THE PRESIDENT: He has answered in the negative already, so you can pass from it, can’t you? It has formed no part of the Indictment.
DR. THOMA: Yes.
[Turning to the defendant.] When did you learn that you were proposed for the position of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and for what reason were you given this commission?
ROSENBERG: May I state with regard to this that at the very beginning of April—as far as I can remember it was 2 April 1941—the Führer summoned me in the morning and explained to me that he regarded a military clash with the Soviet Union as inevitable. As reasons he quoted two points: first, the military occupation of Romanian territory—that is to say, Bessarabia and North Bukovina; second, the continual re-enforcing for a long time and on a gigantic scale of the Red Army along the line of demarcation and in Soviet Russian territory generally. These facts were so striking that he had already given the relevant military and other orders and had decided to assign me as a political adviser in a decisive capacity. Thus I was faced with a fait accompli, and an attempt even to discuss the matter was countered by the Führer with the remark that the orders had been given and that scarcely anything could be altered in the matter, whereupon I told the Führer that, of course, I wished the best of luck to the German arms, and I was at his disposal for the political advice which he desired.
Immediately afterwards I called a meeting of some of my closest assistants, since I did not know whether the military operations would be starting very soon or later on. We made a number of drafts concerning the possible treatment of political problems and possible measures to be taken in the territories to be occupied in the East. These drafts have been submitted here. On 20 April I received a preliminary task, which was to form a central department for dealing with Eastern questions and to get in touch with the highest Reich authorities concerned with these matters.
DR. THOMA: I should like to submit to the defendant the instructions which he drafted after his appointment.
I have just one more request to the Tribunal. These instructions are now crossed out in the photostatic copy and bear all sorts of remarks. I request, therefore, that the Tribunal take personal cognizance of the photostatic copies so that they can see how these instructions have been crossed out. The documents themselves have already been submitted to the Tribunal as numbered exhibits.
ROSENBERG: May I refer to these documents—1017-PS, 1028-PS, 1029-PS, and 1030-PS...
THE PRESIDENT: They have already been put in evidence?
DR. THOMA: Yes, they have been put in.