A. No, of course not. First of all I had never seen a death from high altitude. That was the first one I ever saw. I couldn’t know that, and, in the second place, this death certainly resulted from aero-embolism and, therefore, suddenly. In the third place, the electrocardiogram change was, shall we say, doubtful. I myself would have stopped the experiment at this stage but he didn’t. I only spoke up because I would have stopped the experiment at that moment.
Q. Did you speak to Rascher about this after the experiment?
A. It was not possible for me to object in view of Rascher’s position, but I told him that such things should not happen.
Q. And what else did you do?
A. After this death I went to Berlin and told Ruff about it. Ruff agreed with me that death should not be allowed to occur in high-altitude experiments and it had never occurred before. Since Rascher, however, performed these experiments for Himmler on men who were condemned to death, we saw no way of preventing Rascher after we had made an official report. In general when objections were made Rascher simply referred to the orders from Himmler and to the fact that he was covered by them. It was quite impossible to remove the chamber from Dachau against Himmler’s and Rascher’s will. And to give this death as a reason for removing the chamber was even more impossible. In the first place, Himmler would not have reacted. He would certainly not have given up the chamber. He might have started proceedings for treason or for sabotage of an essential war experiment. In fact, I had reported this to Ruff against my signature to the contrary in a concentration camp. Like every other visitor to a concentration camp I had to sign a statement to the effect that everything I saw and so forth in the camp would be secret. Besides, at the beginning of the experiments Rascher had received a special telegram from Himmler ordering silence about these experiments. A specific obligation to secrecy was strengthened by this order from Himmler. Since I had reported the matter to Ruff against the secrecy obligation, I also had to be covered in this respect, and for this reason again we could not give the death as the reason for removing the chamber from Dachau, aside from the fact it would not have met with success.
Therefore, after some consideration we decided that the only possibility was for Ruff to go to Milch or Hippke and ask to have the chamber removed, giving the excuse that it was needed at the front. On the other hand, I was to conclude our experiments quickly so that Himmler could be told that the experiments were finished and that we could prove this so that we could claim the right to remove the chamber from Dachau. Otherwise Himmler would doubtless have ordered the experiments to be continued until the original goal had been reached, that is, the clarification of the question of rescue from high altitudes, and he would doubtless have gone to Goering or even Hitler and arranged to keep the chamber longer. He would have said that the use of this chamber at the front was unimportant compared to its use at Dachau in the experiments, and he would not have released the chamber.
If I myself had not gone back to Dachau, then Rascher would have carried out the experiments on rescue from high altitudes alone; and he would doubtless also have continued his own experiments. That was the reason why I reluctantly went back to Dachau.
Q. Now, what was the purpose of your trip to Berlin?
A. The purpose was this report to Ruff.
Q. Was that the only purpose?