Q. I believe that the defense had reports by Becker-Freyseng and by
Beiglboeck?
A. These were reports on the whole development of the question.
Q. Well, Professor, what sort of reports were they? We have not seen
them, you know, and we would like to know on what you are basing your
opinion before this Tribunal.
A. Descriptions of the whole course that the matter took regarding the
conference, how the decision was reached, how the experiments were
planned, and then Beiglboeck’s report on his own experiments on himself,
which is a very careful description and corresponds exactly to what my
subjects experienced when they carried out experiments on themselves.
Q. Did you read and study these experiments carried out by
Becker-Freyseng and Beiglboeck?
A. Of course.
Q. And they influenced your testimony before this Tribunal; you relied
on them in making your testimony here?
A. From these I had an idea of the situation as a whole; in order to
form my own opinion I performed experiments myself.
Q. And your testimony here is based in part upon the reports made by
Becker-Freyseng and Beiglboeck; that is true, isn’t it, Doctor?
A. Yes.
Q. And these records made by Becker-Freyseng and Beiglboeck were not
contemporaneous records of these experiments, were they, Professor?
A. I don’t believe so.
Q. They were, rather, essays or reports which they have written up since
their arrest and incarceration; isn’t that true, Professor?
A. That is very possible.
Q. How old a man is this assistant of yours, Professor?
A. Twenty-six.
Q. Twenty-six years old?
A. Twenty-seven.
Q. Twenty-seven years old; has he studied medicine?
A. Of course.
Q. Where did he study?
A. Heidelberg.
Q. Herr Professor, I will ask you to testify from your own memory, and
if the defense counsel wishes to put your assistant on the stand, they
are privileged to do so; but I am interested primarily in knowing what
you know about your assistant. Now, you did not know he studied at
Heidelberg until he told you just now?
A. I have 40 to 50 young men at the clinic, and it is impossible for me
to know of each one where he studied, but I made his acquaintance at the
clinic. He is a very industrious and intelligent person and for that
reason I asked him to do this work and take some work off my shoulders.
Q. How long has he been working with you?
A. More than a year.
Q. Working with you about a year, and since that time you have conducted
these sea-water experiments yourself?
A. We carried them out shortly before Shrove Tuesday.
Q. Of 1947?
A. Yes, this year.
Q. How did you happen to carry out these experiments; were you requested
to do so by defense counsel?
A. No. I had been asked very often to interest myself in this matter,
and I was interested to see for myself the effect of sea-water on the
experimental subjects. This was interesting to me because I already had
considerable experience in the field of hunger and thirst.
Q. Were you approached at all with respect to this case before the time
you started these sea-water experiments?
A. Yes, that is why I started to interest myself in the matter, because
I was asked to appear here as a witness, but I carried out these
experiments entirely spontaneously, without outside interference and for
my own interest.
Q. But the fact that you were approached to come here and testify
influenced your decision to carry out these experiments, is that right?
A. Of course, of course.
Q. And did you make any effort to have these experiments coincide with
the conditions which you were told existed in the Dachau experiments?
A. Yes, we made only one distinction in this, namely, that the
experimental subjects received roughly 1,600 calories a day, because
they were not to interrupt their work. To be sure, as the experiment
went on they ate less and less of the 1,600 calories, because thirst
made them lose their appetite.
* * * * *
Q. Now how many experimental subjects did you use in your experiments?
A. Five of them.
Q. And you say that they were volunteers, your assistants, is that
right?
A. Yes, they were all doctors, volunteers, and, as I said, also included
my youngest son who also happens to be here.
Q. And precisely what happened during these experiments?
A. These persons were assembled in one room, received the same amount of
salt each and more or less continued their work. They drank 500 cc. of
sea-water, and one of them drank 1,000, and they stuck pretty closely to
the provisions set down for the experiment.
Q. You say four of them drank 500 cc. of sea-water per day and the fifth
one drank 1,000 cubic centimeters of sea-water?
A. The fifth drank on one day, on the last day I think, an additional
500 cc. because he was very thirsty.
Q. When did you start the experiments?
A. On the Monday before the beginning of Lent.
Q. And how long did they run?
A. As I said, four broke off the experiment after four days because of
the carnival season and one of them stuck it out for six.
Q. Well, you spoke of four days, do you know how many hours they were
under the experiments?
A. Five times twenty-four in general and the other one six times
twenty-four.
Q. Well, I misunderstood you, or else your testimony has changed; you
said four of the students stayed on the experiments for four days and
one went on for six days. Is that right?
A. No, four did it for five days, four broke off at the end of the fifth
day, and one stayed until the end of the sixth day.
Q. And you are prepared to testify it was five times twenty-four, is
that right, 60 hours [sic]?
A. I would have to check on that for sure in the record, whether it was
five times twenty-four or four times twenty-four, or sixteen or
eighteen. Those things didn’t seem very important to me. I was
interested primarily in seeing how greatly the persons suffered under
the experiments, but the man who did it for six days did do it for six
times twenty-four hours. However, I don’t want to make a statement for
certain under oath regarding the number of hours.
Q. Well this little experiment conducted by you, as I take it, had as
its purpose to find out how much a man suffers, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. You didn’t know that before you conducted this experiment, is that
right?
A. I assumed that they would be very thirsty, but I wanted to see what
the subjective sensations or feelings of the experimental subjects were.
What was most important to me was to know whether these experiments
could be characterized as cruel or inhumane or brutal, and if they were
experiments which led to a pretty strong sense of discomfort, namely,
thirst, but did not do any damage to health, that is what I wanted to
know.
Q. And your testimony before this Tribunal is based upon those
experiments; is that right?
A. No, on both, of course, both on those carried out by Beiglboeck and
on my own.
Q. Well, your judgment was also influenced by what Beiglboeck told you
about how much the experimental subjects suffered, is that right?
A. Beiglboeck drew up his own report on his own experiment on himself
and a general report on whatever complaints the subjects uttered.
Q. What is the experiment that Beiglboeck conducted by himself? You mean
he has been undergoing an experiment back in the prison?
A. No, before the experiments began, he carried out a sea-water
experiment on himself.
Q. Where did these experimental subjects of yours stay during this
experiment? I seem to recall you said they continued their work or
something of that sort.
A. They all stayed in one room where they ate and slept, and this was
done to make the conduct of the experiment easier, as they were to
receive special rations.
Q. Well, now all five experimental subjects were in one room during the
whole course of the experiment, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And what did they do?
A. They went from this room to wherever they had to work, but they
returned to the room for sleeping and eating.
Q. Well, Doctor, we are having great difficulty in really getting a
clear picture about how this experiment went on. Now you mean to say
they carried on their work about the clinic? They didn’t stay in this
room the whole time, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. They actually only ate in the room and slept in the room; is that
right?
A. That is correct.
Q. Did they leave the clinic at all?
A. I believe that they did not during those days.
Q. But you don’t know?
A. I can’t swear to it.
Q. You can’t swear that they didn’t go to a local cinema during the
course of the experiments for example?
A. No, I can’t swear to that. I just don’t know.
Q. In other words, they had their normal daily life available to them
during these experiments?
A. They carried on their daily work and in this case it is perfectly
certain that they did not drink any fresh water. They knew perfectly
well what the point of the experiment was.
Q. How much food did they get, again?
A. 1,600 calories.
Q. And do you know what the food was?
A. Yes, that is also in the record. It was meat, fat, and what not, but
I can’t tell you that from memory. However, I could give you the record
in writing.
Q. In what record? Have we any record on these experiments?
A. Yes. There was a record.
Q. Now, they got absolutely no fresh water during the course of the
experiments, is that right?
A. No.
Q. Did they get any other water or fluid other than salt water?
A. No, that was the whole purpose, that they should receive no other
fluid and that is why they lost their appetite later.
Q. They got no milk and no fruit juices?
A. No, no, that would have violated the whole experiment, and then they
would not have lost so much weight.
Q. I can appreciate that, Professor. Where did you get the sea-water
that these experimental subjects drank?
A. We manufactured it carefully in the chemical laboratory according to
a chemical analysis of sea-water that can be found in many text books. I
have a chemist who was in charge of the laboratory and he made this
sea-water according to the formula. We couldn’t get any natural
sea-water for this experiment.
* * * * *
Q. Now, you didn’t keep any of your experimental subjects without any
water whatever, did you?
A. Five hundred cc. of sea-water was the liquid they received.
Q. Well, were there not some experimental subjects at Dachau who did not
get any water at all, sea-water or otherwise?
A. Yes, the first group fasted and thirsted. I have already spoken about
that and said that thirst can more easily be tolerated if one is fasting
at the same time, so that the kidney has as little as possible to do;
thus the body is able to retain more water.
Q. But you can’t testify to the Tribunal about what pain and suffering
those experimental subjects were subjected to, can you? You didn’t run
any similar experiments yourself?
A. I do not understand you. I carried out these experiments to know what
sort of suffering the experimental subjects went through.
Q. But you didn’t carry out one where a man fasted for 5 or 6 days
without either food or water. They did carry out such an experiment in
Dachau. So you have no basis to testify about pain and suffering to
which that group of experimental subjects were subjected, do you?
A. I mentioned that at the same time I was having four women fast and
thirst who had come to the clinic with very high blood pressure and for
six whole days these women fasted and thirsted. This so improved their
condition that they consequently forgot the unpleasantness involved in
the fasting and thirsting. I also mentioned among them one woman who
weighed only 51.7 kilo, and who lost 3. However, her blood pressure went
down from 245/125 to 185/100. I carried out such experiments almost
daily in the clinic. That is done by the hundred. And, in the case of
persons with kidney disease, that is the accepted method so that during
the war people from the fronts went through thousands of such hunger and
thirst cures. I didn’t have to have any control experiment in this; that
was furnished daily by the clinic.
Q. And these women went without food and water for 4 days?
A. Six days without food and water.
Q. And what was the result on them aside from their blood pressure? Did
they suffer much pain?
A. There is no question of pain in such cases. They simply felt thirst.
Strangely enough they do not complain of being hungry. The body water
that still remains is enough to keep the body metabolism supplied with
the necessary chemicals. However, there is a lack of sodium nitrate in
the body which, however, can be overcome by giving sodium nitrate. They
never complain about hunger, only thirst. Sometimes they complain of a
feeling of weakness but fasting for 6 days is nothing very special. As I
said, some people carry out hunger cures for 4 weeks. To be sure, they
drink fruit juice during such a long cure. We also make use of it for
therapeutic purposes. They will receive fruit juice but that is by no
means so unpleasant as an 8-day long hunger and thirst cure.
Q. And you gave them no compensation for going without food and water
whatever? You gave them no injections of any sort?
A. No, no. My whole purpose is to eliminate from the body all the
unnecessary fluids in the blood so that the blood pressure will drop. I
gradually bring these people over to a form of nourishment without any
salt.
Q. Now you say that four out of five of your experimental subjects broke
off on the fifth day?
A. Yes. For external reasons only, not because they could no longer
tolerate it. It just happened that four of the men had dates on the 5th
day, but the 5th one stayed on until the sixth day and I asked him
specifically whether he felt particularly tortured or in pain and he
said no. He said that with the first drink of water he took all
unpleasantness and discomfort vanished. I observed my son myself. As
soon as he drank a cup of tea, he was perfectly all right and 2 days
after the experiment he had recovered all the weight he had lost. He had
lost roughly one kilo a day.
Q. You say these four men had a date on the 5th. You mean they had an
engagement with a young lady?
A. I do not know what details were planned for the carnival celebration.
I could simply draw the regrettable conclusion that their interest in
the carnival was a little greater than their interest in the experiment.
But this does indicate that the experiments did not have a very
deleterious effect on them, otherwise they could not have gone to the
carnival and enjoyed it.
Q. Well, it might also indicate that they didn’t regard the experiments
as being very serious and that, even though several men in this dock are
quite interested in the results of this particular experiment, your four
young assistants didn’t regard it as serious enough to refrain from
going out on a date. Isn’t that about the size of it?
A. I can’t deny that. I wasn’t too pleased by their behavior.
Q. Were these men informed of the seriousness of this undertaking?
A. No.
Q. And what reason did you advance to them for undergoing the
experiments?
A. Of course, I told them, and they knew, that such sea-water
experiments were an issue, but I was perfectly convinced that these
experiments could by no means be called inhumane or brutal and
consequently we didn’t approach the experiments in too tragic a manner.
All we wanted to know was how unpleasant such an experiment was.
* * * * *
_EXAMINATION BY THE TRIBUNAL_
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Professor, these subjects upon whom you conducted
an experiment in your institute were very excellent subjects for such an
experiment, were they not?
WITNESS VOLLHARDT: They were characterized by the fact that they were
medical men who understood the meaning of the experiment and that I
could rely on them. Physically, they certainly were no
better-conditioned, according to the photographs at least, than those
rather well nourished experimental subjects.
Q. I was not thinking so much of their physical condition, but they were
men who were interested in this work, were they not?
A. Yes.
Q. The results of the experiment—each upon himself and upon each of his
associates—would be interesting to each one, would it not? Is that not
true?
A. I would assume so, yes.
Q. Each one was entirely controlling his own participation in the
experiment, was he not?
A. Yes.
Q. If, at any time, any one of the subjects felt that the conditions
which he was undergoing in the experiment were becoming too heavy for
him, he would have been released from further participation upon his
request, would he not?
A. No doubt he would have reported and he would have said, “I want to
step out. This is too much for me.”
Q. That’s what I meant. He would have asked to be released and he would
have been immediately released? Well, is it or is it not a fact that a
human being will voluntarily undergo hunger, thirst, pain, discomfort,
and stand it better when he knows that he is doing it under his own
volition with a scientific objective, than a person of equal physical
condition will stand such an experiment when, insofar as he is
concerned, he has no personal interest whatsoever?
A. No doubt that is correct, and I am perfectly convinced that Professor
Eppinger tried everything he could in order to obtain such volunteers.
He was most uncomfortable about the fact that these experiments were
carried out in Dachau. He would much rather have seen them carried out
in Vienna on his own students but, at that time, there weren’t any
students any more. They had all been called up, and medical officers
were very scarce so that there was no question of obtaining volunteers.
Hence, in this very tense and difficult time, no subjects could be
found, to carry out such a series of experiments as was planned here, in
a hospital or clinic of any kind. It would have been better, more
practical and more sensible, by all means, if the experiments had been
carried out at that time upon medical students, but, unfortunately, that
was impossible.
Q. You prefaced your statement, Doctor, by saying that Dr. Eppinger had
this sentiment. How do you know that?
A. Because, during the conference, it was mostly Professor Eppinger who
was in favor of these experiments being made and, since Professor
Eppinger had earmarked his favorite pupil, Beiglboeck, for the carrying
out of these experiments, it is a matter of course that Eppinger would
have liked nothing better than that these experiments should be carried
out under his own control in Vienna.
Q. You are assuming that Eppinger would have felt as you would have felt
under similar circumstances, is that correct?
A. I know that all those who were interested in these experiments were
making efforts to find places where these experiments could be carried
out in a military hospital on soldiers or convalescent patients or other
persons, but, unfortunately, everything turned out to be impossible. You
can only imagine the situation if you know how every hospital bed and
every doctor was being utilized in this time. That was the final period
of the war.
Q. You prefaced this last statement by saying, “I know.” Now, how do you
know? By any other method than assuming that these gentlemen would have
felt as you felt?
A. No. I recollect that I read that in one of the reports, that an
attempt had been made to carry out the experiments elsewhere and that
one had come across locked doors everywhere. For instance, one had
Brunswick in mind, I know that by chance, the Luftwaffe hospital at
Brunswick, and that was impossible. Thus, all inquiries had negative
answers.
Q. I gathered from your answer to one of my questions a short time
ago—I would like to return to that subject—that a person of
intelligence will endure more discomfort, pain, and suffering, pursuing
a voluntary experiment which he knows he can terminate at any moment
than a person, probably of less intelligence, would display upon
undergoing an experiment which he could not stop at his own volition. Is
that correct?
A. Well, there is no question but that, for those persons in Dachau, the
only bait was the good food before and afterwards and the cigarettes
that they had been promised. That was not possible in the case of my
doctors. They did it because they were interested and, of course, that
would have been by far the best solution if it had been possible.
Q. And, insofar as the subjects at Dachau, if any of them, at any time
during the course of the experiments, believed that the pain or
discomfort or whatever it might be called, which they were suffering
would not be compensated by cigarettes, or other promises which had been
made to them, they would be very anxious then to be released from
prosecution of that experiment. Is that true?
A. Certainly. That’s why quite a number of experimental subjects
secretly drank water, because the strict course didn’t please them too
much.
Q. Well, unlike the experimental subjects in your institute, those
subjects would not be particularly interested in the result, would they?
They had no scientific interest in the result, did they?
A. No, no. None at all. None whatever.
* * * * *
-----
[47] Final plea is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 16 July 1947,
pp. 10942-10971.
[48] Eugen Kogon: Der SS Staat; published 1946, Verlag der Frankfurter
Hefte, Frankfurt-Main.
[49] Counsel for the defendant Beiglboeck quoted the testimony of the
prosecution witnesses Stoehr, Pillwein, and Tschofenig and the testimony
of the defense witness Mettbach who stated that approximately 40 to 50
_gypsies_ were used for the sea-water experiments and that they wore
either black or green triangles. Black triangles had to be worn by those
concentration camp inmates who were considered asocial and green
triangles by those who were considered criminal.
[50] Same as Footnote 49 above.
[51] Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 27 June,
1 July 1947, pp. 10229-10235, 10508-10545.
[52] Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 6, 9,
10, 11, 12, 17 June 1947, pp. 8666-9028, 9326-9329.
[53] Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 3 June
1947, pp. 8400-8493.