Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories

The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMfdbO), also referred to as "Eastern Ministry" (RMO) was during the Second World War from 1941 to 1945, the central authority of the Nazi civil administration of the German Wehrmacht occupied areas in the Baltic States and the Soviet Union . The RMfdbO was headed by the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and organized a state order based on racial ideology within the framework of the General Plan East for the East and the Ukraine . The main goal of the ministry was the political Germanization of the occupied eastern territories with the simultaneous extermination of all Eastern European Jews . Starting with the participation in the T4 campaign , the RMfdbO became a central National Socialist authority for the organized extermination of Jews in the course of the war - alongside the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the Reich Ministry of Justice and the Foreign Office (AA) . The ministry was set up in 1941 in the Tiergartenviertel at Rauchstrasse 17/18 in Berlin.

Rauchstrasse 17/18: Originally set up as a building for the Yugoslav Legation in Berlin , the RMfdbO was located here from 1941 to June 1942. Since 1995 the building has been the seat of the German Society for Foreign Policy .

Unter den Linden 63: Where the new building of the Soviet embassy was built after 1945 , from June 1942 the headquarters of the Eastern Ministry was located. In February 1944, the building was completely destroyed in an Allied bombing raid.

Development process

First announcements beyond the public

The start of the establishment of the RMfdbO took place in the spring: On March 3, 1941, Adolf Hitler announced to the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) that the establishment of an "Eastern Ministry" was planned. The announcement took place in a conversation with Wilhelm Keitel when they were talking about the Barbarossa Plan . Hitler considered the political tasks in the occupied eastern territories too difficult to leave them to the army. On March 26, 1941, Reinhard Heydrich wrote a note about a conversation with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring . Heydrich stated: " Regarding the solution to the Jewish question , I reported briefly to the Reichsmarschall and presented him with my draft, which he approved by changing Rosenberg's jurisdiction and ordered resubmission ." Heydrich's note shows that he has the designated responsibility Rosenbergs was already known at that time as the head of an authority for the administration of the occupied eastern territories. The note falls exactly on the date when Rosenberg officially and personally opened the first department of the " High School " - the " Institute for Research into the Jewish Question " (IEJ) in Frankfurt am Main. At the opening ceremony, as in Heydrich's note, there was not only talk of a “solution to the Jewish question”, but the eschatological -looking word “ final solution ” was already used. During the three-day celebrations , Klaus Schickert put it in his contribution to the IEJ on the Jewish laws in Southeast Europe: “ Things are moving with increasing speed towards their final solution .” And on March 29, 1941, Alfred Rosenberg was quoted in the Völkischer Beobachter as saying: “ For Europe, the Jewish question will only be resolved when the last Jew has left the European continent . ”The RMfdbO's plans for the first two months come at a time when the expression“ final solution to the Jewish question ”was defined as a largely undefined one Metaphor spread among leading National Socialists and the head of the Reich Chancellery had all Reich ministers informed that all measures in the Eastern European regions should be discussed with Rosenberg.

On April 2, 1941, when preparations for the attack against the Soviet Union were in full swing, a conversation between Rosenberg and Hitler took place. Rosenberg's diary entries for this day can be seen: “' Rosenberg, your big hour has now come!' With these words the Führer ended a two-hour conversation with me today. [...] The Führer then developed in detail the likely development in the East, which I do not want to write down today. ... The Fuehrer asked me about the soldierly and human psyche of the Russians under heavy strain, about the current Jewish proportion in the Soviet Union and other things. "And Rosenberg continued:" In the end he said: I want to set up an office for this very Russian question, and you should take it over. Develop guidelines in all directions; whatever money you need is at your disposal. "Five days after his allusion to" a distant reservation "for the Jews during his opening speech at the IEJ, Hitler had planned a" central political office for Eastern labor "for Rosenberg, for which Rosenberg was now head of the and so far unofficial" East Minister " “Started to work.

Personnel recruitment and office buildings

Rosenberg was at least partially aware of general organizational difficulties in the founding phase of the RMfdbO. His diary entry of April 11, 1941 shows that he anticipated “ a lack of suitable people ” for his authority for the expected war against the Soviet Union . Of the " 3,000 people who know Russia " that he " collected " in his office , it is impossible to tell how many are " really fit for action ". With a view to future Ostpolitik , Rosenberg was secretly commissioned by Hitler on April 20, 1941 to deal with the central questions of the “ Eastern Dream”. On the same day, his department was given the title of “ Department for the central processing of questions relating to Eastern Europe ” by means of a driver's decree . The almost identical adoption of the name proposed by the APA and the designation of its authority as a “central” institution for Ostpolitik shows that “ the competence in this policy field was still awarded to Rosenberg and his people ”.

During the development phase of the RMfdbO, employees from Rosenberg's Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP (APA) and the Nordic Society were deployed. Part of Russia experts who were appointed to the constituting itself RMfdbO, also came from the department Ribbentrop of Joachim von Ribbentrop . On April 21, 1941, Rosenberg received a promise from the Reich Chancellery that he would be allowed to recruit close employees of the highest Reich authorities concerned. This included representatives from the Foreign Office , the OKW , the authority of the four-year plan and the Reich Ministry of Economics . However, Rosenberg was subsequently not allowed to initiate extensive recruiting from these authorities himself.

Due to the need for personnel, the building of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP at Margaretenstrasse 17 in Berlin was initially set up as the office, with all previous offices of the APA (with the exception of the Eastern Department under Georg Leibbrandt and the Foreign Trade Department under Walter Malletke ) in the building of the " Rosenberg Office " on Bismarckstrasse 1. As the space requirement there was no longer sufficient in the course of the constitution process of the RMfdbO, Rosenberg also received the confiscated Yugoslav embassy in Berlin Rauchstrasse 17/18 on May 5, 1941 . At the end of July 1941, the former Soviet trade agency was added at Lietzenburgerstrasse 11; From July 1942, on the anniversary of the German troops' invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviet embassy on Unter den Linden 63 as the headquarters of the RMfdbO.

In a memorandum dated April 7, 1941, Rosenberg made considerations for the filling of vacancies and the organization in the eastern areas to be filled. For the territories planned there (Reichskommissariate), Rosenberg envisaged Alfred Meyer as " Minister of State ". In April 1941, Meyer, who later took part in the Wannsee Conference , became Rosenberg's “permanent representative” and was given the position of “ State Secretary ” in the East Ministry .

Political objectives and areas of tension

Solution of the "Jewish Question"

About Rosenberg's conversation with Hitler on April 20, 1941, the historian Manfred Weißbecker wrote that in anticipation of the imminent war against the Soviet Union, “ the most extreme and militant forms of National Socialist anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism ” were in demand, and Rosenberg's commitment was particularly important Dimensions would have offered. And Ernst Piper , the biographer of Rosenberg, wrote: “ With the help of the chronology of 1941 it can be shown how the preparation and implementation of the attack against the Soviet Union, the first phase of the mass extermination of Jews and the repositioning of Alfred Rosenberg are interwoven are ". On April 29, 1941, Rosenberg wrote a document with a view to the newly occupied eastern territories, in which he stated: “ The Jewish question must be dealt with in general, the temporary solution of which must be determined ( compulsory labor for the Jews , a ghetto etc.). “This was preceded by a conference held by his“ Institute for Research into the Jewish Question ”, in which Peter Heinz Seraphim from the University of Göttingen also took part. Seraphim had declared that the German Jewish ghettos were no solution in the long run. The plan was to deport parts of the Jewish population to the new eastern territories. The " temporary interim solution " previously set by Rosenberg was specified by him only a few days later. His instruction for the Reich Commissioner in Ukraine on May 7, 1941 reads: " After the Jews have been eliminated from all public offices as a matter of course, the Jewish question will find a decisive solution through the establishment of ghettos ." On September 18, 1941, Hitler came up with the Plan of deportation from the East, declaring that the “ Old Reich ” and “ the Protectorate from West to East ” must be “ emptied and liberated ” of Jews as soon as possible .

Germanization

Parallel to the onset of the extermination of the Jews, even before the war, Rosenberg relied on church-political and - according to his specific racial ideology - religious-political development work in the East. On May 8th he prepared instructions for the future Reich Commissioners. In these it says: "In terms of church politics, freedom of purely religious belief can be guaranteed through edicts of tolerance without any state obligation ." Hitler also represented this church political position established by Rosenberg at this time. The edict was implemented in December 1941. Rosenberg feared not only problems with church institutions, but also with Christian religious forces in general. He demanded tolerance from them, not the other way around. From his perspective, as he knew and as can be seen from the subtitle of his main work “ The Myth ”, a “spiritual-spiritual warfare” was imminent in the eastern regions - especially in a racial and religious sense. And which groups of people, as " Aryans " to be defined in the future, did not want to be Germanized , they should be - less tolerant - "resettled or resettled". For Rosenberg continued to write in these instructions: “In terms of cultural policy, the German Reich can promote and align national cultures and sciences in many areas. In some areas, various peoples will have to be resettled and resettled . ”An example of this way of thinking was the large-scale Aktion Ritterbusch project that began in 1941 , in which numerous scientific East researchers conducted studies on the classification of the Eastern European population under the heading“ Struggle for Empire and Habitat ” carried out.

War economy

On June 20, 1941, two days before the war of aggression against the Soviet Union , Rosenberg added in a speech to the "assembled offices" of the RMfdbO that " the hard necessity of evacuation " of Russian parts of the population in Ukraine was imminent. And this evacuation would require “ strong characters ” on the part of the National Socialists, but it would be a “ hard necessity ” “ that is beyond any feeling ”. And: “ We absolutely do not see the obligation to feed the Russian people from these surplus areas .” Although Rosenberg still had Germanization in mind in his speech, he continued - in this regard, regardless of the murder of potential Russian “Aryans "In the sense of his racial ideology - in the first few years on the alleged necessity of the forcible conquest:" Without a doubt, a very extensive evacuation will be necessary, and very difficult years will certainly be ahead for Russian people. The extent to which industries are to be retained there is to be reserved for a later decision . ” With regard to the war economy , the East Ministry did not initially have any coordination problems during its development process. At the beginning of July 1941, Rosenberg received a visit from Fritz Todt , who, as Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition , headed part of the war economy. As Rosenberg noted in writing a few years later, the votes turned out to be " mutual satisfaction ". The topic of conversation between Todt and Rosenberg was the deployment of technicians in the east. On July 4, 1941, a representative from Rosenberg took part in a meeting at which the use and labor assignment of Soviet prisoners of war were negotiated. The report of his representative reads: “ After introductory words from Obstlt. Krull was appointed by Abbot. (Obstl. Breyer) stated that the Fuehrer was actually forbidden to bring Russian prisoners of war to work in the Reich; but it is to be expected that this prohibition would at least be relaxed . "And:" The meeting leader summarized the result in such a way that all departments involved represent and support the demand that prisoners of war also be used for work in the Reich . " In addition to Rosenberg's East Ministry, Hermann Göring, as the representative for the four-year plan , the Reich Ministry of Labor and the Reich Ministry of Food took part in this conversation .

Policy of appeasement

In the area of ​​tension between the extermination of the Jews and the war economy on the one hand, and Germanization on the other, the RMfdbO always kept an eye on the possible problems of the legitimacy of the new state order. For this reason, acts of violence in the civil public , which could cast a negative light on the German occupiers, should be avoided as far as possible. Because from the ideological perspective of the RMfdbO, the war was not primarily waged against a sovereign state, but against a form of Christian religion in general and against “ Bolshevism ” and the Jewish population in particular. According to the racial ideological dictum of the RMfdbO, the war was not primarily viewed as a violent conquest, but as a benevolent liberation of parts of the population. From this perspective, those parts of the population that are to be defined as racially “Nordic” should be Germanized, but not be permanently alarmed. For example, on May 13, 1941, it was determined in advance for the Soviet territories to be occupied that “ crimes committed by hostile civilians ” would not be punished by the armed forces justice, but by a special jurisdiction. Especially with regard to this "policy of public appeasement" of the RMfdbO - despite unanimous decisions in the joint developments of the General Plan East - several conflicts with the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) of Heinrich Himmler arose in the first months after the outbreak of war , because the demand for appeasement of the RMfdbO often failed because of the war realities on site. Also Heydrich joined the prescribed Rosenberg appeasement in the new position to be filled eastern immediately after war. After Rosenberg had submitted a report to Hitler on June 28, 1941 on the preparatory work on the issues related to the Eastern Territories, Heydrich wrote to the chiefs of the task forces only one day later in connection with the verbally issued instruction, " self-purification efforts ", i.e. pogroms among the Jewish population. These “ self - purification efforts of anti - communist or anti-Jewish circles in the newly occupied areas ”, according to Heydrich's instruction, “should not be an obstacle ”; they are rather " to be triggered without a trace, to be intensified if necessary and to be steered in the right direction ". The massacres of the Einsatzgruppen that began with the beginning of the war in the east are comprehensively documented , above all, in the USSR incident reports compiled by the Reich Security Main Office . Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, more than 90 percent of whom were Jewish.

Inauguration of Rosenberg as Minister of the East

Although Rosenberg had actually been active as "Minister of the East" since March 1941, the discussion about the installation did not take place until July 16, 1941 after lunch with Hitler at the " Wolfsschanze " headquarters . Also present were Professor Dr. med. Karl Brandt (representative for the murders in the context of Aktion T4 ), a representative of Heinrich Himmler (representative of the RSHA) and Otto Bräutigam (liaison man of the RMfdbO to the Foreign Office ). As can be seen from the minutes of the conversation, Hitler declared with a view to the Eastern Territories that they would now be faced with the task of “ dividing the huge cake according to our needs, in order to be able, firstly, to dominate it , secondly, to administer it and thirdly, to exploit him . ”During this meeting, Rosenberg indicated to Hitler that a ruthless approach was being considered. During the conversation, Rosenberg set essential political goals: final annexation of the entire Baltic , the region of the Volga Germans , the Crimea and the Transcaucasus ; a policy of domination, slave labor of prisoners of war , administration and exploitation of the conquered territories; Germanization and pacification , which should be carried out with the strictest methods, including the persecution of the Jewish civilian population and the “ extermination of everyone who stands in our way ”. Years later, Rosenberg wrote apologetically about his policy of extermination: " I understood the shootings in the East that I had been informed of as an initial measure necessary to suppress communist resistance or as local attacks without actually accepting a really wanted order from the Führer ."

On July 17, 1941, Rosenberg announced that he would accept the office. On the same day he was officially appointed "Reich Minister for the Occupied Countries of Eastern Europe", which only the closest Hitler circles knew at the time. As Andreas Zellhuber stated, Rosenberg's appointment as "Minister for the East" indicated " that it was time to implement the ideological 'program' designed in the 1920s ". The RMfdbO was now formally responsible for administration and legislation in the occupied eastern territories. The order was set in writing that the ministry had to " restore and maintain public order and public life in the newly occupied eastern territories ". Also on the same day Rosenberg drafted a regulation for the occupied eastern territories. This ordinance included the creation of stand-ard courts to “ try crimes ” committed by “ non-Germans ” in the east. The stand judges were headed by a police officer or an SS leader who had the authority to impose the death penalty or confiscation of the property without an appeal against this decision. The general commissioner also had the right to change a judgment . In this way the decisions of the SS and these tribunals were subjected to the authority of a representative of the RMfdbO.

Appointment of the Reich Commissioners

In addition to the organizational development work, the measures planned since the summer of 1940 to establish a new political order in the eastern areas to be occupied were concretized in writing. Already on March 13, 1941, the "Guidelines on special areas to have instruction no. 21 " by the chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces issued (OKW), according to those in the rear, conquered areas of Army Group North , center and south three Reichskommissariats in the Baltic States , in Belarus and Ukraine are to be formed. These guidelines also stipulated that in each of the Reichskommissariats a Reichskommissar was to take over the political and administrative leadership for the establishment of a "civil administration", while a Wehrmacht commander was to be appointed to secure these areas militarily .

Rosenberg presented a first series of proposals for staff appointments on April 7 and again in May / June 1941. For the Reichskommissariat (RK) in Ostland, he envisaged Hinrich Lohse , his long-term liaison with the Nordic Society, and for the RK Ukraine initially his childhood friend Arno Schickedanz , later Herbert Backe . He also considered the establishment of three further Reich Commissioners: RK Muskowien with Erich Koch , RK Caucasus first with Cheek, then again with Schickedanz and a RK Don - Volga with Dietrich Klagges . The planning of a RK Don-Volga was given up in May / June. On July 16, 1941, the filling of positions for Hitler, Rosenberg and Hermann Göring , the "authorized representative for the four-year plan ", was discussed. Both Goering and Hitler opposed Rosenberg's proposal to appoint Fritz Sauckel as Reich Commissioner in the Ukraine . Both relied on Koch. In return, Hitler took the side of Rosenberg in planning for the RK Ostland, considering Lohse as suitable; but Sauckel too. A day later, on July 17, 1941, the decision was made: Lohse was appointed Reich Commissioner for the East and Koch was appointed Reich Commissioner for Ukraine. Years later, during the Nuremberg Trials , Rosenberg wrote apologetically about the appointment of Koch and his proposal from Sauckel: " Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected and the Führer accepted, to the detriment of the Reich, the proposal of Goering with Koch ." Rosenberg's later reason for his suggestion from Lohse, however, was as follows: “ Lohse himself seemed sedate enough not to rush anything there, and the personal relationship also seemed to ensure good cooperation. ›I don't want to be anything other than your political echo‹, he emphasized . "

Establishment of the Reich Commissariats

A more precise regulation for the establishment of the Reichskommissariate was made on July 17, 1941 with the “Leader's Decree on the Administration of the Newly Occupied Eastern Territories”, which was not published at the time. From this decree it emerges that after the end of the fighting, the administrative tasks are transferred from the military administration to the “civil administration” subordinate to the RMfdbO. According to the decree, the Reich commissariats subordinate to the RMfdbO should be divided into general districts , each headed by a general commissioner, which in turn should be divided into district areas with area commissioners . In addition, it was determined that several district areas can be combined into one main district (managed by a chief commissioner). However, the decree contained restrictions on the RMfdbO in several respects. Firstly, Hitler reserved the right to appoint the Reich and General Commissioners himself, and secondly, according to § 3 of the decree, the regulations for the “Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan” (Göring; Führer's Decree of June 29, 1941) and for the “Reichsführer SS” and “Chief of the German Police” (Himmler; Führer's decree of July 17, 1941) are not affected by the powers of the RMfdbO. In particular, this regulation limited the right of the East Ministry to issue instructions to the Reich Commissioners under it. Literally from the decree: “ The Reich Commissioners are subordinate to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and receive instructions exclusively from him, unless § 3 applies .” And with the “Decree on the police security of the newly occupied Eastern Territories” of the same day Himmler had the opportunity to intervene at any time with the SS and the police. In addition, the decree of June 29, 1941 granted Göring extensive rights to intervene in order to use the economic capacities found to expand the German war economy. In accordance with the decree, the RMfdbO also had to remain in “close contact” with the highest Reich authorities . In the event of possible conflicts corresponding to different objectives, Hitler's decision on the head of the Reich Chancellery, i.e. Martin Bormann or Hans Heinrich Lammers , had to be obtained. Due to the regulations, the interests of the RMfdbO could collide with the military ( OKW , OKH ), war economy (Göring, Todt), RSHA and police (Himmler) as well as propaganda ( Goebbels ).

As a direct result of the conversation the day before, July 16, 1941, and Hitler's decree, Himmler took the initiative in extending the murders of the Jewish civilian population. If the Nazi regime had carried out a rather terrorist murder campaign up to the day of Rosenberg's inauguration as East Minister and the decree for Himmler, the genocide program now began on a large scale. In the two Reichskommissariats that had been set up, task forces A and B in "Ostland" and C and D in "Ukraine" acted with the knowledge of the civil administration - through deliberately provoked pogroms, often with the support of the local population . It was through them that most of the Jews in these areas were murdered until 1943. The genocide had gotten such a big boost that the last Jewish ghettos were dissolved as early as the summer of 1943. In this regard, the interests of Rosenberg and the Reich Commissioners on the ground coincided with those of Himmler. As early as July 20, 1941, Rosenberg had the so-called “ brown folder ” published, in which the general delegated goals of the RMfdbO to the Reich Commissioners were specified. With reference to the “Ostland” he wrote: “ The aim of a Reich Commissioner for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus must be to strive for the form of a German protectorate and then by Germanizing racially possible elements, by colonizing Germanic peoples and by resettling undesirable elements to convert this area to part of the Greater German Empire . "

War and genocide

European Germanization versus War Economy

The RMfdbO was always informed about the current war events on site. In July 1941, Rosenberg first sent his adjutant Werner Koeppen to the Führer Headquarters (FHQ) at " Wolfsschanze ", where he had stayed until March 1942. The purpose of this broadcast was that Rosenberg, as East Minister, could have notes and suggestions passed on to Hitler directly, so that Rosenberg could always find out what was currently being discussed in the FHQ. The focus of the Koeppen reports was on the communications, which were primarily important for Rosenberg, on the statements about the German plans in the east, about the Soviet Union and its population. Due to the established possibility of being able to forward suggestions directly to the FHQ, the RMfdbO was directly involved in the war-political decisions - especially with regard to the consideration of the general Germanization efforts of the National Socialists; especially since Hitler had relied on Rosenberg's relevant expertise.

On September 17, 1941, the RMfdbO again drew Hitler's attention to his own goal of racial-religious Germanization of the occupied eastern territories. For example, Rosenberg had Koeppen submit a pamphlet on German settlements in the Soviet Union (Ukraine with Crimea ) to Hitler, in which, according to Koeppen, he was particularly interested. Hitler received this document the day before Erich Koch appeared in the FHQ and Hitler gave the order to deport all European Jews to the occupied eastern territories - without the originally planned requirement of waiting for a military victory over the Red Army . An event on September 22, 1941, on the other hand, makes it clear what difficulties the RMfdbO had to struggle with in the area of ​​tension between Germanization and the war economy. Because on that day there was a loud conflict between Erich Koch and Wilhelm Keitel , whereby Koch - who, like the RMfdbO as a whole, also had to take into account wartime economic issues - accused the military administration of unjustifiably favoring the Ukrainians and treating them wrongly. The Wehrmacht, however, relied on the guidelines on the treatment of Ukrainians drawn up by the RMfdbO on May 7th and 8th , in which the sentence would appear that Ukraine had been accepted as an “equal member of the European family of nations”. The example makes it clear, first, that the military took into account the requirements of the RMfdbO and thus contributed to its legitimation, and secondly, that there was obviously no clarity on site as to whether either war-economic issues or the idea of ​​Germanization were to be taken into account.

However, the RMfdbO unwaveringly stuck to its target of Germanization during the fighting. On the same day, September 23, 1941, Rosenberg had the head of the Reich Chancellery, Hans Heinrich Lammers , informed in writing , as provided by Hitler's decree of July 17, 1941 in (possible) cases of conflict , that the administration of the occupied eastern territories was speaking- and people familiar with the country, especially Baltic Germans , would have to be deployed. In this way, Rosenberg carried out another symbolic act in the direction of Germanization, which Hitler was very preoccupied with on the same evening. Koeppen repeated Hitler's words for Rosenberg as follows: “The Führer then came back to talking about the Russian national character and stated that the Ukrainians were just as lazy, disorganized and nihilistic - anarchistic as [sic] as the Great Russians. To speak here of an ethos of work and duty would be utterly pointless; people would never understand that as they only respond to the whip. Stalin is one of the greatest living people, since he succeeded, albeit only through the toughest of compulsion, in forging a state out of this Slavic rabbit family. ”Hitler's words, in turn, make it clear that the Germanization efforts of the RMfdbO in view of the war-economy issues to be considered that he also had to take into account. Because shortly after these explanations he also came to speak of his concept of God - in accordance with his specific political religion - by continuing: “The Fuehrer then spoke of the Church and said that National Socialism was keenly ecclesiastical and ritual before any imitation Customs must guard. The National Socialist concept of God can only be based on the laws of nature and life insofar as they are accessible to the human spirit. Only if this concept of God can be brought into harmony with the respective scientific knowledge of the time and the reason of German people does not expect anything unreasonable, will it last, but everything else is pointless and harmful. "Religious thoughts, ecclesiastical considerations and racial objectives - all what the RMfdbO was primarily institutionalized for - did not let go of Hitler until the end of the war in 1945, despite the deteriorating economic situation.

How disproportionately strict this conflict between the war economy and Germanization should be resolved on the part of the RMfdbO in favor of Germanization is made clear not least by the "Ministerial Meeting" convened by Rosenberg on October 30, 1941, at which, in addition to Reich Organization Leader Robert Ley , Ministers Fritz Todt and Walther Funk as well as representatives from other ministries took part. The topic of the discussion was the "regional planning in the east" taking into account the war economy. However, in this discussion there was less talk of a war economy, but rather the eastern regions in which people from Germany should be settled in the future.

Policy of "dispensability" in the occupied eastern territories

On September 24th, 1941 - despite "positive reports of conquest" for the National Socialists from the Ukrainian city of Kiev - the dilemma of conflicting goals was revealed again. Otto Bräutigam , the RMfdbO's liaison to the Foreign Office as well as the OKW and OKH , wrote that a “long discussion with Reich Commissioner Lohse about his conflict with the Wehrmacht commander” had taken place. As a result, the problem of general conflicting goals was not limited to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Erich Koch) alone, but also appeared at an early stage in the Reichskommissariat Ostland with Hinrich Lohse. Apparently notwithstanding this, Alfred Rosenberg nevertheless successfully persuaded Hitler by making it clear to him that the Germanization efforts with regard to the Ukrainians - even before the war-economic issues - were important. After a five-hour conversation between Hitler and Rosenberg on September 29, 1941 at the FHQ, as Bräutigam noted, Hitler approved "the Ukraine policy" of the RMfdbO - "albeit in a reserved form". On the same day, September 29, 1941, Rosenberg issued “guidelines” for the Nazi policy of so-called “dispensability” to be pursued towards Ukraine. As part of this policy, a total of 33,771 Jewish men, women and children were murdered by SS and police units of Einsatzgruppe C ( massacre of Babyn Yar ) by the following day alone, September 30, 1941 .

Even in October 1941 it was not clear to the RMfdbO that the tightened policy of “dispensability” could become a serious problem for the war economy - on the contrary. On October 4, 1941, Reinhard Heydrich brought together all ministries "whose jurisdiction was affected" - including the RMfdbO - for an inter-ministerial meeting. In particular to Georg Leibbrandt , the representative of the RMfdbO, he complained that no one thought of considering the workforce required for the war economy. There is no longer any substitute for the Jews who were previously involved in the forced labor system and now liquidated. But neither the RMfdbO nor the RSHA were primarily interested in these matters. Just one day later, on October 5, 1941, Werner Koeppen wrote for Rosenberg: “The Reichsführer [Heinrich Himmler] had returned from an extensive trip from the Ukraine that had taken him from Kiev to Nikolayev and Cherson . He told of his impressions from Kiev. Only one district of Kiev was completely burned down, but the number of residents was still very large. These residents made a consistently bad proletarian impression, if you could do without '80-90% of them'! ”Thus, this policy was now directed not only - albeit primarily - against Jews, but also against potential“ Germans ”or "Aryans" in the sense of the racial ideology of the RMfdbO. What counted at this point in time and later on was obviously eye contact, an “art of the eye” and the resulting subjective assessment of whether people were viewed as racially “valuable” or “inferior”. And in the eyes of Himmler, the residents of Kiev fell through his aesthetic grid. The following developments make it particularly clear that the RMfdbO did not think and act differently in this regard.

On October 16, 1941, Werner Koeppen wrote a note for Rosenberg, from which - in addition to concern about competing Nazi institutions in the occupied eastern territories - it emerges from a marginal note that the "emigration" or the "death" of Slavic populations was already considered a future goal of the RMfdbO was considered:

"In view of the extremely sharp and specific statements made by the Führer about German settlement and the Germanization of the occupied eastern territories, a precise delimitation and definition of the competencies of the Reich Minister for the occupied eastern territories and the person in charge of safeguarding the German nationality by the Führer and Reich Minister Dr. Lammers is absolutely necessary in a very short time. Otherwise there is an undermining of the Fuehrer's order [for the administration of the newly occupied Eastern Territories] of July 17, 1941, which makes the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories less important. His task would then be to get the Slavs, crammed into reservations, to emigrate or to perish as soon as possible. All somehow positive tasks, beginning with road and settlement construction, otherwise fall to the commissioner for the promotion of the German nationality! "

On February 7, 1942, Erhard Wetzel , " Judenreferent " in the RMfdbO, wrote a secret report for Otto Bräutigam about a meeting in the Berlin RMfdbO about the question of racial Germanization, especially in the Baltic countries. In addition to representatives of the RMfdbO, representatives from Heinrich Himmler's offices and the racial anthropologist Eugen Fischer from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute also took part in the meeting. The RMfdbO took the position that it had to be considered “whether the racially undesirable parts of the population could not expediently be scrapped through the industrialization of the Baltic region”. For the rural population of Poland , Himmler's offices also made the claim that there would only be "3% racially valuable" people. In contrast, there would be no figures for the urban population. The participants of this meeting came to the conclusion “that with regard to the question of the east country a precise examination of the population had to be carried out beforehand, which should not be labeled as a racial inventory, but rather as a hygienic examination and the like. The like must be camouflaged so that there is no unrest in the population. ”And on March 13, 1942, another meeting took place, in which Erhard Wetzel, Adolf Eichmann and Franz Rademacher from the Foreign Office took part. The subject of this meeting was deportations. On April 27, 1942, Erhard Wetzel sat down - contrary to Dr. Abel from the Reich Security Main Office of the SS to “Germanize” the “Russian race” - that a birth control should be carried out. On the same day Rosenberg had the guidelines for the occupied eastern territories amended. Tatars , gypsies and people with an oriental appearance should be included in the extermination campaigns.

In the policy of dispensability, the RMfdbO included - in addition to employable Jewish people - "Slavs", "Tatars", "Gypsies" and indefinitely defined people with an "oriental appearance" in the extermination campaigns.

Participation in the genocide of the Jewish population

Deportations to the occupied eastern territories

According to Peter Longerich, the genocide began on a large scale immediately after Rosenberg was appointed Minister of the East on July 17, 1941. As early as the beginning of August 1941, Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse , who was one of the two central administrative employees of the RMfdbO alongside Erich Koch , demanded instructions from Rosenberg on the “treatment of Jews” in his area. It is neither conceivable for the Jews to remain in the East in the long term nor - in accordance with the policy of appeasing the RMfdbO - a sensational deportation of the Jewish population. In this conflict situation in accordance with the ideology and the objectives of the RMfdbO, Lohse initially saw the implementation of “police measures”, that is, mass murders on site, as the only possible solution. Only one month later, in September 1941, the first experimental gassings were carried out in Auschwitz .

On September 13, 1941, Georg Leibbrandt , head of the political department of the RMfdbO, sent the RMfdbO representative at OKW and OKH, Otto Bräutigam , guidelines for radio propaganda to expel the Volga Germans to Siberia . According to Leibbrandt, “Bolshevik rulers” broadcast propaganda programs to Great Britain and the USA about the acts of violence committed by the Nazi regime, and Kalinin would want to deport all Volga Germans to Siberia, for which “Judaism in the areas under German control […] pay a lot " will. And he also announced as punishment that "the Jews of Central Europe will also be transported to the eastern areas controlled by the German administration." The proposal negotiated by the RMfdbO to deport all "Jews of Central Europe" to the occupied eastern areas was accepted in the immediate area Episode actually carried out. A short time later - after initial transport difficulties and a related order from Hitler on September 18, 1941 - the mass deportations took place. Also on September 18, 1941, the same day Hitler ordered the deportation of all European Jews to the occupied eastern territories, Reichskommissar Erich Koch , also a central employee of the RMfdbO on site, was in the Fuehrer's headquarters (FHQ). Werner Koeppen, Rosenberg's adjutant in the FHQ, wrote: "The mood in the FHQ is very favorable for Koch, everyone thinks he is the right man and the 'second Stalin ' who will do his job in the best way possible." And also left on that day Werner Koeppen pass on a work by Rosenberg on National Socialism and Christianity to Hitler via Martin Bormann . This was preceded by protests by the Christian churches - not least - against the National Socialist " euthanasia " program.

After a conversation between Hans Frank and Alfred Rosenberg on October 13, 1941, thoughts about a “final solution” were raised specifically in the Generalgouvernement for the first time . This was preceded by Frank's proposal to deport the “Jewish population of the General Government to the occupied eastern territories”, which Rosenberg rejected for this area at that time. As a direct result of the conversation, the general government began to radicalize the murder actions and, with regard to the “Reichsgebiet” (“ Old Reich ”), the deportations of Jews to the Soviet territories began on October 15, 1941. The Jewish policy of RMfdbO aimed in October 1941 clearly at ensuring that the "final solution" of the General independent of the managed by RMfdbO Reich commissariats regarding self-sufficient must be done. In addition, this example makes it clear that the RMfdbO with Rosenberg had the power to delegate the European murder of Jews on a large scale, both in terms of location and time. On October 21, 1941, at a meeting in Lemberg, the name von Rosenberg was mentioned, at which reference was made to his conversation with Hans Frank. The minutes show that the head of the main department of the government of the Generalgouvernement, Eberhard Westerkamp , announced that the "isolation of the Jews from the rest of the population as quickly as possible" was to be carried out because Rosenberg had "the hope" of deportation who would have destroyed the Jews.

Enforcement of the appeasement policy

By October 25, 1941 at the latest, the policy of appeasement and the policy of dispensing with the RMfdbO were given a common systematic bracket. On that day, Erhard Wetzel , “Jew clerk” in the Political Department of the RMfdbO under Otto Bräutigam, sent a letter to Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse in Riga. This letter, the so-called gas chamber letter, is the earliest written testimony that documents the connection between the T4 campaign and the genocide of the Jewish population in Europe. The letter is proof that the RMfdbO was not only involved in the extermination of the Jews, but also in the " euthanasia " murders. The occasion of the letter, as Wetzel wrote, was "very numerous shootings of Jews" in Vilna. The aim must therefore be to implement an orderly solution beyond the public eye, and Viktor Brack has already declared himself ready to “help create the necessary accommodations [= gas chambers] and the gassing apparatus”. Only two days later , a police battalion with four companies in the Reichskommissariat Ostland, in Sluzk , wreaked havoc among the Jews there. The commanding officer had received the order to "clear the city of Jews". The area commissioner, however, raised the strongest protest and demanded that the action be stopped immediately. He also kept police officers in check. Later he reports to General Commissioner Wilhelm Kube in Minsk , who filed criminal complaints with Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse for the "bottomless mess" against the officers involved. Lohse then made written contact with the RMfdbO and formulated the request that immediate measures be taken “by a higher authority”. Rosenberg then sent the report on to Reinhard Heydrich “with a request for further reasons”. And on October 31, 1941, Georg Leibbrandt , Head of the Political Department in the RMfdbO, wrote a letter to Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse in which he wrote: “The Reich and Security Main Office has complained that Reich Commissioner Ostland is forbidding the execution of Jews in Libau have. I request an immediate report on the matter concerned. On behalf of Dr. Leibbrandt. (Head of Department II). “It was not until 15 days later, on November 15, 1941, that Lohse sent a reply to Leibbrandt. It reads:

“I forbade the wild executions of Jews in Libau because the way they were carried out could not be held responsible. I ask you to inform me whether your request of October 31 is to be interpreted as an instruction that all Jews in the East should be liquidated? Should this be done regardless of age and gender and economic interests (e.g. the Wehrmacht in skilled workers in armaments factories)? So far I have not been able to take such an instruction from the orders on the Jewish question in the 'Brown Portfolio' or from other decrees. "

The events and letters make it clear that - obviously in contrast to the RSHA - the area commissioners, general commissioners and the Reich commissioner in the East as well as Reinhard Heydrich thought and acted in accordance with the policy of appeasing the population decreed by the RMfdbO . From the perspective of the RMfdbO, the public, “wild” murders could not be reconciled with the Germanization project, as sustained unrest among the population was feared. And for this reason the RMfdbO urgently searched for a “final solution to the Jewish question” beyond the public, especially in the Reich Commissariats. Lohse was unsettled about the letter because Leibbrandt, in his opinion, had not been clear enough in his letter. By forbidding the “wild executions of Jews”, he continued to strictly follow the “Brown Folder” published by Rosenberg on July 20, 1941 and the policy of appeasement prescribed by the RMfdbO.

By November 5, 1941 at the latest, the Foreign Office also made it clear that it was following the appeasement policy of the RMfdbO by establishing a "special language regulation for the East" for Ukraine. It says: “With regard to a future cultural life of its own and self-government for Ukraine, a little more restraint should be exercised than has been the case up to now. A certain penitential point of view can be brought out in a suitable manner; Motto: You have to pay for the crimes of your Soviet bigwigs now. This is especially necessary because this winter famine will be inevitable in the bigger and bigger cities. The population must therefore always be reminded that the current deterioration in their situation is entirely the fault of the Bolshevik rulers. ”This regulation was issued on the very day when the deportations to Lodz were completed and a new wave of deportations from the“ Altreichsgebiet “ Started after Riga, Kovno and Minsk .

Announcement of the existence of the East Ministry

During a press conference on November 19, 1941: On the occasion of the public announcement of his office as Minister of the East, Rosenberg stands at a table talking. To his left sits his representative Alfred Meyer , to the right Wilhelm Weiß , editor-in-chief of the VB and head of the Reich Association of the German Press .

It was not until November 12, 1941, that Rosenberg's appointment as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories was made public; likewise the announcement of his deputy Alfred Meyer and the Reich Commissioners Erich Koch and Hinrich Lohse, since, according to Joseph Goebbels, “the offices have been held for a long time”. Rosenberg had already made the first public hint in this regard on October 27, 1941, when he explained during a training course to all “NSDAP organizations” that in the East it was practically a new government and not a civil administration, and that “we ... no longer want to leave this area ”. The public announcement of the RMfdbO did not follow until November 18, 1941 in the press. The day before, on November 17, 1941, Rosenberg announced in a secret speech at a "press reception" at which no one was allowed to take notes:

“At the same time, this East is called to resolve a question that is being asked of the peoples of Europe: that is the Jewish question. About six million Jews still live in the East, and this question can only be resolved by biological eradication of all Jewry in Europe. For Germany, the Jewish question is only resolved when the last Jew has left German territory, and for Europe when there are no more Jews on the European continent as far as the Urals . [...] And to do this it is necessary to push them across the Urals, or somehow to get rid of them. "

According to Longerich, the remark made by Rosenberg that the mass murders should ideally take place beyond the Urals corresponded to a general idea of ​​the functionaries of the Nazi regime at the time. One day after Rosenberg's speech, on November 18, 1941, Otto Bräutigam, meanwhile head of the “General Politics” department and head of the “Headquarters for Political Support for Warfare in the East” in the RMfdbO, met Erich Neumann , like Bräutigam recorded in his diary. Neumann later took part in the Wannsee Conference as State Secretary to the Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Hermann Göring . That same month, in November 1941, Heydrich invited the state secretaries of all the ministries involved to a consultation in the house on Wannsee on December 9th. The date for the conference had to be postponed in view of the events on the " Eastern Front ".

As on the day before, Rosenberg stayed at the FHQ on December 14, 1941. Rosenberg noted the words he had previously uttered to Hitler for the day: “I would take the position not to speak of the extermination of Judaism. The Führer affirmed this stance. ”In his Last Notes , Rosenberg later asserted, contrary to his own previous written statements:“ I did not consider a literal interpretation of the expression 'extermination' or 'extermination' to be humanly possible. ”The further radicalization of the thinking of leading National Socialists At this point in time it was also evident in the words of Himmler, who just four days later, on December 18, 1941, noted the same word extermination in his diary. He wrote: "The Jewish question - exterminate as partisans ". And Hitler on January 1, 1942: "The Jew will not exterminate the European peoples, but he will be the victim of his own attack." And in addition to the extermination actions in a large systematic style, in which the participation of the RMfdbO in winter 1941 / 42 became increasingly clear, Rosenberg insisted on giving tips even in specific individual cases. For example, on December 18, 1941, Rosenberg proposed to Hitler that "exclusively Jews" should be used in the event of a hundred hostages being shot. On December 18, 1941, the RMfdbO sent a letter to Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse, which proves that, not least in the higher administrative levels of the Reich Commissariats, there should now be clarity about the intended approach of the RMfdbO, and that there should be no war economic issues in the beginning "final solution to the Jewish question" To play more roles. While Hinrich Lohse was still unsettled in his letter to Leibbrandt on November 15, 1941, this uncertainty has now been removed:

“Subject: Jewish question. In the meantime, oral discussions should clarify the Jewish question. Economic concerns should in principle be disregarded when regulating the problem. In addition, you are asked to settle any questions that arise directly with the Higher SS and Police Leader . By order signed groom . "

Implementation of the coordinated mass murder

On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference took place in this villa. The RMfdbO was the only NS authority that participated with two representatives: Alfred Meyer and Georg Leibbrandt.

On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference took place in Berlin , at which 15 high-ranking representatives from National Socialist Reich authorities and party agencies negotiated the systematic murder of all Jews in Europe. From the RMfdbO two employees from the highest administrative hierarchy were participants: Georg Leibbrandt , since July 1941 main department head of the Political Department, and Alfred Meyer , since April 1941 “permanent representative” of Alfred Rosenberg. In connection with the “different types of possible solutions” discussed at this conference, Alfred Meyer - together with Josef Bühler - took the position “to carry out certain preparatory work in the course of the final solution in the areas concerned, without disturbing the population must ". The RMfdbO thus also emphasized at the Wannsee Conference its repeatedly repeated position of appeasing the politically Germanised population. In addition, the ministry stipulated that both the Generalgouvernement and the two Reichskommissariats Ostland and Ukraine administered by the RMfdbO had to make preparations independently of each other, whereby Meyer repeated the generally accepted results of the conversation between Alfred Rosenberg and Hans Frank on October 13, 1941. Longerich noted that the Wannsee Conference itself had not yet made a decision regarding Meyer and Bühler's position.

Heydrich's definition of "final solution", that Jews should be exterminated through a combination of forced labor and mass murder, was no longer in the interest of the RMfdbO at this point, as it had made it clear, not least in the letter to Lohse on November 15, 1941, that wartime economic issues should no longer play a role in the murder of Jews. Therefore, forced labor by Jews was no longer an option for the RMfdbO. The proposal of the RSHA (which was still thinking about a post-war solution) was in complete contrast to the position of the RMfdbO, because under these conditions the Germanization efforts of the RMfdbO, its main task, could not be carried out. From Rosenberg's racial ideological perspective, the climax of the political-religious confrontation, the apocalypse , was reached during the war, not afterwards. And according to this racial ideology, the RMfdbO did not declare a sovereign state to be the actual enemy, but rather "the Jew". The classic idea that there is above all war between the states should internalize the Eastern population as well as the German armed forces in the sense of the policy of the RMfdbO .

On January 29, 1942, nine days after the Wannsee Conference, the first follow-up conference took place. 16 participants came to this meeting in the rooms of the RMfdbO on the Berlin Rauchstrasse 17/18, whereby the RMfdbO was represented with a total of 8 participants. In addition to the employees of the RMfdbO, subordinate representatives of ministries (RSHA, Ministry of Justice), the party chancellery and the OKW were participants. Present were among others Otto Bräutigam , Erhard Wetzel and Gerhard von Mende (RMfdbO), Friedrich Suhr (RSHA), Bernhard Lösener (Ministry of Justice), Albert Frey (OKW) and Herbert Reischauer (party office). The meeting was chaired by Otto Bräutigam. The aim of this meeting was to fill in the content of the resolutions passed at the Wannsee Conference and to make them legally more precise. The central topic of this conference was who would henceforth be regarded as a “Jew” so that a precise regulation could be made about who should be included in the extermination campaign. The RMfdbO took the most rigid point of view of all participants by declaring that the term Jews should not be defined “too narrowly”. According to the RMfdbO, the regulations currently in force in the occupied territories would not be sufficient anyway. These should be "tightened" insofar as in the future " half-breeds " also have to be considered "full Jews". These proposals were implemented at the end of the meeting. The conference participants agreed that a uniform regulation should be created for all occupied territories and that in future all members of the Jewish religion as well as legitimate and illegitimate children from connections in which a part was Jewish (i.e. children from so said mixed marriages ). Even non-Jewish wives of Jews came under the term “Jew” from now on, according to the resolution. According to the decision, the necessary decisions on site should be made by the “political and police bodies and their experts on racial issues”. This conference took place when the first deportations to the Theresienstadt concentration camp began; and one day before Hitler announced in his speech at the Berlin Sportpalast: "We are aware that the war can only end with either the Aryan peoples being exterminated or Judaism disappearing from Europe." The same view as Hitler expressed them, at this point in time in the RMfdbO more and more clearly in appearance.

By February 1942 at the latest, the now uniformly coordinated Europe-wide mass murder became apparent in the political practice of the RMfdbO, as the correspondence of this ministry makes clear. A few weeks earlier there was talk of a ban on “wild execution of Jews”, but at this point in time the RMfdbO was already speaking of a ban on “wild deportations” on a large scale. On February 11, 1942, the RMfdbO undersecretary said Martin Luther , who participated as a representative of the Foreign Ministry already at the Wannsee Conference, with that Marshal Ion Antonescu - who had stayed on that day in the Wolf's Lair - 10,000 Jews at Wosnoschensk over sent the river and that another 60,000 were on the way. And this time, too, the RMfdbO was able to prevail: Luther asked Joachim von Ribbentrop through Ernst von Weizsäcker to stop these public “wild deportations of Jews”, since the RMfdbO had raised objections because of the danger of typhus . Typhus could occur if the Romanians (generally defined and envisaged by the RMfdbO as future Germans) would sell the clothes of dead Jews. Since Ion Antonescu initially did not follow this instruction, a meeting between Erhard Wetzel from the RMfdbO and Franz Rademacher from the Foreign Office followed on March 13, 1942, as a result of which Adolf Eichmann issued the warning on March 14, 1942 that security measures would be taken if the person did not fail to do so would be hit. On May 12, 1942, this action was finally stopped.

Sketch of further participation until 1945

Ostminister Rosenberg (center) during a visit to occupied Kiev in June 1942. On the far right of the picture his deputy Alfred Meyer , between the two half-hidden Erich Koch , Reich Commissioner of Ukraine.

1942

• In the follow-up period, the RMfdbO also took part in the follow-up conferences on the “Final Solution”, which were carried out under the direction of Adolf Eichmann. The representative of the RMfdbO at these meetings was Georg Leibbrandt.
• On February 14, 1942 and July 23, 1942, Otto Bräutigam met Gerhard Rose , the initiator of criminal medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. As early as March 27, 1942, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that “a barbaric and unspecified procedure was being used, and not much remains of the Jews themselves. One can say that 60% of it has to be liquidated, while only 40% can be used in work. [...] A criminal judgment will be carried out on the Jews, which is barbaric, but which they fully deserve. "
• The Reich Ministry was also active in Western Europe. His independent "agency West", also known as "Office West," robbed in the so-called Action M furniture and other furnishings and precious textiles from supposedly unguarded Jewish homes of exiled or deported Jews in France and the Benelux countries . The office was established in Paris on April 17, 1942; from here further departments in the whole western area were directed. The director was Kurt von Behr .
• On April 27, 1942, Erhard Wetzel from the RMfdbO campaigned for a “selective birth control” of parts of the population in the occupied eastern territories in response to a paper published by Wolfgang Abel on the “Russian race”.
• On July 16, 1942, Alfred Meyer from the RMfdbO suggested in a letter that Hitler should generally determine that "Jewish mixed race" should be included in the extermination campaign so that there could be no more uncertainties in this regard from other NS agencies in the future. In 1946 Rosenberg had flimsy expressed his special appreciation to Meyer, who was also a participant in the Wannsee Conference: "That was a National Socialist!"
• On July 23, 1942, the RMfdbO received a letter from Hitler in which the RMfdbO's policy of dispensing with the Slav population, which had been pursued months earlier, was now clearly stated: “The Slavs should work for us. As far as they don't need, they may die. "
• On July 31, 1942, Wilhelm Kube wrote to Hinrich Lohse , the Reichskommissar appointed by the RMfdbO in the Ostland, in great detail that he had "liquidated around 55,000 Jews in Belarus" after "extensive discussions" with the SS. At the end of the war this letter was found in the RMfdbO.
• On August 21, 1942, Hitler stated in the FHQ that “contempt for human beings” was a general characteristic of Alfred Rosenberg. And on June 8, 1943, Hitler described Rosenberg as "one of the keenest thinkers on questions of worldview ".
• On October 23, 1942, Georg Leibbrandt wrote a letter to Wilhelm Kube , from which it emerges that he was “accelerating” a “report on the status of the Jewish question in the general district of Belarus” (Belarus), as he was “expecting a settlement of the Jewish question as soon as possible to bring about ". On November 23, 1942, Leibbrandt received a written reply that there were only 30,000 Jews left in the civil commissariat and that it was planned to reduce this number to half.
• On December 21, 1942, Rosenberg's first fears about the violent acts for which the RMfdbO was responsible arose when he informed Fritz Sauckel that “in order to fulfill the ordered contingents, manipulations are excluded, the tolerance of which and the consequences of which I and my employees were charged one day become."

1943

• On April 19, 1943, the uprising began in the Warsaw Ghetto . On the same day, the SS statistician Richard Korherr calculated : “Overall, European Jewry is likely to have lost half of its existence since 1933, that is, in the first decade of the National Socialist development of power. Of this, only about half, i.e. a quarter of the total European inventory from 1937, flowed to the other continents. ”This letter was later found in the Institute for Research on the Jewish Question .
• On May 15, 1943, Eberhard von Thadden , “Judenreferent” of the Foreign Office, wrote to his superior Franz Rademacher that Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube had “shown the Italians a gas chamber,” “in which the Jews were supposed to be killed. The [Italian] fascists are said to have been deeply shaken. Mr. Rademacher found out about this incident through ..., Adjutant of Reichsleiter Rosenberg ... "
• On June 1, 1943, the General Commissioner from Minsk (Belarus), Wilhelm Kube , the Reich Commissioner for the East, Hinrich Lohse reported that the prison administrator from Minsk had reported that “516 German and Russian Jews were killed and valuable gold was therefore lost, because they failed to break the gold fillings out of the victims' teeth in time ”. On June 18, 1943, Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse passed the report on to the RMfdbO.
• On July 13, 1943, at a meeting in the RMfdbO, in which his deputy Alfred Meyer also took part, Rosenberg told Commissioner General Wilhelm Kube and Gottlob Berger , head of the SS main office and Himmler's liaison to the RMfdbO, that 22,000 Jews were being "resettled" from Minsk would have to. Himmler carried out this proposal five weeks later. As early as June 13, 1942, the terms “resettlement” or “resettlement” were used as cover-up terms for the genocide.

1944

• On June 14, 1944, the RMfdbO issued the instruction to carry out the so-called hay action . Since the RMfdbO had always spoken out against the use of Jews in the war economy and the war situation continued to deteriorate, 40,000 to 50,000 young people from Belarus between the ages of ten and fourteen were recorded as part of this campaign, most of whom were abducted and sent to forced labor were forced into the German armaments industry.
• On June 21, 1944, Rosenberg and Himmler gave speeches at the NS-Ordensburg in Sonthofen . Himmler explained to officers of the Chief of the Army Armaments Office and the commanders of the Replacement Army and General Army Office: “It was the most terrible task and the most terrible assignment that an organization could get: the assignment to solve the Jewish question. I can say this again in all frankness with a few sentences in this circle. It is good that we had the hardship to exterminate the Jews in our area. "
• On June 28, 1944, the RMfdbO tried to win over other states against an international struggle against Jews by invitations to a planned “anti-Jewish congress” in Krakow . B. sent to the Englishman John Amery and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem . The project was finally abandoned a month later.
• On October 31, 1944, the RMfdbO tried to set up a “Working Group for Research into the Bolshevik World Danger” in order to once again declare war on “the Jews” on an international level. This working group held a first (and at the same time last) mission briefing in Prague from October 31 to November 2 .

reception

Historical research

The ideology, the institutionalization process, the structure and the structures of the RMfdbO were not made a separate, systematic research topic for many decades after 1945 in the still young Federal Republic of Germany . In the case of Reinhard Bollmus, who presented a paper entitled Das Amt Rosenberg in 1970, the RMfdbO was only mentioned in passing. A U-turn only took place in 2006 with the dissertation "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ..." by Andreas Zellhuber. In this book, the special role of the RMfdbO with regard to its participation in the extermination of the Jews was clearly pointed out for the first time. At the time of publication, by far the largest number of the staff of the RMfdbO, which once comprised several thousand people, must have already died.

Former Employees

In 1958, Count Constantin Stamati, who had worked in the “Special Unit for Science and Culture” of the RMfdbO, spoke about the general lack of humanity in this unit. He stated: “Unfortunately, that which was done in the cultural-political sector by a group of employees of the East Ministry with the support of many other people who felt humane and fair could only be little. It was possible - to express it with a little too much pathos - to create some islands of humanity and justice in a sea of ​​blood and tears - no more. "

literature

backgrounds

• Karl Drechsler / Klaus Drobisch / Wolfgang Schumann / Karl Heinz Biernat : Germany in the Second World War . Vol. 2: From the attack on the Soviet Union to the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad . 3rd, through Ed., Berlin 1983. DNB
• Frank Engehausen: "Rosenberg, your big hour has now come!" - The establishment of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories in Alfred Rosenberg's diaries , online: Officials of the National Socialist Reich Ministries , March 19, 2018.
• Helmut Heiber : "Der Generalplan Ost", in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Documentation 6 (1958), issue 3, pp. 281-325. Available online in the VfZ magazine archive
• Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Piper, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89667-148-0 .

Documents

• Federal Archives : Inventory overview of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories 1941–1945 . Available online: archive
• Georg Leibbrandt: Problems of the Eastern Dream . Berlin 1942, DNB (Document of the ideology of the RMfdbO.)
• Hartmut Hagner (edit.): Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . Holdings R 6. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz 1987, ISBN 3-89192-008-3 . (Documentation)
• Czesław Madajczyk u. a. (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . KG Saur, Munich 1994, Reprint 2010, ISBN 3-598-23224-1 . (Documentation)

Essays

• Constantin Graf Stamati: Zur Kulturpolitik des Ostministerium , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Miszelle (1958), issue 1, pp. 78–85. Available online in the VfZ booklet archive (Stamati was an employee of the RMfdbO. The subject of the short article is primarily the activity of the "Special Unit for Science and Culture".)

Monographs

• Dieter Rebentisch: Führer State and Administration in the Second World War. Constitutional development and administrative policy 1939–1945. Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-515-05141-4 . (The RMfdbO is dealt with in a separate, longer chapter in this book.)
• Christine Blum-Minkel: Alfred Rosenberg as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories . University of Hamburg, 1995. (Master's thesis, Central Library of Philosophy, History and Classical Philology of the State and University Library Hamburg.)
• Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Vögel, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89650-213-1 . review
• Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi perpetration. Biographical contours of a German citizen . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0592-4 .

Web links

• History of the building of the RMfdbO - Rauchstrasse 17/18 in Berlin - German Society for Foreign Policy V.
• Authorities involved in the Wannsee Conference - permanent exhibition in the house of the Wannsee Conference
• Full text : Guides to german records microfilmes at Alexandria (Virginia) , No. 28: Records of the RMfdbO 1941-1945. Ed. National Archives , NA, Washington 1961
• Officials of the National Socialist Reich Ministries - Research project on the careers of the higher officials of the RMfdbO
• Philipp T. Haase: "Only intended for official use" - The "Bulletin of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories" as a source for researching officials in the East Ministry , online: Officials of the National Socialist Reich Ministries , May 8, 2018.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Longerich : The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 92, ISBN 3-492-04295-3 .
2. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 92.
3. ^ Wilhelm Kamlah: Utopia, eschatology, theology of history . Critical studies on the origins and futuristic thinking of the modern age, Mannheim 1969. DNB
4. ^ Klaus Schickert: Weltkampf . The Jewish question in past and present, 1/2, April – September 1941, p. 42; Reinhard Bollmus, The Office Rosenberg and its opponents . Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule, Munich 1970, p. 120. (Cited source: Speech for the opening of the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question, March 26, 1941, in: Weltkampf, Jg. 1941, Issue 1/2, pp. 64–72 .)
5. ↑ Quoted in: The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984. pp. 57 f .; Slightly different from this, but correspondingly correct, the formulation: Rosenberg stated that "for Germany ... the Jewish question (was) only solved when the last Jew has left Greater Germany". Quoted in: Robert MW Kempner : Eichmann and Accomplices , Zurich 1961, p. 96 f.
6. ^ W. Benz / H. Graml / H. Weiß (Eds.): Enzyklopädie des Nationalozialismus , 3rd edition, Munich 1998, p. 446, ISBN 3-608-91805-1 . (Sources given: Eichmann's reference on March 12, 1941 to the imminent "final solution"; later: RSHA order of May 29, 1941.)
7. ^ Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 512 f., ISBN 3-89667-148-0 . (Source: Draft for a decree dated April 1941, BArch NS 43/51, p. 144 f.)
8. ↑ The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 525.
9. ↑ Quoted in: Robert MW Kempner: SS im Kreuzverhör . The elite that broke Europe to pieces, Nördlingen 1987, p. 226.
10. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 509. (Source: Robert MW Kempner (Ed.): Rosenberg, now its big hour has come . Notes on Hitler's plans to conquer. In: Frankfurter Rundschau of June 22, 1971.)
11. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger : The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 90, ISBN 3-7678-0807-2 .
12. ↑ Quoted in: Robert MW Kempner: SS im Kreuzverhör . The elite that broke Europe to pieces, Nördlingen 1987, p. 226. In his Last Notes , however, Rosenberg wrote that he only made preparations for the "eventual event of a war" against the Soviet Union. However, the developments and statements show that the war of aggression itself was already planned, cf. Alfred Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, pp. 174, 340; see. also IMG 1984, vol. XI, p. 618 ff. and vol. XXII: p. 614 f.
13. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 525; Seppo Kuuisto: Alfred Rosenberg in National Socialist Foreign Policy 1933–1939 , Helsinki 1984, p. 117.
14. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 70. (Source: BA, R6 / 4, Bl. 3. Printed in Führer decrees. Doc. 81, p. 168 f.)
15. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, pp. 289 and 516.
16. ↑ ^{a b c d} Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 77. (Sources: BA R6 / 16, Bl . 39, 52-58 and BA-MA, RW 4 / v. 759.)
17. ^ ^{A b} Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 76 f. (Source: Letter from Lammer to Ribbentrop, May 5, 1941, BA R 6/21, p. 31 f.))
18. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 516. (Source: minutes of the handover of keys from May 6, 1941; BArch R 6/12, p. 2.)
19. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , vol. XXVI, Munich / Zurich 1984. pp. 559 f.
20. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi perpetration. Biographical contours of a German citizen . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0592-4 , Chapter 4. (On Meyer's position as "permanent representative" of Rosenberg, see also the statement by Otto Bräutigam . In: Interview Dr. Otto Bräutigam on January 14th 1948 ... , in: Nuremberg State Archives, Nuremberg-Fürth Public Prosecutor's Office, Prov. No. 2638 / VI, Bl. 142 ff.)
21. ^ Manfred Weißbecker : Alfred Rosenberg . "The anti-Semitic movement was only a protective measure ...", in: Kurt Pätzold / Manfred Weißbecker (ed.): Steps to the gallows . Paths of life before the Nuremberg judgments, Leipzig 1999, p. 171, ISBN 3-86189-163-8 .
22. ↑ Quoted in: Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 81. (Source: Ernst Piper: Rosenberg and the RMfdbO . Lecture manuscript, Atlanta, October 8, 1999, p. 3.)
23. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. X, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 70.
24. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 63 f.
25. ↑ Quoted in: Joe Heydecker / Johannes Leeb : Der Nürnberger Prozess, revised. New edition, Cologne 2003, p. 401; International Court of Justice Nuremberg: The Nuremberg Trial . Vol. 26. New print Munich 1989, pp. 567-573. (Source: Document IMG, PS-1028.)
26. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 114.
27. ↑ ^{a b} On the religious implications of Rosenberg's racial ideology cf. Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch , The Political Religion of National Socialism , 2nd, completely revised. Ed., Munich 2002, ISBN 3-7705-3172-8 .
28. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , vol. XXVI, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 597. (Document 1030-PS.)
29. ↑ Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Adolf Hitler . Monologues in the Führer Headquarters 1941–1944, recorded by Heinrich Heim, Munich 2000, p. 417; see. also IMG 1984, Vol. XXII: p. 477; D-75, US-348.
30. ^ The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XXVIII, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 121.
31. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 70; see. also Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the “Führer Headquarters” . Werner Koeppens reports to his minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 41, ISBN 3-89192-113-6 . (Source IMT, Vol. XXVI, Document 1028-PS, pp. 567-573, here dated May 7, 1941.)
32. ↑ ^{a b} The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. pp. 526 ff, 590 ff .; see. also Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the “Führer Headquarters” . Werner Koeppens reports to his minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 93; Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck 1947: p. 304. On Rosenberg's racial ideological justification of the war of aggression, see also Weißbecker 1999: p. 175; Sources: BAK, BS 8/64, Bl. 110 and BAK, NS 8/64, Bl. 99 and 103.
33. ↑ Quoted in: The trial against the main war criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XVIII, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 86 .; Alfred Rosenberg 1955, LA: p. 202.
34. ^ Alfred Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 174.
35. ↑ ^{a b c} Quoted in: The trial against the main war criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 71.
36. ↑ See, for example, the comment by Otto Bräutigam from July 11, 1941: “There was little to be felt in the cityscape of any enthusiasm for liberation from Bolshevism”, quoted in: HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 171, ISBN 3-88022-953-8 .
37. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 96.
38. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 227.
39. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 621.
40. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 97.
41. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 97. (Cited sources: The Jewish question in the peace treaty, July 3, 1941, Inland IIg 177, printed. In “Files on German Foreign Policy” ADAP, Series D, Vol. 10, No. 101, 92 ff .; see also Rademacher's notes of July 2, 1941: "Plan to Solve the Jewish Question")
42. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 136 f.
43. ^ On the official installation of Rosenberg on July 16, 1941 and on the participation of Karl Brandt and Otto Bräutigam cf. HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, pp. 136 ff. And p. 172. On the participation of Himmler's representative cf. Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 109 f.
44. ↑ ^{a b c} Werner Maser, Nuremberg. Tribunal der Sieger, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 446 f .; see. IMG 1984, Vol. XI, p. 529 ff. And p. 626 ff .; Vol. XXII: p. 615, document L-221
45. ↑ Telford Taylor : The Nuremberg Trials , 2nd ed., Munich 1994, p. 427; Manfred Weißbecker: Alfred Rosenberg . "The anti-Semitic movement was only a protective measure ...". In: Kurt Pätzold / Manfred Weißbecker (ed.): Steps to the gallows . Paths of life before the Nuremberg judgments, Leipzig 1999, p. 172 f .; IMG 1984: Vol. V, p. 71.
46. ^ Alfred Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 314 f.
47. ^ ^{A b} The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984, SS 531 ff., P. 632; the unofficial title "Reichsleiter of the occupied eastern territories" was also used, as for example in the Essener National-Zeitung of November 18, 1941.
48. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 81.
49. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving towards a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 7. (Source: Leader's decree on the administration of the newly occupied Eastern Territories , July 17, 1941, IMT, Vol. 29, 1997-PS.)
50. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984, pp. 73 f.
51. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006, p. 87; see. also Alfred Rosenberg: last record , Göttingen 1955, p. 212 ff.
52. ^ ^{A b} Alfred Rosenberg: last recordings , Göttingen 1955, p. 156 and 167. DNB (Please note that this document was published by his former colleague Heinrich Härtle . He had partially deleted passages, such as a comparison with this one Book shows: Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck: Portrait of a human criminal based on the memoirs of the former Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg , St. Gallen 1947, DNB )
53. ↑ ^{a b c} Martin Moll: "Leader Decrees" 1939–1945 . Edition of all surviving directives in the fields of state, party, economy, occupation policy and military administration issued by Hitler in writing during the Second World War, not printed in the Reichsgesetzblatt. Stuttgart 1997, pp. 186 f., ISBN 3-515-06873-2 . Google Books
54. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 81.
55. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XXIX, Munich / Zurich 1984, pp. 235 ff .; Manfred Weißbecker: Alfred Rosenberg . "The anti-Semitic movement was only a protective measure ...". In: Kurt Pätzold / Manfred Weißbecker (ed.): Steps to the gallows . Life paths before the Nuremberg judgments, Leipzig 1999, p. 173 f.
56. ↑ ^{a b c} Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 99 f., 109 f.
57. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984, p. 632.
58. ↑ ^{a b} The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984, p. 73 and vol. XI: p. 625; Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 227.
59. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The Office Rosenberg and his opponents , Stuttgart 1970, p. 273; Alfred Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 248.
60. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. XXVII. (Vogt's analysis of the Koeppen reports begins on September 6, 1941. According to Bollmus, Koeppen had been in the FHQ since July 1941. Other reports may also exist.)
61. ↑ See Rosenberg's diary entry of April 11, 1941, quoted in: Robert MW Kempner: SS im Kreuzverhör . The elite that broke Europe into pieces, Nördlingen 1987, p. 226. Conversation between Rosenberg and Hitler on July 16, 1941: Werner Maser: Nürnberg . Tribunal der Sieger, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 446 f .; see. IMG 1984: Vol. XI, p. 529 ff. And p. 626 ff .; IMG 1984: Vol. XXII: p. 615, Document L-221.
62. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 18.
63. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 113.
64. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 41.
65. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 122. (Cited source: BArch, R 43 II / 691 a, p. 54 f.)
66. ↑ ^{a b c} Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 43 f.
67. ↑ On the religious implications of Hitler's and Rosenberg's ideologies, cf. Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch: The political religion of National Socialism , 2nd, completely revised. Ed., Munich 2002.
68. ↑ Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Adolf Hitler . Monologues in the Führer Headquarters 1941–1944, recorded by Heinrich Heim , Munich 2000, ISBN 3-572-01156-6 ; Michael Ley / Julius H. Schoeps : National Socialism as a Political Religion , Bodenheim near Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-8257-0032-1 .
69. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 108. (The minutes of this “chief discussion” are reproduced in: Müller, Hitler's Ostkrieg, Doc. 16, pp. 161–167.)
70. ↑ ^{a b} H.D Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, pp. 145 f .; on Vogt's war reports 2002: p. 45.
71. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 59; Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 599. (On Rosenberg's “Guidelines” of September 29, 1941 cf. ADAP D XIII, 2, Doc. No. 372; source BArch , R 43 II / 691, f. 22-24.)
72. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 96 f.
73. ↑ Rosenberg described and idealized his subjective imaginations as an "art of the eye" in 1946, cf. A. Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 53; see. also A. Rosenberg: The world of the eye . Speech from September 5, 1934 during a cultural conference as part of the Nazi party rallies. In: ders .: Shaping the idea. Blood and Honor Volume II, ed. by Thilo von Trotha, Munich 1943, pp. 140–147.
74. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 81.
75. ↑ ^{a b} Czesław Madajczyk (ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan , Munich / New Providence / London / Paris 1994, p. 40 f.
76. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 144.
77. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 41 f.
78. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 230.
79. ↑ Christopher Browning: The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office , London 1978, p. 70.
80. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, pp. 96, 113; Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 599; Götz Aly 1989: Aktion T4 , p. 145.
81. ↑ Quoted in: Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 35. (Cited source: BArch, R 6/109 f. 11-13.); see. also the diary entry of Otto Bräutigam from September 14th, HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 144.
82. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the “Führer Headquarters” . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, pp. 19, 25.
83. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, pp. 115, 117 and 128. (Source: The official diary of the German Governor General in Poland 1939–1945, edited by Ernst Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, Stuttgart 1975, entry from October 14, 1941.); Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 599.
84. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 129. (Cited sources: Institute for Contemporary History IfZ, MA 120; abbreviated in: Diensttagebuch 1975: p. 436.)
85. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, pp. 144 f., Cf. also p. 226 f .; Helmut Heiber: “Der Generalplan Ost”, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Documentation 6 (1958), p. 305. (Cited sources: Nbg. Doc. NO-365, NO-996/97.) A complete copy of the document can be found also in: Anatomie des SS-Staates: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History , Vol. 2, dtv, Munich 1967, p. 337. DNB
86. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XVIII, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 108.
87. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 609.
88. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 609; Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck: Portrait of a human criminal based on the memoirs left behind by the former Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg , St. Gallen 1947, p. 131. (There is also a handwritten note on the letter: “Of course, the cleaning of Jews from the East is a priority Task. Its solution must, however, be brought into line with the needs of the war economy. ")
89. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German Occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945, Munich 2006.
90. ↑ Quoted in: Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 75. (Source: PA, Pol. Dept. XIII, General files 9.-11.41 = Vol. 14.)
91. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 117; Gerald Reitlinger: The Final Solution , 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 599.
92. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. 14 (Source: Goebbels Tagebücher II, 2, p. 314.)
93. ↑ Quoted in: Manfred Weißbecker: Alfred Rosenberg . "The anti-Semitic movement was only a protective measure ...", in: Kurt Pätzold & Manfred Weißbecker Ed .: Steps to the gallows. Life paths before the Nuremberg judgments. Leipzig 1999, p. 175. (Source: BAK, NS 18/38, p. 3.)
94. ^ Dieter Rebentisch: Führer State and Administration in the Second World War . Administrative policy 1939–1945, Stuttgart 1989, p. 309 ff .; National newspaper (Essen) and Völkischer Beobachter from November 18, 1941.
95. ↑ Quoted in: Robert MW Kempner: Eichmann and Accomplices , Zurich 1961, p. 86; Source of the concept of the speech: Political Archive of the Foreign Office in Bonn PAA, Pol XIII, 25, VAA reports, concept; printed in: Jürgen Hagemann: Die Presselführung im Third Reich , Bonn 1970, p. 146; then quoted in Kempner 1987: p. 228; see. also: Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm: Rassenpolitik und Kriegführung , Passau 1991, p. 131 f .; For this statement by Rosenberg, Weißbecker incorrectly mentions the date “11th April”, referring to “Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm 1991: p. 131 f.” November 1941 ", cf. Weißbecker 1999: p. 176; see. then correct again Longerich 2001: pp. 134, 214; Hans Mommsen: Auschwitz . July 17, 1992, 2nd edition, Munich 2002, p. 160; Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 546 with note 201. (Source: Bundesarchiv NS 8/71, Blatt 18.) (According to Kempner, the exact wording should also be in Rosenberg's diary entries. Rosenberg's diary entries, obviously also those from 1941, were later before the court in Nuremberg, but were only published until 1940 by Hans-Günther Seraphim, brother of Rosenberg's colleague, Peter Heinz Seraphim .)
96. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 120.
97. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, pp. 150, 179.
98. ↑ Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Adolf Hitler . Monologues in the Führer Headquarters 1941–1944, recorded by Heinrich Heim, Munich 2000, p. 31.
99. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 606, document PS-1517; Bollmus 1970: p. 120; Werner Jochmann 2000: p. 152; Ernst Piper 2005: p. 546. (Source: Federal Archives NS 8/71, sheet 18.)
100. ^ Alfred Rosenberg: Last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 315.
101. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 139 f.
102. ^ Werner Maser: Nuremberg . Tribunal der Sieger, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 446 f .; IMG 1984, Vol. XI: p. 529 ff. And p. 626 ff .; Vol. XXII: pp. 110, 615, document L-221; see. also Rosenberg 1955, LA: p. 315.
103. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 611; Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck 1947: p. 131.
104. ^ Joe J. Heydecker / Johannes Leeb : The Nuremberg Trial . With a foreword by Eugen Kogon and Robert MW Kempner, revised. New edition, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-462-03240-2 ; Kurt Pätzold / Erika Schwarz (ed.): Steps to the gallows . Life paths before the Nuremberg judgments, Leipzig 1999, pp. 40–43.
105. ↑ "Wannsee Protocol", quoted in after: Leo Poliakov / Joseph Wulf : The Third Reich and the Jews , 2nd edition, Frankfurt a. M. 1983, ISBN 3-548-33036-3 .
106. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, pp. 145 f., 148.
107. ↑ ^{a b} Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch: The Political Religion of National Socialism , 2nd, completely revised. Ed., Munich 2002; Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg - the prophet of the war of the soul . The devout Nazi in the leadership elite of the National Socialist state, in: Michael Ley / Julius H. Schoeps (eds.): National Socialism as a political religion . Bodenheim near Mainz 1997.
108. ^ Robert MW Kempner: Eichmann and accomplices , Zurich 1961, p. 165.
109. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's chief ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 592, ISBN 3-89667-148-0 . (Source: List of participants BArch R 6/74, Bl. 76.); Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburg 2002, p. 641. (Minutes of the meeting: Deployment in the “Reichskommissariat” Ostland, 1998, p. 57 ff.); HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Berlin 1987, p. 180 f.
110. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 90.
111. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 140.
112. ↑ ^{a b} Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 456; compare the decision of September 23, 1942, Longerich 2001: p. 172 f.
113. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 175 f.
114. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 182.
115. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 154.
116. ↑ The agency officially names the first ordinance for the implementation of the Federal Restitution Act in 1965
117. ↑ Czesław Madajczyk (Ed.): From General Plan East to General Settlement Plan , Munich / New Providence / London / Paris 1994, p. 50 ff. (Document); to Abel, Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 41 f.
118. ↑ Robert MW Kempner: Eichmann and accomplices , Zurich 1961, p. 167.
119. ↑ Alfred Rosenberg: last records , Göttingen 1955, p. 149 .; also note Rosenberg's critical statement to Meyer from November 17, 1942, in: Götz Aly 1987: p. 170.
120. ↑ Quoted in: The Trial against the Major War Criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. pp. 593 ff .; Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck 1947: p. 315; fragmentarily also in: Heydecker / Leeb 2003: p. 522.
121. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted in: The Trial against the Major War Criminals before the IMG Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. P. 613; Serge Lang / Ernst von Schenck 1947: pp. 132, 316.
122. ↑ Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Adolf Hitler . Monologues in the Führer Headquarters 1941–1944, recorded by Heinrich Heim, Munich 2000, p. 356 f.
123. ↑ Helmut Heiber (ed.): Hitler's situation discussions , Stuttgart 1962, p. 258.
124. ↑ ^{a b} Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for the Third Reich , Frankfurt a. M. 2002, p. 295 f .; Reitlinger 1992: p. 255.
125. ^ Joe J. Heydecker / Johannes Leeb: The Nuremberg Trial . New edition, Cologne 2003, p. 394 f.
126. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Schiefelbein: The 'Institute for Research on the Jewish Question Frankfurt am Main . Prehistory and foundation 1935–1939, ed. in cooperation with the Institute for Urban History (publication by the Fritz Bauer Institute), Frankfurt a. M. 1994, p. 43. (Source: YIVO-Institute, NFI, 105.a, Korherr, The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question, Abridged Version, April 19, 1943, p. 7.)
127. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents . Munich 1970, p. 292. (Cited source: Eichmann trial , document 203, Ph. In the [Institute for Contemporary History | IfZ]; broadcast “Das unheilvolle Staatsgeheimnis”, Südd. Rundfunk, 2nd program, November 11, 1968.) (Why Bollmus did not quote the adjutant's name here is unclear.)
128. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. V, Munich / Zurich 1984. p. 76; IMG 1984, Vol. XVIII: p. 111.
129. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 323 f.
130. ↑ Peter Longerich: The unwritten order . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 153.
131. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court of Nuremberg November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946 , Vol. XI, Munich / Zurich 1984. pp. 529 ff., 626 ff .; IMG 1984, XXII: p. 615, document L-221; Werner Maser: Nuremberg . Tribunal der Sieger, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 446 f.
132. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 190. (Source: IfZ Munich, Microfilm MA 315, 3945 ff, 3961.); Bradley F. Smith et al. a. (Ed.): Heinrich Himmler , Frankfurt a. M. 1974, pp. 28, 193 and 276. (Source: T-175, Roll 93, Frames 3984-3985.); on the participation of Rosenberg, Alfred Rosenberg: last recordings , Göttingen 1955, p. 224.
133. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 488; IMT 1984, Vol. XXXII: pp. 159ff., PS-3319.
134. ↑ Kurt Pätzold / Manfred Weißbecker (ed.): Steps to the gallows . Life paths before the Nuremberg judgments, Leipzig 1999, p. 182. (Source: BAK, NS 30/29 and NS 8/132, p. 54 ff.)
135. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg . Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule, Stuttgart 1970.
136. ↑ Constantin Graf Stamati: "On the cultural policy of the Eastern Ministry", in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Miszelle (1958), issue 1, p. 85.
137. ↑ Finding aid with explanations. Lists the NA documents on microfilm relating to the RMfdbO complex and presents their content (in English). This makes a large number of people (names) and functions of the ministry and related Rosenberg organizations (ERR, etc.) visible.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 31 ″  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 47 ″  E