Q. Professor, what is your opinion about the individual experimental groups?

A. I think that scientifically speaking the planning was excellent and I have no objection to the entire plan. It was good to add a hunger-and-thirst group because we know by experience that thirst can be borne less well than hunger, and if people are suffering from hunger and thirst too, they do not suffer from hunger, but do suffer from thirst; and that resembles what shipwrecked persons would be subjected to because they only suffer from thirst. It was excellent that Wofatit was to be introduced into the experiments too, although it was expected from the beginning that this wonderful discovery would show its value. It turned out that groups given sea-water treated according to the Schaefer method reacted similarly to a group that was subjected to a reasonable hunger treatment and did not suffer any great discomfort. In the hunger treatment of 12, or, we should say 8 days, because the people still ate during the first 4 days, that is a minor affair, and we carry that out innumerable times for medical reasons. There exists a sanitarium where people are made to go without food for 4 weeks, and as long as they get water in the shape of fruit juice, they still carry on well and often with enthusiasm. Group 2 was Schaefer’s group, groups 3 and 4 were the groups that received 500 cc. of sea-water, once without and once with Wofatit. Group 3 was the one which drank 1,000 cc. of sea-water. That one could only use volunteers for this group is an obvious fact, since the cooperation of the experimental subject is indispensable; without his good will such an experimental arrangement is impossible. That sufficient volunteers could be found for a case was a matter of course, since a period of 10 days of excellent food before and after the experiment was before them, and since one could assure them with the best of confidence that there would not and could not be any danger.

Q. We will come to that, Professor. You have just started to speak about food, nourishment. What is your opinion about the food before, during, and after the actual experiments?

A. Well, before the experiments it was splendid. During the experiments it was meager, corresponding to that of shipwrecked persons and afterwards quite excellent. In my opinion during such brief experiments nourishment doesn’t play any part.

Mr. Hardy: May it please the Tribunal, might I inquire whether the witness is now testifying to facts as he has ascertained them from studying graphs and charts made by Professor Beiglboeck or is he testifying from hearsay that food was given to these inmates, or what is the basis of his knowledge that he is eliciting here?

A. I was giving my testimony based on the records which I have studied.

Mr. Hardy: Thank you.

A. But I don’t attach any importance to the meager food served during the experiments because that is an insignificant point which as I have said we have allotted to others many times.

Presiding Judge Beals: Witness, when you referred to this examination of the records, state briefly just what records you examined.

A. The original records.

Dr. Marx: Professor, how do you judge the individual examinations carried out by Professor Beiglboeck? Were they adequate for the solution of the practical question whether Berkatit was sufficiently useful and preferable to thirst treatment, and was it sufficient to judge the daily condition of the experimental subjects so that the right time to interrupt the experiments could be ascertained?

Did you get my question?

A. Yes. I got it. I thought that the arrangement of these experiments was splendid from the scientific point of view, and Beiglboeck apparently devoted himself with tremendous industry and great responsibility to carrying out of these experiments which he had been ordered to do.

Q. Would it be right to say that a personality such as Beiglboeck, as a professor of internal medicine and chief medical officer at a clinic for many years on the basis of daily examinations and through his personal consideration and examination of the experimental subject, would be in a position to recognize any threat to the health of the person before such a threat could actually become serious?

A. That was a matter of course. Beiglboeck is an excellent internal medical man and the great care with which he carried out these experiments shows that he was fully conscious of his responsibility. Only, it’s hard to imagine that, during such brief experiments, serious damage could have occurred at all.

Q. Professor, a little earlier you briefly dealt with the question of starving, of hunger or of thirst for the purpose of treatment, and I now want to ask you whether the administration of hunger and thirst cures of several days is a medically recognized fact, and also how long would you consider that hunger and thirst with complete refusal of food and liquid could take place without putting someone’s health in jeopardy?

A. It depends who it is. Initially, I recommended hunger and thirst treatment in the case of acute inflammation of the kidneys, but there people have a great deal of water in their system and the water is absorbed during such a cure. Astonishing as it may seem, a cure is effected very rapidly. In such cases, three, five, seven, and even more days of hunger are employed. In other cases, where no water surplus is in existence, we would only apply 6 days of hunger treatment. During the time when I had to be interested in these particular experiments, there were four women in my clinic, all of whom were there because of high blood pressure. They were aged 50, 51, 53, and 63 years. One had a blood pressure of 210/100, and 6 days later it had been reduced to 170/100. The third had a blood pressure of 280/160 and 6 days later it dropped to 180/100. The loss of weight amounted to 3 or 4 kilograms and the patients naturally, during those days, suffered from thirst and felt weak at the end of the sixth day, but they were so happy about the improved condition that they considered the unpleasantness of the recent days as being worth forgetting.

Q. Is it correct that when water is withdrawn, nourishment should also be withdrawn?

A. It’s easier to suffer thirst when you are also hungry because the supply of nourishment makes claims upon the kidneys and, if you exclude salt in the nourishment, the water loses further humidity. Thus, appetite disappears when you are thirsty. Therefore, it is definitely better to be hungry and thirsty simultaneously.

Q. Professor, is it right to observe the individual doses in order to prevent diarrhea, and, if individual quantities of less than 300 cc. are admitted, can you prevent diarrhea?

A. In the case of sea and bitter water you only suffer from diarrhea if you drink a large quantity at once. If you distribute it over a day you suffer from constipation.

Q. Yes, but you didn’t quite answer my question. I inquired about the individual doses.

A. Yes, well, I’m trying to say that if you spread it out over a day, giving smaller individual doses instead of giving it all at once, then there isn’t any danger of diarrhea.

Q. Can you describe sea-water as poisonous at all?

A. Absolutely not. There is a trend towards treatment with sea-water which is increasing, and people drink half a liter of sea-water every day for weeks. There can’t be any question of any poisonous quality. In fact, people say they feel splendid. The only difference is that in the case of such cures fresh water is administered, too, in the manner of tea, coffee, and soup, so that the dehydrating effect of the sea-water is counteracted.

Q. Professor, I wonder if you would speak a little more slowly and make a pause after individual answers in order to enable the interpreters to follow.

Has there been an experiment during which a dose of 500 to 1,000 cc. of sea-water daily was taken and is it to be described as dangerous, providing the experiment is discontinued as soon as there is a threat of danger to health?

A. There can’t be any question of there being any danger to health during the first few days. The only question is, how long can the body stand up to this continued deprivation of humidity? Sea-water has a three-percent salt water content. Generally speaking, at least so far, we have assumed that the kidneys cannot deal with such a salt concentration. This means that salt will remain in the system, collecting water from the tissues. In the beginning, this is of no importance, but after 6 or 7 or 8 days, this becomes unpleasant and it is to be expected that after the twelfth day there is some danger. There have been cases of sea rescue when even 17 or more days afterwards recovery was achieved, but I would say that I would never dare to continue such an experiment beyond the twelfth day, and in this case with which we are concerned, all experiments were discontinued after the sixth day, so that danger to health during that period was out of the question.

Q. Could the aim of these experiments have been achieved with a semipermeable membrane?

A. I don’t understand how one can imagine this. What we are concerned with is the question of how long the human body can survive without water and under the excess quantity of salt. Now, that is subject to the water content of the body and it depends first of all, upon whether water is only used by the intermediary tissues or whether the cell liquid too is being used up. In the latter case, there is a danger which becomes apparent through excess potassium quantities, and this was also continuously observed and checked during such experiments, and there were no excess potassium quantities such as can be expected after 6 days.

Q. Nor would it be right to say that these experiments were not planned scientifically and medically, is that correct?

A. Absolutely not.

Q. Could they have been planned differently?

A. I couldn’t imagine how.

Q. Were these experiments in the interests of active warfare, or in the interests of the care of shipwrecked sailors or soldiers?

A. The latter.

Q. In other words, for aviators and sailors who were shipwrecked or might be shipwrecked?

A. Towards the end of the war there was an increase in the number of pilots shot down as well as of shipwrecked personnel, and it was, therefore, the duty of the hygiene department concerned to consider the question of how one could best deal with such cases of shipwrecked personnel; that was the reason for this conference. Previously Schaefer, as we heard yesterday, had recommended that no liquid should be taken. When, together with I. G. Farben, he succeeded in eliminating salt and bitter salt from sea-water through Wofatit, the problem was really solved scientifically. There were, however, considerable technical difficulties, and it isn’t exactly simple to equip each flier with so much Wofatit in addition to everything else he has to carry in order to protect him against the danger of shipwreck. That is no doubt why Eppinger and Heubner were in favor of the experiment, and it was unfortunate that Mr. Berka appeared with Berkatit at the same time, and impressed the technicians because his method was more simple and cheaper.

Q. Professor, was there any reason to expect symptoms of injury which might appear later than 10 days after the end of the experiment?

A. It was entirely out of the question, even after the seventh day. Later injury is out of the question, because the duration of the experiments is too short.

Q. To what do you attribute the loss of weight during such experiments?

A. That is almost entirely the loss of water. As I have already told you, the excess salt supply in the body deprived the body of water. The body must have a supply of water if it is to supply salt. In other words, if the body is not receiving any other water than sea-water, an attack on the water held by the body must take place, and therefore loss of weight is bound to occur which, however, can be made up very quickly.

Q. What would you say was to be expected in the way of the loss of substance of the body and how much loss of water?

A. I would say the bulk is the loss of water, but to split this up is something I consider impossible to do with certainty. You might possibly compare just how much was lost during the time applied by Schaefer when there was considerable hunger and how much was lost in the case of Berka.

Q. Does the speed with which the loss of water takes place play an important part?

A. Yes, of course, a tremendous part. The colored nostras is a well-known example, during which disease the most tremendous loss of water and salt takes place during 24 hours. I knew a case where 10 liters of water and 150 grams of salt had to be added intravenously through the veins, the skin, and through the stomach in order to save the life of a person suffering from such an acute loss of water. If, on the other hand, this is spread out over a period of days and if you do not have to expect such a dangerous loss of salt, then the body can stand up to it for a much longer period. I might perhaps add that the loss of salt is just as dangerous as excess quantities of salt, and also in the event of the loss of salt which is always connected with loss of water, considerable losses of weight are suffered. It is well known that an expedition on the mountain Monte Rose lost 5 kilograms of salt and water in weight, and that the weight could not be replaced in spite of the addition of water when salt was also added.

Q. Professor, according to the documents at your disposal were these experiments sufficiently well prepared?

A. It was my impression that they were extremely well prepared, and I was particularly impressed by the fact that Beiglboeck had sufficiently examined the participants carefully and had considered the use of three of them to be unsuitable since he found a defect of the lungs.

Q. I also want to deal with such preparations—

Mr. McHaney: I do not think by any stretch of the imagination this witness can testify from the records that Beiglboeck conducted an examination or rejected three experimental subjects. In my opinion it does not appear from the records, and he can only testify what Beiglboeck told him. Unless he can say it does appear in the records, I think it should be stricken.

Presiding Judge Beals: Counsel has an opportunity of cross-examining the witness at the close of his testimony.

Dr. Marx: Professor, would you not say that regulations for these experiments also mean that certain experiments, such as experiments on one’s self and animal experiments, printed regulations, if you like, must have been in existence or was that true of this case?

A. Yes, a report from Beiglboeck about an experiment carried out upon himself is in existence which describes most efficiently the condition in which he found himself during a sea-water experiment, and this description tallies to the highest possible degree with what my volunteers who submitted themselves to these experiments described. I might deal with that later.

Q. What opinion do you have regarding the experiments which were carried out by Sirany in Vienna?

A. There appeared to me to be a lack of critical attitude. I think Schaefer had the same impression yesterday.

Q. Are symptoms recognizable regarding the planning of these experiments which would go beyond the absolutely essential practical purposes and which would lead to considerable pains or painful feelings or might have led to that?

A. Of course it isn’t fun to be thirsty, and that is the major complaint in these cases. These people are increasingly thirsty, and they are disappointed to find that drinking sea-water doesn’t decrease but increases their thirst, and towards the end of the experiments there are disturbances of the muscles, and the temper doesn’t exactly improve. It is the same in the salt water experiments where there are cramps of the calf because of the lack of water, but the characteristics of that are that these symptoms disappear instantaneously at the very moment when the first glass of water is drunk.

Q. Would you consider it possible that disturbances of the nerve end might appear? Temperature?

A. Temperature doesn’t happen at all, and I can’t imagine there being disturbances of the nervous system at all.

Q. How about fits?

A. In the case of insane people there may appear insane fits, maybe, but not in the case of normal human beings.

Q. If you yourself had been placed in this position, and considering your attitude toward medical ethics, would you have objected to carrying out the same type of experiment as was carried out here, if healthy, strong, young men had been at your disposal?

A. I actually did it. Since I was interested in connection with sea-water experiments, I called for volunteers among my young doctors, and five of them volunteered, among them my youngest son, and they drank synthetic sea-water, having the exact salt content of real sea-water, drinking up to 500 cc.; they got a little food, because they were to continue on duty during the experiment. The loss of weight varied and was around one kilogram a day. At the end of the experiment, my son was pretty thin, but after having a cup of tea was fine. Two days later he had regained his lost weight fully. All five participants described the experiment in the same way as Beiglboeck described the experiment carried out on himself. Four of these subjects interrupted the experiment after 5 days. One carried it out for 6 days, and apart from continuous thirst, he had no complaints. Any serious disturbance or damage is out of the question, and the extraordinary fact was the speed with which all symptoms of thirst disappeared after water had been taken.

Q. Now, Professor, the experiments we were talking about; did they have a practical valuable aim and did they show a corresponding result?

A. Yes, that is correct. For instance an important observation was made which Eppinger had expected; he wanted to see if the kidneys did concentrate salt under such extreme conditions to an even higher extent than one expected previously. One thought that it would be something like 2.0 percent but 2.6 or 2.7 percent and record figures of 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, and 4 percent are shown, so that the fortunate man who is in a position to concentrate 3.6 percent or 4 percent of salt would be able to live on sea-water for quite a long period.

Presiding Judge Beals: Witness, after a question is propounded to you by your counsel, would you pause a moment before giving your answer so that the question may be translated and conveyed and when you begin to make your answer, would you speak a little more slowly?

A. Finally, one unsuspected fact was shown which may be connected with this, and that is that the drinking of small quantities of sea-water up to 500 cc. given over a lengthy period turned out to be better than unalleviated thirst.

Dr. Marx: What do you think of Wofatit generally?

A. It is a wonderful thing.

Q. Is it correct to say that sea-water really assumes the character of drinking water through it?

A. Yes, the only difficulty would appear to be to obtain the drug in sufficiently large quantities for a man who is shipwrecked and did not have his luggage; but it is a wonderful discovery.

Q. So, you think that the result of these experiments is not only of importance in wartime, but is also of importance for the problems of seafaring nations?

A. Quite right, it is a wonderful thing for all sea-faring nations.

Q. So that both the experiments with Wofatit, as well as the experiments made regarding the symptoms when such a drink was not available, were important to show, for instance, the result of the consumption of sea-water in certain given doses.

A. That is quite correct.

Q. That was only discovered by these experiments?

A. Quite correct.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

Mr. Hardy: On what precisely is your testimony with respect to the experiments by Beiglboeck based?

Witness Vollhardt: On the records and the descriptions that Beiglboeck gave of the experiments.

Q. Precisely what records have you seen of these experiments?

A. The records that the defense counsel had in his hand yesterday or today.

Q. Doctor, I will have passed up to you a set of records which are numbered from 1 to 44 in red pencil, and I ask you, did you have those records before you and did you make a study of them?

A. Yes, I had these records, and I asked one of my collaborators who took part in these experiments to read through these records and to make excerpts from them. He happens to be here also.

Q. Who was this collaborator?

A. One of my assistants by the name of Werner. He is in the audience at the moment.

Q. You said something about his having participated in experiments; you don’t mean the Dachau experiments, do you?

A. No. In experiments that I carried out with my students.

Q. Did you personally examine these records at all?

A. I saw them, but I didn’t study every one of them. I left that up to the young man.

Q. And what did the young man do?

A. He gave me a very exhaustive report on them.

Q. Your testimony, then, is based upon a summary made by your assistant, is that correct?

A. Yes. That is so.

Q. Now what other records were made available to you upon which your testimony is based here?

A. The charts that were filled out in pencil with figures.

Q. Now, were there any other records that you got which we have not heard about, on which your testimony here is based?

A. I cannot say at the moment. I would have to confer with—

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.