If, as the defendant contends, he was not officially responsible for these Luftwaffe medical experiments, then it should follow that other persons connected with them would not take cognizance of the defendant in this matter. The contention is ridiculous.
The witness Wolff had the following to say regarding a meeting he had with Milch in August or September 1942:
“Thereafter, we had discussed our official questions. I inquired about how he was, and if everything between the Luftwaffe and the SS was all right. During that occasion we also spoke about these experiments very shortly, if at all, and we spoke of the invaluable help which the SS was giving us by providing these voluntary inmates, which was helping us with our medical material which could be used at the front.”
It is to be noted that they talked about the experiments and Wolff asked how the Luftwaffe SS relations were. It is submitted that this demonstrates that Wolff regarded the defendant as the top man in the Luftwaffe Medical Experiments Program, as indeed he was.
Then there are the two letters addressed to Milch by Himmler and Wolff, substantially alike in content; Himmler’s, dated November 1942, in which he cites the opposition that exists among “Christian medical circles” to conducting experiments on helpless, involuntary concentration camp inmates. He refers to the narrow-mindedness of such medical men, which “will take at least another ten years” to remove. But this narrow-mindedness did not trouble the consciences of Himmler or the defendant Milch. Decidedly not. In the words of the Reich Leader SS: “We two should not get angry about these difficulties.”
The prosecution submits that Himmler would not have written a letter in this tenor unless he was certain that his good friend Milch would be in complete agreement with his views.
And how did Himmler regard Milch in connection with the experiments? As a casual onlooker, with a purely academic interest in the results obtained? No, Himmler knew that Milch possessed the over-all command, the ultimate authority in the Luftwaffe; that the Inspector General of the Luftwaffe was the man to refer to whenever a question arose as to the disposition of the pressure chamber or the status of Dr. Rascher. Witness Himmler’s request in his letter:
“I beg you to release Dr. Rascher, Stabsarzt in the reserve, from the air force and to transfer him to me to the Waffen SS. I would then assume the sole responsibility for having these experiments made in this field and would put the results, which we in the SS need only for the frost injuries in the East, entirely at the disposal of the air force.”
The logical corollary to this statement is inescapable. If Rascher was not transferred to the SS and remained with the air force, the responsibility would not be Himmler’s alone. And we must remember that Rascher did not leave his Luftwaffe post until the year 1943 after the experimental atrocities had been largely completed. Then where did this responsibility rest? Himmler had no doubts; it was on the shoulders of the defendant.
Nor did Karl Wolff, Himmler’s right-hand man, have any doubts as to the responsible person in the Luftwaffe, with reference to the medical experiments. He, too, wrote to Milch requesting that Rascher be released from the Luftwaffe and transferred to the SS. Here was a man, who, by his own testimony, “had a good comradely relationship” with the defendant. On the direct examination, Wolff testified regarding his connection with Milch: