A. Hirtz speaks only of one injection, not of two. The vaccinated persons whom he took care of all had two injections at intervals of several days. If he had really been interested in the vaccination, he must have known that two injections were performed. That is one point. Then he says that the needles were not changed. He seems to have overlooked something there again; that for every injection a new injection needle was used which was brought from Strasbourg already sterilized, and that the technical assistant changed them. Anybody who knows anything about scientific work knows that in such important work, one does not use the same needle for several persons, quite aside from the fact that this would not be in accordance with one of the most elementary demands of asepsis. Here again he probably didn’t observe very carefully.
Q. Now, Professor, we are interested in the question of whether in the camp of Schirmeck, you wanted to produce typhus through artificial injection of pathogenic virus. Did you perform such experiments at Schirmeck?
A. No. No such experiments were performed. I don’t know what the purpose would have been.
Q. Then if I may sum up, Professor, you were introducing a vaccine into practice after it had already been tested in animal experiments, in self-experiments, and in experiments on volunteers. But experiments such as I have just described were not performed at Schirmeck, is that correct?
A. Yes. That is correct. We were merely introducing a vaccine which was already being used on a large scale in other countries. Perhaps I may add that at first I intended to perform further vaccinations in the Schirmeck camp in order to protect this camp as far as possible, but that in the course of the next month, I realized that the Natzweiler camp was entirely different in its whole structure and that there was much greater danger of typhus in this camp. Therefore, I shifted my interest from Schirmeck to Natzweiler.
Q. Now before we go on to the work at Natzweiler, Witness, I should like to clarify the following point with you. Mr. Hirtz testified here that the prisoners used for vaccination were not volunteers; but you say, Professor, that your point of view is that experimental subjects should be volunteers. Can you please clearly answer this question and explain the points of view which are important in your opinion in vaccinations particularly?
A. The prisoners whom we vaccinated were not volunteers. I would like to say the following on that point: As I have already said, I share with most scientists the point of view that the prerequisite for any experiment is the self-experiment. This was not merely a theory in my case. Everyone who knows my work or saw my work knows that I performed a number of self-experiments and contracted a number of infections. I need not go into that now, but of course I tested all vaccines on myself. If we dispensed with the element of voluntariness in this present case, I must state that according to our rules and laws in Germany, vaccinations are ordered wherever there is danger of an epidemic. This situation existed in Schirmeck and Natzweiler. There was a decree for this camp from the SS-WVHA, and decrees were sent out by the chief doctor of concentration camps. Our vaccinations were performed within these legal regulations. In the records of trial, I find again and again the point of view that I had taken poor, helpless prisoners and treated them with murderous germs. But if one knows my work well, one can see that, on the contrary, I was combating these diseases. There can be no question of any criminal experiments here. I want to object very definitely to being called a criminal when I was merely fighting diseases.
Q. Well, Professor, you say that in this case you dispensed with volunteers because it was not an experiment, but rather a vaccination, and because it is your point of view that for vaccinations it is legally permissible to make them compulsory—that you were merely carrying out a legal measure under international law?
A. Yes. This was a vaccination with a vaccine which was already being used elsewhere in the world within the framework of general vaccinations carried out on the basis of the existing regulations.