in principle, a research assignment for Weltz in connection with the problem of rescue of aviators at high altitudes. This required the use of human experimental subjects. Weltz endeavored to secure volunteer subjects for the research from various sources; however, he was unsuccessful in his efforts.

Rascher, one of Himmler's minor satellites, was at the time an assistant at the Institute. He, Rascher, suggested the possibility of securing Himmler's consent to conducting the experiments at Dachau. Weltz seized upon the suggestion, and thereafter arrangements to that end were completed; Himmler giving his consent for experiments to be conducted on concentration camp inmates condemned to death, but only upon express condition that Rascher be included as one of the collaborators in the research.

Rascher was not an expert in aviation medicine. Ruff was the leading German scientist in this field, and Romberg was his principal assistant. Weltz felt that before he could proceed with his research those men should be persuaded to come into the undertaking. He visited Ruff in Berlin and explained the proposition. Thereafter Ruff and Romberg came to Munich, where a conference was held with Weltz and Rascher to discuss the technical nature of the proposed experiments.

According to the testimony of Weltz, Ruff, and Romberg, the basic consideration which impelled them to agree to the use of concentration camp inmates as subjects was the fact that the inmates were to be criminals condemned to death who were to receive some form of clemency in the event they survived the experiments. Rascher, who was active in the conference, assured the defendants that this also was one of the conditions under which Himmler had authorized the use of camp inmates as experimental subjects.

The decisions reached at the conference were then made to Hippke, who gave his approval to the institution of experiments at Dachau and issued an order that a mobile low-pressure chamber which was then in the possession of Ruff at the Department for Aviation Medicine, Berlin, should be transferred to Dachau for use in the project.

A second meeting was held at Dachau, attended by Ruff, Romberg, Weltz, Rascher and the Camp Commander, to make the necessary arrangements for the conduct of the experiments.

The mobile low-pressure chamber was then brought to Dachau, and on 22 February 1942 the first series of experiments were instituted.

Weltz was Rascher's superior; Romberg was subordinate to Ruff. Rascher and Romberg were in personal charge of the conduct of the experiments. There is no evidence to show that Weltz was ever present at any of these experiments. Ruff visited Dachau one day during the early part of the experiments, but thereafter remained in Berlin and received information concerning the progress of the experiments only through his subordinate, Romberg.

There is evidence from which it may reasonably be found that at the outset of the program personal friction developed between Weltz and his subordinate Rascher. The testimony of Weltz is that on several occasions he asked Rascher for reports on the progress of the experiments and each time Rascher told Weltz that nothing had been started with reference to the research. Finally Weltz ordered Rascher to make a report whereupon Rascher showed his superior a telegram from Himmler which stated, in substance, that the experiments to be conducted by Rascher were to be treated as top secret matter and that reports were to be given to none other than Hirmler. Because of this situation Weltz had Rascher transferred out of his command to the DVL branch at Dachau. Defendant Romberg stated that these experiments had been stopped soon after their inception by the adjutant of the Reich Ministry, because of friction between Weltz and Rascher, and that the experiments were resumed only after Rascher had been transferred out of Weltz's Institute.

While the evidence is convincingly plain that Weltz participated in the initial arrangements for the experiments and brought all parties together, it is not so clear that illegal experiments were planned or carried out while Rascher was under Weltz's command, or that he knew that experiments which Rascher might conduct in the future would be illegal criminal.

There appears to have been two distinct groups of prisoners used in the experimental series. One was a group of 10 to 15 inmates known in the camp as "exhibition patients" or "permanent experimental subjects". Most, if not all; of these were German nationals who were confined in the camp as criminal prisoners. These men were housed together and were well-fed and reasonably contented. None of them suffered death or injury as a result of the experiments. The other group consisted of 150 to 200 subjects picked at random from the camp and used in the experiments without their permission. Some 70 or 80 of these were killed during the course of the experiments.

The defendants Ruff and Romberg maintain that two separate and distinct experimental series were carried on at Dachau; one conducted by them with the use of the "exhibition subjects"; relating to the problems of rescue at high altitudes; in which no injuries occurred; the other conducted by Rascher on the large group of non-volunteers picked from the camp at random; to test the limits of human endurance at extremely high altitudes; in which experimental subjects in large numbers were killed.

The Prosecution submits that no such fine distinction may be drawn between the experiments said to have been conducted by Ruff and Romberg; on the one hand; and Rascher on the other; or in the prisoners who were used as the subjects of these experiments; that Romberg — and Ruff as his superior — share equal guilt with Rascher for all experiments in which deaths to the human subjects resulted.

In support of this submission the members of the Prosecution cite the fact that Rascher was always present when Romberg was engaged in work at the altitude chamber; that on at least three occasions Romberg was at the chamber when deaths occurred to the so-called Rascher subjects; yet elected to continue the experiments. They point likewise to the fact that; in a secret preliminary report made by Rascher to Himmler which tells of deaths, Rascher mentions the name of Romberg as being a collaborator in the research.

Finally they point to the fact that, after the experiments were concluded, Romberg was recommended by Rascher and Sievers for the War Merit Cross, because of the work done by him at Dachau.

The issue on the question of the guilt or innocence of these defendants is close; we would be less than fair were we not to concede this fact. It cannot be denied that there is much in the record to create at least a grave suspicion that the defendants Ruff and Romberg were implicated in criminal experiments at Dachau. However, virtually all of the evidence which points in this direction is circumstantial in its nature. On the other hand, it cannot be gainsaid that there is a certain consistency, a certain logic, in the story told by the defendants. And some of the story is corroborated in significant particulars by evidence offered by the Prosecution.

The value of circumstantial evidence depends upon the conclusive nature and tendency of the circumstances relied on to establish any controverted fact. The circumstances must not only be consistent with guilt, but they must be inconsistent with innocence. Such evidence is insufficient when, assuming all to be true which the evidence tends to prove, some other reasonable hypothesis of innocence may still be true; for it is the actual exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis but that of guilt which invests mere circumstances with the force of proof. Therefore, before a court will be warranted in finding a defendant guilty on circumstantial evidence alone, the evidence must show such a well-connected and unbroken chain of circumstances as to exclude all other reasonable hypotheses but that of the guilt of the defendant. What circumstances can amount to proof can never be a matter of general definition. In the final analysis the legal test is whether the evidence is sufficient to satisfy beyond a reasonable doubt the understanding and conscience of those who, under their solemn oaths, as officers, must assume the responsibility for finding the facts.

On this particular specification it is the decision of the Tribunal that the defendants Ruff, Romberg and Weltz, must be found not guilty.

FREEZING EXPERIMENTS:

In addition to the high-altitude experiments, the defendant Weltz is charged with freezing experiments likewise conducted at Dachau for the benefit of the German Luftwaffe. These began at the camp at the conclusion of the high-altitude experiments and were performed by Holzloehner, Finke, and Rascher, all of whom were officers in the medical services of the Luftwaffe. Non-German nationals were killed in these experiments.

We think it quite probable that Weltz had knowledge of these experiments, but the evidence is not sufficient to prove that he participated in them.

CONCLUSION

Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges that the defendant Siegfried Ruff is not guilty under either Counts Two or Three of the Indictment; and directs that he be released from custody under the Indictment when this Tribunal presently adjourns; and Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges that the defendant Hans Wolfgang Romberg is not guilty under either Counts Two or Three of the Indictment; and directs that he be released from custody under the Indictment when this Tribunal presently adjourns; and Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges that the defendant Georg August Weltz is not guilty under either Counts Two or Three of the Indictment; and directs that he be released from custody under the Indictment when this Tribunal presently adjourns.