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In the Jewish question, I was deceived just as long as other high functionaries. Never did I approve or tolerate the biological extermination of Jewry. Anti-Semitism as found in Party and State laws was to be considered an emergency measure in time of war. The anti-Semitism of Hitler as we know it today was barbarism. I did not participate in either of these forms and I assert, as I shall show, that the prevention of the persecution of the Jews is to be traced to me because of my influence on Hitler.

The Prosecution has submitted several photographs which allegedly show my knowledge of crimes in concentration camps such as in Mauthausen. Never did I set foot in Camp Mauthausen, but only that part of the labor camps where the quarry was, where hardened criminals were employed according to the law, not political prisoners. The pictures show an administration building and nothing else. Affidavit USA 909, Pages 894 to 897 F is therefore quite factually impossible and is wrong. The picture with Hitler shows a building at a construction area of Linz, 35 kilometers away from Mauthausen.

The statement given by Dr. Morgen, the witness, seems essentially true but it needs to be supplemented as far as my person and my reactions to this are concerned. The witness in his statement was too much concerned with himself and does not say that because of my influence his office of the juridical system was transferred to Office V of the RSHA so that, as a special office, he could investigate the concentration camps to supplement the research which had been carried on. Perhaps he cannot testify as to additional happenings and incidents, contrary to Mueller, who raged as a madman as the chief of the Criminal Police Nebe did. On the same day an exact written report was sent to Hitler. On the same day I was asked to appear, and I went there. After much discussion, Hitler said that there had been an investigation against Himmler and Pohl. A special court was to be instituted, and arrest was to be the lot of those involved. Pohl was to be dismissed from his office. In front of me Hitler gave orders that Pohl should be called to him, and he gave me his pledge to the effect that even today he would take all steps against any further misdeeds.

My request to be dismissed and to be sent to the front he denied, saying that I was essential, and that I could not be spared from the intelligence service. Eichmann was arrested and I was told of the decree by Himmler in October of 1944, which confirms and puts in final form that which I have just testified in its wording is the last devilish work of Hitler.

Will the Prosecution even now not see any discrepancy that

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report of the Reich Press Chief on the murder of the French General. The results were sent to the headquarters.

I regretted the fact that Hitler, in a situation as I found it when I assumed office in 1943, was not in a better relationship to the churches, which are a factor in an order and which cannot be done away with. I tried to do everything possible. The presentation of evidence has seen this, and the Prosecution did not draw any consequences.

I know only that I put my powers at the disposal of the German people as a German soldier. I could only put myself at the service of the defense of those factors which had brought Germany to the abyss, and after the collapse of the Reich I still did it.

If in my work I made mistakes, if orders which are accused of being cardinal orders were given out before my time of office, then I am in a fate which is stronger than myself, but which is carrying me along with it. I am accused here because Himmler and other elements which were completely contrary to me needed deputies. Whether my story will be accepted or not, I should like to ask you that the fate and the honor of hundreds of thousands of the living and dead of the General SS, of the Waffen SS, and of the officialdom who, up until the very last, fought bravely, fought for their rights, that you do not connect them in any way with your just curse towards Himmler. Just as I, they believed that they were acting under the law.

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VIII. ALFRED ROSENBERG

1. FINAL ARGUMENT by Dr. Alfred Thoma, Defense Counsel

May it please the Tribunal:

The documentary film which was shown in this room and which was supposed to illustrate the "Rise and Fall of National Socialism" begins with a speech delivered by Rosenberg concerning the development of the Party up to the taking over of power. He also describes the Munich insurrection and says that in the morning of 9 November 1923 he saw police cars with machine guns assembling in the Ludwigstrasse in Munich and he knew that the March to the Feldherrnhalle was imminent. Nevertheless he marched in the first lines. Today, also, my client takes the same position in face of the indictment formulated by the prosecutors of the United Nations. He does not want to be pictured as though nobody paid any attention to his books, his speeches, and his publications. Even today he does not want to appear as another person than he was once before, as a fighter for Germany's strong position in the

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