He said, “Kogon, can you see any way of getting me out of this affair? I am supposed to test a poison here on Russian prisoners of war. I have to report on it immediately. It is a direct order from Mrugowsky. I don’t know how I can get out of it.”
He gave me the prescription, the chemical formula of this poison, and I was to put this prescription in an envelope and seal it in his presence. In my haste I was not able to read it. It had some code name. I put the prescription in the envelope and only said to him, because we were interrupted, “You know my point of view.” I must add here that in long conversations at night I had tried to explain to him that his only way out was to do as much as possible for the political prisoners, but that in serious cases he must, as a human being, refuse to carry out orders which violated the moral laws.
He laughed when I said that and replied, “I know your religious and moral ideas. You know I don’t believe in anything. This way is out of the question for me; all I can do is comply with the first suggestion and collaborate with the political prisoners.”
In this poison case, he went in great haste and excitement to the camp leader, Sturmbannfuehrer Schubert, whom he had informed beforehand by telephone, and the commander, Oberfuehrer Pister, who also knew about it and they all went—I don’t know whether the camp physician was also present—at any rate, they went to the crematorium, not to Block 46. The Russian prisoners of war, again, four of them, had been taken there into the cellar with the 46 hooks on the walls on which the people were strangled. These four Russians were given this poison. I do not know how it was administered. As Ding-Schuler told me later, they died in a very short time. Then they were dissected and cremated. Dr. Ding did not send a written report on this matter to Berlin. He told me he had to report on it to Mrugowsky orally. Ding was not only excited about this matter, but afterwards he was also very secretive about it. He did not want me to talk about it any more. From indications in his conversation I learned that there was some connection with experiments in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Oranienburg which Mrugowsky had performed in Ding’s presence. Prisoners must have been shot there with poisoned bullets, because Ding said that a Russian prisoner of war had succeeded in getting hold of a knife and attacking Mrugowsky, but that the prisoner had been immediately overpowered.
In any case, Ding did not want to have anything more to do with the matter, even in my presence. A short time later the prescription and the sealed envelope were burned by Ding in my presence. He held it over a candle in my presence and burned it. I could not find out what the contents were.
[67] United States vs. Oswald Pohl, et al. See Vol. V.
[68] Final plea is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 17 July 1947, pp. 11049-11074.
[69] United States vs. Oswald Pohl, et al. See Vol. V.