THE PRESIDENT: With reference to the documents of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, the Tribunal admits the following documents which were objected to: Number 11, Number 47, Number 48, Number 50, Number 54, and Number 71.
The remainder of the documents which were objected to are rejected. I will enumerate them: Number 5, Number 10, Number 14, Number 19b, Number 21, Number 22, Number 27, Number 31, Number 39, Number 55, Number 60, Number 61, Number 68, Number 69.
That is all.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, last night at the end of the session the counsel for Admiral Raeder submitted a certain number of documents including Document Raeder-105 of Document Book 5. This document is an excerpt from the German White Book, Number 5. It is the testimony of an old man of 72, a native of Luxembourg, who had lived in Belgium for only 6 months, and who affirms that in April 1940 he saw 200 French soldiers in Belgium. These soldiers, who he said were French, were in armored cars.
I must ask the Tribunal to allow me to make objection to this Document Number 7 of the White Book Number 5, the original of which has never been submitted and has not even been reproduced in the White Book, as is the case with a certain number of documents in the German White Book. It is necessary that in the name of France and of Belgium a protest-a formal, categorical protest- be made against such an assertion. At no time before the invasion of Belgium by the German forces did any French troops set foot on Belgian soil. The reading of this document, Number Raeder-105 of Document Book 5 of Admiral Raeder, enables us to understand how there came to be the error in the testimony by Grandjenet that is cited.
I have already told the Tribunal that this man is 72 years old and was from Luxembourg. To the question put to him by the German authorities as to how he recognized the soldiers he had seen as being of French nationality, he answered:
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"I was quite sure that they were French soldiers because I know their uniform well. Moreover, I recognized the soldiers because of the language they used when they spoke to me."
Now, as far as the uniform is concerned, the Tribunal knows that at the time when these events took place, the Belgian Army had a uniform of the same color as the French Army and a helmet of the same shape. As for the language, the Tribunal knows that a great part of the Belgian population who live along the Luxembourg frontier speak French, and the Belgian soldiers recruited in these districts speak French.
The Tribunal will certainly remember that this witness, who is a very old man, had only been living for 6 months in Belgium and probably had only a limited experience with things Belgian-and especially with the Belgian Army.
At any rate, we assert in the name of France and in the name of Belgium that before 10 May 1940 no French troops, no organized French troops, penetrated Belgium, and that the isolated individuals who did go into Belgium were interned there.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Siemers?
DR. SIEMERS: If it please the Tribunal, may I reply very briefly?
This matter concerns a document from the White Book, on which a decision has already been handed down once and which was granted me. I propose that the Prosecution be requested to submit the original if they dispute the correctness of this document. In this I am in agreement with a decision of the Tribunal according to which the application is to be made for the presentation of the original if it is available, or application should be made so that whoever has the original should produce it. As far as I know the Prosecution have the original, since all original documents were located in the Foreign Office in Berlin, or in the alternative place of safekeeping, and all the originals of these White Books fell into the hands of the Allies.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by "original"? The original, I suppose, is the original of the White Book. Is that what you mean?
DR. SIEMERS: Yes, I mean now, Mr. President, the original of this court record.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this comes from a White Book. That is a printed document, I suppose, I do not suppose it contains the original of the statement of this Luxembourg man.
DR. SIEMERS: The White Book is a collection of numerous documents, and the single original documents are in the possession of
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the Foreign Office; in part they were from the files of the French General Staff, and partly they were records of court proceedings. Regarding the contents of this document...
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, you are not proposing that we should strike the document out, but the Tribunal will certainly take into account the facts to which you have drawn our notice.
M. DUBOST: This is an application that the Tribunal shall refuse to admit that document, Mr. President. At the same time this is a protest against the assertion made by the Defense that French soldiers violated Belgian neutrality in the course of the month of April. I hope the Tribunal will allow me to add a few words of explanation. The White Book, which we have here, comprises two parts. The first part reproduces texts and the second part gives photostatic copies of these texts. In the first part, which simply reproduces the texts, is found the document which I ask the Tribunal to strike from the record. We have searched in the second part which gives the photostatic copies of the documents in the first part, and we do not find it. We state to the Tribunal that the original of the document, which we ask the Tribunal to strike out, has not been reproduced in the German White Book, since it is not to be found in the second part.
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, I believe that M. Dubost's entire explanation refers to the question of the value of the document as evidence and not to the question of the admissibility of the document. That this document is in order appears to me to be quite clear, since it is a record of court proceedings where a certain person, namely Grandjenet, has been interrogated. Everything said by M. Dubost referred more to the contents of the document than to the question of its value as evidence. May I ask therefore that the document be admitted, as has been done up to now, and ask that consideration be given to the fact that the document has value in connection with the other documents which have been granted to me and to Dr. Horn in his document book with reference to Holland and Belgium.
If, in the second part of the document book there is no photostatic copy...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Siemers, and M. Dubost, the Tribunal will consider the objection that has been made.
DR. SIEMERS: May I merely mention, Mr. President, that if the photostat is not in the book, as M. Dubost states, then this is due to the fact that this court record in its original text was German, and the facsimiles are those prepared from the original text in French, that is to say, of those documents which in their original version were in French. If necessary I would appeal to Geheimrat
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Von Schnieden as a witness regarding this record, since he at the time was informed about all the records of this type and helped in the work of compiling the book.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the Tribunal will consider the objection.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBUEHLER: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal I should like to say that the interrogatory put to the American Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Nimitz, is available. I received it the day before yesterday and in the meantime it has gone in to the interpreters for translation. With the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to submit it now, in connection with the cases of Admiral Doenitz and Admiral Raeder.
THE PRESIDENT: Have the Prosecution seen it?
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBUEHLER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got copies for us?
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBUEHLER: I had been informed that the copies for the Tribunal would be handed on by the General Secretary.
THE PRESIDENT: Unless we have copies, the document must not be read. It must be put off until we have copies.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBUEHLER: There are two copies in English and one in French.
I present the document as Number Doenitz-100.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbuehler, the Soviet members of the Tribunal do not have a copy of the document translated into their language, so you will present it at a later date.
Will the counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach present his case?
DR. FRITZ SAUTER (Counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach): Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I propose first of all to conduct the examination of the Defendant Schirach himself, and in the course of this examination I will bring to your attention the passage of the document book concerned, as the individual points come up. Following the examination of the defendant I shall then call my four witnesses, and at the end I intend to submit the remaining documents, insofar as these documents have not by that time been presented during the examination of the Defendant Von Schirach. I presume, Mr. President, that you agree to this procedure.
I now call to the witness stand, first, Baldur von Schirach.
[The Defendant Baldur von Schirach took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat the following oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing.
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[The defendant repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what is the date of your birth?
BALDUR VON SCHIRACH (Defendant): 9 May 1907.
DR. SAUTER: That means that a few days ago you were 39. You have been married for 14 years; is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: And you have four children, whose ages are. . .
VON SCHIRACH: 4, 8, 11, and 13 years.
DR. SAUTER: In the Third Reich you were mainly active as Youth Leader?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What offices did you fill in that connection, that is, offices in the Party and in the Government-please state also how long you held these various offices?
VON SCHIRACH: To start with, in 1929 I was the leader of the National Socialist Students' Union. In 1931 I became Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, at first on the staff of the SA Supreme Command; in 1932, Reich Leader for Youth Education of the NSDAP; in 1933, Youth Leader of the German Reich, at first under the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick. In 1934, I held the same position under the Reich Minister of Education, Rust. In 1936 the Reich Youth Leader became a leading Reich official, and in that capacity I came directly under the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor.
DR. SAUTER: Now, which of your offices were Party positions and which of the ones you have mentioned were offices of the Reich?
VON SCHIRACH: Party positions were the office of Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, and that of Reich Leader for Youth Education. Government positions: The Youth Leader of the German Reich, at first subordinate to the Minister of the Interior as I have described or under the Minister for Education, and then in an independent position.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you were removed from some of these offices in 1940. What positions in Youth Leadership did you lose in 1940, and what positions did you still continue to fill to the end?
VON SCHIRACH: In 1940 I left the position as the leader of Youth, that is, I left the office of the Reich Youth Leadership of the NSDAP, but I retained the office of Reichsleiter for Youth Education and with that the entire responsibility for German youth. I received as an additional new post that of Gauleiter of Vienna,
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which was combined with the governmental post of Reichsstatthalter of Vienna and also that of Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreis XVII.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we want now to come back to your activity as Youth Leader. There is an affidavit by you here dated 4 December 1945, 3302-PS. In this affidavit you stated to the Prosecution in December that you acknowledge yourself to be responsible for all youth education in the Third Reich.
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.
DR. SAUTER: Were you, when you gave the statement of guilt, under the impression that your successor, the late Reich Youth Leader Axmann, was dead?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: You thought that he died in the last battles of the war?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I was convinced that he had died in Berlin.
DR. SAUTER: In the meantime, Witness, you have learned from newspaper reports that your successor as Reich Youth Leader, this man Axmann, is still alive. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Do you want then, today, to support your affidavit regarding your personal responsibility as Youth Leader without reservation; or do you want to limit it in any respect today?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not want to limit this affidavit in any way. Although during the last years of his life Hitler gave orders to the Youth of which I do not know and also my successor, Axmann, particularly in 1944, gave orders with which I am not acquainted since the relationship between us had been broken off due to the events of the war, I stand by the statement that I have made in the expectation that the Tribunal will consider me the only person responsible in Youth Leadership and that no other Youth Leader will be summoned before a court for actions for which I have assumed responsibility.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I would now be interested in knowing whether possibly principles and directives which you received from Hitler or from any Party office or from any governmental quarter were the formula for your youth education; or whether, for your youth education, the principles were derived from the experiences which you had during your own youth and among the youth leaders of that time.
VON SCHIRACH: The latter is correct. Of course, the education of the Hitler Youth was an education on the basis of the National
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Socialist idea. But the specifically educational ideas did not originate with Hitler, they also did not originate with other leaders in the Party; they had their origin in youth itself, they originated with me, and they originated with my assistants.
DR. SAUTER: Perhaps you will be good enough now to explain to the Tribunal somewhat more In detail how you, yourself, arrived at those principles and that type of youth education, based on your own education, your personal development, and so forth?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the simplest way for me to do this would be for me here, very briefly, to sketch the story of my youth and describe also in that connection the youth organizations with which I came in contact. I can in that way save much time for my further statements.
My father was a professional officer in the Garde-Kuerassier Regiment of the Kaiser. I was born in Berlin and one year later my father retired and moved to Weimar, where he took over the management of the Court Theater there, which later became the Weimar National Theater. Thus I grew up in Weimar, and that town, which in a certain sense is the native city of all Germans, I regard as my native city. My father was well off; our home offered a great deal of intellectual and artistic stimulation, above all in the literary and musical field, but apart from and beyond the educational opportunities of our home, it was the atmosphere of the town itself, that atmosphere of the classic and also the postclassic Weimar which influenced my development. It was most of all the genius loci, which early captured my imagination. It is directly due to those experiences of my youth that later on I led the youth back again, year after year, to Weimar and to Goethe.
And the first document which is important in this connection for my case, which is Document Schirach-80, will prove just that. There is a brief reference in that document to one of the many speeches which I made in the course of my activity as Youth Leader to the leaders of the young generation, and in which I directed the youth to Goethe . . .
DR. SAUTER: May I interrupt you for a moment, Herr Von Schirach?
In this Document Number Schirach-80, Mr. President, there is -on Page 133 of Schirach's document book-a brief report on a Reich Cultural Convention (Reichskulturtagung) of the Hitler Youth in Weimar. This happens to be a report from 1937, but the defendant has already told you that such cultural conventions of the Hitler Youth took place every year in Weimar, the city of Schiller and Goethe. In this report, Document 80 of document book Schirach, there is, for instance, discussion of a speech of the defendant on
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the importance of Goethe for the National Socialist education of youth. It is said, in this connection, that at that time Schirach stated, and I quote...
THE PRESIDENT: You need not read it to us, Dr. Sauter. It refers to Goethe, that is all.
DR. SAUTER: In that case, Herr Von Schirach, will you continue?
VON SCHIRACH: It was not only the annual cultural convention but the annual meeting of the leaders of the Hitler Youth which took place in Weimar. Apart from that there were also what we called the "Weimar Festivals of German Youth."
What is important in this connection is that in this speech I quoted a sentence of Goethe which, to a certain extent, became the leitmotiv of all my educational work: "Youth fashions itself afresh from youth."
Even my worst enemy cannot deny the fact that I was to the young generation of the German people at all times not only the propagandist of National Socialism but also the propagandist of Goethe. A certain Herr Ziemer has submitted a lengthy affidavit against me in which he quarrels with the youth education for which I am responsible. I believe that Herr Ziemer did his work a little too superficially. In his description of German national education he should at least have taken into consideration my educational efforts designed to guide youth toward the life work of Goethe.
I joined my first youth organization when I was 10 years old. I was then just the age of the boys and girls who later on entered the Jungvolk. That youth organization which I joined was the so-called "Young German League," (Jungdeutschland Bund), which Count von der Goltz had founded, a Boy Scout organization. Count von der Goltz and Haeseler, impressed by the British Boy Scout movement, had formed Pathfinder units in Germany, and one of these Pathfinder organizations was the Jungdeutschland Bund just mentioned. It played an important part in the education of German youth until about 1918 or 1919.
Much more significant in my development, however, was the time which I spent in a country boarding school (Waldpaedagogium). This was an educational institution directed by an associate of the well-known educator, Hermann Lietz. There I was educated in the way which I later, on an entirely different basis...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, do you think the education of the defendant himself is in any way material for the Tribunal to hear? It is the education which he imparted which is the matter that is material. What he imparted, not what he himself took in.
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DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the defendant would nevertheless ask you to allow him these statements, particularly from the point of view that with them he wants to show you that the principles according to which he led youth education came to him not from Hitler and not from any Party source, but that they resulted from his own experiences in his own youth. It is, indeed, of some importance for the Tribunal to examine the question: According to what principles did the defendant direct youth education and how did he arrive at these principles? The defendant is asking permission to explain that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Sauter, the defendant has already taken some considerable time in telling us about his early youth and his education, and the Tribunal thinks that it ought to be cut short, and that not much more time ought to be taken up in dealing with the education of the defendant. As I have pointed out to you, what is material for us is the education he imparted to German youth and not the education which he received himself.
DR. SAUTER: We shall, of course, comply with your wish, Mr. President.
[Turning to the defendant.] Herr Von Schirach, will you please make your statements as brief as possible?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I can be very brief.
DR. SAUTER: Please, go on.
VON SCHIRACH: Lietz' idea was to give youth an education in which they have in the school an image of the state. The school community was a miniature state and in this school community was developed a self-administration of youth. I only want to point out in passing that he, too, was applying ideas which long before him had been developed by Pestalozzi and the great Jean Jacques. All modern education, of course, goes back somehow to Rousseau, be it a question of Hermann Lietz or the Boy Scouts, the Pathfinder movement or the German Wandervogel movement. At any rate, that idea of self-administration of youth in a school community gave me my idea of the self-leadership of youth.
My thought was to attract the younger generation in school to ideas that Froebel had originated 80 years before. Lietz wanted to win over youth from early school days onward.
I may perhaps mention very briefly that when in 1898 Lietz began his educational work, the British Major Baden-Powell was being surrounded by rebels in a South African town, and was training youngsters to scout in the woods and with this laid the groundwork for his own Boy Scout movement, and that in that same year, in 1898, Karl Fischer from Berlin-Steglitz founded the Wandervogel movement.
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DR. SAUTER: Witness, I think that this chapter, which is merely the historic background, might perhaps, in accordance with the wish of the President, be terminated now. If I understand you rightly then, you mean that those principles which you applied later on as Reich Youth Leader had become familiar to you in your own youth and in the youth movement of the time. Is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes; basically, yes. The basic principles of my later work originate there.
DR. SAUTER: There is one more point I want to know in this connection. Did this education at that time have any political or anti-Semitic tendencies and how did you happen to get into politics?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that educational work had no political and most certainly no anti-Semitic tendencies, because Lietz came from the circles around the Democrat Naumann, from the Damaschke circle.
DR. SAUTER: But how did you get into politics?
VON SCHIRACH: In the meantime the revolution had broken out. My father...
DR. SAUTER: The revolution of 1918-1919?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, the revolution of 1918-1919. My father had been thrown out of his position by the Reds. The National Assembly in Weimar had convened. The Weimar Republic had been founded. We had a parliamentary system, we had a democracy, or what we in Germany thought was a democracy-I doubt that it was one. It was about 1923. I was at home at the time. It was a period of general insecurity, want, and dissatisfaction; many respectable families had become beggars through the inflation, and the worker and the citizen had lost their savings. The name "Hitler" made its appearance in connection with the events of 9 November 1923. I was not able at the time to gain any exact information about him. This Trial has informed me and people of my generation for the first time what Hitler actually wanted. At that time I was not a National Socialist. Together with some boys of my age I joined a youth organization which had the name "Knappenschaft." It was in some way connected with the people's movement, but it was not bound to any party. The principles of that organization were simply comradeship, patriotism, and self-control There were about 100 boys from my city in it at the time who, in this youth organization, fought against the shallow tendencies of youth in the postwar period and against the dissipation indulged in by growing youngsters.
In that circle, as a 16-year-old, I first came in contact with socialism, for here I found youths from every level, working boys,
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craftsmen, young office employees, sons of farmers. But there were some older ones among us too, who were already settled in life, and some also who had been in the World War. From discussions with these comrades I came to grasp for the first time the consequences of the Versailles Treaty in their full. import. The situation of the youth at the time was this: The school boy had the prospect of struggling through somehow or other as a working student, and then he would in all probability become a member of the academic proletariat for the possibility of an academic career practically did not exist for him at all. The young worker had no prospect of finding an apprenticeship. For him there was nothing other than the grim misery of unemployment. It was a generation nobody would help unless it helped itself.
DR. SAUTER: And that circle to which you belonged as a 16-year-old boy, then, gradually drifted into the currents of National Socialism?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and in quite a natural way.
DR. SAUTER: How did it happen?
VON SCHIRACH: In central Germany there were disturbances. I need only mention the name of the Communist bandit leader, Max Holz, to indicate what conditions obtained at the time. And even after outward calm had come, conditions still prevailed that made it impossible to hold patriotic meetings because they were usually broken up by Communists. There came an appeal to us young people to furnish protection for these patriotic meetings, and we did. Some of us were wounded in doing this. One of us, a certain Garschar, was killed by Communists. In that manner a large number of national meetings took place which otherwise could not have been held in the Weimar Republic, National Socialist meetings, too; and to an increasing degree it was exactly such meetings that we had to protect because the Communist terror was directed against them particularly.
Through this protective activity I met leading National Socialists at first as speakers, naturally, not personally. I heard Count Reventlow speak; I think I heard Rosenberg then too; I heard Streicher speak and heard the first oratorical efforts of Sauckel, who soon after became Gauleiter of the National Socialist Party in Thuringia. In this way...
THE PRESIDENT: What date is he speaking of?
DR. SAUTER: This is the period around 1924, that is, a year after the Hitler Putsch.
In that way, Witness, the circle of which you were then a member came under National Socialist influences. Was this also supported with reading, reading of National Socialist literature?
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VON SCHIRACH: Of course, I do not know what my comrades read, with the exception of one book which I shall give you directly I know only what I read myself; I was interested at that time in the writings of the Bayreuth thinker, Chamberlain, in The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, in the writings of Adolf Bartels, in his Introduction to World Literature and History of German National Literature. There were works...
THE PRESIDENT: I have already told you that we do not want to know the full story of the defendant's education. He is now giving us a series of the books which he has read, but we are not interested.
DR. SAUTER: Very well, Mr. President.
VON SCHIRACH: I shall only say in one sentence that these were works which had no definite anti-Semitic tendencies, but through which anti-Semitism was drawn like a red thread. The decisive anti-Semitic book which I read at that time and the book which influenced my comrades...
DR. SAUTER: Please . . .
VON SCHIRACH: . . . was Henry Ford's book, The International Jew; I read it and became anti-Semitic. In those days this book made such a deep impression on my friends and myself because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success, also the exponent of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and apart from the great benefactor, Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who to us represented America.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal thinks, as I have said twice now, that the educational influences of the defendant are quite irrelevant to us. I do not want to say it again and, unless you can control the defendant and keep him to the point, I shall have to stop his evidence.
DR. SAUTER: But, Mr. President, is it not of interest to the Tribunal when judging this defendant and his personality that they know how the defendant became a National Socialist and how the defendant became anti-Semitic? I had thought...
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not of interest to the Tribunal.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, how did you then meet Hitler and how did you happen to join the Party?
VON SCHIRACH: I must say that I did not become a National Socialist because of anti-Semitism but because of Socialism. I met Hitler as early as 1925. He had just left Landsberg on the Lech, his imprisonment was ended, and he came to Weimar and spoke there. It was on that occasion that I was introduced to him. The
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program for the national community which he developed appealed to me so enormously because in it I found on a large scale something I had experienced in a small way in the camaraderie of my youth organization. He appeared to me to be the man who would pave the way into the future for our generation. I believed that through him there could be offered to this younger generation the prospect of work, of happiness. And in him I saw the man who would liberate us from the shackles of Versailles. I am convinced that without Versailles the rise to power of Hitler would never have happened. That dictate led to dictatorship.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, when did you then become a member of the Party?
VON SCHIRACH: I became a member of The Party in 1925. I joined the SA at the same time, with all my comrades.
DR. SAUTER: You were 18 at the time?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Why did you join the SA?
VON SCHIRACH: The SA furnished the protection for the meetings, and we simply continued in the SA, as part of the Party, the activities which we had carried out before in our youth organization.
DR. SAUTER: In 1926, Witness, that is when you were 19 years old, there was a Party rally ire Weimar?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: As far as I know, you talked to Hitler personally on that occasion; is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I was to have talked personally to Hitler one year earlier. On this occasion there was another meeting. He was making speeches at various mass meetings in Weimar, and he came back to Weimar again during the same year to speak before a smaller circle. Together with Rudolf Hess he paid a visit to the home of my parents and on that occasion he suggested that I should study in Munich.
DR. SAUTER: Why?
VON SCHIRACH: He thought I ought to know the Party at its very core and thought I would become acquainted with the Party work in that way. But I want to say here that at that time I did not have any intention at all of becoming a politician. Nevertheless, I was very much interested, of course, in getting acquainted with the Movement at the place where it had been founded.
DR. SAUTER: You went, then, to Munich, and studied there?
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VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I then went to Munich. At first I did not concern myself with the Party. I was occupied with Germanic studies, history, and the history of art; I wrote and I came into contact with many people in Munich who were not actually National Socialists but who belonged, I should say, to the periphery of the National Socialist movement. At that time I lived in the house of my friend, the publisher Bruckmann...
DR. SAUTER: Then in 1929 you became the head of the Movement within the universities. I think you were elected, not nominated, to that post?
VON SCHIRACH: The situation at the beginning was this: I attended Party meetings in Munich; in Bruckmann's salon I met Hitler and Rosenberg and many other men who later played an important role in Germany. And at the university I joined the university group of the National Socialist German Students League.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go on.
DR. SAUTER: Go on, Herr Von Schirach, you have just told us that you joined this university group in Munich. Will you please continue?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and I also started to take an active part in this group. I spoke there before my comrades, at first about my own work in the literary field, and then I began to give lectures to the students also about the National Socialist movement. I organized Hitler student meetings among the students in Munich, and then I was elected a member of the General Students Committee, the ASTA, and through this activity among the students I came more and more into contact with the Party leadership. In 1929, the man who was the then so-called Reich Leader of the National Socialist Students Union retired, and the question arose of who should be given the leadership of all the university groups. At that time Rudolf Hess, on behalf of the Fuehrer, questioned all university groups of the National Socialist University Movement and the majority of all these groups cast their vote for me to head the National Socialist Students Union. This accounts for the curious fact that I am the only Party leader who was elected into the Party leadership. That is something which has otherwise never occurred in the history of the Party.
DR. SAUTER: You mean to say by that, that all the others were nominated, and you alone were elected?
VON SCHIRACH: I was elected, and then I was confirmed in office.
DR. SAUTER: And if I am right, you were elected at the students' meeting at Graz in 1931.
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VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. That is wrong. I am now talking only of the National Socialist University Movement; I will come back to this point later.
Now I was leader of the National Socialist University Movement, and I reorganized this movement. I began my work as a speaker. In 1931 I was...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely it is sufficient that he became the leader. It really does not matter very much to us whether he was elected or not.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I am making every effort all the time to abbreviate this speech. But perhaps I may ask just one more question with reference to this subject.
Witness, then in 1931 you were, as far as I know, elected to the presidency of the General Congress of Austrian and German Students, comprising all parties, and elected, I think, unanimously. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: It is not correct
DR. SAUTER: Then explain briefly, Herr Von Schirach.
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. At the meeting of the General German Students Congress in 1931, at which all German students and all Austrian students and Sudeten-German students were represented, one of my collaborators whom I had suggested as leader was unanimously elected head of the entire student group. This was a very important affair for the youth and for the Party. Two years before the seizure of power the entire academic youth had unanimously given their vote to a National Socialist. After this students' rally at Graz, I had with Hitler a...
THE PRESIDENT: I think this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
DR. SAUTER: Very well.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. SAUTER: Witness, before the recess eve stopped at the fact that in 1929 you had been elected the leader of the academic youth. Two years later, Hitler made you Reich Youth Leader. How did that appointment come about?
VON SCHIRACH: After the student meeting at Graz in 1931, the success of which was very surprising to Hitler, I had a conference with him. In the course of that meeting, Hitler mentioned a conversation we had had previously. At that time he had asked
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me how it came about that the National Socialist University Movement was developing so quickly, whereas the other National Socialist organizations lagged behind in their development.
I told him at that time that one cannot lead youth organizations as an appendix of a political party; youth has to be led by youth, and I developed for him the idea of a youth state, that idea which had come to me from experiencing the school community, the school state. And thereupon in 1931 Hitler asked me whether I would like to assume the leadership of the National Socialist Youth Organization. This included youth cells, then the Hitler Youth and the National Socialist Students Organization, which also was in existence at that time. Several men had already tried their hand at the leadership of these organizations: the former Oberstfuehrer SA Leader Pfeffer, the Reichsleiter Buch, actually without much result.
I agreed and became then Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, temporarily a member of the staff of the Oberst SA Leader Roehm. In that position, as Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP in the staff of Roehm, I had the rank of an SA GruppenFuehrer and kept that rank also when, half a year later, I became independent in my position. That explains also the fact that I am an SA Obergruppenfuehrer. I got that rank many years later, honoris cause. However, I did not possess an SA uniform-even after 1933.
DR. SAUTER: Then in 1931 you became Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: That, of course, was a Party office?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes
DR. SAUTER: Then in 1932 you became Reichsleiter? At that time you were 25 years old. How did that come about?
VON SCHIRACH: I have already said that I had expressed the opinion to Hitler that youth could not be the appendix of another organization, but youth had to be independent; it had to lead itself; it had to become independent; and it was in fulfillment of a promise which Hitler had already given me that, half a year later, I became an independent Reichsleiter.
DR. SAUTER: Independent Reichsleiter, so that you were subordinate directly to the Party leader Hitler?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes
DR. SAUTER: With what material means was that youth organization created at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: With the means furnished by the young people themselves.
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DR. SAUTER: And how were those funds raised? By collections?
VON SCHIRACH: The boys and girls paid membership fees. A part of these membership fees was kept at the so-called district leadership offices, which corresponded to the Gauleitung in the Party or to the SA Gruppenfuehrung in the SA. Another part went to the Reich Youth Leader. The Hitler Youth financed its organization with its own means.
DR. SAUTER: Then, I am interested in the following: Did the Hitler Youth, which you created' and which was given Hitler's name, get its importance only after the seizure of power and by the seizure of power only, or what was the previous size of this youth organization which you created?
VON SCHIRACH: Before the seizure of power, in 1932 the Hitler Youth was already the largest youth movement of Germany. I should like to add here that the individual National Socialist youth organizations which I found when I took over my office as Reich Youth Leader were merged by me into one large unified youth movement. This youth movement was the strongest youth movement of Germany, long before we came to power.
On 2 October 1932, the Hitler Youth held a meeting at Potsdam. At that meeting more than 100,000 youth from all over the Reich met without the Party's providing a single pfennig. The means were contributed by the young people themselves. Solely from the number of the participants, it can be seen that that was the largest youth movement.
DR. SAUTER: That was, therefore, several months before the seizure of power, and at that time already more than 100,000 participants were at that rally at Potsdam?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: The Prosecution has made the accusation, Witness, that later, after the seizure of power-I believe in February 1933-you took over the Reich Committee of German Youth Organizations. Is that correct, and against whom was that action directed?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct. The Reich Committee of Youth Organizations was practically no more than a statistical office which was subordinate to the Reich Minister of the Interior. That office was managed by a retired general, General Vogt, who later became one of my ablest assistants. The taking over of that Reich Committee was a revolutionary act, a measure which youth carried out for youth, for from that day on dates the realization of the idea of the Youth State within the State. I cannot say any more about that.
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DR. SAUTER: The Prosecution further accuses you, Witness, of having dissolved the so-called "Grossdeutscher Bund" in 1933, that is, after the seizure of power. What was the Grossdeutscher Bund, and why did you dissolve it?
VON SCHIRACH: The Grossdeutscher Bund was a youth organization, or rather a union of youth organizations, with pan-German tendencies.
I am surprised, therefore, that the Prosecution has made the dissolution of that organization an accusation at all.
DR. SAUTER: Many members of this Grossdeutscher Bund were National Socialists. There was no very essential difference between some of the youth groups associated in that organization and the Hitler Youth. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: I wanted youth to be united, and the Grossdeutscher Bund wanted to continue a certain separate existence. I objected to that, and there was agitated public controversy between Admiral Von Trotha, the leader of the Grossdeutscher Bund and me, and in the end the Grossdeutscher Bund was incorporated into our youth organization. I do not recall exactly whether I banned the organization formally; I know only that the members came to me, and that between Admiral Von Trotha and me a discussion took place, a reconciliation. Admiral Von Trotha until his death was one of the warmest sponsors of my work.
DR. SAUTER: How did the suppression of the Marxist youth organization come about?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the suppression of the Marxist youth organizations, if I remember correctly, came about in connection with the suppression of trade unions. I have no exact documents any more regarding that. But at any rate, from the legal point of view, I was not authorized in 1933 to order a suppression of that kind. The Minister of the Interior would have had to do that. I had the right to ban youth organizations, de jure, only after 1 December 1936. That the Marxist youth organizations had to disappear was a foregone conclusion for me, and in speaking about this suppression order as such, I can only say that the German working youth found the realization of its socialistic ideas, not under the Marxist governments of the Weimar Republic, but in the community of the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, at first you were Reich Fuehrer of the NSDAP; that was a Party office. And after the seizure of power, you became Youth Leader of the German Reich; that was a State office. On the basis of this State or national office, did you also have jurisdiction over and responsibility for the school system, for the elementary schools, for instance?
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VON SCHIRACH: For the school system in Germany the Reich Minister for Science, Education, and Culture was the only authority. My field was education outside the schools, along with the home and the school, as it says in the law of 1 December 1936. However, I had some schools of my own, the so-called Adolf Hitler Schools, which were not under national supervision. They were creations of a later period. And during the war, through the Child Evacuation Program that is, the organization by which we took care of evacuating the young people from the big cities endangered by bombing-I was in charge of education within the camps where these children were housed. But on the whole I have to answer the question about competence for the school system in Germany in the negative.
DR. SAUTER: This youth which you had to educate outside of the schools was called the Hitler Youth, the HJ.
Was membership in the Hitler Youth compulsory or voluntary?
VON SCHIRACH: The membership in the Hitler Youth was voluntary until 1936. In 1936 the law already mentioned concerning the HJ was issued which made all the German youth members of the HJ. The stipulations for the carrying out of that law, however, were issued only in March 1939, and only during the war, in May 1940, was the thought of carrying out a German youth draft considered within the Reich Youth Leadership and discussed publicly. May I point out that my Deputy Lauterbacher, at the time when I was at the front, stated in a public meeting-I believe at Frankfurt in 1940-that now, after 97 percent of the youngest age group of youth had volunteered for the Hitler Youth, it would be necessary to draft the remaining 3 percent by a youth draft.
DR. SAUTER: In this connection, Mr. President, may I refer to two documents of the document book Schirach. That is Number Schirach-51.
THE PRESIDENT: I did not quite understand what the defendant said. He said that the membership was voluntary until 1936, that the HJ Law was then passed, and something to the effect that the execution of the law was not published until 1939. Was that what he said?
DR. SAUTER: Yes, that is correct. Until 1936-if I may explain that, Mr. President-membership in the Hitler Youth was absolutely voluntary. Then in 1936 the HJ Law was issued, which provided that boys and girls had to belong to the Hitler Youth. But the stipulations for its execution were issued by the defendant only in 1939 so that, in practice, until 1939 the membership was nevertheless on a voluntary basis.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that right, Defendant?
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VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is right.
DR SAUTER: And these facts which I have just presented, Mr. President, can also be seen from two documents of the document book Schirach, Number Schirach-51, on Page 91, and Number Schirach-52 on Page 92. In the latter document...
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Sauter, I accept it from you and from the defendant. I only wanted to understand it. You can go on.
DR. SAUTER: And in the second document mention is also made of the 97 percent which the defendant has said had voluntarily joined the HJ, so that now there were only 3 percent missing. May I continue:
[Turning to the witness.] Witness, what was the attitude of the parents of the children on the question of whether the children should join the HJ or not? What did the parents say?
VON SCHIRACH: There were, of course, parents who did not like to have their children join the HJ. Whenever I made one of my radio speeches to the parents or to the youth' many hundreds of parents sent me letters. Among these letters, there were many in which the parents voiced their objections to the HJ, or expressed their dislike for it. I always considered that a special proof of the confidence which the parents had in me. I should like to say here that never, when parents restrained their children from joining, have I exerted any compulsion or put them under pressure of any kind. In doing that I would have lost all the confidence placed in me by the parents of Germany. That confidence was the basis of my entire educational work.
I believe that on this occasion I have to say also that the concept that any youth organization can be established and carried on, and successfully carried on, by coercing youth, is absolutely false.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, did youngsters who did not join the Hitler Youth suffer any disadvantage for that reason?
VON SCHIRACH: Youngsters who did not join the Hitler Youth were at a disadvantage in that they could not take part in our camping, in our trips, in our sporting meets. They were in a certain sense outsiders of the youth life, and there was a danger that they might become hypochondriacs.
DR. SAUTER: But were there not certain professions in which membership in the HJ was a prerequisite for working in those professions?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course.
DR. SAUTER: What were the professions?
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VON SCHIRACH: For instance, the profession of teacher. It is quite clear that a teacher cannot educate youth unless he himself knows the life of that youth, and so we demanded that the young teachers, that is those in training to teach, had to go through the HJ. The junior teacher had to be familiar with the ways of life of the pupils who were under his supervision.
DR. SAUTER: But there were only a few such professions, whereas for other professions membership in the HJ was not a prerequisite for admission. Or what was the situation?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that in detail. I believe that a discussion about that is not even possible, because the entire youth was in the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you know that the Prosecution has also accused the defendants of having advocated the Fuehrer Principle. Therefore, I ask you:
Was the Fuehrer Principle also valid in the HJ, and in what form was it carried out in the HJ? I should like to remind you that I mean that kind of Fuehrer Principle of which we have heard in the testimony.
VON SCHIRACH: Of course, the HJ was built up on the Fuehrer Principle; only the entire form of leadership of youth differed basically from that of other National Socialist organizations. For instance, we had the custom in youth leadership of discussing frankly all questions of interest to us. There were lively debates at our district leader meetings. I myself educated my assistants even in a spirit of contradiction. Of course, once we had debated a measure and I had then given an order or a directive, that ended the debate. The youth leaders-that is the young boy and girl leaders-through years of working together and in serving the common purpose, had become a unity of many thousands. They had become friends. It is evident that in a group of that kind the carrying out of orders and directives takes place in ways entirely different from those in a military organization or in any other political organization.
DR. SAUTER: Witness . . .
VON SCHIRACH: May I add something?
Leadership based on natural authority such as we had in the youth organization is something which is not alien to youth at all. Such leadership in the youth organization never degenerated into dictatorship.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have been accused of training the youth in a military way, and in that connection, the fact has been pointed out that your HJ wore a uniform. Is that correct, and why did the HJ wear a uniform?
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VON SCHIRACH: I have stated my opinion about that in many instances. I believe there are also documents to illustrate it. I have always described the uniform of the HJ as the dress of comradeship. The uniform was the symbol of a community without class distinctions. The worker's boy wore the same garb as the son of the university professor. The girl from the wealthy family wore the same garb as the child of the day laborer. Hence the uniform This uniform did not have any military significance whatsoever.
DR. SAUTER: In that connection, Mr. President, may I ask you to take judicial notice of Document Number Schirach-55 of the document book Schirach, then of Numbers Schirach-55a and 117, where the Defendant Von Schirach, many years ago, expressed in writing and repeatedly the same trends of thought which he is expressing today.
I should only like to ask, Mr. President, for permission to correct an error in Document 55, on Page 98. Rather far down, under the heading "Page 77," is a quotation from a book by Schirach. There it says:
"Even the son of the millionaire has no other power..."
I do not know whether you have found the passage. It is on Page 77 of the book quoted, and Page 98 of the document book, Number Schirach-55. There is a quotation near the bottom of the page:
"Even the son of the millionaire has no other power..." It should read "dress," not "power." The German word "Macht" is an error, and should be the word "Tracht."
So I ask now to have the word "Macht" (power), changed to the word "Tracht" (dress).
Witness, I shall then continue with the interrogation. You have been accused of having prepared youth for the war, psychologically and pedagogically. You are alleged to have participated in a conspiracy for that purpose, a conspiracy by which the National Socialist movement acquired total power in Germany, and finally planned and carried out aggressive wars. What can you say about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not participate in any conspiracy. I cannot consider it participation in a conspiracy if I joined the National Socialist Party. The program of that party had been approved; it had been published. The Party was authorized to take part in elections. Hitler had not said-neither he nor any of his collaborators- "I want to assume power by a coup d'etat." Again and again he stated in public, not only once but a hundred times: "I want to overcome this parliamentary system by legal means, because it is leading us, year by year, deeper into misery." And I myself as the
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youngest deputy of the Reichstag of the Republic told my 60,000 constituents similar things in electoral campaigns.
There was nothing there which could prove the fact of a conspiracy, nothing which was discussed behind closed doors. What we wanted we acknowledged frankly before the nation, and so far as printed paper is read around the globe, everyone abroad could have been informed also about our aims and purposes.
As far as preparation for war is concerned, I must state that I did not take part in any conferences or issuing of orders which would indicate preparation for an aggressive war. I believe that can be seen from the proceedings in this Court up to now.
I can state only that I did not participate in a conspiracy. I do not believe either that there was a conspiracy; the thought of conspiracy is in contradiction to the idea of dictatorship. A dictatorship does not conspire; a dictatorship commands.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what did the leadership of the Hitler Youth do to prepare the youth for war and to train it for warlike purposes?
VON SCHIRACH: Before I answer that question, I believe I will have to explain briefly the difference between military and premilitary training.
Military training, in my opinion, is all training with weapons of war, and all training which is conducted by military personnel, that is, by officers, with and without weapons of war. Premilitary education-premilitary training is, in the widest sense, all training which comes before the time of military service; in particular cases it is a special preparation for military service. We, in the Hitler Youth, were opponents of any military drills for youth We disliked such drills as not youthful. I am not giving my personal opinion here, but the opinion of thousands of my co-workers.
It is a fact that I rejected the Wehrjugend (the Youth Defense Groups), which had formerly existed in Germany, and did not allow any continuation of Wehrjugend work within the HJ. I had always been strongly opposed to any soldier-playing in a youth organization. With all my high esteem for the profession of an officer, I still do not consider an officer capable of leading youth because in some way or other, he will always apply the tone of the drill field and the forms of military leadership to youth.
That is the reason why I did not have any officers as my assistants in the Hitler Youth. Just on account of my refusal to use officers as youth leaders, I was severely criticized by the Wehrmacht on occasion. I should like to stress that that did not come from the OKW; Field Marshal Keitel, especially, had a great deal of understanding for my ideas. However, in the Wehrmacht, now and again,
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criticism was heard on account of the general attitude of opposition of the Youth Leadership corps toward having officers used as leaders of a youth organization. The principle of "youth leading youth" was never broken in Germany.
If I am now to answer definitively the question of whether the youth was prepared for the war and whether it was trained in a military sense, I shall have to say, in conclusion, that the main efforts of all youth work in Germany culminated in trade competition, in the trade schools, in camping, and competition in sports. Physical training, which perhaps in some way could be considered a preparation for military service, took only a very small part of our time.
I should like to give as an example here: A Gebiet, or district, of the Hitler Youth, for instance the Gebiet of Hessen-Nassau which is about the same as a Gau in the Party, contributed from its funds in 1939 as follows: For hikes and camping, 9/20; for cultural work, 3/20; for sports and physical training, 3/20; for the Land Service (Landdienst), and other tasks and for the offices, 5/20.
The same area spent, in 1944-that is, 1 year before the end of the war-for cultural work, 4/20; for sports and defense training, 5/20; for Landdienst and other tasks, 6/20; and for the evacuation of children to the country, 5/20.
In that connection I should like to mention briefly that the same area, in the time from 1936 until 1943, made no expenditures for racial-political education; in 1944 there was an entry of 20 marks under the heading of racial-political education for the acquisition of a picture book about hereditary and venereal diseases. However, in that same district, in one single town, during the same time, 200,000 marks were given to have youth visit the theaters.
The question concerning premilitary or military education cannot be answered by me without describing small-caliber shooting practice. Small-caliber firing was a sport among the German youth. It was practiced on the lines laid down in the international rules for sport shooting. Small-caliber shooting, according to Article 177 of the Treaty of Versailles, was not prohibited. It states expressly in that article of the treaty that rifle clubs, sporting, and hiking organizations are forbidden to train their members in the handbag and use of war weapons. The small-caliber rifle, however, is not a war weapon. For our sport shooting we used a rifle similar to the American 22-caliber. It was used with the 22-caliber Flobert cartridge for short or long distance.
I should like to say here that our entire marksmanship training and other so-called premilitary training have been collected in a manual entitled "HJ Service." That book was printed and sold not only in Germany but was also available abroad.
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The British Board of Education in 1938 passed judgment on that book, in the educational pamphlet, Number 109. With the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to quote briefly what was said about it in this educational pamphlet. I quote in English:
"It cannot fairly be said to be in essence a more militaristic work than any thoroughgoing, exhaustive, and comprehensive manual of Boy Scout training would be. Some forty pages are, to be sure, devoted to the theory and practice of shooting small-bore rifle and air gun, but there is nothing in them to which exception can reasonably be taken, and the worst that one can say of them is that they may be confidently recommended to the notice of any Boy Scout wishing to qualify for his marksmanship badge."
As to the mental attitude of the Hitler Youth, I can only say that it was definitely not militaristic.
DR. SAUTER: We will perhaps come back to that later with another question. You say the Hitler Youth had been trained with Robert rifles, or small-caliber rifles, as they are also called. Was the Hitler Youth also trained with infantry rifles, or even machine guns or machine pistols?
VON SCHIRACH: Certainly not.
DR. SAUTER: Not at all?
VON SCHIRACH: Not a single German boy, until the war, had been trained with a war weapon, a military weapon, be it an infantry rifle, machine gun, or infantry gun; nor with hand grenades in any form.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in the document book Schirach- are several documents which will show that the attitude of the Defendant Von Schirach concerning the question of military or premilitary education of the Hitler Youth was exactly the same as he has stated it today, particularly, that he expressed himself against any military drill, barracks language, and all such things.
These are mainly documents in the document book Schirach: 55, then 122, 123, 127, 127a, 128, and 131. I ask you to take judicial notice of these documents. They contain, on the whole, the same statements which Herr Schirach has made briefly already.
Herr Von Schirach, in connection with the so-called military training of the youth, I should like to know what influence the SA had on the training of youth?
VON SCHIRACH: None at all. The SA tried to have an influence on the education and training of youth.
DR. SAUTER: In what way?
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VON SCHIRACH: It was in January of 1939. At that time I was in Dresden, where I arranged a performance which presented modern gymnastics for girls. I still remember it distinctly. While I was there, a newspaper was shown to me which carried a decree by Hitler, according to which the two oldest age groups of the Hitler Youth were to receive premilitary training from the SA. I protested against that at once and after my return to Berlin I succeeded not in having the decree withdrawn for that could not be done for reasons of prestige since Hitler's name was on it-but invalidated as far as the youth were concerned.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, that incident is contained in a document in the document book Schirach, Number Schirach-132. That is a statement from Das Archiv, a semiofficial news periodical. I should like to refer to that as evidence; and in regard to the question of training in shooting I should like to ask the defendant one more question.
What part of the entire training did the shooting practice have in the HJ? Was it a very essential part or the essential part?
VON SCHIRACH: Unfortunately, I do not have the documentary material here which would enable me to answer that exactly. But at any rate, it was not an essential part of the training in the HJ.
DR. SAUTER: Did that marksmanship training go any further, according to your experiences and observations, than the marksmanship training of youth in other nations?
VON SCHIRACH: The marksmanship training of youth in other nations went much further, much beyond that which we had in Germany.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know that from your own observation?
VON SCHIRACH: I know that from many of my assistants who constantly made a detailed study of the training in other countries, and I know about it from my own observation.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think that is relevant, the fact that other nations trained in marksmanship? I am not sure it is true either, but anyhow, it is not relevant.
DR. SAUTER: Then I come to another question, Witness. The Prosecution have asserted and I quote:
". . .that thousands of boys were trained militarily by the HJ in the work of the Navy, of the naval aviation and of the armored troops, and that over seven thousand teachers trained over a million Hitler Youth in rifle marksmanship."
That is the citation of the Prosecution referring to some meeting of the year 1938. I should like to have you state your position with
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regard to the question here, the question of the special units of the Hitler Youth.
VON SCHIRACH: The Prosecution refers, if I am not mistaken, to a speech which Hitler made. How Hitler arrived at the figures concerning training, I cannot say. Concerning training in the special units I can only say, and prove with documents, the following:
In the year 1938 the motorized Hitler Youth-that is that special unit of our youth organization which the Prosecution think received preliminary training in the tank branch-in 1938 the motorized Hitler Youth had 328 vehicles of their own.
DR. SAUTER: In all Germany?
VON SCHIRACH: In all Germany. There were 3,270 private cars of their family members which, of course, were at their disposal for their work; and 2,000 cars of the NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps). In the year 1938 21,000 youth got their driving licenses. I believe, but I cannot be sure about it, that that is twice the number of youngsters that received a driving license in 1937- that is, the driving license for a passenger car. These figures alone show that the motorized Hitler Youth did not receive preliminary training for our armored forces. The motorized Hitler Youth had motorcycles; they made cross-country trips. That is correct. What they learned in this way was, of course, useful for the Army too, when these boys later were drafted into the motorized units; but it was not true that the boy who had been in the motorized Hitler Youth went to the Army. There was no compulsion in that respect at all. The motorized Hitler Youth was not created upon the request of the Wehrmacht, but it was already created in the fighting years-long before the seizure of power, simply from the natural desire of the boys who owned a motorcycle and wanted to drive it. So we formed our motorized HJ; we used these boys as messengers between tent camps and we used them as drivers for our minor leaders, and later, in order to give them a regular training, especially knowledge of motors, of engines, we made an arrangement with the NSKK, which had motor schools and could train the boys.
Other units were created in the same way. The Flieger HJ, for example, never had any airplanes. We had only gliders. The entire Hitler Youth had but one airplane and that was my own, a small Klemm machine. Aside from that, the Hitler Youth had only model airplanes and gliders. The Hitler Youth not only taught their own members the use of gliders in the Rhoen Hills and elsewhere, but also thousands of youth from England and other countries. We had glider camps where young Englishmen were our guests and we even had camps in England.
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DR. SAUTER: The Navy HJ, did they perhaps have warships?
VON SCHIRACH: The Navy HJ, of course, had not a single warship, but from time to time our former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Raeder, kindly gave us an old cutter and with that we put to sea.
The boys, for instance, who lived in a city like Berlin, near the Wannsee, and did some rowing, became members of the Navy HJ. When entering the Wehrmacht they did not, just because they had been in the Navy HJ, go into the Navy, but just as many went afterwards into the Army or the Air Force, and it was the same with other special units.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you say therefore that in your opinion the Hitler Youth was not educated in a military way for the war?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to be quite precise about that. The training in these special units was carried out in such a manner that it really had a premilitary value. That is to say that whatever the boy learned in the Navy Hitler Jugend, regardless of whether he wanted to use it only as a sportsman later, or whether he actually went into the Navy, the basic principles were valuable as premilitary education. If one considers these special units of the HJ, one can establish that here a premilitary education actually took place, but not a military training. The youth were not prepared for the war in any place in the HJ; they were not even prepared for the military service, because the youth did not go direct from the Hitler Youth into the Army. From the Hitler Youth they went into the Labor Service.
DR. SAUTER: And how long were they in the Labor Service?
VON SCHIRACH: Half a year.
DR. SAUTER: And only then did they get to the Wehrmacht?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: In that connection, however, the Prosecution has used an agreement which was made between the HJ leadership and the OKW in August 1939, and which has been submitted as Document 2398-PS by the Prosecution. What are the facts about that agreement between you and the OKW?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember any details. Between Field Marshal Keitel and myself, according to my recollection, there was no discussion concerning that agreement, but I believe we arranged that by correspondence. And I should just like to state that during the entire time from 1933 to 1945, only one or two conversations of about half an hour took place between Field Marshal Keitel and me. The agreement, however, resulted from the following considerations: We endeavored in the Hitler Youth,
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and it was also the endeavor of the leading men in the Wehrmacht, to take nothing into our training which belonged to the later military training. However, in the course of time, the objection was raised on the part of the military, that youth should not learn anything in its training which later would have to be corrected in the Wehrmacht. I am thinking, for instance, of the compass. The Army used the infantry compass; the Hitler Youth, in cross-country sports, used compasses of various kinds. It was, of course, quite senseless that youth leaders should train their boys, for instance, to march according to the Bezar compass if later, in their training as recruits, the boys had to learn something different. The designation and the description of the terrain should also be given according to the same principles in the Hitler Youth as in the Army, and so this agreement was made by which, I believe, thirty or sixty thousand HJ leaders were trained in cross-country sports. In these cross-country sports no training with war weapons was practiced.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, now I come to another chapter. It may be that this is the best time to adjourn.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
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[The Defendant Von Schirach resumed the stand.]
DR. SAUTER: Witness, before the adjournment we spoke about the question of the military or premilitary education of the youth. And now I come to a similar chapter; that is the question of whether you, as Youth Leader, in your articles, speeches, and orders did in any way attempt to influence young people psychologically towards an aggressive war in order to make them war-minded by such means.
VON SCHIRACH: No, never in my speeches to German youth, or in anything which I laid down for youth in the way of orders and directives, did I prepare German youth for war; nor have I ever, even in the smallest circle of my collaborators, expressed myself in such terms. All my speeches are contained in the collection Das Archiv, at least their essential contents. A considerable part of my speeches is collected also in a book Revolution der Erziehung (The Revolution in Education), which has been submitted to the Tribunal.
All this evidence shows that I never spoke to the youth of the country in that sense; it would have been in direct contradiction to all my aims of co-operation with the youth of other nations.
DR SAUTER: Mr. President, perhaps I may draw your attention in this connection to the document which is in the Schirach document book under Number Schirach-125, I repeat 125-and also 126, where Schirach expresses his opinion about the question of preserving peace and rejecting war. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of these documents as evidence.
Witness, you have just spoken of co-operation between your Reich Youth Leadership Office and the German Hitler Youth with the youth of other nations. Could you give us a more detailed statement on that, in particular which youth associations of other nations you co-operated with, which you attempted to approach, and in which way and to what degree?
VON SCHIRACH: Starting in 1933, and in an increasing degree year by year, I made efforts to bring about exchange camps with youth organizations in other countries. Here in Germany these groups of English youth, French youth, Belgian youth, and the youth of many other countries, particularly, of course, from Italy, often came as our guests. I remember that in one year alone, I think in 1936, there were approximately 200,000 foreign youths who stayed overnight in our youth hostels.
Perhaps it is important in this connection to say that the youth hostel system, which I took over in 1933, was developed by me and
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finally formed a part of an international youth hostel system, the president of which was sometimes a German, sometimes an Englishman. An international youth hostel agreement made it possible that youngsters of our nations could stay overnight in youth hostels of the guest nations.
I myself took great pains to bring about an understanding with the youth of France. I must say that this was a pet idea of mine. I think that my former assistants will remember just how intensely I worked towards the realization of that idea. I had my leaders periodical appear in the French language; I do not know whether more than once, but certainly at least once, so that the understanding between the French and the German youth could be strengthened thereby.
I went to Paris and I invited the children of one thousand veterans of the first World War to come to Germany. I very often had young French guests as visitors in Germany. But over and above this understanding with France, which eventually also led to difficulties between the Fuehrer and myself, I co-operated with many, many other organizations.
Perhaps I may add that German-French co-operation, as far as youth was concerned, was supported particularly by Ambassador Poncet in Berlin, Premier Chautemps, and other French personalities who wrote in my leadership periodical on that particular subject. I exchanged views with youth leaders all over the world, and I myself undertook long journeys to visit youth organizations in other countries and establish contact with them. The war terminated that work. I do not want to omit mentioning here that for one whole year I put the entire youth program under the slogan "Understanding," and that in all my speeches before the youth I tried to direct and educate it toward a better understanding of other nations.
DR. SAUTER: Is it true that, for instance, even during the last years before the war, I think even in the winter of 1937-1938 and again 1938-1939, you received large delegations of English youth in skiing camps of the Hitler Youth and that vice versa also during those years considerable delegations of Hitler Youth leaders and Hitler Youth members were sent to England so that the people could get to know and understand each other?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is correct. There were innumerable encampments of foreign youth in Germany and very many camps of German youth abroad, and I myself often visited such camps or received delegations from them.
I would like to add that as late as 1942 I made an attempt to co-operate with the youth of France. At that time the difficulty lay
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in Mussolini's attitude. I went to Rome and, through Count Ciano's intervention, had a long conversation with Mussolini and succeeded in having him withdraw his objections to having our youth invite all French groups to come to Germany.
Unfortunately, when I reported this result to our Foreign Minister, Hitler turned it down. At any rate, that is what Herr Von Ribbentrop said.
DR. SAUTER: From an article in the paper Das Archiv of 1938 I gather, for instance, that during that year you invited among others, 1,000 children of French war veterans to come into the Hitler Youth camps in Germany and into the German-French youth skiing camps. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have already told you that.
DR. SAUTER: Another article shows me that, for instance, I believe in 1939, you had a special memorial erected, I think in the Black Forest, when some members of an English youth delegation were accidentally killed there during games.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the defendant had mentioned earlier that near Berlin he erected a special house for these purposes under the name "The Foreign House of the Hitler Youth." May I present to the Tribunal in the original, pictures of this "Foreign House," as Document Number Schirach-120; and may I ask the Tribunal to look at these pictures, because in them...
THE PRESIDENT: We are quite prepared to take it from you without looking at the house. The particular style of architecture will not affect us.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, but if you will not look at the pictures, then you will not know how the house was furnished; and you will not see that in the house, for instance, there' was not a single swastika, not a single picture of Hitler, or any such things. That, again shows considerations for the views of the foreign guests.
In this connection, Mr. President, may I also ask you to take judicial notice of a number of documents, all of which refer to the efforts of the Defendant Von Schirach to bring about an understanding between German youth and the youth of other nations. These are the documents in Schirach's document book which have the Numbers Schirach-99 up to and including Schirach-107, then Documents Schirach-108 through 113, and also Documents Schirach 114 up to and including 116, and then Documents Schirach-117, 119, and 120. All these documents refer to the same subject.
Witness, when you invited such delegations from foreign youth organizations to Germany, was anything concerning German
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institutions and organizations, particularly with reference to the Hitler Youth, ever kept secret from these delegations, or how was that?
VON SCHIRACH: No, as a matter of principle, foreign youth leaders who wished to get to know our institutions were shown everything without any reservations whatever. There was, in fact, no institution of German youth in the past which was not shown to our foreign guests. Also the so-called premilitary education was demonstrated to them in every detail.
DR. SAUTER: And then in 1939 the second World War broke out. During the last months before that happened, did you seriously expect a war; or with what did you occupy yourself at the time?
VON SCHIRACH: I was firmly convinced that Hitler would not allow a war to break out. It was my opinion that he. was in no way deceived about the fact that the Western Powers were firmly resolved to be serious. Until the day when war broke out, I firmly believed that the war could be avoided.
DR. SAUTER: Did you discuss with military leaders or political personalities at that time the danger of war and the prospects of maintaining the peace?
VON SCHIRACH: No; in fact, I want to say something here and now about my discussions with military personalities.
I have already stated that over a period of 12 years-that is from 1933 to 1944 or 1945; that is, 13 years-I had perhaps one or possibly two half-hour conversations with Field Marshal Keitel. I remember that one of them dealt entirely with a personal matter.
During the same period I had, I think, only one single discussion with Admiral Raeder, and Admiral Doenitz I met for the first time here in Nuremberg.
I never had any official discussions with Generaloberst Jodl at all, and I talked to the late Field Marshal Von Blomberg, if I remember rightly, possibly twice for half an hour. I had no official discussions at all with the former Supreme Commander of the Army, Von Fritsch. I was his guest on one occasion only, when he was running skiing competitions for the army, and he kindly invited me because he knew that I was interested in skiing.
With his successor, Von Brauchitsch, I had a general chat on questions of education when I talked before the youth of Koenigsberg in 1933. Later, I believe, I visited him once on official business; and we discussed a question which was of no particular importance for the education of youth. It was some technical matter.
These are the discussions which I have had with military personalities. In fact, altogether I must say that I did not have time for conferences. I led an organization comprising 8 million people; and
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my duties in that organization were such that I did not possibly have the time to participate in conferences and discussions in Berlin regarding the situation, even if I had been admitted to them, which was not the case.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, from 1932 you were a Reichsleiter. That means that you belonged to the highest level of leaders in the Party. Were you not, in that capacity as Reichsleiter, informed by Hitler, his deputy, or other political personalities about the political situation?
VON SCHIRACH: I think that Hitler invited the Reichs- and Gauleiter, on an average, twice a year to a conference, during which he retrospectively discussed political events. Never at any time did Hitler discuss before these men operations of the future, whether of a political or military nature.
DR. SAUTER: Then, if I understand your answer correctly, you were always surprised by these foreign developments.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Does the same apply to the question of the Austrian Anschluss?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I heard of the Anschluss of Austria, which of course I hailed enthusiastically, through the radio, if I remember rightly, during a trip by car from my Academy at Brunswick to Berlin. I continued my journey to Berlin, boarded a train at once, and arrived the following morning in Vienna. There I greeted the young people: youth leaders, some. of whom had been in prisons or in a concentration camp at Woellersdorf for a long time, and also many women youth leaders, who had also experienced great hardships.
DR. SAUTER: And what about the march into Czechoslovakia?
VON SCHIRACH: Like every other German citizen, I heard of that through the radio, and did not learn any more than any other citizen learned from the radio.
DR. SAUTER: Were you, in any capacity, a participant in the negotiations regarding the Munich Pact with Chamberlain and Daladier in 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: And what was your opinion?
VON SCHIRACH: I regarded that agreement as the basis for peace, and it was my firm conviction that Hitler would keep that agreement.
DR. SAUTER: Did you know anything about the negotiations with Poland in 1939?
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VON SCHIRACH: No, I heard about the negotiations which led to the war, only here in this courtroom. I was merely acquainted with that version of the negotiations which was officially announced through the radio or by the Ministry of Propaganda; and I know no more, therefore, than what every other German citizen knows. The version which Hitler announced before the Reichstag was considered by me to be absolutely true; and I never doubted it, or at least I did not doubt it until about 1943, and all I have heard about it here is new to me.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Prosecution, among other things, have made the accusation against you that in your book, Die Hitlerjugend-Idee und Gestalt (Hitler Youth-Idea and Form)-which, Mr. President, is Number 1458-PS-you used the expression "Lebensraum" (living space) and "Ostraum" (eastern space) and that by doing so you welcomed or considered as a necessity German conquests in the East, that is, at the expense of Soviet Russia and Poland.
What do you have to say about that?
VON SCHIRACH: In this book of mine, Die Hitlerjugend-Idee und Gestalt, the word "Lebensraum" (living space) is not used at all to my knowledge. Only the word "Ostraum" (eastern space) is used, and I think it is in connection with a press service in the East. In a footnote, in connection with a description of the tasks of the Colonial Advisory Board in the Reich Youth Leadership, there is a statement to the effect that, as a result of the activities of this Colonial Advisory Board the necessity of drawing the attention of youth to the exploitation of the eastern territory-and by that is meant the thinly populated eastern area of Germany-should not be overlooked.
That was at a time when we in the youth organizations were particularly concerned with the problem of the "flight from the land," that is to say, the migration of the second or third sons of farmers to the cities. I formed a special movement of youth to combat that trend, the Rural Service, which had the task of stopping this flow of youth from the country to the towns and also of bringing home to youth in towns the challenge of the country.
Of course I never thought of a conquest of Russian territory because ever since I occupied myself with history it was always my point of view politically that the policy regarding mutual security with Russia, which broke off with Bismarck's dismissal, should be resumed. I considered the attack against the Soviet Union as the suicide of the German nation.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, did you, as the Youth Leader of the German Reich, have the right to report to Hitler directly?
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VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is true; but this right to make reports was more or less only on paper. To picture that precisely) before the seizure of power I frequently reported to Hitler in person. In 1932 he quite often announced his intention to dine with me in the evening, but it is clear that in the presence of my wife and other guests political questions were not discussed, particularly not the questions which fell into my special sphere. Only now and then, perhaps, could I touch upon a subject which interested me in connection with education.
In 1933, as far as I can remember, I reported twice to him personally, once regarding the financing of the youth movement, and the second time in connection with the Party Rally of 1933. During the following years my reports averaged one or two a year whereby I was treated in the same way as most people who reported to Hitler. Of the 15 odd points on which I wanted to report to him. I managed to deal with 3 or 4, and the others had to be dropped because he interrupted me and very explicitly elaborated on the things which interested him most.
I then tried to help myself by taking along models of youth buildings, views of the big stadiums and of youth hostels, which I had set up in a hall in the Reich Chancellery, and when he looked at them I used the opportunity to put two or three questions to him.
I must state here-I think I owe it to German youth-that Hitler took very little interest in educational questions. As far as education was concerned, I received next to no suggestions from him. The only time when he did make a real suggestion as far as athletic training was concerned was in 1935, I believe, when he told me that I should see to it that boxing should become more widespread among youth. I did so, but he never attended a youth boxing match. My friend Von Tschammer-Osten, the Reich Sports Leader, and I tried very often to persuade him to go-to other sporting events, particularly to skiing contests and ice hockey championships in Garmisch, but apart from the Olympic Games, it was impossible to get him to attend.
DR. SAUTER: You have told us a little earlier about this so-called military or premilitary education, stating that, as far as one could talk about such education at all, it played only a minor part in the training of the Hitler Youth.
May I ask you to tell us, though not at length but only in condensed phrases, what, in your mind, were the chief aims of your youth education program. Be very brief.
VON SCHIRACH: Tent encampments.
DR. SAUTER: Tent encampments?
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VON SCHIRACH: Trips, construction of youth hostels and youth homes.
DR SAUTER: What do you mean by "trips"?
VON SCHIRACH: Youth hikes, individually and in groups; also the construction of more and more youth hostels. In one year alone, more than 1,000 homes and youth hostels were built blame in Germany. Then there was additional professional training, and then what I called the "Labor Olympics," namely, the annual Reich trade contests, voluntary competition between all youth of both sexes who wanted to participate. In fact millions participated. Then our great Reich sports contests, championships in every type of sport, our cultural work, and the development of our singing groups, our acting groups, youth concert choirs, and the development of our youth libraries, and then something which I mentioned in connection with combating the migration from the country, the Rural Service with its rural help groups, those youths, who for idealistic reasons were working in the country, even town boys-to show the farmer boys that the country was really more beautiful than the city, that even a city boy will give up his life in the city temporarily to devote himself to the land and to tilling the soil. Then, as a great communal accomplishment of youth, I must mention the dental improvement and the regular medical examinations.
These, in a few summary words, were the main tasks which our youth organizations had, but they are by no means all.
DR. SAUCER: Mr. President, these ideas, these thoughts, and these aims of the Defendant Von Schirach are contained in a number of documents which are found in the Schirach document book, and which are extracts from his works, speeches, and orders. I am referring to Schirach document book, Numbers Schirach-32 through 39, 44 through 50, 66 through 74(a), 76 through 79, and, finally, 80 through 83.
All these documents deal with the tasks which the Defendant Schirach has just described to you, and I am asking the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the details in these documents.
[Turning to the defendant.] There is only one point of that Hitler Youth program, if I may call it that, with which I would like to deal, because it has been particularly stressed against you in the Indictment. That is your collaboration with the Lawyers' League, that is to say, your occupation with law. In that connection I would like to know why you, the Reich Youth Leader, were interested in legal problems at all. What were you striving for, and what did you achieve? Please, will you tell us that briefly, because it has been emphasized in the Indictment.
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VON SCHIRACH: May I remind you that the youth of the state was regarded by me as being a Youth State. In that Youth State all professions and all tasks were represented. My collaboration with the Lawyers' League was due to the necessity of training legal advisers for our working youth whom they could over the necessary legal protection. I was anxious that those Hitler Youth leaders who were studying law should return to the organization to deal with just such tasks within the organization.
From this type of training a large organization developed within the ranks of youth which was equivalent to the organization of doctors within the youth organization; our medical organization comprised approximately 1,000 doctors, men and women. These legal men assisted the staff, in the districts and other units of our youth organization, putting into practice those demands which I had first enunciated early in our fighting days, before the seizure of power, and which I had championed in the State later on, namely, the demand for free time and paid vacations for the young worker.
This legal work of our youth led to the founding of seminars for Youth Law and Working Youth Law, et cetera, attached to the universities at Kiel and Bonn. In particular it had the result that those demands which I voiced in a speech in 1936, before the Committee for Juvenile Law of the Academy for German Law, could be carried through.
DR. SAUTER: Just one moment.
[Turning to the Tribunal.] This is the speech of which excerpts are reproduced, in Schirach document book, Number Schirach-63. It is copied from Das Archiv of October 1936.
Herr Von Schirach, perhaps you can tell us very briefly which social demands you, as Reich Youth Leader, made regarding youth. You said earlier, "free time." What did you mean by that?
VON SCHIRACH: In the first place, a shortening of working hours for young people, the abolition of night work for young people, a fundamental prohibition of child labor, extended weekends, and 3 weeks' paid vacation every year.
In 1937 at Liegnitz I noticed that at that time 50 percent of the young workers had no holidays at all and that only 1 percent had 15 to 18 days per annum. In 1938, on the other hand, I had put through the Youth Protection Law which prohibited child labor, raised the age of protection for juveniles from 16 to 18 years, prohibited night work, and realized my demand regarding the extended weekend, at the same time stipulating at least 15 days' vacation annually for youngsters. That was all I could achieve. It was only part of what I wanted to achieve.
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DR. SAUTER: These are the demands which are contained in the following documents in the document book: Schirach-40 to 41 and 60 to 64. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of these.
Witness, I now come to another problem, and that is your position within the Party. Some time ago we were shown a chart here giving a clear picture of the organization of the Party. Was that plan correct, or what was your position within the Party?
VON SCHIRACH: My position in the Party was not correctly depicted in that chart, at least not as far as the channels of command are concerned. According to the chart which was exhibited here, the channel of command would have been from the Reich Leader for Youth Education to the Chief of the Party Chancellery, and from there to Hitler and from Hitler to the Reich Youth Leadership Office of the Party. That, of course, is an erroneous picture.
I was not in the Party Directorate to give my orders via the Gauleiter to the district leaders but as the representative and head of the youth movement, so that if you want to describe my position and the position of my organization in the framework of the NSDAP correctly, you would actually have to draw a pyramid, the apex of which, that is to say my position in the Party Directorate, would be above the Reichsleiter. I was the only person in the youth movement who was connected with the Party.
DR. SAUTER: And the other leaders and subleaders of the youth movement?
VON SCHIRACH: Some of them may have been Party members, but not all. At any rate, they were not members of the Gauleitung or Kreisleitung. The entire staff of the youth movement, the entire youth organization, stood alongside the Party as a unit.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, as the Youth Leader of the German Reich, were you a civil servant?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: And from 1 December 1936, I believe, you were the chief of a high Reich office?
VON SCHIRACH: I was a civil servant only from 1 December 1936.
DR. SAUTER: With the title?
VON SCHIRACH: Youth Leader of the German Reich.
DR. SAUTER: As the chief of a high Reich office, were you actually independent of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister for Education?
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VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that was, after all, the purpose of creating an independent Reich office.
DR. SAUTER: Did you thereby become a member of the Reich Cabinet, as has been claimed?
VON SCHIRACH: I am sure I did not. I heard here for the first time that I was supposed to have been a member of the Cabinet. I never participated in a Cabinet meeting. I never received a decree or anything of the sort which would have made me a member of the Cabinet. I never received invitations to attend Cabinet meetings. I never considered myself a member of the Cabinet, and I believe that the Ministers did not consider me a member either.
DR. SAUTER: Were you in any way informed of the resolutions passed by. the Reich Cabinet, for instance, by having the minutes of the meetings sent to you?
VON SCHIRACH: No. Resolutions passed by the Reich Cabinet, insofar as any were passed after 1 December 1936, only came to my attention in the same way as they reached any other higher official or employee of the Reich who read the Reichsgesetzblatt or the Reichsministerialblatt. Records and minutes were never sent to me.
DR. SAUTER: When you became a high Reich authority, did you receive the staff which you needed through a ministry, or how did you obtain that staff for yourself?
VON SCHIRACH: A few youth leaders who had worked on my staff for a number of years were made civil servants through me. I did not receive a single official from any ministry to deal with matters relating to the youth organization. The entire high Reich office, if I remember correctly, consisted of no more than five officials. It was the smallest of the high Reich offices, something I was particularly proud of. We carried out a very large task with a minimum of personnel.
DR. SAUTER: And now, Witness, I want to come to a subject which is going to be rather extensive and that is the affidavit by Gregor Ziemer, which you have already mentioned. It is a very lengthy affidavit which has been presented by the Prosecution under Document Number 2441-PS.
Witness, what do you have to say in detail with regard to that affidavit? Do you know it? Do you know this man Gregor Ziemer?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Have you found out who he is and from where he gathered his alleged knowledge?
VON SCHIRACH: I gather from the affidavit that Herr Ziemer before the war was headmaster of the American school in Berlin
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and that he has written a book which apparently deals with youth and school education in Germany. This affidavit is an extract from that book.
The affidavit as such, if you regard it in its entirety, has, I believe, more importance as propaganda than as an impartial judgment.
I want to start by quoting something from the very first page, which is the page containing Ziemer's affidavit, and in the last paragraph it says that street fights took place outside the American school between the Jewish children going to this school and the local youngsters. I need not deal with the difficulties which the school itself had, because that was not part of my department. But these street fights took place outside the school, and I think I ought to say something about them. I never heard anything about these clashes, but I should have heard about them under all circumstances, because during most of 1938 I was in Berlin. I should have heard of them first through the youth organization itself, because the senior youth leaders would have been obliged to report to me if such incidents had taken place.
Furthermore, I would have had to hear about it through the Foreign Office, because if youngsters from the American colony had been molested, protests would certainly have gone through the Embassy to the Foreign Office, and these protests would without fail have been passed on to me at once or reported to me by telephone.
I can only imagine that the whole affair is a very gross exaggeration. The American Ambassador Wilson even had breakfast with me-I think in the spring of 1939, and I do not think I am wrong about the date-in Gatow.
DR. SAUTER: In the Foreign House?
VON SCHIRACH: In the Foreign House.
And we discussed a number of subjects privately. I believe that on that occasion or afterwards he would most certainly have mentioned such incidents if they had in reality occurred in the way Herr Ziemer describes them.
DR. SAUTER: I believe I can go over to Page 2, where . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, how much of this document has been read by the Prosecution? As far as I know, very little.
DR. SAUTER: I beg your pardon?
THE PRESIDENT: How much of this affidavit has been read and put in evidence by the Prosecution?
DR. SAUTER: I cannot tell you that offhand, Mr. President. But judging by practice, I must assume that if a document is submitted
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to the Tribunal, judicial notice of the entire document is taken by the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not so. We have stated over and over again that we take only judicial notice on documents which have been read to the Tribunal, unless they are documents of which full translations have been given. This document was, I suppose, presented in the course of the Prosecution's case, and probably one sentence out of it was read at the time. I do not know how much was read; but you and the defendant ought to know.
MR. DODD: There was only one paragraph read, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: One paragraph?
MR. DODD: One full paragraph and perhaps one short one on Page 21.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I have it here.
MR. DODD: I think the Prosecution covered the part having to do with the speech at Heidelberg.
THE PRESIDENT: And that is the only part of it that has been read, and that is, therefore, the only part of it that is in evidence.
VON SCHIRACH: Perhaps for the sake of credibility-and I shall not deal in detail with the accusations contained in that affidavit-I might be allowed to say, with one sole exception, all the annual slogans of the Hitler Youth are reproduced falsely in this affidavit and that Gregor Ziemer nevertheless swears to the correctness of his statement.
THE PRESIDENT: Wouldn't it be the best, if you want to reply to his affidavit, that you should direct the defendant's attention to the part which has been read? Then he can make an answer to that.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in Ziemer's affidavit, which the defendant has told me he regards as a clearly inflammatory piece of writing, the annual slogans are mentioned which are supposed to have been issued by the defendant, that is, the slogans for the work for the following year.
THE PRESIDENT: One passage of this document has been put in. If you want to put in the rest, you are entitled to do so. But I should have thought that it would have been the best way for you to answer the passage which has been put in. The rest of the affidavit is not in evidence.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in that case my client would get the worst end of the bargain, because in other passages which have not been used by the Prosecution...
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THE PRESIDENT: I said you could use the other passages if you want to.
DR. SAUTER: Certainly, but I want to prove that Herr Ziemer's statements are not correct; that is why I have just been discussing the question of annual slogans with the defendant. This is only one example.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the defendant is apparently saying that the affidavit is unreliable because of the slogans which are referred to in it. Is that not sufficient for your purpose?
DR. SAUTER: Yes; but I intend to prove that Herr Ziemer's statements are untrue. The defendant maintains that the statements contained in that affidavit are not true. But I am trying to prove to you that, in fact, Herr Ziemer has deliberately stated and sworn to untruths.
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Dr. Sauter, there being one passage in this affidavit which is in evidence, you can deal very shortly with the question of the credit of the person who made the affidavit.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, this Herr Ziemer, in his affidavit, has made statements regarding the annual slogans...
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: . . . which you issued for the Hitler Youth. How these annual slogans were worded can be easily seen by the Tribunal from the affidavit. I now ask you to tell us how the annual slogans of the Hitler Youth were worded during your time; that is, 1933 to 1940.
VON SCHIRACH: Herr Ziemer mentions the slogan on Page 15 of the English document. Herr Ziemer says that in 1933 the motto for German Youth had been "One Reich, One Nation, One Fuehrer." He probably means "One People, One Reich, One Fuehrer." Actually, the year 1933 was the year of "Unity."
DR. SAUTER: What do you mean by "Unity"?
VON SCHIRACH: The year in which German youth joined ranks in one organization.
DR. SAUTER: I want to skip a few years now and come to the year 1938. What was your slogan for the Hitler Youth in 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: 1938 was the year of "Understanding."
DR. SAUTER: The year of "Understanding"?
VON SCHIRACH: Herr Ziemer says the slogan was "Every Youth a Flyer."
DR. SAUTER: And then in 1939 what was your slogan?
VON SCHIRACH: That was the year of "Duty Towards Health."
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DR. SAUTER: The year of "Duty Towards Health"?
VON SCHIRACH: According to Herr Ziemer, it was "Hitler Youth on the March."
DR. SAUTER: And finally 1940, your last year?
VON SCHIRACH: It was the year of "Instruction." But he called it "We March Against England."
But I want to add that the first slogan, "One People, One Reich, One Fuehrer," which Ziemer says was the official slogan of the year 1P33 for German youth, arose first in 1938 when Hitler went into Austria. Before that, that slogan did not exist at all. It was never the annual slogan of German youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we must comply with the wish of the Tribunal and not go into the affidavit of Ziemer any further, with the exception of the one point which has been used by the Prosecution in the Indictment against you in connection with the accusation of anti-Semitism. I skip Herr Ziemer's further statements and come to this speech at Heidelberg. Will you tell me first of all, what Ziemer said, and then make your own comments on that.
VON SCHIRACH: Ziemer said that during a meeting of students in Heidelberg-I think either at the end of 1938 or the beginning of 1939-I had made a speech against the Jews in connection with a rally of the National Socialist Student Union. He says that on that occasion I praised the students for the destruction of the Heidelberg Synagogue, and that following that I had the students file past me and gave them decorations and certificates of promotion.
First of all, I have already referred to my activity in the student movement. Upon the request of the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Rudolf Hess, I handed the leadership of the student movement over to him in 1934. He then appointed a Reich student leader; and after that I did not speak at any student meetings.
As far as I can remember, I visited Heidelberg during the summer of 1937; and there I spoke to the youth group. This was 1 or 1 1/2, years before Ziemer's date. And on one occasion I attended a festival play at Heidelberg.
DR. SAUTER: All of this is irrelevant.
VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of any meeting of this sort with students, and I have no recollection of ever having publicly stated my views about the Jewish pogrom of 1938. I will state at another point what I said in my capacity as Youth Leader regarding this.
Ziemer says-I am translating from the English text-he says that "the day will come when the students of Heidelberg will take
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up their place side by side with the legions of other students to win the world over to the National Socialist ideology."
I have never spoken like that before youth, in public, or even in a small circle. These are not my words; I did not say that. I had no authority whatsoever to confer decorations or certificates, et cetera, upon students. Medals of distinction for students did not exist. All decorations were conferred by the head of the State.
I personally had the right to confer the golden youth decoration, and I think it was conferred by me about 230 times in all, almost entirely upon people who earned distinction in the field of education, but not upon unknown students.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the important point in your testimony is to tell us whether it is correct that the speech made at the end of 1938 before the students at Heidelberg, in which the speaker referred to the wreckage of the synagogues, was not made by you, because at that time you had not had anything to do with the student movement for years. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: I had nothing to do with the student movement, and I do not remember having spoken before such a meeting. I consider it quite out of the question that such a meeting of students took place at all. I did not make those statements.
DR. SAUTER: Have you got the affidavit before you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I cannot find that particular passage at the moment.
DR. SAUTER: It says something which I have translated into German, namely, it mentions the "small, fat student leader." Have you got that passage? Does it not say so?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it says so.
DR. SAUTER: Well then, surely "small, fat student leader" cannot be applied to you.
May I, Mr. President, in this connection, draw your attention to an affidavit which appears in Schirach's document book under Number Schirach-3, and which I herewith submit to the Tribunal. It is an affidavit of a certain Hoepken, who, beginning with 1 May 1938, was the female secretary of the Defendant Von Schirach and who, in this affidavit under the Figure 16-which is Page 22 of the document book-mentioning exact details-states under oath that during the time with which we are here concerned the defendant was not at Heidelberg at all.
I do not suppose it is necessary for me to read that part of the affidavit. I am asking the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it.
THE PRESIDENT: I think this would be a good time to break off.
[A recess was taken.]
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DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have spoken in another connection about the fact that you did not consider officers suitable as youth leaders. I would be interested to know how many members of the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth in 1939 at the outbreak of the war were reserve officers in the Armed Forces.
VON SCHIRACH: I would judge that the leadership corps of the HJ had about 1,300 leaders. Those were leaders of the Banne, leaders of the districts or regions, and the corresponding staff of assistants. Of these 1,300 youth leaders, 5 to 10 men were reserve of ricers.
DR. SAUTER: And how many active officers did you have at that time on your staff or in the leadership corps?
VON SCHIRACH: Active officers were not youth leaders and could not be youth leaders.
DR. SAUTER: Why not? Was that contained in the regulations?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. An officer was not permitted to be a member of the Party or any one of its organs or affiliated organizations.
DR. SAUTER: Who was responsible to you for the physical education and sports programs in the Hitler Youth?
VON SCHIRACH: Obergebietsfuehrer Von Tschammer-Osten, who was also Reich Sports Leader. In the Olympic year he cooperated very closely with me and voluntarily subordinated himself to me in December or November 1936. He was responsible to me for the entire physical education of the boys and girls.
DR. SAUTER: This Herr Von Tsthammer-Osten, who was very well known in the international sports world, was he an officer by profession?
VON SCHIRACH: According to my recollection he had been an officer during the first World War. Then he left the Army and was a farmer by profession. Later on he concerned himself only with questions of physical education and sport. One of his brothers was an active officer.
DR. SAUTER: Did Von Tschammer-Osten become an officer during the second World War?
VON SCHIRACH: No, he did not.
DR. SAUTER: Do you remember that? A document has been submitted here by the Soviet Prosecution. namely a report from Lvov, in which it is stated that the Hitler Youth or the Reich Youth Leadership had conducted courses for young people from Poland, and these young people were to be trained as agents, spies,
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and parachutists. You have stated today that you take the complete responsibility for the youth leadership. I ask you to tell us something about that.
VON SCHIRACH: We had absolutely no possibilities for espionage training in our youth organization. Whether Heydrich on his part, without my knowledge and without the knowledge of my assistants, had hired youthful agents in Poland and used them within his intelligence service, it is not possible for me to say. I myself did not conduct any espionage training; I had no courses for agents, and courses for training parachutists were out of the question because, after all, I had no air force. Training of that kind could only have been conducted through the Air Force.
DR. SAUTER: Then you, as Reich Youth Leader or, as you were called later, Reich Leader for Youth Education, have never known anything about these things before this Trial? Can you state that under oath?
VON SCHIRACH: That I can state upon my oath. I should like to add that shortly before the war young refugees from Poland came to us in large numbers, but they of course could not return to Poland. The persecution of the Germans in Poland is a historical fact.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Prosecution has asserted that in the Hitler Youth a song was sung, "Heute gehoert uns Deutschland, und morgen die ganze Welt" (Today Germany belongs to us, tomorrow the whole world); that is the alleged title of that song, and that is supposed to have expressed the will for conquest of the Hitler Youth; is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: The song says, in the original text which was written by Hans Baumann and is also included in a document here: "Heute da hoert uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt" (Germany hears us today and tomorrow the whole world). But it had come to my knowledge also that the song, from time to time, was being sung in the form which has been mentioned here. For that reason I issued a prohibition against singing the song which differed from the original text. I also prohibited, years ago, the song "Siegreich wollen wir Frankreich schlagen" (Victoriously we will conquer France) from being sung by the German Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: You prohibited the last mentioned song entirely?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Out of consideration for your French guests?
VON SCHIRACH: Not out of consideration for guests but because it was contrary to my political conceptions.
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DR. SAUTER: Thus, Mr. President, I submit the correct text which I got from a song book. It is Number Schirach-95 of the Schirach document book.
In connection with the question of whether the Hitler Youth intended a premilitary training of youth, I should like to put the following additional questions. Did the physical and sport training of youth apply only to the boys, Herr Von Schirach?
VON SCHIRACH: No. Of course all young people received physical training.
DR. SAUTER: Also the girls?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Is it correct that your efforts directed toward the physical training and physical strengthening of youth also applied to the physically handicapped and to the blind and other young people who from the very outset could not be used for military purposes?
VON SCHIRACH: Very early in our work I included the blind and deaf and the cripples in the Hitler Youth. I had a periodical especially issued, for the blind and had books made for them in Braille. I believe that the Hitler Youth was the only organization in Germany which took care of these people, except for special organizations of the NSV (National Socialist Welfare Organization) and so on.
DR. SAUTER: I ask, in connection with that, Mr. President, that you take notice of Document Schirach-27 of the Schirach document book. That is a long article entitled "Admission of Physically Handicapped Young People in the Hitler Youth," where the deaf, dumb, and blind are especially mentioned and their training to enable them to take up a professional occupation.
MR. DODD: I have refrained all day from making any objection, but I think this examination has gone very far afield. We have made no charge against this defendant with respect to the blind, the deaf, the lame, and halt. He keeps going way back to the Boy Scouts and we haven't gotten to any of the relevant issues that are between us and this defendant. At the present rate I fear we will never get through.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, we have listened to this somewhat long account of the training of the Hitler Youth. Don't you think you can go on to something more specific now? We have got a very fair conception, I think, of what the training of the Hitler Youth was; and we have got all these documents before us.
DR. SAUTER: I shall try, Mr. President, to proceed according to your wishes so far as it is at all possible.
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Witness, is it correct that you personally intervened with Hitler to prevent the re-establishment of cadet academies as institutions for purely military training?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is correct. I prevented the reestablishment of cadet academies.
DR. SAUTER: I come now to another chapter. The defendant has been accused of wrecking the Protestant and Catholic youth organizations. What can you say in answer to that?
VON SCHIRACH: First, the following: I wanted, as I have already explained, the unification of all our youth. I also wanted to bring the Protestant organizations, which were not very large numerically, and the numerically very large Catholic organizations into the Hitler Youth, particularly because some of the organizations did not limit themselves to religious matters but competed with the Hitler Youth in physical training, hikes, camping, and so on. In this I saw a danger to the idea of unity in German national education, and above all I felt that among young people themselves there was a very strong tendency toward the Hitler Youth. The desertion from the confessional organizations is a fact. There were also many clergymen who were of the opinion that the development should perhaps take the following direction: All youth into the Hitler Youth; the religious care of the youth through clergymen; sports and political work through youth leaders.
In 1933 or 1934-but I think it was as early as 1933-Reich Bishop Mueller and the Protestant Bishop Oberheidt approached me on their own initiative and proposed that I incorporate the Protestant youth organizations into the Hitler Youth. Of course I was very happy about that proposal and accepted it. At that time I had no idea that there was opposition to Reich Bishop Mueller within the Protestant Church. I found out about that only much later. I believed that I was acting with the authority and in the name of the Evangelical Church, and the other bishop who accompanied him further strengthened this belief of mine. Even today I still believe that with the voluntary incorporation of the Protestant youth into the Youth State, Mueller acted in accordance with the will of the majority of the Protestant youth themselves; and in my later activity as Youth Leader I frequently met former leaders from the Protestant youth organizations, who had leading positions with me and worked in my youth organization with great enthusiasm and devotion.
Through that incorporation of Protestant youth-I should like to stress this-spiritual ministration to youth was not limited or hindered in any way; there never was a restriction of church services for youth in Germany, either then or later. Since Protestant
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youth had been incorporated on the basis of an agreement between the Church and the Hitler Youth, there was practically only a dispute about youth education between the Catholic Church and the Hitler Youth.
In May or June 1934 I asked personally to participate in the negotiations for the Reich Concordat because I wanted to eliminate entirely the differences between the Catholic Church and the Hitler Youth. I considered an agreement in this field to be very important and in fact I was allowed to participate in these negotiations which took place in June '34 in the Reich Ministry of the Interior under the chairmanship of Reich Minister for the Interior Frick. On the Catholic side Archbishop Groeber and Bishop Berning took part in the negotiations; and at that time I personally proposed a formula for co-operation, which met with the approval of the Catholic side, and I believed that I had found the basis for agreement in this sphere.
The conferences were unfortunately interrupted on the evening of 29 June; and on 30 June '34 we experienced the so-called "Roehm Putsch," and the negotiations were never resumed. That is not my fault, and I bear no responsibility for that. Hitler simply did not want to accept the consequences of the Concordat. I personally desired to conclude that agreement, and I believe that the representatives of the Church saw from these negotiations and from certain later conferences with me that the difficulties did not originate with me. At any rate Bishop Berning came to me, I believe in 1939. We discussed current questions between the youth leadership and the Church. I believe that he also got the impression at that time that it was not I who wanted to make difficulties.
The difficulties arose at that time from the increasingly strong influence of Martin Bormann, who tried to prevent absolutely any kind of agreement between the Party offices and the Church or between the youth leadership and the Church.
In the course of the dispute about the leadership of confessional youth organizations and their incorporation, animated public discussions arose. I myself spoke at various meetings. Statements were issued by the Church also, which according to the state of affairs, were more or less sharp. But I did not make statements inimical to religion in connection with that subject, nor did I at any time during my life.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, is it correct that in 1937 you concluded an agreement with the Church to the effect that the Hitler Youth should, in principle, not be on duty on Sundays during church time, so that the children could attend religious services, and furthermore, that on account of this agreement you ran into considerable difficulties?
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VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.
DR. SAUTER: Will you tell us very briefly about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe one can say that it was an agreement with the Church. If I remember correctly, I issued a decree based on various letters I had received from clergymen- which to a very great extent took into account the wishes expressed in these letters. I then issued that decree and I gather from many affidavits which have been sent by youth leaders to me recently that that decree was very carefully obeyed.
Difficulties arose in the Party Chancellery on account of my attitude. Bormann, of course, was an energetic enemy of such a basic concession to the Church, and Hitler himself-I don't know whether it was in connection with this decree, but, at any rate, in connection with the regulation of the dispute between the youth leadership and the Church-also reprimanded me once.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have a small book here, entitled A Good Year 1944, with the sub-title "Christmas Gift of the War Welfare Service of Reich Leader Von Schirach." I submit that book as Document Number Schirach-84 to the Tribunal for judicial notice. On Page 55 is a picture of the Madonna. On Page 54 is a Christian poem written by the defendant, with the title "Bavarian Christmas Crib." On the lower half of Page 54 there is the famous "Wessobrunner Prayer," the oldest prayer in the German language, dating from the eighth century.
Witness, is it also correct that on account of the Christian content of that book you had difficulties with Reichsleiter Bormann; and if so, what were they?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct. I had that Christmas gift made for, I believe, 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers and sent to them at the front as late as 1944. I did not hear anything directly from Bormann, but he suddenly asked for 10 copies of that book; and I was informed by people who were near the Fuehrer in his headquarters that he used that book in some way in order to incite Hitler against me.
I should like to add that at all times of my life, at any rate insofar as I have written poetry, I have expressed myself in the same way as in this poem. Also in the collection of poems, The Flag of the Persecuted, which I do not have here unfortunately but which was distributed among the youth in a very large edition, where my revolutionary poems can be found, there are poems of a Christian content which, however, were not reprinted by the Party press in the newspapers and therefore did not become so well-known as my other verses. But I should like to express quite clearly that I was an opponent of confessional youth organizations, and I wish to
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make it just as clear that I was not an opponent of the Christian religions.
DR. SAUTER: Not an opponent?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course not.
DR. SAUTER: Did you leave the Church?
VON SCHIRACH: In spite of many hints by Bormann, I never left the Church.
DR. SAUTER: May I, Mr. President, ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of Documents Schirach-85 to 93, inclusive, of the Schirach document book. All of these are documents from the period when he was Reich Youth Leader and show his attitude toward the Church.
VON SCHIRACH: May I add something to that?
DR. SAUTER: If you please.
VON SCHIRACH: As far as my religious attitude is concerned, I always identified myself with the thoughts expressed in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre about religions in general and the importance of the Christian religion in particular. I should like to say here that in my work as an educator I was mistaken in holding the opinion that positive Christianity existed outside of the Church.
However, I never made any anti-Christian statements; and I should like to say here for the first time in public that in the closest circles of the Hitler Youth I have always expressed a very unequivocal belief in the person and teachings of Christ. Before educators of the Adolf Hitler School-a fact which naturally was never allowed to come to the knowledge of the Party Chancellery-I spoke about Christ as the greatest leader in world history and of the commandment to "Love thy neighbor" as a universal idea of our culture. I believe that there are also several testimonials by youth leaders about that in your possession, Mr. Attorney.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, I shall refer to that later. I should like to begin a new chapter now. In 1940 you were dismissed as Reich Youth Leader?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR SAUTER: And you were succeeded by Axmann who has already been mentioned. But you remained connected with youth education through what office?
VON SCHIRACH: Through the office of the Reichsleiter of Youth Education.
DR. SAUTER: And in addition to that you received another title, I believe?
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VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I became Deputy of the Fuehrer for the Inspection of the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Was that only a title, or was that some kind of office?
VON SCHIRACH: That was an office to the extent that the Reichsleiter office was concerned with youth work in the Party sector. The Youth Leader of the German Reich-that was Axmann as my successor-also had a field of activity in the State, and I too became competent for that by my appointment as inspector.
DR. SAUTER: How did your dismissal as Reich Youth Leader come about, and why were you called specifically to Vienna as Gauleiter? What can you tell us about that?
VON SCHIRACH: At the end of the French campaign, in which I participated as an infantryman, I was in Lyon when a wireless message from the Fuehrer's headquarters was received, and the chief of my company told me that I had to report to the Fuehrer's headquarters. I went there at once; and at the Fuehrer's headquarters, which was at that time situated in the Black Forest, I saw the Fuehrer standing in the open speaking to Reich Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop. I waited a while, maybe a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes, until the conversation had ended and then reported at once to Hitler and there, outside, before the Casino building where later we all had our meal together, he told me the following in about 10 minutes:
I should propose to him a successor for the leadership of the youth. He intended for me to take over the Reich Gau Vienna. I at once suggested my assistant, Axmann, who was not a man who advocated physical or military training but was concerned with social work among the youth, and that was most important to me He accepted this proposal...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, we need not go through Axmann's qualifications, need we? Is it material to the Tribunal to know what his successor was like?
DR. SAUTER: Axmann? Axmann was successor as Reich Youth Leader.
THE PRESIDENT: What I was asking you was whether it was material for the Tribunal to know the qualities of Axmann. We have nothing to do with that.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Von Schirach, you can be more brief about that point, can you not?
VON SCHIRACH: Hitler then said that I should keep my job as Reich Leader of Youth Education and that I should assume at the same time the office of the Inspector of Youth and that I should
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go to Vienna as the successor to Buerckel. In Vienna, especially in the cultural field, serious difficulties had arisen; and therefore I was to direct my attention to the case of the institutions of culture, particularly of theaters, art galleries, libraries, and so forth; and I was to be especially concerned about the working class. I raised the objection that I could carry out that cultural work only if independent of Goebbels, and Hitler promised at that time that this independence would be fully safeguarded; but he did not keep that promise later.
And lastly he said that he was sending the Jewish population away from Vienna, that he had already informed Himmler or Heydrich-I do not remember exactly what he said-of his intentions, or at least would inform them. Vienna had to become a German city, and in that connection he even spoke of an evacuation of the Czech population.
That concluded that conversation. I received no other instructions for this office, and then we dined together as usual. I took my leave then and went to Berlin to talk to my assistants.
DR. SAUTER: Vienna was considered at that time, if I am correctly informed, the most difficult Gau of the Reich; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: Vienna was by far the most difficult political problem which we had among the Gaue.
DR. SAUTER: Why?
VON SCHIRACH: Because-I learned the details only from other persons in Berlin, after I had received my mission from Hitler-in Vienna the population had sobered considerably after the first wave of enthusiasm over the Anschluss had subsided. Herr Buerckel, my predecessor, had brought many officials to Vienna from the outside; and the German system of administration, which was in no wise more practicable or efficient than the Austrian, was introduced there. This resulted in a certain over-organization in the administrative field, and Buerckel had started on a Church policy which was more than unsatisfactory. Demonstrations took place under his administration. On one occasion the palace of the archbishop was damaged. Theaters and other places of culture were not taken care of as they should have been. Vienna was experiencing a feeling of great disillusionment. Before I got there I was informed that if one spoke in the streetcars with a North-German accent, the Viennese took an unfriendly attitude..
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what duties did you have or what of flees did you hold in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: In Vienna I had the office of Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter), which included two administrations, the municipal administration and the national administration. In addition,
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I was Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreis XVII, but only until 1942. In 1942, the Wehrkreis was subdivided, and each Gauleiter of the Wehrkreis became his own Reich Defense Commissioner.
DR. SAUTER: And then you also were Gauleiter?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I was also Gauleiter, the highest official of the Party.
DR. SAUTER: In other words, you represented city, state, and Party, all at once-the highest authority of city, state, and Party in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. Now the situation was such in the administration that there was an official representative to take charge of national affairs, namely, the Regierungspraesident; for the municipal administration there was another representative, the mayor; in the Party, the Deputy Gauleiter in Vienna had the title of Gauleiter.
I should not like to belittle my responsibility for the Gau by explaining that, and I want to protect the exceptionally efficient Deputy Gauleiter who was there. I just want to say- that in order to clarify my position.
DR. SAUTER: What really was your position as Reich Defense Commissioner, Witness? Was that a military position, or what was it?
VON SCHIRACH: That was not a military position at all. The Reich Defense Commissioner was simply the head of the civil administration, in contrast to the situation prevailing during the first World War, where the head of the civil administration was assigned to and subordinated to the commanding general; in this war the Reich Defense Commissioner was co-ordinate with him, not subordinate.
The tasks of the Reich Defense Commissioner-at least, that is how I saw my tasks-were at certain intervals, to co-ordinate the most pressing problems of food economy, transportation-that is, local and distant transportation, coal supplies, and price regulation for the Gaue of Vienna, Upper Danube, and Lower Danube, all of which belonged to Wehrkreis XVII.
There were several meetings for that purpose-I believe three all together. In 1942 the reorganization which I previously mentioned took place. Bormann carried his point against the Reich Marshal. The Reich Marshal was of the opinion that the Reich Defense Commissioner had to be Defense Commissioner for the entire Wehrkreis. Bormann wanted each Gauleiter to be Defense Commissioner, and so that led to the division. From 1942 on I was only Reich Commissioner for Vienna.
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DR. SAUTER: Witness, it seems that a decree was issued at that time-will you please tell me when you were informed about it- namely, a decree by Reichsleiter Bormann, that not more than two Gauleiter could meet.
VON SCHIRACH: That is not a decree by Bormann; that was an order by Hitler.
DR. SAUTER: What were its salient points?
VON SCHIRACH: I must explain that briefly. Because of the fact that the Reich Commissariat was subdivided, I had to meet from time to time with the Reichsstatthalter of other provinces in order to discuss the most important questions, especially concerning our food economy. However, I believe it was in 1943, Dr. Ley came to me in Vienna and brought me an official order from the Fuehrer, according to which it was considered illegal-that was the way he expressed it-for more than two Gauleiter to meet for a conference
At that time I looked at Dr. Ley speechless; and he said:
"Yes, that does not concern you alone. There is still another Gauleiter who has called a conference of more than two, and that fact alone is already considered as virtual mutiny or conspiracy."
DR. SAUTER: Witness, when you were in Vienna, were you given a further mission which took up much of your time? Please tell us briefly about that.
VON SCHIRACH: I had just started to work in Vienna when, in October 1940, I received an order to appear at the Reich Chancellery.
DR. SAUTER: Will you please be very brief.
VON SCHIRACH: And there Hitler personally gave me the mission of carrying out the evacuation of all German youth from areas endangered by aerial attack, and simultaneously to carry out the evacuation of mothers and infants; and he said that that should begin in Berlin and then gradually take in the entire Reich. He said that education was of secondary importance now; the main thing was to maintain the nervous energy of the youth and to preserve life. However, I asked at once that I be given the possibility of establishing an educational organization, and I did so.
I do not wish to speak about details, but one of the demands, which I made at once-this is important in connection with the Indictment-was that there should be no difficulties placed in the way of young people's participation in church services. That was promised to me, and it was expressed very clearly in my first directives for the children's evacuation. The youth leaders who were active in this field of my organizational work will confirm this.
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DR. SAUTER: This evacuation of children to the country was a very extensive task, was it not?
VON SCHIRACH: It was the most difficult, and from a psychological point of view, the most complicated work which I ever carried out. I transferred millions of people in this way; I supplied them with food, with education, with medical aid, and so on. Of course that work took up my time fully or to a large extent only during the first years. After that I had trained my assistants for that kind of work.
DR. SAUTER: Later, as I have heard from you, you tried from time to time to report to Hitler about your successes and about problems requiring decision. How often during the entire years of the war were you admitted to discuss that important field of work with Hitler?
VON SCHIRACH: Mr. Attorney, I am afraid I have to correct you. I never tried to report to Hitler about my successes, but only about my problems.
DR. SAUTER: Problems, yes.
VON SCHIRACH: About that entire program of evacuation of children I could only report to him twice; the first time in 1940, after I had got the whole program under way, and the second time in 1941, when the evacuation had reached very large proportions.
And about Vienna I could only report on very rare occasions, and in 1943 the possibility of reporting ceased altogether with the breach of relations which I will describe later.
DR. SAUTER: Then, during your period in Vienna you became the Chairman of the Wuerzburg Bibliophile Society.
VON SCHIRACH: That is an honorary office, the Wuerzburg Bibliophile Convention had appointed me Chairman of the German Bibliophile Society.
DR. SAUTER: Your Honor, Schirach-Number Schirach-1 of the document book makes reference to that matter, and I submit it as a piece of evidence. It it an affidavit by an old anti-Fascist, Karl Klingspor, an honorary member of the society, who gives valuable information about the character of the Defendant Von Schirach.
And in addition, Herr Von Schirach, I believe you were the Chairman of the Southeast Europe Society, is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: In brief, what was the mission of that society?
VON SCHIRACH: It had as its purpose the improvement of trade relations, economic relations, with the southeast. Its functions Were essentially in the field of research and representation.
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DR. SAUTER: Witness, what were your main Viennese activities?
VON SCHIRACH: My principal activities in Vienna were social work and cultural work, as I have already explained before.
DR. SAUTER: Social work and cultural work?
VON SCHIRACH: These were the two poles which dominated my entire political life.
DR. SAUTER: I come now to the particular accusations which have been made against you by the Prosecution concerning that period in Vienna. Among other things you have been accused of participating in the so-called slave-labor program, and I ask you to state your position concerning that, and in that connection also to deal with Directive Number 1 of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, of 6 April 1942, which was presented, I believe, as Document 3352-PS. Please go ahead.
VON SCHIRACH: Maybe I would do best to start with the decree by which Gauleiter were appointed Plenipotentiaries for the Allocation of Labor under the Plenipotentiary General.
DR. SAUTER: 6 April 1942.
VON SCHIRACH: In the way of documentary material that decree contains no more than that the Gauleiter could make suggestions and submit requests to the competent of flees for the allocation of labor. But they were held responsible-I do not know whether by this decree or another one-for the supervision of the feeding and quartering, et cetera, of foreign workers. This feeding and quartering, et cetera, of foreign workers was-in my Gau and I believe also in all other Gaue of the Reich-mainly in the hands of the German Labor Front.
The Gauobmann of the German Labor Front in Vienna reported to me very frequently about the conditions among German workers and foreign workers in the Gaul He often accompanied me on inspection tours of industries; and from my own observations I can describe my impressions here of the life of foreign workers in Vienna as far as I could watch it.
I well remember, for instance, my visit to a large soap factory where I saw barracks in which Russian and French women were living. They had better quarters there than many Viennese families which lived six or eight people in lithe usual one-room apartments with kitchen. I remember another inspection where I saw a billet of Russian workers. It was clean and neat, and among the Russian women who were there I noticed that they were gay, well-nourished, and apparently satisfied. I know about the treatment of Russian domestic workers from the circle of my acquaintances and from the acquaintances of many assistants; and here, also, I have
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heard, and in part observed myself, that they were extremely well treated.
Let me say something in general about Vienna as a place for foreign workers. For centuries foreign workers have worked in Vienna. To bring foreign workers from the southeast to Vienna is no problem at all. One likes to go to Vienna, just as one likes to go to Paris. I have seen very many Frenchmen and French women working in Vienna, and at times I spoke with them. I also talked to French foremen in the factories. They lived as tenants somewhere in the city, just like any other private person. One saw them in the Prater. They spent their free time just as our own native workers did.
During the time I was in Vienna, I built more factory kitchens than there are in any other Gau in Germany. The foreign workers frequented these kitchens just as much as the native workers.
About treatment at the hands of the population, I can only say that the population of a city which has been accustomed for centuries to work together with foreign elements, will spontaneously treat any worker well who comes from the outside.
Really bad conditions were never reported to me. From time to time it was reported that something was not going well here or there. It was the duty of the Gauobmann of the Labor Front to report that to me. Then I immediately issued a directive from my desk by telephone to the regional food office or the quota office for the supply of material, for kitchens or heating installations, or whatever it vitas. At any rate, I tried within 24 or 48 hours to take care of all complaints that came to me.
While we are on the subject I would like to give my impression of the use of manpower in general. I am not responsible for the importation of labor. I can only say that what I saw in the way of directives and orders from the Plenipotentiary General, namely the Codefendant Sauckel, always followed the line of humane, decent, just, and clean treatment of the workers who were entrusted to us. Sauckel literally flooded his offices with such directives.
I considered it my duty to state that in my testimony.
DR. SAUTER: These foreign workers, who were in the Gau Vienna and for whom you do not consider yourself responsible, were they employed in the armament industry or elsewhere?
VON SCHIRACH: A large portion was employed in agriculture, some in the supply industry. Whether there were some directly in the armament industry I could not say. The armament industry was not accessible to me in all its ramifications, even in my functions as Gauleiter, because there were war production processes which were kept secret even from the Reichsstatthalter.
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DR. SAUTER: Witness, in connection with the subject of Jewish forced labor, a letter was read, Document 3803-PS. It is, I believe, a handwritten letter from the Defendant Kaltenbrunner to Blaschke. Blaschke, I believe, was the second mayor of Vienna.
VON SCHIRACH: He was the mayor of Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: This is a letter of 30 June 1944. In that letter Kaltenbrunner informs Blaschke that he had directed that several evacuation transports should be sent to Vienna-Strasshof. "There are four transports," it says in the letter, "with about 12,000 Jews, which will arrive in the next few days." So much about the letter. Its further content is only of importance because of what it says in the end-and I quote:
"I beg you to arrange further details with the State Police Office, Vienna, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ebner, and SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Krumey, of the Special Action Command Hungary, who is at present in Vienna."
Did you have anything to do with that matter, and if so what?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know of the correspondence between the Codefendant Kaltenbrunner and the mayor of Vienna. To my knowledge Camp Strasshof is not within Gau Vienna at all. It is in an altogether different Gaul The designation, "Vienna-Strasshof," is, therefore, an error. The border runs in between the two.
DR. SAUTER: And were you informed of the matter itself at that time, or only here in the courtroom?
VON SCHIRACH: I know of that matter only from this courtroom, but I remember that mention was made about the use of Jewish workers in connection with the building of the Southeast Wall or fortifications. The Southeast Wall, however, was not in the area of Reich Gau Vienna. It was a project in the area of Gau Lower Danube, Lower Austria, or Styria. I had nothing to do with the construction of the Southeast Wall; that was in the hands of Dr. Jury, that is, the O. T....
DR. SAUTER: O. T. is the Organization Todt?
VON SCHIRACH: . . .the Organization Todt. And in the other part of the border it was in the hands of Dr. Uiberreither, the Gauleiter of Styria, and his technical assistants.
DR. SAUTER: So I can sum up your statement to mean that you had nothing to do with these things because they were matters which did not concern your Gaul
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I cannot understand what connection there should be with Gau Vienna. Whether the mayor intended to divert some of these workers for special tasks in Vienna is not known to me. I do not know about that matter.
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DR. SAUTER: In the same connection, Witness, another document has been submitted, 1948-PS, a file note of 7 November 1940. That was a date on which you had already been Gauleiter in Vienna for several months and it, too, concerns forced labor of the Jews who were capable of work. That file note was written on stationery with the heading "The Reichsstatthalter in Vienna," and apparently the note in question was written by a Dr. Fischer. Who is Dr. Fischer? What did you, as Reichsstatthalter, have to do with that matter? What do you know about it?
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, Dr. Fischer is not known to me personally. I do not want to dispute the possibility that he may have been introduced to me once and that I do not remember him; but I do not know who Dr. Fischer is. At any rate, he was not an expert working in my central office. I assume that he may have been an official, because his name appears in connection with another document also. He was probably the personal consultant of the Regierungspraesident. The note shows that this official used my stationery, and he was entitled to do that. I believe several thousand people in Vienna were entitled to use that stationery, according to the usage of German offices.
On this note he has put down a telephone conversation with the Gestapo from which it can be seen that the Reich Security Main Office-that is Heydrich-was the office which decided, by internal directives to the Gestapo, on the use of Jewish manpower.
The Regierungspraesident wanted to know more about that; but I believe one cannot draw the conclusion from this that I was informed about cruelties committed by the Gestapo, as the Prosecution has concluded. It is doubtful whether I was in Vienna at all at that time. I want to remind you of my other tasks, which I have described before.
However, if I was there, I certainly did not concern myself with the work of cleaning up the streets. But I should like to say that the variety of my tasks caused me to establish an organizational structure which did not exist in other Gaue, namely, the Central Office of the Reich Leader.
DR. SAUTER: Perhaps you will tell us, before concluding for today, approximately how many officials in Vienna were subordinated to you.
VON SCHIRACH: I guess it may have been about 5,000 officials and employees.
DR. SAUTER: Shall I continue, Mr. President? It is 5:00 o'clock.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 24 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]
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