DR. GAWLIK: I'm extremely sorry, your Honor. I thought that I could ask a Witness on cross examination and make him my own witness by putting questions to him which are outside the subject-matter discussed in the examination.
THE PRESIDENT: But this witness is not called for your cross examination. He is called by the Tribunal for its questioning; and if the Tribunal hadn't called him, you would have had no opportunity to ask him questions.
DR. GAWLIK: I have no other questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Anyone else now? No. The prosecution? No.
DR. VON STAKELBERG (For the defendant Fanslau): May it please the Court, the witness Dr. Steichele is present. If the Tribunal is agreeable, I should like to call him now.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: While he is coming, please give us the witness' name.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Dr. Karl Steichele.
DR. KARL STEICHELE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Doctor, will you raise your right hand please, and repeat the oath after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q Witness, will you please give the Court your full name and the date of your birth?
A Dr. Karl Steichele. I was born on 8 November 1881 in Truedesheim.
Q Dr. Steichele, it is my intention to interrogate you as an expert. I shall, therefore, have to ask you a few questions about your scientific background. What was your education?
A From the secondary school I went to high school and the university.
Q When did you pass your state examination?
A In 1912.
Q Did you then have another type of expert training?
A Yes, I took what is known as the physicate, which is the real state examination. The first is the approbation.
Q Did you then enjoy your professional training in a clinic?
A Yes, in the University Clinic of Erlangen by Prof. Dr. Spender.
Q Dr. Steichele, will you please make a pause after each question so that the interpreter can follow you? How long did that training take?
A One year. Then another year in practice.
Q What type of training was it?
A Psychiatry and neurology.
Q What were the positions you then took up as a doctor?
A I became an assistant practitioner, then I became a oberarzt medizinalrat, then a deputy chief.
Q In what institutions were you?
AAt Gaversee and Egelfing.
Q How long have you been in the institution at Egelfing?
A Well, since the Gaversee institution was dissolved in 1941, and as a psychiatrist since 1912.
Q Since 1912 as a psychiatrist -- I see. And your present position is medizinalrat, medical counsellor and, you said, deputy chief?
A Well, I'm the doctor in charge.
Q You are the physician in charge of the institution at Egelfing. What is the asylum at Egelfing? What type of an institution is it?
A Patients who have a psychic ailment are treated there.
Q It is a purely psychiatric institution?
A Yes, it is.
Q Dr. Steichele, do you know the files of one Guenther Otto, alias Johann Torsten?
A Yes.
Q Where are they now?
A They are probably here in this court building?
Q Since when?
A Since last Saturday.
Q Saturday? Who came on Saturday in order to fetch them?
A I'm afraid I don't remember the name.
Q A member of what department?
A Of the court here.
Q You mean the prosecution, do you?
A Yes.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: May it please the Court, I shall have to state here that the prosecution, after it had learned that Dr. Steichele became a defense witness, because of the records, without my knowledge brought the records from the Egelfing institution, and, from what I have heard today has presumably handed them over the psychiatrist in the prison here. For the testimony of Dr. Steichele it would probably have been of great importance if he had had his records with him. I must, therefore, launch a protest against the prosecution for getting hold of defense material without my knowledge. I would further like to move that as far as Dr. Steichele requires them, his records should be placed at his disposal.
MR. ROBBINS: I think Dr. Von Stekelberg's request is perfectly right. I announced the first thing this morning that the prison psychiatrist had requested the files and then we sent a man to Harr/Egelfing and requested them. They were voluntarily turned over to the prison psychiatrist. I think that the files are in the general hospital here at Nurnberg. It would take some time to got them. If Dr. Von Stakelberg wants them, they are certainly available to him.
THE PRESIDENT: These are public records, records of a public institution. They don't belong to the defense any more than they belong to the prosecution, so that when you say the prosecution had no right to go and take defense material, it was prosecution material, too. Can the witness go ahead now?
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Yes, he can testify; and from my questions it will become clear whether or not the records will be necessary. If so, I shall request them.
THE PRESIDENT: If they are necessary, you may have them, of course.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q Witness, would it help you in your testimony if you had your records in front of you?
A Well, I'm quite well informed about the matter.
Q I see. When Guenther Otto, alias Johann Torsten, arrive in Egelfing?
A On the 2nd of August 1945.
Q On whose orders?
A This was arranged by the official physician of Wasserburg, who had examined him in prison.
Q How long was he with you in your institution?
A He was with us in Egelfing until the 9th of September 1946; and he then escaped.
Q Did you search for him?
A Yes, a search was arranged; but the police didn't track him down.
Q What statements did he make about his own life? First of all, what name did he say was his correct name?
A He described himself in Egelfing as Johann Torsten.
Q As John Torsten, you mean?
A Yes, John Torsten. As to his previous history, he said that no hereditary diseases had occurred in his family; that his early childhood had been perfectly normal; that at school he had been a good pupil; that he had not learned a trade because of difficult family conditions; that whenever he took a job he soon left it again; that usually he travelled around. Then he said; that on one occasion he won some money at a lottery, 12,000 marks, he said; and he used this to support his family. But the money was soon spent, and once again he went on the jump. When he was about to be called up, he always knew how to get out of it again. Then in 1940 he alleged that he had taken part in an act of sabotage when an important bridge near Augsburg was blown up. It was remarkable here that that incident was not mentioned by him in his curriculum vitae.
Then he stated that he had at this occasion shot an SS man. He asserted that he had been a member of the resistance movement; and that he had to take an important message from Stuttgart to Munich by car. On the bridge across the Lech an SS man had stopped him. The car was stopped and parked at the side of the road. Meanwhile another car had drawn up, which was dealt with. Then the SS man again went to Otto's car; and he asserts that he shot him through the window pane, hitting him in the head.
On the bridge across the Lech an SS-man had stopped him, his car was stopped, and in the meanwhile another car had drawn up which was dealt with. When the SS-man went to Otto's car, he asserts that he shot him through the windowpane, hit him in the head. Then he said he got hold of the papers of the SS-man and his uniform, because as he stated he looked so extraordinarily like himself, almost like a twin brother. In the uniform and with the papers he then stated he had gone to Dachau, and in the concentration camp there he did duty in the place of the SS-man he shot.
Q. What was the name of the SS-man?
A. That is not known. Then he was sent out on the SS expedition to Russia. There he said he deserted and was sentenced to death; committed to the concentration camp at Dachau. His death sentence had yet to be confirmed by the Reichsfuehrer-SS. That he made a number of attempts, to escape, he said, and, on the 29 April 1945, he had been finally liberated by the Allied troops. These statements he made in a very long winded manner. He produced all sorts of fantastic stories which later proved to be quite untrue. Also in his statement he was rather contradictory. For instance, he stated that since 1942 he had been in the concentration camp, and in the next sentence he told us about an experience he had in 1943, which he alleged occurred near Ausberg when he was at large. When his attention was drawn to the contradiction, he did not seem to care very much, smiled and talked about something else, and said simply, "It is quite correct." He would be sarcastic on occasions, and by that would attempt to show a feeling of superiority towards the Institution. He talked quite low, monotonously; he frequently lost himself in his tales, and then had forgotten what he had told us before. While he was under observation in the Institution, he always showed himself to be extremely self-confident, arrogant, boastful, and his whole conduct was very tricky and negative. He was apprehensive, and not frank.
He also told us things and facts, and the impression he gave us of these things were entirely fictitious and thought out carefully in his own mind first. With the other patients he frequently quarreled. He always wanted to boast, and bragged that nobody could tell him anything. Among the nurses, all of them were of middle aged and experienced nurses, he has been described as follows: He was boastful; he was a liar; he bragged; always discontented; liked to quarrel, and argumentative.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Stakelberg did the witness ever see the patient at any time?
DR. VON STAKELBERG: No, Your Honor.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q. The question was whether you yourself saw the witness Otto yourself?
A. No, no, I did not. After all of this, Otto accordingly to contradictory and the statements by the nurses, must be regarded as a psychopathic case. That is to say, his own mental condition, his congenital disposition is abnormal. He deviates from the average type, insofar as that type of a person of the same age and the same sex are concerned. He is extremely unstable; he affects poses; he is extremely self-confident; impulsive up to a point of a child, and not without gifts; has an exaggerated imagination, by which he can imagine himself as to fictitious parts or roles, with the result that he forgets the unreality of these fictitious dreams, and allows his actions to be activated by them. It is my opinion that the statements which he made, and which are proved by facts are to be received with great caution, and he will certainly exaggerate or distort the matter, according to his own idea, and that all statements which can be proved should not be regarded as credible.
Q. Do you want to say something else?
A. No.
Q. If I can arrive at a conclusion from what you said, you want to say that his statements, if they are the sole testimony, are, in your opinion, not to be regarded as evidence?
A. They certainly should not be decisive.
Q. The knowledge of the expert opinion which you have just given is based on what facts, or evidence on which you have made a statement like that?
A. Well, I had the nurses come to see me and on the interviews with the nurses, and from asking them questions, and all the impressions from all of these nurses from the various departments in which Otto was treated.
Q. And those nurses are they well versed and experts on whose opinions a doctor would rely?
A. Yes, certainly, they are old and experienced nurses.
Q. The official records of your Institution, and, in other words, the statements of your nurses are the things on which you based your testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever hear anything about Otto's further intentions?
A. No, I never heard anything about that.
Q. Did you not tell me something once about denouncing somebody, that he got somebody into a penitentiary?
A. Well, I had heard something that after his escape he went to Wasserburg, and there he acted as, so to speak, a professional denouncer, but I cannot tell you anything precisely, I only heard. I only heard that he denounced two persons, a woman and an elderly man, and those two were taken to prison on the basis of his denouncing them.
Q. Did he at any time mention atrocities which he had observed during the Russian campaign?
A. Nothing is mentioned of these in his case history.
Q. Now here he has told us a number of facts down to the minutes details and the very fact that he was in a position to describe these minute details should really -- or quite really mean that they are true; does it really follow?
A. It is quite possible that he imagined all these things in his phantasy, but there is also the possibility that they really happened as well.
Q. You mean his imagination is abnormal?
A. Yes, it is abnormal.
Q. You think that in his imagination he imagined these things happening to the smallest detail, until he finally persuaded himself to believe that they were true?
A. Yes, without the things being actually true. Well, it is always possible that there was some incident which caused all of these.
Q. But as far as the veracity itself is concerned down to the smallest details that does not apply to him. Therefore, you can never even borderline his case where his veracity begins or ends?
A. He is a borderline case between sound and ill mentality.
Q. You just described him as a psychopathical character?
A. Yes, I should call him abnormal. He deviates from the average.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: I have no further questions.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Doctor, in your Institution do you have a Board of Experts who diagnose the patients conditions, as to their mental condition?
A. I have not quite understood you, sir.
Q. (Whereupon his question was repeated in German)
A. Yes. First of all there is the departmental physician who is the first called to deal with the patient. Then the case history is discussed in what we call a conference.
Q. Now in that conference did you make a diagnosis of this man's mental condition, and, if so, what was the diagnosis?
A. I don't know. I was not present. I cannot answer that.
Q. Does his record give a diagnosis of his mental condition?
A. The records, yes. In the records he is called a psychopath.
Q. It does not say that he was suffering with any particular mental disease?
A. The diagnosis has been supplemented by an additional remark of the Pseudologists, that is to say, he is the kind of man who invents, or has imagination, a pseudological-psychopath.
Q. You do not say though that he is suffering with a known mental disease, such as paranoid, dementia-praecox, or some other known mental disease?
A. No, no, he is a psychopath and he has nothing psychotic. The psychopath is deviating from the norm. And psychosis is something of a disease. Something new is added which can not be explained by the actual state of mind. It is either a permanent feature, or only a temporary, but in this case not the psychopath. He simply deviates from the average norm.
Q. Is it or is it not a fact that a psychopathic patient can tell the truth?
A. Certainly.
Q. That just because they are psychopathic ***, that does not of itself mean that they are liars, does it?
A. No. There are a number of different psychopathic patients; there are liars, people with high imagination (phanta), swindlers, people without any hold over themselves, and so on, and his case is simply one of the many categories.
Q. In other words, you do not consider him an insane person, but an abnormal person?
A. Insane in that sense he certainly is not, but he is abnormal.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: May I just put one more question in this connection to the witness?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q. The disease, we shall not call it a disease as has been diagnosed, the abnormal state, is that known as "Pseudologia Phantastica." You would not call it a social disease?
A. Well the psychopathic cases you have to differentiate according to the degree.
Q. The degree, you say?
A. Yes, the degree, the psychopathical patient can be described as an insane person if the degree becomes so acute.
Q. Can you exclude with certainty that Otto has already reached the borderline of abnormality?
A. No, I am afraid I cannot say that.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Thank you very much.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Stakelberg, please find out the date when the diagnosis was made as to the patient's abnormality.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q. When was the diagnosis made, namely, on the witness Otto, as to being an abnormal person.
A. Well, when the patient concerned has been examined and observed for sometime, then the diagnosis is made, and as the release the diagnosis is reviewed, whether or not it still applies.
Q. I see.
A In the case of Otto after he escaped the diagnosis had ended, and his file read that he was a pseudological psychopathic patient.
Q Was that stated for the first time, a certain period of time after he had been committed?
A Yes
Q And then it was confirmed after he had disappeared.
A Yes, the official physician of Wesserburg had also taken than position on account of his talking nonsense, by his boasting. He had given cause for the suspicion that this might apply.
Q That this suspicion had been reached, you mean to say in your institution. He was under suspicion of being a "pseudologia fantastica" patient and that suspicion was then confirmed?
A Yes, that suspicion by the official physician was directly confirmed by our observation and diagnosis.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: While it is naturally obvious that this diagnosis was made before -- while it is apparent that this diagnosis must have been made before Otto ever appeared in this courtroom, yet, I would like as a matter of record to have it shown that psychologically it did precede the diagnosis, preceded his appearance in a court of law to tell the story which he did here relate.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q The diagnosis was decided upon from the point of your statement, when?
A Well, he arrived in August 1945, and by the end of August the diagnosis was made.
Q By the end of August 1945?
A Yes, but it was confirmed now, you see.
Q The diagnosis was made by the end of August 1945?
A Yes.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: It was before the witness gave evidence here.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Let me ask you one more question.
Q Doctor, in your experience with psychopathic patients, haven't you had the experience that a number of patients, such as Otto, who would tell all kinds of fanatastic stories about their own life, about their own exploits, experiences that they had which were fantastic, but would not tell falsehoods about some one else?
A If I have followed your question, namely, that these fantastic imaginations are being produced, but otherwise, you mean, these speak the truth?
Q No, nothing like that. Will you repeat my question.
(Whereupon the question was read in German to the witness)
A Yes, as I said before, in the case of a psychopathical liar, it does not occur that they tell lies both about themselves and about others to a quite an abnormal extent.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Do you wish me to continue?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: If you will, please.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q His Honor's question was as follows: Is it your experience that a psychopathic patient of the type of the witness Otto, that they tell untruth stories about themselves, bragging about themselves, but sofar as other people are concerned, they do speak the truth?
A They might about others.
Q That is to say, a difference could be made between the stories they tell about themselves, or the stories they tell about each other?
A No, they lie about themselves, and invent things just as easily about strangers.
DR. PRABILLA: Dr. Pribilla for the defendant Tschentscher.
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q Doctor, you said that the witness Otto's state of mind was abnormal, psychopathic, of these special types of the highly psychopathic-pseudological variety.
When you were asked whether or not Otto was insane, you said, if I understood you correctly, you could not say with certainty, that he was a borderline case?
A Yes -
Q Excuse me, I have not quite finished as yet. Then you said after he had been committed, a conference of doctors had decided the diagnosis, and I must state that Otto then continued to remain in the lunatic asylum; that it seems to me is a self-contradiction of your statement that he was not with any certainty insane. Then one might or can say, that is, I take it, that you said that his state of mind was sufficiently serious for a conference of doctors to decide to keep him in a lunatic asylum.
A Well, the actual reason was that these inferior psychopathic cases are very frequently anti-social in character. That was the reason why we kept him in the Institution, because he represented a danger to mankind, and they must be kept under observation in an institution. Article 82 applies.
Q Anyway, he was sufficiently abnormal that it was necessary to keep him there in order to make him harmless?
A (no answer)
Q And another point in your testimony by which I was startled, was the fact that you said that very frequently these people had other special gifts. The fact the term "pseudology" is based on the Greek word "Logos". I want to know how does a psychopathic patient behave towards other human beings; is he, for instance in a position to influence other people, to have an influence on them, and what effect does that influence have to be considered on other people's mind?
A Yes, these psychopathic patients are highly unpopular in an institution, because they always have bad influence on their surroundings.
Q I mean, quite concretely, would he, for instance, be able to persuade others with his own imaginative inventions?
A Yes, sofar as they share his, disposition. What I mean not everybody can differentiate between truth and liars, this is simply believed. I mean, by only to listen to him.
Q I once heard that people like that have an hypnotic power sofar as others are concerned. They can tell their tales in a highly convincing manner?
A Yes, certainly that fact exists.
DR. PRIBILLA: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: You would not think that was hypnotic, would you, Doctor?
A Please. Up to a point, yes, certainly.
Q This patient could not fool you, could he, with his tall stories?
A Not, of course, with a usual hypnotic power, in a large sense of the word.
Q That is what I mean. They tell a convincing story to a person who is not smart enough to catch them at it?
A Yes, quite.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we all do that, of course. Never mind. Any cross examination?
MR. FULKERSON: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Quarter to two.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 1345 hours.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours, same date.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 25 August, 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
KARL STEIGELE - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q May it please the Tribunal, Doctor, I have a few questions I would like to put to you, if you please. It is true, is it not, that there are many people in the common walks of life who would be considered psychopathic if examined by a psychiatrist?
THE INTERPRETER: Just a moment.
MR. ROBBINS: Can you hear me?
THE WITNESS: I can hear you somewhat better now.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q It is true, is it not, that there are many people in the common walks of life who would be considered psychopathic if examined by a psychiatrist?
A Oh, you mean psychopathic cases?
Q I beg your pardon. Yes, would be psychopathic cases.
A Yes.
Q A good many professional people, doctors and lawyers, would be considered psychopathic cases if they were examined by a psychiatrist?
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to put the judges in?
A That depends.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q What percentage of the population would you say, Doctor, what percentage of the population would you estimate to be psychopathics?
A Well, it is impossible to answer that.
Q Isn't it true, Doctor, that in Germany that a man can be sent to a mental institution by the police for a check-up, and if the police do not request his return that he stays there for a long period of time?
AArticle 80
Q Excuse me, I am not asking you about the law, I am asking you about what happens as a matter of fact. If the police send a man to a mental institution for a check-up, isn't it true that if often happens that he stays there for a year or more?
A Well, first of all there has to be a certificate from a physician that the person who is sent to the institution actually is mentally insane, or the court may send him to an institution for observation. However, a person isn't just sent to an institution without any other procedure being followed. The prerequisite is always a certificate by the physician.
Q Doctor, it isn't true that every patient in the institution has a certificate that he is insane?
AA certificate?
Q Yes. It is not true in every case, is it?
A Well, either he is sent there for observation, or it is possible that he has been sent in from the outside, that he has been insane there, but he isn't sent to the institution just without any procedure.
Q Doesn't it often happen that a man is sent to an institution for observation and remains there for a long period of time, and until someone requests his release, and isn't that particularly true where the patient is a good worker?
A No. If it is discovered later on that the ill person can be released, then he is released.
Q Do you know from the case history of Otto about his political leanings, whether or not he had socialist and pacifist views?
A From his case history we only know that he was with the resistance movement. However, beyond that we don't know anything, we can't find anything about it.
Q Would you say that his attitudes are anti-Nazi?
A Yes. I personally did not make his acquaintance. I can't give you any information about that.
Q I understand that. You say that your conclusions about his state of mind are based on what the other doctors at Haar-Eglfing told you about Otto, is that correct, and what they wrote, put in the file?
A Yes.
Q That is correct.
A Well, the case histories are written down in an objective sense and opinions are not put into the case histories, but only facts.
Q Just answer my question, please. Is it true that your conclusions that you have testified here today are based upon your conversations with the doctors and nurses and what you have seen in Otto's files?
A Yes, whether I gained my impression there, yes.
Q Now, tell me, Doctor, how many patients you have at HaarEglfing; how many are there in the entire mental institution?
A Well, more than three thousand.
Q And there are about eight attendants and nurses, are there not, eight attendants and nurses?
A Oh, nurses. I didn't hear the last word.
Q How many attendants and nurses are there in the institution?
A Nurses? Well, approximately four hundred.
Q Four hundred nurses?
A Yes, nurses, nursing personnel. I can't give you the exact figure today. Some of them are constantly dismissed and some new people begin to work there. I can't give you the exact figure.
Q How many doctors do you have there, psychiatrists?
AAbout twelve.
Q And these nurses that you have, are they mostly male nurses?
A Yes, for the male patients we have male nurses, and for the female patients we have female nurses.
Q Have they had any psychiatric education, any training in school?
A Yes, they have to pass an examination and take training courses. They have to pass a state examination. They have to pass the state nursing examination.
Q How often would a doctor in the ordinary course of affairs have a conversation with a patient such as Otto?
A Well, every time they paid a visit to him.
Q How often would that be?
AAt least twice a day, and in a special case he would go to see him more often.
Q Can you say how many times doctors examined Otto?
A I did not examine him at all.
Q How many times was he examined by doctors?
A That escapes my knowledge. I can't give you any information about that.
Q You have told us that the nurses and doctors were quite experienced. By that do you mean that they have been in your institution quite a long time?
A I didn't understand the question.
Q Have your doctors and nurses been in Haar-Eglfing for some period of time?
A Yes, certainly. They were all experienced nurses. I mean they had spent many years in the service.
Q And had they spent many years in Haar-Eglfing?