NMT01-T508
Volume I · Page 508
question of hepatitis, and certainly not about any experiments which actually took place. I have no information; I received no report; and I have not heard from any other source even now that these experiments were really conducted. It seems to me significant that the witness Schmidt, who was heard here, testified that the experiments were certainly not conducted in Strasbourg, as Dohmen, who wanted to conduct them, was there for only two or three days himself.
The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Rostock, Schroeder, Genzken, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Rose, Becker-Freyseng and Hoven were charged with special responsibility for and participation in criminal conduct involving typhus experiments (par. 6 (J) of the indictment). In the indictment, "spotted fever" was used for the German word "Fleckfieber". but later this was translated as "typhus". (See also judgment, Vol. II) On this charge the defendants Handloser, Schroeder, Genzken, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Sievers, Rose, and Hoven were convicted, and the defendants Karl Brandt, Rostock, Gebhardt, Poppendick, and Becker-Freyseng were acquitted. The prosecution's summation of the evidence on the typhus experiments is contained in the final briefs against the defendants Mrugowsky and Schroeder. Extracts from them are set forth below on pages 508 to 528. The extract of the prosecution brief against Mrugowsky summarizes evidence concerning experiments with old blood plasma, blood transfusions, and withdrawal of blood from inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp for the purpose of manufacturing a typhus convalescent serum. A corresponding summation of the evidence by the defense on these experiments has been selected from the closing brief for the defendant Rose and the final plea and closing brief for the defendant Mrugowsky. These appear below on pages 538 to 554. This argumentation is followed by selections from the evidence on pages 555 to 631.
The attack against Russia in 1941 gave rise to many military medical problems, not the least of which was typhus. The disease reached serious proportions in the fall of 1941, and typhus vaccines were so
