Alfred Rosenberg was born in Tallinn, Russia (now Estonia), on 12th January, 1893. He studied architecture at the Riga Technical Institute where he joined a pro-German student group.

Rosenberg supported the Whites during the Russian Revolution and after the Bolsheviks gained control of the country he escaped to France. In 1918 he moved to Germany where he settled with the large community of White Russians in Munich.

Rosenberg joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) and in 1923 became editor of the party newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter. He regularly visited Adolf Hitler in Landsberg Prison and it is claimed he helped write Mein Kampf. He also wrote several pamphlets that reflected his rabid anti-Semitism.

In 1929 Rosenberg founded the Militant League for German Culture. The following year he was elected to the Reichstag. He hoped to become Germany's foreign minister but lost out to Joachim von Ribbentrop. Instead he was given the task of supervising ideological training and education in the NSDAP.

After the initial success of Operation Barbarossa Rosenberg became minister for eastern territories. However, he had to share power over the occupied areas with Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler and Erich Koch. During this period he plundered art and antiques owned by Jews living in Poland and the Soviet Union.

Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the Second World War. Accused of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial he was found guilty and executed on 1st October, 1946.