I then tried to help myself by taking along models of youth buildings, views of the big stadiums and of youth hostels, which I had set up in a hall in the Reich Chancellery, and when he looked at them I used the opportunity to put two or three questions to him.
I must state here—I think I owe it to German youth—that Hitler took very little interest in educational questions. As far as education was concerned, I received next to no suggestions from him. The only time when he did make a real suggestion as far as athletic training was concerned was in 1935, I believe, when he told me that I should see to it that boxing should become more widespread among youth. I did so, but he never attended a youth boxing match. My friend Von Tschammer-Osten, the Reich Sports Leader, and I tried very often to persuade him to go to other sporting events, particularly to skiing contests and ice hockey championships in Garmisch, but apart from the Olympic Games, it was impossible to get him to attend.
DR. SAUTER: You have told us a little earlier about this so-called military or premilitary education, stating that, as far as one could talk about such education at all, it played only a minor part in the training of the Hitler Youth.
May I ask you to tell us, though not at length but only in condensed phrases, what, in your mind, were the chief aims of your youth education program. Be very brief.
VON SCHIRACH: Tent encampments.
DR. SAUTER: Tent encampments?
VON SCHIRACH: Trips, construction of youth hostels and youth homes.
DR. SAUTER: What do you mean by “trips”?
VON SCHIRACH: Youth hikes, individually and in groups; also the construction of more and more youth hostels. In one year alone, more than 1,000 homes and youth hostels were built by me in Germany. Then there was additional professional training, and then what I called the “Labor Olympics,” namely, the annual Reich trade contests, voluntary competition between all youth of both sexes who wanted to participate. In fact millions participated. Then our great Reich sports contests, championships in every type of sport, our cultural work, and the development of our singing groups, our acting groups, youth concert choirs, and the development of our youth libraries, and then something which I mentioned in connection with combating the migration from the country, the Rural Service with its rural help groups, those youths, who for idealistic reasons were working in the country, even town boys—to show the farmer boys that the country was really more beautiful than the city, that even a city boy will give up his life in the city temporarily to devote himself to the land and to tilling the soil. Then, as a great communal accomplishment of youth, I must mention the dental improvement and the regular medical examinations.
These, in a few summary words, were the main tasks which our youth organizations had, but they are by no means all.