We, the undersigned, during the morning of 6 November 1945, examined the
patient, identified as Gustav Krupp von Bohlen by the military
authorities in charge, in the presence of his wife and nurse.
We unanimously agree that the patient was suffering from: Senile
softening of the brain, selectively affecting the frontal lobes of the
cerebral cortex and the corpus striatum, due to vascular degeneration.
It is our unanimous, considered, professional opinion that the mental
condition of the patient, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, is such that he is
incapable of understanding court procedure, and of understanding or
cooperating in interrogation.
The physical state of the patient is such that he cannot be moved
without endangering his life.
We are of the considered opinion that his condition is unlikely to
improve, but rather to deteriorate even further.
Therefore, we unanimously believe that he will never be fit, mentally or
physically, to appear before the International Military Tribunal.
/s/ R. E. TUNBRIDGE
Brigadier, O.B.E., M.D., M.Sc., F.R.C.P.
Consulting Physician, British Army of the Rhine
/s/ RENE PIEDELIEVRE
M.D., Professor of the Paris Faculty of Medicine;
Expert of the Tribunal
/s/ NICOLAS KURSHAKOV
Professor of Medicine, Medical Institute of Moscow
Chief Internist, Commissariat of Public Health, U.S.S.R.
/s/ EUGENE SEPP
Emeritus Professor of Neurology, Medical Institute of Moscow
Member, Academy of Medical Sciences, U.S.S.R.
/s/ EUGENE KRASNUSHKIN
M. D., Professor of Psychiatry, Medical Institute of Moscow
/s/ BERTRAM SCHAFFNER
Major, Medical Corps
Neuropsychiatrist, Army of the United States
-----
[15] At a meeting of the International Military Tribunal on 30 October
1945, “it was agreed that a committee of four medical officers, one
appointed by each Member of the Tribunal, be sent, if the Committee of
Prosecutors made no objection, to examine Krupp and that they be
empowered to employ specialists if necessary.” The report of this
Medical Commission was presented 7 November 1945.
Report of the Medical Examination of
Herr Gustav Krupp von Bohlen
1. History: The following information was obtained by questioning Frau
Krupp von Bohlen, wife of the patient, Herr Krupp’s valet, and Frl.
Krone, private secretary of the patient.
The patient had been physically a very active man. He hunted,
rode and played tennis. With the aid of guides, he was hunting
deer as recently as 1943. He was abstemious in his personal
habits, did not smoke or partake of alcohol. He retired to bed
early, rarely remaining up after 2200 hours. He had eight
children, six sons and two daughters. There is no family history
of mental disorder or of drug addiction.
Previous Illness: There is no history of any major illness.
Since 1930, he has taken spa treatment each year for arthritis
of the spine and for hypotension. No radiographs were available
to indicate the true pathology of the spinal condition. The
valet stated that the patient, on the recommendation of his
physicians, had been very careful with his diet during the past
ten years.
Present Illness: For several years, the patient had been subject
to giddy attacks. In consequence, his wife was always anxious
when he went hunting, lest he should have an attack whilst on
the edge of a cliff, and fall and kill himself. Two reliable
guides always accompanied him on his hunting excursions, and in
1942 Frau Krupp also joined in expeditions in order to watch
him.
Four years ago, the patient had a disturbance of vision
primarily due to dysfunction of the eye muscles. For a period he
had double vision. From this illness, he made an apparent
complete recovery.
Two years ago he had a stroke, with weakness of the left side of
the face, and impaired function of the right side of the body.
Following the latter incident, impairment of gait, general
weakness, and impairment of mental functions became increasingly
apparent. From the middle of 1944 onwards, the patient became
more and more dependent upon his wife; she was the only person
who seemed to understand fully his speech and his needs.
On November 25th, 1944, he was proceeding from the garden
towards the house, and suddenly seemed to run (propulsion gait).
Just before reaching the house, he fell and injured his arm. As
a result of this accident, he attended the local hospital for
treatment, traveling by motor-car. On December 4th, whilst
traveling to the hospital at Schwarzach-St. Veith, and asleep in
the back of the car, the driver was compelled to swerve to avoid
another vehicle, and to brake suddenly. Herr Krupp von Bohlen
was thrown forward, and hit his forehead and the bridge of the
nose against a metal rail behind the driver’s seat. He did not
lose consciousness, but his condition was such that he was
detained in the hospital for approximately eight weeks. During
his stay in the hospital, he recognized his wife, his relatives
and the members of his staff, and spoke to them, albeit
haltingly.
Since the accident mentioned above, the general condition of the
patient has deteriorated rapidly. The members of his staff had
increasing difficulty in understanding him. At first, with the
aid of two people, he was able to walk a few steps; until two
months ago he sat for short periods in a chair. The assistance
of men-servants was necessary for this task. He has been
incontinent of feces and urine since returning from the hospital
in February 1945. Since this date he has only spoken an
occasional single word, the words being simple ones and without
any rational association, apart from sporadic expletives, such
as “Ach, Gott” and “Donner Wetter”, when disturbed. At times he
has been exceedingly irritable and on occasions has had
inexplicable bouts of weeping. During the past two months, he
has become increasingly apathetic, and no longer recognized
relatives or friends. Frau Von Bohlen thinks he may still
recognize her as a familiar face, but he exhibits no emotional
reaction to her presence. She thinks he realizes occasionally
that strangers are in the room; e. g., members of the Allied
services, and responds by being very tense.
Frl. Krone, secretary to the patient, stated that on returning
to Blühbach in September 1944, after an absence since May 1944,
she could no longer take down letters as dictated by Krupp von
Bohlen. Normally he was a very punctilious man, and his diction
and writing were correct and very precise. She stated that after
September 1944 there were frequent interruptions in his flow of
ideas, his syntax was faulty, and he occasionally did not appear
to appreciate the meaning of certain words. She would get an
idea of what he wanted to say, and then wrote the letter herself
in accordance with what she understood to be his wishes. His
handwriting also became increasingly illegible, and he had
difficulty in signing his name when giving power of attorney to
his relatives in January 1945.
The valet had been personal valet to Krupp for 20 years, and
traveled all over the world with him. He described his master as
a very active man, physically and mentally, extremely
punctilious in all personal details. He took a great interest in
his clothes, and was very observant of any slight defect. In his
personal habits he was abstemious, never taking alcohol, and was
also a non-smoker. Although a very excellent sportsman and
physically capable of considerable feats of endurance when
hunting, playing tennis or climbing, he never overdid things and
took care of himself without in any way being overanxious about
his health. The valet first began to notice serious changes in
the patient’s personal habits two years ago, although in the
valet’s opinion, he had been failing slightly for about four to
five years. The degree of change, however, prior to two years
ago, was so slight and his master was in his opinion such a
“superman”, that the changes would not have been apparent to the
casual observer. Two years ago he began to lose interest in the
details of his personal clothing and to become careless with his
table manners. For instance, when soup was served to him one
day, he took his soup-spoon and used it to take water from his
wine-glass. Latterly, he would sit at table and ask who was
present, although the only people in the room were intimate
members of his family. He would complain that the telephone bell
was ringing, and of people speaking to him; these hallucinations
became more frequent during the latter part of 1944. The valet
was employed as caretaker of the main house by the American
Military Government after the cessation of hostilities in
Europe, and did not see his employer regularly after June 1945.
On August 7, 1945, the occasion of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen’s
birthday, he called to pay his respects, and for the first time
he was not recognized, and his master showed no appreciation of
his presence or his conversation.
2. General Appearance: The patient was lying rigidly in bed in a
Parkinsonian position with fine tremors of the jaw and hands. The skin
was atrophic and dry, and there was pigmentation of the dorsum of the
hands. The temporal arteries were prominent and tortuous. The face was
masklike, with dilated venules over the cheeks. There was evidence of
considerable wasting of the body tissues, especially in the extremities,
which also showed evidence of trophic and acrocyanotic changes.
3. Neuropsychiatric Examination: The patient lay in bed with a masklike
face and in a fixed position on his back. The legs were partially
flexed, and similarly the elbows, the latter being pressed firmly
against the trunk. There was generalized muscular rigidity, due to
hypertenus of an extra-pyramidal tract lesion.
On the physicians’ entering the room, the patient fixed his gaze
on them, and replied to their greeting with “Guten Tag,” and
gave his hand when they offered theirs to him. He shook hands
normally, but he could not relax his hold or remove his hand,
and continued to squeeze the physician’s hand; this was due to
the presence of a forced grasp-reflex, which was more marked in
the left than in the right hand. When asked how he felt, he
replied “Gut,” but to all further questions he gave no reply at
all. He was silent and showed no reaction to, or comprehension
of, other questions, and simple commands, such as “Open your
mouth,” “Put out your tongue,” “Look this way.” Only painful and
disagreeable stimuli produced any reaction, and then it was
merely a facial expression of discontent, sometimes accompanied
by grunts of disapproval.
The disturbance of verbal response was not due to dysarthria,
because the patient was able to pronounce such words as he did
use, quite distinctly. Neither was it due to motor aphasia,
because the few words he used were used correctly, and he never
exhibited the jargon responses of the true aphasic when
attempting to answer questions.
The patient was indifferent, apathetic, and was not in good
rapport with the external world, lacked initiative, exhibited
paucity of emotion. He uttered no spontaneous speech, and his
reaction to painful stimuli was primitive.
Neurological examination showed the following additional
abnormal findings: There was a right facial weakness of a
supranuclear origin. The pupils reacted promptly to light, and
appeared normal, save that the left was slightly larger than the
right. Ophthalmoscopic examination of the fundi, limited by lack
of cooperation from the patient, showed clear media and normal
retina and retinal vessels. The right disc, the only one
visualized, appeared normal. Extra-ocular movements could not be
tested; there was no obvious strabismus. All deep reflexes in
the arms and legs were present and very brisk. Clonus was not
elicited. The plantar reflexes were flexor. Abdominal reflexes
were absent, except for the right upper. There was incontinence
of urine and feces, of the type associated with senile dementia.
There was an associated minimal degree of intertrigo. Owing to
lack of cooperation of the patient a full sensory examination
could not be made, but the patient responded to pin-prick, deep
pressure and muscular movement throughout the body.