I am quite convinced that the high Tribunal has gained a true impression of my activity and of my attitude. Just as I have tried throughout my entire life to fulfill the tasks allotted to me by fate according to the best of my capacity and in the full knowledge of my responsibility, so have I also tried to stand this most serious task before this Court with the aid of the strongest weapon which I possess—that is the truth.
If there is anything which could console me for the mental suffering of the last months, it is the consciousness of knowing that before this Court, before the German people, and before the people of the world, it has been made clear that the serious general charges of the prosecution against the Medical Corps of the German Armed Forces have been proved to be without any foundation.
It can be seen how unjust these charges were by the fact that no charges have been raised or any proceedings initiated against a single leading doctor of the German Armed Forces in combat or at home. As the last Medical Inspector of the Army, and as Chief of the Medical Service of the Armed Forces of Germany, I think with pride of all the medical officers to whose untiring devotion countless wounded and sick patients of this dreadful war owe their lives and cure and their possibilities of existence. Never and nowhere were the losses of an army medical corps greater than those among the medical officers of the German Armed Forces in carrying out their duties.
More than 150 years ago, the motto and guiding principle created for German military doctors and their successors was “Scientiae, Humanitati, Patriae” (For Science, Humanity, and Fatherland). Like the medical officers in their entirety I also have remained true to that guiding principle in thought and in deed. Realizing the outcome of the events of these recent times, may the joint endeavors of all the nations succeed in avoiding in future the immeasurable misfortune of war, the dreadful side of which nobody knows better than the military doctor.
C. Final Statement of Defendant Rostock[[35]]
I have nothing to add to the pertinent statements by my defense counsel, Dr. Pribilla, regarding the individual points of the indictment in this trial; but with regard to the general position of German medical science during this war, there are a few words, which I would like to say from this dock.
During my direct examination I have already stated why I, as the Chief of the so-called “Science and Research” department undertook to work for medical science as late as 1943 and 1944. At that time the problem was to avoid, or at least to minimize, the great and acute danger of teaching and research, and with that Germany’s universities, becoming completely destroyed. When this had been prevented at the very last moment, there arose the task and the duty of improving the means and the possibilities of basic research which had been more and more restricted in the course of the war, and through dwindling resources research in Germany would have come to a standstill. Due to the chaotic development of the last year of the war, success was comparatively small. There were, however, some results and there were a few things which were saved after the end of the war.
Today through the evidence produced in this trial, I know the reasons which paralyzed the work at the time. It was the striving for power on the part of certain organizations which used the effective support of certain executive departments of the Third Reich who held unrestricted power. It was the principle of totalitarianism which these organizations followed particularly in the case of what they called the “university science”. It was there, however, that we had founded the tradition of German science recognized the world over. In contrast to that, their aim, as shown in some of the testimonies given in this trial and some of the documents submitted, was to found a “politically directed science” of their own. That was the reason why my personal efforts and those of the health and medical services, which I have referred to in this trial, did not achieve complete success. Today, at the end of this trial, that is now clear to me. At that time, in the year 1944, we did not know of this masterly camouflaged and, therefore, so very dangerous opponent to that branch of science with which I myself had grown up.
Throughout my life I have never worked for one form of a state or another, or for any political party in Germany, but simply and solely for my patients and for medical science.