Morning Session
MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the Defendants Hess, Von Ribbentrop, and Fritzsche are absent.
DR. SAUTER: May it please the Tribunal, yesterday at the end of my statement I dealt with the charge of the Prosecution that the Defendant Von Schirach had trained and educated the youth of the Third Reich in a military sense, that he had prepared them for the waging of aggressive wars and had participated in a conspiracy against peace. Now I turn to a further accusation which has been made by the Prosecution against Defendant Von Schirach.
Since the Prosecution could not prove that the Defendant Von Schirach had ever promoted Hitler’s war policy before the war, he is being charged with having had various connections with the SS and SA, and especially with the fact that the SS, the SA, and the Leadership Corps of the Party obtained their recruits from the Hitler Youth. This last fact is quite correct, but it proves nothing as to Schirach’s attitude toward Hitler’s war policy and is equally pointless as regards the question of his participation in Hitler’s war conspiracy. For since 90 or 95 percent or more of German youth belonged to the Hitler Youth movement it was only natural that the Party and its formations as the years went by should receive their young recruits in an ever-increasing measure from the Hitler Youth. Practically no other youth was available.
The Prosecution has referred to the agreement between the Reich Youth Leadership and the Reichsführer SS, dated October 1938, concerning the patrol service of the Hitler Youth, which was submitted to Your Honors as Document 2396-PS; however, no inference can be drawn therefrom, for patrol service in the Hitler Youth was merely an institution designed to check up on and supervise the discipline of Hitler Youth members when they appeared in public. It was, therefore, a kind of organization police which was employed by the Hitler Youth movement entirely within its own ranks. In order, however, to guard against difficulties with the regular Police, an arrangement with the Reichsführer SS Himmler was necessary because as chief of the whole police organization in Germany he might have made trouble for the institution of the HJ patrol service. This was the only object of the agreement of October 1938, which in reality had just as little to do with providing recruits for the SS as with the conduct and preparation of war. Moreover, it can clearly be seen how resolutely Schirach strove against any influence on the part of the Party over the Hitler Youth from the fact that in 1938 he protested very sharply against having the education of the Hitler Youth during their last 2 years from 16 to 18 taken over by the SA. He emphatically opposed this plan and through personal intervention with Hitler prevented the Führer decree in question from being applied in practice.
As for his attitude toward the SS, we know from the testimony of the witness Gustav Hoepken, who was heard here on 28 May 1946, and from the affidavit of the witness Maria Hoepken, Schirach Document Book Number 3, that Schirach always feared he was being shadowed and spied upon by the SS in Vienna. He always had an uncomfortable feeling because at the beginning of his activity in Vienna a permanent deputy had been appointed for him in his capacity as Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) and Reich Defense Commissioner in the person, of all things, of a higher SS leader, a certain Dr. Delbrügge; he was, as Schirach knew, closely associated with the Reichsführer SS who, as has been proved, proposed to Hitler in 1943 that Schirach should be imprisoned for defeatism and brought before the Peoples’ Court, which meant in practice that Himmler would have had Schirach hanged. These facts alone are already proof of the real relationship between the Defendant Von Schirach and the SS, and it will be understood why Schirach finally refused even the police protection squad assigned to him and preferred to entrust his personal protection to a unit of the Wehrmacht which was not subordinate to the order of Himmler. (See affidavit of Maria Hoepken in Schirach Document Book Number 3.)
Another accusation which has been made against the Defendant Von Schirach concerns his attitude in the Church question. This attitude corresponds to the impression given by the present proceedings, and while this issue is not given any prominence in the Indictment, it is nevertheless of considerable importance as far as the appreciation of Schirach’s personality is concerned.
Schirach himself, as well as his wife, always remained members of the Church. To the foreign critic this circumstance may perhaps appear an unimportant detail, but we Germans know what pressure was exerted upon high-ranking Party officials in these very matters, and how few in his position ventured to resist such pressure. Schirach was one of those few. He was the one high-ranking Party Leader who constantly and invariably punished with extreme severity any hostile interference and outrages against the Church on the part of the Hitler Youth. He has also been reproached for the fact that various songs were sung by the Hitler Youth which contained offensive remarks about religious institutions, but in this respect Schirach could with a clear conscience confirm on his oath that partly he was unaware of those songs, which is quite conceivable where an organization of 7 or 8 million members is involved; on the other hand, certain songs now considered objectionable date back to the Middle Ages and figured in the song book of the Wandervogel, a former youth organization which the Prosecution surely does not propose to condemn. Schirach has however especially pointed out that during the years 1933 to 1936 several million youths from an entirely different spiritual environment joined the Hitler Youth and that during the first revolutionary years, that is, in the period of storm and stress of the Movement, it was quite impossible to hear of and prevent all lapses of this sort. Whenever Schirach did hear of such things he intervened and remedied abuses of that kind, which after all represented offenses on the part of isolated elements incapable of compromising the youth organization as a whole.
It is Schirach’s conviction that the examination of evidence leaves no doubt as to his conciliatory behavior in the matter of the Church, and that he strove to establish proper relations of mutual respect between the Church on the one hand and the Third Reich, and more especially the Reich Youth Leadership, on the other hand, and to observe their respective rights and competences. At his own request Schirach was permitted by the Reich Minister of the Interior to take part in conducting the Concordat negotiations with the Catholic Church in 1934, because he hoped to achieve an agreement with the Catholic Church more easily by his personal co-operation. He honestly endeavored to find a formula for the settlement of the youth question by which agreement with the Catholic Church could be possible. His moderation and good will in this respect were frankly acknowledged by the representative of the Catholic Church at that time. But everything was ultimately frustrated by Hitler’s opposition and the complications created for these negotiations by the events of 30 June 1934, the so-called Röhm Putsch.
With the Protestant Church, on the other hand, Schirach achieved an agreement with the Reich Bishop, Dr. Müller, so that the incorporation of the Protestant youth groups into the Hitler Youth was not attained by constraint but by mutual agreement, not by breaking up these associations by the State or the Party, as the Prosecution assumes, but upon the initiative of the Protestant ecclesiastical head and in complete agreement with him. It must be pointed out here that it was always Schirach’s policy that no restrictions were to be imposed on church services by the Youth Leadership, neither then nor later. On the contrary, as he himself has testified and as was confirmed by the witness Lauterbacher, Schirach emphatically stated in 1937 that he would leave it to the churches to educate the younger generation according to the spirit of their faith, and at the same time he ordered that, as a principle, no Hitler Youth service was to be scheduled on Sundays during the time of church services. He gave strict orders to the unit leaders of the Hitler Youth not to schedule duties which might disturb church services. If, however, in individual cases such interference did occur and some religious authorities lodged complaints as the cross-examination revealed, then the Defendant Schirach cannot be blamed for this, nor does it alter the fact that he had every good intention.
During the Trial not a single case could be proved in which he stirred up feeling against the Church or made antireligious statements; on the contrary, at numerous rallies as submitted to the Tribunal in the Schirach document book, he not only repeatedly opposed the allegation that the Hitler Youth were enemies of the Church or atheists, but he always positively impressed upon the leaders and members of the Hitler Youth the necessity of fulfilling their obligation toward God; he would not tolerate anyone in the Hitler Youth who did not believe in God; every true teacher, he told them, must imbue youth with religious feeling, since it was the basis of all educational activities; Hitler Youth service and religious convictions could very well be associated with each other and exist side by side; no Hitler Youth leader was to engender conflicts of conscience whatsoever in his boys. Leave of absence was to be granted to Hitler Youth members for religious services, rites, et cetera. Such was Von Schirach’s point of view.
Whoever gives such instructions to his subleaders, and continues to do so over and over again, can demand that he should not be judged an enemy of the Church and an enemy of religious life. Incidentally, it is interesting in this connection to note what such a reliable judge as Nevile Henderson wrote in his oft-quoted book Failure of a Mission about a speech which he heard Schirach deliver at the 1937 Reich Party Rally, parts of which have been submitted in Schirach’s document book. Henderson, who as Ambassador in Berlin knew German conditions intimately, evidently expected that Baldur Schirach would speak against the Church at the Reich Party Rally and would influence the young people in the spirit of enmity to the Church, as was often done by other leaders of the Party. Henderson writes, and I quote two sentences:
“That day, however, it was Von Schirach’s speech which ... impressed me most, although it was quite short.... One part of this speech surprised me when, addressing the boys, he said, ‘I do not know if you are Protestants or Catholics, but that you believe in God, that I do know.’ ”
And Henderson added:
“I had been under the impression that all references to religion were discouraged among the Hitler Youth, and this seemed to me to refute that imputation.”
What Schirach really thought with regard to religion, and in what sense he influenced youth, is indicated not only by a statement he made on the occasion of a speech before the teachers of the Adolf Hitler Schools at Sonthofen, to the effect that Christ was the greatest leader in the history of the world, but likewise by the small book, submitted to you in evidence, entitled, Christmas Gift of the War Welfare Service. This book, which was sent out in large numbers, was dedicated by Schirach to the front-line soldiers who joined from the ranks of the Hitler Youth movement in 1944, at a time when radicalism in all spheres of German life could hardly become more pronounced.
Here also Schirach was an exception: You will find no swastika, no picture of Hitler, no SA song in the book of Reichsleiter Von Schirach, but among other things a distinctly Christian poem from Schirach’s own pen, then a picture of a Madonna, and next to it a reproduction of a painting by Van Gogh who, as is generally known, was strictly banned in the Third Reich. Instead of inflammatory words, we find an exhortation to a Christian way of thinking and the “Wessobrunner Gebet,” familiar as the earliest Christian prayer in the German language. Bormann stormed when he saw the pamphlet, but Schirach remained firm and refused to withdraw the little book or alter it in any way.
The Defendant Von Schirach has been charged with having once undertaken a hostile act against the Church, and with having thereby taken part in the persecution of the Church. From a letter by Minister Lammers of 14 March 1941 (Document R-146), it appears that Schirach had proposed to keep confiscated property at the disposal of the Gaue, and not to hand it over to the Reich, but this case is no justification at all for connecting the Defendant Von Schirach in some way or other with the persecution of the Church. The case mentioned by the Prosecution does not concern church property at all, but confiscated property of a Prince Schwarzenberg in his Vienna palace. This affair therefore never had anything to do with the Church. This is also confirmed unequivocally by Minister Lammers’ letter of 14 March 1941 (R-146), which mentions only, I quote, “a confiscation of the property (of persons) hostile to the people and the State,” whereas Bormann’s far-reaching personal intention becomes apparent and betrays his hostile attitude toward the Church when he writes about “church properties (monastic possessions, and so forth)” in his accompanying letter of 20 March 1941 referring to this case. Moreover, the confiscation of Prince Schwarzenberg’s property was not caused, pronounced, or carried out by Schirach. Schirach had nothing to do with the confiscation as such; Schirach, however, in agreement with the other Gauleiter of the Austrian NSDAP, and at their request, personally applied to Hitler and asked that such confiscated property should not be taken to the Reich and not be used on behalf of the Reich, but that it should remain in Vienna. This suggestion met with approval. Hitler complied with his request, the result of Schirach’s efforts being that, when the confiscation was rescinded later on, the property could be returned to the legitimate owner, whereas it would otherwise have been lost by him. By acting thus, Schirach no doubt rendered a service to the Gau of Vienna and to the owner of the property seized. This instance surely cannot be construed as a charge against the Defendant Von Schirach; on the contrary, it speaks in his favor just as the other case where, disregarding Bormann, he intervened on behalf of Austrian nuns and as a result brought about, by a direct order from Hitler, the discontinuance from one day to the other of the whole project of confiscating church and monastic property in the whole Reich.
If the Prosecution further undertakes to charge the Defendant Von Schirach with the fact that the Vienna authorities subordinate to him proposed to establish an Adolf Hitler School in the monastery of Klosterneuburg in 1941, I must point out that even prior to the requisitioning of this monastery, and entirely independently of Schirach, the Vienna police and several Vienna courts had uncovered a considerable number of criminal offenses in this monastery, furthermore that the confiscation of part of the monastery seemed entirely justified to the Defendant Von Schirach, since the very spacious rooms of this religious establishment were not required for monastery purposes.
It should also be noted that the monastery, as can be seen from documents submitted, did not file any protest with the Reich Minister of the Interior against the decision to confiscate, and thereby recognized the confiscation as legal, although it had been expressly informed in the confiscation decree of the possibility of lodging a complaint. Moreover, the confiscated quarters were afterward not used for the establishment of an Adolf Hitler School, but for the Museum of Historical Art (thus not for a Party establishment), which again testifies to the fact that the confiscation decree had in no way been issued because of a hostile attitude on the part of Schirach toward the Church. Had it been Schirach’s object to attack the monastery because it was an ecclesiastical institution, he would have included in the confiscation the rooms used for religious ceremonies. These, however, he strictly excluded.
Moreover, when appraising this case, attention should be paid to the fact that the justification of the confiscation decree of 22 February 1941 displays remarkable reticence. The decree restricts itself to justifying the confiscation by the fact that on the one hand Vienna badly needed room and that on the other hand the premises confiscated were not required for the purposes of the monastery. Not a single word mentions or even suggests that criminal offenses had taken place in the monastery, as recorded in a police report of 23 January 1941, which is submitted to the Court. If this confiscation had been the result of a hostile attitude of Schirach toward the Church, we could have been sure that somehow or other reference would have been made to these criminal offenses to justify the confiscation. At Schirach’s wish a monthly indemnification was paid to the clergy who had occupied some of the confiscated rooms, for which payment there existed no official obligation whatever.
Defendant Von Schirach’s further behavior does not reveal any hostile attitude toward the Church, particularly if one considers, when judging this behavior, that during these years even a Reichsleiter was under strong pressure by the Reich Chancellery and by Bormann, and that at that time a considerable amount of courage was necessary to resist this pressure and carry on a policy in opposition to the official Berlin policy.
The witness Wieshofer of Vienna, who had the opportunity of watching Schirach’s activities, confirmed before the Court that in Vienna Schirach likewise strove to establish correct relations with the Church, that he was always willing to listen to any complaints of the Cardinal of Vienna and took severe measures against the excesses of individual members of the Hitler Youth or Hitler Youth leaders. In Vienna he thus displayed a policy toward the Church quite different from that which his radical predecessor Bürckel had favored, and it is beyond doubt that ecclesiastical circles in Vienna and the whole of the Viennese population appreciated Schirach’s attitude toward the Church. This is also confirmed by the witness Gustav Hoepken who was examined here and who, by order of Schirach, held regular conferences with a Vienna theologian, Professor Ens, in order to be able to inform the Defendant Schirach of the wishes of the Church and the differences which had arisen with ecclesiastical authorities. Unless he wished to expose himself to the most serious danger, Schirach could do no more under the prevailing political circumstances, which are described in the affidavit of Maria Hoepken, Document Book Schirach Number 3.
I now turn to another point of the Indictment, to the question of the concentration camps. The Prosecution has connected the defendant with concentration camps, although not in the Indictment but during the presentation of evidence; and the witness Alois Höllriegel, who was questioned here, was asked in the witness box whether Schirach had ever been inside the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. To this I should like to remark that the Defendant Von Schirach mentioned his visit to Mauthausen at his interrogation by the American Prosecution before the beginning of the Trial; it would, therefore, not have been necessary to have this visit confirmed again by the witness Höllriegel. He visited the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in the year 1942, not in 1944, as the witness Marsalek erroneously stated; the correct year, 1942, has been confirmed by the witness Höllriegel and also by the witnesses Hoepken and Wieshofer, from whom we heard that neither after 1942 nor at any other time did Schirach visit other concentration camps. The visit to Mauthausen in 1942 cannot implicate the defendant Schirach in the sense of his having known, approved, and supported all the conditions and atrocities in concentration camps. In 1942 he saw nothing in Mauthausen which might have indicated such crimes. There were no gas chambers and the like in 1942. At that time mass executions did not take place at Mauthausen. The statements of the Defendant Von Schirach concerning his impression of this camp appear quite plausible, because the testimony of numerous witnesses who have been heard during the course of this Trial has confirmed again and again that on the occasion of such official visits, which had been announced previously, everything was carefully prepared in order to show to the visitors only that which need not fear the light of day. Maltreatment and torture were concealed during such official visits in the same manner as arbitrary executions or cruel experiments. This was the case at Mauthausen in 1942 and certainly also at Dachau in 1935, where Schirach and the other visitors were shown only orderly conditions, which at a superficial glance appeared to be better than in some ordinary prisons.
As a result, Schirach only knew that since 1933 there were several concentration camps in Germany where, as far as he knew, incorrigible habitual criminals and political prisoners were confined. However, even today Schirach is unable to believe that the mere knowledge of the existence of concentration camps is in itself a punishable crime, since he at no time did anything whatsoever to promote concentration camps, never expressed his approval of this institution, never sent anybody to a concentration camp, and would in any case never have been able to make any changes in this institution or to prevent the existence of concentration camps. Schirach’s influence was always too small for that. As Reich Youth Leader, of course, he had nothing to do with concentration camps in the first place, and it was lucky for Schirach that in his entire Vienna Gau district there was not a single concentration camp. His relations with concentration camps were therefore limited to repeated attempts to have people released from them, and it is after all significant that his sole visit to the Concentration Camp Mauthausen resulted in his exerting his influence to obtain the ultimate release of inhabitants of Vienna who were imprisoned there.
May it please the Tribunal, I do not want to go again into many details which have played a larger or smaller part in the presentation of evidence for the case of Schirach. In the interest of saving time I shall not deal more specifically with his alleged connection with Rosenberg or Streicher, nor with his alleged collaboration in the slave labor program, in which connection not even the slightest participation of the Defendant Schirach could be proved, nor with a telephone conversation which has been used by the Prosecution and which allegedly took place between one of the Viennese officials and an SS Standartenführer regarding the compulsory labor of the Jews, about which Von Schirach knew nothing at all.
But I should like to insert a short remark about one subject which arose particularly in connection with the case of Rosenberg, that is, a brief explanation concerning the Hay Action by which thousands of children in the Eastern combat zone were collected and brought partly to Poland and partly to Germany. The apparent aim of this operation, as far as Schirach could see from the documents presented here, was to collect children who were in the zone of operations, that is, immediately behind the front and wandering around without their parents, with a view to giving them professional training and work so that they should be saved from physical and moral neglect.
The Defendant Von Schirach doubts whether this can be looked upon as a crime against humanity, or as a war crime; but one thing is certain, that the Defendant Von Schirach did not know anything of that affair at the time. He was not the competent authority. That entire affair was handled by Army Group Center in collaboration with the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories, and, of course, it is quite plausible that neither the Eastern Ministry nor the Army Group Center saw fit to approach the Gauleiter of Vienna in order to get his approval of that action, or even to notify him about it.
The only thing which, a considerable time later, came to the attention of the Defendant Von Schirach and may have some bearing on that, the Hay Action, was an incidental report by Reich Youth Leader Axmann that so and so many thousand youths had been brought to the Junkers works at Dessau as apprentices.
The Defendant Von Schirach was anxious to clear up this matter in view of his former office as Reich Youth Leader, and he wishes to make it quite clear that even after leaving that office he would of course never have undertaken anything against the interests of youth.
May I add another remark here concerning the letter which the Defendant Von Schirach sent to Reichsleiter Bormann after the murder of Heydrich, in which he suggested reprisal measures to Bormann in the form of a terror attack upon an English center of culture? That letter was actually sent by the defendant to Bormann. He acknowledges it. I have to point out at the very beginning that fortunately the suggestion remained a suggestion, and it was never carried out. The defendant, however, has told us that at that time he was very upset by the assassination of Heydrich, and it was clear to him that a revolt of the population in Bohemia would necessarily lead to a catastrophe for the German armies in Russia, and in his capacity as Gauleiter of Vienna he had considered it his duty to undertake something to protect the rear of the German army fighting in Russia. And that explains that teletype to Bormann in 1942 (Document 3877) which, as I have already pointed out, fortunately was not acted upon.
May it please the Tribunal, I shall proceed with my statement, the middle of Page 26.
I shall not deal in detail with the Adolf Hitler Schools which were founded by Schirach, nor with the Fifth Column which was somehow, quite wrongly, connected with the Hitler Youth, although nothing definite could be charged to the defendant. I shall not go into either the repeated efforts on behalf of peace undertaken by the Defendant Schirach and his friend Dr. Colin Ross, nor shall I discuss the merits of the defendant with reference to the evacuation of children to the rural areas, which took millions of children from bomb-endangered districts during the war into more quiet zones and thus saved their lives and health.
The Defendant Von Schirach has already talked about all these affairs in detail himself, and I should therefore like to refer to his own statements, which you will consider in your judgment.
As counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach, I shall discuss only one more problem here, namely Schirach’s opinion and attitude concerning the Jewish question. Schirach has admitted here on the witness stand that he has been a convinced National Socialist, and thus also an anti-Semite from his earliest youth. He has also made clear to us what he understood by anti-Semitism during those years. He thought of the exclusion of the Jews from civil service and of the limitation of Jewish influence in cultural life and perhaps also in economic life, to a certain extent. But that was all which in his opinion should be undertaken against the Jews, and this was in accordance with the suggestion which he had already made as leader of the students’ organization for the introduction of a quota system for students. The defendant’s decree concerning the treatment of Jewish youth is, for example, also important in establishing his attitude (Schirach Document Number 136). This is a decree in which he expressly orders that Jewish youth organizations should have the right and the opportunity to practice freely within the limitations imposed upon them. It says that they were not to be disturbed in their own life.
“In its youth the Jewish community shall already today take up that secluded but internally unrestrained special position which at some future time the entire Jewish community will be given in the German State and in German economy.”
Those are the very words of that decree. Obviously Schirach was not at all thinking about pogroms, bloody persecutions of the Jews, and the like; rather did he believe at that time that the anti-Semitic movement had already achieved its aim by the anti-Jewish legislative measures of the years 1933-34, thereby eliminating Jewish influence as far as it seemed unhealthy to him. He was therefore surprised and very alarmed when the Nuremberg Laws were promulgated in 1935, which formulated a policy of complete exclusion of the Jewish population and carried it out with barbaric severity. Schirach in no way took part in the planning of these laws; he has nothing whatsoever to do with their content and their formulation. That has been proved here.
When on 10 November 1938 he heard about the pogrom against the Jews and about the brutal excesses which were staged by Goebbels and his fanatic clique his indignation became known throughout the entire youth movement. The evidence proved this also. We have heard from the witness Lauterbacher how Schirach reacted to the report of these excesses: He immediately called his assistants together and gave them the strictest orders that the Hitler Youth must be kept out of such actions under all circumstances. He at once had the leaders of the Hitler Youth in all German cities notified by telephone to the same effect and warned every subordinate that he would hold him personally responsible if any excesses should occur in the Hitler Youth.
But even after November 1938 Schirach never considered the possibility that Hitler was contemplating the extermination of the Jews. On the contrary, he only heard it mentioned that the Jews were to be evacuated from Germany into other states, that they should be transported to Poland and settled there, at worst in ghettos, but more probably in a closed settlement area. When Schirach in July 1940 received Hitler’s order to take over the Gau of Vienna, Hitler himself also talked to him along the same lines, namely, that he, Hitler, would have the Jews brought from Vienna into the Government General; and even today Schirach has no doubt that Hitler himself was not thinking about the so-called “final solution” of the Jewish question at that time, 1940, in terms of the extermination of the Jews. We learn from the Hossbach minutes and other evidence of this Trial that Hitler was planning the evacuation of Poland already in 1937, but that he decided on the extermination of the Jewish people only in 1941 or 1942.
Schirach had nothing at all to do with the evacuation of the Jews from Vienna, as is alleged by the Prosecution; the execution of this measure was exclusively in the hands of the Reich Security Main Office and the Vienna branch of that office, and it is known that SS Gruppenführer Brunner of Vienna has in the meantime been sentenced to death for that very reason. The only order which Schirach received and carried out concerning the Viennese Jews was to report to Hitler in 1940 how many Jews there were still left in Vienna, and he made this report in a letter of December 1940 where he gave the figure of the Viennese Jews for 1940 as 60,000. It will be remembered that Minister Lammers answered this letter from the Defendant Schirach by a letter dated 3 December 1940 (1950-PS), which shows with all clarity that it was not Schirach who ordered the evacuation of the Viennese Jews to the Government General but Hitler himself, and that again it was not Schirach who carried out this measure but the Reichsführer SS Himmler, who delegated this task to his Vienna office. It must therefore be stated here categorically that Schirach is in no way responsible for the deportation of the Jews from Vienna; he did not carry out this program and he did not initiate it; when he came to Vienna in the summer of 1940 as Gauleiter, the majority of the Viennese Jews had already voluntarily emigrated or had been forcibly evacuated from Vienna, a fact which was confirmed by the Defendant Seyss-Inquart. The remaining 60,000 Jews who were still there at the beginning of Schirach’s time in Vienna were deported from there by the SS without his participation and without his responsibility.
Schirach did make the well-known speech in Vienna in September 1942, where he stated that every Jew working in Europe was a danger to European culture. Schirach furthermore said in this speech that if it was desired to reproach him with the fact that he had deported tens of thousands of Jews into the Eastern ghetto from this city, which had once been the metropolis of Judaism, he would but answer that he considered this an active contribution to European culture. That is how this passage reads. Schirach has openly and courageously admitted that he actually expressed himself in this manner at that time, and expressed his regret by stating:
“I cannot take back this wicked statement; I must take the responsibility for it. I spoke these words, which I sincerely regret.”
Should the Tribunal see in these words a legally punishable crime against humanity, Schirach will have to make atonement for this single anti-Semitic remark which can be attributed to him, though it was merely a spoken word and did not have any harmful result. Schirach’s attitude in this respect does not exempt the Tribunal from its duty to verify carefully what Schirach actually did; furthermore, under what circumstances he made this isolated remark, and finally whether Schirach also made any other spiteful remarks against the Jews or committed any malicious acts against the Jewish race as a whole.
The foremost question is: What did Schirach really do? The reply to this, emerging from the revelations of this Trial, can only be: Apart from the fact that he made this isolated anti-Semitic remark in his speech in Vienna in September 1942, he has not committed any crime against the Jews. He had no competence in the question of the deportation of the Vienna Jews, he did not participate in it at all, and having too little power he could not have prevented it in any case. It is just as the Prosecution incidentally stated: He boastfully attributed to himself an action which in reality he had never committed and, in view of his entire attitude, he never could have committed.
What, however prompted Schirach to make this remark in his Vienna speech? How did he come to attribute to himself a deed and charge himself with an action which he had obviously never committed? Here too the answer is given by the results of the evidence in the Trial: It demonstrates what a very difficult position Schirach had in Vienna. Without giving any reason, Hitler dismissed him as Reich Youth Leader, presumably because he no longer trusted him. From year to year Hitler’s fear was growing lest the young people might stand behind Schirach and become alienated from him, Hitler, to the same degree that the black wall of his SS was isolating him from the people. Hitler possibly saw in his Youth Leader the personification of the coming generation which thought in world-wide terms, whose feelings were human and who felt themselves more and more bound to those precepts of true morality which Hitler had long ago jettisoned for himself and his national leadership, because they had long since ceased to be concepts of true morality for him but mere slogans of a meaningless propaganda. This feeling of Hitler’s may have been the deeper reason why he dismissed Schirach as Youth Leader suddenly in the summer of 1940, without word of explanation, and put him in the especially difficult position of Gauleiter in Vienna, the city which he, Hitler, hated from the bottom of his heart, even while he spoke of his “Austrian fatherland.”
In Vienna Schirach’s position was extremely complicated. Wherever he went he was shadowed and spied upon, his administrative activity there was sharply criticized, he was reproached for neglecting the interests of the Party in Vienna, for almost never being seen at Party meetings, and for not making any political speeches. I refer in this connection to the affidavit of Maria Hoepken, Schirach Document Book Number 3. The Berlin Party Chancellery accepted any complaints the Vienna Party members made about their new Gauleiter with satisfaction, and this fact alone can explain the unfortunate speech Schirach made in September 1942, which was diametrically opposed to the attitude he had always maintained concerning the Jewish question. After the interrogation of the witness Gustav Hoepken here in this courtroom there can be no doubt as to how the Vienna speech came about, for it reveals that Schirach had expressly charged his press officer Günther Kaufmann to emphasize this particular point when telephoning his report of the Vienna speech to the German News Agency in Berlin, because he, Schirach—I quote—“had to make a concession to Bormann in this respect.” Schirach himself stressed this point in the course of his interrogation with the statement that out of false loyalty he had morally identified himself with these acts of Hitler and Himmler. This ugly speech which Schirach made in September 1942 is, however, in another sense a very valuable point in favor of Schirach: He speaks of a “transfer of the Jews to the ghettos of the East.” Had Schirach known at that time that the Viennese Jews were to be sent away in order to be murdered in an extermination camp, he would in view of the purpose of this speech doubtless not have spoken of an Eastern ghetto to which the Jews had been sent, and would have reported the extermination of the Viennese Jews; but even at this time, in the autumn of 1942, he never had the slightest suspicion that Hitler proposed to murder the Jews. That he would never have approved and never accepted; his anti-Semitism at no time went so far.
Schirach also frankly stated here that at that time he approved of Hitler’s plan to settle the Jews in Poland, not because he was inspired by anti-Semitism or hatred of the Jews, but by the reasonable consideration that in view of existing conditions it was in the Jews’ own interest to leave Vienna and be taken to Poland, because the Jews would not in the long run have been able to stay in Vienna under the Hitler regime without being exposed to increasingly serious persecution. As Schirach declared on 24 May 1946, considering Goebbels’ temperament it always seemed possible that incidents like those of November 1938 might be repeated from one day to the other, and under such conditions of legal insecurity he could not visualize the existence of the Jewish population in Germany. He thought that the Jews would be safer in a restricted settlement area of the Government General than in Germany and Austria, where they were exposed to the whims of the Propaganda Minister who, indeed, had been the main supporter of radical anti-Semitism in Germany. Schirach was well aware of this fact. He could not shut his eyes to the realization that the drive against the Jews in Germany obviously became more drastic, more fanatic, and more violent every day. This conception of the Vienna speech of September 1942 and the true cause of its genesis coincide with the statements of the Defendant Schirach at the meeting of the city councillors of Vienna on 6 June 1942 (Document Number 3886-PS), to the effect that in the late summer and autumn of that year all Jews would be expelled from the city, and likewise with the file note of Reichsleiter Bormann of 2 October 1940 (USSR-142), according to which, at a social meeting at Hitler’s home, Schirach had remarked that he still had more than 50,000 Jews left in Vienna which the Governor General of Poland must take over from him. This remark was caused by Schirach’s embarrassing situation at that time. Hitler, on the one hand, kept insisting on the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna, while on the other hand Governor General Frank was reluctant to receive them in the Government General. This disagreement was evidently the reason for Schirach’s discussing this fact at the above-mentioned meeting on 2 October 1940, in order to avoid renewed reproaches by Hitler. Personally he was in no way interested in the removal of the Viennese Jews, as was proved by the testimony of the witness Gustav Hoepken regarding the conference between Schirach and Himmler in November 1943.
I should like to add a word here concerning that discussion. During that conference with Himmler, Schirach presented the point of view that the Jews might be left in Vienna, especially since they were wearing the Star of David anyway. That has been testified to by the witness Hoepken as being a statement made by Schirach during the conversation. However, Hitler demanded the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna and Himmler insisted on having it carried out.
The Prosecution thought it possible to charge Schirach with having made another malicious anti-Semitic remark in connection with a speech which he supposedly made in late December 1938, certainly before the spring of 1939, at a students’ meeting at Heidelberg. Across the Neckar River he pointed to the old university town of Heidelberg where several burned-out synagogues were the silent witnesses to the anti-Semitic activities of the students of Heidelberg. I refer to the affidavit of Ziemer, in which “the stout little Reich Student Leader”—as it is stated literally—is said to have approved and commended the pogroms of 9 November 1938 as a heroic act. This charge, as already mentioned, is supported by the declaration under oath of a certain Gregor Ziemer. However, there can be no doubt that this statement of Ziemer’s is false. Ziemer never belonged to the German student movement or the Hitler Youth, and obviously was not personally present at the student assembly in question. The affidavit does not state from what source he is supposed to have obtained his knowledge. However, that his claim is false is already proved by his description of physical appearance when he speaks of a “stout little student leader”; for this does not at all resemble Schirach. Perhaps it would to some extent apply to his successor, who was Reich Student Leader at the end of 1938, but it certainly was not Schirach. As is known, he had already in 1934 given the office of Reich Student Leader back into the hands of the Führer’s deputy, after he himself had in the meantime been appointed Reich Youth Leader. Schirach did not make a speech at the end of 1938 or at any other time before Heidelberg students, and by the affidavit of the witness Maria Hoepken (Schirach Document Book Number 3) it has been clearly proved that at the time stated Schirach was not in Heidelberg at all. Schirach has also confirmed this under oath and his own statement can lay claim to credibility because he has not whitewashed anything for which he was responsible, and he has not falsely denied anything, but on the contrary has accounted for all his actions with courage and truthfulness during his entire examination.
Still another fact decisively confirms the claim that the Ziemer affidavit is untrue, at any rate in regard to the person of Schirach. In the presentation of evidence it happened to be stated by chance how Schirach reacted to the November pogroms of the year 1938. The witness Lauterbacher has informed us here, as already mentioned at another point, that Schirach on 10 November 1938 condemned most vehemently the events of 9 November 1938 in the presence of his co-workers, and declared that he felt ashamed for the others and for the whole Party. The 9th of November 1938, Schirach said, would go down in Germany history as a unique disgrace of German culture of which we would never be able to cleanse ourselves. Such a thing might have happened among an uncivilized people, but it should never have occurred among us Germans who consider ourselves to be a highly civilized people. The youth leaders, Schirach explained at that time, had to prevent such excesses under all circumstances. He did not wish to hear anything like this about his own organization, either now or in the future. The Hitler Youth must be kept outside such things under all circumstances. These are sworn statements by the witness Hoepken. By a telephone message from Berlin, Schirach had all the offices of the Hitler Youth informed in the same terms. If Schirach in November 1938 condemned and criticized in such an extremely sharp manner the events of 9 November 1938, it is impossible for him to have praised at about the same time the bloody acts which had been committed and thus to have incited the Heidelberg students, and the question therefore arises as to why not a single participant at that student meeting in Heidelberg was brought here as a witness instead of one who could only testify from hearsay. Incidentally, the Prosecution did not revert to this alleged Heidelberg speech during cross-examination, thereby acknowledging Schirach’s own presentation of the facts to be correct.
It is also a very significant fact that the Hitler Youth did not participate in the excesses of 9 November 1938, nor did they commit any excesses of this sort either before or afterward. The Hitler Youth at that time was the strongest Party organization. It comprised some seven or eight million members, and in spite of that not one single case has been proved where the Hitler Youth participated in such crimes against humanity, although its members were mainly of an age which, according to experience, is only too easily tempted to participate in excesses and acts of brutality. The only exception which has been claimed so far concerns the testimony of the French woman Ida Vasseau, who is said to be the manager of an Old People’s Home in Lemberg and is supposed to have claimed, according to the report of the Commission, Document Number USSR-6, that the Hitler Youth had been given children from the ghetto in Lemberg whom they used as living targets for their shooting practice. This single exception, however, which so far has been claimed but not proved, could not be cleared up in any way, particularly not in respect of whether members of the Hitler Youth had really been involved. But even if there had been such a single case among the eight million members during 10 or 15 long years, this could not in any way prove that Baldur von Schirach had exercised an inciting influence, and that, if I may add this here, at a time when he was no longer Reich Youth Leader.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. SAUTER: If the Tribunal please, I shall proceed from Page 36 of my statement. Let us just examine all the speeches and articles which Von Schirach wrote as Reich Youth Leader, and which are in the possession of the Tribunal in the Schirach document book. They extend over a long period of years, yet they do not contain a single word inciting to race hatred, preaching hatred of Jews, exhorting youth to commit acts of violence, or defending such acts. If it has been possible to keep the members of the Hitler Youth, who numbered millions, clear of such excesses, this fact also goes to prove that the leaders endeavored to imbue the younger generation with a spirit of tolerance, love of one’s neighbors, and respect of human dignity.
Just what Von Schirach thought about the treatment of the Jewish question is clearly evident from the scene with occurred in the spring of 1943 at Obersalzberg, which is also described in the affidavit of the witness Maria Hoepken (Document Book Schirach Number 3). In this case I refer to the scene where Schirach had an eyewitness describe to Hitler at his home at Obersalzberg how he had witnessed with his own eyes at night from a hotel window in Amsterdam the manner in which the Gestapo deported hundreds of Dutch Jewesses. Schirach himself could not dare at the time to bring such matters to Hitler’s attention; a decree by Bormann had expressly prohibited the Gauleiter from doing this. Schirach therefore tried through the mediation of a third person, who had been a witness himself, to gain Hitler’s approval of a mitigation in the treatment of the Jewish question. No success was achieved; Hitler dismissed it all bluntly with the remark that this was all sentimentality. Because of this intervention on behalf of the Dutch Jews the situation of the Defendant Von Schirach had become so critical that he preferred to leave Obersalzberg immediately, early in the morning of the following day, and from that time on, Hitler was in principle no longer accessible to Schirach.
This intervention of Schirach for a milder treatment of the Jewish question perhaps also contributed to the fact that Hitler, a few months later, in the summer of 1943, seriously considered having Schirach arrested and brought before the Peoples’ Court, for the sole reason that Schirach had dared, in a letter to Reichsleiter Bormann, to describe the war as a national disaster for Germany.
In any case all this shows that Schirach, as much as he was able, advocated moderation in the Jewish question in a manner which endangered his own position and existence. In spite of the fact that he was an anti-Semite—and just because of this it deserves attention—he withstood all pressure from Berlin and refused to have an anti-Semitic special edition published in the official journal of the Hitler Youth, while he had published his own special editions for an understanding with England and France and for a more humane treatment of the Eastern nations. It is no less worthy of consideration that Schirach, in conjunction with his friend Dr. Colin Ross, endeavored to attain the emigration of the Jews into neutral foreign countries in order to save them from being deported to a Polish ghetto.
The Prosecution has endeavored to substantiate its allegation that the Defendant Von Schirach bears a certain share of the responsibility for the pogroms against Jews which occurred in Poland and Russia, by trying to use against him the so-called “Reports on Experiences and Situation,” which were regularly sent by the SS to the Commissioner for Defense of the Reich in the Military Administrative District XVII. In fact it must be said that if—and I emphasize, if—Schirach had at that time had cognizance of these regular “Reports on Experiences and Situation by the Operational Groups (Einsatzgruppen) of the Security Police and the Security Service in the East,” then this fact would indeed constitute for him a grave moral and political charge. Then he could not be spared the accusation that he must have been aware of the fact that, apart from the military operations in the East, extremely horrible mass murders of Communists and Jews had also taken place. The picture of Von Schirach’s character which we have so far, who was described even by the Prosecution as a “cultured man,” would be tainted very materially if Von Schirach had actually seen and read these reports. For then he would have known that in Latvia and Lithuania, in White Ruthenia and in Kiev, mass murders had taken place, quite obviously without any legal proceedings of any kind and without sentence having been passed.
What has, however, actually been proved by the evidence? The reports referred to were sent, among dozens of other offices, also to that of the “Reich Commissioner for Defense in Military Administrative District XVII” and, moreover, with the specific address “attention of Government Councillor Dr. Hoffmann” or “attention of Government Councillor Dr. Fischer.” From this style of address and from the way in which these reports were initialed at the office of the “Commissioner for Defense of the Reich,” it can be established beyond question that Schirach did not have an opportunity of seeing these reports and that he obtained no knowledge of them in any other way either.
Schirach, it will be remembered, held three extensive offices in Vienna: as Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) and Reich Defense Commissioner he was the chief of the whole State administration; as Lord Mayor he was the head of the municipal administration; and as Gauleiter of Vienna he was the head of the local Party machinery. It is only natural that Schirach could not fulfill all these three tasks by himself, especially since in 1940 he had come from a completely different set of tasks, and first had to make himself acquainted with the scope of work in State administration and in municipal administration. He therefore had a permanent deputy for each of his three tasks, and for the affairs of the State administration, which interests us here, this was the Regierungspräsident of Vienna. This official, Dr. Delbrügge, was to handle the current affairs of the State administration completely on his own initiative. Schirach occupied himself only with such matters of State administration as were forwarded to him by his permanent deputy, the Regierungspräsident, in written form, or about which his deputy reported to him orally.
Now, if this had been the case with regard to the afore-mentioned “Experience and Situation Reports,” then this would have somehow been noted on the documents in question. However, on the “Experience and Situation Reports of the SS” submitted here there is not a single note which indicates that these reports were shown to the Defendant Von Schirach or that he was informed about them. This will readily be understood without further explanation because, after all, the experiences which the Police and the SD had accumulated in the partisan struggles in Poland and Russia were completely inconsequential for the Vienna administration; therefore there was not the least cause to inform the Defendant Baldur von Schirach of these reports in any way, since he was very much overburdened anyhow with administrative matters of all kinds.
This conclusion, Gentlemen, rests primarily not only on the testimony under oath of the defendant here in Court, but also on that of the two witnesses Hoepken and Wieshofer, who, one as chief of the Central Office and the other as adjutant of the defendant, were able to give the most exact information about conditions in Vienna. It is certain that these “Experience and Situation Reports” never came into the distribution center of the Central Office in Vienna, but only into the distribution center of the Regierungspräsident, and that Hoepken, as chief of the Central Office, as well as Wieshofer, as adjutant of the defendant, likewise had no previous knowledge of these reports but saw them for the first time here in the courtroom during their questioning. And I would like to insert here that the two officials of the Defendant Von Schirach who were mentioned by name, Dr. Fischer and the other one, were entirely unaware of them. In any case the result, as has been proved by the file notes which are on the documents, is that Schirach did not have any knowledge whatsoever of these reports, and that he is not coresponsible for the atrocities described therein, and therefore cannot be criminally charged on the basis of these activity reports.
May it please the Tribunal, in judging the personality of Schirach, his behavior during the last weeks in Vienna is also not without importance. For Schirach it was a matter of course not to carry out the various insane orders which came from Berlin at that time. He absolutely condemned the lynching of enemy aviators which was ordered by Bormann, and likewise the order to hang defeatists without mercy, regardless of whether they were men or women. His summary court was never even in session, and did not pronounce a single death sentence. No blood is on his hands. On the other hand, for example, he did everything in order to protect from the excited mob enemy aviators who had made an emergency landing and again, as we have heard from the witness Wieshofer, he immediately sent out his own car in order to bring to safety American aviators who had parachuted. Thereby he again placed himself in deliberate opposition to an order of Bormann that such aviators were not to be protected against lynching by the civilian population. Nor did he pay any attention to the order that Vienna was to be defended to the last man, or that in Vienna bridges and churches and residential sections were to be destroyed, and he emphatically refused compliance with the order to form partisan units in civilian clothing or to continue the hopeless struggle in a criminal manner with the aid of the Werewolf organization. He turned down such demands out of his sense of duty, all the more since this would have caused him to violate international law.
The characterization of the Defendant Von Schirach would be incomplete if we were not also to recall at this moment the declaration which he deposed here on the morning of 24 May 1946. I am speaking of that declaration in which he described Hitler as an unmitigated murderer, here before the whole German people and before the entire world public. Already last year Schirach made declarations which show his feeling of responsibility and his preparedness to answer fully for his actions and those of his subordinates. This was the case on 5 June 1945, for example, when he was hiding in the Tyrol and heard over the radio that all Party leaders were to be brought before an Allied court. Schirach thereupon gave himself up immediately, and in his letter to the American local commander stated he was doing so in order to protect other people, who had only executed his orders, from being called to account for his actions. He surrendered voluntarily, although the British radio had already announced the news of his death, and although Schirach could have hoped to remain undiscovered in his hiding place. This behavior deserves consideration in judging the personality of a defendant.
The same feeling of responsibility was then shown by Schirach in the autumn of 1945 when he was heard by the Prosecution. He believed at that time that his successor Axmann had been killed, as he had been reported to be dead. In spite of this, Schirach did not attempt to put the responsibility on his successor; on the contrary, he expressly stated that he was assuming full responsibility also for the time his successor was in office, as well as for what had been done under his successor in the Reich Youth Leadership. The keystone in this line of conduct is furnished by the statement which Schirach made here on 24 May 1946, which went out from this courtroom to the whole world, to all the German lands, down to the last farm, down to the last workman’s hut.
May it please the Tribunal: Any man may err, he may even make mistakes that he later may not understand himself. Schirach also has erred; he brought up the younger generation for a man whom he for many years held to be unimpeachable and whom he must now brand as a diabolical criminal. In his idealism and out of loyalty he remained faithful and true to his oath to a man who deceived and cheated him and the youth of Germany and who, as we learned here from Speer, up to his last breath placed his own interests higher than the existence and the happiness of 80 million people.
Schirach is perhaps the one defendant who not only clearly realized his mistakes, however they may be regarded, but who confessed to them most honestly and who through his plain speaking prevented the creation of a Hitler legend in the future. Such a defendant must be given consideration for trying to repair as far as he can the damage which he caused in good faith.
Schirach had tried to do that; he took pains to open the eyes of our people about the “Führer” in whom, together with millions of Germans, he saw for many years the deliverer of the fatherland and the guarantor of its future. He publicly rendered an account which the German people are entitled to ask of every subleader since Hitler committed suicide. He did this so that foreign countries could see how the conditions of the last six years had come about in Germany and just who was responsible for them.
But above all, the former Youth Leader, in making his statement on 24 May 1946, desired to tell the youth of Germany openly that so far, quite unknowingly and with the best of intentions, he had led them astray and that now they must take another path if the German people and German culture are not to perish. In doing so Schirach did not think of himself nor of his life’s work which had been destroyed; he was thinking of the youth of today, which not only faces the ruins of our cities and dwellings, but also wanders about among the wreckage of its former ideals; he was thinking of German youth, which is in dire need of new guidance and which must base its future existence on another foundation.
Schirach hopes that the entire youth of Germany has heard his words. What was particularly valuable in his confession of 24 May 1946 was his assurance that he alone takes the guilt for youth, just as he formerly assumed command. If this point of view is acknowledged as being right, and if the necessary conclusions are drawn therefrom, this would be a valuable result of this Trial for our German youth.
May it please the Tribunal, I am now coming to the end of my survey of the case of Von Schirach. In the treatment of this case I desisted from making general statements, and especially those of a political nature. Rather, I confined myself to the appreciation of the personality of the defendant, his actions and his motives.
In this connection I should like to add, to complete the picture, that these considerations and this appreciation by the Defense have shown that the Defendant Von Schirach is not guilty in the sense of the Indictment and cannot be punished, for he did not commit a punishable act, since you as judges will not judge political guilt but rather criminal guilt in the sense of the penal code.
At the end of my remarks in the case of Von Schirach I should like to have the privilege of making a few general statements, not immediately connected with the personality of Schirach, but suggesting themselves to a German defense counsel at the end of this Trial.
May it please the Tribunal, you are the highest tribunal of our times; the power of the whole world stands behind you; you represent the four mightiest nations on earth; hundreds of millions of men, not only in the defeated countries, but also in the victorious nations listen to your opinions and anxiously await your judgment, ready to be taught by you and to follow your advice.
This high authority affords you, Gentlemen, an opportunity of doing much good through your verdict and particularly through the statement of the basis for the judgment, in order that out of today’s disaster the way to a better future may be found for the benefit of your own people and for the good of the German people.
Today, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, Germany lies beaten to the ground, a poor people, the poorest of all. The German cities are destroyed; German industry is smashed to pieces; on the shoulders of the German people rests a national debt representing many times the entire national wealth and spelling want and poverty, hunger and slavery, for many generations for the German people if your peoples do not help us. The findings supporting your verdict will in many respects point the way and give the help needed to emerge from this desperate plight.
To be sure, for reasons of sentiment it may be hard for you to consider this point of view and to take it into account when you think of the misfortune which the past six years also brought to your own countries. It becomes doubly hard, because for months this Trial has revealed nothing but crimes, crimes committed for a great number of years by a German tyrant misusing Germans and the name of this same German people of whose future you as judges are now asked to think benevolently and whom you are now required to help.
May it please the Tribunal: Hitler is dead—with him his tools who in these years committed crimes without number tyrannizing Germany and nearly all of Europe and disgracing the German name for generations to come. The German people on the other hand live, and must be allowed to live if half a universe is not to fall into ruins.
With this Trial and during this epoch, the German people are undergoing a very serious operation. It must not bring death; it must bring recovery. Your verdict can and must make a contribution in that direction, so that in the future the world may not see in every German a criminal, but revert again to the concept of Professor Arnold Nash of the University of Chicago, who a few days ago, when questioned about the purpose of his present trip to Europe, replied: “Every scientist has two fatherlands, his own and Germany.” These words ought to be a warning also for all of those irresponsible critics who even today see it as their task, with propaganda means of every sort, to stir up feeling against everything German and to tell the world that at least every other person in Germany is a criminal.
You, as impartial judges, will not wish to forget one thing: There always was and there still is today another Germany, a Germany that knows industriousness and economy; a Germany of Goethe and Beethoven, a Germany that knows loyalty and honesty and other good qualities which in past centuries were proverbial for the German character. Believe me, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, in this epoch, when Germany is regaining consciousness as after a severe illness, as she proceeds to rebuild a better future from the ruins of an evil past, a future for her youth which has no part in the crimes committed, at this time some 70 or 80 million German people are looking to you and are awaiting from you a verdict which will open the way for the reconstruction of German economy, the German spirit, and true freedom.
You are, Gentlemen, truly sovereign judges, not bound by any written law, not bound to any paragraph, pledged to serve your conscience only, and called by destiny to give to the world simultaneously a legal order which will preserve for future generations that peace which the past was unable to preserve for them. A well-known democrat of the old Germany, the former Minister Dr. Diltz, said in a recent article on the Nuremberg Trial: In a monarchist state justice would be administered in the name of the king; in republics courts would pronounce their rulings in the name of the people; but you, the Nuremberg Tribunal, should administer justice in the name of humanity.
It is, indeed, a wonderful thought for the Court, an ideal aim, if it could believe that its verdict could in fact make real the precepts of humanity, and that it could prevent Crimes against Humanity for all time. But in certain respects this would still remain an unsteady foundation for a verdict of such magnitude as confronts you, because ideas on what humanity demands or prohibits in individual cases may vary, depending upon the epoch, the people, the party concepts according to which one judges.
I believe you may find a reliable foundation for your verdict when you revert to a maxim which has endured throughout the centuries and which certainly will remain valid in ages to come: Justitia est fundamentum regnorum.
Thus the German people, and with them the entire world, await from you a judgment which will not just be hailed today by the victor nations as the final victory over Germany, but which history will recognize as proper; a verdict in the name of justice.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Servatius for the Defendant Sauckel.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal:
The Defense of the Defendant Sauckel has, in the first place, to deal with the charge of “slave labor.” What is slave labor?
One cannot accept this as an established term comprising all the occurrences which, in bewildering abundance, are charged against the Defendant Sauckel under the heading “slave labor.” Particularly, those actions ought first to be examined from a legal point of view. The legal basis for this examination is the Charter. However, this Charter does not say what is to be understood by “slave labor” or by “deportation.” Therefore, these concepts must be clarified by interpretation. Article 6 of the Charter deals in two passages and from two different points of view with deportation and slave labor. Deportation is designated both a war crime and a crime against humanity, and forced labor appears as “slave labor” under the heading of War Crimes, and as “enslavement” under the heading of Crimes against Humanity.
The question of under what heading the mobilization of labor by the Defendant Sauckel should fall is of decisive importance; if it is a war crime, then it should be judged exclusively under martial law. If it is a crime against humanity, then the latter presupposes the commission of a war crime or of a crime against peace.
It follows therefrom that the deportation mentioned in Article 6(b) cannot be the same thing as deportation according to Article 6(c), nor can forced labor according to Article 6(b) be identical with forced labor under Article 6(c). The difference between the two kinds must be found in ...
THE PRESIDENT [Interposing]: That paragraph of your speech which is in English on Page 2, the second paragraph:
“It follows therefrom that deportation mentioned in Article 6(b) cannot be the same as deportation according to Article 6(c) ...” is not altogether clear to the Tribunal. Could you make it clearer?
DR. SERVATIUS: In Article 6(c) we deal with Crimes against Humanity, whereas in Article 6(b) we deal with War Crimes. In both articles the expressions deportation and forced labor are used, but there must be some differentiation, and my examination is directed at establishing this difference more exactly. I believe, Mr. President, that my further statements will make this clearer than it has heretofore been.
I turn now to the terminology used in the Charter. I was talking of the difference between the two kinds of slave labor and deportation. The difference between the two kinds is to be found in the fact that something has to be added to the war crimes which violates the rules of humanity.
The correctness of this interpretation may also be recognized in the terminology of the Charter, however fluctuating it may be. For instance, the Russian text for deportation as a war crime chooses the word uvod, which means only removal from a place, whereas, on the other hand, it uses for crimes against humanity of the same nature the technical expression ssylka, by which penal deportation under the rule of the czars is understood as denoting deportation in the sense of penal deportation.
THE PRESIDENT: The French is not coming through. Will you just wait a minute, there is some difficulty with the French translation, Dr. Servatius. The Tribunal must adjourn.
MARSHAL: The Court will remain adjourned until a quarter to two.