Q And your testimony before this Tribunal is based upon those experiments; is that right?
A No, on both, of course, both on those carried out by Beiglboeck and on my own.
Q Well, your judgment was also influenced by what Beiglboeck told you about how much the experimental subjects suffered, is that right?
A Beiglboeck drew up his own report on his own experiment on himself and a general report on whatever complaints the subjects uttered.
Q What is that the experiment Beiglboeck conducted by himself? You mean he has been undergoing an experiment back in the prison?
A No, before the experiments began, he carried out a sea water experiment on himself.
Q Where did these experimental subjects of yours stay during this experiment? I seem to recall you said they continued their workor something of the sort.
A They all stayed in one room where they ate and slept and this was done to make the conduct of the experiment easier, as they were to receive special rations.
Q Well, now there were all five experimental subjects in one room during the whole course of the experiments, is that right?
A Yes.
Q And what did they do?
A They went from this room to wherever they had to work but they returned, to the room for sleeping and eating.
Q Well, doctor, we are having great difficulty in really getting a clear picture about how this experiment went on. Now you mean to say they carried on their work about the clinic?
They didn't stay in this room the whole time, is that right?
A Yes.
Q They actually only ate in the room and slept in the room; is that right?
A That is correct.
Q Did they leave the clinic at all?
A I believe that they did not during those days.
Q But you don't know?
A I can't swear to it.
Q You can't swear that they didn't go to a local cinema during the course of the experiments for example?
A No, I can't swear to that. I just don't know.
Q In other words, they had their normal daily life available to them during these experiments?
A They carried on their daily work and in this case it is perfectly certain that they did not drink any fresh water. They knew perfectly well what the point of the experiment was.
Q How much food did they get, again?
A 1600 calories.
Q And do you know what the food was?
A Yes, that is also in the record. It was meat, fat and What not, but I can't tell you that from my memory. However, I could give you the record in writing.
Q In What record? Have we gotten any record on these experiments?
A Yes, there was a record.
Q Now, they got absolutely no fresh water during the course of the experiments, is that right?
A No.
Q Did they get any other water or fluid other than salt water?
A No, that was the whole purpose, that they should receive no other fluid and that is why they lost their appetite later.
Q They got no milk and no fruit juices?
A No, no, that would have violated the whole experiment, and then they had not lost so much weight.
Q I can appreciate that, Professor. Where did you get the sea water that these experimental subjects drank?
A We manufactured it carefully in the chemical laboratory according to a chemical analysis of sea water that can be found in many text books. I have a chemist who was in charge of the laboratory and he made this sea water according to the formula. We couldn't get any natural sea water for this experiment.
Q You don't know the salt content of this water?
A I can give it to you in writing.
Q You don't know how it compares with Mediterranean sea water or sea water from the North Sea?
A. So far as I know, it was manufactured on the model of the North Sea sea water. There was some description of it in a book somewhere and that was imitated. There are such analysis of sea water in textbooks.
Q. You say you think it was according to a formula for North Sea. Do you know whether North Sea water was used in the Dachau experiments?
A. I don't know for sure where the water came from that was used in Dachau. That wasn't the important thing to me to repeat the Dachau experiments blow by blow. As I said, we simply wanted to know how unpleasant it is if for days on end a person receives only sea water to cover his needs for liquid.
Q. When did you tell these five experimental subjects that you used that they were to undergo the experiment or when did you tell them that it would begin?
A. A few days theretofore.
Q. A few days before? Remember how many days?
A. Maybe a week before. First I had to have a conference with the kitchen to see that they were willing to prepare special rations for the five doctors.
Q. And you say this special ration was somewhat above that which the Dachau inmates got?
A. Yes. For four days people in Dachau received emergency sea rations and my subjects received about 1600 calories a day in dry food.
Q. Well, how many calories are there in this emergency sea ration?
A. For four days there are 3200 calories.
Q. So that is 800 calories a day.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who told you that the experimental subjects got these rations in Dachau? Do the records show that?
A. That was the plan for the experiments that was worked out in that way and I assumed that the experiments had been worked out as they had been planned, but, as I say, I laid no importance on the whole Question of the calories because the important point is the loss of body water and not loss of body weight.
Q. Now, you didn't keep any of your experimental subjects without any water whatever, did you?
A. Five hundred cc of sea water was the liquid they received.
Q. Well, weren't there some experimental subjects at Dachau who didn't get any water at all, sea water or otherwise?
A. Yes, the first group fasted and thirsted. I have already spoken about that and said that thirst can more easily be tolerated if one is fasting at the same time so that the kidney has as little as possible to do; thus the body is able to retain more water.
Q. But you can't testify to the Tribunal about what pain and suffering those experimental subjects were subjected to, can you? You didn't run any similar experiments yourself?
A. I do not understand you. I carried out these experiments to know what sort of suffering the experimental subjects went through.
Q. But you didn't carry out one where a man fasted for five or six days without either food or water. They did carry out such an experiment in Dachau. So you have no basis to testify about pain and suffering to which that group of experimental subjects were subjected, do you?
A. I mentioned that at the same time purely I was having four women fast and thirst that had come to the clinic with very high blood pressure and for six whole days these women fasted and thirsted. This so improved their condition that they consequently forgot the unpleasantness involved in the fasting and thirsting. I also mentioned among them one woman who weighed only 51.7 kilo and who lost 3. However, her blood pressure went down from 245/125 to 185/100. I carried out such experiments almost daily in the clinic. That is done in the hundreds. And, in the case of persons with kidney disease that is the accepted method so that during the war people from the fronts went through thousands of such hunger and thirst cures. I didn't have to have any control experiment in this; that was furnished daily by the clinic.
Q. And these women went without food and water for four days?
A. Six days without food and water.
Q. And what was the result on them aside from their blood pressure? Did they suffer much pain?
A. There is no question of pain in such cases. They simply felt thirst. Strangely enough they do not complain of being hungry. The body water that still remains there is enough to keep the body metabolism supplied with the necessary chemicals. However, there is lack in the body of sodium nitrate which, however, can be overcome by giving sodium nitrate. They never complain about hunger, only thirst. Sometimes they complain of a feeling of weakness but fasting for six days is nothing very special. As I said, some people carry out hunger cures for four weeks. To be sure, they drink fruit juices during such a long cure. We also make use of it for therapeutic purposes. They will receive fruit juices but that is by no means so unpleasant as an eight days long hunger and thirst cure.
Q. And you gave them no compensation for going without food and water whatever? You have them no injections of any sort?
A. No, no. My whole purpose is to eliminate from the body all the unnecessary fluids in the blood so that the blood pressure will drop. I gradually bring these people over to a form of nourishment without any salt.
Q. Now you say that four out of five of your experimental subjects broke off on the fifth day?
A. Yes. For external reasons only, not because they could no longer tolerate it. It just happened that four of the men had dates on the 5th day, but the 5th one stayed through until the sixth day and I asked him specifically whether he felt particularly tortured or in pain and he said no. He said that with the first drink of water he took all unpleasantness and discomfort vanished. I observed my son myself. As soon as he drank a cup of tea, he was perfectly all right and two days after the experiment he had recovered all the weight he had lost.
He had lost roughly one kilo a day.
Q. You say these four men had a date on the 5th. You mean they had an engagement with a young lady?
A. I do not know what the details were planned for the carnival celebration. I could simply draw the regrettable conclusion that the interest in the carnival was a little more than the interest in the experiment.
But this does indicate that the experiments did not have a very deleterious effect on them, otherwise they could not have gone to the carnival and enjoyed it.
Q. Well, it might also indicate that they didn't regard the experiments as being very serious and that, even though several men in this dock are quite interested in the results of this particular experiment, your four young assistants didn't regard it as serious enough to refrain from going out on a date. Isn't that about the size of it?
A. I can't deny that. I wasn't too pleased by their behaviour.
Q. Were these men informed of the seriousness of this undertaking?
A. No.
Q. And what reason did you advance to them for undergoing the experiments?
A. Of course, I told them and this was known that such sea water experiments were an issue, but I was perfectly convinced that these experiments could by no means be called inhumane or brutal and consequently we didn't approach the experiments in too tragic a manner. All we wanted to know was how unpleasant such an experiment was.
TEE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:30.
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 3 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. FRANZ VOLLHARDT - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. McHANEY :Q.- Professor, what experience had your assistant who helped you in your sea water experiments had in sea water problems before that time ?A.- None.
Perhaps I could take this opportunity to make a few corrections. I have been told that the interpreter failed to say that I said that the sure proof for the correctness of our experiments -- and that the experimental subjects had not drunk any fresh water, was that otherwise they would not have lost as much weight as they did. Moreover, I also said five tines twenty-four hours and I added once eight hours less and once twenty-four hours more, Then I made a mistake saying that the emergency sea rations were 3200 calories for four days. I have been informed that in reality they were 2474 calories.
Then I spoke of students when speaking of my experiments. Perhaps the English word "Students" refers to students in a University or some school. I should like to say that all of them were accredited doctors one of which had taken his Doctor's degree as early as 1941.
Q.- You have just said that the assistants who worked over these records submitted to you by the defense had no previous experience with sea water problems. Is that correct ?
A.- Yes. That is so. Moreover, I had had none either. Moreover I would not have found anybody with any experience in sea water experiments because this was the first time that people had carried out experiments on themselves.
Q.- Have you ever before studied questions concerning sea water ?
A.- Yes, of course I read literature on the subject, even foreign literature including the work of Liddell and a large number of other works, also reports on persons who had suffered shipwreck, the literature on how long after a person had suffered shipwreck he could still be saved, but I cannot recollect any details now.
Q.- You had yourself done no practical research on problems in connection with sea water ?
A.- Not in this field but in the field of hunger and thirst I had.
Q.- What do you mean by -- you had done research in the field of thirst ? What research had you done ?
A.- I couldn't list all of the investigations I have carried out. That covers a period of, probably, 30 years, and in general, the important element is the behavious of the residual nitrogen. This is the important point, aside from the elimination of salt, and the mechanism that produces residual nitrogen suffers, both in cases of a superfluity and in cases of too little salt because of the lack of water. This example of acute do-salination in the case of cholera shows that slag is retained in the blood in the same way as in the diseases of the urinary tract.
Q.- Professor, could you toll us the day-by-day clinical symptoms of the experimental subjects in your experiments with sea water ?
A. I have already reported on that and said that on the first two days the thirst was no severe, on the third day it became unplesant, and on the fourth day the thirst was again reduced, and on the fifth day it became very strong, the mucuous membranes in the mouth were dried up so that the situation was quite unplesant.
Q. What about the man who under went the sixth day?
A. He suffered no ill effects at all and said that it hadn't made much difference to him one way or the other. And one of them on the fifty day, attended a court proceedings where he had to defend a friend of his.
Q. Well, can't you give us a few more details about the subjective reaction of these experimental subjects?
A. Muscles became somewhat hard and more sensitive so that if you tap on the muscle a muscle knot is formed but, in general, their ability to work did not suffer. However, they all felt the urgent need for water. I can guarantee that these experimental subjects did not drink any fresh water on the side. The nourishment consisted of meat butter, bread, jam, two eggs, mean and three pieces of candy.
Q. Is this information your assistant has given you over the recess?
A. I looked it up in my records.
Q. And how Can you guarantee that these experimental subjects got no additional water?
A. As I said, on the basis of their loss of weight and because I can rely on my assistants.
Q. But you made no blood checks, did you?
A. Blood was also tested--examined, yes.
Q. Are you going to make all of these records available to the Tribunal?
A. Yes, I can do that.
Q. In your expert judgment do you state that the experiments con ducted, by you conformed in all essential details to the experiments in Dachau?
A. I have already drawn your attention to the differences; namely, that my subjects received somewhat more to eat because they were not lying in bed but were carrying on their regular work.
Q. Well, do you think that you would have gotten valuable results from your experiments on the problem which was facing Dr. Beiglboeck?
A. I didn't understand your question.
Q. I say, if you had used Berkatit in your experiments and you used water processed by the Schaefer method and you had fed one group sea water and you had another group abstain from all liquids and all foods, your experiment would have yielded valid results, is that right?
A. I do not believe so, because I didn't expect any results from Berkatit and of the Schaefer method I knew that it would remove all the torments of thirst and I had enough experience, in general, about thirst and didn't have to have any contro cases.
Q. Doctor, let's put it a little more sharply.
You apparently are telling this Tribunal that your experiments confromed with the Dachau experiments and you bas yourself upon your experiments in reaching certain conclusions about pain and suffering and about the likeligood of injury. Your experimental subjects carried on their daily activities. They worked and they were not closely confined. For what reason was it necessary that Dr. Beiglboeck go to Dachau and carry out experiments on concentration camp inmates? Why couldn't he, as you, have experimented on clerks in the RIM in Berlin. Why couldn't he indeed have used the defendant Schroeder in his experiments? Dr. Schroeder could continue with his daily activities, the only necessity being that he eat and sleep, if that is a particularly material factor, in a certain room?
A. I don't believe it is an expert's task to say why experiments were not carried out in a different way.
They were decided on at a conference at which such eminent scientists as Eppinger and Heubner were present. This plan was drawn up and given to Beiglboeck and he was told to carry it out without any changes.
Q. I won't ask you to speculate, Professor, but you are brought here as an expert on these problems, and I'm asking you if the experiments could not have been conducted in Berlin in a manner similar to the experiments conducted by you?
A. From the reports on the conferences and on what went on before the experiments, it could be seen that efforts were at first made to find other ways of doing these experiments and there is no doubt that Professor Eppinger would have preferred to carry out the experiments in his clinical or in a hospital. But the war situation was such at that time that it was out of the question to making use of a large number of beds and male healthy personnel as experimental subjects for these experiments. In addition, there was a strict order that every soldier, immediately after he had recovered from his wounds should immediately be dismissed from the hospital. He couldn't even stay there for another twenty-four hours, but only as long as was absolutely necessary. That precluded carrying out the experiments on convalescent soldiers. It would have been better in every respect had that been possible.
Q. You didn't carry your experiments out on convalescent soldiers did you?
A. No, but I had enough doctors. I had more than forty doctors at my clinic from whom I could choose the volunteers.
Q. I suppose you read the conference report on the meeting held on the 15th of May? There were about fifteen men--not the 15th of May, I think it was the 24th of May, 1944. There were about fifteen men at that meeting, weren't there? Is there any reason why they couldn't undergo these experiments and continue their daily work without undue inconvenience?
A. It is impossible to presume of the fifteen participants in a conference that they should go to a hotel, or house, or hospital and there subject themselves to such experiments. With all the necessary blood and laboratory tests.
Q. Professor, your experimental subjects didn't stay in one room all the time. They went about their business, didn't they?
A. Yes, but they lived in this room. They were all weighed in this one room and ate in this room and slept in this room and this facilitated the experiment greatly. It would have been impossible even if they hadn't eaten in the same room.
Q. Can you, as an expert, advance one valid reason perhaps other than inconvenience, why these experiments in Dachau could not just as well have been carried out in Berlin in a manner similar to the experiments carried out by you?
A. At that time there was no free bed in any hospital. Everything was over--crowded and it was impossible to find so many beds for a scientific experiment.
Q. Did the experiments have to be carried out in a hospital?
A. Yes, because it is only there that you can find the apparatus and laboratories to carry out the examinations that are necessary-examinations of blood and residual nitrogen, etc.
Q. Professor, are you testifying here, as an expert, or in an effort to justify these experiments?
A. I am testifying here only because on the basis of my observation, I can state that there was no crime against humanity involved in these experiments.
Q. And can you tell us one clinical reason why these experiments could not have been carried out in Berlin?
A. I said, for purely external reasons. Simply lack of roomlack of space.
Q. Did I understand you to testify earlier this morning that you would have had no compunction in going to Dachau and carrying out these experiments yourself?
A. I never would have had this opportunity and moreover, had other things to do.
Q. Didn't you testify that you would have had no objection to carrying out these experiments in Dachau yourself?
A. I spoke of no objections at all. That is not a question that concerns me as an expert, of what I would have done in this case.
Q. Well it concerns me because, as I recall, you testified to that effect upon a question put either by Dr. Marx or Dr. Steinbauer?
A. I cannot recall having made such a statement. I only said that you absolutely had to have volunteers for this. That, without the voluntary element, every such experiment would have been impossible.
Q. What would happen if the experimental subjects were not volunteers?
A. The person conducting the experiment would very soon interrupt the experiment and say that that situation was impossible, or he would have to take draconian measures and lock every experimental subject up in his own cell.
Q. Well, do you exclude the possibility that they would try to cheat if they weren't volunteers?
A. If a person is in an experiment and is not voluntary in it then he will most assuredly cheat whenever he can.
Q. And did you find any evidence in the purported original records submitted to you that the experimental subjects in Dachau had cheated?
A. Yes, that can be seen from one or two of the weight charts. If the subject docs not lose weight, that means that he has drunk water on the side.
Q. And your statement that the Dachau experimental subjects were volunteers is simply a statement from Beiglboeck or Becker-Freyseng which you are passing on to the Tribunal, isn't it?
A. No, from the very beginning and for perfectly understandable reasons it was planned that the subjects had to be volunteers, and when Dr. Beiglboeck eliminated three subjects because they were not in good enough state of health, three other volunteers immediately applied.
Q Did you participate in this planning of these experiments?
A No.
Q Then the statement you just made is nothing you know anything about except what was told you by Beiglboeck and Becker-Freyseng, is that right?
A Everything I know I know only from the sources in question.
Q If you were submitting these records as clinical data on these experimental subjects without being told anything about it one way or the other and you ascertained as you did ascertain that a number of the subjects cheated, would you be quite so sure in your statement that they were volunteers?
A I have already said that the fact that the person is a volunteer is not a certain guarantee that the experimental subject will not cheat, you will make that experience with all patients. They fool that they have abided by the rules and doctor's instructions, but nevertheless you find out they did drink water or did add salt and that they did do something -- even though they were volunteers -which they should not have done. The motto applies, "The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Q Of course that is pure assumption on your part as applied to these experiments and the only concrete fact you can testify to is your observations from these purported original records that some of the experimental subjects did cheat and did obtain water, isn't it?
A You could see that from the record of the experiments.
Q Do you know what Berkatit is?
A Yes, I do. That is something to correct the taste of sea water, originally manufactured from tomatoes. It covers up the nauseous taste of sea water so that it can be drunk even with pleasure.
Q And what is your opinion about the effectiveness and reliability of Berkatit?
A I consider it completely superfluous, unless in cases of sea distress one prefers to follow tho advise of drinking rather 500 ccs of seawater than to thirst.
That could be pleasant to someone if he could drink sea water without it tasting bad to him, but it has no effect on the dehydrating effect of drinking sea water,
Q You did not use Berkatit in your experiments?
A No, we didn't have any.
Q In what form is Berkatit manufactured, is it some solid substance one eats or is it a powder applied to sea water? Just what is its form?
A I don't know.
Q Have you ever seen any Berkatit?
A No.
Q Then who told you what it was?
A That became obvious during the course of the conference.
Q Will you repeat your answer, please?
AAt the conference I believe on the 15th of April or something, I believe, the conference we were talking about yesterday, where there was the discussion about Berkatit and Wolfatit, it came to light that Berkatit was recommended by the technical office and given the preference to the Wolfatit. Nor, incidentally, have I ever seen any Wolfatit, but I am convinced it is a wonderful invention or discovery.
Q Well, professor, I am completely lost to understand how you can testify anything about Berkatit when you have never seen it. Up to the present time you haven't told me anything about information you have received on it, and there is nothing in the conference report which discusses the content of Berkatit and its process of manufacture on its form ?
A It was said in this conference that Berkatit was simply a taste corrective, and for a doctor that is a concept of which he knows what it means, even though he hasn't seen it or tasted it or actually had it in his hands.
Q So as an expert you ere willing to say that Berkatit is no good although you can't tell the Tribunal what is in Berkatit, how its manufactured or its form?
A Yes, that is right. In this connection I am in exactly the same position as Schaefer who immediately came to the conclusion that if it was simply a taste corrective then it was not any good for our purposes, namely to overcome or correct the dehydrating effects of sea water.
Q Well, I dare say that Dr. Schaefer has more information about Berkatit than you have; how do you reconcile the fact that Eppinger, who you recommended to this Tribunal as an expert was supporting the use of Berkatit?
A Of course Eppinger didn't think either that Berkatit removed the salt from the water in the way Wolfatit does, but ho believed in the possibility that the vitamin content of Berkatit could perhaps contribute to permitting the kidneys to concentrate more salt, and tho question that interested him was how long a person could drink such sea water with the taste corrected without suffering serious injury; that is what I assume without actually speaking to him.
Q But you entirely dismissed Berkatit in spite of Eppinger's opinion.
A From the very beginning I was of the opinion that for cases of sea distress, in other words to correct the dehydrating effects of sea water, Berkatit could not be used at all.
Q Now, from the notes which were submitted to you were you able to ascertain how many subjects were used in the Dachau experiments
A I didn't bother to count them. I estimate or believe I know that there were 44 of them.
Q And could you ascertain from these records how those experimental subjects were grouped?
A Yes, I have already said that there were five groups, and I know how these five groups were treated individually.
Q How were they treated individually and how large were the groups?
A The first group fasted and thirsted, the second group, Schaefer, the third group had sea water with Berkatit, the fourth group sea water without Berkatit, and the fifth group drank sea water straight up to 1000 cc.
Q And how many were in each group.
A I didn't count them, about six, but in one group I think there were more.
Q And were you able to ascertain from the records how much sea water the group consuming Berkatit was given, that is how much Berkatit processed sea water?
A In the Berkatit group, 500 cc of sea water were given.
Q And in what quantities were they given that?
A 500 cc in portions of 100 cc.
Q In other words, they were given 100 cc. five times during a 24 hour period, is that right?
A That is roughly it, yes.
Q And how long did that continue?
A The experiments were discontinued after six days.
Q Could you tell from the records what the reasons for interrupting the experiments was?
A I believe that fundamentally they did not wish to continue the experiments after the sixth day because from then on the symptoms become very disagreeable.
Q And how much plain sea water was given to the group that was fed only sea water?
A One group had 500 and the fifth group had 1000 cc.
Q How many experimental subjects were in each group, could you tell that?
A I believe six.
Q In other words, one group of six got 500 cc of sea water per day and another group of six got 1000 cc of sea water per day, is that right?
A Yes, that is roughly it, but as I say I cannot swear to the exact number of experimental subjects.
Q Now, you got this information from these records and not from what Becker Freyseng and Beiglbock told you; you can tell all this from the records, is that right?
A Yes, that can be seen from the records, above all from the photostat tables of weights where the number of experimental subjects is along one edge.
Q How long did the experiments continue with the groups getting 500 cc of sea water?
AAll experiments were interrupted after six days and only in one or two cases they were prolonged for a day or two if the subject had drunk fresh water.
Q And the group that got 1000 ccs also lasted six days?
A Yes.
Q Did you feed any of your experimental subjects 1000 ccs per day for six days?
A Not for six days. One of my subjects on the last day drank a thousand, because he thought that would in some measure quench his thirst.
Q And how many were in the group that fasted?
A Just as many.
Q And how long did they fast and thirst?
A Between four and five days.