. NMT02-T0290
Volume II · Page 290
can be nothing said in mitigation of such conduct. To the extent that the crimes committed by Hoven were not war crimes, they were crimes against humanity.
MEMBERSHIP IN CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION
Under count four of the indictment the defendant is charged with being a member of an organization declared criminal by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, namely, the SS. The evidence shows that Hoven became a member of the SS in 1934, and remained in this organization throughout the war. As a member of the SS he was criminally implicated in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as charged under counts two and three of the indictment.
CONCLUSION
Military Tribunal I finds and adjudges the defendant Waldemar Hoven guilty, under counts two, three and four of the indictment.
The defendant Beiglboeck is charged under counts two and three of the indictment with personal responsibility for, and participation in Sea-Water Experiments.
The defendant Beiglboeck, an Austrian citizen, was a captain in the medical department of the German Air Force from May 1941 until the end of the war. In June 1944, while stationed at the hospital for paratroopers at Tarvis [Tarvisio], Italy, he received orders from his military and medical superior, defendant Becker-Freyseng, to carry out sea-water experiments at Dachau.
The sea-water experiments have been described in detail in those portions of the judgment dealing with defendants Schroeder and Becker-Freyseng.
The defendant Beiglboeck testified that he reported to Berlin at the end of June 1944, where Becker-Freyseng told him the nature and purpose of the experiments. Upon that trip he also reported to and talked with the defendant Schroeder. From these conversations he learned that the prime purpose of the experiments was to test the process developed by Berka for making sea water potable and also to ascertain whether it would be better for a shipwrecked person in distress at sea to go completely without sea water or to drink small quantities thereof.
It appears from the record that the persons used in the experiments were 40 gypsies of various nationalities who had been formerly at Auschwitz but who had been brought to Dachau
