I have now concluded the submission of evidence, Mr. President. I have tried to establish that the defendant Brack had humane motives in carrying out his sterilization experiments, and furthermore was not involved in the murder of 50-60,000 insane persons, but that it could only have been - and was - euthanasia. That is all I have to say and I should now like to conclude my case.
THE PRESIDENT: The affidavit which you omitted from Document Book 1 was Brack Document 3?
DR. FROESCHMANN: Yes, Brack Document 3, the affidavit of Arnold Hennig.
THE PRESIDENT: The defense counsel for defendant Brack having rested his case, the Tribunal now calls the case against the defendant Becker-Freyseng.
DR. TIPP (Counsel for the defendant Becker-Freyseng): Mr. President, Dr. Marx, the defense counsel for the defendant Becker-Freyseng, is suffering from the after-effects of a war injury and will unfortunately be unable to appear in court for a few days. With the permission of the Tribunal I shall begin the examination of the defendant Dr. BeckerFreyseng until Dr. Marx returns, which I think will be in a few days.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Tipp, you are appearing at this time at the request of Dr. Marx?
DR. TIPP: Yes, Dr. Marx asked me to examine the witness on his behalf.
THE PRESIDENT: And with the consent of the defendant BeckerFreyseng?
DR. TIPP: Yes.
TEE PRESIDENT: Then counsel may proceed.
DR. TIPP: I should first of all like to call the defendant as a witness to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Becker-Freyseng will take the witness stand as a witness in his own defense.
(HERMANN BECKER-FREYSENG, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows.)
BY JUDGE SEBRING:
Q. You answer to the name of Hermann Becker-Freyseng?
A. Yes.
Q. Hold up your hand and repeat after me the oath:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE SEBRING: You may sit down.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, I have one request to make to the interpreters before the beginning of this case. The word "Referent" will play a decisive role in the case of the defendant Becker-Freyseng. I know this word can hardly be translated into English by using only one word. This also applies to the word "Referat", which is hardly translatable into the English language. For that reason I should like to suggest to the interpreters that whenever the word "Referent" or "Referat" appears they should always use the German term, which I assume is quite clear to the Tribunal. I believe this will serve the clarity of the case considerably.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that for the sake of the record those terms should be explained for the record according to the signification which counsel places upon them.
DR. TIPP: Certainly, Mr. President. I would suggest that the German words be used and then in parenthesis the English translation. I think that is the best solution.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you now ask the interpreters to give the English explanation of the words?
DR. TIPP: Gladly. Will the interpreter please explain how he thinks "Referent" and "Referat" should be translated?
THE INTERPRETER: Certainly, Your Honor. The word "Referent" is the man who is assigned to a certain department in order to deal with any of the subjects that come up there.
He is an expert assigned to deal with a special department.
A "Referat" is the entire department where these special subjects are dealt with.
THE PRESIDENT: Those explanations - are they satisfactory to counsel for the prosecution and for the defense?
DR. TIPP: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, those explanations of the use of the word being now contained in the record, I don't think they need be repeated after the use of either one of those words because the explanation is contained in the record.
MR. HARDY: I might ask defense counsel, Your Honor, what other words he thinks might create a discrepancy. Is there some other definition which was used here which he thinks is erroneous, so we can clear that up now?
DR. TIPP: No, Mr. President. The difficulty, as I see it, is that various interpreters use different English expressions for that word and as a result there is no clarity in the record that the term "Referent" is meant.
THE PRESIDENT: Which term do you mean, counsel, "Referent" or "Referat"?
DR. TIPP: I am referring now to the expression "Referent". This has repeatedly been translated with different words, depending on which interpreter was speaking into the microphone. I should like to bring to your attention that at one time I had to object because that word was translated as "chief of the branch". In order to be quite explicit I should like to see that the same word is always used throughout the proceedings. I want to see to it that the English term does not change.
THE PRESIDENT: It appears that the word "consultant" in English generally corresponds with the word "Referent" as given by counsel.
DR. TIPP: I must object to that, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: I was just making the suggestion. It is perfectly satisfactory to use the words "Referent" and "Referat" with the explanation which is already contained in the record, if that is satisfactory to counsel for the prosecution and the defense.
DR. TIPP: May I clarify that? "Consultant" in the record here is always the man who is advising, for instance, the advising physician. The position which Professor Rose had is a "consultant" but that is not a "Referent".
THE PRESIDENT: That is unimportant, counsel. The Tribunal will follow your suggestion, using the German words which have been explained to the Tribunal and for the record.
MR. HARDY: Your Honor, that of course does not prejudice the right of the prosecution to maintain that the Referent is the chief of a department, I presume.
TEE PRESIDENT: If counsel for the prosecution contends that it is the proper translation of the word, the prosecution may offer expert opinions as to the meaning of the word "Referent" - the proper translation into English. The prosecution may have that right.
DR. TIPP: In that case, I may commence.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. TIPP:
Q. Witness, your name is Hermann Josef Becker-Freyseng and you were born 18 July 1910 at Ludwigshafen on the Rhine, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Would you please briefly describe to the Tribunal your education and training up to the time you entered college?
A. I grew up in my parent's home. My father died in the year 1917 during the First World War as a, captain in the Engineer Corps of the Reserve. We then moved to Heidelberg where I attended school. At Easter 1929 I graduated from secondary school (Humanistiches Gymnasium).
After that I started my medical studies. I studied at Heidelberg, Innsbruck, and Berlin. In Berlin in the year 1934 I passed my medical state examination.
Q. And now, witness, would you please just as briefly describe your professional activities which followed thereafter?
A. From January 1934 until July 1938 I was at first active as an intern and after that as an assistant at the Fourth Medical University Clinic of Berlin under Professor Helmut Dennig. During my clinical activity I made my doctor's thesis through experimental work. In August 1938 I became an assistant at the Aviation Medical Research Institute of the Reich Aviation Ministry in Berlin, which was under Professor Hubertus Strughold. I retained this civilian position until the capitulation. In 1944 the medical faculty of the University of Berlin granted me the decree of Doctor Med. Habil. on the basis of experimental work about so-called oxygen poisoning, and in the winter semester 1944-1945 I was appointed a lecturer on internal and aviation medicine.
Q. Now would you please describe to us your military career?
A. My basic military training I received in 1937 in the form of a so-called eight-weeks course. In the summer of 1940 I was drafted into the Luftwaffe as an Unterarzt. At first I was at an aviators examination station, working with a motorized low-pressure chamber platoon and in August 1941 I was ordered back to Berlin from the Southern Sector of the Russian front and was transferred to the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe. There I stayed until May 1944 as an assistant Referent. From then on I was a Referent in the Referat for aviation Medicine. My position as Referent I retained until 8 May 1945.
Q. Did you yourself apply for this position in the Reich Aviation Ministry, witness, or do you know in what manner you were assigned to that position? I am asking you, not for what purpose but in what manner.
A. No, I don't know.
Q. At any rate, you yourself did not try to get the position?
A. No.
Q. What military rank did you reach with the Luftwaffe?
A. After the prescribed period of more then two years, after I had been an Assistenzarzt and an Oberarzt, I was promoted in the summer of 1943 to captain in the medical corps, Stabsarzt, and I retained that rank until the end of the war.
Q. Perhaps it would be interesting to near something about your fate after the capitulation. Could you describe that to us briefly?
A. In May 1945 I got into American captivity in the Tyrol. Then I stayed in England for five weeks in an American interrogation camp; on 15 September 1945 I was released from the prisoner of war camp Aibling.
In October 1945 I was employed by the American Army Air Force as a co-worker at the Aero-Medical Center at Heidelberg. I was active there together with a number of other former aviation medical men. The German chief of the scientific department was my old chief, Professor Strughold. From there I was arrested on the 15 September, 1946.
Q. And now let us speak about your political activities. Witness, were you politically active as a student or otherwise?
A. In May 1933 I entered the NSDAP as a twenty two year old student. I held no office or rank within the party. In addition to that I was a member of the NSKK, the National Socialist motorized corps, in the medical service of which I achieved the rank of an Ober-trupp-fuehrer, which corresponds to that of a sergeant. As a paying member I belonged to the NSFK, the National Socialist Flying Corps.
Q. In addition to that were you a member of any other national socialist professional organization, as for instance the National Socialist Student League, the National Socialist Physicians League or the National Socialists Lecturers' League?
A. No, I belonged to none of these organizations.
Q. On the basis of the testimony of the expert who was called be the Prosecution, Professor Liebrandt, we heard something about the physicians' school at Altrehse. Can you cell us whether you at any time visited any such course?
A. No, I never visited a course at Altrehse, out in that connection I may mention that I was never compelled and I wouldn't have been compelled by the Reich Physicians' League to attend any such course. Only my local authority in Berlin, the magistrate of the city of Berlin, asked me to attend such a course, but I never did that.
Q. You were telling us before that you wanted to become a lecturer, and it is Known that lecturers would have to go through a political camp in order to get their political training. Did you participate in such a lecturers' course in a camp?
A. No, I went to no lecturers' camp, probably because there were no such camps during the war.
Q. That I think is sufficient as to your political activities. Now let us turn to your medical scientific activity. Under whose guidance did you receive your clinical specialized training?
A. I may repeat that briefly as an internal physician I was educated at the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin under the charge of Professor Dr. Helmut Denning. That started in January 1935 and went on until July 1938. Denning had formerly been a first lieutenant in the medical corps and had been a assisting the famous clinical physician, Rudolf Von Krehl at Heidelberg, and during which our training was often assisted by a laboratory at Boston.
Q. Witness, this activity is not the subject of the charge of the prosecution. You are sitting in the dock because you participated in aviation medicine. How did you come to be active within that sphere?
A. It was my intention to complete my education as an internal physician, by additional theoretical education. For that reason I looked for some possibility to work in a physiological institute. Through my chief physician I went to Professor Strughold who was the head of the medical institute at Berlin, in whose institute certain research work was carried out regarding the questions of breathing and circulation as they came up under special conditions of aviation.
Since from the clinical point of view I was interested in the same problems, I asked to get a position to become an associate of that Institute. Professor Strughold was a student of the physiologist, Dr. Van Von Frey, and just as Denning had been active in the United States for some considerable period of time. In explanation of what Professor Liebrandt has stated here I should like to say that both of my teachers were in no way what Professor Leibrandt designated as the Nazi professors who allegedly since 1933 had been training all the medical generation which grew up after that period of time. Both of them had been university professors before 1933 and both of them are today again or rather still active in leading positions.
Q. You were telling us Dr. Becker that you went over to aviation medicine in the year 1938?
A. Yes.
Q. As on the basis of this trial it looks as if the entire aviation medicine was only designed to work for the German air force, it looks now as though this entire science from a practical point of view served for the preparation of the war. Would you please tell us something about that?
AAviation Medicine as such was carried on in all countries where there was aviation and, in particular, during the last two decades. It developed and it naturally followed aviation technique end was always in accord with the tasks of the Air Forces. The endeavors of Aviation Medicine, however, were for the maintaining of the health of the flyer and for the research regarding the necessary conditions of life as they prevail during flying. You can in that case hardly speak of any science in that connection. I may point out that the most well know Aviation physician of Italy, Professor Margaria was a priest with a catholic order at Mailani. Even after 1945 the German aviation physicians were permitted to work at the Aero Medical Center at Heidelberg and carry on the same work in which they had been active before.
Q You know witness that the Prosecution in their oral statement has designated you as a man who in spite of his youth had already achieved some scientific success. It is, of course, natural that you had yourself been the author of a few scientific theses when you became a lecturer. Could you tell us briefly about your own scientific work?
A Well, during my clinical training, as well as during my aviation medical training, I worked scientifically. A number of publications contain the result of my work.
Q Mr. President, I think that the scientific work of the defendant is important for the judgment of his personality. We have endeavored to get hold of these scientific publications but it was not possible to do all that because of the aerial war which went on in Germany. However, we have compiled the titles of all his works which list I should like to submit as Becker-Freyseng document No. 1. This can be found on pages 1 to 4 of Becker-Freyseng Document Book I and I should like to offer this list as Exhibit No. 1. We are here only concerned with this up to the year 1943. The last work could not be included because unfortunately Dr. Becker-Freyseng has not all the material for that purpose. I have the original here and Prosecution can look at it.
I should not like to quote anything from that document.
In this connection, witness, we are not interested in your clinical work but aviation medical problems may be of some importance. With what particular aviation medical problems did you deal?
A During the years of 1938 and 1939 I dealt with time research experiments up to 9,000 meters altitude. That is to say, with consequences of a lack of oxygen which suddenly may occur. In the year 1939 to 1940 I dealt with the questions regarding adaptation to high altitude. In that connection the titles 24 and 25 in the list would be relevant. In the years 1938 to 1946 I concerned myself with questions of so-called oxygen poisons. In this connection the titles 15 to 21 in the list are relevant. In the years from 1945 to 1946 I concerned myself with explosive decompression sickness during altitudes of 20,000 meters.
Q You were giving us the years of 1945 and 1946. That was after the capitulation, was it not. Where did you carry on that work that you just mentioned?
A This is the same kind of work about which Dr. Ruff as already been speaking here which was carried out at the Aero Medical Center at Heidelberg.
Q It is natural that you carried out a number of tests within the framework of that work. May I now ask you how you were carrying out these tests?
A This entire work consisted of tests. A number of these tests were carried out on animals. We were using the ordinary laboratory animals; mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, etc. In addition to these animal experiments I carried out experiments on human beings. This was done in the form of experiments on his own person or experiments on colleagues or associates, as for instance Dr. Hans-Georg Clamann, Professor Erich Opitz, and Dr. Ulrich Luft and in the year from 1945 to 1946 Dr. Ruff and Dr. Otto Gauer.
Q Mr. President I had originally intended to have the witness testify personally about this question of self-experiments. In order to expedite the proceedings I think it would be more advisable to limit myself to what I can show on hand of a number of affidavits which I shall offer as Becker-Freyseng documents. As the first document in this connection I should like to offer Becker-Freyseng Document No. 3 which is also contained in Document Volume I. This can be found on page 8. This is an affidavit of 10 January 1947 by Prof. dr. Strughold, who was for many years the chief of the defendant in his peace time position as well as in the position which he held after the War. I consider this point sufficiently important for me to cite a number of paragraphs. I start on page 1 "I, Hubertus Strughold, Dr. med. et phil. co-worker at the Aero Medical Center and Professor Physiology at the University of Heidelberg, herewith make the following statement on oath regarding Dr. med. habil. Hermann Benker-Freyseng:
"Dr. Hermann Becker-Freyseng worked for some years until 1941 in an established position as an assistant and scientific specialist at the Medical Research Institute for Aviation, Berlin, of which I was the head. I can therefore give information about Becker-Freyseng covering that period and also a later period when he was an assistant Referent and Referent in the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe and in his spare time occasionally continued with his scientific researches which he had taken up earlier."
The next paragraph under No. I deals with the scientific qualifications of the defendant. I only quote a few sentences from that paragraph:
"Becker-Freyseng is a very sound, prudent and critical scientist. The work he carried out ranks among the best in the sphere of German aviation medicine and is specially distinguished by it absolute reliability.
I shall skip the next sentences. I do not consider them important enough and I ask the Tribunal to take notice. Under paragraph No. 2 "Experiments carried out on himself" I quote: "Becker-Freyseng's interest in scientific research went so far that he did not shrink from carrying out complicated experimentation his own person.
Apart from at least 100 experiments carried out on his own person in order to test reactions to oxygen shortage which often lead to unconsciousness and which, more or less, constituted part of the routine of my collaborators, who were not forced to make these experiments and often even carried them out on their own initiative and against my advice, to of the experiments Becker-Freyseng made on himself are of special distinction:
"In 1938 he stayed for nearly three days in a chamber filled with almost pure oxygen. During this experiment in which also my first assistant, Dr. H.G. Glamann took part, some test animals were also present in the chamber, among them a rabbit. Although already on the second day Becker-Freyseng developed complaints, the two assistants could not be induced to drop the original plan to stay in the chamber for three days. Only a few hours before the end of the third day the experiment was interrupted from outside because meanwhile BeckerFreyseng was showing dangerous symptoms. Becker-Freyseng was brought into the clinic of Prof. Dennig, with severe symptoms, where he was examined by the Senior Physician there, Dr. Groscurth, a friend of Becker-Freyseng's who was later convicted and executed in 1943 for antiNational-Socialist activities. Only after 8 days Becker-Freyseng's condition improved somewhat. The symptoms were the same as observed on the test animals. The rabbit died, Becker-Freyseng recuperated. After a similar, shorter intermediate experiment carried out some months later another experiment, also lasting three days, with nearly pure oxygen at an altitude of 9,000 meters. Through these two experiments it was proved conclusively for the first time that at a certain pressure limit the breathing of pure oxygen for a sufficiently long time is fatal, but that no such danger exists at below this pressure. Since, that time, aviation science all over the whole world knows that oxygen is not dangerous for any length of time at an altitude above 4,000 meters that, however, below that altitude pure oxygen may be breathed only in small, periodical doses.
The same is true of oxygen treatment of the sick and of casualties. This is a heroic case of an experiment which will demand a place in the annals of science.
"It should be added that Becker-Freyseng received no material advantages from these experiments."
I shall skip the next paragraph on this page. The same way I shall skip the paragraph dealing with politics. Professor Strughold only says that Becker-Freyseng gave his support to those who were suppressed on political or racial grounds. May I only quote from page 4. "In conclusion I can say that Becker-Freyseng is a highly intelligent scientist, trained on sound principles, who even at an early age has done outstanding work for the progress of humanity through his scientific research and especially through his heroic experiments on his own person, and who in future will play his part as a careful scientist and a willing doctor."
There follows the signature and the certification by an American officer at Heidelberg. I offer this document as Becker-Freyseng Exhibit No. 2.
As the next document I should like to offer BeckerFreyseng Document #2 which will be Becker-Freyseng Exhibit #3. This is an affidavit by Professor mod. Dr. Dennig, dated the 21st of December, 1946. Dr. Dennig is the chief of whom Dr. Becker-Freyseng already spoke on the witness stand. I should like to quote a few passages from that document. At first, there is the personal data concerning the witness and then he writes, and I quote:
"From 1934 till 1944 I was chief of the department for internal diseases and of the fourth medical university clinic at the Robert Koch Hospital, Berlin. Dr. BeckerFreyseng worked there from about 1934 to 1938, first as an intern assistant and later on as an assistant at my clinic. Thus I had to work daily with Dr. Becker-Freyseng and became well acquainted with his human and medical character."
The next few sentences deal with the human qualifications of the witness of which I should like the Tribunal to take notice, and I shall go on reading the next few sentences:
"There was never any question of using patients for medical experiments, but Dr. Becker-Freyseng always carried these out on himself or on students who volunteered for that purpose. Later, when Dr. Becker-Freyseng was no longer at my clinic, he still carried out experiments on himself. Once he was admitted to my clinic in a serious condition, occasioned by an experiment on his own person. This is the same experiment which Dr. Stronghold already described in detail."
Then follows the signature and certification.
As the next document we have Document Becker-Freyseng #4 which I shall offer as Exhibit #4. I know that Mr. Hardy is going to raise an objection immediately. I also know, however, that the Tribunal has already admitted such original certificates as this as have been submitted here.
This is an original letter by the Aero Medical Center, Heidelberg, on its original writing paper and I do not think that its authenticity can be contested. It is not my intention to quote it.
MR. HARDY: Your Honor, I could myself certify to the signature of the officer inasmuch as I am familiar with it. However, this here breaches all the rules and regulations of the Tribunal. I have, from time to time, objected to documents of this nature and the Tribunal has sustained the objection. I can't see the value of this one. It has no probative value that I can see. Colonel Benford expresses in this document that he does not wish to execute an affidavit or statement relative to the character or personality of the witness simply because he does not know him well enough. I can't see the value to this at all. If it had any probative value I would not object to it at all but I feel that the prosecution must object to the admission of this document.
DR. TIPP: If I may answer that point briefly, Mr. President. I am only submitting this document as it proves that Dr. Becker-Freyseng was employed at the Aero Medical Center at Heidelberg from the 15th of October 1945 to the 16th of September 1946. This becomes evident clearly from the document the signature of which the counsel for prosecution just certified.
MR. HARDY: The prosecution will stipulate that the defendant did work at the University of Heidelberg in the Aero Medical Center. That is where the prosecution picked him up and brought him here. There is no question except that documents of this nature should not be admitted into evidence inasmuch as they do not comply with the rules set forth by the Tribunal.
JUDGE SEBRING: Mr. Hardy, will you agree also that he performed his work satisfactorily over there as Colonel Bedford states in his letter?
MR. HARDY: Certainly, Your Honor, but I object strenuously to the admission of affidavits or letters of this sort into evidence inasmuch as it doesn't carry the certificate or notary's signature or is not in the proper form here.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the prosecution having stipulated certain facts - the only facts covered by the letter, it is the ruling of the Tribunal that the stipulation of counsel is ample to dover the facts.
DR. TIPP: I withdraw the document, Mr. President. What it tends to prove has already been proved by the statement of the prosecutor.
The next document which I offer is from Becker-Freyseng Document Book 1, Document 5, which is on page 14 of the document book. I give it the Exhibit #4. It is an affidavit by Dr. Clamann who has been mentioned before. It is dated the 23rd of February 1947. Perhaps I may quote a few things by way of illustration. After the usual introductory formula the witness continues on page 1:
"Dr. Med. Becker-Freyseng was employed by tho Research Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin from 1938 until tho end of 1941. I got to know him during this time as a man who had a high conception of the medical profession and of medical research. He always told me that in his view experiments on human beings were only to be carried out as self-experiments."
I go on to the next paragraph:
"He demonstrated this view in joint experiments with me on the effects of existing for several days in pure oxygen. These kind of experiments were urgently necessary in view of the oxygen treatment in certain illnesses and the respiration of oxygen while flying.
Since it was known that after prolonged breathing of pure oxygen animals contracted pneumonia, only self-experiments came into the question when the first experiments of this type were carried out on humans. On the third day of this self-experiment, Dr. Becker-Freyseng showed symptoms of cerebral irritation, such as headaches, nausea and dizziness, and pneumonia, and required nearly 8 days' clinical treatment. These experiments were published in tho periodical 'Aviation Medicine.'
I shall skip the next paragraph and then I quote:
"In numerous other experiments with Dr. U. Luft and Dr. Opitz, Dr. Becker-Freyseng always placed himself completely at their disposal."
I can omit the rest. Follows tho signature and the usual certificate of tho notary.
Tho next document which I offer is also from Document Book 1, Becker-Freyseng Document #6, as Exhibit #5. This is an affidavit of Professor Dr. med. Opitz of Kiel of the 4th of January, 1947. Professor Opitz is a professor at the University of Kiel. Under #1 he tells how he met Dr. BeckerFreyseng; that he was in almost daily contact with him professionally from 1938 to 1942 and that he know him very well, and I shall quote the last paragraph on the first page:
"With regard to science, Becker-Freyseng always maintained a completely ethical attitude towards the question of human experiments. During our collaboration, he acted as we all did, and tried out every seemingly dangerous experiment first on himself, before carrying it out on others. Never, during tho time we worked together did he carry out experiments on follow human beings unless they had voluntarily placed themselves at his disposal."
There follows a description by Dr. Clamann of the experiments on his own person which I can omit. Perhaps I may quote on page 2, the last few sentences of the first paragraph:
"In addition we carried out dozens of joint self-experiments in the low-pressure chamber, where the effects of high altitudes were studied up to the threshold of unconsciousness. Dr. Becker-Freyseng took part in these experiments in the same manner as the other doctors of our working group."
The rest deals with an opinion of Dr. Becker-Freyseng from the human point of which I shall not read but I should like the Court to take notice of it. Then follows the signature and the customary certificate.
The last document which I should like to submit in this connection is Becker-Freyseng Document #7 on page 19 of Document Book 1 to which I give the Exhibit #6. It is an affidavit by lecturer Dr. Otto Gauer of Heidelberg, of the 24th of January, 1947. We had originally intended to call Dr. Gauer as a witness, but unfortunately, that is impossible because Dr. Gauer has already gone to America. Dr. Gauer first tells how he mot Dr. Becker-Freyseng; that he met him in 1937. He describes the self-experiments with Dr. Clamann which have already been explained and the harm which Dr. Becker-Freyseng suffered from these experiments. I shall quote on the first page, the last paragraph:
"In spite of these unpleasant experiences, Becker-Freyseng would surely have refused to carry out experiments concerned with his own scientific problems on people of whose willing or even voluntary cooperation ho was not convinced."
Now, on the second page I shall quote on the first third of this page: 7792 "Later I made investigations with him - that is, BeckerFreyseng - and Ruff on the etiology of 'bends' at a height of 12,000 meters.
These are very painful and can lead to dangerous complications. This is abundantly illustrated by the fact that during this investigation I sustained a knee injury, which forced me to have to walk on crutches for three months. In spite of this, Becker-Freyseng and Ruff continued the experiments on themselves after my accident."
I shall not quote the rest. It describes how BeckerFreyseng was appointed in the Medical Inspectorate. He says that Becker-Freyseng complained because ho didn't have time to perform his own experiments, and then he speaks of the defendant's political views. Follows signature and the customary certificate.
I believe, witness, your activity has been explained sufficiently by these documents so that we need discuss it no further. I should merely like to ask you, on the basis of your numerous self-experiments which were in part dangerous and your experiments on colleagues, did you have groat experience with physiological experiments - in particular, experiments on human beings?
A Yes.
Q You know, witness, that experiments on human beings is, on the whole, the fundamental problem of this trial. A great deal has been said about the ethics and legal foundation for experiments on human beings. I should like to have your opinion on this type of experiments, particularly because you are one of the few witnesses who can testify from his own experience. Do you consider an experiment on human beings, as the prosecution expert Leibbrandt said, illegal or criminal under all conditions or what is your opinion?