15.4.46

A. Medical experiments were carried out in several camps. For instance, in Auschwitz there were experiments on sterilisation carried out by Professor Klaubert and Dr. Schuhmann; also experiments On twins by S.S. medical officer Dr. Mengele.

Q. Do you know the medical officer Dr. Rascher?

A. He was a medical officer of the Luftwaffe and carried out experiments in Dachau on detainees who had been sentenced to death, experiments concerned with the resistance of the human body in high-pressure chambers and its resistance to cold.

Q. Can you say whether such experiments carried out within the camp were known to a large circle?

A. Such experiments, just like all other matters, were, of course, called "secret Reich matters"; but it was not possible to prevent the experiments, which were being carried out in a large camp and which must have been seen in some way by some of the inmates, from becoming known. I cannot say, however, to what extent the outside world learned about these experiments.

Q. You explained to me that orders for executions were received in the camp at Auschwitz, and you told me that until the outbreak of war such orders were few, but that later on they became more numerous. Is that correct?

A. Yes. Until the beginning of the war there were hardly any executions and only in particularly serious cases. I remember one case in Buchenwald where an S.S. man had been attacked and beaten to death by detainees, and the detainees were later hanged.

Q. But during the war - and that you will admit - the number of executions increased, and not inconsiderably.

A. That started with the beginning of the war.

Q. Was the authority for these execution orders in many cases legal sentences of German courts?

A. No. Orders for the executions carried out in the camps came from the R.S.H.A.

Q. Who signed the orders for executions which you received? Is it correct that occasionally you received orders for executions which bore the signature "Kaltenbrunner," and that these were not the originals but were teleprints which therefore had the signature in typewritten letters?

A. It is correct. The originals of execution orders never came to the camps. These orders either arrived in their original form at the Inspectorate of the concentration camps, from where they were transmitted by teletype to the camps concerned, or in urgent cases, the R.S.H.A. sent the orders directly to the camps concerned, and the Inspectorate was then only informed, so that the signatures in the camps were always only in teletype.

Q. So as to again determine the signatures, will you tell the Tribunal whether the overwhelming majority of all execution orders either bore the signature of Himmler or that of Müller in the years before the war and until the end of the war.

A. Only very few teletypes which I have ever seen came from the Reichsführer and still fewer from the defendant Kaltenbrunner. Most of them, I could say practically all, were signed by Müller.

Q. Is that the Müller with whom you repeatedly talked about such matters as you reported earlier?

A. Gruppenführer Müller was the chief of Department IV in the R.S.H.A. He had to negotiate with the Inspectorate about all matters connected with concentration camps.

Q. Would you say that you went to see the Gestapo Chief Müller because you, on the strength of your experience, were of the opinion that this man, owing to his years of service, was acting almost independently?

A. That is quite right. I had to negotiate all matters regarding concentration camps with Gruppenführer Müller. He was informed in all these matters, and in most cases he would make an immediate decision.