VON SCHIRACH: I considered the rifle training as constituting only a part of our training, and not the most essential part; and he pushed it too much into the foreground.
MR. DODD: All right. But you let him write in the Year Book; and 2 years, after he made the speech, he made this same kind of a statement for young people to read, that they should be as handy with a rifle as they were with a pen. Did you make any objection when that book went to press? I assume you must have...
VON SCHIRACH: I did not see the book before it went to press...
MR. DODD: You did not proofread it?
VON SCHIRACH: ...and I had no objections to raise in particular.
MR. DODD: Did you object when you read in the same book and on the same page that the Wehrmacht had presented to your Hitler Youth in 1937, 10,000 small-bore rifles?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I was very glad to have that gift from the Armed Forces. As we in any case did small-bore shooting, I was grateful for every rifle we received because we always had less than we needed for training purposes.
MR. DODD: And were you distressed when you also read in that same Year Book that there was no shortage of shooting ranges:
“Since organized rifle training was started in the autumn of 1936, 10,000 shooting instructors have acquired the green shooting license in weekend courses and special courses; and this figure increases by some thousands every year.”
Do you remember that in your Year Book for 1939?