EXTRACTS FROM AFFIDAVIT OF KARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH TAUBOECK, 18 JUNE 1947, CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT OF, AND EXPERIMENTS WITH STERILIZATION DRUGS
I, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Tauboeck, swear, depose, and state:
1. I was born on 21 September 1904 in Josefstadt, Czechoslovakia. I have been an Austrian citizen all my life. From 1910 to 1915 I attended the elementary school in Leitmeritz and Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. From 1915 to 1923 I attended the gymnasium (high school) in Pilsen (Czechoslovakia), Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) and Klosterneuburg (Austria). In June 1923 I graduated from the Klosterneuburg high school. From 1923 to 1925 I studied natural science at the University of Vienna, Austria, specializing in plant physiology and chemistry. In 1925 I studied at Kiel (Germany), where I devoted myself mainly to problems of marine biology and bacteriology. From 1926 to 1927 I again studied the above-mentioned natural science subjects in Vienna (Austria). In December 1927 I was made Doctor of Philosophy with special distinction. My thesis dealt with a problem concerning vegetable chemistry—urea in the plant world.
2. From 1928 to 1929 I was assistant in the Institute of Plant Physiology of the University of Vienna, Austria. In this capacity I had to direct the practical studies of the students and was able to carry out my own research in the field of vegetable chemistry. I also continued my studies there in the medical faculty of that University, in several medical subjects, especially in histology, physiology, physiological chemistry, immunology, and pharmacology. These above-mentioned studies made it possible for me to be able to carry out independently tests on the efficacy of drugs in animal experiments.
3. From 1930 to 1945 I was employed as a biochemist and botanist in the biological laboratory of the I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G. at Ludwigshafen/Rhine. I specialized there in drugs with particular effects on the animal and human organisms, respectively. Through this work I invented various new remedies based on biology. In particular I studied the question of animal poisons for many years and thus produced a new remedy for rheumatism. I also worked on the question of the stimulant from the sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica) and similar substances effective in minimum quantities. During the war years I worked on biochemical problems concerning agriculture and as a result of my work produced an improved fertilizer.
The I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G. at Ludwigshafen at Rhine employed several hundred natural scientists and technicians. Since 1937 I was the senior specialist in vegetable chemistry there.
4. In the fall of 1942, I was instructed by the director of my laboratory, Dr. Mueller-Cunradi, to devote my time to research on the effective substance from the plant caladium seguinum (Schweigrohr). At the beginning of November 1942, I was sent to Dr. Schamberger of the Research Institute Grunewald-Berlin for the purpose of obtaining further information. The Research Institute Grunewald was a cover name for a camouflaged SS office. The address was Grunewald-Berlin, Delbrueckstrasse 6. There I was told that this plant was to be used for sterilizing mental patients. In order to obtain further information about the progress of experiments with caladium seguinum which had already taken place, I had to visit the firm Madaus in Dresden-Radebeul, together with Dr. Schamberger and another SS man. This firm had already made animal experiments with this plant and published the results in a medical journal in 1941. I was introduced to the firm Madaus as Dr. Weiss, so that nobody should know that I was an employee of I. G. Farben. The senior pharmacologist of the firm Madaus asked us: You must be a commission from SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, to which the SS men replied “yes”. The pharmacologist went on to tell us that a few days previously Pohl himself had visited the firm Madaus together with several other people and had mentioned the especial urgency of this work. Furthermore, while visiting the firm Madaus, I checked all the equipment and experiments in the course of one day. By careful examination of sections of mice and rats and of the histological preparations, I was convinced that the publications of the firm Madaus were perfectly true. By this examination I, as a specialist in this field, gained the conviction that sterilization with caladium seguinum is no Utopia, but something which is quite within the bounds of possibility. On the return journey from Dresden to Berlin, the SS men revealed to me that this research was being carried out on the express order of Reich Leader SS Himmler in order to suppress births among the eastern nations. After this fact had been revealed to me I was sworn to secrecy. I was furthermore informed at the Research Institute Grunewald-Berlin that the first preparations were to be supplied as soon as possible, as the Reich Leader SS had ordered the testing of the new method on inmates of concentration camps to take place at once.
5. In order to point out the effectiveness and practical possibility of using caladium seguinum as a sterilization drug, I would like first of all to go into the subject of the history of this plant. Before doing so, however, I would like to add that caladium seguinum is not considered a sterilization drug in the ordinary sense of the word, but a castration drug. This is evident from the fact that the experiments carried out by the firm Madaus have clearly shown that a destruction of the sexual glands of the experimental animals occurred which is equivalent to the surgical removal of such glands. Caladium seguinum is a plant which comes from Brazil. As I know from the literature and the publications made by the firm Madaus, this plant has already been used by the Brazilian natives as a means of sterilization of their enemies. It was administered to the enemies either in food or in arrow wounds. By this method of injection by arrows, only relatively small portions of poison gained from caladium seguinum could have been administered, as the wound produced by arrows may be compared with a large intramuscular injection. From this fact, as learned from literature, results the conclusion that this poison, if obtained by the correct process, is effective even in very small doses. This drug is described in literature as secret, which shows that the enemy did not know that he was being sterilized.
6. Inspired by this experience of the Brazilian natives, the firm Madaus carried out their experiments on animals. The results obtained by the firm Madaus which I have seen with my own eyes confirm the effectiveness of caladium seguinum as a means of sterilization for human beings. It was possible to doubt whether the caladium seguinum was actually effective according to the first rather vague reports coming from Brazil before the experiments of the firm Madaus had been carried out. The experiments of Madaus, however, have eliminated all doubts in this direction.