. NMT02-T0276
Volume II · Page 276
Dachau. However, virtually all of the evidence which points in this direction is circumstantial in its nature. On the other hand, it cannot be gainsaid that there is a certain consistency, a certain logic, in the story told by the defendants. And some of the story is corroborated in significant particulars by evidence offered by the prosecution.
The value of circumstantial evidence depends upon the conclusive nature and tendency of the circumstances relied on to establish any controverted fact. The circumstances must not only be consistent with guilt, but they must be inconsistent with innocence. Such evidence is insufficient when, assuming all to be true which the evidence tends to prove, some other reasonable hypothesis of innocence may still be true; for it is the actual exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis but that of guilt which invests mere circumstances with the force of proof. Therefore, before a court will be warranted in finding a defendant guilty on circumstantial evidence alone, the evidence must show such a well-connected and unbroken chain of circumstances as to exclude all other reasonable hypotheses but that of the guilt of the defendant. What circumstances can amount to proof can never be a matter of general definition. In the final analysis the legal test is whether the evidence is sufficient to satisfy beyond a reasonable doubt the understanding and conscience of those who, under their solemn oaths as officers, must assume the responsibility for finding the facts.
On this particular specification, it is the conviction of the Tribunal that the defendants Ruff, Romberg, and Weltz must be found not guilty.
FREEZING EXPERIMENTS
In addition to the high-altitude experiments, the defendant Weltz is charged with freezing experiments, likewise conducted at Dachau for the benefit of the German Luftwaffe. These began at the camp at the conclusion of the high-altitude experiments and were performed by Holzloehner, Finke, and Rascher, all of whom were officers in the medical services of the Luftwaffe. Non-German nationals were killed in these experiments.
We think it quite probable that Weltz had knowledge of these experiments, but the evidence is not sufficient to prove that he participated in them.
CONCLUSION
Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges that the defendant Siegfried Ruff is not guilty under either counts two or three of the
