Alfred Rosenberg

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Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Ernst Rosenberg (b. 12 January 1893 in in Reval; d. 16 October 1946 in Nürnberg) was an intellectually influential member of the NSDAP and a National Socialist ideologue. He was an architect, philosopher, writer, teacher, artist, graphic artist, and from 1930 a member of the Reichstag. He became Reichsleiter and head of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete) as well as a nominal SA-Obergruppenführer.

Life

The Führer commemorates the fallen of the Munich Putsch, behind him Jakob Grimminger with the Blutfahne, to the right Hermann Göring, Erich Raeder and Alfred Rosenberg among others.

Early life

Alfred Rosenberg was born in Reval (now Tallinn), when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire. His mother was partly French and born in St. Petersburg, and the rest of his ancestry appears to be of Baltic origin. He spoke Russian, Estonian, German and French. Alfred was brought up as a Lutheran and studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnical Institute, commencing in the Autumn of 1910. In 1915, as the German army was driving the Imperial Russian Army back and approaching Riga, the entire school evacuated to the Moscow Imperial Higher Technical School (Russian: Императорское Московское техническое училище (ИМТУ)), where he completed his studies, awarded a Doctorate (PhD) in 1917. During the German occupation of Estonia in 1918, Rosenberg was a drawing teacher at the Gustav Adolf Gymnasium and Tallinna Reaalkool. He gave his first political speech, on Jewish Marxism, on 30 November 1918, at the House of the Blackheads, after outbreak of the Estonian War of Independence. He emigrated to Germany with the retreating Imperial German army, along with Max Scheubner-Richter, who served as something of a mentor to Rosenberg and to his ideology.

To Germany

Eventually arriving in Munich, he contributed to Dietrich Eckart's publication, the Völkischer Beobachter (Ethnic Nationalist Observer). He became influenced by Houston Stewart Chamberlain's book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, and became an anti-Bolshevik.[1] Rosenberg became one of the earliest members of the German Workers' Party – later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, joining in January 1919, eight months before Adolf Hitler joined in September. According to some historians, Rosenberg had also been a member of the Thule Society, along with Eckart,[2]. After the Völkischer Beobachter became the Party newspaper in December 1920, Rosenberg became its editor in 1923, and was also a leading member of Aufbau Vereinigung, the Reconstruction Organisation of White Russian émigrés.

The racial term Untermensch is often attributed to Rosenberg but in fact came from the title of Stoddard's 1922 book The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man, and re-appeared in that book's German version Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen (1925).[3]

Rosenberg's most important work was his 700-page 1930 book The Myth of the Twentieth Century which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and became the standard text for Party ideology (although Albert Speer found it "unreadable"[4]).

Rosenberg criticised those who did not subscribe to his racial theories. For example, he attacked Fascist Italy for what he perceived as its incorrect and improper stance on race and Jews.[5]

National Socialist Germany

Blood and Honor is another book by Alfred Rosenberg. In the English-language editions, the first chapter, 'Against the Old System', consists of sixteen of Rosenberg's writings from 1919 to 1933 dealing with the National Socialist struggle against the Weimar Republic. The original foreword was by Thilo von Trotha, dated November 9, 1933. Included is Rosenberg's article on the occasion of Adolf Hitler's birthday in 1923. The second chapter, 'For The New Reich', is a translation of the second chapter of that work, 'Fur das neue Reich'. It consists of twenty of Rosenberg's writings from 1922 to 1933, including the introduction to his work "Essence, Principles and Goals of the NSDAP". The third chapter, 'Worldview and Culture', is a translation of the third chapter of that work, 'Weltanschauung und Kultur'. It consists of seventeen of Rosenberg's writings from 1920 to 1933. The fourth chapter, 'Foreign Policy' is a translation of the fourth chapter of that work, 'Außenpolitik'. It consists of eleven of Rosenberg's writings from 1925 to 1933 about foreign policy in both the Weimar Republic and the very early Third Reich. Sometimes addressing the world outside Germany, he also emphasizes National Socialism as a worldview based on race science and race respect, as opposed to race hatred.

Rosenberg held several important posts in National Socialist Germany. From 1933 he was Head of the Foreign Political Office of the National Socialist Party. In 1939 Rosenberg was at loggerheads over censorship issues with Philip Bouhler, Business Manager of the Party and Director of the Official Party Examination Committee for the defence of National Socialist Literature, one of several censorship bodies. Goebbels related on 9 Dec 1939 that "The Fuhrer intends to give Rosenberg wide-ranging responsibilities for ensuring the ideological soundness of the Party, the State, and the Wehrmacht" [the latter was later removed and replaced with youth education]. On 21 November 1940 Goebbels heaped praise upon the new exhibition of 'German Greatness' which had been staged by Rosenberg in Munich.[6]. From 1941 Rosenberg held the responsibility for setting up the civil administration of the occupied Russian and Baltic territories and serving as "Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories", although Goebbels initially thought "nothing special will come of this. He can only theorise, not organise", but later added "if one handles him the right way, one can work with him".[7]

Rosenberg's attitude towards Slavs was flexible because it depended on the particular group which he referred to. He wrote: "The Czechs, for their part, were stratified by race into a Nordic-Slavic nobility, and lower orders of an Alpine Dinaric stamp, thus displaying that type which the modern Czech so plainly embodies", "The one-eyed maniacal Ziska of Trocnow, whose head in the Prague National Museum shows him to have been an eastern hither Asiatic type, was the first expression of this totally destructive Taborite movement, which the Czechs must thank for the extermination of the last remaining Germanic powers active within them, as well as the repression of all that was truly Slavic."[8] Rosenberg also wrote: "The entire east is diversified throughout; one will need to speak here of the Russian character, of the Germanised peoples of Finland, Estonia and Lithuania, whereat also Poland has developed its clearly outlined individuality."[9] As a result of the ideology of the historic "Drang nach Osten" ("Drive to the East"), Rosenberg saw his mission as the conquest and colonization of the Slavic East.[10]. In Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts Rosenberg describes Russian Slavs as being overwhelmed by Bolshevism. In the year 1917, Russian man finally disintegrated. He fell into two parts. The Nordic Russian blood gave up the struggle, the eastern Mongolian, powerfully stirred up, summoned Chinese and desert peoples to its aid, Jews and Armenians pushed forward to leadership, and the Kalmuch Tartar Lenin became master. The demonry of this blood directed itself instinctively against everything which outwardly still had some honest effect, looked manly and Nordic, like a living reproach against a type of man whom Lothrop Stoddard described as "subhuman". Regarding Ukrainians, he favoured setting up a buffer state to ease the pressure on the German eastern frontier, while agreeing with the notion that Russia could be exploited for the benefit of Germany.[11] During the war, Rosenberg was in favour of collaboration with the East Slavs against Bolshevism and offering them national independence.[12][13]

Show trial and murder

After the war, he was a defendant at the Nuremberg Show Trials where he made "an impression of honesty and consistency. All the efforts of his lawyer both before and behind the scenes to persuade him to recant his ideology came to nothing."[14]. He was executed in 1946. During his trial, he allegedly wrote his 'Memoirs', which were published posthumously. His diary was stolen by the notorious Jewish prosecutor Robert Kempner and was missing until 2013.

Rosenberg and the Holocaust

Rosenberg is claimed to have been closely involved in many aspects of the Holocaust. He maintained a diary that was recovered in 2013. Revisionist Richard A. Widmann in an article in Inconvenient History stated that

In fact, had the Holocaust occurred as generally understood and as relayed through many books, films, and museums, the Rosenberg Diary should have contained a wealth of horrifying discoveries. One might have even expected a philosophical defense of the policies that led to mass extermination. But the diary contains no such evidence. There is no justification of brutal policies; in fact, there is no mention of an order for extermination. There is no mention of gas chambers. There is no suggestion that Rosenberg was even aware of such policies.[15]

Similarly, a politically correct author of a book on the diary has stated that "There is no place in the diary where we have Rosenberg or Hitler saying that the Jews should be exterminated,”... “All it said was ‘move them out of Europe.’"[16]

Non-revisionists have sometimes cited a statement on "the biological eradication of the entirety of Jewry", made by Rosenberg at a briefing to the German press on 19 November 1941. Revisionists have disputed the translation and larger context of this and argued that a more correct translation and context is that Rosenberg stated that:

"In the east some six million Jew still live, and this question can only be solved by the biological extirpation of the whole of Jewry in Europe. The Jewish question will be solved for Germany only when the last Jew has left German territory and for Europe when no single Jew remains on the European continent up to the Urals. [...] for this purpose it is necessary to push them over the Ural or somehow else to extirpation."[17][18]

Revisionists have also questioned the authenticity of this document, since it was allegedly "discovered" by the widely argued generally suspect Robert Kempner, strange and illogical claims being made in the document, and Kempner making strange claims, such as at the press conference where supposedly nobody was allowed to write down what Rosenberg said.[19]

Controversial documents associated with Rosenberg's "Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories" and Rosenberg's subordinates, and which were presented as evidence during Holocaust trials, were stolen and "processed" by the Jewish YIVO organization.[20]

Quotes

The thought of a physical annihilation of Slavs and Jews, that is to say, the actual murder of entire peoples, has never entered my mind and I most certainly did not advocate it in any way. I was of the opinion that the existing Jewish question would have to be solved by the creation of a minority right, by emigration, or by settling the Jews in a national territory over a ten-year period of time.
—Alfred Rosenberg, statement at the International Military Tribunal.[16]

Awards and decorations

See also

External Links

Rosenberg

By Holocaust revisionist organizations and individuals

References

  1. ↑ Evans, Richard J (2004). The Coming of the Third Reich. London: Penguin Books, 178–179. ISBN 0-14-100975-6. 
  2. ↑ Kershaw, Ian, (2000) Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, W. W. Norton & Company. pp.138-139, ISBN: 9780393320350
  3. ↑ Losurdo, Domenico (2004). "Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism". Historical Materialism 12 (2): 25–55, here p. 50. Brill. doi:10.1163/1569206041551663. ISSN 1465-4466.
  4. ↑ Speer, Albert, Inside The Third Reich, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1970, p.95-6. ISBN: 297-00015-2.
  5. ↑ (7 February 2019) "The Great Divide? Notions of Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: New Answers to an Old Problem". Journal of Modern Italian Studies 24 (1): 97–114. doi:10.1080/1354571X.2019.1550701.
  6. ↑ Taylor, Fred, translator & editor, The Goebbels Diaries, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1982, pps:55, 60, 63, 72, 113, 118-9, 181.
  7. ↑ Taylor, 1982, pps:356, 411.
  8. ↑ The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930, p.108-9
  9. ↑ The Myth of the Twentieth Century. 1930. p.643
  10. ↑ Viereck, Peter, Metapolitics: from Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler, p.221, Transaction Publishers 2003
  11. ↑ Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Émigré Theories, Cambridge University Press, U.K., p.30. ISBN|0521389607
  12. ↑ Herbert, Ulrich. Hitler's Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labour in Germany Under the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press. U.K., 1997, p.260–261, ISBN: 0521470005
  13. ↑ Hertstein, Robert Edwin,The War that Hitler won: Goebbels and the Nazi media campaign, Hamish Hamilton, :London, p.364, ISBN: 0241100917
  14. ↑ Speer, 1970, p.515.
  15. ↑ No Smoking Gun, No Silver Bullets: The Real News of Rosenberg's Diary, https://codoh.com/library/document/3237/?lang=en
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Rosenberg Diary: The Most Revealing Nazi Documents Ever Found, https://codoh.com/library/document/4189/
  17. ↑ Carlo Mattogno, Jörgen Graf, Thomas Kues: The Extermination Camps of Aktion Reinhardt - An Analysis and Refutation of Factitious "Evidence", Deceptions and Flawed Argumentation of the Holocaust Controversies Bloggers; 2nd edition. Holocaust Handbooks. http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?main_page=1&page_id=28
  18. ↑ Memo for the controversial bloggers, part IIIa: Jonathan Harrison: the master of misinterpretation – Rosenberg and Vernichtung https://holocausthistorychannel.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/memo-for-the-controversial-bloggers-part-iiia-jonathan-harrison-the-master-of-misinterpretation-rosenberg-and-vernichtung/
  19. ↑ Wilhelm Stäglich, Auschwitz: A Judge Looks at the Evidence: Chapter Two: Contemporaneous Documents: Speeches and Other Public Statements by Political Leaders of the Third Reich: Alfred Rosenberg http://codoh.com/library/document/230/
  20. ↑ Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century — The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, 4th, corrected and expanded edition. Holocaust Handbooks. http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=7
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