"The fact that the Führer had assigned me to the leadership of our eastern policy displeased Himmler and Bormann considerably. And since nothing could be done about it directly, they tried indirectly. The Führer, who up to then had accepted my ideas without reservation, suddenly assumed a much changed attitude when he referred to a memorandum which, according to him, gave to the entire eastern problem a wholly different aspect than the opinions held by some of our gentlemen, meaning me. The mysterious memorandum, which was mentioned again later, I never saw. This, then, is how my difficult fight for a more generous treatment of the fateful problem of the East began. Step by step the most urgent matters were taken care of, but much that was important was neglected. Precious, irreplaceable time was lost. But Martin Bormann harshly upheld the interests of the Reich against the soft Rosenberg who might have had more sympathy for the Slavic people than would be advantageous to eastern policies in war times, and Himmler reinforced this attitude by insisting upon exclusive authority in combating the partisans.
The demands I made in my speech of June 20, 1941, on our eastern policies, were turned down. Himmler, Koch, and Bormann swaggered all over the place. And when volunteer battalions were recruited from among the eastern people, Himmler moved heaven and earth to get them under his command. This was easy with the Estonians and the Letts, since they were considered Germanic peoples. But when it came to the others, formerly so despised as Asiatics, there was a great to-do at the Leader's Headquarters about deposing the general of these volunteers with whom I was on very friendly terms. As for the Cossacks, they were acceptable, at least as far as their use in the Balkans went. The Russian General Vlassov, maligned and spat upon for two years, whose appointment I had endorsed since 1942, suddenly became popular toward the end of 1944, when Himmler, without informing me, began to influence Hitler in his favour. This was bound to offend all the other brave non-Russian combatants in the East. Himmler knew nothing about the East; what he gradually learned from me about Berger was superficial, and even when he realised that my ideas were right, he still wanted to be the one to translate them into actuality, no matter how. Sometimes without, sometimes with, the aid of Vlassov, depending upon how it suited his sickly mania for power. Not as a strong personality, not as a brilliant thinker, but always as an insidious traducer and Jesuitic trickster."
"Twice he gave me an argument that was also bandied about by Koch: Once before, in 1918, he said, Germany had met the Ukraine half-way. The result had been the murder of the German General, Field Marshal von Eichhorn, by Ukrainian nationalists. He maintained that it would be dangerous in the midst of a war to permit political centralisation. I answered briefly that I considered the report about von Eichhorn's murder false. The State Archives at Potsdam had enabled me to find out what had really happened. The documents available showed beyond doubt that von Eichhorn had been murdered by a Russian social revolutionary named Donskoi, aided by two Jews who escaped arrest. Donskoi was executed in August, 1918. Through Bormann I informed the Führer accordingly, but never knew whether Bormann passed on the report to him. Nor could the entire matter have been considered a political argument, anyway. Koch and a small circle surrounding him constantly sneered at the backwardness of the Slavs, and so on. This provoked me into issuing an order to the effect that all boastful talk about superior lordliness was to be stopped, and that a decent and just attitude toward the Ukrainians was to be observed. I also issued comprehensive instructions on the reorganisation of the local school system."
"In the beginning Hitler seemed not disinclined to accept my proposals that the East be ruled with three-quarters psychology and only one-quarter force. But later he got entangled in other ideas, and lost all that feeling for space which he still had when I was appointed: the comprehension that the East was a continent in itself, in connection with which I was to counsel and help him. In 1944, I read Coulaincourt's Memoirs of Napoleon, and was amazed to find that his attitude toward Russia was similar to mine. Coulaincourt warned Napoleon about the Russian winter, but Napoleon declared that by that time the war would be over. Coulaincourt said Alexander would not conclude a peace treaty. Napoleon replied that none of them understood politics, and he himself knew better. Once he was in Moscow, the Czar would soon enough make peace. In both cases, luck went against them before Moscow. Just as Napoleon had refused to call upon the Russian peasants to revolt, so Hitler, applauded by his confidants, rejected my proposals regarding the political and cultural autonomy of all the peoples of Eastern Europe and their induction into the life of the continent."
-- Dr. Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg and the East
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Originally Posted by friedrich braun
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