A. Never, at no time.
Q. Are you of the opinion that Ding started these experiments on his own initiative?
A. That is possible. At any rate he did not receive orders from me, and I don’t know where else he could have received an order.
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF DEFENSE WITNESS DR. EUGEN HAAGEN[[66]]
DIRECT EXAMINATION
Dr. Tipp: Now, Professor, we are coming to the last and perhaps the most decisive count of the indictment—namely, the typhus experiments, as the prosecution calls them. Professor Schroeder and Professor Becker-Freyseng are charged with responsibility for such typhus experiments. There are two groups of them, according to the prosecution. On the one hand, those performed in Buchenwald concentration camp by Dr. Ding-Schuler and to a lesser extent by the defendant Dr. Hoven. The second group is alleged typhus experiments that you carried out in the Natzweiler concentration camp. Before we turn to the individual experiments, Professor, please tell the Tribunal what the hazards of typhus were during the war, especially in the years 1943, 1944, and 1945 when this problem became acute? Describe it only to the extent necessary in order to make your work understandable.
Witness Haagen: I shall try to be brief, but in order to understand this whole problem, one must be given some general information. Typhus is a very serious infectious disease which, in international medical circles, is included among the diseases which are of general danger, and it is consequently subject to international control. In cases of such hazardous and dangerous diseases, every state felt the moral obligation to do everything to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic because it is very difficult to combat and to eliminate the epidemic once it has broken out. This point of view was embraced, of course, not only by the government officials, but also by the responsible and interested scientists and physicians; because we all, of course, knew how prodigious the danger of typhus is, not only for the waging of the war but also for the civilian population of the entire world. Typhus is not only a war epidemic, but it has taken root in the country. It is also a peacetime epidemic which is enormously difficult to combat.
Presiding Judge Beals: Counsel, the Tribunal is quite aware that typhus is a very dangerous disease, that it is a great menace to humans, and that it was a menace to Germany during the last war, a great danger. I don’t think it is necessary to elaborate that again. We have heard it from several witnesses. It’s not denied.