Military training, in my opinion, is all training with weapons of war, and all training which is conducted by military personnel, that is, by officers, with and without weapons of war. Premilitary education—premilitary training is, in the widest sense, all training which comes before the time of military service; in particular cases it is a special preparation for military service. We, in the Hitler Youth, were opponents of any military drills for youth. We disliked such drills as not youthful. I am not giving my personal opinion here, but the opinion of thousands of my co-workers.
It is a fact that I rejected the Wehrjugend (the Youth Defense Groups), which had formerly existed in Germany, and did not allow any continuation of Wehrjugend work within the HJ. I had always been strongly opposed to any soldier-playing in a youth organization. With all my high esteem for the profession of an officer, I still do not consider an officer capable of leading youth because in some way or other, he will always apply the tone of the drill field and the forms of military leadership to youth.
That is the reason why I did not have any officers as my assistants in the Hitler Youth. Just on account of my refusal to use officers as youth leaders, I was severely criticized by the Wehrmacht on occasion. I should like to stress that that did not come from the OKW; Field Martial Keitel, especially, had a great deal of understanding for my ideas. However, in the Wehrmacht, now and again, criticism was heard on account of the general attitude of opposition of the Youth Leadership corps toward having officers used as leaders of a youth organization. The principle of “youth leading youth” was never broken in Germany.
If I am now to answer definitively the question of whether the youth was prepared for the war and whether it was trained in a military sense, I shall have to say, in conclusion, that the main efforts of all youth work in Germany culminated in trade competition, in the trade schools, in camping, and competition in sports. Physical training, which perhaps in some way could be considered a preparation for military service, took only a very small part of our time.
I should like to give as an example here: A Gebiet, or district, of the Hitler Youth, for instance the Gebiet of Hessen-Nassau which is about the same as a Gau in the Party, contributed from its funds in 1939 as follows: For hikes and camping, 9/20; for cultural work, 3/20; for sports and physical training, 3/20; for the Land Service (Landdienst), and other tasks and for the offices, 5/20.
The same area spent, in 1944—that is, 1 year before the end of the war—for cultural work, 4/20; for sports and defense training, 5/20; for Landdienst and other tasks, 6/20; and for the evacuation of children to the country, 5/20.
In that connection I should like to mention briefly that the same area, in the time from 1936 until 1943, made no expenditures for racial-political education; in 1944 there was an entry of 20 marks under the heading of racial-political education for the acquisition of a picture book about hereditary and venereal diseases. However, in that same district, in one single town, during the same time, 200,000 marks were given to have youth visit the theaters.
The question concerning premilitary or military education cannot be answered by me without describing small-caliber shooting practice. Small-caliber firing was a sport among the German youth. It was practiced on the lines laid down in the international rules for sport shooting. Small-caliber shooting, according to Article 177 of the Treaty of Versailles, was not prohibited. It states expressly in that article of the treaty that rifle clubs, sporting, and hiking organizations are forbidden to train their members in the handling and use of war weapons. The small-caliber rifle, however, is not a war weapon. For our sport shooting we used a rifle similar to the American 22-caliber. It was used with the 22-caliber Flobert cartridge for short or long distance.
I should like to say here that our entire marksmanship training and other so-called premilitary training have been collected in a manual entitled “HJ Service.” That book was printed and sold not only in Germany but was also available abroad.
The British Board of Education in 1938 passed judgment on that book, in the educational pamphlet, Number 109. With the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to quote briefly what was said about it in this educational pamphlet. I quote in English: