. NMT02-T0274
Volume II · Page 274
receive some form of clemency in the event they survived the experiments. Rascher, who was active in the conference, assured the defendants that this also was one of the conditions under which Himmler had authorized the use of camp inmates as experimental subjects.
The decisions reached at the conference were then made known to Hippke, who gave his approval to the institution of experiments at Dachau and issued an order that a mobile low-pressure chamber which was then in the possession of Ruff at the Department for Aviation Medicine, Berlin, should be transferred to Dachau for use in the project.
A second meeting was held at Dachau, attended by Ruff, Romberg, Weltz, Rascher, and the camp commander, to make the necessary arrangements for the conduct of the experiments. The mobile low-pressure chamber was then brought to Dachau, and on 22 February 1942 the first series of experiments was instituted.
Weltz was Rascher's superior; Romberg was subordinate to Ruff. Rascher and Romberg were in personal charge of the conduct of the experiments. There is no evidence to show that Weltz was ever present at any of these experiments. Ruff visited Dachau one day during the early part of the experiments, but thereafter remained in Berlin and received information concerning the progress of the experiments only through his subordinate, Romberg.
There is evidence from which it may reasonably be found that at the outset of the program personal friction developed between Weltz and his subordinate Rascher. The testimony of Weltz is that on several occasions he asked Rascher for reports on the progress of the experiments and each time Rascher told Weltz that nothing had been started with reference to the research. Finally Weltz ordered Rascher to make a report; whereupon Rascher showed his superior a telegram from Himmler which stated, in substance, that the experiments to be conducted by Rascher were to be treated as top secret matter and that reports were to be given to none other than Himmler. Because of this situation Weltz had Rascher transferred out of his command to the DVL branch at Dachau. Defendant Romberg stated that these experiments had been stopped soon after their inception by the adjutant of the Reich War Ministry, because of friction between Weltz and Rascher, and that the experiments were resumed only after Rascher had been transferred out of Weltz Institute.
While the evidence is convincingly plain that Weltz participated in the initial arrangements for the experiments and brought all parties together, it is not so clear that illegal experiments were planned or carried out while Rascher was under Weltz command
