Thus it can be said that after the experiences of the Russian winter campaign of 1941-1942, the fight against bacterial wound infections, and the question of the efficacy of the sulfanilamides had become a military-medical and medical-tactical problem of the first importance, about which opinions differed widely. A solution of this problem was the more urgent as an answer had to be found quickly, and on the other hand the fact was not to be disregarded that the experiences gained during nearly 10 years of peace and war in clinics as well as in laboratories were insufficient to answer this question.
The Order for the Execution of these Experiments
The evidence has shown that the order to ascertain the effectiveness of the sulfanilamides by experiments on human beings was given directly by the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht. Hitler’s order was not at first submitted by Himmler to the defendant Gebhardt, but to Dr. Grawitz, Reich Physician of the SS and police.
However, the evidence showed further that another circumstance arose which from the point of view of time at least caused the order for these experiments to be given, viz, the death of the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, General of the Waffen SS Reinhardt Heydrich, who in May 1942 was assassinated in Prague. For the details I refer to the testimony of Gebhardt in the witness box on this matter. Heydrich’s death is connected with the experiments themselves only insofar as, at that time, the charge was leveled that Heydrich’s life could have been saved if sulfanilamides, and especially a certain sulfanilamide preparation, had been administered to the wounded man in sufficient quantities. The whole problem of sulfanilamide therapy came to the fore once more in this one case, and then in such an obvious manner that the Head of State himself gave the order to clarify by way of all-out experiments the question which for a long time had been of general importance for the fighting troops at the front.
Within the scope of this evaluation of evidence, it is irrelevant to enter into the details which resulted in the experiments being carried out by the defendant Gebhardt himself. Against the strict order of the Reich Physician SS Grawitz, Gebhardt carried out the experiments not by deliberately inflicting bullet wounds but by causing an infection while observing all possible precautionary measures.
It was further shown by the evidence that the experiments were started with 15 habitual criminals who had been sentenced to death and who had been transferred from the concentration camp Sachsenhausen to Ravensbrueck. In view of the fact that this part of the experiment is not a subject of the indictment, it seems to be unnecessary to enter into this matter. It should, however, be kept in mind that at the conference on 1 June 1942, at which the conditions for the experiments were determined in detail—the defendant Gebhardt has described this conference in detail and I am referring to this—it was understood that the experiments should be carried out with the male habitual criminals who had been sentenced to death and who were to be pardoned in case of survival.
The Experimental Arrangements for the Sulfanilamide Experiments
It was shown by the evidence that the experiments for testing the effectiveness of the sulfanilamides were carried out in three groups. The first group included 15 men (habitual criminals). This group has nothing to do with the charges of the indictment and it is therefore superfluous to enter into this matter more closely.
The second group included 36 female prisoners who had been members of the Polish Resistance Movement and who, for this reason, had been sentenced to death by the German court martial in the General Government. This second group was divided into 3 subgroups of 12 experimental persons each. As to the particulars of the provisions for the experiments, I refer to the testimony of the defendants Gebhardt and Fischer in the witness box. Contrary to the first group, contact substances were used in this second group to accelerate the process of infection. The contact substances were inserted into the open wound together with the germs. Sterile and pulverized glass and sterile wood particles were used as contact substances. These contact substances took the place of earth and uniform particles and were to produce war-like conditions for the wounds, without, however, producing at the same time the general dangers created by infection of the wound by earth and parts of clothing.
As in the case of the first group, staphylococci, streptococci, and gas gangrene bacilli were used as agents. But the contention of the indictment that tetanus germs were also used is incorrect. On the contrary, the evidence has proved that the treatment of tetanus did not come within the scope of these experiments. There was all the less reason for this as it was realized long ago by German military surgery that the sulfanilamide preparations are not suitable for the effective prevention of traumatic tetanus. Here I refer to the directives for the chemo-therapeutical treatment of wound infection which were issued at the First Working Conference East of the Consulting Specialists in May 1943 (Gebhardt, Fischer, Oberheuser 1, Gebhardt, Fischer, Oberheuser Ex. 6)—that is prior to the performance of the sulfanilamide experiments charged in the indictment. In these directives it is expressly pointed out that the outbreak of traumatic tetanus cannot be prevented by means of the sulfanilamides and that tetanus anti-toxin has to be administered as usual.