The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 070-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA-349. The Tribunal will recall that this was a letter from Bormann’s office to the Defendant Rosenberg, dated 25 April 1941, in which Bormann declared that he had achieved progressive success in reducing and abolishing religious services in schools and in replacing Christian prayers with National Socialist mottoes and rituals. In this letter Bormann also proposed a Nazified morning service in the schools in place of the existing confession and morning service.
In his concerted efforts to undermine and subvert the Christian churches, Bormann authorized, directed, and participated in measures leading to the closing, reduction, and suppression of theological schools, faculties, and institutions. The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 116-PS, Exhibit Number USA-685, which I offer in evidence. This is a letter from the Defendant Bormann to the Defendant Rosenberg, dated 24 January 1939, enclosing for Rosenberg’s cognizance a copy of Bormann’s letter to the Reich Minister for Science, Education, and Popular Culture. In the enclosed letter Bormann informs the Minister as to the Party’s position in favor of restricting and suppressing theological faculties. Bormann states that, owing to war conditions, it had become necessary to reorganize the German high schools and, in view of this situation, he requested the Minister to restrict and suppress certain theological faculties.
I now quote from the first paragraph on Page 3 of the English translation of Document 116-PS, which reads as follows:
“I therefore should like to see you put the theological faculties under substantial limitations, where, for the above reasons, they cannot be entirely eliminated. This will apply not only to the theological faculties at universities but also to the various state institutions which, as seminaries having no affiliation with any university, still exist in many places.
“I request that no express explanations be given to churches or other institutions and that public announcement of these measures be avoided. Complaints and the like are to be answered if at all, with the explanation that these measures are carried out in the course of planned economy and that the same is happening to other faculties.
“I would be glad if the professorial chairs thus made vacant could then be turned over especially to those fields of research newly created in recent years, such as racial research, archeology, et cetera, Martin Bormann.”
In our submission, what this document comes to is a request from Bormann to this effect: Please close down the religious faculties and substitute in their place Nazi faculties and university chairs with the mission of investigating racism, cultism, Nazi archeology. This sort of thing was done in the Hohe Schule, as was so clearly demonstrated in the Prosecution’s case against the plundering activities of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg.
The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 122-PS, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-362. The Tribunal will recall that 122-PS is a letter from the Defendant Bormann to the Defendant Rosenberg, dated 17 April 1939, transmitting to Rosenberg a photostatic copy of the plan of the Reich Minister of Science, Education, and Popular Culture for the combining and dissolving of certain specified theological faculties. In his letter of transmittal Bormann requested Rosenberg to take “cognizance and prompt action” with respect to the proposed suppression of religious institutions.