The great liners had solved their drinking water problems but the war, both naval and air, suddenly made this problem a very burning one, not only for the German Wehrmacht was it a pressing problem. That can be seen from the fact that at precisely the same time when we were concerning ourselves with this problem, i.e., at the time when I received the order to work on the problem, experiments in that direction were being carried out in America, and it is a great tragedy that we learned with this work too late. If it was intended to decide whether the consumption of sea water was good or bad and whether it is good or bad to add some dextrose preparation to it, then this problem had to be solved on the basis of human experiments. There was no other way to decide it.
Q. I read through the indictment yesterday and the question occurred to me, couldn't you have contented yourself with animal experiments alone?
A. I think I can state that very briefly because Professor Vollhardt has already explained the essential matters concerned here. There is no laboratory experimented animal whose sodium chloride metabolism and water metabolism can be compared with the human. Herbiverous animals react to salt much differently than carnivorous animals, or an animal like the horse which perspires a great deal contrary to the dog which does not sweat, and how specifically a cat reacts. So far as I know, there have been no very exhaustive experiments to investigate this matter but I should have been only too glad to buy experimental animals for this purpose in order to escape from that assignment. The essential reason was that the human being is the only living being which uses salt not only as food but also uses it as spice, and for this reason the human being is adapted to the consumption of quite different quantities of salt than are any animals. I later saw that American scientists when they completed their studies on sea water performing animal experiments that they explicitly noted that with dogs they had to use not a three percent but a five percent salt solution in order to get approxi mately the same reaction as a human being would have.
Q Mr. President, in order to corroborate what the defendant has just said I wish to put in a document which will be Exhibit 8. This is on page 71 of Document Book I and this is Document 20. This is an extract from the Vienna Medical Weekly of 1944/1946 regarding physiological effects of the drinking of undiluted sea water. I shall read only one sentence from this document, the fourth line - "It was necessary to give dogs a 5% sodium chloride solution instead of a 3.5% one, in order to establish an experimental situation analogous to that of man."
However, weren't these experiments carried out in this way in order to accord with scientific regulations?
A The problems of the water and salt metabolism, of course, bring up many problems. So far as sea water was concerned I knew of no writings on undiluted sea water. The first papers that I saw there, which I later realized to be the first in this field, were those of Dr. Schaefer which were given to me. From them I could see that Dr. Schaefer had done all the preliminary work on this subject but I could also see that Dr. Schaefer, that the knowledge that he had derived from his experiments were not relevant in any way for human beings because, for instance, Schaefer discovered that rabbits fed with barley oats can live for an enormously long length of time in spite that they are drinking sea water. He gave them daily doses of sea water which for human beings would have amounted to 1/2 to 2 meters. Nevertheless these rabbits lived for weeks and weeks. In other words those results cannot be transferred to human beings.
Q Did other scientists, especially those outside Germany, also report on animal experiments in this field?
A I think I have already said that I had found no reports at all on such experiments. The only experiment in sea water that was accessible to us in Germany in medical literature up to that time was an English experiment on human beings. The publications I came to know of later from England and America were also papers on experiments with human beings.
And that is understandable for the reasons I have just given.
Q Did you yourself have anything to do in deciding whether human being experiments were to be used and were you asked about your opinions on this matter?
A I have already said, and in the interrogation examinations of Professor Schroeder, Becker-Freyseng, and Schaefer, it has become clear here, that I had nothing to do with the preparation for these experiments. Neither the decision to carry out experiments nor the way they were to be carried out were taken up in my presence. In the conference of 25 May in which the way the experiments were to be carried out was agreed upon, I was not present. After I arrived in Berlin I was given the plan for the experiments which had been worked out in every detail. I was instructed at that time to abide closely to this program and I was also told that this program had been worked out at a conference of leading specialists and that Eppinger and Heubner had been among those who worked it out.
Q In other words you yourself could affect no changes in this experimental program, could you?
A No, moreover in this conference of 25 May it was also decided that my experiments were to be chocked on the spot later and I believe this shows most clearly my connection to the experimental program.
Q Then the main problem was - is the Berka preparation able to reduce the damage done to the human system by seawater?
A Yes. And from the whole situation at that time the Berka preparation had become the bone of contention. To be sure, as I have already indicated, that was not the only problem that had to be solved. Becker-Freyseng told me that Dr. Sirany in Vienna had experimented on soldiers, but in these experiments he left it to the discretion of the experimental subjects to decide how much sea water they would consume. In this way he collected what I can only characterize as total confusion of results because one man drank 100 cc and the other 2 liters, and the third drank as much as he wanted to.
One man drank such and such amount one day and either more or less on the next. In short, this was the experimental program of a man who perhaps was a good dermatologist but certainly not a specialist in the field of metabolism. Sirnay overlooked in his results some very elementary and primary thing, and unfortunately he made an even more unpardonable error, namely he did not find out how sea water works alone and connected everything he observed to the use of the Berka method. If he had not overlooked the most primary necessity of having a control group I know for certain no man would be indicted for having carried on sea water experiments because then the tragic error would not have occurred which in the last consequence set the whole avalanche in motion. Berka went to Eppinger with Sirany's experiments and told him that Sirany's experiments had proven that finally sea water is potable and secondly that it is much less injurious than otherwise. Bertha, like many charlatans had unfortunately certain suggestive influence on his environment, and I believe that to some extent Eppinger fell under this influence. When I visited Vienna I discussed this whole problem with Professor Eppinger in all details and I asked him for what reasons he was recommencing this preparation at all because chemically the Berka preparation cannot change sea water at all. That was pellucidly clear and Schaefer who was a chemist and fortunately approached this problem only from a chemical point of view was perfectly right, of course in repudiating the Berka method 100%.
In Eppinger's case the situation was somewhat different. Eppinger had heard constantly from both Sirany and Berka and it had been confirmed in Berlin that Schaefer's excellent process would, under no circumstances be introduced. Eppinger, of course, was no ass who said to himself "if I have a chemical desalinating method on the basis of the Schaefer procedure then that would be worse than my putting a little sugar into the water." Eppinger always told mo personally, of course, the Schaefer method is head and shoulders above this other method. There can be no discussion about that whatsoever. The only thing that could be discussed now was that if the Schaefer method was not introduced the question remained open, as the Berka preparation was not in a position to give at least slight advantages. And now the tragedy of which I spoke previously comes to light, because Sirany did not have any control group that drank only sea water, in other words didn't do what the Prosecutor was so outraged about before, namely as he did not give pure sea water, for this reason there was no basis for comparison. Now, Eppinger saw in Sirany's records of the experiments that one of the experimental subjects Reached a concentration of salt in the urine as high as 3 per cent. Sea water has about 2.7% of salt. If the kidneys can accomodate this concentration then about 4 or 5 ccs of water must be added from the body daily. But experimental persons, however, must give much more water than that because it is absolutely necessary for him to secrete urine, and in order to combat thirst, and it is by drinking more that you do combat thirst. Now, literature has always asserted, and this can be seen from all textbooks, that the maximum salt concentration in the kidneys is 2 per cent. Eppinger relied on those statements, and consequently he can be pardoned for making the error of construing the higher concentration of salt in the urine as a consequence of the Bertha preparation. Since Berkatit contains vitamin C and citrate acid, and since it is known that vitamin C has an effect on the kidneys and there are many papers on that subject, so Eppinger thought that it was impossible that Berkatit was having such an effect on the kidneys.
It wasn't as if Eppinger was tormented by a vast curiosity, or rather it was not as if Eppinger was tormented by an enormous curiosity, but because of this curiosity wanted to push 45 concentration camp inmates into an experiment. It was that Eppinger was asked his opinion and he based his opinion on different presuppositions than that appear today, namely on the presupposition that the Schaefer method could not be introduced because of raw material shortages, and from the purely medical point of view he could not shoulder the responsibility not to take this possibility into consideration, this problem which had to come to his attention by Sirany's experiments. If he had found this suspicion confirmed, then this effect that he thought the Berka method had, would have prolonged the life of persons who had suffered shipwreck for a few days. This is the sort of thing that is characteristic for a clinician and not for a chemist. And if Sirany had not made this mistake in conducting his experiments then also the clinician would not have fallen victim to this error, but then that Eppinger was not entirely wrong was proved in my experiments, namely that the addition of vitamins does actually slightly increase the concentration of salt in the urine. That is perhaps quite interesting from the theoretical point of view, but the increase in concentration was so slight that it was unimportant from the practical point of view. This was the reason why Professor Eppinger and Dr. Schaefer were talking two different languages in this conference. One was speaking as a chemist and the other as a clinician.
Q Witness, do you on the basis of your previous opinion accustom yourself to this idea?
A I must say that I personally didn't have confidence in the Berka method, but of course as my teacher whose knowledge in the field of metabolism I have known and respected for 14 years admitted such a possibility then I had to be of the opinion that his possibility did exist.
Q Witness, did you have any opportunity of speaking yourself with tho so often mentioned engineer Berka?
A When I was in Vienna I did have an opportunity to make Berka's personal acquaintance. I saw him then for the first time and discussed his discoveries with him. Now, a document has been put in evidence here which shows that Berka was of the opinion that his dextrous solution passed the salt through the body. Just what ho, as a technical chemist, imagined under this term "passed it through the body" I don't know, but he was convinced, and this is hard to understand in a chemist, that apparently under the influence of these fluid acids some complex compound took place between the sugar and the salt. I also saw his laboratory in Vienna and he had started a whole series of experiments in order to track his favorite idea down. He had also taken this idea about this compound to other chemists and had had them give him expert opinions, which he showed to Professor Eppinger. One of these expert opinions affirmed the possibility of the formation of this compound. The man who gave this opinion was a chemist of very considerable reputation. I think there was a case of mixed crystallization. I immediately asked Berka whether his compound was soluble in water and that of course he had to confirm, and then I said for us from the medical point of view that is the only important point. If you cannot make this salt insoluble then there can be no question of anything being passed through the body, but I was speaking to deaf oars. Berka was particularly obsessed with his idea, and I believe I can express tho suspicion that even today he still considers his method better than Schaefer's. My effort to persuade him to withdraw his method from competition, so to speak, was unfortunately in vain. If he had done so, a great many of these experiments would have become unnecessary.
Q. Then you were not convinced that the experiments were unnecessary in themselves?
A. I can only deny this question. What struck me as the most important aspect of the experiments was the clarification of the problem, that had not been clarified experimentally; namely, whether thirst is better or sea water is better, and how big sea-water doses have to be. As I wish to emphasize again in 1944, even the great sea faring nations had no clear knowledge regarding the effect of drinking sea water. I personally, however, was of a different opinion, if one has developed preparations which can prevent soldiers from being injured, then it is both irresponsible and incomprehensible to concern oneself at all with the worse preparation. In my own opinion the technical office was under the obligation to remove all the difficulties in order to introduce the Schaefer method. If there was talk of sabotage when these efforts were being made, then I want to say that the real sabotage was committed against humanity and health by the attitude adopted by the technical office; if that attitude had not existed then we could have dispensed with at least half or at least two thirds of the experiments and could have started a short experimental series which would have been better from every point of view, also from the scientific point of view as the success of such experiments had to be doubted from the very beginning, because thirst experiments with so many persons cannot be so closely supervised, under whatever circumstances the experiments are conducted, so that the inevitable experimental mistakes occur. And it is decisive that such errors arc to be expected in so many such experimentations. Because of the expectation of this sort of errors, the number of experimental persons was made larger from the beginning.
I recall very well that Becker-Freyseng toll me at that time we want t use so many people because in the conference of the 25th of May, one of the scientists, I do not know who it was, drew my attention to the fact that a large number of experimental subjects would confuse the experiments by drinking fresh water.
Q. Now, Professor, when you received this assignment with -- the precise instructions how to carry out the experiments, did you start on them immediately or did you have to wait a while?
A. I could not begin immediately but I stayed, I think for three weeks, in Berlin.
A. Now, what did you do in those three weeks, take walks?
A. I used this time to concern myself with the questions that w aid come up in judging such experiments. I did this by reading literature on the subject. I had already previously concerned myself very much with the problem of water and salt metabolism. I had to work to a groat extent for this information, and since sea water consists of salt and water, those are the two fundamental tilings one must know. But, of course, I did not wish to reproach myself for having overlooked something that was already generally known, and consequently I went to the libraries in Berlin and read through a very great amount of German and foreign literature on eke subject. I sat there and took notes on everything that was known on the subject at that time, and I do not believe that I overlooked anything that was accessible to us at chat time.
Q. Witness, did you write words of your own, that concern themselves with this problem or at least this general problem, if not with the specific sea water problem?
A. In the clinic, in Eppinger's clinic, a great deal of attention had already been devoted for years to salt metabolism, and since it is practically impossible to separate salt metabolism from water metabolism because they are so closely interwoven, I of course, also concerned myself with the problem of water metabolism, and in several works of my own I treated this subject or collaborated on it though not precisely from the sea-water point of view.
Q. From the documents Which I put in evidence which lists your scientific publications, will you perhaps just give the numbers of these works that refer to that, which deals with this general subject?
A. Work No. 15, which states the influence of insulin on the mineral metabolism; No. 18, on water metabolism and the internal secretion; No. 21, takes up the question of salt metabolism and three or four of my works concern themselves in great detail with the changes that take place in the mineral metabolism under the influence of vitamins.
Q. Did you find much literature on the effect of sea water?
A. In German literature, I found only such works concerning themselves with sea water from the aspect of a sea water drinking cure, namely, with the effect of diluted sea water. In Germany up until that time, the question of undiluted sea water had not been dealt with. The work of Fall, Altment, and Cawndy, who were British, came to my knowledge also in the course of this war studied the introduction of sea water into the body through the rectum; taking their cure from an old rumor that applying the sea water in this way the body would absorb only the water, but not the salt. Later I read to my reassurance in English publications that this had not been a negligence on my part but that at that time no work, in this direction had been done.
Q. In this connection, Mr. President, I should like to put in a few documents, one of them is an affidavit of a physician Dr. Orthner, document book I, page 92, document No. 23; this will be exhibit No. 9. I shall read only very brief passages from this document. On the second page, at the top i. e. page 93 and at the bottom of the page:
"In any case, I know very well that he used the two or throe weeks ho spent waiting in Berlin for zealously consulting the libraries in order to gather still more accurate knowledge regarding the pertinent questions. I recall this so well, because I was then detached to the forensic Institute in Berlin, and procured from my chief at that time the permission for him to use our library. But he also often consulted clinics and other institutes for the same purpose, though he, at that time still hoped that he could get away from that assignment."
Then I should like to read from the top of the same page:
"B. quite frankly told me his point of view, that he not only thought such experiments unsuitable in a concentration camp but particularly also had strong weighty doubts, though he had been assured that only volunteers would be used. But he, who on principle was against concentration camps nevertheless wanted to have nothing to do with them."
THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished reading from that document?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The court will now be in recess until 1:30. (Thereupon a recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 6 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
WILHELM BEIGLBOECK - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. STEINBAUER (Counsel for the defendant Beiglboeck):
Q. Witness, last we discussed that in American literature very little was contained about making sea water potable -
Concerning this chapter, I should like to submit Document Number 21, Exhibit Number 10, pages 73 to 89. That is a scientific study by a Mr. Labell who is a member of the British Medical Research Council. He wrote a study concerning reaction after drinking small quantities of sea water.
A. First, I should not like to read anything from this document but I shall refer to it later. I should like to deal with another question. In this study it is very clearly expressed that up to the year 1944 in medical literature nothing was systematically known about the results, the reaction of sea water.
Q. Since you mentioned this, I should like to Qualify that. It can be found on page 73. There it says, "During the last year work has been carried out in the laboratory, for the Medical Research Council's committee on the care of shipwrecked personnel (MRC War Memorandum No. 8), on the psychology of subjects receiving the same food and water as shipwrecked men in lifeboats."
On page 13 - in my document book on page 85 - Labell says and unfortunately I cannot bring him here because he happens to be in Africa now, in Liberia - he says:
"No references have been found in the literature to the physiological effects of drinking sea water but the effect of rectal instillation has been examined in some detail. Experiments have been reported by Foy, Altmann, and Kondi (1942) on this subject, and Bradish and his colleagues (1942) followed the effect of instillation of sea water not only into the rectum but also up into the colon."
To elucidate this, I should like to say that rectum is the anus and colon is the wider part of the anus.
To return to our experiments, you described that immediately after being informed about the order you asked not to be sent to a concentration camp in order to carry out these experiments there. Why were you so much against it, carrying out these experiments there?
A. I had not so much an objection to carry out the experiments but I was against the fact that these experiments should be carried out in a concentration camp. If these experiments had become necessary, I wanted to carry them out in a hospital or in a clinic.
Q. Did you know about these conditions in concentration camps so that you were against them?
A. I did not know any more about concentration camps at that time than that they existed, that it was an institution where political and criminal prisoners were kept. As to what actually occurred behind that barbed wire enclosure, that I only read after the war in the newspapers and the real insight I gained only through this trial. You think it is ridiculous that I say that, and incredible, but although I myself worked at the time in a concentration camp it was also under these circumstances that I had no opportunity of any kind to look behind the scene. The objections I had at that time against the concentration camp was based upon a feeling of some sort which was caused primarily by the fact that it was known to me from the Austrian press before the Anschluss that strict rules and regulations apparently did not exist for that institution.
In the Austrian newspapers at that time I could frequently read that the treatment of inmates was bad. Occasionally there were reports about causalities that had occurred, and one said afterwards that these people had been shot while trying to escape. Of course, those were newspaper reports and nobody, not even in Austria, had an opportunity to make sure whether they were correct. Added to that was the fact that gradually the news stopped in the Austrian press.
The Austrian newspapers gradually took up a more defensive position in their propaganda and in 1938, after the Anschluss had been effected, all news about concentration camps ceased to be published and whatever had been reported in Austrian newspapers was described as an invention and malicious propaganda.
Then in 1941 I became a soldier. Most of the time I was at the front for a long time, a longer period in Russia; there of course, one did not hear anything at all about such matters apart from the fact that our duties as physicians consumed so much of our time, that beyond that we hardly had any opportunity to think about anything else.
Q. Mr. President, in connection with this fact, may I refer again to the affidavit by Dr. Orthner, document book I, page 94, on the bottom of the page. Dr. Orthner says:
"If I said that Beiglboeck objected on principle to the selection of a concentration camp as site for the experiments, then it is to be attributed to the fact that he is an idealist throughout, and, on his part, would have rejected every forcible method and every arbitrary action. Especially characteristic of this seems to be the fact that he told me of examples, with which irresponsible 'generosity' the detention in the concentration camp was ordered. I recall that he particularly referred to the medical students who were allocated as prisoners to him for assistance."
Since I have just mentioned the word "prisoner" I should like to ask you, witness, was it your opinion that no experiments should be made on prisoners?
A. That is a question which is very hard to answer, and a question which was also discussed time and again by my teachers. Of course, from medical literature I knew that such experiments on inmates were frequently made. I know, of course, the world famous Plague experiments, the famous Leper experiments by Arning; and from dealing with vitamin research, I knew of experiments with Beri-beri and Pellagra; and I knew from dealing with liver Pathology, liver research, that in the year 1936, eleven criminals who had been sentenced to death were used fur experiments in order to test the reaction of a Liver poison.
In Vienna we were also somewhat opposed to experiments with prisoners. I remember in talking, that my teacher Kossweg, also violently rejected that idea. On the other hand, one has to admit, of course, that certain problems of medicine which are of utmost importance under certain circumstances require an experiment on human beings, which of course, entails a great risk.
I believe, therefore, that it is extremely difficult to obtain an attitude hero which would be decisive, and sonce there are no regulations by law, it is probably true that the research man who, with the authorization granted him by the leadership of state, is given the possibility, to make such experiments, has to do that on his own responsibility, and to decide on his own how far this was compatible with his ethical attitude as a physician. I, on my part, was exposed to it in my inner most fooling. And the attempt to got away from these experiments was made by me, based on my innermost feelings against it, and I certainly suffered when I realized that was not possible for me to do. But, I received absolute assurance that the experiment exclusively would be made on volunteer subjects, and since, on the whole, these were experiments, which, if conducted correctly would not entail danger of life and that together with the assurance that I would get voluntary subjects, gave me the pre-requisite that I did not refuse to carry out an order, an order which I could only have refused in a manner which would have the most serious consequences for myself and my family.
Q. Let us deal further with the question of voluntary subjects. Who was it that told you that these subjects were all volunteers?
A. That I would get volunteers for these experiments, that I was told on the occasion of the first conference with Dr. Becker-Freyseng. He assured mo of that. In order to give me further assurance on that point, immediately after arriving at Dacnau I asked whether those conditions would be kept. Dr. Bloegener, at that time, before witnesses, assured mo that voluntary subjects would be used for mo experiments. When I reported to the adjutant of the camp commandant, I raised the question again and I had him assure mo also once more that there would be voluntary subjects. When the experimental subjects arrived at Dachau a Sturmbannfuehrer of the SS arrived together with them, who apparently had accompanied that transport. asked him again if these people volunteered, he confirmed that again to me. He also stated that certain advantages had bean promised them, and when this Sturmbannfuehrer left I asked my experimental subjects whether it was true that they had volunteered, and they affirmed that. At that time I had no reason at all to doubt that this information was accurate. Superiors of my office of the SS, and the experimental subjects, themselves, confirmed it and I cannot see what else I should have done in order to make more certain ab at that fact. It became quite obvious to me that now in the year 1947, a statement on my part, that one had voluntary subjects sounds entirely different that I had to understand it in 1944. I was never accustomed to be told by any officers of the armed forces of any branch of the armed forces, upon a question which I had put to him, anything which was not according to facts.
At any rate as far as I was concerned I had reason to be convinced, absolutely convinced, and I was convinced that I had voluntary subjects in front of me. Apart from that it did not seem incredible or improbable to me at all that somebody would volunteer for an experiment cf the kind as I intended to carry out if on the other hand certain advantages were offered. At any rate it is quite clear to me that even soldiers of the armed forces would have volunteered in order to gain certain advantages. Beyond that, of course, I realized that one could not make a camp risen here but if the soldiers volunteered for Dr. Sirany, they certainly did not do that because in the service of science they intended to make certain personal sacrifices. They did it because they obtained other advantages in exchange. And furthermore, they did it because a private first class, if he is asked by an oberst, "do you want to take pert in an experiment for me", he certainly will answer "yes sir". That, of course, is to some extent a limited volunteer, and that this fact of a relatively limited manner of volunteering also applied to the prisoners I had no doubt. That precisely was the reason why I did not want to have any prisoners as experimental subjects.
Q. Witness, were you told, were you ordered to find out about that at Dachau?
A. I did not receive any specific order of that kind, that probably can been seen from the entire discussion with Dr. Becker-Freyseng. I had a definite impression that he also was convinced that the experimental subjects had volunteered for the experiments. I made these inquiries in Dachau on my own because it seemed to me to be a matter of course and for reasons which are to be understood on the basis of the explanations I have given just before.
Q. Did you have influence at all in the selection of the place where the experiments were to take place?
A. No, in no manner at all. I have stated already that everything concerning these experiments, everything down to the last detail of their execution, was stipulated before I was ever ordered to take part in them.
Q. Did you have influence in the selection of the experimental subjects?
A. No, I was told at the medical inspectorate that arrangements had been made with the SS and that the SS in accordance with these arrangements would supply the experimental subjects. I did not have to worry about that.
Q. Did you have the order to find out where the experimental subjects came from and what the specific circumstances and conditions were?
A. No, that also was neither a decision that I could have made, nor did the Luftwaffe.
Q. Did you know before that gypsies had been used?
A. The fact that gypsies were coming I only found out in Dachau by the Camp Commander.
Q. Who were those gypsies?
A. They were mostly half gypsy people who had gypsy blood but were not exactly what one would expect a gypsy to look like, a real Hungarian gypsy, say for instance. They were not pure gypsies. The color of the insignia they had to wear was black. The Sturmbannfuehrer who brought them, said that they were asocial elements and added that for various offenses they had previous criminal records. Thereupon I asked him for what kind of offenses, and he said their records had not been forwarded, but I could rely upon it, and on that occasion he also told me because I had gained the impression that possibly the fact of their descent was the cause for their arrest and their imprisonment, he told me that gypsies were no more kept in the concentration camps on account of their descent or belonging to that race that had been the case previously, and then they were wearing a brown sleeve insignia, and that only these were still interned who were put in the category of an asocial and allegedly came from such families. I should, therefore, like to emphasize that I had no possibility to check on their records and I had relied upon what that man has told me.