“Since there is a great discrepancy among the estimates of the present experts of the Health Administration, the Reich Office of Public Health, and the Army Medical Inspectorate as to the necessary caloric requirements, a final decision concerning the ration will be made in the course of the week by a smaller circle of experts. Seven days of flour soup as a transition diet and cancellation of the words ‘without work’ are from now on decreed for such Russians as are at present in German camps.
“III. The number of Russians whom the Reich Ministry of Supply can supply with food.”
I should note here that this sentence means, “The number of Russians whom the Reich Ministry of Food (REM) can provide has now been established.”
“State Secretary Backe was noncommittal in answer to persistent questioning by General Reinecke and Ministerial Director Mansfeld.”
It seems to me useful to point out that there is on the document a note in pencil to the effect that:
“It is requested to follow up the matter of the rations because State Secretary Backe is, apparently, beginning to lose his nerve.”
The signature is illegible.
It seems to me that this note vividly discloses the arguments that were going on over establishing a norm. Not by accident does it speak here of the wide discrepancy in the estimates concerning necessary caloric requirements of the experts of the Reich Health Administration and the Army Medical Inspectorate. As the Tribunal will remember, the witness Blaha testified in reply to my questions that almost all prisoners of war who died of starvation in the Dachau Camp were men of the Red Army. I shall submit evidence showing that the Dachau Camp was not an exception in that respect.
On 27 April 1942 the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R. was forced to submit a new note. I present this note in our exhibit under Number USSR-51 (Document Number USSR-51). You will find the place I am referring to on Page 13 in your document book where it is marked in red pencil for your convenience. I quote:
“The Soviet Government now has at its disposal many hundreds of new documents confirming the bloody crimes committed against Soviet prisoners of war, dealt with in the note of the Government of the U.S.S.R. dated 25 November 1941.