(Counts two and three, pars. 6, 7, 11, and 12)
I turn now to the main part of the indictment and will outline at this
point the prosecution’s case relating to those crimes alleged to have
been committed in the name of medical or scientific research. The
charges with respect to “euthanasia” and the slaughter of tubercular
Poles obviously have no relation to research or experimentation and will
be dealt with later. What I will cover now comprehends all the
experiments charged as war crimes in paragraph 6 and as crimes against
humanity in paragraph 11 of the indictment, and the murders committed
for so-called anthropological purposes which are charged as war crimes
in paragraph 7 and as crimes against humanity in paragraph 12 of the
indictment.
Before taking up these experiments one by one, let us look at them as a
whole. Are they a heterogeneous list of horrors, or is there a common
denominator for the whole group?
A sort of rough pattern is apparent on the face of the indictment.
Experiments concerning high altitude, the effect of cold, and the
potability of processed sea-water have an obvious relation to
aeronautical and naval combat and rescue problems. The mustard gas and
phosphorous burn experiments, as well as those relating to the healing
value of sulfanilamide for wounds, can be related to air-raid and
battlefield medical problems. It is well known that malaria, epidemic
jaundice, and typhus were among the principal diseases which had to be
combated by the German Armed Forces and by German authorities in
occupied territories.
To some degree, the therapeutic pattern outlined above is undoubtedly a
valid one, and explains why the Wehrmacht, and especially the German Air
Force, participated in these experiments. Fanatically bent upon
conquest, utterly ruthless as to the means or instruments to be used in
achieving victory, and callous to the sufferings of people whom they
regarded as inferior, the German militarists were willing to gather
whatever scientific fruit these experiments might yield.
But our proof will show that a quite different and even more sinister
objective runs like a red thread through these hideous researches. We
will show that in some instances the true object of these experiments
was not how to rescue or to cure, but how to destroy and kill. The
sterilization experiments were, it is clear, purely destructive in
purpose. The prisoners at Buchenwald who were shot with poisoned bullets
were not guinea pigs to test an antidote for the poison; their murderers
really wanted to know how quickly the poison would kill. This
destructive objective is not superficially as apparent in the other
experiments, but we will show that it was often there.
Mankind has not heretofore felt the need of a word to denominate the
science of how to kill prisoners most rapidly and subjugated people in
large numbers. This case and these defendants have created this gruesome
question for the lexicographer. For the moment we will christen this
macabre science “thanatology,” the science of producing death. The
thanatological knowledge, derived in part from these experiments,
supplied the techniques for genocide, a policy of the Third Reich,
exemplified in the “euthanasia” program and in the wide-spread slaughter
of Jews, gypsies, Poles, and Russians. This policy of mass extermination
could not have been so effectively carried out without the active
participation of German medical scientists.
I will now take up the experiments themselves. Two or three of them I
will describe more fully, but most of them will be treated in summary
fashion, as Mr. McHaney will be presenting detailed proof of each of
them.