dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. DIX: It is, therefore, merely a question of what the Tribunal consider to be the most practical way. We have made the excerpts, and if the Tribunal wish, they will be translated. Now there is left only the affidavits. Mr. Dodd did not mention them; but I think at the time when Sir David and I discussed the witnesses and affidavits here in court in open session the affidavits had already been admitted by the Tribunal. Of course, reserving the right of the Prosecution to ask counter questions or call the witnesses for crossexamination after having read the documents, that is their privilege. We have been satisfied with affidavits instead of the personal appearance merely in order to save time; but if the Prosecution wishes these witnesses, from whom we have affidavits, to appear, then, of course, the Defense is perfectly agreeable to this.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: I will deal first of all with the documents on behalf of the Defendant Schacht. The following documents will be translated: Number 7, Number 8, Number 9, Number 14, Number 18, Number 33, Number 34, Number 37, Number 38, Number 39, and Number 49. With reference to documents 54 to 61, which are already in the record, they will not be translated, but Dr. Dix is requested to give references to those documents in his document book. Documents 1 to 6 will not be translated at all. I meant that the documents which I have not alluded to will be translated-the documents which I have not referred to specifically will be translated. Now, Dr. Thoma.
DR. THOMA: Mr. President, first of all I am submitting copies of the documents which were granted me this morning and which are from Rosenberg's publications- Tradition and Our Present Age , Writings and Speeches , Blood and Honor , Formation of the Idea , and The Myth of the 20th Century -as evidence of the fact that the defendant did not participate in a conspiracy against the peace and in the psychological preparation for war. These excerpts contain speeches which the defendant made before diplomats, before students, before jurists, and are meant to prove that on these occasions he fought for social peace, and that, in particular, he did not want the battle of ideologies to result in foreign political enmity. In these speeches he advocated respect for all races, spoke against the propaganda for leaving the church, advocated freedom of conscience and a sensible solution of the Jewish problem, even giving certain advantages to Jews. In particular, he called for equality and justice in this matter. I ask the Tribunal to take official notice of these speeches, and with the permission of the Tribunal I call the Defendant Rosenberg to the witness stand. [The Defendant Rosenberg took the stand]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
ALFRED ROSENBERG (Defendant): Alfred Rosenberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-to speak the pure truth- and withhold and add nothing. [The defendant repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. THOMA: Mr. Rosenberg, will you please give the Tribunal your personal history.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, you have not given your exhibits any exhibit numbers, have you?
DR. THOMA: Yes, I have. That is Rosenberg-7(a).
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, they have all been numbered?
DR. THOMA: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. When you refer to any of the documents, you will give them their exhibit number.
DR. THOMA: Yes, indeed. [Turning to the defendant.] Will you give the Tribunal your personal history...
THE PRESIDENT: Wait one minute, Dr. Thoma. For the purposes of the record, you see, which is contained in the transcript, I think you ought to read out a list of the documents which you are putting in, stating what the exhibit numbers are. Have you got a list there of the documents you are going to offer in evidence?
DR. THOMA: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you just read it into the record?
DR. THOMA: Exhibit Rosenberg-7, The Myth of the 20th Century .
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. THOMA: Rosenberg-7(a), Gestaltung der Idee (Formation of the Idea); Rosenberg-7(b), Rosenberg, Blat and Ehre (Blood and Honor); Rosenberg-7(c), Rosenberg, Tradition and Gegenwart (Tradition and Our Present Age); Rosenberg-7(d), Rosenberg, Schriften and Reden (Writings and Speeches); and Rosenberg-8, Volkischer Beobachter, March and September 1933.
THE PRESIDENT: That one was excluded by the Tribunal. Numbers 7(e) and 8 were excluded.
DR. THOMA: I did not cite 7(e) but Rosenberg-8.
THE PRESIDENT: You cited 8, though.
DR. THOMA: Yes, I mentioned Rosenberg-8, and I beg to apologize.
THE PRESIDENT: Number 8 is excluded, too.
DR. THOMA: Yes. [Turning to the defendant.] Mr. Rosenberg, please give the Tribunal your personal history.
ROSENBERG: I was born on 12 January 1893 in Reval in Estonia. After having graduated there from high school I began to study architecture in the autumn of 1910 at the Institute of Technology at Riga. When the German-Russian front lines approached in 1915, the Institute of Technology, including the professors and students, was evacuated to Moscow, and there I continued my studies in this capital of Russia. The end of January or the beginning of February 1918 I finished my studies, received a diploma as an engineer and architect, and returned to my native city. When the German troops entered Reval, I tried to enlist as a volunteer in the German Army, but since I was a citizen of an occupied country, I was not accepted without special recommendation. Since in the future I did not want to live between the frontiers of several countries, I tried to get to Germany. To the Baltic Germans, notwithstanding their loyalty toward the Russian State, German culture was their intellectual home, and the experience I had had in Russia strengthened my resolution to do everything within my power to help prevent the political movement in Germany from backsliding into Bolshevism. I believed that this movement in Germany, because of the precarious structure of the system of the German Reich, would have meant a tremendous catastrophe. At the end of November 1918 I travelled to Berlin and from there to Munich. Actually, I wanted to take up my profession as an architect, but in Munich I met people who felt the way I did, and I became a staff member of a weekly, which was founded at that time in Munich. I went to work on this weekly paper in January 1918 and have continued in literary work since that time. I lived through the development of the political movement here in Munich until the Rate-Republic in 1919 and its overthrow.
DR. THOMA: You just mentioned Germany as your intellectual home. Will you tell the Tribunal by which studies and by which scientists you were influenced in favor of the German mentality?
ROSENBERG: In addition to my immediate artistic interests in architecture and painting, I had since childhood pursued historical and philosophical studies and thus, of course, instinctively I tended to read Goethe, Herder, and Fichte in order to develop intellectually along these lines. At the same time, I was influenced by the social ideas of Charles Dickens, Carlyle, and, with regard to America, by Emerson. I continued these studies at Riga and, naturally, took up Kant and Schopenhauer and, above all, devoted myself to the study of the philosophy of India and related schools of thought. Later, of course, I studied the prominent European historians of the history of civilization; Burckhardt and Rohde, Rankeand Treitschke, Mommsen and Schlieffen. Finally, in Munich I started to study modern biology more closely.
DR. THOMA: You frequently mentioned in the course of your speeches "the embodiment of the idea." Was this due to Goethe's influence?
ROSENBERG: Yes, it is a matter of course that the idea, to see the world as an embodiment, goes back to Goethe.
THE PRESIDENT: [To Dr. Thoma.] The Tribunal, you see, want you to confine yourself to his own philosophy and not to the origins of these philosophies, insofar as you are referring to philosophical subjects at all.
DR. THOMA: How did you come to the NSDAP and to Hitler in Munich?
ROSENBERG: In May 1919 the publisher of the journal which I mentioned was visited by a man by the name of Anton Drexler, who introduced himself as the chairman of a newly founded German Labor Party. He stated that he advocated ideas similar to those expressed by this journal, and from that time I began to have connections with a very small group of German laborers which had been formed in Munich. There in the autumn of 1919 I also met Hitler.
DR. THOMA: When did you join Hitler?
ROSENBERG: Well, at that time I had an earnest conversation with Hitler, and on that occasion I noticed his broad view of the entire European situation. He said that in his opinion Europe was at that time in a social and political crisis, such as had not existed since the fall of the ancient Roman Empire. He said that seats of unrest were to be found everywhere in this sphere, and that he was personally striving to get a clear picture from the viewpoint of Germany's restoration to sound conditions. Thereupon, I listened to some of the first speeches by Hitler which were made at small meetings of 40 and 50 people. I believed, above all, a soldier who had been at the front, and who had done his duty silently for 4 1/2, years, had the right to speak now. At the end of 1919, I entered the Party-not before Hitler, as it is contended here, but later. In this original Party I was assigned Number 625 as a member. I did not participate in setting up the program. I was present, however, when this program was read and commented upon by Hitler on 24 February 1920.
DR. THOMA: Then you gave a justification for the Party program and probably wanted to solve the problems which referred to the social and political crisis. How did you picture the solution?
ROSENBERG: In response to different inquiries regarding the 25 points of the program, I wrote a commentary at the end of 1922, which has been read to the Tribunal in fragments. Our general attitude at the time may perhaps be stated briefly as follows: The technical revolution of the 19th Century had certain social and mental consequences. Industrialization and the clamor for profit dominated life and created the industrial state and the metropolis with all its backyards and estrangement from nature and history. At the turn of the century, many people who wanted to regain their homeland and its history turned against this onesided movement. The revival of tradition, folk song and folklore of the past, originated with the youth movement of that time. The works of art, for instance, by Professor Schultze-Naumburg and by some poets were a characteristic protest against this onesided movement of the time, and it is here that National Socialism attempted to gain a foothold-in full consciousness though, that it was a modern movement and not a movement of retrospective sentimentality. It linked itself with the social movement of Stocker and the national movement of Schonerer in Austria without using them in their entirety as a model. I should like to add that the name "National Socialism," I believe, originated in the Sudetenland, and the small German Labor Party was founded under the name of "National Socialist German Labor Party." If I may say so, what finally animated us in essence and the reason for our calling ourselves National Socialists-for, you see, many terrible things have been delivered during these 3 months by the Prosecution, but nothing has been said about National Socialism -we were, at the time, aware of the fact that there were two hostile camps in Germany, that in both camps millions of decent Germans were fighting; and we found ourselves facing the problem of what could be acceptable to both these camps from the viewpoint of national unity and what was preventing an understanding between these two camps.
ROSENBERG: In short, at that time as well as later we explained to the proletarian side, that even if the class conflict had been and still was a factor in social and political life, nevertheless, as an ideological basis and permanent maxim it would mean eternal disunity of the nation. The direction of a movement for social appeasement or any kind of social conflict by an international center was the second decisive obstacle to social reconciliation. The call for social justice, raised generally by labor, was, however, justified, worthy, and necessary. Concerning the bourgeoisie, we believed we would be able to establish that in some cases the reactionary caste prejudice of privileged circles had worked to the detriment of the people and secondly that the representation of national interests should not be based on privileges of certain classes; on the contrary, the demand for national unity and dignified representation was the right attitude on their part. From this resulted the ideas which Hitler . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, would you try to confine the witness to the charges which are against him? The charges against the defendants are not that they attempted to reconstruct Germany, but that they used this form of reconstruction with a view to attacking outside-races and nations outside.
DR. THOMA: But, in my opinion, we have to devote some time to Rosenberg's train of thought to determine the motives for his actions; but I will now ask him this: Did you realize that these questions of socialism and the questions of labor and capital were in truth international questions? And why did you fight against democracy as a matter of international struggle?
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I think this is a continuation of this same line of examination, and I should like to say that no one in the Prosecution has made any charge against this defendant for what he has thought. I think we are all, as a matter of principle, opposed to prosecuting any man for what he thinks. And I say with great respect that I feel very confident that is the attitude of this Tribunal. Therefore, we think it is entirely unnecessary to spell out whatever thoughts this defendant had on these subjects, or on any other, for that matter.
DR. THOMA: To my knowledge, the defendant is also accused of fighting democracy; and that is why I believe I should put this question to him.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the question?
DR. THOMA: Why he was fighting democracy-why National Socialism and he himself fought against democracy.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think that has got anything to do with this case. The only question is whether he used National Socialism for the purpose of conducting international offensives.
DR. THOMA: Mr. President, National Socialism as a concept must be dissected into its constituent parts. Since the Prosecution maintains that National Socialism was a fight against democracy, a onesided stress on nationalism and militarism, he ought now to have the opportunity to say why National Socialism supported militarism, and whether that was actually the case. National Socialism must be analyzed as a concept in order to determine its constituent parts.
THE PRESIDENT: What National Socialism was has already been shown to the Tribunal, and he is not disputing the fact that there was a Fuehrer principle introduced into Germany. There is no question about that, why it teas introduced. If it was introduced for solely internal purposes there would be no charge in respect of that. The only charges are that National Socialism was used for the purpose of making aggressive war and perpetrating the other crimes which we have heard of.
DR. THOMA: To my knowledge, the charge of waging a war of aggression was preferred because it was a war against democracy based on nationalism and militarism.
THE PRESIDENT: Democracy outside Germany, not in Germany.
DR. THOMA: Then I should like to ask the defendant how he will answer the charge that National Socialism preached a master race.
ROSENBERG: I know that this problem is the main point of the Indictment, and I realize that at present, in view of the number of terrible incidents, conclusions are automatically drawn about the past and the reason for the origin of the so-called racial science. I believe, however, that it is of decisive importance in judging this problem to know exactly what we were concerned with. I have never heard the word "master race" ("Herrenrasse") as often as in this court room. To my knowledge, I did not mention or use it at all in my writings. I leafed through my Writings and Speeches again and did not find this word. I spoke only once of super humans as mentioned by Homer, and I found a quotation from a British author, who in writing about the life of Lord Kitchener said the Englishman who had conquered the world had proved himself as a creative superman (Herrenmensch). Then I found the word "master race" ("Herrenrasse") in a writing of the American ethnologist, Madison Grant, and of the French ethnologist, Lapouge. I would like to admit, however-and not only to admit, but to emphasize-that the word "superman" (Herrenmensch) came to my attention particularly during my activity as Minister in the East- and very unpleasantly-when used by a number of leaders of the administration in the East. Perhaps when we come to the question of the East, I may return to this subject in detail and state what position I took in regard to these utterances which came to my attention. In principle, however, I was convinced that ethnology was, after all, not an invention of the National Socialist movement, but a biological discovery, which was the conclusion of 400 years of European research. The laws of heredity discovered in the 1860's, and rediscovered several decades later, enable us to gain a deeper
THE PRESIDENT: What National Socialism was has already been shown to the Tribunal, and he is not disputing the fact that there was a Fuehrer principle introduced into Germany. There is no question about that, why it teas introduced. If it was introduced for solely internal purposes there would be no charge in respect of that. The only charges are that National Socialism was used for the purpose of making aggressive war and perpetrating the other crimes which we have heard of.
DR. THOMA: To my knowledge, the charge of waging a war of aggression was preferred because it was a war against democracy based on nationalism and militarism.
THE PRESIDENT: Democracy outside Germany, not in Germany.
DR. THOMA: Then I should like to ask the defendant how he will answer the charge that National Socialism preached a master race.
ROSENBERG: I know that this problem is the main point of the Indictment, and I realize that at present, in view of the number of terrible incidents, conclusions are automatically drawn about the past and the reason for the origin of the so-called racial science. I believe, however, that it is of decisive importance in judging this problem to know exactly what we were concerned with. I have never heard the word "master race" ("Herrenrasse") as often as in this court room. To my knowledge, I did not mention or use it at all in my writings. I leafed through my Writings and Speeches again and did not find this word. I spoke only once of super humans as mentioned by Homer, and I found a quotation from a British author, who in writing about the life of Lord Kitchener said the Englishman who had conquered the world had proved himself as a creative superman (Herrenmensch). Then I found the word "master race" ("Herrenrasse") in a writing of the American ethnologist, Madison Grant, and of the French ethnologist, Lapouge. I would like to admit, however-and not only to admit, but to emphasize-that the word "superman" (Herrenmensch) came to my attention particularly during my activity as Minister in the East- and very unpleasantly-when used by a number of leaders of the administration in the East. Perhaps when we come to the question of the East, I may return to this subject in detail and state what position I took in regard to these utterances which came to my attention. In principle, however, I was convinced that ethnology was, after all, not an invention of the National Socialist movement, but a biological discovery, which was the conclusion of 400 years of European research. The laws of heredity discovered in the 1860's, and rediscovered several decades later, enable us to gain a deeper insight into history than many other earlier theories. Accordingly, race . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, the defendant is going back now into the origins of the views which he held. Surely, all we have got to consider here is his statement in speeches and in documents and the use to which he put those statements, not as to whether they were 400 years old, or anything of that sort.
DR. THOMA: The defendant just spoke about the racial problem and I will take the opportunity to speak on the so-called Jewish problem as the starting point of this question. I would like to ask the defendant the following question: How was it . . .
GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, already my colleague, Mr. Dodd, pointed out that the Prosecution has submitted to the defendant an accusation stating in concrete terms his crimes: aggressive wars and atrocities. I suppose that the most correct way of carrying on the interrogation of his client on the part of Dr. Thoma would be to ask him questions directly connected with the charges of the Prosecution. I do not suppose that the Tribunal intend to listen to a lecture on the racial theories, National Socialism, or other theories.
DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I shall deal with the individual questions later; but, since the ideology and the philosophy of the Nazis has been called criminal here, I think the Defendant Rosenberg should be given some opportunity to state his views. [Turning to the defendant.] Of course, it would be better, and perhaps more appropriate, Herr Rosenberg, if you were a little more brief in some respects. Now I would like to ask the following question: You believed that the so-called Jewish problem in Europe could be solved if the last Jew left the European continent. At that time you stated it was immaterial whether such a program was realized in 5, 10, or 20 years. It was, after all, merely a matter of transport facilities, and, at the time, you thought it advisable to put this question before an international committee. How and why did you arrive at this opinion? I mean to say, how, in your opinion, would the departure of the last Jew from Europe solve the problem?
ROSENBERG: In order to comply with the wash of the Tribunal, I do not want to give a lengthy exposition of my views as evolved from my study of history-I do not at all mean the study of anti-Semitic writings but of Jewish historians themselves. It seemed to me that after an epoch of generous emancipation in the course of national movements of the 19th Century, an important part of the Jewish nation also found its way back to its own tradition and nature, and more and more consciously segregated itself from other nations. It was a problem which was discussed at many international congresses, and Buber in particular, one of the spiritual leaders of European Jewry, declared that the Jews should return to the soil of Asia, for only there could the roots of Jewish blood and Jewish national character be found. But my more radical attitude in the political sphere was due partly to my observations and experiences in Russia and partly to my experiences later in Germany, which seemed to particularly confirm their strangeness. I could not conceive how, at the time when the German soldiers returned, they were greeted by a Jewish university professor who explained that the German soldiers had died on the field of dishonor. I could not understand that lack of reverence could go so far. If it had been but an individual reaction, one could have said that the man had slipped. But in the course of 14 years, it became apparent that it was indeed the expression of a definitely alienating tendency.