Under date of 9 January 1943 the Ding diary contains a lengthy entry stating that by Genzken’s order the typhus research station became the “Department of Typhus and Virus Research,” that Dr. Ding would be head of this department, and that during his absence defendant Hoven would act in his place. The entry further stated that Ding was appointed chief department head for special missions in hygiene, etc. The Ding diary is discussed elsewhere in this judgment. Considering the demonstrated desire of Ding for his personal aggrandizement, this entry is not entitled to entire credit, as written. It refers to Genzken as “Major General”—which rank he did not receive until a few weeks after 9 January 1943. The entry, however, has some probative value upon the question of Ding’s status during the year 1943.
Genzken testified that he “approved” the establishment of Ding’s department for vaccine research. He also testified that his department furnished necessary funds from its budget for Ding’s investigations.
From the evidence it appears that prior to 1 September 1943, Mrugowsky reported regularly to Genzken, on an average of once per week, either orally or in writing.
Under date 5 May 1942, Mrugowsky signed a written report upon the subject, “Testing Typhus Vaccines.” This report went to six different offices: the first copy, to Conti; the second copy, to Grawitz; and the third copy, to Genzken. The report commences: “The tests of four typhus vaccines made by us on human subjects at the instigation of the Reich Health Leader Dr. Conti had the following results * * *”. It is stated that the mortality of victims of typhus during an epidemic “was around 30 percent” and that “during the same epidemic four groups of experimental subjects were vaccinated with one each” of the four types of vaccine described in the beginning of the report.
“The experimental subjects were mostly in their twenties and thirties. Care was taken when selecting them that they did not come from typhus districts and also to ensure an interval of four to six weeks between the protective vaccination and the outbreak of the clinical symptoms of the disease. According to experience this period is imperative to achieve immunity.”
The effects of the four vaccines tested were described as follows. The report on the Weigl vaccine states that “nobody died”. The report on the Gildemeister and Haagen vaccine also states that no deaths occurred. The report on the Behring-Normal vaccine states that one person died. The experiment with the Behring-Strong vaccine reports one death.
The last paragraph of the report states: “In the last two groups the symptoms were considerably stronger than in the first groups * * *. No difference between the two vaccines of the Behring Works was observed. The attending physicians stated that the general picture of the disease in group four was rather more severe compared with that of the patients of group three.”
In a summation, Mrugowsky recommended the use of a vaccine “produced according to the chicken egg process, which, in its immunization effect, is equal to the vaccine after Weigl.”
“The effectiveness of protection depends on the method used in making the vaccine.”
Of course, experiments with vaccines, conducted because of the urgent need for the discovery of a protective vaccine, would lead to scant results unless the subjects vaccinated were subsequently in some manner effectively exposed to typhus, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness or noneffectiveness of the vaccination. While Mrugowsky’s report, above referred to, makes no reference to an artificial infection, it does state without further explanation that two deaths occurred, and in the last paragraph, quoted above, compares the severity of “the diseased” between groups three and four.