Q. That is the only case you know of?
A. That’s all that I know of.
EXTRACT FROM THE TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT ROSE[[29]]
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Mr. McHaney: Now, would the extreme necessity for the large scale production of typhus vaccines and the resultant experiments on human beings in concentration camps have arisen had not Germany been engaged in a war?
Defendant Rose: That question cannot simply be answered with “yes” or “no”. It is, on the whole, not very probable that without the war, typhus would have broken out in the German camps, but it is not altogether beyond the bounds of possibility because in times of peace too typhus has broken out in individual cases from time to time. The primary danger in the camps is the louse danger, and infection by lice also occurs in times of peace. If typhus breaks out in a camp that is infected with lice, a typhus epidemic can arise in peacetime too, of course.
Q. But Germany had never experienced any difficulty with typhus before the war. Isn’t that right?
A. Not for many decades, no.