Nazi ideologist and Head of the Nazi party's Foreign-Policy Department
Born in Revel (now Tallinn) in Estonia, Rosenberg came from a family of Baltic Germans. He studied architecture at the universities of Riga and Moscow. Fleeing to Germany in 1918, he settled in Munich, where he associated with White Russian reactionary emigre circles and joined the ultra Nationalist and semi-occult Thule Society. He was already becoming known for his anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik views through such works as Die Spur der Juden im Wandel der Zeiten (The Track of the Jews through the Ages) and Un-moral im Talmud (Immorality in the Talmud), both published in 1919. Rosenberg joined the German Workers' party in the wake of Adolf Hitler, whom he impressed with his theories of a Judeo-Bolshevik-Masonic conspiracy constantly engaged in 'undermining the foundations of our existence.' In 1921 he became chief Editor of the party newspaper, the Voelkischer Beobachter, and was one of the principal disseminators of the protocols of the elders of Zion, a forgery of the tsarist police that appealed to Rosenberg's belief in the active working of occult powers to subvert civilisation. He participated in the abortive Munich Beer-Hall Putsch of November 1923 and was protected by Hitler from the attacks of other leading Nazis, who were affronted by Rosenberg's Baltic origins and his intellectual arrogance. Rosenberg's role as chief Nazi ideologist was enhanced by his founding, in 1929, of the Kampfbund fur Deutsche Kultur (Fighting League for German Culture) and, above all, by his major work, "Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts" (The Myth of the Twentieth Century; 1930). As an expression of Nazi philosophy this book had an influence comparable to that of Hitler's Mein Kampf. It was enormously popular, and by 1942 had sold over a million copies. The book incorporated the racial theories of Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart chamberlain, proclaiming that race was the decisive factor determining art, science, culture, and the course of world history (see racism). The Teutons represented the "master race" of "Aryans," whose task it was to subdue Europe. This belief was combined with denunciation of Judaism and Christianity, whose ideals of compassion and charity must yield to the neo-pagan Teutonic sense of honour. The swastika was the symbol of blood and soil, and denoted the worship of Wotan and the ancient Norse gods. The Jews had subverted the ideal of race with their internationalism and a religion of humanity destructive of the Teutonic spirit. With doctrines such as these, Rosenberg's Myths sought to systematise Nazi ideology. In 1930 Rosenberg was elected to the Reichstag as Nazi deputy for Hesse-Darmstadt, and he made a rapid ascent to positions of influence after 1933. In 1934 Hitler appointed him the 'Fuhrer's delegate for the supervision of the whole intellectual and philosophical education and training of the National Socialist party.' From 1933 to 1945 he also headed the party's foreign-affairs department, which gave him access especially to fascist parties in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In 1939 he established in Frankfurt the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage (Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question). Rosenberg declared in his inaugural address there that the "Jewish question" would be considered solved 'only after the last Jew has left the Greater German living space.' The institute's principal task was to ransack the libraries, archives, and art galleries of European Jewry in order to promote its "research." After the fall of France, Einsatzstab Rosenberg (Operational Staff Rosenberg) seized French art treasures and sent them to Germany. In November 1941 Rosenberg was appointed Reichsminister fur die Besetzten Ostgebiete (Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories), where his policy differed in detail but not in principle from the extermination policy perpetrated by Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA). Although he had always regarded the Slavs as subhuman, Rosenberg regretted the policy of Germanisation, believing it politically harmful; however, he found no support for this view. Condemned to death at Nuremberg as a major war criminal, he was hanged in 1946.
