Eighteenth Day:
Wednesday, 12th December, 1945
[Page 319]
Investigations showed that single Russians are not able
to place a piece of metal for turning into position, for
instance, because of lack of physical strength. The same
conditions exist in all places of work where Russians
are employed."
On 1st October, 1942, I became senior camp doctor in
Krupp's workers' camp, and was generally charged with
the medical supervision of all Krupp's workers' camps in
Essen. In the course of my duties it was my
responsibility to report to my superiors in the Krupp
works upon the sanitary and health conditions of the
workers' camps. It was a part of my task to visit every
Krupp camp which housed foreign civilian workers, and I
am therefore able to make this statement on the basis of
my personal knowledge.
My first official act as senior camp doctor was to make
a thorough inspection of the various camps. At that
time, in October, 1942, I found the following
conditions:
The Eastern workers and Poles who worked in the Krupp
works at Essen were kept at camps at Seumannstrasse,
Spenlestrasse, Grieper-
strasse, Heecstrasse, Germaniastrasse, Kapitan-
Lehmannstrasse, Dechenschule, and Kramerplatz." (When
the term "Eastern workers" is hereinafter used, it is to
be taken as including Poles.) "All of the camps were
surrounded by barbed wire and were closely guarded.
[Page 320]
The diet prescribed for the Eastern workers was
altogether insufficient. They were given 1,000 calories
a day less than the minimum prescribed for any German.
Moreover, while German workers engaged in the heaviest
work received 5,000 calories a day, the Eastern workers
with comparable jobs received only 2,000 calories. These
workers were given only two meals a day and their bread
ration. One of these two meals consisted of a thin,
watery soup. I had no assurance that they did in fact,
receive the minimum which was prescribed. Subsequently,
in 1943, when I undertook to inspect the food prepared
by the cooks, I discovered a number of instances in
which food was withheld from the workers.
The plan for food distribution called for a small
quantity of meat per week. Only inferior meats, rejected
by the veterinary, such as horse meat or tuberculin-
infested, was permitted for this purpose. This meat was
usually cooked into a soup.
The percentage of Eastern workers who were ill was twice
as great as among the Germans. Tuberculosis was
particularly widespread among these workers. The
tuberculosis rate among them was four times the normal
rate (2 per cent. Eastern workers, German, - 5 per
cent.). At Dechenschule approximately 2.5 per cent. of
the workers suffered from open tuberculosis. These were
all active tuberculosis cases. The Tartars and Kirghises
suffered most; as soon as they were overcome by this
disease they collapsed like flies, The cause was bad
housing, the poor quality and insufficient quantity of
food, overwork, and insufficient rest.
These workers were likewise afflicted with spotted
fever. Lice, the carrier of this disease, together with
countless fleas, bugs and other vermin tortured the
inhabitants of these camps. As a result of the filthy
conditions, nearly all Eastern workers were afflicted
with skin disease.
The shortage of food also caused many cases of hunger-
oedema, nephritis and shiga-kruse.
It was the general rule that workers were compelled to
go to work unless a camp doctor had prescribed that they
were unfit for work. At Seumannstrasse, Grieperstrasse,
Germaniastrasse, Kapitan-Lehmannstrasse, and
Dechenschule, there was no daily sick call. At these
camps the doctors did not appear for two or three days.
As a consequence, workers were forced to go to work
despite illness.
I undertook to improve conditions as well as I could. I
insisted upon the erection of some new barracks in order
to relieve the overcrowded conditions of the camps.
Despite this, the camps were still greatly overcrowded,
but not as much as before. I tried to alleviate the poor
sanitary conditions in Kramerplatz and Dechenschule by
causing the installation of some emergency toilets, but
the number was insufficient, and the situation was not
materially altered.
[Page 321]
During the period immediately following the March, 1943,
raids, many foreign workers were made to sleep at the
Krupp factories in the same rooms in which they worked.
The day workers slept there at night, and the night
workers slept there during the day, despite the noise
which constantly prevailed. I believe that this
condition continued until the entrance of American
troops into Essen.
As the pace of air raids was stepped up, conditions
became progressively worse. On 28th July, 1944, I
reported to my superiors that:
The sick barrack in camp Rabenhorst is in such a bad
condition that one cannot speak of a sick barrack any
more. The rain leaks through in every corner. The
housing of the sick is therefore impossible. The
necessary labour for production is in danger because
those persons who are ill cannot recover.
At the end of 1943, or the beginning of 1944 - I am not
completely sure of the exact date - I obtained
permission for the first time to visit the prisoner of
war camps. My inspection revealed that conditions at
these camps were worse than those I had found at the
camps of the Eastern workers in 1942. Medical supplies
at such camps were virtually non-existent. In an effort
to cure this intolerable situation, I contacted the
Wehrmacht authorities whose duty it was to provide
medical care for the prisoners of war. My persistent
efforts came to nothing. After visiting and pressing
them over a period of two weeks, I was given a total of
100 aspirin tablets for over 3,000 prisoners of war.
The French prisoner of war camp in Nogerratstrasse had
been destroyed in an air raid attack and its inhabitants
were kept for nearly half a year in dog kennels,
urinals, and old baking houses. The dog kennels were 3
ft. high, 9 ft. long, and 6 ft. wide. Five men slept in
each of them. The prisoners had to crawl into these
kennels on all fours. The camp contained no tables,
chairs, or cupboards. The supply of blankets was
inadequate. There was no water in the camp. That
treatment which was extended was given in the open. Many
of these conditions were mentioned to me in a report by
Dr. Stinnesbeck dated 12th June, 1944, in which he said:-
Three hundred and fifteen prisoners are still
accommodated in the camp. One hundred and seventy of
these are no longer in barracks but in the tunnel in
Grunertstrasse under the Essen-Muelheum railway line.
This tunnel is damp and is not suitable for continued
accommodation of human beings. The rest of the prisoners
are accommodated in ten different factories in the Krupp
works. The first medical attention is given by a French
Military Doctor who takes great pains with his fellow
countrymen. Sick people from Krupp factories must be
brought to the sick parade. This parade is held in the
lavatory of a burned-out public house outside the camp.
The sleeping accommodation of the four
[Page 322]
Illness and loss of manpower must be reckoned with under
these conditions.
In my report to my superiors at Krupps dated 2nd
September, 1944,I stated-:
Camp Humboldtstrasse has been inhabited by Italian
prisoners of war. After it had been destroyed by an air
raid, the Italians were removed and 600 Jewish females
from Buchenwald concentration camp were brought to work
at the Krupp factories. Upon my first visit at Camp
Humboldtstrasse, I found these females suffering from
open festering wounds and other diseases.
I was the first doctor they had seen for at least a
fortnight. There was no doctor in attendance at the
camp. There were no medical supplies in the camp. They
had no shoes and went about in their bare feet. The sole
clothing of each consisted of a sack with holes for
their arms and head. Their hair was shorn. The camp was
surrounded by barbed wire and closely guarded by S.S.
guards.
The amount of food in the camp was extremely meagre and
of very poor quality. The houses in which they lived
consisted of the ruins of former barracks and they
afforded no shelter against rain and other weather
conditions. I reported to my superiors that the guards
lived and slept outside their barracks as one could not
enter them without being attacked by 10, 20 and up to 50
fleas. One camp doctor employed by me refused to enter
the camp again after he had been bitten very badly. I
visited this camp with Dr. Grosne on two occasions and
both times we left the camp badly bitten. We had great
difficulty in getting rid of the fleas and insects which
had attacked us. As a result of this attack by insects
of this camp, I got large boils on my arms and the rest
of my body. I asked my superiors at the Krupp works to
undertake the necessary steps to delouse the camp so as
to put an end to this unbearable vermin-infested
condition. Despite this report, I did not find any
improvement in sanitary conditions at the camp on my
second visit a fortnight later.
When foreign workers finally became too sick to work or
were completely disabled, they were returned to the
Labour Exchange in Essen and from there they were sent
to a camp at Friedrichsfeld. Among persons who were
returned to the Labour Exchange were aggravated cases of
tuberculosis, malaria, neurosis, cancer which could not
be treated by operation, old age, and general
feebleness. I know nothing about conditions at this camp
because I have never visited it. I only know that it was
a place to which workers who were no longer of any use
to Krupp were sent.
[Page 323]
Signed Dr. Wilhelm Jaeger."
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours)
MR. DODD: May it please the Tribunal: We had just completed
the reading of the affidavit executed by Dr. Wilhelm Jaeger
at the noon recess. The conditions which were described in
this affidavit were not confined to the Krupp factories
alone but existed throughout Germany, and we turn to a
report of the Polish Main Committee made to the
Administration of the General Government of Poland, Document
R-103, which is Exhibit USA 204. This document is dated 17th
May, 1944, and describes the situation of the Polish workers
in Germany, and I wish to refer particularly to Page 2 of
the English translation, starting with Paragraph 2; in the
German text it appears at Page 2, Paragraph 2, also. In
quoting from the document, it reads:-
We receive imploring letters from the camps of Eastern
workers and their prolific families, beseeching us for
food. The quantity and quality of camp rations mentioned
therein - the so-called fourth grade of rations - is
absolutely insufficient to maintain the energies spent
in heavy work. 3.5 kg. of bread weekly and a thin soup
at lunch time, cooked with swedes or other vegetables
without any meat or fat, with a meagre addition of
potatoes now and then is a hunger ration for a heavy
worker.
Sometimes punishment consists of starvation which is
inflicted, e.g. for refusal to wear the badge 'East'.
Such punishment has the result that workers faint at
work (Klosterteich Camp, Grunheim, Saxony). The
consequence is complete exhaustion, an ailing state of
health, and tuberculosis. The spreading of tuberculosis
among the Polish factory workers is a result of the
deficient food rations meted out in the community camps,
because energy spent in heavy work cannot be replaced.
The call for help which reaches us brings to light
starvation and hunger, severe stomach intestinal
trouble, especially in the case of children, resulting
from the insufficiency of food which does not take into
consideration the needs of children. Proper medical
treatment or care for the sick is not available in the
mass camps." [Page 324]
The fact that these bad conditions dangerously affect
the state of health and the vitality of the workers is
proved by the many cases of tuberculosis found in very
young people returning from the Reich to the General
Government as unfit for work. Their state of health is
usually so bad that recovery is out of the question. The
reason is that a state of exhaustion resulting from
overwork and a starvation diet is not recognised as an
ailment until the illness betrays itself by high fever
and fainting spells.
Although some hostels for unfit workers have been
provided as a precautionary measure, one can only go
there when recovery may no longer be expected (Neumarkt
in Bavaria). Even there the incurables waste away
slowly, and nothing is done even to alleviate the state
of the sick by suitable food and medicines. There are
children there with tuberculosis whose cure would not be
hopeless and men in their prime who, if sent home in
time to their families in rural districts, might still
be able to recover. No less suffering is caused by the
separation of families when wives and mothers of small
children are away from their families and sent to the
Reich for forced labour." [
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(Part 5 of 9)
[MR. DODD continuies]
"During the last few days we established that the food
for the Russians employed here is so miserable, that the
people are getting weaker from day to day.
The condition of foreign workers in Krupp workers' camps is
described in detail in an affidavit executed in Essen,
Germany, by Dr. Wilhelm Jaeger, who was the senior camp
doctor. It is Document D-288, which is Exhibit USA 202.
"I, Dr. Wilhelm Jaeger, am a general practitioner in
Essen, Germany, and its surroundings. I was born in
Germany on 2nd December, 1888, and now live at Kettwig,
Sengenholz, Germany. I make the following statement of
my own free will. I have not been threatened in any way
and I have not been promised any sort of reward.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now until 2 o'clock.
"The provision for cleanliness at many overcrowded camp
rooms is contrary to the most elementary requirements.
Often there is no opportunity to obtain warm water for
washing; therefore, the cleanest parents are unable to
maintain even the most primitive standard of hygiene for
their children or, often, even to wash their only set of
linen. A consequence of this is the spreading of scabies
which cannot be eradicated.
We now refer to Page 3 of this same document, and
particularly to the first paragraph. In the German text it
appears at Page 5, Paragraph 1:-
"In addition to these bad conditions, there is lack of
systematic occupation for and supervision of these hosts
of children, which affects
And finally, from Page 4 of the same document, starting with
the first paragraph. In the German text it appears at Page
7, Paragraph 4:-
"If, under these conditions, there is no moral support
such as is normally based on regular family life, then
at least such moral support which the religious feelings
of the Polish population require should be maintained
and increased. The elimination of religious services,
religious practice and religious care from the life of
the Polish workers, the prohibition of church
attendance, at a time when there is a religious service
for other people, and other measures, show a certain
contempt for the influence of religion on the feelings
and opinions of the workers."