[oc...] casionally. There are infections of the veins, and then the patient dies suddenly, and it is a definite risk to perform an operation because the power of resistance is on the borderline, hanging by a hair. If we perform such major operations to save the patient's life, then you may assume that we would have undertaken an amputation, or would you assume that a surgeon of my experience does not know when he has to amputate? Unfortunately that is the last thing that an operative surgeon like Fischer learns in wartime, to amputate in time.

As far as I remember, the deaths were from an abscess of the glands, an inflammation of the veins, an inflammation of the blood vessels, and one died from general sickness, in spite of all transfusions. This happens in cases of infection when there is no possibility of stopping the infection by local surgery. But one cannot conclude that any medical measures which should have been taken were overlooked, because just by seeing a case history from a distance one cannot decide that at such and such a moment the patient should have been operated on. I am convinced that in these three cases which Fischer reported to me exactly, which I saw, and in which the therapy was discussed, that we certainly did not overlook anything. As far as one can humanly say, we did what we considered necessary.

I wanted to publish this result or to report it to the public from the beginning. Therefore, it was obvious from the very beginning, if you did not assume that I had any humane or surgical motives, that I did everything in order to be able to publish the results.

The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Oberheuser, and Fischer were charged with special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving experiments on bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration and experiments on bone transplantation (par. 6 (F) of the indictment). During the trial, the prosecution withdrew this charge in the case of Rudolf Brandt. On this charge the defendants Gebhardt, Oberheuser, and Fischer were convicted and the defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, and Rostock were acquitted.

The Prosecutions summation of the evidence on these experiments is contained in its final brief against the defendant Gebhardt. An extract from this brief is set forth below on pages 392 to 396. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the final plea for the defendant Gebhardt. It appears below on pages 396 to 399. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 400 to 418.

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