Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg was born in Estonia (at that time part of Russia) on 12 January 1893. He studied architecture in Moscow until the Revolution in 1917. On returning to Estonia, he became active as a political ideologist, but in 1918 had to flee to Germany to escape arrest due to his strong counter revolutionary views.

Alfred Rosenberg had already joined the Nazi party in 1919 just shortly after Hitler. Thanks to his skill at drafting up propaganda material, he was appointed in 1921 to the post of editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the Nazi party. Rosenberg wrote about and participated in the development of virtually all aspects of the National Socialist programme.

In 1927 he advocated the subjugation of Poland and Russia in one of his books as a means of defending and preserving the purity of the German race faced with the expansionist menace of the Bolshevik regime. In 1930 he was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament. He was not appointed- as he had wished- to the post of Foreign Affairs Minister when the Nazis gained power but instead, the Fuhrer decided to put him in charge of the foreign affairs service of the party, and further nominated him as his assistant for the spiritual and ideological education of the NSDAP.

In 1940, Hitler appointed him to head up the planned University of Nazism. Subsequently, Rosenberg’s emissaries went on a spree throughout Europe, plundering Jewish universities, and bringing back their spoils to Germany. As the head of a special unit, the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg”, he ordered the pillage of works of art belonging to the Jews in the occupied territories of Western Europe.

At the time of the invasion of the USSR in 1940, Rosenberg was appointed Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories. In actual practice however, his power was limited compared to that of Himmler, the SS or the military forces.

Rosenberg was accused of having used his various positions, his personal influence and his close contacts to the Fuhrer in order to develop disseminate and exploit the doctrinal techniques of the Nazi conspirators set forth in count 1of the indictment. Rosenberg was accused of having promoted the accession to power of the Nazi conspirators and the consolidation of their control over Germany and of having promoted the psychological preparations for war, as set forth in count 1 of the indictment. He was also accused of having participated in both the political planning and the preparations with a view to waging wars of aggression under the terms of counts 1 and 2 of the indictment. He authorised, directed and participated in the war crimes set forth in count 3 of the indictment and the crimes against humanity set forth in count 4 of the indictment, including a wide variety of crimes against persons and property.

Alfred Rosenberg was arrested by the Americans at the end of the war.