NMT01-T355
Volume I · Page 355
| responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct
involving sulfanilamide experiments (par. 6 (E) of the indictment). During the
trial the prosecution withdrew this charge in the cases of Schroeder, Blome,
and Becker-Freyseng. On this charge the defendant Karl Brandt, Handloser,
Gebhardt, Mrugowsky, Oberheuser, and Fischer were convicted and the defendants
Rostock, Genzken, and Poppendick were acquitted. Regarding the defendant Rudolf
Brandt, the judgement makes no reference to this charge. The prosecution's summation of the evidence on the sulfanilamide experiments is contained in its final brief against the defendant Gebhardt. An extract from that brief is set forth below on pages 355 to 364. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the closing brief for the defendant Gebhardt. It appears below on pages 364 to 370. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence oil pages 371 to 391. |
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| b. Selection from the Argumentation of the Prosecution |
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| EXTRACT FROM THE CLOSING BRIEF AGAINST DEFENDANT GEBHARDT |
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| A. SULFANILAMIDE EXPERIMENTS |
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| Experiments to test the effectiveness of sulfanilamide on
infections were conducted in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp from 20 July
1942 until August 1943. These experiments were performed by the defendants
Gebhardt Fischer, and Oberheuser. (NO-228, Pros. Ex. 206.) Gebhardt personally requested Himmler's permission to carry out the sulfanilamide experiments and their execution was his responsibility. (Tr. pp. 4024-5.) He himself carried out the initial operations. (Tr. p. 4032.) The experimental subjects consisted of 15 male concentration camp inmates who were used during the preliminary experiments in July 1942, and 60 Polish women who were experimented on in 5 groups of 12 subjects each. The purpose of the experiments was stated in a preliminary report by Gebhardt dated 29 August 1942, in which he stated: "By Order of the Reich Leader SS, I started on 20 July 1942 at Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women on a series of clinical experiments with the aim of analyzing the sickness known as gas gangrene which does not take a uniform course, and to test the efficacy of the known therapeutic medicaments. "In addition the simple infections of injuries which occur as symptoms in war surgery had also to be tested; and a new chemo- [...therapeutic] |
