Chapter IV: Opening Statement of the Prosecution by (2)

Other evidence will indicate that the scope of these experiments was subsequently enlarged and that murder, torture, and death resulted from them.

I. Sterilization Experiments

In the sterilization experiments conducted by the defendants at Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, and other concentration camps, the destructive nature of the Nazi medical program comes out most forcibly. The Nazis were searching for methods of extermination, both by murder and sterilization, of large population groups, by the most scientific and least conspicuous means. They were developing a new branch of medical science which would give them the scientific tools for the planning and practice of genocide. The primary purpose was to discover an inexpensive, unobtrusive, and rapid method of sterilization which could be used to wipe out Russians, Poles, Jews, and other people. Surgical sterilization was thought to be too slow and expensive to be used on a mass scale. A method to bring about an unnoticed sterilization was thought desirable.

Medicinal sterilizations were therefore carried out. A Dr. Madaus had stated that caladium seguinum, a drug obtained from a North American plant, if taken orally or by injection, would bring about sterilization. In 1941 the defendant Pokorny called this to Himmler’s attention, and suggested that it should be developed and used against Russian prisoners of war. I quote one paragraph from Pokorny’s letter written at that time (_NO-035_):

“If, on the basis of this research, it were possible to produce
a drug which after a relatively short time, effects an
imperceptible sterilization on human beings, then we would have
a powerful new weapon at our disposal. The thought alone that
the 3 million Bolsheviks, who are at present German prisoners,
could be sterilized so that they could be used as laborers but
be prevented from reproduction, opens the most far-reaching
perspectives.”

As a result of Pokorny’s suggestion, experiments were conducted on concentration camp inmates to test the effectiveness of the drug. At the same time efforts were made to grow the plant on a large scale in hothouses.

At the Auschwitz concentration camp sterilization experiments were also conducted on a large scale by a Dr. Karl Clauberg, who had developed a method of sterilizing women, based on the injection of an irritating solution. Several thousand Jewesses and gypsies were sterilized at Auschwitz by this method.

Conversely, surgical operations were performed on sexually abnormal inmates at Buchenwald in order to determine whether their virility could be increased by the transplantation of glands. Out of 14 subjects of these experiments, at least 2 died.

The defendant Gebhardt also personally conducted sterilizations at Ravensbrueck by surgical operation. The defendant Viktor Brack, in March 1941, submitted to Himmler a report on the progress and state of X-ray sterilization experiments. Brack explained that it had been determined that sterilization with powerful X-rays could be accomplished and that castration would then result. The danger of this X-ray method lay in the fact that other parts of the body, if they were not protected with lead, were also seriously affected. In order to prevent the victims from realizing that they were being castrated, Brack made the following fantastic suggestion in his letter written in 1941 to Himmler, from which I quote (_NO-203_):

“One way to carry out these experiments in practice would be to
have those people who are to be treated line up before a
counter. There they would be questioned and a form would be
given them to be filled out, the whole process taking 2 or 3
minutes. The official attendant who sits behind the counter can
operate the apparatus in such a manner that he works a switch
which will start both tubes together (as the rays have to come
from both sides). With one such installation with two tubes
about 150 to 200 persons could be sterilized daily, while 20
installations would take care of 3,000 to 4,000 persons daily.
In my opinion the number of daily deportations will not exceed
this figure.”

In this same report the defendant Brack related that, and I quote (_NO-203_):

“* * * the latest X-ray technique and research make it easily
possible to carry out mass sterilization by means of X-rays.
However, it appears to be impossible to take these measures
without having those who were so treated finding out sooner or
later that they definitely had been either sterilized or had
been castrated by X-rays.”

Another letter from Brack to Himmler, in June 1942, laid the basis for X-ray experiments which were subsequently carried out at Auschwitz. The second paragraph of this letter forms a fitting conclusion to this account of Nazi depravity, and I quote (_NO-205_):

“Among 10 millions of Jews in Europe there are, I figure, at
least 2 to 3 millions of men and women who are fit enough to
work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labor
problem presents us with, I hold the view that these 2 to 3
millions should be specially selected and preserved. This can,
however, only be done if at the same time they are rendered
incapable to propagate. About a year ago I reported to you that
agents of mine have completed the experiments necessary for this
purpose. I would like to recall these facts once more.
Sterilization, as normally performed on persons with hereditary
diseases, is here out of the question because it takes too long
and is too expensive. Castration by X-rays, however, is not only
relatively cheap but can also be performed on many thousands in
the shortest time. I think that at this time it is already
irrelevant whether the people in question become aware of having
been castrated after some weeks or months, once they feel the
effects.”

J. Typhus (Fleckfieber) and Related Experiments

From December 1941, until near the end of the war, a large program of medical experimentation was carried out upon concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald and Natzweiler to investigate the value of various vaccines. This research involved a variety of diseases—typhus, yellow fever, smallpox, paratyphoid A and B, cholera, and diphtheria. A dozen or more of the defendants were involved in these experiments which were characterized by the most cynical disregard of human life. Hundreds of persons died. The experiments concerning typhus—known in Germany as Fleckfieber or “spot fever”, but is not to be confused with American spotted fever—were particularly appalling.

The typhus experiments at Natzweiler were conducted by Dr. Eugen Haagen, an officer in the Air Force Medical Service and a professor at the University of Strasbourg. In the fall of 1943, through the defendant Sievers, Haagen obtained 100 concentration camp prisoners for experiments with typhus vaccines. Two hundred more prisoners were furnished in the summer of 1944. These experiments caused many fatalities among the prisoners.

The general pattern of these typhus experiments was as follows. A group of concentration camp inmates, selected from the healthier ones who had some resistance to disease, were injected with an anti-typhus vaccine, the efficacy of which was to be tested. Thereafter, all the persons in the group would be infected with typhus. At the same time, other inmates who had not been vaccinated were also infected for purposes of comparison—these unvaccinated victims were called the “control” group. But perhaps the most wicked and murderous circumstance in this whole case is that still other inmates were deliberately infected with typhus with the sole purpose of keeping the typhus virus alive and generally available in the bloodstream of the inmates.

The typhus murders at Buchenwald were carried out in 1942 and 1943 under the direction of the defendants Genzken and Mrugowsky. Requests for the human guinea pigs were turned over to, and filled by, the defendant Hoven. The bulk of the actual work was done by an infamous physician known as Dr. Ding, who committed suicide after the war. But Dr. Ding’s professional diary has survived.

The first entry in Ding’s diary, for 29 December 1941, reveals that here again the impetus for these murderous researches came from the Wehrmacht. This entry describes a conference sponsored by the defendant Handloser and Dr. Conti, respective heads of the military and civilian medical services of the Reich, which was also attended by the defendant Mrugowsky. Typhus had been making serious inroads on the German troops fighting in Russia. The account of this conference relates that, and I quote (_NO-265_):

“Since tests on animals are not of sufficient value, tests on
human beings must be carried out.”

Other entries in the Ding diary quoted below are typical of those made over a period of 3 years, and give some idea of the mortality among the victims. (_NO-265._)

“_10 Jan 42: Preliminary test B_: Preliminary test to establish
a sure means of infection: Much as in smallpox vaccination, 5
persons were infected with virus through 2 superficial and 2
deeper cuts in the upper arm. All of the humans used for this
test fell ill with true typhus. Incubation period up to 6 days.

“_20 Feb 42_: Chart of the case history of the preliminary tests
to establish a sure means of infection were sent to Berlin. One
death out of five sick.

“_17 Mar 42_: Visit of Prof. Gildemeister and Prof. Rose
(department head for tropical medicine of the Robert Koch
Institute) at the experimental station. All persons experimented
on fell sick with typhus, except two, who, the fact was
established later, already had been sick with typhus during an
epidemic at the police prison in Berlin.

“_9 Jan 43_: By order of the surgeon general of the Waffen SS,
SS Gruppenfuehrer and Major General of the Waffen SS, Dr.
Genzken, the hitherto existing typhus research station at the
concentration camp Buchenwald becomes the ‘Department for Typhus
and Virus Research’. The head of the department will be SS
Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding. During his absence, the station
medical officer of the Waffen SS, Weimar, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer
Hoven will supervise the production of vaccines.

“_13 and 14 Apr 43_: Unit of SS Sturmbannfeuhrer Dr. Ding
ordered to I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G., Hoechst. Conference with
Prof. Lautenschlaeger, Dr. Weber and Dr. Fussgaenger about the
experimental series ‘Acridine Granulate and Rutenol’ in the
concentration camp Buchenwald. Visit to Geheimrat Otto and Prof.
Prigge in the institute for experimental therapeutics in
Frankfurt-on-Main.

“_24 Apr 1943_: Therapeutic experiments Acridine Granulate
(A-GR2) and Rutenol (R-2) to carry out the therapeutic
experiments Acridine Granulate and Rutenol, 30 persons (15 each)
and 9 persons for control were infected by intravenous injection
of 2 cc. each of fresh blood of a typhus sick person. All
experimental persons got very serious typhus.

“_1 Jun 1943_: Charts of case history completed. The
experimental series was concluded with 21 deaths; of these, 8
were in Buchenwald, 8 with Rutenol and 5 control.

“_7 Sep 1943_: Chart and case history completed. The
experimental series was concluded with 53 deaths.

“_8 Mar-18 Mar 1944_: It is suggested by Colonel of this air
corps, Prof. Rose, the vaccine ‘Kopenhagen’, produced from mouse
liver by the National Serum Institute in Kopenhagen, be tested
for its compatibility on humans. Twenty persons were vaccinated
for immunization by intramuscular injection. * * * Ten persons
were contemplated for control and comparison.

“_16 Apr 1944_: The remaining experimental persons were infected
on 16 April by subcutaneous injection of 1/20 cc. typhus sick
fresh blood. The following feel sick: 17 persons immunized: 9
medium, 8 seriously. Nine persons from the control: 2 medium, 7
seriously.

“_13 Jun 1944_: Chart and case history completed and sent to
Berlin. Six deaths (3 ‘Kopenhagen’) (3 control).

“_4 Nov 1944_: Chart and case history completed. Twenty-four
deaths.”

Copies of each of Dr. Ding’s official reports went to the defendants Mrugowsky and Poppendick as well as to the I. G. Farben laboratories at Hoechst. Nowhere will the evidence in this case reveal a more wicked and murderous course of conduct by men who claimed to practice the healing art than in the entries of Dr. Ding’s diary relating to the typhus experiments.

K. Poison Experiments

Here again the defendants were studying how to kill, and the scene is Buchenwald. Poisons were administered to Russian prisoners of war in their food, and German doctors stood behind a curtain to watch the reactions of the prisoners. Some of the Russians died immediately, and the survivors were killed in order to permit autopsies.

The defendant Mrugowsky, in a letter written in September 1944, has provided us with a record of another experiment in which the victims were shot with poisoned bullets, and I quote (_NO-201_):

“In the presence of SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding, Dr. Widmann
and the undersigned, experiments with aconitin nitrate
projectiles were conducted on 11 September 1944 on 5 persons who
had been condemned to death. The projectiles in question were of
a 7.65 mm. caliber, filled with crystallized poison. The
experimental subjects, in a lying position, were each shot in
the upper part of the left thigh. The thighs of two of them were
cleanly shot through. Afterwards, no effect of the poison was to
be observed. These two experimental subjects were therefore
exempted.

* * * * *

“During the first hour of the experiment the pupils did not show
any changes. After 78 minutes the pupils of all three showed a
medium dilation, together with a retarded light reaction.
Simultaneously, maximum respiration with heavy breathing
inhalations set in. This subsided after a few minutes. The
pupils contracted again and their reaction improved. After 65
minutes the patellar and achilles tendon reflexes of the
poisoned subjects were negative. The abdominal reflexes of two
of them were also negative. After approximately 90 minutes, one
of the subjects again started breathing heavily; this was
accompanied by an increasing motor unrest. Then the heavy
breathing changed into a flat, accelerated respiration,
accompanied by extreme nausea. One of the poisoned persons tried
in vain to vomit. To do so he introduced four fingers of his
hand up to the knuckles into his throat, but nevertheless could
not vomit. His face was flushed.

“The other two experimental subjects had already early shown a
pale face. The other symptoms were the same. The motor unrest
increased so much that the persons flung themselves up and then
down, rolled their eyes and made meaningless motions with their
hands and arms. Finally the agitation subsided, the pupils
dilated to the maximum, and the condemned lay motionless. * * *
Death occurred 121, 123, and 129 minutes after entry of the
projectile.”

L. Incendiary Bomb Experiments

These experiments were likewise carried out at Buchenwald, and the Ding diary gives us the facts. In November 1943 five persons were deliberately burned with phosphorous material taken from an English incendiary bomb. The victims were permanently and seriously injured.

M. Jewish Skeleton Collection

I come now to charges stated in paragraphs 7 and 11 of the indictment. These are perhaps the most utterly repulsive charges in the entire indictment. They concern the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers. Sievers and his associates in the Ahnenerbe Society were completely obsessed by all the vicious and malignant Nazi racial theories. They conceived the notion of applying these nauseous theories in the field of anthropology. What ensued was murderous folly.

In February 1942, Sievers submitted to Himmler, through Rudolf Brandt, a report from which the following is an extract (_NO-085_):

“We have a nearly complete collection of skulls of all races and
peoples at our disposal. Only very few specimens of skulls of
the Jewish race, however, are available with the result that it
is impossible to arrive at precise conclusions from examining
them. The war in the East now presents us with the opportunity
to overcome this deficiency. By procuring the skulls of the
Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars, who represent the prototype of the
repulsive, but characteristic subhuman, we have the chance now
to obtain a palpable, scientific document.

“The best, practical method for obtaining and collecting this
skull material could be handled by directing the Wehrmacht to
turn over alive all captured Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars to the
Field Police. They in turn are to be given special directives to
inform a certain office at regular intervals of the number and
place of detention of these captured Jews and to give them
special close attention and care until a special delegate
arrives. This special delegate, who will be in charge of
securing the ‘material’ has the job of taking a series of
previously established photographs, anthropological
measurements, and in addition has to determine, as far as
possible, the background, date of birth, and other personal data
of the prisoner. Following the subsequently induced death of the
Jew, whose head should not be damaged, the delegate will
separate the head from the body and will forward it to its
proper point of destination in a hermetically sealed tin can,
especially produced for this purpose and filled with a
conserving fluid.

“Having arrived at the laboratory, the comparison tests and
anatomical research on the skull, as well as determination of
the race membership of pathological features of the skull form,
the form and size of the brain, etc., can proceed. The basis of
these studies will be the photos, measurements, and other data
supplied on the head, and finally the tests of the skull
itself.”

After extensive correspondence between Himmler and the defendants Sievers and Rudolf Brandt, it was decided to procure the skulls from inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp instead of at the front. The hideous program was actually carried out, as is shown by a letter from Sievers written in June 1943, which states in part (_NO-087_):

“I wish to inform you that our associate, Dr. Beger, who was in
charge of the above special project, has interrupted his
experiments in the concentration camp Auschwitz because of the
existing danger of epidemics. Altogether 115 persons were worked
on, 79 were Jews, 30 were Jewesses, 2 were Poles, and 4 were
Asiatics. At the present time these prisoners are segregated by
sex and are under quarantine in the two hospital buildings of
Auschwitz.”

After the death of these wretched Jews had been “induced” their corpses were sent to Strasbourg. A year elapsed, and the Allied armies were racing across France and were nearing Strasbourg where this monstrous exhibit of the culture of the master race reposed. Alarmed, Sievers sent a telegram to Rudolf Brandt in September 1944, from which I quote:

“According to the proposal of 9 February 1942, and your approval
of 23 February 1942, Professor Dr. Hirt has assembled a skeleton
collection which has never been in existence before. Because of
the vast amount of scientific research that is connected with
this project, the job of reducing the corpses to skeletons has
not yet been completed. Since it might require some time to
process 80 corpses, Hirt requested a decision pertaining to the
treatment of the collection stored in the morgue of the Anatomy,
in case Strasbourg should be endangered. The collection can be
defleshed and rendered unrecognizable. This, however, would mean
that the whole work had been done for nothing—at least in
part—and that this singular collection would be lost to
science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts
afterwards. The skeleton collection, as such is inconspicuous.
The flesh parts could be declared as having been left by the
French at the time we took over the Anatomy and would be turned
over for cremating. Please advise me which of the following
three proposals is to be carried out:

(1) The collection as a whole is to be preserved.

(2) The collection is to be dissolved in part.

(3) The collection is to be completely dissolved.”

The final chapter of this barbaric enterprise is found in a note in Himmler’s files addressed to Rudolf Brandt stating that:

“During his visit at the Operational Headquarters on 21 November
1944, Sievers told me that the collection in Strasbourg had been
completely dissolved in conformance with the directive given him
at the time. He is of the opinion that this arrangement is for
the best in view of the whole situation.”

These men, however, reckoned without the hand of fate. The bodies of these unfortunate people were not completely disposed of, and this Tribunal will hear the testimony of witnesses and see pictorial exhibits depicting the charnel house which was the Anatomy Institute of the Reich University of Strasbourg.

I have now completed the sketch of some of the foul crimes which these defendants committed in the name of research. The horrible record of their degradation needs no underlining. But German medical science was in past years honored throughout the world, and many of the most illustrious names in medical research are German. How did these things come to pass? I will outline briefly the historical evidence which we will offer and which, I believe, will show that these crimes were the logical and inevitable outcome of the prostitution of German medicine under the Nazis.

GERMAN MEDICAL ORGANIZATION
Before 1933

Two years after the reconstitution of the German Reich, in 1871, the German Medical Association (Deutscher Aerztevereinsbund) was created, which tied together the older local medical associations. This society existed until it was abolished by the Nazi Government. Its structure was democratic, and its interests included problems of hygiene and public health, and to an increasing extent, socio-medical problems especially in the field of sickness and disability insurance.

Bismarck’s legislation of 1881 established compulsory sickness insurance for workmen. In the course of the ensuing years, the vast bulk of the workmen were insured, and consequently most of the ordinary physician’s patients came to be insured patients. There were lists of physicians authorized to treat insured patients, and it was a matter of vital moment to every practicing physician to be listed. To protect their interest with respect to listing, fees, and other such problems, the German doctors founded a voluntary association for the defense of their economic interests known as the Hartmann Bund.

Questions of professional ethics, medical malpractice, etc., were handled in Germany in two distinct sets of medical boards or “Courts.” An entirely unofficial and voluntary system was established by the German Medical Association. The other, which was endowed with semi-official status, was called the Reich Chamber of Physicians. These chambers were elected by vote of the members and were supported by an assessment.

In addition to these organizations, there existed in Germany purely professional societies of doctors, where papers concerning scientific and practical problems were read and discussed, and which established connections with similar societies abroad. The German Government agencies which supervised the certification and licensing of physicians as well as their professional activities were the Ministry of Education and the Reich Health Office (Reichsgesundheitsamt) in the Ministry of the Interior. The latter supervised medical practice and licensing through the channels of the Ministries of the Interior of the various German states, although licensing was a federal function rather than a state function.

Medical education and training were rather standardized but good. The students spent 5 or 6 years at one of several of the medical universities; they took a final examination covering their clinical studies and then spent a year at an authorized hospital under supervision. Thereafter the interns were licensed and permitted to establish a practice. After two more years they became eligible to treat insurance patients, and, after submitting a thesis, could obtain the degree of doctor from a university.

Immediate Impact of Nazism on German Medicine

In the years immediately preceding the Third Reich, physicians’ organizations devoted to Party politics sprang up. One of these was the National Socialist Physicians’ Society, founded in 1929, in which Conti played a leading role. There was a rival association of Social Democratic Physicians, and a Socialist Society of Physicians. These societies proposed candidates for election to the Physicians’ Chambers, and thus the National Socialist Physicians’ Society and the Socialist associations came to compete with each other.

The notorious “boycott day” in Berlin, 1 April 1933, was a day of disgrace for German medicine. Members of the National Socialist Physicians’ Society, who knew the membership lists of the Socialist societies and the lists of Jewish physicians, broke into the apartments of their Socialist and Jewish colleagues in the early morning hours, pulled them out of their beds, beat them and brought them to the exhibition area near the Berlin Lehrter Station. There, all of them, including men up to 70 years old, were forced to run around the garden, as in a hippodrome, and they were shot at with pistols or beaten with sticks. There they had to stay for several days without sufficient food, and then were handed over to the SA which carried part of them to the cellars at the Hedemannstrasse jail for further tortures.

Thereafter, the members of the Socialist Society of Physicians were barred from all insurance practice because of “Communist and subversive activities.” In the subsequent listings of physicians issued by the insurance companies, the Jewish physicians were included in a separate list headed “Enemies of the State or Jews.” Soon, the insurance companies, even private ones, were no longer permitted to pay fees to the Jewish physicians. Immediately thereafter, Jewish physicians were excluded from all professional and scientific societies. At first, those who were war veterans were nominally allowed to carry on their insurance practice, but patients who kept going to them were threatened and exposed to all kinds of unpleasantness on the part of the insurance officials.

After the war began, certification and licensing were withdrawn from all Jewish physicians and they were degraded to the status of lay therapists. These physicians were forced to wear a blue shield with the Star of David and had to add a middle name such as “Sarah” or “Israel.” Their prescriptions likewise had to bear the Star of David, which exposed their patients to all kinds of unpleasantness when filling them at pharmacies, most of which had signs in their windows reading “Jews not wanted.”

At first, the Aryan physicians were allowed to treat Jewish patients, but finally they were prohibited from doing so. Hospitals refused admission to Jewish patients, apart from a few courageous ones who admitted them in defiance of the law. Jews were admitted to mental institutions in separate wards, but usually were quickly transported elsewhere for extermination.

In the early summer of 1943, Conti instigated and directed a wholesale persecution of doctors who were either foreigners or persons of so-called mixed blood and those related by marriage to Jews. At first, they were removed from their practice and sent off to posts under inferior Party doctors. In 1944, Conti went a step further and forbade these physicians to practice. They were drafted into the Speer organization, in which they were employed solely at manual labor, their living conditions being little better than those of concentration camp inmates.

Prostitution of German Medicine Under National Socialism

The totalitarian structure of the Nazi State demanded fundamental subordination of all principles of medicine to National Socialist population policy and racial concepts. The most emphatic and repelling expression of those new aims and goals came from the Nazi Director of Public Health in the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Arthur Guett, who took office in 1933. In a book published in 1935 entitled “The Structure of Public Health in the Third Reich,” Guett announced that “the ill-conceived ‘love of thy neighbor’ has to disappear, especially in relation to inferior or asocial creatures. It is the supreme duty of a national state to grant life and livelihood only to the healthy and hereditarily sound portion of the people in order to secure the maintenance of a hereditarily sound and racially pure folk for all eternity. The life of an individual has meaning only in the light of that ultimate aim, that is, in the light of his meaning to his family and to his national state.”

The entire public health policy of the Third Reich was put in line with this pronouncement of principles. The Minister of the Interior, Frick, reorganized the Health Department in his ministry in such a way that police, public health, welfare administration and social services were all coordinated in pursuit of these goals. The beginnings of this reorganization started already in the summer of 1933 and were substantially completed by 1936. All these activities were concentrated under Dr. Guett, who was thus enabled to coordinate the practical application of his policy with his theoretical principles. Even psychiatric social service agencies, which did thorough and well-organized work prior to 1933, were reduced to mere screening stations for hereditary and racial selection.

All government-employed physicians had to take a special new course lasting 18 months and had to be Party members. The German Red Cross was likewise drawn into the orbit of the Nazi Party and the SS, in view of Dr. Grawitz’ appointment as president of the Red Cross. In 1945, after Grawitz’ suicide, the defendant Gebhardt succeeded him.

The Third Reich also completely reorganized the professional medical societies. The German Medical Association and the Hartmann Bund were abolished. All German physicians were reorganized through an organization derived from the Reich Physicians’ Chamber. This National Physicians’ Chamber was placed directly under a medical “fuehrer” with the title of “Reichsaerztefuehrer.” This position was also held by Conti. All doctors except those on active military duty were subordinate to him. His regional deputies were selected from the ranks of active National Socialists who terrorized the district branch societies. These deputies, who usually strutted about in SA or SS uniforms, were recruited mainly from the early members of the National Socialist Medical Association. It was their job to bring pressure on physicians to join and take part in various party organizations, such as the SA and SS.

A command performance, especially for younger physicians, was attendance at the so-called Fuehrer-School of German Physicians at Altrehse in Mecklenburg, which had been organized by the defendant Blome. There physicians were indoctrinated in the National Socialist point of view and way of life. The so-called comradely association and sports activity were merely window dressing for political spying. These courses finally became compulsory and had to be attended for several months annually.

The general respect, in which doctors were held, sunk in view of the decreasing level of general education and ability of the doctors. This was partly due to the constant occupation of the physicians’ time with Party functions, especially the time-consuming Party formations and marches which made it impossible for young physicians to develop scientific interests, so that recent graduates increasingly lost understanding and inclination for serious scientific study and long-range research.

Medical School and Medical Training Under the Nazis

On paper, medical training under the Nazis differed little from that of the pre-Nazi era. However, its fundamental spirit was ruinously distorted and medical standards suffered a dismal decline.

Medical students had to be “Aryan,” and were required to belong to the National Socialist Students’ League. The students’ entire course of studies was constantly interrupted by the demands of the various party organizations to which they were forced to belong. A student whose knowledge of the racial theories and Nuernberg laws was not sufficient would fail his medical examinations.

Chairs in the universities were filled in many cases by Nazi so-called “professors” who might or might not have a scientific background. The true scientific societies under the Nazi regime became less and less active, and the Nazi professors in the universities devoted more time and interest to their SA or SS organizations than to the teaching of medicine. These Nazi professors would don their brown SA or black SS uniforms on all possible occasions, exchanging them proudly for their academic gowns at all academic celebrations and meetings.

The worst Nazi politicians, like Streicher, were given the free run of university clinics, such as at Erlangen. This submissiveness to lay politicians led to a general decline of respect for German academic medicine not only on the part of their own public and abroad but even on the part of the very same politicians before whom they kowtowed. This went so far that Streicher, when addressing a full faculty meeting at the University of Erlangen in 1936, called the assembled professors “complete idiots” to their faces. This was by no means an isolated occurrence.

Particularly deplorable was the degradation of psychiatry. Psychiatric university teaching declined to the level of a mere rehashing of the Nuernberg and sterilization laws. The modern techniques of psychotherapy had been abandoned, and treatment deteriorated to pep talks full of Nazi indoctrination admonitions and threats. No wonder that these methods backfired against the best interest of the German war effort which they were foolishly intended to serve. The lack of proper understanding and treatment of German soldiers who developed combat fatigue or neuroses, on the part of their own medical personnel, drove many of them to surrender to the enemy; efforts to rehabilitate them and restore them to duty were frustrated by the ruinous infusion of Nazi doctrine.

Summary

The general decline of German medical conduct and the poisoning of German medical ethics which the Nazis brought about laid the basis for the atrocious experiments of which the defendants are accused.

Many of these were experiments in name only; we will show them to have been senseless and clumsy and of no real value to medicine as a healing art. The Nazi medical world was flooded with preposterous and wicked notions about superior and inferior races and developed a perverted moral outlook in which cruelty to subjugated races and peoples was praiseworthy. Training in SA and SS formations was hardly calculated to develop physicians who could comprehend even the bare elements of the doctor-patient relationship. In this noxious garden of lies, the seeds of the experiments were planted. In the climate of Nazi Germany, they grew with horrible rapidity.

CRIMES OF MASS EXTERMINATION; MURDER OF
POLISH NATIONALS

From the preaching of Guett and others sprang the notions which underlie the crimes to which we will now turn. Here we leave behind all semblance, however fictitious, of science and research. Under these teachings, life and livelihood became the birthright of no one. The weak and the physically handicapped are in the way and must be pushed aside. Inferior peoples are born to be exterminated by the Herrenvolk.

The charges in paragraphs 8 and 13 of the indictment concern the defendants Blome and Rudolf Brandt. The original impetus for this terrible mass murder came from a fiend named Greiser, who was the German Governor of the northwest portions of Poland, which had been absorbed into the Reich under the name “Wartheland.” Early in 1942, Greiser was in the process of exterminating thousands of Jews in his territory, and he decided to turn his attention next to Poles infected with tuberculosis. I call the Tribunal’s special attention to the German word “Sonderbehandlung.” In the next document, as will be shown, it occurs frequently in Nazi correspondence and was used by them to mean extermination. In May 1942, Greiser wrote to Himmler as follows (_NO-246_):

“The special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of about 100,000 Jews
in the territory of my district approved by you in agreement
with the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, SS
Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, can be completed within the next 2
to 3 months. I ask you for permission to rescue the district
immediately after the measures are taken against the Jews, from
a menace, which is increasing week by week, and to use the
existing and efficient special commandos for that purpose.

“There are about 230,000 people of Polish nationality in my
district who were diagnosed to suffer from tuberculosis. The
number of persons infected with open tuberculosis is estimated
at about 35,000. This fact has led in an increasing frightening
measure to the infection of Germans, who came to the Warthegau
perfectly healthy. In particular, reports are received with
ever-increasing effect of German children in danger of
infection. A considerable number of well-known leading men,
especially of the police, have been infected lately and are not
available for the war effort because of the necessary medical
treatment. The ever-increasing risks were also recognized and
appreciated by the deputy of the Reich Leader for Public Health
(Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer) Comrade Professor Dr. Blome as well
as by the leader of your X-ray battalion SS Standartenfuehrer
Professor Dr. Hohlfelder.

“Though in Germany proper it is not possible to take appropriate
draconic steps against this public plague, I think I could take
responsibility for my suggestion to have cases of open TB
exterminated among the Polish race here in the Warthegau. Of
course only a Pole should be handed over to such an action, who
is not only suffering from open tuberculosis, but whose
incurability is proved and certified by a public health officer.

“Considering the urgency of this project I ask for your approval
in principle as soon as possible. This would enable us to make
the preparations with all necessary precautions now to get the
action against the Poles suffering from open tuberculosis under
way, while the action against the Jews is in its closing
stages.”

Greiser’s proposal was supported in a letter from one, Koppe, the SS and police leader in that region, to the defendant Rudolf Brandt, to which Brandt replied stating that the matter was under consideration and that the final decision would rest with Hitler. Late in June, Himmler sent a “favorable” reply to Greiser cautioning him, however, that the exterminations should be carried out inconspicuously. Thereafter, consultations as to how to carry out the measure occurred between Greiser, Dr. Hohlfelder, and the defendant Blome. The views of Blome are embodied in a letter from him to Greiser written in November 1942. This letter contains an indescribably brutal analysis of the situation, in which Blome expresses agreement with the view that extermination of the tubercular Poles is the simplest and most logical solution, and expresses doubt as to its desirability only in that it would be difficult to keep such widespread slaughter secret, and that Hitler might think the program politically inexpedient if the facts should ever come out.

I quote from the letter of defendant Blome (_NO-250_):

“It was calculated that in 1939 there were among the Poles about
35,000 persons suffering from open tuberculosis and, besides
this number, about 120,000 other consumptives in need of
treatment. * * *

“With the settlement of Germans in all parts of the Gau an
enormous danger has arisen for them. A number of cases of
infection of settled children and adults occurs daily.

* * * * *

“Therefore, something basic must be done soon. One must decide
the most efficient way in which this can be done. There are
three ways to be taken into consideration:

1. Special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of the seriously
ill persons.

2. Most rigorous isolation of the seriously ill persons.

3. Creation of a reservation for all TB patients.

“For the planning, attention must be paid to different points of
view of a practical, political, and psychological nature.
Considering it most soberly, the simplest way would be the
following: Aided by the X-ray battalion [Roentgen Sturmbann] we
could reach the entire population, German and Polish, of the Gau
during the first half of 1943. As to the Germans, the treatment
and isolation are to be prepared and carried out according to
the regulations for Tuberculosis Relief [Tuberkulosehilfe].

“The approximately 35,000 Poles who are incurable and infectious
will be ‘specially treated’ [sonderbehandelt]. All other Polish
consumptives will be subjected to an appropriate cure in order
to save them for work and to avoid their causing contagion.

“According to your request I made arrangements with the offices
in question, in order to start and carry out this radical
procedure within half a year. You told me, that the competent
office agreed with you as to this ‘special treatment’ and
promised support. Before we definitely start the program, I
think it would be correct if you would make sure once more that
the Fuehrer will really agree to such a solution.

* * * * *

“There can be no doubt that the intended program is the most
simple and most radical solution. If absolute secrecy could be
guaranteed, all scruples—regardless of what nature—could be
overcome. But I consider maintaining secrecy impossible.
Experience has taught us that this assumption is true. Should
those sick persons, having been brought, as planned, to the old
Reich supposedly to be treated or healed, and they actually
never return, the relatives of those sick persons in spite of
the greatest secrecy would some day notice ‘that something was
not quite right’.

* * * * *

“Therefore, I think it necessary to explain all those points of
view to the Fuehrer before undertaking the program, as, in my
opinion he is the only one able to view the entire complex and
to come to a decision.”

The prosecution will introduce evidence to show that the program was in fact carried out at the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, and that as a result of the suggestions made by Blome and Greiser, many Poles were ruthlessly exterminated and that others were taken to isolated camps, utterly lacking in medical facilities, where thousands of them died.

EUTHANASIA

On 1 September 1939, the very day of the German attack on Poland, and after a great deal of discussion between Dr. Karl Brandt, Dr. Leonardo Conti, Philipp Bouhler, the Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, and others, Hitler issued the following authority to the defendant Karl Brandt (_630-PS_):

“Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, M. D., are charged with
the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain
physicians to be designated by name in such a manner that
persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can,
upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be
accorded a mercy death.

[Signed] ADOLF HITLER”

After the receipt of this order, an organization was set up to execute this program, Karl Brandt headed the medical section and Philipp Bouhler, the administrative section. The defendant Hoven, as chief surgeon of the Buchenwald concentration camp, took part in the program and personally ordered the transfer of at least 300 to 400 Jewish inmates of different nationalities, mostly non-German, to their death in the euthanasia station at Bernburg. The defendants Brack and Blome participated in their capacities as assistants to Bouhler and Conti.

Questionnaires were forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior from the various institutes and were then submitted to Karl Brandt and his staff for an expert opinion in order to determine the status of each patient. Then each of those experts indicated his opinion as to the eventual disposition of the patient; that is, whether or not the patient should be transferred to a killing station. The questionnaires were supposedly returned to the Ministry of the Interior, which, in turn, sent lists of the doomed patients to the different insane asylums, ordering the directors of the asylums to hand over the patients to a thing called the General Sick Transport Corporation for transfer to the particular stations where the killings took place. This Transport Corporation was not a real organization, but one of the code names used to disguise the true nature of the activities. The patients were then transferred to the station where they were immediately killed. This entire procedure took place without the consent of the relatives, but the relatives did receive a death certificate on which the cause of death was falsified.

The Euthanasia Program was an open secret in top Nazi circles. However, every possible effort had been made to keep it from the public in order to avoid intervention by the churches. In spite of all these precautions, it became commonly known in Germany as early as the summer of 1940 that these killings were going on and church authorities, as well as various legal officials, tried in vain to stop the killings.

Typical of the letters reaching the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Interior is the following:

Addressed to The Reich Minister of Justice:

“I have a schizophrenic son in a Wuerttemberg mental
institution. I am shocked about the following absolutely
reliable information.

“Since some weeks insane persons are being taken from the
institutions allegedly on the grounds of military evacuation.
The directors of the institutions are enjoined to absolute
secrecy. Shortly afterwards the relatives are informed that the
sick person has died of encephalitis. The ashes are available if
so desired. This is plain murder just as in the concentration
camps. This measure uniformly emanates from the SS in Berlin.
The institutions dare not inform the authorities. Inquire at
once at Rottenmuenster, Schassenried, Winzertal, all in
Wuerttemberg. Have the lists of 2 months ago examined and
submitted to you, check upon the inmates who are there now and
ask where the missing persons went to. For 7 years now this gang
of murderers have defiled the German name. If my son is
murdered, woe! I shall take care that these crimes will be
published in all foreign newspapers. The SS may deny it as they
always do. I shall demand prosecution by the public prosecutor.

“I cannot give my name nor the institution where my son is,
otherwise I, too, won’t live much longer.

Heil Hitler
Oberregierungsrat N.”

If this program had stayed within the bounds set forth in Hitler’s letter to Karl Brandt, it would have been bad enough. We may pass over as quite irrelevant any such question as whether mercy killing may not in some circumstances be desirable, and whether a statute authorizing mercy killings under proper safeguards would be valid.

Such questions may be debatable, but they do not confront us here. No German law authorizing mercy killings was ever adopted. Hitler’s memorandum to Brandt and Bouhler was not a law, not even a Nazi law. It was not intended to be a law or regarded as such even by the top Nazi officials. That is why the program was carried out with the utmost secrecy. The program was known to be utterly illegal by those who were in charge of it; they knew it was nothing but murder.

This is brought out very clearly in a letter from Himmler to the defendant Brack in December 1940 (_NO-018_):

“Dear Brack:

“I hear there is great excitement on the Alb because of the
institution Grafeneck.

“The population recognizes the gray automobile of the SS and
think they know what is going on at the constantly smoking
crematory. What happens there is a secret and yet is no longer
one. Thus the worst feeling has arisen there, and in my opinion
there remains only one thing, to discontinue the use of the
institution in this place and in any event disseminate
information in a clever and sensible manner by showing motion
pictures on the subject of inherited and mental diseases in just
that locality.

“May I ask for a report as to how the difficult problem was
solved.”

But there are more fundamental matters here. The program did not stay even within the bounds of the secret Hitler authority. Euthanasia became merely a polite word for the systematic slaughter of Jews and many other categories of persons useless or unfriendly to the Nazi regime. The evidence before the International Military Tribunal proved this clearly, and the judgment states, and I quote:[11]

“Reference should also be made to the policy which was in
existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all
aged, insane, and incurable people, ‘useless eaters’, were
transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and
their relatives informed that they had died from natural causes.
The victims were not confined to German citizens, but included
foreign laborers, who were no longer able to work, and were
therefore useless to the German war machine. It has been
estimated that at least some 275,000 people were killed in this
manner in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums, which were
under the jurisdiction of the defendant Frick, in his capacity
as Minister of the Interior. How many foreign workers were
included in this total it has been quite impossible to
determine.”

I quote one more paragraph from the decision:[12]

“During the war nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums in which
euthanasia was practiced as described elsewhere in this
judgment, came under Frick’s jurisdiction. He had knowledge that
insane, sick and aged people, ‘useless eaters’, were being
systematically put to death. Complaints of these murders reached
him, but he did nothing to stop them. A report of the
Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission estimated that 275,000
mentally deficient and aged people, for whose welfare he was
responsible, fell victim to it.”

As stated in the indictment, the defendants involved in the euthanasia program sent their subordinates to the eastern occupied territories to assist in the mass extermination of Jews. This will be shown by abundant evidence, including the following excerpt from a letter from the defendant Brack to Himmler in 1942 from which I quote a paragraph:

“On the instructions of Reichsleiter Bouhler I placed some of my
men at the disposal of Brigadefuehrer Globocnik to execute his
special mission. On his renewed request I have now transferred
additional personnel. On this occasion Brigadefuehrer Globocnik
stated his opinion that the whole Jewish action should be
completed as quickly as possible so that one would not get
caught in the middle of it one day if some difficulties should
make a stoppage of the action necessary. You yourself, Reich
Leader, have already expressed your view, that work should
progress quickly for reasons of camouflage alone.”

Protesting the lawless slaughter which even Himmler sought to “camouflage”, the Bishop of Limburg in 1941 foresaw that such insane carnage spelled the downfall of the Third Reich. (_615-PS._) He wrote:

“And if anybody says that Germany cannot win the war, if there
is yet a just God, these expressions are not the result of lack
of love for the Fatherland but of a deep concern for our people.
* * * High authority as a moral concept has suffered a severe
shock as a result of these happenings.”

SUMMARY

I have outlined the particular charges against the defendants under count two, three, and four of the indictment; and I have sketched the general nature of the evidence which we will present. But we must not overlook that the medical experiments were not an assortment of unrelated crimes. On the contrary, they constituted a well-integrated criminal program in which the defendants planned and collaborated among themselves and with others.

We have here, in other words, a conspiracy and a common design, as is charged in count one of the indictment, to commit the criminal experiments set forth in paragraphs 6 and 11 thereof. There was a common design to discover, or improve, various medical techniques. There was a common design to utilize for this purpose the unusual resources which the defendants had at their disposal, consisting of numberless unfortunate victims of Nazi conquest and Nazi ideology. The defendants conspired and agreed together to utilize these human resources for nefarious and murderous purposes, and proceeded to put their criminal design into execution. Numbered among the countless victims of the conspiracy and the crimes are Germans, and nationals of countries overrun by Germany, and gypsies, and prisoners of war, and Jews of many nationalities. All the elements of a conspiracy to commit the crimes charged in paragraphs 6 and 11 are present and all will be clearly established by the proof.

There were many co-conspirators who are not in the dock. Among the planners and leaders of this plot were Conti and Grawitz, and Hippke whose whereabouts is unknown. Among the actual executioners, Dr. Ding is dead and Rascher is thought to be dead. There were many others.

Final judgment as to the relative degrees of guilt among those in the dock must await the presentation of the proof in detail. Nevertheless, before the introduction of evidence, it will be helpful to look again at the defendants and their part in the conspiracy. What manner of men are they, and what was their major role?

The 20 physicians in the dock range from leaders of German scientific medicine, with excellent international reputations, down to the dregs of the German medical profession. All of them have in common a callous lack of consideration and human regard for, and an unprincipled willingness to abuse their power over the poor, unfortunate, defenseless creatures who had been deprived of their rights by a ruthless and criminal government. All of them violated the Hippocratic commandments which they had solemnly sworn to uphold and abide by, including the fundamental principles never to do harm—“primum non nocere.”

Outstanding men of science, distinguished for their scientific ability in Germany and abroad, are the defendants Rostock and Rose. Both exemplify, in their training and practice alike, the highest traditions of German medicine. Rostock headed the Department of Surgery at the University of Berlin and served as dean of its medical school. Rose studied under the famous surgeon, Enderlen, at Heidelberg and then became a distinguished specialist in the fields of public health and tropical diseases. Handloser and Schroeder are outstanding medical administrators. Both of them made their careers in military medicine and reached the peak of their profession. Five more defendants are much younger men who are nevertheless already known as the possessors of considerable scientific ability, or capacity in medical administration. These include the defendants Karl Brandt, Ruff, Beiglboeck, Schaefer, and Becker-Freyseng.

A number of the others such as Romberg and Fischer are well trained, and several of them attained high professional position. But among the remainder few were known as outstanding scientific men. Among them at the foot of the list is Blome who has published his autobiography entitled “Embattled Doctor” in which he sets forth that he eventually decided to become a doctor because a medical career would enable him to become “master over life and death.”