Chapter XXVI: Book 4: , Page 28 of the English book, and just look at Captain (17)

MR. DODD: Well, you have been in the courtroom every day. Do you not remember that there was proof offered here by the Prosecution concerning the Defendant Rosenberg and an action termed Heuaktion?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not remember it at the moment; I do not know it.

MR. DODD: Do you not remember that there was some talk here in the courtroom about the seizing of young people in the East and forcing them to be brought to Germany, 40,000 or 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14? You remember that, don’t you, and that one of the purposes was to destroy the biological potentiality of these people? You do not know what I refer to?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is an action which I now remember in connection with this Trial. The only thing I can say on this in an official capacity is what Axmann told me during the war—I cannot recall the exact year—namely, that he had placed a large number of young Russians in apprentice hostels and apprentice workshops at the Junkers works in Dessau, and that these youths were extremely well accommodated and looked after there. I had not been in any way concerned with this action before, but as I stated at the beginning of my testimony here, I assume responsibility for the actions of youth in this war; I adhere to that statement. I do not think, however, that youth is responsible in this case, and I recall the Defendant Rosenberg’s statements that he was complying with the wishes of the Army and an army group in this affair.

MR. DODD: Well, we have the document here. It is already in evidence as USA-171—the Tribunal is familiar with it—and I would like to call your attention to the fact that in this document, which says that Rosenberg agreed to the program of seizing or apprehending 40,000 to 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14 and the transportation of them to the Reich, it also said that this program can be accomplished with the help of the officers of the Hitler Youth through the Youth Bureau of Rosenberg’s Ministry; and it also said that a number of these young people were to be detailed to the SS and SS auxiliaries. Now, what I want to ask you particularly is what you know about that program and how the Hitler Youth co-operated in it?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot add to what I have already said about this program.

MR. DODD: You were in charge of the war commitment of the Hitler Youth, were you not, the “Kriegseinsatz”?

VON SCHIRACH: The war commitment of German youth was under immediate direction of the Reich Youth Leader. From my own knowledge I can give only general but no detailed information.

MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, I ask you again, were you not appointed and did you not serve as the person responsible for the war commitment of youth in Germany? Now, I have got the document to show your appointment if you want to see it.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes; I do not want to deny it at all. In 1939 and 1940, as long as I was Reich Youth Leader, I myself directed that war commitment.

MR. DODD: I am talking about an appointment that was made even later than 1939 or 1940. You were appointed the person in charge of the war commitment of German youth by the Führer at his headquarters in March of 1942, were you not?

VON SCHIRACH: Will you be good enough to show me the document. I consider it possible, but I have no exact recollection.

MR. DODD: All right. It is 3933-PS, which becomes USA-868. But first of all: You do not know you were appointed in charge of the war commitment for youth without being shown the document?

VON SCHIRACH: No; only I cannot tell you the exact date from memory. I was under the impression that I had been responsible for the war commitment beginning in 1939.

MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to establish, that you were in fact responsible for it and continued to be responsible for it right up to the end of the war. I understood you to say a minute ago that the Reich Youth Leader was the man responsible rather than yourself?

VON SCHIRACH: No. I said that I could give you only general but no special information, because the practical application of the war commitment was a matter for Axmann; I do not, however, want to minimize my own responsibility in any way.

MR. DODD: Very well. I think we are sufficiently clear about the fact that you were certainly named to the position no matter how you now wish to “water” your responsibility. What do you say is the date when you first became responsible for the war commitment of youth?

VON SCHIRACH: As far as I remember, I was responsible for it beginning 1939, at the outbreak of war, but I now see that this decree was not signed until 1942.

MR. DODD: All right; we will agree then that from that date, March 1942, you were responsible. Now, I want to ask you to look at another document.

VON SCHIRACH: One moment, may I explain something in this connection? I do not know whether Hitler signed this decree in March 1942; I do not know when it was signed. In this document Axmann tells me: the draft of the decree is now going to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, who will request the official approval of the higher Reich authorities concerned, and then Bormann...

MR. DODD: You do not need to read it, really. What do you want to say now? Are you saying that maybe it was not signed, or maybe you were not appointed, or are you going to say that you were appointed? Will you please give us an answer?

VON SCHIRACH: Not at all. But I really cannot say that the date of the publication of this decree was March 1942. It may not have been published until May.

MR. DODD: I am not attaching any great importance to the date. I want you to look at 345-PS, which we offer as USA-869. This may help you on this Heuaktion program; that is, with respect to your memory.

Now, this is a telegram that the Defendant Rosenberg sent to Dr. Lammers at the Reich Chancellery for the Führer’s headquarters on 20 July 1944. You will observe that in the first paragraph there is stated:

“In accordance with an agreement between the Reich Marshal as
Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the Reichsführer SS, the
Youth Führer of the German Reich, and the Reich Minister for the
Occupied Eastern Territories, the recruiting of young Russians,
Ukrainians, White Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Tartars, between
15 and 20 years of age, ‘will take place on a volunteer basis
for Kriegseinsatz in the Reich’”—“Kriegseinsatz” being a
program that you were responsible for clearly at that time.

Now, moving down, I want to call your attention to Paragraph 3, and I want to remind you of the Heuaktion document that is already in evidence. This telegram says:

“On the basis of a suggestion by military offices, the seizing
and turning over of youths between the ages of 10 to 14 to the
Reich territories will take place (Heuaktion) in a part of the
operational territory, since the youths in the operational
territory present a not insignificant burden.”

It goes on to say:

“The aim of the action is a further disposal of the youths by
placing them in the Reich Youth Movement, and the training of
apprentices for German economy in a form similar to that which
has been effected in agreement with the Plenipotentiary General
for the Allocation of Labor with White Russian Youths, which
already shows results.”

I particularly call your attention to that last phrase, “which already shows results.”

Then the last clause in the next sentence, which says, “...these youths are to be used later in the Occupied Eastern Territories as especially reliable construction forces.”

You will observe that the last paragraph says that “the actions under Points 1 and 3”—which I have just been reading—“are known to the Führer.” And there is something about SS help in regard to this action. You had set a time limit on that.

The next page of the document has the distribution, to the Reich Marshal, the Reichsführer SS, the Reich Youth Führer, and the Reich Minister of Interior, and down at the bottom, a Gauleiter bureau, among others.

What do you know about this seizing of young people between 10 and 14 and the turning over of them to your youth organization in Germany during these war years, and about how many thousands of them were so kidnaped, if you know?

VON SCHIRACH: I have already said that I do not wish to minimize my responsibility in this connection. But it was not until later that I was informed of this matter. Not I, but somebody else was Youth Leader of the German Reich in that year; and he made the agreement with the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force and the Reichsführer SS. But my own measures were...

MR. DODD: Later you were the Youth Reichsleiter of Germany, were you not? And you were also the war commitment officer of Youth in Germany at this very time?

VON SCHIRACH: I was at Vienna, and the date was 20 July 1944. You will remember that the history-making events of that time were occupying all officials in Germany to a very great extent. Later I heard about this matter from Axmann, and I know that the accommodation, training, feeding, and the whole treatment of these Russian youths was actually excellent.

MR. DODD: You also know that even at this hour the Allied forces are trying to find thousands of these young people to return them to their proper place? Do you know that this morning’s press carried an account of 10,000 people that are still unlocated?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that those are these young people who were accommodated in apprentice hostels and who under exceptionally well-ordered conditions received very good professional training.

MR. DODD: You see, it is perfectly clear from this Document 345-PS that this program was in fact in operation. The letter from Rosenberg says so. He says it had “already shown results.” And so your youth organization must have had something to do with it before this message was sent.

VON SCHIRACH: I have not at all denied that. Youth leaders were active within the framework of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. And on the basis of what I have heard here during the Trial, I can perfectly well understand that the generals in the East said that the young people must be taken out of the combat zone. The point was that these youngsters from 10 to 14 years of age had to be taken away from the front.

MR. DODD: With the help of the SS?

Now, I want to show you another document, 1137-PS, which will give you some idea, if you do not recall, of what was done with these young people, and how many of them are involved.

That will become USA-870.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, there is a paragraph at the bottom of Page 1 of that document which relates to another defendant.

MR. DODD: Yes, Your Honor, I am sorry; I overlooked that. I will read it for the benefit of the record, if I may, at this time.

Mr. Witness, I direct your attention back, if I may, to this Document 345-PS, so that you will be aware of what I am reading. You will observe that in the last paragraph of Rosenberg’s communication to Dr. Lammers we find this sentence:

“I have learned that Gauleiter Sauckel will be at the Führer’s
headquarters on 21 July 1944. I ask that this be taken up with
him there and then a report made to the Führer.”

Sauckel was participating in this kidnaping of 10- to 14-year-olds as well, was he? Do you know about that?

VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it. I cannot give any information on that subject.

MR. DODD: Now, this Document 1137-PS begins with a letter from a general, a message rather, an interoffice memorandum, dated 27 October 1944, and it closes with a report by the brigadier general of the Hitler Youth, a man named Nickel.

Do you know Nickel, by the way? N-i-c-k-e-l?

VON SCHIRACH: The name is known to me, and probably I know the man personally; but at the moment I do not recall more than just the name. At any rate, he was not a brigadier general; he was a Hauptbannführer.

MR. DODD: Well, all right. Whatever he was, he was an official of the youth organization. That is all I am trying to establish. I may have his title wrong. We have it brigadier general.

But in any event, if you look over this document, you will see that he is reporting about the seizing of these youths in the Occupied Eastern Territory. This is October 1944. And he begins by saying that on 5 March he “received an order to open an office for the recruitment of youths from 15 to 20 years of age from the Occupied Eastern Territories for war employment in the Reich.”

Then he goes on to cite figures, and he tells where he began his work: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the middle sector of the Eastern front, the southern sector of the Eastern front. And then on the next page of the English—and I imagine it is also on your next page—it tells how they were classified, those that were brought back:

“1,383 Russian SS Auxiliaries, 5,953 Ukrainian SS Auxiliaries, 2,354 White Ruthenian SS Auxiliaries, 1,012 Lithuanian SS Auxiliaries.”

Then he gets into the Air Force: “3,000 Estonian Air Force Auxiliaries,” and so on. Some went to the Navy.

I am not going to read all of it; but it gives you an idea of what distribution was made of these men, or young boys and girls rather than men. You will notice that a considerable number went to the SS.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but Hauptbannführer Nickel’s letter bears a stamp with the words “Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories.” That means he was not acting on behalf of the Reich Youth Leader’s department but on behalf of the Reich Ministry for the East.

MR. DODD: Yes. I also want to ask you if you will look at Page 6. I think it is Page 5 of the original of your German. You will find what personnel Hauptbannführer Nickel had for the purpose of carrying out his task. He had members of the Hitler Youth, so he says: 5 leaders, 3 BDM leaders, 71 German youth leaders as translators and assistant instructors, 26 SS leaders, 234 noncommissioned officers and troops, drivers, and translators of the SS. And of the Air Force personnel, he had 37 officers, 221 non-coms, and so on.

Does that help your memory any with this program that your youth people were engaging in? Do you recall any more of it now?

VON SCHIRACH: It does not help my memory at all, because I hear this for the first time from this document. I was not informed of the activities of the Eastern Ministry in Russia, and I do not know what assignment the Eastern Ministry gave to Hitler Youth Leader Nickel. I assume responsibility for what was done on my orders, but anything done on the orders of others must be their responsibility.

MR. DODD: Let me show you something with respect to your answer that you have just made. That personnel that I read out, you know, was only in one part of the program. And on the last page of the document you will see on how wide an area Nickel was operating. He was operating in co-operation with the Netherlands Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Adria Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Southern Hitler Youth Operational Command in Slovakia and Hungary, the Lieutenant Nagel Special Command in refugee camps within the Reich, and then, interestingly enough, the field offices in Vienna.

That is where you were located at the time, is it not? And you are telling the Tribunal you did not know anything about this program and the participation of your Hitler Youth Leaders?

VON SCHIRACH: I received no written or verbal report from Nickel. His report, as can be seen from the letter, went to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and to what extent the Reich Youth Leader was being informed is not known to me. I myself do not know what took place. What I do know of the entire affair I very clearly stated in my testimony with reference to the Junkers works and the professional training which these youngsters were given in Germany. Apart from that I have no further knowledge.

MR. DODD: Observe also, if you will, Mr. Witness, that your Hitler Youth Operational Command was in Poland, and even in northern Italy. And now I ask you once again, as the long-time Hitler Youth Leader, as the leader for the War Commitment of Youth, then Gauleiter in Vienna, with part of this program being carried on in Vienna and the whole program being carried on on this vast scale, do you want the Tribunal to believe that you knew nothing about it?

VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it, but I assume responsibility for it.

MR. DODD: You told the Tribunal in your direct examination that you wrote the letter to Streicher’s _Stürmer_.

I would like to submit this in evidence, Mr. President, so that the Tribunal will have an idea of what it appeared like on the front page of _Der Stürmer_.

Perhaps—if you would like to look at it, you may, of course, Mr. Witness. It is USA-871. I just wanted you to have a look at it before it was submitted. You know about it anyway.

VON SCHIRACH: I already made a statement about that the other day.

MR. DODD: Yes, I did not wish to go into it further. What I do want to ask you, Mr. Witness, is: Do I understand you clearly when I say that from your testimony we gathered that it was Hitler who ordered the evacuation of the Jews from Vienna and that you really did not suggest it or wish to see it carried out? Is that a fair understanding of your testimony of a day or two ago?

VON SCHIRACH: I stated the other day, and I repeat this, that the idea of evacuating the Jews from Vienna was Hitler’s idea which he communicated to me in 1940 at his headquarters. Furthermore, and I want to make this quite clear, I stated that after the events of those November days in 1938 I was actually of the opinion that it would be better for the Jewish population to be accommodated in a closed settlement than to be regularly singled out by Goebbels as a target for his propaganda and his organized actions. I also said that I identified myself with that action suggested by Hitler, but did not carry it out.

MR. DODD: Now you had a meeting at the Führer’s headquarters in October 1940. Present was the Defendant Frank and the now notorious Koch whom we have heard so much about. Do you remember that meeting?

VON SCHIRACH: I no longer recall it exactly.

MR. DODD: Now, you mean you do not recall that meeting at all?

VON SCHIRACH: In October 1940 I was in the Reich Chancellery because that was the time when I was organizing the evacuation of youth. It is possible that at lunch...

THE PRESIDENT: You were asked whether you recalled a particular meeting in October 1940 with certain particular people. Do you remember it or do you not?

VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of it. If I am shown a document, then I can confirm it.

MR. DODD: Very well; that is what I wanted to know. I will now show you the document USSR-172. A part of this document was read over the system for the Tribunal by Colonel Pokrovsky. Now you will observe that on 2 October—this is a memorandum, by the way, made up of the meeting. Herr Martin Bormann compiled these notes, so I assume he was there too. After a dinner at the Führer’s apartment there developed a conversation on the nature of the Government General:

“The treatment of the Poles and the incorporation already
approved by the Führer for the districts Petrikau and Tomassov.”

Then it says:

“The conversation began when Reich Minister Dr. Frank informed
the Führer that the activities in the Government General could
be termed very successful. The Jews in Warsaw and other cities
were now locked up in the ghettos and Kraków would very shortly
be cleared of them. Reichsleiter Von Schirach, who had taken his
seat at the Führer’s other side, remarked that he still had more
than 50,000 Jews in Vienna whom Dr. Frank would have to take
over. Party Member Dr. Frank said this was impossible. Gauleiter
Koch then pointed out that he, too, had up to now not
transferred either Poles or Jews from the District of Ziechenau,
but that these Jews and Poles would now, of course, have to be
accepted by the Government General.”

And it goes on to say that Dr. Frank protested against this also. He said there were not housing facilities—I am not quoting directly, I do not want to read all of it—and that there were not sufficient other facilities. Do you remember that conference now?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have refreshed my memory now.

MR. DODD: Yes. And you suggested that you wanted to get 50,000 Jews moved into Frank’s territory out of Vienna, didn’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The Führer asked me how many Jews were still in Vienna, and at that time—I mentioned this during my own testimony the other day and it is contained in the files—there were still 60,000 Jews in Vienna. During that conversation, in which the question of settling Jews in the Government General was discussed, I also said that these 60,000 Jews from Vienna were still to be transferred to the Government General. I told you earlier that as a result of the events of November 1938 I was in favor of the Führer’s plan to take the Jews to a closed settlement.

MR. DODD: Well now, later on, as you know from USA-681 concerning which your own counsel inquired, Lammers sent you a message in Vienna and he said the Führer had decided, after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the 60,000 Jews in Vienna would be deported most rapidly, and that was just 2 months after this conference that you had with Frank and Koch and Hitler, wasn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, since 1937—and I think that becomes clear from the Hossbach minutes—the Führer had the idea of expatriating the Jewish population. This plan, however, did not become known to me until August 1940 when I took over the Vienna district. I reported to Hitler on that occasion, and he asked me how many Jews there were in Vienna. I answered his question, and he told me that he actually wanted all of them to be settled in the Government General.

MR. DODD: How many Jews did you, in fact, deport out of your district while you were the Gauleiter?

VON SCHIRACH: First of all, the practical measures of that action were not in my hands. I do not know how many of these 60,000 Jews were actually transported out of Vienna.

MR. DODD: Do you have any idea where they went to?

VON SCHIRACH: I was informed that the aged were being taken to Theresienstadt and the others to Poland, to the Government General. On one occasion—it was either when I took my oath of office as Governor or when I made a speech about the evacuation of children—I even asked Hitler how these Jews were being employed, and he told me: in accordance with their professions.

MR. DODD: We will get around to that. You remember, don’t you, that they were sent, at least some of them were sent, to the cities of Riga and Minsk, and you were so notified. Do you remember receiving that information?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Now take a look at Document 3921-PS, which becomes USA-872. Now this is a communication concerning the evacuation of Jews, and it shows that 50,000 Jews were to be sent to the Minsk-Riga area, and you got a copy of this report as the Commissar for the Defense of the Reich, and if you will look on the last page you will see an initial there of your chief assistant, the SS man Dellbrügge, and also the stamp of your own office as having received it.

VON SCHIRACH: I can only see that Dr. Dellbrügge marked the matter for filing. It shows the letters “z. d. A.” to the files.

MR. DODD: And he did not tell you about this report concerning the Jews? Even though you had been talking to Hitler about it? That they were being moved out of your area? I suppose your chief assistant did not bother to tell you anything about it. Is that what you want us to understand?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Now then, take a look at another document which will shed some light on this one. It is USA-808, already in evidence. It tells you what happened to the Jews in Minsk and Riga, and this was also received in your office if you recall. Maybe it is not necessary to show it to you again. You remember the document—that is one of those monthly reports from Heydrich wherein he said that there were 29,000 Jews in Riga and they had been reduced to 2,500, and that 33,210 were shot by the special unit, and “Einsatz” group. Do you remember that?

VON SCHIRACH: During the last 2 days I looked at these monthly reports most carefully. The bottom right-hand corner of the cover of these monthly reports—and I want to make this categorically clear—bears initials something like “Dr. FSCH.,” that is Dr. Fischer’s initials. At the top the reports are not initialed by me, but by the Government President, with the notation that they should be put into the files. If I had read them...

MR. DODD: I am not suggesting that you had your initials on any document like this, but I am claiming that these documents came into your organization and into the hands of your principal assistant.

VON SCHIRACH: But I must point out that if they had been submitted to me, then there would have been on them the notation, “submitted to the Reichsleiter,” and the official submitting them would have initialed this notation. If I myself had seen them, then my own initials would be on them with the letters “K.g.,” noted.

MR. DODD: Yes. I want to remind you that the date of that report is February 1942, and I also want to remind you that in there as well Heydrich tells you how many Jews they had killed in Minsk. Now you made a speech one time in Poland about the Polish or the Eastern policy of Germany. Do you remember it, Mr. Witness?

VON SCHIRACH: In Poland?

MR. DODD: In Poland, yes.

VON SCHIRACH: In 1939 I spent a short time in Poland, but I do not think I was there again later.

MR. DODD: Your memory seems particularly poor this morning. Don’t you remember speaking in Katowice on 20 January 1942?

VON SCHIRACH: That is Upper Silesia.

MR. DODD: Upper Silesia, all right. Do you remember that speech?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I made a speech at Katowice.

MR. DODD: And did you talk about Hitler’s policy for the Eastern Territories?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say from memory what I spoke about there. I have made many speeches.

MR. DODD: Well, I will ask that you be shown D-664, which becomes USA-873. You were speaking to a group of Party leaders and German youth leaders.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: In Paragraph 7, you dealt with the tasks of German youth in the East. The Hitler Youth had carried out political schooling along the line of the Führer’s Eastern policy and you went on to say how grateful you were to the Führer for having turned the German people toward the East, because the East was the destiny of your people. What did you understand to be the Führer’s Eastern policy, or did you have a good understanding of it at that time?

VON SCHIRACH: I said this in Upper Silesia out of gratitude for the return of that territory to us.

MR. DODD: Well, I didn’t ask you that, really. I asked you if you then understood the Führer’s policy when you made that speech?

VON SCHIRACH: On the basis of our victory over Poland and the recovery of German soil, I naturally affirmed Germany’s policy.

MR. DODD: You not only affirmed it, but I want to know if you really understood it.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not quite know how I should answer that question. Probably Hitler’s conception of the term Eastern policy was quite different from mine.

MR. DODD: But my point is that he had told you about it, hadn’t he, some time before you made this speech?

You had better look back at that document you have in your hands, USSR-172, and you will find that, after you and Frank and Koch and Hitler finished talking about deporting the Jews from Vienna, the Führer then told you what he intended to do with the Polish people, and it is not a very pretty story, if you will look at it.

VON SCHIRACH: Hitler says here:

“The ideal picture would be that a Pole in the Government
General had only a small parcel of land sufficient to feed
himself and his family fairly well. Anything else he might
require in cash for clothing, additional food, and so on he
would have to earn by working in Germany. The Government General
would be the central office for providing untrained workers,
particularly agricultural workers. The livelihood of these
workers would be assured, for they could always be used as cheap
labor. There would be no question of further agricultural labor
for Poland.”

MR. DODD: Let me read a few excerpts that I think you have missed:

“The Führer further emphasized that the Poles, in direct
contrast to our German Workmen, are born for hard labor...” and
so on. “The standard of living in Poland has to be and to remain
low.”

Moving over to the next page:

“We, the Germans, had on one hand overpopulated industrial
districts, while there was also a shortage of manpower for
agriculture. That is where we could make use of Polish laborers.
For this reason, it would be right to have a large surplus of
manpower in the Government General so that every year the
laborers needed by the Reich could in fact be procured from
there. It is indispensable to keep in mind that there must be no
Polish land owners. However cruel this may sound, wherever they
are, they must be exterminated. Of course, there must be no
mixing of blood with the Poles.”

Further on, he had to stress once more that:

“There should be one master only for the Poles, the Germans. Two
masters side by side cannot exist. All representatives of the
Polish intelligentsia are to be exterminated. This sounds cruel,
but such is the law of life.”

Stopping there for a minute, by the way, Mr. Witness—you are a man of culture, so you have told the Tribunal—how did that sentiment expressed by the Führer impress you?

VON SCHIRACH: I have never agreed with these opinions of the Führer, and I said here that I approached him in 1943 on the subject of this policy in the Ukraine. When in 1942 I talked about Eastern policy in Katowice, the German town of Katowice, to the German population of Upper Silesia, then, of course, I did not mean this brutal Polish policy of Hitler.

MR. DODD: But you knew about it when you made the speech, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: I did not recollect it on that occasion 2 years later, and my speech did not mean it either.

MR. DODD: You forgot that Hitler said he must exterminate the intelligentsia, that you must be masters of these people, that they must remain at a low standard of living? Did that pass out of your mind so easily?

VON SCHIRACH: I remember that speech in Katowice; I spoke there about completely different matters. I assume that the Prosecution even has the shorthand record of that speech and need only submit it here. This is just a short extract.

MR. DODD: But, you see, Mr. Witness, the point is, knowing what the policy was, I would like to have you tell the Tribunal how you could urge and praise that policy to a group of young people and party leaders on the occasion of this speech in Katowice.

VON SCHIRACH: The policy which I was recommending to youth leaders there was not the policy which Hitler developed in his table talk.

MR. DODD: Of course, you said it was the Führer’s policy in your speech, and you know what it was, but I won’t press it further if that is your answer.

VON SCHIRACH: Very often probably—and I once said this here—I supported the policy of the Führer out of erroneous loyalty to him. I know that it was not right.

MR. DODD: That is what I want to know. You were, weren’t you, acting under an impulse of loyalty to the Führer. Now you recognize it to be erroneous, and that is all I am inquiring for, and if you tell the Tribunal that, I shall be perfectly satisfied.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I am prepared to admit that.

MR. DODD: Very well. And, Mr. Witness, now we are getting to it; that goes for all these things that went on.

VON SCHIRACH: Not at all.

MR. DODD: Don’t you have to say to the Tribunal, concerning your letter to _Der Stürmer_, and all these things you said about the Jewish people to the young people, and this slow building up of race hatred in them, the co-operation with the SS, your handling of the Jews in Vienna, that for all these things you are, and for all of them, responsible?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Finally, I want to offer in evidence, Mr. President, some excerpts from these weekly SS reports to which I referred briefly on Friday, so that they shall be before the Tribunal. There are 55 of them, Mr. President, and they run consecutively by weeks, and they all bear the stamp of this defendant’s office as having been received there, and they supplant the monthly report which was received up to the time that weekly reports began arriving.

We have not had all of them translated or mimeographed, and if the defendant wishes to put in any others, we will make them available, of course. We have selected a few as samples to illustrate the kind of report that was contained in these weekly reports, and I wish to offer them.

The first one is Number 1, beginning on 1 May 1942, and Numbers 4, 6, 7, 9, 38, 41, and 49.

Now I want to make this clear to you, Mr. Witness, out of fairness. Besides statements concerning what was happening to the Jews, you will find in these weekly reports a number of statements about the partisan affairs in the East as well. These excerpts have mostly to do with what happened to the Jews, and we have not, Mr. President, drawn out a great number that had to do with the partisans. There are a number, however, that do have to do with partisans and not with the Jews, so we wish there to be no doubt about how we offer these weekly reports. I just want to ask you, with respect to these weekly reports: Do you this morning recall that you did receive them every week in your office?

VON SCHIRACH: But that is not my office. My office is the Central Office. That office was directed by the Government President, and one of his officials initialed the files, as appears from the marking on them, and as any official trained in German office routine can confirm. They were then put before the Government President who marked them “for the files” and initialed them. I could not know these documents at all.

MR. DODD: Now just a minute. You were the Reich Commissioner for the defense of that territory; weren’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And that is the stamp that is on these weekly reports, isn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Well, what do you mean by saying that it was not your office?

VON SCHIRACH: Because the mail, by a procedure similar to that in a ministry, where it goes to the office of the minister, reached me in the Central Office; and a corresponding notation had to be made on these files. I can understand perfectly well why the Government President, since I was overburdened with work, did not submit to me material which had no connection at all with Vienna or my activities, but which was merely informatory and concerned with events in Russia, mostly guerrilla fighting in Russia.

MR. DODD: I am going to ask you again, as I have so many times in the course of this examination: Dellbrügge, who initialed these, was your principal assistant, wasn’t he? Yes or no?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, he was one of my three deputies.

MR. DODD: And he was also an SS man, and so was your other principal assistant, as we asked the other day.

VON SCHIRACH: Dellbrügge was a high SS leader. He was a special confidant of the Reichsführer SS.

MR. DODD: How did he happen to be working for you?

VON SCHIRACH: He was assigned to me there.

MR. DODD: Mr. President, I don’t think it is necessary to read any excerpts from these weekly reports. They have been translated into four languages, and—well, I am misinformed. I thought they were translated. Then I think it would be better if we do have them translated and submit them at a later date rather than take the time to read them now.

I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine? We had better adjourn now.

[_A recess was taken._]

MAJOR GENERAL G. A. ALEXANDROV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend had the task of inculcating German youth and children, starting from 9 years of age, with Fascist ideology?

Do you hear me?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I understood you to ask, whether, I would admit having inculcated Fascist ideas into 10- to 14-year-old children of the Hitler Youth?

As I said in my testimony a few days ago, I saw my mission and my duty in educating German youth to be citizens of the National Socialist State...

THE PRESIDENT: [_Interposing._] That is not an answer to the question. It is not necessary for you to tell us what you said in your previous evidence. Will you just answer the question: Do you admit that you inculcated in the Hitler Youth Hitler’s ideology? You can answer that “yes” or “no.”

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that question with “yes,” because it referred to Fascism. There is a great difference between Fascism and National Socialism. I cannot answer that question with “yes.” I did educate German youth in the spirit of National Socialism, that I can admit.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like you to confirm the evidence which you gave on 16 November 1945, during your interrogation. You defined your personal attitude to Hitler in the following way; and I quote your evidence: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]} Do you confirm this statement?

VON SCHIRACH: I did not say that, and that is not a record which was submitted to me. I never spoke of Hitler as a deity, never. I remember exactly, General, that you interrogated me on this point, and I was asked whether I had been an enthusiastic follower. I confirmed that, and I spoke about the time when I joined the Movement; but I never set up the comparison with which I am now confronted in the translation; I never said that I believed in Hitler as a deity, never.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: You do not understand me correctly. Nothing is said here about deity. Your evidence has been taken down, and I will repeat it: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]}

Do you confirm this statement? Answer the question directly.

VON SCHIRACH: The translation is quite inexact. May I ask you to put the exact question again?

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will quote your statement again: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]} Is that right?

VON SCHIRACH: I am accused now of having said: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be the personification of truth.” That is how I understood it, and I must say I could never have uttered such nonsense.

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^{[*]} The interpreter mistranslated this “and looked upon him as a deity.”

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DR. SERVATIUS: May I give an explanation of this translation? I think the correct German would have to be: “I considered what Hitler said to be a manifestation of truth,” and not “the personification of truth”; then it would be intelligible. There is a mistake in the interpretation.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Your defense counsel has perhaps helped you to answer my question.

VON SCHIRACH: General, that was not my defense counsel, but the defense counsel for the Defendant Sauckel. If it is translated “manifestation of truth,” then of course the whole passage makes sense, and also corresponds roughly to what I said to you when I described the period of my youth.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Very well.

In your book entitled the _Hitler Jugend_ it said, and I quote Page 17: “Hitler’s book, _Mein Kampf_, is our bible.” Do you confirm this? Did you write that?

VON SCHIRACH: But I added something to that in my book _The Hitler Youth, Its Faith and Organization_. I want to say, first of all, that I did write this book. I wrote it...

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to interrupt you. I do not need such detailed explanations, and I would like you to answer the question: Is that sentence contained in your book?

VON SCHIRACH: I have just confirmed that, but I would like to add an explanation. In this book—which I wrote in 1933, and which was published in 1934—I said: “We could not yet offer detailed reasons for our belief, we simply believed. But when Hitler’s _Mein Kampf_ appeared, it was like a bible, which we almost learned by heart so as to answer the questions of doubtful and deliberating critics.”

That is how I worded it at the time; that is correct.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to put another more precise question to you. Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend was a political organization which, under the leadership of the NSDAP, carried out the policy of this Party among German youth?

VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a large educational community on a political basis, but I cannot admit that it was led by the Party; it was led by me. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Party, and in that sense one might speak of a Party influence. But I can see no reason for having to confirm this, since I have already testified to it. It is correct that the Hitler Youth was the youth organization of the Party.

If that is the sense of your question, I will confirm it.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, I just had that in view.

I would like to remind you of the tasks which Hitler had assigned for the education of German youth. That is set out in Rauschning’s book, which has already been submitted as documentary evidence before the Tribunal as USSR-378. I quote Page 252 of that book:

“In my schools we will bring up youth who will make the world
shudder with fear, youth that is hard, exigent, unafraid, and
cruel. That is my wish. Youth must have all these qualities;
they must be indifferent to sufferings; they must have neither
weakness nor softness. I would like to see in their eyes the
proud, self-sufficient glitter of a beast of prey.”

You educated German youth in accordance with these demands of Hitler. Do you admit that?

VON SCHIRACH: I will not admit what Herr Rauschning wrote. Just by accident I was present at a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning and, judging by it, I must say that the statements in Rauschning’s book represent an unfaithful record of what Hitler said. Just by accident I witnessed a conversation between them.

Hitler did not give me the directives which Rauschning sets forth here as the guiding principles laid down by Hitler himself for the training of the Hitler Youth.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I did not ask you to give such a detailed explanation. I would like you to answer the question I put to you briefly in order to shorten the time of interrogation. You have stated the Hitler Youth did not educate German youth in the militaristic spirit and did not prepare German youth for future aggressive wars. I would like to remind you of certain statements you made in that very same book of yours, “Hitler Youth,” right here on Page 83 of that book. Talking of the younger generation, the so-called Jungvolk, you wrote:

“They carry the National Socialist characteristics. The toy
merchants are worried because these children no longer need
toys; they are interested in camp tents, spears, compasses and
maps. It is a particular trait of our youth. Everything that is
against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”

And these also were the directives which German soldiers, trained in the Hitler Youth, followed when they set on fire houses of the peaceful population in occupied territories, isn’t that true? Is that contained in the book, the passage I have just read?

VON SCHIRACH: What is in front of me now, is contained in my book. What I heard from the interpreter is not in my book.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, then make your corrections.

VON SCHIRACH: May I read the correct passage?

“The toy merchants have complained to me that the boys”—they
mean the Jungvolk—“no longer want toys, but are interested only
in tents, spears, compasses, and maps. I cannot help the toy
merchants, for I agree with the boys that the times of the
Indians are finally gone. What is ‘Old Shatterhand,’ what is a
trapper in the backwoods of America compared to our troop
leader? A miserable, dusty remnant from the lumber chest of our
fathers. Not only the toy merchants are complaining but also the
school-cap manufacturers. Who wears a school cap nowadays? And
who nowadays is a high-school boy or girl? In some towns the
boys have banded together and publicly burned such school caps.
Burning is, in fact, a specialty of new youth. The border fences
of the minor states of the Reich have also been reduced to ashes
in the fires of your youth.

“It is a simple but heroic philosophy; everything that is
against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”

That, General, is the expression of the “storm and stress” of youth which has found its special unity.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: According to your opinion, the philosophy implies that children must no longer play with toys, but must do other things. Did I understand you correctly? I do not see any essential difference between my quotation and yours.

VON SCHIRACH: May I say that I think the military training of the youth of Germany falls much behind that of the Soviet Union.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: This is an irrelevant comparison. On Page 98 of your book, speaking of the Hitler Youth, you wrote:

“They strive to be political soldiers. Their model is Adolf
Hitler.”

Did you write that?

VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place; is it Page 98?

THE PRESIDENT: The witness has admitted he wrote the whole book, hasn’t he?

GEN. ALEXANDROV: In order not to lengthen the proceedings we will pass to the next question.

You have already spoken here of a specially created organization of motorized Hitler Youth; you assert this organization had sport as its aim; is that right?

VON SCHIRACH: In connection with the training of the motorized Hitler Youth I spoke also of ground and driving exercises, and I admitted that the motorized Hitler Youth had premilitary significance. I did not dispute this point at all.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd cross-examined the witness at very considerable length on these matters about the special units of the Hitler Youth, and it really is not any good to go over it all again.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, several points which are still unexplained will be clarified through the following questions.

Did you have knowledge of the fact that at the end of 1938 the organization of motorized Hitler Youth consisted of 92 detachments, that is of 100,000 young men?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 92 detachments, because the word “Abteilung”—that was the translation—was not a designation for any unit of the Hitler Youth. I gave the exact strength of the motorized Hitler Youth for 1938 in one of my statements here either to my defense counsel or to Mr. Dodd. I gave exact figures of its strength in 1938.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, I am speaking of 1938, and you give the number of 100,000 Hitler Youths who formed the motorized youth organization. Do you have knowledge of this?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 100,000 members of the motorized Hitler Youth in 1938. There might have been 60,000 or 120,000. I cannot say; I do not know. I have not the documents to prove it.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, but I am quoting this number from data given by the magazine _Das Archiv_. I would like to recall to you the tasks of these organizations as they were set out in this magazine in November-December 1939. I quote:

“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be
carried out in special training groups, and later in special
motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps.”

I quote this excerpt according to the document book of the Defense, Document 20, Page 50 of the Russian text. I repeat:

“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be
carried out in special training groups, and later in special
motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps, but
this applies only to youths who have reached the age of 17 or
more. The course of instruction includes motor mechanics, a
driving license test, field driving exercises, and also
ideological schooling. Those who successfully participate in
this course of instruction will be admitted into the National
Socialist Motor Corps.”

This does not quite agree with your statement that the aim was sport, does it?

THE PRESIDENT: We heard a long commentary about these special units, and we really do not want to hear it any more. If you have any questions on new matters which have not been dealt with by Mr. Dodd, we shall be glad to hear them, but we do not want to hear about whether there are 60,000 or 70,000 or 100,000 or 120,000 Hitler Youths in the motorized units.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am only quoting what has not been mentioned yet.

THE PRESIDENT: General, we do not want to hear it. We do not want to hear it.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will pass on to the next question.

You issued a directive for a nation-wide training scheme of the members of the Hitler Youth, known as “Hitler Youth on Duty.” This directive foresaw the following kind of education for the Hitler Youth: the theory of weapons, the theory of firing, target shooting, rifle practice, military drill, topography, and field exercises; also instruction in the use of the field compass and the goniometer. Are you acquainted with this directive? Do you consider that this also did not constitute military training of German youth?

VON SCHIRACH: I spoke in great detail about the training of “Hitler Youth on Duty” in my testimony last Thursday, and I particularly discussed rifle training which takes up 40 pages of this book. I mentioned in that connection that this rifle training was carried out according to the rules of international rifle sport and that the British Board of Education recommended this rifle training, and also the entire book, to all Boy Scouts. I do not dispute that I published this book _Hitler Youth_ and that it served as a guiding directive for this training. But I already said that here the other day.