Because I had absolute confidence in the Medical Inspector, I want to point out that the remark of my old ante-room man, according to which I did not like Mr. Hippke, is not correct. Richter right have gained that impression from the fact that I always raised both hands when Hippke came and wanted to report to me, because he always asked for half an hour, but if I did not get very energetic, I could not get rid of his in less than three hours. I could not quite reconcile that with the time I had available, but as far as his character and capacity were concerned, I had entire confidence. If he had submitted such a document to me, I never had any doubts in signing it, because I know that this man would never submit anything to me which could have the slightest doubt of bad treatment or a bad action. Today, as at that time, I am still firmly convinced of that.
We also discussed humane questions, and, therefore, since 1935 when on 1 April he became Medical Inspector, I know this man quite well from that moment forward.
I may add also that, as far as medical questions are concerned, I had no indirect or direct subordination. I never had any connection with these medical questions. I was not his superior in medical questions, and General Ruedl or General Foerster were not his superiors in these questions either, but, rather, all the medical questions were, of course, in the end decided at the highest military level. He was only organizationally attached to us, because, after all, the highest medical general had to be subordinated somewhere.
Q I now hand you the photostat of your letter, and I ask you to use this photostat in order to establish whether you dictated this letter or whether you did not.
A No, I did not dictate this letter. All letters which I dictated myself have under my name the letters "M.I." then a dash, and the first two letters of the secretary who took the dictation. That means that this letter was dictated by somebody else and submitted to me for signature.
Q Witness, how does it occur that in this letter you use such a confidential form of address as "my dear Wolfie"?
A May I refer to the testimony of Wolf in this regard? This address was quite correct. I liked this young officer very much, because he always placed himself at our disposal in all questions which we had to discuss with regard to Himmler. He also always tried to do what we wished him to do. I was very happy that this possibility of liasion was existing, because, of course, I had much less contact with Himmler himself.
Q But if you say now that you did not dictate this letter yourself, how can another subordinate agency use such a confidential address? This subordinate agency does not know your relations with Wolf.
A Yes, but my ante-room knew my relations with Wolf, and there they always asked, "How does the Field Marshal address this or that man; how does he sign below the letter --'Regards', etc.?" And when I was supposed to have written this letter, they even asked me to give them my letter paper, and I think Mr. Richter quite clearly and unmistakeably expressed that.
Q Witness, did anybody in connection with this letter of 20 May 1942 report to you in order to make you sign this letter?
A No, I can only assume from the time-table I have that, I did that very quickly before I left again, that I just signed it. Certainly I had not read it. I was not obliged to read every letter which I signed. Otherwise, I would have been a mere signing machine. Most days there were hundreds of signatures to be done, and, of course, I looked who sent the letter. Not every dispatching office was in my confidence, but Hippke was, and what he submitted, or what General Foerster submitted to me, or General Vorwald, I did not have to read that. That was okay. If I had read it, from the knowledge I had at that time, I could only have gathered that experiments were taking place concerning high altitude, that these experiments were terminated, and that, on the contrary now, other kinds of experiments concerning questions of sea rescue were of primary importance.
To the best of my ability I couldn't have imagined anything and I couldn't have seen what the doctors meant by that, but as I knew that there were instances of sea rescue, I, of course, would have been very glad of the attention of the medical inspectorate given to air rescue questions and questions of acute importance. I cannot remember either that I ever saw the name of Oberstabsarzt Weltz, Stabsarzt Rascher.
Q. Witness, from where did you know that this letter, which does not bear any notice of the instant which produced it, that this letter came from Hippke's bureau, Hippke's office?
A. A little note was attached and on this note was written, "Hippke requires the following notice be sent", or something of that sort.
Q. Was that customary in your office?
A. If a letter came from some other office, it was customary.
Q. Do you yourself have any knowledge about medicine?
A. No.
Q. Did you get anybody's counsel with regard to medical questions, anybody's advice?
A. It is quite obvious that when Hippke came to report I asked him questions, I asked him whether our soldiers of the airforce had been vaccinated, all of them, and what kind of innoculations they could receive, and so on. Of course, I had asked whether there were sufficient hospitals everywhere, everything from the viewpoint of organization work, but you couldn't call that medical questions, but rather medical organizational questions.
Q. Very well, Witness, I now submit to you Exhibit No. 89 and ask you to give me by book back. I ask you to explain your position with regard to that document. Did you draft this letter yourself?
A. No. Here again my personal initial is lacking, and I also see that I said "Dear Herr Hippke". I would never have addressed him that way if I had given a small note like that. I usually wrote, "My dear Hippke". Our personal relation was such that we wouldn't use the word "Herr" (mister), if I may say "we". In this connection this is of the 4th of June, then I was in the ministry.
I also see from the manner in which it is written in a general way that I have not dictated this letter. In these cases I wouldn't write in my own house to these gentlemen and sign it by "Heil Hitler". It is true that these kind of greetings were prescribed, but we didn't use it in our own offices, above all not to the people which we had confidence in, and I would never have written, in accordance with the agreement the low pressure chamber is this, and furthermore this and this is this. After all there must have been a report here and as no report was submitted, or telegram or letter, most probably it would have been a telephone call, but in that case I would have written, "My dear Hippke, Mr. Wolf called me up. He wanted to keep the low pressure chamber for so and so mush longer, and he wants to keep Dr. Rascher for so and so much longer. What is your position with regard to that? Please answer directly to these people. Yours, M., or Mi."
Q. According to your opinion who wrote this note?
A. Some one of ay adjutants who probably took this telephone call, which I assume, and from the word in accordance with the agreement with the Reichsfuehrer this and this and this. I assume that the other instance which has called up, and I should think either ti was Wolf or as he says himself some other instances which used, his name. This instance probably alleged that it was an agreement between the Reichsfuehrer SS and the Luftwaffe. It is most probable that was a lie because of the fact that Wolf was stated here as the others. That is quite obvious from the fact that this letter was sent to Wolf in a copy that way, copy of this letter was sent to Wolf, because Wolf has testified here that he has no knowledge of this matter and that at that tine he was not at all with Himmler. In any event this here, the note, is not an order issued by the man who wrote it. It is not in the way of "I order that this or that be done", but rather it is the passing on of a request which is made by a third party.
Q. Witness, did you receive any knowledge of the fact that Hippke had a talk with Rascher in June 1942, that is, did Hippke make a report to you in that matter?
A. No.
Q. The 25th of August 1942, in a letter which Himmler sent to you there is the final report concerning the high altitude experiment. Did you read yourself this final report and did you receive it before it vent to Hippke?
A. No. It was customary that if a letter was submitted to me which had such contents of experts, medicine, that such a letter wasn't even submitted to me, but only the letter which was attached to it, but very often even the letter which was attached was not submitted to me.
Q. Where were you during these days, witness?
A. That is after the 25th of August, isn't it? On the 25th I was in Berlin there. It could not have been received yet. On the 26th I was in Berlin, but I hardly vent to the ministry that day because it was the funeral for a friend of nine who had a fatal accident, that is Mr. Gablenz, and I was together with his family because many a thing had to be settled on that day. On the 27th I was in Berlin in the ministry; on the 28th also. I presume that the letter should have been received about these days, the 27th or 28th.
Q. Did you then give orders that was passed on to Hippke?
A. No. I am also firmly convinced that this letter was not submitted to me because it was customary and normal that in my anteroom such letters were passed on to the agency right away, and, that by themselves they very often wrote to it, "Report to the Field Marshall", or "Submission of the answer", or even they didn't write anything at all, and the competent expert was left to settle the matter. Of course, I don't know how it was in this particular case.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Lumber 2 is again in session.
Q. Witness, we shall come now to your answer to Himmler; namely the acknowledgment of receipt which you sent to Himmler. May I ask you to make a statement about that? How hid you happen to write this letter?
A. On the 31st of August 1942, shortly before noon, Hippke came to see we in my office, and he brought along a letter which was to be sent to Himmler and which was to be signed by me. Hippo then, for the first time, told me about the whole question and at was also the first time then that I heard anything about the whole question of the experiments.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: What was that date, Dr. Bergold?
DR. BERGOLD: On the 31st of August, your Honor, 1942.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well.
A. (Con'd) From that letter of the 20th of May I knew nothing whatsoever, although I had signed the letter, and on the question of the 4th of June I could not possibly imagine what it was all about no matter how hard I tried. This conference took place a little bit later in the afternoon because I had been all morning long in the Reich Economy Ministry during which time Minister Funk had had a conference. At noon I had to leave because I had am appointment with the widow of my friend Gablenz; it concerned his will. There was not too much time at our disposal, and I asked. Hippke to make it as short as possible. Hippke began to tell me all about it, and he said something about these experiments. I asked him, "What interest does the SS have with respect to these experiments?" Hippke said, "Well, it does not concern them too much actually. However, it is Himmler's vanity. He wants to be able to tell the Fuehrer once again that he is doing everything and in this particular case the doctors of the Luftwaffe are not very able to carry it out because they are a little bit too old fashioned", as he put it.
Then I asked him what kind of experiments are these. Hippke answered, "They are high altitude experiments and freezing experiments. Undercooling is freezing experiments." I asked him, "What is under-cooling?" "Freezing." From the question, it can be clearly soon that up to this time I had no idea about the whole latter and. what it could be. Thereupon, Hippke explained it to mo namely, on the basis of our pilots and. other personnel who wore being shot down during their flights from Germany to England over the North Sea. And that those pilots who are in the water in their 'Mae Wests' and he also said that rescue usually took a long time. Hippke, furthermore, explained that the high altitude experiments had been completed. However, the other thing was probably quite far, also, but that he had no report whatsoever on that matter. He did not like this cooperation with the SS.
I told him, "Are such experiments necessary at all?" He answered, "Yes they are, namely, seen from the medical point of .vice." I asked him then, "What kind of doubts do you. have about it, about the SS-misgivings? Are they substantiated?" Hippke said, "No; however the SS is not an expert with reference to our question." And then, of course, we have the channels of orders are not too clear either. We have not too much right of word with the SS. And, after all, these experiments are our own business. Or that sometimes the Navy could be interested in this. And now the SS wanted to carry out those highaltitude experiments without our help. However, I did not return them to the low-pressure chamber, and I do not wish to return them unless you order me to. I told him that I never thought of giving him such an order because it is purely a medical question, and if you have any misgivings; for instance, that Himmler would be intrigued because of this or against us, with Hitler, then, of course, we don't want to support these people on top of everything else.
Hippke, himself, added, "Apart from that, nothing good happened during these altitude experiments." I personally, would not have asked such a question. Hippke then Trent into detail, namely, that we had already carried out all the experiments -- we, of the Luftwaffe-and.
on top of this all our medical officers had volunteered for this kind of work; while in these SS experiments criminal 2042a and murders who had been sentenced to death were being used-- if they volunteered.
That pardon is at their disposal if they volunteer for that kind of work. Put, at that time, I did not quite understand why these experiments were still being carried out, that we had already taken care of all ourselves, namely, the Luftwaffe. However, the question in this particular case was the higher altitude for which the medical research was interested or in which the medical research was interested ... I thought at that same time of the fact that Hippke had mentioned the necessity that one had to have parachutes which, during the unconsciousness of the man who jumped, would automatically open. Then, a road the letter which he submitted to me; and, as far as I can remember, it contained many pages. And I told. him, "The less letters you have, then the less Himmler can interpelate or intervene in all these questions. And, as you and your people do not wish to have anything to do about that matter with Himmler, we only want to give him small possibilities to do so." And. I believe that I struck out two or two and a half pages of the letter, and all that remained were the first few sentences and the last few sentences.
May I ask you to show me the letter--an original if possible?
Q. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do that, but the Exhibit No. 115 refers to something else. But I believe that you will be able to do without it; we don't have to bother the Secretary-General about it.
A. I only wanted to show that I did not dictate that letter. The letter has been re-written by some other office, however submitted to me as Hippke's letter.
Q. That we can see from Hippke's statement.
A. I saw him at the time, and I saw that there was no signature whatsoever by me. In other words, this is just my thanks to Himmler for Ms letter. The names, Rascher and Romberg, which I hoar are the instigators of the letter--I can not remember anything about them. I never noticed the names of Rascher and. Romberg until the end. of the war, consciously. Then it says here, I am informed about the current experiments.
That is what it said in Hippke's report, and I must refer to many witnesses who have said that in 2043a the German ministerial style in which the letters are written, this "I"--the letter "I" is absolutely normal, even if the man who signed it does not mean himself.
By saying "I", "I" in this case or in similar cases, refers to the ministry as such. It also said, "Very soon I shall ask these two gentlemen to make a report before my gentlemen of my office-- with or by us-and showing a film." I can not remember this statement or massage, either. I did not write it myself. That I just state there as paragraph 1. Then, later on, I added the following words, "Hoping to be able to sec you during my next visit at your headquarters, I remain, yours as ever, etc., with kind regards..." because the last signature had been signed in a different manner by Hippke. And with this friendly gesture, namely, that I will go and visit him, I "wanted to tame Himmler's nervousness, shall we say by saying that I will come myself, meaning that we will then be able to discuss everything. We don't have to write here much more than that because the way it says, that is, in the first paragraph, was not very polite or could be regarded as impolite by Himmler if one knew him and his susceptibility.
Q Witness, why do you say you had taken knowledge of the report?
A Hippke -- ho was the one who had taken knowledge of the report, and when he had taken knowledge, the Minister or his deputy writes, "I took knowledge."
Q Witness -
A If, for instance, the Ministerial Director of the Ministry takes a trio and visits a factory, then the minister writes, "I, during my trio to the factory so-and-so, I found out the following" --not he was there but one of his higher ranking people in his ministry. However, that is the German ministerial style which was being used and has been used since, particularly with the old ministries.
Q Witness, then later on did you discuss the matter with Himmler?
A No, after this particular incident, as far as I can remember, I never heard anything at all about this. As for the showing of the film I knew nothing about it. That I was the one who wrote the distributer for sending all these reports in, one of those young doctors testified here in 2044A Court.
That would have been the same as if the King of Siam would have been forced to wipe his own room and keen it clean, because I never had to do with such questions of the ministry. And I would have told them my opinion if they would have asked me to such a thing.
Q Witness, didn't you discuss the matter with Wolf?
A Only to the effect, namely, that when Wolf told me everything worked out fine, and the Luftwaffe certainly is glad about it, and satisfied, and that above all, everything is all right between you and Himmler now. And I told him, "Yes, indeed," I had to think it over twice before I could answer. He meant, I know, where it was, though. It was on the seventh of September, 1943 namely in the Fuehrer's headquarters in *inniza, where I, while leaving my quarters there, my billets-- we had our own billets there, namely, the Guest House-no, it was 1942. I am sorry; I made a. mistake-- on the seventh of September.
That was at the time when I went to see Hitler about armament questions or, rather, I had been ordered to see him there. I met Wolf there; and I believe that he walked those fifty or seventy maters with me up to the Fuehrer's Villa, if you want to put it that way. We wanted to discuss things for a little while. However, when I got there, I was called in immediately because Speer was already there with Hitler. That is why I could not discuss things in detail with Wolf. That is the only thing I still can remember; that is, that once, without mentioning the word experiment, we had spoken about the troubles of the relationships between Himmler and myself and the gentlemen in my office. I deduced from that Himmler then felt better about me.
Q. You say, Witness, that you were not present on the 11th of September when they showed the film?
A. No.
Q Didn't you actually ask for the showing of the film?
A. No, I knew nothing about it. Had I known that then, of course I would have invited Mr. Hippke as Number 1 guest; and I can see from here on this document that he was not present.
Q. Where were you on the 11th of September?
A. On the 11th of September I was not in Berlin at all; I was in Rechlin. I had not been in Berlin the night before either; and then I was in Neuruppin where I met Speer later on. On the 12th of September I came back to Berlin. What has been stated is also wrong-that I had seen Goering on the 11th of September and had been ordered there for an oral report. I did not see Goering on the 11th of September, 1942, but the first oral report I made was on the 13th of September with Goering.
Q. Witness, did you discuss the question of the experiments with Goering?
A. Yes.
Q. Concerning these Dachau experiments?
A. No, I only explained to him--yes, with reference to the Dachau experiments. However, I didn't tell him anything about Dachau because I was not too clear myself as to where these experiments were being carried out; and I only told him that Himmler, I believe, had written in his letter that he wishes me to inform the Reichsmarshal as well, that is, Goering.
I was worried for fear if 2046A Himmler should address the Reichsmarshal and perhaps ask him that orders should be issued that this low pressure chamber be out at his disposal again, that Goering then would be able to order it.
Having a knowledge of the whole matter, I had to prevent this.
Therefore, during this long oral report I told Goering towards the end, "As far as this is concerned, Himmler asked me to inform you of the fact that the SS carried out experiments for us and the SS, and of course, wants to be praised for it." I expressed the minister's thanks to him "The medical inspector was not very glad about the experiments. He did tell me that everything was all right. Nothing had happened, however, if he docs not want to continue them because after all Hitler's impression would be that we were not able to carry out such things. Apart from that, Hippke would like to keep the chamber because he needs it himself, the chamber meaning the low pressure chamber; and he did not want to put it at anybody's disposal anymore. It is possible that Himmler will ask you questions as to that."
Goering answered me: "Very well, I am cf your opinion. We'll take care of our things ourselves; and Hippke can keep his low pressure chamber." That's how Goering, who had known nothing about this question before the whole matter was taken care of, reacted.
Q. Witness, did you ever hear anything about the freezing reports?
A. After these things I neither received a report from the medical inspectorate nor from any other agency. The only thing which I forget to mention is that Hippke on the 31st of August said with reference to this whole freezing business, "Nothing will be of benefit to us: and so far I think that the means which our grandmothers gave us were good enough." They had only found out that there were interesting things which had come out during these experiments, mainly from the scientific point of view.
Q. Witness, were you at the Nurnberg conference on the 26th and 27th of October?
A. No; and I would like to know from you what I was to do there. It was purely a session or meeting for special doctors. There were many more important sessions and meetings of a military kind which I did not attend in my position as inspector general; and after all you should not forgot what tasks I had.
Q. Witness, do you remember the letter of Wolf of the 27th of November, 1942?
A. No; and I think it impossible that the letter went to me; that it came to me directly and personally. I believe this because of the date of the 29th of November. From the 1st and the 5th of December I was not at the Reichs aviation Ministry. On the 30th I had been there for a very short time; and all I dealt with was with the trip from the 1st to the 5th of December to Rome. I had very important conferences there with reference to coming production with the Italians; and I also had special orders to discuss there with reference to Rommel, who had just come back from Africa. So that the letter of the 27th of November which was at Berlin either on the 28th or the 29th at the latest was automatically sent to Hippke due to my absence there.
Q. fitness, Hippke testified in this court that ho had only received this letter from you in February.
A. Yes, well, in any case the letter was not with mo until that date. Who kept it I do not know. Some office probably kept it or mislaid it. That was not possible with me. I had no records in my ministry; I had: no files. table was always clean when I left the office in the evening. There never was one single sheet of paper that remained on the desk. In other words, if there was anything the ante-room would have taken care of that anyway; and as I said before I was not there when the letter was supposed to have come and. I don't care if my ante-room, namely, the files which we have there, or Mr. Hippke's office is responsible for this.
Q. Witness, did you receive a letter from Himmler around the same time?
A. No. I saw the records here for the first time; and Himmler's letter, which came as a draft without a date and which was included in the letter drawn up by that notorious Mr. Rascher, who had sent it to Himmler,--this letter seems to have been sent on to Wolf to be answered and to be sent on.
Wolf, with reference to this draft by Rascher, actually used everything verbatim, with the exception of those religious questions which Mr. Rascher had interpolated. He left those out because Wolf know" us officers bettor and he knew definitely that we did not like funny jokes about religion. Wolf guessed right; and he left that out.
2048a
Q. Thank you. Witness, with the exception of Mr. Rascher, did you also know Mr. Ruff and. Mr. Romberg?
A. I mot Ruff once before the war due to the fact that I had given a special flyer's prize to him and. to a few other young fliers. He was a very good pilot, and. ho distinguished himself by carrying on selfexperiments. That, according to my recollection, is the only time that I ever saw him and spoke to him. As for the other man, Romberg, I never knew him before these trials, and I never saw him. Also, I never heard his name.
Q. Witness, in the time that followed, did. you ever find out that Rascher was to be transferred to the SS?
A. No, I know nothing about it.
Q. Did you over do anything about this matter?
A. No. And. I may add. to this also, such inferior questions wore not under my jurisdiction and. did. not belong to my sphere of tasks.
Q. Witness, couldn't one say that because the medical inspectorate was indirectly under your orders that you should have dealt with this whole question a little bit closer?
A. As I was not in charge of these medical questions, I had nothing to do with it. I may add. one thing, that Hippke came to see no with reference to the fact that I mentioned. The fact that Hippke came to see mo with this letter goes to show that he was not on good, terms with the SS and that therefore he came to see mo in order to get help from me by having me sign for him.