DR. SAUTER: Then I come to another question, Witness. The Prosecution have asserted and I quote:
“...that thousands of boys were trained militarily by the HJ in the work of the Navy, of the naval aviation and of the armored troops, and that over seven thousand teachers trained over a million Hitler Youth in rifle marksmanship.”
That is the citation of the Prosecution referring to some meeting of the year 1938. I should like to have you state your position with regard to the question here, the question of the special units of the Hitler Youth.
VON SCHIRACH: The Prosecution refers, if I am not mistaken, to a speech which Hitler made. How Hitler arrived at the figures concerning training, I cannot say. Concerning training in the special units I can only say, and prove with documents, the following:
In the year 1938 the motorized Hitler Youth—that is that special unit of our youth organization which the Prosecution think received preliminary training in the tank branch—in 1938 the motorized Hitler Youth had 328 vehicles of their own.
DR. SAUTER: In all Germany?
VON SCHIRACH: In all Germany. There were 3,270 private cars of their family members which, of course, were at their disposal for their work; and 2,000 cars of the NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps). In the year 1938 21,000 youth got their driving licenses. I believe, but I cannot be sure about it, that that is twice the number of youngsters that received a driving license in 1937—that is, the driving license for a passenger car. These figures alone show that the motorized Hitler Youth did not receive preliminary training for our armored forces. The motorized Hitler Youth had motorcycles; they made cross-country trips. That is correct. What they learned in this way was, of course, useful for the Army too, when these boys later were drafted into the motorized units; but it was not true that the boy who had been in the motorized Hitler Youth went to the Army. There was no compulsion in that respect at all. The motorized Hitler Youth was not created upon the request of the Wehrmacht, but it was already created in the fighting years—long before the seizure of power, simply from the natural desire of the boys who owned a motorcycle and wanted to drive it. So we formed our motorized HJ; we used these boys as messengers between tent camps and we used them as drivers for our minor leaders, and later, in order to give them a regular training, especially knowledge of motors, of engines, we made an arrangement with the NSKK, which had motor schools and could train the boys.
Other units were created in the same way. The Flieger HJ, for example, never had any airplanes. We had only gliders. The entire Hitler Youth had but one airplane and that was my own, a small Klemm machine. Aside from that, the Hitler Youth had only model airplanes and gliders. The Hitler Youth not only taught their own members the use of gliders in the Rhön Hills and elsewhere, but also thousands of youth from England and other countries. We had glider camps where young Englishmen were our guests and we even had camps in England.
DR. SAUTER: The Navy HJ, did they perhaps have warships?
VON SCHIRACH: The Navy HJ, of course, had not a single warship, but from time to time our former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Raeder, kindly gave us an old cutter and with that we put to sea.