The report taken from the Tropical Diseases Bulletin which I introduced in this trial shows, however, quite clearly that these infections were not dangerous and could, in the main, be controlled. (Rose 58, Rose Ex. 58.)
This report states that the Blanc live typhus vaccine was used by the French Government in Algeria in 3.5 million cases to combat typhus, and that as a result of these protective vaccinations, real typhus illness was found in only 5-6 cases per thousand. If one compares this figure of 5-6 per thousand with the total number of the vaccinations, it appears that in the course of this vaccination action carried out by the French Government, 17,500 to 21,000 cases of typhus illness took place as a result of vaccination. This result may justly give weight to the assumption that the French Government considered these incidents a justifiable and tolerable risk in view of the extent of the threatened danger.
It would be unfair to blame the defendant Rose for having taken no steps at all on learning that another research scientist, namely Haagen (who was not subordinated to him) was using a method which he knew was widely practiced. He had much less reason to do so since it was Haagen who tried by preliminary vaccinations with dead vaccines to avoid and to reduce the extent of the vaccination reactions and the danger of sickness as a result of the vaccination. Haagen’s reports and publications only deal with this object of a preliminary vaccination with dead vaccines and of the subsequent vaccination with a live, virulent vaccine nonpathogenic to human beings (subsequent infection). This field, with which he was not so familiar, was described in detail by the defendant Rose in his direct testimony. When interrogated, Professor Haagen, as the actual originator of the plans, substantially enlarged and in some instances corrected this description.
It does not seem feasible to me to classify as criminal, experiments which tend to make more bearable and less dangerous a recognized method already applied on millions of people.
In addition, there is no reply from the defendant Rose to this letter from Professor Haagen of 4 October 1943. It is not certain whether he actually received it. However, the possibility that he did receive it cannot be denied.
Chronologically, the next letter in this correspondence is Haagen’s letter to Rose of 29 November 1943. (NO-1059, Pros. Ex. 490.) The defendant Rose cannot remember ever having received this letter.
It is true that after this letter had been submitted to him by the prosecution during cross-examination, Professor Rose assumed that he must have received it, judging by the date and the conditions of the postal service at that time. (Tr. p. 6428.) However, he was misled when making this statement by a mistake in the reproduction. Whereas this letter is actually dated 29 November 1943, the date on the letter is given as 29 November 1942 in the German mimeographed copies distributed by the prosecution in the course of the cross-examination. Thus it was sent at a time when large quantities of mail were destroyed in trains or at post offices by the heavy air raids on German towns and communications. According to the resultant state of affairs, it is probable that he actually did not receive this letter. In this very letter Professor Haagen mentions that 18 of the 100 inmates had already died en route. The answers the defendant Rose gave on cross-examination before this letter had been submitted to him show clearly that he could not remember such information. (Tr. p. 6424-5.) He would hardly have been able to forget such a gruesome report if he had actually received this letter.
It also cannot be stated that the defendant Rose could only have written his letter to Haagen of 13 December 1943 (NO-122, Pros. Ex. 298) after having received Haagen’s letter of 29 November 1943. Prosecuting counsel, Mr. McHaney, however, alleged this when cross-examining Rose (Tr. p. 6431) thus causing confusion in the mind of the defendant Rose. For, in reality, Rose’s letter of 13 December 1943 is the reply to a further letter from Haagen dated 8 December 1943, as appears clearly from the introductory sentence in Rose’s letter of 13 December 1943. From this state of affairs it can only be concluded that either Professor Haagen did not mail this letter at all—perhaps in view of the information contained therein about the unfavorable conditions of health of the inmates—or else the defendant Rose did not receive the letter because it was destroyed along with a lot of other mail of the same date in the heavy air raids. The prosecution, no doubt, would not have failed to introduce this letter into evidence if the defendant Rose had replied to Haagen’s letter dated 29 November 1943. Professor Haagen’s suggestion in his letter of 4 October 1943 that the Copenhagen vaccine be tested, is again dealt with in Rose’s letter of 13 December 1943. In this letter Rose exclusively speaks of the testing of vaccine, without mentioning infections at all. In the letter a parallel is drawn to the Buchenwald typhus experiments only insofar as he indicated the advantage of the simultaneous testing of several vaccines. On direct examination, that is, prior to the submission of other documents which give greater clarification to the whole matter, the defendant Rose stated quite clearly and in agreement with subsequent evidence and the later testimony of Haagen, that the point in question was the application of the Copenhagen vaccine for preliminary vaccination, aiming at the weakening of the vaccination reaction in connection with subsequent vaccination with a live, avirulent vaccine nonpathogenic to human beings.
The two biologically parallel conditions which are obvious to every layman, one, the weakening of a reaction following vaccination with a live vaccine, and two, the weakening of a natural sickness, were explained in detail by Professor Rose on direct examination. (Tr. p. 6281.)
Finally, it must be emphatically pointed out that the plan discussed in this correspondence to test the effect of the Copenhagen vaccine on the weakening of vaccination reactions followed by the application of the new live avirulent typhus vaccine pathogenic to human beings as compared with other vaccines, was not carried out at all. After Haagen had succeeded in weakening the reaction in another way, namely by long storage, he was no longer interested in the Copenhagen vaccine. (Becker-Freyseng 62[[58]]; German, Tr. 9614-5.)