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Journal article on Rosenberg's "Myth of the 20th Century," including its wide readership and the influence of its statements as "pillars of an ideological building"

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Date: November 1942

Literal Title: Extract from Buecher Kunde . . . "Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts." (The Myth of the 20th Century).

Defendant: Alfred Rosenberg

Total Pages: 2

Language of Text: English

Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)

Evidence Code: PS-3554

Citation: IMT (page 2427)

HLSL Item No.: 452203

Notes:No author is stated for the article. In the transcript the evidence code is mis-stated as PS 2554; 3554 is correct.

Trial Issues

Education, propaganda, and youth programs (IMT) Biographical and character evidence (all cases)

BOOK NEWS [Buecher-Kunde] Number 11, November 1942, Page 1.
The Myth of the 20th Century
In the midst of the German people's most violent struggle for its natural and cultural existence, we are celebrating the anniversary of a book, which, next to the Fuehrer's book, has contributed to a unique extent to the rise and to the spiritual and psychical development of this people. Twelve years after Alfred Rosenberg's "Mythus" first appeared, a million copies of the book have been published and circulated. If this large number is already a proof of the exceptionally great effect of this book, it is even far more so when we consider how many readers have been reached through these million books. We still recall the years after 1930 during which small gatherings met together in all parts of the Reich to promote a new ideology by means of the "Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts". It is just through this book that during the time of struggle we have come again to know communal reading and discussions amongst the workers. We
242
3554-PS
are therefore not incorrect in assuming that many million Germans not only know the "Mythus" by name but have read it themselves.
The effect of a book is certainly not estimated only by the number of its editions and readers. This book, however, was bound to fulfill its revolutionary task, since it circulated among the best elements of the people, the fighters. By their attitude and in their own words, they passed on the basic ideas of Alfred Rosenberg to the many Germans who at first fought shy of reading a "difficult" book of this kind, and still do so. It must therefore be stated that the phrases coined by Alfred Rosenberg have passed into the consciousness of the whole people and it is just today that they are proving pillars of an ideological building whose completion is the purpose of the fight being waged not least today.

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