As the highest Party and State leader in the Reichsgau Vienna, Schirach was responsible for all the crimes of the Nazi conspirators in the Reichsgau Vienna on the ground that he either initiated, approved, executed, or abetted them. Specific examples, described below, demonstrate that in fact he was actively and personally engaged in Nazi crimes.
H. SCHIRACH PARTICIPATED IN THE CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, PARTICULARLY ANTI-SEMITIC MEASURES.
Schirach bears responsibility for providing many, if not most, of the Death Head (Totenkopf) members of the SS, who, in the main, administered the concentration camps. As particularized above, the SS, by agreement between Himmler and Schirach, took “its replacement primarily” from Streifendienst members of the Hitler Youth and only upon special permission could a non-Hitler Youth become an SS man. Nor can Schirach escape responsibility for his assistance in implanting in youth the Nazi ideology, with its tenets of a master race, “sub-human” peoples, and world domination. For such notions were the psychological prerequisites for the instigation and toleration of the atrocities which zealous Nazis committed throughout Germany and the occupied countries.
(1) Schirach directed and participated in the Nazi conspirators’ slave labor program.
(For a full discussion of the slave labor program see Chapter X.)
Vienna was one of the principal cities and an independent Reichsgau of Greater Germany. Schirach, as Gau Leader and Reich Governor, was delegated far-reaching responsibilities concerning the slave labor program and hence shares responsibility for crimes of slave labor. (3352-PS)
This document proves that the Gau Leaders were required to be the supreme integrating and coordinating agents of the Nazi conspirators in executing the entire manpower program. A circular of the Party Chancellery of 22 March 1942 states that Goering, upon the suggestion of Sauckel, had agreed that the Gau Leaders were to become active as Sauckel’s special Plenipotentiaries (Bevollmaechtigte) in order that—
“By the leadership of the Party in full appreciation of the competence of the corresponding Reich authorities, the highest efficiency in the field of manpower shall be guaranteed.” (3352-PS)
Goering gave Sauckel authority to issue orders to “the agencies of the Party, its member organizations and affiliated organizations” as well as to governmental authorities. By an order of 6 April 1942 Sauckel appointed the Gau Leaders as his “plenipotentiaries for manpower within their respective Gaus,” and charged them with the—
“* * * establishment of a harmonious cooperation of all agencies of the State, of the Party, of the Armed Forces, and of the Economy, charged with problems of manpower and thus to create agreement between the different conceptions and requirements to obtain the highest efficiency in the field of manpower.” (3352-PS).