DR. THOMA: I have one last question. In connection with this question I should like to submit Exhibit Rosenberg-15, Document 3761-PS. This is contained in the document book but it has not yet been submitted to the Tribunal as an Exhibit. It contains a letter from Rosenberg to Hitler, written in 1924, containing the request that he should not be nominated as a candidate for the Reichstag.
Witness, you have taken part in all phases of the development of National Socialism from its beginning to its dreadful end. You have participated in its meteoric rise and its dreadful descent, and you know well that everything centered in this one person. Will you inform the Tribunal what you did yourself, and how much you were able to accomplish to avert having all the power centered in this one single person, and what you did to have the effect in every way alleviated? I am showing you first this document given to you, and then Document 047-PS, which has also already been submitted to the Tribunal under the Exhibit Number USA-725.
[The documents were submitted to the defendant.]
ROSENBERG: I did actually serve this National Socialist movement from its very first days on and I was completely loyal to a man whom I admired during these long years of struggle because I saw with what personal devotion and passion this former German soldier worked for his people. As far as I personally am concerned, this letter refers to an epoch...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, exactly what is your question to the witness? We don’t want him to make a speech. We only want to know what question you are putting to him.
DR. THOMA: What suggestions did you make, and did you publicly advocate suggestions to restrict the authority of the Führer?
ROSENBERG: I must say that at that time I advocated—and this in full agreement with Adolf Hitler—and I advocated in my book, Myth of the 20th Century, the view that the Leadership Principle did not consist of one head but that both the Führer and his collaborators are to be bound by common duties. Further, that this Leadership Principle concept should be understood to mean the establishment of a senate or, as I described it, Ordensrat, which would have a correcting and advisory function.
That point of view was emphasized by the Führer himself when he had a senate hall with 61 seats built in the Brown House in Munich, because he himself considered it necessary. Then I again advocated this policy in a speech in 1934, but...
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not think this is in answer to the question as to what he did to limit the Führer’s power. We want to know what he did, if anything, to limit the Führer’s power.
DR. THOMA: In a public meeting he pointed out that—I draw your attention to Document Book 1, Volume II, on Page 118...