NMT01-T671
Volume I · Page 671
middle of 1943 in connection with cancer research. (NO-473, Pros. Ex. 237; see also NO-538, Pros. Ex. 122, entries for 18 February, 7 April, 14 April, and 26 June 1943.) The defendant Sievers stated in his affidavit that: "Blome also had full knowledge of the blood coagulation experiments at Dachau. He received reports from Rascher and should have a complete knowledge of these matters." (NO-473, Pros. Ex. 237.) Blome admitted that Rascher had been commissioned by Himmler to work with him in the field of blood coagulation. (Tr. P. 4642.) One of the collaborators of Rascher in the polygal research was an inmate of the Dachau concentration camp by the name of Robert Feix. By letter of 15 September 1943, Rascher requested Sievers to approach Blome, so that the latter might arrange for the release of Feix and for his reinstatement in his former category as half-Aryan. Rascher stated in his letter that "Blome has given me great hopes in this respect." (NO-611, Pros. Ex. 239.) This proves that Blome was already collaborating with Rascher on polygal research in the summer of 1943. Obviously, Blome would not have put himself out to assist in this work without knowing precisely what had been done to test polygal.
In the latter part of 1943, Rascher and Dr. Haferkamp wrote a paper on polygal. This paper draws a clear distinction between experiments on human beings to test the effect of polygal and clinical tests. It states that: "Before we tried the clinical use of the drug and had it probed, it was tested on human beings by thorough experiments as to its influence on the period of clotting and bleeding." Curves were included to show the reaction of polygal on clotting and bleeding. Later on, the paper discusses clinical observations during operations. (NO-438, Pros. Ex. 240.) The experiments mentioned in this paper obviously are the ones during which inmates were shot. They were not so described in the paper because it was written for publication. Blome testified that the only experiments he knew about were ones where one cubic centimeter of blood was withdrawn to see how fast it would coagulate in a test tube. (Tr. p. 4643.) Such tests cannot be described as experiments. It is impossible to conceive of Rascher's testing a blood coagulant to be used on soldiers wounded on the battlefield in such a manner. And this was better known to Blome at the time than it is now to the Tribunal. He knew that Rascher had conducted the freezing experiments with resultant loss of life. He had been informed about the Buchenwald typhus experiments. (Tr. p. 4640.) Moreover, this devious explanation of Blome does not cover experiments to test the effect of polygal on bleeding; to test blood in a test tube covers only coagulation reaction, not bleeding reaction. So he had to add to the implausible by saying that Rascher once told him that he or another doctor had rubbed the upper thigh of a person under anesthetic until it became bloody and then tested the efficacy
