SAME OLD PLEA

Evening Star, Issue 25770, 17 April 1946, Page 7

SAME OLD PLEA

LOYAL AND IGNORANT ROSENBERG'S DEFENCE CONCLUDED (Rec. 11.55 a.m.) NUREMBERG, April 16. Continuing evidence before the War Crimes Tribunal Rosenberg said that much of what happened in eastern occupied territories he heard of in court for the first time. He claimed that he was concerned only with civil administration, and he held Hitler, Himmler Goering and Sauckel responsible for the starvation, deportation and massacre of millions of Russian civilians. Hitler had not allowed him to name or dismiss his own commissioners. Goering blocked his humanitarian plans, especially for the Ukraine, sayincr; "We have to think first of securing our food." Regarding the army's reprisals against civilians in France Rosenberg said that he considered the shooting of hostages justified in pertain cases. Some of these occurred in the excitement after the outbreak of war with America. Rosenberg presented documents to prove that his constant criticism, of

police misbehaviour in the east, when he heard of it, led to a curtailment of his powers, as a result of which he tried to resign. Rosenberg said that wben he asked Himmler whether foreign Press reports of conditions in Dachau and other camps were true, Himmler replied: " Why not visit Dachau yourself? We have a swimming pool and first-class sanitary installations there." Rosenberg added that he ' did not visit Dachau. Fervently reaffirming his faith in Hitler Rosenberg concluded his defence by declaring: " I was completely loyal to him from the beginning." He and Hitler were in full agreement. The Fuhrer principle should not mean oneman rule, but wartime emergencies forced a dictatorship on Hitler. "It was a wartime phenomenon," he said. " I never regarded Hitler as a tyrant."