Archive/File: imt/nca/supp-b/nca-sb-02-rosenberg.05
Last-Modified: 1997/11/24

         Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Supplement B
         "The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem"
                              
     Testimony of Alfred Rosenberg, taken at Nurnberg,
     Germany, on 4 October 1945, 1030-1215, by Lt. Col.
     Thomas A. Hinkel, IGD. Also present: 1st Lt.
     Joachim Stenzel, Interpreter; Pvt. Clair Van
     Vleck, Court Reporter.

Q. I show you a photostatic reproduction of a six-page docu-

                                                 [Page 1353]
                                                            
ment, which is undated, and I ask you if you recall
receiving the original of this document? For the record, it
is identified as 212-PS.

A. I cannot imagine who could have sent in this report.

Q. Do you recall receiving it?

A. And I do not recall having read it.

Q. Were the ideas expressed therein in accordance with the
ideas that you had expressed at various times?

A. The entire handling of the Jewish problem was very
definitely in the sphere of the chief of the German Police.
On the other hand, I myself was in strict accord with the
idea of curbing the individual activities of the population,
to limit the Jews to certain districts, to put them to work,
and so forth, and I have expressed that at various times.

Q. Isn't it a fact that the things set forth in this
document were things which actually happened to the Jews in
Russia?

A. I have not read that thoroughly. I did not read the
report and there have been attacks and outrages on Jews,
that were committed during the advance of the Wehrmacht,
particularly, on Jews that were in any way identified with
the Soviet government.

Q. Were not Jews required, for example, to wear the Star of
David in Russia?

A. I don't remember whether that was ever put through,
because in Russia the Jews were living in separate districts
in the villages and towns anyhow.

Q. They were segregated, were they not, into ghettos?

A. That was done gradually. At the very beginning, it was
not done yet, but then as things developed they were
segregated.

Q. Wasn't an effort made to remove Jewish influence from
political, economic, cultural, and social fields?

A. To me, the important thing was to remove the influence of
the Jews from the work of the Ukrainian population. What
they did internally I do not know, and I never received any
reports on that anyway.

Q. You have a report before you that indicates what was
contemplated would happen to the Jews, is that right?

A. Well, I don't know whether those things were ever put
into practice.

Q. Did you ever try to find out if they were?

A. I remember discussing the business of the Jewish life
within Germany with Himmler once, and he said that in the
camps, within 10 days, they had created their own social
life, and I got

                                                 [Page 1354]
                                                            
the impression that the entire internal living conditions or
social life of these people was more or less left to their
own devices.

Q. You will note, in the first part of that document, that a
statement is made to the effect that the whole Jewish
question could be solved in general for all of Europe after
the war, at the latest?

A. I have never participated in any discussions on the
Jewish problem at all.

Q. You never have, at any time?

A. No, I have never taken part in any sessions or
conversation on the solution of the Jewish problem, but I
had my own views on that particular subject.  I always felt
that gradually it would be possible to increase the
influence of Zionism and reduce the number of Jews in
Germany by creating a place where they would be all by
themselves in their Jewish homeland.

Q. Did you know the responsibility that was to be assigned
to the SD and the Gestapo in the final solution of the
European Jewish problem?

A. There was a very definite and very clear decree, in which
it was stated that the entire administration and solution of
the Jewish problem was the responsibility of the Secret
State Police, and of the Security Service, and that no other
agency was supposed to take part or mix themselves into
these affairs.

Q. Don't you identify that document, that you have before
you, as being a report on the manner in which Jews were to
be handled in the areas that were under your jurisdiction,
even though you did not have jurisdiction over the police
functions?

A. This evidently was a sort of memorandum that was sent in
to me, and which, I have no doubt, was filed like so many
other memoranda and circulars and bulletins of a similar
sort on various subjects, but I have no recollection of this
particular document.

Q. Isn't it a fact, that the Jews were treated in the areas
under your jurisdiction, as indicated in that memorandum?

A. I cannot say that, because as I said before, they were
kept separate, and I had no reports on the internal
conditions in these separate areas.

Q. As a matter of fact, wasn't it part of your problem to
feed these people?

A. Well, the matter was no doubt handled like this, that the

                                                 [Page 1355]
                                                            
police reported to the Food Administrator the number of
persons that were to be fed.

Q. Didn't you have representatives in all the larger towns
and cities of the areas which had been assigned to you, and
didn't those representatives make reports from time to time
of their activities?

A. Well, I wish to emphasize again that I was sitting in
Berlin, and I was responsible only for the entire policy in
its greater lines. For the territories, separately, the
Reichcommissars were responsible, who had been placed into
their positions by the Fuehrer. Under the Reichcommissars
were the general commissars.  The only reports I received
were from the Reichcommissars and from the general
commissars, and I had no other separate system of reporting.
I did not have a board that would travel and give me any
special reports besides those that I received through the
normal channels, from these Reichcommissars and general
commissars.

Q. That may be, but you not only received written reports,
but you had numerous people come to Berlin to tell you about
these things that were happening in these areas, isn't that
right?

A. Oh, yes, there have been people who were sent, for
instance, from the staff of the ministry to have discussions
with members of the territorial administration, or maybe one
of the commissars was coming by, or maybe other officers,
that had lived in the area, would come and report to me
informally.

Q. Yes, and many of them talked to you, didn't they?

A. Very frequently I would say, but certainly I do remember
a few with whom I talked.

Q. You have been interested in the Jewish question for
years, haven't you?

A. But I was so overburdened with the work of establishing
my own Ministry, and the entire Jewish problem was so neatly
separate from any of my responsibilities, that I did not
spend any time on that, and concerned myself exclusively
with the responsibility that actually lay with me.

Q. You mean you never discussed the Jewish problem with
anybody from the time you were appointed Minister for the
Eastern Occupied Territories, is that your statement?

A. Well, it is correct that I have not spent any more time
on those details, that is right.

Q. You have been interested in the Jewish problem for years
and during the time that you were editor of the Voelkischer
Beobachter you wrote numerous articles regarding it, isn't
that right?

A. Yes.

                                                 [Page 1356]
                                                            
Q. I find it a little difficult to believe, that with all
the interest you have had in this problem for so many years,
that you would drop it so suddenly when you became Minister
for Occupied Eastern Territories, and wouldn't have enough
curiosity regarding the treatment of the people under your
own jurisdiction, that you wouldn't ask anybody or receive
any reports about it.

A. It was always our habit that, once an assignment was
given to a man, nobody else meddled with the man that had
the assignment.

Q. That may be, that it wasn't your responsibility. I will
go along with you to that extent, regarding the treatment of
these Jews, but you were certainly informed of the treatment
that they received, and you knew about it.

A. Well, in great lines I naturally had to assume that they
were being housed fairly well, and that they were fed, and
that they had work to do like, for instance, in the city of
Lodz.

Q. You know that isn't the report you received, as to what
was happening to these people, in the areas, over which you
had jurisdiction. You know that the reports you received
indicated that they were being treated, just as the
memorandum you have just read indicates they were going to
be treated, isn't that right?

A. That they were separated, that they had working
assignments, that they were making coats and shoes and
things like that, like they did in the city of Lodz, that I
knew, but that the conditions were naturally somewhat
difficult, I fully realized.

Q. Yes, and you knew that they were being treated very much
in the manner set forth in this memorandum.

A. That I cannot state in detail, because I was not informed
in detail.

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