The boys, for instance, who lived in a city like Berlin, near the Wannsee, and did some rowing, became members of the Navy HJ. When entering the Wehrmacht they did not, just because they had been in the Navy HJ, go into the Navy, but just as many went afterwards into the Army or the Air Force, and it was the same with other special units.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you say therefore that in your opinion the Hitler Youth was not educated in a military way for the war?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to be quite precise about that. The training in these special units was carried out in such a manner that it really had a premilitary value. That is to say that whatever the boy learned in the Navy Hitler Jugend, regardless of whether he wanted to use it only as a sportsman later, or whether he actually went into the Navy, the basic principles were valuable as premilitary education. If one considers these special units of the HJ, one can establish that here a premilitary education actually took place, but not a military training. The youth were not prepared for the war in any place in the HJ; they were not even prepared for the military service, because the youth did not go direct from the Hitler Youth into the Army. From the Hitler Youth they went into the Labor Service.
DR. SAUTER: And how long were they in the Labor Service?
VON SCHIRACH: Half a year.
DR. SAUTER: And only then did they get to the Wehrmacht?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: In that connection, however, the Prosecution has used an agreement which was made between the HJ leadership and the OKW in August 1939, and which has been submitted as Document 2398-PS by the Prosecution. What are the facts about that agreement between you and the OKW?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember any details. Between Field Marshal Keitel and myself, according to my recollection, there was no discussion concerning that agreement, but I believe we arranged that by correspondence. And I should just like to state that during the entire time from 1933 to 1945, only one or two conversations of about half an hour took place between Field Marshal Keitel and me. The agreement, however, resulted from the following considerations: We endeavored in the Hitler Youth, and it was also the endeavor of the leading men in the Wehrmacht, to take nothing into our training which belonged to the later military training. However, in the course of time, the objection was raised on the part of the military, that youth should not learn anything in its training which later would have to be corrected in the Wehrmacht. I am thinking, for instance, of the compass. The Army used the infantry compass; the Hitler Youth, in cross-country sports, used compasses of various kinds. It was, of course, quite senseless that youth leaders should train their boys, for instance, to march according to the Bèzar compass if later, in their training as recruits, the boys had to learn something different. The designation and the description of the terrain should also be given according to the same principles in the Hitler Youth as in the Army, and so this agreement was made by which, I believe, thirty or sixty thousand HJ leaders were trained in cross-country sports. In these cross-country sports no training with war weapons was practiced.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, now I come to another chapter. It may be that this is the best time to adjourn.