Witness Stoehr: Yes, these experiments were conducted at my station.
Q. How did you gain your knowledge of these phlegmon experiments? Were you an observer? Were you an assisting nurse, or by what way did you gain the knowledge you have of these phlegmon experiments?
A. I was the nurse at that station. One day, I think it was in the late summer and fall of 1943, a certain Sturmbannfuehrer Schuetz came to me, with a Standartenfuehrer by the name of Laue or Lauer—I am not quite sure which—and inspected the surgical department. He was shown a number of patients. We had to take their bandages off, and he examined their wounds—or rather, he just looked at them very superficially. After that, the chief physician of the concentration camp Dachau, Dr. Walda, was called in, and he received the order to see to it that the patients received biochemical treatment for some time.
Q. Witness, will you kindly explain to the Tribunal in what manner these phlegmon experiments were conducted; that is, the details of the experiments? What did they do to the victim?
A. Mainly, phlegmon was treated. It was very general in the camp. That is to say, phlegmon was the typical camp disease. The biochemical treatment was carried out in the following manner:
Three similar cases were observed. One of these cases was given allopathic treatment; another biochemical, and the third one received only ordinary surgical treatment. That is, the third one received no drugs whatsoever, and the wound was treated in an ordinary way with bandages and so on. These were the directives of the physicians who were there. We saw on many occasions that the patient was cured much faster who received no drugs or injections.
Experiments of that kind were conducted for many weeks, and if I may as a layman make a judgment, I must say that the physicians, according to my observations, were not satisfied with these experiments.
In addition, I have to emphasize that not only wounds were treated according to these methods, but internal diseases, too. They tried to find out whether biochemical treatment was suitable for treating the thirst for water, which was so frequent in the camp. We saw that the biochemical drugs had no influence whatsoever as to the cause of this illness.
I emphasize that I am speaking as a layman and that all these are my observations.
During the fall, this Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Schuetz told the camp doctor, who was named Babo, to infect a number of people with pus. We nurses were told nothing about that, and we did not know the purpose. These experiments were conducted on a group of men, and they extended over a period of approximately six to seven weeks.