Part I; and thirdly, that I rejected a policy of withdrawal from the

church, as can be seen in the document book, Part I, Page 122, and also

rejected political interference by the state in purely religious

confessions which is also expressed clearly in this book. I further

rejected many proposals to have my book translated into foreign

languages. Only once a Japanese translation was submitted to me,

although I was not able to recall having given my approval for the

translation.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, you were not trained in theological matters.

Don’t you believe that in some judgments on theological questions you

were wrong?

ROSENBERG: I naturally never assumed that this book, which deals with

many problems, does not contain errors. I was, to an extent, grateful to

receive criticism, and I made certain corrections; but some attacks I

could not consider justified, and I thought that later I would certainly

thoroughly revise this work—which, of course, also contained political

comments.

DR. THOMA: Did you at any time use State Police measures against your

opponents in theology and science?

ROSENBERG: No. I would like to state here that this work was published

2½ years before the assumption of power, and that it was naturally open

to criticism from all sides, but that the main criticism arose after the

assumption of power. I answered these attacks in two pamphlets, but I

never made use of the Police to suppress these attacks or persecute the

authors of these attacks.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, in the RSHA there was an office for the

persecution of “political” churches. Did you have any connection with

this department?

ROSENBERG: I know only that a co-worker of mine was in contact with many

Party offices as a matter of policy and, of course, was also in touch

with the SS. Through him I received many circular letters from the

church authorities: pastoral letters, the circular letters of the Fulda

Conference of Bishops, and many others. No arrests of individual church

leaders came to my attention—although, of course, later on I did find

out that during the war many monasteries had been confiscated,

ostensibly for state political reasons—and so I never was able to find

out in detail the political motives involved.

I must mention that in the year 1935 a bishop sent an official letter to

the administrative head of his province, asking him to prohibit me from

delivering speeches in that city. That, to be sure, was of no avail;

this church dignitary was not harmed either by me or by anybody else,

however.

DR. THOMA: What was your attitude toward the churches coming within the

range of the Ministry for Eastern Territories?

ROSENBERG: After the entry of German troops in the eastern territories,

the Wehrmacht of its own accord granted the practice of religious

worship; and when I was made Minister for the East, I legally sanctioned

this practice by issuing a special “church tolerance” edict at the end

of December 1941.

DR. THOMA: The Prosecution have presented a number of documents—almost

all of them letters by the Leader of the Party Chancellery—to support

their contention of religious persecution. I would like to have you

state your attitude toward these documents, which have been submitted

under Numbers 107, 116, 122, 129, 101; USA-107, USA-351; 116, USA-685...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, you are going too fast for us to get these

numbers down. 107-PS, do you mean?

DR. THOMA: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you kindly say PS if you mean PS? 107-PS, 116-PS.

DR. THOMA: Yes, I will add the USA exhibit numbers. 107-PS, 351-USA...

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I would rather have the PS number. If you will give

me the PS numbers, or whatever the numbers are, as part of the exhibit

number: 107-PS, 116-PS...

DR. THOMA: Yes, Documents 116-PS, 122-PS, 129-PS, 101-PS, 100-PS,

089-PS, 064-PS, 098-PS, 072-PS, 070-PS.

ROSENBERG: The Document Number 107-PS was submitted by the Prosecution

as proof of persecution of the churches. This was a circular letter sent

out by the Party Chancellery and written by the Chief of the Reich Labor

Service. In this circular, on Page 1, it is decreed that denominational

discussions were to be prohibited within the Reich Labor Service. I

believe that was done so that particularly in the Reich Labor Service,

where young people of all classes and backgrounds were taken in,

denominational and religious discussions would be avoided.

On Page 2 it says:

“Just as it is of no concern to the Reichsarbeitsdienst to

forbid its individual members to have a church wedding or

funeral, so the Reichsarbeitsdienst must by all means avoid

taking part, as an organization, in church ceremonies which

exclude Germans of other beliefs.”

I considered this decree as the strictest adherence to religious

freedom: for it meant that members of the Protestant faith could not be

forced to attend Catholic services and vice versa; furthermore, that

persons who perhaps did not belong to any religious denomination could

not, on order of their organization, be forced to attend the services of

one denomination or the other. Therefore, I cannot see that in this case

we are concerned with religious persecution.

Document Number 116-PS concerns itself with a letter of the Leader of

the Reich Chancellery sent to the Reich Minister for Science and

Education and is dated 24 January 1939. This document was submitted to

me for my information—I emphasize, “for my information.” It refers to

correspondence between the Party Chancellery and this Ministry regarding

the limitation of theological faculties, in which it is emphasized that

the terms of concordats and church agreements would have to be taken

into consideration; secondly, that it was necessary methodically to

reorganize the entire higher educational system by amalgamation and

simplification; and finally, it states that newly created fields of

research, such as racial research and archeology, were also to be taken

into consideration.

I could not see why, after 6 years of National Socialist revolution, new

fields of specialization in scientific research should not find due

consideration within the budget. I personally was interested in seeing

that the subjects of agrarian sociology and the early history of Germany

received proper consideration, specifically in regard to Germanic

intellectual and spiritual history.

The same applies to Document Number 122-PS, also dated April 1939, into

which I do not need to go in detail. It sets forth similar views by the

Minister for Science, Education, and Popular Culture, stating how many

theological faculties he deemed necessary to be retained.

Document 129-PS is a letter of the Reich Minister for Churches to a

well-known German author, Dr. Stapel, who was especially interested in

religious reform. In this letter, the Reich Church Minister expresses

the view that a common religious denomination should be especially

promoted which would affirm the National Socialist State in particular

and, at the same time, could enjoy and rely upon the support of the

Reich Church Minister.

In the preliminary interrogation, a letter of mine was submitted to me,

written to the Party Chancellery, relative to this matter, in which I

declared myself against the calling of such a church congress by the

Reich Church Minister on the principal ground that a National Socialist

Minister of Churches did not have the function of joining a religious

denomination of which he was the direct head, even if undeclared or only

in appearance. It is exactly the same viewpoint which has provided the

basis for many a reproach against me. If, in addition to publicizing my

personal opinion, I had had the intention of providing or leading a

religious group, then I would have had to give up all my functions,

offices, and activities in the Party. That followed from a point of view

of principle which I held. The Minister of Churches, as a National

Socialist Minister, was, in my opinion, obliged not to promote a

religion to which he was sympathetic, but to be independent of all

religious denominations.

Document 101-PS is a letter from the Chief of the Party Chancellery—at

that time still Chief of Staff of the Deputy of the Führer—in which the

protest is made that many confessional writings tended to impair the

resistance of the troops; and he suggested that it would be better to

have my office issue such publications. An answer by me has not been

presented here—has not been shown to me. My opinion has always been

that, being in a Party office, it was not for me to write religious

tracts, but that, of course, it could be left to every person as an

individual—if one had something pertinent to say, to put it in writing,

as others did.

Document 100-PS is a reproach from the former Chief of Staff of the

Deputy of the Führer, Bormann, that I had stated in the presence of the

Führer that the Protestant Reich Bishop, Müller, had written a very good

book for the German soldiers. Reichsleiter Bormann said that this book

by Müller did not appear suitable to him, because, after all, it was

masked confessional propaganda. I do not believe that the reproach

directed at me for unhesitatingly approving Reich Bishop Müller’s

expression of opinion given in a proper way—and naturally in keeping

with his way of thinking—can be portrayed as religious persecution.

Document 089-PS is a letter by Bormann, which he sent to me for my

information, in which he told me that he had proposed to Reichsleiter

Amann that, because of the general scarcity of paper, religious

writings, which had decreased by only 10 percent, should be further

curtailed. I did not know to what extent the curtailment of all

periodicals was undertaken at that time. I can only state that in the

course of the war even the seven periodicals about art, music, folklore,

German dramaturgy, _et cetera_, which were published by my office, were

constantly curtailed and abbreviated along with the rest of the

periodicals in the German Reich.

Document 064-PS is a letter of the head of the Party Chancellery, in

which I am informed of the letter of a Gauleiter referring to a pamphlet

by General Von Rabenau entitled, _The Spirit and Soul of the Soldier_.

This Gauleiter criticized the very denominationally bound viewpoint of

General Von Rabenau, and he protested against the fact that this tract

appeared in a series of pamphlets published by the Party. In that

connection I would like to say that this tract by General Von Rabenau

appeared in a series published by my Party office, and that I read this

pamphlet personally beforehand and gave him the opportunity to voice his

opinion in this series which contained many political tracts of a

general historical nature. I did not withdraw this pamphlet.

Document 098-PS contains a new reproach against me by the Chief of the

Party Chancellery. He said that Reich Bishop Müller claimed that he had

had directives from me to work out basic principles for the organization

of religious instruction in the schools.

Bormann set forth at great length that it was not the task of the Party

to engage in reform measures with respect to religious instruction in

schools. To this I would like to say the following. I could not give any

instructions at all to Reich Bishop Müller on this topic. Nevertheless,

the Reich Bishop visited me on two occasions, and on one occasion he

told me, virtually with tears in his eyes, that he got no proper

response to his work. I told him, “Your Excellency, as a military

pastor, you are simply not well enough known to the public. It would be

quite apropos if you would write a detailed work setting forth your

views and your objectives, so that the various groups of the Evangelical

Church might get to know your ideas, and in that way you can make your

influence felt in the manner you wish.” The Reich Bishop may well have

spoken about this, and probably made a few additional remarks. I do not

believe that the accusation made here by Bormann can be construed as

persecution of the churches either.

Document 075-PS is a special circular letter by the Chief of the Party

Chancellery, setting forth his personal views on the relationship of

National Socialism to Christendom. As well as I remember, this document

deals with the following: I had once heard that Bormann had sent a

letter of such contents to a certain Gauleiter and also copies of it to

all the Gauleiter. I asked him to let me know about it. After much delay

I finally received this circular letter. As a Party circular, I

considered it improper in form and substance. I wrote Bormann—and I

believe the letter I sent to him should be found in my records—that I

did not consider a circular letter of that sort suitable or proper and I

added, in my own handwriting so that it would be taken more seriously,

that in my opinion the Führer would not approve a circular letter of

this sort. Later I spoke with Bormann about this personally and told him

that each one of us had the right to define his position towards this

problem, but official Party circulars—and especially in this form—were

impossible in my opinion. After this conversation, Bormann was greatly

embarrassed, and—as I incidentally heard from my Codefendant

Schirach—this circular letter, according to him, was rescinded and

declared null and void. I can make no statement about this, however.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I would like to call attention to the fact

that I gave the Document Number 075-PS to this document, but it should

actually be Document D-75.

ROSENBERG: Document 072-PS is a letter from Bormann with reference to

the matter of investigating the libraries of monasteries confiscated by

the State. I was not told the political reasons involved in each case;

but I did hear that the police were demanding the additional right to

take over the investigation of this sort of thing. This was a problem

which brought me into conflict with Himmler in those years. I considered

it completely impossible that such investigation was to be brought under

police control as well, and that motivated me, as can be seen from

Document 071-PS, to place myself in opposition to Bormann in this

matter.

This Document 072-PS gives Bormann’s answer to me, in which he points

out that Heydrich insisted absolutely on continuing this research and

said—I quote: “The scientific refutation of antagonistic philosophy can

only be carried out after preliminary police and political preparation.”

I considered this attitude absolutely untenable, and I protested against

it.

These are the pertinent comments which I have to make on these numerous

documents. I refused to write official Party tracts of religious

semblance or to have catechisms written by my Party offices. I always

strove to take what I considered to be a National Socialist attitude in

not considering my office a “spiritual” police force; but the fact

remained that the Führer had charged Bormann with the official

representation of the Party’s attitude toward the church.

My answer to all of these letters is missing, and I do not recall

whether I replied to everything, or whether I gave these answers orally

to Bormann at conferences. But despite the fact that all of these

answers are lacking, the Prosecution have stated that both of us, that

is Bormann and I, had issued decrees for religious persecution and had

misled other Germans into participating in these religious persecutions.

I would like to summarize and state on principle that this is ultimately

a thousand-year-old problem of the relationship between secular and

church power, and that many states have taken measures against which the

churches have always protested. When in modern times we look at the laws

of the French Republic under the ministry of Combes, and when we look at

the legal system of the Soviet Union, we see that both have supported

the officially promoted atheist propaganda in tracts, newspapers, and

caricatures.

Lastly, I would like to say that in all cases the National Socialist

State, so far as I know, gave to the churches more than 700 million

marks annually out of the tax receipts for the maintenance of their

organizational work, and that up to the end.

DR. THOMA: Witness, the chief of the Party Chancellery, Bormann, in the

course of time, met you in still keener opposition. Was the reason for

the, one may well say, enmity between you and Bormann the fact that in

church matters you were considerably more tolerant than Bormann,

himself?

ROSENBERG: It is difficult to say just which reasons played a role here.

That this hostility was as deep as it finally revealed itself to be,

specifically when dealing with Eastern problems, I realized only later,

much later. Ultimately I had to admit, of course, that in a large

movement many temperaments and many views may exist, and I did not

except myself from having shortcomings and faults which could be

criticized by others. I did not believe that differences and opinions

could lead to a hostility of such proportions that it would result in

undermining the official position of the opponent.

DR. THOMA: Were religious services in the Third Reich, regular Sunday

services, and so forth limited in any way?

ROSENBERG: I cannot tell you that at the moment. As far as I know,

religious services were never forbidden in the whole of Germany up to

the end.

DR. THOMA: Now I come to the Einsatzstab. I give you Document 101-PS,

(Exhibit USA-385) in which the essential matters are summarized, and I

refer you to the document book of the French Prosecution, Document

Number FA-1, in particular. How did the establishment of Einsatzstab

Rosenberg come about?

ROSENBERG: The Prosecution contends that it is a matter of a

premeditated plan for the plundering of the cultural treasures of other

states. In reality, the following was true: We were dealing with an

unforeseen situation. A colleague of mine had accompanied a press

delegation when the German troops marched into Paris and noticed that

the Parisians were returning almost completely with the exception of the

Jewish population, so that all organizations and institutions in that

category of ownership were left behind empty, as well as the residences

and mansions of these leading personalities, so to say, ownerless. He

suggested that research into property, archives, and correspondence

should be made. I reported the matter to the Führer and asked whether he

approved of the carrying out of this suggestion.

This letter of mine to the Führer was submitted to me in the preliminary

interrogation but was not submitted to the Tribunal by the Prosecution.

Thus, even though the documentary proof of the reason for this entire

transaction is at hand, the Prosecution have still maintained the charge

of a premeditated plan.

The order of the Führer was issued at the beginning of July 1940, and

since a large number of art objects, in addition to the archives, was

found in a dangerous position in many mansions, the safekeeping and the

transporting of these objects of art into the German Reich was decreed

by the Führer.

DR. THOMA: Did you know anything as to what legal reasons Hitler is

believed to have had for these measures?

ROSENBERG: Yes, and I would admit...

THE PRESIDENT: Just one minute. I don’t understand what you are saying.

Are you saying that you made a suggestion to the Führer, and that there

is proof of your letter making that suggestion, and that the Prosecution

are concealing that proof? Is that what you are saying? Will you answer

that question? Are you suggesting that they are concealing a proof of

the suggestion which you made the Führer for this scheme of taking away

Jewish property from France?

ROSENBERG: No, I do not wish to say conceal, but only to say that it was

not submitted, even though it was shown to me in a preliminary hearing.

DR. THOMA: May I add a few details, Mr. President. I would like to point

out that I repeatedly pointed out in my petitions that this letter must

be available, since it was submitted to the Defendant Rosenberg in the

preliminary hearings.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you made any application for the document to be

produced?

DR. THOMA: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: When?

DR. THOMA: I repeatedly called attention to this document—to the

submission of this document.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal are quite unaware of having turned

down any such request. Let me see the written request.

DR. THOMA: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: It probably is not a matter of very great importance. I

only wanted to know what the witness was talking about.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I will send for my files.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, you can go on in the meantime.

ROSENBERG: Of course, it was clear that we were concerned with an

unusual problem, and for that very reason I did not talk with the

military administration but went directly to the Führer, so that I could

get his opinion. But I believe the fact in itself can be understood,

that we were interested in going into historical research regarding the

extent to which, in the course of recent years or decades, various

organizations had taken part in the activity which is here under

discussion as destructive of peace; secondly, how many prominent persons

individually took part in it; and thirdly, I remembered that many works

of art, which in past times had been taken from Germany had not been

returned to Germany for many decades, despite the agreement of 1815.

Finally, I thought of a measure which in 1914 to 1918 had been

recognized by the Allies as being in agreement with the Hague

Convention. At that period German citizens of a certain category—they

were the racial Germans abroad, in foreign countries, also in occupied

German territory—that is, in the colonies—had their property

confiscated and later taken from them without compensation to the extent

of a value of 25 billion Reichsmark. In the peace dictate of Versailles,

Germany was in addition obliged to post security for these dispossessed

Germans and to set up a special fund.

The Chief French Prosecutor declared at this Trial that the Versailles

Treaty was based on the Hague Convention. Therefore, I drew the

conclusion that this measure against a very distinct category of

citizens in the midst of unforeseen military measures, with all due

respect for private and public property otherwise, appeared justified.

During the preliminary hearing, I was also asked about the legal

hypotheses and had started to point them out, but I was interrupted with

the remark that we were not concerned with that problem at the time. The

record of this interrogation which the French Prosecution presented here

contains the remark that I am supposed to have said...

THE PRESIDENT: We are not concerned with the interrogations until the

interrogations are put in evidence. These interrogations have not been

put in evidence yet. You can give your explanations of them if they are

put to you in cross-examination.

ROSENBERG: Mr. President, this document is mentioned here in the

document book, and the German translation may be found, although not

exactly verbatim, in the French files.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, the defendant only wishes to say that from the

beginning he pointed out that the Treaty of Versailles, Article 279, was

authoritative, that he did not invent that later on.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, all I was pointing out to him was that the

various interrogations which have taken place very likely are not in

evidence. Of course, if he is referring to interrogations which have

been put in evidence—but is he?

DR. THOMA: Yes. This is FA-16 (Document Number L-188). That was

submitted, Mr. President.

ROSENBERG: That is what I was speaking of. That was submitted. But this

interrogation was...

THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment. If he is referring to an interrogation

which has been put in evidence, it must have an exhibit number.

DR. THOMA: This interrogation is in the document book, and it is known

as Document Number FA-16.

THE PRESIDENT: If he is referring to an exhibit, no doubt he can do it.

ROSENBERG: I would like only to rectify somewhat an error in the

translation. I did not say, “Yes, it is true; I remember that this

measure was taken;” but I said, “I thought it,” that is to say, I had

thought it earlier, not at the moment when I was asked. I saw this only

when I received the translation, which I had not seen prior to that

time.

As far as Document 1015-PS is concerned, in order not to delay the Court

too long, I would like to point to just a few items—namely, that in the

work report of 1940-44, on Page 2, it was stated that the origin was

determined beyond question, and on Page 3 we see that the taking of

inventories was done in a conscientious manner on the basis of a

scientific catalog, that a workshop for the restoration was set up in

order to ensure their arriving at their destination in good condition.

Finally, I would like to add a few words because they seem important to

me in view of the charges of the Soviet Prosecution relative to the

treatment of cultural treasures by the Einsatzstab in the former

Occupied Eastern Territories. At the end of the work report, there is

stated under the title, “Work in the Eastern regions”—I quote:

“The activity of Special Einsatzstab ‘Plastic Art’ was limited

in the Occupied Eastern Territories to scientific and

photographic recording of public collections, their safeguarding

and care in collaboration with military and civilian offices. In

the course of evacuation of the area, several hundred of the

most valuable Russian icons, several hundred Russian paintings

of the 18th and 19th centuries, individual pieces of furniture

and household articles ... were recovered and brought to the

Reich for safekeeping.”

I only wanted to point out by this that the Einsatzstab in the East did

not transport any Soviet cultural and art treasures to the Reich, but

only brought them to safety—as may be seen from later documents, when

the territories directly menaced by operations were evacuated—first

into the rear areas, then further back and partly into the Reich.

From the same document I would like to point to a letter of 5 July 1942

from the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery. I refer to

the charge of the Polish Government that the entire removal of works of

art and museum pieces was concentrated in the Einsatzstab or in the

Rosenberg office in Berlin. I will return again to this Polish

accusation. I just want to point to the paragraph in Dr. Lammers’ letter

which says that the Führer had decreed that various libraries of the

Eastern region were to be confiscated; and then there is stated

expressly, “The Government General is not included.”

Furthermore, I refer to the directive of the Reich Minister for the

Occupied Eastern Territories of 20 August 1941 to Reich Commissioner

Ostler.

DR. THOMA: What page?

ROSENBERG: Page 2 of this document. At the end it says...

THE PRESIDENT: What document are you talking about now? What document

number?

ROSENBERG: I am sorry, but the copy I have is not marked in red, and I

am, therefore, referring to the document in my hands. At any rate, it is

at the end of page 1 of the document. This is no special letter, it is a

circular letter dated 7 April 1942.

THE PRESIDENT: I only want to get this clear. What I took down was that

he was referring to a decree of the 20th of August 1941.

ROSENBERG: I beg your pardon. It is 20 August.

DR, THOMA: 20 August, that is correct, and the year is 1941. It is Page

78 of Document Book 2, at the end of the page.

ROSENBERG: “I expressly request that you prohibit the removal of

cultural objects of any kind from your Reichskommissariat, by

any agencies whatsoever, without your approval. What confiscated

cultural objects will remain in the Reichskommissariat Ostland

and what may possibly be utilized for specialized research work

must come under a later regulation. I request that you inform

your subordinate general and district commissioners of this

directive. The national administration of museums, libraries,

_et cetera_, regardless of the right of inspection and inventory

by the Einsatzstab, remain unaffected by this directive.”

I shall come back to this directive later when replying to the

accusation by the Soviet Prosecution regarding the administration of

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

DR. THOMA: We come now to the furniture operation in France.

ROSENBERG: I am not finished with this matter yet, because exceptionally

serious charges have been preferred in this matter. I refer to a second

directive of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories,

dated 7 April 1942, in which, at the end, under I, the fundamental

principles I have just read are reiterated. It is in Document Book 2,

Page 94. All are told to refrain entirely from independent action.

Under II, it says verbatim:

“In special cases, as an exception, immediate steps can be taken

to secure or remove items to a safe place in order to evade

threatening dangers—that is, danger of collapse of buildings,

enemy action, climatic influences, _et cetera_.”

I shall come back to this in connection with the accusation of the

Soviet Government regarding happenings in Minsk. When Document 076-PS

was read, it said at the end that there was never any order given for

the protection of cultural objects. This order has been presented here

twice.

Further, I would like to refer to a directive of 3 October 1941 by the

Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to the staff leader

of the Einsatzstab in the same document—wherein I again call special

attention to the document which I have just read.

In addition, I call the Tribunal’s attention to an order of the High

Command of the Army of 30 September 1942, which was issued in agreement

with the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Here also

it says literally at the end, under I ...

DR. THOMA: Is that Page 89 of the document book?

THE PRESIDENT: Which is that? September ’42?

ROSENBERG: 30 September 1942.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I have got that. What about the one of October ’41?

Where is that?

ROSENBERG: October ’41?

THE PRESIDENT: October ’41.

ROSENBERG: That is 3 October 1941.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you know where it is, Dr. Thoma?

DR. THOMA: It is contained in Document 1015-PS, Exhibit USA-385, but it

may be that this document is not listed in this particular index. In my

document I cannot locate it at the moment, but it belongs to 1015-PS and

was submitted in its entirety.

ROSENBERG: And the order of the Army High Command of 30 September 1942

says, under I:

“Except for special cases, in which the safeguarding of

endangered works of culture is urgent, efforts will be made to

leave them in their present location for the time being. For

this purpose, according to reciprocal agreements between the

Quartermaster General of the General Staff of the Army and the

Einsatzstab of Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the latter has been

granted authority to: c) in order to safeguard against damage or

destruction in the operational area of the East also such works

of culture which do not fall under paragraph b—especially

museum pieces—to protect and/or place them in security.”

At the end of this directive, it says under IV:

“Independent of the missions of the Einsatzstab of Reichsleiter

Rosenberg, according to Section I, a, b, c, the troops and all

military offices located in the operational area are instructed

now, as before, to preserve valuable art objects if possible and

to protect them from destruction or damage.”

I believed it my duty to prove, at least very briefly, that my

Einsatzstab, as well as the military offices, issued clear directives

and orders for the protection, even during these bitter battles, of

objects of art of the Russian, Ukrainian, and White Ruthenian people.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, you know that Hitler and Göring diverted some

of the objects of art which were confiscated in France. What part did

you play in this matter?

ROSENBERG: In principle the Führer specified, as can be seen from

information given by the then Field Marshal Keitel, upon order of the

Führer, that he reserved for himself the disposition of these works and

any decision related hereto.

I do not wish to dispute in any way that I had the hope that at least a

large part of these objects of art would remain in Germany, particularly

since, in the course of time, many German cultural works were destroyed

by particularly severe bombing in the West. These works of art were to

be a sort of security for later negotiations. When Reich Marshal Göring,

who by directive of the Führer particularly supported this work of the

Einsatzstab, earmarked a number of these works of art for his

collection, I was—I must say frankly, as the record states—a little

uneasy, because with this commission I had taken on a certain

responsibility in my name for the total of the confiscated cultural and

art objects, and I was, therefore, obligated to catalog them in their

entirety and to keep them available for any negotiations or decisions.

Therefore, I directed my deputy to make as complete a list as possible

of those things which the Reich Marshal, with the approval of the

Führer, was diverting for his collection. I knew that Reich Marshal

Göring intended later to give this collection to the German Reich and

not to bequeath it privately.

In the interrogation record which was produced and read on this point by

the French Prosecution there is also a regrettable error to be found. It

says that I had been uneasy because Reich Marshal Göring had

misappropriated these works of art. In German, the term “entwendet”

means as much as to take illegally (to embezzle). What I said, however,

was “verwendet,” which has a different meaning.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I would like to point out in this connection

the fact that the French used the word “_détourné_,” which means

“divert.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.

[_A recess was taken._]

DR. THOMA: I now turn to the furniture operation in France, and for that

purpose I am showing the defendant Document 001-PS, also Volume II of

the French Document Book, and I am asking the defendant to state his

views with respect to it.

[_The document was submitted to the defendant._]

ROSENBERG: Document 001-PS contains, at the beginning, information to

the effect that in the East accommodations were found to be so dreadful

that I was proposing that ownerless Jewish homes in France and their

furniture should be made available for that purpose. This suggestion was

approved in a decree issued, by order of the Führer, by the Reich

Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery on 31 December 1941.

In the course of the ever-increasing bombardment in Germany, I

considered that I no longer could take responsibility for this, and thus

I made a suggestion that this furniture should be placed at the disposal

of bombed-out victims in Germany—which amounted to more than 100,000

people on certain nights—so that emergency aid would be given to them.

In the report of the French Document Book it is stated in the seventh

paragraph how the confiscation was carried out: that these deserted

apartments were sealed, that they remained sealed for some time in the

event of possible claims, and that then the shipment to Germany was

carried out.

I am aware that this, no doubt, was a serious encroachment on private

property; but here again, in connection with previous considerations, I

thought about the implications and, finally, of the millions of homeless

Germans. I want to emphasize in this connection that I kept myself well

informed; that the homes, their owners, and the main contents in the way

of furniture were recorded in detail in a big book, as a basis for

possible negotiations at a later date.

In Germany the matter was so arranged that those people who suffered

damage by bombing paid for these furnishings and household goods, which

were placed at their disposal; and these deliveries were deducted from

the claims which they had against the state. That money was paid into a

special fund administered by the Minister of Finance.

The Document 001-PS contains under Number 2 a suggestion which I myself

consider a serious charge against me. This is a suggestion that in view

of many murders of Germans in France, not only Frenchmen should be shot

as hostages, but that Jewish citizens also were to be called to account.

I should like to say that I considered these shootings of hostages,

since they were announced publicly, a permissible measure under special

circumstances in wartime. The fact that this sort of thing was being

done by the Armed Forces appeared to me according to the result of the

usual investigations, the more so since it was taking place in a

territory, a State with which the German Reich had signed an armistice.

Secondly, this happened during a period of excitement, due to the war

which had just broken out with the United States of America and to our

recollection of the report from the Polish Ambassador, Count Potocki,

dated 30 January 1939, which the Tribunal has forbidden to be read.

In spite of everything, however, I must say that I consider this

suggestion as a personal injustice. Looking at it from the legal side, I

would like to point out that in Document 1015-PS, under letter Y, there

is a letter from the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery,

which is dated 31 December 1941, and in which it says:

“Your memorandum dated 18 December 1941 has been submitted to

the Führer. The Führer has agreed in principle with the

suggestion under 1. A copy of that part of the memorandum which

deals with the utilization of Jewish household goods I have sent

to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the Reich

Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands, together with a

letter of which a copy is attached hereto.”

In this matter Point 1 was accepted and tacitly, though just as

emphatically, Point 2, which deals with this suggestion, was turned

down. This suggestion, therefore, had no legal consequences. Later on I

never again referred to this suggestion, and I must say that I had

forgotten all about it until it was again put before me here.

DR. THOMA: I now turn to the subject, “Minister for the Occupied Eastern

Territories.” The defendant is eager to express his opinion with regard

to Molotov’s note—that he, the defendant, was a Czarist spy—since this

affects his personal character. I therefore ask the defendant whether he

at any time had relations with the Czarist police.

ROSENBERG: No.

GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, the Indictment which has been presented to

the Defendant Rosenberg at no point incriminates him of having been a

Czarist spy. Therefore, we consider that this question is irrelevant.

DR. THOMA: The Molotov notes have been submitted to the Tribunal, and so

have been put in evidence. Therefore, I think that I may be permitted to

put that question.

THE PRESIDENT: He has answered in the negative already, so you can pass

from it, can’t you? It has formed no part of the Indictment.

DR. THOMA: Yes.

[_Turning to the defendant._] When did you learn that you were proposed

for the position of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and

for what reason were you given this commission?

ROSENBERG: May I state with regard to this that at the very beginning of

April—as far as I can remember it was 2 April 1941—the Führer summoned

me in the morning and explained to me that he regarded a military clash

with the Soviet Union as inevitable. As reasons he quoted two points:

first, the military occupation of Romanian territory—that is to say,

Bessarabia and North Bukovina; second, the continual re-enforcing for a

long time and on a gigantic scale of the Red Army along the line of

demarcation and in Soviet Russian territory generally. These facts were

so striking that he had already given the relevant military and other

orders and had decided to assign me as a political adviser in a decisive

capacity. Thus I was faced with a _fait accompli_, and an attempt even

to discuss the matter was countered by the Führer with the remark that

the orders had been given and that scarcely anything could be altered in

the matter, whereupon I told the Führer that, of course, I wished the

best of luck to the German arms, and I was at his disposal for the

political advice which he desired.

Immediately afterwards I called a meeting of some of my closest

assistants, since I did not know whether the military operations would

be starting very soon or later on. We made a number of drafts concerning

the possible treatment of political problems and possible measures to be

taken in the territories to be occupied in the East. These drafts have

been submitted here. On 20 April I received a preliminary task, which

was to form a central department for dealing with Eastern questions and

to get in touch with the highest Reich authorities concerned with these

matters.

DR. THOMA: I should like to submit to the defendant the instructions

which he drafted after his appointment.

I have just one more request to the Tribunal. These instructions are now

crossed out in the photostatic copy and bear all sorts of remarks. I

request, therefore, that the Tribunal take personal cognizance of the

photostatic copies so that they can see how these instructions have been

crossed out. The documents themselves have already been submitted to the

Tribunal as numbered exhibits.

ROSENBERG: May I refer to these documents—1017-PS, 1028-PS, 1029-PS,

and 1030-PS...

THE PRESIDENT: They have already been put in evidence?

DR. THOMA: Yes, they have been put in.

[_Turning to the defendant._] May I ask you to state the exhibit

numbers?

ROSENBERG: I have just mentioned the exhibit numbers.

DR. THOMA: What are the USA exhibit numbers?

ROSENBERG: Document Number 1028-PS has Exhibit Number USA-273; Document

1030-PS has Exhibit USA-144. On the others I do not find any USA

numbers.

DR. THOMA: Document 1017-PS is Exhibit USA-142; Document 1028-PS is

Exhibit USA-273; Document 1029-PS is Exhibit USA-145; Document 1030-PS

is Exhibit USA-144. They are contained in the special document book for

the Defendant Rosenberg. I state in this connection that these are

provisional drafts, with notations by the secretary, from the end of

April and the beginning of May. These provisional drafts were not

released but, as can be seen, were crossed out and supplemented with

written remarks in the margin; and, in addition, they contain viewpoints

which later on were not approved by the Führer. For this very reason, as

far as the Ukraine is concerned they could not be applied at all. The

written instructions which went out to the Reich Commissioners for the

East and the Ukraine, after the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern

Territories had been formed, were unfortunately not found, so that I

cannot refer to them.

DR. THOMA: On 20 June 1941—that is to say, one day before the outbreak

of the war against Russia—did you make a speech to everybody concerned

with Eastern affairs regarding those Eastern problems? The document

concerned here is Exhibit USA-147, from which the Prosecution quoted a

single paragraph several times.

ROSENBERG: This is a fairly long impromptu speech made before those who

were concerned with, and assigned to deal with Eastern problems. With

regard to this, I state that it was my duty, as a matter of course, to

consider political measures which would have to be proposed to avoid a

situation in which the German Reich would have to fight every 25 years

for its existence in the East; and I should like to emphasize that that

which I authentically said in a confidential speech does not correspond

in any way with the Soviet accusations that I was in favor of a

systematic extermination of the Slavic peoples.

I do not wish to occupy the Tribunal’s time by reading very much here;

nevertheless I would like to read a few paragraphs to justify myself. It

says on Page 3 (Exhibit USA-147):

“Originally, Russian history was a purely Continental affair.

For 200 years Moscow-Russia lived under the Tartar yoke, and its

face was mainly turned to the East. The Russian traders and

hunters opened up the East as far as the Urals. Some Cossack

treks went to Siberia, and the colonization of Siberia is no

doubt one of the great accomplishments of history.”

I think that this expresses my attitude of respect toward that historic

achievement.

On Page 6 it says:

“From this it follows that Germany’s aim is the freedom of the

Ukrainian people. This must without fail be made a point in our

political program. In what form and to what extent a Ukrainian

State can be formed later is of no purport just now.... One must

proceed cautiously in this direction. Literature dealing with

the Ukrainian struggles must be promoted so that the Ukrainian

people’s historical consciousness can be revived. A university

would have to be founded in Kiev, technical colleges

established, the Ukrainian language cultivated, _et cetera_.”

I have quoted this as documentary evidence of the fact that it was not

my intention to destroy the culture of the peoples of the East.

In the next paragraph I pointed out that it was important to win, in the

course of time, the voluntary co-operation of the 40 million people in

the Ukraine. On Page 7 reference is made to the possible occupation of

the Caucasian territories as follows:

“Here the aim will not be to establish a Caucasian National

State but to find a solution on Federal lines which, with German

help, might go so far as to influence these people to ask

Germany to protect their cultural and national existence.”

Here, too, there is no question of a desire to exterminate.

Now comes a matter which has been described by the American Prosecution

as a particularly serious, incriminating factor. It deals with the

so-called colonization and the property of German peoples in the East.

This paragraph is worded as follows:

“Quite apart from all these problems, there is a question which

is of an equally general nature, and which we must all think

about—namely, the question of German property. German people

have worked in this immense territory for centuries. The result

of that work, among other things, was the acquisition of vast

lands. The land confiscated in the Baltic countries can be

compared in size with East Prussia; the entire real estate in

the Black Sea was as great as Württemberg, Baden, and Alsace put

together. In the Black Sea area more land was cultivated than is

arable in England. These comparisons of size must make it clear

to us that the Germans there did not idly exploit or plunder the

people, but that they did constructive work. And the result of

this work is German national property; irrespective of earlier

individual owners. Just how that may one day be compensated

cannot yet be considered. But a ... legal basis can be

established.”

I wished to quote this so that I can refer to it later on when we deal

with the agrarian problem, particularly in respect to the Reich

Commission East, where in spite of these reflections the 700-year-old

German property was not restored but handed to the Estonians, Latvians,

and Lithuanians by law, as has been proved.

In a later paragraph it states:

“We must declare in this connection that even now we are not

enemies of the Russian people...”

THE PRESIDENT: Are you still reading from Document 1058-PS?

ROSENBERG: Yes. I continue to quote the following paragraph:

“We must declare in this connection that even now we are not

enemies of the Russian people. All of us who knew the Russians

before know that the individual Russian is a very likable

person, capable of assimilating culture, but lacking only in the

strength of character possessed by the Western European... Our

fight for a regrouping is conducted quite in line with the right

of national self-determination of peoples....”

I shall not read to the Tribunal the end, which they can later take

cognizance of in detail if they so wish.

I made that speech fully convinced that, after my first expository

remarks to the Führer about the subject, he had essentially agreed with

me. I did not know—and he did not tell me—that other military and

police orders had already been issued; otherwise it would have been

practically impossible for me—and particularly in Heydrich’s

presence—to make a speech which obviously contradicted flatly the

conceptions of Himmler and Heydrich.

As far as the passage from this document which had been quoted by the

Prosecution is concerned, I have the following to say: I heard from

people working on the Four Year Plan that, in the event of an occupation

of the Moscow industrial region and of far-reaching destruction by war

operations, large-scale industries could no longer continue, and that

activities would probably be limited to operating a number of key

industries only. That would necessarily result in considerable

unemployment. Besides, it was not clear how large the supply reserves in

the East were, and in view of the general food situation and of the

blockade the German food supply had to be a primary consideration.

This is back of the remark that under certain circumstances a

large-scale evacuation of Russian territories might be necessary where

large numbers of industrial workers might become unemployed. And in

connection therewith, I should like to refer to Document 1056-PS, which

contains the first directive from the Ministry for Eastern Affairs,

according to which the providing of food supplies for the population

also was made a special duty.

DR. THOMA: On 17 July 1941 you were appointed, by decree of the Führer,

to act as Reich Minister for the administration of the newly occupied

Eastern Territories. On the preceding day there had been a conference

between Hitler, Keitel, Göring, and Lammers, during which you stated

your administrative program in detail. I refer to Document L-221,

Exhibit USA-317 and ask you to comment upon it. It is on Page 123 in

Rosenberg Document Book 2.

ROSENBERG: This document, which is obviously a final résumé by Bormann,

has, of course, been submitted here four or five times. During that

meeting I had actually not intended to present a voluminous program, but

this session had been called for the purpose of discussing the wording

of the intended Führer decrees concerning the administration of the

Occupied Eastern Territories and to give all the participants an

opportunity to state their views on that subject. I was also preoccupied

with a number of questions dealing with personnel, which I wanted to

submit to the Führer. I was surprised, therefore, when the Führer began

passionately, and at considerable length, to expound this policy in the

East while making many unexpected observations for me. I had the

impression that the Führer himself was aroused by the unanticipated

powerful armament of the Soviet Union and our hard struggle against the

Red Army. That had obviously caused the Führer to make some of the

statements to which I may perhaps refer at the end.

In the presence of the other witnesses, I countered the unexpected

statements of the Führer, and in addition I should like to read from

Bormann’s record the following paragraphs which have not been read until

now. I quote from the original Document L-221 on Page 4:

“Reich Leader Rosenberg emphasizes that, in accordance with his

views, each Kommissariat would require a different treatment of

the population. In the Ukraine we would have to initiate a

program furthering art and culture. We would have to awaken the

historical consciousness of the Ukrainians, and establish a

university at Kiev, and the like. The Reich Marshal, on the

other hand, points out that we have to think first of

guaranteeing our food supply—everything else should be dealt

with later.

“(Incidental question: Is there still anything like an educated

class in the Ukraine, or are upper-class Ukrainians to be found

only as emigrants outside present-day Russia?)”

This is a comment by Bormann. I continue to quote:

“Rosenberg continues that certain independence movements in the

Ukraine deserved support as well.”

Then follows on Page 5 a quotation of the intentions of the Führer,

where it says—and I quote:

“Likewise the Crimea, including a considerable hinterland

(territory north of the Crimea), must become Reich territory;

the hinterland must be as large as possible.

“Rosenberg complains about this because of the Ukrainians living

there.

“(Incidental question:”—again from Bormann—“It frequently

appears that Rosenberg has quite a liking for the Ukrainians; he

wants to enlarge the former Ukraine to a considerable extent.)”

Thus there is evidence that I tried to persuade the Führer with all my

might to agree to the same points which I made in my speech on 20 June

1941 before the assembled department heads.

The further content of the document shows that the Reich Marshal was

interested particularly in the appointment of the former Gauleiter Koch,

and that I opposed this candidate since I was afraid that Koch, due to

his temperament and being so far removed from the Reich, might not

follow my directives. To be sure, while making the protest I could not

have known that Koch later on, in disobeying my directives, would go as

far as he did and—I shall add—upon special instigation by the head of

the Party Chancellery.

Toward the end, on Page 10 of the original of the record, there appears

a passage which has not been read; which I am now quoting:

“A lengthy discussion sets in regarding the competency of the

Reichsführer SS. Obviously the participants have also in mind

the authority of the Reich Marshal at the time.”

I personally wish to add that this is a private remark made by the head

of the Party Chancellery and does not by any means represent the actual

minutes of a meeting. I quote further:

“The Führer, the Reich Marshal, and others emphasize repeatedly

that Himmler shall by no means have greater jurisdiction than he

had in Germany proper; this, however, was absolutely necessary.”

These minutes show that this was a rather heated discussion, since, not

only during that conference, but before that I had opposed the idea that

the police should have legally independent executive authority in the

occupied territories—that is to say, that they were to be independent

of the civil administration. I also spoke against the presented version

of the Führer decree, which had already been prepared. I did not find

any support whatsoever for my opinion from anyone present, and that

explains to a great extent the later developments and the wording of the

decree, signed on the following day by the Führer, which was the ruling

applicable to the entire administration in the Occupied Eastern

Territories.

DR. THOMA: On 17 July you were appointed Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories, and at the same time other appointments were made.

The question now arises: What was the extent of your competency and of

your activities in the Eastern Territories?—Rosenberg Document Book,

Volume II, Page 46.

ROSENBERG: May I refer you to Paragraph 2, which deals with the

establishment of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories,

where a Reich Minister is appointed, and Paragraph 3, which reads as

follows:

“Military authorities and powers are exercised in the newly

occupied Eastern Territories by the commanders of the Armed

Forces in accordance with my decree of 25 June 1941. The powers

of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan in the newly occupied

Eastern Territories, according to my decree of 29 June 1941, and

those of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police,

according to my decree of 17 July 1941, are subject to special

ruling and are not affected by the following regulations.”

Paragraph 6 states, “At the head of each Reich Commission shall be a

Reich commissioner...,” and then follow detailed regulations, stating

that the Reich commissioners and the commissioners general shall be

appointed by the Führer personally, and that consequently they could not

be relieved or dismissed by me.

Paragraph 7 rules that the Reich commissioners shall be subordinated to

the Reich Ministers and shall receive instructions exclusively from them

wherever Article 3 is not applicable—that is, the Paragraph 3 which

refers to the commanders of the Armed Forces and the Chief of the German

Police.

Paragraph 9 states, “The Reich commissioners are responsible for the

entire administration of their territory with regard to civilian

affairs.”

In the next paragraph the entire management of the German railways and

mails is placed under the jurisdiction of the ministries concerned, as

is not otherwise possible in war.

Paragraph 10 requires the Reich Minister, whose headquarters are

specified as Berlin, to coordinate, in the highest interest of the

Reich, his wishes with those of the other supreme authorities in the

Reich, and in the event of differences of opinion to seek a decision by

the Führer.

I need not submit to the Tribunal the Führer decree concerning Commands

of the Armed Forces, since it is sufficiently clear what we are

concerned with, nor the decree regarding the powers of the Delegate for

the Four Year Plan, dated 29 June 1941, in which it is stated that the

Delegate for the Four Year Plan—that is, Reich Marshal Göring—may also

issue instructions to all civilian and military services in the Occupied

Eastern Territories. Of decisive importance for an estimate of the

entire legal relationship, however, and the consequence finally

resulting therefrom is the decree of the Führer regarding police

protection in the Occupied Eastern Territories, dated 17 July 1941. It

says under Provision I as follows, “Police security in the newly

occupied Eastern Territories is a matter for the Reichsführer SS and

Chief of the German Police.”

By this Paragraph I all security measures in the Eastern Territories

were placed under the unlimited jurisdiction of the Reichsführer SS, who

thereby, alongside the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern

Territories and next to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, became the

third independent central Reich authority in Berlin, with the result

that the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories could not

install a security or police department in his ministry in Berlin.

Under Provision II it states that the Reichsführer SS is also

authorized, apart from the normal instructions to his police, to issue

instructions directly to the civilian Reich commissioners under certain

circumstances, and that he is obliged to transmit orders of fundamental

political significance through the Reich Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories, unless it is a question of averting an imminent

danger. This wording gave to the Reichsführer SS the actual possibility

of deciding for himself what he considered politically important in his

orders and what not, and what his orders regarding the averting of

impending danger concerned.

Provision III is of very great importance, since the quotation of

Document 1056-PS (Volume V, Page 60) has given the Tribunal the

impression that the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

had units of the SS under his command in the Occupied Eastern

Territories. Even though it appears from Provision I, which I have just

quoted, that this is incorrect, a wording which is often used in

connection with the powers of the SS has led to this misunderstanding.

This wording is quoted under III of the Police Security Decree as

follows:

“For the carrying out of police security to each Reich

commissioner shall be attached a Higher SS and Police Leader who

shall be directly and personally subordinate to the Reich

commissioner. Leaders of the SS and Police shall be assigned to

the Commissioners General, to the chief, and to the area

commissioners, and shall be subordinated to them directly and

personally.”

Dr. Lammers, who was charged with the drafting of these proposals, has

replied upon questioning that this wording was chosen to mean that the

civilian Reich commissioner could certainly give instructions to the

police on political matters, but that by the choice of the words

“personally and directly subordinate” the actual giving of orders was

exclusively reserved for the Chief of the German Police. And, as far as

I know, Himmler insisted particularly on this wording because it allowed

the Reich Commission outwardly to manifest to the population a certain

uniformity of administration, while, according to Reich law and in

practice, the power to issue orders bypassed the civilian

administration. The agreements between Heydrich and the General

Quartermaster of the Army here submitted, the contents of which I heard

for the first time during this Trial, emphasize that this corresponds to

the facts and point out just how these matters developed and how orders

and authorizations of the police were worded.

The other decrees deal with the establishment of the Reich commissions

themselves, and I do not believe that I need quote them to the Tribunal.

They represent the detailed elaboration of that which has preceded.

I should merely like to refer now to the Lammers decree of 9 February

1942, which refers to technical matters and armament. I point out that,

due to later wishes expressed by other agencies of the Reich, the

departments for technical matters and propaganda, which had been

attached originally to the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories

and the Reich Commission head offices, were separated from these bodies

and subordinated to the corresponding ministries in such a way that

Reich Minister Speer had his deputies in the Reich Commissions as

liaison officers, just as the Reich Transport Minister also had; and

that political propaganda instructions were to be issued by the Reich

Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, but their practical

execution left to the Reich Minister for Propaganda.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, I think you should be a little briefer.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the Tribunal hopes you will.

DR. THOMA: The most important thing in the whole matter, apart from the

jurisdiction of the Police and SS Leader, is your position with regard

to the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor. What were the

conditions regarding authority and subordination? Was Sauckel entitled

to give you instructions?

ROSENBERG: The authority which the Delegate for the Four Year Plan had

received from the Führer is clear-cut; and the Führer decree of 21

March...

THE PRESIDENT: The question was: “Was Sauckel entitled to give you

instructions?” Then you begin to tell us about the Four Year Plan. I am

sure you can answer that question directly.

DR. THOMA: I believe...

ROSENBERG: The Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor had the

right to give instructions to all top authorities in the Reich, and that

included, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. This

was...

DR. THOMA: That is enough. Were you entitled to tell Reich Commissioner

Koch that the quotas of laborers which were required would or could no

longer be fulfilled—“yes” or “no”?

ROSENBERG: I could not do that as simply as that, since the

Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor had been given very

definite quotas by the Führer, and when these quotas appeared too large

to me—and that was always the case—I would call together the

Plenipotentiary General and his representatives and the representatives

of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories for a conference so

as to reduce the figures to a somehow bearable size; and the reduction

of these quotas did, in fact, often result from such conferences, even

though they still remained very high. Officially, however, I could do no

more than make such representations.

MR. DODD: This defendant continues to make a speech. The question was

very simple. He was asked whether he was entitled to tell the Reich

Commissioner Koch that the quotas of laborers which were required could

not be filled. He has now 3 minutes, and I am sure that he will take 30

minutes if he is allowed to go on. He should be kept to all elements

surrounding that question.

DR. THOMA: Witness, I must underline Mr. Dodd’s suggestion. I have asked

you, were you entitled to tell Reich Commissioner Koch that he should

not carry out this drafting of labor?

ROSENBERG: I could not do that.

DR. THOMA: Then the answer is “no.” Did you, nevertheless, do so on one

occasion? Did you once tell him that he should make use of his rights

and powers and simply not fill these quotas?—“yes” or “no”?

ROSENBERG: Yes, I did that expressly in a letter to the Plenipotentiary

General for Allocation of Labor, and the document has been presented in

court. It is dated December 1942; and in that letter I officially drew

his attention to many incidents which took place during this labor

recruitment drive, and I requested him urgently to help me in putting an

end to these intolerable occurrences.

DR. THOMA: May I ask you briefly to refer to this question of labor

mobilization on the basis of the documents. They are documents which

have already been presented by the United States: Documents Number

016-PS, 017-PS, 018-PS, 054-PS, 084-PS, 294-PS, 265-PS, and 031-PS. I

think you can be brief about all these documents since they speak for

themselves.

THE PRESIDENT: Are they in the document book?

DR. THOMA: They are partly in the U.S.A. Document Book “Alfred

Rosenberg”—the special document book.

ROSENBERG: Document 016-PS is a letter written to me by the

Plenipotentiary General, dated 24 April, in which he elaborates his

program. It has several times been referred to by the Prosecution, and I

would like to refer you to two brief points which relate to the Reich

Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

On Page 17 of the document, under the title, “Prisoners of War and

Foreign Laborers,” Paragraph 3 at the end reads literally:

“As far as the beaten enemy is concerned—and even if he has

been our most terrible and implacable opponent—it has always

been a matter of course to us Germans to refrain from any

cruelty and petty chicanery and always treat him correctly and

humanely, even then, when we expect useful service from him.”

And then it says, on Page 18, in Paragraph 5:

“Therefore in the Russian camps, too, the principles of German

cleanliness, orderliness, and hygiene must be meticulously

observed.”

That, as far as I was concerned, was the decisive point; and I fully

agreed with this principle of the Plenipotentiary General. My

letter—Document 018-PS—dated 21 December 1942, is to be understood on

the basis of that agreement.

DR. THOMA: Document Book Rosenberg, Page 64, Volume II.

ROSENBERG: May I summarize and explain briefly? I give therein my

agreement to the solution of the problem of the Eastern Workers, and I

state that we, Sauckel and myself, hold to the same principles—that is,

in reference to the points of Sauckel’s program which have just been

quoted.

I further state that, in spite of these common principles, various

unfortunate occurrences caused me to draw attention to methods not to be

tolerated. On Page 2, I complain that, according to reports received by

the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, various hospital

barracks and camps for sick Eastern Workers, which were to be erected

for allowing them recovery before returning home, had not come up to

expectations, and that the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories

had of its own accord communicated with the Reich Commissioner for

Hospitals and Health.

On Page 3, with reference to the quotas for the Occupied Eastern

Territories, I state that my responsibility earnestly bound me, in

filling the quotas, to exclude all methods the toleration and practice

of which could one day be held against me and my officials:

“In order to attain this end, and to accord the exigencies due

to the special political situation in the Occupied Eastern

Territories with the measures of the commissions and staffs of

your agencies, I have empowered the Reich Commissioner for the

Ukraine, insofar as necessary, to make use of his authority to

eliminate recruiting methods which run contrary to the interest

of the conduct of the war and war economy in the Occupied

Eastern Territories.”

DR. THOMA: Were you aware of the fact that, at the same time when these

methods were discontinued, the workers demanded could not be shipped?

ROSENBERG: That I could not readily assume, since I knew also that right

at the start of the use of propaganda in many regional commissions, a

large number of volunteers from the country—not from the cities, from

the country—reported, and at this point a legal basis for the

prevention of incidents which had taken place in every camp—as shown by

the complaints of this letter—was given the Reich Commissioner.

I might here very briefly refer to the other documents quoted by the

Prosecution, Document 054-PS—that is a criticism of abuses which

reached me from the liaison officer of the Ministry for the Occupied

Eastern Territories with Army Group South. It is severe criticism. But I

shall refer to Page 1 of the telegram, where it says in Paragraph a:

“With few exceptions, the Ukrainians in the Reich who are

working individually—for example, in small workshops, as

farmhands or as household employees—are very satisfied with

their conditions.”

But in Paragraph b:

“Those accommodated in collective camps, on the other hand,

complain very much.”

This was an attempt to exert influence on questions and dealings

concerning a region under the authority, not of the civil, but of the

military administration with its seat in Kharkov, and to exert influence

even in German national territory where I, as Reich Minister for the

Occupied Eastern Territories, had no right to issue instructions; but by

criticism the lot of all Eastern Workers was always being improved and,

to be sure, to the utmost.

Document 084-PS refers to a number of problems and measures for the

improvement of the lot of the workers’ families and the energy with

which the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories defended a

policy of decent treatment of the Eastern peoples with reference to the

question of pay, the deduction of taxes, _et cetera_. But I do not think

I need to go any further into detail, since the Plenipotentiary General

will probably do that himself. I merely refer to my constant efforts in

this direction. I should also like to mention here that there was an

agreement between the Plenipotentiary General and the Ministry for the

Occupied Eastern Territories according to which Eastern workers, after

returning home, were to receive an allotment of land so that they would

feel no prejudices against those who had stayed at home.

Document 204-PS also contains complaints regarding insufficient

allowances, to which I need not refer in detail, and to which I merely

allow myself to draw the attention of the Tribunal.

Document 265-PS is a report from the Commissioner General at Zhitomir,

in the Ukraine, in which he states that the Plenipotentiary General for

Allocation of Labor, on his tour through the Eastern territories, had

personally pointed out the gravity of the whole labor mobilization

program and had transmitted the unconditional orders of the Führer that

these quotas must be placed at the disposal of the Reich. The

Commissioner General remarks further after this serious portrayal of the

situation, he had no other choice during the enrollment process than to

assign certain workers to the police force to aid the local authorities

which had been set up.

Document 031-PS appears to me personally to be of particular importance

since the Prosecution has stated with reference to this document that I

am accused of having approved of the planning and carrying out of the

biological weakening of the Eastern peoples, according to a statement at

the end of this document. Only the first and last portions of this

document have been quoted; and I must ask that I be permitted to inform

the Tribunal of the true state of affairs.

At the beginning of the document is the observation that the Reich

Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, after he had once turned

down the suggestion that young people should be transferred from Army

Group Center to the Reich, was once more presented with the problem and

under very special conditions and prerequisites. In the actual record it

states that, in view of the fact that a large number of adults were

working and had to leave the young people behind without any care, Army

Group Center had the intention of resettling these youths and taking

care of them in a proper manner. At the end of Page 1 of this document

and at the beginning of Page 2, it states that the Minister was afraid

that this action might have very unfavorable political repercussions,

that it would be considered as deportation of children, and that he

desired it to be greatly curtailed.

Under Point 4 it states that if the Reich Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories would not support that action and carry it out, then

Army Group Center—which, of course, was in no way subordinate to the

Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories—would carry out the

action on its own authority. This army group, however, was addressing

itself to the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories in

particular, because in their opinion—as it says literally, “the

guarantee for correct political and fair dealing would be assured.” The

army group would like to see this action carried out under the most

inoffensive conditions. As far as possible these children should be

accommodated in villages, in groups, or collected in small camps. Later

on, from there they were to be placed at the disposal of small

workshops.

Then, later on, it states:

“In the event of a reoccupation of the territory, the Ministry

for the Occupied Eastern Territories can then in a proper way

return these youths, who then, together with their parents would

surely be a positive political factor in the reconstruction of

that territory.”

At the end it states that under these conditions the Reich Minister for

the Occupied Eastern Territories agreed to take care of these youths. I

agreed because I was fully conscious of the fact that through the Youth

Department of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories I would,

wherever possible, be able to guarantee the greatest care for these

children. I want to add that on one occasion I paid a visit to the great

works at Dessau, where four and a half thousand youthful workers were

employed, and where there was a separate children’s camp under the care

of White Ruthenian mothers. I could ascertain that these workers were

wearing very good clothes, that they were being taught mathematics and

languages by Russian women teachers, and that the children’s camp tended

by Russian women had a kindergarten which was looked after by the Hitler

Youth. In the evening of that day the White Ruthenian woman who cared

for the children thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for the humane care

being given them.

I would like to point out a phonetic error which has appeared in this

record. This city—as I said—was Dessau, and not Odessa as is stated in

the record. I never visited Odessa in all my life.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, we have finished the labor problem, and I am

coming to the Reich Commissioners. Perhaps this would be a suitable

moment to break off.

THE PRESIDENT: Can you indicate to the Tribunal how long you are likely

to be with your examination?

DR. THOMA: I am of the opinion that we may be through by 3:30. However,

the Defendant Rosenberg is shaking his head, and, therefore, I cannot

tell you for certain.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Court will recess until 5 minutes past two.

[_The Tribunal recessed until 1405 hours._]

_ Afternoon Session_

DR. THOMA: First, I wish to submit to the Court as Exhibit Rosenberg-11,

Document 194-PS, the secret order of Rosenberg to Koch of December 1942

on the fitting treatment of Ukrainian civilians—dated 14 December 1942.

Witness, please give us your opinion on this general instruction in

connection with your directions in Document 1056-PS.

ROSENBERG: Document 1056-PS is not a direct instruction of the Ministry

for the Occupied Eastern Territories but it was the result of

discussions with various central agencies of the Reich Government

officially interested in the East. In this document there are contained

directions of the Eastern Ministry itself, and agreements with the

various technical agencies such as the Transportation Ministry, the Post

Office Department, and also the Police, in order to manifest, at least

in the East, a certain unified civil administration. For the reasons

which I have enumerated at the beginning this was no longer possible,

and as far as the other questions of the subordination of the SS and

Police Leader are concerned, to which I have referred the Prosecution on

the basis of this document, I might indicate what I took the liberty of

saying at the beginning in connection with the comment on the staffing

of the administration of the Eastern territories, dated 17 July 1941.

However, as far as Document 1056-PS is concerned, I would like to point

out that among the seven points which are especially stressed here, only

the third point, “Care of the Population,” is quite expressly mentioned.

Then, further along in the document it is again explained that this

supplying of the population with foodstuffs and so forth is to be given

special attention and that the problems of medical and veterinary help

are to be given special consideration, even calling upon military

authorities if necessary. Except for that I do not wish to go into this

document further.

The Document 194-PS is unfortunately the only piece of instruction of

the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to the Reich

commissioners that could be found. It is an instruction dated 14

December 1942, in which once again the humane and political attitude to

be taken is prescribed. It is emphasized in the beginning—I permit

myself a few short references—that German behavior should never give

the impression that the Ukraine had no hope at all for the future; that

directives of German offices were to be executed but should be given

great thought. It says further:

“The people of the East have at all times seen in Germany the

bearer of a legal order, which although bound by severity, is

not an expression of arbitrariness. If one is able to make it

clear to the peoples of the East by appropriate legal measures

that although the war brings fearful hardships, yet

transgressions will be justly investigated and judged, then

these peoples will be easier to govern than if the impression of

an arbitrary tyranny such as theirs is given.”

It continues:

“The elementary school with its 4-year curriculum should be

strictly adhered to and should be followed by a proper technical

school training for practical life. The German administration

needs men for veterinary work, transportation, farming,

geological research, _et cetera_, whom the German people is not

in a position to supply. In these fields, the Ukrainian youth

taken away from the streets can be roused to the consciousness

of collaboration in the reconstruction of their country. In

doing this, it would be inadmissible for German offices to

confront the population with contemptuous remarks. Such an

attitude is not worthy of the German.”

Then further:

“One becomes master by adopting a fitting attitude and behavior

but not by overbearing conduct. Not by pretentious speech does

one govern peoples, and not by ostentatious disdain of others

does one win authority.”

Then, several other questions are dealt with in this directive, but I do

not wish to take up the time of the Tribunal too much with these

details. I was interested in showing in what sense I wanted to form the

attitude of the civil administration, and in order not to have this

directive shelved in the large offices I decreed that it was to be read

in all offices.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I should like now to turn to the special

charge of the Soviet Prosecution and in particular to refer to those

documents that pertain to Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab in the East and to the

alleged destructions. Therefore, I will submit to the defendant Exhibit

USSR-376 (Document 161-PS), Exhibit USSR-375 (Document 076-PS), Exhibits

USSR-7, 39, 41, 49, 51, and 81.

[_The documents were submitted to the defendant._]

THE PRESIDENT: Are any of these in your document books?

DR. THOMA: The documents of the U.S.S.R., the ones I mentioned last, I

do not have in a special document book. But I assumed and ascertained

early this morning that these documents had been submitted to the

Tribunal: USSR-39, 41, 251, 89, 49, and 353.

THE PRESIDENT: I was asking only for what purpose you were referring to

them now. Of course we haven’t all the books here. They are not in your

books?

DR. THOMA: Number 161-PS is in Document Book 3, Page 34. Nothing else is

mentioned in the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

ROSENBERG: The Document 161-PS deals with an order for the bringing back

of certain archives from Estonia and Latvia. The Soviet Prosecution have

concluded from this that there was a plundering of the cultural

treasures in these countries. I would like to state that the

instructions which I had read from Document 1015-PS requested in an

unequivocal manner that all these cultural objects were to remain in the

country. And that was done. I permit myself to refer to the date of that

document, which is 23 August 1944, when combat activity had spread over

this territory, and when these cultural objects and archives were to be

safeguarded from combat activities. It was here a matter of having the

afore-mentioned archives sheltered in Estonian country estates. That is,

they were still to remain in the country itself, even in the midst of

combat activity. As far as I know some of these archives were still

brought to Germany later and I believe they were safeguarded in Schloss

Höchstadt in Bavaria.

Document 076-PS has been used by the Prosecution as proof of a

plundering of the library treasures in Minsk. We are concerned here with

a report which a deputy of the commander of the rear area had issued and

which was directed to the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

From this report we can see in fact that some destruction had taken

place in certain libraries, but that that was a consequence of troops

having been quartered there, because the city of Minsk had been

destroyed and the billeting facilities were overburdened.

But then under Number 1, and again under other paragraphs, it is

expressly shown that posters had been put up everywhere, and that these

things were put under control and were not to be touched after that. It

is added that any further removals would have to be considered as

plundering.

Under Number 2, I would like by all means to point out that it has been

confirmed here that the most valuable part of this library of the

Academy of Sciences came from the library of the Polish Prince Georg

Radziwill, which the Soviet authorities had taken from the occupied

Polish territory to Minsk and had incorporated into the library of the

Academy of Sciences long before any other state or other German offices

were active in that area. There are a number of other documents, namely,

035-PS and several others already submitted to the Tribunal, which make

statements about the taking back of cultural objects from the Ukraine

too. The date on these documents, that is, the year 1943, shows also

that these cultural objects remained in the country until then, as had

been ordered, and that only when combat activity made it necessary, was

a withdrawal carried out. Document 035-PS says, on Page 3, Number 5:

“The infantry division”—concerned—“attaches great importance

to the further evacuation of valuable institutions since the

Armed Forces can in no way protect this area sufficiently and

bombardment by artillery is to be counted on shortly.”

DR. THOMA: I would like to submit this document under Rosenberg-37; it

has not yet been submitted.

ROSENBERG: It then adds: “Wehrmacht equipment, means of transportation,

_et cetera_, shall be provided as far as possible by the ... infantry

division.”

DR. THOMA: May I have the document again? [_The document was handed to

Dr. Thoma._] I would like to submit it to the Tribunal.

ROSENBERG: The evacuation then actually took place under artillery

bombardment, and hence cultural objects which had come from Kharkov and

other cities also during combat, were transferred only then to Germany.

Now I would like to deal with the documents which the Soviet Prosecution

have given in detailed presentation of the Extraordinary State

Commissions for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I would like, in this

connection, to discuss just a few concrete details:

On Page 1 of the Document USSR-39 it states:

“From the beginning of their occupation of the Estonian Soviet

Socialist Republic, the Germans and their accomplices destroyed

the independence of the Estonian people and then tried to

establish a ‘new order’; to demolish culture, art, and science;

to exterminate the civilian population or to deport them as

slave labor to Germany; and to lay waste and plunder cities,

villages, and farms.”

I should like to remark in that connection, first of all, that the

20-year independence, after the Soviet attack in 1919, was broken by the

marching in of the Red Army in 1940, a standpoint that is...

GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, it seems to me that the document which is

now being looked over by the Defendant Rosenberg, naturally gives him a

basis for replying to the concrete accusations of his criminal activity

while he was Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

However, I am of the opinion that what the Defendant Rosenberg has said

just now is plain fascist propaganda and has naturally nothing to do

with the matter.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, if the Defendant Rosenberg makes a few

introductory remarks to his statement on the document from which he

wants to quote, I ask that he not be interrupted right away. We will

deal with a few pertinent statements taken from the document.

ROSENBERG: So far as Point 2 is concerned, I would like to remark...

THE PRESIDENT: Is this document he is dealing with, a document that he

wrote himself or had anything to do with? I haven’t got the document

before me.

DR. THOMA: The document has been submitted by the U.S.S.R. and it

contains charges against Rosenberg—charges of having undertaken

demolitions and expropriations in these territories, and he is entitled

to state his position with regard to this.

THE PRESIDENT: But when you say “his question,” can’t he say what he did

in connection with the document, or the subject of the document? I mean,

when you say “state his position,” it is such a very wide phrase it may

mean almost anything. If you ask him what he did in connection with the

subject of the document it is different, but it is more concrete and

special.

DR. THOMA: What did you do in these occupied areas, contrary to the

assertion of the Soviet Prosecution?

ROSENBERG: To refute the assertion that I destroyed culture and art and

science in Estonia, I must point out that one of the first directions of

the Eastern Ministry was to establish indigenous administrations in

these three countries and to have the German administration in principal

serve as a supervisory body. The limitations due to the war conditions

were naturally given in times of war; they applied to spheres of war and

armament economy, to the sphere of police security, and naturally to the

political attitude in general.

A complete cultural autonomy was enjoyed by Estonia and Latvia as well

as by Lithuania; their art and their theaters were active all through

these years; many faculties of the university at Dorpat functioned and

so did some faculties in Riga; the judicial sovereignty of these

countries was under the power of the indigenous administration—national

directorates as they were called—with all the authoritative departments

necessary for the administration. The entire school system remained

untouched. I visited these territories twice, and I can say only that

the commissioners in charge there did everything to work as closely as

possible in accordance with the desires of the indigenous administration

which often expressed itself with criticism regarding the German

administration, although, frankly speaking, we could not quite fully

recognize the political sovereignty in the midst of war.

On Page 2 of this document it is stated, under corporal punishment for

office employees, that the intruders had prescribed corporal punishment

of Estonian workers in accordance with the regulation of the railway

administration of 20 February 1942, for neglect of work or if the

employee came drunk to work. This regulation of the director of the

railway administration corresponds with the facts. But when this

regulation was made known, of course it aroused the indignation of the

German civil administration. Reich Commissioner Lohse at once annulled

it, and we asked the Reich Minister of Transportation to have this

impossible official removed. This took place immediately; he was

disqualified and called home, and the fact that he was recalled was to

be made known in the press. However, I cannot say whether it actually

appeared in the press.

On Page 5 of this document, in Paragraph 2, it is set forth that the

Germans destroyed historical edifices, that they had searched through

and destroyed the Tartu—that is, the University of Dorpat which had a

glorious past of more than 300 years, and was one of the oldest seats of

higher learning.

Now I would like to add that these houses dating from the 17th and other

centuries were constructed by Germans exclusively, and that German

troops would certainly not be interested in destroying arbitrarily the

houses of their own people. Secondly, this 300-year-old University of

Dorpat was a German university for 300 years, which in fact supplied

Russia and Germany with scholars of European repute.

THE PRESIDENT: That is quite irrelevant, quite irrelevant. The question

is whether it was destroyed.

ROSENBERG: In the year 1942 I was once in Dorpat. A large part of the

city had been destroyed through combat activity, but the university

buildings were still standing. In this connection I had the opportunity

to learn that the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in the Ukraine could confiscate

10,000 to 12,000 volumes belonging to the University of Dorpat and

restore them again to their rightful owner.

I consider it out of question that an arbitrary destruction of this old

German university could have been carried out by German troops and I can

assume only that it was the result of combat activity, if a destruction

actually had taken place.

As far as the other details of the document are concerned, I cannot

define my position. It deals with many shootings of a police nature,

matters clearly connected with combat activity, and I cannot make any

statement about this, since it obviously refers to the time of the

retreat.

The Document USSR-41 deals with the report of the Extraordinary State

Commission on matters in Latvia. I would like to correct and say that

the headquarters of the Foreign Minister were not at Riga, but that he

had his regular office exclusively in Berlin.

In Paragraph 4 it is said:

“The Germans confiscated the country of the Latvian peasants for

their barons and landowners, and mercilessly exterminated the

peaceful population—men, women, and children.”

I would like to state in this connection that not a single farm was

given up to the German barons of former times during the period of

civilian administration, but the German administration of the country

issued a decree which, in my opinion, was a singular, progressive piece

of legislation. For this land, belonging to Germans for 700 years and

expropriated by the young Estonian and Latvian Republics almost without

compensation, could certainly have been returned easily to the Germans.

But I signed a law in March, either 1942 or 1943—I do not know—the

so-called Restitution Law (Reprivatisierungsgesetz), which legally

guaranteed the Estonian and Latvian peasants the German property ceded

to them at that time and handed over by solemn charters. With the

occupation by the Soviet Union, a collectivization of this private farm

property was introduced, and what it deals with is that this

collectivization was abolished and therefore the former owners of 1919

came again into possession of their property.

I would like to mention the following in explanation of this statement.

On Page 2 it is stated:

“For more than 3 years the Germans have made it their task to

destroy factories, public works, libraries, museums, and homes

in the Latvian cities.”

I myself have been in Latvian art museums, have seen a great Latvian art

exhibition; I have been in the Latvian State theater, in which all

performances were in the Latvian language, with just a few German guest

conductors and singers. Factories were not destroyed in these 3 years of

administration but their productivity was increased by numerous German

machines. Of course this caused many protests from the native owners,

because it was accompanied by an uncertainty about their own

participation; but in any event there was no destruction, rather an

increase in productive capacity.

And finally, as far as the archives and libraries are concerned, I have

already said what is necessary in connection with Document 035-PS.

In regard to the extermination of 170,000 civilians, I cannot take any

position as to what transpired in the police camps on grounds of police

security. I would like to point out, however, that according to official

statements of the indigenous administration, in the first place more

than 40,000 Estonians in Estonia and more than 40,000 Latvians in Latvia

were deported to the interior of Soviet Russia after the Red Army

occupied these countries. And further that a large number of Latvians

and Estonians volunteered to fight the Red Army and that at the retreat

hundreds of thousands of Estonians and Latvians asked to be taken, to

the Reich and many actually arrived there. The entire population of

Latvia was about 2 million. That the German authorities should have shot

170,000 Latvians seems improbable in the highest degree.

However, regarding other alleged destructions committed during combat

activity, I am not able to take a stand.

The third document, USSR-7, deals with the reports of the Extraordinary

Commission on Lithuania. On Page 1, Paragraph 2, it states that Reich

Minister Rosenberg tried to germanize the Lithuanian people and to

exterminate the national culture. Lithuania was proclaimed a part of the

German “Ostland Province.”

In Lithuania the peasant question was treated the same way as in Estonia

and Latvia. Of course there was one difference insofar as Lithuania had

a larger number of small German peasant farms which at the end of 1939

were taken into the German Reich, and when the Germans marched into

Lithuania they were returned to their original farms and were settled in

as concentrated a manner as possible in certain settlement districts.

That corresponds to the facts; to the rest I cannot agree.

As far as the extermination of national culture is concerned, that does

not seem to me a true representation either. On the contrary, I know

that the staff of my office was very much interested in collaborating

with the representatives of the Lithuanian folklore research, and that

many studies were written on this exemplary folklore work in Lithuania

and Latvia, and I cannot imagine that any arbitrary destruction took

place here. I can remember only that administrative officials from the

capital, Kauen or Kaunas (Kovno), came to me at the time of the

withdrawal and said that they had worked in Kauen for 5 days, even

though the city was already under Soviet artillery fire, by which, of

course, many buildings were destroyed in combat activity; I am not able

to say anything about that from personal experience.

Now I pass to Document USSR-51. In the Note of the Peoples’ Commissar

for Foreign Affairs, of 6 January 1942, the destruction of cultural

values of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia is also given introductory

mention. I refer to what I have already said in reference to the

documents that were just submitted. On Page 2, Column 1, it is also

stated that the Germans pillaged and murdered the peasant population

without restraint. Here, too, I would like to refer again to the

declarations I have just made. On Page 6, Column 1, at the beginning, it

says that the Germans in their rage against Latvia, Lithuania, and

Estonia destroyed all national cultures, national monuments, schools,

and literature. But this, as I have just stated, is not in accordance

with the facts. The Note of the Peoples’ Commissar for Foreign Affairs

of 27 April 1942, which has been read here repeatedly and in detail,

makes on Page 1, Column 1, the same assertion that here the pillage of

the territory of the Soviet State had been carried out. I refer to the

statement I have just made.

On Page 7 it is stated that the Germans intended and actually executed

wholesale robbery of the land given free of charge by the Soviet

Government to the collective farms (Kolkhozes) for their permanent use.

I do not wish to make any statements on this special question here.

State Secretary Riecke, whom the Tribunal has approved as witness, will

make his expert statements on the law for the new agrarian order issued

to strengthen farming in White Ruthenia and the Ukraine.

As the Soviet Prosecution withdrew the charge against me of having been

a former Czarist spy, I do not need to go into that. I also cannot, of

course, check in detail the various quotations which have been submitted

here. But in one case it is possible for me to give an explanation here.

It is on Page 9, Column 1, at the top, where the Foreign Commissar’s

so-called “Twelve Commandments” for the behavior of the Germans in the

East is mentioned. There follows a quotation from which it can be

concluded only that it is an unbroken quotation from a German directive.

These 12 commandments have been submitted by the Soviet Prosecution to

the Tribunal, under Exhibit USSR-89 (Document USSR-89). It deals, as it

has been established, with a directive of the State Secretary Backe, of

the beginning of June 1941, a directive which I have learned of only

here. This apparently unbroken quotation of the Foreign Commissar proves

to be a compilation of fragments of sentences which were actually

dispersed over a page and a half of the document, and these fragments,

moreover, have not been given in their proper sequence, but in a

completely different sequence from that in the document. But I would

like to call your attention to a few changes in the wording.

Under Point 6 of the commandments:

“You must therefore”—this is directed to the agricultural

leaders—“you must therefore carry out with composure the most

severe and ruthless measures that are demanded by the national

requirements. Deficiencies in character on the part of the

individual will lead to his recall as a matter of principle.

Anyone who is recalled for such reasons can no longer have an

authoritative position in the Reich.”

In the quotation of the official note it says:

“Therefore, you yourself will have to take with composure the

most cruel and ruthless measures that are dictated by German

interests. Otherwise you cannot have any responsible positions

at home.”

Therefore, instead of the word “severe” the word “cruel” has been

substituted: in place of “national requirements” it says very generally

“German interests”; and in place of the reference to a “lack of

character” it is set down quite generally that if one does not thus take

the most cruel measures one cannot have any responsible positions. I

would not want to identify myself otherwise in any way with these 12

commandments, but I would like to state that on Page 3 under Point 7 it

says:

“But be just and personally decent, and always set a good

example.”

And in part 9:

“Do not spy on Communists. The Russian youth has been trained

for communism for two decades. Russian youth does not know any

other education. It is therefore senseless to punish them for

the past.”

I believe that also there, Herr Backe who otherwise used stronger

language, does not mean any regulation for extermination.

Now, I am passing to the charge by the Polish Government. It concerns me

in one point only. On Page 20, under Point 5, it is stated that the

exploitation, plundering, and the carrying off of art objects, _et

cetera_, from museums and collections of all kinds, was centralized

under the office of Rosenberg in Berlin. That is incorrect, as has been

shown by the report of State Secretary Mühlmann, which has been read

here many times and which shows that an entirely different department

was set up for the safeguarding of these works of art. Furthermore, I

read today a decree by Dr. Lammers, dated, I believe, 5 July 1942, in

which the Government General was expressly excluded.

I must, however, admit that in one case in the beginning, the

Einsatzstab confiscated a German collection of music and it was taken to

the Reich for purposes of research. This action was not right, and from

a correspondence with the then Governor General Frank that must also be

here in my file, it is shown that we had agreed that this collection was

to be returned to the Government General as a matter of course after a

scholarly survey had been made, which I, to be sure, requested.

The incorrectness of this charge may be seen also from the fact that it

is contended here that I had in the Einsatzstab among the various

departments also an office “East” for Poland. The incorrectness of this

statement may be gathered from the fact that the so-called special

purpose staffs which were established for music and the plastic arts in

the East were actually expert special staffs, and besides them the

so-called working groups had regional tasks. I could, therefore, not

have had an office “East” for Poland and at any rate the term “Poland”

was never used in official circles—only the term “Government General.”

I believe I can limit myself to this explanation. In addition, there

have been presented a number of other general documents from Smolensk

and from other cities, referring to much destruction and police

measures. I cannot testify here concerning these points.

In conclusion I would like to refer only to Document 073-PS, which a few

days ago was submitted to the witness Dr. Lammers. This document is

concerned with the transmission of a document of the Foreign Office, in

which some mistaken information was given after it had been said that

the Soviet prisoners of war were under the command of the Reich Minister

for the occupied Eastern countries.

In the introduction, it can be seen that here we are concerned

exclusively with the doctrinary care and propaganda work which Minister

Goebbels considered his province, rather than that of the Foreign

Office. The Foreign Office stated, that it had leading jurisdiction over

all prisoners of war with the exception of this moral and propaganda

care of the Soviet prisoners of war, which in this respect were attended

to by the Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, because these

prisoners did not come under the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

This statement, that they were not bound by the Geneva Convention, was

the legal opinion issued by the Führer’s headquarters for the setting up

of the administration in the Occupied Eastern Territories.

DR. THOMA: Witness, in the course of these proceedings you have been

accused at least four times in the matter of gold dental fillings in the

prison in Minsk. In this connection a document has even been submitted,

regarding the handling of the Jewish question, and a further document

deals likewise with an arson and anti-Jewish “action,” also in the

district of Minsk. Will you please tell us what you have to say in that

connection?

ROSENBERG: I might perhaps give the following general answer about the

many files and reports from my office: In the course of 12 years of my

Party office and 3 years in the Eastern Ministry, many reports,

memoranda, carbon copies from all sorts of divisions were delivered to

my office. I know of some of them, of some I received oral knowledge

which was then entered in detail in the files, and there are a great

number of more important and some entirely unimportant things which I

was entirely unable to take note of during these years.

As far as these documents are concerned, I must say with regard to

Document 212-PS, that this clearly represents a submission to my

office—which is without heading, without signature, and without any

other details—which I never received personally, but which I assume was

probably delivered from police circles to my office. Thus, with the best

intentions I cannot state my position as to the contents of this

document.

As far as Document 1104-PS which deals with the terrible incidents in

the city of Sluzk is concerned, that is a report from October 1941, and

I must say that this report was submitted to me. This report aroused

indignation in the Eastern Ministry, and as is seen here, my permanent

representative, Gauleiter Meyer, sent a copy of this complaint of the

civil administration, together with all the criticism of the civil

administration, to the Police, to the Chief of the Security Police, at

that time Heydrich, with the request for investigation. I must say that

the Police had their own jurisdiction, in which the Ministry for the

Occupied Eastern Territories could not interfere. But I am unable to say

here what measures Heydrich took. Yet, as may be seen from this, I could

not assume that an order—which was attested to by the witness here

yesterday—was given to Heydrich or Himmler by the Führer. This report,

and many other communications which came to my ears, regarding shootings

of saboteurs and also shootings of Jews, pogroms by the local population

in the Baltic States and in the Ukraine, I took as occurrences of this

war. I heard that in Kiev a larger number of Jews had been shot, but

that the greater part of the Jews had left Kiev; and the sum of these

reports showed me, it is true, terrible harshness, especially some

reports from the prison camps. But that there was an order for the

individual annihilation of the entire Jewry, I could not assume and if,

in our polemics, the extermination of Jewry was also talked about, I

must say that this word, of course, must make a frightful impression in

view of the testimonies we think are available now, but under conditions

prevailing then, it was not interpreted as an individual extermination,

an individual annihilation of millions of Jews. I must also say that

even the British Prime Minister, in an official speech in the House of

Commons on 23 or 26 September 1943, spoke of the extermination in root

and branch of Prussianism and of National Socialism. I happened to read

these words from this speech. However, I did not assume that in saying

this he meant the shooting of all Prussian officers and National

Socialists.

Regarding Document Rosenberg-135 (Exhibit USA-289) I would like to say

the following: It is dated 18 June 1943. On 22 June, I returned from an

official visit to the Ukraine. After this official visit I found a pile

of notes about conferences. I found many letters and, above all, I found

the Führer decree of the middle of June 1943 which had already been

given verbally, in which the Führer instructed me to limit myself to the

basic principles as far as legislation was concerned, and not to

interest myself too much with the details of the administration of the

Eastern Territories. I was dejected when I returned from this journey

and I did not read this document. But I cannot assume that this document

was not at all mentioned to me by my office. My subordinates were so

conscientious that I can assume only that in the course of their

reporting to me about many documents, they told me that another great

disagreement between the Police and Civil Administration was again at

hand, as there had been many disagreements of that nature before and I

perhaps said, “Please give this to Gauleiter Meyer or give it to the

police officer, to the liaison officer so that he can investigate these

matters.” Otherwise these terrible details would have remained in my

memory. I cannot say any more in regard to this subject than I was able

to say when it was brought up in the interrogation.

DR. THOMA: I submit do the Tribunal the Exhibit Rosenberg-13, a

memorandum from Koch to Rosenberg, a complaint about Rosenberg’s

criticism and justification of his policy in the Ukraine, dated 16 March

1943, and a letter from Rosenberg to Reich Minister Lammers dated 12

October 1944, in which he states to the Führer his wish to resign. May

it please the Tribunal, regarding Rosenberg-13, memorandum from Koch to

Rosenberg...

THE PRESIDENT: What number?

DR. THOMA: Rosenberg-13, Document 192-PS, Document Book Number 2, Page

14; I would like to read this to the Tribunal personally and to make the

following introductory remark.

THE PRESIDENT: It is a very long thing, Dr. Thoma. You do not need to

read it all, surely?...

DR. THOMA: I shall not read all of it, Your Honor. But I have

unfortunately only the opportunity of presenting State Secretary Riecke

as an official of the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories. The

Tribunal, however, even from this witness, who will appear before them,

will be able to see that the best officials which the German Reich had,

were used in the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories and that

every individual complaint was conscientiously checked. It is not so,

that in addition to what we have heard today numerous other crimes have

been committed which have not come to the knowledge of the Tribunal, but

I believe that everything has been exhaustively presented of the

“admittedly terrible things” that happened in the East during these 4 or

5 years. And the question now is how Gauleiter Koch responded to it.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal are simply asking you not to read the whole

of the document which covers many pages. That means you can go ahead and

read the essential parts of it.

DR. THOMA: Therefore, I would like to assert that each and every

complaint which was received by the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern

Territories was followed up. Gauleiter Koch writes:

“Various recent decrees of the Reich Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories, in which my work was criticized in an

exceptionally severe and offensive manner and from which have

resulted misinterpretations of the policies as well as my legal

position, have induced me to present this report to you, Mr.

Reich Minister, in the form of a memorandum.”

And then follow remarks which show that the Ministry for the Occupied

Eastern Territories investigated the complaints. He complains:

“On 12 January 1943, for example, I was informed by the Ministry

that Anna Prichno of Smygalovka, an Eastern Worker, had objected

that her parents who remained in the Ukraine could not pay their

taxes. I was asked to cancel these taxes or to reduce them by

half and also to report how I decided.”

On Page 13:

“Lately numerous individual complaints from Eastern Workers

employed in the Reich have been passed on to me and on each

single case I have been asked to give a report, usually on such

short notice that it was impossible to comply with the request.”

On Pages 15 and 16:

“Hence, I found it strange”—writes Gauleiter Koch—“to have the

decree I/41 of 22 November 1941 state that the Ukrainian people

were strongly permeated with German blood, which fact is to

account for their remarkable cultural and scientific

achievements. But when on top of this a secret decree of July

1942, to which I will refer more closely at the end of this

section, declares that very many points of contact exist between

the German Ukrainian people, one is no longer only surprised but

astonished. This decree demands not only correct but even

amiable manners in dealing with Ukrainians.”

Then:

“In the following I would like to give a few more examples of

lack of reserve towards Ukrainians. For instance, by decree of

18 June 1942, II 6 f 6230, I was informed that you were

procuring a total of 2.3 million Reichsmark worth of Ukrainian

schoolbooks, charged to my budget without even contacting me

about it previously.”

THE PRESIDENT: Do you think it necessary to read all this? I am not

quite sure how far you have gotten because I have been reading on.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, may I make a remark in this connection? I have

already limited my selection. This memorandum is quite a thick copybook;

however, I will try to be still more brief, and want only to emphasize

that on every page you will find a complaint about the conscientiousness

with which Rosenberg followed up all these individual complaints. But I

will be very brief:

“It is not necessary that your Ministry stress over and over

again as it does by many written and telephone protests that any

violence in recruiting of workers has to be discontinued.”

And then there is one further very brief remark:

“And if I issue more decrees against floggings than actually

take place, I will make myself ridiculous.

“That happened a few times, and every single case was strongly

censured.”

And now we come to something very important, Your Honors, namely, how

Gauleiter Koch threatens representations to the Führer, and says:

“Nobody has ever asked me, as an old Gauleiter, to submit to him

articles I write, for nobody but the Führer can ever absolve me

of the political responsibility that I bear for an article

signed with my full name...

“Finally, in addition to these statements on my responsibility I

should like to allude to the relations between the Führer and

the Reich commissioners. As an old Gauleiter I am accustomed to

go to my Führer directly with all my problems and requests, and

this right, in my capacity as Oberpräsident, has never been

denied me even by my superior minister...

“By decree I 6 b 4702/42, I was ordered to abstain from

referring to the wishes of the Führer in my reports to you, as

the forwarding of the Führer’s wishes were your affair

exclusively. I must state here that in my position as an old

Gauleiter the Führer has repeatedly given me his political

directives...

“If one takes away or curtails the position of the Reich

commissioners in relation to the Führer, then very little

remains in keeping with the position of the Reich commissioner.”

On Page 50 he says:

“I have to state expressly that I must, under these

circumstances, refuse to accept responsibility for the success

of the labor recruiting and the spring planting.”

Rosenberg recommended to him to go on with the recruiting of labor.

At the end he says:

“My position has been encroached upon by you so often in the

last 3 weeks that it can be restored only by the Führer.”

Thereupon a conflict developed in Hitler’s presence at the Reich

Chancellery among Rosenberg, Bormann, and Koch, and the result was that

Bormann and, in the main, Koch, were upheld and the Defendant Rosenberg

was notified to limit himself to matters of principle only.

Thereupon the defendant submitted his resignation.

Now, I ask the defendant to go into this in more detail. It is in

Document Book 2, Page 27.

ROSENBERG: I would like to remark...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, I think we had better adjourn now for 10

minutes.

[_A recess was taken._]

DR. THOMA: Witness, some days ago the document was mentioned from which

it becomes clear that the forest district of Zuman was to be the private

hunting ground for the Reich Commissioner, and that hundreds of people

were shot, because resettling them would have been too complicated and

take too much time. Will you make a statement about that?

ROSENBERG: As time went by I received much information regarding

instances of acts of violence committed in the East. Upon investigating,

it was found very often that these reports did not conform with the

facts. In this case this report appeared to me quite credible so I took

the opportunity to report it to the Führer directly, considering that I

was having trouble with Gauleiter Koch.

Apart from other questions—schools in the Ukraine, establishment of

technical schools, and certain personal statements of Koch which I

submitted as a complaint—I also submitted this report.

At the audience with the Führer, Reich Commissioner Koch submitted an

opinion of the Chief of the Forest Administration of the Ukraine. From

this it appeared that these forest districts had to be used for

supplying timber either for railway ties or other emergency needs. And

since various guerrilla units and partisans had flocked together in

these wooded districts and such a task was extremely dangerous owing to

the insecure situation, it was established that Koch, not in the

interest of the hunting earlier contemplated, but for this reason, had

ordered a cleaning up of this district; and in the course of this

cleaning up a considerable number of partisans had been found and they

had been shot. The remaining population from these forest districts had

been resettled, and, as Koch added, in addition to this statement of the

Chief of the Forest Administration, a number of these resettled persons

had even expressed gratitude for the fact that they had received better

soil to work than they had in these forest areas. On receiving these

reports from Koch the Führer shrugged his shoulders and said:

“It is difficult to decide here. According to the statement of

the Forest Administration for the Ukraine that I have here, I

must leave the matter alone, and the other decisions regarding

Ukrainian policy will be sent to you.”

This happened in July in the shape of a decree which is also in my

files, but which, unfortunately, has not been found. It is a decree

about which the witness Lammers has spoken and which in principle states

that the Reich Minister should cause no obstruction, the Minister for

the East should confine himself to basic matters, should submit his

decrees to the Reich commissioner for his opinion and, in the event of

conflict, the decision of the Führer must be secured.

After this decree of the Führer I made a renewed attempt to represent

the views which I considered right. But, of course, I will not deny that

on several occasions, due to pressure from the Führer’s headquarters, I

became a little weary. And when it was said, and said in clear-cut

terms, that I was apparently more interested in these Eastern peoples

than in the welfare of the German nation, I made some appeasing

statements; but my decrees and the further application of my

instructions continued in the old way. As I have now been able to

ascertain, I reported to the Führer personally on eight different

occasions on this matter, and I submitted written petitions and

formulated my decrees with this aim in mind.

When then, in 1944, the Reichsführer SS, too, occupied himself not only

with police affairs, but also with policy in the Eastern territories,

and when I had not been able any longer to report to the Führer’s

headquarters, since the middle of November 1943, I made one last attempt

to make a suggestion to the Führer regarding a generous Eastern policy.

At the same time, I asked very clearly, in the event of a refusal, to be

relieved from any further work. This document (Document Rosenberg-14) is

a letter to Dr. Lammers of 12 October 1944, at the beginning of which it

is said that:

“In the face of current developments in the Eastern problem, I

beg you to submit the accompanying letter to the Führer

personally. I consider the way and manner in which the German

policy in the East is being handled today as very unfortunate;

while I have not participated in the negotiations, I am

nevertheless made responsible for them. Therefore I beg you to

submit my letter to the Führer as soon as possible for his

decision.”

Dr. Lammers then immediately transmitted this letter to the Führer’s

secretary, Bormann. In the letter to the Führer it says on Page 2:

“For observation and the steering of this development I have

created regional offices for all the Eastern peoples in the

Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, which can now,

after many tests, be regarded as suitable for their purposes and

well set up. They also contain representatives from the various

regions and races concerned, and if it seems in the interest of

German policies, these may be recognized as a special national

committee.”

These central offices mentioned here had the task of seeing to it that

the representatives of all Eastern peoples received personally the

complaints of their countrymen who were in sovereign German territory

and presented them to the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories

which in turn would take up these complaints with the German Labor Front

authorities, with the Police, or the Plenipotentiary General for the

Allocation of Labor.

On Page 5 it says then:

“I have informed the Reich Minister and the Chief of the Reich

Chancellery what the Eastern Ministry has done in the sphere of

political direction in a letter dated 28 May 1944, and I am

asking you, my Führer, to have the contents read to you.”

This is a reference to a further statement.

On Page 6 it states:

“I am asking you, my Führer, to tell me whether you still desire

my activity in this field, for since it has not been possible

for me to report to you orally, and the problems of the East are

brought to you and discussed from various sides, I must, in

consideration of this development, assume that you perhaps

consider my activity as no longer necessary.

“In addition rumors are spread by sources unknown to me of the

dissolution of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories;

in fact it is said that these rumors are used in official

correspondence to the highest Reich authorities because of

various demands which have been made. Under such circumstances

fitting work is not possible, and I ask you to give me

directives as to how I should act in view of the state of

affairs which has developed.”

In the middle of the next paragraph, I point out the following, from

ideas that I voiced first in my speech of 20 June and in my protest

during the meeting of 16 June. And it says here literally:

“This plan provided that in order to mobilize all the national

forces of the Eastern peoples, they should be promised in

advance a certain autonomy and the possibility of cultural

development, with the aim of leading them against the Bolshevist

enemy. This plan, which in the beginning I ventured to assume

you approved of, has not been carried out, because the peoples

were treated in a way which was politically opposite to this.

“Solely and only because of the agrarian order of 1942, approved

by you, has their willingness to work been maintained to the end

in view of a certain hope of acquiring property.”

Attached to this letter to the Führer there is the suggestion for the

adjustment of the Eastern policy, which is reiterated for the last time.

And in Paragraph 2 in the middle of Page 2 it says:

“These regional and local offices for the peoples of the East,

attached to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern

Territories, are, in the name of the Reich Government, to be

recognized by him as national committees at a date to be fixed

by the Führer. The term ‘National Committee’ is to be understood

by the Reich Government to mean that these authorized spokesmen

can submit the wishes and complaints of their peoples.”

On Page 2 in the middle, it says:

“In the leadership of the peoples of the East...”

THE PRESIDENT: Is the Tribunal interested in all this detail? The

substance of it has been given by the witness, has it not? He summarized

the whole letter before he began to read any of it. There is nothing new

up to now.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, the defendant wanted to summarize again

briefly what his ideas were for the Ukraine, namely, autonomy, free

cultural development; and that was the core of the difference with Koch,

namely, that Koch stressed mainly the idea of exploitation; therefore

the defendant wanted to say once more what was the whole plan of his

intentions towards the Soviet Union. But this topic can now be dropped.

Before I make a statement about the question of the willingness to do

construction work in the Ukraine I want to have the defendant make a

statement on the subject of the treatment of prisoners of war. Document

081.

THE PRESIDENT: Is it anywhere in your books? Is it Document 081-PS?

DR. THOMA: It has been submitted under a USSR exhibit number.

[_The document was submitted to the defendant._]

Have you got it, Defendant?

ROSENBERG: It is Exhibit USSR-353. The complaints regarding prisoners of

war came from various sources. Fairly near the beginning they were

already lodged with the Eastern Ministry; then later on, particularly

during the winter 1941-1942, they were brought by passing officers or

soldiers and were reported to me by my political department. We then

passed these complaints on to the competent military offices with a

request that, for obvious reasons, they should be given consideration.

These complaints were received frequently and my staff, as time went by,

stated to me that they encountered a great deal of understanding for

these wishes, particularly for the wish expressed by us that prisoners

from this large number of Soviet prisoner-of-war camps should be

selected according to their nationality and taken to small camps,

because through this national segregation, good political and humane

treatment would be best guaranteed. In view of the numerous complaints

about the death of many thousands of Soviet prisoners, I received more

than once reports that during battles of encirclement, units of the Red

Army had defended themselves in the hardest way and had not surrendered.

In fact they were completely exhausted from hunger when they finally

were captured by the Germans, and even numerous cases of cannibalism had

been established, born of their tenacity not to surrender in any case.

The third complaint I received was to the effect that political

commissars were shot. This complaint too was passed on by us. That an

order existed in this connection was unknown to me. We concluded from

other reports that here clearly there must have been a political or

police reprisal, since we heard that many German prisoners, who later

were freed, were most of them found, again dead or mutilated. Later on I

was informed that such shootings were prohibited, and thus we assumed

that the political commissars also belonged to the regular Red Army.

Now here is Document 081-PS. It has been stated by the Prosecution that

this is a letter from the Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

to the Chief of the OKW. The document was also found in my files. But it

is not a letter from me to the Chief of the OKW, Keitel; on the

contrary, it was obviously deposited in my office by the sender. In the

left-hand top corner on Page 1, it can be seen that there is a figure

“I.” That means Department “I.” In the case of letters originating from

me such a reference would always be absent, since “I” was not a

department of my own office. Furthermore, letters of mine to the Chief

of the OKW were always of a personal character, either beginning with

the name of the addressee, or a personal address. Chief of the OKW is

the office. In the same way the ordinary address, “Reich Minister for

the Occupied Eastern Territories,” would not be a personal letter to me,

but would mean the office.

I will not go into these details, but I will take the liberty of reading

one final paragraph in connection with which I may also state that it is

in keeping with the spirit which I endeavored to instill in my

collaborators. And likewise, they thought that they ought to act and

express themselves in this spirit. It states, literally, on Page 6:

“The main demand...”

THE PRESIDENT: What is the date?

ROSENBERG: The letter is dated 28 February 1942. That is to say, it was

in the winter, in that dreadful cold period. On Page 6 it states

literally:

“The main demand will have to be that the treatment of prisoners

of war be carried out in accordance with the laws of humanity

and as befits the dignity of Germany...

“It is understandable that the numerous cases of inhuman

treatment of German prisoners of war by members of the Red Army

which have been recorded have so embittered the German troops

that they wish to pay them back in their own coin.

“Such reprisal measures, however, in no way improve the

situation of German prisoners of war but must ultimately result

in both sides no longer taking any prisoners.”

I merely wanted to quote this letter because I have no other documents

at my disposal on the activity of my political department, and this is

only an example of the work, which I think touches on these problems.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I wanted to bring to an end questions relating

to the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories by submitting an

affidavit from Professor Dr. Dencker on the employment of agricultural

machinery in the Ukraine. Document Rosenberg-35 has already been granted

me by the Tribunal. This affidavit concerns the following...

THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished your examination now?

DR. THOMA: I have finished the questions relating to the Ministry for

the Occupied Eastern Territories. I have only a few more brief

questions.