dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
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.
ROSENBERG: It is emphasized in the beginning-I permit myself a few short reference 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 hie. 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 dike 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 dike 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 aforementioned 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 Hochstadt 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 thermal 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 of flee 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 yearold 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. 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.
ROSENBERG: 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 Muhlmann, 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.
ROSENBERG: 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. Hammers. 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.
ROSENBERG: 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 Fuehrer'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?