Q. How do you know that?
A. They told me that gradually in the course of conversation. They didn’t, of course, have complete confidence on the first day and did not tell me all about their previous convictions. But after careful inquiries one discovered that they had been condemned for certain crimes, repeatedly convicted, and finally had been condemned to protective custody.
Q. Why did you talk to the experimental subjects on this day?
A. It is quite natural when one begins to work with such a group that a certain personal contact is necessary. We had to get to know each other. I talked to them about their profession, if I may call it that, and of course I told them something about the experiments, what the whole thing was all about, what they themselves had to do to cooperate in the same way as my usual experimental subjects.
Q. Was the reason for this investigation to prepare the subjects for their activity or to check whether these people were actually volunteers?
A. No. It was more to get to know the subjects personally. The situation was this: in the discussion with the camp commandant on the basis of the agreement with Rascher and his authorization from Himmler, a very definite agreement had been reached to the effect that these people were to be selected from the volunteers. Therefore, a clear agreement had been reached on the conditions, about which there could be no doubts basically. When I met the subjects for the first time personally and talked to them about the principle of the experiments and their duties, and so forth, of course I also inquired why they had volunteered—not because of any distrust of the camp commandant, but just for that reason.
Q. You thought, accordingly, that they were volunteers?
A. I didn’t only think they were. They told me so themselves.
Q. How do you know that so definitely for each case?
A. In the course of time—not on the first day but in the course of time—I talked to all of them frequently in some detail, and gradually they told me about their previous convictions and what other prisons and penitentiaries they had been in before they came to the camp, and they also told me the reasons why they had volunteered.