In 1937 at Liegnitz I noticed that at that time 50 percent of the young workers had no holidays at all and that only 1 percent had 15 to 18 days per annum. In 1938, on the other hand, I had put through the Youth Protection Law which prohibited child labor, raised the age of protection for juveniles from 16 to 18 years, prohibited night work, and realized my demand regarding the extended weekend, at the same time stipulating at least 15 days’ vacation annually for youngsters. That was all I could achieve. It was only part of what I wanted to achieve.
DR. SAUTER: These are the demands which are contained in the following documents in the document book: Schirach-40 to 41 and 60 to 64. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of these.
Witness, I now come to another problem, and that is your position within the Party. Some time ago we were shown a chart here giving a clear picture of the organization of the Party. Was that plan correct, or what was your position within the Party?
VON SCHIRACH: My position in the Party was not correctly depicted in that chart, at least not as far as the channels of command are concerned. According to the chart which was exhibited here, the channel of command would have been from the Reich Leader for Youth Education to the Chief of the Party Chancellery, and from there to Hitler and from Hitler to the Reich Youth Leadership Office of the Party. That, of course, is an erroneous picture.
I was not in the Party Directorate to give my orders via the Gauleiter to the district leaders but as the representative and head of the youth movement, so that if you want to describe my position and the position of my organization in the framework of the NSDAP correctly, you would actually have to draw a pyramid, the apex of which, that is to say my position in the Party Directorate, would be above the Reichsleiter. I was the only person in the youth movement who was connected with the Party.
DR. SAUTER: And the other leaders and subleaders of the youth movement?
VON SCHIRACH: Some of them may have been Party members, but not all. At any rate, they were not members of the Gauleitung or Kreisleitung. The entire staff of the youth movement, the entire youth organization, stood alongside the Party as a unit.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, as the Youth Leader of the German Reich, were you a civil servant?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: And from 1 December 1936, I believe, you were the chief of a high Reich office?