S. Final Statement of Defendant Hoven[[51]]
I have nothing to add to Dr. Gawlik’s plea of yesterday. I would at this point like to thank my defense counsel for the considerable help he has given me.
T. Final Statement of Defendant Beiglboeck[[52]]
May it please the Tribunal, the experiments which I conducted, I did not carry out on my own initiative, neither according to the plans of my own, nor spontaneously. The medical part was played with the knowledge and approval of my clinical teacher, and civilian superior for more than ten years, I was a disciple of Eppinger. During those ten years I had come to know and respect his ways of thought and his superior knowledge. My relations to him were based on deep personal gratitude and awe-inspired devotion. If there was anything which he considered right and important, then for psychological reasons alone, it would have been difficult for me to believe the contrary.
The experiments were to solve the problem of saving human life and that had to be approved. It was a military order which compelled me to carry them out in the atmosphere of a concentration camp. I struggled against it, and was inwardly opposed to it, and tried to avoid the task, but I was not successful. So I had to carry it out.
May it please the Tribunal, in your evaluation of this fact, please do not fail to consider that this did not happen in times of peace, nor in a country which granted its citizens individual freedom of decision in all matters, personal and professional, but during the bitter days of a most horrible war. What I carried out, I did in accordance with a plan previously determined and specified. I did not overstep the limits of my task. I had to require of my experimental subjects to undergo hardships; they suffered from thirst with all of its unpleasant sensations, with its physical and mental characteristics. It was in the nature of the experiments, and this could not be avoided. I did not, however, do this without first informing myself by an experiment on my own system of what I expected them to undergo, nor did I expect it of anyone else, unless I was firmly convinced that he undertook it voluntarily. It is not true to say that I might have forced anybody to do it, neither psychologically, by reprisals, nor by threat, nor by force of arms. Many eyewitnesses have agreed that my conduct was never brutal or inhuman towards any of the experimental subjects under my care. Among these witnesses are even some who were brought here to testify against me.
At last, in the final stage of this trial, one experimental subject could be found who thought it appropriate to introduce a dramatic note in an atmosphere artificially created. You will decide how much credibility you will attribute to this witness. Based on a layman’s misinterpretation of nondangerous, indeed harmless medical procedures, combined with the uncertain recollection emotionally presented by more or less distorting and misconstruing my motives, the attempt was made to lend an impression to my experiments and to my own personality.
In contradiction to that, a few others who came from the concentration camp and who loved the truth have painted another picture which reveals that my behavior in the medical sense, as well as from the human point of view, was correct, to say the least. By my experiments, no human life was sacrificed, nor did they result in any lasting damage to their health. I also believe, I have proved that I intervened for the inmates, as far as that was within my power and that I did not consider my experimental subjects as individuals of an inferior type whom I could well afford to ill-treat, for ideological reasons, as has been charged.
For over 15 years as a physician, I always felt the strongest responsibility for those entrusted to my care. Thousands who were my patients will confirm it. My assistants and colleagues have testified to it. I was never directed by any sentiment other than that of a human being and of a physician. The experiments as they were actually conducted never went beyond what can be justified by the physician. I consider myself free of guilt as a physician and as a human being.