Morning Session
[The Defendant Von Schirach resumed the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Is counsel for the Defendant Bormann present?
DR. FRIEDRICH BERGOLD (Counsel for Defendant Bormann): Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to you to present your documents on Tuesday at 10 o’clock?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, agreed.
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to the Prosecution?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Quite convenient, would it?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, indeed.
DR. SAUTER: Your Honors, we left off yesterday with Document Number 1948-PS. That, as you will recall, is a memorandum by a certain Dr. Fischer about a telephone conversation he had held with an official of the Secret State Police, Standartenführer Huber, from Vienna, and refers to forced labor of Jewish youth. Special mention is made of the employment of Jews in the removal of ruined synagogues. In connection with this memorandum I should like to put just one more question to the Defendant Schirach.
[Turning to the defendant.] When were these synagogues destroyed in Vienna? Was it in your time and on your responsibility, or at another time?
VON SCHIRACH: The synagogues in Vienna were destroyed 2 years before I assumed office in Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I now proceed to the chapter on anti-Semitism which—according to your admission yesterday—you followed in your youth. I should like to know what your attitude was, when you joined the Party and when you became an official in the Party, toward a practical solution of this anti-Semitism?
VON SCHIRACH: According to my opinion—in 1924-1925—Jews were to be entirely excluded from the civil service. Their influence in economic life was to be limited. I believed that Jewish influence in cultural life should be restricted. But for artists of the rank of, for instance, Max Reinhardt, I still envisioned the possibility of a free participation in this cultural life. That, I believe, exactly reflects the opinion which I and my comrades held on the solution of the “Jewish Problem” in 1924-1925 and in the following years.
Later, when I was leading the high-school youth movement, I put forward the demand for the so-called Numerus clausus. It was my wish that the Jews should be allowed to study only on a proportional basis commensurate to their percentage of the total population. I believe one can realize from this demand for the Numerus clausus, known to the entire generation of students in that period, that I did not believe in a total exclusion of the Jews from artistic, economic, and scientific activities.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have submitted a document, Document Schirach-136, in the Schirach document book, which contains statements by an official of the Reich Youth Leadership about the treatment of Jewish youth as contrasted with Christian youth. Do you know what attitude the Reich Youth Leadership had adopted at that time toward the Jewish youth?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that we are dealing with the decree of the year 1936.
DR. SAUTER: Autumn 1936?
VON SCHIRACH: Autumn 1936. According to that, Jewish youth organizations were to exist under the official supervision of the Reich Youth Leader, who controlled all the youth of Germany, and Jewish youth would be able to carry out their own youth education autonomously.
DR. SAUTER: It says in that decree, inter alia—I quote one sentence only from Document Schirach-136 of the Schirach document book:
“Today in its youth, Judaism already assumes that special, isolated position, free within its own boundaries, which at some future date Judaism will occupy within the German State and in the economy of Germany and which it has already occupied to a great extent.”
Witness, at about the same time, or shortly before then, the so-called Nuremberg Laws had been promulgated, those racial laws which we have frequently heard mentioned here.
Did you help pass these laws, and how did you personally judge these laws?
VON SCHIRACH: I had no part in the drafting of these laws. In my room at the Hotel Deutscher Hof, here in Nuremberg, I was surprised to find a slip of paper stating that there would be a Reichstag meeting on the next day and that it would take place in Nuremberg. At that Reichstag meeting, at which I was present, the Nuremberg Laws were promulgated. I do not know to this day how they were drafted. I assume that Hitler himself determined their contents. I can tell you no more about them.
DR. SAUTER: Can you state on your oath, and with a clear conscience, that before these laws were published you had not known of the plan for such laws, although you had been Reich Youth Leader and Reichsleiter?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: After these laws had been promulgated in Nuremberg, how did you personally envisage the further development of the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRACH: I must say, first of all, that we had, as a matter of fact, not expected these laws at all. I believe that the entire youth of the country at that time considered the Jewish problem as solved, since in 1935 there could be no more question of any Jewish influence. After these laws had been published we were of the opinion that now, definitely, the last word had been spoken on the Jewish problem.
DR. SAUTER: Briefly, Witness, you are accused of having incited and influenced the youth of the country. I therefore ask you: As Reich Youth Leader did you incite youth to anti-Semitic excesses, or did you, as Reich Youth Leader, and particularly at meetings of the Hitler Youth, make any inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not make any inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches, since I attempted, both as Reich Youth Leader and youth educator, not to add fuel to the fire; for neither in my books nor in my speeches—with the exception of one speech in Vienna, to which I shall refer later on and which was not made at the time when I was Reich Youth Leader—have I made any inflammatory statements of an anti-Semitic nature.
I will not make myself ridiculous by stating here that I was not an anti-Semite; I was—although I never addressed myself to the youth in that sense.
DR. SAUTER: The office of the Reich Youth Leader published an official monthly entitled Will and Power, Leadership Publication of the National Socialist Youth. Excerpts from this official publication have previously been submitted to the Tribunal in the document book.
Now I would be interested to know: Is it true that certain Party authorities repeatedly demanded from you that you publish a special anti-Semitic issue of this official Youth Leadership publication in order to show the youth of the country the path to follow in the future, and what was your attitude with regard to that demand?
VON SCHIRACH: It is true that the Reich Minister for Propaganda repeatedly demanded of my editor-in-chief that such an anti-Semitic issue should be published. On receiving the report of the editor-in-chief I invariably refused to comply with this request. I believe that the editor-in-chief has already signed a sworn affidavit to that effect.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the question of anti-Semitism would also include your attitude to Der Stürmer, the paper issued by your fellow-Defendant, Streicher. Did you distribute this anti-Semitic paper Der Stürmer within your youth organization, and did you in any way further its distribution?
VON SCHIRACH: Der Stürmer was not distributed within the youth organization. I believe that with the sole exception of those of the young people who lived in this Gau...
DR. SAUTER: Gau Franken?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, Gau Franken—that the rest of the German youth organization never read Der Stürmer at all. The paper was definitely rejected by all the youth leaders—both boys and girls—in my organization.
DR. SAUTER: Then, Witness, I must point out to you that the Prosecution have accused you of having given, on one occasion, an introduction to this paper, this anti-Jewish paper Der Stürmer. Do you know about it, and what have you got to say on the matter?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say the following in this respect. I was always in close collaboration with the press; in fact, I came from the press myself. In my press office, as Reich Youth Leader, I gave definite instructions that all requests from Gau papers for an introduction, or something else of the kind from me should be granted on principle. Therefore, whenever a Gau paper celebrated a jubilee—perhaps the tenth or twentieth anniversary of its existence, or published some special issue—then the experts in my press office would run up a draft and, together with the considerable volume of evening mail presented to me for my signature, these drafts and elaborations would be submitted to me. In this way it might have happened that I signed that introduction for Der Stürmer which, of course, was the paper of the local Gau. Otherwise I have no recollection of the episode.
DR. SAUTER: Consequently you cannot remember whether you drafted that short introduction yourself, or whether it was drafted by one of your experts and presented to you for signature?
VON SCHIRACH: I definitely believe that I did not draft it myself, because such short introductions—as already stated—were always submitted to me. I wrote my newspaper articles myself but never introductions of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, since we have just mentioned the name of Streicher, I would remind you of a very ugly picture book which was submitted here by the Prosecution. Was that picture book distributed among the youth with your consent, or do you know anything else about it?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course this book was not distributed among the young people. It is quite out of the question that an office of the HJ (Hitler Jugend) would have transmitted that book to the youth. Besides, the picture books of the Stürmer Publishing Firm are unknown to me. I am, of course, not competent to speak on education in the schools, but I should also like to say on behalf of education in the schools that I do not believe this picture book was ever introduced into any school outside of this Gau. At any rate, that book and similar writings of the Stürmer Publishing Firm were not, as a rule, distributed among the young people and the youth organizations. What I have already said when judging Der Stürmer also holds good for these books—namely, that the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth categorically rejected writings of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have also experienced how the anti-Semitic question actually developed and how it eventually resulted in the well-known anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938. Did you yourself, in any way, participate in these anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: I personally did not participate in any way, but I did participate in the Munich session...
DR. SAUTER: Which session?
VON SCHIRACH: The session which was traditionally held on 9 November of each year in memory of those who had fallen on 9 November 1923. I did not take part in all the discussions of that day. But I do remember a speech by Goebbels in connection with the murder of Herr Vom Rath. That speech was definitely of an inflammatory nature, and one was free to assume from this speech that Goebbels intended to start some action. He is alleged—but that I only discovered later—to have given detailed instructions for this action directly from his hotel in Munich to the Reich Propaganda Ministry. I was present at the Munich session, as was my colleague Lauterbacher, my chief of staff, and we both rejected the action. The HJ, as the largest National Socialist organization, was not employed at all in the anti-Jewish pogroms, of 9, 10, and 11 November 1938. I remember one incident where a youth leader, without referring to my Berlin office and carried away by some local propaganda, took part in a demonstration and was later called to account by me for so doing. After 10 November I was again in Munich for a few days and visited, inter alia, a few of the destroyed business houses and villas as well. It made a terrible impression on me at the time, and under that impression I instructed the entire Youth Leadership, the regional leaders if I remember rightly—in other words, all the highest responsible youth leaders—to come to Berlin and there, in an address to these youth leaders, I described the incidents of the 9 and 10 November as a disgrace to our culture. I also referred to it as a criminal action. I believe that all the colleagues present on that occasion will clearly remember how agitated I was and that I told them that my organization, both now and in the future, would never have anything to do with acts of this sort.
DR. SAUTER: You previously mentioned one individual case where an HJ leader, subordinate to you, participated in some action. Did you know of other cases, in November 1938 and after, where units of the HJ were factually supposed to have participated in the anti-Jewish pogroms?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I know of no other cases. The only thing I did hear was that here and there individual lads, or groups of youths, were called out into the streets by local authorities which were not of the HJ. In the majority of cases these lads were promptly sent home again by the youth leaders. The organization was never employed, and I attach great importance to the statement that the youth organization, which included more members than the Party itself with all its affiliated organizations, was never involved in these incidents.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you saw at least, from the incidents in November 1938, that developments in Germany were taking a different trend to the course you had expected—if we are to judge by your previous description. How did you, after November 1938, envisage the further solution of the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRACH: After the events of 1938 I realized that Jewry’s one chance lay in a state-supported emigration; for in view of Goebbels’ temper, it seemed probable to me that overnight similar actions could arise from time to time, and under such conditions of legal insecurity I could not see how the Jews could continue living in Germany. That is one of the reasons why Hitler’s idea of a closed Jewish settlement in the Polish Government General, of which he told me at his headquarters in 1940, was clear to me. I thought that the Jews would be better off in a closed settlement in Poland than in Germany or Austria, where they would remain exposed to the whims of the Propaganda Minister who was the mainstay of anti-Semitism in Germany.
DR. SAUTER: Is it true that you yourself, whenever you had a chance of approaching Hitler, gave him your own positive suggestions for settling the Jews in some neutral country, under humane conditions?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not true.
DR. SAUTER: Well?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like fully to elucidate this matter. I mentioned yesterday how I had reported to Hitler and how he had told me that the Viennese Jews would be sent to the Government General. Before that, I had never thought of an emigration of the Jews from Austria and Germany for resettlement in the Government General. I had only thought of a Jewish emigration to countries where the Jews wanted to go. But Hitler’s plan, as it then existed—and I believe that at that time the idea of exterminating the Jews had not yet entered his mind—this plan of resettlement sounded perfectly reasonable to me—reasonable at that time.
DR. SAUTER: But I believe that in 1942 you are supposed to have tried, through the kind offices of your friend, Dr. Colin Ross, to suggest to Hitler that the Jews from Hungary and the Balkan States be allowed to emigrate to some neutral country, taking their goods and chattels with them.
VON SCHIRACH: That was at a later date. I no longer remember exactly when, but in any case it was after the occupation of Hungary. Among the innumerable suggestions which I made to the Führer and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs through Colin Ross, was one to the effect that the entire Jewish population of Hungary be transferred to the neutral countries. If the witness Steengracht has stated here that this idea had been discussed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that it had emanated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then he probably spoke in good faith. The idea originated in discussions held between Colin Ross and myself, and Ross then put it down in the form of a memorandum. But—and this is specially important—it was reported verbally to the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs who, in turn, informed Colin Ross, on the occasion of a further visit, that the Führer had definitely turned the suggestion down.
DR. SAUTER: The emigration to neutral countries abroad?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, to neutral countries abroad.
DR. SAUTER: The majority of the Viennese Jews, Witness, were—as you yourself know—deported from Vienna. In 1940, when you became Gauleiter in Vienna—or later on—did you ever receive a directive from Hitler to the effect that you yourself should carry out this deportation of the Jews from Vienna or that you should participate in the deportation?
VON SCHIRACH: I never received any such directive. The only directive which I received in connection with the deportation of the Jewish population from Vienna was a question from Hitler asking about the number of Jews living in Vienna at the time. That number, which I had forgotten, was recalled to my memory by a document put to me by the Prosecution. According to that document I reported to Hitler that 60,000 Jews were then living in Vienna. That figure probably comes from the registration office. In former times about 190,000 Jews, all told, lived in Vienna. That, I believe, was the highest figure reached. When I came to Vienna there were still 60,000 Jews left. The deportation of the Jews was a measure immediately directed, on orders from Hitler, or by Himmler; and there existed in Vienna an office of the Reich Security Main Office, or local branch office under Himmler-Heydrich, which carried out these measures.
DR. SAUTER: Who was in charge of that office?
VON SCHIRACH: The head of that office was—that I found out now; I did not know his name at the time—a certain Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: An SS Sturmführer?
VON SCHIRACH: An SS Sturmführer, Dr. Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: The one who, a few days ago, is supposed to have been condemned to death? Did you know that?
VON SCHIRACH: I heard it yesterday.
DR. SAUTER: Did you have to issue any orders to this Brunner who was an SS leader, or could you give him any kind of instructions?
VON SCHIRACH: It was entirely impossible for me to stop the deportation of the Jews or to have any influence thereupon. Once, as early as 1940, I told the chief of my Regional Food Supply Office that he should see to it that departing Jewish people be provided with sufficient food. Frequently, when Jews wrote to me requesting to be exempted from deportation, I charged my adjutant or some assistant to intervene with Brunner so that possibly an exception might be made for these persons. More I could not do. But I have to admit frankly, here and now, that I was of the opinion that this deportation was really in the interests of Jewry, for the reasons which I have already stated in connection with the events of 1938.
DR. SAUTER: Did the SS, which in Vienna too was charged with the evacuation of the Jews, send continuous reports as to how and to what extent this evacuation of the Jews was carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I am, therefore, also not in a position to state when the deportation of the Jews was concluded and whether the entire 60,000 were dragged out of Vienna or if only a part of them was carried off.
DR. SAUTER: Did not the newspapers in Vienna report anything at all about these deportations of the Jews, about the extent of the deportations and the abuses occasioned in this connection?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Nothing? But, Witness, I must put a document to you which has been submitted by the Prosecution. It is Document Number 3048-PS, an excerpt from the Viennese edition of the Völkischer Beobachter, on a speech which you, Witness, made on 15 September 1942 in Vienna, and in which occurs the sentence—I quote from the newspaper:
“Every Jew who operates in Europe is a danger to European culture. If I were to be accused of having deported tens of thousands of Jews from this city, once the European metropolis of Jewry, to the Eastern ghetto, I would have to reply, ‘I see in that an active contribution to European culture.’ ”
Thus runs the quotation from your speech which otherwise contains no anti-Semitic declarations on your part. Considering your previous statements, Witness, I am compelled to ask you: Did you make that speech, and how did you come to make it despite your basic attitude which you have previously described to us?
VON SCHIRACH: First, I want to say that I did make that speech. The quotation is correct. I said that. I must stand by what I have said. Although the plan of the deportation of the Jews was Hitler’s plan and I was not charged with its execution, I did utter those words, which I now sincerely regret; but I must say that I identified myself morally with that action only out of a feeling of misplaced loyalty to the Führer. That I have done, and that cannot be undone. If I am to explain how I came to do this, I can only reply that at that time I was already “between the Devil and the deep sea.” I believe it will also become clear from my later statements that from a certain moment on I had Hitler against me, the Party Chancellery against me, and very many members of the Party itself against me. Constantly I heard from officials of the Party Chancellery who expressed that to the Gauleiter of Vienna, and from statements made in Hitler’s entourage that one was under the impression—and that this could be clearly recognized from my attitude and my actions—that I was no longer expressing myself publicly in the usual anti-Semitic manner or in other ways, either; and I just have no excuse. But it may perhaps serve as an explanation, that I was trying to extricate myself from this painful situation by speaking in a manner which today I can no longer justify to myself.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should like to ask you, in this connection—you have just spoken of a painful situation in which you found yourself in Vienna. Is it true that Hitler himself, on various occasions, reproached you personally and severely because your attitude in Vienna had not been sufficiently energetic, that you had become too slack and too yielding; that you should concern yourself more with the interests of the Party, and that you should adopt far stricter methods? And what, Witness, did you then do?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, I assume that you realize that you are putting questions in the most leading form, that you are putting questions which suggest the answer to the defendant, and such questions cannot possibly carry—the answers to such questions cannot possibly carry the weight which answers given to questions not in their leading form would carry.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, did Hitler personally reproach you for your behavior in Vienna, and what attitude did you adopt?
I believe that is not a suggestive question.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is. I should have thought it is a leading question. He says he was in a very difficult situation. You could ask him if he would explain what was the difficulty of the situation.
DR. SAUTER: Very well. Then will you answer this question, Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: Counsel for the defense, I could not, in any case, have accepted the question in the form in which you previously presented it.
The difference between Hitler and myself arose primarily over an art exhibition, and the breach between Hitler and myself in 1943 was in the beginning the result of differences of opinion over the cultural policy. In 1943 I was ordered to the Berghof where Hitler, in the presence of Bormann, criticized me violently on account of my cultural work and literally said that I was leading the cultural opposition against him in Germany. And further, in the course of the conversation he said that I was mobilizing the spiritual forces of Vienna and Austria and the spiritual forces of the young people against him in cultural spheres. He said he knew it very well indeed. He had read some of my speeches, primarily the Düsseldorf speech; he had discovered that I had authorized in Weimar and in Vienna art exhibitions of a decadent nature; and he offered me the alternative, either to end this kind of oppositional work immediately—then for the time being everything could remain as in the past—or he would stop all Government subsidies for Vienna.
This scene made a frightful impression on me, for it represented to me a breach of Hitler’s promised word, since he had granted me absolute freedom of action when he appointed me to the Vienna mission. I then recognized that he nourished an icy hatred toward me, and that behind these statements on cultural policies something else was concealed. Whether he was dissatisfied in every detail with the way I conducted my office in Vienna at the time, I do not know. He rarely expressed himself directly about such matters. From his entourage I learned only of occasional happenings.
I then—and that led to the complete and final break between Hitler and myself—a few weeks after I had received this order, if I may call it so, received a strange invitation for myself and my wife to spend some time on the Berghof. At that time I innocently believed that Hitler wished to bridge the gap between us and to let me know, in one way or another, that he had gone too far. In any case, at the end of a 3 days’ visit—I cut my stay short—I discovered that this was a fundamental error on my part. Here I will limit myself to a few points only. I had intended—and I also carried out my intention—to mention at least three points during my visit. One was the policy toward Russia, the second was the Jewish question, and the third was Hitler’s attitude toward Vienna.
I must state, to begin with, that Bormann had issued a decree addressed to me, and probably to all the other Gauleiters, prohibiting any intervention on our part in the Jewish question. That is to say, we could not intervene with Hitler in favor of any Jew or half-Jew. That too was stated in the decree. I have to mention this, since it makes matters clearer.
On the first evening of my stay at the Berghof, on what appeared to me a propitious occasion, I told Hitler that I was of the opinion that a free and autonomous Ukraine would serve the Reich better than a Ukraine ruled by the violence of Herr Koch. That was all I said, nothing more, nothing less. Knowing Hitler as I did, it was extremely difficult even to hazard such a remark. Hitler answered comparatively quietly but with pronounced sharpness. On the same evening, or possibly the next one, the Jewish question was broached according to a plan I made with my wife. Since I was forbidden to mention these things even in conversation, my wife gave the Führer a description of an experience she had had in Holland. She had witnessed one night, from the bedroom of her hotel, the deportation of Jewish women by the Gestapo. We were both of the opinion that this experience during her journey and the description of it might possibly result in a change of Hitler’s attitude toward the entire Jewish question and in the treatment of the Jews. My wife gave a very drastic description, a description such as we can now read in the papers. Hitler was silent. All the other witnesses to this conversation, including my own father-in-law, Professor Hoffmann, were also silent. The silence was icy, and after a short time Hitler merely said, “This is pure sentimentality.” That was all. No further conversation took place that evening. Hitler retired earlier than usual. I was under the impression that a perfectly untenable situation had now arisen. Then the men of Hitler’s entourage told my father-in-law that from now on I would have to fear for my safety. I endeavored to get away from the Berghof as quickly as possible without letting matters come to an open break, but I did not succeed.
Then Goebbels arrived on the next evening and there, in my presence and without my starting it, the subject of Vienna was broached. I was naturally compelled to protest against the statements which Goebbels at first made about the Viennese. Then the Führer began with, I might say, incredible and unlimited hatred to speak against the people of Vienna. I have to admit, here and now, that even if the people of Vienna are cursing me today, I have always felt very friendly toward them. I have felt closely attached to those people. I will not say more than that Joseph Weinheber was one of my closest friends. During that discussion, I, in accordance with my duty and my feelings, spoke in favor of the people under my authority in Vienna.
At 4 o’clock in the morning, among other things, Hitler suddenly said, something which I should now like to repeat for historical reasons. He said, “Vienna should never have been admitted into the Union of Greater Germany.” Hitler never loved Vienna. He hated its people. I believe that he had a liking for the city because he appreciated the architectural design of the buildings on the Ring. But everybody who knows Vienna knows that the true Vienna is architecturally Gothic, and that the buildings on the Ring are not really representative.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I consider that this subject has little to do with the Indictment—please adhere to the Indictment.
VON SCHIRACH: I shall now conclude. I only want to say that so total a break resulted from that discussion—or, rather explosion—of Hitler’s that on that very night at about 0430 I took my leave and left the Berghof a few hours later. Since then I had no further conversations with Hitler.
I must now refer to something else in this connection. Reich Marshal Göring, in the witness box, mentioned a letter of mine which Hitler had shown him, and Herr Von Ribbentrop has stated here that he was present at a conversation during which Himmler suggested to Hitler that I be indicted before the People’s Court, which meant in reality that I should be hanged. I must add one thing more: What Göring said about this letter is mainly true. I wrote in quite a proper manner about family relations in that letter. I also wrote one sentence to the effect that I considered war with America a disaster.
DR. SAUTER: When was that letter written?
VON SCHIRACH: 1943, shortly after my stay at the Berghof. That statement contained nothing special, since Hitler even without...
THE PRESIDENT: He hasn’t given the date of his stay at the Berghof yet.
DR. SAUTER: He has said 1943, Mr. President. He has just said 1943.
THE PRESIDENT: There are 12 months in 1943.
DR. SAUTER: I believe you ought to give us the month.
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the conversation on the Berghof was in the spring, and that the letter, though I cannot tell you precisely when, was written in the summer.
DR. SAUTER: Summer of 1943?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, 1943; but I could not say precisely when the letter was written. The letter was correct. It was written by hand, and no secretary read it. It went by courier to the head of the State.
DR. SAUTER: To Hitler personally?
VON SCHIRACH: To Hitler. It is also possible that it was addressed in care of Bormann. I cannot remember exactly. It went by courier, and that letter contained nothing else but the clarification required for replying to questions put to me in a circular which Göring mentioned in his statement here. That letter caused Hitler to have an absolute loathing for me; and at about the same time a file was started against me in the Reich Security Main Office. That was due to the fact that I had described in a small circle of political leaders—of high-ranking political leaders—the foreign political situation such as I saw it, as I was accustomed to do from the days of my youth. One of these leaders was an SS intelligence officer and reported what I said, and then the file was started. The material was compiled in order to eventually bring me to trial. That I was never brought to trial I owe solely and exclusively to the circumstance that both in the Army and at home my comrades from the Youth Leadership stood solidly behind me, and any proceedings against me would have led to trouble. After 20 July 1944 my situation became very precarious. My friends in the Army, therefore, placed a company of hand-picked men at my disposal. They were under the orders of the former adjutant of Generaloberst Fromm. The company was directly subordinate to me. It took over the protection of my person and remained with me to the end.
DR. SAUTER: Was that company of the Wehrmacht, which you have just mentioned, placed at your disposal in place of the police protection previously afforded you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have to refer once more to your Vienna speech of September 1942. In that speech you speak of the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to the Eastern ghetto. You did not speak about the extermination or the murder of the Jews. When did you discover that Hitler’s plan aimed at extermination or destruction?
VON SCHIRACH: Counsel, if I at that time had known anything about the destruction—that is the extermination of the Jews—I would not be sitting here today. As far as I can recall, I heard about an extermination of the Jews for the first time through the following incident.
Dr. Ross came to see me...
DR. SAUTER: Who?
VON SCHIRACH: Dr. Colin Ross came to Vienna in 1944 and told me that he had received information, via the foreign press, that mass murders of Jews had been perpetrated on a large scale in the East. I then attempted to find out all I could. What I did discover was that in the Warthegau executions of Jews were carried out in gas vans. These shootings in the East...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, what was the Gau that he spoke of? The Wart Gau?
DR. SAUTER: The Warthegau, My Lord.
VON SCHIRACH: The Warthegau.
DR. SAUTER: That is a Gau, a district on the Polish border. That is an area in the east of Germany,—W-a-r-t-h-e-g-a-u—in the west of Poland, near Silesia.
Please, Witness, will you continue briefly:
VON SCHIRACH: The executions, the shootings on Russian territory, mentioned in the documents submitted in the course of the cross-examination in the Kaltenbrunner case, were not known to me at that time. But at a later date—it was before 1944—I heard about shootings in the ghettos of the Russian area and connected this with developments on the front, since I thought of possible armed uprisings in the ghettos. I knew nothing of the organized annihilation which has been described to us in the Trial.
DR. SAUTER: Then, if I have heard you correctly, you were informed about these events for the first time in 1944 by your friend, Dr. Colin Ross, who knew it from reports in the foreign papers?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Do you still remember the month?
VON SCHIRACH: That I cannot say.
DR. SAUTER: In any case it would be in 1944?
VON SCHIRACH: That again I cannot say. But I believe I have to explain something more about it. I asked myself what can one do to prevent it? And I still ask myself, day after day, what did I do to prevent it? I can only answer practically nothing, since from 1943 on I was politically dead. Beyond what I had attempted in 1943 on the Berghof, I could do nothing at all.
DR. SAUTER: Nothing?
VON SCHIRACH: Nothing.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should in this connection like to ask you a question of principle. You admitted yesterday that you had become an anti-Semite—and that is according to your conception—in your very early youth. You have, in the interim, heard the testimony of Hoess, the Auschwitz commander, who informed us that in that camp alone, I believe, 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 innocent people, mostly Jews, had been done to death. What, today, does the name of Auschwitz convey to you?
VON SCHIRACH: It is the greatest, the most devilish mass murder known to history. But that murder was not committed by Hoess; Hoess was merely the executioner. The murder was ordered by Adolf Hitler, as is obvious from his last will and testament. The will is genuine. I have held the photostat copy of that will in my hands. He and Himmler jointly committed that crime which, for all time, will be a stain in the annals of our history. It is a crime which fills every German with shame.
The youth of Germany is guiltless. Our youth was anti-Semitically inclined, but it did not call for the extermination of Jewry. It neither realized nor imagined that Hitler had carried out this extermination by the daily murder of thousands of innocent people. The youth of Germany who, today, stand perplexed among the ruins of their native land, knew nothing of these crimes, nor did they desire them. They are innocent of all that Hitler has done to the Jewish and to the German people.
I should like to say the following in connection with Hoess’ case. I have educated this generation in faith and loyalty to Hitler. The Youth Organization which I built up bore his name. I believed that I was serving a leader who would make our people and the youth of our country great and happy and free. Millions of young people believed this, together with me, and saw their ultimate ideal in National Socialism. Many died for it. Before God, before the German nation, and before my German people I alone bear the guilt of having trained our young people for a man whom I for many long years had considered unimpeachable, both as a leader and as the head of the State, of creating for him a generation who saw him as I did. The guilt is mine in that I educated the youth of Germany for a man who murdered by the millions. I believed in this man, that is all I can say for my excuse and for the characterization of my attitude. This is my own—my own personal guilt. I was responsible for the youth of the country. I was placed in authority over the young people, and the guilt is mine alone. The younger generation is guiltless. It grew up in an anti-Semitic state, ruled by anti-Semitic laws. Our youth was bound by these laws and saw nothing criminal in racial politics. But if anti-Semitism and racial laws could lead to an Auschwitz, then Auschwitz must mark the end of racial politics and the death of anti-Semitism. Hitler is dead. I never betrayed him; I never tried to overthrow him; I remained true to my oath as an officer, a youth leader, and an official. I was no blind collaborator of his; neither was I an opportunist. I was a convinced National Socialist from my earliest days—as such, I was also an anti-Semite. Hitler’s racial policy was a crime which led to disaster for 5,000,000 Jews and for all the Germans. The younger generation bears no guilt. But he who, after Auschwitz, still clings to racial politics has rendered himself guilty.
That is what I consider my duty to state in connection with the Hoess case.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, is this perhaps a convenient moment to break off?
THE PRESIDENT: How long is the defendant’s examination going to continue, Dr. Sauter?
DR. SAUTER: I believe it will take about 1 hour.
THE PRESIDENT: I did not hear that.
DR. SAUTER: I believe it will take about one more hour—an hour at the most. Did you hear me, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I hear you now. We have been hearing you for a very long time now.
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, after this declaration by the Defendant Von Schirach I would gladly dispense with all further questions, but the Prosecution have brought definite accusations against this defendant and I fear that, if he does not briefly voice an opinion on the subject, these accusations would be considered as tacitly accepted. I shall try to be as brief as possible.
Witness, you have just described the impressions you had gathered from the proceedings of the Tribunal. Have you yourself ever visited a concentration camp?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: When, and for what reason?
VON SCHIRACH: As the witness Höllriegel has testified before this Tribunal, I visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1942. The testimony given by another witness, Marsalek, to the effect that this visit took place in 1944, is incorrect. I also mentioned it when I was interned, in June 1945 and in the course of my preliminary interrogation in Nuremberg.
DR. SAUTER: Prior to Höllriegel’s testimony?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through “interned in June 1940.” Is that right?
DR. SAUTER: 1945, Herr Von Schirach, not 1940?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I went into voluntary internment in 1945.
DR. SAUTER: Then you can confidently state that you visited Mauthausen in 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: For what reason and how...
VON SCHIRACH: There had been a session...
DR. SAUTER: Just one moment...
THE PRESIDENT: What does he mean by “voluntary internment”?
DR. SAUTER: The Defendant Von Schirach was, at that time, living in the Tyrol under an assumed name, and in the place where he lived—perhaps Defendant Schirach can himself, but very briefly, tell us how this voluntary internment came about.
VON SCHIRACH: I was then still at liberty and I sent a letter, through my adjutant, to the local American commander, stating that I should like to surrender voluntarily in order to be tried by an Allied court. That was in June 1945. The CIC officer who later discovered where I lived told me that I might have stayed there a good time longer. I personally am convinced that I could have remained in hiding there, and elsewhere, for years—as long as I wished.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Von Schirach, we shall now revert to your visit to Mauthausen, which you said with certainty and under oath took place in 1942. Is this right?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe the date given by witness Höllriegel is correct. I quite definitely know that the date given by Marsalek is not correct.
DR. SAUTER: Then it was not in 1944?
VON SCHIRACH: Probably 1942. I therefore confirm Höllriegel’s testimony. There was a meeting at Linz at which various departments of the Ostmark participated. There were conferences on economic or agrarian problems, and in the late afternoon we went to Mauthausen Concentration Camp at the request of Gauleiter Eigruber. At the time I was rather surprised that the Gauleiter was even in a position to invite us there. I assumed that he had previously been in touch with the SS offices, and that the reason for Eigruber’s invitation was that he wished to erect a rifle factory or something of the kind there. At any rate, though I can no longer remember exactly, it was somehow connected with the production of the Steyr Works.
DR. SAUTER: Who showed you about and what did you see?
VON SCHIRACH: We were shown about by the camp commandant.
DR. SAUTER: Whose name was?
VON SCHIRACH: His name—as has already been mentioned here—was Ziereis, or something of the kind.
DR. SAUTER: SS leader?
VON SCHIRACH: SS Camp Commandant. And I should now like to give you my first impressions. The camp area was very large. I immediately asked how many internees there were. I believe I was told 15,000 or 20,000. At any rate, the figure varied between 15,000 and 20,000. I asked what kind of internees were imprisoned there and received the reply I was always given whenever I inquired about concentration camps—namely, that two-thirds of the inmates were dangerous criminals collected from the prisons and penitentiaries and brought to work in the camp; that the remaining third was allegedly composed of political prisoners and people guilty of high treason and betrayal of their country, who, it is a fact, are treated with exceptional severity in wartime.
DR. SAUTER: Did you, in this camp, convince yourself as to the nature of the treatment meted out to the prisoners, accommodations, the food situation, et cetera?
VON SCHIRACH: I witnessed one food distribution and gained the impression that, for camp conditions, the food ration was both normal and adequate. I then visited the large quarry, once famous and now notorious, where the construction stone for Vienna had been quarried for centuries. There was no work going on at the quarry since the working day had come to an end, but I did, however, visit the works where the stone was cut. I saw a building with an exceptionally well-equipped dental clinic. This clinic was shown to me because I had questioned Ziereis about the medical assistance afforded in the camp. I would add that, during this visit, I asked in general the same questions which I had been used to ask during all my visits to the camps of the youth organizations—that is, questions pertaining to food, medical aid, the number of people in the camp, et cetera.
I was then taken to a large room in which music was being played by the prisoners. They had gathered together quite a large symphony orchestra, and I was told that on holiday evenings they could amuse themselves, each man according to his own tastes. In this case, for instance, the prisoners who wished to make music assembled in that room. A tenor was singing on that occasion—I remember that particularly.
I then inquired about the mortality rate and was shown a room with three corpses in it. I cannot tell you here and now, under oath, whether I saw any crematorium or not. Marsalek has testified to that effect. I would not, however, have been surprised if there had been a crematorium or a cemetery in so large a place, so far removed from the city. That would be a matter of course.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Von Schirach, during this official visit under the guidance of Camp Commandant Ziereis, did you discover anything at all about any ill-treatment, or atrocities, or of the tortures which were allegedly inflicted in the camp? You can answer the question briefly—possibly with “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: Had that been the case, I would of course have endeavored to do something about it. But I was under the impression that everything was in order. I looked at the inmates, for instance, and I remember seeing, among others, the famous middle-distance runner Peltzer, who was known as a sexual pervert. He had been punished because he had, on innumerable occasions, freely committed sexual offences against youths in his charge in a country school.
I asked Ziereis, “How does one ever get out of these concentration camps? Do you also release people continuously?” In reply he had four or five inmates brought to me who, according, to him, were to be released the very next day. He asked them in my presence, “Have you packed everything, and have you prepared everything for your release?”—to which, beaming with joy, they answered, “Yes.”
DR. SAUTER: Witness, can you remember whether on this occasion you also asked Camp Commander Ziereis whether political prisoners from your Vienna district—that is, from the city of Vienna—were interned in the camp? And did you then have a group of political prisoners from Vienna brought before you?
VON SCHIRACH: You have already, Counsel, put this question to me during an interview, and I can only tell you the following under oath: I cannot remember, but you may take it for granted that, on an occasion of this kind, I would certainly ask after prisoners from my own Gau. But I cannot remember. Herr Marsalek mentioned it in his testimony, and I consider it probable.
I should, in connection with this visit, like to add the following: I have always been rather hampered in my recollections of Mauthausen...
DR. SAUTER: What hampered you?
VON SCHIRACH: After May 1945 I heard innumerable radio reports on Mauthausen and other concentration camps, and I read everything I could lay my hands on in the way of written reports about Mauthausen—everything that appeared in the press—and I always pondered on the question, “Did you see anything there which might have pointed to a mass destruction of human beings?” I was, for instance, reading the other day about running belts for the conveyance of corpses. I did not see them.
I must add that I also visited Dachau; I must not forget that. In 1935, together with the entire Party leadership group, I paid a visit to Dachau from Munich. This visit was a result of the objections against existing preventive custody measures expressed by certain political leaders to the Deputy of the Führer Hess who, in turn, passed these objections on to Himmler who subsequently sent out an invitation to inspect Dachau. I believe that there were, at that time, 800 or 1,000 internees at Dachau.
I did not participate in the entire official visit for I was conversing with some of the Gauleiter who were being shown about the camp. I saw quite excellent living quarters at Dachau and, because the subject interested me particularly, I was shown the building which housed the camp library. I saw that there were also good medical facilities. Then—and I believe this fact is worthy of mention—after the visit I spoke with many Gau- and Reichsleiter about the impression they had formed of Dachau. All impressions gained were to the effect that all doubts as to Himmler’s preventive custody measures were definitely dispersed, and everybody said that the internees in the camp were, on the whole, better accommodated than they would have been in a state prison. Such was my impression of Dachau in 1935, and I must say that ever since that visit my mind was far more at ease regarding conditions in the concentration camps. In conclusion, I feel I must add the following:
Up to the moment of the final collapse I firmly believed that we had 20,000 people in the Mauthausen Camp, 10,000 at Oranienburg and Dachau—two more large camps whose existence was known to me and one of which I had visited—and possibly 10,000 more at Buchenwald, near Weimar, a camp I knew by name but which I had never visited. I therefore concluded that we had roughly 50,000 people in the German camps, of which I firmly believed that two-thirds were habitual criminals, convicts, and sexual perverts, and one-third consisted of political prisoners. And I had arrived at this conclusion primarily because I myself have never sent a single soul to the concentration camps and nourished the illusion that others had acted as I did. I could not even imagine, when I heard of it—immediately after the collapse—that hundreds of thousands of people in Germany were considered political offenders.
There is something else to be said on the whole question of the concentration camps. The poet Hans Carossa has deposed an affidavit for me, and this affidavit contains a passage about a publisher whom I had liberated from a concentration camp. I wish to mention this because it is one of many typical cases where one exerted one’s entire influence to have a man freed from a concentration camp, but then he never tells you afterwards how he fared in the camp. In the course of the years, I have received many letters from people having relatives in the concentration camps. By establishing, in Vienna, a fixed day on which audience was granted to anybody from the population who wished to speak to me, I was able to talk to thousands of people from every class and standing.
On one such occasion I was approached by someone who requested me personally to free some friend or relative in a concentration camp. In cases like that I usually wrote a letter to the Reich Security Main Office—at first to Herr Heydrich and later to Herr Kaltenbrunner—and after some time I would be informed that the internee in question had or had not been released, according to the gravity of the charges brought against him. But the internees released never told me their experiences in the camp. One never saw anybody who had been ill-treated in the camps, and that is why I myself, and many others in Germany with me, was never able to visualize conditions in the concentration camps at all.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, this affidavit of the poet Hans Carossa, just mentioned by the defendant, is Document Number Schirach 3(a). I repeat, Schirach 3(a) of the Schirach document book. It is a sworn affidavit by the poet Carossa, and I ask the Tribunal to put the entire contents of the document into the evidence. In the last paragraph, mention is made of the case about which the defendant has just been speaking—that is, the liberation of a publisher named Suhrkamp from a concentration camp.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got the page of it?
DR. SAUTER: Page 25 of the document book, Document Number Schirach 3(a)—Hans Carossa. The remainder of this document deals with the humane impression Dr. Carossa received of the defendant, and with Defendant Von Schirach’s solicitude for the victims of political persecution.
Witness, how many concentration camps did you know anything about?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just enumerated them: Oranienburg, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen.
DR. SAUTER: Was there a concentration camp in your own Gau?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with this entire group of questions on the treatment of the Jews, I turn to orders allegedly issued in your presence to the camp commandant of Mauthausen in March 1945. It is Document Number 3870-PS, submitted by the Prosecution. According to this document, Himmler in March 1945 is supposed to have issued a directive to the effect that the Jews from the Southeast Wall were to be sent on foot to Mauthausen. Did you have anything at all to do with this?
VON SCHIRACH: I can tell you exactly from memory what Himmler said at that time.
Himmler came to Vienna towards the middle, or the end of March, to talk to the Commander of Army Group South. On this occasion—the Commander of Army Group South was, of course, not stationed in Vienna, he had ordered all the Reichsstatthalter of the Ostmark up to Vienna and granted them full authority to enforce martial law in the future, since Vienna and some of the other Ostmark Gaue had by that time become almost front-line zones. At this conference Himmler told his adjutant to call Ziereis in, while the papers for full powers were being typed in the next room. That is how I came to meet Ziereis for the second time in my life.
And now Himmler did not, as Marsalek said, tell Ziereis that the Jews were to be marched on foot from the Southeast Wall to Mauthausen, but he did say something else which surprised me enormously. He said:
“I want the Jews now employed in industry to be taken by boat, or by bus if possible, under the most favorable food conditions and with medical care, et cetera, to Linz or Mauthausen.”
I do not quite remember whether he said they should be taken to Mauthausen, but he also said to Ziereis:
“Please take care of these Jews and treat them well; they are my most valuable assets.”
From this declaration I assumed, in the very beginning—it was my very first, fleeting impression—that Himmler wished to deceive me in some way or another, and then it became clear to me that with these instructions he was following certain foreign political intentions, in the last moments of the war, in emphasizing the excellent treatment of the Jews.
What Marsalek therefore said about making them go on foot is not correct. As I have already mentioned, Himmler, under all circumstances, wanted the best possible treatment to be given to the Jews. I gained the impression—and later on it was confirmed by other things we heard—that he wished, at the last minute, to somehow redeem himself with this treatment of the Jews.
DR. SAUTER: That was the end of March 1945?
VON SCHIRACH: That was the end of March 1945, on the occasion when authority to apply martial law was granted to the Statthalter of the Ostmark.
DR. SAUTER: Therefore, immediately before the collapse?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with your activities in Vienna there is also an accusation, Witness, brought against you by the Prosecution, to the effect that you participated in the persecution of the Church. This accusation is supported exclusively as far as I can see by Document Number R-146. I repeat, R-146, which has already been submitted by the Prosecution.
This, Witness, is a letter addressed by the witness, Dr. Lammers, who has been heard before the Tribunal, to the Reich Minister of the Interior, dated 14 March 1941, and further, a circular from Bormann, addressed to all the Gauleiter, dated 20 March 1941.
I should like to hear your comments on both of these letters, especially since Dr. Lammers’ letter speaks of property belonging to enemies of the people and the state, whereas in Bormann’s circular of 20 March 1941 mention is made of the confiscation of Church property—monastic property—et cetera. Do you know what led to these letters, and what part did you yourself play in the matter?
VON SCHIRACH: The document written by Dr. Lammers is correct. Bormann’s covering letter referred to Church property; I referred to property belonging to enemies of the people and the State, for that was a technical expression at the time. I should like to mention in this matter that when I came to Vienna in 1940 the confiscation of such property was already in full swing; an argument had arisen on the subject between the Gauleiter and the Reich Minister for Finance. The Reich Minister for Finance wanted the confiscated property taken over by the Reich, while I considered that this property should remain fundamentally the possession of the Gaue.
So far as I can remember, I was involved in this question only through the following confiscations: Prince Schwarzenberg possessed property, the greater part of which lay in the region of the Upper Danube; the smaller part was the famous Vienna Palace. Now this Prince Schwarzenberg had refused, in the presence of some German consul general, or consul abroad, to return to Germany and serve in the Army. Thereupon his property was confiscated. In the interest of the Reich I endeavored to maintain this property for the Vienna Reich Gau and to prevent it from passing over to the Reich. I have no files before me, so I cannot from memory give you any information about other, similar actions.
I am not responsible for confiscations in the other Austrian Gaue. But I may state one thing here—namely, that I put an end to all confiscations throughout the entire Reich. When, through an intermediary, women from an Austrian convent appealed to me for help, I asked my father-in-law to act behind Bormann’s back and explain to Hitler the disastrous political effects which these confiscations would have and to beg him to issue a direct order for their suppression. This was achieved, and when the order was put through, Bormann turned against my father-in-law as well. From then on I never had any further opportunity to bring this question to the Führer’s notice.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have not, so far, quite explained your attitude toward Dr. Lammers’ letter of 14 March 1941. To refresh your memory I should like to read out the first sentence of that letter. This letter of Lammers’ dated 14 March 1941, Document Number R-146, states, and I quote:
“The Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter Von Schirach, together with Dr. Jury and Eigruber, has recently complained to the Führer that the Reich Minister for Finance is still of the opinion that the seizure of property belonging to enemies of the state and people should be effected in favor of the Reich, and not in favor of the Reich Gau.”
Thus runs the quotation.
And because of this incident the Prosecution have accused you of participating in the persecution of the Church in Vienna. I must request you to tell us what you really did do in the matter.
VON SCHIRACH: Well, the Church in Vienna had actually been persecuted under my predecessor, Bürckel, and this can be proved. I mentioned yesterday the demonstrations before the Archbishop’s Palace. But from the day of my arrival in Vienna, anti-Church demonstrations in the nature of a political agitation no longer took place. Immediately upon my arrival I gathered all the political officials and all my other colleagues of the Gau and demanded that they should never, either in writing or by word of mouth, express anything likely to offend the religious sentiments of other people. I believe that this is a fact which was gratefully noted by the entire population of Vienna. From that day on there were no further actions against the Church. Just how much Church property, though, was called in in compliance with the law for special war contributions, a law which likewise applied to other property—I cannot tell you without documentary evidence.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we can see from this document that you must have spoken on the subject to Hitler personally...
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: ...because it states that the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter Von Schirach complained to Hitler on the subject. You have not said anything to us about that so far.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I myself, during a visit by Hitler to Vienna where he signed a southeast pact, told him I was of the opinion that the property confiscated belonged to the Gaue and not to the Reich. That was my point of view and one which I believed to be entirely correct.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Indictment further accuses you of having had some kind of connection with the SS, thereby promoting the SS, et cetera. Were you yourself ever a member of the SS?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Did Himmler, the leader of the SS, have any influence over the youth organizations and over the education of the young people?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Were the replacements in the SS, especially in the SS Leadership Corps, recruited from the HJ, and if so, why?
VON SCHIRACH: The replacements in all the leadership corps in Germany were recruited from the youth. Our youth organization was a state institution. You now are probably referring to an agreement which I had with Himmler on the patrol services?
DR. SAUTER: Yes, that too plays a part in this connection.
VON SCHIRACH: Agreements of that sort...
DR. SAUTER: Just one more moment, Herr Von Schirach. This agreement is entered in the documents of the Prosecution as Number 2396-PS. I repeat 2396-PS, in which a special statement occurs—and I should appreciate your comments on the subject—to the effect that the SS received their replacements from the patrol service of the HJ, allegedly by an agreement of October 1938. Please tell us about it and explain to us what actually was this patrol service.
VON SCHIRACH: The patrol service was one of the special units of the HJ which I forgot to mention yesterday. The patrol service was a youth service for keeping order. It consisted of outstandingly decent lads who had no police duties—I now refer to documentary reports which I procured—but who had to supervise the general behavior of the young people, examine their uniforms, control the visits of the boys to the taverns; and it was their duty to inspect the HJ hostels for cleanliness and neatness, to supervise the hiking expeditions of the young people and the youth hostelries in the country. They stood guard and were on order duty at mass meetings and demonstrations. They watched over encampments and accompanied the convoys. They were employed in the search for youths who were lost. They gave advice to traveling youth, attended to station service, were supposed to protect young people from criminal elements, and, above all, to protect national property—that is, woods, fields, for instance—and to see that they were safe from fires, et cetera.
Since Himmler might make trouble for this section of the youth organization, I was interested in having the Police recognize my patrol service; for in my idea of the State youth as a youth state, the Police should not be employed against the youth, but these young people should keep order among themselves. That this principle was a sound one can be judged from the immense decline in juvenile delinquency from 1933 up to the outbreak of the war.
DR. SAUTER: Witness...
VON SCHIRACH: One moment, I have not yet finished. After this agreement...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Dr. Sauter, we have heard enough about this unit. The whole point of the document was that they were used for recruiting for the SS, wasn’t it? That is the complaint of the Prosecution.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, the patrol service...
THE PRESIDENT: We have heard, at considerable length the description of what they did in the way of the protection of the youth. Surely we have heard enough about that.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, these so-called special units were specially mentioned by the Prosecution as a means for preparation for war—that is, as a means for the military training of the young people. In this connection all these special units were mentioned, and therefore we considered it necessary that the defendant inform you what this patrol service really was. But I can, Mr. President, set this topic aside immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: We have heard what they were at some considerable length.
DR. SAUTER: Very well.
Witness, from which departments did the SS mainly recruit its leader replacements?
VON SCHIRACH: In order to assure its leader replacements, the SS founded its own training schools which were entirely outside my influence. They were the so-called National Socialist Training Institutes.
DR. SAUTER: In connection with the SS, the Prosecution, Witness, mentioned a further agreement between you and Reichsführer SS Himmler, an agreement of December 1938, submitted as Document Number 2567-PS, the so-called “Landdienst” of the HJ. Why was this agreement concluded with the Reichsführer SS?
VON SCHIRACH: It is very hard to give a brief answer. The Reichsführer SS was a farmer with an agronomical degree. In his student days he had belonged to the so-called “Artaman Movement,” whose program it was to prevent the flight from the land, and he was particularly keen to collaborate within the SS with the farm labor service groups of the HJ who were doing the same work as the “Artaman” groups in the past.
In conclusion, I should like to say about the “Landdienst” and the patrol service, that no coercion was ever brought to bear on the young people to enter the SS. Any lad from the patrol service was, of course, free to become a member of the SA or of the NSKK—and frequently did so—or else become a political leader just like any other boy from the farm labor service or the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Indictment states, inter alia, that a directive was addressed to the political leaders demanding that the Hitler Youth Leaders—that is, the leaders subordinate to you—be employed on their staffs. What can you say to that?
VON SCHIRACH: I can only say in reply that this is one of many attempts by the Party Chancellery to bring the Youth Leadership into the political leadership. The practical result of the directive was that a number of youth leaders were given insignificant duties as adjutants. They complained to me, and I withdrew them from these posts. It is a historical fact that in Germany there was no real flow of people from the youth organization into the political leadership. I can personally name those youth leaders who came into the political leadership, there were so few of them.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Soviet Prosecution have submitted a document, Document Number USSR-6, which is a report from the Lemberg Commission. Herein the following fact is mentioned. A French woman, Ida Vasseau, the head of an asylum for old people in Lemberg, testified in writing—I am only quoting the gist of the affidavit—that ghetto children were handed over as presents to the Hitler Youth and that these children were then used as living targets by the HJ for their drill practice. In all the time that you were active in the Reich Youth Leadership, did you ever hear of such misdemeanors or excesses?
VON SCHIRACH: No. We are dealing here with the first and, so far, the only accusation of crimes committed by the HJ which has been brought to my notice. There were no HJ commandos, either in the East or in the West, capable of committing such crimes. I consider the statements in this affidavit as absolutely untrue, and that is all I can say on the matter.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, in the course of his examination your fellow-Defendant, Dr. Schacht, mentioned that a suggestion had been made in his time to Mr. Eden, to divest the SS, the SA, and the HJ of their military character if the other powers would consent to disarm. What do you know of such proposals or negotiations?
VON SCHIRACH: I know of no such offer, as far as the Hitler Youth is concerned. I consider it entirely out of the question that any such offer could have been received by Mr. Eden regarding the HJ; for Hitler himself did not consider the HJ as a military or even a semimilitary organization. The disarming of the HJ could factually never have taken place since the only weapon carried by the Hitler Youth was the camping knife, the equivalent of a Boy Scout’s bowie knife of the Jungvolk Pimpfe (boys of 10-14 years of age).
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Prosecution further charge that you, in 1933, concluded an agreement with the VDA—an abbreviation for the “Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland.” Is that true? And what was your intention in concluding this agreement?
VON SCHIRACH: That is true. I do not wish to express an opinion on the aims and objects of the VDA. I believe that counsel for the Defendant Frick has already done so. I refer to these statements and merely state that it was my perfectly natural wish to incorporate in the HJ the numerically powerful group of lads belonging to the VDA. The majority of these youths, moreover, had graduated from the public schools, and it was my second intention to place some of my collaborators on the board of the VDA so as to be currently informed about the young people abroad.
DR. SAUTER: The Prosecution further accuse you of having founded the so-called Adolf Hitler Schools where the training of young leaders for the National Socialist State and for the Party was carried out. What have you to say to this accusation?
VON SCHIRACH: There is a lot that I could say about that accusation, but I shall limit myself to essential remarks only.
The Adolf Hitler Schools were founded as scholastic units of the HJ. They were founded with the means which Dr. Ley placed at my disposal when I told him of my plans for the training I had envisaged. These schools were not intended to train leaders for the Party exclusively but served to prepare the youth for all the professions. I myself often talked to these boys on their graduation and I always told them “You can choose any profession you like. Your training in this school carries no obligation, either moral or otherwise, to become a political leader.” De facto, relatively few political leaders emerged from the Adolf Hitler Schools. Very many of the boys became doctors, officials, et cetera. I cannot quote any figures from memory, but the communications I have received from the young people, including statements from teachers in the Adolf Hitler Schools, show their attitude towards this point of the Indictment. And I should like to ask that at least 50 to 60 of these numerous affidavits, which confirm all that I have said, be submitted in support of my declarations.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, one more question on a different topic. Did you ever receive any so-called endowment funds, or anything of that kind, from Hitler or from other sources?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I never received any endowment funds.
DR. SAUTER: Did you ever receive gifts in kind, such as valuable paintings or other costly gifts?
VON SCHIRACH: The only thing Hitler ever gave me was his photograph on the occasion of my thirtieth birthday.
DR. SAUTER: His photograph—presumably with a few words of dedication?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Now I have a few final, very brief questions to ask you—they refer to the last days of your activities in Vienna. You have already mentioned, in connection with Himmler’s visit to Vienna at the end of March 1945, that you had at that time received from Himmler the so-called authority for the proclamation of martial law. If I have understood you correctly, you, in your function of Reich Defense Commissioner, were authorized to convene a drumhead court martial?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and that made me lord of life and death.
DR. SAUTER: As far as I know, this drumhead court martial was only supposed to pass death sentences?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Did you ever convene this drumhead court martial in Vienna, and did you appoint the members?
VON SCHIRACH: I appointed the members of the court martial. An outstanding lawyer was the president. I never convened the drumhead court martial and I never once imposed a death sentence. If I remember rightly, the military court martial of the local military commandant passed four death sentences on four military traitors. My court martial never met and never passed a death sentence.
DR. SAUTER: Had you any connection with the military drumhead court martial?
VON SCHIRACH: No. The Vienna commandant was, of course, president of that particular court, and I was the head of court martial “Schirach.”
DR. SAUTER: You said you had a distinguished lawyer as your president?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What was his profession?
VON SCHIRACH: I think he was president of a district court, of something of the kind. I cannot quite remember; I have forgotten.
DR. SAUTER: So he was an official Viennese judge?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Did you give the order, in Vienna, to have certain vitally important factories either blown up or destroyed as so often happened in other Gaue, as for instance, here in Nuremberg?
VON SCHIRACH: No. It has escaped my knowledge, that much I must admit, how far crippling and destructive measures were executed in the military and armament sectors, pursuant to direct instructions from the Reich Government. For instance, the dynamiting of bridges was a military precaution. The order could never have emanated from me. Hitler reserved for himself the right to issue the orders for blowing up the bridges over the Danube. The Chief of Army Group South, Generaloberst Rendulic, prior to giving the order for blowing up these bridges, had to consult the Führer’s headquarters by telephone.
DR. SAUTER: When did you yourself leave Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: I left Gau Vienna after the withdrawal of the last troops from the city and after the command post of the 2d corps of the 6th SS Panzer Army had been moved to the region of the Lower Danube.
DR. SAUTER: When was that?
VON SCHIRACH: That was—sorry, I cannot remember the date offhand. It was toward the end of the battle for Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: And now I have one last question to ask you. You know that the order went out from the Party Leadership and from circles of the Reich Chancellery to stage a “Werewolf” movement for fighting the advancing troops. What was your attitude towards this movement?
VON SCHIRACH: I prohibited any Werewolf organization in my Gau, but to avoid misunderstandings I must tell you that there was a youth battalion, a Volkssturm battalion, which bore the name of “Werewolf,” but there was no Werewolf unit. I invariably refused, both for the young people and the adults, permission to participate in any form of combat contrary to the decrees of international law.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other member of the defendants’ counsel want to ask any questions?
DR. ALFRED THOMA (Counsel for Defendant Rosenberg): Witness, what was the attitude of Rosenberg, as the Führer’s Plenipotentiary for the Ideological Education of the Party, toward the Reich Youth Leadership?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the Chief of the Department for Ideological Education in the Reich Youth Leadership had to attend, on an average, two, perhaps three, meetings per annum, also attended by educational leaders from other Party organizations. These meetings took place under the chairmanship of Reichsleiter Rosenberg. On these occasions, as I have been told by the chief of the department, Rosenberg was wont to lay down general instructions and directives and ask for reports on the educational work of the individual organizations.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg select specific subjects to be lectured on at these meetings?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know for certain. At these meetings of the Youth Leadership representatives, at which Rosenberg spoke once a year, he usually selected educational themes, themes dealing with character training. He would, for instance, speak about solitude and comradeship and, as far as I remember, about personality, honor, et cetera.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg at these meetings mention the Jewish problem and the confessional question?
VON SCHIRACH: During these Youth Leadership sessions he never made any speeches against the Jews, nor did he, as far as I can remember, ever touch on the subject of the confession—at least, not in my presence. I usually heard him speak on subjects such as I have just enumerated.
DR. THOMA: Witness, did you read Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century? And if so, when?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I began to read it, but I did not read the whole book.
DR. THOMA: Did this Rosenberg’s Myth make any impression on the young people or did other leaders have experiences similar to your own?
VON SCHIRACH: The youth leaders certainly did not read the Myth of the Twentieth Century.
DR. THOMA: I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defendant’s counsel want to ask questions? Or perhaps we had better adjourn now.