MR. DODD: Yes, I know you repeated it three times yesterday and again this morning. In your own defense document—Rosenberg-11, I think it is—which is the letter that you wrote to Koch on the 14th of December 1942—I don’t think it will be necessary to show it to you again; I think you saw it yesterday—you specifically mentioned to Koch the matter of picking up people from lines in front of theaters and off the streets, those people who were attending movies and matters of that sort. You knew that was going on under your decree of compulsory labor, didn’t you? You were objecting to it, but you knew it was going on.
ROSENBERG: Excesses are connected with every law, and as soon as I learned of excesses, I did take steps against them.
MR. DODD: Very good. Now, finally, with respect to this forced labor matter, would you say as a matter of fairness and honesty that your ministry was not very largely responsible for this terrible program of forcing people from their homes into Germany, or do you say that you must accept a very considerable responsibility for what happened to these hundreds of thousands of people out of the Eastern occupied areas?
ROSENBERG: I, of course, will take the responsibility for these laws which I issued, and for any framework of directives which were issued by my ministry. The territorial governments were legally responsible for their execution. Where they went beyond these measures—they were 1,500 kilometers away from me—I concerned myself with every case. Many exaggerations were made and excesses also took place. I admit that terrible things did occur. I tried to intervene, to apply punitive measures and because of this quite a number of German officials were taken to court and were sentenced.
MR. DODD: Leaving aside the terrible things that happened to people, assuming that no great violence took place, the very fact of forcing them against their wills to leave is something else that you will accept responsibility for, I assume.
ROSENBERG: Yes, indeed.
MR. DODD: And you also feel that a considerable part of this...
ROSENBERG: [Interposing.] I accept the responsibility due to a State law which empowered Gauleiter Sauckel to place these claims to me which I applied in legal form to the Eastern territories.
MR. DODD: Briefly, I want to remind you, while we are on this subject, that you acknowledged yesterday that you did consent to the taking of children as young as 10, 12, and 14 years old and removing them to Germany, and I think you told us that at first it did disturb you, but when you found out there were happy recreational circumstances, your mind was eased. Is that a fair statement of your position on forcing those children from the East?
ROSENBERG: No, that is not correct. I do not know just what the translation of the document was, but the opposite was true. I wanted to prevent anything from happening in any action in the operational zone which might, under certain circumstances, be of gravest importance for many children. Then, upon the request of the Army Group Center—which anyway would have done it on its own—I took over the care of these children on condition that I take most scrupulous care of them and care for their own mothers, that they have contact with their parents, and so that they might be returned to their homeland again later on. That is certainly the exact opposite of what the Prosecution has submitted from this document here.