DR. SAUTER: Then explain briefly, Herr Von Schirach.
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. At the meeting of the General German Students Congress in 1931, at which all German students and all Austrian students and Sudeten-German students were represented, one of my collaborators whom I had suggested as leader was unanimously elected head of the entire student group. This was a very important affair for the youth and for the Party. Two years before the seizure of power the entire academic youth had unanimously given their vote to a National Socialist. After this students’ rally at Graz, I had with Hitler a...
THE PRESIDENT: I think this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
DR. SAUTER: Very well.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. SAUTER: Witness, before the recess we stopped at the fact that in 1929 you had been elected the leader of the academic youth. Two years later, Hitler made you Reich Youth Leader. How did that appointment come about?
VON SCHIRACH: After the student meeting at Graz in 1931, the success of which was very surprising to Hitler, I had a conference with him. In the course of that meeting, Hitler mentioned a conversation we had had previously. At that time he had asked me how it came about that the National Socialist University Movement was developing so quickly, whereas the other National Socialist organizations lagged behind in their development.
I told him at that time that one cannot lead youth organizations as an appendix of a political party; youth has to be led by youth, and I developed for him the idea of a youth state, that idea which had come to me from experiencing the school community, the school state. And thereupon in 1931 Hitler asked me whether I would like to assume the leadership of the National Socialist Youth Organization. This included youth cells, then the Hitler Youth and the National Socialist Students Organization, which also was in existence at that time. Several men had already tried their hand at the leadership of these organizations: the former Oberstführer SA Leader Pfeffer, the Reichsleiter Buch, actually without much result.
I agreed and became then Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, temporarily a member of the staff of the Oberst SA Leader Röhm. In that position, as Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP in the staff of Röhm, I had the rank of an SA Gruppenführer and kept that rank also when, half a year later, I became independent in my position. That explains also the fact that I am an SA Obergruppenführer. I got that rank many years later, honoris causa. However, I did not possess an SA uniform—even after 1933.
DR. SAUTER: Then in 1931 you became Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP?