THE PRESIDENT: Do you know where it is, Dr. Thoma?
DR. THOMA: It is contained in Document 1015-PS, Exhibit USA-385, but it may be that this document is not listed in this particular index. In my document I cannot locate it at the moment, but it belongs to 1015-PS and was submitted in its entirety.
ROSENBERG: And the order of the Army High Command of 30 September 1942 says, under I:
“Except for special cases, in which the safeguarding of endangered works of culture is urgent, efforts will be made to leave them in their present location for the time being. For this purpose, according to reciprocal agreements between the Quartermaster General of the General Staff of the Army and the Einsatzstab of Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the latter has been granted authority to: c) in order to safeguard against damage or destruction in the operational area of the East also such works of culture which do not fall under paragraph b—especially museum pieces—to protect and/or place them in security.”
At the end of this directive, it says under IV:
“Independent of the missions of the Einsatzstab of Reichsleiter Rosenberg, according to Section I, a, b, c, the troops and all military offices located in the operational area are instructed now, as before, to preserve valuable art objects if possible and to protect them from destruction or damage.”
I believed it my duty to prove, at least very briefly, that my Einsatzstab, as well as the military offices, issued clear directives and orders for the protection, even during these bitter battles, of objects of art of the Russian, Ukrainian, and White Ruthenian people.
DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, you know that Hitler and Göring diverted some of the objects of art which were confiscated in France. What part did you play in this matter?
ROSENBERG: In principle the Führer specified, as can be seen from information given by the then Field Marshal Keitel, upon order of the Führer, that he reserved for himself the disposition of these works and any decision related hereto.
I do not wish to dispute in any way that I had the hope that at least a large part of these objects of art would remain in Germany, particularly since, in the course of time, many German cultural works were destroyed by particularly severe bombing in the West. These works of art were to be a sort of security for later negotiations. When Reich Marshal Göring, who by directive of the Führer particularly supported this work of the Einsatzstab, earmarked a number of these works of art for his collection, I was—I must say frankly, as the record states—a little uneasy, because with this commission I had taken on a certain responsibility in my name for the total of the confiscated cultural and art objects, and I was, therefore, obligated to catalog them in their entirety and to keep them available for any negotiations or decisions. Therefore, I directed my deputy to make as complete a list as possible of those things which the Reich Marshal, with the approval of the Führer, was diverting for his collection. I knew that Reich Marshal Göring intended later to give this collection to the German Reich and not to bequeath it privately.