1947-08-19, #24: Doctors' Trial Verdict — Dr. Herta Oberheruser

Judgment: Herta Oberheuser — GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

JUDGE SEBERING: Judge Crawford will continue with the reading of the judgment.

THE CASE OF THE DEFENDANT HERTA OBERHEUSER

JUDGE CRAWFORD: The defendant Oberheuser is charged under Counts Two and Three of the indictment with Sulfanilamide, Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, and Sterilization Experiments.

The charge of participation in the sterilization experiments has been abandoned by the prosecution and will not be considered further.

The defendant Oberheuser joined the league of German Girls (B. D. M.) in 1935 and held the rank of "Block Leader". In August 1937 she became a member of the Nazi Party. She was also a member of the Association of National Socialist Physicians. She volunteered for the position of a camp doctor in the women's department of the Ravensbruck Concentration camp in 1940, and remained there until June 1943. She was then given a position as assistant physician in the Hohenlychen Hospital under the defendant Gebhardt.

Regarding her connection with both the Sulfanilamide and the Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation Experiments, the same facts are applicable as were presented in the case of defendants Fischer and Gebhardt.

Fischer and Oberheuser were Gebhardt's active agents in carrying out these experiments. They did a great deal of the actual work. They personally committed atrocities involved therein.

A few facts produced in evidence regarding the special work of defendant Oberheuser in these experiments are entitled to comment.

Oberheuser was thoroughly aware of the nature and purpose of the experiments. She aided in the selection of the subjects, gave them physical examinations, and otherwise prepared them for the operation table. She was present in the operating room at the time of the operations and assisted in the operational procedures. She faithfully cooperated with Gebhardt and Fischer at the conclusion of each operation by deliberately neglecting the patients so that the wounds which had been given the subjects would reach the maximum degree of infection.

Testimony of the witness Zofia Maczka, an X-ray technician in the camp at Ravensbruck, is that deaths occurred among the experimental subjects. Most of these deaths could have been averted by proper post-operative care or proper treatment or by the amputation of badly infected members.

In one instance — the case of a Krystyna Dabska — small pieces of bone were cut from both legs of the subject. Witness Maczka testified that she read on the cast of the patient that one one leg periosteum had been left and on the other leg periosteum had been removed together with bone. Because she was of the opinion that the purpose of the experiment had been to check regeneration, the witness asked the defendant Oberheuser, "How do you expect to get regeneration of bone if the bones are with periosteum?" To this the defendant replied. "That is just what we want to check."

Non-consenting non-German nationals were used in at least some of the experiments.

Many of them died as a result of the experiments. To the extent that the crimes committed were not way crimes, they were crimes against humanity.

CONCLUSION

Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges that the defendant Oberheuser is guilty under Counts Two and Three of the indictment.