_DIRECT EXAMINATION_
* * * * *
DR. TIPP: Now, Professor, we are coming to the last and perhaps the most
decisive count of the indictment—namely, the typhus experiments, as the
prosecution calls them. Professor Schroeder and Professor
Becker-Freyseng are charged with responsibility for such typhus
experiments. There are two groups of them, according to the prosecution.
On the one hand, those performed in Buchenwald concentration camp by Dr.
Ding-Schuler and to a lesser extent by the defendant Dr. Hoven. The
second group is alleged typhus experiments that you carried out in the
Natzweiler concentration camp. Before we turn to the individual
experiments, Professor, please tell the Tribunal what the hazards of
typhus were during the war, especially in the years 1943, 1944, and 1945
when this problem became acute? Describe it only to the extent necessary
in order to make your work understandable.
WITNESS HAAGEN: I shall try to be brief, but in order to understand this
whole problem, one must be given some general information. Typhus is a
very serious infectious disease which, in international medical circles,
is included among the diseases which are of general danger, and it is
consequently subject to international control. In cases of such
hazardous and dangerous diseases, every state felt the moral obligation
to do everything to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic because it is
very difficult to combat and to eliminate the epidemic once it has
broken out. This point of view was embraced, of course, not only by the
government officials, but also by the responsible and interested
scientists and physicians; because we all, of course, knew how
prodigious the danger of typhus is, not only for the waging of the war
but also for the civilian population of the entire world. Typhus is not
only a war epidemic, but it has taken root in the country. It is also a
peacetime epidemic which is enormously difficult to combat.
PRESIDING JUDGE BEALS: Counsel, the Tribunal is quite aware that typhus
is a very dangerous disease, that it is a great menace to humans, and
that it was a menace to Germany during the last war, a great danger. I
don’t think it is necessary to elaborate that again. We have heard it
from several witnesses. It’s not denied.
DR. TIPP: Witness, you heard the Tribunal’s wish. In the opinion of the
Tribunal, the typhus danger for Germany has already been sufficiently
proved. Please go on to the subject itself now. Perhaps you could speak
of the usual preventive measures which are used against typhus,
particularly vaccines.
WITNESS HAAGEN: There are, in general, two procedures to prevent typhus.
One is what I might call the mechanical procedure, and the other the
biological procedure. In the mechanical procedure we are concerned with
combating the lice—I shall not go into that—but in the biological
procedure we are interested in a protective vaccine. There are various
vaccines available. Now, to get down to the crux of the matter, I must
say that the typhus vaccines which are made from dead typhus virus do
not provide absolute protection against the disease. They may lead to a
milder form of the disease, but the infection itself is not prevented.
Dead typhus vaccine, in other words, has no absolute anti-infectious
effect, which, however, is the main point of any vaccine.
We developed a live vaccine, not on the basis of our own experiences and
research, but we made use of the experiences of others. I should like to
mention primarily the work of the French typhus research scientists,
Blanc, Baltasar, and assistants Legrer and Lecolle. When vaccinating, a
vaccine must be used which gives anti-infectious protection, and in
general, in the case of virus diseases, successful vaccination is also
achieved only with live virus. Let me mention the examples of smallpox,
influenza, and yellow fever. In all these cases the vaccines are made
from a live virus, but it is true that this virus is mutated, that is,
it is no longer pathogenic to human beings. Its pathogenic
characteristics have been suppressed and have disappeared, but the virus
retains its anti-infectious efficacy. This change is accomplished in two
ways, either by passing the virus through an animal—this is frequently
done—and sometimes effects mutation in the virus and sometimes weakens
the virus. I need not go into that; it would take up too much time.
Q. If I understand you correctly, Witness, your aim as a scientist was
to develop a vaccine from live virus; in other words from a
nonpathogenic virus which could not cause the disease, but which,
nevertheless, had the antigenic effect, namely the effect of protecting
the vaccinated person against contracting the disease later by
infection. Is that so?
A. Yes. That is correct.
Q. Now, Witness, nobody is reproaching you for having produced vaccines,
but it is said that you tested the effectiveness of your vaccines in a
concentration camp. The prosecution called these virulent and you say
they were nonpathogenic. At any rate, that is the way I understood the
reproach of the prosecution; but first before you go into this, Witness,
will you please tell the Court how it happened that you came into
contact with the concentration camp Natzweiler in this matter?
A. The development of typhus throughout the war was such that typhus no
longer became purely a war epidemic, but because of the many refugee
camps, PW transports, and military transports, typhus was brought into
Germany itself. In the overcrowded camps, especially with lack of
sanitary installations, there was considerable danger from typhus,
particularly where people assembled who came from the East. I have only
to say that in the Auschwitz camp, for example (but also in many other
prisoner camps in the east), there had already been extensive epidemics.
Typhus pressed further and further into Germany. Every closed community
such as a camp is, in itself, a great source of danger of typhus, not
only the danger of an epidemic within the camp, but also an epidemic
that spreads to the surrounding civilian population. Most of the
concentration camp inmates worked outside the camp in factories and they
came into contact with the civilian population, so you can easily see
the danger of contagion. Now, in brief, the camp commandant and the camp
doctor in the course of the spring of 1943 asked me whether they could
have my assistance in combating this danger.
Q. Witness, a preparatory question first. Did you have any connection
with the SS, with the concentration camp, as such?
A. I had no connection with the SS or with the concentration camps, or
with any office in charge of them.
Q. Why did the camp commandant and the camp physician of the Natzweiler
concentration camp turn specifically to you?
A. As director of the Hygiene Institute I had a rather large sphere of
activity in Alsace, and, of course, it was known in the concentration
camps, too, that my offices were in Strasbourg. For this reason the camp
turned to me for help in many matters, including the obtaining of
vaccines and help in the disinfection of the camp, and so forth, matters
which perhaps we shall deal with later.
Q. You say then that the camp turned to you because you were the
hygienist in the Alsatian district around Strasbourg?
A. That is correct.
Q. You said also that the camp commandant or doctor asked for your
assistance?
A. Yes, that was an obvious thing for him to do, because I was right
there in Strasbourg.
Q. You said further that it was roughly in the spring of 1943 that these
requests for assistance were made to you; was there an epidemic in the
camp already at that time, or why did they think they needed your help?
A. At that time there was no epidemic in the camp, but the general
epidemiological situation was such that an outbreak of typhus was
expected at any moment, especially since transports were continually
coming from the East. These transports were infected with lice and
contained people who were already infected with typhus, and other camps
in the neighborhood had already had their first cases of typhus.
Q. Professor, what means did you have available to help these camp
physicians? Please limit yourself, first of all your vaccines?
A. I have already said that there are various vaccines available made
from dead virus, and also those made from live and attenuated virus. It
was very difficult to procure virus at that time. The superior officers
simply could not make the effective vaccines available, and in order to
carry out any plans, all sorts of decrees and orders existed in Germany
for the planning of systematic vaccination should the danger of typhus
arise.
Q. Now, Witness, you have described your work in the field of vaccine
production, namely, that of producing a live pathogenic virus; did you
begin this developing and working on your own initiative, or did some
other agency refer the problem to you?
A. Live typhus virus was being manufactured in foreign countries at that
time in great quantities, particularly in France where they had had a
great deal of experience with such live virus. I have already mentioned
Blanc, Baltasar, Lecolle, and Legrer. During the war, protective
vaccines were also made with such live virus in North Africa. There had
already been millions of such vaccinations and, of course, this
permitted experience to be gathered. The fact is that the French, who
saw this great danger, also saw the necessity of such large-scale
vaccines, and they had also had a few fatalities. As I said, we had to
use a virus strain for these vaccinations which, it is true, was alive
and still pathogenic to animals. In other words, a virulent virus, the
pathogenic effect of which on human beings was suppressed to a large
extent; and that is the essence of all live vaccine manufacture, and it
must occupy the central position in our considerations here. You bring
about such mutation only by passing the virus through animals. Every
specialist knows that when the virus is passed through animals it is
attenuated there more than by being cultured or bred, for instance, in
chicken yolks or by being preserved in a vacuum, or at very low
temperatures and only somewhat attenuated in strain.
Q. Witness, you still haven’t answered my question fully, that is,
whether you carried out this work on your own initiative or on the basis
of an order, directive, or assignment which came to you from elsewhere?