The Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust (Documenting Life and Destruction: Holocaust Sources in Context)

529 Pages·2015·3.875 MB·English

by  Jürgen Matthäus, Frank Bajohr

■ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
Documenting Life
and Destruction
Holocaust Sources
in Context
SERIES EDITOR
Jürgen Matthäus
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jan Lambertz
DOCUMENTING LIFE AND DESTRUCTION
HOLOCAUST SOURCES IN CONTEXT
Th is groundbreaking series provides a new perspective on history using fi rst-
hand accounts of the lives of those who suff ered through the Holocaust, those
who perpetrated it, and those who witnessed it as bystanders. Th e United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies presents a wide range of documents from diff erent
archival holdings, expanding knowledge about the lives and fates of Holocaust
victims and making these resources broadly available to the general public and
scholarly communities for the fi rst time.
Books in the Series
1. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume I, 1933–1938, Jürgen Matthäus and
Mark Roseman (2010)
2. Children during the Holocaust, Patricia Heberer (2011)
3. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938–1940, Alexandra Garbarini
with Emil Kerenji, Jan Lambertz, and Avinoam Patt (2011)
4. Th e Diary of Samuel Golfard and the Holocaust in Galicia, Wendy Lower
(2011)
5. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume III, 1941–1942, Jürgen Matthäus
with Emil Kerenji, Jan Lambertz, and Leah Wolfson (2013)
6. The Holocaust in Hungary: Evolution of a Genocide, Zoltán Vági, László
Csősz, and Gábor Kádár (2013)
7. War, Pacifi cation, and Mass Murder, 1939: Th e Einsatzgruppen in Poland,
Jürgen Matthäus, Jochen Böhler, and Klaus-Michael Mallman (2014)
8. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume IV, 1942–1943, Emil Kerenji (2015)
9. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume V, 1944–1946, Leah Wolfson (2015)
10. Th e Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust, Jürgen
Matthäus and Frank Bajohr (2015)
A project of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Sara J. Bloomfield
Director
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
Paul A. Shapiro
Director
Jürgen Matthäus
Director, Applied Research
under the auspices of the
Academic Committee
of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Peter Hayes, Chair
Doris L. Bergen Sara Horowitz Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Richard Breitman Steven T. Katz Menachem Z. Rosensaft
Christopher R. Browning William S. Levine George D. Schwab
David Engel Deborah E. Lipstadt Michael A. Stein
Zvi Y. Gitelman Wendy Lower Jeff rey Veidlinger
Paul Hanebrink Michael R. Marrus James E. Young
John T. Pawlikowski
Th is publication has been made possible by
support from
Th e Blum Family Foundation
and
Th e Curt E. and Else Silberman Fund
Documenting Life and Destruction
Holocaust Sources in Context
THE POLITICAL
DIARY OF ALFRED
ROSENBERG AND
THE ONSET OF THE
HOLOCAUST
Jürgen Matthäus and Frank Bajohr
Edited by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies and the Zentrum für Holocaust-
Studien at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich
Advisory Committee:
Christopher R. Browning
David Engel
Sara Horowitz
Steven T. Katz
Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Rowman & Littlefi eld
in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2015
For USHMM:
Project Manager: Mel Hecker
Translators: Kathleen Luft, Jan Lambertz
Researcher: Holly Robertson Huff nagle
Map: Peter Palm
Published by Rowman & Littlefi eld
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Front cover: Alfred Rosenberg in Paris, November 1940, USHMMPA WS#75932.
Copyright © 2015 by Rowman & Littlefi eld
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Matthäus, Jürgen, 1959–
Th e political diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the onset of the Holocaust / Jürgen Matthäus
and Frank Bajohr.
pages cm. — (Holocaust sources in context)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-5167-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-5168-7 (ebook)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
™
Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
German-occupied territories in Eastern Europe, 1941–1942
(Peter Palm/Berlin)

Contents
Map vii
Abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xv
Editors’ Note xvii
PART I: INTRODUCTION TO ALFRED ROSENBERG
AND HIS DIARY 1
PART II: ALFRED ROSENBERG’S DIARY 1934–1944 17
PART III: RELATED DOCUMENTS 353
PART IV: A “FINAL SOLUTION” IN “THE EAST”:
ROSENBERG AND THE “JEWISH QUESTION” 413
Ideology Applied: Rosenberg’s Antisemitism and the Nazi System 413
New Opportunities: Operation Barbarossa and the Onset
of Genocide 432
A “Final Solution” in “the East”: Rosenberg and the
Holocaust 447
From Selective Memory to Lost Record:
Th e Postwar Fate of Rosenberg’s Diary Notes 468
List of Related Documents 481
Bibliography 485
Index 491
About the Editors 509
ix