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
This allegation of the multiple murderer Neff now stands, however,
completely isolated. There can be no doubt that, if these statements by
Neff were true, it would have been easy for the office of the public
prosecutor to produce numerous other witnesses who, likewise, had been
inmates of the concentration camp at Dachau, who had perhaps experienced
these experiments themselves, or who had spoken to subjects of these
experiments or had even observed the experiments. However, not a single
outsider, not a single incontestable witness has been produced, although
half a year has elapsed since the days when, here in the courtroom, one
could not fail to realize to what an unreliable and untrustworthy class
persons of the caliber of Vieweg and Neff belong. This fact very
strongly indicates that obviously no other witnesses are available, or
could be made available, who could confirm that the experimental
subjects who were used in the Ruff-Romberg altitude tests were not
volunteers. Let the fact be mentioned here, for the sake of comparison,
that in the case of the Gebhardt sulfanilamide operations for example,
half a dozen incriminating witnesses were brought from Poland and Russia
and were interrogated here as witnesses. Why was not a single
trustworthy witness produced from among the Dachau experimental subjects
and placed in the witness box? Because no one could be found, who could
confirm the untrue allegations of a Vieweg and a Neff. On the other
hand, during the trial, a whole series of persons who deserve a great
deal more belief than Vieweg and Neff affirmed with certainty that all
the experimental subjects in the Ruff-Romberg experiments were
volunteers, and that from the very beginning the indispensable condition
which was demanded and assured was that the subjects would be voluntary.
The witness Dr. Lutz for example, who was introduced by the office of
the public prosecutor and therefore recognized by it as a credible
witness, confirmed here on oath, “it was a tacit assumption that the
criminals would volunteer”; and he added that he could almost say that,
in a way, a favor was being conferred upon the criminals, because “they
were given a chance of pardon by participating in the experiments,” and
it is significant that this witness deposed further: “subsequently, we
were very much surprised when, probably during the later stages of the
experiments, as far as I recall now, no further mention was made of it,”
namely, of the fact that only volunteers were to be used for the
altitude experiments (_German Tr. p. 320_).
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