Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg
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Name	Alfred Rosenberg
Caption	Rosenberg in 1939
Birth date	12 January 1893
Birth place	Reval, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire
Death date	16 October 1946
Death place	Nuremberg, Germany
Party	Nazi Party (NSDAP)
Known for	Chief Nazi ideologue, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Alma mater	University of Riga, Technical University of Moscow
Criminal charge	Crimes against peace, War crimes, Crimes against humanity
Criminal penalty	Death by hanging
Criminal status	Executed

Alfred Rosenberg was a leading Nazi theorist and one of the principal architects of the regime's racist and antisemitic ideology. He held several key positions, including head of the Nazi Party's foreign policy office and later as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, where he played a significant role in the brutal occupation of Eastern Europe. Rosenberg was a prolific writer, most famously authoring The Myth of the Twentieth Century, a foundational text of National Socialist thought. He was convicted of crimes against humanity and other major war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946.

Early life and education

Born in Reval in the Russian Empire (now Tallinn, Estonia), Rosenberg was of Baltic German descent. He studied architecture at the University of Riga and later at the Technical University of Moscow, where he witnessed the Russian Revolution of 1917. Fleeing the Bolshevik takeover, he emigrated to Germany in 1918, settling in Munich. There, he became immersed in völkisch and antisemitic circles, coming into contact with early figures of the German Workers' Party, which would soon become the Nazi Party.

Nazi Party career

Rosenberg joined the Nazi Party in early 1919, becoming one of its earliest members and a protégé of Adolf Hitler. Following the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, he served as temporary leader of the party during Hitler's imprisonment. He was appointed editor of the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, in 1921, a position he held for decades. In 1930, he was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag and in 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power, he was named head of the Nazi Party's Foreign Policy Office. In July 1941, following the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler appointed him Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, overseeing the civil administration in the conquered territories of the Soviet Union.

Ideology and writings

Rosenberg was the self-styled chief philosopher of National Socialism. His most infamous work, the 1930 book The Myth of the Twentieth Century, promoted a pseudo-scientific racial theory that positioned the "Aryan" race as the creator of all high culture, which was under threat from a conspiracy of Jews, Freemasons, and the Catholic Church. He advocated for a new "Germanic Christianity" purged of its Jewish origins. His ideas, though considered convoluted by many like Joseph Goebbels, provided an intellectual veneer for the regime's antisemitism and its plans for Lebensraum in the East. He also headed the Fighting League for German Culture and later the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question.

Role in the Holocaust

As Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Rosenberg was a key facilitator of the Holocaust. His ministry helped formulate and implement policies of systematic plunder, starvation, and mass murder. He authorized the Nuremberg racial laws in the occupied zones and was complicit in the Einsatzgruppen killings. His office coordinated the confiscation of Jewish property and cultural treasures on a vast scale, a operation later known as the Rosenberg Taskforce. Although he sometimes advocated for a slightly less brutal approach for propaganda purposes, his administrative framework was essential to the Final Solution in regions under his control, such as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and Reichskommissariat Ostland.

Trial and execution

Captured by Allied troops at the end of World War II, Rosenberg was tried as a major war criminal before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials. He was charged with conspiracy, Crimes against peace, War crimes, and Crimes against humanity. The prosecution presented extensive evidence from his own writings and ministry documents detailing his ideological influence and administrative role in the atrocities in the East. Found guilty on all counts, he was sentenced to death. Alfred Rosenberg was hanged at Nuremberg Prison on October 16, 1946.

Category:1893 births Category:1946 deaths Category:Nazi Party officials Category:Holocaust perpetrators Category:People executed at Nuremberg Category:Nuremberg trials