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.
I had also received the assignment or rather the explanation of the instructions that I was not to interest myself into any other problems of the concentration camps that had nothing to do with the carrying out of the experiments and the fact that my own interests were in that direction, and the assignment made it much easier for me that I had to worry about nothing else than my experimental place. I, therefore, do not feel that I am responsible either for the selection of the place where the experiments were carried out nor for the selection of those persons who were used.
Q. President, in this connection I should like to refer to the document produced by the Prosecution, No. 179, from the sea water document bock No. 5, where SS Gruppenfuehrer Neber stales specifically about the experimental subjects, that a social gypsies, which is very important for us, had to be healthy. These two terms I should like to derive from that document -- asocial and healthy; that the asocials actually had to wear a black triangle and not a brown one. With the permission of the Prosecutor, I should like to show to the Court from the Kogan Bock, -- I could not have photostats made, because of course those colors would not come out, -- but if the court desires to look at it it can be seen that there is a difference between the brown triangle for gypsies and the black triangle for an asocial. Unfortunately , I have only one copy. Therefore, I cannot submits it in evidence, but only show it for illustration purposes.
THE PRESIDENT: In this instance if defense counsel would prepare a paper containing these triangles and simply describe the colors, write in the colors, the free first, red with F and red with S and next the Jewish sign, a yellow triangle with red triangle reversed over it, just describe them in color.
MR. HARDY: May I ask defense counsel what his purpose is in introducing these various triangles. It seems to me they were elaborately described by the testimony of Kogan when he was here on the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel explained that he desired to call the attention of the Tribunal to the difference between the brown and black and the Tribunal observed the difference in color.
DR. STEINBAUER: May I elucidate briefly upon the objection made by the Prosecutor. My client is charged with having committed crimes against humanity. Control Council Law No, 10 unfortunately does not contain a definition of crimes against humanity. It seems there is also little domestic and foreign, particularly American, literature concerning the term "crimes against humanity" or that can be found, but it has to be persecution against people for political or racial reasons. Therefore, I want to say that we are not dealing with racial persecution, but those are people who for other reasons have been in the concentration camps, and therefore would have the insignia of those persecuted for reasons of their race, but not of those who are persecuted because they were considered asocial. I will repeat that later. I just want to submit it to the Court now to support what I have said.
THE PRESIDENT: Would counsel explain to the Tribunal your understanding of the word "asocial." Proceed, counsel . --
DR. STEINBAUER: "Asocial" is a term, the concept of which is very well known even in the United States, particularly in the United States and that agrees completely with our concept as far as I know it from European literature. The method applied in the Third Reich, of course, went much further in applying that term "asocial" than we used to do it. I want to put the same question to my client, since he can answer it from the medical point of view, but since the Court asked me about it, I want to state frankly and openly that in the Third Reich , of course, that term was applied in the much wider sense than we know it from the American end French law. Incidentally I have here the Austrian book about concentration camps which I really originally intended to submit but I did not want to drag the name of Christ into these proceedings.
The book was written by a Catholic Priest who was here in the concentration camp Buchenwald and today he is a Pryor at Salzburg. About the Asocials at Buchenwald those asocials who were my subject persons he says, the rest of them were mixed from the harmless pauper up to the dangerous vagrant. They wore the black triangle of an asocial. The numerous Jews were marked by the yellow Davis star with differences made between political and asocial inmates. That can also be seen in fact from the color scheme of Kogan's book where he also had added the Star of David to the Jewish asocial insignia.
With the permission of the Court I should like to ask my defendant, now would you like to answer the question from your point of view.
THE PRESIDENTS: Before inquiring of the witness as to what his idea is of the meaning of the word "asocial" the Tribunal would be very glad if you would explain your legalistic idea of the word "asocial".
DR. STEINBAUER: We designated as asocial, the person who consciously commits acts against human society and by these acts is asocial, an enemy to society, that is the concept we have. I believe in English it can be expressed by the terms, a-social is an enemy of society.
THE PRESIDENT: You can proceed with the examination.
JUDGE SEBRING: Under your view of the matter, is it your view that simply one isolated act of criminality might tend to bring a man into the category of asocial or do you understand by that classification that type of individual or class of individuals who constantly and persistently are guilty of anti-social conduct?
DR. STEINBAUER: Your Honor, if I may be permitted to tell you my opinion without that my colleage on the other side Mr. Hardy will use it against me, I wish to say that I personally am of the opinion that one offense never makes any person asocial, one violation of the law, but that particularly in the case of gypsies we are able to make the observation very frequently, that we are confronted there with real asocials; that is with people who resent with all force to be included in the normal process of work.
In studying the problem of the gypsies I came upon a book which rovers to that quality that asocial quality and I am also quoting from that book in my document book. It explaint to what extent the gypsies themselves have contributed to term, that concept of the gypsy plague. It is a book published by the Bavarian Government in 1905 and a similar book existed in Vienna, It is a hand book for the use of the police force in both countries in order to establish the citizenship, nationality, and family origin of the gypsies. Later I shall refer to that question again. It is important because Beiglboeck is not only charged with crimes against humanity, but also simultaneously for the same acts he is charged with war crimes and war crimes, in my opinion, can only be committed against Allied nationals. From that book, which I quoted in my document book, I should like to prove that it was just a asocial feature of the gypsies that at all times they deny their nationality, they deny their descent and just wander around.
I am submitting this as my opinion, however, not as the opinion of Beiglboeck, who might not have the same, in order to avoid any undue conclusion on the part of Hr. Hardy. I repeat, however, that the method of concentration carp administrations to consider people who were late for two days or three days, to consider these asocials, to denounce them and to send them into concentration camps that I consider a groat injustice.
Do you have that passage in the book?
Mr. President, for that purpose I refer to document book 2, page 106, document 28, which I should like to submit to the court as Exhibit 11. The original, which belongs to the University of Erlangen, and which I have to return, I have brought hero. The copy is certified by me and is on accurate copy of the original of this document. I should like to point out that I have copied page 5 which indicates where the Gypsies come from, secondly, their asocial activities, which have been termed the "Plague of the Gypsies" and that which seems to mo the most important and which I intend to road namely on page 2 the first and second paragraphs:
"The greatest difficulty arises in securing a census of gypsies. The majority of them make every effort to obscure their identity through false statements or through a pretense of ignorance..........
"The number of false census statements and official certificates on the parish register of births and deaths, made by the gypsies, is very extensive."
MR. HARDY: May I inquire of Counsel by introducing this document and by his statement he intends to snow the Tribunal that the word "asocial" in this connection means merely that a person may be asocial if he is a Gypsy?
DR. STEINBAUER: That would be absolutely wrong to be of that opinion. I only say persons who were supplied for the experiments had not boon brought to the concentration camps for racial reasons, but for reasons of being considered asocial, because as the witness Dorn said yesterday and this morning since 1942 there were no Gypsies persecuted on racial grounds for the simple reason that German laws as I shall describe in great detail in my trial brief, the gypsies are mentioned only twice in the law for the protection of the German race.
In 1942 Himmler who was very mystically inclined was made to believe that the gypsies were really the original type of the Indo-Germans, that they were descendants of the original Indo-Germans and are the pure Indo-Germans in Europe and they were therefore no longer sent to concentration camps, for racial reasons. Is that sufficient, Mr. Prosecutor?
MR. HARDY: On that basis, I must object to the document as being absolutely immaterial to this case.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is overruled, the document will be admitted.
JUDGE SEBRING: Dr. steinbauer, I understand also that generally there would be included within your concept of asocials; rogues, vagabonds, idlers, drifters, wanderers, and loafers who wander about the country side with no apparent home, respectable vocation or visible sources of livelyhood; is that the general concept?
DR. STEINBAUER: Well, that would mean a to narrow interpretation. Always, especially today, when there are millions of human beings who have lost their homes and have to wander around, that is not sufficient for vagrancy. We in Austria prosecute only those who are anti-social, the pimp for instance. Ho has his house, lives well and is still asocial.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel nay proceed.
BY DR. STEINBAUER:
Q. Witness, I should like to ask you what you as a physician, mean by or would understand by the term "asocial"?
A. As far as I have noticed as a layman in legal matters, there is no absolute legal definition for the term of an "asocial element", and if this was done around the conference table then, of course, we who are scientists cannot be blamed if we have even less definite interpretations or concepts of that term.
In our books on psychiatry where we discuss such matters the chapter on the question of "asocial" and "anti-social" elements is one of those most difficult to deal with. Speaking from the medical point of view, the term "asocial" would cover a person who in most cases has an inborn, sometimes here dietary defect of his ethical instincts; that is, a type who not by reasoning but on the basis of instinct cannot abide by prevailing rules and laws of society.
Furthermore, these people, of course, do not like to work, also one of the requirements of human society, and from these two roots for the individual there derives a vicious cycle. The more criminal he becomes, in the widest meaning of the word, the more he comes in conflict with human society, so society, of course, tries to counteract that. He considers this to be an injustice because he thinks that the demands of society are unjust and inapplicable. Therefore, he considers himself persecuted although innocent and continues to commit further violations against laws and regulations and that brings about the term of the "asocial" and "anti-social" as a sociologic term rather than a medical one. The physician is only interested in that certain inner defect, the lack of a natural, healthy sense of ethics and the fact that in many cases this is hereditary; and as birds of a feather flock together and as just the fact of vagrancy - that is the resentment against settling down, to the same extent as resentment against every type of compulsion belongs into that picture, it happens frequently that two asocials get married. Even more frequently they didn't get married but they have children together and that brings it about that asocial families, entire asocial families, come into existence and on these families studies have been made, especially in the United States, where as far as I know these studies have become very famous, and in these families one can find the entire scale of examples which we considered covered by the term "asocial". These families distinguish themselves in some cases only by hating to work.
Other members of the family are habitual thieves. A third category again may be vagrants. The fourth type may be real criminals all the way to the habitual criminal. Among the female members of these families prostitution is extremely widespread.
All that apparently comes from some psychological aberration which seems to be the clue to the reason why these inclinations show to a different extent in various families. Generally, resentment of every kind of authority is apparent. There are many among them who may have other defects of the intellect but also many who, apart from an ethical defect, have a greater or high degree of intelligence.
As far as I know - and I only know it from occasional reading of medical studies - in Germany especially the question of heredity of such instincts was greatly emphasized, purely from the medical point of view, but how the legal form was found that, of course, I could not say.
Q. Witness, now we can go on from the subject and I ask you after you received that order to carry out sea water experiments you went to Dachau?
A. Yes. When these experiments were supposed to start, I was ordered to go to Dachau and install the laboratory there for the experiments. Originally I had been promised that that would be necessary only to a very small extent because at Dachau there was an excellent and very extensive laboratory available. In fact, I did not find anything there which I could have used for that purpose and piece by piece, laboriously, I had to carry everything together. That was particularly difficult at that time because Munich, where it might have been possible to borrow equipment, was just at that time the subject of heavy air raids and from that smoking heap of rubble one could not get anything.
Q. Witness, what order did you get for the purpose of carrying out the experiments?
A. The order said that these experiments were to be carried out with the instructions that four different groups were to be included in the experiment: one group who were supposed to be starved end suffer from thirst, another group who received only sea water, and another group who were supposed to drink sea water together with the Berka preparation - that is, were given five hundred thousand cubic centimeters each because in the case of all of these groups one would have to count on a loss of water and all of them would be subjected to conditions of nourishment which were unusual. For the purpose of being able to decide how much water is lost, a group would have to be included also in the experiments who received a normal amount of liquid but who received the same solid food as the other groups, and, in regard to this group which was originally supposed to get ordinary drinking water, they later received the Schaefer water in order by that means to assure oneself once again that even in the practical use of this water no changes of any kind became apparent.
Furthermore, as I have already stated, I was instructed exactly what observations were to be made during these experiments and this was a rather extensive program which gave us a great deal of work for that period of time. Very extensive blood analysis were undertaken, not in regard to the amount of the blood but to determine the different constituents of the blood and very exact urinalyses were required so that we could make sure, to a very large extent, what effect the change of the water contents in the body would bring about. That is what I was told. I did not, however, the discussions of the 19th and 20th which have played such an important role here but I knew only the conference of the 25th and only to the extent to which I was concerned with it; namely, first, the unfortunate choice to confirm me as being in charge of the experiments and, secondly, the regulations which were adopted there for the execution of the experiments.
The purpose of the experiments was as follows: first, I was shown experiments carried on so far by Schaefer and Sirany and I also was given an opportunity to study the records of their experiments.