AFFIDAVIT
I, Fritz Ernst Fischer, having been duly sworn, depose and state under oath:
I am a doctor of medicine, having been graduated from the University of Hamburg. I passed my state examination in 1936. On 13 November 1939 I was inducted into the Waffen SS and after having served with a combat division as medical officer, I was hospitalized and then assigned to the SS hospital at Hohenlychen, as assistant surgeon.
In addition to my normal duties as surgeon at the SS hospital at Hohenlychen, I was ordered by Professor Gebhardt to begin medical experiments in my capacity as assistant surgeon to Professor Gebhardt on or about 12 July 1942. The purpose of the proposed experiments was to determine the effectiveness of sulfanilamide, which I was informed at that time was a matter of considerable importance to military medical circles.
According to the information which I received from Professor Gebhardt, these experiments were directed initially by the Reich Leader SS and the Reich Physician Dr. Grawitz.
Professor Gebhardt instructed me, before the operations were undertaken, on the techniques to be followed and the procedure to be employed. The persons who were to be the subjects of these experiments were inmates of the concentration camp at Ravensbrueck who had been condemned to death.
The administrative procedure which was followed in obtaining the subjects for the experiments was established by Professor Gebhardt with the camp commandant at Ravensbrueck. After the initial arrangements had been made, it was the general practice to inform the medical officer at Ravensbrueck as to the date on which a series of experiments was to be begun and the number of patients who would be required, and then he took the matter up with the commandant of the camp, by whom the selections of subjects were made. Before an operation was undertaken, the persons who had been selected in accordance with this procedure were given a medical examination by the camp physician to determine their suitability for the experiments from a medical standpoint.
The first of the series of experiments involved five persons. The gangrenous bacterial cultures for use in the experiments were obtained from the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS. The procedure followed in the operations was as follows: The subject received the conventional anesthetic of morphine-atropine, then evipan ether. An incision was made 5 to 8 centimeters in length and 1 to 1½ centimeters in depth, on the outside of the lower leg in the area of the peronaeus longus.
The bacterial cultures were put in dextrose, and the resulting mixture was spread into the wound. The wound was then closed and the limb encased in a cast, which had been prepared, which was lined on the inside with cotton so that in the event of swelling of the affected member the result of the experiment would not be influenced by any factor other than the infection itself.
The bacterial cultures used on each of the five persons varied both as to the type of bacteria used and the amount of culture used.