STERILIZATION EXPERIMENTS
Poppendick was Chief Physician of the Main Race and Settlement Office. The judgment of the International Military Tribunal found that this office was “active in carrying out schemes for Germanization of occupied territories according to the racial principles of the Nazi Party and were involved in the deportation of Jews and other foreign nationals.” (See the “Trial of the Major War Criminals,” Vol. 1, p. 270.)
Testifying before this Tribunal, Poppendick stated that the Nazi racial policy was twofold in aspect; one policy being positive, the other, negative in character. The positive policy included many matters, one being the encouragement of German families to produce more children. The negative policy concerned the sterilization and extermination of non-Aryans as well as other measures to reduce the non-Aryan population. According to Poppendick’s testimony, he was not concerned with the execution of negative, but only with positive measures.
By letter dated 29 May 1941 Grawitz wrote to Himmler concerning a conference held on 27 May 1941 at which Dr. Clauberg was present, and discussed his “new method of sterilization of inferior women without an operation.”
Poppendick by letter dated 4 June 1941, which referred to a previous telephone conversation with Grawitz, wrote Rudolf Brandt stating that he was enclosing “the list of physicians who are prepared to perform the treatment of sterility” as requested by Himmler. The list referred to is evidently the same as was contained in a letter from Grawitz to Himmler, dated 30 May 1941, which stated: “In the following, I submit a list of specialists in charge of the treatment of sterility in women according to the method of Professor Clauberg.”
It is shown by the evidence that Clauberg later carried out sterilization experiments on Jewesses at Auschwitz. Similar experiments were carried out in other concentration camps by SS doctors who were subordinate to Grawitz. It is evident that Poppendick knew of these sterilization experiments, although it is not shown that he was criminally connected with them.
TYPHUS EXPERIMENTS
It is not clear from the evidence that Poppendick was criminally connected with, or had knowledge of, the nature of the typhus experiments at Buchenwald, or the type of subjects upon which they were conducted.
INCENDIARY BOMB EXPERIMENTS
There is some evidence in the record to the effect that after incendiary bomb experiments were completed at Buchenwald, reports of the experiments were forwarded to Poppendick and Mrugowsky. It is evident that through the reports Poppendick gained knowledge of the nature of the experiments, but the record fails to show criminal responsibility of the defendant in connection therewith.