Thirty-Second Day:
Friday, January 11th, 1946
[Page 204]
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. DODD: I would not have read it if we had had time to have a
Russian and French translation, but unfortunately that was not
possible in the few days we had.
[Page 205]
I studied medicine in Prague, Vienna, Strassburg and Paris and
received my diploma in 1920. From 1920 to 1926 I was a clinical
assistant. In 1926 I became chief physician of the Iglau
Hospital in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. I held this position until
1939, when the Germans entered Czechoslovakia, and I was seized
as a hostage and held a prisoner for co-operating with the
Czech Government. I was sent as a prisoner to the Dachau
Concentration Camp in April, 1941, and remained there until the
liberation of the camp in April, 1945. Until July, 1941, I
worked in a Punishment Company. After that I was sent to the
hospital and subjected to the experiments in typhoid being
conducted by Dr. Murmelstadt. After that I was to be made the
subject of an experimental operation, and only succeeded in
avoiding this by admitting that I was a physician. If this had
been known before I would have suffered, because intellectuals
were treated very harshly in the Punishment Company. In
October, 1941, I was sent to work in the herb plantation, and
later in the laboratory for processing herbs. In June, 1942, I
was taken into the hospital as a surgeon. Shortly afterwards I
was directed to conduct a stomach operation on 20 healthy
prisoners. Because I would not do this I was put in the autopsy
room, where I stayed until April, 1945. While there I performed
approximately 7,000 autopsies. In all, 12,000 autopsies were
performed under my direction.
From mid-1941 to the end of 1942 some 500 operations on healthy
prisoners were performed. These were for the instruction of the
S.S. medical students and doctors and included operations on
the stomach, gall bladder, spleen and throat. These were
performed by students and doctors of only two years' training,
although they were very dangerous and difficult. Ordinarily
they would not have been done except by surgeons with at least
four years' surgical practice. Many prisoners died on the
operating table and many others from later complications. I
performed autopsies on all of these bodies. The doctors who
supervised these operations were Lang, Murmelstadt, Wolter,
Ramsauer and Kahr. Standartenfuehrer Dr. Lolling frequently
witnessed these operations.
During my time at Dachau I was familiar with many kinds of
medical experiments carried on there with human victims. These
persons were never volunteers but were forced to submit to such
acts. Malaria experiments on about 1,200 people were conducted
by Dr. Klaus Schilling between 1941 and 1945. Schilling was
personally asked by Himmler to conduct these experiments. The
victims were either bitten by mosquitoes or given injections of
malaria sporozoites taken from mosquitoes. Different kinds of
treatment were applied, including quinine, pyrifer,
neosalvarsan, antipyrin, pyramidon and a drug called 2516
Behring. I performed autopsies on bodies of people who died
from these malaria experiments. 30 to 40 died from the malaria
itself. 300 to 400 died later from diseases which proved fatal
because of the physical condition resulting from the malaria
attacks. In addition there were deaths resulting from poisoning
due to overdoses of neosalvarsan and pyramidon. Dr. Schilling
was present at the time of my autopsies on the bodies of his
patients.
In 1942 and 1943 experiments on human beings were conducted by
Dr. Sigismund Rascher to determine the effects of changing air
pressure. As many as 25 persons were put at one time into a
specially constructed van in which pressure could be increased
or decreased as required. The purpose was to find out the
effects of high altitude and of rapid parachute descents on
human beings. Through a window in the van I have seen the
people lying on the floor of the van. Most of the prisoners who
were made use of, died as a result of these experiments, from
internal hemorr-
[Page 206]
Rascher also conducted experiments on the effect of cold water
on human beings. This was done to find a way for reviving
aviators who had fallen into the ocean. The subject was placed
in ice cold water and kept there until he was unconscious.
Blood was taken from his neck and tested each time his body
temperature dropped one degree. This drop was determined by a
rectal thermometer. Urine was also periodically tested. Some
men lasted as long as 24 to 36 hours. The lowest body
temperature reached was 19 degrees C., but most men died at 25
degrees C., or 26 degrees C. When the men were removed from the
ice water attempts were made to revive them by artificial
warmth from the sun, from hot water, from electro-therapy or by
animal warmth. For this last experiment prostitutes were used
and the body of the unconscious man was placed between the
bodies of two women. Himmler was present at one such
experiment. I could see him from one of the windows in the
street between the blocks. I have personally been present at
some of these cold water experiments when Rascher was absent,
and I have seen notes and diagrams on them in Rascher's
laboratory. About 300 persons were used in these experiments.
The majority died. Of those who lived many became mentally
deranged. Those not killed were sent to invalid blocks and were
killed, just as were the victims of the air pressure
experiments. I only know two who survived - a Yugoslav and a
Pole, both of whom have become mental cases.
Liver puncture experiments were performed by Dr. Brachtl on
healthy people, and on people who had diseases of the stomach
and gall bladder. For this purpose a needle was jabbed into the
liver of a person and a small piece of the liver was extracted.
No anaesthetic was used. The experiment is very painful and
often had serious results, as the stomach or large blood
vessels were often punctured, and haemorrhage resulted. Many
persons died of these tests, for which Polish, Russian, Czech
and German prisoners were employed. Altogether these
experiments were conducted on about 175 people.
Phlegmone experiments were conducted by Dr. Schutz, Dr. Babor,
Dr. Kieselwetter and Professor Lauer. Forty healthy men were
used at a time, of whom 20 were given intra-muscular, and 20
intravenous injections of pus from diseased persons. All
treatment was forbidden for three days, by which time serious
inflammation and in many cases general blood poisoning had
occurred. Then each group was divided again into groups of 10.
Half were given chemical treatment with liquid and special
pills every 10 minutes for 24 hours. The rest were treated with
sulfanamide and surgery. In some cases all of the limbs were
amputated. My autopsy also showed that the chemical treatment
had been harmful and had even caused perforations of the
stomach wall. For these experiments Polish, Czech and Dutch
priests were ordinarily used. Pain was intense in such
experiments. Most of the 600 to 800 persons who were used
finally died. Most of the others became permanent invalids and
were later killed.
In the autumn of 1944 there were 60 to 80 persons who were
subjected to salt water experiments. They were locked in a room
and for five days were given nothing to swallow but salt water.
During this time their urine, blood and excrement were tested.
None of these prisoners died, possibly because they received
smuggled food from other prisoners. Hungarians and Gipsies were
used for these experiments.
[Page 207]
Transports arrived frequently in Dachau from Studthof, Belsen,
Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps. Many of these were 10 to
14 days on the way without water or food. On one transport
which arrived in November, 1942, I found evidence of
cannibalism. The living persons had eaten the flesh from the
dead bodies. Another transport arrived from Compiegne in
France. Professor Limousin of Clermont-Ferrand, who was later
my assistant, told me that there had been 2,000 persons on this
transport when it started. There was food available but no
water. Eight hundred died on the way and were thrown out. When
it arrived after twelve days more than 500 persons were dead on
the train. Of the remainder, most died shortly after arrival. I
investigated this transport because the International Red Cross
complained, and the S.S. men wanted a report that the deaths
had been caused by fighting and rioting on the way. I dissected
a number of bodies and found that they had died from
suffocation and lack of water; it was mid-summer and 120 people
had been packed into each car.
In 1941 and 1942 we had in the camp what we called invalid
transports. These were made up of people who were sick or for
some reason incapable of working. We called them Himmelfahrt
Commandos. About 100 or 120 were ordered each week to go to the
shower baths. There, four people gave injections of phenol
evipan, or benzine, which soon caused death. After 1943 these
invalids were sent to other camps for liquidation. I know that
they were killed because I saw the records, and they were
marked with a cross and the date that they left, which was the
way that deaths were ordinarily recorded. This was shown both
on the card index of the Camp Dachau and the records in the
town of Dachau. One thousand to two thousand went away every
three months, so there were about five thousand sent to death
in 1943, and the same in 1944. In April, 1945, a Jewish
transport was loaded at Dachau and was left standing on the
railroad siding. The station was destroyed by bombing, and they
could not leave. So they were just left there to die of
starvation. They were not allowed to get off. When the camp was
liberated they were all dead.
Many executions by gas or shooting or injections took place in
the camp itself. The gas chamber was completed in 1944, and I
was called by Dr. Rascher to examine the first victims. Of the
eight or nine persons in the chamber there were three still
alive, and the remainder appeared to be dead. Their eyes were
red and their faces were swollen. Many
[Page 208]
I performed autopsies on some of these and found that they were
perfectly healthy, but had died from injections. Sometimes
prisoners were killed only because they had dysentery or
vomited, and gave the nurses too much trouble. Mental patients
were liquidated by being led to the gas chamber and injected
there or shot. Shooting was a common method of execution.
Prisoners would be shot just outside the crematorium and
carried in. I have seen people pushed into the ovens while they
were still breathing and making sounds, although if they were
too much alive they were usually hit on the head first.
The principal executions about which I know from having
examined the victims, or supervised such examinations, are as
follows: In 1942 there were five thousand to six thousand
Russians held in a separate camp inside Dachau. They were taken
on foot to the Military Rifle Range near the camp in groups of
five hundred or six hundred and shot. These groups left the
camp about three times a week. At night we used to go out to
bring the bodies back in carts and then examine them. In
February, 1944, about 40 Russian students arrived from
Moosburg. I knew a few of the boys in the hospital. I examined
them after they were shot outside the crematorium. In
September, 1944, a group of 94 high-ranking Russians were shot,
including two military doctors who had been working with me in
the hospital. I examined their bodies. In April, 1945, a number
of prominent people who had been kept in the bunker were shot.
They included two French generals, whose names I cannot
remember, but I recognised them from their uniform. I examined
them, after they were shot. In 1944 and 1945 a number of women
were killed by hanging, shooting and injections. I examined
them and found that in many cases they were pregnant. In 1945,
just before the camp was liberated, all 'Nacht und Nebel'
prisoners were executed. These were prisoners who were
forbidden to have any contact with the outside world. They were
kept in a special enclosure and were not allowed to send or
receive any mail. There were 30 or 40, many of whom were sick.
These were carried to the crematorium on stretchers. I examined
them and found they had all been shot in the neck.
From 1941 on the camp became more and more overcrowded. In 1943
the hospital for prisoners was already overcrowded. In 1944 and
in 1945 it was impossible to maintain any sort of sanitary
condition. Rooms, which held three hundred or four hundred
persons in 1942, were filled with one thousand in 1943, and in
the first quarter of 1945 with two thousand or more. The rooms
could not be cleaned because they were too crowded, and there
was no cleaning material. Baths were available only once a
month. Latrine facilities were completely inadequate. Medicine
was almost non-existent. But I found, after the camp was
liberated, that there was plenty of medicine in the S.S.
hospital for all the camps, if it had been given to us for use.
New arrivals at the camp were lined up out of doors for hours
at a time. Sometimes they stood there from morning until night.
It did not matter whether this was in the winter or in the
summer. This occurred all through 1943, 1944 and the first
quarter of 1945. I could see these formations from the window
of the autopsy room. Many of the people who had to
[Page 209]
MR. DODD:
We had 200 to 300 new typhus cases and 100 deaths caused by
typhus each day. In all, we had 28,000 cases and 15,000 deaths,
In addition to those that died from the disease my autopsies
showed that many deaths were caused solely by malnutrition.
Such deaths occurred in all the years from 1941 to 1945. They
were mostly Italians, Russians and Frenchmen. These people were
just starved to death. At the time of death they weighed 50 to
60 pounds. Autopsies showed their internal organs had often
shrunk to one-third of their actual size.
The facts stated above are true: This declaration is made by me
voluntarily and without compulsion. After reading over the
statement I have signed and executed it at Nuremberg, Germany,
this 9th day of January, 1946.
(Signed) Dr. Franz Blaha.
Subscribed and sworn to before Second-Lieutenant Daniel F.
Margolies."
(Resumed.)
MR. DODD:
Q. Dr. Blaha, will you state whether or not visitors came to the
camp of Dachau while you were there?
A. Many visitors came to our camp, so that it many times seemed to
us that we were not confined in a camp but in an exhibition or a
zoo. At times almost every day there was a visit or an excursion
of military men, of political men from schools, from different
medical and other institutions, and also many members of the
Police, S.S. and the Armed Forces; also -
THE PRESIDENT: Will you pause so as to give the interpreter's
words time to come through; do you understand?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Also some State officials came to the camp.
Regular inspections were made month by month by Obergruppenfuehrer
Pohl; also by Prof. Gradel, Inspector of Experimental Stations,
Standartenfuehrer Dr. S.S. Reichsfuehrer, Lolling and others.
MR. DODD: The presiding Justice has suggested that you pause, and
it would be helpful if you paused in the making of your answers so
that the interpreters can complete their interpretation.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
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(Part 6 of 9)
"I, Franz Blaha, being duly sworn, depose and state as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Too fast.
"In October, 1944, a transport of Hungarians brought spotted
fever into the camp, and an epidemic began. I examined many of
the corpses from this transport and reported the situation to
Dr. Hintermayer, but was forbidden, on penalty of being shot,
to mention that there was an epidemic in the camp. He said that
it was sabotage, and that I was trying to have the camp
quarantined so that the prisoners would not have to work in the
armaments industry. No preventive measures were taken at all.
New healthy arrivals were put into blocks were an epidemic was
already present. Infected persons were also put into these
blocks. So the thirteenth block, for instance, died out
completely, three times. Only at Christmas, when the epidemic
spread into the S.S. camp, was a quarantine established.
Nevertheless, transports continued to arrive.
DIRECT EXAMINATION