dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SCHREIBER: There was a second matter which came to my notice in the course of my duties: the head of the hospital in Hohenlychen, SS-Gruppenfuehrer Professor Gebhardt, a talented surgeon, had carried out cranium operations on Russian prisoners of war and had killed the prisoners at certain intervals in order to observe the pathological changes, the progress of the bone changes on the basis of trepanation, the results of the operations, and so forth. And thirdly I attended, here in Nuremberg, a scientific meeting held by the High Command of the Luftwaffe.
MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDROV: When did this take place?
SCHREIBER: The meeting was in 1943, 1 cannot say exactly when it was. I believe it was the autumn of 1943, but it may have been in the summer. At this meeting, which was held in the hotel near the station, two doctors, Dr. Kramer and Professor Holzlehner, director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Kiel, reported on experiments which they had carried out on behalf of the High Command of the Luftwaffe in Dachau on the inmates of the concentration camp. The purpose of the experiments had been to obtain data for the production of a new protective suit for airmen for use over the English Channel. Many German airmen had been sh6t down in the Channel and had, in a short time, met their death in the cold water before the rescue plane could reach them. Now, it was proposed to make a suit which would have some kind of insulating effect and protect the body against cold. For this purpose the persons on whom the experiments -were carried out had to be placed in water of varying low temperatures-ice cold water, water at zero, water of more than five degrees-I do not know exactly what all the temperatures were; and measurements were taken showing the decline of body temperature; they indicated the falling-off of body temperature by a graph-the temperature at the point between life and death. The subjects of the experiments wore various suits, the ordinary ones which were worn at that time, and others. I recall one special suit which developed a foam between the suit and the skin, that is, a layer of air which had an immediate insulating effect, and death from freezing could be postponed for a considerable time by this suit. Of course, these experiments, which were undertaken under, anaesthetics, cost a number of subjects their lives.
MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDROV: Please tell us what the Defendant Goering had to do with the experiments carried out at Dachau?
SCHREIBER: Stabsarzt Kramer said at the beginning of his lecture that the Defendant Goering had ordered these experiments, and that the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler had kindly made available the subjects for the experiments.
MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDROV: Do you yourself admit the possibility that similar experiments could -have been carried out without the knowledge of the Defendant Goering?
SCHREIBER: I cannot imagine that.
MAJOR GENERAL ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to this witness.
DR. LATERNSER: Witness, you are in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Where?
SCHREIBER: Near Moscow.
DR.LATERNSER: Do you hold any office in this camp?
SCHREIBER: No. I hold no office in the prisoner-of-war camp.
DR. LATERNSER: How did it come about that you made your statement on 10 April? Did you yourself take the initiative or were you asked to do so?
SCHREIBER: I myself took the initiative. When I heard the report of Dr. Kramer and Professor Holzlehner here in Nuremberg I was deeply shocked at the obviously perverted conceptions of some of the German doctors. Even at that time I already spoke about it to the Chief of the Army Medical Service, Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser, who shared my opinion; and when more and more such things were reported in the papers, I considered it my duty-I refer to what I said before-in the interest of the future of the German medical profession, and future generations, to clear these things up once and for all.
DR. LATERNSER: What did you learn about such things?
SCHREIBER: What I said before.
DR. LATERNSER: No, I mean what you learned in the prisoner-of-war camp.
SCHREIBER: From the papers which we received.
DR. LATERNSER: Well, what did you learn from the papers?
SCHREIBER: I learned...
DR. LATERNSER: One moment, Witness. Have you a piece of paper before you?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: What does it say?
SCHREIBER: "You can speak faster."
DR.LATERNSER: One question: Your testimony in answer to the questions of the Russian Prosecutor today-was it prepared?
SCHREIBER: I was interrogated, and what I said is in this statement.
DR.LATERNSER: I ask you, Witness, whether before the examination today, you were informed by the Russian Prosecutor on what you were to testify about? Was your testimony previously determined?
SCHREIBER: No, my statement was not previously determined, but I knew that I would be asked about bacteriological warfare and experiments on human beings.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, as to the statement: you have the statement before you?
SCHREIBER: Yes, here it is.
DR. LATERNSER: At the end of that statement there is a note. Would you please look at it?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR.LATERNSER: Was this note put on this document in your presence?
SCHREIBER: No, I received this document here in this room a little while ago.
DR. LATERNSER: I mean something else; was your signature certified on the original? Or did you send off the original before this note, which now appears at the end, was added?
SCHREIBER: I made my statement. No note was written on it in my presence.
DR. LATERNSER: Was any advantage promised to you for making this report?
SCHREIBER: No, nothing was promised me. I would refuse to allow anybody to hold out advantages to me.
DR. LATERNSER: I do not know. That is why I asked you. Was the German Army Medical Service at any time afraid that the Soviet Union might use bacteria as a means of combat?
SCHREIBER: Not the Army Medical Inspectorate, but the General Staff. In 1942 the General Staff inquired of the Army Medical Inspectorate whether the enemy in the East might be expected to use bacteria as a weapon. I, myself, wrote the answer. On the basis of intelligence reports and reports of the army physicians on the Eastern front, and in view of the situation regarding epidemics among our troops, we were able to say that this fear was not justified. That opinion was given by me in 1942. It was a comprehensive opinion and was prepared by me and signed by Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser. Already in 1939 an opinion about the same matter had been asked for, and was drawn up on similar lines and signed by Generaloberstabsarzt Dr. Waldmann.
DR. LATERNSER: You stated that in 1943, after Stalingrad, an order to make preparations for this bacteriological warfare against Russia was issued. Do you know who issued the order to prepare for this warfare?
SCHREIBER: Well, I...
DR.LATERNSER: I ask you, do you know who issued this order? It is a clear question. I ask you to answer it equally clearly.
SCHREIBER: It, was not said at the conference who issued it.
DR. LATERNSER: You do not know who issued the order?
SCHREIBER: No.
DR.LATERNSER: Then, you do not know-or do you know the exact contents of the order?
SCHREIBER: No. I did not receive any written order. The Chief of Staff of the General Wehrmacht Office said that the Fuhrer had given the Reichsmarschall full powers, and so forth, for carrying out all the preparations.
DR.LATERNSER: So what you said about it is hearsay? You do not know it yourself?
SCHREIBER: I was told so officially at the conference. Therefore, I did not learn it from hearsay, but officially, at an official conference; we who were assembled there were told that.
DR. LATERNSER: When you were told that at this conference, what was your capacity?
SCHREIBER: As I said before, I was a representative of the Army Medical Inspectorate.
DR. LATERNSER: When this proposal was made known, what did you do-you yourself?
SCHREIBER: I pointed out that bacteria were an unreliable and dangerous weapon. I did nothing else.
DR. LATERNSER: You were an expert. Since 1942 you had been a professor?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR.LATERNSER: And you said nothing else?
SCHREIBER: No, nothing else.
DR.LATERNSER: Why did you not say anything else?
SCHREIBER: Because we were confronted with a fait accompli.
DR. LATERNSER: A fait accompli? But you say the matter was to be discussed.
SCHREIBER: We were told it. It was not discussed. We were told, "This decision has been taken."
DR. LATERNSER: But it was a fait accompli only if these bacteria were actually to be used. It was only proposed to start the preparations. A strong objection by a professor in such a high position might have had some effect. You should at least have tried it. Might it not have changed this opinion?
SCHREIBER: According to our experience, nothing could be done against such a decision. As an expert I pointed out that it was a dangerous and unreliable weapon.
DR. LATERNSER: You could have got up and left the room or made some strong protest.
SCHREIBER: It would have been b6tter if I had done it.
DR. LATERNSER: That is enough on that point. The working group was to meet once a month in the rooms of the General Wehrmacht Office in Berlin. Do you know how many meetings took place?
SCHREIBER: No. I cannot tell you.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know when the last meeting was?
SCHREIBER: I cannot say that either.
DR. LATERNSER: Were any meetings held?
SCHREIBER: Yes. Meetings were held.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know whether there are records of these meetings?
SCHREIBER: I assume so, certainly. Professor Klieve informed me from time to time.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you yourself belong to this working group?
SCHREIBER: No.
DR. LATERNSER: When and in what way did Professor Blome receive powers from Goering to make immediate arrangements for the medical and technical side of these preparations?
SCHREIBER: Immediately after this conference, perhaps on the very same day or even previously, because Blome's name was mentioned at the conference. At least, it was said he had been proposed, and two days later Herr Schmidt-Bruecken told me "Blome is the man."
DR. LATERNSER: And how do you know that?
SCHREIBER: From my immediate superior, Generalarzt Schmidt-Bruecken.
DR. LATERNSER: At what time did the spraying experiments from airplanes take place?
SCHREIBER: I cannot tell you.
DR. LATERNSER: What do you know about these spraying experiments?
SCHREIBER: The following: Bacterial emulsions with non-pathogenic bacteria which could be easily traced again-easily determined culturally were sprayed from planes on an experimental field near the institute at Posen.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you yourself see such experiments?
SCHREIBER: No.
DR.LATERNSER: How do you know that these experiments took place?
SCHREIBER: Klieve spoke to me about these spraying experiments and said that first a dye stuff was used which had more or less the same specific density as a bacterial emulsion. This had been poured over the land, and then experiments were made on models.
DR.LATERNSER: Did Klieve see these experiments himself?
SCHREIBER: I believe so.
DR.LATERNSER: You cannot say for sure?
SCHREIBER: I would not like to swear to it, but it is extremely probable.
DR. LATERNSER: You say that at this conference in July 1943 the colonel was acting for Field Marshal Keitel and General Reinecke?
SCHREIBER: Yes. 26 Aug. 4(;
DR. LATERNSER: How do you know that?
SCHREIBER: First of all, the meeting took place in General Reineeke7s office. The colonel who was presiding was his chief of staff, and we had been ordered to come to a meeting at the General Wehrmacht Office at such and such a time, and the colonel also mentioned Field Marshal Keitel's name.
DR. LATERNSER: But you cannot say whether it was actually ordered by him?
SCHREIBER: No, I did not see the order.
DR. LATERNSER: Well, then you do not know it?
SCHREIBER: No, I only know what the colonel told us officially.
DR. LATERNSER: You also said you supposed the High Command of the Army had been informed, namely, by Professor Handloser.
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR.LATERNSER: What facts made you assume this?
SCHREIBER: I personally made a report to Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser, and Handloser expressed his opinion about the matter to me. It was an extremely serious matter for us physicians, for if there really should be a plague epidemic it was clear that it would not stop at the fronts, but would come over to us too. We had to bear a very grave responsibility.
DR.LATERNSER: You have deviated a little. We will come back to this point. I wanted to know whether you can give any facts to prove that the High Command of the Army was informed?
SCHREIBER: No. I cannot.
DR. LATERNSER: It is a pure assumption, then?
SCHREIBER: Yes. But it is quite obvious ...
DR. LATERNSER: Never mind if it is obvious or not, I want to know whether you know of any facts.
SCHREIBER: No, I cannot give any facts.
DR.LATERNSER: Do you know to whom Professor Handloser was subordinate?
SCHREIBER: His subordination was threefold. He was Chief of the Wehrmacht Medical Department, and in that capacity was under Field Marshal Keitel of the OKW. He was Army Medical Inspector, and in that capacity was under the Commander of the Reserve Army, Generaloberst Fromm, and later Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and Juttner; thirdly, he was Army Physician, that is, Chief Medical Officer of the Field Army, and in this capacity was subordinate to the Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army.
DR. LATERNSER: You were also questioned about the reasons why this bacteriological warfare was not carried out. What actual reasons are known to you?
SCHREIBER: The head of the institute at Posen, Professor Blome, reported the destruction and total loss of the Posen Institute to me when he visited me. He told me of his plight.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you yourself know whether a military command authority gave the positive order that this bacteriological warfare was not only to be prepared but was also to be carried out?
SCHREIBER: No, I did not see any order.
DR. LATERNSER: Then these were merely preparations?
SCHREIBER: Preparations for bacteriological warfare was what I said.
DR.LATERNSER: With which high-ranking general did you yourself speak about this bacteriological warfare?
SCHREIBER: I did not speak to any general.
DR.LATERNSER: Do you know from your own knowledge whether any high-ranking general was informed of these intentions? I am asking you whether you know it?
SCHREIBER: I was not present when a general was informed about them.
DR.LATERNSER: Then you do not know it?
SCHREIBER: No.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know how far apart the enemy troops and our troops usually were at the front?
SCHREIBER: That differed a great deal.
DR. LATERNSER: What was the normal distance?
SCHREIBER: I am not a front-line soldier. I would not like to speak of a subject of which I know nothing.
DR. LATERNSER: We will assume that the enemy troops were normally at a distance of 600 to 1,000 meters from our own troops. Would you, as a physician, consider the use of plague bacteria safe and not dangerous for our own troops?
SCHREIBER: I would always consider the use of plague bacteria as dangerous, no matter what the distance was.
DR. LATERNSER: Well, let us assume that such a devilish idea as actually to use bacteria did exist. Would that not have involved our troops in serious danger?
SCHREIBER: Not only our troops, but the whole German people; for the refugees were moving from East to West. The plague would have spread very swiftly to Germany.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, it is useless to ask the same question over again. The witness has already said so.
DR. LATERNSER: May that not have been one of the reasons why this warfare was not used?
SCHREIBER: According to the statements made to me by Herr Blome, who was head of the institute and who had been appointed by the Reichsmarschall, no. He was using all his efforts trying to cultivate his cultures somewhere else.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, may I ask for the recess now and ask a few more questions of the witness later?
THE PRESIDENT: No, Dr. Laternser, the Tribunal thinks you should finish now. DR.,LATERNSER: You say, on Page 7 of your written statement, that in Norway 400 Yugoslav prisoners of war were shot out of hand because an epidemic had broken out among them. You say that this was a labor camp of the Waffen-SS ...
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
DR.LATERNSER: This incident was reported to you?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR.LATERNSER: Did you report it to your superior?
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR.LATERNSER: What was done?
SCHREIBER: A letter was immediately sent to the Chief Medical Officer of the SS and Police, Professor Grawitz, and through these official channels the affair was reported to the office which was the supervisory agency for this camp.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know whether any legal steps were taken?
SCHREIBER: I do not know how the SS courts work. I do not know.
DR. LATERNSER: Then you write on Page 7: "Specially cruel treatment was meted out to the Russian prisoners of war by the High Command of the Wehrmacht."
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Then you write that the Russian prisoners of war were given inadequate food.
SCHREIBER: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Now I ask you, when were those observations made concerning the inadequate food? Immediately after capture in the reception camps behind the front, or in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany?
SCHREIBER: I am not speaking of what happened in the reception camps immediately after the fighting. There, even with the best intentions, the state which has taken the prisoners is not always able to care for them as might be necessary. I am speaking of a later period when the prisoners had been in the hands of the Germans for weeks, and I am speaking of camps which were in the Baltic. countries. They were not taken to Germany. The Russian prisoners were brought to Germany only later. The conditions in these camps were extremely poor.
DR. LATERNSER: Were these bad conditions due to bad intentions?
SCHREIBER: I assume that these bad conditions were due to basic ideological problems ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, the Tribunal did not allow the statement to be put in and you are now cross-examining upon a subject which is totally distinct from the subjects upon which the witness has given evidence.
DR. LATERNSER: These statements are in the written statement of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you must have heard that we did not allow the written statement to be put in evidence. We asked that the witness should be examined orally and he was examined orally and the written statement is not yet in evidence.
DR. LATERNSER: I have one more question, Witness. Did you ever write down your objections to this bacteriological warfare?
SCHREIBER: Yes, in the memorandum which I mentioned before.
DR. LATERNSER: When did you submit that memorandum?
SCHREIBER: In 1942; may I now ...
DR. LATERNSER: That is enough. The conference took place in July 1943. Afterwards did you put your divergent views on this point into writing?
SCHREIBER: No, I did not put anything into writing.
DR. LATERNSER: After you reported to him, did your superior put his objections in writing?
SCHREIBER: Not that I know of. Generaloberstabsarzt Handloser was at headquarters and I in Berlin. He came once a week or once every fortnight. We reported to him and then he went back to headquarters.
DR. LATERNSER: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: Before we continue I will deal with three applications. First of all, the application of Dr. Kauffmann of the 20th of August, 1946. It appears originally to have been dated the 15th of August. That application will be granted, and an affidavit by the witness Panzinger may be put in evidence, provided it is put in evidence before the end of the Trial. With reference to the application by Dr. Pelckmann, dated originally the 22d of August, 1946, the application is denied. The two applications by Dr. Dix dated the 20th and the 21st of August; both applications are denied. Now, is there any further cross-examination on behalf of the Defense? Does the Soviet Prosecution desire to re-examine?
COL. POKROVSKY: The questioning by the Soviet Prosecution is finished, Mr. President. We have no more questions.
THE PRESEDENT: The witness may retire. Now, Dr. Pelckmann.
HERR PELCKMANN: First, I should like to refer to two points. In my letter of 23 August I announced that my final speech cannot be translated. Secondly, I should like to remind the Tribunal that the ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, 60 pages of it have already been translated, I understand.
HERR PELCKMANN: Yes. The French translation, however, has not been made yet. Furthermore, I beg to point out to the Tribunal that the answers to the interrogatory which I sent to the witness Rauschning have apparently not been received yet. Your Lordship, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: when on 27 February 1933 the German Reichstag was destroyed by fire,, the Nazis willed that out of those flames the Third Reich, to last a thousand years, should be born. When, a little more than twelve years later, the whole of Germany was engulfed in a sea of flames, that Reich went down in rubble -and ruins. Both of those historic events were followed by trials. Their meaning was and is to determine who was responsible for those two crimes of human history. The German Supreme Court did not solve that task. It is true that it acquitted with remarkable courage, as Mr. Jackson has stated, the indicted Communists, but it failed to determine and certainly to sentence those who were really guilty, who hired the unfortunate tool, Van der Lubbe, and who performed the deed with him. Thus, under the impact of public opinion, the truth has been muzzled and has been concealed by the Nazi Government. Formal justice has been satisfied. The culprit had been sentenced, but Truth, that divine power and profoundest human insight, remained hidden. It alone would have been able to open the eyes of the German people at that time and have had the power to hold it back from the abyss. Now this High Tribunal, this Court of the World, faces the task of passing judgment. Whose guilt was that world conflagration? Who was responsible for the destruction of foreign lands, and finally for the infernal downfall of our German Fatherland? And again there exists the danger that this Court too might pass merely a formal verdict naming guilty men, while the deepest and final truth would remain unfound by the influence of a psychosis which, in accordance with the laws of psychology and psychoanalysis, is the natural consequence of the many years of struggle between the Hitler regime and the free peoples of the world.