JUDGE SEBRING: Dr. Brandt, is it not true that in any military organization, even one of an authoritarian State, there comes a print beyond which the officer receiving an order subjects himself to individual responsibility, at least in the eyes of civilized society, for carrying out any military orders, particularly if the order is unlawful or transcends the limit of extreme military necessity?
A. There was a general law stating that an officer does not have to carry out an order which he realized is a crime, but the question with reference to these various experiments is whether the on concerned can realize what he is doing is a crime. If he can realize it the, according to my opinion, he cannot follow the order.
MR. MCHANEY: You have stated that where we are concerned with an experiment which is extremely important for the State, then the Doctor who is directed to carry out such an experiment is extricate and is not responsible for any death which may occur. Is the person who issued the order responsible in your opinion?
A. Are you referring to the freezing experiments and would you tell me who gave the order?
Q. No, we are going back to the hypothetical question put to you by the Tribunal which stated that an officer ordering a subordinate to carry out an experiment, which we will assume was of State importance, that subordinate carrying out that experiment upon involuntary subjects, some of whom died, as I recall you stated upon these assumptions the doctor who carried out the experiment which was of State importance was relieved of the responsibility because of the totalitarian State. Is that correct?
A. I said generally that in such a case the State as such must take away that responsibility beforehand, that is, from the physician.
Q. Now, I would like for you to tell me whether anyone in the State, anyone such as the man who issued the order, must assume the responsibility for that experiment?
A. There is the question whether he can assume it. When considering these series of experiments it must be dependant on who was justified to decide about the life the experimental subject If I consider the case of concentration camps, the, according to my opinion, the person who is alone responsible was Himmler himself for it was only with his consent, or only in the basis of his order such experiments were carried through. These people attached to the concentration camps had been handed over to him and, therefore, he bore the responsibility for these people for their living or not living. If Himmler has given such an order or if he ordered the execution of such an experiment, the, according to my opinion, the responsibility was with him, a responsibility which he had to assume in his position as the supreme deciding man in these affairs.
Q. Suppose you have a case where the experiment is ordered by the Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe. The experiment is carried out by the Luftwaffe doctors, and all that Himmler does is to make the experimental subjects available to the Luftwaffe. Does Himmler bear the sole responsibility there or does the Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe also share the responsibility?
A. According to my opinion the responsibility in that respect rested with Himmler alone and not with the Chief of the Medical Services of the Air Force because without Himmler's consent and furnishing of experimental subjects that made it possible to carry out such experiments, The Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe couldn't have carried them out. There is perhaps a very clear proof for the fact that the responsibility rested with Himmler for these experiments were carried out, so to speak, in his house within the framework of the concentration camp. I don't believe in this case the responsibility can be attached to the Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe.
The Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe could put forth the problem and the urgency but in that manner he would have remained at a vacuum if the person of Himmler, together with his personnel and human beings at his disposal, would not have helped him putting at his disposal his space in his camps.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. SAUTER (Counsel for the Defendant Dr. Ruff): Mr. President, before the Brandt case is continued I should like to present to you the following matter and ask you for your decision and for your assistance. On the 13th of December I applied for a witness, Dr. Erich Hippke, that is, the former Chief of the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe. This witness was approved by the Court. His whereabouts were unknown. I endeavored to find out the address of the witness. At the beginning of the trial he was at liberty and shortly after the beginning of this trial he had been put in a British prison in Hamburg. In response to my application he was brought to Nurnberg and I was informed that the witness had arrived here. This witness had also been approved for the defense counsel of General Field Marshal Milch and had been brought to Nurnberg for him, too. In the last few days I have repeatedly talked to the witness, Dr. Hippke, in order to determine whether I am to submit as affidavit from him or call him to the witness stand for examination. Yesterday afternoon, between 3:00 and 4:00 o'clock, I was talking to the witness, Dr. Erich Hippke, in the interrogation room. The Prosecution had a Lieutenant Garrett telephone down to the interrogation room and say that I was to stop questioning the witness, Hippke, immediately, and that during the next 8 days the witness could not be questioned by any defense counsel. On the basis of this situation I ask the President to decide whether this action is correct and whether I have to accept it. According to the rules of the first Nurnberg trial and also according to the rules of the present trial, if I understand them correctly, a witness who has been requested by a defense counsel and has been approved and has been brought to Nurnberg at the application of this defense counsel -- such a witness is primarily available to this defense counsel. I do not believe that under the rules of American trial procedure the prosecution has the right to destroy this right of the defense counsel because they perhaps also want to examine the witness. If such a right is given to the prosecution in the future, then, in effect, the defense counsel would no longer have any claim to examine the witnesses he has requested and to prepare for his case. I therefore ask for a ruling of the Court on this question, which has a certain basic importance for the defense. As defense counsel, I do not want to claim anything for myself which is not my due under American Trial Procedure in a fair trial, but, on the other hand, I cannot give up any of the rights which are granted me by law or by the court.
This is especially true if I would thereby come into danger of being unable to complete my document books as a result of this delay and turn them in for translation. Mr. President, that is what I had to present to you.
THE PRESIDENT: I have not the facts of this situation entirely in mind. I remember signing an order some days since, sequestering this witness for a period of 8 days only, after which he would be open to examination by any of the defense counsel. The Tribunal will examine the record at the earliest possible moment and announce its ruling on the matter. I notice, however, that counsel for Defendant Ruff, on the 30th of January, advised the Secretary General that the witness, Hippke, was no longer required as a witness for the Defendant Ruff. The Tribunal will take this under advisement and advise counsel at the earliest possible moment of its ruling.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, may I add something? When talking to the witness Hippke, I had at first had the impression that it would be sufficient to submit an affidavit from this witness and I had worked out the affidavit together with the witness, Hippke. At the last moment, however, the witness, Dr. Hippke, told me that for some reasons he did not want to sign this affidavit. Therefore I shall presumably have to call the witness, Hippke, to the stand after all. I may add that the same thing is true in the case of attorney Bergold, who is defending Field Marshal Milch in the trial downstairs. The witness, Hippke, was also approved for him and he too is not allowed to talk to this witness any more and we do not understand whether that is right or not. That is why we are asking for a ruling of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: It was not my intention to indicate that counsel would be bound by this notice of January 30. He may still call the witness if he desires to do so. The Tribunal will announce its ruling on the matter shortly. Has counsel for the Prosecution anything to say in this matter?
MR. McHANEY: I think I may be able to clear up the situation to the mutual satisfaction of everyone. It is not correct that Hippke was found through any efforts of defense counsel. We have been looking for Hippke since May of 1946, and we discovered, through our own efforts, his address in Hamburg.
Upon the request of the Prosecution he was there arrested and kept in Hamburg for a short time and then brought to Nurnberg at our request. In the meantime, certain of the defense counsel applied for him as a witness and, of course, we made no objection. On the other hand, the Prosecution takes the position in this case, and will take a similar position in the case of Eugene Haagen, for example, that the Prosecution has every right to interrogate such persons before they are turned over to defense counsel. In this particular case, due to some misunderstanding on the part of the Prosecution and the Secretary General, it happened that certain of the defense counsel in this case and in the Milch case interrogated Hippke at some length before he had ever been seen by the Prosecution and, as a matter of fact, exhibited to him a substantial number of documents which form the basis of the record here; and, as Hippke himself has put it, he is now so confused that he doesn't know what he can testify to from memory and from what he has seen in these documents. Consequently the Prosecution asked the Tribunal here to rule that the Prosecution have one week in which we had the exclusive right to interrogate Hippke. At the conclusion of that time he shall, of course, be available to defense counsel for Ruff and any other of the defense counsel and I think there will be no delay in proceeding with this case.
Dr. Bergold in the Milch case has requested that Hippke appear as a witness tomorrow in that Court and he has also requested the right to interrogate Hippke this afternoon. I have conferred with the prosecutor in the Milch case, and I have agreed, on the part of the prosecution in this case, that is permissible, but the remainder of this week we would like to have Hippke available to the prosecution for interrogation and on next Monday he will be available to defense counsel at any time they want him.
DR. SAUTER: Just a minute please, Mr. President, I do not believe that I can be satisfied with this explanation. It is my opinion that this case would be suitable for reaching a basic decision of a basic question. The following is the issue. As I understand American trial procedure, the defense is to be put on an equal basis with the prosecution insofar as it is at all possible. Now the situation is as follows: I apply for a witness; Dr. Bergold also applies for him. The witness is unknown; we send one of our associates to Hamburg and this man finds out the address of the witness, then the witness ** brought to Nurnberg. We would assume, as a matter of course, that he comes as our witness and that consequently he is at our disposal so that we can prepare our case. We believe that in such a case the prosecution should not have the right to examine this witness without our presence and without our knowledge.
If we work from the principle that in general, as far as possible, the defense is to have the same rights as the prosecution, then in my opinion this action is not quite right. If the case were opposite; if the prosecution brought a witness here, then the defense does not have the right to say, "I will now examine the witness one week for the defense and when I am finished, then the prosecution can have him."
Of course, the American prosecution knows American trial procedure better and we defense counsel are dependent on experience in the first trial and the rulings of this tribunal, but I would be grateful to the President if this question could be cleared up. In my opinion it is necessary so that the trial can proceed quickly and without difficulty and in a fair manner. Thank you.
MR. MC HANEY: I can only repeat, there is absolutely no disagreement between the prosecution and the defense about their right to their own witnesses and the prosecution certainly does not take the position that it can interrogate any of the defense witnesses in the absence of defense counsel, but it so happens there will be certain cases, such as in the case of Hippke and such as the case of Hogen, where the prosecution has for many months been looking for these persons and suddenly they are found and then both the prosecution and defense are interested in interrogating this person as a possible witness.
Those are just situations that will have to be worked out as they come up. The prosecution can do nothing more than take the position that when we find then and bring then to Nuernberg, on our own effort, then we have the rights to interrogate them first excluding the rights of the defense to interrogate them.
Now, Heppke was not found through the efforts of the defense, his address was found by us at the Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg and we then got in touch with British authorities at Hamburg and agents of the British authorities arrested him then and he was then brought to Nuernberg. But, by some strange coincidence defense counsel also found his address and located him before that time. Why, it is no more than a coincidence and I don't think there is any fundamental disagreement as to the rights of the defense counsel with respect to these witnesses, but we will have to have these cases come up from time to time and they will just have to be decided upon when they arise.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Mr. McHaney, can you give some indication to the Tribunal now as to the names of these witnesses that you say you have been looking for and are anxious to get as witnesses, who perhaps may also be used by the defense. You mentioned the name Heppke and now Hogen.
MR. MC HANEY: Hogen and Heppke are two that come to mind. There are of course many other numbers of possibilities that we listed when we first started investigating the matters at issue. We drew up a list in excess of 250 to 300 doctors who we fell either were implicated in some manner or who at least had some knowledge of the matters at issue. We circulated that list with the American and British authorities to try to locate them. Some were found and a great number of them were not. We could made that list available to the Tribunal. On the other hand, even though a man is on our wanted list, if the defense counsel locates him first and bring him to Nuernberg as a volunteer witness, then I am willing to conceive they have exclusive rights to that man even though we have been looking for him. Of course, we don't claim any exclusive rights to the man even though we have been looking for him and of course we don't claim any right to arrest him at an appropriate opportunity if he is wanted as a war criminal.
But we do insofar as being a witness and insofar as interrogations are concerned, if we shall locate the nan first and bring him here even though the prosecution says he is a defense witness. On the other hand, if we are looking for him and bring him here, just because defense counsel has out in an application for the witness, we cannot take the view that we have lost our rights to him as a prosecution witness or shall we **** our rights to interrogations.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, may I make the following remark, the last thing that the Prosecution just said is precisely what oppresses us. As things are done now I must feel that every time I bring a witness here or give the witness' address, that the Prosecution then says, "Stop! We have been looking for him for a long time. We will examine him first for a week", and after he has been examined by the Prosecution for a week then of course the defense can have him. That is what we are protesting against, at least that is what I am protesting against. My point of view is if this procedure is applied on a large scale, it might be better to change the practices of legal procedure entirely and to say, no matter whether the witness is brought here by the defense or the prosecution, in any case the prosecution is to have the right first to examine the witness, and when it has no more questions to put to the witness, then the defense may question him. I may point out something else, Gentlemen, this witness, Hippke, has been here in the prison for sometime. The case of the prosecution has long been finished. The prosecution did not produce this witness, and as far as I know it did not submit an affidavit from this witness, therefore, in my opinion, the prosecution has given evidence that it is not interested in this witness for this trial. Now, as the defense has begun the cases for the defendants, in my opinion the prosecution should no longer have the right, as far as this trial is concerned, to examine this witness without the approval of the defense counsel, but at least it should not have the right to keep the witness for itself for a certain period. These are my objections. These are my objections on the basis of my knowledge of American trial procedure, and concerning which I ask for a ruling of the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, in your opinion how vitally necessary is it that the defense counsel shall have precedence over the prosecution or vica-versa so far as priority in examination of any particular witness or interrogation of any particular witness is concerned?
DR. SAUTER: As far as I can judge from the customs of the first trial, American law is that the side which has named a witness has priority and that the other side can examine this witness only with the approval and in the presence of the opponent.
That was the procedure so far as I know. If the prosecution brought a witness here then the defense counsel can talk to this witness with the approval of the prosecution, and only in the presence of a member of the prosecution. Now, we are told that defense and prosecution have the same rights. If that is true, then it would have to be exactly the same in the opposite case. In my opinion it should not matter whether it was the prosecution who brought the witness to Nurnberg, or whether it was the defense which brought the witness to Nurnberg. I, as defense counsel, have to bring my witness to Nurnberg voluntarily. If he does not want to come I cannot send a jeep after him, put him in it and bring him to Nurnberg by force. The prosecution can and must. Therefore, it makes no difference who brings the witness to Nurnberg.
We defense counsel were told the witness, Hippke, could not be found. Then we sent one of our associates to Hambeug. He found out the address of the witness, and Dr. Bergold and. I told the General Secretary's Office the address. Whether the prosecution was trying to find out the address of the witness and whether they found out this a dress by themselves, I do not know.
THE PRESIDENT: It will accomplish as a matter of convenience in expediting the preparation for trial, if the witness is going to be brought here personally to be personally present as a witness by the Court rather than to take his affidavit, then as I understand you are merely confronted here with the procedural inconvenience, because the prosecution has interrogated him first. I suppose that is the point, because theoretically I think that the Court must assume that any witness having been placed under oath will be assumed to speak the truth under oath, no matter by whom he is first interrogated or by whom he is questioned. Is that not true, sir?
DR. SAUTER: Theoretically, that is true, but in practice the prosecution has a different view.
If that were true that you have just said then it would make no difference whatever to the prosecution who examined the witness first. If the prosecution is interested in questioning the witness first and demands that when the defense counsel question the witness a member of the prosecution should be present, then the defense should have the same right, or one should say in the beginning that the prosecution and defense do not have the same rights and we would have to adjust ourselves for that.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will take the matter under advisement and announce a ruling as soon as possible.
DR. SAUTER: I thank you.
Q Herr Brandt, if an order were issued to a medical officer instructing him in general terms to carry out a freezing experiment without stating the manner in which the experiment was to be performed, would you say that this medical officer was responsible for the manner in which this experiment was carried out?
A My point of view would be according to a phrase I used yesterday, that the officer would have to keep the experiment on as small a scale as possible and the possibility of a positive result should be assured; but he is responsible for the manner of execution of such experiments, since an experiment may be extended unnecessarily and may show accompanying symptoms which have no connection with the question at issue. For all these things the person carrying out the experiment would be responsible, that is to say for the manner of execution of the experiment.
Q Herr Brandt, is it not true that you held positions cf great power and responsibility in the medical services of Germany after July 1942?
A With reference to the tasks which were assigned to me, yes.
Q Couldn't you even direct German doctors to disregard the Oath of Hipocrates?
A I think the Oath of Hipocrates is not an oath which is to be changed as a law. The Oath of Hipocrates is a formulation concerning moral and ethical obligations.
I do not believe that anyone is ordered not to observe the moral obligations of a doctor. If I said anything about this it was that the medical and moral attitude must be the decisive thing as far as the doctor is concerned. I do not know whether that is an answer to your question. That is how I understood it.
Q Didn't you on at least one occasion, and I now have reference to a matter other than euthanasia, direct that doctors should not be bound by a certain provision of the Oath of Hipocrates, and a certain provision of the morally accepted cede of ethics for physicians?
Q I do not believe that I issued any instructions, the word instruction would mean something general, to observe anything but the medical point of view.
Q. To refresh your recollection, witness, I want to put Document NO-119to you.
(Document handed to witness.)
Q. (cont'd) Witness, have you had an opportunity to look at the document?
A. I just see it now. May I read through it?
Q. Will you look at page 3 of the document? Is this not an order from Hitler giving you authority to instruct all German doctors that they are relieved from their pledge of secrecy concerning their patients and further giving you authority to direct them to report confidential information received concerning the condition of their patients?
A. These were not my patients. It was an order signed by Hitler saying the following:
"I not only relieve Physicians, medical practitioners, and dentists of their Pledge to secrecy towards my Commissioner-General Professor Dr. Karl Brandt, but I place upon them the binding obligation to advise him - for my own information - immediately after a final diagnosis has established a serious disease, or a disease of ill-boding character, with a personality holding a leading position or a position of responsibility in the State, the Party, the Wehrmacht, in industry, and so forth. (signed) Adolf Hitler"
Q. You passed this order down to all physicians, doctors, and dentists in Germany through the agency of Dr. Conti, didn't you!
A. I myself did hot pass on the order, but as far as I recall, Martin Bormann passed on this order from Hitler and Martin Bormann probably added the necessary words so that it was proclaimed as necessary.
Q. Well, look at the second page. That's a letter from Dr. Conti to the heads of the medical chambers, dated 9 January 1943, "Subject: Fuehrer Decree on Suspension of Pledge to Secrecy in special cases. Gentlemen: I am sending to you enclosed a Fuehrer Decree which I received from Professor Dr. Brandt." Wouldn't that indicate that you passed the order down?
A. It is possible that I passed it on.
Q. And that does relieve German physicians from one of the normally accepted principles of medical practice, doesn't it?
A. In special cases.
Q. Did you ever relieve doctors from their code of ethics in any other instances?
A. I did not free them in this case either. It was a clear order from the Fuehrer.
Q. And in other cases?
A. In other cases? I don't recall any other cases. This is a quite clear order from the Fuehrer for specific reasons giving rise to this decree.
Q. Herr Brandt, didn't the decree of 28 July 1942 appointing you General Commissioner require that you be kept informed about the fundamental events in the medical service of the Wehrmacht and civilian health service?
A. Yes.
Q. Weren't medical experiments on concentration camp inmates without their consent fundamental events?
A. I was not informed about them. Consequently the offices which had to deal with them apparently did not consider them fundamental.
Q. Wasn't the very purpose of requiring you to be informed so that you could advise Hitler?
A. Since I was subordinate to him personally, the purpose was that I could inform him.
Q. Didn't this Fuehrer decree of 28 July 1942 empower you to intervene in a responsible manner?
A. Within the framework of the assignments given me it would have been possible.
Q. If Handloser had come to you on 1 August 1942 and told you the details about the typhus experiments in Buchenwald, what would you have done?
A. It is not clear to me in what form Handloser would have described these experiments to me. That comes back to the point which I mentioned once before this morning, discussing the basic attitude toward experiments, that the person who conducted the experiments, the causes and so forth, were not discussed yet.
I assume that Handloser's description of the experiments, if he had known it, would have been different from the one which has been given here.
Q. Well now, Herr Brandt, for purposes of answering this question, I want you to assume that Handloser told you all the details of these typhus experiments; that the subjects were concentration camp inmates who did not volunteer; that they tested various typhus vaccines by artificially infecting the experimental subjects, most of whom had not been previously protected by vaccine; that he further told you that each month they picked out six concentration camp inmates and infected them with typhus for the sole purpose of having typhus-infected blood available for the experiments; and that he further told you that a large number of people were dying as a result of these experiments, What would you have done after receiving that information from Handloser?
A. That is such a theoretical question in a form in which I cannot answer it. I consider it impossible.
DR. NELTE (Counsel for Handloser): Mr. President, a hypothetical question is being asked by the prosecutor. This hypothetical question, of course not intentionally, but in fact, contains accusations against a defendant who has not yet been examined and concerning whom no facts have been proved which would justify such a hypothetical assumption. The same question could be asked if the prosecutor said, "What would you do if someone, anyone, reported such and such fact to you." The mentioning of this one defendant defamates his character without any possibility of his defending himself.
MR. MC HANEY: If the Tribunal please, I think the record very clearly shows that this is a hypothetical question and is put to the witness with certain assumptions made. I used the defendant Handloser because Handloser is mentioned in the decree of 28 July 1942 and according to the prosecution he was subordinated to some degree to the witness on the stand, and I wanted to try to establish what power, what authority, what influence, this witness would have brought to bear if he had knowledge of a criminal experiment. He denies such knowledge. We will attempt to prove, and I think we have already proved, that he did have knowledge, but he denies it and I now want him to assume that knowledge is brought home to him by someone who is subordinated to him in some degree and try to get an answer from him which will give us some indication of the steps he would then have taken.
THE PRESIDENT: The use by counsel for prosecution of the name of the defendant Handloser has no effect upon the Tribunal. The Tribunal understands that this is simply a hypothetical question. The name of any particular defendant might well have been submitted but the Tribunal understands exactly what the prosecution intends by his question and the use of the name of the defendant Handloser is entirely without prejudice to him.
BY MR. McHANEY:
Q Now, witness, tell us what you would have done if you had received this information?
A If I had received this information, I would have reacted to it in a certain form, but this would have had nothing to do with the position which I held at that time. My position in respect to Mr. Handloser at that time was not in anyway that of subordination of Handloser to me. That is a decisive factor in this question. If I disregard my position at the time, if I assume that the year was 1941, I would first have tried to get more information and find out exactly what had happened and what the reasons were, and in some form possible to me I would probably have tried to clear up the situation if it was described to me as critical.
With regard to my position as Commissioner-General and Handloser's position, my position in respect to Handloser, my position in 1942 was clear that it was a question of coordination of general needs with respect to the Civilian Health Service, and within the framework of this work, I could have taken action if it was a special task which had been assigned to me.
Q Would you have gone to Hitler?
A I would probably have gone to him after I had discovered what was going on lay myself.
Q Do you think your influence with Hitler was such that you could have had this experiment stopped?
A That is also a hypothetical question which I shall however, try to answer. It would be very important what the experiments were and what the purpose of the experiments was. It would be important whether he himself had given the instructions which I might have learned only at that moment. I could have referred to various points. He would probably in the case of typhus cite casualty figures, and it was said that in such and such an army group there were so many deaths from this disease and that he wanted to have the information discovered about the theraphy, and it would have been possible for me to have said it is inhumane. In that case he would have given me ten or twenty photographs from his desk of the last air raids, and at the end he would say openly:
"I don't have how I win the war; the important thing is that I do win it." I want to show that the possibility of such a theoretical attempt to prevent experiments would have been limited in its effect. As far as I am concerned, it is an open question whether in such an actual case I could have prevented an experiment or not.
Q Didn't you concern yourself at all with medical experimentation on human beings during the time you were General Commissioner?
A You may be referring to the letter of 1943 concerning hepatitis epidemica concerning which I said yesterday or the day before that it is not clear to me to what extent this letter was written by Grawitz dated the first of June. Up to that time I had promoted research in the field of hepatitis epidemica, at first, and that to clear up the virus question I had suggested to Grawitz that experiments should be carried out. Thus I was formally brought into connection with these experiments after my time in 1942.
Q Well, witness, I seem to get a different picture now about this letter than the one I received from your direct examination.
Do I understand that you now admit that you spoke to Grawitz and suggested to him that experiments be carried out on concentration camp inmates in connection with jaundice virus?
A. No. You did not understand me correctly. I said when I began this sentence that this assumption may have originated with this letter. Two or three days ago I said that it is my opinion since I had not done any work in connection with hepatitis epidemica beforehand that there was probably confusion here, but at the moment I cannot Prove it, of course. I pointed out that one year later op the same question of hepatitis epidemica Mr. Schreiber, who was in charge of epidemic control, wanted to carry out such experiments.
Q. But witness, you now state that you yourself wore not concerned with jaundice research and that you did not ask Grawitz to make prisoners available to Dohmen as stated in the letter.
A. I cannot remember that I asked Grawitz to do this.
Q. Well, were you interested in jaundice research at about that time?
A. The question of jaundice as such was not a specific question which affected me personally at that time. It was a question which was encountered by everyone in the East. The problem of hepatitis epidemica as a disease, as an epidemic, from the year '41-'42 on was a general problem.
Q. Did you concern yourself with experimentation on human beings in connection with any matter other than this jaundice problem?
A. I am not aware that I occupied myself with experiments on human beings dealing with other diseases in any way.
Q. Was it not one of the main reasons for the issuance of the Second Fuehrer Decree on 5 September 1943 that Conti was refusing to subordinate himself to you?
A. Conti was not subordinate to me and could not subordinate himself to me after the first Fuehrer decree. The first decree had not said that he was subordinate to me or that I had any authority over him with the exception of certain tasks of coordination. The Second Decree, as I said, was issued primarily because of the material differences.