I follow the SA through thin and thick.”
We gather that it is not a youth song. If the young people sang that song, I very much regret it. That song was certainly not sung at a youth festival at the Party Rally in 1934, as stated here.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: I myself read through all the programs for youth events at the Party Rally.
I do not know this song; I have never heard it; and I do not know the text.
MR. DODD; You will notice that the last line says: “Baldur von Schirach, take me too!”
The only point to all this is that certainly it is a surprise to the Prosecution to hear you say, as the Youth Leader, that you did not know that there was a great difficulty between the churchmen of all the churches in Germany and the youth organization in Germany, certainly during these years.
VON SCHIRACH: The point that I should like to make clear to the Tribunal is that in the youth movement there was a period of storm and stress, a period of development, and that the organization must not be judged by the actions of a few individuals or groups in the same year in which these individuals or groups became members of the organization. The result of educational work cannot be judged until some years have elapsed. It is possible that a group of youths who entered our ranks from the atheist movement in 1934 composed and sang these songs. In 1936 they would certainly no longer have done it.
MR. DODD: Well, let’s see what you were doing in 1937. You know the publication “Enjoyment, Discipline, Faith”? Do you know that handbook for cultural work in your youth camps?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to see it, please.