Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IVarious
Philosophy
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume I
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
All those facts are a warning that Neff’s testimony, too, must be
regarded with considerable caution. At any rate, his testimony has a
certain importance for Dr. Ruff inasmuch as Neff (_German Tr. p. 652_)
confirms that Dr. Ruff was in Dachau only on one single occasion during
the high-altitude experiments. Thus the truth of Dr. Ruff’s own
testimony has been established. Furthermore, the witness Neff, states in
his testimony of 17 December 1946 that “10 prisoners, designated as
permanent experimental subjects, were taken to the station and told that
nothing would happen to them; they were especially assured of this”.
(_German Tr. p. 711._) The witness Neff then told of the killing of the
16 Russians who were sentenced to death and who were murdered by Dr.
Rascher. However, according to Dr. Neff, this act was carried out by Dr.
Rascher together with the two members of the SS, while Dr. Romberg was
not even present on that day. (_German Tr. pp. 654, 656._) Special
importance must be attached to the witness Neff’s further assertion
regarding a Jewish tailor who worked in the sick bay. Neff called Dr.
Romberg’s attention to the fact that this man was not sentenced to
death, and Romberg thereupon immediately went to Rascher with Neff in
order “to set matters straight”. Upon intervention by Dr. Romberg,
Rascher then actually sent the tailor back; when the accompanying SS man
again threatened the Jew, Rascher again intervened and “immediately had
the man (the tailor) brought to safety in the bunker”. (_German Tr. p.
655._) Again, in the case of a second inmate, a Czech, who wrongly and
without his consent had been brought in for the experiments, Dr.
Romberg, according to Neff’s report, intervened on behalf of the
prisoner, with the result that Dr. Rascher entered a complaint against
the criminal SS man with the camp commander, Piorkowski. Thereupon, the
SS man was immediately transferred to Lublin. In that way the Czech was
saved from certain death by Dr. Romberg.
This testimony of the witness Neff plays an important part in answering
the question whether or not the experimental subjects used were
volunteers, and also, what Dr. Romberg, and therefore Dr. Ruff, knew
about them and what Dr. Romberg’s attitude was toward this question. In
this connection, Neff said: “Romberg, Ruff’s deputy, therefore, did not
want any dangerous experiments. He tolerated no murder and considered
only experiments with volunteers.”
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