VON SCHIRACH: I was a civil servant only from 1 December 1936.
DR. SAUTER: With the title?
VON SCHIRACH: Youth Leader of the German Reich.
DR. SAUTER: As the chief of a high Reich office, were you actually independent of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister for Education?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that was, after all, the purpose of creating an independent Reich office.
DR. SAUTER: Did you thereby become a member of the Reich Cabinet, as has been claimed?
VON SCHIRACH: I am sure I did not. I heard here for the first time that I was supposed to have been a member of the Cabinet. I never participated in a Cabinet meeting. I never received a decree or anything of the sort which would have made me a member of the Cabinet. I never received invitations to attend Cabinet meetings. I never considered myself a member of the Cabinet, and I believe that the Ministers did not consider me a member either.
DR. SAUTER: Were you in any way informed of the resolutions passed by the Reich Cabinet, for instance, by having the minutes of the meetings sent to you?
VON SCHIRACH: No. Resolutions passed by the Reich Cabinet, insofar as any were passed after 1 December 1936, only came to my attention in the same way as they reached any other higher official or employee of the Reich who read the Reichsgesetzblatt or the Reichsministerialblatt. Records and minutes: were never sent to me.
DR. SAUTER: When you became a high Reich authority, did you receive the staff which you needed through a ministry, or how did you obtain that staff for yourself?