ROSENBERG: The evacuation then actually took place under artillery bombardment, and hence cultural objects which had come from Kharkov and other cities also during combat, were transferred only then to Germany.
Now I would like to deal with the documents which the Soviet Prosecution have given in detailed presentation of the Extraordinary State Commissions for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I would like, in this connection, to discuss just a few concrete details:
On Page 1 of the Document USSR-39 it states:
“From the beginning of their occupation of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Germans and their accomplices destroyed the independence of the Estonian people and then tried to establish a ‘new order’; to demolish culture, art, and science; to exterminate the civilian population or to deport them as slave labor to Germany; and to lay waste and plunder cities, villages, and farms.”
I should like to remark in that connection, first of all, that the 20-year independence, after the Soviet attack in 1919, was broken by the marching in of the Red Army in 1940, a standpoint that is...
GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, it seems to me that the document which is now being looked over by the Defendant Rosenberg, naturally gives him a basis for replying to the concrete accusations of his criminal activity while he was Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. However, I am of the opinion that what the Defendant Rosenberg has said just now is plain fascist propaganda and has naturally nothing to do with the matter.
DR. THOMA: Mr. President, if the Defendant Rosenberg makes a few introductory remarks to his statement on the document from which he wants to quote, I ask that he not be interrupted right away. We will deal with a few pertinent statements taken from the document.
ROSENBERG: So far as Point 2 is concerned, I would like to remark...
THE PRESIDENT: Is this document he is dealing with, a document that he wrote himself or had anything to do with? I haven’t got the document before me.
DR. THOMA: The document has been submitted by the U.S.S.R. and it contains charges against Rosenberg—charges of having undertaken demolitions and expropriations in these territories, and he is entitled to state his position with regard to this.