Chapter XV: Part I: , Page 1203; Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 295; and (8)

MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the United States will continue with the presentation, showing the individual responsibility of the Defendant Von Schirach. It will be made by Captain Sprecher.

CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, it is my responsibility to present the individual responsibility of the Defendant Schirach for Crimes against the Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity as they concern directly the Common Plan or Conspiracy.

The Prosecution contends that the Defendant Schirach is guilty of having exercised a leading part in the Nazi conspiracy from 1925 until the Nazi downfall.

The conspiratorial acts and the criminality of the Defendant Schirach may be grouped for purposes of convenience into three principal phases: (1) His early support of the conspirators over the period 1925-1929; (2) his leadership and direction of German youth over the period 1929-1945; (3) his leadership of the Reichsgau Vienna as chief representative of the Nazi Party and the Nazi State in Vienna for the period July 1940 to 1945. The presentation will take up each of these principal phases after a brief listing of all the principal positions which Schirach held.

In presenting first a listing of the positions held by Schirach, it is not intended immediately to describe the functions of each of these positions. Insofar as a description of the functions of any particular position is still felt necessary at this stage of the Trial, it will be given later during the discussion of Schirach’s conspiratorial acts as Nazi Youth Leader and as Nazi official in Vienna.

For the consideration of the Tribunal, we have submitted a brief on this subject. The document book contains English translations of 29 documents. Although we feel that we have reduced the number of documents to the minimum, the document book is still large. But Schirach’s subversion of German youth is a large subject, even apart from any of his other acts. Most of these documents are from German publications, of which the Tribunal can take judicial notice. Therefore, in most cases, it is intended only to paraphrase these documents, unless the Tribunal in particular instances will indicate that they like fuller treatment.

Before passing to the proof I want to express my appreciation, particularly to Major Hartley Murray, Lieutenant Fred Niebergall at my right, and Mr. Norbert Heilpern for their assistance in research, analysis, translation, and organization of these materials.

Schirach agrees he held the following positions. They are found in two affidavits, an affidavit of certificate and one affidavit of report dated December 1945, which is Document 3302-PS, document book, Page 110.

I want to offer that affidavit as Exhibit Number USA-665. The certificate, which I will rely on for only one point, is Document 2973-PS. It is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-14.

Turning first to Document 3302-PS: This affidavit shows that Schirach was a member of the Party from 1925 to 1945; that he was a leader of the National Socialist Student League from 1929 to 1931; that he was leader of the Hitler Youth Organization from 1931 to 1940. In 1931 and 1932 Schirach was Reich Youth Leader on the staff of the SA Supreme Command, where at that time all Nazi youth organizations were centralized. Also, Schirach was Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP from 1931 to 1940.

In 1932 Schirach became an independent Reich Leader (Reichsleiter), in the Party. Upon acquiring this relatively independent position, he no longer remained on the staff of the SA Supreme Command, since Nazi youth affairs thereafter, with the creation of the Reich Youth Leadership, were directly subordinate to Hitler with Schirach at the helm. We had that kind of condition existing in the Party where, under the Leadership Principle, at the pinnacle you had one man, Schirach, and you no longer had the youth affairs underneath the SA. However, within the SA, Schirach retained the rank and the title of a Gruppenführer throughout the period from 1931 to 1941, and in that year, 1941, he was elevated to the rank of an SA Obergruppenführer, a rank which Schirach continued to hold in the SA until the collapse.

Schirach was Reich Leader of Youth Education in the NSDAP from 1932 until the collapse. In other words, from before the Nazis came to state power until the final downfall, this defendant held the high position of a Reichsleiter, a Reich Leader, inside the Party.

Now, in addition to these positions in the Party, Schirach held the following positions in the Nazi State:

Reich Youth Leader, 1933 to 1940; Reich governor (Reichsstatthalter) of the Reichsgau Vienna, 1940 to 1945; Reich Defense Commissioner of Vienna, 1940 to 1945.

Now, although Schirach gave up some of his positions with respect to the leadership of German youth in 1940 when he accepted these positions in Vienna, he still continued to hold after that time the Party position of Reich Leader for Youth Education in the NSDAP. Moreover, he was given a very special position: Deputy to the Führer for the Inspection of the Hitler Youth, the organization which he, of course, had led until 1940. He continued in these last two positions until the downfall.

The certificate, Document 2973-PS, the only thing I rely on there in this particular presentation, is to show that Schirach was a member of the Reichstag from 1932 to 1945.

We next take up acts showing that Schirach actively promoted the NSDAP and its affiliated youth organizations before the Nazis seized power. Schirach was an intimate and a servile follower of Hitler from the year 1925. In that year, when he was only 18 years old, Schirach joined the Nazi conspirators by becoming a member of the Party. Upon special request of Hitler, he went to Munich to study Party affairs. He became active in converting students to National Socialism. I am paraphrasing there, Your Honors, from Paragraph 2 of Schirach’s own affidavit, Document 3302-PS, Exhibit Number USA-665, found at Page 110 of the document book.

Now, this was the start of conspiratorial activities which Schirach thereafter continued for two decades in a spirit of unbending loyalty to Hitler and to the principles of National Socialism. Hitler’s early personal attentions to this defendant bore fruit for the conspirators, and we find Schirach’s stature in the Party circles rapidly growing through these early years.

In 1929 Schirach was made national leader of the entire National Socialist German Students League. He retained this position for 2 years until 1931. Document 3464-PS, document book, Page 121, is an extract from the 1936 edition of the Party manual, Exhibit Number USA-666, which I would like to offer in evidence. This makes it clear that the purpose of the Nazi Students League was the ideological and political conversion of students in universities and technical schools to National Socialism.

After 1931 Schirach devoted his full time to Party work. Schirach was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag in 1932, and therefore he played his part in the unparliamentary conduct of the Nazi Reichstag members during the last months of the existence of the Reichstag as an independent instrument of government.

Some of the best evidence concerning Schirach’s support of the conspiracy in its early stages comes from Schirach’s own words in his book _The Hitler Youth_. Excerpts from this book are found in Document Number 1458-PS, document book, Page 1. It is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-667. Now, since this book, Your Honors, covers many years and many topics, I shall be required to refer to it occasionally later on.

An example of Schirach’s servile loyalty to Hitler during the early years is found at Page 17 of this book, Page 12 of your document book. There he writes of his early years of Party activity as follows:

“We were not yet able to account for our conception in detail.
We simply believed. And when Hitler’s book _Mein Kampf_ was
published, it was our bible, which we almost learned by heart in
order to answer the questions of the doubters and superior
critics. Almost everyone who today is leading youth in a
responsible position joined us in those years.”

Before 1933 Schirach moved throughout Germany, leading demonstrations, summoning German youth to membership in the Hitler Youth. When the Hitler Youth and the wearing of its uniform were forbidden by law, Schirach continued his activities by illegal means. Of this period he himself writes, at Page 26 of his book on _The Hitler Youth_, Pages 16 and 17 of your document book, as follows:

“At this time the HJ (the Hitler Jugend) gained its best human
material. Whoever came to us during this illegal time, boy or
girl, risked everything. . . . With pistols in our pockets we
drove through the Ruhr district while stones came flying after
us. We jumped every time we heard a bell ring, because we lived
in constant fear of arrests and expected our houses to be
searched.”

At Page 27 of the same book, Page 18 of Your Honors’ document book, Schirach indicates that in the early intra-Party fight between Hitler and Strasser, Schirach clung steadfastly to the Hitler clique, and then, in discussing Strasser, he exchanged his confidence only with Hitler and the Defendant Streicher. It is hardly necessary to argue that such an intimate of the Führer, himself, was advised from the beginning of the general purposes, plans, and methods of the conspiracy.

As an interesting sidelight, I believe a number of those conferences, you will note, took place in Schirach’s apartment in Munich, and that Hitler used to come there occasionally.

Schirach was the leading Nazi conspirator in destroying all independent youth organizations and in building the Nazi youth movement. In connection with this point, the attention of the Tribunal is invited to the brief of the United States Chief of Counsel entitled “The Reshaping of Education, Training of Youth,” which was written for the United States Chief of Counsel by Major Hartley Murray, and to the documents cited therein under the section headed “b.” “The Nazi conspirators supplemented the school system by training youth through the Hitler Jugend.” These documents were offered in evidence in Document Book D in the earlier phase of this Trial. The attention of the Tribunal is also called to the motion picture _The Nazi Plan_, which was shown before the Tribunal on the 11th of December, insofar as that film involved the Defendant Schirach and his Hitler Youth organization. Occasions when Schirach’s activities are shown in this film are noted in Document Number 3054-PS, the index and the guide to this film, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-167.

It was the task of Schirach to perpetuate the Nazi regime through generations by poisoning the minds of youth with Nazi ideology and preparing youth for aggressive war. This poisoning will long outlive the defendant. Indeed, one of the principal purposes of this exposure must be to bring to those German youths who survived the Nazi-created catastrophe a true picture of this man whom Nazi propaganda presented as a great youth hero; a man against whom the living breath of free criticism and the truth itself could make no answer before German youth or before the German people, for more than 10 years.

Again, from Schirach’s own hand in his book, _The Hitler Youth_, we have crystal-clear evidence concerning the methods and the tactics employed by this defendant in his destruction of independent youth organizations and their incorporation into the Hitler Youth. At Page 32, Pages 19 and 20 of Your Honors’ document book, Schirach states that in 1933 the new Cabinet ministers were too overburdened to solve the youth question by their own initiative; that therefore he, Schirach, then leader of the Hitler Youth, commissioned one of his confederates to lead 50 members of the Berlin Hitler Youth in a surprise raid on the Reich Committee of German Youth Organizations. This raid resulted in destroying the Reich Committee and its absorption within the Hitler Youth. This raid was closely followed by a second surprise raid of like success upon the Youth Hostels Organization, Page 33, _The Hitler Youth_, found at Pages 20 and 21 of the document book.

Now, after these successful showings of force and terror, Schirach’s star climbed higher. He was appointed Youth Leader of the German Reich in June 1931 in a solemn ceremony before Hitler. Concerning his next steps, Schirach writes at Pages 35 and 36 of his book, Page 22 of the document book, as follows:

“The first thing I did was to dissolve the Greater German
League. Since I headed all German youth organizations and I had
the right to decide on their leadership, I did not hesitate for
a moment to take this step which was for the Hitler Youth the
elimination of an unbearable state of affairs.”

Schirach accomplished the dissolution and destruction of most youth organizations by orders which he issued and signed as Youth Leader of the German Reich. This is shown by the order contained in Document Number 2229-PS, your document book, Page 65, which is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-668.

By this one order of Schirach nine youth organizations were dissolved, including the Boy Scout movement.

The Protestant and Catholic youth organizations were the last to be destroyed and absorbed by the Hitler Youth. Schirach accomplished the absorption of the Protestant youth organization by agreement with the Hitler-appointed Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, Page 38 of _The Hitler Youth_, Page 24 of the document book. Schirach’s objective in forcing all German youth into the Hitler Youth was finally accomplished in December 1936 by the basic law on the Hitler Youth. Document Number 1392-PS is a decree, 1936, _Reichsgesetzblatt_, Part I, Page 993, of which, of course, the Tribunal may take judicial notice. This law declared in part, and Your Honors, I read from this because it shows so clearly the nature of what was to happen and what was already happening to German youth under Schirach.

THE PRESIDENT: Is it set out in the document book?

CAPT. SPRECHER: Yes, Sir.

THE PRESIDENT: What page?

CAPT. SPRECHER: It is Document Number 1392-PS. It is at Page 6 of your document book:

“The future of the German nation depends on its youth, and
German youth will have to be prepared for its future
duties. . . . All of the German youth in the Reich is organized
within the Hitler Youth. . . . The German youth, besides being
reared within the family and school, shall be educated
physically, intellectually, and morally in the spirit of
National Socialism to serve the people and the community through
the Hitler Youth. . . . The task of educating the German youth
through the Hitler Youth is being entrusted to the Reich Leader
of German Youth in the NSDAP. . . .”

The first executive order on this basic law concerning the Hitler Youth was issued on the 25th of March 1939. If you refer to Page 40 of your document book, this decree, 1939, _Reichsgesetzblatt_, Part I, Page 709, among other points confirms the exclusive nature of Schirach’s responsibility concerning German youth. I will quote only one sentence:

“The Youth Leader of the German Reich is solely competent for
all missions of the physical, ideological, and moral education
of the entire German youth outside home and school.”

THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, I think you have told us enough now to satisfy us that Von Schirach was in charge, of the ideological education of German youth and completely in charge of it.

CAPT. SPRECHER: Yes, Sir.

THE PRESIDENT: And we don’t desire to hear any more of it.

CAPT. SPRECHER: I understand.

In exercising his far-reaching control over German youth, Schirach naturally relied on the common techniques of the Nazi conspirators, including the Leadership Principle, the nature of which has already been established before this Tribunal. The Tribunal will find a galling glorification and explanation of the Leadership Principle as it was applied to German youth, in Schirach’s book, _The Hitler Youth_, at Page 68, translated at Page 32 of the document book. I won’t read from that.

In his affidavit, Document Number 3302-PS, Paragraph 5, Schirach states, “It was my task to educate the youth in the aims, ideology, and directives of the NSDAP, and beyond this to direct and to shape them.”

Naturally, Schirach established and directed an elaborate propaganda apparatus to accomplish a thorough-going poisoning of the minds of German youth. Document Number 3349-PS, your document book Page 114, is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-666.

This is an excerpt from Pages 452 and 453 of the 1936 edition of the Party manual. This document will show that the Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendführung) of the NSDAP prepared and published numerous periodicals ranging from a daily press service to monthly magazines. This document also shows that the propaganda office of the Hitler Youth maintained, through liaison agents, a political and ideological connection with the propaganda office of the NSDAP and with the Propaganda Ministry, both of which, of course, were headed by the conspirator Goebbels.

Schirach shares with the conspirator Dr. Robert Ley, Reich Organizationsleiter of the NSDAP, the responsibility for the establishment and general administration of the Adolf Hitler Schools. This is shown by a joint statement of Ley and Schirach in the year 1937, which is found in the document book at Page 100. It is our Document 2653-PS, offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-669. This document shows that these Adolf Hitler Schools were open free of charge to outstanding and proved members of the Young Folk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth organization. It further shows that the object of these schools was the building of youthful leadership for the Nazi Party and the Nazi State apparatus.

Schirach extended his education of German Youth into the field of law and the legal profession even though these fields were principally under the control of the Defendant Frank. Proof is found in Document Number 3459-PS, Page 120 of the document book. This is a one-page extract from an account of the Congress of German Law in 1939. It is offered as Exhibit Number USA-670. This document shows that beyond purely technical education in law it was considered by the conspirators to be the task of the Party to exercise influence upon the ideological conceptions of the Young Law Guardians League. This league was a junior organization of the National Socialist Law Guardians League, a Nazi-controlled organization of lawyers.

Now, at this Congress to which the document refers, an official of the youth law guardians declared that ignorance of the simplest legal principles could best be fought within the Hitler Youth and that, therefore, the legal education program of the Hitler Youth was to receive the broadest support.

Obergebietsführer Arthur Axmann, the subordinate of Schirach at that time and who in 1940 was to succeed him as leader of the Hitler Youth, was at that time, namely, May 1939, appointed the chairman of a youth legal committee for the establishment of the Youth Law. He was appointed by the Defendant Frank.

THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, I don’t think I made it quite clear that the Tribunal is not really interested in these details by which the Defendant Von Schirach acquired his power over the German Youth. You have told us sufficient to establish in our minds, so far at any rate, that he managed to get absolute command over the German youth. The only thing that seems to me to be material, at the present stage, is whether or not you can show us any direct evidence that the Defendant Schirach was a party to the aggressive aims of the Reich leaders, or to any War Crimes or to any Crimes against Humanity. Unless you can show us that, your address to us is really not useful to us at this stage.

CAPT. SPRECHER: I plan to take up directly, Your Honor, the question of the militarization of youth. I did want to make one reference at this point to the relation of the Hitler Youth to the League for Germans Abroad, if that is satisfactory to Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that may bear on the aggressive aims of the Reich leaders.

CAPT. SPRECHER: Schirach extended the influence of the Hitler Youth beyond the borders of Germany by means of co-operation between the Hitler Youth and the League for Germans Abroad, the VDA. This is proved by an agreement made in 1933 between Schirach and leaders of the VDA which is contained in Document L-360(h), document book Page 3. This is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-671.

Now, Schirach discusses in his book, _The Hitler Youth_, under the chapter heading, “Work Abroad”—that is Chapter 4 of the book, Pages 34 to 38 of the document book—some of the connections of the Hitler Youth with such Nazi ideas as Lebensraum, colonial policy as an ideological weapon.

I won’t read from that, since it also covers to a certain extent. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Did it talk about Lebensraum?

CAPT. SPRECHER: It actually used the word Lebensraum. At Page 36 of the document book there is reference made to the Ostraum, space in the East. . .

THE PRESIDENT: I thought the document you were dealing with was L-360 on Page 3.

CAPT. SPRECHER: I am sorry. I had gone on from there, to speak about Schirach’s book, Document 1458-PS, and I had mentioned that at Pages 34 to 38 of the document book there were references concerning the Nazi ideas of colonial policy and Lebensraum, and that this book by Schirach indicated that the Hitler Youth was charged with spreading those ideas.

He uses the word “Ostraum” in speaking of space in the East, and he discusses German youth organizations abroad and the German schools in these countries. And then I wish particularly to point out on Page 37 the following sentence:

“It will be taken into consideration concerning this schooling
that the guiding line of German population policy which aims at
the utilization of the space in the East will not be violated.”

Now, the conspirators devoted a great deal of energy to the perpetuation of their scheme of things by selecting and training successors for Nazi leadership, selecting and training and acquiring active Nazis for the rank and file of the NSDAP and its affiliated organizations, including the SA and the SS which are alleged here to be criminal organizations.

A number of orders issued by the Party Chancellery under the heading, “Successor Problems,” show the dominant part assumed by Schirach and his Hitler Youth in this field. Our Document Number 3348-PS, “Selections from Volume I of the Decrees, Regulations, and Announcements of the Party Chancellery,” already marked in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-410, contains some of these orders, which I won’t take the time to read. But they are all contained on one page, Page 113, of your document book.

Only Hitler Youth members who distinguished themselves were to be admitted to the Party. Nazi leaders were directed to absorb full-time Hitler Youth leaders into their staffs so as to offer them practical experience and thus secure necessary successors for the Leadership Corps which is also alleged as a criminal organization. This pivotal and central function of the Hitler Youth in the domination of German life by the Party is also shown at Pages 80 and 81 of the 1938 Party manual, Exhibit Number USA-430, found at Page 74 of the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: That last page, Page 113, does that refer to any of the matters to which I drew your attention? It is simply the organization of the youth; it has nothing to do with any criminal aims.

CAPT. SPRECHER: Your Honor, it certainly is the contention of the Prosecution that any man who took an active part in furnishing for these criminal organizations young members committed a crime.

THE PRESIDENT: I quite understand that, and that is why I told you that we were satisfied that so far you had shown that he had acquired absolute control over and was the leader of the German youth. The only thing we want to hear about at this stage is whether he was a party to the schemes for aggressive war, to War Crimes, or to Crimes against Humanity. That is what we want to hear, and we don’t want to hear anything else.

CAPT. SPRECHER: Your Honors, may I pass, then, to the connection of Hitler Youth to the SS. Document 2396-PS, which is found at Page 69 of the document book and which is offered as Exhibit Number USA-673, has a quotation in it concerning the Streifendienst of the Hitler Youth; the Streifendienst being the patrol service, a type of self-police organization of the Hitler Youth. The quotation which I intend to read will indicate how this organization became the principal supplier of the SS.

Are Your Honors interested in having me read that quotation concerning the Hitler Youth as the main source of the SS?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, perhaps; I haven’t read it.

CAPT. SPRECHER: This document is an agreement between Schirach and Himmler. It was concluded in October 1938. It bears, I think, partial quoting:

“Organization of the Streifendienst.

“1. Since the Streifendienst in the Hitler Youth has to perform
tasks similar to those which the SS perform for the whole
movement, it is organized as a special unit for the purpose of
securing recruits for the General SS. However, as much as
possible, recruits for the SS Special Troops, for the SS Death’s
Head Units, and for the officer-candidate schools, should also
be taken from these formations.”

I am skipping down now to 4a, which is underlined in red in your book:

“The selection of Streifendienst members is made according to
the principles of racial selection of the Schutzstaffel. The
competent officials of the SS, primarily unit leaders, race
authorities, and SS physicians, will be consulted for the
admission tests.”

Skipping to 5:

“To insure from the beginning a good understanding between Reich
Youth Leadership and Reich SS leadership, a liaison officer will
be ordered from the Reich Youth Leadership to the SS Main Office
starting 1 October 1938. The appointment of other leaders to the
higher SS sections is a subject for a future agreement.”

Then, going down to what I think is the most striking quotation, Your Honor, 6:

“After the organization is completed, the SS takes its
replacement primarily from these Streifendienst members.
Admission of youths of German blood who are not members of the
Hitler Youth is then possible only after information and advice
of the competent Bannführer.”

Now, the Bannführer referred to there was the local leader of the Hitler Jugend; and without his consent no one could go into the SS in the future after that agreement was made, which was in October 1938.

Now, the second agreement which Schirach made with Himmler was made in December 1938. It is found in our document book, Number 2567-PS, Page 98. It is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-674. It states that the Farm Service of the Hitler Youth “is, according to education and aim, particularly well suited as a recruiting agency for the SS, General SS, and the armed section of the SS, SS Special Troops, and SS Death’s Head battalions.”

The agreement concludes by stating that Farm Service members of the Hitler Youth who pass the SS admission tests will be taken over by the SS immediately after leaving the Hitler Youth Farm Service.

I might point out to Your Honors that this meant that after that time any Hitler Youth member who was in the Farm Service was obliged to go into the SS.

And now, to come directly to the point you have been inquiring about, Your Honor:

Throughout the 6 years of Nazi political control over Germany before the launching of aggressive war, Schirach was actively engaged in militarizing German youth. From the beginning, the Hitler Youth was set up along military lines with uniforms, ranks and titles. It was regimented and led in military fashion under the Leadership Principle.

If Your Honors will take any edition whatsoever of the _Organization Book_, the Party manual, and turn to the tables, beginning with Table 54, and leaf through the book, you will see the very striking insignia of the Hitler Youth and how much it compares to what the normal military insignia were. You will further notice that one of the most prominent insignia is an “S” of the same type that the Nazis used with respect to the SS. You will notice that part of the uniform was a long knife.

THE PRESIDENT: Isn’t that all a part of what they are pleased to call the Nazi ideology? I mean, the Führer Principle, military training?

CAPT. SPRECHER: There is a relation between all of these things, perhaps, and the Leadership Principle, because the Leadership Principle dominated absolutely every aspect of German life. However, Your Honors, I suggest that showing to you, in this graphic means, the similarity between the uniform of the Hitler Youth and military uniforms has some bearing upon the preparation for aggressive wars, about which I am further to speak in just a moment.

Now, Document 2654-PS, found at Page 102 of your document book, is a whole book given over to just this question of the organization and the insignia of the Hitler Youth.

The Tribunal will see how the Hitler Youth was divided into branches or divisions which were very similar to military divisions.

That document is offered as Exhibit Number USA-675. I will refer no further to it.

Now, in a speech in February 1938, when the conspirators had already dropped some of the camouflage which surrounded their earlier military preparations for the wars which we have recently suffered, Hitler discussed the military training of the Hitler Youth in the _Völkischer Beobachter_ of the 21st of February 1938. This is our Document 2454-PS, found at Page 97 of the document book. It is offered as Exhibit Number USA-676.

Hitler there said that thousands of German boys had received specialized training through the Hitler Youth in naval, aviation, and motorized groups and that over 7,000 instructors had trained more than 1 million Hitler Youth members in rifle shooting. That was February 1938, shortly before the Anschluss. Note the progress of military training within the Hitler Youth between then and August 1939, just 1 month before the invasion of Poland.

At that time the Defendant Schirach and the Defendant Keitel, as Chief of the High Command, entered into another one of those informative agreements, which many of these defendants liked to make among themselves. It is Document Number 2398-PS, your document book Page 72. It is offered as Exhibit Number USA-677. It is taken from _Das Archiv_ which, in introducing the actual agreement, declared that this agreement was “the result of close co-operation” between Schirach and Keitel. The agreement itself states, in part:

“While it is exclusively the task of the Hitler Youth to attend
to the training of their units in this direction, it is
suitable, in the sense of a uniformed training corresponding to
the demands of the Wehrmacht, to support the leadership of the
Hitler Youth for their responsible task as trainers and
educators in all fields of training for defense by special
courses.”

And then, skipping down towards the end, you will note this quotation within the agreement: “A great number of courses are in progress.”

Your Honor, if I may take about 5 minutes, I can finish this one section on the aggressive war phase.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

CAPT. SPRECHER: Whereas Hitler, in February 1938, mentioned that 7,000 Hitler Youth leaders were engaged in training German youngsters in rifle shooting, Schirach and Keitel, in their agreement of August 1939, note the following:

“. . . 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders are already being trained
annually in field service. The agreement with the Wehrmacht
gives the possibility of roughly doubling that number. The
billeting and messing of the Hitler Youth leaders is done,
according to the regulations for execution already published, in
the barracks, drill grounds, _et cetera_, of the Wehrmacht, at a
daily cost of 25 Pfennig.”

Just as Schirach dealt with the head of the SS in obtaining zealous recruits for organized banditry and the commission of atrocities, so also he dealt with the head of the Wehrmacht in furnishing young men as human grist for the mill of aggressive war.

The training of German youths runs through the Nazi conspiracy as an important central thread. It is one of the manifestations of Nazism which has shocked the entire civilized world. The principal responsibility for the planning and execution of the Nazi Youth policy falls upon this defendant.

I wish to take merely one sentence from his own affidavit, Paragraph 5, Document Number 3302-PS, so that there can be no doubt before this Tribunal or before the world, indeed, as to this defendant’s own feeling of responsibility: “I feel myself responsible for the policy of the youth movement in the Party and later within the Reich.” I underline the phrase “_I feel myself responsible_.”

Your Honor, that is a convenient breaking point before coming to a discussion of Schirach’s connection to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 16 January 1946 at 1000 hours._]

THIRTY-FIFTH DAY
Wednesday, 16 January 1946

_Morning Session_

CAPT. SPRECHER: May it please the Tribunal, I now pass to activities which involve Schirach in the commission of Crimes against Humanity as they bear directly on Count One. The presentation of all specific acts will deal with the Reichsgau Vienna; but first allow me to refer back to two important points in the previous proof, which will show that Schirach bears responsibility for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity which bring in the whole of Europe. Through his agreements with Himmler he provided, through the Hitler Youth, many if not most of the SS men who administered, in the main, the concentration camps and whose War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity throughout Europe generally are notorious.

Nor should we pass to further specific acts of Schirach without mentioning one more thing: that he cannot escape responsibility for implanting in youth the Nazi ideology generally, with its tenets of a master race, sub-human peoples, and Lebensraum and world domination. For such notions were the psychological prerequisites for the instigation and for the tolerance of the atrocities which zealous Nazis committed throughout Germany and the occupied countries.

To present Schirach’s responsibilities for crimes committed within the Reichsgau Vienna, where Schirach was Gau leader and Reich governor from July 1940 until the downfall, the general basic functions of these two offices must be held in mind.

The first document I refer to is Document Number 1893-PS. This is an extract from the Party manual of 1943 and therefore catches Schirach in midstream in his activities in the Reichsgau Vienna. That is Page 42 of the document book, and Pages 70, 71, 75, 98, 136, and 140b of the Party manual, extracts from each of those pages appearing in your document book.

The following highlights concerning the Gau leader’s functions will appear, and I propose only to paraphrase. Since Your Honor may take judicial notice of the Party manual, you may check at your leisure unless you wish me to read from any one of these specific orders. These orders make it appear that the Gau leader was the highest representative of Hitler in his Gau, that he was the bearer of sovereignty—the top Hoheitsträger—and that he had sovereign political rights. Beyond that, he was responsible for the entire political situation in his Gau. He could call—and we believe this is important—he could call upon SA and SS leaders as “needed in the execution of a political mission.” Beyond that he was obliged to meet at least once a month with the leaders of the affiliated Party organizations within his Gau, and this, of course, included the SS.

Now, the position of the Reich Governor in Vienna is somewhat special. After the Anschluss the State of Austria was abolished, and Austria was divided into seven Reich Gaue. The most important of these Gaue was the Reichsgau Vienna, of which Schirach was Governor. Reference to any statistical manual of the Reich at this time will establish that at that time Vienna had a population of over 2 million people. Therefore it was certainly one of the principal cities of the Reich. The Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice of the decree, 1939 _Reichsgesetzblatt_,