Q. Witness, from the answers that you have given so far, I am still not clear in my mind precisely why you hit upon conscientious objectors in particular as the experimental subjects. You said there were two groups of them: some were in prison and some had to perform public service. From the latter group you took your experimental subjects, but please give me a clear answer to the question: Why did you specifically use such conscientious objectors for your altitude experiments?
A. They could devote full time to the experimental requirements. They did not have to do any other work as was the case of medical students or dental students, the only other type of subjects that I had available to me.
Q. Doctor, these persons were obliged to perform public service. If these conscientious objectors had not been there or if they had been used for public service, then you would not have had any experimental subjects. There must be a specific reason why you specifically used conscientious objectors and I ask you, please, to tell me that reason.
A. Well, we could not have done the experiments unless the conscientious objectors had been available. That is the answer to your question.
Q. Could you not have used prisoners, even conscientious objectors who refused to do public service and were therefore in prison without doing any work? Could you not have used them?
A. Well, that would have meant that I and my assistants would have to go to the prison which was quite a distance away. The conscientious objectors could come to us at the university where they could live in the university dormitory or in the university hospital.
Q. Doctor, if your experiments were really important—perhaps important in view of the state of war—then it is difficult to understand why the experiments could not have been carried out in a prison, let us say. Other experiments have been carried out in prisons to a large extent, and on another occasion. Doctor, you told us that you simply had to get in touch with the prisoners; you simply wrote them a letter or you put up a notice on the bulletin board and then, to a certain extent, you had prisoners available. Can you give me no other information as to why you used specifically and only conscientious objectors?
A. No. If it had been convenient and necessary for me to use prisoners, I believe that we could have had prisoner volunteers for this work.
Q. Witness, were you ever in a penitentiary as a visitor?
A. Yes.