NMT01-T092
Volume I · Page 92
The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder, Gebhardt Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Ruff, Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz were charged with special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving high. altitude experiments (par. 6 (A) of the indictment). During the course of the trial, the prosecution withdrew this charge in the cases of Karl Brandt, Handloser, Poppendick, and Mrugowsky. Only the defendants Rudolf Brandt and Sievers were convicted on this charge.
The prosecution's summation of the evidence on the high-altitude experiments is contained in its closing brief against the defendants Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz. An extract from this brief is set forth below on pages 92 to 113. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the closing briefs for the defendants Ruff and Sievers. It appears below on pages 114 to 140. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 140 to 198.
Early in the war it was deemed necessary to conduct research in the field of high altitudes because of the higher ceilings reached by the Allied fighter planes. This created the problem of availability of human experimental subjects, inasmuch as animal experimentation was considered inadequate. The heights involved were 12,000 meters to over 20,000 meters, hence it goes without saying that such experiments were very dangerous and, as indicated by the evidence, volunteers were not to be had. This difficulty was overcome by the use of
