Chapter XXII: Book 4: , Page 28 of the English book, and just look at Captain (13)

DR. SAUTER: I come now to the particular accusations which have been made against you by the Prosecution concerning that period in Vienna. Among other things you have been accused of participating in the so-called slave-labor program, and I ask you to state your position concerning that, and in that connection also to deal with Directive Number 1 of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, of 6 April 1942, which was presented, I believe, as Document 3352-PS. Please go ahead.

VON SCHIRACH: Maybe I would do best to start with the decree by which Gauleiter were appointed Plenipotentiaries for the Allocation of Labor under the Plenipotentiary General.

DR. SAUTER: 6 April 1942.

VON SCHIRACH: In the way of documentary material that decree contains no more than that the Gauleiter could make suggestions and submit requests to the competent offices for the allocation of labor. But they were held responsible—I do not know whether by this decree or another one—for the supervision of the feeding and quartering, _et cetera_, of foreign workers. This feeding and quartering, _et cetera_, of foreign workers was—in my Gau and I believe also in all other Gaue of the Reich—mainly in the hands of the German Labor Front.

The Gauobmann of the German Labor Front in Vienna reported to me very frequently about the conditions among German workers and foreign workers in the Gau. He often accompanied me on inspection tours of industries; and from my own observations I can describe my impressions here of the life of foreign workers in Vienna as far as I could watch it.

I well remember, for instance, my visit to a large soap factory where I saw barracks in which Russian and French women were living. They had better quarters there than many Viennese families which lived six or eight people in the usual one-room apartments with kitchen. I remember another inspection where I saw a billet of Russian workers. It was clean and neat, and among the Russian women who were there I noticed that they were gay, well-nourished, and apparently satisfied. I know about the treatment of Russian domestic workers from the circle of my acquaintances and from the acquaintances of many assistants; and here, also, I have heard, and in part observed myself, that they were extremely well treated.

Let me say something in general about Vienna as a place for foreign workers. For centuries foreign workers have worked in Vienna. To bring foreign workers from the southeast to Vienna is no problem at all. One likes to go to Vienna, just as one likes to go to Paris. I have seen very many Frenchmen and French women working in Vienna, and at times I spoke with them. I also talked to French foremen in the factories. They lived as tenants somewhere in the city, just like any other private person. One saw them in the Prater. They spent their free time just as our own native workers did.

During the time I was in Vienna, I built more factory kitchens than there are in any other Gau in Germany. The foreign workers frequented these kitchens just as much as the native workers.

About treatment at the hands of the population, I can only say that the population of a city which has been accustomed for centuries to work together with foreign elements, will spontaneously treat any worker well who comes from the outside.

Really bad conditions were never reported to me. From time to time it was reported that something was not going well here or there. It was the duty of the Gauobmann of the Labor Front to report that to me. Then I immediately issued a directive from my desk by telephone to the regional food office or the quota office for the supply of material, for kitchens or heating installations, or whatever it was. At any rate, I tried within 24 or 48 hours to take care of all complaints that came to me.

While we are on the subject I would like to give my impression of the use of manpower in general. I am not responsible for the importation of labor. I can only say that what I saw in the way of directives and orders from the Plenipotentiary General, namely the Codefendant Sauckel, always followed the line of humane, decent, just, and clean treatment of the workers who were entrusted to us. Sauckel literally flooded his offices with such directives.

I considered it my duty to state that in my testimony.

DR. SAUTER: These foreign workers, who were in the Gau Vienna and for whom you do not consider yourself responsible, were they employed in the armament industry or elsewhere?

VON SCHIRACH: A large portion was employed in agriculture, some in the supply industry. Whether there were some directly in the armament industry I could not say. The armament industry was not accessible to me in all its ramifications, even in my functions as Gauleiter, because there were war production processes which were kept secret even from the Reichsstatthalter.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, in connection with the subject of Jewish forced labor, a letter was read, Document 3803-PS. It is, I believe, a handwritten letter from the Defendant Kaltenbrunner to Blaschke. Blaschke, I believe, was the second mayor of Vienna.

VON SCHIRACH: He was the mayor of Vienna.

DR. SAUTER: This is a letter of 30 June 1944. In that letter Kaltenbrunner informs Blaschke that he had directed that several evacuation transports should be sent to Vienna-Strasshof. “There are four transports,” it says in the letter, “with about 12,000 Jews, which will arrive in the next few days.” So much about the letter. Its further content is only of importance because of what it says in the end—and I quote:

“I beg you to arrange further details with the State Police
Office, Vienna, SS Obersturmbannführer Dr. Ebner, and SS
Obersturmbannführer Krumey, of the Special Action Command
Hungary, who is at present in Vienna.”

Did you have anything to do with that matter, and if so what?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know of the correspondence between the Codefendant Kaltenbrunner and the mayor of Vienna. To my knowledge Camp Strasshof is not within Gau Vienna at all. It is in an altogether different Gau. The designation, “Vienna-Strasshof,” is, therefore, an error. The border runs in between the two.

DR. SAUTER: And were you informed of the matter itself at that time, or only here in the courtroom?

VON SCHIRACH: I know of that matter only from this courtroom, but I remember that mention was made about the use of Jewish workers in connection with the building of the Southeast Wall or fortifications. The Southeast Wall, however, was not in the area of Reich Gau Vienna. It was a project in the area of Gau Lower Danube, Lower Austria, or Styria. I had nothing to do with the construction of the Southeast Wall; that was in the hands of Dr. Jury, that is, the O. T....

DR. SAUTER: O. T. is the Organization Todt?

VON SCHIRACH: ...the Organization Todt. And in the other part of the border it was in the hands of Dr. Uiberreither, the Gauleiter of Styria, and his technical assistants.

DR. SAUTER: So I can sum up your statement to mean that you had nothing to do with these things because they were matters which did not concern your Gau.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I cannot understand what connection there should be with Gau Vienna. Whether the mayor intended to divert some of these workers for special tasks in Vienna is not known to me. I do not know about that matter.

DR. SAUTER: In the same connection, Witness, another document has been submitted, 1948-PS, a file note of 7 November 1940. That was a date on which you had already been Gauleiter in Vienna for several months and it, too, concerns forced labor of the Jews who were capable of work. That file note was written on stationery with the heading “The Reichsstatthalter in Vienna,” and apparently the note in question was written by a Dr. Fischer. Who is Dr. Fischer? What did you, as Reichsstatthalter, have to do with that matter? What do you know about it?

VON SCHIRACH: First of all, Dr. Fischer is not known to me personally. I do not want to dispute the possibility that he may have been introduced to me once and that I do not remember him; but I do not know who Dr. Fischer is. At any rate, he was not an expert working in my central office. I assume that he may have been an official, because his name appears in connection with another document also. He was probably the personal consultant of the Regierungspräsident. The note shows that this official used my stationery, and he was entitled to do that. I believe several thousand people in Vienna were entitled to use that stationery, according to the usage of German offices.

On this note he has put down a telephone conversation with the Gestapo from which it can be seen that the Reich Security Main Office—that is Heydrich—was the office which decided, by internal directives to the Gestapo, on the use of Jewish manpower.

The Regierungspräsident wanted to know more about that; but I believe one cannot draw the conclusion from this that I was informed about cruelties committed by the Gestapo, as the Prosecution has concluded. It is doubtful whether I was in Vienna at all at that time. I want to remind you of my other tasks, which I have described before.

However, if I was there, I certainly did not concern myself with the work of cleaning up the streets. But I should like to say that the variety of my tasks caused me to establish an organizational structure which did not exist in other Gaue, namely, the Central Office of the Reich Leader.

DR. SAUTER: Perhaps you will tell us, before concluding for today, approximately how many officials in Vienna were subordinated to you.

VON SCHIRACH: I guess it may have been about 5,000 officials and employees.

DR. SAUTER: Shall I continue, Mr. President? It is 5:00 o’clock.

THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn.

[_The Tribunal adjourned, until 24 May 1946 at 1000 hours._]

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHTH DAY
Friday, 24 May 1946

_Morning Session_

[_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, Standartenführer 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 Vienna.

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 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?

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 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.

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 Stürmer_, the paper issued by your fellow-Defendant, Streicher. Did you distribute this anti-Semitic paper _Der Stürmer_ within your youth organization, and did you in any way further its distribution?

VON SCHIRACH: _Der Stürmer_ 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 Stürmer_ 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 Stürmer_. 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 Stürmer_ which, of course, was the paper of the local Gau. Otherwise I have no recollection of the episode.

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 Stürmer 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 Gau. At any rate, that book and similar writings of the Stürmer Publishing Firm were not, as a rule, distributed among the young people and the youth organizations. What I have already said when judging _Der Stürmer_ 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. 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 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 Führer 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 Führer had definitely turned the suggestion down.

DR. SAUTER: The emigration to neutral countries abroad?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, to neutral countries abroad.

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 Sturmführer?

VON SCHIRACH: An SS Sturmführer, 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.

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 _Völkischer 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 Führer. 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 Party itself against me. Constantly I heard from officials of the Party 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 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 Düsseldorf speech; he had discovered that I had authorized in Weimar and in Vienna art exhibitions of a decadent nature; and he offered me the 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 Führer 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 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 Führer 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 Göring, in the witness box, mentioned a letter of mine which Hitler had shown him, and Herr Von Ribbentrop has stated 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 Göring 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 Göring 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 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 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. It 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.

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._]

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 Höllriegel 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 Höllriegel’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 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 Höllriegel is correct. I quite definitely know that the date given by Marsalek is not correct.