PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: You have read your own stenographic notes, have
you not?
DEFENDANT BEIGLBOECK: Yes, and I have compared them with this
transcription.
Q. What you should now read is your own version of these shorthand notes
as you say they are correctly read. You understand that? You can read
them from that, as you corrected it. You can read them from shorthand
direct or from the typewritten transcription, as you please. Read
slowly, too, please.
MR. HARDY: While he is reading that, your Honor, I suggest that he stop
at the correction he wishes to make and we can correct our English copy
and the interpreters can correct the German copy.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: He will call attention to the corrections which
you make.
DEFENDANT BEIGLBOECK: “The thirst assumes forms difficult to endure.”
The second version reads: “already unendurable”. My notes do not read
like that.
“The thirst assumes forms difficult to endure. The patient lies there
quite motionless with half-closed eyes. The patient lies apathetically.
He takes little notice of his surroundings. He asks for water only when
he awakes from his somnolent condition.
“The appearance is very bad and shows signs of a decline. The general
condition gives no cause for alarm.
“Respiration somewhat flatter, moderately frequent.
“Respirations 25 per minute.
“The eyes are deeply hollowed”, it should read “deeply”. Here it says
“often”.
“The turgor of the skin greatly reduced.
“Skin dry, tongue completely dry, whitish coating in the middle fairly
free.
“The mucous membranes of the mouth and the lips dry, latter covered with
crusts. Lungs show slight very dry bronchitis, lower border VI-XI.” It
is supposed to read “XI”. Originally it said “XII” and apparently I
corrected it to read “XI.”
“Sharpened vesicular”, the word “breathing” is omitted here, of course.
“Sharpened vesicular breathing”—that is a medical expression.
“Heart beats very low, barely audible. Pulse weak. Filled. Palpability
of the pulse worse.” Here it says that the pulse is “felt” and it should
be “filled”. The pulse is less full.
Then this which is described here as undecipherable reads: “The cell
walls are somewhat thickened.” Here I probably said “more strongly
thickened”.
“Liver 2½-3 fingers below sternal margin, rather soft, moderately
sensitive to pressure.”
“Spleen soft” is wrong. It says: “Spleen reutoric, enlarged in a ring
form, slightly enlarged.”
“Musculature hypotonic. Joints can be extended excessively. Calves
slightly sensitive to pressure.” Then what is described here as
illegible reads: “Indication of horizontal welt formation strong welt
vertical formation.” That refers to the reaction of the muscle upon
knocking, the so-called ideo-muscular welt.
Q. Would you kindly start that paragraph again and read it as it is
written?
A. It reads here: “Musculature hypotonic. Joints can be extended
excessively. Calves slightly sensitive to pressure. Indication of
horizontal welt formations. Strong vertical welt formations.” Up to this
point, that is how it reads in the text; then in order to explain it, I
added that we were concerned with the so-called ideo-muscular welt.
Further the text continues: “Reflexes” with two little crosses, that is,
they react strongly. “Abdominal reflexes”, also two little crosses.
“Romberg” as it says here. “Babinski negative”.
“Left”—here it says “Leif” “phenomenon”. Here on the left, “phenomenon
of Becher”. “Oppenheim negative”. “Rosselimo negative”. “Bulbous reflex
bad”. “Tonus of the bulb of the eye bad”. “Bulbous reflex” with a little
cross—that is positive.
[Interruption.]
Q. Now, Professor Beiglboeck, looking over these stenographic notes in
the sentence in the first paragraph, which will be the third sentence,
which states: “He takes little notice of his surroundings”, has an
erasure been made in the stenographic notes in that sentence?
A. No. I can’t see any.
Q. In place of the word “little” which appears in the present text on
the back of C-23, was there originally a symbol, stenographic symbol for
the word “no” and then the word “no” was erased and replaced by the word
“little”?
A. I see here that actually something else had been written there;
probably at the time I wrote over it. I don’t see anything erased.
Q. Now, in the sentence in the same paragraph, the first paragraph, the
fourth sentence where it states: “He asks for water only when he awakes
from his somnolent condition”, did another word appear in the same place
as the character for “somnolent condition”? Did another word appear in
the same place as the character for “somnolent” now appears, and can you
make out whether or not that other character that has been erased was
the word “semiconscious” and has now been replaced by “somnolent”? I
think the original character can be well recognized to read
“semiconscious”.
A. What is legible under here says: “Numb”.
Q. After the sentence that I have just read: “He asks for water—”
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: I did not understand the witness’ explanation of
that last double reading of the shorthand. What was your explanation,
Witness?
DEFENDANT BEIGLBOECK: The German word “benommen”, numb.
Q. Numb? Not unconscious?
A. Numb.
MR. HARDY: In the first instance, in the sentence: “He takes little
notice of his surroundings”, is an erasure noticeable there, in that the
word “no” has been replaced by the word “little”?
DEFENDANT BEIGLBOECK: Something has been written over.
Q. Will you show that to the Tribunal, please, that character that has
been written over? Would you point that out to them, Doctor? Point out
the character in that sentence: “He takes little notice of his
surroundings”, and point that out, this character here (indicating) on
the second line of characters.
MR. HARDY: Here it is, your Honor, the last character on the page.
Q. Now, would you show the Tribunal also where the word “semiconscious”
or “numb” appeared and that has also been written over? That is the last
character on the third line.
A. Yes, here (indicating).
Q. Now, after the sentence: “He asks for water only when he awakes from
his somnolent condition,” which is the fourth stenographic line on the
back of chart C-23, we notice that an entire line or half line has been
erased. This half line had previously contained stenographic symbols but
they are now no longer identifiable. Is that correct?
A. Yes. Something has been erased here.
MR. HARDY: Your Honors can see the red erasure that has been used to
erase that half line of characters; the impression of the eraser is
still obvious there.
Q. Now, Professor, in the sentence in the next paragraph of stenographic
notes, the second sentence reads: “The general condition gives no cause
for alarm.” Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, throughout your writing of these characters, between each word
you usually leave a space to indicate another word, do you not? That is
very clear throughout your transcription. You have left spaces between
each character signifying words. Is that correct?
A. No. It varies. Sometimes the words are written closer together, quite
closely, for example here (indicating).
Q. Well now, here in this sentence where it says, “The general condition
gives no cause for alarm”, the word “no”—that is, this character
here—does not have the spaces between it that all the other characters
on the sheet have, does it? In fact, the symbol for “no” touches the
previous symbol for “general condition”, leaving no spacing. Did you add
the word “no” at a later date in a different pencil?
A. No. I do that quite frequently. When something is written above the
line in shorthand I raise the adjoining sign as well.
Q. Now, if you will turn to the sentence in the third paragraph which
reads: “Respiration somewhat flatter, moderately frequent”. The word
“is” appeared instead of “somewhat” originally, did it not, before an
erasure was made? Didn’t it read originally “Respiration is flatter,
moderately frequent”?
A. It still says so: “somewhat frequent; moderately frequent.” I wrote
that twice.
Q. Well, now, how does that sentence read?
A. “Respiration somewhat flatter, moderately frequent; respiration 25
per minute.”
Q. Did the word “is”, the character for the word “is”, appear in that
sentence before a change was made?
A. Which word?
Q. “Is”—“i-s”.
A. No.
Q. Can’t you clearly see in that sentence that the word “is” has been
erased and in its place the word “somewhat” has been written, the
character “somewhat”?
A. No.
Q. You can’t see that. Did you look at it through the glass, Doctor?