NAZIS AND BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 270, 27 August 1946, Page 3

NAZIS AND BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE

Testimony Given At Nuremberg Trials (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright.) (Received 9.30 a.m.) NUREMBERG, August 26. Hitler gave Goering all the necessary powers for the preparation and direction of bacteriological warfare at a secret conference in July, 1943, to which the High Command summoned representalives of the army and medical inspectorate, said Major-General Walter Schreiber, scientific expert, who was flown from a Soviet war prisoners’ camp near Moscow to give evidence before the War Crimes Tribunal. Schreiber added that the colonel who presided at the c ° n [ er ' ence said that because of the war situation the High Command had to take a different view on the Question of the use of bacteria as a weapon. Witness said an institute was established near Posen for the production of cultures on a large scale. The only factors which prevented its operations were lack of time for the production or cultures and for the development of serums for the protection of German soldiers. Another institute was being prepared in Thuringia to consider the possibility of spreading bubonic plague. Things occurred on the German side which were against the old laws and medical ethics, admitted Schreiber. He considered that a thorough purge was necessary in the interests of the German people, medical science and the training of future doctors. Goering sat motionless, only once smiling faintly.