Minister of the Occupied Territories and Racial Theorist Alfred Rosenberg declared that the Armenians were Indo-European, or Aryans, and thus they were immediately subject to conscription. According to Versteeg, however, "Although Armenians officially were considered 'Aryans', the notion of them being 'Levantine traders', similar to the Jews, was deep-seated in Nazi circles, and racial 'purists' along with Hitler himself were prone to look upon the Armenians as 'non-Aryans.'"[1]