Q. I have another question about your visit to Buchenwald. At that time didn't you wonder where such a large number of criminals conned to death came from; there were nearly 150 people?
A. Now, of course, this question seems quite justified, but at that time I had been given the information by an authority I considered absolutely trustworthy. I had no occasion to doubt it at the time. As for the number, one must consider that we were living under martial law at the time; and in Germany so many infractions were punishable by death under the special laws that I was not at all surprised. I can give so many examples; crimes taking advantage of a black-out; violations of the rationing laws; blackmarketing; plundering during air raids; refusal to serve in the Army, espionage, and a great many other things. And not a word was said in Buchenwald at the time that the experimental subjects were old prisoners of the camp. The only two whose personal affairs were discussed were the two people who came from the prison at Moabit, where they had typhus, and for the others I assumed also that they had been taken to Buchenwald for tho experiments. One must conduct such, experiments somewhere in a camp under guard. In an ordinary hospital people who are condemned to death would immediately break out, and in a normal prison, a penitentiary with its cells, one cannot carry out such an experiment. That the experiments were conducted in a concentration camp seemed quite reasonable to me, because the block which I had soon was arranged just like a hospital. It was astrong building with large rooms. It was quite shut off from the rest of the camp as far as I could judge.
Q. And then later did you talk to Professor Gildemeister about the experiments in Buchenwald?
A. I cannot remember that. As far as I know after our dispute about my visit to Conti on my own initiative, the visit to Buchenwald and my experiments were not discussed again. After that time until the time whom my section was permanently disassociated from the institute and turned into a Luftwaffe Unit I saw Mr. Gildemeister only quite rarely. Those few meetings were always about matters of my department, the question of the transfer of my department for reasons of air security, also complaints that I could not give enough supervision to my department. Mr. Gildemeister was of the opinion that in my department everyone did what he wanted to. He wanted to appoint a permanent representative for me or attached my personnel to another department. Those are all the differences which finally occasioned me to turn my department into a Luftwaffe Unit in order to get rid of the unpleasantness. Any talk with Professor Gildemeister turned into a quarrel since I became vice-president against his wish.
MR. HARDY: May I please Your honors, the Prosecution has not objected to the defendant using notes to assist him in the course of his examination. However, it has become apparent Professor has oach and every question answered in detail before him in writing. It seems to me he could use notes to refresh his memory to some extent, however, if he has oach question answered in detail in writing beforehand it becomes apparent that Professor Rose could sign the so answers and turn them in in the form of an affidavit and dispense with the lengthy examination, because he has the answers all before him in detail, and is merely reading them.
THE PRESIDENT: It is, of course, a general rule that a witness may use notes in answering questions which may be asked him; out if a witness is merely roading answers, it would seem to the Tribunal those matters might be filed as included in an affidavit. Counsel of tho Prosecution might cross-examine tho witness as to who wrote the note, or the paper from which he is reading, but if the witness is merely reading those answers the Tribunal is of the opinion an affidavit would be just as good as the testimony of the witness from tho stand.
MR. HANDY: I might suggest the Tribunal may look at the notes the defendant is using, and I think that he will see oach question numbered and afterwards in German the word answer', and a rather elaborate answer given to oach question, which appears to be just what the defendant is reading. If the Tribunal will peruse the sheets that the defendant is referring to you might see that they are in the form of an affidavit and he could sign them and use them here in lieu of this examination.
THE PRESIDENT: I will ask counsel for the defendant what he thinks about what the Tribunal has said, whether or not an affidavit would not be just as good as reading from the written paper, which amounts practically to an affidavit, simply all the statements under oath, instead of a written statement.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, as for the answers which the defendant has given , I fully agree that he should render them more freely. As for the questions, of course, in view of the difficulty of the material and since I" myself am a layman in medical matters, I have had to discuss the questions, which I ask the defendant Rose, with the defendant beforehand.
THE PRESIDENT : That is perfectly natural , but if the witness has written out each word of his answer why would not the filing of that writing in the formof an affidavit be just as good as his oral testimony from the stand where he simply reads what he has already written?
DR. FRITZ: I shall then ask the Defendant Rose only to consult his notes which he has had to make because of dates, etc, and to answer my questions that way.
THE PRESIDENT : If the witness simply uses notes for that purpose he may continue testifying. If he is going to road page after page of what he has written the Tribunal sees no advantage in all the testimony over an affidavit.
DR. FRITZ: May I continue the examination of the defendant, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, if the witness will simply use what he has in the form of notes, such as dates and places, and so forth, the examination may continue.
Q. Did you never visit the typhus section of the Robert Koch Institute?
A. Perhaps I may make a comment on the objection and explain what I am doing. I have quite naturally thought over very carefully the questions which you worked out. For each question I compiled what I need for the answer, but I am not reading what I have written down here. I am not reading it word for word. I an using the notes to formulate my answers, but of course from time to time I look down at the notes in addition to your question to see what I have noted down as important for the answer which I must give to this questions.
Now, as to your question about my visits to the Typhus Departments of the Institute. In tho time when work was done on all typhus during the war, I have never entered this department, because it was forbidden for people who did not belong to the department to outer it. This prohibition existed because of the danger of infect ion, and that is quite reasonable because in the course of time all the persons who worked in this department fell ill of typhus. In all such institutes people who have no business in the department are not allowed to enter it. The talks with Professor Gildemeister took place in his office, not in the department. He was called there from the typhus department, and generally in order to avoid wasting time, as Mrs. Block has already stated, I had an appointment made by nor beforehand, and then he was in his office at that time. The offices were for discussion, not the laboratories. I didn't let visitors into my laboratory either. I received them in my office.
Q Did Professor Gildemeister never discuss his work with you?
A I know Gildemeister's work only from his publication, from the annual reports of the institute. It is not customary in such large research institutes for the heads of the various departments to discuss their work with one another unless they happen to be working together. Scientists normally do not make their work and plans public before publication. His thoughts are his only scientific possession and he is generally over-anxious to protect them, thus he preserves secrecy even toward people working in another field than he himself, because these people too might by carelessness betray his secrets to others and thus do harm to him.
Q Then you heard nothing more about any work of Professor Gildemeister at Buchenwald after the one visit which you paid to the camp?
A No, I did not hear anything more about it, but also for example I did not learn that Professor Gildemeister had any part in the preliminary experiments, as the Ding Diary assets, and when we visited Buchenwald, Gildemeister did not tell me he had been there before and his conduct during this visit did not lead me to believe he had. It was surprising to me to see in Dr. Ding's diary how often Ding says what frequent connections he had with Professor Gildemeister and the Robert Koch Institute; furthermore if those statements are actually true, I cannot judge for sure and for purely technical reasons I think that is extremely unlikely.
Q Why?
A I must come back to Document Book No. 12, in the Ding Diary, Document No. 265 on Pages 39 to 47 of the German Document Book, there is a discovery of revolutionary importance for typhus research, and especially for the question of vaccine. It says in the German text on Page No. 39, for 30 November, 1942 that infection did not progress in the control persons in the experimental series of 26 January to 20 October, 1943, that is on Pages 41 and 42; according to the Diary, one fourth of those infected did not fall ill at all, the others only fairly severely.
In the group of 80 persons, on the 31st of March, 1943 of the 80 infected no one fell ill. That is pages 45 and 47. For the hygienist these dates show that a event had occurred for which many typhus research workers throughout the world were waiting, a typhus strain, a strain highly virulent for the laboratory animal, as Ding's work in 1943 shows, which is Mrugowsky Document, I believe, No. 9, here this typhus strain was obviously completely avirulent for men. One hundred people were infected with this strain without a single one of them falling ill. The event had occurred for which artificial creation Professor Haagen in Strassbourg worked with all the facilities of modern virus research. This event might have had the same importance as the discovery by Jenner of the harmlessness of small-pox vaccines, or the discovery of living avirulent plague strains by Koller and Otto, or the discovery of avirulent tubercular bacteriae by Calmette. I immediately realized the significance of this discovery when I looked at the Ding Diary here for the first time. It did not take a minute to realize that, and we are to believe this diary of Mr. Ding that a man like Gildemeister, who in the last four years of his life, had worked on nothing whatever but typhus vaccine, that such a man failed to realize the importance of this event, that he did not follow up this question. In the Ding Diary there is not a single notation to the effect whether these persons who did not fall ill, although they were infected, developed immunity. For the lay-man this matter may not appear to be so important; for the hygienist, however, it is an absolutely sensational thing. It is quite incredible to me that a man like Gildemeister could overlook such an important fact and that he failed to realize its importance if he was told of it as the Ding Diary says on Page 47 and the entry of 11 April 1943, where it says: "Report for SS Standartenfuehrer Prof. Mrugowsky. Professor Gildemeister says the highly virulent strains of the Robert Koch Institute seem no longer patogenic for human beings."
That a young man like Ding might overlook such a thing is possible, but that with the knowledge and suggestion of Professor Gildemeister these terrible passage series should be started and that no one takes any interest in this important discovery? I cannot imagine as a specialist, I must deny if anyone says that I knew it.
Then another question: Mr. Gildemeister and Mr. Haagan became enemies when Haagen left the institute, but, at least, I assume, that they had some contacts, and that Gildemeister told Professor Haagan that this Matelzka strain had become completely avirulent, and that one hundred people had been infected with it already without one of them getting a fever. That is quite unlikely, Professor Haagen worked for months on the fever reactions in his living dry vaccine to weaken them, as he merely had to get some of the Matelzka strain from the Robert Koch Institute and then he would have what he was looking for.
Q You heard the lecture which Dr. Ding gave on his experiments at the third meeting of consulting physicians in the Section for Hygiene and Tropical Hygiene?
A Yes, that was the time when I protested openly against this whole method.
Q Well, what happened?
A. Dr. Ding gave his lecture in the camouflaged way as in his publication for the Journal of Hygiene and Infectious Diseases, but the audience could not tell that this concerned experiments on human beings.
When the discussion began, I commented on the results of these experiments. That part of my statement is contained in the record of the meeting. That is in Rose Document Book No. 3, Document 38, which has already been submitted, on page 43 of Document Book 3. I do not intend to read these remarks but I simply refer to it. I still want to point out one can find here what I said about the technical aspect of the experiments and about the results.
Then I spoke of the ethical side of the whole thing and this part of my statement has been stricken from the record. I cannot, of course, today reproduce the exact wording but only the sense of what I said. I said more or less as follows: As important and as basic as the results may have been, they were nevertheless achieved at the price of a number of human lives. That we as hygienists must object that a life and death experiment be made as the prerequisite for the introduction of a vaccine. So far,testing with animal experiments and subsequent determination of tolerance by human beings and epidemiological exploitation have been the customary procedure. This procedure had proved its value. We had to stick to it and we couldn't let other political and state authorities force us to conduct human experiments. I spoke much longer at the time. I spoke for at least ten minutes. Ding answered that he could calm my conscience. The experimental subjects had been criminals condemned to death. My answer was: I knew that myself. I was not interested in the individuals concerned but in the principle of human experiments in testing vaccines. At this comment Professor Schreiber interrupted the discussion. He said he pretested against my criticism and if we wanted to discuss basic ethical questions we could do that during the recess. He would have this part of the discussion stricken from the record and that was done. After the meeting various participants came to me and discussed the whole thing with me. Some agreed with me; others were convinced that in such an important question human experiments were justified.
Of course, these people who agreed believed Ding's assurance that the subjects were criminals condemned to death. I no longer remember the individual gentlemen with whom I talked during the recess and I don't know who was in favor and who was against it. The only one I remember is Professor Mrugowsky because he spoke as an SS member and the experiments had been conducted by an SS doctor, and because I thought that Mrugowsky was Ding's superior in every way. Of course, I remember that Mrugowsky came of all people and said that in principle he agreed with me and that he had expressed similar misgivings to Grawitz and that Grawitz had rejected his misgivings and then I also learned from Mrugowsky that Himmler was behind all of these
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess.
(A short recess was taken.)
GERHARD ROSE - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued
DR. FRITZ (Counsel for the defendant Rose): Mr. President, regarding Rose's attendance at the consultants' conference, I should like to read from Rose Document No. 6, Rose Exhibit No. 6, in Rose Document Book No. 1, pages 15 to 19. This is an affidavit by Professor Dr. Schnell. I have already read the first part of this and should like to read from page 17 the last paragraph and thereafter:
"I took part in the session of the section Hygiene in the Conference of Consultants held in 1943 in the Military Medical Academy in Berlin, and I can remember the following about the discussion between Rose and Ding. As I had talked to colleagues in the corridor, I was late for the lecture in question end therefore heard only a small part of it. An SS medical officer, perhaps Dr. Ding, - not Mr. Mrugowsky - had spoken on the subject of typhus vaccine and mentioned in the course of the lecture that the various vaccines and their comparative value had been tested on human beings and that their effectiveness was more or less equal. I cannot remember any more whether I heard, this part of the lecture myself or whether I asked others who had heard it to tell me about it, owing to the ensuing sharp attacks by Rose. It is sure, however, that the lecturer did not mention where and in what way experiments on humans were carried out. After that Rose demanded the floor and said in an excited and aggressive way that both from a humane and medical viewpoint he had to object to human beings being sacrificed in order to secure certain facts. He voiced disapproval of such experiments In this protest Rose had the vivid sympathy of us all, as apparent in the ensuing whispered mutual questionings among the participants of the meeting where it was murmured that those were probably experiments in concentration camps. The discussion between Ding and Rose was before others could participate, interrupted by the chairman - probably Professor Schreiber - with the remark that a discussion of this matter was not the subject of our conference but that we were here solely to discuss questions of hygiene.
He continued that the persons used for these experiments had exclusively been criminals legally sentenced to death, anyway."
In this same matter I should like to put in another affidavit. The affidavit in Rose Document Book No. 2, Rose Document No. 18, an affidavit on the part of Professor Nauck on page 6-7. It will be put in as Rose Exhibit No. 14. This, as I said, is an affidavit on the part of the present director of the Institute for Ship and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg, Professor Nauck, dated 5 February 1947. In the second paragraph it reads:
"In May 1943 I took Part in the Congress of Consulting Physicians of the Military Medical Academy in Berlin. At one of these sessions Professor Rose, during the discussion, protested against experiments on human beings for the purpose of testing typhus vaccine. The exact words of the opinion he expressed I do not recall. I know, however, that Professor Rose quite unmistakably opposed such experiments on human beings.
"I am the present director of the Institute for Ship and Tropical Diseases. Hamburg, 5 February 1947."
And there fellows the signature and certification.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, counsel. Is that the document on page 6 of Back 2?
DR. FRITZ: Yes. That is Rose Exhibit No. 14. I read from this second paragraph. In the same document book I now put in Rose Document 19, Pages 8 and 9, as Rose Exhibit 15. This is an affidavit by Professor Water Blumenberg of 22 February 1947. I should like to read from the second paragraph on page 8.
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, the defense counsel now has read two or three documents wherein it states that Professor Rose objected at the May 1943 conference of medical consultants. He is now about to introduce two or three other documents to that same effect. The prosecution will stipulate that Rose has objected at that meeting as he has stated on the stand.
I see no reason for reading these further documents. We are not objecting to admitting then into evidence but reading them into the record seems to be purely repetitious and unnecessary.
THE PRESIDENT: The record, may show that counsel for the prosecution has stipulated for the record that at this meeting of hygienists and consultants Dr. Rose objected to the experimentation upon human beings and made the objection as show by the evidence, both oral and by affidavit. There is no objection to the admission of these documents in evidence but in view of the stipulation by counsel the Tribunal sees no necessity for taking up the time in reading affidavits unless counsel can show some occasion for reading them.
DR. FRITZ: In that case I should like to say regarding the contents of this affidavit, I should, like simply to point out that in paragraph 2 he states that Professor Rose was regarded as an expert in the combatting of typhus end not as an expert in the production of typhus vaccines or in typhus research. There is a great difference here. It can be seen from this affidavit on page 9 that Professor Schreiber saw to it that this pretest was not set down in the minutes of the meeting. In this same matter I submit Document Rose No. 21 in the same document book as Rose Exhibit 16, pages 12 to 14. This also concerns Rose's protest at this conference. This witness describes in his affidavit with particular perspicuity the way in which Dr. Rose expressed, himself at that time and that it was tried t allay his misgivings with the statement that the experiments were carried, out only, on criminals condemned to death.
Professor, do you have anything to add in this matter?
AAt the conclusion of this affidavit by Mr. Atmer an incident is mentioned, where he speaks of my alleged by the SS, and that there was some rumor to this affect at the conference. This was a misunderstanding, but a misunderstanding which was rather characteristic of the situation at that time. I have already said that for reasons of air security, and on that pretext, I attempted to transfer my department from Berlin. At that time I spoke with the gentlemen of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle who were in charge of the resettlement camps. They offered me a camp which they no longer needed. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle was manned solely, or almost exclusively, by SS men at that time, and in order to take a look at this camp I proposed to the gentlemen that they should fetch me on the afternoon after the meeting. I told them to come at 5 o'clock. The conference lasted longer than that. The men became impatient and they made their way to the room where I was. When the conference was ended and I came out the two men who wore waiting, SS majors in uniforms took me between them and we went down the stairs together, and left the building in their SS vehicle. That evening I did not come to the social gathering that took place at that time, because I was visiting this camp which lay outside Berlin. This event had been observed by several people, and the rumor spread that I had been arrested because of my protest. In reality there was not a word of truth in this, and I turned up the next day, but that trowed a certain light on the whole situation.
Q Did you not offend against military discipline in uttering your protests; Professor Hoering made statements on that matter?
A I believe the expression "offense against discipline" which Professor Hoering used was a rather unhappy chosen phrase, because it was always my idea at such a consulting conference everyone could say during the discussion what he wished, but from the purely factual point of view what I said was an offense from the military point of view, on tho one hand, an offense against the orders to maintain secrecy because it was completely clear that the lectured and his sponsors intended that the audience, should not find out that those were experiments on human beings.
I had found out, after being told to maintain secrecy, that these were experiments on human beings, and made this fact intentionally known to a group of persons who should not have found out about it. Moreover in what I said I attacked my own superior, namely Gildemeister and Conti, and other leading personages in the future, for instance Himmler and Grawitz, and i asked to be disobedient to the directions of those high personages, and said what I did say in a rather excited tone of voice. I said "turn this matter over to a court martial." I said, and I said, "If you do so you will have a fine case on your hands in the matter of maintaining secrecy."
Q Did you later discuss the matter of human being experiments before a large group of people?
A Yes, that happened once more before a large number of people, but that was not about typhus experiments. That must have been about October 1944. The question at hand then was grippe. There was a meeting, a rather large meeting at which grippe vaccine was discussed. A number of gentlemen reported on the vaccines that they had theretofore been developed in the laboratory. Among others, Professor Herzberg on a vaccine made from dead grippe virus, and Professor Haagen on a vaccine made from living avirulent grippe virus, which he had already tested on personnel at the Strasbourg clinic. Someone in the meeting suggested, I don't remember who now, that the Haagen tests had not been sufficient, and that this vaccine should be tested on a larger number of persons. There was no mention of concentration camps then but of student companies. I had considerable misgivings about such experimental vaccination and expressed them. I said that I considered the experimental basis for this insufficient for these vaccines to be used on human beings. I was not convinced that the virus had been sufficiently attenuated. There was the danger that the vaccine would lead to infection, and one could not take that responsibility on one's self.
It was first of all intended to observe the effectiveness of the protection by observing whether people fell ill of grippe in natural ways after being vaccinated. Then someone else made the suggestion that that would take too long, and we did not know whether there would be an influenza epidemic during that time, and therefore after the vaccines the subject should be infected with a virulent virus. Since I had already expressed objections to the vaccination I opposed this proposal, even more strongly, and the result of this discussion was that infections were not carried out, but it was decided to carry out the vaccinations. Whether these vaccinations were carried out or not I do not know. At any rate I read no order to the effect that someone should make the vaccinations nor did I ever read a report that the vaccinations were carried, out. Only later in imprisonment did I hear that similar experiments, such as were then discussed, and which I disapproved of, were carried out by the English Service on Gorman PW's. Genzken probably had personally to do with this, but I had heard about this in internment hospital Karlsruhe where there were people who had experienced.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, regarding Professor Rose's protest against experiments on human beings at the conference, I should like, because of the importance of this point, to offer two further documents. First of all in Document Book II, Rose Document 23, Rose Exhibit 17, page 20 to 24, affidavit by University Professor Dr. Bieling on 11 December 1946 which concerns itself with Rose's protest regarding human being experiments in testing grippe vaccine. I should like to have read this into the record, Mr. President,because it can be seen from this that the defendant Rose himself----
THE PRESIDENT: If this affidavit refers to another meeting, other than the meeting with which we were concerned before, the Counsel may read this affidavit or the pertinent portions thereof into the record.
MR. HARDY: I wish to point out this discussion concerns information on influenza vaccine and grippe; we have not charged the defendant with any participation in experiments or tests as to influenza vaccine; therefore I object to the introduction of this documentary evidence as being immaterial to matters concerning this Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The affidavit in question proposed, Exhibit 17, shows the attitude of the Defendant Rose on experiments on human beings the objection is over-ruled and counsel may proceed, BY DR. FRITZ:
Q I read from the first page of this affidavit, the second paragraph:
"On 30 October 1944 I attended a meeting at the Military Medical academy in Berlin, at which I had to state the result of my research into the production of influenza vaccine at Marburg. After I, and the other gentlemen, had reported about the results of laboratory research and animal experiments, it was proposed at the subsequent discussion that the vaccine should not be tried out on human beings as well. It was considered advisable that the first inoculations should be tested on students of the same age living in joint billets under somewhat similar conditions. I remember well that Prof. Rose strongly and forcefully disagreed with this proposal.
"I remember this particularly well, since for technical reasons I could not understand his point of view and assumed that it was based on a misconception. I did agree with him however, that should investigations on human beings should only be made by specialist physicians, and then only after thorough preliminary animal tests.
If these conditions were, however, fulfilled and the harmlessness and effectiveness of the preparations were thus proved, there should be, in my opinion, no objection to make the step now from animal to human being, which always had to be made in such cases. From the experiences gathered in my laboratory, it seemed out of the question to me that considerable injuries or any infections could be expected, and my point of view was proved right by the many thousand experiences gained with influenza, vaccinations carried out, in recent years, e. g. in the American Army.
"As far as I remember, it was only proposed to see the reaction of the inoculated persons to a natural infection later on. The effect of the inoculation should be ascertained immediately after the inoculation, by the examination of their serum. A useful procedure for these serological examinations was known in which a couple of ccm of blood are drawn in the ordinary way from the inoculated person. This procedure was elaborated by the American Hirst. During the first months of 1945 I tested the serum according to this procedure here in Marburg, on nurses and students who volunteered at lectures and who had been immunized with different influenza vaccines, previously tested in animal experiments. In this way I ascertained the effect of the inoculation.
It may be, that during the meeting, a further suggestion was made that this serum research should not be considered adequate but that those voluntary experimental subjects, immunized by the different influenza, vaccines, should be injected later on with living influenza virus. This was not decided on. But no objection against such decision, could be raised in principle, as it corresponds completely with the views of responsible physicians. As we now know from present publications in the scientific periodicals of America, the effectiveness of influenza vaccine on human beings has been tested according to this procedure, in the United States, and as I heard, also in Russia. Meanwhile, I have also had the opportunity to speak with American specialist colleagues, who were actually working on this special subject and who themselves carried out these investigations.
In their scientific papers a clear description was given to the specialist world, as to how they should inject inoculated persons and the non-inoculated control persons with living virus; viz. by atomizing the virus and making them inhale it. A comparison was then made as to how many of the inoculated and non-inoculated persons fell ill after the voluntary infection, and from this, the strength of the inoculation is taken in indivi ual cases.
"From the information given here, it follows; that no matter whether only the first or the second suggestion as well, were made, no further objections existed in principle. But, as to how far this was the case was evidently not quite clear to Dr. Rose, from the statements of the specialists, and this explains why he raised a warning voice and made remarks about the principle of justification. It also shows clearly and distinctly Mr. Rose's great sense of responsibility, when he expressed in the most impressive was his subjective objections before a wide circle of people. If he did this here in opposition to suggestions which are not contradictory to the general medical ethics or the laws of humanity; it is quite out of the question to consider that he had approved of acts which did not conform to any greater degree with those demands which he had so strongly supported."
There follows the signature and the certification.
Now further I would like to put in Rose Document No. 20, Rose Exhibit No. l8, on pages 10 and 11 in the same document book. This is an affidavit by Dr. George Finger of 6 February 1947. In view of the fact that this affidavit also concerns the consulting conference, I shall dispense with reading it, but I point out that precisely Dr. Finger can very clearly remember the incident, which arose as a result of Dr. Rose's protest.
Dr. Schnell says at the conclusion of his affidavit that Professor Schreiber stated that the experimental subjects of Dr. Ding were criminals condemned to death.
Professor Nauck, who was also a witness to this occurance, says nothing about that. Dr. Blumenberg also says nothing on this point, but he does mention that your protests were answered in the conference. Dr. Finger says simply you maintained your point of view despite the fact that they were criminals condemned to death, but he does not say who made this statement. Dr. Atmer speaks of the possibility that another SS physician and not the man reading the paper had answered your protest, and which of these various statements are correct and who did make that statement?
A It is of course comprehensible, after the four years that now have passed, that these men can no longer remember what happened word for word, but do remember the essential facts, and it is understandable that there are individual discrepancies in the testimony of just who did what. This matter, as I said, was stricken from the record and no one can refresh their memory with the help of the minutes. I remember very clearly that Ding answered me. Kogon also described here in his testimony as a witness that Ding had told him that he had a show-down with me. That is the way I remember it, and, as far as I know, Schreiber said that there were criminals condemned to death; no, Ding in his answer said that they were criminals condemned to death. Something which I know about but which the others attending the conference did not know about. Then, Schreiber interferred, when I spoke for the sound time, in order to put an and to this discussion. It is also possible, though I cannot swear to it today, that he said something to the effect that Ding said that they we. e criminals condemned to death so we would not have to get excited about it. That is possible and I don't knew today, he Dr. atmer was under the impression that this was another SS doctor, he said that at least that was possible. I can say that I remember that several SS officers were present, but I can only remember that they stayed entirely in the background and did not participate in the discussion at all.