DR. SAUTER: Gau Franken?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, Gau Franken—that the rest of the German youth organization never read Der Stürmer at all. The paper was definitely rejected by all the youth leaders—both boys and girls—in my organization.
DR. SAUTER: Then, Witness, I must point out to you that the Prosecution have accused you of having given, on one occasion, an introduction to this paper, this anti-Jewish paper Der Stürmer. Do you know about it, and what have you got to say on the matter?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say the following in this respect. I was always in close collaboration with the press; in fact, I came from the press myself. In my press office, as Reich Youth Leader, I gave definite instructions that all requests from Gau papers for an introduction, or something else of the kind from me should be granted on principle. Therefore, whenever a Gau paper celebrated a jubilee—perhaps the tenth or twentieth anniversary of its existence, or published some special issue—then the experts in my press office would run up a draft and, together with the considerable volume of evening mail presented to me for my signature, these drafts and elaborations would be submitted to me. In this way it might have happened that I signed that introduction for Der Stürmer which, of course, was the paper of the local Gau. Otherwise I have no recollection of the episode.
DR. SAUTER: Consequently you cannot remember whether you drafted that short introduction yourself, or whether it was drafted by one of your experts and presented to you for signature?
VON SCHIRACH: I definitely believe that I did not draft it myself, because such short introductions—as already stated—were always submitted to me. I wrote my newspaper articles myself but never introductions of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, since we have just mentioned the name of Streicher, I would remind you of a very ugly picture book which was submitted here by the Prosecution. Was that picture book distributed among the youth with your consent, or do you know anything else about it?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course this book was not distributed among the young people. It is quite out of the question that an office of the HJ (Hitler Jugend) would have transmitted that book to the youth. Besides, the picture books of the Stürmer Publishing Firm are unknown to me. I am, of course, not competent to speak on education in the schools, but I should also like to say on behalf of education in the schools that I do not believe this picture book was ever introduced into any school outside of this Gau. At any rate, that book and similar writings of the Stürmer Publishing Firm were not, as a rule, distributed among the young people and the youth organizations. What I have already said when judging Der Stürmer also holds good for these books—namely, that the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth categorically rejected writings of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have also experienced how the anti-Semitic question actually developed and how it eventually resulted in the well-known anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938. Did you yourself, in any way, participate in these anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: I personally did not participate in any way, but I did participate in the Munich session...