Alfred Rosenberg
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Image:Alfred Rosenberg.jpg Alfred Rosenberg (January 12, 1893, Reval (Tallinn) Estonia, then part of the Russian Empire–October 16, 1946) was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi party, who later held several important posts in the Nazi government. At Nuremberg he was tried and sentenced to death as a war criminal. He is considered the main author of key Nazi ideological creeds, including its racial theory, persecution of the Jews, Lebensraum, abolition of the Versailles Treaty, and opposition to "degenerate" modern art.
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Early career
Rosenberg was born to Baltic German parents in Reval (Tallinn) Estonia, then part of the Russian Empire. He studied architecture at the Riga Technical Institute and engineering at Moscow University, completing his Ph.D. studies in 1917. Buildings that he designed in this period still stand in the central part of Tallinn. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, he supported the counter-revolutionaries and, following their failure, Rosenberg emigrated to Germany in 1918 along with Max Scheubner-Richter who was something of a mentor to Rosenberg and his ideology. Rosenberg was one of the earliest members of the German Workers Party (later the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party), joining in January 1919; Hitler did not join until October 1919.
Rosenberg became editor of the Völkischer Beobachter (Völkisch Observer), the Nazi party newspaper, in 1921. In 1923 after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler appointed Rosenberg as a leader of the Nazi movement, a position he held until Hitler was released from prison. Hitler remarked privately in later years his choice of Rosenberg was strategic, based on Rosenberg's weak personality and lack of self-motivation. Hitler did not want the temporary leader of the Nazis to be a very popular or power-hungry man, as a person with either of the two qualities might not want to cede the party leadership after Hitler's release.
In 1929, Rosenberg founded the Militant League for German Culture. He became a deputy in 1930 and published his book on racial theory The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts) which deals with key issues in the national socialistic ideology such as the Jewish question. It was intended as a sequel to Houston Stewart Chamberlain's book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, one of the key proto-Nazi books of racial theory.
He was named leader of the foreign political office of the NSDAP in 1933 but played little actual part in office. His visit to Britain in that year was designed to reassure the British that the Nazis would not be a threat, and to encourage links between the new regime and the British empire. It was a notable failure. In January 1934 he was deputized by Hitler with responsibility for the spiritual and philosophical education of the NSDAP and all related organizations.
Racial theories
Rosenberg was also the Nazi Party's chief racial theorist, in charge of building a human racial ladder that justified Hitler's policies. Rosenberg built on the works of Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Madison Grant, as well as the beliefs of Hitler. Rosenberg considered blacks as well as Jews and other Semitic peoples to be at the very bottom of the ladder. At the very top was the white or Aryan race. Rosenberg considered Nordic peoples to be the master race, superior to all others, including other Aryans. This master race included the Scandinavians (including Finns), Germans, Dutch (including the Flemish people of Belgium), and the British. Germans, of course, were proclaimed to be the superior Nordic peoples, the master race of the master race. Rosenberg would reshape Nazi racial policy throughout the years, but it would always consist of White Supremacism, extreme German nationalism, and harsh anti-Semitism.
Religious theories
Rosenberg argued for a new "religion of the blood", based on the supposed innate promptings of the Nordic soul to defend its noble character against racial and cultural degeneration. He believed that this had been embodied in early Indo-European religions, notably ancient European Paganism, Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism. Following the ideas of Chamberlain, he condemned what he called "negative Christianity", the orthodox beliefs of Protestant and Catholic churches, arguing instead for a so-called "positive" Christianity based on Chamberlain's claim that Jesus was a member of a Nordic enclave resident in ancient Galilee who struggled against Judaism. For Rosenberg religious doctrine was not important, what mattered was that a belief should serve the interests of the Nordic race, connecting the individual to his racial nature.
Wartime activities
In 1940 he was made head of the Hohe Schule (literally "high school"), the Centre of National Socialist Ideological and Educational Research. Rosenberg created a "Special Task Force for Music" (Sonderstab Musik) to collect the best musical instruments and scores for use in a university to be built in Hitler's hometown of Linz, Austria. The orders given the Sonderstab Musik were to loot all forms of Jewish property in Germany and of those found in any country taken over by the German army and any musical instruments or scores were to be immediately shipped to Berlin.
Following the invasion of the USSR Rosenberg was appointed head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Alfred Meyer was his deputy and represented him at the Wannsee Conference. Another official of the Ministry, Georg Leibbrandt, also attended the conference, at Rosenberg's request.
Rosenberg had presented Hitler with his plan for the organization of the conquered Eastern territories, suggesting the establishment of new administrative districts in future, to replace the previously Soviet-controlled territories with new Reichskommissariats. These would be:
- Ostland (Baltic countries and Belarus),
- Ukraine (Ukraine and nearest territories),
- Kaukasus (Caucasia area),
- Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and the rest of nearest Russian European areas)
Such suggestions were intended to encourage non-Russian nationalism and to promote German interests for the benefit of future "Aryan" generations, in accord with geopolitical "Lebensraum im Osten" plans. They would provide a buffer against Soviet expansion in preparation for the total eradication of Communism and Bolshevism by decisive pre-emptive military action.
Following these plans, when Wehrmacht forces invaded Soviet-controlled territory, they immediately implemented the first of the proposed Reichskomissariats of Ostland and Ukraine, under the leadership of Hinrich Lohse and Erich Koch respectively. The organization of these administrative territories led to conflict between Rosenberg and the SS over the treatment of Slavs under German occupation. Rosenberg was appalled at the displacement, enslavement, and sometimes genocide of non-Jews in occupied Eastern countries. As Nazi Germany's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg considered Slavs, though lesser than Germans, to be Aryan. Rosenberg often complained to Hitler and Himmler about the treatment of non-Jewish occupied peoples. He made no complaints about the murders of Jews. At the Nuremberg Trials he claimed to be ignorant of the Holocaust, despite the fact that his deputy Georg Leibbrandt was present at the Wannsee conference.
Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the war. He was tried at Nuremberg and found guilty of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death and executed with other guilty co-defendants at Nuremberg on the morning of October 16, 1946.
Nazi Policy and Rosenberg's Views
For Hitler, religion and philosophy were only tools for acquiring the absolute power of dictatorship, while for Rosenberg they were an end in themselves.
Because he lacked the charisma and political skills of the other Nazi leaders, Rosenberg was isolated. In some of his speeches Hitler appeared to be close to Rosenberg's views: totally rejecting Christianity as weak, in favor of a folk religion of blood based upon the destiny assigned to the German people by God.
On the other hand, Hitler felt compelled to appeal to Christians as well who made up a vast majority of the German population. He sought to exploit and ultimately to control Christianity, not suppress it. After his assumption of power he moved to reassure the Protestant and Catholic churches that the party was not intending to reinstitute Germanic paganism. He placed himself in the position of being the man to save Christianity from utter destruction at the hands of the atheistic Communists of the Soviet Union. This was especially true immediately before and after the elections of 1932, Hitler wanted to appear non-threatening to major Christian faiths and consolidate his power.
Image:Alfred rosenberg 1933.jpg
Some Nazi leaders were anti-Christian such as Erich Ludendorff and Martin Bormann and sympathetic to Rosenberg. Once in power however, Hitler and most Nazi leaders sought to suppress all Christian denominations in favor of something they called positive Christianity. They privately mocked Rosenberg's views and did not support small neo-pagan groups seeking parity with Christianity.
While Rosenberg knew that he had powerful enemies in Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels, he believed that he still maintained favor with Hitler to the end according to his autobiography which he wrote shortly before his execution.
Lt. Col. W.H. Dunn made a medical and psychiatric report on him in prison to evaluate him as a suicide risk:He gave the impression of clinging to his own theories in a fanatical and unyielding fashion and to have been little influenced by the unfolding during the trial of the cruelty and crimes of the party. (Cecil, p.219)
Summarizing the unresolved conflict between the personal views of Rosenberg and the pragmatism of the Nazi elite:
The ruthless pursuit of Nazi aims turned out to mean not, as Rosenberg had hoped, the permeation of German life with the new ideology; it meant concentration of the combined resources of party and state on total war. (Cecil, p.160)
Family life
Rosenberg was married twice. He married his first wife, Hilda Leesmann, an ethnic Estonian, in 1915; after eight years of marriage, they divorced in 1923. He married his second wife, Hedwig Kramer, in 1925; the marriage lasted until his death. He and Kramer had two children; a son, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Irene; who was born in 1930. His daughter has, in the past, refused contact with anyone seeking information about her father.
Quotes
"I didn't say that the Jews are inferior. I didn't even maintain they are a race. I merely saw that the mixture of different cultures didn't work." (1/12/46)
"We let 50,000 Jewish intellectuals get across the border. Just as I wanted Lebensraum for Germany, I thought Jews should have a Lebensraum for themselves--outside of Germany." (12/15/45)
Further reading
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See also
External links
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