Alfred Rosenberg

“ Rosenberg—whom I met last week in the street, and who told me he had been to Perley Hatch, and had seen you—has been taking mother and me for drives in the evening. His people are out of town, and he has the car to himself. We have been to Windsor and Burnham Beeches, to Virginia Water, and all sorts of places. The air does me a great deal of good. I am really quite well now.
Gaunt read it grimly. He told himself that he might have expected it. Was it likely that Rosenberg would leave her alone, having learned that she was in London without him? ”

“ There was no question at all of an aggressive war when Rosenberg was given that task by Hitler. He was supposed to be merely a sort of political commissioner for the Eastern Territories. He was to study the conditions of the peoples there.
DR. SAUTER: Dr. Lammers, roughly at the same time, that is to say, the spring of 1941, and shortly before the beginning of the Russian campaign, you are supposed to have had some further discussions with the Defendant Funk on the subject of what turn the foreign political situation in respect to Russia might possibly take in the near future. ”

“ With his appointment as Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories on 17 July 1941, Rosenberg became the supreme authority for those areas. He helped to formulate the policies of Germanization, exploitation, forced labor, extermination of Jews and opponents of Nazi rule, and he set up the administration which carried them out. He took part in the conference of 16 July 1941, in which Hitler stated that they were faced with the task of “cutting up the giant cake according to our needs, in order to be able: first, to dominate it ”

“ The contribution which Rosenberg made through formulation and dissemination of National Socialist ideology was fundamental to the conspiracy. As apostle of neo-paganism, exponent of the drive for “Lebensraum,” glorifier of the myth of nordic superiority, and as one of the oldest and most energetic Nazi proponents of anti-Semitism, he contributed materially to unification of the German people behind the swastika. He provided the impetus and philosophy of National Socialism. ”

“ Rosenberg’s attitudes on religion were accepted as the only philosophy compatible with National Socialism. In 1940 the Defendant Bormann wrote to Rosenberg in Document 098-PS, which has been previously introduced as Exhibit Number USA-350 ”

“ DR. THOMA: I have one last question. In connection with this question I should like to submit Exhibit Rosenberg-15, Document 3761-PS. This is contained in the document book but it has not yet been submitted to the Tribunal as an Exhibit. It contains a letter from Rosenberg to Hitler, written in 1924, containing the request that he should not be nominated as a candidate for the Reichstag.
Witness, you have taken part in all phases of the development of National Socialism from its beginning to its dreadful end. ”

“ I offer Document 3532-PS as Exhibit Number USA-598. This is an excerpt from an article by Rosenberg appearing in the March 1934 issue of The Educational Letter. At Page 9 of this publication Rosenberg states:
“The focus of all our educational work from now on is the service for this ideology; and it depends on the result of these efforts, whether National Socialism will die with our fighting generation or whether, as we believe, it really represents the beginning of a new era.” ”

“ In his capacity as the Fuehrer’s Delegate for Spiritual and Ideological Training, Rosenberg assisted in the preparation of the curriculum for the Adolf Hitler schools. These schools selected the most suitable candidates from the Hitler Jugend and trained them for leadership within the Party. They were the elite schools of National Socialism. An excerpt from “Documents of German Politics” reads as follows ”

“ Rosenfeld does not scoff, or scorn, or hate. He is one with the oppressor and the oppressed; if he sings more of the latter, it is only because he sees more of that side of life. He is a sensitive plate that reproduces the pictures that arise before his mental vision, and the gloom of his poems is rather that which he sees{127} than that which he feels; for he has also written songs of spring and happiness in the few intervals when the sky has looked down unclouded on the Ghetto in which he has lived so long. ”

“ B. Development of ideological basis for anti-Semitic measures.
Among the innumerable statements made by the leaders of the NSDAP are the following:
Rosenberg advocated in 1920 the adoption of the following program concerning the Jews:
“ (1) The Jews are to be recognized as a (separate) nation living in Germany, irrespective of the religion they belong to.
(2) A Jew is he whose parents on either side are nationally Jews. Anyone who has a Jewish husband or wife is henceforth a Jew.
(3) Jews have no right to speak and write on or be active in German politics. ”

“ We shall be near Hohenfels and Z—s, which will be agreeable. As a married man, the father of a family, and all that sort of thing, I don’t know any people I should like so much for neighbours.”
At a very early hour in the morning they all assembled to drink coffee. Mr. Rosenberg left at the same time for Munich. Hamilton concluded that he was satisfied with his wife’s arrangement respecting him, as he shook his hand warmly at parting, and hoped to see him again in the course of the ensuing week. ”

“ Like Hitler, Rosenberg envisaged the extension of Nazi power far beyond the borders of Germany. In his Nature, Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP he stated, "But National Socialism also believes that, far beyond Germany's borders, its principles and its ideology ... will lead the way in the unavoidable struggles for power in the other countries of Europe and America." ”

“ Annihilation of the Jews became an official State policy, carried out both by official action and by incitements to mob and individual violence. The conspirators openly avowed their purpose. For example, the Defendant Rosenberg stated: “Anti-Semitism is the unifying element of the reconstruction of Germany.” On another occasion he also stated:
“Germany will regard the Jewish question as solved only after the very last Jew has left the greater German living space. . . . Europe will have its Jewish question solved only after the very last Jew has left the continent.” ”

“ It is incredibly shocking to the normal conscience that such a neat history of murder, starvation, and extermination should have been maintained by the individual responsible for such deeds, but by now the Tribunal is well aware that the Nazi leaders were sentimentally fond of elaborately documenting their exploits, as witness the Rosenberg volumes displaying the looted art treasures and the album reporting on the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The complete set of the Frank diary was found in Bavaria, at Neuhaus, near Schliersee, on 18 May 1945, by the 7th American Army. ”

“ This has another connection. I will have to try to refute the actual participation of Rosenberg in these matters separately.
I would like to draw your attention to one more important viewpoint. Organizations, whose members formerly had in part been under the influence of Christianity and the so-called youth movement, and who let themselves be won over to National Socialism because they believed that by it their Christian and idealistic interests could be realized, are also indicated. They are now left helpless in their camps, disappointed in this world. ”

“ Rosenberg accepts the classic German view of the Volk, which he relates closely to the concept of race. "The state is nowadays no longer an independent idol, before which everything must bow down; the state is not even an end but is only a means for the preservation of the folk ... Forms of the state change, and laws of the state pass away; the folk remains. From this alone follows that the nation is the first and last, that to which everything else has to be subordinated." [38] "The new thought puts folk and race higher than the state and its forms. ”

“ The warden called attention to the fact that valuable gold had been lost due to the failure to knock out the tooth-fillings of the victims before they were done away with (R-135) .
3. Deportations for Forced Labor. The third illustration is a letter which Rosenberg wrote to Sauckel on 21 December 1942 in the following terms:
“I thank you very much for your report on the execution of the great task given to you, and I am glad to hear that in carrying out your mission you have always found the necessary support, even on the part of the civilian authorities in the occupied Eastern territories. ”

“ What the issues here are—counsel says that he thinks he should try the new romanticism of Rosenberg. We are charging him for the murder of 4 or 5 million Jews. The question here is one of ideology. The only purpose in ever referring to the anti-Semitic sentiments is the motive. There is no purpose here in trying the question of anti-Semitism or the superiority of races, the fundamental difference in viewpoint. They believe—and, of course, if they can try this issue with this Tribunal as a sounding board, it forwards their purpose—they believe in trying that issue. ”

“ Today we know that this is possible, and, therefore, I am pleading before a Tribunal who, to my conviction, receive their authority from these ethical motives. That is only one example for the importance of the irrational in politics. The belief in the power of the ideal and the moral is, after all, irrational, too.
Gentlemen of the Tribunal, the question of the causal connection between Rosenberg’s ideology and the war crimes must not, or rather should not, be confused with the charge of Rosenberg’s actual participation in the murder of the Jews and the crimes in the East. ”

“ The Norwegian invasion is, in one respect, not a typical Nazi aggression in that Hitler had to be persuaded to embark upon it. The chief instruments of persuasion were Raeder and Rosenberg; Raeder because he thought Norway strategically important and because he coveted glory for his Navy, Rosenberg because of his political connections in Norway which he sought to develop.
As the Tribunal will shortly see, in the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling the Defendant Rosenberg found a very model of the Fifth Column agent, the very personification of perfidy. ”

“ Rosenberg, very quietly continuing to puff at his newly-lighted cigar.
“Count Zedwitz, of course—he is always sure to find out where we are going, and pursues us like a shadow!” replied his wife, glancing half-suspiciously towards Hildegarde, who, however, sprang from her chair with even more than her usual vivacity, while she said to Hamilton: “Can you not assist us to escape? This window is so close to the ground that I think we could easily leap on the road. Pray persuade mamma to walk home with us, and leave papa to follow.” ”

“ The German people will not obtain either its inner compactness by them, nor will its nutrition be secured by them, nor do these boundaries appear from a military standpoint as appropriate or even satisfactory. * * *” (2760-A-PS)
While the precise limits of German expansion were only vaguely defined by the Nazi conspirators, they clearly indicated that the lebensraum to which they felt they were entitled would be acquired primarily in the East. Rosenberg was particularly insistent in his declarations that Russia would have to “move over” to make way for German living space. ”

“ The essence of Rosenberg's racial ideas was incorporated in point 4 of the program of the Nazi Party, which reads as follows: "None but members of the nation [Volk] may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation." [40] After the Nazis came to power, this concept was made the basis of the German citizenship law of September 15, 1935. ”

“ The United States cannot be acting as press agents for the distribution of this anti-Semitic literature, which we have protested long ago was one of the vices of the Nazi regime, particularly after they have been argued on and have been denied by the Court. This, it seems to me, is a flagrant case of contempt of court, to put these documents through after the Tribunal has ruled on them and ruled out this whole document book of Rosenberg. ”

“ The Nazi conspirators suppressed religious education. In a speech on 7 March 1937, Rosenberg stated:
“The education of youth can only be carried out by those who have rescued Germany from disaster. It is therefore impossible to demand one Fuehrer, one Reich and one firmly united people as long as education is carried out by forces which are mutually exclusive to each other.” ”

“ This area included the Baltic States, White Ruthenia and the Ukraine, and the Eastern portion of Poland.
(The mass murder and mistreatment of the Eastern peoples, and the spoliation of their territories is discussed in Chapter X on Forced Labor, Chapter XIII on Germanization and Spoliation, Chapter XI on Concentration Camps, Chapter XII on Persecution of the Jews, Section 5 of Chapter XV on the SS, and Section 6 of Chapter XV on the Gestapo and SD.) Rosenberg bears personal responsibility for these crimes. ”

“ That witness, the Prosecution submits, falls into the same category as Dankers and Astrowski. But, with regard to him, if there is any general point, they say that he could be dealt with by interrogatories but certainly should not be called.
It is relevant for the Tribunal to read the note under Number 8 dealing with these witnesses. Dr. Thoma says:
“The witnesses can present evidence for the refutation of the Soviet accusation that Rosenberg participated in the planning of a world ideology for the extermination of the Slavs and for the persecution of all dissenters.” ”