I have outlined the particular charges against the defendants under
count two, three, and four of the indictment; and I have sketched the
general nature of the evidence which we will present. But we must not
overlook that the medical experiments were not an assortment of
unrelated crimes. On the contrary, they constituted a well-integrated
criminal program in which the defendants planned and collaborated among
themselves and with others.
We have here, in other words, a conspiracy and a common design, as is
charged in count one of the indictment, to commit the criminal
experiments set forth in paragraphs 6 and 11 thereof. There was a common
design to discover, or improve, various medical techniques. There was a
common design to utilize for this purpose the unusual resources which
the defendants had at their disposal, consisting of numberless
unfortunate victims of Nazi conquest and Nazi ideology. The defendants
conspired and agreed together to utilize these human resources for
nefarious and murderous purposes, and proceeded to put their criminal
design into execution. Numbered among the countless victims of the
conspiracy and the crimes are Germans, and nationals of countries
overrun by Germany, and gypsies, and prisoners of war, and Jews of many
nationalities. All the elements of a conspiracy to commit the crimes
charged in paragraphs 6 and 11 are present and all will be clearly
established by the proof.
There were many co-conspirators who are not in the dock. Among the
planners and leaders of this plot were Conti and Grawitz, and Hippke
whose whereabouts is unknown. Among the actual executioners, Dr. Ding is
dead and Rascher is thought to be dead. There were many others.
Final judgment as to the relative degrees of guilt among those in the
dock must await the presentation of the proof in detail. Nevertheless,
before the introduction of evidence, it will be helpful to look again at
the defendants and their part in the conspiracy. What manner of men are
they, and what was their major role?
The 20 physicians in the dock range from leaders of German scientific
medicine, with excellent international reputations, down to the dregs of
the German medical profession. All of them have in common a callous lack
of consideration and human regard for, and an unprincipled willingness
to abuse their power over the poor, unfortunate, defenseless creatures
who had been deprived of their rights by a ruthless and criminal
government. All of them violated the Hippocratic commandments which they
had solemnly sworn to uphold and abide by, including the fundamental
principles never to do harm—“primum non nocere.”
Outstanding men of science, distinguished for their scientific ability
in Germany and abroad, are the defendants Rostock and Rose. Both
exemplify, in their training and practice alike, the highest traditions
of German medicine. Rostock headed the Department of Surgery at the
University of Berlin and served as dean of its medical school. Rose
studied under the famous surgeon, Enderlen, at Heidelberg and then
became a distinguished specialist in the fields of public health and
tropical diseases. Handloser and Schroeder are outstanding medical
administrators. Both of them made their careers in military medicine and
reached the peak of their profession. Five more defendants are much
younger men who are nevertheless already known as the possessors of
considerable scientific ability, or capacity in medical administration.
These include the defendants Karl Brandt, Ruff, Beiglboeck, Schaefer,
and Becker-Freyseng.
A number of the others such as Romberg and Fischer are well trained, and
several of them attained high professional position. But among the
remainder few were known as outstanding scientific men. Among them at
the foot of the list is Blome who has published his autobiography
entitled “Embattled Doctor” in which he sets forth that he eventually
decided to become a doctor because a medical career would enable him to
become “master over life and death.”
The part that each of these 20 physicians and their 3 lay accomplices
played in the conspiracy and its execution corresponds closely to his
professional interests and his place in the hierarchy of the Third Reich
as shown in the chart. The motivating force for this conspiracy came
from two principal sources. Himmler, as head of the SS, a most terrible
machine of oppression with vast resources, could provide numberless
victims for the experiments. By doing so, he enhanced the prestige of
his organization and was able to give free rein to the Nazi racial
theories of which he was a leading protagonist and to develop new
techniques for the mass exterminations which were dear to his heart. The
German military leaders, as the other main driving force, caught up the
opportunity which Himmler presented them with and ruthlessly capitalized
on Himmler’s hideous overtures in an endeavor to strengthen their
military machine.
And so the infernal drama was played just as it had been conceived in
the minds of the authors. Special problems which confronted the German
military or civilian authorities were, on the orders of the medical
leaders, submitted for solution in the concentration camps. Thus we find
Karl Brandt stimulating the epidemic jaundice experiments, Schroeder
demanding “40 healthy experimental subjects” for the sea-water
experiments, Handloser providing the impetus for Ding’s fearful typhus
researches, and Milch and Hippke at the root of the freezing
experiments. Under Himmler’s authority, the medical leaders of the
SS—Grawitz, Genzken, Gebhardt, and others—set the wheels in motion.
They arranged for the procurement of victims through other branches of
the SS, and gave directions to their underlings in the SS medical
service such as Hoven and Fischer. Himmler’s administrative assistants,
Sievers and Rudolf Brandt, passed on the Himmler orders, gave a push
here and a shove there, and kept the machinery oiled. Blome and Brack
assisted from the side of the civilian and party authorities.
The Wehrmacht provided supervision and technical assistance for those
experiments in which it was most interested. A low-pressure chamber was
furnished for the high-altitude tests, the services of Weltz, Ruff,
Romberg, and Rascher for the high-altitude and freezing experiments, and
those of Becker-Freyseng, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck for sea-water. In the
important but sinister typhus researches, the eminent Dr. Rose appeared
for the Luftwaffe to give expert guidance to Ding.
The proper steps were taken to insure that the results were made
available to those who needed to know. Annual meetings of the consulting
physicians of the Wehrmacht held under Handloser’s direction were
favored with lectures on some of the experiments. The report on the
high-altitude experiment was sent to Field Marshal Milch, and a moving
picture about them was shown at the Air Ministry in Berlin. Weltz spoke
on the effects of freezing at a medical conference in Nuernberg, the
same symposium at which Rascher and others passed on their devilish
knowledge.
There could, we submit, be no clearer proof of conspiracy. This was the
medical service of the Third Reich at work. Among the defendants in the
box sit the surviving leaders of that service. We will ask the Tribunal
to determine that neither scientific eminence nor superficial
respectability shall shield them against the fearful consequences of the
orders they gave.
I intend to pass very briefly over matters of medical ethics, such as
the conditions under which a physician may lawfully perform a medical
experiment upon a person who has voluntarily subjected himself to it, or
whether experiments may lawfully be performed upon criminals who have
been condemned to death. This case does not present such problems. No
refined questions confront us here.
None of the victims of the atrocities perpetrated by these defendants
were volunteers, and this is true regardless of what these unfortunate
people may have said or signed before their tortures began. Most of the
victims had not been condemned to death, and those who had been were not
criminals, unless it be a crime to be a Jew, or a Pole, or a gypsy, or a
Russian prisoner of war.
Whatever book or treatise on medical ethics we may examine, and whatever
expert on forensic medicine we may question, will say that it is a
fundamental and inescapable obligation of every physician under any
known system of law not to perform a dangerous experiment without the
subject’s consent. In the tyranny that was Nazi Germany, no one could
give such a consent to the medical agents of the State; everyone lived
in fear and acted under duress. I fervently hope that none of us here in
the courtroom will have to suffer in silence while it is said on the
part of these defendants that the wretched and helpless people whom they
froze and drowned and burned and poisoned were volunteers. If such a
shameless lie is spoken here, we need only remember the four girls who
were taken from the Ravensbrueck concentration camp and made to lie
naked with the frozen and all but dead Jews who survived Dr. Rascher’s
tank of ice water. One of these women, whose hair and eyes and figure
were pleasing to Dr. Rascher, when asked by him why she had volunteered
for such a task, replied, “rather half a year in a brothel than half a
year in a concentration camp.”
Were it necessary, one could make a long list of the respects in which
the experiments which these defendants performed departed from every
known standard of medical ethics. But the gulf between these atrocities
and serious research in the healing art is so patent that such a
tabulation would be cynical.
We need look no further than the law which the Nazis themselves passed
on the 24th of November 1938 for the protection of animals. This law
states explicitly that it is designed to prevent cruelty and
indifference of man towards animals and to awaken and develop sympathy
and understanding for animals as one of the highest moral values of a
people. The soul of the German people should abhor the principle of mere
utility without consideration of the moral aspects. The law states
further that all operations or treatments which are associated with pain
or injury, especially experiments involving the use of cold, heat, or
infection, are prohibited, and can be permitted only under special
exceptional circumstances. Special written authorization by the head of
the department is necessary in every case, and experimenters are
prohibited from performing experiments according to their own free
judgment. Experiments for the purpose of teaching must be reduced to a
minimum. Medico-legal tests, vaccinations, withdrawal of blood for
diagnostic purposes, and trial of vaccines prepared according to
well-established scientific principles are permitted, but the animals
have to be killed immediately and painlessly after such experiments.
Individual physicians are not permitted to use dogs to increase their
surgical skill by such practices. National Socialism regards it as a
sacred duty of German science to keep down the number of painful animal
experiments to a minimum.
If the principles announced in this law had been followed for human
beings as well, this indictment would never have been filed. It is
perhaps the deepest shame of the defendants that it probably never even
occurred to them that human beings should be treated with at least equal
humanity.
This case is one of the simplest and clearest of those that will be
tried in this building. It is also one of the most important. It is true
that the defendants in the box were not among the highest leaders of the
Third Reich. They are not the war lords who assembled and drove the
German military machine, nor the industrial barons who made the parts,
nor the Nazi politicians who debased and brutalized the minds of the
German people. But this case, perhaps more than any other we will try,
epitomizes Nazi thought and the Nazi way of life, because these
defendants pursue the savage premises of Nazi thought so far. The things
that these defendants did, like so many other things that happened under
the Third Reich, were the result of the noxious merger of German
militarism and Nazi racial objectives. We will see the results of this
merger in many other fields of German life; we see it here in the field
of medicine.
Germany surrendered herself to this foul conjunction of evil forces. The
nation fell victim to the Nazi scourge because its leaders lacked the
wisdom to foresee the consequences and the courage to stand firm in the
face of threats. Their failure was the inevitable outcome of that
sinister undercurrent of German philosophy which preaches the supreme
importance of the state and the complete subordination of the
individual. A nation in which the individual means nothing will find few
leaders courageous and able enough to serve its best interests.
Individual Germans did indeed give warning of what was in store, and
German doctors and scientists were numbered among the courageous few. At
a meeting of Bavarian psychiatrists held in Munich in 1931, when the
poisonous doctrines of the Nazis were already sweeping Germany, there
was a discussion of mercy killings and sterilization, and the Nazi views
on these matters, with which we are now familiar, were advanced. A
German professor named Oswald Bumke rose and made a reply more eloquent
and prophetic than anyone could have possibly realized at the time. He
said:
“I should like to make two additional remarks. One of them is,
please for God’s sake leave our present financial needs out of
all these considerations. This is a problem which concerns the
entire future of our people, indeed, one may say without being
over-emotional about it, the entire future of humanity. One
should approach this problem neither from the point of view of
our present scientific opinion nor from the point of view of the
still more ephemeral economic crises. If by sterilization we can
prevent the occurrence of mental disease then we should
certainly do it, not in order to save money for the government
but because every case of mental disease means infinite
suffering to the patient and to his relatives. But to introduce
economic points of view is not only inappropriate but outright
dangerous because the logical consequence of the thought that
for financial reasons all these human beings, who could be
dispensed with for the moment, should be exterminated, is a
quite monstrous logical conclusion; we would then have to put to
death not only the mentally sick and the psychopathic
personalities but all the crippled including the disabled
veterans, all old maids who do not work, all widows whose
children have completed their education, and all those who live
on their income or draw pensions. That would certainly save a
lot of money but the probability is that we will not do it.
“The second point of advice is to use utmost restraint, at least
until the political atmosphere here in this country shall have
improved, and scientific theories concerning heredity and race
can no longer be abused for political purposes. Because, if the
discussion about sterilization today is carried into the arena
of political contest, then pretty soon we will no longer hear
about the mentally sick but, instead, about Aryans and
non-Aryans, about the blonde Germanic race and about inferior
people with round skulls. That anything useful could come from
that is certainly improbable; but science in general and
genealogy and eugenics in particular would suffer an injury
which could not easily be repaired again.”
I said at the outset of this statement that the Third Reich died of its
own poison. This case is a striking demonstration not only of the
tremendous degradation of German medical ethics which Nazi doctrine
brought about, but of the undermining of the medical art and thwarting
of the techniques which the defendants sought to employ. The Nazis have,
to a certain extent, succeeded in convincing the peoples of the world
that the Nazi system, although ruthless, was absolutely efficient; that
although savage, it was completely scientific; that although entirely
devoid of humanity, it was highly systematic—that “it got things done.”
The evidence which this Tribunal will hear will explode this myth. The
Nazi methods of investigation were inefficient and unscientific, and
their techniques of research were unsystematic.
These experiments revealed nothing which civilized medicine can use. It
was, indeed, ascertained that phenol or gasoline injected intravenously
will kill a man inexpensively and within 60 seconds. This and a few
other “advances” are all in the field of thanatology. There is no doubt
that a number of these new methods may be useful to criminals everywhere
and there is no doubt that they may be useful to a criminal state.
Certain advance in destructive methodology we cannot deny, and indeed
from Himmler’s standpoint this may well have been the principal
objective.
Apart from these deadly fruits, the experiments were not only criminal
but a scientific failure. It is indeed as if a just deity had shrouded
the solutions which they attempted to reach with murderous means. The
moral shortcomings of the defendants and the precipitous ease with which
they decided to commit murder in quest of “scientific results”, dulled
also that scientific hesitancy, that thorough thinking-through, that
responsible weighing of every single step which alone can insure
scientifically valid results. Even if they had merely been forced to pay
as little as two dollars for human experimental subjects, such as
American investigators may have to pay for a cat, they might have
thought twice before wasting unnecessary numbers, and thought of simpler
and better ways to solve their problems. The fact that these
investigators had free and unrestricted access to human beings to be
experimented upon misled them to the dangerous and fallacious conclusion
that the results would thus be better and more quickly obtainable than
if they had gone through the labor of preparation, thinking, and
meticulous preinvestigation.
A particularly striking example is the sea-water experiment. I believe
that three of the accused—Schaefer, Becker-Freyseng, and
Beiglboeck—will today admit that this problem could have been solved
simply and definitively within the space of one afternoon. On 20 May
1944 when these accused convened to discuss the problem, a thinking
chemist could have solved it right in the presence of the assembly
within the space of a few hours by the use of nothing more gruesome than
a piece of jelly, a semi-permeable membrane and a salt solution, and the
German Armed Forces would have had the answer on 21 May 1944. But what
happened instead? The vast armies of the disenfranchised slaves were at
the beck and call of this sinister assembly; and instead of thinking,
they simply relied on their power over human beings rendered rightless
by a criminal state and government. What time, effort, and staff did it
take to get that machinery in motion! Letters had to be written,
physicians, of whom dire shortage existed in the German Armed Forces
whose soldiers went poorly attended, had to be taken out of hospital
positions and dispatched hundreds of miles away to obtain the answer
which should have been known in a few hours, but which thus did not
become available to the German Armed Forces until after the completion
of the gruesome show, and until 42 people had been subjected to the
tortures of the damned, the very tortures which Greek mythology had
reserved for Tantalus.
In short, this conspiracy was a ghastly failure as well as a hideous
crime. The creeping paralysis of Nazi superstition spread through the
German medical profession and, just as it destroyed character and
morals, it dulled the mind.
Guilt for the oppressions and crimes of the Third Reich is widespread,
but it is the guilt of the leaders that is deepest and most culpable.
Who could German medicine look to to keep the profession true to its
traditions and protect it from the ravaging inroads of Nazi
pseudo-science? This was the supreme responsibility of the leaders of
German medicine—men like Rostock and Rose and Schroeder and Handloser.
That is why their guilt is greater than that of any of the other
defendants in the dock. They are the men who utterly failed their
country and their profession, who showed neither courage nor wisdom nor
the vestiges of moral character. It is their failure, together with the
failure of the leaders of Germany in other walks of life, that debauched
Germany and led to her defeat. It is because of them and others like
them that we all live in a stricken world.
-----
[7] Tr. pp. 12-74.
[8] This chart is contained in Section VI, Organization of the German
Medical Service, NO-645, Pros. Ex. 3, p. 91.
[9] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. I, p. 269, Nuremberg, 1947.
[10] Ibid., p. 271.
[11] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol I, p. 247, Nuremberg, 1947.
[12] Ibid., p. 301.
V. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT ON THE PRESENTATION
OF EVIDENCE MADE BY THE PROSECUTION,
10 DECEMBER 1946[13]
MR. MCHANEY: May it please the Tribunal:
Before any evidence is presented, it is my purpose to show the process
whereby documents have been procured and processed in order to be
presented in evidence by the United States. I shall also describe and
illustrate the plan of presenting documents to be followed by the
prosecution in this case.
When the United States Army entered German territory it had specialized
military personnel whose duties were to capture and preserve enemy
documents, records, and archives.
Such documents were assembled in temporary document centers. Later each
Army established fixed document centers in the United States Zone of
Occupation where their documents were assembled and the slow process of
indexing and cataloging was begun. Certain of these document centers in
the United States Zone of Occupation have since been closed and the
documents assembled there sent to other document centers.
When the International Military Tribunal was set up, field teams under
the direction of Major William H. Coogan were organized and sent out to
the various document centers. Great masses of German documents and
records were screened and examined. Those selected were sent to
Nuernberg to be processed. These original documents were then given
trial identification numbers in one of five series designated by the
letters: “PS”, “L”, “R”, “C”, and “EC”, indicating the means of
acquisition of the documents. Within each series, documents were listed
numerically.
The prosecution in this case shall have occasion to introduce in
evidence documents processed under the direction of Major Coogan. Some
of these documents were introduced in evidence before the IMT and some
were not. As to those which were, this Tribunal is required by Article
XX of Ordinance No. 7 to take judicial notice thereof. However, in order
to simplify the procedure, we will introduce photostatic copies of
documents used in Case No. 1 before the IMT to which will be attached a
certificate by Mr. Fred Niebergall, the Chief of our Document Control
Branch, certifying that such document was introduced in evidence before
the IMT and that the photostat is a true and correct copy thereof. Such
documents have been and will be made available to defendants just as in
the case of any other document.
As to those documents processed under the direction of Major Coogan
which were not used in the case before the IMT, they are authenticated
by the affidavit of Major Coogan dated 19 November 1945. This affidavit
served as the basis of authentication of substantially all documents
used by the Office of Chief of Counsel before the IMT. It was introduced
in that trial as USA Exhibit 1. Since we will use certain documents
processed for the IMT trial, I would now like to introduce as
Prosecution Exhibit 1 the Coogan affidavit,[14] in order to authenticate
such documents. This affidavit explains the manner in and means by which
captured German documents were processed for use in war crimes trials. I
shall not burden the court with reading it as it is substantially the
same as the affidavit of Mr. Niebergall to which I shall come in a
moment.
I have thus far explained the manner of authenticating documents to be
used in this case which were processed under the direction of Major
Coogan. I now come to the authentication of documents processed not for
the IMT trial, but for subsequent trials such as this one. These
documents are authenticated by the affidavit of Mr. Niebergall which I
offer in evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 2. Since this affidavit
explains the procedure of processing documents by the Office of Chief of
Counsel for War Crimes, I shall read it in full:
“I, Fred Niebergall, AGO, D-150636, of the Office of Chief of
Counsel for War Crimes, do hereby certify as follows:
1. I was appointed Chief of the Document Control Branch,
Evidence Division, Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes
(hereinafter referred to as ‘OCC’) on 2 October 1946.
2. I have served in the U. S. Army for more than 5 years, being
discharged as a 1st Lieutenant, Infantry, on 29 October 1946. I
am now a Reserve officer with the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the
Army of the United States of America. Based upon my experience
as a United States Army officer, I am familiar with the
operation of the United States Army in connection with seizing
and processing captured enemy documents. I served as Chief of
Translations for OCC from 29 July 1945 until December 1945, when
I was appointed liaison officer between Defense Counsel and
Translation Division of OCC as assistant to the executive
officer of the Translation Division. In my capacity as Chief of
the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, OCC, I am
familiar with the processing, filing, translation, and
photostating of documentary evidence for the United States Chief
of Counsel.
3. As the Army overran German occupied territory and then
Germany itself, certain specialized personnel seized enemy
documents, records and archives. Such documents were assembled
in temporary centers. Later fixed document centers were
established in Germany and Austria where these documents were
assembled and the slow process of indexing and cataloging was
begun. Certain of these document centers have since been closed
and the documents assembled there sent to other document
centers.
4. In preparing for the trial before the International Military
Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as ‘IMT’) a great number of
original documents, photostats, and microfilms were collected at
Nuernberg, Germany. Major Coogan’s affidavit of 19 November 1945
describes the procedures followed. Upon my appointment as Chief
of the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division, OCC, I
received custody, in the course of official business, of all
these documents except the ones which were introduced into
evidence in the IMT trial and are now in the IMT Document Room
in Nuernberg. Same have been screened, processed, and registered
in accordance with Major Coogan’s affidavit. The unregistered
documents remaining have been screened, processed, and
registered for use in trials before Military Tribunals
substantially in the same way as described below.
5. In preparing for trials subsequent to the IMT trial personnel
thoroughly conversant with the German language were given the
task of searching for and selecting captured enemy documents
which disclosed information relating to the prosecution of Axis
war criminals. Lawyers and research analysts were placed on duty
at various document centers and also dispatched on individual
missions to obtain original documents or certified photostats
thereof. The documents were screened by German speaking analysts
to determine whether or not they might be valuable as evidence.
Photostatic copies were then made of the original documents and
the original documents returned to the files in the document
centers. These photostatic copies were certified by the analysts
to be true and correct copies of the original documents.
German-speaking analysts either at the document center or in
Nuernberg, then prepared a summary of the document with
appropriate references to personalities involved, index
headings, information as to the source of the document, and the
importance of the documents to a particular division of OCC.
6. Next, the original document or certified photostatic copy was
forwarded to the Document Control Branch, Evidence Division,
OCC. Upon receipt of these documents, they were duly recorded
and indexed and given identification numbers in one of six
series designated by the letters ‘NO,’ ‘NI,’ ‘NM,’ ‘NOKW,’ ‘NG,’
and ‘NP,’ indicating the particular Division of OCC which might
be most interested in the individual documents. Within each
series documents were listed numerically.
7. In the case of the receipt of original documents, photostatic
copies were made. Upon return from the photostat room, the
original documents were placed in envelopes in fireproof safes
in the document room. In the case of the receipt of certified
photostatic copies of documents, the certified photostatic
copies were treated in the same manner as original documents.
8. All original documents or certified photostatic copies
treated as originals are now located in safes in the document
room, where they will be secured until they are presented by the
prosecution to a court during the progress of a trial.
9. Therefore, I certify in my official capacity as hereinabove
stated, that all documentary evidence relied upon by OCC is in
the same condition as when captured by military forces under the
command of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces;
that they have been translated by competent qualified
translators; that all photostatic copies are true and correct
copies of the originals, and that they have been correctly
filed, numbered, and processed as above outlined.
[Signed] FRED NIEBERGALL.”
The Niebergall affidavit is in substance the same as the Coogan
affidavit which was accepted by the International Military Tribunal as
sufficient authentication of documents used in Case No. 1. However, in
addition to these affidavits, the prosecution in this case will attach
to each document submitted in evidence, other than self-proving
documents such as affidavits signed by the defendants, a certificate
signed by an employee of the Evidence Division of the Office of Chief of
Counsel for War Crimes, reading, for example, as follows:
“I, Donald Spencer, of the Evidence Division of the Office of
Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, hereby certify that the
attached document, consisting of one photostated page and
entitled, ‘Letter from John Doe to Richard Rod, dated 19 June
1943,’ is the original of a document which was delivered to me
in my above capacity, in the usual course of official business,
as a true copy of a document found in German archives, records,
and files captured by military forces under the command of the
Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces.
“To the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, the
original document is at the Berlin Document Center.”
So much for the authentication of documents to be presented in this
trial. I turn now briefly to the distribution of documents which we will
use. The prosecution made available to the Defendants’ Information
Center approximately a week ago three photostatic copies of the great
bulk of the documents which will be used in our case-in-chief. These
documents are of course in German. In addition, the prosecution has
prepared document books in both German and English which contain, for
the most part, mimeographed copies of the documents, arranged
substantially in the order in which they will be presented in this
court. Each document book contains an index giving the document number,
description, and page number. A space is also provided for writing in
the index number.
Twelve official copies of the German document books will be filed in the
Defendants’ Information Center at least 24 hours prior to the time that
particular material will be introduced in court. In addition, defense
counsel will receive seven so-called unofficial German document books,
which will contain mimeographed copies prepared primarily for the German
Press. Six official copies of the German document books will be
presented to the Tribunal—one for each of the Justices on the bench and
one for the Secretary General. Two of such document books will contain
photostatic copies in order that the Tribunal may from time to time
refer to the original. Document books will also be made available to the
German interpreters and court reporters.
The English document books will contain certified translations of the
documents in the German document books. The documents will be numbered
and indexed identically in both the English and German versions. The
Defendants’ Information Center will receive four copies of the English
document books at the same time the corresponding German document book
is delivered. A representative group of the defense attorneys have
agreed that four of the English document books are sufficient to meet
their needs.
The Tribunal will receive six English document books and sufficient
copies will also be made available to the interpreters and court
reporters. Copies of all documents introduced in evidence will
thereafter be made available to the press.
The prosecution will sometimes have occasion to use documents which have
just been discovered and are not in document books. In such cases we
will try to have copies in the Defendants’ Information Center a
reasonable time in advance of their use in court. Now, I must point out
to your Honors, and I do so without any embarrassment, that there will
surely be some instances during the course of this trial when the
prosecution fails to comply with one or the other of the court’s rulings
in view of the fact that few of our personnel here were able to obtain
experience and training in the technicalities in the course of Case No.
1 before the International Military Tribunal, but be that as it may, we
shall constantly endeavor to present our case as fairly, as clearly, and
as expeditiously as is humanly possible.
The prosecution, when presenting a document in Court, will physically
hand the original, or the certified photostatic copy serving as the
original, to the clerk of the Tribunal, and give the document a
prosecution exhibit number.
In the IMT trial, the usual practice, to which there were many
exceptions, was that only those documents or portions of documents which
had been read aloud in Court were considered to be in evidence and part
of the record. Now this was due to the fact that the IMT trial was
conducted in four languages and only through that method were
translations in all four languages ordinarily available. However, the
IMT ruled several times, for example on 17 December 1945, that documents
which had been translated into all four languages and made available to
defense counsel in the Defendants’ Information Center were admissible in
evidence without being read in full.
The prosecution believed that, under the circumstances of this trial,
which will be conducted in German and English only, and with all the
prosecution’s documents translated into German, it will be both
expeditious and fair to dispense with the reading in full of all
documents or portions of documents. The prosecution will read some
documents in full, particularly in the early stages of the trial, but
will endeavor to expedite matters by summarizing documents when
possible, or otherwise calling the attention of the Tribunal to such
passages therein as are deemed important and relevant.
With respect to the order of trial, the prosecution intends to follow,
to a large degree, the order in which the various experiments are set
forth in the indictment. There will be some exceptions to that; for
instance, we will present the sea-water experiments, the proof of
sea-water experiments following the malaria experiments, which will be
third in order, and in time we will move to the proof of reading the
Lost gas experiments because of the overlapping of the testimony of
certain witnesses. Insofar as possible, we will endeavor to present all
of the evidence relating to a particular experiment at the same time.
This will be impossible, of course, where the testimony of a witness
overlaps several experiments.
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[13] Tr. pp. 75-83.
[14] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. II, pp. 157-160, Nuremberg,
1947.