THE PRESIDENT: Well, I would rather have the PS number. If you will give me the PS numbers, or whatever the numbers are, as part of the exhibit number: 107-PS, 116-PS...
DR. THOMA: Yes, Documents 116-PS, 122-PS, 129-PS, 101-PS, 100-PS, 089-PS, 064-PS, 098-PS, 072-PS, 070-PS.
ROSENBERG: The Document Number 107-PS was submitted by the Prosecution as proof of persecution of the churches. This was a circular letter sent out by the Party Chancellery and written by the Chief of the Reich Labor Service. In this circular, on Page 1, it is decreed that denominational discussions were to be prohibited within the Reich Labor Service. I believe that was done so that particularly in the Reich Labor Service, where young people of all classes and backgrounds were taken in, denominational and religious discussions would be avoided.
On Page 2 it says:
“Just as it is of no concern to the Reichsarbeitsdienst to forbid its individual members to have a church wedding or funeral, so the Reichsarbeitsdienst must by all means avoid taking part, as an organization, in church ceremonies which exclude Germans of other beliefs.”
I considered this decree as the strictest adherence to religious freedom: for it meant that members of the Protestant faith could not be forced to attend Catholic services and vice versa; furthermore, that persons who perhaps did not belong to any religious denomination could not, on order of their organization, be forced to attend the services of one denomination or the other. Therefore, I cannot see that in this case we are concerned with religious persecution.
Document Number 116-PS concerns itself with a letter of the Leader of the Reich Chancellery sent to the Reich Minister for Science and Education and is dated 24 January 1939. This document was submitted to me for my information—I emphasize, “for my information.” It refers to correspondence between the Party Chancellery and this Ministry regarding the limitation of theological faculties, in which it is emphasized that the terms of concordats and church agreements would have to be taken into consideration; secondly, that it was necessary methodically to reorganize the entire higher educational system by amalgamation and simplification; and finally, it states that newly created fields of research, such as racial research and archeology, were also to be taken into consideration.
I could not see why, after 6 years of National Socialist revolution, new fields of specialization in scientific research should not find due consideration within the budget. I personally was interested in seeing that the subjects of agrarian sociology and the early history of Germany received proper consideration, specifically in regard to Germanic intellectual and spiritual history.
The same applies to Document Number 122-PS, also dated April 1939, into which I do not need to go in detail. It sets forth similar views by the Minister for Science, Education, and Popular Culture, stating how many theological faculties he deemed necessary to be retained.
Document 129-PS is a letter of the Reich Minister for Churches to a well-known German author, Dr. Stapel, who was especially interested in religious reform. In this letter, the Reich Church Minister expresses the view that a common religious denomination should be especially promoted which would affirm the National Socialist State in particular and, at the same time, could enjoy and rely upon the support of the Reich Church Minister.