VON SCHIRACH: I was not present on the occasion of that speech and I do not consider myself responsible for any statement which he may have made in it.
MR. DODD: Well, that is your statement, but perhaps others feel differently. At any event, I ask you whether or not you were aware of and knew about the speech, and will you tell us whether you do know about it before you look at it? You know the speech I am talking about, don’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember being informed of the fact that he spoke at a national and political training course for the Armed Forces; but I may have been informed of it. The speech, itself...
MR. DODD: Well, it seems to me you were very anxious to deny responsibility for it before you knew what he said.
VON SCHIRACH: I did not want to make a statement on that. Disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of a certain tendency which he showed with regard to defense training, because I felt that he insisted too much on his office. Disputes arose also with the other offices of the Reich Youth Leadership which finally led to his dismissal from the Reich Youth Leadership.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, he was on your staff when he made this speech and I wish now you would look at page—well, I have it Page 3 of the English, and it is Page 169 of the text that you have; and it begins at the very bottom of the English page. The paragraph reads:
“As far as purely military education is concerned this work has already been done in years of co-operation, and very extensively. The result has been set down in a book written by myself, regulating future work in military education down to the last detail of training and which, with our mutual agreement, included a foreword and preface by the Reich Defense Minister and the Reich Youth Leader.”
And then the next paragraph:
“The basic idea of this work is always to present to the boy that which belongs to the particular stage of his development”—and so on. And I want you to come to the sentence that says:
“For that reason no boy is given a military weapon, simply because it seems to serve no useful purpose for his development. But, on the other hand, it seems sensible to give him guns of small caliber for training. Just as there are certain tasks occurring in military training which are only suitable for grown men, so there are other training tasks more suited to boys.”