MR. DODD: And it goes on to say how you will quarter these people and billet them, and so on.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And it does have some relationship to your shooting training program, doesn’t it?
VON SCHIRACH: I explained that before I even saw it.
MR. DODD: Well, I misunderstood you then. I thought that you said that it didn’t have...
VON SCHIRACH: No, no, I explained that. I said that field service should have the same prominence as rifle training in the program; but, here again, we are not concerned with training youth leaders to become officers. It was not a question of military training, but of training in field sports for the youth leaders who, after short courses—I believe they lasted 3 weeks—went back again to their units. A young man of 16 cannot be trained along military lines in that period of time, nor was that the purpose of the agreement.
MR. DODD: Surely you are not asking us to believe that you and Keitel were entering into an agreement over cross-country sports, are you, in August of 1939? Are you serious about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I am perfectly serious when I say that at that time I knew nothing about a war—the war to come. I said yesterday...
MR. DODD: Well, but you...
VON SCHIRACH: And I do not believe either that Field Marshal Keitel drafted that agreement; I think one of his assistants worked it out along with Dr. Stellrecht. If it had had any significance for the war, it would certainly not have been announced in August in an official publication.