You educated German youth in accordance with these demands of Hitler. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I will not admit what Herr Rauschning wrote. Just by accident I was present at a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning and, judging by it, I must say that the statements in Rauschning’s book represent an unfaithful record of what Hitler said. Just by accident I witnessed a conversation between them.
Hitler did not give me the directives which Rauschning sets forth here as the guiding principles laid down by Hitler himself for the training of the Hitler Youth.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I did not ask you to give such a detailed explanation. I would like you to answer the question I put to you briefly in order to shorten the time of interrogation. You have stated the Hitler Youth did not educate German youth in the militaristic spirit and did not prepare German youth for future aggressive wars. I would like to remind you of certain statements you made in that very same book of yours, “Hitler Youth,” right here on Page 83 of that book. Talking of the younger generation, the so-called Jungvolk, you wrote:
“They carry the National Socialist characteristics. The toy merchants are worried because these children no longer need toys; they are interested in camp tents, spears, compasses and maps. It is a particular trait of our youth. Everything that is against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”
And these also were the directives which German soldiers, trained in the Hitler Youth, followed when they set on fire houses of the peaceful population in occupied territories, isn’t that true? Is that contained in the book, the passage I have just read?
VON SCHIRACH: What is in front of me now, is contained in my book. What I heard from the interpreter is not in my book.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, then make your corrections.
VON SCHIRACH: May I read the correct passage?
“The toy merchants have complained to me that the boys”—they mean the Jungvolk—“no longer want toys, but are interested only in tents, spears, compasses, and maps. I cannot help the toy merchants, for I agree with the boys that the times of the Indians are finally gone. What is ‘Old Shatterhand,’ what is a trapper in the backwoods of America compared to our troop leader? A miserable, dusty remnant from the lumber chest of our fathers. Not only the toy merchants are complaining but also the school-cap manufacturers. Who wears a school cap nowadays? And who nowadays is a high-school boy or girl? In some towns the boys have banded together and publicly burned such school caps. Burning is, in fact, a specialty of new youth. The border fences of the minor states of the Reich have also been reduced to ashes in the fires of your youth.