I knew what referent was and I knew whet referat was and I don't know now and I am going to ask the Tribunal if they will ask the translation department for an interpretation of it and to study the difference between the translation of the word referent and referat. I understand referat is a department and referent is a sub-department, and therefore the words referat and referent is perfectly clear in the English language and to quibble about whether it is a department, referent for aviation medicine, or a referat for aviation medicine is basically immaterial, and I think we should at this point of the trial establish a definite definition for a referent and a referat and consultant and so forth so that we can proceed in our briefs and set forth just what they are without further arguments; the prosecution maintains a referat is a department and we hove nothing to object to, and it is just a minor point and there is no point of arguing about it if we can establish it now tnrough the interpretation department.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, I must object to Mr. Hardy for the following reasons: He has just stated now for the very first time that the prosecution is now of the opinion that a referat was a subdivision of a department. Up to this point the Prosecution has not expressed that as clearly as that. It may be that this difference could be explained by the various translations and I think that I can agree with Mr. Hardy now by saying that a referat is a suborganization of a department. In other words, the department is the superior agency of the referat. If I have understood Mr. Hardy correctly so far and if this is now the opinion of the prosecution we are in absolute agreement.
MR. HARDY: If that is the case, Your Honor, then there is no problem any longer and if defense counsel admits referat is a department.
DR. TIPP: No, I beg your pardon, Mr. Hardy unfortunately contradicted himself. He just stated two minutes age that the referat was a sub-department, and now on the other hand he is saying that the referat was a department and I think these two concepts would have to be distinguised once and for all. In order not to speak at length about this point I may suggest Mr. President that the defendant Becker Freyseng make a sketch which would illustrate the structure of the medical inspectorate in detail and that in this sketch the corresponding German and English names would he inserted. Of course, he couldn't do that today but he would do it within a few days and in this manner it would reach some amount of clarification.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant, Becker Freysent, may when he can, prepare this sketch which has been suggested and present it to the Tribunal and I think the Tribunal has quite a good idea of the meaning of these words but the defendant may prepare this sketch.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q. Witness, after this interruption, let us continue with our questioning. You were saying that you were a referent as far as you haven't done that already.
A. Well, the tasks of the referent exhausted themselves in is right to make suggestions. The referent had no possibility to make an independent decision. This meant that he was not allowed to sign any one's letter personally and that without any exception. The only exception to which I may perhaps refer is that in the case of a copy he was in a position to certify the authenticity of that copy, but that, of course, has nothing to do with the signature as an expression of the decision made.
Q. In this connection, may I recall that Dr. Witt and Dr. August Dienock, the two witnesses who were both referents in the medical inspectorate, have given the same testimony about the rights of a referent. That was done on 28 February, 1947. The two passages can be found on page 3761 and 3768 of the German, as well as on page 3725 and 3749 of the English record.
Witness, what was the collaboration with your superiors within the frame-work of the medical inspectorate? In particular tell us about your collaboration with your superiors and especially with Prof. Anthony, as long as he was the referent and you were the assistant referent?
A. In order to answer your second question first, which refers to my relationship to Professor Anthony, Professor Anthony was lacking the most essential property of a superior, namely, he was in no way to make any decisions which concerned me. I was attached to Prof. Anthony in order to assist and support him. My relationship to him may be illustrated best by saying that Anthony was about fifteen years older than I and that for many years he hod been a University Professor and an independent head of a large clinic for internal medicine and that from a military point of view he had been a stabsarzt, for a long time, whereas I was only an assistant physician, an oberarzt, and I might say that my relationship to him perhaps corresponded to this relation of a clinical assistant or a scientific assistant to his medical and scientific chief. I always addressed Anthony with the words "Herr Professor" and it was quite natural that Anthony was working on a large field within the referat independently and only entrusted me with various tasks within that sphere or rather had orders given to me by my departmental chief.
My personal relationship towards him was good. I think this is all I can say about that.
Q. Now, witness, would you please illustrate your relationship to your next superiors which are, first your departmental chief, and Chief of Staff, and Midical Inspector?
A. My relationship to my Military superiors can be seen when considering the structure of the agency. In other words, I had to deal with all suggestions, drafts, proposals for reply, etc., which I had to submit at first to my departmental chief who signed a part of these letters himself as far as they were not concerned with decisions on principles. The letter he either submitted personally or in my company to the Chief of Staff who again signed a great part of these letters and then, in turn , decided which letters were to be submitted to the Medical Chief of the Medical Inspector for his signature.
Q. The lowest man holding the lowest position who could make decisions and sign letters, if I understood you correctly, was the departmental chief.
A. Yes, this was the lowest position which could make independent decisions.
Q. Now, witness was it really true that the referent bore no responsibility for what he suggested and for what he prepared. If that is not so what was his task, what was his responsibility, in your opinion?
A. I never saw any job directive on job regulation, for the referent but I always considered my position as a referent as a very responsible one and I always considered very carefully whatever I was suggesting. I may say that for that reason I had to work day and night. Perhaps I may point of the following: Not only did it occur very frequently that I as a referent submitted a number of possibilities to my departmental chief for his decision from which he could then select the one which seemed most proper to him. It also occurred very frequently that altogether he rejected any proposal which I made. For instance, approximately the end of April or the beginning of May 1944.
when taking over the referat from Anthony I had suggested to attach an training company to the lecture department at Jueterbog. I did that in order to get a personnel reserve in that training company from which we could obtain sufficient soldier volunteers as experimental subjects about whom an agency within the medical service would be able to dispose. Had this suggestion been adopted at that time Dr. Schaefer and Dr. Beiglboock at least would not be sitting in this deck. This suggestion of mine was rejected by my departmental chief.
Q. Mr. President, in connection with latter point I shall be in a position to submit an affidavit by Professor Dr. Knode the chief of the then Training department Jueterbog. This affidavit has been requested but was unfortunately not yet received. Witness, generally you described what the responsibility of a referent was. Could you perhaps illustrate the details of your activity by giving us a concrete example? I think the sea water experiment would be the best example in which you yourself participated in the capacity of a referent. What did you do briefly in that connection?
A. At first I informed myself exactly about the nature of the two procedures of which we knew. I informed myself about the necessity and the nature of any now experiments. I informed myself about Professor Beiglboock and his qualifications as an experimental leader and finally I informed myself about the various possibilities which existed in the summer of 1944 to carry out the experiment. This material was presented to my departmental chief, then in his presence it was submitted to the Chief of Staff and after this information had been examined and approved of my superiors it was submitted to the Medical Chief who on the basis of it then made his decision.
Q. Accordingly your responsibility as a referent was really an inner office responsibility whereas the actual decision which went to other agencies was made by your superiors?
A. Yes, this is how you could perhaps express it.
Q. Now, the Prosecution here on the 10 December 1946 has asserted that you had issued orders. They said that you had issued orders to Professor Haagen who plays a considerable part in this trial. According to what you are saying now this opinion of the Prosecution is erroneous but would you please repeat it here?
A. I neither had the right to issue orders nor did I at any time issue such orders.
Q. Finally in connection with point may I again refer to the testimony by the witness Witt, on 28 February 1947, page 3789 of the German transcript and 3751 of the English transcript. He made a similar statement to what the defendant has just said and I also point to the testimony by Professor Schroeder who was the highest technical superior of the defendant of 26 February, 1947, on page 3559 in the German transcript and on page 3536 of the English transcript. Now, witness, may I ask you to discuss the details of your activity. You were already saying before that you had been an assistant referent from August 1941 until 1944. and that you were a referent from May 1944 until the collapse of the German Wehrmacht. Would you now tell us what your tasks were as an assistant referent?
A. As an assistant referent I was entrusted with a number of detail tasks which came up within the referat for which I bore the same inner -office responsibility as when later on I became a referant. The difference in effect was that as an assistant referent I didn't have the possibility nor the task to include myself into all questions concerning the referat and concern myself with them.
Q. And we, witness, gave you these individual tasks?
A. It was my departmental chief, at that time Generalarzt Dr. Marius who was my direct military superior.
Q. Witness, in your position as an assistant referent were you the permanent representative of the referent. For instance, whenever Professor Anthony was on vacation or on an official trip, did you represent him?
A. No, I was not his permanent representative buy only from case to case when it was specifically ordered. May I point out that only two or three of all the referents had any assistant referents attached to them. It occured very frequently that when a referent went on some official trip although he had no assistant referent, therefore it wasn't necessary for every referent to have an assistant.
The departmental chief always knew what was happening.
Q Witness, I think that we can clarify this point by the document which was submitted by the prosecution. It is in Document Book 12 of the prosecution on page 77 of the German and 74 of the English Document Book. It is a letter written by Professor Rose dated the 9th of June, 1944, addressed to Professor Haagen at Strasbourg. It was submitted under Document No. NO-306 and bears the exhibit number of the prosecution 296. I may ask you to give your opinion about that letter and I shall quote the second paragraph:
"Did you hear anything from Department I relative to its position with Mitte? It will take some time until "2-F" produces its new research order as Anthony is on a duty trip for several weeks."
These code letters "2-F" were, at that time, the designation for the referat Aviation Medicine, weren't they?
A Yes.
Q Would you tell us at first how this letter originated? It is, no doubt, from Professor Rose, but perhaps you can remember the incident which led to this information.
A I can only say that on the basis of Professor Rose's testimony on the witness stand. I have no personal recollection of the incident, but since Professor Rose has stated here that he asked either the departmental chief or the referat how the Haagen research order was proceeding and since he received the reply that one would have to wait until Anthony returned, it is, of course, absolutely possible that I gave them that information at that time. Of course, after four years have elapsed, I can no longer remember all that.
Q In that case you are saying that nothing could be decided about the new research order for Haagen until Anthony came back from his trip. Is it correct if I conclude therefrom that you were not Anthony's deputy in these questions?
A Yes, this becomes clearly evident from this letter for had I been Anthony's deputy in this special field or even quite generally then one could not really understand why one should have waited many years with the issue of that research order until Anthony returned.
But I may mention in that connection that it naturally occurred that certain part assignments which I received also meant research orders for me. I assume that if, in the question of this research order to Haagen, we had been concerned with the mere prolongation of an order which had existed for many years then I may have perhaps received the order to work on the subject, but this document proves clearly that in this field even in the year of 1943 my authority was very limited or rather hardly existed at all.
Q Witness, one more clarification in that connection. The Department 1 which is mentioned, here is probably the organizational department, isn't it?
A Yes, that is the first or organizational department which I mentioned before.
Q The position with Mitte which is mentioned here is probably the position of the consulting hygienists with the Air Fleet Physician which Haagen later occupied, isn't it?
AAccording to what I learned here during the trial this can only mean that. Of course, at that time I had nothing to do with it.
Q Now, witness, let us continue with the referat. What subjects actually belonged to the referat of aviation medicine?
A The layman, when dealing with the words "aviation medicine", if he imagines anything at all, thinks of the two classical fields involved. This is, at first, the effect of acceleration and, secondly, the effect of high altitudes or, in other words, the effect of any lack of oxygen. These two fields, naturally, have their priority and retained that priority even during the last years. But by using the Air Force for war purposes an enormous amount of new problems was added. I can, in passing, name only a few of these problems perhaps. There were general physiological questions about respiration and circulation. There were questions concerning general and special pathology which resulted from air accidents and, in particular, in the case of high altitude accidents.
Questions arose in connection with the so-called physiology of the senses; for instance, night-sight, space-sight, or the special demands made on the person's hearing or the inference of the noise of the motor to any one person's hearing. In that connection we have to deal with pharmacological questions, e.g. the improvement of resistance in high altitudes by the introduction of drugs which would increase efficiency. There were certain psychological questions which concerned the selecting of fliers and the training of fliers. Medical research under particularly difficult emergency situations; for instance, sea emergency, desert emergency, mountain emergency situations. To this subject belong the medical special measures which have to be taken in connection with the flying personnel. For instance, we have the fliers' examination stations, the examination stations where we tested the effects of high altitudes and, in part, there were hospital departments where the fliers rested after extensive flying. Special institutions, like special equipment, special clothing and special nourishment for the flier. Then there is the development of the apparatus for the piloting of airplanes from the point of view of the psychological and physiological considerations, and, finally, I should like to point to the numerous problems which arose during the air war. The carbon monoxyde effect, the effects of heat, etc., in which aviation medicine worked. In addition, the referat had to deal with the construction and modernizing of the low pressure chambers; education of the flying physicians; current orientation about special literature. In that connection, interest in patent questions which arose from research in aviation medicine. In conclusion I may say that the aviation medicine is, in no way, a medical special field which, in the case of all other medical special fields, concentrates on a certain organic system or concerns itself with a certain manner of therapy or examination as, for instance, eyes, eye diseases, throat, ear, nose, etc., but aviation medicine comprises all spheres of medicine in its connection to the flier.
Q The witnesses which were heard here - Professor Dr. Weltz and Dr. Ruff and Dr. Romberg - have already conveyed their impression to the Tribunal concerning the practical work in the sphere of aviation medicine. They were telling us what fields were worked upon within the referat and, in that connection, I may ask you what, in effect, was the practical work of the referat in respect to all those spheres which you just mentioned?
A If I may answer this question briefly, the referat had, in some way, the position of a mediator, between aviation medicine on one side and the flying units on the other. From both sides we received suggestions, reports about experiences, requests, etc., which were dealt with at the referat. These suggestions were either passed on or were realized in the form of directives, directed to troops, army physicians, research institutes, or hospitals. In addition, of course, there were connections with the civilian research units to whom, of course, we could issue no orders and who were in connection with us by the issue of the so-called research assignments. They received financial support and other support for their scientific help.
Q Witness, at a later date we shall discuss the research assignments in detail.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, the Tribunal will be in recess for a few minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q Mr. Becker, when we stopped we were discussing the tasks of the referent for Aviation Medicine in general. You said that he occupied a sort of intermediary position between the theory on one hand, which is invited in the research and the requirements of necessity on the other hand embodied in the troops. I must assume that through such intermediary positions a large number of negotiations were necessary for each side, that is to say negotiations both with the troops and the gentlemen conducting research. Would you please tell us how this was in detail and what duty the referent had in such negotiations?
A The greater part of our relations with research and the troops took place in writing, of course, but it is clear that in some cases there were also oral communications. Since the departmental chief was in charge of about eight referats and referents, it is quite understandable that many of these negotiations were carried out by the referent alone, particularly in connection with official trips outside of Berlin. Here also, it was a general principle that in such conversations the referent could not make any decisions, but reported the results of such discussions to the departmental chief for confirmation and then this confirmation was given in writing to the person who was involved in these negotiations.
Q Now, witness, a concluding question. As you said from 1941 until 1944 you were in the medical inspectorate, that is to say at the very top of the German Luftwaffe and you know that in the troops in the field there was the rumor that the men who were active in such positions had great advantages on the basis of their position, either to receive preferential promotion or that they received higher salaries and that they received military decorations. In the course of your activities, which covered years, did you notice any such advantages in your position or benefit from them?
A No. I received no such advantages, I received no decorations, I received no higher salary and I received no higher rank and let me add that was not customary at all.
Q Now, I would like to clarify one further point with you, the so-called technical aviation research: what connections were there between the referat or the medical inspectorate as a whole and the technical aviation research?
AAs of 1944, for the sake of brevity at this time, the technical aviation research was under the direction of the so-called research leadership of the ministry. At the head was Professor Georgii, the well known aviation research man. He had a medical referent from 1937 to mid 1944 and that was Dr. Benzinger. In order to avoid the difficulties, of uncoordinated medical research was difficult, having already been noticed in the sea-water experiments. In the summer of 1944, I was made Dr. Benzinger's successor and thus was Professor Georgii's referent.
Q Not to whom was the research leadership subordinated?
A It was the chief of the Air Armament, it had nothing to do with the chief of the medical inspectorate.
Q The activities you just described, as medical referent with the research leadership is not one of the charges in the indictment, consequently, we can ignore that aspect of your activities. I now return to the beginning of your work in 1941, at that time, as you halve already said, you were assigned from the front to the medical inspectorate without your having done anything to achieve that; what was the practical reason for your being called to the medical inspectorate as assistant referent?
A The reason or reasons are known to me. In the course of 1941 two new fields of work arose. The then inspectorate, Dr. Anthony, was to take over, he was however not particular as it would have meant too much work for him. Dr. Ruff already said that in 1941 in the summer, on the instructions of Hippke, the medical inspectorate at that time, he inspected all low pressure chamber in Germany. He drew up a report on this inspection tour and turned it over to the medical inspectorate and explained in this report that practically all the low pressure chambers were seriously deficient in one way or another and were not completely modern and did not meet modern requirements.
This meant that the medical inspectorate had to take these thirty or so low pressure chambers and modernize them and remodel them. That was the first of the two tasks which I mention. The second new field was the following: when the war began the flying units in the German Luftwaffe received for the first time their own troop physicians. These troop physicians had to turn in every month a so-called aviation experience report and these aviation experience reports were sent to the medical inspectorate in the original along with comments of the people on the way. Since at that time there were three hundred to four hundred flying units - so-called groups - there arrived a similar number of these aviation experience reports every month. In these reports, the air physicians went into all the new experiences that they had had because the air army was being used in the army. For instance, air accidents, high altitude accidents, whether or not certain equipment for correcting purposes would be good, etc., was included. The experiences that had been had had to be evaluated, of course, as soon as possible and put into practice for the general welfare of the flier's Health. For this reason, reading through these reports had to be done as rapidly and maticulously as possible; that was the second task.
Q And these two fields were turned over to you in August of 1941 as assistant referent?
A Yes, I was commissioned on the one hand to carry on with Dr. Ruff's proposals and to get the modernizing of the low pressure chambers under way. This necessitated an extensive constructive program which took almost two years. I had to make numerous official journeys to the construction sites and to the offices in the field, etc. Secondly, I was commissioned to work over the three hundred to four hundred monthly experience reports from the air physicians and to report on them.
Q Dr. Ruff, whom the witness has just mentioned, testified in the minutes of 29 April 1947, page 6711 to 6713 in the German record and page 6619 in the English record. Now, witness, during your activities as assistant referent did you have only these two fields of work?
A. As an actual field of work those were the only two that I had. In addition, of course, I had other single assignments of a brief nature but let me remark here that was with the approval of my departmental chief and the medical inspectorate from 1941 until April 1944. In other words, throughout my whole activity as assistant referent I was scientifically active in my own institute and the medical research institute, which Dr. Strughold in his affidavit, which was put in yester day, corroborates. During this period I did extensive research in oxygen poisoning and in 1944 I Qualified as a lecturer. My personal and professional inclinations still remained of a scientific nature. My purely administrative work in the medical inspectorate I always regarded as my soldierly duty and which I was to do decently and for the general welfare of the soldiery under our aegis.
Q. Now, working on the rebuilding of the low pressure chamber and working on these experience reports were the only two fields that were assigned to you, as larger independent fields, as long as you were an assistant referent, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. According to that then, the fields that played a decisive role in this trial, namely, one, working on high altitude and freezing problems, were not part of your major fields of work, but certainly, and secondly, the work on the research assignments which you haven't mentioned?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. In May of 1944, as you said, Professor Anthony was relieved of his position and you took his job as referent. Did you in your turn receive an assistant referent under you?
A. No.
Q. Now witness, you have described referat for aviation medicine and from this it can be seen that its scope was by no means small. Now, in view of the conditions that prevailed in 1944, were you able to do all of that work alone as referent, whereas previously Professor Anthony had need of an assistant?
A. Yes and no - depending - since some of the work of the referat in the summer and autumn of 1944 on command of the medical chief was transferred to the Lehrgruppe (training group) of the Aerztliche Akademie of the Luftwaffe, and this made it possible for me to do all of the work.
Q. Now what part of the referat work was transferred, witness?
A. Let me limit myself to what is of interest to us here. About all the ground work on all research assignments had been worked on in principle in the referat and had been assigned as assignments by the medical inspector. In other words, everything else done on the assignments was done by the Lehrgruppe.
Q. Now we are coming, witness, to what constitutes the main charge against you, namely, the so-called research assignments. You know, Dr. Becker, that these research assignments have played a very large role in the interrogation of all the witnesses to date. However, I feel I still must discuss this subject with you. The prosecution has laid particular and main importance on precisely these research assignments. Let me, however, still ask you to be as brief as possible. What was your relationship to the research assignments and what do you have to say about them?
A. Let me refer to what Professor Schroeder has already said about these research assignments, and Professor Rostock. I can corroborate everything they said, but I can supplement them a bit from my point of view as a referent. Aviation research was carried out at first without any research assignments by the aviation medicine institutes and the autonomous Luftwaffe institutes. That was the aviation research institute in Berlin and the institutes for aviation medicine in Hamburg, Munich, and Freiburg, and the medical training department in Jueterbog. Then there was a group of aviation medicine institutes that were not subordinate to the chief of the medical service of the Luftwaffe, including Dr. Ruff's institute and the medical department of the testing station in Rechlin, and a medical institute in the aviation research institute in Munich under Dr. Hentschke.
All of those institutes were occupied by specialists who knew aviation problems at first hand and did not have to receive special instruction for every single piece of research and every experiment, but these institutes also received under certain conditions research assignments which were usually of a more financial or organizational nature. On the other hand, of course, it was even possible that the medical inspectorate either gave research assignments directly to its own institute or told institutes not directly subordinate to work on such assignments. By far most of the research assignments went to civilian research men in civilian institutes. The purpose of these research assignments has already been described at great length by Professor Rostock. In certainly ninety percent of all the cases the research men wanted on his own initiative to receive such a research assignment in order to be able to continue scientific activities during the war and this is also the reason why the institutes which belonged directly to the Luftwaffe did not need such research assignments and consequently worked for all practical reasons without any research assignments at all.
Q. Witness, you said that the civilian institutes made efforts to receive research assignments in order to be able to carry on their work. Now, we know that the civilian institutes were not subordinate to the military authority but to civilian authority in the Reich Ministry of Education. Now these agencies, it seems to me, should have been the ones to give support to these institutes. I know that in America, such institutes received very considerable financial support. Now, let me ask you, witness, was the civilian research in Germany in such a bad situation or was the support so lacking by the civilian sector that in order to further carry on their important research work they had to turn to the armed forces or, as in this case, to the medical inspectorate of the Luftwaffe?
A. Professor Rostock has already answered this question. The university institutes above all received very little financial and personnel support from their superiors.
For example, the Physiological Institute of the University of Wuerzburg had an annual budget of 13,000 marks, another Physiological Institute had an annual budget of 8,000 marks. In addition, during the war there was the difficulty of retaining our scientific personnel and to receive the necessary material, even if we had the financial means to obtain it, because we couldn't get a high enough priority, and, of course, during the war most of this stuff went to military departments and institutes. Now, the institutes of the Luftwaffe quite understood this natter and were only too happy to meet it. On the other hand, I don't want to create the impression that these research assignments were simply somebody doing somebody else a favor. Many applications for research assignments were turned down if there seemed to be some objection either to the person or to the subject. I believe that the 97 research assignments that can be seen from Document 934, Exhibit 458, can maintain themselves against any sort of criticism even today insofar as the person in question and the detail of research is concerned. Each of these 97 research men could show such authority and claim for his research assignment no support.