VON SCHIRACH: The teaching staffs of German schools were definitely not homogeneous bodies. A large part of the teaching body belonged to a generation which had not been educated on National Socialist lines and did not adhere to National Socialism. The young teachers had been educated on National Socialist principles.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, you are not saying, certainly, that young people under the public educational system of Germany were not, at all times, under the guidance of those who were politically reliable, certainly after the first year or two of the administration of Hitler and his followers, are you?
VON SCHIRACH: Would you please repeat the question? I did not quite understand.
MR. DODD: What I am trying to say to you is that there is not any doubt in your mind or in ours that the public school system of Germany was supervised, for the most part at least, by people who were politically sound insofar as National Socialism is concerned.
VON SCHIRACH: I should not care to say that. Educational administration in Germany was supervised by Reich Minister Rust, who—and this is a fact—for reasons of ill health took very little interest in his official duties. Many thousands of older men were employed in connection with educational administration. They had received their appointments long before the days of the National Socialist State and had retained them throughout.
MR. DODD: I do not care whether they were old or young or how long they had been in office. They all took an oath to Hitler, did they not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct; inasmuch as they were civil servants, they all took their oath as such.
MR. DODD: Rosenberg had a very considerable influence on young people in Germany, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that. I think you are estimating my Codefendant Rosenberg’s influence on youth quite wrongly—meaning that you are overestimating it. Rosenberg certainly had some influence on many people who were interested in philosophical problems and were in a position to understand his works. But I must dispute the extent of the influence which you are ascribing to him.
MR. DODD: You publicly said on one occasion that the way of Rosenberg was the way of the Hitler Youth, did you not?