Alfred Rosenberg didn't believe in gas vans On November 5, 1945, just over a fortnight before the International Military Tribunal commenced, Alfred Rosenberg was interrogated at Nuremberg by the Soviet Major General Alexandrov. They had the following exchange:
ALEXANDROV:
How about the mass extermination of thousands of innocent people, for instance,
Jews in the Ghettoes of Warsaw and other cities. Did you hear about such things; did you hear about the gas vans?
ROSENBERG:
I have heard about them but I don't believe it. ALEXANDROV: But it is a fact. We have documents which prove that all this was done. We also have people that are still alive who witnessed these atrocities. There is no question but that these things are true. How do you feel about them?
ROSENBERG: I would assume that in such a gigantic struggle there would be many victims but I still don't believe this part where you allege to prove that deliberate mass extermination was practiced in this manner. I did, of course, know that in connection with our struggle there were many executions
. I did not know anything about mass extermination to the extent and in the manner as you say. Interrogation of Alfred Rosenberg, conducted by Major General Alexandrov, Nuremberg, Nov 5, 1945, pp. 16-18.
In an earlier interrogation, on September 22, 1945, future Nuremberg prosecutor Colonel John Amen had asked Rosenberg whether Germans who had worked in the concentration camps were justified in claiming they were merely following orders when carrying-out Hitler's inhumane orders, when they had known his orders were unlawful. Rosenberg replied:
I think that such orders for inhuman conduct in concentration camps could not ever have been given, [...] My personal opinion is that such inhuman things ought not and could not have been ordered.
Interrogation of Alfred Rosenberg, conducted by Thomas S. Hinkel and John Amen, Nuremberg, 1100-1200, Sept. 22, 1945,
Later the same day, Rosenberg claimed that he'd heard that "
some Jews" had been shot by the German police in the occupied territories; that he knew nothing nor had put no effort into discovering what went on in Himmler's concentration camps, and had the following exchange with American Colonel Thomas S. Hinkel:
HINKEL:
You knew it was Himmler's policy to exterminate the Jews, didn't you?
ROSENBERG:
In this shape or manner, I did not believe it until the end.HINKEL:
You had been informed of that, had you not?
ROSENBERG:
No; I was not. HINKEL: Everybody else seems to have known it. Why didn't you know about it?
ROSENBERG:
I learned about it the first time by the radio which mentioned and cited speeches of Jews abroad. HINKEL: Didn't you receive the Hitler order, wherein Himmler was appointed the person in charge of Jewish affairs?
ROSENBERG: No; I haven't seen it, but I have been told of it.
HINKEL: And when were you told about it?
ROSENBERG: In the '30s.
HINKEL:
You knew what Himmler's policy was towards the Jews?
ROSENBERG:
Well, those things must have become rather acute during the war because before the war such things didn't happen. Himmler only mentioned once that he had to drive away the Jews from Dusseldorf, and that they were in a camp where in about a fortnight they set up a cabaret.
Interrogation of Alfred Rosenberg, conducted by Thomas S. Hinkel, Nuremberg, 1415-1800, Sept. 22, 1945, p. 24
Rosenberg denied he'd had knowledge of the alleged plan to kill all of Europe's Jews throughout the Nuremberg trial:
DR. HAENSEL:
Do you know that the SS, as far as the Jews were concerned, followed secret aims and objectives, others than those that were published officially?
ROSENBERG:
That I learned here.DR. HAENSEL:
You do not know that from your own knowledge?
ROSENBERG:
No.IMT, vol. 11, p. 528.
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