In this situation the responsibility of a physician can be of value for a decision only so far as he gives a false expert opinion about the prospects of the experiment.
The government has to make the final decision about the admissibility of experiments on human beings; the government only has to decide whether experiments on human beings are necessary in order to combat dangers and injury to health, as it is responsible for everything pertaining to health. In connection with this compare the regulation of the French Government in 1858 for the purpose of clearing up the question concerning the treatment of secondary syphilis and the experiments made on human beings. (Karl Brandt 48, Karl Brandt Ex. 55.)
In war time, the decision is also conditioned by considerations concerning the preservation of the state, which are dependent on war conditions. Epidemic diseases can have a decisive influence on the result of the war and might in the end be of a greater importance than battles, as for instance the plague during the siege of Athens, or typhus during the advance of Napoleon into Russia. Biological warfare is the result and was prepared intensively by the enemies of Germany, as the foreign press openly informed us.
In the same way as the state demands the death of its best men as soldiers, it is entitled to order the death of the condemned in its battle against epidemics and diseases. No antique sacrifices to gods and demons are demanded any longer, only a well considered expiation as a help for the community and indeed exclusively in its interest.
The actual responsibility of the physician lies in the conduct of the experiment itself. The experiment has to be conducted by the physician, but the political responsibility for it rests upon the state, while the physician is responsible for its conduct.
If the physician considers that an experiment is not feasible it can become a crime and the physician has to refuse to carry it out.
In carrying out the experiment every attention must be paid to all regulations of medical practice concerning medical research at the time.
All possible preliminary experiments conducted on models have to be made before experiments on human beings are started. That means that preliminary experiments in laboratories, experiments on animals and so on, have to be conducted. In case of need even experiments carried out on the researcher’s own person belong to the preliminary experiments.
Generally, responsibility for the extent of the experiments rests upon the physician. In the arrangement of the experiments the number of the persons selected for experiments must be as great as necessary in the interests of the result of the experiment, but in the interests of the persons selected for the experiment the number must be as small as possible.
The conduct of the experiment must be correct and excesses which could increase its danger have to be avoided.