Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 14

by Various

Afternoon Session

DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have already stated in connection with Sauckel’s directive regarding employment of labor that you were flooded with such directives. Were these directives carried out?

VON SCHIRACH: As far as my own information goes, I can confirm that. I had the impression that the functionaries of the labor employment administration felt that they had to keep strictly to Sauckel’s orders, and in those industrial plants which I visited I was able to ascertain that the requirements stated in the directives were in fact fulfilled.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did Sauckel himself take steps to insure that these things were carried out?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I remember that Sauckel once came to Vienna—I think in 1943—and that on that occasion he addressed all his labor employment functionaries and repeated orally everything which he had stated in his directives. He spoke of the foreign workers in particular, demanding just treatment for them; and I remember that on this occasion he even spoke of putting them on the same footing as German workers.

DR. SERVATIUS: I have a few more questions about the political leaders. How were political leaders on the Gauleiter level informed? Did the Gauleiter have individual interviews with the Führer, especially in connection with the Gauleiter assemblies?

VON SCHIRACH: No. After the Gauleiter assemblies the Führer always held forth in a comparatively large circle just as he did in his speeches. Interviews in the real sense of the word did not exist. He always made speeches. Fixed dates on which Gauleiter could have interviews with Hitler almost ceased to exist once the war had begun.

DR. SERVATIUS: Could not a Gauleiter approach Hitler personally and ask for an interview?

VON SCHIRACH: He could ask for an interview, but he did not get it; he received an answer from Bormann, usually in the form of a telegram. That happened to me very frequently, because I made such requests; one was asked to submit in writing the points one wanted to discuss, after which one either received an answer or did not receive one.

DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, a letter has been submitted here as Document D-728, signed or initialed by Gauleiter Sprenger. You were here when it was submitted and you know the document. I have two questions concerning it.

Do you know anything about a list, which was to be compiled, containing the names of those suffering from heart and lung diseases, who were to be removed from the population?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I know nothing about that.

DR. SERVATIUS: Or that you were to make suggestions for this to the Führer?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

DR. SERVATIUS: In my opinion that document also contains an error which has already been mentioned here, namely, the word “Herr” as a form of address. This letter was addressed to the “Herren Ortsgrüppenleiter,” and repeated mention is made of the “Herren Kreisleiter and Ortsgrüppenleiter” in the text. I ask you now if the expression “Herr” was customary in Party language?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I have never known a Party document with the exception of this one, which I consider a fraud, in which the term “Herr” was used.

DR. SERVATIUS: You are therefore of the opinion that that designation proves in itself that the document is false?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.

DR. STEINBAUER: Herr Von Schirach, your predecessor as Gauleiter was Josef Bürckel. What sort of relations existed between Bürckel and Seyss-Inquart?

VON SCHIRACH: I can only repeat what was generally known in the Party about relations between them. They were extremely bad, and all of us had the impression that from the very beginning Bürckel worked hard to push Seyss-Inquart out.

DR. STEINBAUER: Which one of the two really had the power in his hands?

VON SCHIRACH: Bürckel, undoubtedly.

DR. STEINBAUER: Who, in your opinion and according to the actual information you obtained from the files, is responsible for the persecution of Jews in Vienna?

VON SCHIRACH: Hitler.

DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You say Hitler; but Hitler was not in Vienna. Who carried out these orders in Vienna?

VON SCHIRACH: In my opinion, these orders were carried out—even during Bürckel’s and Seyss-Inquart’s time—by the same man who has already been mentioned here once today and who, in the meantime, has been condemned to death in Vienna—Dr. Brunner.

DR. STEINBAUER: Good. Are you aware that Seyss-Inquart repeatedly protested to Bürckel about excessively severe measures and quarreled with Bürckel on account of that?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say anything about that. I do not know.

DR. STEINBAUER: My client has been accused in a document of presenting to Adolf Hitler tapestries, among them Gobelins, formerly in the Emperor’s possession. Do you know anything about that?

VON SCHIRACH: I know this: In the large collection of Gobelins in Vienna, there were two sets depicting Alexander’s victory. The inferior series was loaned by Reich Governor Seyss-Inquart to the Reich Chancellery, where it hung in the lobby.

DR. STEINBAUER: So it was a loan and not a definite gift, which would have entailed a loss for Vienna?

VON SCHIRACH: In the catalog of the Gobelin collection this set was marked as a loan.

DR. STEINBAUER: Are you aware that other Gobelins were put at the disposal of the Reich—that is to say, at Adolf Hitler’s disposal—by Seyss-Inquart?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I was not aware of it.

DR. STEINBAUER: But maybe you know who did take away other such Gobelins and tapestries?

VON SCHIRACH: I assume that you allude to Bürckel.

DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know for certain whether Bürckel took Gobelins. When I took up my appointment in Vienna, I found that Bürckel had taken from the imperial furniture depot a number of pieces of furniture including, I believe, some carpets, not for his personal use but for a Viennese house which he intended to establish in Gau Saarpfalz as a sort of clubhouse.

I therefore approached the competent office in Berlin—I do not know whether it was the Reich Finance Ministry or the Reich Ministry of Culture—and when I was not successful there, I approached Hitler himself. In the end I succeeded in having Bürckel ordered to return these objects to Vienna at once; I cannot say with certainty whether these objects were in fact returned. I know that he received injunctions to return them and I assume that these objects were really returned later.

DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You know from statements which I have made to your defense counsel that we Austrians always hated Bürckel intensely for a number of very good reasons and that in fairness it must be admitted that many things, including, for instance, the city’s food supplies, improved after you took over. For this reason it seems to me all the more important to clear up completely the most serious charge against you. You have been made responsible in your capacity of Reich Defense Commissioner for the destruction of the most valuable monuments in Vienna. I ask you: On 2 April, when your deputy Scharizer and Engineer Blaschke, the National Socialist mayor, wanted to declare Vienna an open city as the Red Army approached, did you oppose them and give orders that Vienna must be defended to the last? Or who gave that order?

VON SCHIRACH: Neither Blaschke nor Scharizer expressed the view that Vienna should be declared an open city. There was...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Steinbauer, the Tribunal understands you are appearing for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart?

DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, because this is a War Crime and in the light of conspiracy he is responsible for everything and the main charge made against Herr Von Schirach must be clarified—that is, we must find out who actually gave this order which did so much harm.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, but you just said that you were not asking the questions in defense of Seyss-Inquart, but in defense of Von Schirach. I do not think that the Tribunal really ought to have the defense of Von Schirach prolonged by questions by other counsel. We have already had his defense for a considerable time presented by Dr. Sauter.

DR. STEINBAUER: Then I shall not put this question.

Do you also remember what attitude Seyss-Inquart adopted on Church matters when dealing with Bürckel?

VON SCHIRACH: I know only that Dr. Seyss-Inquart, generally speaking, was considered a man with Church ties. That this brought him into conflict with Bürckel is quite obvious to me. I cannot go into details.

THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?

MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, we understood you this morning to make a statement in the nature of a confession with respect to, at least, the persecution of the Jews; and while that part of it that you gave was perhaps bravely enough said, I think there is much of it that you neglected to say, perhaps through oversight.

Now, I wish you would tell the Tribunal whether or not it is a fact that your responsibility for young people in Germany under the National Socialists was fundamentally concerned with making really good National Socialists out of them, in the sense of making them fanatical political followers.

VON SCHIRACH: I considered it my task as educator to bring up the young people to be good citizens of the National Socialist State.

MR. DODD: And ardent followers and believers in Hitler and his political policies?

VON SCHIRACH: I believe I already said this morning that I educated our youth to follow Hitler. I do not deny that.

MR. DODD: All right. And while you said to us that you did not have the first responsibility for the educational system, I am sure you would not deny that for all of the other activities with which young people may be concerned you did have first responsibility?

VON SCHIRACH: Out-of-school education was my responsibility.

MR. DODD: And, of course, in the schools the only people who taught these young people were those who were politically reliable in keeping with Hitler’s opinions and beliefs and the teachings of National Socialism?

VON SCHIRACH: The teaching staffs of German schools were definitely not homogeneous bodies. A large part of the teaching body belonged to a generation which had not been educated on National Socialist lines and did not adhere to National Socialism. The young teachers had been educated on National Socialist principles.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, you are not saying, certainly, that young people under the public educational system of Germany were not, at all times, under the guidance of those who were politically reliable, certainly after the first year or two of the administration of Hitler and his followers, are you?

VON SCHIRACH: Would you please repeat the question? I did not quite understand.

MR. DODD: What I am trying to say to you is that there is not any doubt in your mind or in ours that the public school system of Germany was supervised, for the most part at least, by people who were politically sound insofar as National Socialism is concerned.

VON SCHIRACH: I should not care to say that. Educational administration in Germany was supervised by Reich Minister Rust, who—and this is a fact—for reasons of ill health took very little interest in his official duties. Many thousands of older men were employed in connection with educational administration. They had received their appointments long before the days of the National Socialist State and had retained them throughout.

MR. DODD: I do not care whether they were old or young or how long they had been in office. They all took an oath to Hitler, did they not?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct; inasmuch as they were civil servants, they all took their oath as such.

MR. DODD: Rosenberg had a very considerable influence on young people in Germany, did he not?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that. I think you are estimating my Codefendant Rosenberg’s influence on youth quite wrongly—meaning that you are overestimating it. Rosenberg certainly had some influence on many people who were interested in philosophical problems and were in a position to understand his works. But I must dispute the extent of the influence which you are ascribing to him.

MR. DODD: You publicly said on one occasion that the way of Rosenberg was the way of the Hitler Youth, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: That was, I believe, in 1934...

MR. DODD: Never mind when it was. Did you say it or not?

VON SCHIRACH: I did say it.

MR. DODD: When was it?

VON SCHIRACH: That was in Berlin, at a youth function there. But later I myself led youth along an entirely different path.

MR. DODD: Well, we will get around to that a little later. But in any event, on this occasion in Berlin, when you had a large group of your youth leaders present, you were doing your best, at least, to have them understand that the way of Rosenberg was the way that they should follow?

VON SCHIRACH: But those were the same youth leaders who later received different instructions from me.

MR. DODD: Well, I dare say that may be so. We will get around to those different instructions; but on this occasion and at that time, insofar as you were concerned, you wanted them to understand that they were to follow Rosenberg’s way, didn’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but this way only affected one quite definite point, which was under discussion at that time, namely, the question of denominational youth organizations. Rosenberg and I agreed on this point, whereas we differed on many others; and it was to this point that the statement referred.

MR. DODD: Rosenberg’s way certainly wasn’t the way of young people remaining faithful to their religious obligations or teachings, was it?

VON SCHIRACH: I would not like to say that.

MR. DODD: What do you mean? You don’t know?

VON SCHIRACH: I can say in so many words that I have never heard Rosenberg make any statement to the effect that young people should be disloyal to their religious convictions.

MR. DODD: Well, I don’t know that he ever said it that way either; but I think you do know perfectly well, as many other people who were outside of Germany through all of these years, that Rosenberg was a violent opponent of organized religious institutions. You don’t deny that, do you?

VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not deny that in principle, but I do not think that it can be expressed in these terms. Rosenberg in no way tried to influence youth to withdraw from religious societies.

MR. DODD: And later on, actually—aren’t you willing to now say that later on, and perhaps at that time, in a secret and indirect sort of way you played Rosenberg’s game by arranging youth affairs at hours when Church ceremonies were going on?

VON SCHIRACH: I deny absolutely that I worked against the Church in such a way. In the years 1933-34, I was concerned mainly with the denominational youth organizations. I explained that here yesterday.

MR. DODD: I know. You garbled them up, and they all had to join your organization sooner or later. But I am not talking about that now. What I am trying to say is—and I think you must agree—that for a considerable period of time you made it really impossible for young people of certain religious belief to attend their Church services, because you scheduled your youth affairs at which attendance was compulsory.

VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not correct.

MR. DODD: You say that is not so? Didn’t the Catholic bishops publicly object to this very sort of thing, and don’t you know it as well as I do?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot recall that.

MR. DODD: You do not recall any Catholic clerics objecting to the fact that you were scheduling your youth affairs on Sunday mornings when their clerics were holding services?

VON SCHIRACH: In the course of time, as I explained yesterday, many clergymen either approached me personally or complained in public that they were hampered in their spiritual ministration by the youth service and the forms which it took; and that is why I adjusted matters in the way shown by the document which my counsel submitted to the Court yesterday.

MR. DODD: Well, I don’t think that is altogether an answer; and perhaps I can help your memory by recalling for you that your organization specifically provided that these young people, who were attending church on Sunday, could not go in uniform; and that was a very purposeful thing, wasn’t it, because they could not get out of church and get to their youth attendance places at all if they had to go home and change their clothes.

VON SCHIRACH: But in many parishes the Church authorities forbade young people wearing uniform to enter the church.

MR. DODD: Well, I am not going to argue about it with you. Your answer is that you don’t recall any frequent and strong criticism and objection from churchmen about this particular Sunday morning program. Is that the way you want to leave it?

VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not mean that. There were periods of great tension, periods of heated argument, just as there was a stormy period in youth organization generally. Later, all these things were satisfactorily settled and put in order.

MR. DODD: Now, I understood you also to say that, whatever else you may have done with the young people of Germany during the years over which you had control of them, you certainly did not prepare them militarily in any sense, in any sense ordinarily accepted as being military; is that so?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: Well, now, let’s see. What was the name of your personal press expert, or consultant, if you prefer that term?

VON SCHIRACH: The press expert who worked with me longest was a Herr Kaufmann.

MR. DODD: And you have asked him—as a matter of fact, you do have an interrogatory from him, don’t you, which will be submitted. I assume you know about that, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I know that my counsel has applied for it, but I do not know the answers which Kaufmann gave.

MR. DODD: Well, you know the questions he asked, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember them.

MR. DODD: Well, perhaps if I remind you of one or two you will remember. You asked him if he ever put out any press releases without your authority. You asked him if he wasn’t your personal press consultant. And you asked him if it wasn’t true that you personally gave him the directive for what you wanted published in the press, and particularly in the youth press. Do you remember those questions?

[There was no response.]

MR. DODD: But you don’t know the answers; is that it?

[There was no response.]

MR. DODD: Well, do you know that he published in the SS official publication in September of 1942 an article about the young people and the youth of Germany?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember that article.

MR. DODD: Well, I think that you had better have a look at it. It is Document 3930-PS. That becomes USA-853, Mr. President.

Now, this document which I am showing you is a telegram, of course, a teletype message, “Reich Governor in Vienna.” You will see at the top that it was received by you on 10 September 1942, and it sets out a copy of the subject for the body of this article for the editorial staff of the Schwarzes Korps. That is the SS magazine, as you recall.

Now, you will see from reading it, and in the very first part it states that a high-ranking officer who had come back to Berlin from Sevastopol said that the youngsters who had been seen some 4 years ago in short pants marching through German cities singing “Yes, the flag is more than death,” were the 19-year-olds who took that city of Sevastopol.

The article goes on to say that the lads are fulfilling in fighting what they promised in singing and that the National Socialist movement had brought up a young generation, filling them with faith and self-denial, and so on. And then the rest of it goes on in substance to say that there were people who objected to your program at the time that you were trying to make these youngsters strong.

The clear meaning of it is that you are now claiming credit for having had something to do with making them the good 19-year-old fighters who took Sevastopol, isn’t that so? You are claiming credit, I say, in this article for having produced this kind of 19-year-old boy.

VON SCHIRACH: I had no knowledge of this article up to now.

MR. DODD: Well, you do now. You can talk about it, certainly.

VON SCHIRACH: That is just what I want to do. Herr Kaufmann at that time had just returned from the Eastern Front, and under the impression of what he had experienced out there he wrote down what appears in this article, which I cannot possibly read now in its entirety.

MR. DODD: Well, it isn’t very long. Really I read what I think are the most important parts of it insofar as you are concerned.

VON SCHIRACH: That the youth was trained in a military way I believe is not mentioned in one single sentence in that entire article.

MR. DODD: Oh, I know. I am simply asking if it isn’t a fact that you were claiming credit in this article for having had something considerable to do with the fact that these 19-year-old boys were such good fighters in Russia. That is all I am asking you.

VON SCHIRACH: I have already told you that I wanted to train the youth to become good citizens, and that I wanted to train them to be good patriots, who did their duty in the field later on.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: And should also do their duty in the field.

MR. DODD: Well, your answer then is, yes, you were claiming credit for the fact that they were such good fighters. Now, there is no trick in this question. It is merely preliminary, and I want to get on, but I think you might say “yes.” And incidentally, this song, “The flag is more than death,” was a song that you wrote, wasn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: The “Flag Song” which I based on the refrain “The flag is more than death.” That is true.

MR. DODD: Now, you have also published a number of other songs for young people, in the formative days before the war started, in a songbook.

VON SCHIRACH: A great many songbooks for young people were published. I do not know them all.

MR. DODD: No, I don’t either, but I am asking you if it isn’t a fact that you did publish songbooks for young people.

VON SCHIRACH: Both the Cultural Service of the Reich Youth Leadership and the Press Service published such books. Of course, I did not look at each single song in them myself; but on the whole I believe that only songs which were sung by young people appeared in these books.

MR. DODD: All right. We have some extracts from one of your songbooks, and there is only one that I wish to refer to. Do you remember the one “Forward, Forward,” that you wrote, by the way; another one that you wrote. Do you remember that song?

VON SCHIRACH: “Forward, Forward” is the Flag Song of the youth organization.

MR. DODD: All right. Did you write it?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Well, now, certainly that also contains, does it not, highly inciting words and phrases for young people with respect to their military duty?

VON SCHIRACH: The Flag Song of the youth organization? I cannot see that?

MR. DODD: Well, words, like these: “We are the future soldiers. Everything which opposes us will fall before our fists. Führer, we belong to you,” and so on. Do you remember that?

VON SCHIRACH: I did not say: “We are the future soldiers,” as I hear now in English, but “We are the soldiers of the future.”

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: The soldiers of the future, the bearers of a future.

MR. DODD: All right, but that is another one of your songs, isn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: That is a revolutionary song dating from the fighting period; it does not refer to a war between, say, Germany and other powers, but to the fight which we had to carry on inside the country in order to achieve our revolution.

MR. DODD: All right, we will see. Do you remember the one, “Can you see the dawn in the East?” Do you remember that song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is not one of my songs.

MR. DODD: It is one of the songs in the Hitler Youth Songbook, is it not?

VON SCHIRACH: That is an old SA song dating from 1923-24.

MR. DODD: Well, that may be. I am only asking you, isn’t it a fact that it was in your official songbooks for your young people?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: It is in that song that you vilify the Jews, is it not?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember that. I would have to see the song.

MR. DODD: Well, I can show it to you, but perhaps if you recall it we can save a little time. Don’t you remember that the second stanza says, “For many years the people were enslaved and misguided, traitors and Jews had the upper hand?” Do you remember those words in that song? “People to Arms” is the next one.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but I am not sure if that was published in a youth songbook.

MR. DODD: I can assure you that it was; and if you would like to see it, we have it here.

VON SCHIRACH: It is a very well-known SA song, which was sung by the young people, and was therefore included in the youth songbook.

MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to find out. I don’t care where it originated. It is the kind of song you had in your songbook for young people.

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say one more thing. The songbook which I have here was published in 1933.

MR. DODD: Yes?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that the youth organization which I built up can be judged from the year 1933 only.

MR. DODD: I don’t suggest that either, but we found it in 1945.

VON SCHIRACH: Later we published other songbooks, with very different songs.

MR. DODD: Yes, I am going to get around to these in a minute.

That songbook was 3764-PS, USA-854. It has just been called to my attention that the last phrase in that fourth stanza says: “Germany awake! Death to Jewry! People to arms!”

VON SCHIRACH: One moment, please; where is that?

MR. DODD: In the English text, in the fourth stanza. I don’t know where it would be; it is on Page 19, I am told, of the German text. Did you find it?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Well, maybe it is the wrong document. In any event, we will find it for you. However, you remember the song, do you not? You don’t deny that it says “Death to the Jews,” and so on, do you, in that song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is the song that starts with the words, “Can you see the dawn in the East?”

MR. DODD: That is right.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: That is all I wanted to know.

VON SCHIRACH: That song is not in this book.

[A book was handed to the defendant.]

MR. DODD: We have quite a few of your songbooks here.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but there is a great difference between them. This book, which does not contain the song, is an official edition published by the Reich Youth Leadership. As I say, it does not contain the song. It does appear, however, in a songbook published by Tonners, a firm of music publishers in Cologne, under the title of “Songs of the Hitler Youth.” This book is not, however, an official collection issued by the Reich Youth Leadership. Any publishing firm in Germany can publish such books.

MR. DODD: All right, I will accept that, but certainly you won’t deny that the book was used, will you? And that is all we are trying to establish.

VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know. I do not know whether that book was used by the Hitler Youth.

MR. DODD: Do you know that the one which it is contained in was published by you?

[There was no response.]

Well, in any event, I would like to point this out to you. I am not claiming, or trying to suggest to you by questions, that any one of these songs in themselves made young people in Germany fit for war; but rather, what I am trying to show is that, as distinguished from the testimony you gave here yesterday, you were doing something more than just giving these boys and girls games to play.

VON SCHIRACH: My statements of yesterday certainly did not imply that we only gave them games to play. For every song of this kind there are innumerable others.

MR. DODD: Yes, I know, but these are the ones we are concerned with right now. “Unfurl the Blood-Soaked Banners,” you remember that? “Drums Sound Throughout the Land”?

VON SCHIRACH: These are all songs of the “Wandervogel” and the Youth League. They are songs which were sung at the time of the Republic, songs which did not have anything to do with our time.

MR. DODD: Just a minute.

VON SCHIRACH: They are songs which had nothing to do with our period.

MR. DODD: Do you think that anybody, in the days of the Republic, was singing Hitler Youth marches?

VON SCHIRACH: What song is that? I do not know it.

MR. DODD: That is the one, “Drums Sound Throughout the Land.” Don’t you remember any of these songs, actually?

VON SCHIRACH: Of course, I know quite a number of these songs; but the most important—the bulk of them—come from the old “Zupfgeigenhansl” of the Wandervogel movement and from the Youth League. That the SA also sang these songs goes without saying.

MR. DODD: Yes, I don’t doubt that they did; but wherever they emanated from, you were using them with these young people. And that one, “Drums Sound Throughout the Land,” you wrote yourself; isn’t that so?

VON SCHIRACH: “Drums Sound Throughout the Land?” Yes, I believe I did write some such song.

MR. DODD: All right; that certainly doesn’t have a very ancient origin then, does it?

VON SCHIRACH: It was long before the seizure of power.

MR. DODD: Now, you also recall, perhaps, that on one occasion Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote an article for the Hitler Year Book. Do you remember that?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Well, it wasn’t so very long ago. It was in 1938. I suppose you read the Year Book of your organization for that year at that time, anyway?

VON SCHIRACH: That may be taken for granted; but I really cannot remember what Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote for it.

MR. DODD: Well, all right. I would like you to look at this document; it is 3755-PS. I think it is on Page 134 of the text that you have, Mr. Witness; and on Pages 148 to 150 you will find an article, “Education for War of German Youth,” or rather, it says, “The work ‘Education for War of German Youth,’ by Dr. Stellrecht, contains a slogan of Field Marshal Von Blomberg, in which the following passage is quoted.” And then it goes on to give the quotation. Do you find that? “The fighting spirit is the highest virtue of the soldier.” And so on.

Have you found the quotation of Blomberg’s? That is what I want to know.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And then the article by Stellrecht is also contained there, after the quotation.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Now certainly, when you move down a few lines, you will see this sentence: “Therefore, it is a stern and unalterable demand which Field Marshal Von Blomberg makes of the young men marching in the columns of the Hitler Youth,” and so on.

In those days, in 1938, Mr. Witness, you were at least thinking in terms of future military service and so was Field Marshal Von Blomberg, with respect to the Hitler Youth. That is the point I am trying to make.

VON SCHIRACH: We had a State with compulsory military training.

MR. DODD: I know.

VON SCHIRACH: And it goes without saying that we as educators were also anxious to train our youth to the highest degree of physical fitness so that they would also make good soldiers.

MR. DODD: You weren’t doing any more than that? Is that what you want this Court to understand?

VON SCHIRACH: I described to you yesterday what else we did in the way of rifle training, cross-country sports, and the training of special units.

MR. DODD: That is USA-856, Mr. President.

Yes, I know you told us yesterday that, whatever else it might have been, it certainly was not any kind of military training.

This man Stellrecht was associated with you, was he not?

VON SCHIRACH: Dr. Stellrecht had the “Office for Physical Training” in the Hitler Youth under Reich Sport Leader Von Tschammer-Osten. That office was one of 21 offices within the Youth Leadership.

MR. DODD: He was associated with you?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And you have also used something from him as part of your defense; it is in your document book. Do you know about that?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it is a statement made by Dr. Stellrecht, in which he speaks of education for defense and physical training for youth; and says that not a single boy in Germany is trained with weapons of war.

MR. DODD: I know that, and therefore I want you to look at another statement that he made on another date.

That is Document 1992-PS, Mr. President, and we offer it as USA-439.

Do you remember when he made the speech to the military men in January of 1937, while he was affiliated with your Hitler Youth organization? Do you know the speech to which I refer?

VON SCHIRACH: I was not present on the occasion of that speech and I do not consider myself responsible for any statement which he may have made in it.

MR. DODD: Well, that is your statement, but perhaps others feel differently. At any event, I ask you whether or not you were aware of and knew about the speech, and will you tell us whether you do know about it before you look at it? You know the speech I am talking about, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember being informed of the fact that he spoke at a national and political training course for the Armed Forces; but I may have been informed of it. The speech, itself...

MR. DODD: Well, it seems to me you were very anxious to deny responsibility for it before you knew what he said.

VON SCHIRACH: I did not want to make a statement on that. Disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of a certain tendency which he showed with regard to defense training, because I felt that he insisted too much on his office. Disputes arose also with the other offices of the Reich Youth Leadership which finally led to his dismissal from the Reich Youth Leadership.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, he was on your staff when he made this speech and I wish now you would look at page—well, I have it Page 3 of the English, and it is Page 169 of the text that you have; and it begins at the very bottom of the English page. The paragraph reads:

“As far as purely military education is concerned this work has already been done in years of co-operation, and very extensively. The result has been set down in a book written by myself, regulating future work in military education down to the last detail of training and which, with our mutual agreement, included a foreword and preface by the Reich Defense Minister and the Reich Youth Leader.”

And then the next paragraph:

“The basic idea of this work is always to present to the boy that which belongs to the particular stage of his development”—and so on. And I want you to come to the sentence that says:

“For that reason no boy is given a military weapon, simply because it seems to serve no useful purpose for his development. But, on the other hand, it seems sensible to give him guns of small caliber for training. Just as there are certain tasks occurring in military training which are only suitable for grown men, so there are other training tasks more suited to boys.”

And then moving down further in the English text, next to the last paragraph, Page 170 of your text, you will find in the next to the last paragraph that Dr. Stellrecht says:

“This picture is the goal of a comprehensive education which starts with the training of the boy in outdoor games and ends with his military training.”

And then moving on again to the fifth page of the English text, and I think it is Page 171 of your text, the next to the last paragraph, in talking about the hiking trip, he says that:

“...has still a wider purpose...because it is the only way in which the boy can get acquainted with the fatherland for which he will have to fight one day.”

Moving on through this article, finally, I want to direct your attention to Page 6 of the English text and Pages 174 and 175 of your text. In the last paragraph of the English text, you will find this sentence which says:

“All training, therefore, culminates in rifle training. It can scarcely be emphasized enough; and because shooting is a matter of practice, one cannot start too early. The result we want to achieve in the course of time is that a gun should feel just as natural in the hands of a German boy as a pen.”

Now, move over to the next page, Page 7 of the English text and Page 176 of your text. Your Dr. Stellrecht says there more about shooting and how it “meets with the boys’ desire”; and then he goes on to say:

“Along with the general training there is special training for new replacements for Air Force, Navy, and motorized troops. The training course for this has been established in conjunction with the competent offices of the Armed Forces... on as broad a basis as possible, and in the country cavalry training is given.”

And I suppose it is on the next page of your text, but it is the next to the last paragraph of the English text—I want to call your attention to this sentence—or it is two from the last paragraph in the English text: “Military education and ideological education belong together.” The English text says “philosophical,” but I think that’s a mistranslation and actually in German it is “ideological.” And you see the sentence that says in the next paragraph:

“The education of youth has to take care that the knowledge and the principles, according to which the State and the Armed Forces of our time have been organized and on which they base, enter so thoroughly into the thoughts of the individual that they can never again be taken away and that they remain guiding principles all through life.”

And the last paragraph of that speech, Mr. Witness—I wish you would look at it because I think you used the term “playful” yesterday, if I am not mistaken, and Dr. Stellrecht, anyway, a little earlier in his speech. Here is what he said to the military men that day: “Gentlemen, you can see that the tasks of present youth education have gone far beyond the ‘playful.’ ”

Are you sure, now, that you didn’t have any kind of a program for military training in your youth organization?

VON SCHIRACH: I can see from this document, which I should really have to read in its entirety in order to be able to answer correctly, that Dr. Stellrecht, to put it mildly, considered himself very important. The importance of Dr. Stellrecht for the education of youth and the importance of the office which he held in the Youth Leadership were definitely not as great as implied by this training course for men of the Armed Forces. I have already said before that disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of his exaggerations and especially because of the extent to which he overestimated the value of rifle training and what he called “military training” and that these differences of opinion finally led to his dismissal and departure from the service of the Reich Youth Leadership. He was one of many heads of offices, and the importance of his special activity was not as great as he has represented it to be in his statement here. I think I explained yesterday what a large number of tasks confronted the Youth Leadership. I was also able to indicate the approximate proportion of premilitary training or military training, as Herr Stellrecht calls it, as compared with other forms of training. But this document also states clearly that there was no intention of anticipating military training, as I said yesterday. When he says that every German boy should learn to handle the gun as easily as the pen, that is an expression of opinion with which I cannot identify myself.

MR. DODD: Well, of course, you have your view of him; but I think it is well that we brought it out in view of the fact that you have yourself offered before this Tribunal a statement by Stellrecht in your own document book. You are aware of that, of course, aren’t you? You want, of course, to have us understand that Stellrecht is reliable when you quote him, but he is not reliable when we quote him; is that it?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not mean that at all. He is a specialist in ballistics and outdoor sports and, of course, he represented his tasks, as is natural to human nature, as being the most important in youth training. Probably another office chief would have described cultural work or occupational competition contests, as the case might be, as being the most important aspects of youth training. At any rate, the decisive pronouncement for the education of German youth was not the remarks which Stellrecht made during a course for soldiers but my own remarks to the youth leaders.

MR. DODD: I just want to remind you that a year after he made this speech you wrote a preface for his book, didn’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I believe this preface was written for the book “Hitler Youth on Service.”

MR. DODD: I say it was a year after he wrote this speech, which was put out and published in Germany. He not only made the speech; but it was put out in pamphlet form, wasn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember exactly.

MR. DODD: Well, I can tell you if you look at the document that I handed you. I think you will see that. Well, in any event, we will pass along. You told the Tribunal yesterday that the statement in the Völkischer Beobachter, attributed to Hitler, on 21 February 1938 was something of a mystery to you; you did not know where he got his figures from. Did you understand what I said, Mr. Witness?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And do you know to what I referred in your testimony of yesterday, that quotation from Hitler in the Völkischer Beobachter?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: What is wrong with those figures?

VON SCHIRACH: I think that these figures are exaggerated and I think that there are errors in the text in my possession, which is a translated text. He probably received these figures from Dr. Stellrecht’s office, or so I assume. The statements regarding armored troops were, I imagine, probably added by himself; for the conclusion that some thousands or tens of thousands qualified for driving licenses is really an incorrect one, just as it is incorrect to draw from the fact that some tens of thousands of lads qualify for driving licenses the conclusion that they were trained as tank troops.

MR. DODD: Well, you see, we didn’t say so. You understand it was your Führer who said so in February 1938, and what I asked you was that I wish perhaps we can go through it and you can tell the Tribunal where they are in error and to what extent. Now Hitler said, according to the press, that your naval Hitler Youth comprised 45,000 boys. Would you say that figure was too large and altogether untrue?

VON SCHIRACH: No, that is correct.

MR. DODD: That is correct?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: He then said, the motor Hitler Youth 60,000 boys. What do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: And then he said that, as part of the campaign to encourage aviation, 55,000 members of the Jungvolk were trained in gliding for group activities. What do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: Glider training and model plane construction in the youth organization with—may I have the figure again—50,000 youth airmen?

MR. DODD: 55,000.

VON SCHIRACH: 55,000—yes, that is correct.

MR. DODD: That’s correct. Then he says, “74,000 of the Hitler Youth are organized in its flying units.” Now, what do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: You say “flying units”; those are “Fliegereinheiten,” groups of Hitler youth airmen, who—as I must emphasize again—were concerned only with gliding and the construction of model planes. There may have been such a large number at the time.

MR. DODD: Is the figure correct, 74,000?

VON SCHIRACH: It may be.

MR. DODD: Well, he lastly says, “15,000 boys passed their gliding test in the year 1937 alone.” What do you say about that; is it too big or too little or not true at all?

VON SCHIRACH: No, that is probably correct.

MR. DODD: Well, now, so far you haven’t disagreed with Hitler on any of these, have you?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Then, he lastly says, “Today, 1.2 million boys of the Hitler Youth receive regular instruction in small-bore rifle shooting from 7,000 instructors.” What’s wrong with that figure, if anything?

VON SCHIRACH: It may be correct—of course, I have no documentary proof that we had 7,000 young men who conducted training in small-bore rifle shooting. I discussed this small-bore rifle shooting yesterday. It is well known that we carried that out.

MR. DODD: Actually you haven’t disputed any of these figures. They are true, then, to the best of your knowledge, aren’t they?

VON SCHIRACH: My objection concerned a remark, which I remember in connection with the speech, mentioning tank force.

MR. DODD: Well, we don’t have it but, if you have it, we’d be glad to see it. But this is the Völkischer Beobachter speech that was put in by the Prosecution at the time that the case against you was put in; there is nothing in that about the tanks.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe the reason is that the retranslation of the document from English back into German is incorrect.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, we agree that Hitler wasn’t very far off on his figures when he made this speech or gave them out?

VON SCHIRACH: No; I think the figures which you have just mentioned are correct.

MR. DODD: All right. Now, then, in the Year Book of your Hitler Youth for 1939, Stellrecht, your man who had charge of training, uses that same expression. Do you recall that? “To handle a rifle should be just as natural for everybody as to handle a pen”?

VON SCHIRACH: 1939?

MR. DODD: Yes, sir.

VON SCHIRACH: May I have the month?

MR. DODD: Well, it’s in the Year Book of the Hitler Youth for the year 1939, at Page 227. If you’d like to see it, I’ll be glad to show it to you.

VON SCHIRACH: No, thank you. I do not have to see it. If he has already mentioned it before, it is possible that he will repeat it.

MR. DODD: Yes. You see, the importance of it to us is that this is 2 years after he made this speech, 1 year after you wrote the preface to his book, and I assume some time after you found him to be—what did you say—unreliable?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I did not say that. On the contrary, he was a reliable man, but differences of opinion arose between us because I did not agree with him on the question of overemphasizing premilitary training.

MR. DODD: Well...

VON SCHIRACH: I considered the rifle training as constituting only a part of our training, and not the most essential part; and he pushed it too much into the foreground.

MR. DODD: All right. But you let him write in the Year Book; and 2 years, after he made the speech, he made this same kind of a statement for young people to read, that they should be as handy with a rifle as they were with a pen. Did you make any objection when that book went to press? I assume you must have...

VON SCHIRACH: I did not see the book before it went to press...

MR. DODD: You did not proofread it?

VON SCHIRACH: ...and I had no objections to raise in particular.

MR. DODD: Did you object when you read in the same book and on the same page that the Wehrmacht had presented to your Hitler Youth in 1937, 10,000 small-bore rifles?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I was very glad to have that gift from the Armed Forces. As we in any case did small-bore shooting, I was grateful for every rifle we received because we always had less than we needed for training purposes.

MR. DODD: And were you distressed when you also read in that same Year Book that there was no shortage of shooting ranges:

“Since organized rifle training was started in the autumn of 1936, 10,000 shooting instructors have acquired the green shooting license in weekend courses and special courses; and this figure increases by some thousands every year.”

Do you remember that in your Year Book for 1939?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember it, but I think you are probably presenting the facts correctly; I will not dispute it. Switzerland gave her young men a much more intensive rifle training than we did and so did many other countries.

MR. DODD: Yes, I know.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not deny that our young men were trained in shooting.

MR. DODD: I hope you’re not comparing yourself to Switzerland, either.

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: This document is 3769-PS, Mr. President; it becomes USA-857.

Now, we’ve heard about this agreement that you and the Defendant Keitel drew up in 1939, not very long before the war against Poland started. It was in August of 1939.

It’s already in evidence, Mr. President, as USA-677.

It was the 8th day of August, wasn’t it—or 11th day; I’m sorry.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know the exact date. The fact that the agreement was concluded in August 1939 is enough to show that it did not have—and could not have had—any connection with the war.

MR. DODD: You say it had no relation to the war, 3 weeks before the attack on Poland?

VON SCHIRACH: If that agreement had had any significance for the war, it would have had to be concluded much earlier. The fact that it was only concluded in August shows in itself that we were not thinking of war. If we had wanted to train youth for the war, we would have made an agreement of this kind in 1936 or 1937.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, will you agree to this: That this agreement between you and Keitel certainly was related to your shooting practice and related to the Army?

VON SCHIRACH: As far as I remember, the agreement referred to training for outdoor sports.

MR. DODD: Well, then I had better show it to you and read from it to you, if you have forgotten insofar that you don’t remember that it had something to do with your shooting practice.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe that it says—and to that extent a connection with rifle shooting does exist—that in future field sports are to receive the same attention which has hitherto been given to shooting. I do not know if I am giving that correctly from memory.

MR. DODD: I’ll tell you what it says and you can look at it in a minute. It says that you already have 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders trained annually in field service. And in the whole sentence it says:

“In the Leadership Schools of the Hitler Youth, particularly in the two Reich schools for shooting practice and field sports and in the District Leadership Schools, 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders are being trained every year in field service...”

and that this agreement gives you the possibility of roughly doubling that number.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And it goes on to say how you will quarter these people and billet them, and so on.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And it does have some relationship to your shooting training program, doesn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: I explained that before I even saw it.

MR. DODD: Well, I misunderstood you then. I thought that you said that it didn’t have...

VON SCHIRACH: No, no, I explained that. I said that field service should have the same prominence as rifle training in the program; but, here again, we are not concerned with training youth leaders to become officers. It was not a question of military training, but of training in field sports for the youth leaders who, after short courses—I believe they lasted 3 weeks—went back again to their units. A young man of 16 cannot be trained along military lines in that period of time, nor was that the purpose of the agreement.

MR. DODD: Surely you are not asking us to believe that you and Keitel were entering into an agreement over cross-country sports, are you, in August of 1939? Are you serious about that?

VON SCHIRACH: I am perfectly serious when I say that at that time I knew nothing about a war—the war to come. I said yesterday...

MR. DODD: Well, but you...

VON SCHIRACH: And I do not believe either that Field Marshal Keitel drafted that agreement; I think one of his assistants worked it out along with Dr. Stellrecht. If it had had any significance for the war, it would certainly not have been announced in August in an official publication.

MR. DODD: Well, now, listen. You just look at the first paragraph of this and read what it says the purpose of this agreement is, and perhaps we can put an end to this discussion.

“An agreement was made between the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the Reich Youth Leadership representing the result of close co-operation between the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, General Keitel, and the Youth Leader of the German Reich, Von Schirach, and promising the co-operation of the Wehrmacht in the military education of the Hitler Youth.”

You don’t see anything there about cross-country running, do you, or training?

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to give an explanation as to that. What you have just quoted is not part of the text of the agreement, but represents a commentary by the editor of the collection Das Archiv.

MR. DODD: Well, I’m not going on; but I’ll leave it up to the Tribunal to decide whether that has to do with sports or has any relation to military education.

THE PRESIDENT: I think it is a convenient time to break off.

[A recess was taken.]

MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the report is made that the Defendant Raeder is absent.

MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, would you agree that from time to time members of your Hitler Youth sang songs and otherwise conducted themselves in a manner which certainly was hostile to organized religious institutions?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not intend to deny that isolated members behaved in that way during the early years of the National Socialist State, but I should like to add a short explanation.

In the early years I took into my movement millions of young people from Marxist organizations and the atheist movement, et cetera; and, of course, it was not possible in the space of 2 or 3 or 4 years’ time to discipline all of them completely. But I think I may say that after a certain date, say 1936, things of that sort no longer happened.

MR. DODD: Well, I thought perhaps we could say, anyway, that in 1935 this sort of thing was going on and perhaps save some time. Would you agree to that? They were singing songs such as, “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, we want to be pagans again” and that sort of business. Are you familiar with that? Do you know that kind of thing that came to the attention of the Minister of Justice from the prosecuting authority in Baden.

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Do you know that they sang a song published in the songbook “Blut und Ehre,” a song saying, “We want to kill the priest, out with your spear, forward; set the red cock on the cloister roof.” You know that old song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is a song dating back to the Thirty Years’ War and sung by the youth movement for many, many years, even before the first World War.

MR. DODD: I know, you have told me that before. I am trying to cut that down. Will you agree that your people were singing it in 1933, 1934, and 1935, to the extent that when clerics objected they were subjected themselves to the prosecuting authorities for interfering and criticizing? That is how important it was.

VON SCHIRACH: I know, as I have already said, that this song dates back to the Thirty Years’ War. It was sometimes sung by young people in the years 1933-1934. I tried to abolish this song, but I cannot give you any information as to special complaints which were lodged about it.

MR. DODD: I do not think that we have made clear that these songs were put out in a book which you published for the Hitler Youth to sing in these days. Do you agree to that?

VON SCHIRACH: I think it is possible, as for many years this song was included in every collection. It is a song which appeared in the first songbooks of the Wandervogel movement in 1898.

MR. DODD: I am not really interested in the history. All I am trying to establish is that in your songbook for your young people this song was present, that it was sung, that when the Church people complained, they were subjected to the prosecuting authorities for complaining.

VON SCHIRACH: I must dispute the last point.

MR. DODD: Well, I will have to put this document in.

It is Number 3751-PS. These are extracts from the diary of the prosecuting authorities, the diary of the Minister of Justice. And that becomes USA-858.

Now, the very first entry that is shown to you is a note from the diary of the Minister of Justice on the Catholic Vicar Paul Wasmer concerning criminal proceedings against him, and it is a question of whether a penal sentence should be proposed by Rosenberg because of libel. The vicar in his sermon cited a song being sung by young people. I quoted a few words of it a moment ago about “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, out with the Jews,” and so on. The Minister of Justice in his diary goes on to say that this Catholic vicar also quoted from “the little book of songs published by Baldur von Schirach” a verse with the following text:

“To the Lord in Heaven we’ll surely say

That we his Priest would gladly slay.”

and so on:

“Out with your spear, forward march.”

And he further quoted you as saying, “The path of German youth is Rosenberg.” Now, that is what he got into trouble for doing, and all I am asking you—and all I did ask—is if you won’t admit that people who criticized the use of this kind of stuff by your young people under your leadership were subjected to possible, and in many cases actual, prosecution? You see, you told the Tribunal yesterday that you never did anything directly to interfere with the Church, Catholic or Protestant.

VON SCHIRACH: The song quoted, which has the refrain “Kyrieleis,” which in itself shows it is a very old song...

MR. DODD: May I interrupt you to say...

VON SCHIRACH: ...may possibly be included in the songbook “Blood and Honor.” I am, of course, unaware that a clergyman was prosecuted for criticizing it. That is something new which I learn for the first time.

MR. DODD: All right. Look at Page 192 of that same diary, and you will see where the Archbishop of Paderborn reported the incident of 12 May. In this case he was asking that something be done to stop this sort of thing, and there is a rather nasty little song there about a monk and a nun, and so on, which your young people were singing; and then it goes on to say what happened to the Archbishop when he came out into the square and what the Hitler Youth did, what names they called him, and it says there were seven Hitler Youth leaders from outside present in that city that day and they were in civilian clothing. Do you mean to say you never heard of these things?

VON SCHIRACH: I know of this incident. I called the competent leader of the area, Langanke by name, to account for this. I had a good deal of trouble in connection with the incident. I shall therefore ask my counsel to question the witness Lauterbacher, who then held the rank of Stabsführer and is acquainted with the details. Some lines of the song you quoted just now caused a good deal of violent feeling among the population at the time—some of those lines are quoted here—on account of the foreign currency racketeering indulged in by some clergymen. That is why this satirical song was sung.

I should like to say in conclusion that I thoroughly and obviously disapproved of the attitude of these youth leaders. The whole affair is, as I have already said, one of those incidents dating back to the years when I had to take into my organization an enormous number of youths from other organizations and with an entirely different intellectual background.

MR. DODD: All right, turn to Page 228 of that diary, and you will see where a Chaplain Heinrich Müller and a town clergyman Franz Rümmer were under suspicion because they said in a circle of Catholic clergy that a certain song was sung by the Hitler Youth at the Party Rally in 1934:

“We are the rollicking Hitler Youth;

We have no need of Christian truth;

For Adolf Hitler is our Leader

And our Interceder.

“No evil old priest these ties can sever;

We’re Hitler’s children now and ever.”

Wait until I get through.

VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place.

MR. DODD: It is Page 228, a and b, I’m sorry. Maybe you will remember the song anyway if I read it to you. Do you remember the lines that said, “We don’t follow Christ but instead Horst Wessel”?

VON SCHIRACH: This is the first time I have seen this song. I do not know this song.

MR. DODD: All right; I will not go on reading it. You noticed that in an entry in the diary, the last paragraph, it says:

“The Advocate General notes that there is no doubt that the song in question was sung or circulated in Hitler Youth circles; he thinks that the statement that this song was sung at the Party Rally, that is, to a certain extent under the eyes and with the consent of the highest Party officials, can be refuted.”

VON SCHIRACH: The third stanza reads:

“I am no Christian, no Catholic;

I follow the SA through thin and thick.”

We gather that it is not a youth song. If the young people sang that song, I very much regret it. That song was certainly not sung at a youth festival at the Party Rally in 1934, as stated here.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: I myself read through all the programs for youth events at the Party Rally.

I do not know this song; I have never heard it; and I do not know the text.

MR. DODD; You will notice that the last line says: “Baldur von Schirach, take me too!”

The only point to all this is that certainly it is a surprise to the Prosecution to hear you say, as the Youth Leader, that you did not know that there was a great difficulty between the churchmen of all the churches in Germany and the youth organization in Germany, certainly during these years.

VON SCHIRACH: The point that I should like to make clear to the Tribunal is that in the youth movement there was a period of storm and stress, a period of development, and that the organization must not be judged by the actions of a few individuals or groups in the same year in which these individuals or groups became members of the organization. The result of educational work cannot be judged until some years have elapsed. It is possible that a group of youths who entered our ranks from the atheist movement in 1934 composed and sang these songs. In 1936 they would certainly no longer have done it.

MR. DODD: Well, let’s see what you were doing in 1937. You know the publication “Enjoyment, Discipline, Faith”? Do you know that handbook for cultural work in your youth camps?

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to see it, please.

MR. DODD: I’ll show it to you, but I wanted to ask you, first of all: Do you know the publication? Do you know what I am talking about when I refer to it?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know all our publications. We had such an enormous number of publications that unless I have the book in front of me I cannot make any statement on the subject.

MR. DODD: All right; I’ll take your answer that you don’t know this one without seeing it. We’ll show it to you. This one, among other things, has the program for a week in one of your camps, a suggested series of programs. And again I’ll ask you a question and maybe we can cut this down.

Isn’t it a fact that in your camps you tried to make Hitler and God more than partners and particularly tried to direct the religious attitudes of young people to the belief that Hitler was sent to this earth by God and was his divinely appointed in Germany?

Well, just answer that first of all, and then we can look at the program.

VON SCHIRACH: No. I never made any comparison between Hitler and God; and I consider it blasphemous and have always considered such a comparison blasphemous.

It is true that during the long period of years in which I believed in Hitler, I saw in him a man sent by God to lead the people. That is true. I believe any great man in history—and in the past I considered Hitler such a man—may be regarded as being sent by God.

MR. DODD: This is Document 2436-PS, USA-859.

I am not going to go all through it with you, but I do want to call your attention to some specific parts.

First of all, on Page 64 you have the names of people suggested as mottoes, I guess you would say, for the day. They are all political or military heroes of Germany, I expect, aren’t they?

VON SCHIRACH: Arminius, Geiserich, Braunschweig...

MR. DODD: You don’t need to read them all. If they are not, say they aren’t, and if they are, say “yes.” I merely asked you if they were not all military or political heroes of Germany.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know whether Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia can be characterized simply as a war hero here. He was certainly an artist as much as an officer.

MR. DODD: All right, I’ll pass that and take your answer that they are not.

Let’s move on to the Sunday morning celebration on Page 70 of your text, near the end of it. I wanted particularly to direct your attention to this in view of what you said about Rosenberg earlier this afternoon:

“If there is no one who can make a short formal address—it must be good and command attention—extracts from ‘Mein Kampf’ or from the Führer’s speeches or Rosenberg’s works should be read.”

Do you find that?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have found it.

MR. DODD: Well, do you still say that Rosenberg and his works had nothing to do with your Hitler Youth? You were suggesting that, for Sunday morning reading, they might listen to this benign philosopher’s works, weren’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: Nothing is proved by the fact that such a reference is made in one of the numerous handbooks of cultural work to one of the training staff who attended those biannual discussions of Rosenberg’s which I have already mentioned. I think you will look a long time before you find this particular passage in one of the many youth handbooks.

MR. DODD: Let me ask you something about this. You find one line in here for the Sunday morning celebration about a churchman, a chaplain, Holy Scripture, or anything related to religious institutions and tell the Tribunal where it is.

VON SCHIRACH: I take it as certain that nothing like that occurs there.

MR. DODD: That is your Sunday morning program?

VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a state youth organization, and my aim was to separate religious and state education. A young man who wanted to go to church could go after the morning celebration—it was a camp function—or before it, according to whether he wanted to attend mass or go to a Protestant service; and on these Sundays on which he was not in camp—the whole camp lasted 3 weeks at the outside—he was completely free to attend church at home with his parents or other friends.

MR. DODD: All right.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, I think it is fair to say that immediately before the words “Page 71” there are three lines which might be said to refer to religion.

MR. DODD: Yes, I intend to quote it. I was saving that for a little later. I will be glad to do it now if Your Honor prefers to have it.

THE PRESIDENT: No.

MR. DODD: I want to call your attention to a historical moral ballad that is suggested for the youth of this camp, on Page 89 of your text or 90, and on Page 6 of the English text.

Now, I am not going to read this whole ballad, but I think you will agree that it ridicules, to put it mildly, the Jews, other political parties in Germany. It refers to “Isidor, Isidor” in the opening lines, and it goes on down, “Poor Michael was a wretched man; he had to serve the Jewish clan.” In another line, “He gave the gang and the Jew a kick.”

And then your Party youth leaders suggest that now they have a—what is it—a shadow show:

“The nose of Isidor must be strongly exaggerated; the German Michael should be presented in the conventional manner; the Communist as a wild stormer of barricades; the Social Democrat with a balloon cap; the Center Party man with a Jesuit cap, and the reactionary with top hat and monocle.”

Did you ever see one of those shows, by the way?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot find the text you have just quoted on Page 89.

MR. DODD: I probably have given you the wrong page. I have just been told it is Page 154 of your text—155, rather.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Well, I just want to know about this suggested part of the program for these young people of yours.

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say something about the whole question as far as this book is concerned. I wrote the preface and I accept responsibility for the contents. I did not read every detail of this book beforehand; and I do not wish to dispute the fact that in the camps forming part of the camp circus, as it was called, political caricatures were presented in the form of shadow-shows.

MR. DODD: You know one of your youngsters wrote Streicher a letter telling him that he saw this kind of a show. Do you know about that? I am going to show you that letter in a little while, just to show you that it did happen, and that your young people wrote to Streicher about it.

And on the last page of the English text, for Sunday, 19 July—I think it is Page 179 of your text—the motto for the day is “Our service to Germany is divine service.” And that was a slogan you used on other Sundays, and as the Tribunal has pointed out, on Page 70 of your text you say:

“...that this Sunday morning ceremony does not aim at presenting arguments or conflicts with confessional points of view, but at imbuing life and men with courage and strength to fulfill their greater and lesser tasks through unqualified faith in the divine power and the ideology of the Führer and his movement.”

Now, in no place where you ever made any reference to God did you ever fail also to mention Hitler or the leaders of the Party, did you?

VON SCHIRACH: Will you please indicate the passage that you quoted just now?

MR. DODD: It is on Page 70, right at the bottom of your Page 70.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it says here:

“It does not aim at presenting arguments or conflicts with confessional points of view, but at imbuing life and men with courage and strength to fulfill their greater and lesser tasks through unqualified faith in the divine power and the ideology of the Führer and his Party.

That does not, after all, mean that Hitler is compared to God, but I believe that in the answer I gave a few minutes ago I did define my attitude.

MR. DODD: Let’s see if you don’t. In your book Revolution of Education, on Page 148, do you remember this statement: “The flag of the Third Reich”—we’ll begin the whole sentence:

“On the contrary, the service of Germany appears to us to be...the service of God. The banner of the Third Reich appears to us to be His banner; and the Führer of the people is the savior whom he sent to save us from the calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic.”

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to see the original of this text, please.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: Here I write:

“We consider that we are serving the Almighty when with our youthful strength we seek to make Germany once more united and great. In acknowledging loyalty to our Homeland we see nothing which could be construed as a contradiction of His eternal will. On the contrary, the service of Germany appears to us to be genuine and sincere service of God; the banner of the Third Reich appears to us to be His banner; and the Führer of the people is the savior whom He sent to rescue us from the calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic.”

This is the Center Party of the old Republic and other similar organizations of a confessional and political nature. I wrote this. I really do not see anything in that which could be construed into a deification of the Führer. For me, service to my country was service to the Almighty.

MR. DODD: All right, if that is your answer—I see it differently. Let’s go on to something else so that we can get through. I don’t want to neglect to show you, if you care to be shown, that communication to Streicher. It has already been presented to the Tribunal by the British Delegation, the British prosecutor. I think it was read from, but not put in, I am told.

In any event, do you know about that, Mr. Witness? Do you know about the letter that the boys and girls of the Youth Hostel at Grossmöllen wrote to Streicher in April of 1936, when they told him about seeing the Jews, “Every Sunday our leader shows a play about the Jews with his puppet theater.”

I just want to know if you are aware of it.

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say in this connection that the National Socialist Youth Home at Grossmöllen, which is mentioned here, was not a Hitler Youth institution but was, I believe, a kindergarten run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or some other organization.

This is typical of the letters ordered by the publisher of Der Stürmer for recruiting purposes.

MR. DODD: Just a moment. Didn’t you take over every youth hostel in 1933?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Well, what do you mean by saying that in 1936 this National Socialist Youth Hostel at Grossmöllen was not a part of the Hitler Youth organization?

VON SCHIRACH: It says here youth home (Heimstätte), not hostel (Herberge). I am not familiar with the expression “Heimstätte.” That must refer to a home run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or the National Socialist Women’s League. We had only “Jugendheime” and “Herbergen.”

MR. DODD: Well, doesn’t it strike you as being strangely coincidental that in your program for one of your youth camps you suggest a show which portrays a Jewish man with a great nose and ridicules him and teaches children to dislike him and laugh at him and that from a youth camp a youngster writes to Streicher saying that she and boys and girls saw such a show?

VON SCHIRACH: This letter was not written from any youth camp.

MR. DODD: Well, I accept it if that is your answer.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not deny that this puppet play was shown and that this letter was written; but I believe the connection is pulled in by the hair, so to speak. The connection is a very remote one.

MR. DODD: You think the connection about the ridiculing of the Jews is very far afield and pulled in by the hair.

VON SCHIRACH: No. I dispute the statement that this is a Hitler Youth institution. I believe actually it is a day nursery run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or something similar.

MR. DODD: Well, maybe the explanation is that all the young people in Germany saw one of those shows. But, in any event, I want to take up the last matter on this subject with you.

This morning your counsel examined you about the confiscation of a monastery, I believe it was in Austria while you were there, Klosterneuburg. Do you remember?

VON SCHIRACH: We discussed Count Schwarzenberg’s palace this morning. That was not a monastery. It was the property of a private citizen.

MR. DODD: Well, the document that Counsel Dr. Sauter referred to was R-146, USA-678. It was a letter from Bormann to all Gauleiter, and it began by saying that valuable Church properties had to be seized in Italy and in Austria. It was signed by Bormann. And then also on that document was a letter from Lammers saying that there had been some dispute as to whether the seized Church property should go back to the Reich or should remain in your Gau. You remember that, don’t you? Well, now, you seized the monastery down there, didn’t you, in 1941, at Klosterneuburg? Klosterneuburg, you know what I am referring to. I may mispronounce it.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes. The well-known foundation Klosterneuburg, the famous monastery, served as a receiving office for collections of works of art taken from our art museum.

MR. DODD: Yes. Now, what excuse did you have for seizing the monastery at that time?

VON SCHIRACH: I can no longer give you exact details with regard to this. I believe there were very few people in the monastery, that the large building was not being used to the fullest possible extent, and that we urgently needed more space for the expansion of the experimental station run in conjunction with our State School of Viniculture. I believe that is why this monastery was confiscated.

MR. DODD: All right. I am going to ask that you look at Document 3927-PS, and I wish you would remember that this morning you told the Tribunal that you stopped the confiscation of churches and Church property in Austria. When you look at this document I wish you to recall your testimony.

THE PRESIDENT: Did you offer M-25 in evidence or not?

MR. DODD: I wish to do so, Mr. President. It is USA-861. And this one, 3927-PS, becomes USA-862.

Now, the first page of this document shows that it is marked secret. It is dated 22 January 1941. It is a letter addressed to Dellbrügge in your organization in Vienna.

He says that he hears there is a possibility of getting a Hitler School, which the city of Hamburg is also trying to get, and that he wants the monastery Klosterneuburg considered as the place for the Hitler School in Vienna. This letter is written by Scharizer, your deputy, as you described him yesterday.

Now, he enclosed a communication, a teletype letter, from Bormann; and if you turn the page, you will see that it is dated 13 January. Bormann says it is strictly confidential:

“It is learned that the population does not show any indignation when monastery buildings are used to serve what appears to be a generally appropriate purpose.”

He goes on to say:

“Their conversion into hospitals, convalescent homes, educational institutes, Adolf Hitler Schools, may be considered as serving a generally appropriate purpose.”

Now, that communication was dated the 13th of January, and your deputy wrote the letter on the 22d.

Now turn another page, and you will find a Gestapo report on the monastery, dated 23 January 1941, addressed to your assistant Dellbrügge. I wish you would look where it says, “Oral order of 23 January 1941.” Apparently somebody in your organization, you or your assistants, orally asked the Gestapo to get up a report on this monastery the very day that you wrote to Berlin asking that it be considered as a Hitler School.

There are some charges against the inhabitants of that monastery in this Gestapo report, but I ask you to turn over further and you will find where you wrote an order for the taking over of the monastery as an Adolf Hitler School on 22 February 1941. I will show it to you if you like to see it, but that order bears your initials, the original does—Pages 15 to 17 of the photostat that you have.

Now, you framed up an excuse to seize that monastery, didn’t you, when you really wanted it for a Hitler School; and you didn’t have any just grounds for seizing it. And you get the Gestapo to write a report and then you never referred to the reason that the Gestapo framed up for you.

VON SCHIRACH: I myself as head of these schools was naturally extremely anxious to have such a school established in Vienna. At one time the idea expressed here of taking Klosterneuburg and housing one of the Adolf Hitler Schools in it did occur to me, and I probably did discuss it with Herr Scharizer; but I dropped the idea completely. Klosterneuburg was never converted into an Adolf Hitler School.

MR. DODD: No. But it never was turned back to the Church people, either, was it?

VON SCHIRACH: No. Since the museum space available in Vienna was not sufficient for the very large collections, we wanted to turn this monastery into an additional large museum which would be open to the public. We began to carry out this plan, and a great part of the collections was transferred to the building. In addition, we needed the strongly built cellars of this monastery for the safekeeping of the many art treasures which we had to protect against bombing attacks.

It occurred to me that we might house an Adolf Hitler School in this building and I discussed the possibility with one or two of my colleagues and then abandoned it: Firstly, because it would have caused some ill-feeling if we had housed an Adolf Hitler School in a building which had formerly been consecrated ground, and secondly, because we badly needed the monastery for these other purposes.

I have nothing to add to my explanation.

MR. DODD: You will notice the date of that whole transaction and the communication from Bormann. When did you first discover that Bormann was so antireligious and anti-Church as you told the Tribunal he was?

VON SCHIRACH: Bormann...

MR. DODD: Just tell us when you found that out.

VON SCHIRACH: I was just about to. Bormann showed his antireligious views most clearly in 1943; but they had already begun to appear in 1937.

MR. DODD: And this telegram from him was when? 1941?

VON SCHIRACH: 1941.

MR. DODD: Witness, when did you first start to do business with Himmler?

VON SCHIRACH: I met Hitler...

MR. DODD: Himmler.

VON SCHIRACH: I met Himmler in 1929 when I visited the offices of the Party Leadership. At that time he was the propaganda chief of the Party. That was our first meeting.

MR. DODD: I did not really want to know, although it’s of interest, when you first met him. What I really wanted to know was when you with your youth groups started really to do business with him for the first time. And by “business” I mean arrangements such as the recruitment of young men into the Death’s-Head Brigade of the SS.

VON SCHIRACH: I think I explained that this morning. One of the first agreements laid down was, I think, contained in the agreement regarding the patrol service, the date of which I do not recall. This was not, by the way, a guarantee of reinforcements for Death’s-Head units, but for police units generally. These were special troops to be at the disposal of the Police.

MR. DODD: How long did you continue to channel or divert young men from your Youth organization to the SS? When was the last time that you remember this program being effective?

VON SCHIRACH: I did not artfully drive young people into the SS. But I permitted the SS to recruit among young people like any other organization.

MR. DODD: I did not ask you that. I asked you when you would say was the latest date when you were effectively helping, at least, Himmler to get young candidates from the young people of Germany through your Hitler Youth organization. I do not expect an exact date. Approximately?

VON SCHIRACH: From 1940 on I tried constantly to have youth taken into Army units. The SS, the Waffen-SS, carried on very active recruitment among youth up to the last day of the war. I could not prevent this recruitment.

MR. DODD: And you knew what use they were being put to in the last days of the war and in the mid-days of the war, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: I did know that all young people who were drafted or who volunteered had to fight.

MR. DODD: I am talking about something other than fighting. You knew what was going on in the East, and you knew who the guards were in the concentration camps, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: This morning I testified on what I knew about events in the East. I did not know that young men who volunteered to go into the Waffen-SS were used during the war to guard concentration camps.

MR. DODD: You did not know who were the guards there, although you visited two of them yourself?

VON SCHIRACH: Those guards did not belong to the Waffen-SS.

MR. DODD: I know, but your agreement with Himmler provides specifically for recruitment for SS Death’s-Head troops.

VON SCHIRACH: When I concluded that agreement, I did not know that he effected the supervision of concentration camps chiefly by means of Death’s-Head units. Besides, I thought at that time that concentration camps were something quite normal. I said so this morning.

MR. DODD: You told the Tribunal yesterday that it was in 1944, I think, that you found out about the extermination. And I want to talk to you about that a little bit, and ask you some questions. And the first one is, how did you find out? Was it only through this man Colin Ross?

VON SCHIRACH: I said that I heard of it through Colin Ross...

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: And, furthermore, that I asked numerous questions of everyone I could reach, in order to get definite information.

MR. DODD: Really I asked you if, from any other source, you found out? And you can answer that pretty simply. We know that you found out through Ross. Was there anyone else from whom you found out?

VON SCHIRACH: I could not obtain any really definite information.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: Most people had no information. I only received positive—that is, detailed—information by way of the Warthegau.

MR. DODD: Now, as a matter of fact, you got regular reports about the extermination of the Jews, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: These...

MR. DODD: Written reports, I mean.

VON SCHIRACH: These reports, two of which have been submitted in this Court, were sent to the Reich Defense Commissioner for the attention of the expert in question. This expert passed the copies on to the inspector—I believe—or the commander of the regular Police.

I have looked at the copy which was submitted here in Kaltenbrunner’s case but I had never seen it before (Document 3876-PS).

MR. DODD: You mean you did not know that it was arriving in your office?

VON SCHIRACH: I have never seen this text before.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: My office was the Central Office; it was not the office of the Reich Defense Commissioner. The affairs of the Reich Defense Commissioner were officially in charge of the Regierungspräsident, whose personal adviser took care of routine matters. My mail was delivered at the Central Office.

MR. DODD: You were the Reich Defense Commissioner for that district, were you not?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: This was an SS report of a highly confidential nature, was it not? They were not just peddling this all over Germany?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know how many copies of this were sent out, I cannot say.

MR. DODD: 100, and you got the sixty-seventh copy.

VON SCHIRACH: And these copies, as I gathered from the original which I saw, were not sent to me but to the competent adviser, a Herr Fischer.

MR. DODD: And who was Herr Fischer?

VON SCHIRACH: I have already told you this morning that I have no idea who this Herr Fischer was. I assume that he was the expert attached to the Regierungspräsident, the expert on defense matters.

MR. DODD: Now, I am going to show you some documents from your own files.

We don’t have a full translation, Mr. President, because some of this we located too late (Document 3914-PS).

But I think you will readily recognize this original is from your files. And in there you will find—and I will direct your attention to the page—something that I think will recall to your mind who Dr. Fischer is.

Now, I think it is on Page 29, you will find the names of persons to serve on the Reich Defense Council submitted; and you will find the name of Fischer, together with General Stülpnagel, Major General Gautier, Dr. Förster—do you find that? This was your own Reich Defense Council, before which you appeared from time to time, and with whom you met frequently. And I will show you documents on that, if you care to deny it.

VON SCHIRACH: Just a moment, please. Will you please repeat the page to me?

MR. DODD: Page 29; it is a memorandum dated 28 September 1940.

VON SCHIRACH: I have it now.

MR. DODD: Do you find the name of Dr. Fischer? You found Dr. Fischer’s name as one of those suggested to your defense council? His is the last name, by the way, and his signature. He is the one that suggested the others to you.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, will you go a little bit more slowly?

MR. DODD: Yes.

VON SCHIRACH: His name is the twentieth name on the list: “Regierungsrat Dr. Fischer, Expert for Reich Defense Matters”—in other words, expert attached to the Regierungspräsident. I have probably seen him at some meeting or other. I take it that he kept the minutes. However, I must admit that I have no personal recollection of this gentleman. I cannot attach any owner to that name; but it is clear to me now that he was the person who took charge of incoming mail for the Reich Defense Commissioner and probably kept the minutes as well.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: In view of his junior status—he is only a Regierungsrat—he cannot have held any other appointment on this council.

MR. DODD: On Page 31 of that same file you will find another reference to him, and your initials on the paper this time. It is the membership list of the Reich Defense Council. There are 20 persons on there, and the last name is Fischer’s. And at the bottom of the page are your initials, apparently approving the list. Do you see that?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes; I had to initial this list.

MR. DODD: And you approved the membership, did you not?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot swear that I would not recognize Dr. Fischer again if I were confronted with him. He seems to have been the official who kept the minutes. However, among the large circle of people who attended meetings of this kind, he did not come to my attention. Only very few Reich defense meetings of this sort actually took place. What seems to me the decisive point is that he did not report to me personally but to the Regierungspräsident.

MR. DODD: How could you fail to meet him? You met regularly in 1940 with this Reich Defense Council. We have some documents here, and I will be glad to show them to you, showing exactly what you said before that council.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, as I said, he probably kept the minutes of the meetings.

MR. DODD: Well surely, then, you saw him certainly on some occasions, between 1940, the date of these files, and 1942, the date of the SS reports on the exterminations. He apparently was with you for 2 years before the first report that we have, which is dated 1942, and he was 1 of 20 on your council.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe I must describe the exact composition of this Reich Defense Council. There were the leading commanding generals of the Army and the Luftwaffe; there were various Gauleiter; there were the people mentioned here; there was Dr. Putt, the representative of the Economic Management Staff and all the others who are listed here. In this large circle of people, whom I had to welcome, there was an official who kept the minutes and who was one of many officials in my office. These meetings, as you have probably ascertained, took place very infrequently. Dr. Fischer did not report to me currently, nor did he submit to me the minutes of these sessions; the Regierungspräsident reported to me.

MR. DODD: Do you think that Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich were sending these reports to inferior people around Germany in these Gaue about the exterminations in the East?

VON SCHIRACH: If these reports had been meant for me, they would have been sent to me directly. Moreover, I said today that I do not dispute having been informed of the shooting of Jews in the East, but at a later period. I mentioned that in connection with the war. However, the reports themselves were not in my hands. If these reports had been before me, they would have had a certain note, which I would recognize immediately.

MR. DODD: Well, let’s see. Of course they are addressed to you, to the attention of Fischer.

But I am going to move on a little bit. Now I am going to tell you that you got weekly reports. You haven’t seen these. What do you say to that?

VON SCHIRACH: Weekly reports?

MR. DODD: Yes.

VON SCHIRACH: I received innumerable weekly reports from every possible office.

MR. DODD: No, I am talking about one kind of report. I am talking about the reports from Heydrich and Himmler.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know what you mean.

MR. DODD: Well, you had better take a look (Document 3943-PS). We have 55 of them, for 55 weeks. They are all here, and they run consecutively, and Dr. Fischer is not involved in these. And each one bears the stamp of your office having received it on it, and the date that it was received.

They tell, by the way—and you can look at them—what was happening to the Jews in the East.

VON SCHIRACH: All these probably—I cannot look at them all just now. These reports went from the Chief of the Security Police to the Office of the Reich Defense Commissioner. They were not, as I can tell from the first document, initialed by myself, but bear the initials of the Regierungspräsident. I did not receive these reports; otherwise my initial would have to be there.

MR. DODD: Dr. Dellbrügge was the man who received them, according to the note, and he was your chief assistant. Incidentally, I think we ought to make this clear to the Tribunal, both of your chief assistants were SS Brigadeführer, were they not?

VON SCHIRACH: I should in any case have stated that Dr. Dellbrügge was one of Himmler’s confidants; but I believe...

MR. DODD: And he was your chief assistant, that is the point I am making. And so was your other chief assistant, also an SS Brigadeführer.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe that this statement proves the opposite of what you want to prove against me.

MR. DODD: Well, I am going to go on with these weekly reports in a minute, but there is one thing I do want to ask you.

Were you pretty friendly with Heydrich?

VON SCHIRACH: I knew Heydrich, and while he was Reich Protector in Prague he extended an invitation to me as President of the Southeastern Europe Society to hold a meeting there which I accepted. However, I did not have close personal contact with Heydrich.

MR. DODD: Did you think he was a good public servant at the time that he was terrorizing Czechoslovakia?

VON SCHIRACH: I had the impression that Heydrich, as he said himself during my stay in Prague, wanted to carry out a policy of conciliation, especially in regard to Czech workers. I did not see in him an exponent of a policy of terror. Of course, I have no practical knowledge of the incidents which took place in Czechoslovakia. I made only this one visit, or possibly one further visit.

MR. DODD: You sent a telegram to “Dear Martin Bormann” when Heydrich was assassinated; do you remember that—the man who was, I understand, not in your good standing in 1942? Do you remember when Heydrich was assassinated by some Czech patriots in Prague?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Do you remember what you did when you heard about it?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not remember exactly.

MR. DODD: Perhaps if I read you this telegram you will remember it.

“To Reichsleiter Bormann, Berlin, Party Chancellery; Express. Urgent. Immediate attention.

“Dear Martin Bormann:

“I request that the following be submitted to the Führer.

“Knowing the Czech population and its attitude in Vienna as well as in the Protectorate, I would draw your attention to the following:

“The enemy powers and the British cliques around Beneš have for a long time felt bitter about the co-operation generally found among the Czech workers and their contribution to the German war economy. They are seeking for a means to play off the Czech population and the Reich against each other. The attack on Heydrich was undoubtedly planned in London. The British arms of the assailant suggest parachuted agents. London hopes by means of this murder to induce the Reich to take extreme measures with the aim of bringing about a resistance movement among Czech workers. In order to prevent the world from thinking that the population of the Protectorate is in opposition to Hitler, these acts must immediately be branded as of British authorship. A sudden and violent air attack on a British cultural town would be most effective and the world would have learned of this through the headline ‘Revenge for Heydrich.’ That alone should induce Churchill to desist immediately from the procedure begun in Prague of stirring up revolt. The Reich replies to the attack at Prague by a counterattack on world public opinion.

“It is suggested that the following information be given the press tomorrow regarding the attempt on Heydrich’s life.”

And then you go on to say that it was the work of British agents and that it originated in Britain. You sign it, “Heil Hitler, Dein Schirach.”

Do you remember sending that telegram to Bormann?

VON SCHIRACH: I have just been listening to the English translation. I should like to see the German original, please.

MR. DODD: Very well.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, you read, I thought, a British “coastal” town, did you not?

MR. DODD: No, “cultural” I meant to say, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is what I have got.

MR. DODD: Yes, it is “cultural.”

Incidentally, I call your attention, Mr. Witness, to the word “cultural.” You have expressed such a great interest in culture.

THE PRESIDENT: Would it be all right to break off now, or do you want to go on?

MR. DODD: I had hoped I could finish. I won’t be many minutes, but I do have one or two rather important documents that I would like to put to the witness.

Mr. President, if we recess, may I ask that the witness not be talked to by his counsel overnight? I think it is only fair, when a witness is under cross-examination, that he not have conversations with his counsel.

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say to this document...

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I should like to have this question clarified as to whether as defense counsel I am entitled to talk with my client or not. Mr. Dodd forbade me to talk to my client some time ago; and, of course, I acquiesced. But, if I am told that I must not speak to my client until the end of the cross-examination and the cross-examination is to be continued on Monday, that means that I cannot speak with my client tomorrow or the day after. But, in order to carry on his defense, I must have an opportunity of discussing with my client all the points raised here today.

MR. DODD: Mr. President, I will withdraw my request. I really forgot we were going over until Monday. I do think it is the ordinary rule, but I do think it might present some difficulty for the counsel here.

I want to be fair with the Tribunal. During the recess Dr. Sauter approached the witness stand and I did tell him then that I did not think he should talk to him during the recess while he was under cross-examination.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is the British rule, but I think in the circumstances we had better let Dr. Sauter...

MR. DODD: I quite agree. I was thinking we would go on tomorrow, but I do not want to interfere with his consultation over the weekend.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 27 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]

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ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH DAY
Monday, 27 May 1946