Q Could a physician conduct any insurance practice if he did not belong to the Nazi medical society?
A Yes, he could.
Q Mas it possible for the Jewish physician to practice medicine under the Nazis?
A The Jewish doctors were at first not seriously restricted purposely; if they were War veterans of 1914 they could remain insurance physicians. At first only those who were not war veterans were eliminated from insurance work, and those doctors were eliminated who belonged to the Socialist League of Physicians which I have described, and because it was a Pacifist organization. For example, that was the reason way I was eliminated in 1933, because I was a pacifist and had belonged to the Socialist League of Physicians. But these restrictions later became of a more and more terroristic nature. After the famous November 1938 the Jews were no longer admitted, no longer licensed. The Jews were no longer doctors, they became healers of the sick, Krankenbehandler. They had to have a sign, a yellow sign with a Star of David on it.
Of course, in view of the basic anti-Semitic terrorism, these signs made these people prey. Of course, the Jewish doctors, as the terror against the Jews increased, were impoverished. The doctors were not able to live from their practice. In about, as far as I recall, about 1941 there was a further disgrace for all Jewish citizens of our country. According to the name regulation they had to add the name Sarah or Israel to their name. These names also had to appear on their signs, Then the whole thing detericrated more and more. These external regulations were not the only thing which affected the lives of the Jewish doctors. They were exposed to constant terroristic actions. From about 1942 on their lives were in serious danger. A person was taken here; a person was taken there; someone disappeared here and finally the colleagues were not seen again because they had been taken away to the East, partly with the pretext that they were to be used as doctors there. And many of these colleagues, many of my own friends, were never heard of again. They are presumably dead.
Q. Doctor, are you yourself Jewish?
A. No, but my wife, and consequently I, was subject to the Nuernberg Laws.
Q. Now, doctor, what happened to the Jewish patients as a result of this purge on the Jewish doctors?
A. The Jewish patients could theoretically in the first years be treated by so-called Aryan doctors. One must, of course, understand that doctors courageous enough to continue to treat Jewish patients could be denounced and that they were terrorized by the National Socialist doctors, but then by special order of the Chamber of Physicians the treatment of Jews was forbidden. This was camouflaged with a humanitarian explanation. It was said the Jewish practictioners must be guaranteed a certain clientele and with such reasons an attempt was made to whitewash these things. It now became very difficult for those Jewish patients who needed hospital treatment, for in small cities there were no Jewish hospitals. In Berlin there was still the famous Jewish hospital which had a very high reputation, but what were conditions like in this hospital? It became more and more a transit station for those who were carried off to an uncertain fate.
It was emptied of instruments, of medicines, and also it was inadequate.
For a time it was still tolerated that Jewish patients, if they took first class accommodations, could be taken into a private sanitorium if, of course, they took their meals in their rooms because the Aryan patients could not be expected, as it said, to eat their meals together with the Jewish patients. But finally that too became intolerable and was forbidden.
There were special difficulties in dealing with insane Jews. It was almost impossible to find a hospital to put them in and there were only a very few courageous owners of sanitariums who attempted to accept such patients. There were a number of denominational hospitals, especially Catholic clinics, which accepted Jewish patients under false names and took care of them very well.
Q. What was the Speer organization and how w t related to physicians who were called foreigners or alleged to have mixed blood?
A. This action was called Action Center. It was the following: About in the summer of 1943 in Berlin a special drive under the pretext of the so-called civil Service obligation, foreign doctors and especially after the Jewish doctors had largely disappeared, the Aryan doctors who were married to Jews and the so-called Mischlinge - that is, persons of mixed blood they were removed from Berlin by order of the main Health Office, together with the ministry of the Interior, by force. By force, for one must not forget that at that time there was an enormous scarcity of doctors; that all these doctors were working from early morning until late at night during the air raids; that many of them were working at hospitals; that many of them had enormous practices and these practices and this work had to be given up within two or three days. They had to take various subaltern positions. I may give the example of my own case because it shows the thing very well. I also had a large practice. I worked as a consultant at a Catholic hospital and I had to give up all this work within a few days and was sent to Munich to the Provincial Chamber of Physicians there. There I was treated in a very unfriendly way, to put it mildly.
That is, in a discriminatory way. I was told that I had to go to the Ministry of the Interior and they would tell me where I was to be sent. The Ministry of the Interior represented, so to speak, the juristic arm of this operation. There was the man in Munich who dealt with these things, a Ministerial Director Jaeger, a medical adviser, Ministerialrat Schmidt. These ordered my appointment as a so-called war assistant physician at the Nuernberg hospital in the nerve clinic. It was noticeable that the men for whom I worked there was a very convinced National Socialist and that of course, since he knew from my record that I was married to a Jew and that I was anything but a National Socialist, that such a chief had to consider me suspicious, and he did.
I do not want to mention things Thick still have to be shown my evidence. I merely want to describe the final result. The attention of the Gestapo was called to me and as a result I had to flee in September of 45. I describe this case only because it is one of many.
And now to come back to the Action Center. This was another step to destroy people in my category; that is, about January 1945 we were disqualified as doctors and we were given special positions in the Organization Speer as laborers. I have heard that some of these colleagues succeeded in being assigned to some sort of medical service but according to the regulation these doctors, including foreigners, were to be used for common labor in the Organization Speer. That was the purpose of the Action Center.
Q. Was the Action Conti connected with these actions Mitte and Speer?
A. It is not quite clear to me from the organizational point of view. The Action Conti, that is, taking the doctors out of their activity and putting them in subaltern positions, this Action Conti went through the Ministry of the Interior, for the mam in the Berlin Ministry of the Interior who was in charge of this matter was a certain Oberfeldarzt Dr. Bernhardt. This Dr. Bernhardt was a Wehrmacht medical officer, supposed to be a Wehrmacht medical officer, but actually he was an executive member of the Party who worked for the Ministry of the Interior end carried out this Conti action.
Q. This Action Conti was the one that started early in 1943, which instigated and directed persecution of doctors who were either foreigners or persons of the so-called mixed blood and also those related by marriage to Jews.
Is that correct, Professor?
A. Yes. It must be emphasized from the sociological point of view that removal of an Aryan, formerly head of a family, from his family meant or could mean a death sentence for his wife. One must realize that the wife, as a Jew, had no right to follow her husband to his new position. She had no permission to travel. She could not leave her home, but on the other hand, under the terror which prevailed at that time she did not claim welfare which might have been due her, so that in effect the Jewish marriage partner who was now isolated might expect new measures which might mean, and this did happen, that such members of mixed marriages were sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. One can imagine with what feelings and with what concentration such an Aryan doctor worked in his subaltern position.
Q. Professor, you have stated that the Health Department came under the Ministry of the Interior, Now when the ministry of the Interior under Frick assumed control of the Health Department, what action did he take regarding reorganization and so forth?
A. We have two historical phases. We have a transition phase from 1933 until about 1935. That was the period of the so-called State Commissariat of Gerhardt Wagner. At that time already Mr. Conti became state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior of Mr. Frick. Conti now through Ministerial Director Guett established Section 4 in the Ministry of the Interior. This organization under the leadership principle included the whole medical profession down to the most insignificant doctor in the following way: The Reich Health Office of Mr. Reiter which had existed for sixty years was incorporated to the Ministry of the Interior. The German Red Cross, which in 1934 had the honor of being put under the protection of Adolf Hitler, was in 1937 attached by law to the Ministry of the Interior.
The third organization was a big racial office. On the other hand, the so-called Reich Committee for Public Health developed from this office. Four: This had two subsections again. One was essentially a propagandistic racial factor where people worked such as Lemme, Ruttke, who wrote on hereditary biology, etc., and, second, the big organization of public health, Then there developed from the Ministry of the interior through the Ober Regierungspaaesidenten, governor, etc., the health offices. Therefore, it is clear that the health offices received their direct instructions through these officers from the Ministry of the Interior, and the health officers were in charge of all social hygiene care with the emphasis on the racial element.
There was also a certain connection with the Reich Labor Ministry, and then from the Reich Labor Ministry there was a connection through tho provincial and Reich insurance organizations to the medical inspections. That is more or loss tho central organization which State Secretary Conti administered through Ministerial Director Guett in Section Four. And I must not forget this part: there were also subsidiary connections to the extra health office, and I call it that of Mr. Ley or the Committee for Health Service of the NSDAP and its subsections, the National Socialist League of Physicians which obtained more and more executive power in the Party and two other organizations such as tho Hitler Youth and tho Reich Labor Service. All these threads came together and were centralized in the Ministry of the Interior.
I should, therefore, like to sum up once more on what keyboard Mr, Conti played. Mr. Conti was, first of all, state Secretory in the Ministry of the Interior. He was, second, Reich physicians loader; that is, he represented the Reich Chamber of Physicians. Third, he was the Chief of tho Public Health Office of tho NSDAP, and, consequently, there was not a single medical question which did not reach Mr. Conti in one form or another and which he did not regulate; and I know the special position which Mr. Brandt held from about 1940 on, I believe. Mr. Brandt was a sort of intermediary physician between the Wehrmackt and the civilian health. His position was legalized by his receiving instructions from the Fuobrer, Adoloh Hitler, personally.
Q Now you have stated, Professor, that Dr. Conti was Reichsaerztofuehrer. Now would you say that all physicians in Germany except those in military duty were subordinate to Conti?
A With the exception of the Wehrmacht and the SS, yes. Yes. Otherwise they wore all under Conti.
Q How did Conti control medical meetings and bring pressure to bear on physicians to join the Nazi Party, tho SR and the SS?
A Conti, of course, in his position had the opportunity to play on all organizational instruments. Above all, he could use the newspapers in a propagandists sense, and ho did so. He issued a number of proclamations in the German Medical Meekly, and he also used the Berlin Medical Association for that purpose if ho had certain political things to put through. For example, I may mention one very important polemic, I believe, about 1942. I said at tho beginning of my testimony that tho German Medical Profession as a democratic development was in favor of tho liberal principle, and it was very funny after the whole medical profession had been put under tho terroristic compulsion of the Fuehrer principle that suddenly in 1942 Conti apparently became afraid that the medical profession might be completely socialized. As far as i can recall, there was an effort in this direction from Ley. Another was a struggle between Loy and Conti, and Conti in a memorable speech in tho Berlin Medical Association appealed to the colleagues present there that they should remember the old ideas of freedom at tho time of Albrecht von Graewe and maintain tho freedom of the medical profession so that the medical profession might not be completely socialized. I mention this example only in order to show that Conti had tho opportunity of playing on all instruments of this mamouth machine, to play wherever he felt it necessary.
Q Do you know the name-
THE PRESIDENT The Tribunal will now be in recess f or a few moments.
(Recess)
BY MR. HARDY:
Q. Professor, do you know the name "Professor Dr. Kurt Blome?
A. Yes.
Q. What was tho relation of Blome to Conti?
A. Blome at first was tho loader of the medical educational system in the Third Reich and then ho became the representative of Conti in his capacity as Reich Loader of Physicians.
Q. Witness, you have stated that the German Rod Cross eventually came under the direction of the Ministry of tho Interior. Can you tell us what was the relation of the German Rod Cross to the Nazi Party and the SC?
A. The German Red Cross was developed in tho sense of tho General National Socialist attitude and coordinated in that manner. As I have mentioned before, in 1934, under tho leadership of Adolf Hitler it was coordinated first. It further had connections with tho Wehrmacht. As far as I remember General Hornemann played a role with reference to the connection with the Wehrmacht. Then approximately in 1942 something new happened. The SS physician, Dr, Grawitz, became at the same time tho managing president of tho German Red Cross and that for the following reason, obviously it was attempted to coordinate the entire German Red Cross under the soveriegnty of the SS even in an organizational basis. I should like to recall tho following event as an example. Dr. Grawitz sent tho SS physician Kimmel(?) to Vienna and ordered him to take over the German Rod Cross Hospital von Billrodt and also the leadership of tho Rod Cros Nursing Organization of the von Billrodt Hospital which meant in effect that Grawitz, as an SS physician, in his capacity as President of tho German Red Cross in 1942 could penetrate organizationally into that affair and thereby bring the German Red Cross under the SS sovereignty.
To what extent Grawitz succeeded doing so, I don't know. I only remember one more thing. I remember that there were a number of chief physicians of the hospitals of tho German Red Cross who really were not Nazis in the Party sense and who being afraid that since the Rod Cross was subordinated to tho SS, quickly joined the Party and they believed that in that manner they could escape any harm.
Q. Did not the defendant Dr. Karl Gebhardt succeed Grawitz as President of the Red Cross?
A. I found too literal basis for that,
Q. Did one have to be a member of the Nazi Party in order to work for the Rod Cross, as they did, if they wanted to work for tho German Government?
A. No.
Q. Then, you stated that the doctors who were working in tho Red Cross immediately became members of the Nazi Party so as to be in an advantageous position; is that correct?
A. I said that only in reference to the machinations of Grawitz, of 1942, and I refer to one concrete case something that I know from my acquaintance, where one colleague of mine joined the Party in order to safeguard his position as chief physician and avoid being exchanged by an SS physician.
Q. Do you know, Professor, of any medical organization or organizations dealing with health and hygiene and public welfare that was not under tho domination of the Nazi Party of the SS?
A. In the same sense, as everybody was under the leadership of Conti, every medical matter, in order to express myself generally, was mastered by the directive of the NSDAP.
Q. Have you over heard of the Fuehrer School of German Physicians at Althaus in Mocklenburg?
A. We are concerned with the Fuehrer School Altlese in Mecklenburg.
According to my estimation, it was created in 1935 under tho leadership of tho defendant Blome, Its purpose was to indoctrinate tho young physicians in tho National Socialist ideology and, as far as I know, this was done during on educational course in the camp in the same way as it was practiced or in the same way as it was demanded of the university lecturers.
Q. Was this course in tho Fuehrer School of German Physicians finally compulsory for all young medical students?
A. I am not very clear about that. I am not sure whether or not it was compulsory. I made the acquaintance of a number of young physicians whom I asked about that matter and who told me that they weren't there.
Q. Now, was it possible for tho young plysician to road and attend scientific meetings, do research work to improve his medical skill and scholarship under the Nazi regime as well as formerly?
A. That, of course, was impossible for tho reasons which I had mentioned before and it became very difficult from a medical point of view. The young medical student had to havo much backbone and had to be courageous if he really wanted to live only for tho completion of his medical education. The many duties in the mentioned Party organization,and the icet that his vacation time could not be used for the completion of his education, ail those matters naturally made the theoretical life of the man who studied, tho literary possibilities, that is to say, the reading of tho periodicals that of course was still something that was possible for him.
Q. Did the medical students havo to belong to Party Organizations?
A. Concretely they did not havo to belong but the case was that whoever did not belong to the National Socialist League of Students was considered a suspect and if a student belonged to no organization whatever and then had the intention to make the State exam he often had no alternative but to join that lea gue.
In eases where have may have been known as anti-National Socialist, ho tried very quickly to enter one such organization be it the NSKK or some female association, otherwise the admiss ion to the exam would have boon made very difficult for him.
Q Did the medical students have to pass an examination on racial theories and the Nurnberg Laws as well as on medical knowledge?
A Part of the examination curriculum was tho knowledge of racial and hereditary science, and within that order the Nurnberg Laws were also examined. Very often those laws had to be known by heart, and whoever did not know tho laws was quited sure of not passing.
Q Professor, to what extent was it necessary to belong to the Natzi Party in order to be a professor in any medical school?
A It is necessary here to discuss the change of the so-called order cf habilitation in tho Third Reich. Before 1933 every scientifically talented scientist could by making a thesis, a so-called colloquium, and a lecturer could be admitted to the practice of a private lecturer. The private lecturer was called such for tho reason that he was not considered a civil servant; he was just a private lecturer who exercised the so-called Wenia Legend, and who remained such until his promotion to a position as a professor. The Third Reich changed this order in tho following points: Starting from 1934 tho Ministry of Education demanded that as many people as possible should habilitate themselves. For that reason, the so-called Dr. Habil was created. A physiological Wonstrosity, called Dr. Habil--it was something like that. This Dr. Habil did not oblige one for anything. From tho reserve of those doctors selection made according to tho political point cf view of those lecturers, those who would comply with the National Socialist ideas, and who were considered qualified as university lecturers. The technique of that selection was a far-branched spy system. There was the loader of the lecturers and who had to be a Nazi. This loader of the lecturers employed a number of spys in the faculty, who had to see to it, and watch whether those to be selected were really good Nazis. Those who wore selected were sent to this camp for a few weeks. The loader of such a camp for lecturers was usually a person of little education. I know for instance, one of those leaders of those lecturer camps was a shoemaker to whom was attached a professor. In this camp, and this is a well known fear, there reigned the system of tho so-called "Agent Provocateur"; that is, to spy, in this camp people were distributed so as to insul the Third Reich and if somebody responded to that insult the fact was noted down, and this list was kept. After their period in the camp was served, this list was given to tho loader of tho camp, and ho then decided which of tho young lecturers were worthy in the sense of National Socialism to become qualified teachers of tho youth.
He then sent on this report to tho Ministorial Adviser in the Reich Ministry of Education, which Tins the late Marburg Gynecologist, Dr. Brack, and then tho notorious Euthnnnsin psychintrist Dr. Dogridis.
Q Did tho lay Nazi lenders over interior with university and medical educanalpoliaceis
A This question must also be characterized with a few words. The relation of tho National Socialism to bungling was very close. Since, however they did not dare admit this fact in public, and in order not to insult tho so-called educated medical physicians, the organization of the so-called Hoilpraktiker system was framed. This ment that the bunglers could organize themselves, and were no longer called bunglers, but called Hoilpraktiker's, and as such they were listed and the list was given to the public Health Office, and after a certain educational period were allowed to practice. But, beyond that, there was yet another institution. A now special institution was introduced; that is, the physician for natural sciences was subordinated to tho Reich Chamber of Physicians. Although he was not required to go through a medical institute in the academic sense, he only had to have two yours of education in tho sense of natural sciences. It is not understandable that such an orgnnizntion was considered sufficient, oven when it was subordinated by the Lender of the State. And, I only like to recall the name of Hoss. It is impossible to understand how these people could qualify to enter the medical science; but, of course, there were tho so-celled trannsition types-- there was the educated medical men who started connections with this natural science, and I mention the name of Professor Brauche. There wore very serious controversies with nendomic physicians who protested against this interference, and I only want to mention one practical example, Mr. Pruker at one time maintained, and that was rather Into, approximately 1942, that by any of natural science he could cure syphillis, and a strong controversy on the part of Dermatologist Spiethof insued, and he then finally and to give into Pruker. Hess, was one of these persons who exercised the so-called protective patron over those natural science theory.
And, only after he loft for England action was started against this so-called Heilpraktiker, They wore partly arrested since some political connections wore suspected. It is further known that a man like Streicher issued a periodical, I think it was called something like "Public Health", and Streicher, of course, was strongly interested in medical matters. and who did not shy away in his criticism to discuss medical problems with educated physicians. It was clear, considering the terroristic regime which Streicher exercised, that a number of people helphed him. Things like that became known in Erlangen because of the connections that Streicher had with the Gynecologist, Professor Wintzen So, I summarized again the question that the academic medical science had continous interference through prognostic and medical tracts, and that it was very difficult to defend one's self against chose interferences since there was a number of schooled physicians who were in a business connection with these people.
Q. Professor, are you familiar with a book written in German by Prof. Dr. hell on the ethical code, published first in 1902?
A I know that book; as a medical historian, I know it very well.
Q Was not Prof. Well considered to be an international authority on medical ethics and jurisprudence and highly regarded in his time by the German medical profession?
A Well was a very well-known man internationally and was a Berlin nerve specialist.
Q Now, in this bock, in this code, did he not warn against the adoption of the philosophy of Nietsche by the medical profession?
A In the book about ethics by Mell which was written in 1902, there is a chapter about experiments on human beings conducted by physicians. It is stated there that unfortunately in the 19th century a number of experiments wore carried out on human beings by physicians. Hell speaks about reviewing approximately six hundred theses where more than a thousand eases cf the entire international world became kn n, and at the end of these theses he warns the medical world of such experimental immorality; and in accordance with this positive attitude, the only thing that he states is the following: Every person confronted with such a heretical possibility should consider whether he would subject his own relatives and members of his family in such a manner. He designates the experiments which he described in his book as the consequence cf a misunderstood Metsche.
Q Then Mell did point out that the trust cf a patient in the moral integrity of his physician placed a great responsibility on the physician to conduct himself so as not to harm the patien; isn't that correct?
A Yes.
Q Now, did he not point out that scientific curiosity tempted the physician to experiment without the consent of the patient?
A Yes.
Q Then did he strongly warn the physician not to experiment on a patient without the consent of the patient?
A Yes.
Q Now, Professor, you spoke of Dr. Guett, Dr. Arthur Guett. Now, was he the first member of the Nazi Part to introduce Nazi doctrines and practices into the field of medicine and public health?
A I assume that you are speaking about Guett; and would you please put that question again, using that name?
Q Was Dr. Guett the first member of the Nazi Party to introduce Nazi doctrines and practices into the field of medicine and public health?
A Guett, at any rate according to his own writing, something that can be proved, belonged to those first National Socialist Party members. In his short writing about the organizational system of the National Socialistic public health system, he states at the beginning that he, as early as in the year of 1924, as a medical representative in Labia, laid down the principles of National Socialist medicine and that later, in 1932, he advocated and repeated these principles during a meeting in Eisenach.
Q Now, did the eventual successor of Guett, Dr. Conti, or his assistant defendant Blome, modify any of these policies and concepts of Guett?
A May I once more clarify the relation cf Brandt? Conti was state secretary in the ministry of the Interior; Guett was ministerial Counsellor in the Department IV which I described before, belonging to the ministry of the Interior.
Q Did Conti then, and his assistant Blome, carry on the introduction of the same type doctrines and policies as Guett?
A There is no doubt about the fact that starting with the first formulation of Guett until the last deed of Conti and Blome, there was much that had happened in a terroristic way. Otherwise everything that I mentioned about Action Conti and Action Mitte would have been possible.
Q Now, you stated that Dr. Guett published a book. Is that the book titled "Structure of Public Health, the Third Reich"?
A Yes, I am referring to that, and from that I quoted his own career politically.
Q Now, in this book, do you recall that Guett announced that "the ill-conceived love of thy neighbor has to disappear, especially in relation to inferior or asocial creatures"?
A. That is written in this booklet by Guett. That is one of the central National Socialist formulations of medical matters as, for instance, it was also experssed by Prof. Koetscher, who was active in Nurnberg. He wrote a book entitled "Fighting Prevention instead of Welfare." These are the thoughts which were expressed by the Nazis in the following words: "Christianity did away with nobility and substituted the equality of all human beings. National Socialism demands the racial security of substances with the right blood." And that is entirely in compliance with Guett's formulation, which dates back to 1924.
Q Docs Dr. Guett's other Nazi description of inferior or asocial creatures agree with the ethics of the oath of Hippocrates?
A He meant by that something which every National Socialist meant; namely, that only the healthy biological flow of blood belonging to the Nordic race is an the interest of medical science and that everything which is outside this, everything which is outside a biological racial thought, must be considered as inferior by National Socialists.
Q Then you would say, Professor, that Guett's description of inferior social creatures is contrary to the ethics of the oath of Hippocrates? Is that right?
Q. Then you would say, Professor, that Guete's description of an inferior social creature is contrary to the ethics of the oath of Hippocrates, is that right?
A. It is a joke of world history that in a book about national socialist professional ethics dated in 1943, the oath of Hippocrates was cited word by word, and that there they referred to the oath. Its of this oath, and they considered themselves coligated by that oath. It is further a joke of world history that among the defendants there is one person who wrote a book about medical ethics in which he quotes the identical principles of one of the most famous physicians of the last century. Christian Willhelm Hufeland, and this is the defendant Mrugowsky. I have stated on this reference that the essential points of the oath of Hippocrates are that the physician is forbidden under oath to commit arbitrary injustice on his patients or to do him any harm. The conception of injustice contained in the Hippocratic oath, which is signified by the Greek word "Aedicia" is one of the most important concepts, - note not of the Christian, but also of the Pre-Christian world, The health oi the state in the sense of late is justice and injustice which is mentioned in that Hippocratic oath, and the physician is physician obligated never to harm the individual, never to inflict any arbitrary harm to the end individual, that is, to do him injustice. I cannot understand how this Hippocratic oath fits in the national socialist literature of 1943 and at the time "when everything happened as the evidence has shown.
Q. Professor, have not the ethics of the oath of Hippocrates been considered to be the legal one moral cede of the conduct of a physician throughout the world for twenty-two centuries?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, professor, from your knowledge of the history of medical ethics and medical legal procedure, has the medical profession or the law of any country permitted experimentation on human beings without their consent?
A. Again and again it was asked historically, especially during the latter period, whether human experiments in a large scale had existed before in medical history, and it is understandable that the period of the Renaissance was particularly mentioned in that connection.
Never up until now was it possible to show this evidence historically, and I myself believe that the metaphysical connection of the human being to the time of the Rennaissance would not have made such machinations possible. It is, however, characteristic that this experimenting with human beings, as I mentioned before, in the connection of a moral sense, became evident late in the last century. At any rate in its beginning I am of the conviction that this was the consequence of a biological way of thought which fits in with the national socialist program, even in other countries, and as such became evident en the 19th century. There can be no doubt that even idealistic pacifists and socialists developed this thought biologically and carried it out, and as they tried to save it, so to speak, the human cell in the 19th century, by trying to take away from the human being the poison of alcohol as the famous August Fuerel did it, it only needed a racial madness to start the fuel for that and in this way it was believed that by a biological organization the sufferings in the world could be done away with. Such an attitude, overestimation of biologism, was practical in the second half of the 19th century in European culture. It only needed such a goal, this madness as it was practiced in Germany, to create such a consequence which came up here in the evidence.
Q. Now, Professor, in your opinion as a Professor of Medical History in the previously renowned German University, did the majority of the German Physicians reject the oath of Hippocrates and the German criminal code and adopt the teachings of the Nazi doctrine and the attitude of Hitler and of Himmler as a basis for a new code of medical law and ethics?
A. As long as there are physicians in the world who deserve such designatins, they will always adhere to the principles of the Hippocratic oath and consider themselves obligated under that oath. Those who did not act in accordance with that oath were either subdued or were criminals. However, it is a minority under both categories and I think that the majority of decent human beings will master them.
Q. Professor, do you believe that the vast majority of the German medical profession would condone under any circumstances experimentation on human beings without their consent?
A. No.
MR HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recesss until two-thirty o'clock this afternoon.
(A noon recess was taken).