The scientific purpose is considered as being the justification for the experiments, in order to exclude the unlawfulness of bodily injury. In this connection, I quote the legal concept: If the state recognizes and promotes the scientific purpose, then all the necessary and appropriate means for its achievement are covered as far as the criminal law is concerned. With regard to this point, von Liszt is of the opinion that only the medical profession can establish what means are need for the promotion of medical science. Summarizing, it can be said that experiments conducted in accordance with the rules of the medical profession and with the consent of the subject do not violate the here applicable criminal law. I think I sufficiently dealt with the legal questions that are important for this trial, as far as this was possible considering the short space of time, and now turn to another point, namely, the question: Doctor and research worker.
Years ago, when times were better, I strolled through Hellas and stood on the ruins of Epidauros. There, in the town of Asklepios, the priest exercised the medical profession, and the most important factor for healing a sick man was his belief in a higher power. Our present time, lacing these gods, has removed the priest's sash from the physician. The medical art, however, remained a sacred office and is full of responsibility.
Schoebauer very justly says in his paper "The Medical Vienna", "Who chooses the medical profession has taken a sacred office and has put his force, his health, and even his life at the disposal of the sick, in order to recognize their diseases, to cure and to help them."
The priest-doctors are now being confronted in some medical papers with scientists or medical research workers. Also in this trial, the attempt was made to construct a difference between physician and scientist to the disadvantage of the defendants. Within the framework of the defense, I briefly want to define my attitude in this respect. It is possible to evaluate correctly the proceedings only if one is acquainted with the general attitude of the medical world with regard to certain professional questions, if one particularly takes into consideration the importance of human experiments for the scientific research and, thus, for the practical medicine and if, finally, one does not forget the spiritual currents of that time and the economic and political conditions.
The problem of all this is not too difficult. However, it is not so simply as to conjure - with a pious raising of the eyelids - the ghost of old Hippocrates and to quote one sentence from the Corpus Hippocraticum as the Alpha and Omega of medical ethics. Let us recall how helpless Hippocrates was, when the plague killed hundreds and hundreds of his Attic fellow-citizens. At that time already the duty of a doctor, namely to treat the individual that turned to him for help, became the noble duty of a helper of the community.
Very justly says Schumacher, in his thesis, "About the Medical Spirit", Abendlandreihe, Vol. 2, published by Johann Wilh, Naumann, Ausgburg 1946, page 58: "In accordance with Hippocrates' ideal, the doctor's attention is directed to the welfare of the individual as well as to the welfare of the state. To place the welfare of the individual above the welfare of the community would have been just as contradictory to his sense for order as the opposite."
If one confronts the doctor with the scientist who, with the test tube in his laboratory, with the syringe or the surgical knife in his hand, walks over animal and human corpses, in order to satisfy fanatically scientific instinct, we very decidedly object to such a scientist. We also found this type in the documents of this trial in the person of Dr. Rascher, whose name casts a dark shadow over the material of the trial. Dr. Leibbrandt, the protector of medical ethics, would therefore have rendered a good service to German science if he, in his capacity as a psychiatrist, has pointed out that Rascher, this sadist and psychopath had nothing whatsoever to do with real science.
It is my duty as a defense counsel to emphasize energetically that it is not permissable to construct from local coincidences any connections between my client and Rascher and his system.
The scientific research worker sees his task in the discovery of the unknown, in order to equip the doctor with a new weapon in his fight for the human life. I briefly want to demonstrate with two examples why the modern medical profession cannot renounce the scientific research work that was impossible without great efforts and sacrifices: 1. Giving a brief description of the development of modern surgery; 2. Mentioning the school to which the defendant Beiglboeck belonged as a pupil and a teacher. I do not give this second example in order to glorify my country, but because the particular influence of its teachers is decisive for the spiritual standard of the personality.
At the beginning of modern surgery stands the great figure of English surgery, Joseph Lister, whose great idea it was that the surgeon did not have to fight the inflammation of the wound, but to prevent its beginning caused by germs entering from outside.
Thanks to bacteriology, the anti-sepsis was changed into sepsis.
Over the entrance gate of the General Hospital in Vienna we read the words: "Saluti et solatio aegrorum - Dedicated to the health and the consolation of the sick." These words not only demand highest accomplish ment of the doctors's duties, but are the motive for the most successful work in the large field of medical research. Theory and practice joined in order to become a piece of living humanity. I would go beyond the limits of my task if I mentioned all the names that spread the glory of the Vienna University all over the world. But their penetration into the world of the unknown was always a hazardous enterprise, which demanded courage and sacrifice.
I want to quote the words of one of the great doctors, Professor Wagner Jauregge, who says in his book "Fever and Infection Therapy": "The vaccination against malaria was certainly a risk, the outcome of which could not be foreseen. It was dangerous for the patient himself and this to a much higher degree than the treatment with tuberculin and other vaccines, and it also was a danger for the surroundings and even for the community."
And, on page 136: "Three patients died after having been vaccinated with blood being infected with malaria tropica and not with malaria tertiana. The tragic outcome of this experiment was discouraging, and only a year later could the author decide himself to proceed with the malaria vaccinations."
Nobody talks today of these victims, but Wagner Jauregge's revolutionary discovery is known and adopted in the whole world and has become the common property of all peoples for the benefit of suffering mankind.
These doctors who knew that the fight against disease and death was a thorny path, were more than all ready to sacrifice their own lives.
The real scientist and the real doctor, therefore, do not oppose each other. However, the scientist must not forget that nature is the expression of the divine will and that only this cognition can save him from the "hybris", the boundlessness which for the Greek tragedians was the greatest vice of mankind.
More than all, the words of the greatest German physician, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, must be applied for both scientist and doctor: "The doctor grows with his heart, he come from God and is enlightened by Nature - the best of all the drugs is Love."
My learned colleagues have compiled a long list of documents on human experiments especially from the Western democracies. It would be injust, however, to conceal the enormous benefit of the human experiment. The fact that Paul Ehrlich dared to release his drug "Salvassan" which had not yet been sufficiently tested, saved thousands from the dangerous consequences of one of the worst epidemics. The fact that Strong took the responsibility upon himself to carry out the probably very dangerous experiment with plague bacilli made it possible to vaccinate thousands of persons and to save them from the almost certain death.
The fact that Strong was in a position to prove that Beri-beri was a disease caused by a deficiency, and that Goldberger proved the same for pellagra, made it possible to fight this deficiency and to liberate entire countries from one of their worst diseases.
With regard to the criminal law, however, and the judgment of crimes against humanity, it is the decisive result that also in other countries, under the there generally prevailing medical and ethical convictions, doctors carried out similar or the same experiments for the benefit of scientific research or in consideration of a critical condition of their country.
If I further said that the surroundings had an influence on the doctor's position, I did not think of the second determining factor of our individuality, not of the material influence on the organism that might modify or mitigate the influence of the actual conditions at that time upon the decisions of a physician.
Concentration camp, militarism and peoples' court. Three important columns of the Third Reich. They have collapsed. They are not to be forgotten, however, when examining the guilt of the individual. Every German had to fear them in one form or another. And then came the war. War was once called "the steel bath of the peoples". Heraklit called it "the father of all things". I can only repeat the judgment of the IMT that "war is the evil itself". This is true to the highest degree for the last war. It was a total, a terrible war. Even the medical science on both sides had to assist warfare. I have before me the index of the best known scientific English periodicals from the war period "Lancet and Nature". Now, after the war, General T.I. Betts of the United States War Department and Professor W.T. Sinsteat of the British Supply Office have declared that the captured German scientific accomplishments during the war were of the greatest use for the economic progress of British and American industry. Even the terrible freezing experiments of Dr. Rascher proved to be of greatest use for America in the war against Japan.
(See Document No. 31, Becker-Freyseng.) And what about us soldiers? We stood in the air-raid shelters, the Socialist beside the Party member. We did not complain. We saw villages go up in flames, innocent women and children become the victims of air raids. We saw our country, the Fatherland, in distress, and we believed, even if we hated Hitler and his followers like the plague, we had to fulfill our duty to our country to the bitter end. One cannot tell these things, they have to be experienced. In such times a doctor is placed against his will between Scylla and Charybdis, between his concept of his profession and his duty as a soldier. It is easy today to say with pathos from an academic chair: "numquam nocere!" Now, this man does not say: "I was a member of the resistance. I was trying day in and day out to help persons who were racially and politically persecuted." He says: "Then, like everyone else, I merely did my duty."
Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest Americans, said in 1862, in a speech before the American Congress: "The dogmas of quiet times ill sort with our stormy present. In the fact of new events we must think and act in a new way."
With this I intend to conclude my statements about medical ethics, and repeat the words which Liek wrote at the end of his book, "The Doctor and His Mission": "If we want to abolish undesirable conditions in medicine, we must follow our conscience - to help and to heal, that is, today as always, the mission of the doctor."
Now to the experiments themselves in brief:
The Chief Prosecutor let the weight of the facts speak for themselves in other experiments, but because this is lacking in the seawater case, he resorted to poetry! He led us to the realm of Greek mythology and reminded us of Tantalus who was punished with eternal thirst and hunger because he served his son to the gods as food. I will follow the example of Mr. Telfort Taylor and go one step further and lead you, Your Honors, to Hell.
The prosecution does admit one point however. The purpose of the seawater experiments was not meant to be methods of killing and destruction, but had a very clear connection with rescue problems. (page 67 of the German transcript). The statement of the prosecution, however, that no tangible progress for modern medicine had been achieved must be denied most emphatically. As an answer to this I would like to suggest to the prosecution to read two books which are bound to disprove the basis of such a statement. The books in question are two English books; the English, the greatest seafaring nation quite naturally considered his nautical problem of paramount importance. Shipwreck - survivors, a medical study by Macdonald Critschley, London In.A. Churchill Ltd. 1943. He maintains that the seafaring tradition is built upon the sacrifices and sufferings of generations of sailors, explorers and daring marchantmen. This compels the medical profession to put its knowledge at the disposal of the Navy. He continues to describe the sensation of thirst and the efforts to conquer the lack of water and finally is forced to admit that no solution has yet been found for this problem. The second book is James Hanley's "Ocean". He narrates the odyssey of 5 shipwrecked men. Written in the middle of the last war, this book is an epic of comradeship and humanity and at the same time a dramatic description of the sufferings of helpless drifting survivors of a shipwreck. As part of my defense documents I submitted two scientific papers by Parker, Doc. No. 18, and Ladell, Doc. No. 21, dealing with seawater experiments and, further, Doc. No. 19, depicting a drama on the high seas, underlining the necessity of such research. They differ from other experiments carried out by the defendants by the fact that the physician had them constantly under his control and could stop them at any time. A glass of water ended the experiment. Helmut Marx says on this subject that for quenching thirst salt solutions are superior to pure water, since the time it remains in the body is greater and the balancing effect on the intermediary disturbances is more pronounced.
(The Water Balance of the Healthy and Sick Person. Springer Publishing House). The injections at the end of individual experiments were, therefore, not tortures, but were medically well founded. The seawater experiments are furthermore basically different in that, in contrast, for example, to the bacteriological experiments, no diseases are caused in a healthy person with untested drugs or, as in the case of sterilization, the healthy person is rendered permanently sterile.
Therefore, I can, certainly turn to the question whether the execution of these justified experiments can be considered a war crime or a crime against humanity. In view of the consolidation of evidence which I have submitted to the court, I can present its result here in the form of a few maxims.
Its execution lay in the hands of man, well suited for this task by reason of previous experience and specialization in the field. The most famous German internist Eppinger, calls him his most able. The director of the experiment had a number of well trained aids at his disposal and all necessary therapeutical implements were at hand. This experiment could not have been carried out differently in the best American Hospital. The actual beginning of the experiment was preceded by intensive animal experiments and an experiment on himself by the director. The treatment, housing and nourishment of the experimental persons were good. They volunteered and were informed about aim and consequences of the experiment by the director. If someone were to emphasize again at this point that volunteers exist in allied prisons but not in German concentration camps, then I do not want to argue about that. As defense counsel it suffices for me to point out that Beiglboeck subjectively had definitely and not carelessly assumed that he was dealing with volunteers. A judge of a criminal court does not judge the action, he judges the man and therefore he can not simply pass up the so-called inner facts of the case. Nor was there any definite proof submitted that allied nationals were used in the experiments.
The experimental persons were not selected to persecute them for racial or political reasons, they wore the black chevron of the anti-social prisoner. A study of the American immigration and marital laws have tought me that especially in America, the concept of the "Anti-social element" is well understood. -- No death cases and no permanent impairment of health resulted from the sea-water experiment. They were certainly hard and troublesome and constituted an heroic act on the part of the experimental persons, but they were not tortures and cruelties, they did not violate human dignity and thus, they are not crimes against humanity. This is seen unequivocally from the statements of Dr. Lesse, Massion, Pillwein and Mettbach and from the sworn testimony of the defendant as witness in his own behalf. These testimony disprove completely the prosecution witnesses Vieweg, Vorlicek, Bauer and Tschofenig. It is now the task of the court to weigh these testimonies against each other and to examine their credibility.
Apart from the many previous convictions of the old jail-bird Vieweg, we must not forget in the case of the other prosecution witnesses, what the star witness of the prosecution in concentration camp questions, Kogon, has written about feeling of revenge. The most important circumstance, however, is the fact that all these prosecution witness moved only at the fringe of the action itself, that they were not absolute eye-witnesses, but depended on rumors and legends as described to us vividly by the czech physician Dr. Horn as a phenomenon of mass psychology. In the case of the sea-water experiments I was able to find the original data sheets, and thus make an expert investigation possible. This investigation has now been carried out by the internationally recognized authority, the expert Prof. Dr. Voelhard, and has confirmed the statements of the defendant are unequivocally. Even the prosecution's expert, Prof. Ivy, had to conced many decisive points to the defense.
This concludes my statements about the experiments. In conclusion I want to point out once more that the defendant had no personal interest whatever in the experiments and that he carried them out against his will as a military order which he had to obey.
Your great president, Franklin Dr. Roosevelt said on the 23rd of Feb. 1942: "The Atlantic Charter does not only apply to those parts of the world which touch upon the Atlantic ocean but to the whole world; the aims are disarming the aggressor, self determination for nations and peoples, and the four freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from want and Freedom from fear." Your soldiers have carried the Stars and Stripes across the ocean to put these words of Roosevelt into action. If someone says to you now: "I have lived in fear and under compulsion." Would it not be tragic if you especially, as liberators from fear, would execute here what Himmler or Hitler have not done? If I quoted the devil's servant mephistophiles in the case of Dr. Rascher, then you shall quote Faust in Beiglboeck's case and say:
"Whoever strives to make an effort him we can save" For objective and subjective reasons, therefore, you will have to acquit my clients.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess for a few moments.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: It is the intention of the Tribunal to hear the personal statements on the part of the defendants on Saturday. The arguments will be concluded by the end of tomorrow afternoon. These personal statements on the part of the defendants will be made by each defendant from the dock. Each defendant will step to the door of the dock before which will be placed the microphone. These personal statements on the part of each defendant are, of course, not intended to be arguments. The defendants have testified at length from the stand, their counsel have argued the matter, we have heard the counsel on oral argument and the counsel will file a brief, the length of which depends upon the sound discretion of each counsel. It appears to the Tribunal that under these circumstances that a personal statement by each defendant not to exceed ten minutes for each one might be sufficient. I would be glad to hear from counsel as to whether or not they think that this will be sufficient and if not sufficient, why not.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I believe that in the name of all the defendants and the defense that the time limit of about ten minutes per defendant is sufficient. If a defendant would like to have eleven or twelve minutes, I am sure some defendants will take some minutes less. I believe that we can be in agreement with the proposal of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: My eye-sight possibly would not be very good in watching the exact ten minutes each defendant will speak, if they do not exceed that limit more than a minute or so. It will be understood then that each defendant will make his personal plea from tho box beginning Saturday morning. Very well, counsel, that is understood.
I understand from the interpreter that the translations of the arguments on behalf of the defendant Ruff have not yet been received.
THE INTERPRETER: Yes, Your Honor, it just arrived.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now hear the arguments on behalf of counsel for the defendant Ruff - the translation has been received.
DR. SAUTER: For the defendant Ruff:
Your Honors, I have a detailed piece of writing which I have submitted on 1 July. I have submitted the evidence in the case of Dr. Ruff and judged them objectively, and then in a supplement of 1 July 1947, submitted on the 8 July 1947, I have also explained my position to the testimony of Dr. Ivy in detail and I have determined that the conception of Dr. Ivy in all important points agrees with the views and practices of Dr. Ruff, and, that, therefore, Dr. Ruff, is also from the point of view of Dr. Ivy not guilty in that view either. The brief for the length of time does not enable me to present these statements of Dr. Ivy which are also important for this trial but I would like the Tribunal to take note of my written presentation in the case of Dr. Ivy in the trial brief of the prosecution. I could not answer to the trial brief of the Prosecution because I have not yet received it. If I can get this before the verdict I would like to answer to it.
Now, Your Honors, I turn to the plea which I have written as an introduction, from which I shall quote the following:
The defendant Dr. Ruff is charged only with the high altitude experiments which were carried out by his collaborator Dr. Romberg in cooperation with Dr. Rascher in the Dachau concentration camp. He was never accused on any other count by any one; the completely negative results of the trial make it so self-evident that the conspiracy as alleged by the prosecution does not include Dr. Ruff, so that we need not waste a word about it.
This fact in itself already constitutes a certain exceptional position for tho defendant Dr. Ruff in this trial, because most of the other participants must defend themselves against a series of different charges; on Ruff, however, only on this one.
Then from pages 1 to 12, the first chapter of my written statement, I have represented Dr. Ruff as a man and scientist, as he is described by all of his collaborators, and as a scientist all of them emphasize his personal courage in these self-experiments, his responsibility and his consideration for experimental subjects and his scientific achievements.
These recommendations have to more value because as far as the evidence goes the Prosecution was not able to produce a single witness who testified against Dr. Ruff unfavorably as a man or a scientist.
I now continue with the second chapter of my plea in which I have examined the experiments. These presentations are to be found on page 5 and the following pages, under the Roman Numeral II. I have said the following there:
The proceedings of this many months old trial have clearly shown that Dr. Ruff is innocent and that these experts were right who from the outset and in spite of all suspicions were convinced of the innocence of Dr. Ruff, and who openly testified to Dr. Ruff's innocence.
Certainly Dr. Ruff agreed to and approved it that high-altitude tests with a low-pressure chamber of the Reich Air Ministry were performed by his co-operator of many years, Dr. Romberg, together with Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher, in a concentration camp, using concentration camp inmates as experimental subjects. He agreed to it after the performance of urgent experiments in the Dachau concentration camp had already been, on principal, agreed upon and approved by Professor Dr. Hippke and Prof. Dr. Weltz.
Therefore, the question arises whether these high-altitude experiments were already illegal for the reason that THEY WERE PERFORMED ON CONCENTRATION CAMP INMATES.
This question must be denied; for only such inmates were used for the experiments who had VOLUNTEERED for them, or who at least were regarded by Ruff as volunteers and could be regarded as such in view of the whole situation, and no one could repreach him for having erred in this respect because other persons had perhaps deceived him about these facts.
2) There are, however, some witnesses who apparently maintain that the prisoners used in the Ruff-Romberg experiments were not volunteers, Above all the witnesses Vieweg and Neff are of this opinion.
a) During his direct examination of 13 December 1946 (German examination records page 464 and following ones) the witness Vieweg mentioned a series of experiments of different kinds which were performed at the Dachau concentration camp. Referring in particular to the high-altitude experiments there, which alone can be considered in the indictment against Dr. Ruff, he states firstly (pages 475-476) that high-altitude experiment with the low-pressure chamber were performed on 10 patients; "For these experiments frequently also patients and male nurses, also, were used who during the experiments were seen in the corridor of the adjacent hospital ward.", with which Vieweg apparently waster to point out that those "patients" and "also the nurses" were as volunteers; the ton "OFFICIAL EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECTS" had been well fed and supplied with smokes. (page 476/485) but in addition these ten so-called "exhibition-patients", a large number of people had been selected from the camp who were "always being sent to the highaltitude experiment institute". In that way a block leader (Blockaeltester) who probably suffered from pneumonia a few hours later was in the sick bay mortuary"; the same happened in the Malaria department of the witness Vieweg; "one day a patient who had some differences with Zill, the leader of the camp for protective custody, was sent to the experimental institute; he (Vieweg) found him in the mortuary the next day. He (Vieweg) knows by hearsay" that a great number of patients who took part in these experiments had died and ended up in the sick bay mortuary" (page 476).
Between the lines of this rather obscure and vague statement one may read that, according to Vieweg's statement these further experimental subjects took and especially those who had died during the experiments DID NOT belong to the ten "official experimental subjects" and had not been volunteers. However, in the direct examination by the Prosecution the witness Vieweg did not express himself explicitly about this alleged compulsion of the so-called experimental subjects.
During the cross-examination by the defense counsel of Dr. Romberg the witness Vieweg (page 485) explained his expression the "ten exhibition patients". The ten selected patients who were used for the high altitude tests had been accommodated in a special room and had been well nourished (page 485); they had been exhibited, and they had been presented to Himmler during one of his visits. Himmler made them big promises, if they survived, they would be dismissed .... these 10 patients had been drawn into the experiments; ... they had told him (Vieweg) that they were very exhausted by the whole affair.
BUT AS FAR AS HE COULD REMEMBER THEY ALL SURVIVED" (page 486/489) on questioning the witness Vieweg repeatedly stated (page 486/487/489)" that as far as he could remember Dr. Rascher had carried out the experiments himself; the only thing Vieweg could state (page 487) about a participation of "Luftwaffe officers" in these high altitude experiments, was that some Luftwaffe officers "had also been there". But he could not say anything about the actual participation of the Luftwaffe officers. From the description on page 501 "these 2 gentlemen of the Luftwaffe" certainly were not identical with Ruff and Romberg. He himself (Vieweg) had only talked with these 10 official experimental subjects, the so-called "exhibition patients". But not with any of the other experimental subjects. He himself had never observed that these other prisoners were used for high altitude tests, but he had been told about it frequently. Vieweg repeatedly stated that the 10 official experimental subjects had still been alive at the end of the experiments (page 489) that NO DEATHS had occurred among them.
So much for the statement of the witness Vieweg; of course it is unreliable because it does not establish a clear distinction between these high altitude experiments authorized by Ruff and carried out with the cooperation of Dr. Romberg, and other experiments in the low pressure chamber which Rascher undertook by order of Himmler, without the authorization or previous knowledge of Dr. Ruff and without the cooperation of Dr. Romberg. This distinction, which is of decisive importance in judging this case, only appears in Vieweg's statement insofar as the ten official experimental subjects (the so-called "exhibition patients") were exclusively used for the first experiments (Ruff-Romberg-Rascher), whereas other prisoners were used for the other experiments (Rascher alone). Of course, the significance of this distinction was not clear to Vieweg at that time and could not be observed by him, because Vieweg did not know anything at all about Dr. Ruff's activity and since he did not know anything at all about the agreements which had been reached between Dr. Ruff and Dr. Rascher.
Apart from these obscurities one has to regard THE STATEMENT OF THE WITNESS VIEWEG WITH THE GREATEST CAUTION for another reason: For Vieweg is the witness who, with unusual unscrupulousness, committed plain perjury in the sessions of 13 and 16 December 1946. He tried first (page 474 fg.) to give the impression that he had been sent to the concentration camp without any reason, that he had been committed for "political protective security." This representation of the witness Vieweg is completely in accordance with his previous behavior, because formerly he had generally pretended to be politically persecuted an innocent man who had been thrown into a concentration camp without ever having learned the reason. Under this false presence he offered himself as witness for this Trial, and because of this misrepresentation he was presented as a witness by the prosecution whom he had deceived. However, in the cross examination Vieweg had to admit that in 1934 he was sentenced to 4 respectively 6 years PENAL SERVITUDE FOR FORGERY OF DOCUMENTS AND FRAUD, that is to say for COMMON crimes, which, as a rule, have got nothing to do with politics. On repeated questioning the witness Vieweg stated again and again (page 483 fg.) that he could NOR REMEMBER having received any other previous conviction in addition to these 4 respectively 6 years penal servitude. He insisted on this statement, even though he had been repeatedly reminded that he was under oath; his stereotype phrase was, he could not remember, he even emphasized: "That he deposed this under oath" (page 484) and he continued to insist on his statement even though he was told that his previous convictions could be determined without difficulty since his files had been sent for (page 484).
Now, to compare the testimony given under oath with the list of convictions of the witness Vieweg, which was submitted as Document Ruff No. 24, in Document Book Ruff, Supplement V, page 93.
Besides the 4 respectively 6 years of penal servitude which he admitted, the witness Vieweg received in reality NOT LESS THAN 6 PRISON TERMS prior to 1934, among them 5 years penal servitude and 5 years less of civil rights for repeated severe thefts.
This extract of the penal register shows WHY the witness Vieweg had such a "bad memory": He never was politically persecuted, as he pretended to be, but he is the type of incorrigible professional criminal who could not be changed or educated even by the most severe penalty. If ANYBODY deserved to be sent to the concentration camp it was this Vieweg. But even the 5 years he spent in the concentration camp did not help him any. For now he is again in prison, in Bamberg, where charges were brought against him on 5 March 1947 at the District Court of Bamberg for forgery of documents and fraud, as well as for 5 cases of repeated theft, for attempted abortion, for active bribery and for Black Market dealings.
This incorrigible professional criminal allowed himself to be presented here as star witness for the prosecution against an honorable, blameless citizen, as which Dr. Ruff emerged in the course of this Trial. Can the court base its verdict on the statements of a person like Vieweg, who on top of everything shamelessly lied to the Tribunal and committed the worst possible perjury.
b) The other witness presented by the Prosecution for the Dachau experiments is Walter Neff; he is at present in the Dachau camp for war criminals and will soon have to stand trial himself before the American Tribunal, for experiments in which he took an active part.
I skip the next few pages of the plea where I state that this other witness of the Prosecution, the witness Neff, according to his own testimony was a multiple murderer, that he is fully conscious of his murders, without any kind of conscience he boasted of them and believes he will escape by implicating other defendants, for instance Ruff. But I want to draw your attention to the testimony which I regard important that a Jewish tailor - it is to be found on page 12 which I presented in my plea.
I read on page 12:
Special attention must be attached to the witness Neff's further assertion regarding a Jewish tailor who worked in the sick bay. Neff called Dr. Romberg's attention to the fact that this man was not sentenced to death, and Romberg thereupon immediately went to Rascher with Neff in order "to set matters straight". Upon intervention by Dr. Romberg, Rascher then actually sent the tailor back; when the accompanying SS man again threatened the Jew, Rascher again intervened and "immediately had the man (the tailor) brought to safety in the bunker" (p. 655). Again, in the case of a second inmate, a Czech, who unjustly and without his consent had been brought in for the experiments, Dr. Romberg according to Neff's report intervened on behalf of the prisoner, with the result that Dr. Rascher entered a complaint against the criminal SS man with the Camp Commander Pierowsky. Thereupon the SS man was immediately transferred to Lublin; in that way the Czech was SAVED FROM CERTAIN DEATH BY DR. ROMBERG (page 655, 719).
This testimony of the witness Neff plays an important part in answering the question whether or not the experimental subjects used were volunteers, and also, what Dr. Romberg, and therefore Dr. Ruff, knew about them, and what Dr. Romberg's attitude was toward this question. In this connection, Neff said: "Romberg, Ruff's deputy, therefore, did not want any dangerous experiments; he tolerated no murder and considered only experiments with volunteers".
That is literally what the witness said.
My further statements on page 12 and 13 of the plea then point to the decisive fact that Neff evidently could not distinguish on the one hand between those experiments which were conducted with the approval of Ruff and were carried out without any deaths at all, and between the experiments which he conducted himself and which Rascher undertook on the authority of Himmler and in which deaths occurred.