I now come to the count of the indictment “Participation of the defendant Professor Dr. Schroeder in the sea-water experiments which were carried out in the Dachau concentration camp.”
In the case of these experiments, Professor Schroeder’s participation has been established, and he has accepted the responsibility as far as the preparation and the planning of these experiments are concerned. Professor Schroeder has mainly been accused by the prosecution of having permitted these experiments to be carried out in a concentration camp. The prosecution in its case against Professor Schroeder further stated that these experiments were not necessary at all, and it drew the conclusion that the experiments had only been ordered in order to torture people and in order to subject them to unnecessary cruelties; it also stated that it was clear that in no case had the experimental subjects been volunteers.
Therefore it is the task of the defense to show in the following paragraphs why from the point of view of Professor Schroeder, as Chief of the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe, these experiments had to be considered necessary, and just what reasons motivated him to give his approval for the carrying out of the experiments in a concentration camp.
The first question therefore is—why and from what considerations were there experiments ordered at all? It must be stated in advance here, that as far as Chief of the Medical Inspectorate Professor Schroeder was concerned, he did not have to examine the question whether one or the other method for making sea-water drinkable was more suitable; the problem for him existed in its entirety and it could not be divided. It was to rescue shipwrecked persons from death from lack of water and find the best method of protection against this danger. This problem had already been handled by various interested agencies for quite some time, and various individual questions for the solution of this problem had arisen. No method for making sea-water drinkable had been found and it was not clear what procedure should be advocated.
In the course of the year 1943 two methods for making sea-water drinkable were offered almost simultaneously. One of them, the so-called Wofatit method, had been developed by Dr. Schaefer in collaboration with I. G. Farben. Another, the Berkatit method, represented the invention of Stabsingenieur Berka.
It was quite clearly recognized that Schaefer’s Wofatit represented the ideal solution, because this method removed all the salt from the sea-water and changed it into drinking water, while the Berka method let the salt remain in the sea-water and only improved the taste of the sea-water through the addition of various sugar and vitamin drugs. We agree with the prosecution and the expert Professor Dr. Ivy when they state that a chemist in the course of one afternoon could have decided by means of a short experiment whether Wofatit or Berkatit was better. The participating agencies of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, Professor Schroeder and Dr. Becker-Freyseng, realized that quite clearly. From the chemical point of view this problem could also have been solved in a simple manner.
The difficulty which existed for Professor Schroeder with regard to this problem, however, lay in another field; this was the shortage of raw materials prevailing at the time, which had arisen in Germany because of the war. This circumstance made it possible for the Technical Office of the Luftwaffe to oppose the introduction of the Wofatit and to consider the Berkatit method, because the raw materials for the latter method could be procured without any difficulty and production could be started right away, since production facilities for the appropriate amounts were already in existence. It was different in the case of Wofatit. Considerable amounts of silver were required for its production, which could not be set aside for the production of Wofatit without damaging other production branches which also needed this metal. The Technical Office of the Luftwaffe, therefore, had already decided in favor of the introduction of Berkatit on 1 July 1944. Professor Schroeder, in his capacity as Chief of the Medical Inspectorate, however, could not have assumed the responsibility for having the units which were entrusted to his professional medical care equipped with the Berka method, because the danger existed that shipwrecked aviators, deceived by the improvement in the taste of sea-water, would drink it in larger amounts and thus increase the danger of their dying of thirst. The question also had to be clarified whether the shipwrecked crew of an airplane completely adrift at sea should go without any food or water whatsoever or whether they should consume a certain amount of sea-water rather than no water at all. This last question could only be clarified by carrying out an experiment on human beings. An experiment on animals would not suffice in this respect, because the distribution of water in the body of animals differs from that in a human being. By proving its medical objections, the Medical Inspectorate would also have been able to make its point of view heard by the Technical Office, if the medical expert, Professor Dr. Eppinger, one of the best known specialists for internal diseases not only in Germany, but in Europe, had not sided with the Technical Office. Professor Eppinger, in the conference at the Technical Office on 25 May 1944, expressly voiced the opinion that the Berka method was suitable, because for a certain time the human kidney could concentrate salt up to 3 percent, and because the vitamins which had been added to the Berka method would be suitable for speeding up the excretion of the salt from the human organism. This opinion was also shared at the same conference by the pharmacologist Professor Heubner, who is still one of the leading specialists in the field today.
Professor Schroeder would not have been able to turn down both methods. He would then have been reproached with the fact that he had not done everything within his power in order to make the position of shipwrecked German soldiers more bearable and to save them from dying of lack of water. It, therefore, becomes evident that these considerations on the part of Schroeder give us proof of his great feeling of responsibility; it was not easy for him to give his approval for the carrying out of such experiments.
Further developments also show clearly that Schroeder, in spite of the fact that he was extremely busy with official matters, devoted the greatest care and conscientiousness to this matter. He did not just decide to select Dachau as the place where the experiments were to be carried out. Originally he did not even harbor such a thought, but he intended to have the experiments carried out as a troop experiment in institutes which were owned by the Luftwaffe. He was primarily considering the Luftwaffe hospital at Brunswick for this purpose. On 1 July 1944 he turned to the chief medical officer of this hospital, who was competent in the matter, who, however, disapproved of it. This becomes evident from the certificate of Dr. Harriehausen, who was a Generalarzt at the time. Now Professor Schroeder began to consider the Military Medical Academy of the Luftwaffe in Berlin, where he intended to use the young cadets in this academy as experimental subjects. An inquiry which he made there was also unsuccessful. The reason why his requests were turned down in each case was that just at this particular time the OKW had issued a strict order to the effect that all convalescents were to be returned immediately from the hospitals to their units, and that the cadets of the academy were to be given a combat assignment. For the same reason, the suggestion of Professor Beiglboeck to carry out the experiments at the Tarvis Field Hospital also remained unsuccessful.