A. Yes, I am still burned today. You can still see it today.
Q. And then, as I understand your testimony, approximately two weeks later you had your testicles removed?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know why that was done?
A. No. Because I am a Jew -- I know that much.
Q. Do you know any of the doctors or other people in the camp who did these things to you?
A. No, but I asked at Auschwitz: "Who does these things?" I heard of name. The name of Dr. Schumann and I remembered that name and I remember it until today but I do not know that person myself.
Q. How many other boys were subjected to these rays with you the first time?
A. Operated on with me were twenty people, but transports were arrive all the time -- every few days, every few weeks. Many transports arrived.
Q. Did they tattoo a number on your forearm while you were in the ca**
A. Yes. I have a number 132266.
Q. Will you show that to the Tribunal, please?
A. Yes. (Indicating tattoo to Tribunal)
Q. Do you know whether or not any of the other boys who were sterilized with you died as a result of the sterilization?
A. From the sterilization, no. But later many were gassed. Very few are still alive.
Q. Did you have pictures made of you when you were here in Nurnberg several weeks ago?
A. When? In Nurnberg? Yes.
Q. I will show to the witness pictures which are documents NO-819and I ask you if these are pictures made of you in Nurnberg six weeks ago?
A. Yes
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, I offer these pictures as Prosecution Exhibit 167.
JUDGE SEBRING: I would suggest, Mr. McHaney, that they be offered as 167-A, B, C, D, and E if you are offering all of them.
MR. McHANEY: You are quite correct, your Honor; I shall. BY MR. McHANEY:
Q. Witness, you state you are now living in Konstance?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you living there with your sisters?
A. Yes; my sisters are in Konstance in a community home. They are with me.
Q. Do they know of your condition?
A. No.
Q. And that is the reason you asked the Tribunal not to permit the publishing of your name or pictures of your?
A. Yes, that is the reason. The reason is that I have many friends a I am very much ashamed. I asked once more that my name not be published in any way.
MR. McHANEY: I have no further questions -- if the defense has no question to ask.
THE PRESIDENT: It is the order of the Tribunal that no photographs of this witness be taken and published and no reference to his testimony be published by either the members of the press or anyone else. Do any of the defense counsel desire to cross-examine this witness? The Court will not recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning. I want to make an announcement before we recess. In the morning the Tribunal will announce the ruling on the witness Neff whether he should be falled and the matter will be discussed by the Tribunal this evening.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty in the morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 17 December 1946)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 17 December 1946, 0930-1630, Justice Beals, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable Judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal 1 is now in session.
God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Marshal, will you ascertain whether or not the defendants are all present.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note that fact for the record.
The Tribunal will now announce its ruling in the matter of the proposed witness Neff. The ruling of the court will be pronounced by Judge Sebring.
JUDGE SEBRING: Gentlemen of the prosecution and the defense, during the course of the trial session held yesterday afternoon the prosecution made an oral motion before the Tribunal that one Walter Neff be called to the witness stand as a court witness. As the Tribunal understands the assertions of the prosecution, they are that the said Walter Neff is believed to have been an eye witness to many of the allegedly criminal medical experiments for which the defendants are now on trial, that he is one of the few eye witnesses now available to the prosecution; that he is being personally held in physical custody by the occupational authorities upon suspicion of having been an active participant in such experiments; that he may in some subsequent proceeding be indicted for such participation in such experiments and be tried as a war criminal, which fact is known to him; that for this reason the prosecution is of the belief that the witness may prove to be a hostile witness and consequently, the prosecution does not care to call him as its own witness and thus vouch for his veracity or credibility.
Now, on the other hand, does it want to take an unfair advantage of the witness by requiring him to make statements under the compulsion of an oath when such statements may be used against him in a subsequent criminal proceeding.
The Tribunal is concerned, of course, with learning the whole truth about the charges now pending against the defendants in the dock. At the same time, it is equally concerned with protecting the rights of persons who may be subsequently brought to trial on charges of criminality.
With these considerations in mind, the Tribunal has come to the following conclusions:
1. The witness Walter Neff will be called to the witness stand and placed under oath as a court witness under which status both the prosecution and the defendants will be permitted to examine him as though he were being interrogated on cross examination.
2. In order adequately to protect the rights of the witness, however, the Tribunal now advises the prosecution that when the said Walter Neff is brought to the witness stand and placed under oath, but before he has given any material testimony, the Tribunal intends to warn him that because of possible active participation by him in certain medical experiments conducted at Dachau concentration camp on human subjects, the American authorities may decide to file criminal charges against him and try him as a war criminal, in which event any statements made by him under oath can and may be used against him in such prosecution; that consequently he may refuse to answer any questions put to him which in his opinion tend to incriminate him.
If the prosecution wishes the defendant called under the conditions prescribed by the Tribunal, the Tribunal will have him called as a court witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The prosecution may proceed.
MR. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, the ruling made by the court with respect to the witness Walter Neff is satisfactory to the prosecution and we would like to have him called today following the testimony of the witness HEINRICH STOEHR.
At the present time I would like to ask that the witness Robert Levy be called to the stand to testify with respect to sterilization.
DR. SERVATIUS: (Counsel for the defendant KARL BRANDT): Mr. President, before the witness comes may I ask a question about the form of the affidavit which the defense can submit.
THE PRESIDENT: Does counsel mean a summary of the nature of the testimony which the witness will give?
DR. SERVATIUS: No, Mr. President. What I mean is the following, the sworn statements, written statements, which we want to bring in place of the witness in order to shorten the proceedings for other reasons, and in what form must we submit them; who can take this testimony. In the proceedings before the International Military Tribunal, a German notary, or in certain cases the attorney himself, could certify these affidavits. In the further course of the proceedings when the organizations were being tried it was decided that only an allied officer could make such a certification.
Now, I ask, I believe in the name of my colleagues as well, for a decision of the court as to the form in which we can submit such statements now. According to German Law it can be given only before a judge, so that a sworn statement in the form in which it is submitted under English and American Law cannot be given in Germany. Anyone can make an affidavit which is binding and under the signatures certify. That was the proceeding which was at first approved by the International Military Tribunal. Later a change was made in the case of the organizations. The witnesses in most cases were mostly in camps where there was an allied camp officer on hand to certify the statements. We got a number of letters and documents which we cannot submit without some statement as to whether they are sworn, certified, whether they actually come from the author.
We ask the court for a decision.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel will submit in writing a statement of the place in which they desire the Tribunal to rule upon. It will be considered and an answer will be given as soon as possible.
JUDGE SEBRING: Doctor, I am not so sure that I know the full import of your question. Is it this, that you are concerned when it comes time for defense counsel to present the cases on behalf of their clients, to know what the tribunal will require as a certification or a jurat to such affidavits as will be submitted by the defendants? Is that the import of your inquiry, sir?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. We have no affidavit in the English sense, only a statement in lieu of it which is not made before a notary or any authority but which anyone can make in handwriting at any time. Only the signature must be certified. Under German Law the certification of the signature is not required but that is how it was ordered in the first trial.
JUDGE SEBRING: Can you state at this time from what sources those affidavits or statements will be obtained generally?
DR. SERVATIUS: I did not quite understand.
JUDGE SEBRING: As I understand, you now are looking into the future with the purpose of determining, perhaps during the court recess, the type of affidavit or statements you will prepare when the time comes that the defendants meet the charges of the prosecution. Is that true?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
JUDGE SEBRING: Can you say now where generally those affidavits will be obtained? That is, will they be obtained from persons who are in the American Zone, let us say?
DR. SERVATIUS: They will be witnesses from all zones. I have received notices from Berlin from the British Zone; and I should like to submit them as affidavits. I should like to have a ruling of the Court as to the form in which they will be accepted.
JUDGE SEBRING: The Court has been giving some consideration to the possibility of a court-appointed official, perhaps a commissioner, who will have power either to approve forms or to certify affidavits or perhaps to be present at the time statements are taken. If he is appointed, you understand that he will be answerable only to the Tribunal and will stand as a disinterested and impartial court official as between the prosecution on the one hand and the defendants on the other.
But, as the presiding judge has suggested, if you gentlemen will be good enough to prepare the nature of your inquiry in writing and place it before the Tribunal, the Tribunal then, I think, will be in a better position to rule.
DR. SERVATIUS: I will submit it in writing.
MR. McHANEY: I will ask that the witness Robert Levy be called to the stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will summon the witness Robert Levy.
DR. ROBERT LEVY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Will the oath be administered to this witness in French or in German?
A. French.
Q. Hold up your right hand. You will repeat the oath after me:
I swear to speak without fear or favor, to say the truth, all the truth and only the truth. I swear it.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: Sit down, please.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
Q. Your name is Robert Levy?
A. Yes sir.
Q. You are a French citizen?
A. I am a French citizen.
Q. You speak both French and German?
A. Yes sir.
Q. But you prefer to be interrogated in French?
A. I should prefer to be interrogated in French.
Q. You were born May 20, 1894, in Detweiler-aux-Rhine, France?
A. Detweiler.
Q. What is your present residence address?
A. I am living at the present time in Strassbourg.
Q. And what is the street address there in case we should ever wish to find you again?
A. 13 Rue du General Gourand.
Q. Thank you. Are you a doctor by profession, Witness?
A. I am a doctor and surgeon in Strassbourg.
Q. Will you please tell the Tribunal when and where you received your medical education?
A. I made my medical studies at the Faculty of Strassbourg from 1913 to 1920. I specialized from 1920 to 1924 in Strassbourg also.
Q. And did you practice in the Surgical Clinic of the Strassbourg University?
A. I specialized in the Surgical Clinic of the Faculty of Strassbourg.
Q. You took your state examination in medicine in 1920?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Did you obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the Strassbourg University in 1922?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Did you practice in Paris?
A. I studied my special branch in Paris subsequently.
Q. Will you describe your practice following 1924; that is to say, what you did?
A. From 1924 to 1939 I was a specialist in Strassbourg.
Q. Were you attached to some hospital there?
A. I was clinical surgeon at the Surgical Clinic in Strassbourg.
Q. What did you do from 1939 on?
A. In 1939 I was mobilized.
Q. Were you an officer in the French Medical Corps?
A. I was a captain in the Reserve, a medical captain in the Reserves of the French Army.
Q. Where did you serve during the war as a medical officer?
A. During the war from the 1st of September, 1939, I was mobilized in the Army.
Q. But I say, where did you practice medicine?
A. I was chief medical officer of a formation in the Maginot Line.
Q. And approximately how many patients did you have under your supervision, Doctor?
A. Up to 1940 I should say I attended to about ten thousand sick or wounded.
Q. Were you captured by the Germans in June of 1940?
A. I was captured by the Germans on the 16th of June, 1940.
Q. What did you do following that time?
A. Up to the 1st of November 1940, in a Stalag in France, and then I was sent away. I was discharged because of my medical knowledge; and then I was demobilized at Limoges, in France.
A. And did you then go to the occupied zone in France?
A. I went to that non-occupied region of France near Limoges. I was mobilized once more as a captain in the Medical Corps.
Q. Did you continue to practice medicine and surgery there?
A. Yes, I continued to be a surgeon.
Q. Doctor, did there ever come a time when you were an inmate at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp?
A. I was a prisoner at the camp, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp from September 1943.
Q. How long did you stay in Auschwitz?
A. I remained from the 4th of September, 1943, until the 18th of January 1945.
Q. Will you tell the Tribunal why you were arrested and imprisoned in Auschwitz?
A. I was arrested at Limoges by the Gestapo in September, 1943, for individual reasons and I believe on political counts afterwards. I was in the Limoges Prison until July, 1943, afterwards at a camp from the 22nd of July to August, 1943 -- afterwards for a few days in Camp Drancey near Paris; and from there, on the 2nd of September, 1943, I was deported.
Q. That is, deported to Auschqitz?
A. No, to Birkenau.
Q. And will you tell the Tribunal what Birkenau is?
A. Birkenau is another term which was also called Auschwitz 2 or Auschwitz 3. It was a camp where the gas chambers and the crematoria were. That is where on arrival those people were brought who were to be gassed or else those who after selection were destined to be gassed. Birkenau is near Auschwitz or at the camps which depended from Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was especially those people who came from the coal mines in the district.
Q. In other words, you would describe Birkenau as an extermination camp, Witness?
A. It was an extermination camp.
Q. Now, if I may go back a moment, when did you state that you were arrested by the Gestapo?
A. Yes sir.
Q I say, what was the date when you were arrested?
A On 12 May, 1943.
Q You state that you were not picked up in a mass arrest, but rather that just you as an individual was arrested?
A I was arrested as an individual.
Q Can you tell the Tribunal a little more expressly why you were arrested?
A I do not know. I was never told. I was given to understand that it was for political reasons, but I was never interrogated.
Q Are you Jewish, witness?
A I was a Jew.
Q Now, when you got to Birkenau, did you have a number tatooed on your arm?
A Number 145,920 is tatooed on my forearm.
Q Witness, will you show the Tribunal, please?
A Yes sir.
(THE WITNESS SHOWS HIS TATOOED FOREARM TO THE TRIBUNAL).
Q Thank you, witness. Now, you state that your number was 145,920?
A Yes, sir.
Q You arrived at Birkenau on September 2nd, 1943?
A No, on the 4th of September. I left Drancy on the 2nd, but I arrived on the 4th.
Q Thank you. Now, can you tell from your number and from the date when you arrived at Birkenau when a man with the number of 132,266 probably entered Birkenau or Auschwitz?
A I should say the end of July or the beginning of August, because I had some friends in Paris, who arrived on the 3rd or July and they had the numbers of 130,000.
Q Thank you. Now, will you describe to the Tribunal in some detail what work you were doing in Birkenau?
A When I arrived at Birkenau, I was placed with the doctors and dentists, who were placed apart in separate barracks. They did not work outside like other people who arrived with us. We had to fix the rations, to sweep out the block and to clean the surroundings of the barracks until the day - and that was about ten days after we arrived - when a Polish doctor gave us a short and simple examination to see if we really were doctors, I thought at the moment.
I was chosen to go to the central infirmary, which is the Krankenbau. I went there on October 5th, 1943. At first, I was a surgical assistant in the block for surgical cases. One month later, as the head surgeon of the surgical block, we had to look after all the sick who came in. These generally were people, who had either septic wounds, carbuncles, fractures or gund shot wounds.
Q Approximately how many patients did you have under your care at Birkenau?
AAt that time I had from one hundred to one hundred and twenty sick under my care. Apparently later on, when I was senior doctor in charge of a largeblock, I had from 400 to 600 cases at the same time.
Q Do I understand that you became a chief surgeon in one of the wards?
A I became chief surgeon and also a medical doctor of the block. There were also people, who had internal diseases in that block.
Q As a result of your work in Birkenau, did you have occasion ever to observe any inmates at Birkenau who had been sterilized?
AAfter four or five weeks, there was a selection, which took from 80% to 90% of my cases away, in that way I could not say that I achieved any results in looking after them.
Q We will come to that later, Doctor. I want to ask you as a resule of your work if you had any occasion to observe any inmates at Birkenau who had been sterilized?
A I saw people who were sterilized in Birkenau. I came in September. I knew that people had arrived about one hundred young people were selected and they were Poles from the district of Auschwitz. These people arrived a short time before our arrival. All selected were young well built people in the best of he health. At that time we did not know what experiments these young people were subjected to. From December on or perhaps in January, some of these young people were assigned to me as experimental persons in my department. They reported sick. They said saturation in the inguenal region and of their inside surface of they had the thighs. Owing to the questions I asked them, I could gather that these young men had been treated in the month of September, 1943, by xrays and four weeks later most of them were operated on. They had either one testicle removed or perhaps both of them.
These people showed signs of ulcerations, which we soon identified on account of the typical aspects, as radiodermatitis. These were ulcerations that showed no tendency whatsoever to get better, especially as we had so few scientific advantages at our disposal. We managed, however, to look after some of them, but most of them disappeared as a result of the periodical exterminations. I saw one young man, who managed to survive to the end until the camp was evacuated, that was in January of 1945 and he followed us when we were evacuated to Mauthausen. I did not see him when we arrived at Mauthausen and I do not think that young man, owing to the state in which he was, might have gotten as far as Mauthausen. Possibly, he was killed as were all the others, who were found killed with gun-shot wounds in the neck. They were four in mass graves.
Q I would like to go back for just a moment. You stated that in the latter part of 1943 you had approximately one hundred young Polish Jews under your care at Birkenau?
A They were not all Jewish Poles. There were people who belonged to all nations and nationalities and they were not all Jews. There were some Jewish, some Russians, some Frenchmen and Prisoners of War who had given trouble. I had the sick belonging to all nationalities.
Q And you examined these men - these boys - and you found that they had been subject to xray and that some also had their testicles removed - either one or both?
A Yes sir.
Q As I understand, you found that the seratum and inner thighs of some of these boys had been subjected to xray burns or poisoning?
A Yes, they were extensively ulcerated and had radiodermatitis.
Q Did any of these patients die under your care?
A No, they did not die of radiodermatities. They died because they were selected for gassing.
Q Now, based upon your observations as a doctor, can you give this Tribunal an opinion as to whether those xray burns or ulcers, which you have described, could be cured.
A I do not believe so. I do not think that that sort of ulcer is curable. At the present time there is no certain means of healing such wounds. On the contrary, very often those ulcerations become transformed into radio cancer.
Q As a doctor can you tell the Tribunal why these men were castrated, after having been sterilized by x-ray?
A We supposed that these - or at least I supposed personally that the testicle was removed in order to make microscopic examination in order to determine the result of the x-ray treatment. I suppose that they subjected the people to various density of x-ray radiation in order to find what was required for the purposes desired.
Q Now will you describe to the Tribunal what effect these sterilizations had on these boys, that is to say, what psychological disturbances followed, if any?
A These boys who had been sterilized were damaged physically and psychologically also. Physically they were suffering from the enormous pains and radial dermatitis is an extremely painful affection. Apart from that they were psychologically diminished. They were no longer men. They were just human wrecks.
Q How long did you have many of these cases of sterilization under your treatment, Doctor?
A I observed during the year 1944, the last I saw after I quit or was evacuated, went with us to Mathausen.
Q Now, doctor, you have stated in an earlier point that you were able to observe the selection of prisoners for gassing in Birkenau?
A Very often.
Q Were executions carried out on a large scale?
A Executions were operated on an immense scale, of course, more or less regularly this occurred and the Chief of the Camp, Lagerarzt, in the last days of the camp, he made all of the patients get out of the beds and he made them file past entirely naked, looking especially at their state of thinness and by raising a finger on one side or the other, he indicated the victims, and their serial number was immediately written down by the nurse and fourteen hours later they left naked in lorries in the direction of the gas chambers.
Q Can you give any estimate of the number of people who were exterminated in Birkenau during the period that you were there?
A No, during the entire time I couldn't evaluate the number, but in January, 1944, it was generally admitted that about four and a half million victims had died.
Q The figure, four and a half million, which you have given us, is, of course, a figure which covers the whole period of the war?
A Yes, it covers the period beginning in 1940 and 1941 with the Poles.
Q Now as I understand it, Doctor, certain of these people who were exterminated in Birkenau were physically selected in the wards where you worked, is that correct?
A Yes, but there were also some who were selected as soon as they arrived at Birkenau. There were entire train loads who never came into the camp proper, and especially it was so in 1944, from June, 1944, onwards when there were large arrivals from Hungary, mass arrivals in June 1944, and in twenty-four hours twenty-two thousand human beings were exterminated.
Q Now, doctor, do I understand that there was included for extermination people unable to work?
A I don't understand your question.
Q Was it a policy at Birkenau to exterminate those people who were unable to work?
AAnybody who could not work and those who looked rather thin and who seemed to be more or less sick was exterminated. When there were many people in the camp there was a lot of exterminations going on. And when the camp was not so full the rate of extermination was slower.
Q Now did they include as a policy people who were suffering from tuberculosis for extermination?
A For consumptives the process was very simple. Anybody who had a coughs or tubercular germs in his sputum or who seemed more or less ill was sent into the gas chambers.
Q In other words, anyone with tuberculosis was exterminated?
A In practice, yes.
Q And were any of these tubercular patients who were exterminated from Poland?
A For instance, those in general they were Jews, that is at the time when I was there.
Q Now, doctor, can you state whether foreign workers were included in this extermination action?
A No, I have not seen prisoners of war belonging to other countries. I saw a few French and Russian prisoners of war but they died of edema or general starvation.
Q Doctor, I don't think you quite understood the question. I was asking whether or not people who, that is, foreigners who had been deported to Germany to work, that is forced laborers, were subsequently executed at Birkenau because they were no longer able to work?
A No, I didn't see any.
Q Now, Doctor, you stated that you left Birkenau in January, 1945?
A Yes sir.
Q And you then went to Mathausen Concentration Camp?
A To Mathausen.
Q And when were you freed from Mathausen?
A We were liberated by the American army on the 5th of May, 1945, and we were evacuated to France on the 17th of May, 1945.
Q And what have you been doing since that time, Doctor?
AAfter my arrival in France I was so ill I was quite unable to work for six months and in November, 1945, I started to work at Strassbourg and have once more established a practice as before the war and now I am practicing there.
MR. MCHANEY: I have no further examination at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Has defense counsel any cross examination of this witness?
The witness will be excused.
MR. MCHANEY: The Prosecution will continue now with the presentation of documentary evidence on the charges of sterilization in the indictment. We have covered up to this point medicinal sterilization as promulgated by the defendant Porkorny. We have also covered to some extent sterilization carried out by means of x-ray and surgical operations as promoted in part by the defendant Rascher and others of the defendants. We now turn to documents which deal with the sterilization of women by the so-called Clauberg method, which, as I understand it was sterilization resulting from injections of the irritating solution in the uterus during an ordinary routine gynocological examination. The first document now on this subject which we have to offer is document No. 214. This will be Prosecution Exhibit No. 168.
THE PRESIDENT: On what page of your document book is that found?
MR. MCHANEY: That is on page 51, Your Honor.
This is a letter dated 30 May, 1941, from the deceased, Dr. Grawitz, the Reich Physician SS to the Reich Fuehrer of the SS, that is to say, his personal staff, and in the upper right hand corner of that document you will see the name "Wolff" handwritten. That apparently is Karl Wolff, who was on the personal staff of Heinrich Himmler. This is a memo in regard to the treatment of the sterility of women, References: Report to the Reich Fuehrer SS on 27 May, 1941: