The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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                                                   [Page 45]

ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TENTH DAY

WEDNESDAY, 17TH APRIL, 1946

ALFRED ROSENBERG - resumed

MR. DODD: Just before recess yesterday afternoon the
Tribunal inquired as to the status of the Frank Document
Book and when I informed the Tribunal that we were prepared
to be heard, Dr. Seidl advised that we had a pact to which
we had agreed. I was not aware of that at the time. I think
we were both a little bit in error. The situation is that
last night about six o'clock we did reach an agreement so
that there is no difficulty at all about the Frank books.

DR. THOMA: I would like to make a brief correction.
Yesterday I requested a document on the setting up of the
Rosenberg Special Staff. My client has repeatedly asked me
to bring in this document. However, there is a possibility
that I confused this document with other documents which I
requested but were not granted. I just wanted to make that
correction.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. You do not want to do anything more than
just make that verbal correction? Very well.

DR. THOMA: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Is there any other defendants' Counsel who
wishes to ask any questions?

BY DR. HAENSEL (Counsel for S.S.):

Q. Witness, you were the Plenipotentiary of the Fuehrer for
the ideological objectives of the N.S.D.A.P. and its
subsidiary organisations. Are you of the opinion that what
you did in carrying out your duties and every thing you said
and wrote for these aims, and for the planned so-called
ideological combating of Jewry, may be considered as an
official outline of the activity of the Party and its
affiliated organisations?

A. If I may answer this long series of questions one by one
I would like to say the following: My office as far as
ideological education was concerned worked with the Main
Office of the S.S. for Political Education
(Hauptschulungsamt). We were of course in constant contact
with them. The so-called "Guiding Pamphlet" of the S.S.,
which appeared as a school periodical, was read in my
office. I myself had it repeatedly in my hands, and during
these years in this educational office found an abundance of
very valuable themes and mostly very decent ideas in this
journal. This shows one of the reasons why through all these
years I did not enter into any conflict with the S.S.

As far as the Jewish question is concerned, the objective as
to this problem was expressed in the programme of the
N.S.D.A.P. That is the only official statement which guided
the Party members. Anything which I said about it and what
others wrote about it were just proposals that were offered.
Certainly many of them were accepted but as far as the
Fuehrer and the State were concerned, these proposals were
not binding rules.

Q. Was the objective of your fights against Jewry limited?
Did you envisage that the Jews were to be eliminated from
economic and State administration, or did you from the first
have a vague notion of stronger measures, such as
extermination, etc.? What was your final objective?

A. In agreement with the Party programme, I had the one
objective in mind, to change the leadership in the German
State as it had existed from 1918 to 1933. That was the
vital point. As for elimination even from economic life, we
did not talk about it at that time. Yesterday I referred to
two of my speeches, which are available in print. In these I
declared that after the end of this harsh political battle
an investigation or examination of the question would have
to take place. There was even earlier talk about the demand
for Jewish

                                                   [Page 46]

emigration from Germany. Later, when matters became more
critical, I expressed this idea again, in conformity with
the proposals of very prominent Jewish leaders, that German
unemployed Jews should be deported to Africa, South America
and China.

Q. Then, following your train of thought of yesterday and
today, one could differentiate three kinds of measures
against the Jews: Firstly, up to 1933, up to the seizure of
power, there were the propagandistic measures; Secondly,
after 1933, those measures which were brought about by the
anti-Jewish laws; and then, finally, after the outbreak of
war, certain measures which without doubt, can be considered
as Crimes Against Humanity. Do you agree with this
tripartite arrangement?

A. Yes, it is approximately right.

Q. Then, I would like to call your attention to group 2;
that is, to those measures which were instituted after the
taking over of power and which were laid down in laws
against the Jews. Did you participate in the formulating of
the laws?

THE  PRESIDENT: You are Counsel, are you not, for the S. S.?

DR. HAENSEL: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: What have those questions got to do with the
S.S.?

DR. HAENSEL: The questions concern the S.S. in the following
way: If the Party as a whole had the objective of anti-
Jewish legislation which was, in the beginning, quite
orderly, then the S.S. was bound to this objective and for
the time being had none beyond that point. I wanted to
establish when the legislation and the measures against Jews
turned into criminal acts, and that up to that time the S.S.
in no manner took criminal measures against the Jews.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, he said already that the Jewish problem
was contained in the Party programme, and that is all that
you want, is it not?

DR. HAENSEL: I wanted only to show that the fact that the
Jewish problem was contained in the Party programme does not
prove that it was in the Party programme as a Crime Against
Humanity. In the Party programme there was just a general
policy enunciated which I do not believe as such can be
construed as a Crime Against Humanity. In addition to that,
there must be ...

THE PRESIDENT: That is a matter of construction of the Party
programme. It is not a matter for him to give evidence
about. It is in a written document. The Party programme is
contained in the written documents.

DR. HAENSEL: But, in addition to the Party programme, a
series of decrees and laws were issued later which expanded
the Party programme, and the question ...

THE PRESIDENT: They are also documents which this Tribunal
has to, construe, not for this witness to construe.

DR. HAENSEL: The question is, insofar as the defendant can
tell us, how far the S.S. participated in the carrying out
of these measures.

THE PRESIDENT: He can tell us the facts; he cannot tell us
the laws nor interpret documents. If you are asking him
about facts, well and good, but if you are asking him to
interpret the Party programme or to interpret the decrees,
that is a matter for the Tribunal.

DR. HAENSEL: Very well.

BY DR. HAENSEL:

Q. In your book you represented the objective that all
Germans should be unified in a Greater Germany and that
point is also set down in the Party programme.

A. Yes.

Q. Did you believe that this could only be attained by means
of war or did you believe, also, that it was possible
through peaceful means?

A. In the beginning of my testimony I referred to a speech
of mine made before an International Congress in 1932. Here
the proposal was expressly

                                                   [Page 47]

approved by the Fuehrer that the four great powers should
investigate and examine the general European problems. The
proposal said that we would give up all claims to German
colonies, to Alsace-Lorraine, to the Southern Tyrol as well
as claims to the separated German ...

THE PRESIDENT: We have heard all this before from the
defendant Goering and the defendant Ribbentrop, and we said
that we did not want to go into it again. In any event, it
has nothing to do with the S.S., nothing directly to do with
the S.S.

BY DR. HAENSEL:

Q. Just one more question. Do you know that the S.S., as far
as the Jews were concerned, followed secret aims and
objectives, other than those that were declared officially?

A. That I learned here.

Q. You do not know that from your own knowledge?

A. No.

BY DR. STEINBAUER (Counsel for defendant Dr. Seyss-Inquart):

Q. Witness, I have one single question to put to you. Under
Document 91-PS the prosecution submitted a letter which you,
as chief of the Rosenberg Special Staff, sent to Dr. Seyss-
Inquart in his capacity as Reichskommissar for the
Netherlands. In that letter you demanded that the library of
the so-called Social Institute at Amsterdam be handed over
to you. I do not know whether you recall this library. It is
rather voluminous in Socialist Marxist content. The
prosecution did not submit the answer given by my client.
Therefore, I have to ask you: Do you remember this matter
and what answer did Seyss-Inquart give you?

A. I remember this library very well for I was told about
it. To my knowledge it was the establishment of a spiritual
centre of the Second International in Amsterdam, in which
the history of social movements in various countries was to
be summarised, so that on the basis of this scientific
material a spiritual political fight, a scientific fight

Q. Very well. We want to be brief and you know what I am
talking about. What answer did you receive? Did Seyss-
Inquart order this library to be transferred to Germany or
did he request that it should remain in Holland?

A. It was at first agreed that this library would remain in
Holland, and that the cataloguing and organising of this
collection, which was not yet in order, was to take place in
Amsterdam. In the course of the next few years this took
place at Amsterdam. Only in the year 1944, when either the
invasion had already begun or was surely imminent, when
bombing attacks also increased in this area, part of this
library was taken to Silesia; another part, to my knowledge,
did not get so far, but remained in Emden; and a third part,
I believe, was not transported at all.

Q. Is it then correct that Seyss-Inquart prevented the
taking away of this library from the Dutch working class?

A. Yes, that is correct.

THE PRESIDENT: Does the prosecution wish to cross-examine?

CROSS-EXAMINATION

BY MR. DODD:

Q. Before we begin our discussion of some matters that we
would like to go over, I wonder if you would be good enough
to write your name a few times on these pieces of paper,
both in pen and in pencil.

(Witness was handed paper, pen, and pencil.)

Q. (Continuing) Would you write "A. Rosenberg, " please,
with pen, and "Alfred Rosenberg" also with the pen; and the
first initial of your Surname with a capital?

Now, would you do the same thing on another piece of paper
with pencil,

                                                   [Page 48]

"A. Rosenberg" in pencil, "Alfred Rosenberg," and the first
initial of your surname?

And then would you do one thing more, please. Would you
print the first initial of your surname?

Now, yesterday afternoon, while you were on direct-
examination by your own counsel, you stated before the
Tribunal that you did have a discussion with Heinrich
Himmler, the Reichsfuehrer S.S., about concentration camps,
and if I remember correctly, you said that that was some
time in 1938; is that so?

A. Yes. I testified that I discussed the concentration camps
with him once, but I cannot say with certainty that it was
in 1938, as I did not make a note of it.

Q. Very good. He suggested you should go through one or the
other of these camps, Dachau or some other camp; is that so?

A. Yes, he then told me that I should take a look at the
Dachau camp.

Q. And you declined the invitation?

A. Right.

Q. And, if I recollect correctly, I understood you to say
that you declined because you were quite sure that he would
not show you the unfavourable things that were in that camp?

A. Yes, I assumed more or less that if there really were
unfavourable things, I certainly would not see them anyway.

Q. You mean that you simply assumed that there were
unfavourable things that you didn't know there were
unfavourable things?

A. I heard this through the foreign Press and it is about
...

Q. When did you first hear that through the foreign Press?

A. That was in the first months of 1933.

Q. And did you continuously read the foreign Press about the
concentration camps in Germany from 1933 to 1938?

A. I did not read the foreign Press at all for unfortunately
I do not speak English. I only received some excerpts from
it from time to time, and in the German Press there were
occasional references to the allegations in the foreign
Press, and it was emphatically denied that there was any
truth in these allegations. I can still remember a statement
by Goering in which he said that it was beyond his
comprehension that anything like that could be written.

Q. But you thought they were true to the extent that there
were unfavourable things in that place which Himmler might
not show you.

A. Yes, I assumed that in such a revolutionary system surely
a number of excesses were taking place, that in some
districts also there might be conflicts occasionally, and
the fact that murders of National Socialists in the months
subsequent to the seizure of the power continued most
probably brought about reprisals here and there.

Q. Did you think that was still going on in 1938, these
measures against the National Socialists?

A. No. The majority of reports upon the continuance of
murders of members of the Hitler Youth, of the police, and
members of the Party, were mainly received during the period
1943 to 1944, but I did not remember that many reports were
published about this in subsequent years ...

THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 1943 and 1944 or 1933 and 1934?
Which is it?

THE WITNESS: 1933 and 1934, excuse me.

BY MR. DODD:

Q. But, in any event, in 1938 you had some knowledge in your
own mind which made you think that it would not be
profitable for you to inspect these camps because some
things were going on there that would not be shown to you.
Now, that is so, isn't it?

A. No, but I said very frankly that under some circumstances
excesses might be taking place and I talked to Himmler about
this matter so that he, in any

                                                   [Page 49]

case, knew that we were informed about such things from
abroad and that he should take care. Only once did I,
myself, receive a complaint directly.

Q. Now, turning to another matter, we also understood you to
say yesterday that in your book, "The Myth of the Twentieth
Century," you expressed your personal opinion and you did
not intend it to have any great effect upon State affairs.
Is that a fair statement of your testimony of yesterday with
respect to your book?

A. I did not quite follow the last sentence. I wrote "The
Myth of the Twentieth Century" during the years 1927 and
1928, after certain historical and other preliminary
research. It was published in October, 1930, with an
introduction to the effect that this was a purely personal
opinion, and that the political organisation of which I was
a member was not responsible for it.

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