Morning Session
[The Defendant Von Schirach resumed the stand.]
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I would like to make certain that I did offer the following documents in evidence: 3914-PS, which becomes USA-863; 3943-PS, USA-864; and 3877-PS, USA-865.
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, at the close of the session on Friday we had just handed to you a copy of the teletype message to Martin Bormann. I had read it to you over this transmission system. I wish to ask you now if you sent that message to Bormann.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I dispatched that teletype message, and I should like to give an explanation in this connection. First...
MR. DODD: May I interrupt you just for a minute and ask that for the little while that we will be talking today, that you wait just a minute after your answer. I think it would help a little bit with the interpreting. I do not think we will have any trouble this morning. I will try to do the same thing, and perhaps we will work a little better together.
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, then, I want to explain why I addressed Bormann with “Du,” in the friendly form. Bormann and I come from the same town; I knew him from Weimar, but only slightly. And when in 1928 or ’29 he came to Munich, he paid me a visit, and because he was the elder of us he suggested to me that we should call one another “Du.” We maintained that form until 1943, when on his own initiative he dropped it and addressed me in his letters only with “Sie.”
Now, the text of this teletype message: We were in the third year of the war; the Czech population both in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in Vienna had remained perfectly quiet; in the Protectorate conditions were almost like those in peacetime. I had a very large Czech population in Vienna, and as a result of the attempt on Heydrich’s life I feared that in the Protectorate there might be unrest which would no doubt have serious repercussions in Vienna. This was the time when German troops were advancing on the peninsula of Kerch; it was a time when we could not afford to have anything happen behind our front. And simultaneously with the news of the murder of the Protector I received official notification that the attempt, as is mentioned in this document, had been carried out by British agents and with British weapons.
During the same month we heard, and it was also mentioned in the Wehrmacht communiqués, that British bombers had bombed residential areas in Hamburg and Paris and had attacked German cultural sites at Kiel. And so I suggested a reprisal measure to establish before the world British guilt in this attempt and to prevent serious unrest in Czechoslovakia. That is all I have to say. This teletype message is genuine.
May I at this point also comment on a difficulty of translation which occurred during the last cross-examination on Friday? The German word “Retter” was at that time translated into the English “savior.” It is an expression which I used in my book when I described the Führer as a “Retter,” and the difficulty lies in the translation of that word into English: it can only be translated into English as “savior.” But retranslated into German, “savior” means “Heiland.” In order to make quite clear what the German “Retter” is meant to express in English, I should have to use an explanatory phrase. If I say that the exact translation is “rescuer,” then the real meaning of the word “Retter” is clearly set forth; and there is nothing blasphemous in the comparison or the description of the head of the State as a “rescuer.” But if I had written in German that the head of the State was a “Heiland,” then, of course, that would be blasphemy.
THE PRESIDENT: This sort of explanation should be kept for re-examination. It is not a matter which ought to interrupt the cross-examination.
MR. DODD: Now, I have only one or two questions to ask you in addition about this message.
Were you thinking of some particular cultural city in Britain, like Cambridge, Oxford, Stratford, Canterbury?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I had no definite plan in mind. I thought that one ought to choose an objective corresponding to the sites hit by British bombers in Germany.
MR. DODD: As long as it was a cultural city. Were you thinking of what happened in Germany or of what happened to Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: I was thinking of the cultural buildings in Germany which had been attacked, and I wanted to suggest this as an opportunity to make clear unmistakably that the murder of Heydrich had not been committed by the Czech population but by the Czech emigrants in London with British support. This retaliation in the third year of the war was to be a reply both to the attempt against Heydrich and to the attacks on German cultural monuments.
MR. DODD: You did not make any reference in this telegram to any so-called or alleged bombings of cultural objects in Germany, did you?
VON SCHIRACH: The Wehrmacht communiqués had already announced them, and they were generally known.
MR. DODD: That is not what I asked you. I asked if it is not a fact that in this teletype you made no reference at all to the alleged bombing of cultural objects in Germany, nor did you relate your suggestion for the bombing of a cultural town in England to any alleged cultural bombing in Germany, but rather, you made it perfectly clear that you wanted to strike at a cultural town in England because of what had happened to Heydrich. That is so, is it not?
VON SCHIRACH: It was not at all necessary for me to point to the bombing of German cultural sites. It was a fact known to the entire German population from the daily attacks of British bombers.
MR. DODD: I suppose by this time you knew very well the general reputation of Heydrich, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not correct. I considered Heydrich in this particular case as the representative of the Reich in Bohemia and Moravia and not as the Chief of the Gestapo.
MR. DODD: Did you know his general reputation in Germany at least at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: I knew that he was the Chief of the Gestapo. I did not know that he had committed the atrocities which have meanwhile become known.
MR. DODD: You had no knowledge that he was considered “the terror of the Gestapo”?
VON SCHIRACH: That is an expression which enemy propaganda used against him.
MR. DODD: You mean you still think it is propaganda?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, was it through enemy propaganda that you heard that he was called a terror before he was killed in 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not want to say that...
MR. DODD: How did you know it?
VON SCHIRACH: I merely want to state here that for me the Reich Protector Heydrich was during this third year of the war a person other than the Chief of the Gestapo. This was a political matter.
MR. DODD: You did not content yourself with this suggestion to bomb England, did you? Do you recall what else you suggested not long afterwards?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not know.
MR. DODD: Do you recall anything that you either suggested or did by way of further so-called retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I have no recollection.
MR. DODD: You suggested evacuating all the Czechs out of Vienna, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: This is a suggestion which did not originate with me personally, but which goes back to a remark about Vienna which the Führer himself had made in 1940 while I was reporting to him at his headquarters. I think I already mentioned during my own testimony that he said, “Vienna must become a German city and the Jews and Czechs must gradually be evacuated from Vienna.” I already said that during my own testimony here.
MR. DODD: My question is: Is it not a fact that a few days after the assassination of Heydrich you suggested the evacuation of the Czechs from Vienna as a retaliatory measure for the assassination of Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of it, but it is possible that in the excitement of this event, which disquieted me greatly, I said something like that.
MR. DODD: I suggest that you take a look at Document 3886-PS, which becomes USA-866, Mr. President.
Now, this document consists of excerpts from the record of a meeting of the Vienna City Council on 6 June 1942, as you will see on Page 9 of the original. You were present, and according to these notes, you spoke as Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach and, moving down towards the bottom of that page, you will find this statement:
“Finally, he”—meaning you—“disclosed that already in the latter part of summer or in the fall of this year all Jews would be removed from the city, and that the removal of the Czechs would then get under way, since this is the necessary and right answer to the crime committed against the Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.”
Do you remember saying that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no exact recollection, but I consider that these records here are genuine, and they probably represent the sense of what I said at the time. I was very much perturbed by Heydrich’s death. I was afraid of serious trouble in Bohemia and Moravia, and I expressed my fears. The essential thing is that after calm consideration of this plan I dropped it, and did nothing more about it.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, I think it is perfectly clear—and I ask you if you do not agree—that you made two suggestions at least: one for the bombing of a cultural English town and the other for the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Vienna, because of the assassination of this man Heydrich.
VON SCHIRACH: It is true that I put the idea of such an evacuation of the Czechs into words. It is equally true, and a historical fact, that I dropped the idea and that it was never carried out. It is correct that I suggested the bombing of a British cultural site as an answer to the attempt against Heydrich and to the innumerable bombardments of German cultural places in the third year of the war, at a time when vital interests of the German people were at stake.
MR. DODD: Incidentally, Hitler also suggested the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Czechoslovakia as a punishment for the murder of Heydrich, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know.
MR. DODD: Now I want to turn to something else and see if we can get through here rather soon this morning. You recall that on Friday we talked a little bit about your relationship with the SS and with Himmler, and I want to ask you this morning if it is not a fact, Mr. Witness, that you worked very closely with Himmler and his SS from almost the earliest days right down to almost the last days of your regime in Vienna. I wish you would answer that question.
VON SCHIRACH: I should very much like to answer that question in great detail.
MR. DODD: It does not require great detail in the first answer, but later, if you feel that you have some necessary explanation, I am sure you will be permitted to do so. Will you tell the Tribunal first of all, rather, if it is not a fact that you did closely co-operate with Himmler and his SS from the earliest days of your public office to the very late days of your public office?
VON SCHIRACH: Close collaboration in the sense that Himmler had considerable influence upon education did not exist.
MR. DODD: Let us stop right there and inquire a little bit. Is it not a fact that Himmler assigned his SS personnel to your youth organization for the training purpose of your young people? You can answer that very simply. Did he or did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: For training purposes?
MR. DODD: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: I am not aware of anything like that. The fact that there might have been liaison officers would not be unusual, because practically all ministries and organizations had liaison officers. What you have just suggested, however, I do not recall.
MR. DODD: I think we had better clear this up first, and I ask you that you look at Document 3931-PS, which is a new document which becomes USA-867, Mr. President.
Now, Mr. Witness, if you will look at this document, you will observe that it is a message which you sent to “Dear Party Member Bormann” in August of 1941. It is quite long, and there will not be any necessity, I am sure, for reading all of it, but I want to direct your attention to some parts of it that might help your memory with respect to the SS.
By way of preliminary question, the SA apparently had suggested that it take over some of the training of young people, had it not, some time in the summer of 1941?
VON SCHIRACH: I said in my testimony—I think on Thursday—that already in the spring of 1939, I believe, the SA had attempted to take over the premilitary training of the youth of the two older age classes, and such attempts were probably repeated in 1941.
MR. DODD: Yes, I knew you were complaining to Bormann about it when you wrote this message. You recall now, do you not, from just looking at the letter, that that is the whole substance of the letter—a complaint about the attempt of the SA to directly control the training of some young people in the Hitler Youth organization.
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot speak about this long teletype letter without having read through it.
MR. DODD: Well, let us see. If you will turn to the second page of the English text—you do not have any pages there; I think it is all one. It is all a teletype, but it will be not too far down on the first part of it. First of all, I want to have you see if you can find the statement that “the Hitler Youth has considered it necessary from the very beginning to make the Party itself the agency for the direction and administration of its military training.” Do you find that passage?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, you will find the paragraph numbered (1) on your teletype, small Arabic number one. You will find they start to be numbered (1), (2), (3), and so on. Do you find that, Mr. Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: I have Roman numeral I.
MR. DODD: All right. That is what I want to call your attention to. If we hit some place that we agree on, then we can move on. You found that Number (1) that says that “for more than one year an agreement in draft form has been submitted to the SA which requests that the SA cadre be furnished for the military training of the youth,” and that the SA leadership did not comply with this request.
Now, will you move down further, let me see, in Number (3), and then following (3), probably down another whole length three or four paragraphs, you will find—it is in capital letters, by the way—what I want to call your attention to; I assume it is in capital letters in the German:
“I would be happy if the SA would put personnel at my disposal for support for this purpose, similar to the way in which the SS and the Police have been doing for a long time already.”
In the English, Mr. President, that is at the bottom of Page 4 and the top of Page 5.
[Turning to the defendant.] Did you find that sentence?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: You say there that you would be happy if the SA would put personnel at your disposal for support of this purpose, similar to the way in which the SS and the Police have been doing for a long time already, and you are referring—if you will read back to the paragraph just ahead of that sentence—to the training of the young people. You talk about Hitler Schools and the training of Hitler Youth. Now, it is perfectly clear, is it not, that you did have assistance from the SS, according to your own words, from the SS and Police, for a long time before you sent this message?
VON SCHIRACH: During the war, yes; since the beginning of the war in 1939 we had premilitary training camps and I wanted youth instructors for these camps. Neither the Army nor the SA could supply sufficient instructors; the SS and the Police could place a few young officers at my disposal.
MR. DODD: So it was only from the beginning of the war that you had personnel from the SS and Police for the training of young people, was it?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not think that there would have been need for SS instructors otherwise. As I have said, we selected youth leaders from among youth itself.
MR. DODD: I ask you again, do you want the Tribunal to understand that it was only from the beginning of the war that you had the assistance of SS and Police personnel assigned to your youth organization for the training of young people?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that question definitely for this reason: we had for example a training camp for skiing practice, and it was quite possible that one of the instructors was an SA man or an SS man only because by chance he happened to be one of the best sportsmen in that field. But I cannot think where such collaboration existed elsewhere.
MR. DODD: Are you able to say that you did not have SS personnel assigned for training purposes; and I am not talking about some isolated skimaster, I am talking about a regular program of assistance from the SS to you in your training of young people.
VON SCHIRACH: As far as premilitary training is concerned, it was only through this teletype message that I requested help for training purposes. Apart from that, I do not recollect any collaboration.
MR. DODD: Do you know the term “Heuaktion”?
VON SCHIRACH: Heuaktion? I do not remember it. I do not know what is meant by that.
MR. DODD: Well, you have been in the courtroom every day. Do you not remember that there was proof offered here by the Prosecution concerning the Defendant Rosenberg and an action termed Heuaktion?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not remember it at the moment; I do not know it.
MR. DODD: Do you not remember that there was some talk here in the courtroom about the seizing of young people in the East and forcing them to be brought to Germany, 40,000 or 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14? You remember that, don’t you, and that one of the purposes was to destroy the biological potentiality of these people? You do not know what I refer to?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is an action which I now remember in connection with this Trial. The only thing I can say on this in an official capacity is what Axmann told me during the war—I cannot recall the exact year—namely, that he had placed a large number of young Russians in apprentice hostels and apprentice workshops at the Junkers works in Dessau, and that these youths were extremely well accommodated and looked after there. I had not been in any way concerned with this action before, but as I stated at the beginning of my testimony here, I assume responsibility for the actions of youth in this war; I adhere to that statement. I do not think, however, that youth is responsible in this case, and I recall the Defendant Rosenberg’s statements that he was complying with the wishes of the Army and an army group in this affair.
MR. DODD: Well, we have the document here. It is already in evidence as USA-171—the Tribunal is familiar with it—and I would like to call your attention to the fact that in this document, which says that Rosenberg agreed to the program of seizing or apprehending 40,000 to 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14 and the transportation of them to the Reich, it also said that this program can be accomplished with the help of the officers of the Hitler Youth through the Youth Bureau of Rosenberg’s Ministry; and it also said that a number of these young people were to be detailed to the SS and SS auxiliaries. Now, what I want to ask you particularly is what you know about that program and how the Hitler Youth co-operated in it?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot add to what I have already said about this program.
MR. DODD: You were in charge of the war commitment of the Hitler Youth, were you not, the “Kriegseinsatz”?
VON SCHIRACH: The war commitment of German youth was under immediate direction of the Reich Youth Leader. From my own knowledge I can give only general but no detailed information.
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, I ask you again, were you not appointed and did you not serve as the person responsible for the war commitment of youth in Germany? Now, I have got the document to show your appointment if you want to see it.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes; I do not want to deny it at all. In 1939 and 1940, as long as I was Reich Youth Leader, I myself directed that war commitment.
MR. DODD: I am talking about an appointment that was made even later than 1939 or 1940. You were appointed the person in charge of the war commitment of German youth by the Führer at his headquarters in March of 1942, were you not?
VON SCHIRACH: Will you be good enough to show me the document. I consider it possible, but I have no exact recollection.
MR. DODD: All right. It is 3933-PS, which becomes USA-868. But first of all: You do not know you were appointed in charge of the war commitment for youth without being shown the document?
VON SCHIRACH: No; only I cannot tell you the exact date from memory. I was under the impression that I had been responsible for the war commitment beginning in 1939.
MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to establish, that you were in fact responsible for it and continued to be responsible for it right up to the end of the war. I understood you to say a minute ago that the Reich Youth Leader was the man responsible rather than yourself?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I said that I could give you only general but no special information, because the practical application of the war commitment was a matter for Axmann; I do not, however, want to minimize my own responsibility in any way.
MR. DODD: Very well. I think we are sufficiently clear about the fact that you were certainly named to the position no matter how you now wish to “water” your responsibility. What do you say is the date when you first became responsible for the war commitment of youth?
VON SCHIRACH: As far as I remember, I was responsible for it beginning 1939, at the outbreak of war, but I now see that this decree was not signed until 1942.
MR. DODD: All right; we will agree then that from that date, March 1942, you were responsible. Now, I want to ask you to look at another document.
VON SCHIRACH: One moment, may I explain something in this connection? I do not know whether Hitler signed this decree in March 1942; I do not know when it was signed. In this document Axmann tells me: the draft of the decree is now going to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, who will request the official approval of the higher Reich authorities concerned, and then Bormann...
MR. DODD: You do not need to read it, really. What do you want to say now? Are you saying that maybe it was not signed, or maybe you were not appointed, or are you going to say that you were appointed? Will you please give us an answer?
VON SCHIRACH: Not at all. But I really cannot say that the date of the publication of this decree was March 1942. It may not have been published until May.
MR. DODD: I am not attaching any great importance to the date. I want you to look at 345-PS, which we offer as USA-869. This may help you on this Heuaktion program; that is, with respect to your memory.
Now, this is a telegram that the Defendant Rosenberg sent to Dr. Lammers at the Reich Chancellery for the Führer’s headquarters on 20 July 1944. You will observe that in the first paragraph there is stated:
“In accordance with an agreement between the Reich Marshal as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the Reichsführer SS, the Youth Führer of the German Reich, and the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the recruiting of young Russians, Ukrainians, White Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Tartars, between 15 and 20 years of age, ‘will take place on a volunteer basis for Kriegseinsatz in the Reich’ ”—“Kriegseinsatz” being a program that you were responsible for clearly at that time.
Now, moving down, I want to call your attention to Paragraph 3, and I want to remind you of the Heuaktion document that is already in evidence. This telegram says:
“On the basis of a suggestion by military offices, the seizing and turning over of youths between the ages of 10 to 14 to the Reich territories will take place (Heuaktion) in a part of the operational territory, since the youths in the operational territory present a not insignificant burden.”
It goes on to say:
“The aim of the action is a further disposal of the youths by placing them in the Reich Youth Movement, and the training of apprentices for German economy in a form similar to that which has been effected in agreement with the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor with White Russian Youths, which already shows results.”
I particularly call your attention to that last phrase, “which already shows results.”
Then the last clause in the next sentence, which says, “...these youths are to be used later in the Occupied Eastern Territories as especially reliable construction forces.”
You will observe that the last paragraph says that “the actions under Points 1 and 3”—which I have just been reading—“are known to the Führer.” And there is something about SS help in regard to this action. You had set a time limit on that.
The next page of the document has the distribution, to the Reich Marshal, the Reichsführer SS, the Reich Youth Führer, and the Reich Minister of Interior, and down at the bottom, a Gauleiter bureau, among others.
What do you know about this seizing of young people between 10 and 14 and the turning over of them to your youth organization in Germany during these war years, and about how many thousands of them were so kidnaped, if you know?
VON SCHIRACH: I have already said that I do not wish to minimize my responsibility in this connection. But it was not until later that I was informed of this matter. Not I, but somebody else was Youth Leader of the German Reich in that year; and he made the agreement with the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force and the Reichsführer SS. But my own measures were...
MR. DODD: Later you were the Youth Reichsleiter of Germany, were you not? And you were also the war commitment officer of Youth in Germany at this very time?
VON SCHIRACH: I was at Vienna, and the date was 20 July 1944. You will remember that the history-making events of that time were occupying all officials in Germany to a very great extent. Later I heard about this matter from Axmann, and I know that the accommodation, training, feeding, and the whole treatment of these Russian youths was actually excellent.
MR. DODD: You also know that even at this hour the Allied forces are trying to find thousands of these young people to return them to their proper place? Do you know that this morning’s press carried an account of 10,000 people that are still unlocated?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that those are these young people who were accommodated in apprentice hostels and who under exceptionally well-ordered conditions received very good professional training.
MR. DODD: You see, it is perfectly clear from this Document 345-PS that this program was in fact in operation. The letter from Rosenberg says so. He says it had “already shown results.” And so your youth organization must have had something to do with it before this message was sent.
VON SCHIRACH: I have not at all denied that. Youth leaders were active within the framework of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. And on the basis of what I have heard here during the Trial, I can perfectly well understand that the generals in the East said that the young people must be taken out of the combat zone. The point was that these youngsters from 10 to 14 years of age had to be taken away from the front.
MR. DODD: With the help of the SS?
Now, I want to show you another document, 1137-PS, which will give you some idea, if you do not recall, of what was done with these young people, and how many of them are involved.
That will become USA-870.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, there is a paragraph at the bottom of Page 1 of that document which relates to another defendant.
MR. DODD: Yes, Your Honor, I am sorry; I overlooked that. I will read it for the benefit of the record, if I may, at this time.
Mr. Witness, I direct your attention back, if I may, to this Document 345-PS, so that you will be aware of what I am reading. You will observe that in the last paragraph of Rosenberg’s communication to Dr. Lammers we find this sentence:
“I have learned that Gauleiter Sauckel will be at the Führer’s headquarters on 21 July 1944. I ask that this be taken up with him there and then a report made to the Führer.”
Sauckel was participating in this kidnaping of 10- to 14-year-olds as well, was he? Do you know about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it. I cannot give any information on that subject.
MR. DODD: Now, this Document 1137-PS begins with a letter from a general, a message rather, an interoffice memorandum, dated 27 October 1944, and it closes with a report by the brigadier general of the Hitler Youth, a man named Nickel.
Do you know Nickel, by the way? N-i-c-k-e-l?
VON SCHIRACH: The name is known to me, and probably I know the man personally; but at the moment I do not recall more than just the name. At any rate, he was not a brigadier general; he was a Hauptbannführer.
MR. DODD: Well, all right. Whatever he was, he was an official of the youth organization. That is all I am trying to establish. I may have his title wrong. We have it brigadier general.
But in any event, if you look over this document, you will see that he is reporting about the seizing of these youths in the Occupied Eastern Territory. This is October 1944. And he begins by saying that on 5 March he “received an order to open an office for the recruitment of youths from 15 to 20 years of age from the Occupied Eastern Territories for war employment in the Reich.”
Then he goes on to cite figures, and he tells where he began his work: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the middle sector of the Eastern front, the southern sector of the Eastern front. And then on the next page of the English—and I imagine it is also on your next page—it tells how they were classified, those that were brought back:
“1,383 Russian SS Auxiliaries, 5,953 Ukrainian SS Auxiliaries, 2,354 White Ruthenian SS Auxiliaries, 1,012 Lithuanian SS Auxiliaries.”
Then he gets into the Air Force: “3,000 Estonian Air Force Auxiliaries,” and so on. Some went to the Navy.
I am not going to read all of it; but it gives you an idea of what distribution was made of these men, or young boys and girls rather than men. You will notice that a considerable number went to the SS.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but Hauptbannführer Nickel’s letter bears a stamp with the words “Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories.” That means he was not acting on behalf of the Reich Youth Leader’s department but on behalf of the Reich Ministry for the East.
MR. DODD: Yes. I also want to ask you if you will look at Page 6. I think it is Page 5 of the original of your German. You will find what personnel Hauptbannführer Nickel had for the purpose of carrying out his task. He had members of the Hitler Youth, so he says: 5 leaders, 3 BDM leaders, 71 German youth leaders as translators and assistant instructors, 26 SS leaders, 234 noncommissioned officers and troops, drivers, and translators of the SS. And of the Air Force personnel, he had 37 officers, 221 non-coms, and so on.
Does that help your memory any with this program that your youth people were engaging in? Do you recall any more of it now?
VON SCHIRACH: It does not help my memory at all, because I hear this for the first time from this document. I was not informed of the activities of the Eastern Ministry in Russia, and I do not know what assignment the Eastern Ministry gave to Hitler Youth Leader Nickel. I assume responsibility for what was done on my orders, but anything done on the orders of others must be their responsibility.
MR. DODD: Let me show you something with respect to your answer that you have just made. That personnel that I read out, you know, was only in one part of the program. And on the last page of the document you will see on how wide an area Nickel was operating. He was operating in co-operation with the Netherlands Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Adria Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Southern Hitler Youth Operational Command in Slovakia and Hungary, the Lieutenant Nagel Special Command in refugee camps within the Reich, and then, interestingly enough, the field offices in Vienna.
That is where you were located at the time, is it not? And you are telling the Tribunal you did not know anything about this program and the participation of your Hitler Youth Leaders?
VON SCHIRACH: I received no written or verbal report from Nickel. His report, as can be seen from the letter, went to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and to what extent the Reich Youth Leader was being informed is not known to me. I myself do not know what took place. What I do know of the entire affair I very clearly stated in my testimony with reference to the Junkers works and the professional training which these youngsters were given in Germany. Apart from that I have no further knowledge.
MR. DODD: Observe also, if you will, Mr. Witness, that your Hitler Youth Operational Command was in Poland, and even in northern Italy. And now I ask you once again, as the long-time Hitler Youth Leader, as the leader for the War Commitment of Youth, then Gauleiter in Vienna, with part of this program being carried on in Vienna and the whole program being carried on on this vast scale, do you want the Tribunal to believe that you knew nothing about it?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it, but I assume responsibility for it.
MR. DODD: You told the Tribunal in your direct examination that you wrote the letter to Streicher’s Stürmer.
I would like to submit this in evidence, Mr. President, so that the Tribunal will have an idea of what it appeared like on the front page of Der Stürmer.
Perhaps—if you would like to look at it, you may, of course, Mr. Witness. It is USA-871. I just wanted you to have a look at it before it was submitted. You know about it anyway.
VON SCHIRACH: I already made a statement about that the other day.
MR. DODD: Yes, I did not wish to go into it further. What I do want to ask you, Mr. Witness, is: Do I understand you clearly when I say that from your testimony we gathered that it was Hitler who ordered the evacuation of the Jews from Vienna and that you really did not suggest it or wish to see it carried out? Is that a fair understanding of your testimony of a day or two ago?
VON SCHIRACH: I stated the other day, and I repeat this, that the idea of evacuating the Jews from Vienna was Hitler’s idea which he communicated to me in 1940 at his headquarters. Furthermore, and I want to make this quite clear, I stated that after the events of those November days in 1938 I was actually of the opinion that it would be better for the Jewish population to be accommodated in a closed settlement than to be regularly singled out by Goebbels as a target for his propaganda and his organized actions. I also said that I identified myself with that action suggested by Hitler, but did not carry it out.
MR. DODD: Now you had a meeting at the Führer’s headquarters in October 1940. Present was the Defendant Frank and the now notorious Koch whom we have heard so much about. Do you remember that meeting?
VON SCHIRACH: I no longer recall it exactly.
MR. DODD: Now, you mean you do not recall that meeting at all?
VON SCHIRACH: In October 1940 I was in the Reich Chancellery because that was the time when I was organizing the evacuation of youth. It is possible that at lunch...
THE PRESIDENT: You were asked whether you recalled a particular meeting in October 1940 with certain particular people. Do you remember it or do you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of it. If I am shown a document, then I can confirm it.
MR. DODD: Very well; that is what I wanted to know. I will now show you the document USSR-172. A part of this document was read over the system for the Tribunal by Colonel Pokrovsky. Now you will observe that on 2 October—this is a memorandum, by the way, made up of the meeting. Herr Martin Bormann compiled these notes, so I assume he was there too. After a dinner at the Führer’s apartment there developed a conversation on the nature of the Government General:
“The treatment of the Poles and the incorporation already approved by the Führer for the districts Petrikau and Tomassov.”
Then it says:
“The conversation began when Reich Minister Dr. Frank informed the Führer that the activities in the Government General could be termed very successful. The Jews in Warsaw and other cities were now locked up in the ghettos and Kraków would very shortly be cleared of them. Reichsleiter Von Schirach, who had taken his seat at the Führer’s other side, remarked that he still had more than 50,000 Jews in Vienna whom Dr. Frank would have to take over. Party Member Dr. Frank said this was impossible. Gauleiter Koch then pointed out that he, too, had up to now not transferred either Poles or Jews from the District of Ziechenau, but that these Jews and Poles would now, of course, have to be accepted by the Government General.”
And it goes on to say that Dr. Frank protested against this also. He said there were not housing facilities—I am not quoting directly, I do not want to read all of it—and that there were not sufficient other facilities. Do you remember that conference now?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have refreshed my memory now.
MR. DODD: Yes. And you suggested that you wanted to get 50,000 Jews moved into Frank’s territory out of Vienna, didn’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The Führer asked me how many Jews were still in Vienna, and at that time—I mentioned this during my own testimony the other day and it is contained in the files—there were still 60,000 Jews in Vienna. During that conversation, in which the question of settling Jews in the Government General was discussed, I also said that these 60,000 Jews from Vienna were still to be transferred to the Government General. I told you earlier that as a result of the events of November 1938 I was in favor of the Führer’s plan to take the Jews to a closed settlement.
MR. DODD: Well now, later on, as you know from USA-681 concerning which your own counsel inquired, Lammers sent you a message in Vienna and he said the Führer had decided, after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the 60,000 Jews in Vienna would be deported most rapidly, and that was just 2 months after this conference that you had with Frank and Koch and Hitler, wasn’t it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, since 1937—and I think that becomes clear from the Hossbach minutes—the Führer had the idea of expatriating the Jewish population. This plan, however, did not become known to me until August 1940 when I took over the Vienna district. I reported to Hitler on that occasion, and he asked me how many Jews there were in Vienna. I answered his question, and he told me that he actually wanted all of them to be settled in the Government General.
MR. DODD: How many Jews did you, in fact, deport out of your district while you were the Gauleiter?
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, the practical measures of that action were not in my hands. I do not know how many of these 60,000 Jews were actually transported out of Vienna.
MR. DODD: Do you have any idea where they went to?
VON SCHIRACH: I was informed that the aged were being taken to Theresienstadt and the others to Poland, to the Government General. On one occasion—it was either when I took my oath of office as Governor or when I made a speech about the evacuation of children—I even asked Hitler how these Jews were being employed, and he told me: in accordance with their professions.
MR. DODD: We will get around to that. You remember, don’t you, that they were sent, at least some of them were sent, to the cities of Riga and Minsk, and you were so notified. Do you remember receiving that information?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Now take a look at Document 3921-PS, which becomes USA-872. Now this is a communication concerning the evacuation of Jews, and it shows that 50,000 Jews were to be sent to the Minsk-Riga area, and you got a copy of this report as the Commissar for the Defense of the Reich, and if you will look on the last page you will see an initial there of your chief assistant, the SS man Dellbrügge, and also the stamp of your own office as having received it.
VON SCHIRACH: I can only see that Dr. Dellbrügge marked the matter for filing. It shows the letters “z. d. A.” to the files.
MR. DODD: And he did not tell you about this report concerning the Jews? Even though you had been talking to Hitler about it? That they were being moved out of your area? I suppose your chief assistant did not bother to tell you anything about it. Is that what you want us to understand?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Now then, take a look at another document which will shed some light on this one. It is USA-808, already in evidence. It tells you what happened to the Jews in Minsk and Riga, and this was also received in your office if you recall. Maybe it is not necessary to show it to you again. You remember the document—that is one of those monthly reports from Heydrich wherein he said that there were 29,000 Jews in Riga and they had been reduced to 2,500, and that 33,210 were shot by the special unit, and “Einsatz” group. Do you remember that?
VON SCHIRACH: During the last 2 days I looked at these monthly reports most carefully. The bottom right-hand corner of the cover of these monthly reports—and I want to make this categorically clear—bears initials something like “Dr. FSCH.,” that is Dr. Fischer’s initials. At the top the reports are not initialed by me, but by the Government President, with the notation that they should be put into the files. If I had read them...
MR. DODD: I am not suggesting that you had your initials on any document like this, but I am claiming that these documents came into your organization and into the hands of your principal assistant.
VON SCHIRACH: But I must point out that if they had been submitted to me, then there would have been on them the notation, “submitted to the Reichsleiter,” and the official submitting them would have initialed this notation. If I myself had seen them, then my own initials would be on them with the letters “K.g.,” noted.
MR. DODD: Yes. I want to remind you that the date of that report is February 1942, and I also want to remind you that in there as well Heydrich tells you how many Jews they had killed in Minsk. Now you made a speech one time in Poland about the Polish or the Eastern policy of Germany. Do you remember it, Mr. Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: In Poland?
MR. DODD: In Poland, yes.
VON SCHIRACH: In 1939 I spent a short time in Poland, but I do not think I was there again later.
MR. DODD: Your memory seems particularly poor this morning. Don’t you remember speaking in Katowice on 20 January 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: That is Upper Silesia.
MR. DODD: Upper Silesia, all right. Do you remember that speech?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I made a speech at Katowice.
MR. DODD: And did you talk about Hitler’s policy for the Eastern Territories?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say from memory what I spoke about there. I have made many speeches.
MR. DODD: Well, I will ask that you be shown D-664, which becomes USA-873. You were speaking to a group of Party leaders and German youth leaders.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: In Paragraph 7, you dealt with the tasks of German youth in the East. The Hitler Youth had carried out political schooling along the line of the Führer’s Eastern policy and you went on to say how grateful you were to the Führer for having turned the German people toward the East, because the East was the destiny of your people. What did you understand to be the Führer’s Eastern policy, or did you have a good understanding of it at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: I said this in Upper Silesia out of gratitude for the return of that territory to us.
MR. DODD: Well, I didn’t ask you that, really. I asked you if you then understood the Führer’s policy when you made that speech?
VON SCHIRACH: On the basis of our victory over Poland and the recovery of German soil, I naturally affirmed Germany’s policy.
MR. DODD: You not only affirmed it, but I want to know if you really understood it.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not quite know how I should answer that question. Probably Hitler’s conception of the term Eastern policy was quite different from mine.
MR. DODD: But my point is that he had told you about it, hadn’t he, some time before you made this speech?
You had better look back at that document you have in your hands, USSR-172, and you will find that, after you and Frank and Koch and Hitler finished talking about deporting the Jews from Vienna, the Führer then told you what he intended to do with the Polish people, and it is not a very pretty story, if you will look at it.
VON SCHIRACH: Hitler says here:
“The ideal picture would be that a Pole in the Government General had only a small parcel of land sufficient to feed himself and his family fairly well. Anything else he might require in cash for clothing, additional food, and so on he would have to earn by working in Germany. The Government General would be the central office for providing untrained workers, particularly agricultural workers. The livelihood of these workers would be assured, for they could always be used as cheap labor. There would be no question of further agricultural labor for Poland.”
MR. DODD: Let me read a few excerpts that I think you have missed:
“The Führer further emphasized that the Poles, in direct contrast to our German Workmen, are born for hard labor...” and so on. “The standard of living in Poland has to be and to remain low.”
Moving over to the next page:
“We, the Germans, had on one hand overpopulated industrial districts, while there was also a shortage of manpower for agriculture. That is where we could make use of Polish laborers. For this reason, it would be right to have a large surplus of manpower in the Government General so that every year the laborers needed by the Reich could in fact be procured from there. It is indispensable to keep in mind that there must be no Polish land owners. However cruel this may sound, wherever they are, they must be exterminated. Of course, there must be no mixing of blood with the Poles.”
Further on, he had to stress once more that:
“There should be one master only for the Poles, the Germans. Two masters side by side cannot exist. All representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be exterminated. This sounds cruel, but such is the law of life.”
Stopping there for a minute, by the way, Mr. Witness—you are a man of culture, so you have told the Tribunal—how did that sentiment expressed by the Führer impress you?
VON SCHIRACH: I have never agreed with these opinions of the Führer, and I said here that I approached him in 1943 on the subject of this policy in the Ukraine. When in 1942 I talked about Eastern policy in Katowice, the German town of Katowice, to the German population of Upper Silesia, then, of course, I did not mean this brutal Polish policy of Hitler.
MR. DODD: But you knew about it when you made the speech, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not recollect it on that occasion 2 years later, and my speech did not mean it either.
MR. DODD: You forgot that Hitler said he must exterminate the intelligentsia, that you must be masters of these people, that they must remain at a low standard of living? Did that pass out of your mind so easily?
VON SCHIRACH: I remember that speech in Katowice; I spoke there about completely different matters. I assume that the Prosecution even has the shorthand record of that speech and need only submit it here. This is just a short extract.
MR. DODD: But, you see, Mr. Witness, the point is, knowing what the policy was, I would like to have you tell the Tribunal how you could urge and praise that policy to a group of young people and party leaders on the occasion of this speech in Katowice.
VON SCHIRACH: The policy which I was recommending to youth leaders there was not the policy which Hitler developed in his table talk.
MR. DODD: Of course, you said it was the Führer’s policy in your speech, and you know what it was, but I won’t press it further if that is your answer.
VON SCHIRACH: Very often probably—and I once said this here—I supported the policy of the Führer out of erroneous loyalty to him. I know that it was not right.
MR. DODD: That is what I want to know. You were, weren’t you, acting under an impulse of loyalty to the Führer. Now you recognize it to be erroneous, and that is all I am inquiring for, and if you tell the Tribunal that, I shall be perfectly satisfied.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I am prepared to admit that.
MR. DODD: Very well. And, Mr. Witness, now we are getting to it; that goes for all these things that went on.
VON SCHIRACH: Not at all.
MR. DODD: Don’t you have to say to the Tribunal, concerning your letter to Der Stürmer, and all these things you said about the Jewish people to the young people, and this slow building up of race hatred in them, the co-operation with the SS, your handling of the Jews in Vienna, that for all these things you are, and for all of them, responsible?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Finally, I want to offer in evidence, Mr. President, some excerpts from these weekly SS reports to which I referred briefly on Friday, so that they shall be before the Tribunal. There are 55 of them, Mr. President, and they run consecutively by weeks, and they all bear the stamp of this defendant’s office as having been received there, and they supplant the monthly report which was received up to the time that weekly reports began arriving.
We have not had all of them translated or mimeographed, and if the defendant wishes to put in any others, we will make them available, of course. We have selected a few as samples to illustrate the kind of report that was contained in these weekly reports, and I wish to offer them.
The first one is Number 1, beginning on 1 May 1942, and Numbers 4, 6, 7, 9, 38, 41, and 49.
Now I want to make this clear to you, Mr. Witness, out of fairness. Besides statements concerning what was happening to the Jews, you will find in these weekly reports a number of statements about the partisan affairs in the East as well. These excerpts have mostly to do with what happened to the Jews, and we have not, Mr. President, drawn out a great number that had to do with the partisans. There are a number, however, that do have to do with partisans and not with the Jews, so we wish there to be no doubt about how we offer these weekly reports. I just want to ask you, with respect to these weekly reports: Do you this morning recall that you did receive them every week in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: But that is not my office. My office is the Central Office. That office was directed by the Government President, and one of his officials initialed the files, as appears from the marking on them, and as any official trained in German office routine can confirm. They were then put before the Government President who marked them “for the files” and initialed them. I could not know these documents at all.
MR. DODD: Now just a minute. You were the Reich Commissioner for the defense of that territory; weren’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And that is the stamp that is on these weekly reports, isn’t it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, what do you mean by saying that it was not your office?
VON SCHIRACH: Because the mail, by a procedure similar to that in a ministry, where it goes to the office of the minister, reached me in the Central Office; and a corresponding notation had to be made on these files. I can understand perfectly well why the Government President, since I was overburdened with work, did not submit to me material which had no connection at all with Vienna or my activities, but which was merely informatory and concerned with events in Russia, mostly guerrilla fighting in Russia.
MR. DODD: I am going to ask you again, as I have so many times in the course of this examination: Dellbrügge, who initialed these, was your principal assistant, wasn’t he? Yes or no?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, he was one of my three deputies.
MR. DODD: And he was also an SS man, and so was your other principal assistant, as we asked the other day.
VON SCHIRACH: Dellbrügge was a high SS leader. He was a special confidant of the Reichsführer SS.
MR. DODD: How did he happen to be working for you?
VON SCHIRACH: He was assigned to me there.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I don’t think it is necessary to read any excerpts from these weekly reports. They have been translated into four languages, and—well, I am misinformed. I thought they were translated. Then I think it would be better if we do have them translated and submit them at a later date rather than take the time to read them now.
I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine? We had better adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
MAJOR GENERAL G. A. ALEXANDROV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend had the task of inculcating German youth and children, starting from 9 years of age, with Fascist ideology?
Do you hear me?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I understood you to ask, whether, I would admit having inculcated Fascist ideas into 10- to 14-year-old children of the Hitler Youth?
As I said in my testimony a few days ago, I saw my mission and my duty in educating German youth to be citizens of the National Socialist State...
THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing.] That is not an answer to the question. It is not necessary for you to tell us what you said in your previous evidence. Will you just answer the question: Do you admit that you inculcated in the Hitler Youth Hitler’s ideology? You can answer that “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that question with “yes,” because it referred to Fascism. There is a great difference between Fascism and National Socialism. I cannot answer that question with “yes.” I did educate German youth in the spirit of National Socialism, that I can admit.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like you to confirm the evidence which you gave on 16 November 1945, during your interrogation. You defined your personal attitude to Hitler in the following way; and I quote your evidence: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”[[*]] Do you confirm this statement?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not say that, and that is not a record which was submitted to me. I never spoke of Hitler as a deity, never. I remember exactly, General, that you interrogated me on this point, and I was asked whether I had been an enthusiastic follower. I confirmed that, and I spoke about the time when I joined the Movement; but I never set up the comparison with which I am now confronted in the translation; I never said that I believed in Hitler as a deity, never.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You do not understand me correctly. Nothing is said here about deity. Your evidence has been taken down, and I will repeat it: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”[[*]]
Do you confirm this statement? Answer the question directly.
VON SCHIRACH: The translation is quite inexact. May I ask you to put the exact question again?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will quote your statement again: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”[[*]] Is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: I am accused now of having said: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be the personification of truth.” That is how I understood it, and I must say I could never have uttered such nonsense.
[*] The interpreter mistranslated this “and looked upon him as a deity.”
DR. SERVATIUS: May I give an explanation of this translation? I think the correct German would have to be: “I considered what Hitler said to be a manifestation of truth,” and not “the personification of truth”; then it would be intelligible. There is a mistake in the interpretation.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Your defense counsel has perhaps helped you to answer my question.
VON SCHIRACH: General, that was not my defense counsel, but the defense counsel for the Defendant Sauckel. If it is translated “manifestation of truth,” then of course the whole passage makes sense, and also corresponds roughly to what I said to you when I described the period of my youth.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Very well.
In your book entitled the Hitler Jugend it said, and I quote Page 17: “Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, is our bible.” Do you confirm this? Did you write that?
VON SCHIRACH: But I added something to that in my book The Hitler Youth, Its Faith and Organization. I want to say, first of all, that I did write this book. I wrote it...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to interrupt you. I do not need such detailed explanations, and I would like you to answer the question: Is that sentence contained in your book?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just confirmed that, but I would like to add an explanation. In this book—which I wrote in 1933, and which was published in 1934—I said: “We could not yet offer detailed reasons for our belief, we simply believed. But when Hitler’s Mein Kampf appeared, it was like a bible, which we almost learned by heart so as to answer the questions of doubtful and deliberating critics.”
That is how I worded it at the time; that is correct.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to put another more precise question to you. Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend was a political organization which, under the leadership of the NSDAP, carried out the policy of this Party among German youth?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a large educational community on a political basis, but I cannot admit that it was led by the Party; it was led by me. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Party, and in that sense one might speak of a Party influence. But I can see no reason for having to confirm this, since I have already testified to it. It is correct that the Hitler Youth was the youth organization of the Party.
If that is the sense of your question, I will confirm it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, I just had that in view.
I would like to remind you of the tasks which Hitler had assigned for the education of German youth. That is set out in Rauschning’s book, which has already been submitted as documentary evidence before the Tribunal as USSR-378. I quote Page 252 of that book:
“In my schools we will bring up youth who will make the world shudder with fear, youth that is hard, exigent, unafraid, and cruel. That is my wish. Youth must have all these qualities; they must be indifferent to sufferings; they must have neither weakness nor softness. I would like to see in their eyes the proud, self-sufficient glitter of a beast of prey.”
You educated German youth in accordance with these demands of Hitler. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I will not admit what Herr Rauschning wrote. Just by accident I was present at a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning and, judging by it, I must say that the statements in Rauschning’s book represent an unfaithful record of what Hitler said. Just by accident I witnessed a conversation between them.
Hitler did not give me the directives which Rauschning sets forth here as the guiding principles laid down by Hitler himself for the training of the Hitler Youth.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I did not ask you to give such a detailed explanation. I would like you to answer the question I put to you briefly in order to shorten the time of interrogation. You have stated the Hitler Youth did not educate German youth in the militaristic spirit and did not prepare German youth for future aggressive wars. I would like to remind you of certain statements you made in that very same book of yours, “Hitler Youth,” right here on Page 83 of that book. Talking of the younger generation, the so-called Jungvolk, you wrote:
“They carry the National Socialist characteristics. The toy merchants are worried because these children no longer need toys; they are interested in camp tents, spears, compasses and maps. It is a particular trait of our youth. Everything that is against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”
And these also were the directives which German soldiers, trained in the Hitler Youth, followed when they set on fire houses of the peaceful population in occupied territories, isn’t that true? Is that contained in the book, the passage I have just read?
VON SCHIRACH: What is in front of me now, is contained in my book. What I heard from the interpreter is not in my book.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, then make your corrections.
VON SCHIRACH: May I read the correct passage?
“The toy merchants have complained to me that the boys”—they mean the Jungvolk—“no longer want toys, but are interested only in tents, spears, compasses, and maps. I cannot help the toy merchants, for I agree with the boys that the times of the Indians are finally gone. What is ‘Old Shatterhand,’ what is a trapper in the backwoods of America compared to our troop leader? A miserable, dusty remnant from the lumber chest of our fathers. Not only the toy merchants are complaining but also the school-cap manufacturers. Who wears a school cap nowadays? And who nowadays is a high-school boy or girl? In some towns the boys have banded together and publicly burned such school caps. Burning is, in fact, a specialty of new youth. The border fences of the minor states of the Reich have also been reduced to ashes in the fires of your youth.
“It is a simple but heroic philosophy; everything that is against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”
That, General, is the expression of the “storm and stress” of youth which has found its special unity.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: According to your opinion, the philosophy implies that children must no longer play with toys, but must do other things. Did I understand you correctly? I do not see any essential difference between my quotation and yours.
VON SCHIRACH: May I say that I think the military training of the youth of Germany falls much behind that of the Soviet Union.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This is an irrelevant comparison. On Page 98 of your book, speaking of the Hitler Youth, you wrote:
“They strive to be political soldiers. Their model is Adolf Hitler.”
Did you write that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place; is it Page 98?
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has admitted he wrote the whole book, hasn’t he?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In order not to lengthen the proceedings we will pass to the next question.
You have already spoken here of a specially created organization of motorized Hitler Youth; you assert this organization had sport as its aim; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: In connection with the training of the motorized Hitler Youth I spoke also of ground and driving exercises, and I admitted that the motorized Hitler Youth had premilitary significance. I did not dispute this point at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd cross-examined the witness at very considerable length on these matters about the special units of the Hitler Youth, and it really is not any good to go over it all again.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, several points which are still unexplained will be clarified through the following questions.
Did you have knowledge of the fact that at the end of 1938 the organization of motorized Hitler Youth consisted of 92 detachments, that is of 100,000 young men?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 92 detachments, because the word “Abteilung”—that was the translation—was not a designation for any unit of the Hitler Youth. I gave the exact strength of the motorized Hitler Youth for 1938 in one of my statements here either to my defense counsel or to Mr. Dodd. I gave exact figures of its strength in 1938.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, I am speaking of 1938, and you give the number of 100,000 Hitler Youths who formed the motorized youth organization. Do you have knowledge of this?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 100,000 members of the motorized Hitler Youth in 1938. There might have been 60,000 or 120,000. I cannot say; I do not know. I have not the documents to prove it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, but I am quoting this number from data given by the magazine Das Archiv. I would like to recall to you the tasks of these organizations as they were set out in this magazine in November-December 1939. I quote:
“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be carried out in special training groups, and later in special motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps.”
I quote this excerpt according to the document book of the Defense, Document 20, Page 50 of the Russian text. I repeat:
“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be carried out in special training groups, and later in special motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps, but this applies only to youths who have reached the age of 17 or more. The course of instruction includes motor mechanics, a driving license test, field driving exercises, and also ideological schooling. Those who successfully participate in this course of instruction will be admitted into the National Socialist Motor Corps.”
This does not quite agree with your statement that the aim was sport, does it?
THE PRESIDENT: We heard a long commentary about these special units, and we really do not want to hear it any more. If you have any questions on new matters which have not been dealt with by Mr. Dodd, we shall be glad to hear them, but we do not want to hear about whether there are 60,000 or 70,000 or 100,000 or 120,000 Hitler Youths in the motorized units.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am only quoting what has not been mentioned yet.
THE PRESIDENT: General, we do not want to hear it. We do not want to hear it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will pass on to the next question.
You issued a directive for a nation-wide training scheme of the members of the Hitler Youth, known as “Hitler Youth on Duty.” This directive foresaw the following kind of education for the Hitler Youth: the theory of weapons, the theory of firing, target shooting, rifle practice, military drill, topography, and field exercises; also instruction in the use of the field compass and the goniometer. Are you acquainted with this directive? Do you consider that this also did not constitute military training of German youth?
VON SCHIRACH: I spoke in great detail about the training of “Hitler Youth on Duty” in my testimony last Thursday, and I particularly discussed rifle training which takes up 40 pages of this book. I mentioned in that connection that this rifle training was carried out according to the rules of international rifle sport and that the British Board of Education recommended this rifle training, and also the entire book, to all Boy Scouts. I do not dispute that I published this book Hitler Youth and that it served as a guiding directive for this training. But I already said that here the other day.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You have denied that the Hitler Youth played an important part in the Fifth Column in Poland. Similar methods were carried out especially in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Government has put at the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution documents which estimated the part of the “Hitler Youth on Duty,” under the leadership of the Hitler Jugend, in the organization of the Fifth Column on Yugoslav territory. Do you have any knowledge of this? Do you know anything about this?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was never active in the Fifth Column either in Yugoslavia or anywhere else.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will then quote excerpts from the official report of the Yugoslav Government. This has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-36. I quote from Page 3 of the Russian text of this document:
“The Reich Government and the Hitler Party have secretly organized the German minority. From 1930 they had their own organization, the ‘Union of Culture.’ Already in 1932 Dr. Jacob Awender held the view that the ‘Union of Culture’ should be Fascist in its outlook. In 1935 he was put at the head of an active youth organization which shortly afterwards received the name of ‘Organization of Revival.’ ”
Do you know anything about this?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot comment on the information which you have just mentioned. I heard that Bohle had some youth leaders there as his representatives, but I do not know any details. On the subject of Yugoslavia I can tell you from my previous activity that my relations with Yugoslav youth were very amiable and friendly in the period before the war.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am not interested in that. I will try to help your memory by quoting a few excerpts from a supplementary report of the Yugoslav Government, which is submitted to the Tribunal as Yugoslav Exhibit, Document Number USSR-357. On Page 5, in the third line of the Russian text of this document, it says:
“In 1937 there began among the Volksdeutsche in our country an orientation towards National Socialism, and the first groups of youth started going to Germany for special courses of instruction.”
Further down on Page 8, we read that later on, but before the war with the Soviet Union, the greater part of these members became officers of the German Army. In addition, a special SS division, “Prinz Eugen,” was formed from among members of the youth organizations. Do you deny these facts?
VON SCHIRACH: I can admit some; others I must deny. May I explain this? Since 1933 I tried to bring about good relations with Yugoslav youth. Starting in 1936 or 1937 I extended invitations to Yugoslav youth groups, as well as to youth groups of all European countries, to visit and inspect German youth institutions. Yugoslav youth groups actually came to Germany in reply to my invitation. But I know nothing about the enlisting of Yugoslav youths in the German Army; I do not believe that. I can only say that at the time of the regency of Prince Regent Paul there was very close collaboration with Yugoslav youth. During the war we maintained good relations with both Serbian and Croatian youth. German youth visited Serbia and Croatia, while Serbian and Croatian youth came to German youth camps, German youth leader training schools, and so on, and looked at our institutions. That, I think, is everything I can say about this. But we had friendly relations not only with Yugoslavia but also with many other countries.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You did not understand me correctly. I was not speaking of Yugoslav or Croatian youth. I am speaking of the youth of the German minority in Yugoslavia who are mentioned in this report and who, with the help of the Hitler Youth, created centers of Fifth Column activity to engage in subversive operations and recruit for the SS units and the Wehrmacht. That is what I am speaking about. Are these facts known to you?
VON SCHIRACH: I know that there were young people among the German minority in Yugoslavia, just as in Romania and Hungary. I know that this German youth felt that it belonged to the Hitler Youth, and I think it is perfectly natural that these young people welcomed the German troops on their arrival. I cannot give information on the extent to which collaboration existed between the troops and the youth, but that it did exist is also quite natural. Of course, it could not be considered military collaboration, but rather the kind of co-operation which will always exist between an occupying force and the youth of the same country or nationality as the members of that force. But that has nothing to do with espionage or the like.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: But the major part of the SS Division “Prinz Eugen” which was formed on Yugoslav territory was made up of Hitler Youth members from the German national minority in Yugoslavia; and this was the result of the preparatory work of the Hitler Youth. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know how the divisions of the Waffen-SS, of which there were very many, were recruited. It is possible that some members of the German minority were recruited then and there, but I have no definite information on this.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will quote a few excerpts from two German documents. They have not yet been submitted to the Tribunal. The first excerpt is from a book by Dr. Sepp Janko who was the youth leader in Yugoslavia, entitled Speeches and Articles. He wrote:
“All our national work before 1 September 1939 depended on the help of the Reich. When on 1 September 1939 the war began and it at first appeared impossible to receive further aid, there was a danger that all our work would be interrupted....”
And later:
“The fact that in this cause, so decisive for a nation and its worth, I put at the disposal of the Führer almost the entire German national group in the former State of Yugoslavia and gave him so many volunteers as soldiers, is to me a subject of great pride....”
I submit this to the Tribunal as evidence; Exhibit USSR-459.
The next excerpt is from an article, “We in the Batchka,” written in 1943 by Otto Kohler who was leader of German youth in that territory. I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-456. Otto Kohler wrote in that article:
“Ninety percent of our youth are members of the Hitler Youth, the youth organization for Germans abroad.”
The statements ought to convince you that the subversive activity and organization of the Fifth Column, the “nazification” of the German minority and its enlistment in military units were actually carried out on Yugoslav territory through the Hitler Youth. Please answer “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: No. But I should like to comment on these documents. This Dr. Sepp Janko who is said to have been the leader of the Volksdeutsche in Yugoslavia is not known to me either by name or personally. I have visited Yugoslavia several times in the past, but neither in 1937, when I believe I was there for the first time, nor later in 1938 when I visited Prince Regent Paul, did I concern myself with the Volksdeutsche youth there or with their leaders. On those visits I spoke only with youth of Yugoslav nationality. That is all I have to say about the first document, which on the whole does not refer to youth at all.
The second document, which is signed by one Otto Kohler, who calls himself the “D. J. leader”—probably German youth leader—in Subdivision 7, to that document I can only say that it was taken from a book about German youth in Hungary which appeared in 1943. In the Batchka we had a very large settlement of Germans, people who had been living there for 150 or 200 years, and this youth leader organized the German youth there with the approval of the Hungarian Government and the Hungarian Minister of Education and in collaboration with other Hungarian authorities. It was an entirely legal measure, and no controversy existed about it between the two countries. These young people were not members of the German Hitler Youth, but they belonged to Hungarian youth groups of the German minority in Hungary.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: And did the Reich Leadership of Hitler Youth have no connection at all with such organizations abroad?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course we visited these youths. When, for instance, I was a guest in Budapest, the Hungarians themselves asked me whether I would like to visit the villages and the youth of the German minority. Neither the Regent nor any other government authority had any objections to this. There was no reason why I should ask German youth leaders to engage in espionage in Hungary. I could just as easily have asked Hungarian youth leaders with whom I was on very good terms.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Who was the leader of the Hitler Youth organizations abroad? There was a special foreign section in the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth. Its task was the direction of the German youth organizations abroad, was it not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership was, if I may say so, the “foreign office” of the younger generation. It was the task of the foreign office to maintain contact with other national youth organizations, to invite youth leaders from abroad, to organize tours of foreign youth organizations through Germany, and to arrange visits of German youth to other countries, in co-operation with the foreign offices of those countries; in a case like this, the foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership would approach the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office would approach the ambassador or representative of the country involved. The Organization of Youth Abroad to which you are referring was an organization subordinate to the Organization of Germans Abroad, the head of which was Gauleiter Bohle, who has already been heard in this court. This youth abroad consisted of German nationals who formed units of the Hitler Youth in the countries where they were living. For instance in Budapest the children of the German colony, starting with the children of the German Minister...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Defendant, it is not necessary to make such a long speech about it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You are giving too many details. The next question:
In the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories, a special youth department was created in the first main office. What do you know about the work of this department and what was its relationship to the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth? Please answer briefly.
VON SCHIRACH: From my knowledge, I can say that when the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created, Reichsleiter Rosenberg expressed a wish that the Reich Youth Leader should put at his disposal an official for the youth department in the new Ministry. This official was appointed; he was taken into the Ministry and directed its youth department. He was, of course, responsible to the Eastern Minister. I cannot say more about this point. Reports from this department did not reach me.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You mean that the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth appointed a representative to a post in the Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories, and that this gentleman did not send in any report to the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: General, I meant that the head of this department or whatever he was, this official in the Eastern Ministry who came from the Hitler Youth, did not report to me. He naturally reported to his immediate superiors in the Reich Youth Leadership. The Reich Youth Leadership was located in Berlin, and I assume that the officials of its staff were in constant touch with him.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: As I understand it, the measures that were carried out by the youth department in the Reich Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories were carried out with the knowledge of the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: The measures taken there were carried out according to directions laid down by the Reich Minister, who was the immediate superior of his officials. If actual youth measures, the treatment of youth, and so on, were dealt with, I am sure that this official or youth leader discussed the matter with the Reich Youth Leadership and made a report to it. The Minister is always responsible for the youth official in his Ministry, and not the organization from which the youth official happens to come.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I understand. To the question put to you by your defense counsel regarding the participation of the Hitler Youth in the atrocities committed in Lvov, you answered that the testimony of the French citizen, Ida Vasseau, supplied by the Extraordinary State Commission, is not true.
Mr. President, the Soviet Prosecution has had occasion to interrogate the witness Ida Vasseau. The defense counsel for the Defendant Schirach also requested an interrogation. I now submit to the Tribunal excerpts from the testimony of the witness Vasseau, dated 16 May 1946, and I would like to submit it as Exhibit USSR-455. I shall now read the excerpts into the record:
“The atrocities against the Jewish and the Soviet population of Lvov were perpetrated not only by adult Germans and old Nazis, but also by the German youth of the Fascist youth organization in Lvov. These youngsters, dressed in uniforms, armed with heavy sticks, hunting knives, and often with pistols, ran about the streets, broke into Jewish apartments and destroyed everything in them. They killed all the inhabitants of these apartments, including the children. Very often they stopped children who looked suspicious to them in the streets, shouted: “Stop, you damned Jew!” and shot them on the spot. This Hitlerite youth was often active in locating Jewish apartments, hunting Jews in hiding, setting traps, and assaulting innocent people on the streets, killing them if they were Jews and dragging others away to the Gestapo. Often their victims were Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, and people of other nationalities. This terror of adult and young Germans continued until the last day of the German occupation of Lvov. The intention of completely annihilating the Jews was especially apparent in the “Ghetto actions” in which Jewish children of various ages were systematically killed. They were put into houses specially set up for Jewish children and when sufficient children had been assembled, the Gestapo accompanied by the Hitler Youth broke in and killed them.”
I end the reading of the statement of Ida Vasseau.
Thus, the Hitler Youth in the service of the German army, SS and the Gestapo took part in these atrocities. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe a word of what is contained in this document.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, that is your affair.
Mr. President, I am submitting to the Tribunal another document, USSR-454, excerpts from the testimony of the German prisoner of war Gert Bruno Knittel.
Gert Bruno Knittel, a hatter by trade, was born in 1924 in Saxony. After 1938 he was a member of the Hitler Youth. His sister Ursula was also a member of the National Socialist League of German Girls (BDM). In 1942, when he was 18 years old, he was called up for the German Army. Thus, he is a typical representative of the Hitler Youth, and his testimony is therefore of interest. This is what he relates about his service in the German Army. I quote:
“Not less than twice a week we were called upon to comb out the forests.”
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I must object against the use of this document of which we have just received a copy. It does not appear from this copy whether the document was actually signed, whether it was sworn or who drew up this document, which seems to be a report. I must object to this document until these questions have been clarified.
Perhaps in this connection, Mr. President, I might comment on the other document which contains the testimony of Ida Vasseau—the writing is difficult to read. I assume that this witness is identical with the French national Ida Vasseau to whom a questionnaire was sent a long time ago with the permission of the Tribunal. We have been constantly waiting for the answers to this questionnaire, and now today we receive this report dated 16 May 1946, which apparently refers to the same witness. It is obvious that...
THE PRESIDENT: I am not following quite what you are saying. Are you saying that you have issued a questionnaire to the person who is alleged to have made this document?
DR. SAUTER: The High Tribunal approved a questionnaire to a French woman, Ida Vasseau; I will spell the name, V-a-s-s-e-a-u. This is the French woman, Ida Vasseau, who was working in an establishment in Lvov, and who is mentioned in the Lvov Commission report. Perhaps you remember, Mr. President, that one of these reports says that children were taken from the ghetto and given to the Hitler Youth and that the Hitler Youth used these children as live targets. That is the statement of the witness Ida Vasseau, and I am sure that she is the same person who is now mentioned in the report of 16 May 1946. The remarkable thing is that in the report of 16 May 1946, she does not answer the questions which are set down in the questionnaire, but makes further allegations which are obviously not contained in the earlier Lvov Commission report. This is a very mysterious matter, and I believe it would not be just to the Defendant Von Schirach if I did not call your attention to these contradictions.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: May I give my explanation?
THE PRESIDENT: We would like to hear you in detail, General, in answer to what Dr. Sauter has said.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Ida Vasseau, excerpts from whose statement I have read, is certainly the person of whom Dr. Sauter is speaking. I do not know to whom and through what channels the interrogatory was sent; it was not sent through our office. Ida Vasseau was interrogated on our own initiative and we could do so only on 16 May. A special interrogatory was not received by us, and we could not have sent it because the evidence was given only...
THE PRESIDENT: I have only got this document here in German and it doesn’t appear to be a document signed or made by a person called “Vasseau” at all. I don’t know whether it is dealing with something that Ida Vasseau is alleged to have said.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This document is signed.
THE PRESIDENT: I said it wasn’t signed by Vasseau.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This document is signed by Ida Vasseau-Thom and also by the interrogating officials, namely the Chief of the Investigation Branch, Public Prosecutor’s Department for the Lvov Region, Kryzanovsky, and the public prosecutor for the Lvov Region, Kornetov. The interrogation took place on 16 May 1946.
THE PRESIDENT: Look at this document and see if it is the right document.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, these are excerpts from the interrogation of Ida Vasseau.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the same document?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, yes, that is the same document which we are now submitting to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the original you have got before you?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, this is an excerpt from the record, certified by the Chief of Documentation of the Soviet Delegation, Colonel Karev. This is not the original record of the interrogatory. These are excerpts from it.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that it is a document which is admissible under Article 21 or what are you saying about it?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: We are submitting it. If the Tribunal considers that it is necessary to bring out the original of the record, which at the present moment is at Lvov, we will be able to do so in a short time. If the Tribunal is not satisfied with these excerpts, we will very easily be able to submit the record in full.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you tell us what the document is? Is it an affidavit? Is it sworn to? Is it made before an official of the Soviet Union?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: There is a note on the record referring to the responsibility for false testimony, as set forth under Article 89 of the Penal Code of the Ukrainian S.S.R. This warning is in accordance with the requirements for legal procedure in the Soviet Union, and this warning was given to Ida Vasseau, as a special certification on the record shows.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that it is a document which falls within Article 21 of the Charter?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, but if the Tribunal consider it necessary, we will later be able to submit the complete original record.
I am now asking the Tribunal to accept the excerpts from this record which have been certified by the Chief of our Documentation Division.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, what is the date on which your interrogatory was allowed by the Tribunal and what was the date on which it was sent out to this person?
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the interrogatory bears the date of 11 April.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: The interrogatory could not be sent because we did not know where the witness Vasseau was. We only discovered it recently.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that the interrogatory has not been administered to the person who made this statement?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This interrogatory could not have reached its destination because, I repeat, until quite recently the whereabouts of the witness Vasseau was unknown.
THE PRESIDENT: When you did find out where the witness was, the interrogatory could have been administered.
GEN; ALEXANDROV: Yes, yes, it can be sent to her. It can be done now if it is necessary.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, may I point out the following: This woman, Ida Vasseau, was in Lvov when this statement which is mentioned in the Commission Report was made; that is clear from the report. I believe it is USSR-6, but I am not quite certain. Now, on 16 May of this year, this woman, Ida Vasseau, was also at Lvov; and her whereabouts were not unknown, since she was interrogated on that day. I had discussed the interrogatory which was sent to Vasseau with the Prosecution; it was at first said that the questions were suggestive or that something was not in order. But we came to terms and I altered the questions which I submitted to the High Tribunal according to the wishes of the Prosecution; so if the Soviet Delegation were willing, Ida Vasseau could be interrogated at any time. It is remarkable that in this later statement, this woman testified on something entirely different from what is set forth in her previous statement, and something entirely different from what she was asked in the interrogatory. I think it would be useful if Ida Vasseau were examined here.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, what previous statement do you mean? What previous statements do you mean?
DR. SAUTER: The statement in the commission report of the City of Lvov. This commission report was read here once and it says that the Hitler Youth committed these outrages against the children; my questionnaire, which the Tribunal approved, deals with this point.
THE PRESIDENT: General, was the interrogatory submitted by Dr. Sauter shown to the witness Vasseau?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, it was not sent to her. May I, to clarify the matter, come back to the history of this interrogatory? The Soviet Prosecution submitted a document, the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German Atrocities in the Lvov Region, and this document contained a statement by the witness Ida Vasseau; no one interrogated her at that time. In this statement she said that she witnessed how the Hitler Youth used small children as targets. That was her statement in the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission. This document was accepted by the Tribunal. Then, on our own initiative—Dr. Sauter’s interrogatory did not come to us and we did not send it out—the whereabouts of Ida Vasseau was established. She was examined by interrogating officers and supplemented the testimony which she had given before the Extraordinary State Commission. I am now submitting to the Tribunal excerpts from her interrogatory on 16 May in which she dwelt on certain details of the treatment of children by the Hitler Youth.
THE PRESIDENT: We all understand that, General, but the question is: Why, if interrogatories had been allowed by the Tribunal and had been seen by the Prosecution and were dated sometime in April, why was the witness interrogated in May without having seen these interrogatories? This document is dated 16 May 1946, isn’t it, Dr. Sauter?—Dr. Sauter tells us that interrogatories allowed by the Tribunal were dated in April.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I do not know where Dr. Sauter sent his interrogatory. He did not send it through our office. I repeat that we did not send this interrogatory and could not have sent it on, for we did not know where Ida Vasseau lived. On our initiative steps were taken to establish her whereabouts, and when we found her she was interrogated, namely on 16 May.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.