The United States Air Force today defended its action in hiring Nazi General Walter Schreiber who was charged with complicity in Nazi medical atrocities carried out in concentration camps. However, it said that “Dr. Schreiber’s contract with the Air Force expired on Feb. 26, 1952, and will not be renewed.”
In a letter to Rep. Jacob Javits, Brig. Gen. Robert L. Eaton, director of the Legislative and Liaison Service of the U.S.A.F., said that before Dr. Schreiber was hired, it had previously been determined that there was no record that he was ever a member of the Nazi party and that his name did not appear in the central registry of war criminals and security suspects.
“Dr. Schreiber was hired by the Air Force because of his extensive experience in the field of epidemiology and military preventive medicine, coupled with his peculiar knowledge of public health and sanitation problems in certain geographical areas,” the letter said. “He has collaborated in the preparation of a treatise on the epidemiology of air travel and has been able to furnish the Air Force with valuable information. He has not occupied a position of trust responsibility, or importance in the School of Aviation Medicine, nor has he taught there. He has carried on no medical research for the Air Force, has done no work in the field of experimental medicine while in the United States, and has had no access to classified material.
“The charges which have appeared in the press have been based on certain evidence introduced in the trial of several defendants in the medical case before the Nurnberg Military Tribunal No. I. Dr. Schreiber was not tried as a defendant in the medical case, presumably because he was a prisoner of the Russians at that time, and not under the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Whether he would have been convicted, had he been tried, is a highly speculative question. The evidence concerning Dr. Schreiber is the incidental by-product of the trial of other defendants in the medical case.
“This evidence has never been tested by cross-examination, conducted on behalf of Dr. Schreiber, and since Dr. Schreiber himself has never been on trial, any favorable evidence which he might produce is not available. It is believed, therefore, that a fair and informed judgment cannot be made on the basis of this evidence,” the letter stated. It added that the Nazi general is still in this country under military custody, pending settlement of his personal financial affairs, and that it is expected that “he will leave the U.S. in a few weeks.”
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