Q. And did it also happen that in the third period, when the criminal prisoners predominated, that political prisoners were also included for one reason or another, perhaps by the illegal camp management?
A. Yes; always during the third period foreigners were brought to Block 46 for different experiments; had been against the measures of the Reich Criminal Office, or also directly, for instance, as far as Russian prisoners of war were concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal II is again in session.
Q Mr. Kogon, were any or all of the experimental persons condemned to death?
AAs far as I know, none of the prisoners who was taken to Block 46 was ever sentenced to death. Later on I was told four or six Russians prisoners of war who had been used for experiments were said to have been sentenced to death, that is to say, sentenced to death by shooting.
Q But other than these four or five Russian prisoners of war, you can say that none of the experimental subjects had been condemned to death; is that right?
A Yes, I can say that none was ever sentenced to death.
Q Now, you have mentioned four or five Russian prisoners of war. Were any other prisoners of war used in any of the experiments in Buchenwald?
AApart from the Russian PW's I know no other category of PW's who were taken to Block 46.
Q Well, were there any Russian PW's other than these four or five that you have already mentioned?
A Yes, these were two experiments; in one case, four Russian PW's; in another case, six were used. I don't know in which case four were used and in which case six.
Q Were they used in the typhus experiments, or do you now have reference to the poison experiments?
A In one case it was a poison experiment; and in the other case the Russian PW's were used, as Dr. Ding-Shuler told me, for being shot at with poisoned bullets.
Q The poisoned bullet experiment, however, was not one which took place in Buchenwald, was it?
A That was an experiment which was carried out in Sachsenhausen in the presence of Mrugowsky. But there was another poison experiment which was carried out on Russian prisoners of war in Buchenwald in the crematorium.
Q Suppose we come back to the poison experiments a little later. Now, will you tell the Tribunal how the typhus experiments were performed?
A For a typhus experiment between twenty and sixty experimental subjects were selected. Some of them were injected with a typhus Vaccine which had to be tested. Another part were not vaccinated as a protective measure. It happened also that there were tests on twenty experimental persons, each injected with various vaccines, and there were ten so-called control persons who were not injected. After about three weeks all participants, whether they had been vaccinated or not, were infected with typhus. Then at various times in various ways at the beginning persons were injected with live virus which had been supplied by the Dehring works. When that material did not produce the illness, that is to say, on the control persons who had not been vaccinated, some went over to a different method.
Now ten cubic centimeters of fresh blood were used, blood which was taken from patients who had reached a high degree of typhus infection. These ten cubic centimeters then were injected intravenously into the experimental person. The person became ill; and from the comparison among the person not vaccinated, the control person, and the person who had been vaccinated, the necessary conclusions were arrived at as to the efficacy of the vaccine which had to be tested.
Q Now, is it not true that they also tested certain drugs which were regarded as a good prophylaxis against typhus? I'm thinking of methylen blue and acridine.
AAs I mentioned before therapeutical methods were used, and products which came from I. G. Farben, products put at our disposal by a naval medical officer, Ruge, the name of the produce being Persicol. These methods were used in a way so that the patient was given these drugs before they were infected; or when the efficacy of this drug was to be tested, the experimental persons were infected first and then were given this drug.
These were drugs which were taken through the mouth.
Q Do you know what the source was of the typhus infected blood which was used as a means of infection?
A From a number of sources. The tainted lice were supplied by the Typhus Institute of the OKH in Cracow to Buchenwald; and persons were infected with these lice. Secondly, infected lungs of lice were also supplied from Cracow to Buchenwald; and they were put in water and then used. Thirdly, blood from so-called transient persons was used, that is to say, persons in Block 46 were infected only for the purpose of keeping alive the typhus virus in order that there would be live material all the time. The blood was taken from these persons who had a very high degree of typhus and transferred to other experimental subjects.
Q About how many passage persons were used each month?
A From summer 1942 up to the spring of 1945 about three to five persons each month.
Q And approximately how many of these passage persons died?
AAlmost all of the passage persons died. The percentage was certainly about ninety per cent.
Q The passage persons were used simply as a source of typhus infected blood, is that right?
A Only for that purpose, yes.
Q Can you tell us whether the experimental subjects who were subjected to typhus suffered very much?
A Typhus is with the exception of Eastern Europe, that is to say, Russia, one of the worst diseases a population can suffer from. It is connected with fits and very high temperatures; and if a European survives it, it usually damages his whole system badly. Almost fifty per cent of Europeans infected with typhus usually die.
Q Now, can you tell us over what period of time the typhus experiments continued -- when they started and when they ended?
A The typhus experiments in Buchenwald camp lasted from the beginning of 1942 up to the spring of 1945. The last series of experiments started in March 1945; but this series was not carried out in the spring of 1945.
Q Can you tell us approximately the total number of inmates used in the typhus experiments?
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q Can you tell us approximately the total number of inmates used in the typhus experiments?
A The total figure of inmates taken for the typhus experiments of Block 46 for experimental altogether I am in a position to tell you. They were a total of one-thousand; several hundred of them were used only for passage purposes and about seven-hundred for experiments on passage persons; if the typhus experiments were made up in a bigger part of it, the biggest part of the seven-hundred persons were used for the typhus experiments. So far as I remember, however, the yellow fever experiments were about 145 persons, but the biggest part of them were used for typhus experiments.
Q Now can you tell us how many of the inmates died as a result of the typhus experiments?
AAgain I can give you the figure only of the whole of the experiments. The over all passage purpose from among the other experimental series were, that died, about 155 people.
Q Now the figure 155 persons does not include the deaths among the passage persons, is that correct?
A No, it does not include the passage persons.
Q Now Dr. Kogon, you are familiar with the so-called Ding Diary, are you not?
A Yes, indeed.
Q And that Diary records the results of typhus experiments in Buchenwald, does it not, as well as certain other experiments?
A Dr. Ding-Schuler's Diary reports all important events which took place in Block 46 from his time up to the end of the camp - - shortly before the end of the camp.
Q I want to be sure that the record is clear in the recording of this oral testimony, because as the result of this testimony in the medical case certain of the defense attorneys have stated that a large number of persons volunteered, so I want to be pretty clear about that question. In the Ding Diary the entry for 5 January 1942 shows that an experiment Court No. II, Case No. IV.
was carried out to determine a sure way of infecting the experimental subject. Five persons were used and no infection resulted; that was on 5 January. On 10 January another infection test was carried out which used five persons, and as the result of that by the 20th of February there was one death. Then between 6 January and 1 February a rather large experiment was started which involved 145 inmates. 31 were first vaccinated with the Vigl vaccine; 34 with the Cox-Gildemeister & Cox vaccine; 35 with the Behring Normal vaccine, and, 31 with the Behring Strong vaccine, and 10 were control-persons. Now were all of those 145 persons volunteers, as you have described the word "volunteers" heretofore?
A No. The figure of volunteers in March so far as I can recall at the most were two dozen. I am entirely certain of this part, but this was how it worked: For the first two experimental series - - in the first three series a large number of prisoners were taken to Block 46 for the third series, only after where the people had been called into the first two, and for the first two series about two dozen people were volunteers. Then a large number of persons were simply told to be in Block 46, and as was done later in the first series, which had taken place at the same time, that was a small percentage of volunteers, and a very large percentage of non-volunteers.
Q Those so-called volunteers had not been previously informed that they were to undergo the dangers of the experiments, is that right?
A Yes.
Q Now will you describe briefly the process of taking blood from typhus convalescence to produce a serum to be used as an anti-toxin?
A If I remember it, at the beginning of the year of 1944 a Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ellenbeck did work in Block 46, and he was given orders, as at his own suggestion, to take blood from patients in Block 46, and where they were re-convalescing, and to produce a serum for the SS in Ber lin. For this he used those patients who were suffering from typhus, and were in Block 46. There were two categories there. One category Court No. II, Case No. IV.
where those whom I mentioned before were volunteers, and the other category were patients who were suffering from typhus after they arrived on a transport over from the west, and that was how from then onwards a large percentage, particularly of the Frenchmen, were used for such purposes.
Q Did any of them die?
A I do not know the precise detail of the percentage of the fatalities, because those experiments went on all the time, and there were complications, as there were no more diseases, and no more cases of typhus, and other experiments, therefore, one could never find out what the persons had died from, or which part of the experiments they would belong to.
Q Well, there were deaths among those persons from whom blood was taken?
A Yes, that happened on re-convalescing patients, who under the conditions of the concentration camp also had blood taken from him and was half way in a position to recovery on the contrary he was destined for death in that case.
Q Did they take a very large quantity of blood from those typhus convalescents?
A It would take from 150 to 300 centimeters each time.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q Now, did Ellenbeck also take blood from inmates in the small camp at Buchenwald, out of which blood plasma was made?
A Yes. In the so-called small camp of Buchenwald, which was a sort of transient camp, conditions were particularly horrible. There was an invalid block. That is to say, a hut, where invalids and old people were billeted, and these invalids and old people were asked to volunteer for blood donations so that they could be used in Berlin, and they were promised a piece of bread and sausage. In most cases they were given that bread and sausage. These people were in such a condition that they availed themselves of that possibility greedily.
Q Did many of the persons who submitted themselves for these blood plasma tests die?
A Here again the situation is that causes were mixed up a bit, especially in the small camp, where conditions were very bad indeed, and they were further weakened by losing blood, and there were more deaths in the small camps--the percentage of fatalities in the camp was on an estimate four times the rest of the camp. The exact figures, however, I am unable to give you.
Q Can you describe for us just a little more graphically the conditions in the small camp?
A From 1942 onward bigger transports arrived in the concentration camp, particularly in the years of 1942 and 1943 from the West and in the second half of 1944 from the East where other camps were evacuated. By and by the camp was overcrowded. People were crowded together by the thousands in these so-called small camps, which consisted merely of a small area. At first they were under canvas and later on, started by the illegal work of the inmates who wished to help their comrades, one toilet was established. Later on, wooden huts, with perhaps 400-450 persons in one hut would have had one, but the overcrowding was such and grew to such an extent that up to 1900 or 2000 persons were crowded together in one hut. The hygienic conditions of the small camp were appallingly bad. Every morning the naked bodies would lie on the dirty Court No. II, Case No. IV.
streets of the small camp until the body collectors would pick them up. The inmates of the small camp, as far as they did not die in Buchenwald, were usually sent to outside camps because the SS took the view that they did not wish to keep that sort of person.
Q Were there experiments which also tested old blood plasma for the Military Medical Academy in Berlin?
A Yes. The Military Medical Academy in Berlin, sometimes through the hygiene officer of the Waffen SS, sometimes directly, sent old blood plasma, which in some cases had been stored there for over a year. They did not know whether they were still suitable for use on the members of the German army. Therefore, they were sent to Buchenwald in order to be tried out on the inmates of the concentration camp, to discover whether by using this plasma there would be an effect of shock. These experiments with old blood plasma, as I remember it, lasted until about the autumn of 1944.
Q Did the submission of inmates to this old blood plasma cause shock in some cases?
AA precise report on this was made and sent to Berlin to the highest hygiene officer and to the Military Medical Academy in Berlin. I myself saw some of this report. Shock was caused in many cases, and, together with other causes as I remember it, there were some fatalities. Again it can not be stated with certainly what cause produced death, whether it was the blood plasma or the after effects of other experiments which had been performed on the same subjects earlier.
Q Mr. Kogon, turning to the poison experiments, I find an entry in the Ding diary dated 30-31 December 1943 which reads as follows:
"Special experiments on four persons in the case Koch-Hoven, by order of SS Gruppenfuehrer Nebe. The experiment was carried out in the presence of Dr. Morgen and Dr. Wehner."
Do you know anything about that entry?
A Yes, I know that case. I know it through Dr. Ding-Schuler, and this was connected with the so-called Koch-Hoven proceedings. Koch had Court No. II, Case No. IV.
been in charge of Buchenwald up to 1942, and Hoven had been camp doctor at the same time and up to September 1943, at which time the SS judicial authorities caused him to be arrested.
As a prosecution witness, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Koehler was killed. The body was tested after Dr. Hoven, together with SS Scharfuehrer Sommer had seen how. The autopsy of Koehler's body gave indication that he had been poisoned with a poison of the alkaloid type. In order to find out what sort of poison and how much of it had been administered to Koehler, four Russian prisoners of war were taken to Block 46. They were given various doses without their knowledge. It was given to them in a soup. The SS investigators, Dr. Morgen and Dr. Wehner, attended this experiment, together with Dr. Ding and another SS officer, and they were hidden behind a curtain.
When two of the Russian prisoners of war suffered only a collapse and two were not dead, all four of them were taken to the crematorium, and there they were hanged after an hour.
Q Why did they hang them; do you know?
A No, I do not know the reason. I assume, as the whole thing was an SS trial and very strange -- I think they wanted to get rid of the living witnesses.
Q Well, is it not also reasonable to assume that they wanted to perform an autopsy on these Russians?
A That is even probable that the autopsy was done in order to test the poison on those prisoners.
Q Now, witness, also in the Ding diary, which is Prosecution Exhibit 219, document NO 265, I find an entry dated 26 October 1944 which reads:
"Special experiment on six persons according to instructions of SS Oberfuehrer, Dr. Mrugowsky, and RKPA. Report on this orally."
Do you know what this entry means?
A I know that Dr. Ding-Schuler told me one day that he had to make an extremely secret experiment. He had a formula in his hand, put it in Court No. II, Case No. IV.
to an envelope, sealed it down, and told me that I should put it into the secret files and keep it there. He thereupon rang up Schoberg, the camp leader, and made him and two other SS officers, whose names escape me -- he asked them to come to the crematorium. He came back from there roughly two hours later, looking very pale and very excited, and he told me that he was glad that he had got that thing over with, that it had been a cruel business with six Russian prisoners of war who were now dead. Through our connections with the people working in the crematorium, we found out that these six prisoners of war were dead.
A little time later, Dr. Ding made me give him this sealed envelope. He opened it for a brief moment. I could see the heading of this document, which was in his handwriting. It had a code word there and a chemical formula. I could not remember one or the other, but he looked at it and read it again, and he burned it over a candle in front of my eyes.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q And did Ding tell you later about the poison-bullet experiment?
AAs I remember it, he told me even before. He said that he and Mrugowsky had visited Sachsenhause. Mrugowsky had shot the people with poison bullets on both sides in order to find out their effect. An incident had occurred because one of the Russians, as he was led into the room, used a knife which he had procured somehow, and he tried to attack Mrugowsky. The Russian had been beaten down. Whether that experiment in the crematorium of Buchenwald was the same poison or not I am unable to say with certainty, but I am inclined to assume it because Ding was mentioned. On the eastern front it had been found that the Russians were using a very mysterious poison, and now it had to be found out what sort of poison it was, and therefore these experiments were carried out.
THE PRESIDENT: We will conclude at this point. The record will show that the Defendant Fanslau has been absent from court during the entire session today. The Tribunal will recess until tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 0930 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 22 April 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 22 April 1947, 0930, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II. Military Tribunal II is again in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the courtroom.
MR. MC HANEY: May it please the Tribunal.
EUGEN KOGON - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q. Herr Kogon, I remind you that you are still under oath. Do you have a small correction to make in your testimony concerning the typhus experiments and the methods of artificial infection?
A. I said yesterday that in the typhus experiments the infection was made with fresh blood, that is to say, ten cubic centimeters of fresh blood. I remembered meanwhile that was the case in a few instances at the very beginning. Then the infection far a long was made with two cubic centimeters of fresh blood and later on with considerably less quantities, that is to say, one-tenth of a cubic centimeter. The infection in all cases was equally effective.
Q. Now, Herr Kogon, are you familiar with certain phosphorus or incendiary bomb experiments in Buchenwald?
A. Yes, in 1944 Madaus and Company in Dresden and Rapebaul made the application that a method against phosphorus bombs and the testing of bombs should be carried out in Buchenwald. Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. DingSchuler took the contents of phosphorus bombs, the contents having been supplied to him by the police chief of Rapebaul, and he put these contents on the skin of the left lower arm of prisoners. The contents were then put on fire. In the case of two prisoners they were put out by water. In another two cases this fire was put out by the drug R-17. In the case of a third group a piece of wet rag was used in order to get rid of the contents after the accident.
Three or four such experiments were carried out. The three methods which I described just now were used immediately after the skin caught fire; in the second series, after about ten minutes; and in the third series, after half an hour, after the contents of the bomb had been burned out and wounds had been produced on the arm.
Q. In other words, the purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness of this drug R-17, made by the Madaus and Company, on wounds caused by incendiary bombs, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And how many inmates were used in these experiments?
A. As I remember it, four or six.
Q Four or six inmates were used. Do you know whether they were volunteers?
A No, they were not volunteers. They were sent to Block 50 from Block 46 by Dr. Ding-Schuler, and they did not know what was going on. The experiments were carried out in the confines of block 50.
Q Did you see any of the experimental subjects during the course of the experiments, or after they had been burned?
A I saw the prisoners before the experiments were carried out and afterwards.
Q Were the burns on their arms very severe?
A The wounds in some cases were very deep. The experiments were carried out first on the left lower arm, and later on on the right lower arm, and they during various methods of experiments had the wounds, which were at the site in the experiments, photographed. I saw the developed films later, and I reported it in the Ding report which was then sent to Berlin.
Q Do you know whether these inmates suffered much pain as the result of these experiments?
A Yes, in fact, cases were very much so where wounds went as deep as one and one-quarter to one and a half centimeters.
Q Do you know whether they used any anesthesia, or not?
A I know that in the first experiment four of the prisoners -- or three of the prisoners at the beginning were given an anesthesia, but they recovered very quickly from the anesthesia during the experiment. I assume that at the end the purpose of the anesthesia was given in order to prevent the prisoner from knowing what was done to them.
Q Now the defendant Mrugowsky in the medical case, or perhaps it was one of his witnesses, testified they saw one of these experimental subjects immediately after the experiment, and he came out with a burn on his arm, and that he had a big smile on his face, with the idea it did not seem to bother him at all. Can you confirm that testimony?
A None of the prisoners whom I saw smiled. What I saw in some cases was I saw their faces distorted with pain; but I can understand how that testimony came about. In the very first experiment one of the prisoners had an incendiary bomb used on him, and immediately after it was put on fire, it had been removed in order to see if any trace would remain if you took quick action, and the prisoner, of course, did not suffer any pain.
Q Now, Doctor, will you tell us about the Hormon experiments. When they occurred, the number of inmates used, the purpose of the experiments, and the other facts surrounding that experiment?
A Then a Danish Obersturmfuehrer, Dr. Wernet, in 1944 was sent to Buchenwald in order to -- he was sent by Department-V in Leipzig. Later on I heard that this was done by arrangement of Oberfuehrer Poppendick in order to make tests of recovery which he believed was to be made on the prisoners, and he contacted Dr. Ding-Schuler who had been informed of the experiments by Berlin. The method was a so-called diversion in part of homosexuals, mainly by artificial plans. The experiments lasted for many months, and they were carried out in the hospital of the camp. Some reports went through Dr. Ding-Schuler to Berlin, and on the whole if I remember fourteen persons were used for these experiments. Two persons of the fourteen died.
Q You say the purposes of the experiments were an attempt to bring homosexuals back to normal sexual life?
A That was the alleged purposes, yes.
Q Now, witness, so long as we are on medical matters, I will ask you if the name "14-F-13" is familiar to you?
A The name "14-F-13", I can say I run across that expression first in 1942, I think in July or August. At that time an order came from the Department-D-III in Berlin, and the order reads for the hospital in Buchenwald, the camp doctor there. An orderly carried back and forth mail and correspondence between the camp doctor and a certain Doctor Eberl, who was in the hospital at the Asylum of Bernburg, which also carried that name.
Some transports were put together, and the first one, as I remember it, consisted of about ninety men, and the second one one-hundred and six, and then a few smaller transports. As to the prisoners in these transports, they were not aware at the time in the first case. Then afterwards the chauffeur would return with empty transports after half a day, and he brought with him all the clothes, and all the property belonging of the prisoners they had carried in their pockets, even the smallest objects, and on the very next day through the chauffeur a certain amount of information got around that the participants on the transports had been gassed. They knew the method -- they did not know the method which had been used on this occasion, but later on we heard about the next transport from the same source that these were gassing experiments, at least they were told so. On the whole Jews were used for these gassing experiments. They were taken through this Scharfuehrer to Bernburg, and also in the transports were invalids and old people.
Q What was the basis for selection of inmates to be included in Action 14-F-13?
AAt that time I could not really see this, and other people in the camp who were usually well informed did not really see through the whole matter. All sorts of people, all types of category of inmates, they were selected for these purposes by the camp leader by reason of the camp doctor. They were ordered to report to the hospital. There they were examined by the camp doctor, and, we were struck by the fact that elderly people, old people, and weak people were selected.
Q Were non-German Nationals included in these transports?
A I would have to think about this for sometime, but not very hard for me to remember one or two concrete cases. At the time my attention was directed essentially to those concerned in my surroundings, and I say these were not foreigners; I am inclined to believe that there were no foreigners that were included, but I am not certain.
Q What about Jews, were they included in these transports?
A Yes, I must admit that there were Polish Jews that were included.
Q Do you also know something about the treatment of inmates who had severe cases of "TB" in the concentration camp of Buchenwald?
A What I know is that in Buchenwald one of the conditions, in Buchenwald, was contradictory to that which applied to other camps, inasmuch as "TB" patients were well looked after, they had wonderful hospitalization, with special food. There was an attempt to make them well again, but at the same time in the middle of all of this, the experimentations were carried out on "TB" patients. People who had open "TB" were frequently in immediate danger of being killed, and where liquidation was done repeatedly in Buchenwald.
Q How did they kill them?
A By injections -- killed by injections.
Q Where did they kill them?
A In the hospital.
Q Were there a substantial number of such tuberculosis patients who were killed?
A I can not give you the exact figure because the periods of time were so separated from each other that these injections were carried out. With a Dr. Eisele, the camp doctor, the practice was for him to select people whom he called "TB" patients and killed them off by injection. In some cases there would be five, and in some cases on the whole I would estimate that the victims of that practice in Buchenwald were a few hundred.
Q Do you know whether any of these victims were German Nationals?
A No, any type of inmates at Buchenwald would be included in these actions. No difference would be made as to the nationality.
Q Now, witness, let's turn to matters of a more general nature. I would like for you to assume that none of the people in this courtroom are familiar with concentration camps, and I would now like to ask you some questions which will tend to give us a picture of what was a con centration camp, its purposes, how it was organized, how it was operated, the categories of prisoners, and other such matters.
