Grünenthal’s Schrader-Beielstein wrote a letter to Prof. Siebke of the Bonn University clinic, asking him to include K 17 in his tests on pregnant women. The University children’s and woman’s hospitals in Bonn had been doing tests on the “impact of medication on the unborn child.” Based on those examinations, Schrader-Beielstein asked Dr.Siebke if he could also do some Thalidomide tests. In his letter he clearly asked for studies on pregnant women.

Schrader-Beielstein knew about the research of the medication on pregnant women in Bonn. This is what the indictment suggested, based on the letter he wrote to Prof.Siebke; even more, though, since Schrader-Beielstein himself had been working at this University hospital in Bonn until early 1957. Prof. Siebke never wrote back. The professor had never included a sleeping pill in any of his clinical trials, and also wasn’t planning on changing his policy for Grünenthal. No further attempts were made in this regard.

Source: Anklageschrift (indictment) from 1967, today archived at the National Archives of North Rhine-Westphalia in Duisburg, Germany (Rheinland Division, Gerichte Rep. 139, No. 1–396), p. 455f.