In the interrogation record which was produced and read on this point by the French Prosecution there is also a regrettable error to be found. It says that I had been uneasy because Reich Marshal Göring had misappropriated these works of art. In German, the term “entwendet” means as much as to take illegally (to embezzle). What I said, however, was “verwendet,” which has a different meaning.
DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I would like to point out in this connection the fact that the French used the word “détourné,” which means “divert.”
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. THOMA: I now turn to the furniture operation in France, and for that purpose I am showing the defendant Document 001-PS, also Volume II of the French Document Book, and I am asking the defendant to state his views with respect to it.
[The document was submitted to the defendant.]
ROSENBERG: Document 001-PS contains, at the beginning, information to the effect that in the East accommodations were found to be so dreadful that I was proposing that ownerless Jewish homes in France and their furniture should be made available for that purpose. This suggestion was approved in a decree issued, by order of the Führer, by the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery on 31 December 1941.
In the course of the ever-increasing bombardment in Germany, I considered that I no longer could take responsibility for this, and thus I made a suggestion that this furniture should be placed at the disposal of bombed-out victims in Germany—which amounted to more than 100,000 people on certain nights—so that emergency aid would be given to them.
In the report of the French Document Book it is stated in the seventh paragraph how the confiscation was carried out: that these deserted apartments were sealed, that they remained sealed for some time in the event of possible claims, and that then the shipment to Germany was carried out.
I am aware that this, no doubt, was a serious encroachment on private property; but here again, in connection with previous considerations, I thought about the implications and, finally, of the millions of homeless Germans. I want to emphasize in this connection that I kept myself well informed; that the homes, their owners, and the main contents in the way of furniture were recorded in detail in a big book, as a basis for possible negotiations at a later date.