Rosenberg was the organizer and the highest authority of the administration in the East. On 17 July 1941 he was appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Acting on instructions, he had performed preparatory work before that time on questions concerning Eastern Europe by contacting the Reich agencies concerned (Document Number 1039-PS; US-146). He planned and set up his office for dealing centrally with questions concerning Eastern Europe (Document Number 1024-PS; US-278). He had provisional instructions for the Reich Commissioners drawn up (Document Number 1030-PS; US-144); he delivered the programmatical speech of 20 June 1941 (Document Number 1068-PS; US-143); above all, he took part in the Führer conference of 16 July 1941 (Document Number L-221; US-317).
In the presence of Rosenberg, Lammers, Keitel, and Bormann, Hitler said at that time that the real aims of the war against Russia should not be made known to the whole world, that those present should understand clearly that “we will never withdraw from the new Eastern Territories; whatever opposition appears will be exterminated; never again must a military power develop west of the Urals; nobody but a German shall ever bear a weapon.” Hitler proclaimed the subjection and the exploitation of the Eastern Territories, and in making these statements he placed himself in opposition to what Rosenberg had told him before—without being contradicted by Hitler—concerning his own plans for the East.
Thus Hitler probably had a program of enslavement and exploitation. Nothing is so natural, and nothing easier than to say: Even before Rosenberg took over his ministry he knew Hitler’s aims for the East; namely, to rule it, to administer it, to exploit it. Therefore he is not only an accomplice in a crime of conspiracy against peace; he is also jointly responsible for the Crimes against Humanity perpetrated in the Eastern Territories, since Rosenberg held the complete power, the highest authority in the East.
I shall deal later, de jure and de facto, with the question of Rosenberg’s automatic responsibility in his capacity as supreme chief of the Eastern Territories. First I would like to consider the question of his individual responsibility. One might deduce it from two reasons:
First, because he allegedly participated in the preparation of the war of aggression against the Soviet Union; I have already stated that this assertion is not correct; Rosenberg has neither ideologically nor actually participated in the preparations of the war of aggression.
Secondly, because he supported Hitler’s plan of conquest by making plans, delivering speeches, and organizing the administration. When a minister or general, following the instructions of the head of the State, elaborates plans or takes preparatory measures of an organizational nature, for later eventualities, this activity cannot be considered as criminal even when the interests of other countries are affected thereby and even when the plans, preparations, and measures are intended for war. Only when the minister or general in question directs his activity toward things which have to be considered as criminal according to sound common sense and an international sense of decency and justice can he be held individually responsible. Rosenberg has consistently proved by word and deed that the traditional conceptions of right are his conceptions also and that he desired to enforce them. But his position was particularly difficult since his supreme chief finally exceeded all limits in his ideas, aims, and intentions and since other strong forces like Bormann, Himmler, and Gauleiter Erich Koch were also involved, who frustrated and sabotaged Rosenberg’s good and fair intentions.
Thus we witness the strange spectacle of a minister in office who partly cannot understand or approve, partly is totally unaware of the intentions of the head of the State; and on the other hand that of the head of a state who appoints a minister to take office, who is certainly an old and loyal political fellow combatant, but with whom he has no longer any spiritual contact whatsoever. It would be wrong to judge such a situation simply according to democratic conceptions of the responsibility of a minister. Rosenberg could not simply resign, yet he felt inwardly the duty of fighting for the point of view which appeared to him right and decent.
In his speech of 20 June 1941 Rosenberg said that it was the duty of the Germans to consider that Germany should not have to fight every 25 years for her existence in the East. He by no means, however, desired the extermination of the Slavs, but the advancement of all the nations of Eastern Europe and the advancement, not the annihilation, of their national independence. He demanded (Document Number 1058-PS; Exhibit USA-147) “friendly sentiments” toward the Ukrainians, a guarantee of “national and cultural existence” for the Caucasians; he emphasized that, even with a war on, we were “not enemies of the Russian people, whose great achievements we fully recognize.” He advocated “the right of self-determination of people”—one of the first points of the whole Soviet revolution. This was his idea, tenaciously defended till the end. The speech in question also contains the passage which the Prosecution holds against him in particular, that the feeding of the German people during these years will be placed at the top of German demands in the East and that the southern territories and the North Caucasus would have to make up the balance in feeding the German people. Then, Rosenberg continues literally:
“We do not see at all why we should be compelled to feed the Russian people also from these regions of surplus. We know that this is a bitter necessity which lies beyond any sentiment. Without a doubt extensive evacuation will be necessary, and there are very hard years ahead for the Russians. To what extent industries are to be kept up there is a question reserved for future decision.”
This passage comes quite suddenly and all by itself in the long speech. One feels distinctly that it has been squeezed in; it is not Rosenberg’s voice; Rosenberg does not proclaim here a program of his own but only states facts which lie beyond his will. In the directives of the eastern ministry (Document Number 1056-PS) the feeding of the population, as well as supplying it with medical necessities, is described as being especially urgent.