His destiny was, from the beginning to the end, only in his hand; for Himmler was the most dangerous man in the Nazi system, since he as the chief of the German police and commander of the home army had all domestic armed forces at his disposal and thus was in a position to crush every uprising in its earliest stage. Himmler was able to run the government without Hitler, but not Hitler without Himmler. The removal of this man therefore came first, both in importance and in urgency. If the person of Himmler was overlooked or if he succeeded in escaping somehow, everything else became problematic. We may therefore use Himmler's importance as a yardstick for the importance of Sievers who was kept ready to strike in the former's closest entourage. To ask the question whether that position could be abandoned, would mean to answer that question in the negative.
Sievers was aware of the far-reaching consequence of such a decision. In this moreover he became involved in the deepest inner conflict of his life. It was a question of avoiding the greater of two evils and accepting the lesser, or of circumventing both. The latter would have been the easiest way out. The fact that Sievers became involved in this conflict bears witness to his sense of responsibility, his feeling for right and humane value. To be sure, he was not able to handle that conflict by himself. Too much depended on his decision, affecting not only himself but the whole of the resistance movement. We must put ourselves into the plane, into the soul, of a man who, on the one hand, felt the pressure of a revolting inner abhorrence of the things which he felt were in the making; but who, on the other hand, was aware of the fact that he would no longer be able to complete his task at the post assigned him, if he allowed himself to be guided by his personal feelings. Perhaps Sievers would have had the possibility of disappearing from his post without much ado and with no great disadvantage for himself.
Could he not have retired to a position with some harmless research undertaking? But by doing that Sievers would have become a deserter.
In this inner conflict he turned to Hielscher, and Hielscher decided after thorough deliberation and consultation:
Sievers remains at his post!
For it appeared impossible to forego the position in the entourage of Himmler. If Sievers left his post, he had to be placed in another position close to Himmler, or to be replaced by another man with the same tasks. Was that possible? Wouldn't he have arrived at the same crossroads again and again if he remained close to Himmler? Was it to be expected that another man would succeed, was there time to wait until he could succeed? Was Sievers not likely to arouse suspicion even if he took all possible precaution when motivating his resignation? For it had been stark lunacy to do it openly and under protest. Just imagine the danger in which such an act would have involved himself and his comrades. And who would have had any advantage from his resignation? And, another question: If Sievers' resignation could have prevented the human experiments at all, that still would have been only an insignificant partial success. As far as the entity of the great objective, the removal of Himmler and the NS-regime, was concerned, nothing would have been gained, nothing but a further postponement of the decision or altogether the impossibility of reaching such a decision owing to the loss of the actual key position. The consequence would have been still more victims of the NS-regime. Thus a partial success had to be sacrificed in the interest of the great objective.
If the members of the court will review all these questions, in their minds, it will become dear beyond any doubt that the decision taken by Hielscher was the only one possible.
And with that I arrive at the final, most important part of my defense plea, the question:
What was the line of action Sievers had to take at his post?
Doubtlessly he had to make certain concessions, i.e. he had to adjust his behavior to that of the persons he planned to remove. Every spy has to use camouflage and I an not telling a secret if I say that many a spy has donned the enemy's uniform in order to complete such an assignment in war times.
It is a known fact that the French general Giraud made good his escape from a German camp in 1942 wearing the uniform of a German General.
Everything Sievers did - his membership in the NSDAP from 1929 to 1931, his renewed membership in the NSDAP and SS at a later time, his high position within these organizations, his tenure of office as the business manager of the "Ahnenerbe" and his acceptance of a high rank in the SS, - was no doubt part of the camouflage which according to Hielscher, Dr. Borkenau, Dr. Topf and others was a necessary prerequisite, a camouflage used in the line of duty for the completion of the task of the defendant Sievers.
Obviously, no one will try to maintain that this camouflage which were used to approach a lawfully approved, aye, even desired aim, are as such criminal and non-permissible. The fact that the outward membership in the SS held by the defendant Sievers is therefore ipso facto excused by its purpose of camouflage. He can not be blamed, either, for posing at certain occasions as a good Nazi party member. That was part of his duties according to Hielscher's orders.
The career of the organiser or of an activist in the German underground movement would have found an immediate end if he had not acted a Nazi in every word and in every movement.
I have to give even greater consideration to Sievers' consent and his further participation in the experiments with human beings and in the organization of the skelton collection which involved injuries to third persons:
Only here the question arises: where are the limits of emergency, if it involves actions which in themselves are criminal acts. The answer to this question is the main point of the trial against Sievers:
And here the legal systems all over the world have the same principle:
The right violated by an act of emergency must be relatively more valuable than the protected or saved right.
What rights are competing with each other in the case of Sievers? On one side there is the existence of the civilization of the world, peace on earth, humanity, life and existence of millions of people who, through Hitler's criminal domination, were directly endangered or already violated. The new international law calls such actions crimes against peace and against humanity and threatens them with the most severe punishment. The Allied nations held these rights valuable enough to have their soldiers fight and die for them with enthusiasm.
On the other side we have the life of individual human beings, their physical safety, respect and deference for their personality, their freedom and free will which, too, certainly constitute rights of high value. There may have been hundreds of victims who had to suffer in this connection. However, it was a negligibly small number in comparison with the masses which Himmler, Hitler and their accomplices had already murdered or intended to murder.
I now ask:
Which of the two contesting fights is the more valuable one, in the sense of proportionality?
It shall be far from me to excuse or belittle the horrible things which have happened in the concentration camps, but inspite of all horror which I feel, I can only answer the question as follows:
The protection of civilization and of humanity is to be put above the life and health of single individuals, as much as one may pity these inevitable victims. And, therefore, it was necessary, absolutely necessary, to accept the violation of the less valuable rights characterized above, in order to save the more valuable ones, the great entirety. It was necessary for Sievers to remain in his position at the "Ahnenerbe" in order to be able to liquidate Himmler.
It would be easy to state now, afterwards, that Sievers could have acted differently, that he didn't have to go that far. But there is nobody who has told us so far: how. Now even the prosecutor attempted to or was able to make a concrete proposal to that effect. And even if it should be possible, even if today on calm reflection, a possible way out could be found, it cannot be hold against the defendant Sievers if he did not think of it at that time. One can really put oneself in his situation at that time and take its psychological effect into consideration. Only then can one imagine what amount of reflection, what amount of keenness in selecting his means could be asked of him. This, too, is a recognized principle and explained in detail at Wharton, article 621. Everybody must, admit, however, that it was enormously difficult to find one's way in this labyrinth of demands and sentiments, to keep exactly to the right path, and not to overstip, not even by a hair's breadth, the fluctuating limits of emergency. And we also know how much Sievers fought with himself for a solution of this problem. If afterwards you state that only in the choice of his means did he make a slight mistake, he is, after all, fully excused through the psychological effects of situation at that time; one must not ask too much of one who was to act in a dangerous situation.
Honored Judges, others, too, faced the same question Sievers had to face. What for instance would you do with the camp doctors who knew about those experiments in the concentration camps and prepared them and assisted the doctors accused here? Would you sentence these people for complicity? What does for instance, the witness Neff say on 18 December 1946?
"I am aware of the responsibility and of the consequences. It was not only the court martial, not only the fear of Dr. Rascher, but the duty placed upon me by my comrades to hold out there, in order to prevent what I could".
Would you sentence the Lieutenant of the Ghetto, Rosenblatt at Litzmannstadet, who, according to the testimony of the witness Hielscher was forced, personally to select the inmates of the ghetto for the gassing? Would Rosenblatt claim in vain, that, after hard struggles with himself, he accepted the duty placed upon him by his comrades to hold out in order to precent even worse things.
We see, that in the last analysis made exactly the same decision Sievers made.
And still Sievers tried to make up for all he had to tolerate and witness by helping in other ways. Did he not save many? Sievers participated in a decisive way in the prevention of further experiments with low pressure chambers, with dry cold in the mountains, in the prevention of the application of the "n" substance and others. He saved three hundred Norwegian students from the concentration camp at the last moment. By warning him in time, he helped a Dutch professor to floe to Sweden. He alleviated the fate of many others These, however, are only a few examples to which I don't want to add any more for lack of time. You have learned of many more through the affidavits submitted.
And especially I don't want you to forget, honorable judges, that Sievers not only had to witness the sufferings of other, he was also ready to put his own life at stake and to sacrifice it in case of failure.
Put yourself in his position, and you will admit enormous courage and readiness for sacrifice were needed to hold out in the position of the defendant Sievers and to carry through. Did he not see how almost daily other men from the resistance movement were hunted down by the Gestapo, by the Security Service and the People's Court? Did he not have to fear the same fate every hour of his life, and was it not likely that daily temptation to withdraw from this dangerous task would assume gigantic forms?
Gentlement of the high Tribunal, As far as it was possible in this short period of time, I have attempted to demonstrate the actual and legal side of Siever's activities in the Heilscher resistance group. Even if Sievers should be found guilty of participation in inadmissible experiments on human beings, it must be taken into consideration that he did no more that what he was forced to do by his orders. In no place and at no time did he do anything which went beyond the orders given to him. What he did, he had to do, in order to fulfill the great and high task which fate had assigned to him. You, gentlemen of the tribunal, with your impurterbable sense of justice will weigh all pros and cons of the Sievers case, and I am firmly convinced that your verdict in the case of Sievers will be one of "not guilty", for which I plead herewith. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT The Tribunal will now be in recess until 0930 tomorow morning.
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 16 July, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.
Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you ascertain if the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record of presence of all the defendants in court.
The Tribunal will now hear arguments on behalf of the Defendant Mrugowsky.
DR. FLEMMING (Counsel for the Defendant Mrugowsky): Mr. President: The Prosecution said in its arguments: If Grawits were still alive he would sit here as one of the principal defendants on the defendants' bench. This is certainly true. But Grawitz passed sentence on himself. And what is the Prosecution doing? It indits Mrugowsky instead of Grawitz. It does not consider in its arguments that Mrugowsky was not a private person but a Medical Officer in the Waffen - SS, so a soldier, and that Grawitz and Himmler were his military superiors. It speaks of conspiracy but it does not examine thereby to what extent a conspiracy may be conceived when military subordination plays its part. The Prosecution advanced in its summing - up documents and in its orals arguments only original allegations of the indictment. It did not discuss at all the evidence brought by the defendants for their discharge. It just pointed out a bit scornfully that this evidence is mostly composed of affidavits. But this is no facult of the defendants'. They would have preferred to be able to produce countproofs taken from their records.
But all the documents of the defendants and of other offices, where the evidence brought in by the Prosecution is taken from, are in the hands of the Prosecution. It selected parts of them hich, separated in part from the content, seem to incriminate the defendants. But it made it impossible for the defendants to find the records which are in connection with the evidence produced by the Prosecution and would bring about a complete elucidation.
I would ask the Tribunal to consider in particular this difficult position of the defendants with regard to evidence. It compels to an increased extent to the old legal principle that the defendant is considered as not guilty before his guilt has not been proven and that the Court is to judge in favor of the defendant if the case is doubtful.
The charges against Mrugowsky are composed of three groups: (1.) The typhus experiments and the execution carried through with aconitine where volunteers were not in question. The Tribunal will have to consider in these cases if the emergency of the State contended by Mrugowsky really existed and if it justifies the typhus experiments and the execution by aconitine. If answered in the affirmative, neither the typhus experiments nor the aconitine execution are criminal since there is no objection raised on the way they were carried through. If the question is denied it is to be considered if and to what extent Mrugowsky partook in them and if he is responsible under criminal law.
(2.) The second group are the acts of Ding which he committed arbitrarily, e.g. his participation in a killing by phenol and the special experiment on 6 persons.
(3.) The third group are the protective vaccinations for which volunteers were available according to the evidence produced by the Prosecution.
The defendant Mrugowsky is indicted first of all for his alleged participation in the experiments with typhus (spot fever) at Buchenwald and in other medical experiments. When submitting evidence the Prosecution treated these experiments as criminal and as experiments carried through by physicians. Also when interrogating the experts Professor Leibbrand and Professor Ivy the Prosecution treated these medical - experiments as experiments made by physicians and asked the experts if these experiments were to be considered as admissible from the point of view of medical ethics.
I am convinced that the experiments to which the Prosecution refers as to the base of its indictment are not at all experiments which originated from the initiative of the executing physicians. They really are research work necessitated by an uncommonly urgent emergency of the State and ordered by the highest governmental authorities competent for it.
Also Professor Ivy admitted that there is a fundamental difference between the physician as a therapeutist and the physician as a scientific research worker. When asked by Dr. Tipp: "So you admit that for the physician as a therapeutist, the physician who cures, other rules and therefore other paragraphs of the oath of Hippocrates are in force?" he gave the answer; "Yes, I do so without any doubt."
Consequently experiments on human beings carried through for cogent reasons of a public character and ordered by the competent authorities of the State cannot simply be considered as criminal only because the experimental persons chosen by the State for the research work were not volunteers.
The Prosecution ought to have shown in addition with regard to the individual experiments for which reasons they were criminal apart from the fact that the experimental persons were not volunteers.
The largest space in the indictment against Mrugowsky is taken up by the typhus experiments at Buchenwald.
The Prosecution does not contend that Mrugowsky partook in them personally, but I further believe to have demonstrated in my deductions in writing that he neither suggested nor ordered nor controlled these experiments, that he did not further them or even approved of them.
Nevertheless, for precaution's sake I also must prove that the experiments in question were not illegal and that under no aspect they can be considered as criminals once they were caused by an urgent emergency of the State.
This proof can be produced in a particularly impressive way just in the case of the typhus experiments.
In the Flick trial the Prosecution produced Document NI 5222which I offered to the Tribunal.
In this Document which comes from the Laror Office Westphalia and is dated Feb. 3, 1942 it is said that according to a communication made by the Military Commands a short time ago the number of the prisoners of war who died of typhus still came up to 15,000 a day.
I think I need not emphasize any more that it is to be considered as a most urgent emergency of the State if of one sole epidemic disease, 15,000 people a day I repeat, are dying in the camps for Russian prisoners alone.
On the other hand the Prosecution has stated that from the beginning of 1942 till the beginning of 1945, 142 persons in total died in consequence of the typhus experiments at Buchenwald. I intentionally pace these two figures in the beginning of my arguments. They show that during the whole time of the experiments in Buchenwald, the number of the victims who died amounted to one percent of the toll taken every day by typhus in the Russian prisoner camps alone in winter '41 and '42. In addition to these victims in the Russian prisoner camps the enormous number of people who died of typhus amongst the civil population of the occupied Eastern territories and the German Armed Forces is to be considered.
It is clear that under conditions drastic measures had to be taken. When judging the Thphus experiments carried out in the concentration camp Buchenwald one must not forget that Germany was engaged in war at this time.
Millions of soldiers had to give up their lives because they were called to the front by the State. The State employed the civil population for work according to State requirements. In doing so it made no distinction between men and women. The State ordered occupation in chemical factories which was detrimental to the health. It ordered work at the construction of new projectiles connected with considerable danger for life. When unexploded now enemy shells were found at the front or unexploded new bombs after an air raid at home it ordered gunnery officers to dismount such new shell or bomb with the aid of assistants to get acquainted with their construction. This implied great danger for life. Then the fillings of the new shells and bombs had to be examined as to it composition by an analytical chemist. In certain cases this work was detrimental to the health of the chemists and their assistants and always rather dangerous.
In the same way the State ordered the medical men to make experiments with new weapons against dangerous diseases. These weapons were the vaccines. That during these experiments not only the experimental persons but also the medical men were exposed to great danger, is shown by the fact that Dr. Ding infected himself unintentionally in the beginning of his typhus experiments, and fell seriously ill with typhus.
With regard to such medical experiments one will have to agree on principle with the opinion of Prof. Ivy and Prof Leibbard that they are to be carried through only on volunteers. But even Prof. Ivy admitted that there is as much difference between cases in which a scientific research worker starts such experiments on his own initative, and the cases where he is granted authority to do so by the competent organs of the State. The question whether the organ of the State is responsible was answered by him in the affirmative but he added that this has nothing to do with the moral ***** responsibility of the experimenter towards the experimental subject.
This moral responsibility of experimenter towards the experimental subject relates when the experiment is ordered by the State to the way the experiment is carried through but not to the experiment itself.
That the experiments at Buchenwald were carried out correctly was not contested by the Prosecution. By way of precaution I offered evidence for the correct execution in my closing brief.
On a question asked by DR. Sauter, Prof. Ivy observed that he did not think the State could take the responsibility to order as scientist to kill a man to get knowledge.
The case with the typhus experiments is different. No order was given to kill a man to get knowledge. But the typhus experiments were dangerous experiments. Out of 724 experimental persons 154 died. But these 154 dead of the typhus experiments have to be confronted with the 15,000 who died of typhus every day in the camps for Soviet prisoners of war, and the ennumerable dead by typhus amongst the civil population of the occupied Eastern territories and the German troops. These enormous numbers of dead led to the absolute necessity to have effective vaccines against typhus in sufficient quantity. The newly developed vaccines had been tested in the animal experiment as to their compatibility.
I explained this in detail in writing.
The Tribunal will have to decide whether, in consideration of the enormous extent of epidemic typhus, in consideration of the 15,000 men dying of it every day in the camps for Russian prisoners of war alone the order given by the Government authorities to test the typhus vaccines was justified or not. If the answer is affirmative the typhus experiments at Buchenwald were not criminal, since the Prosecution did not contest that they were carried out according to the rules of the medical science. In this case every responsibility of Mrugrwosky for these experiments in excluded. If, on the other hand, the Tribunal denied the question and declared the typhus experiments at Buchenwald as criminal then it would have to be considered if Mrugowsky is responsible from them in any way.
In my written statement I explained in detail that Block 46 at Buchenwald, where the experiments were carried out did not depend on Mrugowsky's orders, but that Dr. Ding worked under the immediate orders of Grawitz. Out of the extensive evidence I offered to prove this fact I only want to tress the letter addressed by Grawitz to Mrugowsky in which Grawitz declares explicitely on Aug. 24, 1944, that he consented that the series of experiments he mentioned in the letter be carried through at Buchenwald in Block 46 and the letter addressed by Mrugowsky to Grawitz on Jan. 29, 1945 in which he suggests the testing of a jaundice virus and in which he writes:
"I pray to obtain with the Riechsfuehrer - SS the permission to carry through the infection experiments in the typhus experimental station of the concentration camp Buchenwald."
These two letters demonstrate that still in the autumn 1944 and early in 1945 Mrugowsky could have carried through a series of experiments in compound 46 only with a special permission. This refutes the assumption of the Prosecution that compound 46 was placed under Mrugowsky's orders.
But above all I want to stress again the affidavit given by Dr. Morgen on May 23, 1947 in which he stated that when he investigated the occurrences in Block 46 at Buchenwald. Dr. Ding showed him an attestation signed by Grawitz in which Ding was commissioned explicitely to carry out the experiments.
Dr. Morgen has further stated that he had to report to Grawitz personally about the result of his investigations as an examining Magistrate at Buchenwald. There also it resulted according to the affidavit given by Dr. Morgen that Grawitz ordered the experiments. He then called Dr. Ding "his man", and said he would regret it if the investigation had brought an charge against Dr. Ding, since he employed him for the experiments.
Morgen emphasized that the name of Mrugowsky was not mentioned in the course of his conversations with Ding and Grawitz. This clearly shows, I think, that Mrugowsky had nothing to do with Block 46 at Buchenwald. For further evidence that Ding still depended on Mrugowsky's orders in Block 46, the Prosecution referred to the sketches designed by Mrugowsky. NO 416 and 417, which were offered with Doc. Book I of the Prosecution. It results from these pictures that the action for typhus and virus research was only Block 50. Block 46 was called as formerly "Experimental Station of the concentration amp Buchenwald". This results from the letter just quoted. Block 46 was only attached to the section for typhus and virus research without establishing thereby and relation of subordination to Mrugowsky. This is shown in detail in my closing brief.
From the two sketches designed by Mrugowsky, which show that the section for typhus and virus research was under his control from its establishment to the end of the war, nothing can be deduced therefore from the assumption that he was Ding's superior in Block 46.
By this fact and the further evidence brought in my closing brief it is demonstrated that Block 46 at Buchenwald was not placed under the order of Mrugowsky. There is therefore no responsibility of Mrugowsky for the typhus experiments.
In this connection I want to emphasize that Mrugowsky never denied that he knew the typhus experiments at Buchenwald were ordered by Grawitz and carried out by Dr. Ding. He never denied that he saw for instance, the report about the series I of the experiments, which he rewrote in his letter of May 5, '42 and that he saw Ding's essay about acridine which Ding sent to Grawitz for consent to publication on 18 months after the experiments were completed and which Grawitz then gave to Mrugowsky to return it to Ding. But from this knowledge no responsibility of Mrugowsky for the typhus experiments can be deduced.
The experiments were ordered by Himmler and Grawitz as his highest military superiors. As a Medical Officer of the Waffen - SS Mrugowsky had no possibility to oppose these experiments ordered by his superiors in any way. When Grawitz first suggested the experiments he contradicted him at once, and induced him to ask for a decision of Himmler as the highest superior. Himmler decided against Mrugowsky. Under these conditions Mrugowsky could do no more. He obtained however by his opposition that he was not commissioned with the experiments but that Ding got the order for execution.
Nor has the Prosecution brought any evidence to show that Mrugowsky intervened later in any form in the typhus experiments at Buchenwald, that he furthered them or participated in them in any way. On account of the fact that Mrugowsky knew about the typhus experiments no charge can be made on him under criminal law, because neither in law nor in fact he had any possibility to prevent the experiments or to enforce later their cessation.
The Prosecution further based its charge against Mrugowsky on the despositions of several witnesses that he had been Ding's chief in Block 46, also in so far the experiments carried out by Ding in Block 46 were concerned. I have contested this with all energy. All the statements produced by the Prosecution in this respect have their origin in information given by Ding. None of these statements comes from somebody who worked in Block 46 himself. It is significant that the Prosecution has not been able to offer a single order given by Mrugowsky to Ding for the carrying out of typhus experiments although its witness Balachowsky stated that Kogon had managed to collect extensive evidence which he had handed, almost complete to the American Army. If there had been any written orders from Mrugowsky to Ding, the later would certainly not have destroyed them for the sake of his protection, and Kogon would have given them to the American Army with his other documents.
It is true that the witness Kogon who deserves no credit, as I shall show, pretended that Mrugowsky gave to Ding mostly only oral orders. But he further deposed that from the year 1943 onwards Ding was no more satisfied with oral orders from Mrugowsky, but asked for such to be given in writing. In spite of this not a single written order from Mrugowsky to Ding concerning the execution of a series of typhus experiments was produced.
The only witness who might be able to tell anything about the order given to Ding in respect of the typhus experiments by his own knowledge is the witness Dr. Morgen. I just remarked that Morgen saw the order given by Grawitz to Ding for the execution of the typhus experiments and that Grawitz personally told Dr. Morgen that Ding was his man at Buchenwald and said he employed him there.
The error of the witnesses who stated that Mrugowsky had been Ding's chief, results from the fact that Ding was dependent on Mrugowsky in respect of the production of vaccine in Block 50 and also concerning his activity as a Hygienist. I showed in my closing brief that from 1942 to 1945 Ding was working with the typhus vaccine experiments only for about 2 1/2 months, if one adds all the hours he worked from them. All the rest of his activity during 3 years approximately was devoted to the vaccine production and the work of a hygienist, so for the activity where he was Mrugowsky's subordinate. It is comprehensible that during the approximately 33 months he worked for Mrugowsky he got many more orders from him than from Grawitz for the execution of the 13 thphus vaccine experiments. It therefore is comprehensible that the main part of his correspondence under these circumstances was carried on with Mrugowsky.
In consequence of the contention of the Prosecution which hardly spoke of anything but of the typhus - vaccine experiments, and produced documents only in respect of these the impression had to originate that the typhus - vaccine experiments were Ding's main activity at Buchenwald.
That is not so. For his main activity at Buchenwald, Ding was Mrugowsky's subordinate. Therefore it does not result from the fact that his correspondence went on mainly with Mrugowsky and that he called Mrugowsky his superior that also in respect of the typhus - vaccine experiments a connection between Mrugowsky and Ding was established not that Mrugowsky participated in these experiments in any way nor that he was responsible for them. The Prosecution did not deny that such double subordination as it existed between Ding on one hand and Granwitz and Mrugowsky on the other is possible in a military organization and happened frequently. I can refer also in this respect to the statement in my closing brief.
The witness Kogon and Ding's diary are the chief means of evidence advanced by the Prosecution against Mrugowsky. This is why in my closing brief I explained in detail that neither Kogon's statement nor the Ding diary furnish any substantial proof. As to the statement of Kogon I want to emphasize once more the principal points:
Kogon described in the witness stand the dramatic circumstances under which he pretends to have saved the so-called diary of Ding. I needn't point out that the particular occurrences which happened when he saved the diary as he pretends he did would have i pressed him so that he did not forget them if his statement be true. So he couldn't possibly relate this event in a different way when he related it several times. In fact he gave in the physicians' and the Pohl trials two reports about the way he alleges to have saved the diary, which differ so fundamentally that this is only comprehensible if his contention that he saved the diary is untrue and the descriptions he gives of this event are a pure invention.
Kogon stated in the physicians' trial that Ding assorted the secret documents to be burned in Block 46. Whilst Ding and Dietzsch went into the adjoining room for a moment he had thrown the diary and a heap of papers into a box to save them from destruction.
Two days later he had told Ding that he had saved the diary and a heap of other papers from being destroyed and had got the permission to fetch them from Block 46 where he couldn't have got them otherwise. He had fetched them and kept them since. This description is quite plausible and it would be hard to refute it if there was not Kogon's own statement in the Pohl trial.
In the Pohl trial the same Kogon has said about three months later: he had been standing with Ding and Dietzsch at the same table when the secret documents were sorted for destruction. Suddenly Ding had pushed the diary and other papers towards him. He had taken them and carried them to Block 50 together with Ding. Ding had not known at this time that Kogon had the diary and the other documents with him but he had told Ding this on the same day.
A more striking contradiction than between these two statements about the saving of the diary is hardly possible.