A. The fundamental purpose of discussing these matters was to specify the obligation that all individuals and all offices had to heed the measures and regulations issued by the State, and the final purpose was to establish what basic attitude the defendant himself had with regard to that problem.
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Q. Schosser says you had attacked him on account of his profession, and you had attacked, in fact, the entire clerical profession. What was it about these alleged attacks?
A. That just isn’t so. As was required for every case, the interrogation was a conversation between myself and the defendant and, in the course of that conversation, I went into the question that people, if they wanted to go to church, wanted to hear about heavenly matters and didn’t want to hear anything about politics. If he wanted to deal with questions of that kind, he shouldn’t have become a clergyman but a politician.
Q. In connection with the education of youth, you are supposed to have reproached him that in the house of his parents, he hadn’t been educated in the National Socialistic sense.
A. That kind of a conversation would have been straight nonsense because Schosser was born in 1909 and, at that time, there was no such thing as national socialism. Consequently, I could not blame him. * * *.
Presiding Judge Brand: We understand your answer.
Dr. Koessl: It is also asserted that you reproached him that the Catholics were saying that Protestants were going right to hell. Quite briefly, please.
Defendant Rothaug: That again was an entirely different thought. I set forth that the German State has two great denominations and many others and can, therefore, be neither Catholic or Protestant but only absolutely neutral. It was, of course, up to him personally in his clerical field to speak for the accuracy of his opinion and his faith. If you are of the opinion that all those who are of a different denomination will go to hell, it is impossible for the State to share that opinion. As far as we are concerned, everybody will go right to heaven.
Q. Another question, quite briefly. Will you tell us what was said about Rosenberg?[548]