The experiments were carried out by a Luftwaffe medical officer, Professor Dr. Haagen. As a medical officer of the Luftwaffe he was subject to Schroeder’s orders after the latter became Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe. The office of Schroeder issued and approved the research assignments pursuant to which these experiments were carried out. It provided the funds for the research. One of the chief collaborators in the program was the defendant Rose, consultant to the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.
Correspondence was carried on between Haagen and the Chief of Staff for the defendant Schroeder with reference to whether a typhus epidemic prevailing at Natzweiler was connected in any manner with the vaccine research then being conducted. The office of the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe received reports on the experiments from which it could be clearly perceived that typhus vaccine experiments were being performed on concentration camp inmates.
While the experiments were in progress, Schroeder admits having visited Haagen at Strasbourg, but denies that he talked with Haagen about the experiments. The defendant’s assertion that the experiments were not discussed does not carry conviction.
As has been pointed out in this judgment, the law of war imposes on a military officer in a position of command an affirmative duty to take such steps as are within his power and appropriate to the circumstances to control those under his command for the prevention of acts which are violations of the law of war.
This rule is applicable to the case of Schroeder. At the time he became Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, Schroeder knew of the fact that freezing experiments for the benefit of the Luftwaffe had been carried out at Dachau concentration camp by Luftwaffe medical officers. He knew that through these experiments injury and death had resulted to the experimental subjects. He also knew that during the years 1942 and 1943, typhus vaccine research had been carried out by the Luftwaffe officer, Haagen, for the benefit of the Luftwaffe Medical Service, at Natzweiler and Schirmeck concentration camps—and had he taken the trouble to inquire, he could have known that deaths had occurred as a result of these experiments.
With all this knowledge, or means of knowledge, before him as commanding officer, he blindly approved a continuation of typhus research by Haagen, supported the program, and was furnished reports of its progress, without so much as taking one step to determine the circumstances under which the research had been or was being carried on, to lay down rules for the conduct of present or future research by his subordinates, or to prescribe the conditions under which the concentration camp inmates could be used as experimental subjects.
As was the case with reference to the freezing experiments at Dachau, non-German nationals were used as experimental subjects, none gave their consent, and many suffered injury and death as a result of the experiments.
GAS EXPERIMENTS
Experiments with various types of poison gas were performed by Luftwaffe Officer Haagen and a Professor Dr. Hirt in the Natzweiler concentration camp. They began in November 1942 and were conducted through the summer of 1944. During this period a great many concentration camp inmates of Russian, Polish, and Czech nationality were experimented on with gas, at least 50 of whom died. A certain Oberarzt Wimmer, a staff physician of the Luftwaffe worked with Hirt on the gas experiments throughout the period.
We discussed the duty which rests upon a commanding officer to take appropriate measures to control his subordinates, in dealing with the case of Handloser. We shall not repeat what we said there. Had Schroeder adopted the measures which the law of war imposes upon one in position of command to prevent the actions of his subordinates amounting to violations of the law of war, the deaths of the non-German nationals involved in the gas experiments might well have been prevented.