Dr. Phillips rephrased his question again. Everyone wanted to know about the human experiments; it was the ultimate forbidden knowledge the Nazis possessed. “Perhaps we would like to talk about the human angle, which was, I think, Kliewe’s work,” he said.
Blome was no fool. “Professor Kliewe has not worked himself with experiments,” Blome said. Heinrich Kliewe performed intelligence work. He was in charge of keeping tabs on the biological weapons programs being pursued by nations at war with the Reich. “Kliewe investigated Polish and Russian sabotage,” Blome said. “The activity here was not to cause an epidemic amongst the population, merely to kill certain people.”
The Detrick doctors were intrigued by this line of conversation and asked Dr. Blome to explain further.
During the war, Polish resistance fighters in Posen had succeeded in assassinating “about twenty people,” Blome said, most of whom were SS officers. “A lot of cases of Typhoid,” said Blome. “The waiters in restaurants took fountain pens filled with the inoculum and injected the inoculum into the soup or the food on their way to and from the dining room. This has been proved. Polish resistance movement was heading all these activities. A German-Polish woman doctor was working in the hospital and got hold of the bacteria and forwarded it to the other people.”
“Were any preventative measures taken?” Dr. Phillips asked.
Blome explained that there was an extensive and well-funded Reich research program going on in the field of vaccines, antidotes, and serums—against many pathogens and diseases, from cholera to parrot virus to plague. But Blome explained that the holy grail of biological weapons research was the plague. “I believe the only thing of danger to Germany would have been the plague. Because for propaganda reasons the plague got more attention tha[n] any others,” Blome added. “People all over the world believe it is the worst sickness there is.”
Dr. Phillips wanted to learn more about the use of “live vaccines” in Blome’s plague research.
“Schreiber, as the head of the department [epidemics] had very good vaccine material on hand for typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, diphtheria and Ruhr,” Blome explained. “For the plague, they had serum on hand but the serum was not very powerful, it was very weak. They did not have any vaccine so I started to build an institute which has never been completed.” On occasion, Blome said, he worked in concert with Schreiber’s vaccine research laboratory to provide them with “good vaccine material,” meaning the germs.
“Which laboratories?” asked Dr. Falconer.
“In the Medical Laboratory in Berlin,” said Blome. “There was an official appointed only for research of epidemics. Prof. Schreiber.”
“Was he under Kliewe?” Dr. Phillips asked, apparently still unaware that Professor Schreiber was the same Dr. Schreiber who had testified at Nuremberg. If, at Nuremberg, the Russians meant to send a message to American biological weapons makers with Schreiber’s testimony, this had gone over the head of these bacteriologists from Camp Detrick.
Blome repeated that Schreiber was “in the same position as I would be under G?ring for my cancer researches, so this man was [directly] under G?ring.” Meaning Blome and Schreiber were equals in the Reich’s chain of command. They were also archenemies. “Schreiber is a Russian PW [prisoner of war] and everybody who knew Schreiber is convinced he is working for them,” said Blome. In this world of intense suspicion, of deviance and trickery, it was impossible to know who was lying and who was telling the truth.
The time came to have a meal. “In closing this particular angle we express our gratitude to Dr. Blome for his wholehearted cooperation,” Dr. Batchelor said. He suggested that they all have dinner together. Pleasant talk. “During that time we will not discuss this matter,” Batchelor said. As if the Americans had not just tried to hang Dr. Blome for war crimes. As if Blome had not been a hard-core Nazi ideologue and member of the inner circle, or had not worn the Golden Party Badge. Pleasantries were exchanged and the meeting was adjourned.