Your Honors will note that on the first four pages of the document book there appears a descriptive list of documents. This list is a tabulation of all the documents directly implicating Rosenberg, including those previously offered, and those which I will offer into evidence. Those previously offered are keyed to the transcript page of the Record, and to their exhibit numbers. The list is included in the document books. The list is included in the document books made available to the Defense. This list will gather together in one place all references to the Defendant Rosenberg which are in the Record up to this point. In order to avoid repetition, I will not refer to a great many of the documents previously introduced.
The Indictment at Page 29 (Volume I, Page 70) charges the Defendant Rosenberg under all four Counts of the Indictment. In the presentation which follows, I will show that as charged in Count One, Section IV, Subparagraph D, Rosenberg played a particularly prominent role in developing and promoting the doctrinal techniques of the conspiracy, in developing and promoting beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teaching, in subverting the influence of the churches over the German people, in pursuing the program of relentless persecution of the Jews, and in reshaping the educational system in order to make the German people amenable to the will of the conspirators and to prepare the people psychologically for waging an aggressive war.
I will also show that Rosenberg played an important role in preparing Germany for the waging of aggressive war through the direction of foreign trade, as charged in Count One, Subparagraph E, of the Indictment, and that his activities in the field of foreign policy contributed materially toward the preparation for the aggression charged in Subparagraph F in the Indictment and the Crimes against Peace, as charged in Count Two.
Finally I will show that Rosenberg participated in the planning and direction of the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, as specified in Paragraph G of Count One of the Indictment. Particularly, he participated in the planning and direction of the spoliation of art treasures in the western countries and in the numerous crimes committed in that part of the eastern countries formerly occupied by the U.S.S.R.
The political career of the Defendant Rosenberg embraced the entire history of National Socialism and permeated nearly every phase of the conspiracy with which we are concerned. In order to obtain a full conception of his influence upon and participation in the conspiracy, it is necessary to review briefly his political history, and to consider each of his political activities in their relation to the thread of the conspiracy which stretches from the inception of the Party in 1919 to the defeat of Germany in 1945.
It is both interesting and revealing to note that for Rosenberg the 30th of November 1918 marked the “beginning of political activities with a lecture about the ‘Jewish Problem.’ ” That statement is found at Line 2 of the translation of Document 2886-PS, which is an excerpt from a book entitled, The Work of Alfred Rosenberg, a biography, and I offer this book as Exhibit Number USA-591.
From the Document 3557-PS, which has excerpts from an official pamphlet entitled Dates in the History of the NSDAP, and which I offer as Exhibit Number USA-592, we learn that Rosenberg was a member of the German Labor Party, afterwards the National Socialist German Workers Party, in January 1919 and that Hitler joined forces with Rosenberg and his colleagues in October of the same year. Thus, Rosenberg was a member of the National Socialist movement even before Hitler himself.
Now I wish to offer Document 3530-PS, which is an extract from Das Deutsche Führer Lexikon, the year of 1934-35, and I offer it as Exhibit Number USA-593. In this document we obtain additional biographical data on Rosenberg as follows:
“From 1921 until the present he was editor of the Völkische Beobachter; editor of the N. S. Monatshefte; in 1930, he became member of the Reichstag and representative of the foreign policies for the Party . . . since April 1933 he was leader of the foreign political office of the NSDAP, then designated Reichsleiter; in January 1934, deputized by the Führer for the supervision of the ideological education of the NSDAP, the German labor front, and all related organizations.”
The Document 2886-PS, which I have just referred to, offered as Exhibit Number USA-591, adds that in July 1941 Rosenberg was appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.