VON SCHIRACH: But I added something to that in my book The Hitler Youth, Its Faith and Organization. I want to say, first of all, that I did write this book. I wrote it...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to interrupt you. I do not need such detailed explanations, and I would like you to answer the question: Is that sentence contained in your book?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just confirmed that, but I would like to add an explanation. In this book—which I wrote in 1933, and which was published in 1934—I said: “We could not yet offer detailed reasons for our belief, we simply believed. But when Hitler’s Mein Kampf appeared, it was like a bible, which we almost learned by heart so as to answer the questions of doubtful and deliberating critics.”
That is how I worded it at the time; that is correct.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to put another more precise question to you. Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend was a political organization which, under the leadership of the NSDAP, carried out the policy of this Party among German youth?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a large educational community on a political basis, but I cannot admit that it was led by the Party; it was led by me. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Party, and in that sense one might speak of a Party influence. But I can see no reason for having to confirm this, since I have already testified to it. It is correct that the Hitler Youth was the youth organization of the Party.
If that is the sense of your question, I will confirm it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, I just had that in view.
I would like to remind you of the tasks which Hitler had assigned for the education of German youth. That is set out in Rauschning’s book, which has already been submitted as documentary evidence before the Tribunal as USSR-378. I quote Page 252 of that book:
“In my schools we will bring up youth who will make the world shudder with fear, youth that is hard, exigent, unafraid, and cruel. That is my wish. Youth must have all these qualities; they must be indifferent to sufferings; they must have neither weakness nor softness. I would like to see in their eyes the proud, self-sufficient glitter of a beast of prey.”