The temperature remains normal on the whole. Small variations of 37.3 to 37.5 can be observed in individual cases. There is constipation as is a typical symptom reported from cases of distress at sea. The drying of the palate makes a dry cough in some cases. For the first 2-3- days sleeping is still possible. Then it becomes interrupted and is an interrupted sleep but there is a short period of sleep and then awakening. And, therefore the subjects are sleeping almost somnolent during the day. This condition of dehydration has been described frequently. This occurred in the same way in all the groups which went without water.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, the Tribunal will be in recess for a few moments.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will be in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
(Thereupon a recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 9 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
WILHELM BEIGLBOECK - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. STEINBAUER:
Q. Professor, how long did the experiments last?
A. That differed considerably. I said already that the group who received the de-salted sea water was in an experiment for eleven to twelve days. The thirst group remained in the experiment four up to six and a half, that is, up to the seventh day. The two people who remained in the experiment for six and half days had, as calculations showed, apparently drunk some fresh water in between. Of the group who drank a thousand cubic centimeters of sea water none showed results that were without doubt. Four of them must have drunk relatively small amounts of fresh water. They remained for four or five days in the experiment. Of the others who drank a large amount of fresh water, some by the liter, as we could calculate later on, most remained in the experiment six and seven days with the exceptional eight days and one, I believe, even nine days. In this case it was especially difficult to recognize immediately that he had taken in water and that for the following reason:
When I noticed for the first time by the amount of urine that the experimental subject had drunk water, because the amount of urine had, of course, increased, I reproached him about that. Thereupon, they adopted the trick to throw away half of the urine that they eliminated in order to deceive me in that manner. Through that I was caused to draw a wrong conclusion. In the examination of the urine it showed now that relatively small amounts of salt were eliminated. Thus I was of the opinion that salt was kept in the body and in that way water was saved.
In these cases, of course, the loss of body weight was small. It stayed the same. There was even sometimes a temporary increase in weight. In this case the condition of losing weight was stopped by this means and was made up again and also the experimental subjects felt fine and they did not show an increase or even showed a lessening of the dehydration symptoms.
After the event, of course, it is easy to say one should have noticed immediately all of that, but in the middle of the experiment it was not so simple as all that, especially since we were dealing with a preparation, the effects of which had not been clarified yet entirely, and one was not quite sure that an unsuspected effect of this preparation might appear. This experiment put us in a very difficult position in judging it and several times one could almost despair, especially because it was so difficult to prove that these people had taken in fresh water and because it was so difficult to get the experimental subjects to confess. The means by which they obtained water were, of course, many fold and everybody in the surroundings was helpful. Therefore, this experiment, at least for a large part of the sea water group, was to be regarded as a complete failure. Our fight against this constant drinking of water was a difficult one, not because I had perhaps not understood that a person if he is thirsty obtains water, but what I wanted to achieve was that these people should have honestly come to me and said, "I just couldn't stand it any more. Last night I drank a liter of water." Everything would have been all right and quite simple; it is quite clear that sea water makes you thirsty and that, therefore, the group with the thousand cubic centimeters of water, of course, was subject to this temptation the most.
On the other hand, the group with five hundred cubic centimeters of sea water, to a relatively large extent, yielded at least a useful result. There are some among them who certainly did not drink anything on the side and some who drank very little. They remained in the experiment five to six days. Those who had obtained fresh water remained seven, eight, or, a few of them, even nine days in the experiment.
Of all the groups that of the five hundred cubic centimeters of sea water was in the best situation because their loss of body weight was the lowest and there was hardly any experimental subject in this group who reached the limit of ten percent. The loss varied according to the manner of conducting the experiment from four percent to eight percent. Some of them drank so much fresh water that they were balanced at the end of the experiment and had the same water content as at the beginning of the experiment. In the two most difficult groups, in the thirst group and in the thousand cubic centimeters of sea water group, too, no one exceeded the limit of ten percent to, at the most, twelve percent of loss.
Thus, not a single experiment is included which advanced into the zone where one can really consider damage to the health of the subject. I made these calculations very carefully and I believe that for the manner in which they were made that I can take the responsibility before any scientist. I am convinced that the dehydration did not reach any dangerous extent in the case of any one of my experimental subjects.
Q. These last remarks you could repeat with express reference to your oath which you have sworn?
A. Yes, I can do so. As I have already stated, I made the calculations in such a way that I worked out the loss which came about through fasting with special consideration of the water balance of the Schaefer group. What remains is the water loss and that loss of water was calculated by me and in no case, as I said, did it amount to more than twelve percent. Thus, to the best of my knowledge and my conscience, did I calculates it and state it according to the truth.
Q. In the case of those experimental subjects, after the drinking of sea water, did they get diarrhea?
A No, not in a single case. On the contrary it was noticeable that practically all of the experimental persons were strongly constipated.
Q But Dr. Schaeffer reports that in Dr. Sirany's experiments diarrhea was observed.
A The difference between Sirany's experiments and my experiments was the following: The experimental subjects used by Sirany could drink sea water just as they liked and some of them drank large amounts at one time and that is at a time when the body still had sufficient water. Taken in such amounts the sea water has the effect of causing diarrhea. In our experiments, the experimental subjects received sea water in small amounts of 100 to 200 cubic centimeters per dosage, five times a day. The witness Pillwein has stated in the affidavit which the Prosecution has submitted as Exhibit No. 140, if I am not mistaken, in his statement of the 13 March 1946, stated before the Vienna police as follows: The participants were moreover in addition given daily four to five times a day salt water in amounts of one half to one quart all together. This shows that the amounts were not larger than 100 to 200 cubic centimeters per day. From the experiments undertaken by the Englishman Hay from the year 1884, it is known already that the salts which cause diarrhea, if one is in a state of dehydration already, do not have that effect any more, but in the case a stubborn constipation appears. Moreover, Sirany used water from the Adriatic which had not been examined bacteriologically and ours was guaranteed to be free of germs.
Q In the case of your experimental subjects, did they get fever?
A The highest temperatures which I saw in the sea water cases were around 37.5 centigrade, only on two cases immediately after the intravenous injection of hypertonic sugar solution on salt solution, there was a short rise in temperature, an occurrence which otherwise in practice is quite frequent after intravenous injections, but that is not the effect of sea water but the effect of intravenous injections of liquid that appears in every tenth or twentieth patient, and it is a short rise of temperature which lasts for about an hour and then it subsides again, but as to sea water itself nobody could get any fever from it.
Q What was the degree of temperature?
A I already said that they did not go above 37.5.
Q Why then according to statements of witnesses, were those patients delirious with fever, the experimental subjects?
A Normally there was a delirium from fever if a patient has a 41 degree temperature, over 100, but where it is 37.5 or even less, one cannot have a delirium from the fever. Such testimony is a shame for the witness, otherwise there was also no delirium in any case, not in a single case, the delirium which usually comes more from drinking than from thirst after the drinking of sea water, can be observed once in a while in the most rare cases, but in such a degree of dehydration as occurred in my experiments they are not possible and actually they never occurred.
Q Witness, how did the ending, the interruption of the experiments occur?
A I either discontinued the experiments by the intravenous injection of liquid, or in the thirst group, I gave them a solution of salt, light hypertonic salt solution, because causes the salt solutions to remain in the body longer than water and therefore, the body depots are filled up with a more lasting effect. In the sea water group I either only gave sugar solution or sugar solution mixed with hypertonic salt solution, and that is the reason why some individuals from that group had eliminated more salt than they had received, which was unusual, so that inducing small amount of salt could be undertaken here and regarded as useful. A large number of the experimental subjects, at the moment I cannot remember their number, discontinued the experiment, simply by drinking water or milk.
In the intravenous administration of a liquid, I sometimes administered some calcium.
Q For what purpose did you add the calcium?
A One knows from results of experiments that through administration of salt over an extended period calcium is eliminated from the blood and in order to prevent such a loss or salt or lowering of the salt content, I added some calcium.
Q Witness, what was the effect of these injections or the drinking of water?
A The effect was extra ordinarily impressive. If, in the case of the intravenous injection, one injected about 150 to 200 cubic centimeters, the feeling of thirst stopped already, and the entire appearance was, after about one quart of liquid had been administered, changed strikingly. It is true that the thirsting person through his loss of water, looks bad, his eyes are sunken in. This and a certain lassitude and a fatigue, lassitude in the muscles, was strikingly ended with the injections. I know that only with the giving of sugar and other insulin shots I noticed such a quick effect.
Q Now I have to tell you that the witness Bauer, in the exhibit which was not given under oath, testified exhibit No. 138, that the interruption took place always only when the experimental subjects were already in agony. What do you have to say to that?
A The witness Bauer was perhaps three times at the most, for perhaps half an hour, at my station. He himself has said in his statement that the experiments lasted four to six days, at the time when he was there, there was at most only 500 cc of sea water in the experiment, and after this amount had been administered nobody is in agony after 6 days. That does not exist. I know the witness Bauer and I am convinced of nothing more than that he doesn't know at all what agony is, but a lay person of course, likes to throw about medical terms. What did occur in the experimental person was a so-called apathy, a certain somnolence, what is called sleepiness, but what one means by agony, death agony, one means the condition of somebody shortly before dying in his last moments, and now the witness Bauer said after the injection of the serum, as he expresses it, the experimental subject revived, all of them, so it is a considerable medical achievement if one can recall forty people from the last gasp.
Q The witness Bauer, who is a business man in a civilian profession, says further that he saw symptoms of heart weakness. What do you say about that?
A The witness Bauer developed the electro cardiograms which I took. He developed the films. I suppose that on that opportunity he also examined them like an expert. What occurred in the case of the experimental subjects was a slowing down of the pulse. This is called in German medical literature "Schonstellung", it is a protective position of the blood circulation. This is supposed to express that through the slowing up of the heart beat as in the case of any case of deficiency, as in the case of hunger a certain economic using up, that is a quieting down of the circulation results. This theory I believe is the correct one but not the one that Herr Bauer accepted.
Q. Now the same witness says that many of them get rabies and similar things?
A. There was no case of rabies, not a single one. The case of rabies has not been described in literature about sea distresses or later depressive conditions. In healthy persons psychiatric symptoms do not belong among the symptoms of thirst but there is a certain nervousness and excitableness as in any condition of deficiency. Those are all part of the thirsty person's reaction.
One single time it happened that one of the experimental subjects went to the male nurse and cried for water. I was in the adjoining room and I heard these loud voices so I came cut and asked what was going on. I was afraid that in his nervous condition the person would perhaps continue to scream. I asked him to return to his bed and with the held of a linen bandage let him be fastened and asked for the termination of the experiment, which took place in a few moments. The experimental subject remained in bed absolutely quiet and he was told by me that the experiment would then be terminated. I said nothing more and he waited quietly until the injection was prepared. From this incident, which from a medical point of view, was quite insignificant, the case of madness was made out of that. In this case of madness, finally it has been said that I had the person tied to his bed as a punishment. Such an extraordinary statement shows, how one can distort facts which are quite insignificant and how they can be misinterpreted to have motives of ill will.
Q. Were there any other incidents which occurred during the experiments?
A. Otherwise I only experienced cramps in the muscles which lasted for a short period. They are called tetanoid or tetanorphous attacks, which can be observed in any case of deficiency of water, which are conditioned by the drawing of water out of the muscles.
In this case I immediately discontinued the experiment by means of an injection of calcium and immediately achieved that the cramps stopped and immediately achieved the restoration of a completely normal feeling. From that incident the famous crying attacks were developed and the so-called tetanoid attack, a relatively frequent happening. There are people who can bring it about on purpose if they breath quickly. This attack can be controlled with certainty immediately with calcium. We experienced it quite frequently in our practice and I never saw any damaging effects from it. How such an attack looks may perhaps be seem from the picture which I had made up in order to show how it looks.
DR. STEINBAUER: Your Honor, I would like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the picture from the famous text book, it is a photostat of the picture of the famous text of a tetanoid attack. I am only submitting the photograph, I give this picture the title "tetanoid picture" No. 17, that is exhibit No. 17. It is referred to in Document Book 2, under Document No. 35.
THE WITNESS: This manner of cramps shown in the picture, that shows how these crying attacks look.
MR. HARDY: Has Dr. Steinbauer as yet introduced Document No. 35?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: That Document has not been introduced in evidence.
MR. HARDY: I am not aware that it has, Your Honor. This apparently is a supplement to Document No. 35; is that correct?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
MR. HARDY: Do you at this time propose to introduce this? May I ask the defense counsel to explain just what Document No. 35 is. In this document book I have a copy of the picture but if it refers to the weight table, I do not have that.
DR. STEINBAUER: This is to explain to the Court in the form of a picture how such a tetanus cramp looks. It is unnecessary that an expert description of tetany be made, it is altogether unimportant in itself; it is important only because the witness for the prosecution emphasizes it.
MR. HARDY: Is it an extract of Exhibit 17, Your Honor?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel do you now offer your Document No. 35 in evidence?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, Your Honor, It is only the picture to illustrate to the court how such a tetanus cramp looks.
MR. HARDY: I have it straightened out. The picture is the exhibit and not a supplement in the document book. I did not have a copy of the picture and I thought it was a supplement. I don't see the materiality of the document, but I won't object to it.
DR. STEINBAUER: May I continue, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: You give this No. 17?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, your Honor, No. 17.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel may proceed.
BY DR. STEINBAUER:
Q. Witness, what would have happened if such an incident had occurred when you were outside of the camp at your own quarters?
A. During the day I was practically all the time at this experimental station or in the adjoining laboratory. And, during the night there was a night service. There was always a medical non-com there who was on duty during the night. In the plan which I explained before it is shown that the medical students had their room next door to the experimental room. That is, they were available at any time when anything was needed. Certainly I could be reached by telephone from there. I had given strict orders that I must be called at any time if anything unusual should occur and I could be in the experimental room in a few minutes from my own quarters. Every day I myself paid my night visit about 11 O'clock. And, I believe that I saw to it that everything was taken care of for the night that could be taken care of in advance.
Q. Witness, the witness Tschofenig tells us now that the experimental subjects were so thirsty that they even drand the water out of the pails that were used for cleaning.
A. I believe that the experimental subjects had so much opportunity as has been shown to obtain water by other means that they did not have to use the pails that were used for cleaning. Moreover they could drink out of the pails only at a moment when there happened to be nobody to supervise them or guard them and I don't believe in such cases they would have waited until the water was dirty and moreover that they drank out of such pails I think impossible because I had issued a strict prohibition that no water should be carried into the experimental room.
I do not believe that this ever happened either. If, however, it did happen it was a strict violation of my order. If I had seen it I would have held the person responsible.
Q. Tschofenig, who was far away at his x-ray station, not at the experimental station, continues to say that you withdrew large amounts of blood out of people that damaged them. What do you say about that?
A. The amount of blood which we needed for our chemical determinations amounted to about 10 cc per day. And they were not even taken every day. I do not believe that anyone of my experimental subjects had more than about 150 cubic cm. of blood taken out of them before and during the experimental period. If somebody gives blood he gives 500 to 600 cc of blood at one time. And I myself gave blood during this war at least five or six times and I knew that even such a large amount is of no significance, much less can 10 cc per day have an influence on the health. We cannot talk here about large amounts of blood at all and if Tschofenig states that the taking of the blood was done in am unscientific manner I can only say that it was done almost exclusively by myself. Only in very few cases did one of the French medical students take the blood under my supervision. I myself had experience in clinics for about 15 years prior to that and I hope that during that time I reached the place that I could take blood tests in a scientific and correct manner.
Q. You are also supposed to have carried out liver punctures uninterruptedly.
A. These liver punctures have the following history. In the case of some experimental subjects as it became evident later on after the drinking of water there was a temporary enlarging of the liver When Eppinger was there I showed this to him and Eppinger thereupon told me to puncture the liver in order to be able to exclude the possibility that through the addition of salt in the case of a different amount of water there were any changes in the liver. On his or der I carried out some liver punctures at that time.
I believe there were about 8 or 10 and I did it by the method which was practiced for years at the clinic and which I knew very well. During my life I carried out about, let us say about 100 liver punctures already. The method is absolutely not dangerous if it is carried out correctly and it is also absolutely painless.
Q. Now Tschofenig says further--"As it was the case in other experimental stations Beiglboock too transferred prisoners to the regular hospital in order to veil the figures of death cases." I ask you now, did you transfer experimental subjects during the experiments to the regular hospital?
A. Not a single one of my experimental subjects was transferred to the regular hospital during the experiment. I have already told that during the preliminary period to the experiments one experimental subject fell ill with fever, that is in the preliminary part when the experiments weren't in process yet and that I transferred this person to the hospital. That was the only case which was transferred at all from my station from the beginning of the preliminary period. Tschofenig does not seem to know what thirst means. Otherwise he would know that it would be absolutely senseless to transfer somebody who is thirsting to another hospital in order to veil the bad condition because while one is thirsting there are only two things to do, either you let them die from thirst or you administer liquid to him and then he recovers. And giving him liquid if such a condition had occurred at any time I would have given him liquid and I wouldn't have undertaken any long transports because that wouldn't have made any sense. But, not a single one was transferred and this one transfer at the beginning, that is the first elimination of people whom I did not keep at all in my station, during the preliminary examination-these persons were not my experimental subjects but they were sick prisoners whose illness I discovered whose treatment I initiated and who were never included in my experiments.
It happened in the interest of those prisoners that their illness was treated. Here again that was an action on my part which was necessary from a medical point of view and which had nothing to do at all with my experiments and which then was made the basis for such misinterpretation. And the witness Pillwein who during the whole time during the experiments was at my experimental station and whose testimony the Prosecutor read to Dr. Schaefer says in his statement before the Vienna Police, Exhibit No 140 of the Prosecution Exhibits says the followings: "From other experimental stations I know from hear say that many cases of death occurred. However, one practices in the following manner. The patients were in a very weakened and damaged condition and were transferred to the regular hospital where they died after a short period of time. Details about this could give a former co-prisoner Stohr. From this formulation it is shown unequivocally that the witness is speaking about transfers to regular hospital which occurred in other stations. This formulation is so clear that it cannot be mixed up with my experimental station at all. When I concluded the experiments, I still retained the experimental subjects in my station so that the second group was also observed afterwards for at least 10 days the first experimental group for 16-17 days. Then I required of the chief physician of the hospital as well as the camp officer that these people would not be allowed to work for another 14 days and that they would receive additional food rations even though the majority of them had reached again their original weight and in part had even exceeded that. I was assured of this quite certainly and at that time I absolutely thought that this promise would be kept.
Q. Witness, otherwise you also did something on behalf of the prisoners, you already mentioned cigarettes, and now this, did you do anything else for the prisoners?
A. I tried whatever I could do. Of course, I was a foreigner, and an outsider after all and had no influence myself but among the group there were some who had served in the Air Force, one of them had even received the iron cross decoration.
I called the attention to these people expressly and asked that the reason for their being kept in detention should be reexamined. This, too, was promised at that time. On that occasion I found out or rather I was told or assured that these people were not kept in the concentration camp because they were gypsies but because they were asocial or members of asocial families. I want to emphasize again that I had no opportunity to examine the files of these people and in that respect I had to relie upon what was being told there. Today here I do not want to characterize these experimental subjects as something possibly they were not. At that time, of course, I relied upon it that things were as I was told but now I have heard such things that now I could not guarantee if this was how the conditions actually were. Furthermore I have already mentioned that two of my experimental subjects had so-called escape insignia. After the conclusion of the experiments I went and said that they had reported to the experiments under conditions that this escape point would be taken away from them. Thereupon I was promised that the escape insignia would be removed and I now heard with pleasure that this actually happened. One of the prisoners requested that I do somethingthat his hair be cut. I should have thought it ridiculous to mention the thing here if the witness Horn had not testified as to how difficult it was to get something like this accomplished. I succeeded in that too. Furthermore, in regard to the French medical students who were working for me I spoke on their behalf and I saw that they were removed from the lavor companies and were employed in the hospital. For them, of course that was a considerable alleviation first because it is more pleasant for a medical man to be able to work in his own profession, secondly because in the hospital they had quite different lodging, quite different food, and quite different work. I also tried in the case of two to get it through that their cases be ex amined.
but I was refused and that was pointed out to me that in cases of these medical students we were concerned with political prisoners and therefore examination of their files was without any hope. One has to consider that I as a member of the Luftwaffe was nothing but an outsider and was there as a guest who had nothing to say, no influence, who didn't know anything about concentration camps either. There was nothing in my power but the ability to make requests that my experimental subjects and the prisoners who were working for me be given those alieviations which they had asked for and I saw to it that this was done. That was all that I was able to do. I could not do more and it was not in my power to do any more.
Q. In the Pillwein affidavit, exhibit 140, an incident is mentioned that you gave up a Yugoslavia medical student from your medical station; what was that about?
A. It is true that this Yugoslavia medical student had volunteered to work with me. I asked him whether he was acquainted with laboratory methods and blood examinations and when he said, yes, I took him on. I discovered that he was not capable of doing these things; therefore, I assigned him to the night service, and after the first time, I discovered that he had slept all night. In every hospital a nurse who sleeps at night, ignoring the people who are entrusted to his care, is called to account, but I only said to him that was impossible; if he was assigned to night service he had to stay awake. Two days later I came to the station at midnight to inquire, to see how the experimental subjects were getting along. He was on night duty again, and was somewhere in the hospital, but he was not where he was supposed to be; thereupon, I asked that he be exchanged for another medical student. This Yugoslavian medical student was not punished. He was assigned to another part of the hospital I do not believe that I did anything inhumane there.
Q. Professor, the nurse Max, was mentioned by the Prosecution. What do you have to say about that?
A. One day during the preliminary period of the experiments when the people were given the Luftwaffe rations, I came to the station one day, and I was told by the Gypsies that they had had a discussion with this male nurse. They complained, they said, that he did not give them the food they were supposed to get. The nurse Max, said that the Gypsies had beaten him, and the Gypsies said that he was always brutal with them.
I investigated the matter and found out that this nurse had given part of the food to someone else, not to the experimental subjects. I demanded that he be exchanged. The witness Viehweg testified he was sent back to his former station. He was not punished in any way; and he was replaced, from that time on there were no longer riots any more.
Even at the time when there really was hunger. This first incident occurred when the experimental subjects were supposed to be getting 4000 calories a day.
Q. Witness, now I am coming to the most serious charge which the Prosecution has raised against you; that is, that in these experiments you had death cases. I should like to refer you to the testimony of August Viehweg. I should like to remind the Tribunal of document 24, from document book V of the defendant Ruff, which was submitted by my colleague, Dr. Sauter. This file shows that this Prosecution witness, aside from the five years penitentiary sentence, which he admitted, had a number of sentences, five sentences before the one which he mentioned. The witness said on the 31th of December 1946; "Two or three times I believe I can remember that the stretcher was carried out with a cloth over it, and they were taken to the mortuary," He was examined by Mr. Hardy on page 472 of the record, where he repeatedly said that there were two or three cases which were taken to the Mortuary, and when I questioned him, on page 499 of the German record, he said: "I can remember from my own observation having seen that people were taken down the road from the station to the mortuary."