TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT 1971-A-PS
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 49
LETTER FROM RASCHER TO HIMMLER, 5 APRIL 1942, AND REPORT,
UNDATED, ON HIGH-ALTITUDE EXPERIMENTS
Sigmund Rascher, M. D.
5 April 1942
[Marginal note] Very interesting. 8-4-42.
[Apparently by Himmler]
Highly esteemed Reich Leader:
Enclosed is an interim report on the low-pressure experiments so far conducted in the concentration camp of Dachau. May I ask you respectively to treat the report as secret?
A few days ago Reich Physician SS [Reichsarzt SS] Professor Dr. Grawitz made a brief inspection of the experimentation plant. Since his time was very limited, no experiments could be demonstrated to him. SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Sievers took a whole day off to watch some of the interesting standard experiments and may have given you a brief report. I believe, highly esteemed Reich Leader, that you would be extraordinarily interested in those experiments. Is it not possible that on the occasion of a trip to southern Germany you have some of the experiments demonstrated to you? If the results so obtained by the experiments are confirmed by further experimentation, entirely new data will be secured for science; simultaneously, entirely new aspects will be opened to the Luftwaffe.