Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IIVarious
Philosophy
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume II
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
“I deem it absolutely right to support the Luftwaffe in every
way and to place a general physician of the Waffen SS at
disposal to supervise the experiments.”
This alone is deemed to be sufficient to show that Dr. Gebhardt knew
about, and approved, the performance of the sea-water experiments as
charged in the indictment.
STERILIZATION EXPERIMENTS
Details of the sterilization experiments will be dealt with elsewhere in
this judgment; and it is unnecessary to repeat them here, except to the
extent necessary to inquire the part, if any, taken by Gebhardt therein.
On 7 and 8 July 1942 a conference took place between Himmler, Gebhardt,
SS Brigadefuehrer Gluecks, and SS Brigadefuehrer Clauberg, to discuss
the sterilization of Jewesses. Dr. Clauberg was promised that the
Auschwitz concentration camp would be placed at his disposal for
experiments on human beings and animals, and he was requested to
discover by means of fundamental experiments a method of sterilizing
persons without their knowledge. During the course of the conference,
Himmler called the special attention of all present “to the fact that
the matter involved was most secret and should be discussed only with
the officers in charge and that the persons present at the experiments
or discussions had to pledge secrecy.”
From this evidence it is apparent that Gebhardt was present at the
initial meeting which launched at least one phase of the sterilization
program in the concentration camps, and thus had knowledge and gave at
least passive approval to the program.
HIGH-ALTITUDE, FREEZING, MALARIA, LOST GAS, EPIDEMIC
JAUNDICE, TYPHUS, POISON, AND INCENDIARY BOMB EXPERIMENTS
Details as to the origin of and procedure followed in these experiments
are discussed elsewhere in this judgment, and will not be repeated. Our
only concern is to determine to what extent, if any, the defendant
Gebhardt took part in the experiments.
In these enterprises the defendant seems not to have taken any active
part, as he did in the sulfanilamide experiments and in other programs.
It may be argued that his close connection with Heinrich Himmler creates
a presumption that these experiments were conducted with Gebhardt’s
knowledge and approval. Be that as it may, no sufficient evidence to
that effect has been presented, and a mere presumption is not enough in
this case to convict the defendant.
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