dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
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 of lice. 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 Fuehrer.
ROSENBERG: 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 a rout conferences. I found many letters and, above all, I found the Fuehrer decree of the middle of June 1943 which had already been given verbally, in which the Fuehrer 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 to 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 Fuehrer 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 as 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.
DR. THOMA: 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 Fuehrer, and says: "Nobody has ever asked me, as an old Gauleiter, to submit to him articles I write, for nobody but the Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer and the Reich commissioners. As an old Gauleiter I am accustomed to go to my Fuehrer directly with all my problems and requests, and this right, in my capacity as Oberprasident, 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 Fuehrer in my reports to you, as the forwarding of the Fuehrer's wishes were your affair exclusively. I must state here that in my position as an old Gauleiter the Fuehrer has repeatedly given me his political directives . . .
DR. THOMA: "If one takes away or curtails the position of the Reich commissioners in relation to the Fuehrer, 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 Fuehrer." 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer, Reich Commissioner Koch submitted an opinion of the Chief of the Forest Administration of the 16 April 4t 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 Fuehrer 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 Fuehrer must be secured. After this decree of the Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer's headquarters, I became a little weary. And when it was said, and said in clearcut 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 Fuehrer 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 Reichsfuehrer 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 Fuehrer's headquarters, since the middle of November 1943, I made one last attempt to make a suggestion to the Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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.
ROSENBERG: Therefore I beg you to submit my letter to the Fuehrer as soon as possible for his decision." Dr. Lammers then immediately transmitted this letter to the Fuehrer's secretary, Bormann. In the letter to the Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer, 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 Fuehrer, 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer. The reran '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 19411942, 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 lefthand 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 of lice. 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?