“I had ordered that suitable women are to be set aside from the concentration camp for these experiments for the warming of those who were exposed. Four girls were set aside who were in the concentration camp for loose morals and because as prostitutes they were a potential source of infection.”
I think it is unnecessary for me to go on with the rest of the paragraph, in which he expresses his dissatisfaction that a German prostitute should be used for this purpose.
To insure the continuance of Rascher’s experiments, Himmler arranged for his transfer to the Waffen-SS. I offer in evidence a letter which appears as our Document 1617-PS. It is a letter from Reichsführer SS addressed to “Dear Comrade Milch”—General Field Marshal Milch—dated November 1942. I offer it as Exhibit Number USA-466. I will now read the first two paragraphs of that letter, our Document 1617-PS. I quote:
“Dear Comrade Milch:
“You will recall that through SS General Wolff I particularly recommended to you for your consideration the work of a certain SS Führer, Dr. Rascher, who is a physician of the supplementary reserve of the Air Force.
“These researches which deal with the reaction of the human organism at great heights, as well as with manifestations caused by prolonged chilling of the human body in cold water, and similar problems which are of vital importance to the Air Force, in particular, can be performed by us with particular efficiency because I personally assumed the responsibility for supplying asocial individuals and criminals, who only deserve to die, from concentration camps for these experiments.”
I shall omit the next four paragraphs, in which Himmler reflects upon the difficulties of conducting such experiments because Christian medical circles were opposed, and pass on to the last paragraph on the first page of the translation. That is the seventh paragraph of the letter:
“I beg you to release Dr. Rascher, medical Officer in the Reserve, from the Air Force and to transfer him to me to the Waffen-SS. I would then assume the sole responsibility for having these experiments made in this field and would put the experiences, of which we in the SS need only a part for the frost injuries in the East, entirely at the disposal of the Air Force. However, in this connection I suggest that with the liaison between you and Wolff a non-Christian physician should be charged, who should be at the same time honorable as a scientist and not prone to intellectual theft and who could be informed of the results. This physician should also have good contacts with the administrative authorities, so that the results could really attract attention.