Chapter XXIV: Part I: ; and thirdly, that I rejected a policy of withdrawal from the (2)

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.