The Theory and Practice of Hell (38 page)

1Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nazi Medical Trial.—
Tr.

2 Acquitted in the trial of 1. G. Farben officials at Nuremberg.— 7r.

3
Drs. Weber and Fussganger, following publication o f the first German edition o f this book, explained to me that they had been deceived by the SS. They had been advised that the I. G. Farben drugs were to be administered to soldier-patients suffering from typhus in the hospitals of the SS divisions. When they were forced to conclude, in view of the suspicious circumstances, that the tests were being conducted at the Buchenwald concentration camp, they broke off all contact, in concurrence with their chief, Professor Lautenschlager.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL 157

named “ persicol,” produced by and tested for Professor Ruge, a naval surgeon then in Rumania.

All in all about 1,000 prisoners passed through Ward 46.

Some of them had the good fortune to be used only in blood-bank tests, or in other experiments that, for one reason or another, stopped short of actual infection. Of the remainder of some 450 persons, 158 died, not counting groups of three and five who month after month were admitted solely as so-called carriers, i.e., who were infected with highly virulent fresh blood from typhus patients, in order to keep the germ strains alive. Virtually every one of these carriers died.

The scientific value of these tests was either nil or else of but
"
X
insignificant proportions, because the method of infection bordered on lunacy. A rational approach would have called

for a quantitative and qualitative determination of the threshold values of infection—those values coming closest to the situation in actual transmission by the louse (in European or so-called classical
typhus exanthematicus'),
and barely suf ficient to overcome or at least to modify prior immunization. But that was too much trouble for the gentlemen of the SS. In fection was attempted by subcutaneous and intramuscular in jection, by scarification and by means of the vaccinating lancet. The virus strains furnished early in 1943 by the Robert Koch Institute, however, proved to be no longer virulent. In fection was then effected simply by injecting intravenously two cc. of highly virulent blood from a typhus patient. Naturally the effect smashed through all immunization measures, resulting disastrously in nearly every case. Scarcely had this method of infection been introduced, when mortality rose to above fifty per cent, not including the so-called con trols, subjects who had not been immunized at all in order that the onset of the infection could be established. Almost all of these controls died.

This latter fact I can confirm, from my association with Dr. Ding-Schuler. I should like, however, to address a question to all scientists who were un wittingly caught up in human experiments or were drawn into them by the SS: Since when does the scientific or medical code of ethics permit the ad ministration to sick soldiers, without their consent, of drugs heretofore tested only on animals? And were not Himmler and his whole SS gang in such disrepute with large segments of the German population that ordinarily no one would dream of having anything to do with them? Was not extreme caution on the part of every scientist indicated even in the most casual contact?

The quantity of injected blood was later reduced to one-tenth cc., but without forfeiting the deadly effect, since the virulence of the strain had meanwhile risen by transmission through human carriers. In but a single series of experiments was any noteworthy immunization effect observed. This was in the case o f a serum produced right in Buchenwald. Of twenty subjects immunized not one died, and the course of the disease was much less severe than with subjects who had been immunized with the best serum heretofore available, the Weigl serum made from louse entrails. Of the twenty controls in this series, nineteen succumbed to the treacherous in fection.

Not one of the luminaries o f German medical science who were involved in these human experiments—or who, like Professor Gildemeister, actually witnessed the infection process at the concentration camp—seems ever to have taken the pains to evaluate their premises critically, to consider whether they were permissible at all, from a human and scien tific point of view, and whether they should be entrusted to the SS in the concentration camps. These gentlemen accepted the finding without objection, simply credited and utilized the published reports that appeared especially in the
Journal for Hygiene and Infectious Diseases.
To my knowledge, only Professor Rose on one occasion, the Third Conference of Military Surgeons in Berlin, declared that the reported findings added nothing to the results obtained in animal ex periments and therefore did not justify the use o f human sub jects; but that did not keep him, a year later, from suggesting similar tests with the Ipsen serum of the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen and actually having them conducted.

One wonders what Ministerial Councilor Christiansen of the Reich Ministry of Interior could have been thinking when he gave permission to the SS to test in the concentration cam ps a new drug of the rhodane series, “ otrhomin,” developed by Professor Lockemann of the Robert Koch Institute at Berlin.1 As a result of this authorization, forty prisoners

1 Professor Lockemann has declared on oath that he and his associates were responsible only for the scientific research that led to the development of “ otrhomin**; that he gave Dr. Ding-Schuler, who was sent to him by the Reich Ministry of Interior, only technical data; and that he learned of the experiments subsequently conducted in the concentration camps only from the reports of the

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL 159

—thirty of them immunized, with ten controls—were infected by being fed two cc. of a suffusion of typhus germ in a physiological table-salt solution, disguised in the form of potato salad. Evidently the Ministerial Councilor thought nothing of it. He merely read the fever charts and case histories sent regularly from Buchenwald to him and to the Chief Hygienist of the SS. The reports told him that seven cases had contracted the disease with light symptoms, twenty-three with moderately severe symptoms. Six were receiving out-patient treatment and four had failed to contract the disease altogether. There had been one death—Case No. So-and-So. Whether this was a former Reichstag deputy, a professional colleague of the Honorable Ministerial Coun cilor, a worker, or a poor wretch branded as a professional criminal; whether a mother, a wife, or children shed tears when the stereotyped letter of condolence from the SS Com mandant reached them—could such questions be of interest to a medical man in the service of the Third Reich, a man who permitted men to be fed potato salad tainted with typhus germs?

Ward 46 at Buchenwald, by the way, was well equipped and a model of cleanliness. It served not merely for human ex perimentation but as an actual isolation ward for patients who had contracted typhus in camp by natural means, or who were admitted to the camp suffering from typhus. Insofar as such patients survived the dread disease at all, they were nursed back to health in the ward.

The responsible prisoner in charge of the ward was Arthur Dietzsch, who acquired his medical knowledge only by the ex perience there gained. Dietzsch was a veteran of more than twenty years in political detention. His was a hardened nature and, understandably, he was one of the most hated and dreaded figures in Buchenwald.

SS officers and noncoms stood in holy terror of typhus in fection, which they believed could be contracted by mere con tact, by means of the air, or by the coughing of patients. They never entered Ward 46. As a result, the SS medical officers

Ministry to the Robert Koch Institute. According to this sworn statement Professor Lockemann therefore was not the instigator of the experiments as was stated in the first German edition of this book on the basis of Dr. Ding-Schuler*s notes and the SS files.

had their own way, especially Dr. Hoven who for months took the place of Dr. Ding-Schuler, frequently absent on of ficial trips. The prisoners too exploited the situation, in collaboration with the Ward Capo, Dietzsch. On the one hand, the camp underground rid itself of persons working with the SS against the camp (or suspected of doing so, or simply fallen into disfavor!). On the other hand, important political prisoners in danger were protected from the SS via Ward 46, a matter sometimes very difficult and dangerous for Dietzsch, since his nurses and orderlies almost all wore the green triangle. These he held down with an iron hand. He never admitted prisoner physicians.

One of the most interesting and daring rescue attempts made by way of Ward 46 will be discussed further on in this book. To understand how it became possible, it is necessary to make brief mention of Ward or Barracks 50 at the Buchen wald concentration camp. This building too was assigned to the Division for Typhus and Virus Research, though its only link to Ward 46 was its common chief, Dr. Ding-Schuler. It was in Ward 50 that typhus serum was produced from mouse and rabbit livers, by the process of Professor Giroud of Paris. This laboratory was established in August 1943. The best available experts in camp were selected for the work, in cluding physicians, bacteriologists, serologists, and chemists, notably Dr. Ludwig Fleck of Lemberg University, whom Dr. Ding-Schuler especially requisitioned from Auschwitz through the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office.

Shrewd manipulation among the prisoners at once con trived to exploit this assignment as a shelter for comrades of all nationalities who were in special danger. The SS dreaded Ward 50 just as much as it did Ward 46. From different motives, both SS Major Ding-Schuler and the prisoners fostered this taboo on the part of the SS—for example by posting warning signs on the barbed-wire fence surrounding the building. With the knowledge and approval of Dr. Ding-Schuler, Ward 50 gave refuge to such candidates for death as the Dutch physics professor Van Lingen, the Dutch physical-culture official Jan Robert, the Dutch architect Harry Pieck and other Dutchmen, the Polish physician Dr. Marian Ciepielowski (who was put in charge of production), Professor Balachowsky of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the