The fact is undoubted that human experiments, which were exactly the same as those, the participation in which I am unjustly charged with, have been carried out in other countries, above all, in the United States which has indicted me. That has led the prosecution to place the center of gravity of its charges upon the outside conditions of the persons put at my disposal for experiments by the German authorities. In that connection the question of whether they were voluntary was put into the foreground. I shall not discuss the question as to what extent the doctor who is charged with the experiments is responsible for these external, formal questions, at least a doctor who was so far removed from the experiments themselves as I was. But in connection with the principal question of subjects being volunteers, I have to make a few statements. A trial of this kind presents probably the most unsuitable atmosphere to discuss questions of medical ethics. But since these questions have been raised here, they have to be answered. Everyone who, as a scientist, has an insight into the history of dangerous medical experiments, knows with certainty the following fact. Aside from the self-experiments of doctors, which represent a very small minority of such experiments, the extent to which subjects are volunteers is often deceptive. At the very best they amount to self-deceit on the part of the physician who conducts the experiment, but very frequently to a deliberate misleading of the public. In the majority of such cases, if we ethically examine facts, we find an exploitation of the ignorance, the frivolity, the economic distress, or other emergency on the part of the experimental subjects. I may only refer to the example which was presented to the Tribunal by Dr. Ivy when he presented the forms for the American malaria experiments.
You yourselves, gentlemen of the Tribunal, are in a position to examine whether, on the basis of the information contained in these forms, individuals of the average education of an inmate of a prison can form a sufficiently clear opinion of the risks of an experiment made with pernicious malaria. These facts will be confirmed by any sincere and decent scientist in a personal conversation, though he would not like to make such a statement in public. That I myself am, on principle, an opponent of the idea of dangerous experiments on human beings is known to you gentlemen of the Tribunal.
The state, however, or any human community which, in the interest of the well-being of the entire community, did not want to forego the experiments on human beings, only bases itself on ethical principles as long as it openly assumes the full responsibility which arises therefrom, and imposes sacrifices on enemies of society to atone for their crimes and does not choose the method of apparent voluntary submission, which imposes the risk of the experiment on the experimental subjects, who are not in a position to foresee the possible consequences.
The prosecutor in his plea criticized the preponderance of affidavits during the presentation of evidence on the part of the defense. The difficulties which exist for a defendant in prison in the Germany of today to acquire other documents are almost prohibitive. In order to give a few examples: When the malaria experiments of Schilling were discussed, the prosecution, among other material, submitted to the Tribunal an excerpt from the well-known Dachau sentence concerning the statements contained therein about the number of victims in these experiments. I have stated in the witness box that I would rather sit here as a defendant than put my signature on the opinion which would confirm these statements. How right I was in making that statement can be seen from a letter by Professor Allenby of the University of London which, unfortunately, has only now been received by my defense counsel, in which he termed the statement that 300 experimental subjects had died, a grotesque untruth. My defense counsel in his final plea has quoted the passage of that letter.
The prosecution at that time when the excerpt of the Dachau sentence was submitted, promised that the entire files of the Dachau trial would be put at our disposal. Unfortunately, all my efforts to gain an insight in these files have been in vain.
When State Secretary Dr. Conti during the war was toying with the idea to commission Professor Schilling, who was at that time in Italy, with malaria research in Germany, I, at that time, Chief of the Tropical Medical Department of the Robert Koch Institute, was first of all assigned by the Reich Ministry of the Interior to give an opinion. In this opinion, for reasons which I have explained in the witness box, I rejected Schilling’s plan. Had one followed my advice, the experiments by Schilling in Dachau would never have taken place. In the course of these proceedings I made all efforts to come into the possession of that opinion but in this case also I was unsuccessful, although that opinion in two copies is in the hands of the military government, possibly even in this building.
Also, in vain, I attempted to get the file note, so important for my defense, which I dictated to the witness Block about my conferences with State Secretary Conti and President Gildemeister, after I had gained knowledge about the conduct of the typhus experiments in Buchenwald. What little correspondence I had with Professor Haagen is apparently entirely in the hands of the prosecution. In spite of that, it has been submitted only in part to you. That fact offered an opportunity to the prosecution to interpret passages taken out of the context incorrectly. Unfortunately, I have no opportunity to force anyone to submit the missing documents which would clarify matters in my favor.
To evaluate the work of Haagen, and my defense counsel has pointed that out already, the statement of an unbiased expert would have been of decisive importance. Therefore, I can only regret that the interrogation of the Frenchman Georges Blanc for whom I applied and who has the best knowledge in this field, did not take place, although he had volunteered to appear before this Tribunal as an expert.
Professor Lecrout, Director of the Institute Pasteur in Paris, was frequently in Nuernberg during this trial. After an interview, the prosecution refrained from calling him as an expert witness to clarify some difficult questions resulting from the work of Haagen. I ask the high Tribunal to draw its conclusions from these facts and to assure that the lack of these pieces of evidence should not result in a damage to my interests.
Prosecutor McHaney has explained in his plea that one still had to find that doctor among the defendants who would have subjected himself to such experiments as are covered by the indictment here. I do not feel that that concerns me. Not only from the statement which I have made here before you but also from my case history, which was available to the authorities of the prison long before indictment, it can be seen that not only did I repeatedly offer myself as an experimental subject to test vaccines but that frequently in my official capacity and in my research work I gave myself injections with cholera, typhus, malaria and hepatitis epidemica and that I am still suffering from the consequences.