NMT01-T494
Volume I · Page 494
time during the course of the experiments, believed that the pain or discomfort or whatever it might be called, which they were suffering would not be compensated by cigarettes, or other promises which had been made to them, they would be very anxious then to be released from prosecution of that experiment. Is that true?
A. Certainly. That's why quite a number of experimental subjects secretly drank water, because the strict course didn't please them too much.
Q. Well, unlike the experimental subjects in your institute, those subjects would not be particularly interested in the result, would they? They had no scientific interest in the result, did they?
A. No, no. None at all. None whatever.
The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Rose, and Becker-Freyseng were charged with special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving epidemic jaundice experiments (par. 6 (H) of the indictment). During the trial the prosecution withdrew this charge in the case of Sievers, Rose, and Becker-Freyseng. On this charge only the defendant Karl Brandt was convicted, and the defendants Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick were acquitted. The prosecution's summation of the evidence on the epidemic jaundice experiments is contained in its final briefs against defendants Handloser and Schroeder. Extracts from these briefs are set forth below on pages 494 to 498. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the final plea for the defendant Handloser. It appears below on pages 499 to 503. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 503 to 508.
Following the attack on Russia, epidemic jaundice (hepatitis epidemica) became a disease of major proportions for the German Wehrmacht. (Tr. p. 2707.) In some units, casualties up to 60 per cent were reported from this disease. (NO-010, Pros. Ex.187.) Ac- (...cordingly)
