DR. THOMA: Mr. President, the defendant wanted to summarize again briefly what his ideas were for the Ukraine, namely, autonomy, free cultural development; and that was the core of the difference with Koch, namely, that Koch stressed mainly the idea of exploitation; therefore the defendant wanted to say once more what was the whole plan of his intentions towards the Soviet Union. But this topic can now be dropped.
Before I make a statement about the question of the willingness to do construction work in the Ukraine I want to have the defendant make a statement on the subject of the treatment of prisoners of war. Document 081.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it anywhere in your books? Is it Document 081-PS?
DR. THOMA: It has been submitted under a USSR exhibit number.
[The document was submitted to the defendant.]
Have you got it, Defendant?
ROSENBERG: It is Exhibit USSR-353. The complaints regarding prisoners of war came from various sources. Fairly near the beginning they were already lodged with the Eastern Ministry; then later on, particularly during the winter 1941-1942, they were brought by passing officers or soldiers and were reported to me by my political department. We then passed these complaints on to the competent military offices with a request that, for obvious reasons, they should be given consideration.
These complaints were received frequently and my staff, as time went by, stated to me that they encountered a great deal of understanding for these wishes, particularly for the wish expressed by us that prisoners from this large number of Soviet prisoner-of-war camps should be selected according to their nationality and taken to small camps, because through this national segregation, good political and humane treatment would be best guaranteed. In view of the numerous complaints about the death of many thousands of Soviet prisoners, I received more than once reports that during battles of encirclement, units of the Red Army had defended themselves in the hardest way and had not surrendered. In fact they were completely exhausted from hunger when they finally were captured by the Germans, and even numerous cases of cannibalism had been established, born of their tenacity not to surrender in any case.
The third complaint I received was to the effect that political commissars were shot. This complaint too was passed on by us. That an order existed in this connection was unknown to me. We concluded from other reports that here clearly there must have been a political or police reprisal, since we heard that many German prisoners, who later were freed, were most of them found, again dead or mutilated. Later on I was informed that such shootings were prohibited, and thus we assumed that the political commissars also belonged to the regular Red Army.
Now here is Document 081-PS. It has been stated by the Prosecution that this is a letter from the Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to the Chief of the OKW. The document was also found in my files. But it is not a letter from me to the Chief of the OKW, Keitel; on the contrary, it was obviously deposited in my office by the sender. In the left-hand top corner on Page 1, it can be seen that there is a figure “I.” That means Department “I.” In the case of letters originating from me such a reference would always be absent, since “I” was not a department of my own office. Furthermore, letters of mine to the Chief of the OKW were always of a personal character, either beginning with the name of the addressee, or a personal address. Chief of the OKW is the office. In the same way the ordinary address, “Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories,” would not be a personal letter to me, but would mean the office.