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.
Q. And you found nothing in these records which indicate to you that these experimental groups suffered any severe pain; is that right?
A. You cannot speak of pain in the case of these experiments, you can speak simply of discomfort, unpleasantness, bad mood attacks, a general fatigue, but severe pain is not caused by hunger or thirst or drinking sea water.
Q. How much unpleasantness and discomfort would be caused; could you tell anything about that from these reports?
A. Regarding the subjective reaction of the subjects, there was nothing to be seen in the records.
Q. The best way to find out about that would be to call in one of the experimental subjects; wouldn't it, Doctor?
A. I believe so, yes.
Q. Did you observe any different symptoms from these records as between the various groups of experimental subjects?
A. Not that I know of; certainly not from the records containing the figures from the general report, that is.
Q. In other words, the ones that were fed sea-water and Berkatit were just as well off as the group that got Wolfatit; is that right?
A. No, that is a very serious mistake because the ones who received Wolfatit did not have any trouble at all, they got along fine.
Q. But the others did have a little trouble?
A. A lot of trouble, they were very thirsty, very severely thirsty.
Q. As an export, suppose you toll the Tribunal, if you can, what the symptoms would be each day in a twelve day experiment, using for one group sea water, for another group, Berkatit, for another group Wolfatit and for the last group no food and no water?
A. This situation could never arise, because I would never extend a sea water experiment for twelve days unless it was with Schaefer water. I would not let a healthy person go with hunger and thirst for twelve days. The maximum you could expect of a person is six days. From the twelfth day on there is already danger of death. I therefore cannot describe what the symptoms would be on the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh or twelfth day.
I can say that there would be general dehydration and they would be very thirsty indeed and that they would not yet be dead on tho twelfth day and that I would never undertake to carry out such an experiment myself.
Q. You cannot give us then the clinical symptoms during the days from the seventh day on?
A. I ask you if you want that information to read descriptions of persons ship-wrecked.
Q. I want to know what would happen to a man if ho were fed seawater for twelve days; yes, that is exactly what I would, want to know.
A. Well you can see that from the descriptions of people who for twelve days or more were ship-wrecked.
Q. And what did they have to say about it?
A. I cannot tell you that from my recollection. My memory is no longer as good as 50 years ago.
Q. You cannot testify about that then?
A. No, I can only imagine what it might be.
Q. I am not interested in your imagination unless it is based on some scientific observations you made, you are an expert on sea-water.
A. But I am not an expert beyond the limit when things begin to be dangerous for the life.
Q. In other words, your expertness is based on the experiments you conducted yourself?
A. I know tho literature on tho subject, but I cannot so reproduce it here so as to be able to testify under oath regarding these matters, but on the basis of my own experiments I am in a position to say to what extent they are unpleasant or not until the sixth day.
Q. You have testified to something about the man who was at sea for seventeen days; is that right?
A. Yes, such reports are available, seventeen days, nineteen days and one group spent thirty seven days on the sea with very little water. Of this group two survived and the rest died. If you sant some literature on the subject, I can submit tho biographies to you but not from my recollection.
Q. Professor, I am interested in your knowledge on the matter. Now, lot us take the case of the man who was out seventeen days; are you familiar with it?
A. I read about it, but at my age one is likely to forget things. I believe I remember he could be revived by giving him water and that very few subsequent illnesses occurred. In cases where persons are ship-wrecked for so long, it does occur that there are cases of bronchitis or pneumonia and there are symptoms of dehydration in the mucuous membrane layers similar to those found in diptheria, but these are all extreme cases at which you wonder that the person survived at all.
Q. Do you know how much water this man had who was out for seventeen days had when he first got into the boat?
A. No, I do not know, but I do know that when he was given water, after he was saved, he improved rapidly.
Q. Well, you just have a very general and hazy recollection of that case, don't you, Doctor? You know nothing about the conditions under which he survived tho seventeen days, how much water ho had to begin with, whether ho had food, fruit juices, if any and how much salt water he drank; day by day you know nothing about tho details, do you?
A. No, I am not in a position to testify about fruit juices, food and water and what not from the literature I read some time ago.
Q. Professor, you are probably familiar with tho document, which I want to put to you. It is the record of the conference hold on 20 May 1944. This document is NO-177, Prosecution Exhibit No. 133.
Doctor, before we turn to that document, I would like to get your reaction to a statement made by a man who was in Dachau and who had an opportunity personally to learn something about the sea-water experiments. That is tho affidavit Tschofenig, Document No. 911, Prosecution Exhibit 139 on page 28, the English document book 5. Professor, Mr. Tschofenig, who was, as I say, in a position to know personally about these experiments, states that tho experimental subjects could not eat much food, that some of them had cramps and maniac attacks, that he know that experimental subjects had hurled themselves on the floor and sucked dirty water out of rags used to mop tho floor.
Now, are you willing to state as an expert that these statements concerning suffering and thirst are incorrect and unreliable?
A. I don't know these statements but I consider it quite out of tho question that the experimental subjects felt it necessary to drink water out of mops, because there were air raid buckets there and if they felt they needed a drink they could drink out of them. Now, insofar as tho cramps are concerned, I don't believe that either. None of my subjects had cramps.
Q. Did you say something about them having difficult eating food?
A. Yes, that is so, they lose their appetite because their mouths became so dry they all agreed that they became less and less interested in food from day to day.
Q. No cramps?
A. No.
Q. No mental disturbances?
A. No, I consider that out of tho question.
Q. What physical impairments of any sort; no impairments of the eyes?
A. Physical or psychological?
Q. Physical is tho question.
A. Weakness, stiffening of the muscles and certain uncertainty in movement, the hardening of the muscles and all these things I already spoke of.
Q. Now, you say there were fire buckets in the room where they were carrying out the experiments?
A. Not in the room but in front of the wash room.
Q. Was this in Dachau?
A. That is what I heard, yes.
Q. Who told you about that?
A. I believe I heard that from defense counsel.
Q. So, it is your expert judgment that it would have been quite unnecessary for the experimental subjects to suck water out of dirty mops; they could have gone out and used the water out of the fire buckets; isn't it?
A. No, those who cheated did not take as much trouble as that.
Q. In other words, if they wanted to withdraw from the experiments, they could do so and drink all the water that they wanted to; that is your expert judgment on this experiment, is it Doctor?
A. No, of course it was made more difficult than that for them, but people like that will of course find a way out somehow and the supervisors are generally speaking are at least 50% on the other side, so that one can never be quite sure there.
Q. People like what, Professor?
A. The assistants who were present there. I think some of them wore interrogated. Two young people I think were there, some helpers or some laboratory assistants.
Q. I think I understand you to say that people like that always found it possible to cheat or words to that effect; I want to know what you mean by the reference to "people like that." What were these experimental subjects like, Doctor, in your expert opinion?
A. That I don't know. I would have to read that in the reports. I would have to have it checked on the spot from people who were there. I am speaking generally. When you have 44 people whom you use in experiments, then there is a certain number of people there who supervise and then one isn't quite certain of one's results either. I am just saying that in order to illustrate that in this particular case it has happened and could have happened that experimental subjects actually obtained drinking water.
Q. Let's go to Document No. 177, Prosecution Exhibit 133, which you have before you. As I recall your testimony earlier, you said that you assumed that these experiments were carried out as planned. I put it to you, doctor, that this conference gives us pretty definitely what the plans were. You find the paragraph at the bottom of the first page where it reads:
"At this meeting Captain Dr. Becker-Freyseng reported on the clinical experiments conducted by Colonel Dr. von Sirany, and came to the final conclusion that he did not consider them as being unobjectionable and conclusive enough for a final decision. The Chief of the medical Service of the Luftwaffe" -- strike that, Luftwaffe is not in here -- "is convinced that if the Berka method is used damage to health has to be expected not later than six days after taking Berkatit, which damage will result in permanent injuries to health and - according to the opinion of Dr. Schaeffer - will finally result in death after not later than twelve days."
Professor, in your expert opinion is that a correct statement of what is likely to occur if Berkatit is used?
A. That most probably is a correct statement.
Q. In other words, if you use it six days, you can expect permanent injury?
A. Oh no, I haven't finished. It is correct to assume that after consuming Berkatit injuries may be expected after six days, but permanent injuries to the health of the subject I would not speak about after twelve days have passed, and even then I have my doubts.
If you carry out a sea water experiment or if you have been shipwrecked for twelve days, then I am convinced that the patient would recover without permanent injury. if you succeed in getting him over the difficult initial period of drying out.
Q. Well then, you don't think this is right as you testified earlier, you think it is wrong?
A. That is too strong an expression. After six days you may expect injury to the health, but I don't believe that they are permanent injuries.
Q. Then you wouldn't expect permanent injuries even after twelve days, I understood you to say?
A. I consider that it is possible that even after twelve days, provided the danger point has been passed, no permanent injuries will result.
Q. Well, Professor, of course there are a great number of things that are possible, but as an expert I would prefer you would testify with respect to probability rather than possibility. Now, is it probable that there would be permanent injury after twelve days?
A. Have him repeat that question, please?
(Question is repeated)
No, it is probable. I have said that if a person has lived through those twelve days and if you have succeeded in getting him past the first danger point then it is most probable that he will not suffer any permanent injury to his health.
Q. Is it probable that he will live to the twelfth day?
A. That depends on whether he has no water at his disposal, whether it has been raining, whether he has been able to collect melted snow, whether he has drunk a lot or little sea water, The possibility is very great for a real shipwrecked person to survive twelve days and in an experiment, if he hasn't been drinking more than 500 cubic centimeters of sea water for twelve days, he will probably still be alive and emerge healthy and without injury.
Q. Let's get this very clear, Professor. We are not talking about shipwrecked sailors now who have the benefit of rain periodically. We are talking about the experiments which were the subject of this conference. As I understand it, it was the opinion of Schroeder's office and Schaeffer that death would probably ensue after twelve days. You disagree with that, is that right? You think it is probable that one would survive for twelve days?
A. I consider it possible but as I also said previously during my testimony that beginning with the twelfth day danger to life exists indubitably.
Q. But probably he would live to the twelfth day, is that right?
A. I can't give you the probability factors of that. I said it is possible that he will survive.
Q. Professor, let's continue at the top of page 2 where it says, "External symptoms are to be expected, such as drainage, diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations, and finally death." You disagree with that too. don't you?
A. That again depends. That isn't said with reference to a special arrangement for experiments but quite generally. It is generally the development of a shipwrecked case, or in this case on the other hand it says after six days injury to health and thereafter diarrhea. That, according to our experience, is improbable. Convulsions - well, we haven't observed any; hallucinations - that might happen on the tenth day and if a patient dies on the twelfth day then it is quite possible that days beforehand he has had hallucinations.
Q. But you don't agree that the man gets diarrhea? As I recall, you testified to the contrary, that taking sea water causes constipation, is that right?
A. Our experimental subjects, since they never drank all of the sea water in one dose, all got constipated due to the dehydration of the body.
Q. Well, let's continue toward the top of page 2 and see what experiments were planned, Professor, and get your expert judgment about them. The first series is one group of persons to be given sea water processed with Berka; one group to be given ordinary drinking water; persons without any drinking water at all; persons, given to drink according to the present method. Those experiments were to last six days, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. In your opinion would those experiments give any discomfort?
A. No.
Q. And no injury?
A. No.
Q. Psychical disturbance?
A. That not either, certainly not during six days.
Q. Now, that planning, the second group of experiments, Professor, "persons nourished with sea water and Berkatit, and as diet also the emergency sea rations; duration of experiments: 12 days. Since in the opinion of the Chief of the Medical Service permanent injuries to health, that is, the death of the experimental subjects has to be expected, as experimental subjects such persons should be used as will be put at the disposal by the Reichsfuehrer SS."
Doctor, assuming that the twelve day experiment was carried out, do you still maintain that it is probable there would have been no death and that it is probable that there would have been no permanent injury?
A. Fortunately, such an experiment was refrained from, because that would have got pretty near the dividing line towards endangering life and fortunately the experiment was not extended beyond the sixth day.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, as defense counsel for the defendants Becker-Freyseng and Professor Schroeder I wish to object to the way in which this document is being made the subject of cross examination by the prosecution. First of all this record is being contested by both the defendants and the defense, the reason being that the affidavit of the man Christensen shows clearly that there is no question of there being an authentic record of the meeting which took place at that time, but only a few days later a man by the name of Schickler, who was neither qualified nor entitled to make it, prepared a record from his memory, and he was definitely not a medical man, he was a technician, and what is more he was a prejudiced author of this record, and what is more, one must consider that here we are not concerned with the planning of experiments which would make any claim towards real existence.
It is proved beyond doubt that only when Professor Eppinger and Heubner were there were these experiments planned and that these matters are false and if Professor Vollhardt is to define his attitude at all then we could only be concerned with a hypothesis. In other words, one might say that, assuming this record here does correspond with the truth, which on the other hand we deny, then it could be so, but not as if we were concerned here with a true record of the outcome of that conference, and that in fact no planning for an experiment was carried out at the time, and, therefore, I object to this type of cross examination and I maintain my objection to the record as such in its entirety.