May it please the Tribunal, since I consider myself entirely innocent, I have nothing more to add. I ask to be acquitted, if possible, even before the verdict. S. Final Statement of Defendant Hoven[51] I have nothing to add to Dr. Gawlik’s plea of yesterday. I would at this point like to thank my defense counsel for the considerable help he has given me. T. Final Statement of Defendant Beiglboeck[52] May it please the Tribunal, the experiments which I conducted, I did not carry out on my own initiative, neither according to the plans of my own, nor spontaneously. The medical part was played with the knowledge and approval of my clinical teacher, and civilian superior for more than ten years, I was a disciple of Eppinger. During those ten years I had come to know and respect his ways of thought and his superior knowledge. My relations to him were based on deep personal gratitude and awe-inspired devotion. If there was anything which he considered right and important, then for psychological reasons alone, it would have been difficult for me to believe the contrary. The experiments were to solve the problem of saving human life and that had to be approved. It was a military order which compelled me to carry them out in the atmosphere of a concentration camp. I struggled against it, and was inwardly opposed to it, and tried to avoid the task, but I was not successful. So I had to carry it out. May it please the Tribunal, in your evaluation of this fact, please do not fail to consider that this did not happen in times of peace, nor in a country which granted its citizens individual freedom of decision in all matters, personal and professional, but during the bitter days of a most horrible war. What I carried out, I did in accordance with a plan previously determined and specified. I did not overstep the limits of my task. I had to require of my experimental subjects to undergo hardships; they suffered from thirst with all of its unpleasant sensations, with its physical and mental characteristics. It was in the nature of the experiments, and this could not be avoided. I did not, however, do this without first informing myself by an experiment on my own system of what I expected them to undergo, nor did I expect it of anyone else, unless I was firmly convinced that he undertook it voluntarily. It is not true to say that I might have forced anybody to do it, neither psychologically, by reprisals, nor by threat, nor by force of arms. Many eyewitnesses have agreed that my conduct was never brutal or inhuman towards any of the experimental subjects under my care. Among these witnesses are even some who were brought here to testify against me.