THE PRESIDENT: But when you say “his question,” can’t he say what he did in connection with the document, or the subject of the document? I mean, when you say “state his position,” it is such a very wide phrase it may mean almost anything. If you ask him what he did in connection with the subject of the document it is different, but it is more concrete and special.
DR. THOMA: What did you do in these occupied areas, contrary to the assertion of the Soviet Prosecution?
ROSENBERG: To refute the assertion that I destroyed culture and art and science in Estonia, I must point out that one of the first directions of the Eastern Ministry was to establish indigenous administrations in these three countries and to have the German administration in principal serve as a supervisory body. The limitations due to the war conditions were naturally given in times of war; they applied to spheres of war and armament economy, to the sphere of police security, and naturally to the political attitude in general.
A complete cultural autonomy was enjoyed by Estonia and Latvia as well as by Lithuania; their art and their theaters were active all through these years; many faculties of the university at Dorpat functioned and so did some faculties in Riga; the judicial sovereignty of these countries was under the power of the indigenous administration—national directorates as they were called—with all the authoritative departments necessary for the administration. The entire school system remained untouched. I visited these territories twice, and I can say only that the commissioners in charge there did everything to work as closely as possible in accordance with the desires of the indigenous administration which often expressed itself with criticism regarding the German administration, although, frankly speaking, we could not quite fully recognize the political sovereignty in the midst of war.
On Page 2 of this document it is stated, under corporal punishment for office employees, that the intruders had prescribed corporal punishment of Estonian workers in accordance with the regulation of the railway administration of 20 February 1942, for neglect of work or if the employee came drunk to work. This regulation of the director of the railway administration corresponds with the facts. But when this regulation was made known, of course it aroused the indignation of the German civil administration. Reich Commissioner Lohse at once annulled it, and we asked the Reich Minister of Transportation to have this impossible official removed. This took place immediately; he was disqualified and called home, and the fact that he was recalled was to be made known in the press. However, I cannot say whether it actually appeared in the press.
On Page 5 of this document, in Paragraph 2, it is set forth that the Germans destroyed historical edifices, that they had searched through and destroyed the Tartu—that is, the University of Dorpat which had a glorious past of more than 300 years, and was one of the oldest seats of higher learning.
Now I would like to add that these houses dating from the 17th and other centuries were constructed by Germans exclusively, and that German troops would certainly not be interested in destroying arbitrarily the houses of their own people. Secondly, this 300-year-old University of Dorpat was a German university for 300 years, which in fact supplied Russia and Germany with scholars of European repute.
THE PRESIDENT: That is quite irrelevant, quite irrelevant. The question is whether it was destroyed.
ROSENBERG: In the year 1942 I was once in Dorpat. A large part of the city had been destroyed through combat activity, but the university buildings were still standing. In this connection I had the opportunity to learn that the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in the Ukraine could confiscate 10,000 to 12,000 volumes belonging to the University of Dorpat and restore them again to their rightful owner.
I consider it out of question that an arbitrary destruction of this old German university could have been carried out by German troops and I can assume only that it was the result of combat activity, if a destruction actually had taken place.