The defendant Blome is charged under counts two and three of the indictment with personal responsibility for, and participation in Malaria, Lost Gas, and Sulfanilamide Experiments, the extermination of tubercular Poles, and the execution of the Euthanasia Program. Proof has also been adduced for the purpose of showing that he participated in the freezing bacteriological warfare, and blood coagulation experiments.
The charge with reference to sulfanilamide experiments has been abandoned by the prosecution and hence will not be considered further.
The defendant Blome studied medicine at Goettingen and received his medical degree in 1920. From 1924 to 1934 he engaged in private practice. In the latter year he was summoned to Berlin where, in 1935, he reorganized the German medical educational system. He also acted as adjutant in the central office of the German Red Cross and as business manager of the German Physicians’ Association, which position he held until the end of World War II. In 1938 he became President of the Bureau of the Academy for International Medical Education. From 1939 on Blome acted as deputy for Dr. Leonardo Conti who was leader of the German Physicians’ Association, Head of the Main Office for Public Health of the Party, and Leader of the National Socialist Physicians’ Association. In 1941 he became a member of the Reich Research Council, and in 1943 was appointed Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research, connected with the research commission for protection against biological warfare.
Blome joined the SA in 1931 and became the chief medical officer of the SA in the province of Mecklenburg. In 1934 he was appointed a province office leader, and in the SA he attained a rank equivalent to that of major general. In 1943 he was awarded the highest decoration of the Nazi Party.
As Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research, it was his duty to determine which research problems should be studied and to assign such problems to scientists best fitted to investigate them.
FREEZING EXPERIMENTS
The prosecution argues that Blome is criminally responsible for participation in the freezing experiments as charged in the indictment. In the subparagraph which particularly refers to freezing, Blome is not named among the defendants charged with special responsibility for the experiments. Moreover, the record does not contain evidence which shows beyond a reasonable doubt that Blome bore any responsible part in the conduct of the freezing experiments.
MALARIA EXPERIMENTS
The evidence is insufficient to disclose any criminal responsibility of the defendant in connection with the malaria experiments.
LOST GAS EXPERIMENTS