DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, did you have any influence on National Socialist school policies?
ROSENBERG: I did not have any direct influence on school policies. The school systems were an affair of the Reich Ministry for Education—the actual internal organization of the schools is not to be confused with the Party training—and the organization of the universities, the task of the ministry concerned with this problem.
DR. THOMA: There were National Socialist educational institutions. Can you tell me what kind of institutions these were and what your function was in that connection?
ROSENBERG: The so-called National Socialist educational institutions were special foundations under the leadership and direction of the Ministry for Education and the Reichsführer SS Himmler, for the purpose of training a distinct disciplined class; and the inspection of these educational institutions was in the hands of a special SS leader detailed to the Ministry for Education.
DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, you are also accused of religious persecution, especially as it finds expression in your Myth of the 20th Century. Do you admit that occasionally you were a little too severe toward the church?
ROSENBERG: Of course I will allow that as far as historically founded creeds were concerned I pronounced severe personal judgment. I would like to emphasize, in this connection, that in the introduction to my book I described it as a work dealing with personal opinions; secondly, that this book was not directed against the religious elements in the public, as is shown in the quotation on Page 125 of the document book, Part I; and thirdly, that I rejected a policy of withdrawal from the church, as can be seen in the document book, Part I, Page 122, and also rejected political interference by the state in purely religious confessions which is also expressed clearly in this book. I further rejected many proposals to have my book translated into foreign languages. Only once a Japanese translation was submitted to me, although I was not able to recall having given my approval for the translation.
DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, you were not trained in theological matters. Don’t you believe that in some judgments on theological questions you were wrong?
ROSENBERG: I naturally never assumed that this book, which deals with many problems, does not contain errors. I was, to an extent, grateful to receive criticism, and I made certain corrections; but some attacks I could not consider justified, and I thought that later I would certainly thoroughly revise this work—which, of course, also contained political comments.
DR. THOMA: Did you at any time use State Police measures against your opponents in theology and science?
ROSENBERG: No. I would like to state here that this work was published 2½ years before the assumption of power, and that it was naturally open to criticism from all sides, but that the main criticism arose after the assumption of power. I answered these attacks in two pamphlets, but I never made use of the Police to suppress these attacks or persecute the authors of these attacks.