GEN. RUDENKO: You negotiated with the Chief of Staff of the SA and requested him to place at your disposal the most experienced of the SA leaders.
ROSENBERG: Of course I also spoke to the Chief of Staff of the SA about possible capable assistants in the event of an occupation of the Eastern territories.
GEN. RUDENKO: In this connection, therefore, you will not deny that a co-ordinating center did actually exist for preparing measures of attack against the Soviet Union.
ROSENBERG: Not in that form, because all the tasks connected with the conflict with the Soviet Union were divided up from a military point of view. They were assigned to Göring in the field of economic planning; they were, as became evident later on, clearly defined with the Police. I had been given a political liaison office in order to discuss the political problems of the East, and to give the different offices ideas about the eventual political administration and the direction of this policy. In the main I did that in the sense which you find in my speech of 20 June.
GEN. RUDENKO: Very well. One and a half months before the treacherous attack by Germany on the Soviet Union, you drafted a directive for all Reich commissioners in the Occupied Eastern Territories. You do not deny that?
ROSENBERG: I already mentioned that yesterday. In the line of duty, some provisional drafts were worked out by myself and my assistants. These drafts which we have here, or which have been shown to me up to now, were not sent out in this form.
GEN. RUDENKO: I shall return to this question later.
In your report which you submitted to Hitler on 28 June 1941, regarding the preliminary work on questions connected with the Eastern territories, you stated that you had had a talk with Admiral Canaris, during which you asked Canaris, in the interests of counterintelligence work, to choose certain persons who, while working on counterintelligence, would also be able to do political work. Do you confirm this statement?
ROSENBERG: No, that is not correct. But I heard that Admiral Canaris had organized a certain group of Ukrainians, I believe, and other nationals for some sabotage or other work. He visited me once and I asked him not to meddle with the political work, that is with the political preparatory work, and he assured me he would not.
GEN. RUDENKO: You do not deny your meeting Canaris?