TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-139
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 317
LETTER FROM DR. GRUNSKE TO HAAGEN, 7 MARCH 1944, CONCERNING REPORTS ON
YELLOW FEVER VIRUS EXPERIMENTS REQUESTED BY A JAPANESE MEDICAL OFFICER
High Command of the Navy
Flottenarzt Dr. Grunske
Berlin, 7 March 1944
Landgrafenstr. 12
Tel: 24 9591 Ext 241
To: Professor Dr. Haagen
Strasbourg
Hygiene Institute of the University
Dear Professor:
In connection with my letter of 26 February and your long distance
telephone call of 6 March, I must advise you that the Japanese
Oberstabsarzt has in the meantime contacted Oberstarzt Professor Dr.
Rose of the Luftwaffe Medical Service, and that the latter has promised
to secure for him from Strasbourg all the accounts concerning the yellow
fever virus experiments which are important to him. Therefore,
Oberstartz Dr. Rose will give you further details. I therefore ask that
the matter be considered closed between us.
With fraternal esteem and
Heil Hitler!
Respectfully yours
[Signed] DR. GRUNSKE
Flottenarzt
TRANSLATION OF ROSE DOCUMENT 16
ROSE DEFENSE EXHIBIT 12
EXTRACTS FROM THE AFFIDAVIT OF PROFESSOR OTTO LENZ, DIRECTOR OF THE
ROBERT KOCH INSTITUTE IN BERLIN
* * * * *
Professor Rose was not the “typhus expert” of the Robert Koch Institute,
nor did he work on typhus there. But he was the Chief of the Department
of Tropical Medicine, and was in this capacity, with the exception of
one field of research, (that of the transmission of dysentery and
typhoid bacilli by insects) exclusively concerned with tropical diseases
and parasites (insects).
The typhus expert of the institute was rather Professor Haagen, the
Chief of the Virus Division. After his departure, following his
appointment to the Chair of Hygiene at Strasbourg University, Professor
Gildemeister, the then President of the Institute, continued the
research on typhus.
Thus, various physicians, among them Dr. Ding, received instruction on
typhus from Professor Haagen in the Virus Division, but _not_ from
Professor Rose.
Owing to the destruction by air raids of many of the files of the Robert
Koch Institute, I can no longer ascertain whether Professor Rose was
associated with the decisions taken on typhus experiments.
Several of the men who were at that time departmental chiefs, however,
assured me unanimously, that this had _not_ been the case.
* * * * *
Finally, nothing is known of Professor Rose’s having had the opportunity
to become aware of Geheimrat Lockemann’s chemo-therapeutical experiments
(chemo-therapy of abdominal typhoid with otrhomin). The only research on
abdominal typhoid carried on in Rose’s department consisted of the
experiments on the role of the house fly in the transmission of
dysentery caused by bacteria and of abdominal typhoid.
* * * * *
TRANSLATION OF ROSE DOCUMENT 46
ROSE DEFENSE EXHIBIT 20
EXTRACT FROM A CERTIFIED STATEMENT, 4 MARCH 1947, OF J. OERSKOV, M. D.,
DIRECTOR OF THE STATE SERUM INSTITUTE IN COPENHAGEN
* * * * *
In answer to questions asked us about the visit of Professor Rose, I can
say the following:
to 1. Did Professor Rose, when he visited the Institute at the end of
September 1943, request the Copenhagen Institute to take up the
production of the typhus vaccine from R. pr. in order to help overcome
the great shortage of typhus vaccine? Yes.
to 2. Was this request refused by Director Oerskov for valid reasons?
Yes.
to 3. Was R. then taken to visit Dr. Ipsen’s section?
I do not remember this, but it is apparent from Dr. Ipsen’s experimental
records that Professor Rose actually was in Dr. Ipsen’s laboratory on 24
September and probably discussed these problems with him. Unfortunately,
Dr. Ipsen is at present in America on a study trip and will not return
before June or July. It is, however, apparent from our records that if
Profesor Rose ever received samples of our vaccine it could only have
been a small quantity, and neither I nor Dr. Ipsen’s colleagues have
ever heard anything of the possible effects of our vaccine.
Through the Danish Red Cross we sent our vaccine to Danish as well as to
Norwegian prisoners of war camps, so that the vaccine was given only to
Danish or Norwegian colleagues. We heard from Danish colleagues that the
effect of these vaccinations was good.
I can add that I am grateful to Professor Rose because he probably
helped to prevent our Institute’s being compelled to take over the
production of typhus vaccine. It is entirely unpredictable what
calamities might have arisen if we had been forced to take up the
production of this vaccine.
[Signed] J. OERSKOV
Director of the State Serum Institute
Not. K. J. No. 1974/47
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF PROSECUTION WITNESS EUGEN KOGON[63]
_DIRECT EXAMINATION_
* * * * *
MR. MCHANEY: Now, will you please explain to the Tribunal in your own
words exactly how these typhus experiments were carried out.
WITNESS KOGON: After 40 to 60 people, sometimes up to 120, had been
detailed for a series of experiments, one-third of them were separated,
and the other two-thirds were either vaccinated with a protective
treatment, or it was otherwise administered to them, if it was a
chemical therapeutical treatment. Those people who were protected
against typhus remained in Block 46 for several weeks until their
infection with Rickettsias Prowazeki, the typhus agent. The first
selection, that is to say, the first third, was also infected together
with them. They served as so-called control persons, with the help of
whom it was possible to ascertain whether the infection took and what
course the disease took in their cases, so that this course could be
compared with that of those who had been vaccinated and then infected.
The infection was performed in various ways. Either typhus was
transferred through fresh blood injected intravenously or
intramuscularly. At the beginning, too, by scratching the skin, or by
making a small incision in the arm. In the initial stages, two cubic
centimeters of fresh blood infected with typhus were used for the
infection, unless the infection concerned was one with an infectious
solution. Two cubic centimeters of fresh blood containing typhus were
then usually injected into the veins. Later on that dosage was reduced
to 1/20 of 1 cubic centimeter because the large quantity of 2 cubic
centimeters would penetrate any security achieved by the vaccination.
Even 1/20 of a cubic centimeter of fresh blood containing typhus was
usually enough to produce a very high degree of typhus if injected into
the veins. In the course of years the typhus cultures used at Buchenwald
had been cultivated from man to man and had increased their strength,
their virulence to a considerable degree, so that the very smallest
quantity was sufficient. I suggested to Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding in
1944 that in order to increase the scientific value he should reduce the
quantity of these injections to the extreme minimum so that the
so-called threshold value could be ascertained—in other words, so that
the artificial infection should be as similar to normal infection by
lice as possible. He turned this suggestion down because he believed
that then no convincing proof could be achieved of the real strength of
the protective treatment used. A third category of the experimental
persons was used to maintain the typhus cultures. Those were the
so-called passage persons, amounting to three to five persons per month.
They were merely infected for the purpose of ensuring a constant supply
of fresh blood containing typhus. Very nearly all those persons died. I
do not think I am exaggerating if I say that 95 percent of these cases
were fatal.
Q. Witness, do you mean to say that they deliberately infected three to
five persons a month with typhus just to have the viruses alive and
available in blood?
A. Just for that particular purpose.
Q. Can you tell the Tribunal approximately how many of those persons
died who were infected just to keep the viruses alive?
A. From the so-called passage persons, as I have already said, between
three to five were used per month, that is, when I was working for Dr.
Ding-Schuler—every month until the end of the Buchenwald concentration
camp. That is to say, from April 1943 until March 1945. As far as the
previous period is concerned, I only know that passage persons had been
used, but I do not know the figures.
Q. Now, Witness, were experimental persons also infected with lice?
A. As far as I know, only one single experiment took place in Buchenwald
where an original infection with typhus was performed with lice. The
infected lice were brought from the OKH Institute in Krakow by a courier
and were taken to Block 46. There they were kept in small cages which
were applied to the thighs of the experimental persons, and a number of
persons, I do not know how many, were infected. Some of our comrades let
a few lice escape in a room of Block 46, but they kept them under
control and reported to the Kapo that infected lice had escaped from the
cages. Kapo [inmate trusty] Arthur Dietzsch immediately reported this to
the camp physician, Dr. Hoven, who was deputizing at that time for Dr.
Ding-Schuler. Dr. Hoven, following Dietzsch’s advice, then ordered the
destruction of these infected lice. A second delivery from Krakow was
also burned because it was not desired that experiments should be
performed which entailed such danger for the camp.
* * * * *
Q. Can you tell the Tribunal whether these experimental subjects
suffered to any appreciable extent during the course of these typhus
experiments?
A. There we must draw a strict dividing line between the general mental
condition of such experimental persons and the physical condition caused
by this disease. Every man in the camp knew that Block 46 was a dreadful
place. Only a very few people in the camp had an exact idea of what was
going on in Block 46. A dreadful horror seized anyone who was brought
into any kind of connection with this block. If people were selected and
taken to Block 46 through the sick bay, then they knew that the affair
was a fatal one. The untold horror which was attached to this block made
things even worse. Apart from this, it was generally known in the camp
that Kapo Arthur Dietzsch exercised iron discipline in Block 46. There
the cat-o’-nine-tails really ruled supreme. Everyone, therefore, who
went to Block 46 as an experimental person did not only have to expect
death, and under certain circumstances a very long drawn out and
frightful death, but also torture and the complete removal of the last
remnants of personal freedom. In this mental condition these
experimental persons waited in the sick bays for an unknown period of
time. They waited for the day or for the night when something would be
done to them; they did not know what it would be, but they guessed that
it would be some frightful form of death. If they were vaccinated, then
sometimes the most horrible scenes took place, because the patients were
afraid the injections were lethal. Kapo Arthur Dietzsch had to restore
order with iron discipline. After a certain period, when the actual
illness had set in after the infection, ordinary symptoms of typhus
would appear, which, as is well known, is one of the most serious
illnesses. The infection, as I have already described to you, became so
powerful during the last two and a half years that the typhus almost
always appeared in its most horrible form. There were cases of raving
madness, delirium, people would refuse to eat, and a large percentage of
them would die. Those who experienced the disease in a milder form,
perhaps because their constitutions were stronger or because the vaccine
was effective, were forced continuously to observe the death struggles
of the others. And all this took place in an atmosphere hardly possible
to imagine. Just what happened to those people who survived the typhus
was something which they did not know during the period of
convalescence. Would they remain in Block 46 to be used for other
purposes? Would they be used as assistants? Would they be feared as
surviving witnesses of the experiments on human beings and therefore
killed? All this was something which they did not know and which
aggravated the conditions of these experiments.