Thus, Rosenberg used his foreign policy office to influence world opinion on behalf of National Socialism.
It is interesting to note in passing that Rosenberg states, at Page 4 of this document, that the Romanian anti-Semitic leader, Cuza, followed his suggestions as—in Rosenberg’s words—“he had recognized in me an unyielding anti-Semite.” We will hear more of this affair shortly.
The nature and extent of the activities of the APA are amply disclosed in a single document. This is the principal document to which I will refer in this phase of the case against Rosenberg. This document bears our Number 007-PS and is entitled, “Report on the Activities of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Party from 1933 to 1943.” It is signed by Rosenberg. Portions of Annex 1, attached to the report, have already been read into evidence as Exhibit GB-84. The body of the report and Annex 2 have not been referred to heretofore. As will be seen the document contains a recital of widespread activities in foreign countries. These activities range from the promotion of economic penetration to fomentation of anti-Semitism; from cultural and political infiltration to the instigation of treason. Activities were carried on throughout the world and extended to such widely separated points as the Middle East and Brazil.
Many of the APA’s achievements were brought about through the subtle exploitation of personal relationships. Reading from the middle of the first paragraph on Page 2 of the translation, which refers to activities in Hungary, we learn that:
“The first foreign state visit after the seizure of power took place through the mediation of the foreign policy office. Julius Gömbös, who in former years had himself pursued anti-Semitic and racial tendencies and with whom the office maintained a personal connection, had reached the Hungarian Premier’s chair. . . .”
The APA endeavored to strengthen the war economy by shifting the source of food imports to the Balkans, as stated in Paragraph 3 on Page 2 of the translation:
“Motivated by reasons of war economy, the office advocated the transfer of raw material purchases from overseas to the areas accessible by overland traffic routes.”
Then he goes on to point out that they had successfully shifted the source of food imports, particularly fruit and vegetable imports, to the Balkans as a result of the activities of the offices.
Activities in Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg were confined, according to the report, to “observation of existing conditions”—a phrase which may have broad connotations—and “to the establishment of relations, especially of a commercial nature.”
In Iran the APA achieved a high degree of economic penetration, in addition to promoting cultural relations. I quote from the middle of the third paragraph on Page 3:
“The office’s initiative in developing, with the help of commercial circles, entirely new methods for the economic penetration of Iran found expression, in an extraordinarily favorable way, in reciprocal trade relations. Naturally, in Germany, too, this initiative encountered a completely negative attitude and resistance on the part of the competent State authorities, an attitude that at first had to be overcome. In the course of a few years, the volume of trade with Iran was multiplied five-fold and in 1939 Iran’s trade turnover with Germany had attained first place.”
In the last sentence on Page 3. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Well, now, Mr. Brudno, will you kindly explain to the Tribunal how the paragraph that you just read bears upon the guilt of Rosenberg in this Trial?
MR. BRUDNO: If Your Honor pleases, we submit that the conspirators used, as one of the tools of conspiracy, the economic penetration of those countries which they deemed strategically necessary to have within the Axis orbit. The activities of Rosenberg in the field of foreign trade contributed materially, we submit, to the advancement of the conspiracy, as charged in the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you suggesting that it is a crime to try and stimulate trade in foreign countries?
MR. BRUDNO: If Your Honor pleases, the expression of ideological opinions or the advancement of foreign trade do not, in themselves, constitute a crime, we agree.
THE PRESIDENT: There is nothing here about ideological considerations. It is simply a question of trade.
MR. BRUDNO: Further on, Your Honor, he mentions the cultural activities.
THE PRESIDENT: I was confining myself, in order to try to get on, to the particular paragraph that you had just cited.
MR. BRUDNO: I see, Your Honor; we are merely trying to show, Sir, that the Germans used the foreign trade weapon as a material part of the conspiratorial program.
THE PRESIDENT: As I have said before, it is not possible for me or for any member of this Tribunal to conduct the case of the Prosecution for them. We can only tell them when we think they are being irrelevant and cumulative and ask them to try to cut down their presentation. It is for you to cut it down.
MR. BRUDNO: Rosenberg goes on to state, if Your Honor please, at Page 3 of the translation, that “Afghanistan’s neutral position today is largely due to the office’s activity.”
In connection with Arabia, he says:
“The Arab question, too, became part of the work of the office. In spite of England’s tutelage of Iraq, the office established a series of connections to a number of leading personalities of the Arab world, smoothing the way for strong bonds to Germany. In this connection, the growing influence of the Reich in Iran and Afghanistan did not fail to have repercussions in Arabia.”
Rosenberg concluded his report with the statement that, with the outbreak of war, he was entitled to consider his task as terminated, and then he says, “The exploitation of the many personal connections in many lands can be resumed under a different guise.”
I now turn to Annex 2 of the report, which is found at Page 9 of the translation. This annex deals with activities in Romania. Here the APA’s intrigue was more insidious, its interference in the internal affairs of a foreign nation more pronounced. After describing the failure of what Rosenberg terms a “basically sound anti-Semitic tendency,” due to dynastic squabbles and Party fights, Rosenberg describes the APA’s influence in the unification of conflicting elements. I quote, beginning with the ninth line of the translation:
“What was lacking was the guiding leadership of a political personality. After manifold groping trials the office believed such a personality to have been found in the former Minister and poet, Octavian Goga. It was not difficult to convince this poet, pervaded by instinctive inspiration, that a greater Romania, though it had to be created in opposition to Vienna, could be maintained only together with Berlin. Nor was it difficult to create in him the desire to link the fate of Romania with the future of the National Socialist German Reich in good time. By bringing continuing influence to bear, the office succeeded in inducing Octavian Goga as well as Professor Cuza to amalgamate the parties under their leadership on an anti-Semitic basis. Thus they could carry on with united strength the struggle for Romania’s renascence internally and her Anschluss with Germany externally. Through the office’s initiative both parties, which had heretofore been known by distinct names, were merged as the National Christian Party, under Goga’s leadership and with Cuza as Honorary President.”
Rosenberg’s man, Goga, was supported by two splinter parties, which had not joined the anti-Semitic trend, and Rosenberg states: “Through intermediaries, the office maintained constant contact with both tendencies.”
Goga, the man supported by Rosenberg, was appointed Prime Minister by the King in December 1937. The pernicious influence of Rosenberg’s ideology had achieved a major triumph, for he states:
“Thus a second government on racial and anti-Semitic foundations had appeared in Europe, in a country in which such an event had been considered