. NMT02-T0296
Volume II · Page 296
The defendant Fischer is charged under counts two and three with Sulfanilamide and Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation Experiments.
Fritz Fischer joined the Allgemeine SS in February 1934 and the NSDAP in 1939. In the latter year he joined the Waffen SS and was assigned to the SS unit in the Hohenlychen Hospital as a physician subordinated to the defendant Gebhardt. In June 1940 he was transferred to the SS regiment Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler", and returned the same year to Hohenlychen as assistant physician to Gebhardt, where he remained until May 1943. He then served as a surgeon on both the eastern and western fronts and, after having been wounded in August 1944, came back to Hohenlychen as a patient. In December 1944 he was assigned to the Charity Hospital in Berlin, but returned again to Hohenlychen as Gebhardt's assistant in April 1945. In the Waffen SS he attained the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer (major).
SULFANILAMIDE EXPERIMENTS
Gebhardt, as shown elsewhere in this judgment, was in personal charge of the work being done in this field by his assistant Fritz Fischer. That the latter performed most of the sulfanilamide experimental work is not denied by him; on the contrary, he freely admits it. The defense offered in his behalf is twofold; that the experimental subjects were to have alleged death sentences, then impending, commuted to something less severe in the event they survived the experiments; and that defendant Fischer was acting under military orders from his superior officer, Gebhardt. These defenses have been considered and separately rejected in other parts of this judgment.
It is true, however, that paragraph 4 (b) of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 reads: "
The fact that any person acted pursuant to the order of his government, or of a superior, does not free him from responsibility for crime, but may be considered in mitigation."It is unnecessary to take up and answer all the arguments that might be presented upon whether or not Fischer is entitled to a mitigation of sentence due to the circumstances claimed as the basis of such mitigation. He acted with most complete knowledge that what he was doing was fundamentally criminal, even though directed by a superior. Under the circumstances his defense must be rejected, and he must be held to be guilty as charged.
