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."
"DR. STEINBAUER: Then, you were not positively told that these people had died?
"VIEHWEG: I cannot say that under oath. I do not know I don't remember exactly."
I want to remind you of your oath, witness. I ask you, did you have any death cases or do you believe that such were consequences of your experiments?
A. Not a single person died in these experiments. No one was harmed. All the experimental subjects were released by me in a satisfactory condition and with a weight corresponding to their original weight. I was not able to have any body covered with a cloth and taken to the mortuary because there were no bodies. Several times, however, I sent experimental subjects over to the X-ray room, and it is true that I had them covered because they had to pass water, and I didn't want these thirsty people to see water all the time. That is the explanation of these "dead persons". Moreover, some of the experimental subjects were carried out into the court yard so we could photograph them. The testimony of the witness Viehweg is definitely a mistake if it is not anything else.
Q Do you remember the witness Viehweg?
A I remember having seen him. I noticed him because all the nurses working in the hospital when I had seen before, and my medical students and-so-firth, had a red triangle. I noticed that there was one nurse there with a green triangle. I inquired about that green triangle and I was told that that was for criminals. I was told that this man had quite a past.
Q Did you ever see Professor Eppinger in Dachau during the experiments?
A. Yes, Eppinger was there once with Berka and looked at the experiments. He was there in the experimental room or the laboratory for about an hour.
Q But, the witness. Tschpfening, says that Eppinger was in Dachau earlier and took care of setting up the experimental station?
A According to what has been said in the course of the presentation of evidence on the sea water experiments, it is quite impossible--Eppinger had nothing to do with the whole preliminaries, except that he was present at the discussion on the 25th of May. Before my arrival in Dachau no experimental station was set up or even talked about. This testimony of Tschofening, that Eppinger arranged an experimental station there is incorrect. His statement that Eppinger took advantage of the opportunity to convert prisoners to National Socialism, for everyone who knew Eppinger and his attitude is ridiculous and increditable. But this testimony had a part in harming Eppinger in his position in Vienna, and it probably had a considerable part in Eppinger's unfortunate decision to commit suicide. Only the final impetus, in the last years of his life, Eppinger suffered so much misfortunate, and was so often in dispair that it required only a small impetus to take that final step. Eppinger lost his only son in the war; his grandchild was killed by a bomb; his son-in-law was sent to Russia for service; Eppinger lost his home in an air raid; Eppinger was driven out of his clinic Epinner was refused permission to publish his scientific life's work.
And, for a man who had been honored throughout the world before these things brought him to dispair, at the end of such a rich life. Not in every suicide is there a confession of guilt; it can he the result of hopeless dispair.
A Eppinger had no more part in these experiments than that he was asked for his scientific opinion; that he gave his opinion; that he was asked to observe these experiments and to check with whether they were being performed correctly; that was all, and not one grain more.
Q Witness, I brought that up only because Mr. Hardy mentioned Eppinger and his suicide in a different connection. Let's go back to the experiments. I should like to ask you about the food after the end of the experiments?
A After the experiment was finished, the subject, for one or two days, got a very light diet. That was of course necessary because some of them had been fasting; because it is a mistake to give him a heavy diet immediately when a person has been fasting. They were given milk for one day and light foods for one or two days; that was not chicanery, that was a medical measure. After that they were given the relations of the flying personnel as they had been given before the experiment. When the second group was finished I had temporary difficulties with the food. There were about fifteen men. This was because the airfield from which I got the food had been bombed and the supplies had been burned out. I went to the kitchen of the camp, therefore, and requested food of the same number of calories as the flying personnel got. I had difficulties for one or two days until the supply from the Luftwaffe was re-established and this arrangement for high calorie food from the prisoners' kitchen for two days brought me into temporary difficulties with the SS. The prisoners did not get less; they really got more food. If I had given them the regular camp food I would not have had any further difficulties because the camp kitchen would have been obliged to supply this food.
Q Witness, at the end did you ascertain that all the experimental subjects were returned in good health?
A Before releasing the experimental subjects I performed a very careful examination of them. That was a matter of course. I ex amined them clinically; I made X-rays; I examined the electro-cardiogram; I repeated the blood analysis; the chemical blood analysis was made at the end and in none of the cases was there anything wrong.
I did not demand that they be given special care because they were sick but because I wanted them to have some time to recuperate and the affidavit will show I dictated these findings to the witness which showed that they were normal.
Q Do you consider it possible that complications came up later?
A I believe I have repeatedly emphasized my point of view that after a thirst experiment is interrupted the condition of thirst has come to an end once and for all. If one administers water everything is all right again. In all the literature on distress at sea available to me not a single case is described when there was any later complication because of thirst. The only cases of later complication are complications resulting from cold, that is, pneumonia or bronchitis and even these are very rare. I know from the English report that in about three hundred cases of distress at sea and rescue there were six or seven colds, catarrhs, and only one case of pneumonia. Now, my experimental subjects did not suffer cold; from thirst alone they could now have complications and as I said the sea water was examined bacteriologically and was found pure. It was impossible for them to have an intestinal diseases as a result, especially since we ourselves also drank this water and didn't notice any after effects because the incubation period of all such diarrhea diseases is so short that the diarrhea must have occurred while the persons were still under my observations.
Q Witness, I should like to open another chapter now. How much inside view do you have now to live in a concentration camp?
A Practically none; I was only admitted to our experimental room and laboratory; once I was in the pharmacy of the hospital in order to borrow equipment for the laboratory and several times I was in the kitchen to see to the preparation of food.
Those are the rooms which I saw during my stay in Dachau.
Q Could you come and go when and where you wanted in the camp?
A In the first two or three weeks on our way from the entrance to the camp on our way to the hospital room we were accompanied by an SS escort. Later because we often had to wait until a guard had to go with us - waited for fifteen minutes or longer at the gate, I asked that this be given up. The Adjutant of the Camp Commandant gave me and my associates permission to go these three hundred meters without a guard but I had to promise not to enter any other rooms in the camp except those assigned to us. I kept this promise and all my associates also had to make the same promise. Besides the guards and guard towers could watch us all the time from this way and it would have been very difficult for us to go to any forbidden regions.
Q Then you could not receive visitors without the permission of the Camp Administration?
A No.
Q In this connection, your Honor, I should like to refer to the question of Judge Sebring to the witness Horn, page 5382, in the German record where the witness describes how difficult it is even for a high Wehrmacht officer to get to the camp and move freely there. Witness, did you yourself live and eat in the camp or outside?
A The Camp Dachau consisted of three camps really, one was SS camp, one was the camp where the SS men of the concentration camp lived, and the third was the concentration camp itself. In the SS camp there was a hospital. In this we four doctors of the Luftwaffe were given a room and we lived there. That was outside the camp. We took our meals in restaurants and had practically no contact therefore.
Q Were you subordinated to the SS in any capacity?
A We had been strictly obligated to conform to all orders of the SS and SS guards while we were in the camp. Otherwise we were an agency of our own and quite independent and for the experiments themselves the SS had no right of disposition and never interfered.
Q Witness, did you come into any other experimental stations during these experiments?
A No, I have already said, apart from the kitchen and the pharmacy, I did not enter any other room, nor any other experimental station. I did not even know the existence of some of them.
Q Now, what was the result of your experiments?
A The following results more or less were ascertained which I believe were not without importance. First of all to show that the small amounts of sea water are better than complete lack of water. This is shown because the loss of weight was much slower and loss of water much less; that the thickening of the blood was less; that the loss of nitrogen was less and that the non-protein nitrogen in the blood did not increase while in those without water it did increase. It was shown that a larger amount of sea water had no advantage over pure thirst but under some circumstances even had disadvantages. It was shown that the concentration power of the kidneys had to be taken to be much higher than hitherto believed and about 2.3 per cent could be achieved by almost anyone, with some even 3 per cent or more.
It was shown that this concentrating power of the kidney was not considerably influenced by vitamins. It was shown that sea water in limited doses does not cause diarrhea. It was shown that the subjective symptoms, the feeling of thirst after salt water, is about the same as in complete thirst, that objectively in small amounts of liquid even salty liquid is better.
It was shown that even small amounts of fresh water taken in between have variable effects. It was shown that the Schaefer drug supplies quite usable drinking water and that the Berka method is useless. It was shown that in the blood an increase of salt is caused by drinking sea water and a slight loss of calcium and that it is therefore advisable to introduce calcium if a person is drinking sea water for a considerable period.
It was shown that in the condition of hunger and thirst there is a relatively high loss of table salt and that, therefore, it is certainly expedient for a person who has thirsted for a considerable period of time to be given salt water that is a physiological solution of table salt.
It was shown that after the experiment -- that is, after a long period of thirst -- there is a quick water retention and that the only danger from thirst and hypertonic liquid is the loss of water by the body. It was shown that the introduction of liquid leads to a very quick recovery.
I know that these experiments have not brought out as much in the way of results as would have been the case if the experimental subjects had cooperated completely, especially since most of the experiments were interfered with by the persons drinking fresh water and the concentration power of the kidney was subjected to great variations. A strictly scientific evaluation is possible only in a limited extent but for practical decisions they were sufficient that what was found in principle agrees with what was later discovered by English and American workers, that small amounts of sea water are better than complete lack of water.
Now, through the discovery of Professor Ivy and Dr. Schaefer, we are able to make sea water drinkable. It might still be that with someone who is in distress at sea without having this drug with him and the knowledge that with small doses of sea water he can improve his lot, this knowledge is not useless. If the extension of life, according to the theoretical calculations, is now possible -- according to findings it might be only three or four days over complete thirst -still that might be decisive in practice.
Q Now, witness, after completing your experiments did you report on them to your superior authorities?
A Yes, in October 1944 I sent in a report.
Q Then I shall refer to the Schaefer document book 2, documents 14 and 19, the testimony of Heubner and Jehowsky, so that I will not have to submit affidavits of my own. Witness, why did you not publish the results of your experiments.
A I have already given the reasons why exact scientific evaluations was possible only to a limited extent. Personally, I had no interest in it because I had no scientific benefits to reap from these experiments. I refrained from doing so, not because I thought I had anything to keep secret.
Q Witness, are you even today of the opinion that, under the orders which were given to you, you carried out these experiments unobjectionably from the medical and scientific point of view?
A I have had almost a year and a half now to examine my conscience and I believe that I can answer your question in the affirmative. I carried them out just as I would have done in any hospital or clinic, if I had to perform them at all. I never considered my experimental subjects a substitute for experimental animals and it is not true that I lacked sympathy with them. I know exactly how difficult it is to suffer thirst. It is not that I didn't care that I had to ask them to do this, to suffer thirst during the days of the experiment, but I was not able to spare them this after they had volunteered for the experiment.
That I recognized the services of the experimental subjects at the end I believe I can say, not only in words but also by doing for them what I could. That I enjoyed these sufferings of my victims -- I was incapable of such a horrible thought. From the beginning I had serious misgivings and inner rejection of experiments on prisoners.
If I ignored my misgivings, I could still put up with the matter for several reasons: First of all, I was never of the opinion that I was doing anything illegal. If my superiors, the highest security authorities of the Reich, gave me such an assignment, then, in 1944 I had to believe that this could not be anything illegal. In 1944 I could not know that a few years later these laws would no longer be valid.
I overcame my misgivings because I was firmly convinced that my experimental subjects had volunteered for this certainly unpleasant experiment. I overcame them, furthermore, because I knew that distress of the time made such a possibility advisable but especially because from the medical point of view I considered that the rescue problem to be solved was the important thing and because I thought that if a person was to take on himself the sacrifice of going without food and drink for several days it will be in the interests of hundreds of others who would be in distress later, in war and peace, and they would benefit. It was not the negative side which motivated me but because of the positive goal I took the negative upon myself; and, under a military order and under a great personal, spiritual burden, I carried out this order; but I believe it would be illogical and hard to understand psychologically, if I did not want to perform experiments on prisoners from the beginning, I should go and mistreat the experimental subjects.
During my experiments I did not spare my own working capacity or that of my associates. I tried to carry out the experiments in such a way as to avoid any bodily harm and I am firmly convinced, even today, that I did not cause any harm.