In early 1946, prosecutors started to deal with proving the individual responsibility of the defendants. On 11 January, a concentration camp prisoner was for the first time summoned to testify. Czech Doctor Frantisek Blaha stayed in the Dachau concentration camp from 1941 until its liberation by American troops in April 1945.
First, American prosecutor Thomas Dodd read Blaha’s testimony that he gave on 9 January 1946. Nuremberg trial officials learned that the witness had been the object of medical experiments, and that he was then ordered to work in the autopsy room in the Dachau camp.
Blaha testified about human-related experiments with sea and ice water, changes in air pressure, liver puncture, and infection with pus, as well as about stomach, throat, and gall bladder operations that were performed on healthy prisoners.
The witness revealed the names of the doctors in charge and mentioned high-ranking officials who were aware of what was happening and who visited Dachau more than once with an inspection. The names of Bormann, Frick, Rosenberg, Funk, and Sauckel were singled out, among others.
“3. During my time at Dachau, I was familiar with many kinds of medical experiments carried out 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. […] I performed autopsies on bodies of people who died from these malaria experiments”.
A total of 12,000 autopsies were performed under Blaha’s direction. He also dissected the bodies of children, pregnant women, as well as young men and women. According to the witness, people died due to the medical experiments and their consequences, as well as because of the insanitary conditions in the camp, which led to an outbreak of typhoid fever.
Frantisek Blaha told the Nuremberg trials that Soviet prisoners were treated the worst at Dachau.
Yury Pokrovsky, the USSR’s deputy chief prosecutor: “What do you know about the executions of citizens of the USSR, which were carried out in this camp?”
Blaha: “I believe I am not far from the truth when I say that of all those executed, at least 75 percent were Russians, and that women as well as men were brought to Dachau from outside to be executed”.
Dachau was one of the first concentration camps established in Nazi Germany. From 1933 to 1945, over 200,000 prisoners passed through the camp.
Sources:
Sergei Miroshnichenko, "Transcript of the Nuremberg Trials", Volume IV
