Additionally, the uncontroverted evidence proves that survival of the experiments was no guarantee whatever of avoiding execution in any event. At least six of the experimental subjects were proved to have been executed after having survived the experiments. It was not a question of the experiment _or_ execution but rather the experiments _and_ execution. Indeed, in February 1945, an effort was made to execute all of the experimental subjects but, because of confusion in the camp due to the war situation, the experimental subjects were able to obtain different identification numbers and so avoid detection. But even if one takes the case of the defense at its face value, the Tribunal is in effect asked to rule that it is legal for military doctors of a nation at war to experiment on political prisoners of an occupied country who are condemned to death, to experiment on them in such a way that they may suffer death, excrutiating pain, mutilation, and permanent disability, all this without their consent and in direct aid of the military potential of their enemy. There would, of course, be no valid reason for limiting such a decision to civilian prisoners; the experiments would certainly have been no worse had they been performed on Polish or American prisoners of war. It is impossible to consider seriously this ghoulish ruling being sought for by the defense. c. Selections from the Argumentation of the Defense _EXTRACT FROM THE CLOSING BRIEF FOR DEFENDANT KARL BRANDT_ * * * * * _The Medical Experiments as Substitute for Penalty_[11] The indictment embraces certain medical experiments, which are called war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to paragraphs 10 and 15 of the indictment, these experiments are designated as crimes, as a violation of the general principles of criminal law as evolved from the penal law of all civilized nations, as well as violations of the national penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed. An indication of their punishable character was seen in the fact that the experiments were carried out _without the consent of the persons experimented upon_. We must examine whether this _consent_ of the person subjected to experiments is always necessary or whether it can be replaced _by an order of the state_ through the penal administration, and further, if the same law applies to the execution of sentences on foreigners. If consent to the human experiment by the person experimented on can be replaced by an order of the state, then the person responsible for the experiment cannot be punished in cases where the experiments were carried out through the _official penal administration in accordance with the order_.