at Yale Law School at Yale Law School[The Defendant Von Schirach resumed the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Is counsel for the Defendant Bormann present?
DR. FRIEDRICH BERGOLD (Counsel for Defendant Bormann): Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to you to present your documents on Tuesday at 10 o'clock?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, agreed.
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to the Prosecution?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Quite convenient, would it?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, indeed.
DR. SAUTER: Your Honors, we left off yesterday with Document Number 1948-PS. That, as you will recall, is a memorandum by a certain Dr. Fischer about a telephone conversation he had held with an official of the Secret State Police, Standartenfuehrer Huber, from Vienna, and refers to forced labor of Jewish youth. Special mention is made of the employment of Jews in the removal of ruined synagogues. In connection with this memorandum I should like to put just one more question to the Defendant Schirach.
[Turning to the defendant.] When were these synagogues destroyed in Vienna? Was it in your time and on your responsibility, or at another time?
VON SCHIRACH: The synagogues in Vienna were destroyed 2 years before I assumed office in Henna.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I now proceed to the chapter on anti-Semitism which-according to your admission yesterday-you followed in your youth. I should like to know what your attitude was, when you joined the Party and when you became an official in the Party, toward a practical solution of this anti-Semitism?
VON SCHIRACH: According to my opinion-in 1924-1925- Jews were to be entirely excluded from the civil service. Their
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influence in economic life was to be limited. I believed that Jewish influence in cultural life should be restricted. But for artists of the rank of, for instance, Max Reinhardt, I still envisioned the possibility of a free participation in this cultural life. That, I believe, exactly reflects the opinion which I and my comrades held on the solution of the "Jewish Problem" in 1924-1925 and in the following years.
Later, when I was leading the high school youth movement, I put forward the demand for the so-called Numerus clausus. It was my wish that the Jews should be allowed to study only on a proportional basis commensurate 'to their percentage of the total population. I believe one can realize from this demand for the Numerus clausus, known to the entire generation of students in that period, that I did not believe in a total exclusion of the Jews from artistic, economic, and scientific activities.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have submitted a document, Document Schirach-136, in the Schirach document book, which contains statements by an official of the Reich Youth Leadership about the treatment of Jewish youth as contrasted with Christian youth. Do you know what attitude the Reich Youth Leadership had adopted at that time toward the Jewish youth?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that we are dealing with the decree of the year 1936.
DR. SAUTER: Autumn 1936?
VON SCHIRACH: Autumn 1936. According to that, Jewish youth organizations were to exist under the official supervision of the Reich Youth Leader, who controlled all the youth of Germany, and Jewish youth would be able to carry out their own youth education autonomously.
DR. SAUTER: It says in that decree, inter alia-I quote one sentence only from Document Schirach-136 of the Schirach document book:
"Today in its youth, Judaism already assumes that special, isolated position, free within its own boundaries, which at some future date Judaism will occupy within the German State and in the economy of Germany and which it has already occupied to a great extent."
Witness, at about the same time, or shortly before then, the so-called Nuremberg Laws had been promulgated, those racial laws which we have frequently heard mentioned here.
Did you help pass these laws, and how did you personally judge these laws?
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VON SCHIRACH: I had no part in the drafting of these laws. In my room at the Hotel Deutscher Hof, here in Nuremberg, I was surprised to find a slip of paper stating that there would be a Reichstag meeting on the next day and that it would take place in Nuremberg. At that Reichstag meeting, at which I was present, the Nuremberg Laws were promulgated. I do not know to this day how they were drafted. I assume that Hitler himself determined their contents. I can tell you no more about them.
DR. SAUTER: Can you state on your oath, and with a clear conscience, that before these laws were published you had not known of the plan for such laws, although you had been Reich Youth Leader and Reichsleiter?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: After these laws had been promulgated in Nuremberg, how did you personally envisage the further development of the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRACH: I must say, first of all, that we had, as a matter of fact, not expected these laws at all. I believe that the entire youth of the country at that time considered the Jewish problem as solved, since in 1935 there could be be no more question of any Jewish influence. After these laws had been published we were of the opinion that now, definitely, the last word had been spoken on the Jewish problem.
DR. SAUTER: Briefly, Witness, you are accused of having incited and influenced the youth of the country. I therefore ask you: As Reich Youth Leader did you incite youth to anti-Semitic excesses, or did you, as Reich Youth Leader, and particularly at meetings of the Hitler Youth, make any inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not make any inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches, since I attempted, both as Reich Youth Leader and youth educator, not to add fuel to the fire; for neither in my books nor in my speeches-with the exception of one speech in Vienna, to which I shall refer later on and which was not made at the time when I was Reich Youth Leader-have I made any inflammatory statements of an anti-Semitic nature.
I will not make myself ridiculous by stating here that I was not an anti-Semite; I was-although I never addressed myself to the youth in that sense.
DR. SAUTER: The office of the Reich Youth Leader published an official monthly entitled Will and Power, Leadership Publication of the National Socialist Youth. Excerpts from this official publication have previously been submitted to the Tribunal in the document book.
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Now I would be interested to know: Is it true that certain Party authorities repeatedly demanded from you that you publish a special anti-Semitic issue of this official Youth Leadership publication in order to show the youth of the country the path to follow in the future, and what was your attitude with regard to that demand?
VON SCHIRACH: It is true that the Reich Minister for Propaganda repeatedly demanded of my editor-in-chief that such an anti-Semitic issue should be published. On receiving the report of the editor-in-chief I invariably refused to comply with this request. I believe that the editor-in-chief has already signed a sworn affidavit to that effect.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the question of anti-Semitism would also include your attitude to Der Stuermer, the paper issued by your fellow-Defendant, Streicher. Did you distribute this anti-Semitic paper Der Stuermer within your youth organization, and did you in any way further its distribution?
VON SCHIRACH: Der Stuermer was not distributed within the youth organization. I believe that with the sole exception of those of the young people who lived in this Gau...
DR. SAUTER: Gau Franken?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, Gau Franken-that the rest of the German youth organization never read Der Stuermer at all. The paper was definitely rejected by all the youth leaders-both boys and girls-in my organization.
DR. SAUTER: Then, Witness, I must point out to you that the Prosecution have accused you of having given, on one occasion, an introduction to this paper, this anti-Jewish paper Der Stuermer. Do you know about it, and what have you got to say on the matter?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say the following in this respect. I was always in close collaboration with the press; in fact, I came from the press myself. In my press office, as Reich Youth Leader, I gave definite instructions that all requests from Gau papers for an introduction, or something else of the kind from me should be granted on principle. Therefore, whenever a Gau paper celebrated a jubilee- perhaps the tenth or twentieth anniversary of its existence, or published some special issue-then the experts in my press office would run up a draft and, together with the considerable volume of evening mail presented to me for my signature, these drafts and elaborations would be submitted to me. In this way it might have happened that I signed that introduction for Der Stuermer which, of course, was the paper of the local Gaul Otherwise I have no recollection of the episode.
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DR. SAUTER: Consequently you cannot remember whether you drafted that short introduction yourself, or whether it was drafted by one of your experts and presented to you for signature?
VON SCHIRACH: I definitely believe that I did not draft it myself, because such short introductions-as already stated-were always submitted to me. I wrote my newspaper articles myself but never introductions of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, since we have just mentioned the name of Streicher, I would remind you of a very ugly picture book which was submitted here by the Prosecution. Was that picture book distributed among the youth with your consent, or do you know anything else about it?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course this book was not distributed among the young people. It is quite out of the question that an office of the HJ (Hitler Jugend) would have transmitted that book to the youth. Besides, the picture books of the Stuermer Publishing Firm are unknown to me. I am, of course, not competent to speak on education in the schools, but I should also like to say on behalf of education in the schools that I do not believe this picture book was ever introduced into any school outside of this Gaul At any rate, that book and similar writings of the Stuermer Publishing Firm were not, as a rule, distributed among the young people and the youth organizations. What I have already said when judging Der Stuermer also holds good for these books-namely, that the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth categorically rejected writings of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have also experienced how the anti-Semitic question actually developed and how it eventually resulted in the well-known anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938. Did you yourself, in any way, participate in these anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: I personally did not participate in any way, but I did participate in the Munich session...
DR. SAUTER: Which session?
VON SCHIRACH: The session which was traditionally held on 9 November of each year in memory of those who had fallen on 9 November 1923. I did not take part in all the discussions of that day. But I do remember a speech by Goebbels in connection with the murder of Herr Vom Rath. That speech was definitely of an inflammatory nature, and one was free to assume from this speech that Goebbels intended to start some action. He is alleged-but that I only discovered later-to have given detailed instructions for this action directly from his hotel in Munich to the Reich Propaganda Ministry. I was present at the Munich session, as was my colleague Lauterbacher, my chief of staff, and we both rejected the action.
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The HJ, as the largest National Socialist organization, was not employed at all in the anti-Jewish pogroms of 9, 10, and 11 November 1938. I remember one incident where a youth leader, without referring to my Berlin office and carried away by some local propaganda, took part in a demonstration and was later called to account by me for so doing. After 10 November I was again in Munich for a few days and visited, inter alia, a few of the destroyed business houses and villas as well. It made a terrible impression on me at the time, and under that impression I instructed the entire Youth Leadership, the regional leaders if I remember rightly-in other words, all the highest responsible youth leaders-to come to Berlin and there, in an address to these youth leaders, I described the incidents of the 9 and 10 November as a disgrace to our culture. I also referred to it as a criminal action. I believe that all the colleagues present on that occasion will clearly remember how agitated I was and that I told them that my organization, both now and in the future, would never have anything to do with acts of this sort.
DR. SAUTER: You previously mentioned one individual case where an HJ leader, subordinate to you, participated in some action. Did you know of other cases, in November 1938 and after, where units of the HJ were factually supposed to have participated in the anti-Jewish pogroms?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I know of no other cases. The only thing I did hear was that here and there individual lads, or groups of youths, were called out into the streets by local authorities which were not of the HJ. In the majority of cases these lads were promptly sent home again by the youth leaders. The organization was never employed, and I attach great importance to the statement that the youth organization, which included more members than the Party itself with all its affiliated organizations, was never involved in these incidents. '
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you saw at least, from the incidents in November 1938, that developments in Germany were taking a different trend to the course you had expected-if we are to judge by your previous description. How did you, after November 1938, envisage the further solution of the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRACH: After the events of 1938 I realized that Jewry's one chance lay in a state-supported emigration; for in view of Goebbels' temper, it seemed probable to me that overnight similar actions could arise from time to time, and under such conditions of legal insecurity I could not see how the Jews could continue living in Germany. That is one of the reasons why Hitler's idea of a closed Jewish settlement in the Polish Government General, of which he told me at his headquarters in 1940, was clear to
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me. I thought that the Jews would be better off in a closed settlement in Poland than in Germany or Austria, where they would remain exposed to the whims of the Propaganda Minister who was the mainstay of anti-Semitism in Germany.
DR. SAUTER: Is it true that you yourself, whenever you had a chance of approaching Hitler, gave him your own positive suggestions for settling the Jews in some neutral country, under humane conditions?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not true.
DR. SAUTER: Well?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like fully to elucidate this matter. I mentioned yesterday how I had reported to Hitler and how he had told me that the Viennese Jews would be sent to the Government General. Before that, I had never thought of an emigration of the Jews from Austria and Germany for resettlement in the Government General. I had only thought of a Jewish emigration to countries where the Jews wanted to go. But Hitler's plan, as it then existed-and I believe that at that time the idea of exterminating the Jews had not yet entered his mind-this plan of resettlement sounded perfectly reasonable to me-reasonable at that time.
DR. SAUTER: But I believe that in 1942 you are supposed to have tried, through the kind offices of your friend, Dr. Colin Ross, to suggest to Hitler that the Jews from Hungary and the Balkan States be allowed to emigrate to some neutral country, taking their goods and chattels with them.
VON SCHIRACH: That was at a later date. I no longer remember exactly when, but in any case it was after the occupation of Hungary. Among the innumerable suggestions which I made to the Fuehrer and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs through Colin Ross, was one to the effect that the entire Jewish population of Hungary be transferred to the neutral countries. If the witness Steengracht has stated here that this idea had been discussed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that it had emanated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then he probably spoke in good faith. The idea originated in discussions held between Colin Ross and myself, and Ross then put it down in the form of a memorandum. But-and this is specially important-it was reported verbally to the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs who, in turn, informed Colin Ross, on the occasion of a further visit, that the Fuehrer had definitely turned the suggestion down.
DR. SAUTER: The emigration to neutral countries abroad?
VOW SCHIRACH: Yes, to neutral countries abroad.
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DR. SAUTER: The majority of the Viennese Jews, Witness, were -as you yourself know-deported from Vienna. In 1940, when you became Gauleiter in Vienna-or later on-did you ever receive a directive from Hitler to the effect that you yourself should carry out this deportation of the Jews from Vienna or that you should participate in the deportation?
VON SCHIRACH: I never received any such directive. The only directive which I received in connection with the deportation of the Jewish population from Vienna was a question from Hitler asking about the number of Jews living in Vienna at the time. That number, which I had forgotten, was recalled to my memory by a document put to me by the Prosecution. According to that document I reported to Hitler that 60,000 Jews were then living in Vienna. That figure probably comes from the registration office. In former times about 190,000 Jews, all told, lived in Vienna. That, I believe, was the highest figure reached. When I came to Vienna there were still 60,000 Jews left. The deportation of the Jews was a measure immediately directed, on orders from Hitler, or by Himmler; and there existed in Vienna an office of the Reich Security Main Office, or local branch office under Himmler-Heydrich, which carried out these measures.
DR. SAUTER: Who was in charge of that office?
VON SCHIRACH: The head of that office was-that I found out now; I did not know his name at the time-a certain Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: An SS Sturmfuehrer?
VON SCHIRACH: An SS Sturmfuehrer, Dr. Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: The one who, a few days ago, is supposed to have been condemned to death? Did you know that?
VON SCHIRACH: I heard it yesterday.
DR. SAUTER: Did you have to issue any orders to this Brunner who was an SS leader, or could you give him any kind of instructions?
VON SCHIRACH: It was entirely impossible for me to stop the deportation of the Jews or to have any influence thereupon. Once, as early as 1940, I told the chief of my Regional Food Supply Office that he should see to it that departing Jewish people be provided with sufficient food. Frequently, when Jews wrote to me requesting to be exempted from deportation, I charged my adjutant or some assistant to intervene with Brunner so that possibly an exception might be made for these persons. More I could not do. But I have to admit frankly, here and now, that I was of the opinion that this deportation was really in the interests of Jewry, for the reasons which I have already stated in connection with the events of 1938
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DR. SAUTER: Did the SS, which in Vienna too was charged with the evacuation of the Jews, send continuous reports as to how and to what extent this evacuation of the Jews was carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I am, therefore, also not in a position to state when the deportation of the Jews was concluded and whether the entire 60,000 were dragged out of Vienna or if only a part of them was carried off.
DR. SAUTER: Did not the newspapers in Vienna report anything at all about these deportations of the Jews, about the extent of the deportations and the abuses occasioned in this connection?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Nothing? But, Witness, I must put a document to you which has been submitted by the Prosecution. It is Document Number 3048-PS, an excerpt from the Viennese edition of the Voelkischer Beobachter, on a speech which you, Witness, made on 15 September 1942 in Vienna, and in which occurs the sentence-I quote from the newspaper:
"Every Jew who operates in Europe is a danger to European culture. If I were to be accused of having deported tens of thousands of Jews from this city, once the European metropolis of Jewry, to the Eastern ghetto, I would have to reply, 'I see in that an active contribution to European culture."' Thus runs the quotation from your speech which otherwise contains no anti-Semitic declarations on your part. Considering your previous statements, Witness, I am compelled to ask you: Did you make that speech, and how did you come to make it despite your basic attitude which you have previously described to us?
VON SCHIRACH: First, I want to say that I did make that speech. The quotation is correct. I said that. I must stand by what I have said. Although the plan of the deportation of the Jews was Hitler's plan and I was not charged with its execution, I did utter those words, which I now sincerely regret; but I must say that I identified myself morally with that action only out of a feeling of misplaced loyalty to the Fuehrer. That I have done, and that cannot be undone. If I am to explain how I came to do this, I can only reply that at that time I was already "between the Devil and the deep sea." I believe it will also become clear from my later statements that from a certain moment on I had Hitler against me, the Party Chancellery against me, and very many members of the Parts itself against me. Constantly I heard from officials of the Part, Chancellery who expressed that to the Gauleiter of Vienna, and from statements made in Hitler's entourage that one was under the impression-and that this could be clearly recognized from my attitude and my actions-that I was no longer expressing myself publicly
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in the usual anti-Semitic manner or in other ways, either; and I just have no excuse. But it may perhaps serve as an explanation, that I was trying to extricate myself from this painful situation by speaking in a manner which today I can no longer justify to myself.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should like to ask you, in this connection-you have just spoken of a painful situation in which you found yourself in Vienna. Is it true that Hitler himself, on various occasions, reproached you personally and severely because your attitude in Vienna had not been sufficiently energetic, that you had become too slack and too yielding; that you should concern yourself more with the interests of the Party, and that you should adopt far stricter methods? And what, Witness, did you then do?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, I assume that you realize that you are putting questions in the most leading form, that you are putting questions which suggest the answer to the defendant, and such questions cannot possibly carry-the answers to such questions cannot possibly carry the weight which answers given to questions not in their leading form would carry.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, did Hitler personally reproach you for your behavior in Vienna, and what attitude did you adopt?
I believe that is not a suggestive question.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is. I should have thought it is a leading question. He says he was in a very difficult situation. You could ask him if he would explain what was the difficulty of the situation.
DR. SAUTER: Very well. Then will you answer this question, Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: Counsel for the defense, I could not, in any case, have accepted the question in the form in which you previously presented it.
The difference between Hitler and myself arose primarily over an art exhibition, and the breach between Hitler and myself in 1943 was in the beginning the result of differences of opinion over the cultural policy. In 1943 I was ordered to the Berghof where Hitler, in the presence of Bormann, criticized me violently on account of my cultural work and literally said that I was leading the cultural opposition against him in Germany. And further, in the course of the conversation he said that I was mobilizing the spiritual forces of Vienna and Austria and the spiritual forces of the young people against him in cultural spheres. He said he knew it very well indeed. He had read some of my speeches, primarily the Duesseldorf speech; he had discovered that I had authorized in Weimar and in Vienna art exhibitions of a decadent nature; and he offered me the
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alternative, either to end this kind of oppositional work immediately-then for the time being everything could remain as in the past-or he would stop all Government subsidies for Vienna.
This scene made a frightful impression on me, for it represented to me a breach of Hitler's promised word, since he had granted me absolute freedom of action when he appointed me to the Vienna mission. I then recognized that he nourished an icy hatred toward me, and that behind these statements on cultural policies something else was concealed. Whether he was dissatisfied in every detail with the way I conducted my office in Vienna at the time, I do not know. He rarely expressed himself directly about such matters. From his entourage I learned only of occasional happenings.
I then-and that led to the complete and final break between Hitler and myself-a few weeks after I had received this order, if
I may call it so, received a strange invitation for myself and my wife to spend some time on the Berghof. At that time I innocently believed that Hitler wished to bridge the gap between us and to let me know, in one way or another, that he had gone too far. In any case, at the end of a 3 days' visit-I cut my stay short-I discovered that this was a fundamental error on my part. Here I will limit myself to a few points only. I had intended-and I also carried out my intention-to mention at least three points during my visit. One was the policy toward Russia, the second was the Jewish question, and the third was Hitler's attitude toward Vienna.
I must state, to begin with, that Bormann had issued a decree addressed to me, and probably to all the other Gauleiters, prohibiting any intervention on our part in the Jewish question. That is to say, we could not intervene with Hitler in favor of any Jew or half-Jew. That too was stated in the decree. I have to mention this, since it makes matters clearer.
On the first evening of my stay at the Berghof, on what appeared to me a propitious occasion, I told Hitler that I was of the opinion that a free and autonomous Ukraine would serve the Reich better than a Ukraine ruled by the violence of Herr Koch. That was all I said, nothing more, nothing less. Knowing Hitler as I did, it was extremely difficult even to hazard such a remark. Hitler answered comparatively quietly but with pronounced sharpness. On the same evening, or possibly the next one, the Jewish question was broached according to a plan I made with my wife. Since I was forbidden to mention these things even in conversation, my wife gave the Fuehrer a description of an experience she had had in Holland. She had witnessed one night, from the bedroom of her hotel, the deportation of Jewish women by the Gestapo. We were both of the opinion that this experience during her journey and the description of it might possibly result in a change of Hitler's attitude toward
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the entire Jewish question and in the treatment of the Jews. My wife gave a very drastic description, a description such as we can now read in the papers. Hitler was silent. All the other witnesses to this conversation, including my own father-in-law, Professor Hoffmann, were also silent. The silence was icy, and after a short time Hitler merely said, "This is pure sentimentality." That was all. No further conversation took place that evening. Hitler retired earlier than usual. I was under the impression that a perfectly untenable situation had now arisen. Then the men of Hitler's entourage told my father-in-law that from now on I would have to fear for my safety. I endeavored to get away from the Berghof as quickly as possible without letting matters come to an open break, but I did not succeed.
Then Goebbels arrived on the next evening and there, in my presence and without my starting it, the subject of Vienna was broached. I was naturally compelled to protest against the statements which Goebbels at first made about the Viennese. Then the Fuehrer began with) I might say, incredible and unlimited hatred to speak against the people of Vienna. I have to admit, here and now, that even if the people of Vienna are cursing me today, I have always felt very friendly toward them. I have felt closely attached to those people. I will not say more than that Joseph Weinheber was one of my closest friends. During that discussion, I, in accordance with my duty and my feelings, spoke in favor of the people under my authority in Vienna.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, among other things, Hitler suddenly said something which I should now like to repeat for historical reasons. He said, "Vienna should never have been admitted into the Union of Greater Germany." Hitler never loved Vienna. He hated its people. I believe that he had a liking for the city because he appreciated the architectural design of the buildings on the Ring. But everybody who knows Vienna knows that the true Vienna is architecturally Gothic, and that the buildings on the Ring are not really representative.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I consider that this subject has little to do with the Indictment-please adhere to the Indictment.
VON SCHIRACH: I shall now conclude. I only want to say that so total a break resulted from that discussion-or, rather explosion- of Hitler's that on that very night at about 0430 I took my leave and left the Berghof a few hours later. Since then I had no further conversations with Hitler.
I must now refer to something else in this connection. Reich Marshal Goering, in the witness box, mentioned a letter of mine which Hitler had shown him, and Herr Von Ribbentrop has stated
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here that he was present at a conversation during which Himmler suggested to Hitler that I be indicted before the People's Court, which meant in reality that I should be hanged. I must add one thing more: What Goering said about this letter is mainly true. I wrote in quite a proper manner about family relations in that letter. I also wrote one sentence to the effect that I considered war with America a disaster.
DR. SAUTER: When was that letter written?
VON SCHIRACH: 1943, shortly after my stay at the Berghof. That statement contained nothing special, since Hitler even without . . .
THE PRESIDENT: He hasn't given the date of his stay at the Berghof yet.
DR. SAUTER: He has said 1943, Mr. President. He has just said 1943.
THE PRESIDENT: There are 12 months in 1943.
DR. SAUTER: I believe you ought to give us the month.
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the conversation on the Berghof was in the spring, and that the letter, though I cannot tell you precisely when, was written in the summer.
DR. SAUTER: Summer of 1943?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, 1943; but I could not say precisely when the letter was written. The letter was correct. It was written by hand, and no secretary read it. It went by courier to the head of the State.
DR. SAUTER: To Hitler personally?
VON SCHIRACH: To Hitler. It is also possible that it was addressed in care of Bormann. I cannot remember exactly. It went by courier, and that letter contained nothing else but the clarification required for replying to questions put to me in a circular which Goering mentioned in his statement here. That letter caused Hitler to have an absolute loathing for me; and at about the same time a file was started against me in the Reich Security Main Office. That was due to the fact that I had described in a small circle of political leaders-of high-ranking political leaders- the foreign political situation such as I saw it, as I was accustomed to do from the days of my youth One of these leaders was an SS intelligence officer and reported what I said, and then the file was started. The material was compiled in order to eventually bring me to trial. That I was never brought to trial I owe solely and exclusively to the circumstance that both in the Army and at home my comrades from the Youth Leadership stood solidly behind me, and any proceedings against me would have led to trouble. After 20 July
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1944 my situation became very precarious. My friends in the Army, therefore, placed a company of hand-picked men at my disposal They were under the orders of the former adjutant of Generaloberst Fromm. The company was directly subordinate to me. It took over the protection of my person and remained with me to the end.
DR. SAUTER: Was that company of the Wehrmacht, which you have just mentioned, placed at your disposal in place of the police protection previously afforded you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have to refer once more to your Vienna speech of September 1942. In that speech you speak of the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to the Eastern ghetto. You did not speak about the extermination or the murder of the Jews. When did you discover that Hitler's plan aimed at extermination or destruction?
VON SCHIRACH: Counsel, if I at that time had known anything about the destruction-that is the extermination of the Jews- I would not be sitting here today. As far as I can recall, I heard about an extermination of the Jews for the first time through the following incident.
Dr. Ross came to see me . . .
DR. SAUTER: Who?
VON SCHIRACH: Dr. Colin Ross came to Vienna in 1944 and told me that he had received information, via the foreign press, that mass murders of Jews had been perpetrated on a large scale in the East. I then attempted to find out all I could. What I did discover was that in the Warthegau executions of Jews were carried out in gas vans. These shootings in the East...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, what was the Gau that he spoke of? The Wart Gau?
DR. SAUTER: The Warthegau, My Lord.
VON SCHIRACH: The Warthegau.
DR. SAUTER: That is a Gau, a district on the Polish border. That is an area in the east of Germany,-W-a-r-t-h-e-g-a-u-in the west of Poland, near Silesia.
Please, Witness, will you continue briefly.
VON SCHIRACH: The executions, the shootings on Russian territory, mentioned in the documents submitted in the course of the cross-examination in the Kaltenbrunner case, were not known to me at that time. But at a later date-it was before 1944-I heard about shootings in the ghettos of the Russian area and connected
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this with developments on the front, since I thought of possible armed uprisings in the ghettos. I knew nothing of the organized annihilation which has been described to us in the Trial.
DR. SAUTER: Then, if I have heard you correctly, you were informed about these events for the first time in 1944 by your friend, Dr. Colin Ross, who knew it from reports in the foreign papers?
VON SCHIRACH Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Do you still remember the month?
VON SCHIRACH: That I cannot say.
DR. SAUTER: In any case it would be in 1944?
VON SCHIRACH: That again I cannot say. But I believe I have to explain something more about it. I asked myself what can one do to prevent it? And I still ask myself, day after day, what did I do to prevent it? I can only answer practically nothing, since from 1943 on I was politically dead. Beyond what I had attempted in 1943 on the Berghof, I could do nothing at all.
DR. SAUTER: Nothing?
VON SCHIRACH: Nothing.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should in this connection like to ask you a question of principle. You admitted yesterday that you had become an anti-Semite-and that is according to your conception-in your very early youth. You have, in the interim, heard the testimony of Hoess, the Auschwitz commander, who informed us that in that camp alone, I believe, 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 innocent people, mostly Jews, had been done to death. What, today, does the name of Auschwitz convey to you?
VON SCHIRACH: It is the greatest, the most devilish mass murder known to history. But that murder was not committed by Hoess; Hoess was merely the executioner. The murder was ordered by Adolf Hitler, as is obvious from his last will and testament. The will is genuine. I have held the photostat copy of that will in my hands. He and Himmler jointly committed that crime which, for all time, will be a stain in the annals of our history. N is a crime which fills every German with shame.
The youth of Germany is guiltless. Our youth was anti-Semitically inclined, but it did not call for the extermination of Jewry. It neither realized nor imagined that Hitler had carried out this extermination by the daily murder of thousands of innocent people. The youth of Germany who, today, stand perplexed among the ruins of their native land, knew nothing of these crimes, nor did they desire them. They are innocent of all that Hitler has done to the Jewish and to the German people.
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I should like to say the following in connection with Hoess' case. I have educated this generation in faith and loyalty to Hitler. The Youth Organization which I built up bore his name. I believed that I was serving a leader who would make our people and the youth of our country great and happy and free. Millions of young people believed this, together with me, and saw their ultimate ideal in National Socialism. Many died for it. Before God, before the German nation, and before my German people I alone bear the guilt of having trained our young people for a man whom I for many long years had considered unimpeachable, both as a leader and as the head of the State, of creating for him a generation who saw him as I did. The guilt is mine in that I educated the youth of Germany for a man who murdered by the millions. I believed in this man, that is all I can say for my excuse and for the characterization of my attitude. This is my own-my own personal guilt. I was responsible for the youth of the country. I was placed in authority over the young people, and the guilt is mine alone. The younger generation is guiltless. It grew up in an anti-Semitic state, ruled by anti-Semitic laws. Our youth was bound by these laws and saw nothing criminal in racial politics. But if anti-Semitism and racial laws could lead to an Auschwitz, then Auschwitz must mark the end of racial politics and the death of anti-Semitism. Hitler is dead. I never betrayed him; I never tried to overthrow him; I remained true to my oath as an officer, a youth leader, and an official. I was no blind collaborator of his; neither was I an opportunist. I was a convinced National Socialist from my earliest days-as such, I was also an anti-Semite. Hitler's racial policy was a crime which led to disaster for 5,000,000 Jews and for all the Germans. The younger generation bears no guilt. But he who, after Auschwitz, still clings to racial politics has rendered himself guilty.
That is what I consider my duty to state in connection with the Hoess case.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, is this perhaps a convenient moment to break off?
THE PRESIDENT: How long is the defendant's examination going to continue, Dr. Sauter?
DR. SAUTER: I believe it will take about 1 hour.
THE PRESIDENT: I did not hear that.
DR. SAUTER: I believe it will take about one more hour-an hour at the most. Did you hear me, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I hear you now. We have been hearing you for a very long time now.
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
[A recess was taken.]
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DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, after this declaration by the Defendant Von Schirach I would gladly dispense with all further questions, but the Prosecution have brought definite accusations against this defendant and I fear that, if he does not briefly voice an opinion on the subject, these accusations would be considered as tacitly accepted. I shall try to be as brief as possible.
Witness, you have just described the impressions you had gathered from the proceedings of the Tribunal. Have you yourself ever visited a concentration camp?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: When, and for what reason?
VON SCHIRACH: As the witness Hoellriegel has testified before this Tribunal, I visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1942. The testimony given by another witness, Marsalek, to the effect that this visit took place in 1944, is incorrect. I also mentioned it when I was interned, in June 1945 and in the course of my preliminary interrogation in Nuremberg.
DR. SAUTER: Prior to Hoellriegel's testimony?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through "interned in June 1940." Is that right?
DR. SAUTER: 1945, Herr Von Schirach, not 1940?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I went into voluntary internment in 1945.
DR. SAUTER: Then you can confidently state that you visited Mauthausen in 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: For what reason and how . . .
VON SCHIRACH: There had been a session...
DR. SAUTER: Just one moment . . .
THE PRESIDENT: What does he mean by "voluntary internment"?
DR. SAUTER: The Defendant Von Schirach was, at that time, living in the Tyrol under an assumed name, and in the place where he lived-perhaps Defendant Schirach can himself, but very briefly, tell us how this voluntary internment came about.
VON SCHIRACH: I was then still at liberty and I sent a letter, through my adjutant, to the local American commander, stating that I should like to surrender voluntarily in order to be tried by an Allied court. That was in June 1945. The CIC officer who later discovered where I lived told me that I might have stayed there a good
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time longer. I personally am convinced that I could have remained in hiding there, and elsewhere, for years-as long as I wished.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Von Schirach, we shall now revert to your visit to Mauthausen, which you said with certainty and under oath took place in 1942. Is this right?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe the date given by witness Hoellriegel is correct. I quite definitely know that the date given by Marsalek is not correct.
DR. SAUTER: Then it was not in 1944?
VON SCHIRACH: Probably 1942. I therefore confirm Hoellriegel's testimony. There was a meeting at Linz at which various departments of the Ostmark participated. There were conferences on economic or agrarian problems, and in the late afternoon we went to Mauthausen Concentration Camp at the request of Gauleiter Eigruber. At the time I was rather surprised that the Gauleiter was even in a position to invite us there. I assumed that he had previously been in touch with the SS offices, and that the reason for Eigruber's invitation was that he wished to erect a rifle factory or something of the kind there. At any rate, though I can no longer remember exactly, it was somehow connected with the production of the Steyr Works.
DR. SAUTER: Who showed you about and what did you see?
VON SCHIRACH: We were shown about by the camp commandant.
DR. SAUTER: Whose name was?
VON SCHIRACH: His name-as has already been mentioned here-was Ziereis, or something of the kind.
DR. SAUTER: SS leader?
VON SCHIRACH: SS Camp Commandant. And I should now like to give you my first impressions. The camp area was very large. I immediately asked how many internees there were. I believe I was told 15,000 or 20,000. At any rate, the figure varied between 15,000 and 20,000. I asked what kind of internees were imprisoned there and received the reply I was always given whenever I inquired about concentration camps-namely, that two-thirds of the inmates were dangerous criminals collected from the prisons and penitentiaries and brought to work in the camp; that the remaining third was allegedly composed of political prisoners and people guilty of high treason and betrayal of their country, who, it is a fact, are treated with exceptional severity in wartime.
DR. SAUTER: Did you, in this camp, convince yourself as to the nature of the treatment meted out to the prisoners, accomodations, the food situation, et cetera?
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VON SCHIRACH: I witnessed one food distribution and gained the impression that, for camp conditions, the food ration was both normal and adequate. I then visited the large quarry, once famous and now notorious, where the construction stone for Vienna had been quarried for centuries. There was no work going on at the quarry since the working day had come to an end, but I did, however, visit the works where the stone was cut. I saw a building with an exceptionally well-equipped dental clinic. This clinic was shown to me because I had questioned Ziereis about the medical assistance afforded in the camp. I would add that, during this visit, I asked in general the same questions which I had been used to ask during all my visits to the camps of the youth organizations-that is, questions pertaining to food, medical aid, the number of people in the camp, et cetera.
I was then taken to a large room in which music was being played by the prisoners. They had gathered together quite a large symphony orchestra, and I was told that on holiday evenings they could amuse themselves, each man according to his own tastes. In this case, for instance, the prisoners who wished to make music assembled in that room. A tenor was singing on that occasion-I remember that particularly.
I then inquired about the mortality rate and was shown a room with three corpses in it. I cannot tell you here and now, under oath, whether I saw any crematorium or not. Marsalek has testified to that effect. I would not, however, have been surprised if there had been a crematorium or a cemetery in so large a place, so far removed from the city. That would be a matter of course.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Von Schirach, during this official visit under the guidance of Camp Commandant Ziereis, did you discover anything at all about any ill-treatment, or atrocities, or of the tortures which were allegedly inflicted in the camp? You can answer the question briefly-possibly with "yes" or "no."
VON SCHIRACH: Had that been the case, I would of course have endeavored to do something about it. But I was under the impression that everything was in order. I looked at the inmates, for instance, and I remember seeing, among others, the famous middle-distance runner Peltzer, who was known as a sexual pervert. He had been punished because he had, on innumerable occasions, freely committed sexual offenses against youths in his charge in a country school.
I asked Ziereis, "How does one ever get out of these concentration camps? Do you also release people continuously?" In reply he had four or five inmates brought to me who, according to him, were to be released the very next day. He asked them in my
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presence, "Have you packed everything, and have you prepared everything for your release?"-to which, beaming with joy, they answered, "Yes."
DR. SAUTER: Witness, can you remember whether on this occasion you also asked Camp Commander Ziereis whether political prisoners from your Vienna district-that is, from the city of Henna- were interned in the camp? And did you then have a group of political prisoners from Vienna brought before you?
VON SCHIRACH: You have already, Counsel, put this question to me during an interview, and I can only tell you the following under oath: I cannot remember, but you may take it for granted that, on an occasion of this kind, I would certainly ask after prisoners from my own Gaul But I cannot remember. Herr Marsalek mentioned it in his testimony, and I consider it probable.
I should, in connection with this visit, like to add the following: I have always been rather hampered in my recollections of Mauthausen . . .
DR. SAUTER: What hampered you?
VON SCHIRACH: After May 1945 I heard innumerable radio reports on Mauthausen and other concentration camps, and I read everything I could lay my hands on in the way of written reports about Mauthausen-everything that appeared in the press-and I always pondered on the question, "Did you see anything there which might have pointed to a mass destruction of human beings?" I was, for instance, reading the other day about running belts for the conveyance of corpses. I did not see them.
I must add that I also visited Dachau; I must not forget that. In 1935, together with the entire Party leadership group, I paid a visit to Dachau from Munich. This visit was a result of the objections against existing preventive custody measures expressed by certain political leaders to the Deputy of the Fuehrer Hess who, in turn, passed these objections on to Himmler who subsequently sent out an invitation to inspect Dachau. I believe that there were, at that time, 800 or 1,000 internees at Dachau.
I did not participate in the entire official visit for I was conversing with some of the Gauleiter who were being shown about the camp. I saw quite excellent living quarters at Dachau and, because the subject interested me particularly, I was shown the building which housed the camp library. I saw that there were also good medical facilities. Then-and I believe this fact is worthy of mention-after the visit I spoke with many Gau- and Reichsleiter about the impression they had formed of Dachau. All impressions gained were to the effect that all doubts as to Himmler's preventive custody measures were definitely dispersed, and everybody said that
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the internees in the camp were, on the whole, better accommodated than they would have been in a state prison. Such was my impression of Dachau in 1935, and I must say that ever since that visit my mind was far more at ease regarding conditions in the concentration camps. In conclusion, I feel I must add the following:
Up to the moment of the final collapse I firmly believed that we had 20,000 people in the Mauthausen Camp, 10,000 at Oranienburg and Dachau-two more large camps whose existence was known to me and one of which I had visited-and possibly 10,000 more at Buchenwald, near Weimar, a camp I knew by name but which I had never visited. I therefore concluded that we had roughly 50,000 people in the German camps, of which I firmly believed that two-thirds were habitual criminals, convicts, and sexual perverts, and one-third consisted of political prisoners. And I had arrived at this conclusion primarily because I myself have never sent a single soul to the concentration camps and nourished the illusion that others had acted as I did. I could not even imagine, when I heard of it-immediately after the collapse-that hundreds of thousands of people in Germany were considered political offenders.
There is something else to be said on the whole question of the concentration camps. The poet Hans Carossa has deposed an affidavit for me, and this affidavit contains a passage about a publisher whom I had liberated from a concentration camp. I wish to mention this because it is one of many typical cases where one exerted one's entire influence to have a man freed from a concentration camp, but then he never tells you afterwards how he fared in the camp. In the course of the years, I have received many letters from people having relatives in the concentration camps. By establishing, in Vienna, a fixed day on which audience was granted to anybody from the population who wished to speak to me, I was able to talk to thousands of people from every class and standing.
On one such occasion I was approached by someone who requested me personally to free some friend or relative in a concentration camp. In cases like that I usually wrote a letter to the Reich Security Main Office-at first to Herr Heydrich and later to Herr Kaltenbrunner--and after some time I would be informed that the internee in question had or had not been released, according to the gravity of the charges brought against him. But the internees released never told me their experiences in the camp. One never saw anybody who had been ill-treated in the camps, and that is why I myself, and many others in Germany with me, was never able to visualize conditions in the concentration camps at all.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, this affidavit of the poet Hans Carossa, just mentioned by the defendant, is Document Number
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Schirach 3(a). I repeat, Schirach 3(a) of the Schirach document book. It is a sworn affidavit by the poet Carossa, and I ask the Tribunal to put the entire contents of the document into the evidence. In the last paragraph, mention is made of the case about which the defendant has just been speaking-that is, the liberation of a publisher named Suhrkamp from a concentration camp.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got the page of it?
DR. SAUTER: Page 25 of the document book, Document Number Schirach 3(a)-Hans Carossa. The remainder of this document deals with the humane impression Dr. Carossa received of the defendant, and with Defendant Von Schirach's solicitude for the victims of political persecution.
Witness, how many concentration camps did you know anything about?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just enumerated them: Oranienburg, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen.
DR. SAUTER: Was there a concentration camp in your own Gau?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with this entire group of questions on the treatment of the Jews, I turn to orders allegedly issued in your presence to the camp commandant of Mauthausen in March 1945. It is Document Number 3870-PS, submitted by the Prosecution. According to this document, Himmler in March 1945 is supposed to have issued a directive to the effect that the Jews from the Southeast Wall were to be sent on foot to Mauthausen. Did you have anything at all to do with this?
VON SCHIRACH: I can tell you exactly from memory what Himmler said at that time.
Himmler came to Vienna towards the middle, or the end of March, to talk to the Commander of Army Group South. On this occasion-the Commander of Army Group South was, of course, not stationed in Vienna, he had ordered all the Reichsstatthalter of the Ostmark up to Vienna and granted them full authority to enforce martial law in the future, since Vienna and some of the other Ostmark Gaue had by that time become almost front-line zones. At this conference Himmler told his adjutant to call Ziereis in, while the papers for full powers were being typed in the next room. That is how I came to meet Ziereis for the second time in my life.
And now Himmler did not, as Marsalek said, tell Ziereis that the Jews were to be marched on foot from the Southeast Wall to Mauthausen, but he did say something else which surprised me enormously. He said:
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"I want the Jews now employed in industry to be taken by boat, or by bus if possible, under the most favorable food conditions and with medical care, et cetera, to Linz or Mauthausen."
I do not quite remember whether he said they should be taken to Mauthausen, but he also said to Ziereis:
"Please take care of these Jews and treat them well; they are my most valuable assets."
From this declaration I assumed, in the very beginning-it was my very first, fleeting impression-that Himmler wished to deceive me in some way or another, and then it became clear to me that with these instructions he was following certain foreign political intentions, in the last moments of the war, in emphasizing the excellent treatment of the Jews.
What Marsalek therefore said about making them go on foot is not correct. As I have already mentioned, Himmler, under all circumstances, wanted the best possible treatment to be given to the Jews. I gained the impression-and later on it was confirmed by other things we heard-that he wished, at the last minute, to somehow redeem himself with this treatment of the Jews.
DR. SAUTER: That was the end of March 1945?
VON SCHIRACH: That was the end of March 1945, on the occasion when authority to apply martial law was granted to the Statthalter of the Ostmark.
DR. SAUTER: Therefore, immediately before the collapse?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with your activities in Vienna there is also an accusation, Witness, brought against you by the Prosecution, to the effect that you participated in the persecution of the Church. This accusation is supported exclusively as far as I can see by Document Number R-146. I repeat, R-146, which has already been submitted by the Prosecution.
This, Witness, is a letter addressed by the witness, Dr. Lammers, who has been heard before the Tribunal, to the Reich Minister of the Interior, dated 14 March 1941, and further, a circular from Bormann, addressed to all the Gauleiter, dated 20 March 1941.
I should like to hear your comments on both of these letters, especially since Dr. Lammers' letter speaks of property belonging to enemies of the people and the state, whereas in Bormann's circular of 20 March 1941 mention is made of the confiscation of Church property-monastic property-et cetera. Do you know what led to these letters, and what part did you yourself play in the matter?
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VON SCHIRACH: The document written by Dr. Lammers is correct. Bormann's covering letter referred to Church property; I referred to property belonging to enemies of the people and the State, for that was a technical expression at the time. I should like to mention in this matter that when I came to Vienna in 1940 the confiscation of such property was already in full swing; an argument had arisen on the subject between the Gauleiter and the Reich Minister for Finance. The Reich Minister for Finance wanted the confiscated property taken over by the Reich, while I considered that This property should remain fundamentally the possession of the Gaue.
So far as I can remember, I was involved in this question only through the following confiscations: Prince Schwarzenberg possessed property, the greater part of which lay in the region of the Upper Danube; the smaller part was the famous Vienna Palace. Now this Prince Schwarzenberg had refused, in the presence of some German consul general, or consul abroad, to return to Germany and serve in the Army. Thereupon his property was confiscated. In the interest of the Reich I endeavored to maintain this property for the Vienna Reich Gau and to prevent it from passing over to the Reich. I have no files before me, so I cannot from memory give you any information about other, similar actions.
I am not responsible for confiscations in the other Austrian Gaue. But I may state one thing here-namely, that I put an end to all confiscations throughout the entire Reich. When, through an intermediary, women from an Austrian convent appealed to me for help, I asked my father-in-law to act behind Bormann's back and explain to Hitler the disastrous political effects which these confiscations would have and to beg him to issue a direct order for their suppression. This was achieved, and when the order was put through, Bormann turned against my father-in-law as well. From then on I never had any further opportunity to bring this question to the Fuehrer's notice.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have not, so far, quite explained your attitude toward Dr. Lammers' letter of 14 March 1941. To refresh your memory I should like to read out the first sentence of that letter. This letter of Lammers' dated 14 March 1941, Document Number R-146, states, and I quote:
"The Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter Von Schirach, together with Dr. Jury and Eigruber, has recently complained to the Fuehrer that the Reich Minister for Finance is still of the opinion that the seizure of property belonging to enemies of the state and people should be effected in favor of the Reich, and not in favor of the Reich Gau."
Thus runs the quotation.
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And because of this incident the Prosecution have accused you of participating in the persecution of the Church in Vienna. I must request you to tell us what you really did do in the matter.
VON SCHIRACH: Well, the Church in Vienna had actually been persecuted under my predecessor, Buerckel, and this can be proved. I mentioned yesterday the demonstrations before the Archbishop's Palace. But from the day of my arrival in Vienna, anti-Church demonstrations in the nature of a political agitation no longer took place. Immediately upon my arrival I gathered all the political officials and all my other colleagues of the Gau and demanded that they should never, either in writing or by word of mouth, express anything likely to offend the religious sentiments of other people. I believe that this is a fact which was gratefully noted by the entire population of Vienna. From that day on there were no further actions against the Church. Just how much Church property, though, was called in in compliance with the law for special war contributions, a law which likewise applied to other property-I cannot tell you without documentary evidence.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we can see from this document that you must have spoken on the subject to Hitler personally...
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: . . . because it states that the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter Von Schirach complained to Hitler on the subject. You have not said anything to us about that so far.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I myself, during a visit by Hitler to Vienna where he signed a southeast pact, told him I was of the opinion that the property confiscated belonged to the Gaue and not to the Reich. That was my point of view and one which I believed to be entirely correct.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Indictment further accuses you of having had some kind of connection with the SS, thereby promoting the SS, et cetera. Were you yourself ever a member of the SS?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Did Himmler, the leader of the SS, have any influence over the youth organizations and over the education of the young people?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Were the replacements in the SS, especially in the SS Leadership Corps, recruited from the HJ, and if so, why?
VON SCHIRACH: The replacements in all the leadership corps in Germany were recruited from the youth. Our youth organization was a state institution. You now are probably referring to an agreement which I had with Himmler on the patrol services?
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DR. SAUTER: Yes, that too plays a part in this connection.
VON SCHIRACH: Agreements of that sort...
DR. SAUTER: Just one more moment, Herr Von Schirach. This agreement is entered in the documents of the Prosecution as Number 2396-PS. I repeat 2396-PS, in which a special statement occurs-and I should appreciate your comments on the subject-to the effect that the SS received their replacements from the patrol service of the HJ, allegedly by an agreement of October 1938. Please tell us about it and explain to us what actually was this patrol service.
VON SCHIRACH: The patrol service was one of the special units of the HJ which I forgot to mention yesterday. The patrol service was a youth service for keeping order. It consisted of outstandingly decent lads who had no police duties-I now refer to documentary reports which I procured-but who had to supervise the general behavior of the young people, examine their uniforms, control the visits of the boys to the taverns; and it was their duty to inspect the HJ hostels for cleanliness and neatness, to supervise the hiking expeditions of the young people and the youth hostelries in the country. They stood guard and were on order duty at mass meetings and demonstrations. They watched over encampments and accompanied the convoys. They were employed in the search for youths who were lost. They gave advice to traveling youth, attended to station service, were supposed to protect young people from criminal elements, and, above all, to protect national property-that is, woods, fields, for instance-and to see that they were safe from fires, et cetera.
Since Himmler might make trouble for this section of the youth organization, I was interested in having the Police recognize my patrol service; for in my idea of the State youth as a youth state, the Police should not be employed against the youth, but these young people should keep order among themselves. That this principle was a sound one can be judged from the immense decline in juvenile delinquency from 1933 up to the outbreak of the war.
DR. SAUTER: Witness . . .
VON SCHIRACH: One moment, I have not yet finished. After this agreement...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Dr. Sauter, we have heard enough about this unit. The whole point of the document was that they were used for recruiting for the SS, wasn't it? That is the complaint of the Prosecution.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, the patrol service . . .
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THE PRESIDENT: We have heard at considerable length the description of what they did in the way of the protection of the youth. Surely we have heard enough about that.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, these so-called special units were specially mentioned by the Prosecution as a means for preparation for war-that is, as a means for the military training of the young people. In this connection all these special units were mentioned, and therefore we considered it necessary that the defendant inform you what this patrol service really was. But I can, Mr. President, set this topic aside immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: We have heard what they were at some considerable length.
DR. SAUTER: Very well.
Witness, from which departments did the SS mainly recruit its leader replacements?
VON SCHIRACH: In order to assure its leader replacements, the SS founded its own training schools which were entirely outside my influence. They were the so-called National Socialist Training Institutes.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with the SS, the Prosecution, Witness, mentioned a further agreement between you and Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, an agreement of December 1938, submitted as Document Number 2567-PS, the so-called "Landdienst" of the HJ. Why was this agreement concluded with the Reichsfuehrer SS?
VON SCHIRACH: It is very hard to give a brief answer. The Reichsfuehrer SS was a farmer with an agronomical degree. In his student days he had belonged to the so-called "Artaman Movement," whose program it was to prevent the flight from the land, and he was particularly keen to collaborate within the SS with the farm labor service groups of the HJ who were doing the same work as the "Artaman" groups in the past.
In conclusion, I should like to say about the "Landdienst" and the patrol service, that no coercion was ever brought to bear on the young people to enter the SS. Any lad from the patrol service was, of course, free to become a member of the SA or of the NSKK-and frequently did so -- or else become a political leader just like any other boy from the farm labor service or the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Indictment states, inter alia, that a directive was addressed to the political leaders demanding that the Hitler Youth Leaders-that is, the leaders subordinate to you- he employed on their staffs. What can you say to that?
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VON SCHIRACH: I can only say in reply that this is one of many attempts by the Party Chancellery to bring the Youth Leadership into the political leadership. The practical result of the directive was that a number of youth leaders were given insignificant duties as adjutants. They complained to me, and I withdrew them from these posts. It is a historical fact that in Germany there was no real flow of people from the youth organization into the political leadership. I can personally name those youth leaders who came into the political leadership, there were so few of them.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Soviet Prosecution have submitted a document, Document Number USSR-6, which is a report from the Lemberg Commission. Herein the following fact is mentioned. A French woman, Ida Vasseau, the head of an asylum for old people in Lemberg, testified in writing-I am only quoting the gist of the affidavit-that ghetto children were handed over as presents to the Hitler Youth and that these children were then used as living targets by the HJ for their drill practice. In all the time that you were active in the Reich Youth Leadership, did you ever hear of such misdemeanors or excesses?
VON SCHIRACH: No. We are dealing here with the first and, so far, the only accusation of crimes committed by the HJ which has been brought to my notice. There were no HJ commandos, either in the East or in the West, capable of committing such crimes. I consider the statements in this affidavit as absolutely untrue, and that is all I can say on the matter.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, in the course of his examination your fellow-Defendant, Dr. Schacht, mentioned that a suggestion had been made in his time to Mr. Eden, to divest the SS, the SA, and the HJ of their military character if the other powers would consent to disarm. What do you know of such proposals or negotiations?
VON SCHIRACH: I know of no such offer, as far as the Hitler Youth is concerned. I consider it entirely out of the question that any such offer could have been received by Mr. Eden regarding the HJ; for Hitler himself did not consider the HJ as a military or even a semimilitary organization. The disarming of the HJ could factually never have taken place since the only weapon carried by the Hitler Youth was the camping knife, the equivalent of a Boy Scout's bowie knife of the Jungvolk Pimpfe (boys of 10-14 years of age).
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Prosecution further charge that you, in 1933, concluded an agreement with the VDA-an abbreviation for the "Verein fuer das Deutschtum im Ausland." Is that true? And what was your intention in concluding this agreement?
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VON SCHIRACH: That is true. I do not wish to express an opinion on the aims and objects of the VDA. I believe that counsel for the Defendant Frick has already done so. I refer to these statements and merely state that it was my perfectly natural wish to incorporate in the HJ the numerically powerful group of lads belonging to the VDA. The majority of these youths, moreover, had graduated from the public schools, and it was my second intention to place some of my collaborators on the board of the VDA so as to be currently informed about the young people abroad.
DR. SAUTER: The Prosecution further accuse you of having founded the so-called Adolf Hitler Schools where the training of young leaders for the National Socialist State and for the Party was carried out. What have you to say to this accusation?
VON SCHIRACH: There is a lot that I could say about that accusation, but I shall limit myself to essential remarks only.
The Adolf Hitler Schools were founded as scholastic units of the HJ. They were founded with the means which Dr. Ley placed at my disposal when I told him of my plans for the training I had envisaged. These schools were not intended to Main leaders for the Party exclusively but served to prepare the youth for all the professions. I myself often talked to these boys on their graduation and I always told them "You can choose any profession you like. Your training in this school carries no obligation, either moral or otherwise, to become a political leader." De facto, relatively few political leaders emerged from the Adolf Hitler Schools. Very many of the boys became doctors, officials, et cetera. I cannot quote any figures from memory, but the communications I have received from the young people, including statements from teachers in the Adolf Hitler Schools, show their attitude towards this point of the Indictment. And I should like to ask that at least 50 to 60 of these numerous affidavits, which confirm all that I have said, be submitted in support of my declarations.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, one more question on a different topic. Did you ever receive any so-called endowment funds, or anything of that kind, from Hitler or from other sources?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I never received any endowment funds.
DR. SAUTER: Did you ever receive gifts in kind, such as valuable paintings or other costly gifts?
VON SCHIRACH: The only thing Hitler ever gave me was his photograph on the occasion of my thirtieth birthday.
DR. SAUTER: His photograph-presumably with a few words of dedication?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
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DR. SAUCIER: Now I have a few final, very brief questions to ask you-they refer to the last days of your activities in Vienna. You have already mentioned, in connection with Himmler's visit to Vienna at the end of March 1945, that you had at that time received from Himmler the so-called authority for the proclamation of martial law. If I have understood you correctly, you, in your function of Reich Defense Commissioner, were authorized to convene a drumhead court martial?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and that made me lord of life and death.
DR. SAUTER: As far as I know, this drumhead court martial was only supposed to pass death sentences?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Did you ever convene this drumhead court martial in Vienna, and did you appoint the members?
VON SCHIRACH: I appointed the members of the court martial An outstanding lawyer was the president. I never convened the drumhead court martial and I never once imposed a death sentence. If I remember rightly, the military court martial of the local military commandant passed four death sentences on four military traitors. My court martial never met and never passed a death sentence.
DR. SAUTER: Had you any connection with the military drumhead court martial?
VON SCHIRACH: No. The Vienna commandant was, of course, president of that particular court, and I was the head of court martial "Schirach."
DR. SAUTER: You said you had a distinguished lawyer as your president? ~
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What was his profession?
VON SCHIRACH: I think he was president of a district court, or something of the kind. I cannot quite remember; I have forgotten.
DR. SAUTER: So he was an official Viennese judge?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Did you give the order, in Vienna, to have certain vitally important factories either blown up or destroyed as so often happened in other Gaue, as for instance, here in Nuremberg?
VON SCHIRACH: No. It has escaped my knowledge, that much I must admit, how far crippling and destructive measures were
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executed in the military and armament sectors, pursuant to direct instructions from the Reich Government. For instance, the dynamiting of bridges was a military precaution. The order could never have emanated from me. Hitler reserved for himself the right to issue the orders for blowing up the bridges over the Danube. The Chief of Army Group South, Generaloberst Rendulic, prior to giving the order for blowing up these bridges, had to consult the Fuehrer's headquarters by telephone.
DR. SAUTER: When did you yourself leave Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: I left Gau Vienna after the withdrawal of the last troops from the city and after the command post of the 2d corps of the 6th SS Panzer Army had been moved to the region of the Lower Danube.
DR. SAUTER: When was that?
VON SCHIRACH: That was-sorry, I cannot remember the date offhand. It was toward the end of the battle for Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: And now I have one last question to ask you. You know that the order went out from the Party Leadership and from circles of the Reich Chancellery to stage a "Werewolf" movement for fighting the advancing troops. What was your attitude towards this movement?
VON SCHIRACH: I prohibited any Werewolf organization in my Gau, but to avoid misunderstandings I must tell you that there was a youth battalion, a Volksturm battalion, which bore the name of "Werewolf," but there was no Werewolf unit. I invariably refused, both for the young people and the adults, permission to participate in any form of combat contrary to the decrees of international law.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other member of the defendants' counsel want to ask any questions?
DR. ALFRED THOMA (Counsel for Defendant Rosenberg): Witness, what was the attitude of Rosenberg, as the Fuehrer's Plenipotentiary for the Ideological Education of the Party, toward the Reich Youth Leadership?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the Chief of the Department for Ideological Education in the Reich Youth Leadership had to attend, on an average, two, perhaps three, meetings per annum, also attended by educational leaders from other Party organizations. These meetings took place under the chairmanship of Reichsleiter Rosenberg. On these occasions, as I have been told by the chief of the department, Rosenberg was wont to lay down general
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instructions and directives and ask for reports on the educational work of the individual organizations.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg select specific subjects to be lectured on at these meetings?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know for certain. At these meetings of the Youth Leadership representatives, at which Rosenberg spoke once a year, he usually selected educational themes, themes dealing with character training. He would, for instance, speak about solitude and comradeship and, as far as I remember, about personality, honor, et cetera.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg at these meetings mention the Jewish problem and the confessional question?
VON SCHIRACH: During these Youth Leadership sessions he never made any speeches against the Jews, nor did he, as far as I can remember, ever touch on the subject of the confession-at least, not in my presence. I usually heard him speak on subjects such as I have just enumerated.
DR.THOMA: Witness, did you read Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century? And if so, when?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I began to read it, but I did not read the whole book.
DR. THOMA: Did this Rosenberg's Myth make any impression on the young people or did other leaders have experiences similar to your own?
VON SCHIRACH: The youth leaders certainly did not read the Myth of the Twentieth Century.
DR. THOMA: I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defendant's counsel want to ask questions? Or perhaps we had better adjourn now.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
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DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have already stated in connection with Sauckel's directive regarding employment of labor that you were flooded with such directives. Were these directives carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: As far as my own information goes, I can confirm that. I had the impression that the functionaries of the labor employment administration felt that they had to keep strictly to Sauckel's orders, and in those industrial plants which I visited I was able to ascertain that the requirements stated in the directives were in fact fulfilled.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did Sauckel himself take steps to insure that these things were carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I remember that Sauckel once came to Vienna-I think in 1943-and that on that occasion he addressed all his labor employment functionaries and repeated orally everything which he had stated in his directives. He spoke of the foreign workers in particular, demanding just treatment for them; and I remember that on this occasion he even spoke of putting them on the same footing as German workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have a few more questions about the political leaders. How were political leaders on the Gauleiter level informed? Did the Gauleiter have individual interviews with the Fuehrer, especially in connection with the Gauleiter assemblies?
VON SCHIRACH: No. After the Gauleiter assemblies the Fuehrer always held forth in a comparatively large circle just as he did in his speeches. Interviews in the real sense of the word did not exist. He always made speeches. Fixed dates on which Gauleiter could have interviews with Hitler almost ceased to exist once the war had begun.
DR.SERVATIUS: Could not a Gauleiter approach Hitler personally and ask for an interview?
VON SCHIRACH: He could ask for an interview, but he did not get it; he received an answer from Bormann, usually in the form of a telegram. That happened to me very frequently, because I made such requests; one was asked to submit in writing the points one wanted to discuss, after which one either received an answer or did not receive one.
DR.SERVATIUS: Witness, a letter has been submitted here as Document D-728, signed or initialed by Gauleiter Sprenger. You were here when it was submitted and you know the document. I have two questions concerning it.
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Do you know anything about a list, which was to be compiled, containing the names of those suffering from heart and lung diseases, who were to be removed from the population?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I know nothing about that.
DR. SERVATIUS: Or that you were to make suggestions for this to the Fuehrer?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: In my opinion that document also contains an error which has already been mentioned here, namely, the word "Herr" as a form of address. This letter was addressed to the "Herren Ortsgruppenleiter," and repeated mention is made of the "Herren Kreisleiter and Ortsgruppenleiter" in the text. I ask you now if the expression "Herr" was customary in Party language?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I have never known 'e Party document with the exception of this one, which I consider a fraud, in which the term "Herr" was used.
DR. SERVATIUS: You are therefore of the opinion that that designation proves in itself that the document is false?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
DR. STEINBAUER: Herr Van Schirach, your predecessor as Gauleiter was Josef Buerckel. What sort of relations existed between Buerckel and Seyss-Inquart?
VON SCHIRACH: I can only repeat what was generally known in the Party about relations between them. They were extremely bad, and all of us had the impression that from the very beginning Buerckel worked hard to push Seyss-Inquart out.
DR. STEINBAUER: Which one of the two really had the power in his hands?
VON SCHIRACH: Buerckel, undoubtedly.
DR. STEINBAUER: Who, in your opinion and according to the actual information you obtained from the files, is responsible for the persecution of Jews in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: Hitler.
DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You say Hitler; but Hitler was not in Vienna. Who carried out these orders in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: In my opinion, these orders were carried out -even during Buerckel's and Seyss-Inquart's time-by the same man who has already been mentioned here once today and who, in the meantime, has been condemned to death in Vienna-Dr. Brunner.
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DR. STEINBAUER: Good. Are you aware that Seyss-Inquart repeatedly protested to Buerckel about excessively severe measures and quarreled with Buerckel on account of that?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say anything about that. I do not know.
DR. STEINBAUER: My client has been accused in a document of presenting to Adolf Hitler tapestries, among them Gobelins, formerly in the Emperor's possession. Do you know anything about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I know this: In the large collection of Gobelins in Vienna, there were two sets depicting Alexander's victory. The inferior series was loaned by Reich Governor Seyss-Inquart to the Reich Chancellery, where it hung in the lobby.
DR. STEINBAUER: So it was a loan and not a definite gift, which would have entailed a loss for Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: In the catalog of the Gobelin collection this set was marked as a loan.
DR. STEINBAUER: Are you aware that other Gobelins were put at the disposal of the Reich-that is to say, at Adolf Hitler's disposal-by Seyss-Inquart?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I was not aware of it.
DR. STEINBAUER: But maybe you know who did take away other such Gobelins and tapestries?
VON SCHIRACH: I assume that you allude to Buerckel.
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know for certain whether Buerckel took Gobelins. When I took up my appointment in Vienna, I found that Buerckel had taken from the imperial furniture depot a number of pieces of furniture including, I believe, some carpets, not for his personal use but for a Viennese house which he intended to establish in Gau Saarpfalz as a sort of clubhouse.
I therefore approached the competent office in Berlin-I do not know whether it was the Reich Finance Ministry or the Reich Ministry of Culture-and when I was not successful there, I approached Hitler himself. In the end I succeeded in having Buerckel ordered to return these objects to Vienna at once; I cannot say with certainty whether these objects were in fact returned. I know that he received injunctions to return them and I assume that these objects were really returned later.
DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You know from statements which I have made to your defense counsel that we Austrians always hated Buerckel intensely for a number of very good reasons and that in fairness it must be admitted that many things, including, for
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instance, the city's food supplies, improved after you took over. For this reason it seems to me all the more important to clear up completely the most serious charge against you. You have been made responsible in your capacity of Reich Defense Commissioner for the destruction of the most valuable monuments in Vienna. I ask you: On 2 April, when your deputy Scharizer and Engineer Blaschke, the National Socialist mayor, wanted to declare Vienna an open city as the Red Army approached, did you oppose them and give orders that Vienna must be defended to the last? Or who gave that order?
VON SCHIRACH: Neither Blaschke nor Scharizer expressed the view that Vienna should be declared an open city. There was...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Steinbauer, the Tribunal understands you are appearing for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, because this is a War Crime and in the light of conspiracy he is responsible for everything and the main charge made against Herr Von Schirach must be clarified-that is, we must find out who actually gave this order which did so much harm.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, but you just said that you were not asking the questions in defense of Seyss-Inquart, but in defense of Von Schirach. I do not think that the Tribunal really ought to have the defense of Von Schirach prolonged by questions by other counsel. We have already had his defense for a considerable time presented by Dr. Sauter.
DR. STEINBAUER: Then I shall not put this question.
Do you also remember what attitude Seyss-Inquart adopted on Church matters when dealing with Buerckel?
VON SCHIRACH: I know only that Dr. Seyss-Inquart, generally speaking, was considered a man with Church ties. That this brought him into conflict with Buerckel is quite obvious to me. I cannot go into details.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, we understood you this morning to make a statement in the nature of a confession with respect to, at least, the persecution of the Jews; and while that part of it that you gave was perhaps bravely enough said, I think there is much of it that you neglected to say, perhaps through oversight.
Now, I wish you would tell the Tribunal whether or not it is a fact that your responsibility for young people in Germany under the National Socialists was fundamentally concerned with making really good National Socialists out of them, in the sense of making them fanatical political followers.
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VON SCHIRACH: I considered it my task as educator to bring up the young people to be good citizens of the National Socialist State.
MR. DODD: And ardent followers and believers in Hitler and his political policies?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe I already said this morning that I educated our youth to follow Hitler. I do not deny that.
MR. DODD: All right. And while you said to us that you did not have the first responsibility for the educational system, I am sure you would not deny that for all of the other activities with which young people may be concerned you did have first responsibility?
VON SCHIRACH: Out-of-school education was my responsibility.
MR. DODD: And, of course, in the schools the only people who taught these young people were those who were politically reliable in keeping with Hitler's opinions and beliefs and the teachings of National Socialism?
VON SCHIRACH: The teaching staffs of German schools were definitely not homogeneous bodies. A large part of the teaching body belonged to a generation which had not been educated on National Socialist lines and did not adhere to National Socialism. The young teachers had been educated on National Socialist principles.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, you are not saying, certainly, that young people under the public educational system of Germany were not, at all times, under the guidance of those who were politically reliable, certainly after the first year or two of the administration of Hitler and his followers, are you?
VON SCHIRACH: Would you please repeat the question? I did not quite understand.
MR. DODD: What I am trying to say to you is that there is not any doubt in your mind or in ours that the public school system of Germany was supervised, for the most part at least, by people who were politically sound insofar as National Socialism is concerned.
VON SCHIRACH: I should not care to say that. Educational administration in Germany was supervised by Reich Minister Rust, who-and this is a fact-for reasons of ill health took very little interest in his official duties. Many thousands of older men were employed in connection with educational administration. They had received their appointments long before the days of the National Socialist. State and had retained them throughout.
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MR. DODD: I do not care whether they were old or young or how long they had been in office. They all took an oath to Hitler, did they not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct; inasmuch as they were civil servants, they all took their oath as such.
MR. DODD: Rosenberg had a very considerable influence on young people in Germany, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that. I think you are estimating my Codefendant Rosenberg's influence on youth quite wrongly-meaning that you are overestimating it. Rosenberg certainly had some influence on many people who were interested in philosophical problems and were in a position to understand his works. But I must dispute the extent of the influence which you are ascribing to him.
MR. DODD: You publicly said on one occasion that the way of Rosenberg was the way of the Hitler Youth, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: That was, I believe, in 1934...
MR. DODD: Never mind when it was. Did you say it or not?
VON SCHIRACH: I did say it.
MR. DODD: When was it?
VON SCHIRACH: That was in Berlin, at a youth function there. But later I myself led youth along an entirely different path.
MR. DODD: Well, we Will get around to that a little later. But in any event, on this occasion in Berlin, when you had a large group of your youth leaders present, you were doing your best, at least, to have them understand that the way of Rosenberg was the way that they should follow?
VON SCHIRACH: But those were the same youth leaders who later received different instructions from me.
MR. DODD: Well, I dare say that may be so. We will get around to those different instructions; but on this occasion and at that time, insofar as you were concerned, you wanted them to understand that they were to follow Rosenberg's way, didn't you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but this way only affected one quite definite point, which was under discussion at that time, namely, the question of denominational youth organizations. Rosenberg and I agreed on this point, whereas we differed on many others; and it was to this point that the statement referred.
MR. DODD: Rosenberg's way certainly wasn't the way of young people remaining faithful to their religious obligations or teachings, was it?
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VON SCHIRACH: I would not like to say that.
MR. DODD: What do you mean? You don't know?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say in so many words that I have never heard Rosenberg make any statement to the effect that young people should be disloyal to their religious convictions.
MR. DODD: Well, I don't know that he ever said it that way either; but I think you do know perfectly well, as many other people who were outside of Germany through all of these years, that
Rosenberg was a violent opponent of organized religious institutions. You don't deny that, do you?
VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not deny that in principle, but I do not think that it can be expressed in these terms. Rosenberg
in no way tried to influence youth to withdraw from religious societies.
MR. DODD: And later on, actually-aren't you willing to now say that later on, and perhaps at that time, in a secret and indirect sort of way you played Rosenberg's game by arranging youth affairs at hours when Church ceremonies were going on?
VON SCHIRACH: I deny absolutely that I worked against the Church in such a way. In the years 1933-34, I was concerned mainly with the denominational youth organizations. I explained that here yesterday.
MR. DODD: I know. You garbled them up, and they all had to join your organization sooner or later. But I am not talking about that now. What I am trying to say is-and I think you must agree- that for a considerable period of time you made it really impossible for young people of certain religious belief to attend their Church services, because you scheduled your youth affairs at which attendance was compulsory.
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not correct.
MR. DODD: You say that is not so? Didn't the Catholic bishops publicly object to this very sort of thing, and don't you know it as well as I do?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot recall that.
MR. DODD: You do not recall any Catholic clerics objecting to the fact that you were scheduling your youth affairs on Sunday mornings when their clerics were holding services?
VON SCHIRACH: In the course of time, as I explained yesterday, many clergymen either approached me personally or complained in public that they were hampered in their spiritual ministration by the youth service and the forms which it took; and that is why I adjusted matters in the way shown by the document which my counsel submitted to the Court yesterday.
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MR. DODD: Well, I don't think that is altogether an answer; and perhaps I can help your memory by recalling for you that your organization specifically provided that these young people, who were attending church on Sunday, could not go in uniform; and that was a very purposeful thing, wasn't it, because they could not get out of church and get to their youth attendance places at all if they had to go home and change their clothes.
VON SCHIRACH: But in many parishes the Church authorities forbade young people wearing uniform to enter the church.
MR. DODD: Well, I am not going to argue about it with you. Your answer is that you don't recall any frequent and strong criticism and objection from churchmen about this particular Sunday morning program. Is that the way you want to leave it?
VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not mean that. There were periods of great tension, periods of heated argument, just as there was a stormy period in youth organization generally. Later, all these things were satisfactorily settled and put in order.
MR. DODD: Now, I understood you also to say that, whatever else you may have done with the young people of Germany during the years over which you had control of them, you certainly did not prepare them militarily in any sense, in any sense ordinarily accepted as being military; is that so?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.
MR. DODD: Well, now, let's see. What was the name of your personal press expert, or consultant, if you prefer that term?
VON SCHIRACH: The press expert who worked with me longest was a Herr Kaufmann.
MR. DODD: And you have asked him-as a matter of fact, you do have an interrogatory from him, don't you, which will be submitted. I assume you know about that, don't you?
VON SCHIRACH: I know that my counsel has applied for it, but I do not know the answers which Kaufmann gave.
MR. DODD: Well, you know the questions he asked, don't you?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember them.
MR. DODD: Well, perhaps if I remind you of one or two you will remember. You asked him if he ever put out any press releases without your authority. You asked him if he wasn't your personal press consultant. And you asked him if it wasn't true that you personally gave him the directive for what you wanted published in the press, and particularly in the youth press. Do you remember those questions?
[There was no response.]
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MR. DODD: But you don't know the answers; is that it?
[There was no response.]
MR. DODD: Well, do you know that he published in the SS official publication in September of 1942 an article about the young people and the youth of Germany?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember that article.
a MR. DODD: Well, I think that you had better have a look at it. It is Document 3930-PS. That becomes USA-853, Mr. President.
Now, this document which I am showing you is a telegram, of course, a teletype message, "Reich Governor in Vienna." You will see at the top that it was received by you on 10 September 1942, and it sets out a copy of the subject for the body of this article for the editorial staff of the Schwarzes Korps. That is the SS magazine, as you recall.
Now, you will see from reading it, and in the very first part it states that a high-ranking officer who had come back to Berlin from Sevastopol said that the youngsters who had been seen some 4 years ago in short pants marching through German cities singing "Yes, the flag is more than death," were the l9-year-olds who took that city of Sevastopol.
The article goes on to say that the lads are fulfilling in fighting what they promised in singing and that the National Socialist movement had brought up a young generation, filling them with faith and self-denial, and so on. And then the rest of it goes on in substance to say that there were people who objected to your program at the time that you were trying to make these youngsters strong.
The clear meaning of it is that you are now claiming credit for having had something to do with making them the good 19-year-old fighters who took Sevastopol, isn't that so? You are claiming credit, I say, in this article for having produced this kind of 19-year-old boy.
VON SCHIRACH: I had no knowledge of this article up to now.
MR. DODD: Well, you do now. You can talk about it, certainly.
VON SCHIRACH: That is just what I want to do. Herr Kaufmann at that time had just returned from the Eastern Front, and under the impression of what he had experienced out there he wrote down what appears in this article, which I cannot possibly read now in its entirety.
MR. DODD: Well, it isn't very long. Really I read what I think are the most important parts of it insofar as you are concerned.
VON SCHIRACH: That the youth was trained in a military way I believe is not mentioned in one single sentence in that entire article.
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MR. DODD: Oh, I know. I am simply asking if it isn't a fact that you were claiming credit in this article for having had something considerable to do with the fact that these 19-year-old boys were such good fighters in Russia. That is all I am asking you.
VON SCHIRACH: I have already told you that I wanted to train the youth to become good citizens, and that I wanted to train them to be good patriots, who did their duty in the field later on.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: And should also do their duty in the field.
MR. DODD: Well, your answer then is, yes, you were claiming credit for the fact that they were such good fighters. Now, there is no trick in this question. It is merely preliminary, and I want to get on, but I think you might say "yes." And incidentally, this song, "The flag is more than death," was a song that you wrote, wasn't it?
VON SCHIRACH: The "Flag Song" which I based on the refrain "The flag is more than death." That is true.
MR. DODD: Now, you have also published a number of other songs for young people, in the formative days before the war started, in a songbook.
VON SCHIRACH: A great many songbooks for young people were published. I do not know them all.
MR. DODD: No, I don't either, but I am asking you if it isn't a fact that you did publish songbooks for young people.
VON SCHIRACH: Both the Cultural Service of the Reich Youth Leadership and the Press Service published such books. Of course, I did not look at each single song in them myself; but on the whole I believe that only songs which were sung by young people appeared in these books.
MR. DODD: All right. We have some extracts from one of your songbooks, and there is only one that I wish to refer to. Do you remember the one "Forward, Forward," that you wrote, by the way; another one that you wrote. Do you remember that song?
VON SCHIRACH: "Forward, Forward" is the Flag Song of the youth organization.
MR. DODD: All right. Did you write it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, now, certainly that also contains, does it not, highly inciting words and phrases for young people with respect to their military duty?
VON SCHIRACH: The Flag Song of the youth organization? I cannot see that?
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MR. DODD: Well, words, like these: "We are the future soldiers. Everything which opposes us will fall before our fists. Fuehrer, we. belong to you," and so on. Do you remember that?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not say: "We are the future soldiers," as I hear now in English, but "We are the soldiers of the future."
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: The soldiers of the future, the bearers of a future.
MR. DODD: All right, but that is another one of your songs, isn't it?
VON SCHIRACH: That is a revolutionary song dating from the fighting period; it does not refer to a war between, say, Germany and other powers, but to the fight which we had to carry on inside the country in order to achieve our revolution.
MR. DODD: All right, we will see. Do you remember the one, "Can you see the dawn in the East?" Do you remember that song?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not one of my songs.
MR. DODD: It is one of the songs in the Hitler Youth Songbook, is it not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is an old SA song dating from 1923-24.
MR. DODD: Well, that may be. I am only asking you, isn't it a fact that it was in your official songbooks for your young people?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: It is in that song that you vilify the Jews, is it not?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember that. I would have to see the song.
MR. DODD: Well, I can show it to you, but perhaps if you recall it we can save a little time. Don't you remember that the second stanza says, "For many years the people were enslaved and miss guided, traitors and Jews had the upper hand?" Do you remember those words in that song? "People to Arms" is the next one.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but I am not sure if that was published in a youth songbook.
MR. DODD: I can assure you that it was; and if you would like to see it, we have it here.
VON SCHIRACH: It is a very well-known SA song, which was sung by the young people and was therefore included in the youth songbook.
MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to find out. I don't care where it originated. It is the kind of song you had in your songbook for young people.
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VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say one more thing. The songbook which I have here was published in 1933.
MR. DODD: Yes?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that the youth organization which I built up can be judged from the year 1933 only.
MR. DODD: I don't suggest that either, but we found it in 1945.
VON SCHIRACH: Later we published other songbooks, with very different songs.
MR. DODD: Yes, I am going to get around to these in a minute.
That songbook was 3764-PS, USA-854. It has just been called to my attention that the last phrase in that fourth stanza says: "Germany awake! Death to Jewry! People to arms!"
VON SCHIRACH: One moment, please; where is that?
MR. DODD: In the English text, in the fourth stanza. I don't know where it would be; it is on Page 19, I am told, of the German text. Did you find it?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, maybe it is the wrong document. In any event, we will find it for you. However, you remember the song, do you not? You don't deny that it says "Death to the Jews," and so on, do you, in that song?
VON SCHIRACH: That is the song that starts with the words, "Can you see the dawn in the East?"
MR. DODD: That is right.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: That is all I wanted to know.
VON SCHIRACH: That song is not in this book.
[A book was handed to the defendant.]
MR. DODD: We have quite a few of your songbooks here.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but there is a great difference between them. This book, which does not contain the song, is an official edition published by the Reich Youth Leadership. As I say, it does not contain the song. It does appear, however, in a songbook published by Tonners, a firm of music publishers in Cologne, under the title of "Songs of the Hitler Youth." This book is not, however, an official collection issued by the Reich Youth Leadership. Any publishing firm in Germany can publish such books.
MR. DODD: All right, I will accept that, but certainly you won't deny that the book was used, will you? And that is all we are trying to establish.
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VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know. I do not know whether that book was used by the Hitler Youth.
MR. DODD: Do you know that the one which it is contained in was published by you?
[There was no response.]
Well, in any event, I would like to point this out to you. I am not claiming, or trying to suggest to you by questions, that any one of these songs in themselves made young people-in Germany fit for war; but rather, what I am trying to show is that, as distinguished from the testimony you gave here yesterday, you were doing something more than just giving these boys and girls games to play.
VON SCHIRACH: My statements of yesterday certainly did not imply that we only gave them games to play. For every song of this kind there are innumerable others.
MR. DODD: Yes, I know, but these are the ones we are concerned with right now. "Unfurl the Blood-Soaked Banners," you remember that? "Drums Sound Throughout the Land"?
VON SCHIRACH: These are all songs of the "Wandervogel" and the Youth League. They are songs which were sung at the time of the Republic, songs which did not have Birthing to do with our time.
MR. DODD: Just a minute.
VON SCHIRACH: They are songs which had nothing to do with our period.
MR. DODD: Do you think that anybody, in the days of the Republic, was singing Hitler Youth marches?
VON SCHIRACH: What song is that? I do not know it.
MR. DODD: That is the one, "Drums Sound Throughout the Land." Don't you remember any of these songs, actually?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course, I know quite a number of these songs; but the most important-the bulk of them-come from the old "Zupfgeigenhansl" of the Wandervogel movement and from the Youth League. That the SA also sang these songs goes without saying.
MR. DODD: Yes, I don't doubt that they did; but wherever they emanated from, you were using them with these young people. And that one, "Drums Sound Throughout the Land," you wrote yourself; isn't that so?
VON SCHIRACH: "Drums Sound Throughout the Land?" Yes, I believe I did write some such song.
MR. DODD: All right; that certainly doesn't have a very ancient origin then, does it?
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VON SCHIRACH: It was long before the seizure of power.
MR. DODD: Now, you also recall, perhaps, that on one occasion Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote an article for the Hitler Year Book. Do you remember that?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, it wasn't so very long ago. It was in 1938. I suppose you read the Year Book of your organization for that year at that time, anyway?
VON SCHIRACH: That may be taken for granted; but I really cannot remember what Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote for it.
MR. DODD: Well, all right. I would like you to look at this document; it is 3755-PS. I think it is on Page 134 of the text that you have, Mr. Witness; and on Pages 148 to 150 you will find an article, "Education for War of German Youth," or rather, it says, "The work 'Education for War of German Youth,' by Dr. Stellrecht, contains a slogan of Field Marshal Von Blomberg, in which the following passage is quoted." And then it goes on to give the quotation. Do you find that? "The fighting spirit is the highest virtue of the soldier." And so on.
Have you found the quotation of Blomberg's? That is what I want to know.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And then the article by Stellrecht is also contained there, after the quotation.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Now certainly, when you move down a few lines, you will see this sentence: "Therefore, it is a stern and unalterable demand which Field Marshal Von Blomberg makes of the young men marching in the columns of the Hitler Youth," and so on.
In those days, in 1938, Mr. Witness, you were at least thinking in terms of future military service and so was Field Marshal Von Blomberg, with respect to the Hitler Youth. That is the point I am trying to make.
VON SCHIRACH: We had a State with compulsory military training.
MR. DODD: I know.
VON SCHIRACH: And it goes without saying that we as educators were also anxious to train our youth to the highest degree of physical fitness so that they would also make good soldiers.
MR. DODD: You weren't doing any more than that? Is that what you want this Court to understand?
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VON SCHIRACH: I described to you yesterday what else we did in the way of rifle training, cross-country sports, and the training of special units.
MR. DODD: That is USA-856, Mr. President.
Yes, I know you told us yesterday that, whatever else it might have been, it certainly was not any kind of military training.
This man Stellrecht was associated with you, was he not?
VON SCHIRACH: Dr. Stellrecht had the "Office for Physical Training" in the Hitler Youth under Reich Sport Leader Von Tschammer-Osten. That office was one of 21 offices within the Youth Leadership.
MR. DODD: He was associated with you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And you have also used something from him as part of your defense; it is in your document book. Do you know about that?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it is a statement made by Dr. Stellrecht, in which he speaks of education for defense and physical training for youth; and says that not a single boy in Germany is trained with weapons of war.
MR. DODD: I know that, and therefore I want you to look at another statement that he made on another date.
That is Document 1992-PS, Mr. President, and we offer it as USA-439.
Do you remember when he made the speech to the military men in January of 1937, while he was affiliated with your Hitler Youth organization? Do you know the speech to which I refer?
VON SCHIRACH: I was not present on the occasion of that speech and I do not consider myself responsible for any statement which he may have made in it.
MR. DODD: Well, that is your statement, but perhaps others feel differently. At any event, I ask you whether or not you were aware of and knew about the speech, and will you tell us whether you do know about it before you look at it? You know the speech I am talking about, don't you?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember being informed of the fact that he spoke at a national and political training course for the Armed Forces; but I may have been informed of it. The speech, itself . . .
MR. DODD: Well, it seems to me you were very anxious to deny responsibility for it before you knew what he said.
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VON SCHIRACH: I did not want to make a statement on that. Disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of a certain tendency which he showed with regard to defense training, because I felt that he insisted too much on his office. Disputes arose also with the other offices of the Reich Youth Leadership which finally led to his dismissal from the Reich Youth Leadership.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, he was on your staff when he made this speech and I wish now you would look at page-well, I have it Page 3 of the English, and it is Page 169 of the text that you have; and it begins at the very bottom of the English page. The paragraph reads:
"As far as purely military education is concerned this work has already been done in years of co-operation, and very extensively. The result has been set down in a book written by myself, regulating future work in military education down to the last detail of training and which, with our mutual agreement, included a foreword and preface by the Reich Defense Minister and the Reich Youth Leader."
And then the next paragraph:
"The basic idea of this work is always to present to the boy that which belongs to the particular stage of his development"-and so on. And I want you to come to the sentence that says:
"For that reason no boy is given a military weapon, simply because it seems to serve no useful purpose for his development. But, on the other hand, it seems sensible to give him guns of small caliber for training. Just as there are certain tasks occurring in military training which are only suitable for grown men, so there are other training tasks more suited to boys."
And then moving down further in the English text, next to the last paragraph, Page 170 of your text, you will find in the next to the last paragraph that Dr. Stellrecht says:
"This picture is the goal of a comprehensive education which starts with the training of the boy in outdoor games and ends with his military training."
And then moving on again to the fifth page of the English text, and I think it is Page 171 of your text, the next to the last paragraph, in talking about the hiking trip, he says that:
". . . has still a wider purpose . . . because it is the only way in which the boy can get acquainted with the fatherland for which he will have to fight one day."
Moving on through this article, finally, I want to direct your attention to Page 6 of the English text and Pages 174 and 175 of
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your text. In the last paragraph of the English text, you will find this sentence which says:
"All training, therefore, culminates in rifle training. It can scarcely be emphasized enough; and because shooting is a matter of practice, one cannot start too early. The result we want to achieve in the course of time is that a gun should feel just as natural in the hands of a German boy as a pen."
Now, move over to the next page, Page 7 of the English text and Page 176 of your text. Your Dr. Stellrecht says there more about shooting and how it "meets with the boys' desire"; and then he goes on to say:
"Along with the general training there is special training for new replacements for Air Force, Navy, and motorized troops. The training course for this has been established in conjunction with the competent offices of the Armed Forces... on as broad a basis as possible, and in the country cavalry training is given."
And I suppose it is on the next page of your text, but it is the next to the last paragraph of the English text-I want to call your attention to this sentence-or it is two from the last paragraph in the English text: "Military education and ideological education belong together." The English text says "philosophical," but I think that's a mistranslation and actually in German it is "ideological." And you see the sentence that says in the next paragraph:
`'The education of youth has to take care that the knowledge and the principles, according to which the State and the Armed Forces of our time have been organized and on which they base, enter so thoroughly into the thoughts of the individual that they can never again be taken away and that they remain guiding principles all through life."
And the last paragraph of that speech, Mr. Witness-I wish you would look at it because I think you used the term "playful" yesterday, if I am not mistaken, and Dr. Stellrecht, anyway, a little earlier in his speech. Here is what he said to the military men that day: "Gentlemen, you can see that the tasks of present youth education have gone far beyond the 'playful."'
Are you sure, now, that you didn't have any kind of a program for military training in your youth organization?
VON SCHIRACH: I can see from this document, which I should really have to read in its entirety in order to be able to answer correctly, that Dr. Stellrecht, to put it mildly, considered himself very important. The importance of Dr. Stellrecht for the education of youth and the importance of the office which he held in the Youth Leadership were definitely not as great as implied by this
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training-course for men of the Armed Forces. I have already said before that disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of his exaggerations and especially because of the extent to which he overestimated the value of rifle training and what he called "military training" and that these differences of opinion finally led to his dismissal and departure from the service of the Reich Youth Leadership. He was one of many heads of offices, and the importance of his special activity was not as great as he has represented it to be in his statement here. I think I explained yesterday what a large number of tasks confronted the Youth Leadership. I was also able to indicate the approximate proportion of premilitary training or military training, as Herr Stellrecht calls it, as compared with other forms of training. But this document also states clearly that there was no intention of anticipating military training, as I said yesterday. When he says that every German boy should learn to handle the gun as easily as the pen, that is an expression of opinion with which I cannot identify myself.
MR. DODD: Well, of course, you have your view of him; but I think it is well that we brought it out in view of the fact that you have yourself offered before this Tribunal a statement by Stellrecht in your own document book. You are aware of that, of course, aren't you? You want, of course, to have us understand that Stellrecht is reliable when you quote him, but he is not reliable when we quote him; is that it?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not mean that at all. He is a specialist in ballistics and outdoor sports and, of course, he represented his tasks, as is natural to human nature, as being the most important in youth training. Probably another office chief would have described cultural work or occupational competition contests, as the case might be, as being the most important aspects of youth training. At any rate, the decisive pronouncement for the education of German youth was not the remarks which Stellrecht made during a course for soldiers but my own remarks to the youth leaders.
MR. DODD: I just want to remind you that a year after he made this speech you wrote a preface for his book, didn't you?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe this preface was written for the book "Hitler Youth on Service."
MR. DODD: I say it was a year after he wrote this speech, which was put out and published in Germany. He not only made the speech; but it was put out in pamphlet form, wasn't it?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember exactly.
MR. DODD: Well, I can tell you if you look at the document that I handed you. I think you will see that. Well, in any event,
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we will pass along. You told the Tribunal yesterday that the statement in the Voelkischer Beobachter, attributed to Hitler, on 21 February 1938 was something of a mystery to you; you did not know where he got his figures from. Did you understand what I said, Mr. Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And do you know to what I referred in your testimony of yesterday, that quotation from Hitler in the Voelkischer Beobachter?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: What is wrong with those figures?
VON SCHIRACH: I think that these figures are exaggerated and I think that there are errors in the text in my possession, which is a translated text. He probably received these figures from Dr. Stellrecht's office, or so I assume. The statements regarding armored troops were, I imagine, probably added by himself; for the conclusion that some thousands or tens of thousands qualified for driving licenses is really an incorrect one, just as it is incorrect to draw from the fact that some tens of thousands of lads qualify for driving licenses the conclusion that they were trained as tank troops.
MR. DODD: Well, you see, we didn't say so. You understand it was your Fuehrer who said so in February 1938, and what I asked you was that I wish perhaps we can go through it and you can tell the Tribunal where they are in error and to what extent. Now Hitler said, according to the press, that your naval Hitler Youth comprised 45,000 boys. Would you say that figure was too large and altogether untrue?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is correct.
MR. DODD: That is correct?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.
MR. DODD: He then said, the motor Hitler Youth 60,000 boys. What do you say about that figure?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.
MR. DODD: And then he said that, as part of the campaign to encourage aviation, 55,000 members of the Jungvolk were trained in gliding for group activities. What do you say about that figure?
VON SCHIRACH: Glider training and model plane construction in the youth organization with-may I have the figure again- 50,000 youth airmen?
MR. DODD: 55,000.
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VON SCHIRACH: 55,000-yes, that is correct.
MR. DODD: That's correct. Then he says, "74,000 of the Hitler Youth are organized in its flying units." Now, what do you say about that figure?
VON SCHIRACH: You say "flying units"; those are "Fliegereinheiten," groups of Hitler youth airmen, who-as I must emphasize again-were concerned only with gliding and the construction of model planes. There may have been such a large number at the time.
MR. DODD: