"Whether experimental, subjects already died during the experiments in Beiglboeck's station itself I do not know for I was now allowed in the experimental station itself and the covering up of such cases of death in experimental stations was always very clever."
Signed "Josef Tschefenig," Now, Dr. Beiglboeck, do you recall the case of that individual?
DR STEINBAUER: Mr. President, I wish to have this witness for cross examination.
MR. HARDY: I will be glad to, your Honor. He will be here next week also.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the prosecution states that the witness will be here next week.
BY MR, HARDY;
Q . Now, do you still maintain that none of these experimental subjects died after they left your experimental station or do you know whether or not they did?
A. Yes, I do. No one certainly died of the experiments or of consequences of them. There were not sick persons in my experimental group. I had given them a very careful examination before the experiments and afterwards. What Tschofenig is talking about here is completely incomprehensible to me. I can't imagine that, only in my fantasy. To imagine what he is talking about is just too much to ask of me. Tschofenig didn't know anything about my experimental station at all.
Q. Dr. Beiglboeck, as I understand it, you considered these experiments to be purely a Luftwaffe matter. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. No association whatsoever with the SS?
A. They had to do with the SS to the extent that the SS made the rooms available and I was there more or less as a guest. The SS had no influence on the course of the experiments.
Q. The SS merely provided the subjects and the space in the concentration camp?
A. That is right.
Q. Himmler had no part in the initiation of the experiments or the conduct of the experiments?
A. What I know about Himmler's part in ti is that he approved the experiments.
Q. Now, do I understand you correctly, that your testimony is to the effect that there is no danger in the drinking of sea water?
A. I said that if you drink sea water and these experiments are under observation then one is perfectly capable of interrupting the experiment when the danger zone is reached. I didn't say that it was not dangerous to drink sea water. That depends, of course. Under certain conditions drinking sea water is dangerous and ran be fatal.
Q. And among sea farers the dangerousness of consumption of sea water is a well known and accepted fact. Is that right?
A. Of course, it is clear and well known that shipwrecked persons have had very unpleasant experiences from drinking sea water because they did so in uncontrolled quantities and because the important point is the quantity consumed.
Q. Now, in your self-experiment that you conducted prior to the experiment on the inmates, how long did you drink sea water?
A. Four and a half days.
Q. How many cc's per day?
A. Half a liter.
Q. Five hundred cc's?
A. Five hundred cc's. That is right.
Q. Did you eat any food?
A. I ate sea emergency rations.
Q. And you drank exclusively sea water--no other water?
A. Of course.
Q. How long did you have the experimental subjects remain on exclusive sea water?
A. That depended and it depended on how the experiment was carried out. Some of the experiments which were carried out properly, were interrupted on the fourth or fifth day. Those who did drink fresh water in the meantime kept the experiment up longer. In this experiment it depends on how much water is lost. If a subject compensates for his loss of water by drinking fresh water then, of course he comes out in a very good condition.
Q. What was the longest stretch wherein a person or innate drank sea water exclusively in the experiment? Eight days? Nine?
A. I believe for or five days. I can't give you any exact answer to that just at the moment because I have to look that up in my notes.
Q. We will get into that later, doctor. Did they also get emergency sea rations?
A. Yes.
Q. The same as you had?
A. Yes.
Q. How many calories in an emergency ration kit?
A. In the emergency ration for four days there are twenty--four hundred calories. They got a little bit more than that because I had a little more than I needed. They received roughly eight hundred calories a day.
Q. How long can a person drink five hundred cc's of sea water-how many days?
A. You mean before reaching the danger zone?
Q. Yes.
A. You could calculate that at seven days.
Q. How long did the subjects drink it?
A. Those who drank no fresh water did not drink it under any circumstances longer than six days and I believe there were none who carried it on further than five days without drinking fresh water.
Q. How long can a person drink a thousand cc's of sea water?
A Four and a half days.
Q That long?
A Until you reach the danger zone.
Q That long, four and a half to five days?
A Yes, four and a half days.
Q Well, that is a considerable length of time, if you can drink 1000 cc's of sea water in four and a half days, and you can only drink 500 cc's in six days?
A That depends upon the fact that the elimination of water through the skin and the lungs is the same in both cases, and the additional sea water only leads to an additional elimination of urine. This additional quantity of urine that is eliminated -- whether a person drinks 1000 cc's is not so really very large over the amount when drinking 500' cc's; it amounts to roughly 250 cc's a day.
Q Wouldn't there be twice the drain on the bodies water and dehydrate the person faster if he was drinking 1000 cc's per day as opposed to 500 cc's?
A I just told you what happened. A greater quantity of urine is lost, and the difference between the quantities when drinking 1000 and 500 cc's is not so very important because the ways in which water is otherwise eliminated throughout the body, namely, through the skin and lungs remain the same. It can even be assumed that with 1000 cc's the amount is less. The dryer the skin is, the less water it excrets....
Q How long did the subjects drink 1000 cc's of sea water?
A I just told you, according to theoretical calculations, if experimental subjects could live four and a half to five days, drinking sea water and nothing else until he reached the danger zone of a 10 percent loss cf body water -- danger to life comes with the loss of 20 percent, and that is roughly after 12 days.
Q How many days did your subjects drink 1000 cc's of sea water?
A The experimental subjects, well, in the group that drank 1000 cc's, I had none who went four days without drinking fresh water.
However, none of the experiments made with this group was useful. On the second or third day, these people began to drink fresh water by the litre. So, the duration of the experiment is unimportant in this case. The importance is not how long the experiments lasted but how long it lasted only with sea water. And, if he drank only sea water, then the experiment had to be interrupted after four days, but if he drank a lot of fresh water, then under some circumstances these experiments may last as long as a month.
Q What was the highest temperature you reached in these experiments?
A During the experiments, as far as I remember -- you probably know this better than I do because you have my notes at the moment.
Q 37.8 Centigrade; that is not very high is it? Is that a dangerous temperature?
A Certainly not.
Q Is that above normal?
A Somewhat more than normal, yes.
Q Well, now, when you stated on direct examination, something that interested me, that when you gave this water to the inmates, that you had to drink it in front of the subjects yourself; now, why was that?
A That was not necessary, I considered it expedient.
Q What was the reason for you drinking it first in front of the subjects? I do not get the significance of that statement, Doctor? Was it because they thought you were fooling them and insisted you try it first?
A We doctors, we are used to the fact that medicines given to patients which are somewhat foreign to him, and in order to awaken his confidence in this medicine, we take some of it ourselves; that is the customary procedure in clinics and particularly in treating children: that was the reason I did that. There are lots of people when they hear the word sea water, they imagine Lord knows how dangerous a substance it is, and in order to convince them that sea water is really something that is potable, I drank it in their presence.
Q Now, you spoke of murder rumors in the camp in connection with the sea water experiments: what was that about?
A I never said anything about murder rumors, as far as I know. I said there were rumors afoot, and since I have had considerable experience in such camps, I can assure you that all sorts of rumors arise in such camps or prisons, and arising from the most innocent of circumstances; that it is on the basis of such rumors that such "memories" as this last affidavit you put in is based.
Q What was the murder rumor in camp? Was it a prevelant rumor that people were being murdered in your station, is that what you mean?
A I know nothing of a murder rumor. I am hearing now for the first time there was any such rumor in the camp. I said that Tschofenig could have based his statement that somebody went mad only on rumors but not on knowledge; that is all I said; that does not mean that there were murder rumors current in the camp.
Q How long did you observe each experimental subject after they had completed their experiment? Three or four weeks?
A The first group as far as I recall now, was 16 days, was under my observation for 16 days after the experiment was concluded, and the other group 12 to 14 days.
Q You observed each one of them for that length of time?
A Yes.
Q. Did you keep them right in your experimental station all that time?
A Of course.
Q When were they turned back to the hospital or the labor groups?
A I released the experimental subjects on the 15th of September when the experimental station was broken up.
Q Did you ever return to Dachau thereafter to see how they were getting along; to see whether or not they had received their pardons and and were getting their fulfillment of promises that you made?
A I assumed as a matter of course that those promises would be kept, at that time, and I asked that these subjects should be given a physical examination subsequently; this was also promised me. It was very improbably that any symptoms should be developed but should any develop I wished to be informed of them.
Q Now, this chart you have submitted to the Tribunal, drawn by Fritz Pillwein, giving the location of the various blocks in the camp. Do you have that before you there?
A Yes.
Q Now, we will note the Tribunal has it before them. I have a few questions to ask.
I may be of interest to the Tribunal in connection with this map or chart, you will note the Malaria Station of Schilling's and the name Vieweg in parenthesis.
Directly to the left of that is a block containing your experimental station, right?
A Yes.
Q. What was between the two blocks, a street?
AA court; that was the court yard in which my experimental subjects walked around, and that is where I spoke with the subjects, and this is the court yard in which Vieweg was not in a position to acquire enough information about what went on in my experimental station.
Q Vieweg could see in that court yard could he not?
A Of course, he could; his windows give onto this court yard.
Q Well, now look up to the front of the block containing your experimental station.
If your Honors will refer to the photostatic copies of the German it gives a much more accurate view of the situation in as much as that is the affiant's draft, and that is a translation which is out of proportion to the original.
Now, in your block there seems to be a doorway between the toilet and washroom; is that correct? That is in the right hand corner of the block, is that a doorway going out into the street?
A The exits, there were two exits from my experimental station; one through the room where the name "Mediziner" is written, that went down to the court yard; and, the other exit went past the washroom.
Q The other exit went past the washroom; that is right here (indicating)?
A Yes.
Q What was right here (indicating)? In between the Malaria Station and your Hock, we have a court yard, and we have a line drawn here between the court yard and the block street. Now, what was here, a wire fencing? (indicating*)--
JUDGE SEBRING: (Interposing) Mr. Hardy, I would suggest that perhaps when you say what was here or what was there, or what was over there, that when you begin to read the written record it does not convey very much information unless, when you are directing those question, you at the same time, perhaps will say: What is here, the point I now mark "A"; what is here, the point I now mark "B". That is just a suggestion.
MR. HARDY: Thank you, your Honor.
You will note from the chart, Dr. Beiglboeck, the malaria station - the block that has Vieweg's name in it. Now we go to the left hand corner. We mark that point A. We follow that over to your experimental station. We mark that point B. Now between A and B that is the point between, or the line drawn between the yard and the block street, what is this supposed, to represent, this line? Does that represent a wire fence or does that represent a brick wall or does that represent some sort of obstruction?
AA wooden wall.
Q Wooden wall?
A Yes.
Q Could you see over the wall?
A No.
Q You are certain it was wooden and not wire? You are certain of that?
A I am suite certain it was wooden.
Q You are certain it was not wire?
A Yes.
Q Would it have been possible to stand in the malaria station and have seen over that wall, be able to view people passing up the block street?
A If you stood on the roof of the malaria station you right.
Q Didn't Vieweg tell us that he could from his position in the malaria station see the morgue?
A If he was in his malaria station he could see anything. That was impossible.
Q You don't think he could see the morgue from the malaria station?
A No, but he could see it if he were somewhere else in the camp. He wasn't locked up in the malaria station. But from this malaria laboratory in which he apparently was, and I assume that is where Vieweg stayed in his laboratory, when he was in there he could not see into that part of the hospital.
Q Assume that it became necessary for you to carry one of your experimental subjects to the margue. I am not suggesting that your experimental subject was dead but assume hypothetically that you had to carry an experimental subject to the morgue, would you carry him through the passageway or exit facing the main corridor of the hospital block on would you take him out through the exit facing the malaria station?
A I would never carry a living person to the morgue. And, for that reason I never had any reason to bother myself about this little problem. Consequently I don't know what I should have done.
Q Well, how did you take your subjects to the x-ray station, through the door facing the main corridor or through the door facing the malaria station?
A Where it says "wash room". They were taken there along the course of the arrow, then to the right where it says "Labor". They were taken there. They were taken in between where it says "Revierstation" and "Labor". And then they were taken to the barracks where the x-ray station was.
Q How many floors did each barracks have, was it a one story, to story, or three story building?
A Only one.
Q Only one. Would it be possible to stand at a point in front of the Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat station on the block street and view persons coming to your experimental station or coming out of your experimental station?
A If you were in the Eye station, the ambulant patients of the hospital were in there waiting for medical examination. Now in there where it says "Gang" that means corridor, you would have to stand there to see what was being carried anywhere.
Q But in no event was the view obstructed on the Block Strasse. That wasn't covered with a roof, was it?
A That I can't tell you for sure on this Block Street, I think it was open to the sky.
Q This is a good breaking point, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until 0930 o'clock tomorrow morning.
Official transcript of the American MilitaryTribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 11 June 1947, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.
Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court room.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if the defendants are all present in court?
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the court room.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in Court.
For the information of all concerned the Tribunal desires to announce that this afternoon it will convene at 1:30 o'clock at the usual time and will recess at 3 o'clock, this afternoon.
Counsel may proceed.
DR. BEIGLBOECK - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - (Continued) BY MR. HARDY:
Q. Professor Beiglboeck, in the testimony of Vieweg before this Tribunal he elicited that he saw three stretchers leaving your experimental station carrying bodies to the morgue. Do you recall that testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. Now on page 23 of your Document Book No. I. Beiglboeck exhibit 19, we see therein a letter addressed to your mother and father-in-law.
A. Parents-in-law, yes.
Q. The third paragraph, the last sentence - would you kindly read that, please?
A. "My feelings are those of Pontius in scredo only it mattered less to him than to me."
Q. Who is Pontius?
A. The phrase "Pontius in scredo Kommen" is a German phrase, meaning that you find yourself involved in some action without knowing how you got yourself into that position. What I waited to say was that I found myself obliged to carry out this assignment without doing anything to achieve this. So, quite unexpectedly and against my will, I found myself involved in an action that I didn't wish to pursue. This is a German proverb.
Q. This Pontius here has no connection in Biblical history to Pontius who was responsible for the conviction of three persons?
A. No. When you say Pontius it means he reached this position in which he found himself and he didn't want to do it. Also, let me add that Pontius Pilot did not have anything to do with the crucifixion of three people, the two thieves were crucified, without Pontius playing any part.
Q. Well, then, did three people actually die in your experiments that you really didn't want to happen?
A. Mr. Prosecutor, in my experiments nobody died, not one person and not three persons.
Q. Now, will you kindly tell us, Dr. Beiglboeck whether or not you would have published the results obtained in your experiments at Dachau in a Medical Journal?
A. If these results had been perfectly unexceptionable from a scientific point of view then I should have. As I already said, I had no particular scientific ambitions connected with these experiments and I have told you, I was glad when they were concluded and did not expect to receive any particular praise from them.
Q. Since you have been here in Nurnberg you have prepared several reports on the experiments based on records that you had in your possession and from your memory of the actual work conducted at Dachau. I am going to pass up a photostatic copy of one of the reports prepared by you for identification.
Will you tell me when you wrote that report?
A. I wrote this report after my first interrogation, writing it from memory without documentation.
Q. Now, will you turn to the last page, Doctor, of that report? On the last page we find, 8 lines up from the bottom, the following words "in exceptional cases also by means of administering water by a stomach sound". Do you find those words, Doctor?
A. Yes, I have it.
Q. Well now, in these experiments, is that an actual condition that existed as you have written in this report?
A. I drew up this report from memory at that time and I was able to remember what I had put into my concluding report and I remembered those cases of the subjects who had carried out the experimental series in an orderly way. There are some inaccuracies here because I had not concerned myself with this matter for two years and I put down everything in this report from memory. Consequently I can't swear that everything in it is correct. Some small details may be inaccurate, that I admit, but what I have reported here does, by and large correspond with that actually happened. I carried out examinations with a stomach sound for purely external reasons. I wanted to know whether sodium chloride could be eliminated by gastric fluids and, consequently, after the experiments were over I took this occasion to introduce water directly into the stomach without dextrose.
Q. Then that is your explanation for the necessity to give water by stomach sounds?
A. There was no necessity. I could have let them drink it. I had the stomach sound used so I could examine the gastric fluids because literature proves that after the consumption of sea-water there is an increased secretion of gastric fluid, and in order to check on that I used the stomach sound in, I think, five cases, and I did this because I happened to have the stomach sound lying right around at the time.
Q. Well, didn't that cause the subject considerable distress without any due cause inasmuch as the particular activity was unnecessary?
A. Sounding the stomach doesn't cause unpleasantness to anyone. It is a method that is used every day at least twenty times in the clinic.
The moment in which the stomach sound is introduced is perhaps a little unpleasant, but once it's in you can walk around with it in wothout its bothering you. It's one of the most harmless methods of examination that internal medicine can give witness to.
Q. It has always been my experience, in witnessing, that a patient is much disturbed by the insertion of the stomach tube. Could it have been that this subject was unable to drink the water because of unconsciousness?
A. In my experiments no subjects became unconscious, and if I had a person who was unconscious then, of course, I shouldn't have put a stomach sound into him but should have chosen the much simpler method of giving him the fluid through a vein, because this is quicker. The intravenous injection of fluid brings about a more rapid thinning-out of the blood and this quenches the thirst, because thirst is nothing more than a consequence of the thickness of the body's blood. Now, you can see that there was no reason at all to introduce a stomach into a person even if he had been unconscious since the other way would have been much quicker.
Q. What patients did you give this water by sound to?
A. This was certainly in the second experimental series, one of the patients between 32 and 44, because, in the first group, I had no time to put in stomach sounds because taking care of the patients in other ways took op too much time.
Q. At the final meeting in Berlin in the Zoological Garden in October, 1944, did you report on the experiments as they actually were conducted or did you attempt to camouflage some of the results?
A. I concealed nothing. I described how the state of thirst developed, what the effects of sea-water are. I did this at rather great length and I particularly pointed out that the cases that had used Berkatit were no better than those who had drunk straight seawater, and I particularly emphasized the effectiveness of the Schaefer method in order to point up the contrast between the two groups and to break down the last of the opposition to use the Schaefer rather than the Berka method.
Q. Was Schaefer particularly alarmed when he discovered that you had used his method at Dachau?
A. I am not informed as to the spiritual life of Dr. Schaefer.
Q. Well, Schaefer was at the meeting, wasn't he?
A. Yes.
Q. You were there, weren't you? You reported?
A. Yes.
Q. What did Schaefer say when he found out you used his method at Dachau?
A. As far as I know, he didn't say anything.
Q. Was it your understanding that Schaefer knew you were to use his method at Dachau?
A. I didn't assume anything about this. I have already told you that Becker-Freyseng told me that instead of a control group, with fresh water, we would have a control group with desalinated water, I do not know whether Schaefer before or during or after the experiments found out that his method was used. I can only repeat what he testified to here, namely that before the report he knew nothing about it. I had never spoken with Svhaefer previously. I saw him for the first time at this conference, and do not know what he knew about it before.
Q. Would you kindly tell the Tribunal, Dr. Beiglboeck, just what records Professor Vollhardt studied in order to familiarize himself with this subject so that he was in a position to testify as an export before this Tribunal?
A. Professor Wollhardt saw my fever graphs which you now have.
Q. That is this group of graphs?
A. That's right. I extracted the important data from here and drew them up in a table and he looked at this table and checked on my results from it.
Q. Did you give him any other material?
A. In addition, I only told him that the salt concentration in the urine rose. For this I had no original documentation, but I told him that from memory and I also told him what anybody night expect, namely, that the blood became thicker.
Q. What other records do you have in your possession besides these graphs and these two books? Do you have any other records?
A. No.
Q Does defense counsel have any other records?
A. As far as I know, no.
Q. At any time, did either one of these books have a black cover?
A. Yes.
Q. Which one?
A. The one in your left hand.
Q. Can you tell me what happened to the cover of this book?
A. My counsel probably had it.
Q. Were the names of the subjects used in the experiments written in this book?
A. Yes.
Q. In the first two pages, I presume?
A. I think it was on the cover.
Q. Will you kindly look at the book to see if they are still there?
A. I don't have to look at it. I can see they are not there right away because the names were on the cover.
JUDGE SEGRING: Mr. Hardy, if this matter becomes important before the Tribunal I would suggest that, for the sake of the record, you put some identifying mark on this book.
MR. HARDY: I intend to, Your Honor, but first I want to find out where this evidence came from.
I intend to mark it for identification later.
JUDGE SEBRING: It seems difficult to look at a cold record.
MR. HARDY: Your Honor, I would like to mark it later. The defense counsel nay want to use it himself and may want to mark it with a defense number. I'll have to discuss it with him.
DR. STEINBAUER: I should like to say that these documents are some which I gave to the prosecution only for its information. I should like to have them back. I have not put them in evidence, and I still have to decide whether I intend to. At any rate, I can say that Professors Vollhardt did not see those two booklets. I showed them to Professors Alexander and Ivy and Mr. Hardy. I must object to their being used as incriminating evidence against my client so long as they have not been put to the Tribunal.
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, inasmuch as defense counsel has asked for the return of the documents that he has presented to the prosecution for study, the prosecution duly requests that these documents be impounded by the Tribunal, be made records by the Tribunal, for use by either the prosecution or the defense. These documents purport to be original records made at Dachau during the course of the experiment. They are fitting absolutely into the proper evidence rule. They are not affidavits or hearsay. They are actual conditions at Dachau and recorded by the defendant himself. In many instances, these documents have been altered. The alterations may have been made at Dachau, they may have been made later. In view of the fa.ct that they have been altered, the prosecution thinks it necessary that they be impounded by the Tribunal and if study of them is required by either defense or prosecution that study should be done before a commissioner. At this time, I wish to use the documents for the our pose of cross-examination. These documents were presented to Professor Vollhardt by the defense. Professor Vollhardt came here and testified as an expert for the defense.
His testimony was based solely on those charts. Due to that fact, I intend to use these charts today in crossexamination of the defendant Beiglboeck. In order to do the same, I would request the Tribunal to move from the bench down to the first defense counsel bench. We will have three microphones sent in. Defense counsel for Beiglboeck nay sit beside the defendant and I will cross examine on the documents this morning. Inasmuch as the documents a.re not constructed so that they may be reproduced because of pencil notations, blue marks, red marks, ets., such a round table discussion of the Tribunal and the defendant and counsel will be necessary. I request that I be allowed to proceed, and if defense counsel requests the documents be returned to him the prosecution petitions the Tribunal to have then impounded.