4. As in all great wars of all times, one must also reckon with military reverses in the East. In retaining our present Eastern policy, we stand before the danger that one day the dissatisfaction of the population will find an outlet in a general uprising, whereby the supply for the front would be endangered most seriously.
5. It is the opinion of all military commanders as well as of the leaders of the civil administrative areas, to whom the reporter was able to talk, that the present Eastern policy must undergo a fundamental change in its basic points.
The following are the most important problems:
I. The Food Problem
The food rations granted to the Russian rural population do not constitute the assurance of their existence, but only a vegetating for a limited duration. One can never expect the necessary cooperation for the Armed Forces from a population who does not know whether it will still be alive tomorrow, who thus must expect death by starvation and who lived in the Bolshevist period—with the exception of the year 1933, with its bad harvest—better than today. The military dangers described at the beginning increase with the deterioration of the food basis; the tendency to support the partisans increases; the desire to experience again the former Bolshevist conditions comes to the foreground even in those who refute the system ideologically.
The rations allotted at present, which in practice are for the most part not issued complete, are as follows:
(Appendix A 3a)
City and Country: The following food situation prevails: The rural populations, although it has to hand over more today than in Bolshevist times, still goes rarely hungry. No matter whether it was in the time of the Mongol rule, or in Tsarist or Bolshevist times, they were always exploited, and they know methods of secreting food items, which guarantee them food despite of all controls. Today they are even able to deliver at least the most necessary things to the urban population through the black market. The German administration will never be able to develop a system which will enable a 100% seizure of products on Russian territory. The territory is too large for this, and the number of the appointed agricultural leaders is too small.
However, should one of the periodical bad harvests occur in Southern Russia within the next years, as last in the year 1933, then the present lack of reserves would result in a catastrophe in the Eastern territory, the effects of which would be unpredictable for the food situation in the rest of Europe.
The food question in the Eastern territory today is an urban problem. As already explained in the beginning, we must free ourselves completely from the attitude which we maintained at the time, that there were too many people in the territory, and that their extermination would mean a blessing to Germans! The German Armed Forces in the East live on the work performance of the cities there. Complaints about the lack of workers after the execution of the Sauckel action are common.