THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, the Tribunal will consider the whole question of the production of and the citation from these books.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Number 8, My Lord, falls into a rather different field. The first 11 documents seem to be books and writings containing Jewish views of an antinational basis. The Prosecution reminds the Tribunal that the questions at issue are: Did the defendants as co-conspirators embark on a policy of persecution of the Jews; secondly, did the defendants participate in the later manifestations of that policy, the deliberate extermination of the Jews? Within the submission of the Prosecution, it is remote and irrelevant to these important and terrible accusations that certain Jewish writings, spread over a period of years, contained matters which were not very palatable to Christians.
DR. THOMA: Gentlemen, I should like to reply to this point as follows: I am not interested in showing that the Nazi measures against the Jews were justified. I am interested only in making clear the psychological reasons for anti-Semitism in Germany; and I think I am justified in asking you to listen to some quotations of this kind taken from newspapers, since they must by their very nature offend the patriotic and Christian susceptibilities of very many people.
I must go rather more deeply into this question, too, in order to show the reason for the existence of the so-called Jewish problem in history and religion and the reason for the tragic opposition between Jewry and other races. I should like to quote both Jewish and theological literature on the point.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the question.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I think the Tribunal can take the remaining documents, 9 to 14, together. They seem to deal with specific and, if I may say so without the least intention of offense, more practical matters, in that they deal with the government of the Eastern territories, for which this defendant was responsible; and the Prosecution has no objection to my friend’s using these documents in such a way as it seems fit to him.
DR. THOMA: I should like to mention the following points in connection with the documents:
I have had four additional documents allowed in part by the Tribunal. I have not been able to submit them, because they have not yet been handed over to me; but I would like to tell the Tribunal what they are: First, a letter written by Rosenberg to Hitler in 1924, containing a request by Rosenberg not to be accepted as a candidate for the Reichstag; second, a letter written by Rosenberg to Hitler in 1931 regarding his dismissal from the post of editor in chief of the Völkischer Beobachter, the reason being that Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century created a tremendous stir among the German people. Rosenberg asked at the time that his work be considered a purely personal work, something which it actually was, and that if his writing was in any way detrimental to the Party, he would ask to be released from his position as editor of the Völkischer Beobachter; third, I should like to include a directive from Hitler to Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories Rosenberg, dated June 1943, in which Hitler instructs Rosenberg to limit himself to matters of principle; fourth, an eight-page letter from Hitler to Rosenberg, written by hand and dating from the year 1925.
THE PRESIDENT: And the fourth one? Will you state the fourth one, the fourth document?
DR. THOMA: I am coming to that.