Alfred Rosenberg: die Tagebücher von 1934 bis 1944

A scholarly edition of Rosenberg's diaries, containing an extensive introduction by the editors (pp. 9-116); Rosenberg's diaries (pp. 117-523), with annotations by the editors; and additional material (pp. 525-611), e.g. excerpts from Rosenberg's speeches, articles, and reports, as well as 23 Nazi documents, a bibliography, and a name index. The introduction by Matthäus und Bajohr emphasizes that Rosenberg played a more significant role in planning and implementing the Holocaust than hitherto believed. He embraced radical antisemitism early on, and remained true to his views and to Hitler until the end. He associated the Jews with Bolshevism and with a world conspiracy already in the early 1920s, and had an influence on Hitler. In the 1930s Rosenberg advocated the creation of an Antisemitic International, and after the "Kristallnacht" pogrom he profiled himself as an exceptionally radical antisemite. From 1939 he proclaimed that the "Jewish question" could only be solved by ridding Germany and Europe of the Jews, and in 1941 he officially embraced their extermination. He helped to turn the "Ostgebiete" into the scene of the Final Solution through ideological orchestration, but also by organizing it practically. Argues that his diaries give reason to reassess the relationship between the central government and the periphery in the planning and implementation of the Holocaust, and to emphasize the center, as well as the role of ideology. The diaries further elucidate the structures and networks of the Nazi system and Rosenberg's loyalty to it. The diaries went missing in 1946 and reappeared in the U.S. in 2013.