Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
by
Dietrich Eckart
Dietrich Eckart (; 23 March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German '' völkisch'' poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party. Eckart ...
and he held several important posts in the
Nazi government
The government of Nazi Germany was totalitarian, run by the Nazi Party in Germany according to the Führerprinzip through the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany began with the fact that the Enabling Act was enacted to give Hitler's gover ...
. He was the head of the
NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs
The NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs (german: Außenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP, ''A.P.A.'' or ''APA'') was a Nazi Party organization. It was set up in April 1933 in the Hotel Adlon in Berlin immediately after the Nazi '' Machtergreifung'' ("Seizur ...
during the entire rule of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(1933–1945), and led
Amt Rosenberg ("Rosenberg's bureau"), an official Nazi body for
cultural policy and
surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
, between 1934 and 1945. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Rosenberg was the head of the
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (german: Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete (RMfdbO) or ''Ostministerium'', ) was created by Adolf Hitler on 17 July 1941 and headed by the Nazi theoretical expert, the Baltic ...
(1941–1945). After the war, he was convicted of
crimes against peace
A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...
; planning, initiating and waging
wars of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor sanc ...
;
war crimes; and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
at the
Nuremberg trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945 ...
in 1946. He was sentenced to death and executed on
16 October 1946.
The author of a seminal work of
Nazi ideology
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, ''
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (german: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi paper '' Völkischer Beobachter''. The titular ...
'' (1930), Rosenberg is considered one of the main authors of key Nazi ideological creeds, including its
racial theory,
persecution of the Jews
The persecution of Jews has been a major event in Jewish history, prompting shifting waves of refugees and the formation of diaspora communities. As early as 605 BCE, Jews who lived in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were persecuted and deported. A ...
, ''
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'', abrogation of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, and opposition to what was considered "
degenerate
Degeneracy, degenerate, or degeneration may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Degenerate (album), ''Degenerate'' (album), a 2010 album by the British band Trigger the Bloodshed
* Degenerate art, a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party i ...
" modern art. He is known for his rejection of and hatred for Christianity, having played an important role in the development of German nationalist
Positive Christianity
Positive Christianity (german: Positives Christentum) was a movement within Nazi Germany which promoted the belief that the racial purity of the German people should be maintained by mixing racialistic Nazi ideology with either fundamental or s ...
.
Early life
Family
Rosenberg was born on 12 January 1893 in
Reval
Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ''m ...
, now
Tallinn
Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...
(the capital of modern
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
), then in the
Governorate of Estonia
The Governorate of Estonia, also known as the Governorate of Esthonia (Pre-reformed rus, Эстля́ндская губе́рнія, r=Estlyandskaya guberniya); et, Eestimaa kubermang was a governorate in the Baltic region, along with th ...
(
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
). His mother Elfriede (née Siré), who had
French and German ancestry, was the daughter of Louise Rosalie (née Fabricius), born near
Leal (modern
Lihula
Lihula is a town in Lääneranna Parish, Pärnu County, Estonia.
Lihula castle
The castle of Lihula (german: Leal) was first mentioned in 1211, but it appears the site was used as a fortress since the Iron Age. In 1220, a Swedish army starte ...
, Estonia) in 1842, and of the railway official Friedrich August Siré, born in
Saint-Petersburg (Russian Empire) in 1843. Born in the same city in 1868 and
confirmed
In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...
in Reval at 17 in 1885, Elfriede Siré married Woldemar Wilhelm Rosenberg, a wealthy merchant from Reval, in the
Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
The Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (in russian: Лютеранская церковь Святых Петра и Павла or in German: Lutherische Kirche der Heiligen Peter und Paul) is a Lutheran church located in Saint Petersb ...
(St-Petersburg) in 1886. His paternal grandfather, Martin Rosenberg, was a master shoemaker and elder of his
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
. Born in
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
in 1820, and probably partly of
Latvian descent, he had moved to Reval in the 1850s, where he met Julie Elisabeth Stramm, born in
Jörden (Estonia) in 1835. The two married in the German St. Nicholas parish of Reval in 1856. His mother died two months after his birth.
The
Hungarian-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
journalist Franz Szell, who was apparently residing in
Tilsit
Sovetsk (russian: Сове́тск; german: Tilsit; Old Prussian: ''Tilzi''; lt, Tilžė; pl, Tylża) is a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the south bank of the Neman River which forms the border with Lithuania.
Geography
Sov ...
,
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, spent a year researching in
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
n and
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
n archives before publishing an open letter in 1936, with copies to
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
,
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
, Foreign Minister
Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German diplomat and Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938.
Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his di ...
and others, accusing Rosenberg of having "no drop of German blood" flowing in his veins. Szell wrote that among Rosenberg's ancestors were only "Latvians, Jews, Mongols, and French." As a result of his open letter, Szell was deported by Lithuanian authorities on 15 September 1936. His claims were repeated in the 15 September 1937 issue of the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
newspaper ''
L'Osservatore Romano
''L'Osservatore Romano'' (, 'The Roman Observer') is the daily newspaper of Vatican City State which reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Catholic Church and the world. It is owned by the Holy See but is not a ...
''. Alfred Rosenberg was indeed of
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
,
French, and probably also of
Estonian and
Latvian descent, but no
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
ancestry has been discovered.
Education and early career
The young Rosenberg graduated from the Petri-Realschule (currently
Tallinna Reaalkool) and went on to study architecture at the
Riga Polytechnical Institute
Riga Technical University (RTU) ( lv, Rīgas Tehniskā universitāte) is the oldest technical university in the Baltic countries established on October 14, 1862. It is located in Riga, Latvia and was previously known as 'Riga Polytechnical Insti ...
and engineering at
Moscow's Imperial Higher Technical School ( ru , Императорское Московское техническое училище (ИМТУ)), completing his PhD studies in 1917. During his stays at home in Reval, he attended the art studio of the famed painter
Ants Laikmaa
Ants Laikmaa (5 May 1866 – 19 November 1942) was an Estonian painter.lla Rosenfeld, Norton T. Dodge, Jane Voorhees, ''Art of the Baltics: The Struggle for Freedom of Artistic Expression Under the Soviets, 1945-1991'', Rutgers University Press, ...
- though he showed promise, there are no records that he ever exhibited.
During the
German occupation of Estonia in 1918, Rosenberg served as a teacher at the
. He gave his first speech on
Jewish Marxism on 30 November, at the
House of the Blackheads, after the 28 November 1918 outbreak of the
Estonian War of Independence
The Estonian War of Independence ( et, Vabadussõda, literally "Freedom War"), also known as the Estonian Liberation War, was a defensive campaign of the Estonian Army and its allies, most notably the United Kingdom, against the Bolshevik westwa ...
.
[Pekka Erel]
Kapo luuras natsijuhi Alfred Rosenbergi järele
Eesti Ekspress He emigrated to Germany with the retreating
Imperial German army, along with
Max Scheubner-Richter, who served as something of a mentor to Rosenberg and to his ideology. Arriving in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, he contributed to
Dietrich Eckart
Dietrich Eckart (; 23 March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German '' völkisch'' poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party. Eckart ...
's publication, the ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' (''Ethnic/Nationalist Observer''). By this time, he was both an
antisemite – influenced by
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
's book ''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially ''v ...
'', one of the key proto-Nazi books of
racial theory – and an
anti-Bolshevik.
Rosenberg became one of the earliest members of the
German Workers' Party
The German Workers' Party (german: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National Soc ...
– later renamed the
National Socialist German Workers' Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, better known as the Nazi Party – joining in January 1919, eight months before
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
joined in September. According to some historians, Rosenberg had also been a member of the
Thule Society
The Thule Society (; german: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the ''Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum'' ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and '' Völkisch'' group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, ...
, along with Eckart, although
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (15 January 195329 August 2012) was a British historian and professor of Western esotericism at the University of Exeter, best known for his authorship of several scholarly books on the history of Germany between the W ...
contends that they were only guests.
After the ''
Völkischer Beobachter
The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' became the Nazi party newspaper in December 1920, Rosenberg became its editor in 1923. Rosenberg was a leading member of
Aufbau Vereinigung
The Aufbau Vereinigung (Reconstruction Organisation) was a Munich-based counterrevolutionary conspiratorial group formed in the aftermath of the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918 and of the Latvian Intervention of 1919. It brought together W ...
, Reconstruction Organisation, a conspiratorial organisation of White Russian émigrés which had a critical influence on early Nazi policy.
Rosenberg sympathized and identified with
Talat Pasha
Mehmed Talaat (1 September 187415 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha,; tr, Talat Paşa, links=no was an Ottoman politician and convicted war criminal of the late Ottoman Empire who served as its leader from 1913 t ...
and the
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقهسی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...
that carried out the
Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...
, also claiming that there was "a deliberately Jewish policy which had always protected the Armenians" and that "during the world war, the Armenians have led the espionage against the Turks, similar to the Jews against Germany".
Nazi party
In 1923, after the failed
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
, Hitler, who had been imprisoned for
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, appointed Rosenberg as the leader of the Nazi movement. Hitler remarked privately in later years that his choice of Rosenberg, whom he regarded as weak and lazy, was strategic; Hitler did not want the temporary leader of the Nazis to become too popular or hungry for power, because a person with either of those two qualities might not want to cede the party leadership after Hitler's release. However, at the time of the appointment Hitler had no reason to believe that he would soon be released, and Rosenberg had not appeared weak, so this may have been Hitler reading back into history his dissatisfaction with Rosenberg for the job he did.
On 1 January 1924, Rosenberg founded the
Greater German People's Community, a Nazi
front organization. Headquartered in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, it was largely limited to
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, the birthplace of National Socialism, had no substantial presence outside that State and became a haven for Nazi Party members from that area. Prominent members included
Max Amann,
Phillip Bouhler,
Hermann Esser
Hermann Esser (29 July 1900 – 7 February 1981) was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist, Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper, ''Völkischer Beobachter'', a Propaganda Leader, and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the ...
,
Franz Xaver Schwarz
Franz Xaver Schwarz (27 November 1875 – 2 December 1947) was a high ranking German Nazi Party official who served as ''Reichsschatzmeister'' (National Treasurer) of the Party throughout most of its existence. He was also one of the highes ...
and
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the ''Gauleiter'' (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the '' Reichstag'', the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virul ...
. Rosenberg, one of the least charismatic of the Nazi leaders and lacking in leadership qualities, was soon pushed aside by Streicher, a far more ruthless and abrasive personality, who was elected Chairman on 9 July 1924 with Esser, also a coarse, bullying sort, as his Deputy Chairman.
In 1929 Rosenberg founded the
Militant League for German Culture
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin ...
. He later formed the "
Institute for Research on the Jewish Question
The Institute for Research on the Jewish Question (''Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage'') was a Nazi Party political institution, founded in April 1939.Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy (2005). "Roads to Ratibor: Library and archival plunder by t ...
", the first branch of a projected
Advanced School of the NSDAP
The Advanced School of the NSDAP (german: Hohe Schule der NSDAP, literally "High School of the NSDAP") was a project by the chief ideologist of the Nazi Party Alfred Rosenberg to create an elite Nazi university, a kind of academy for party official ...
,
[Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy (2005). "Roads to Ratibor: Library and archival plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg." ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'', vol. 19, no. 3. pp. 390-458; here: p. 406.][Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage (IEJ)]
In: ''Glossary''. Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin). Retrieved 2015-01-18. dedicated to identifying and attacking Jewish influence in German culture and to recording the history of Judaism from a radical nationalist perspective. He was elected as a ''
Reichstag'' Deputy in 1930 and would continue to serve in this capacity until the end of the Nazi regime. First elected as a representative of the
electoral list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
, from 1933 on he represented electoral constituency 33, Hesse. In 1930, he also published his book on
racial theory ''
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (german: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi paper '' Völkischer Beobachter''. The titular ...
'' (''Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts'') which deals with key issues in the Nazi ideology, such as the "Jewish question." Rosenberg intended his book as a sequel to
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
's above-cited book. Despite selling more than a million copies by 1945, its influence within Nazism remains doubtful. It is often said to have been a book that was officially venerated within Nazism, but one that few had actually read beyond the first chapter or even found comprehensible. Hitler called it "stuff nobody can understand" and disapproved of its pseudo-religious tone.
Rosenberg helped convince Hitler, whose early speeches focused on revenge against France and Britain, that communism was a serious threat to Germany. "
Jewish-Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the re ...
" became an ideological target for Nazism during the early 1920s.
In Rome during November 1932 Rosenberg participated in the
Volta Conference
The Volta Conference was the name given to each of the international conferences held in Italy by the Royal Academy of Science in Rome, and funded by the Alessandro Volta Foundation. In the interwar period, they covered a number of topics in sci ...
about Europe. British historian
Sir Charles Petrie met him there and regarded him with great distaste; Petrie was a Catholic and strongly objected to Rosenberg's anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic sentiments.
The following year, following the
Nazi seizure of power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
, Rosenberg was named leader of the
Nazi Party's Foreign Policy Office in April, and on 2 June 1933 he was named a ''
Reichsleiter'', the second highest political rank in the Nazi Party. In May 1933 Rosenberg visited Britain, to give the impression that the Nazis would not be a threat and to encourage links between the new regime and the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. It was a notable failure. When Rosenberg laid a wreath bearing a
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
at
the Cenotaph
The Cenotaph is a war memorial on Whitehall in London, England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it was unveiled in 1920 as the United Kingdom's national memorial to the British and Commonwealth dead of the First World War, was rededicated in 19 ...
, a
Labour Party candidate slashed it, later threw it in the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
and was fined 40 shillings for willful damage at Bow Street magistrate's court.
In October 1933, Rosenberg was named as a member of
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...
's
Academy for German Law
The Academy for German Law (german: Akademie für deutsches Recht) was an institute for legal research and reform founded on 26 June 1933 in Nazi Germany. After suspending its operations during the Second World War in August 1944, it was abolished ...
. Then on 27 January 1934, Hitler made Rosenberg the "Führer's Representative for the Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education of the NSDAP." This was the origin of the
Amt Rosenberg.
Racial theories
As the Nazi Party's chief
racial theorist, Rosenberg oversaw the construction of a human racial "ladder" that justified
Hitler's racial and ethnic policies. Rosenberg built on the works of
Arthur de Gobineau
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Ary ...
,
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
,
Madison Grant
Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist, and as an advocate of scientific racism. Grant is less noted f ...
and the
Klansman
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Hispanic and Latino Americans, L ...
Lothrop Stoddard
Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, political scientist, conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, and white nationalist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocated eugenics and sci ...
as well as on the beliefs of Hitler. Rosenberg placed
Blacks
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...
and
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
at the very bottom of the ladder, while at the very top stood the "
Aryan" race. Rosenberg promoted the
Nordic theory
Nordicism is an ideology of racism which views the historical race concept of the "Nordic race" as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and seminal Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book '' The Passing of the Great Race'' ...
which considered the
Nordic race
The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming th ...
the "
master race
The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative " Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans").
T ...
",
[Rosenberg wrote: "No people of Europe is racially homogeneous, also Germany is not. According to the latest research, we accept five races all of which reveal perceptibly different types. But it is beyond question that the true culture bearer for Europe has been in the first place the Nordic race. Great heroes, artists and founders of states have grown from this blood." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p.576] superior to all others, including to other Aryans (Indo-Europeans). He was also influenced by the
Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory
The Judeo-Masonic conspiracy is an anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theory involving an alleged secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons. These theories were popular on the far-right, particularly in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ger ...
promoted by the Catholic
counter-revolutionary
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revolut ...
tradition, such as the book ''Le Juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples chrétiens'' (1869) by
Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux, which he translated into German under the title ''The Eternal Jew''.
Rosenberg got the racial term ''
Untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
'' from the title of Stoddard's 1922 book ''The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man'', which had been adopted by the Nazis from that book's German version ''Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen'' (1925).
Rosenberg reshaped the
Nazi racial policy
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
over the years, but it always consisted of
Aryan supremacy, extreme
German nationalism
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one na ...
and rabid
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
. Rosenberg also outspokenly opposed
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
– notably in his pamphlet "Der Sumpf" ("The Swamp", 1927). He viewed homosexuality as a hindrance to the expansion of the Nordic population.
Rosenberg's attitude towards
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
was flexible because it depended on the particular nation which he referred to.
[Rosenberg wrote: "The Czechs, for their part, were stratified by race into a Nordic-Slavic nobility, and lower orders of an Alpine Dinaric stamp, thus displaying that type which the modern Czech so plainly embodies." Page 108, "The one eyed maniacal Ziska of Trocnow, whose head in the Prague National Museum shows him to have been an eastern hither Asiatic type, was the first expression of this totally destructive Taborite movement, which the ]Czechs
The Czechs ( cs, Češi, ; singular Czech, masculine: ''Čech'' , singular feminine: ''Češka'' ), or the Czech people (), are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, c ...
must thank for the extermination of the last remaining Germanic powers active within them, as well as the repression of all that was truly Slavic." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p.109[Rosenberg wrote: "The entire east is diversified throughout; one will need to speak here of the Russian character, of the Germanised peoples of ]Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
and Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, whereat also Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
has developed its clearly outlined individuality." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p.643 As a result of the ideology of "
Drang nach Osten
(; 'Drive to the East',Ulrich Best''Transgression as a Rule: German–Polish cross-border cooperation, border discourse and EU-enlargement'' 2008, p. 58, , Edmund Jan Osmańczyk, Anthony Mango, ''Encyclopedia of the United Nations and Interna ...
" ("Drive to the East"), Rosenberg saw his mission as the conquest and colonization of the Slavic East. In ''Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts'' Rosenberg describes Russian Slavs as being overwhelmed by Bolshevism.
[Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskämpfe unserer Zeit, München: Hoheneichen, 1930, here p.214: In the year 1917, Russian Man finally disintegrated. He fell into two parts. The Nordic Russian blood gave up the struggle, the eastern Mongolian, powerfully stirred up, summoned Chinese and desert peoples to its aid, Jews and Armenians pushed forward to leadership, and the Kalmuch Tartar ]Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
became master. The demonry of this blood directed itself instinctively against everything which outwardly still had some honest effect, looked manly and Nordic, like a living reproach against a type of man whom Lothrop Stoddard described as "subhuman".
Regarding
Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...
, he favoured setting up a buffer state to ease the pressure on the German eastern frontier, while agreeing with the notion that Russia could be exploited for the benefit of Germany.
[Andreyev, Caterine (1990)
''Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Émigré Theories'' London: Cambridge University Press. p.30. ] During the war, Rosenberg was in favour of collaboration with the East Slavs against Bolshevism and offering them national independence unlike other Nazis such as Hitler and Himmler who dismissed such ideas.
Religious theories
Rosenberg was raised as a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, but he rejected
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
later in his life. 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.
In his 1920 book ''Immorality in the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
'', Rosenberg identified Jews with the
antichrist
In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form) 1 John ; . 2 John . ...
.
[Rosenberg wrote: "The hate of Jesus combined with an unfathomable lack of understanding for Jesus that is showing in the works of today's Jewry almost without disguise and culminates in the systematic Jewish Bolshevik persecution of Christianity in Russia goes back almost 2000 years. The personality of ]Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
was the strongest storm against Jewish nature, which the Jew has always felt and known and only Christian over-tolerance could deem it possible to build a bridge. There can be no peace between Christ and the antichrist; there can only be a winner."
Original in German: "Der Haß, verbunden mit abgrundtiefer Verständnislosigkeit der Person Jesu gegenüber, der in den Erzeugnissen der heutigen Juden kaum mehr verhüllt zum Ausdruck kommt und in den planmäßigen Christenverfolgungen seitens der jüdischen bolschewistischen Machthaber in Rußland seinen Höhepunkt erreicht hat, dieser Haß dauert jetzt bald 2000 Jahre unverändert fort. Die Persönlichkeit Christi ist der stärkste Ansturm gegen jüdisches Wesen; das hat der Jude von jeher gefühlt und gewußt, einzig christliche Übertoleranz könnte glauben, hier eine Brücke schlagen zu können. Frieden kann es zwischen Christ und Antichrist nicht geben; es siegt entweder der eine oder der andere."
Rosenberg, Alfred (1943) 920
__NOTOC__
Year 920 ( CMXX) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* December 17 – Romanos I has himself crowned co-emperor of the Byza ...
''Unmoral im Talmud''. Franz Eher Verlag, p.19 He rejected Christianity for its universality, for its doctrine of
original sin (at least for Germans who he declared on one occasion were born noble), and for its teachings on the
immortality of the soul
Christian mortalism is the Christianity, Christian belief that the human Soul (spirit), soul is not naturally Immortality of the soul, immortal and may include the belief that the soul is “sleeping” after death until the Resurrection of the ...
, saying, "indeed, absorbing Christianity enfeebled a people." Publicly, Rosenberg affected to deplore Christianity's degeneration owing to Jewish influence. Following
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
's ideas, he condemned what he called "negative Christianity" (the
orthodox beliefs of the Protestant and
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
churches), arguing for a so-called
"positive" Christianity[Rosenberg wrote: "From the description of Jesus one can select very different features. His personality often makes its appearance as soft and pitying, then, again, bluff and rough. But it is always supported by inward fire. It was in the interest of the Roman church, with its lust for power, to represent subservient humility as the essence of Christ in order to create as many servants as possible for this motivated 'ideal'. To correct this representation is a further ineradicable requirement of the German movement for renewal. Jesus appears to us today as self-confident lord in the best and highest sense of the word." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p. 604][Rosenberg wrote: "For this reason Jesus, in spite of all Christian churches, signifies a pivotal point in our history. He became the god of the Europeans, yet, not seldom did he appear in a repellent distortion.]"If the concentrated feeling of personality which built Gothic cathedrals and inspired a
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
portrait penetrated more clearly into the consciousness of the general public, a new wave of culture would begin. But the prerequisite for this is the overcoming of the former statutory values of the 'Christian' churches." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p. 391 based on Chamberlain's argument that Jesus was a member of an Indo-European, Nordic enclave which was resident in ancient
Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
who struggled against
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
.
[Rosenberg quotes Dr. Emil Jung referring to statements by the Syrian Christian preacher Ephraem (4th century): "Jesus' mother was a Danaite woman (that is, someone who was born in Dan), and he had a Latin as his father. Ephraem sees this to be not unhonorable and adds: 'Jesus thus derived his ancestry from two of the greatest and most famous nations, namely, from the ]Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
ns on the maternal side and from the Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
on the paternal.'" ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century"'' (1930), p. 76[Rosenberg wrote: "Herder once demanded that the religion dedicated to Jesus should become a religion of Jesus. This was what Chamberlain strove for. A completely free man who disposed inwardly over the entire culture of our times, he has shown the deepest sensitivity for the superhuman simplicity of Christ. He represented Jesus as what he had once appeared to be: a mediator between man and god." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century"'' (1930), p. 623] Significantly, in his work explicating the Nazi intellectual belief system, ''
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (german: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi paper '' Völkischer Beobachter''. The titular ...
'', Rosenberg cryptically alludes to and lauds the early Christian heretic
Marcion
Marcion of Sinope (; grc, Μαρκίων ; ) was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created ...
(who rejected the Old Testament as well as the notion of Christ as the Jewish Messiah) and the Manichaean-inspired, "Aryo-Iranian"
Cathari
Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Fol ...
, as being the more authentic interpreters of Christianity versus historically dominant Judaeo-Christianity;
[Rosenberg wrote: "It is characteristic of Roman Christianity that where possible it eliminates the personality of its founder, in order to put in its place the church structure of a rulership by priests." ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930) p. 160] moreover these ancient, externally Christian metaphysical forms were more "organically compatible with the Nordic sense of the spiritual and the Nordic 'blood-soul'." For Rosenberg, the anti-intellectual, religious
doctrine
Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system ...
was inseparable
[Rosenberg wrote: "The ancient Germanic idea of god is likewise inconceivable without spiritual freedom. Jesus also spoke of the kingdom of heaven within us. The strength of the spiritual search already shows itself in the world wanderer, ]Odin
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...
, and it can be seen in the seeker and believer, Eckehart, and we see it in all great men from Luther
Luther may refer to:
People
* Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation
* Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement
* Luther (give ...
to Lagarde. This soul also lived within the venerable Thomas of Aquinas