The statements ought to convince you that the subversive activity and organization of the Fifth Column, the “nazification” of the German minority and its enlistment in military units were actually carried out on Yugoslav territory through the Hitler Youth. Please answer “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: No. But I should like to comment on these documents. This Dr. Sepp Janko who is said to have been the leader of the Volksdeutsche in Yugoslavia is not known to me either by name or personally. I have visited Yugoslavia several times in the past, but neither in 1937, when I believe I was there for the first time, nor later in 1938 when I visited Prince Regent Paul, did I concern myself with the Volksdeutsche youth there or with their leaders. On those visits I spoke only with youth of Yugoslav nationality. That is all I have to say about the first document, which on the whole does not refer to youth at all.
The second document, which is signed by one Otto Kohler, who calls himself the “D. J. leader”—probably German youth leader—in Subdivision 7, to that document I can only say that it was taken from a book about German youth in Hungary which appeared in 1943. In the Batchka we had a very large settlement of Germans, people who had been living there for 150 or 200 years, and this youth leader organized the German youth there with the approval of the Hungarian Government and the Hungarian Minister of Education and in collaboration with other Hungarian authorities. It was an entirely legal measure, and no controversy existed about it between the two countries. These young people were not members of the German Hitler Youth, but they belonged to Hungarian youth groups of the German minority in Hungary.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: And did the Reich Leadership of Hitler Youth have no connection at all with such organizations abroad?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course we visited these youths. When, for instance, I was a guest in Budapest, the Hungarians themselves asked me whether I would like to visit the villages and the youth of the German minority. Neither the Regent nor any other government authority had any objections to this. There was no reason why I should ask German youth leaders to engage in espionage in Hungary. I could just as easily have asked Hungarian youth leaders with whom I was on very good terms.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Who was the leader of the Hitler Youth organizations abroad? There was a special foreign section in the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth. Its task was the direction of the German youth organizations abroad, was it not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership was, if I may say so, the “foreign office” of the younger generation. It was the task of the foreign office to maintain contact with other national youth organizations, to invite youth leaders from abroad, to organize tours of foreign youth organizations through Germany, and to arrange visits of German youth to other countries, in co-operation with the foreign offices of those countries; in a case like this, the foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership would approach the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office would approach the ambassador or representative of the country involved. The Organization of Youth Abroad to which you are referring was an organization subordinate to the Organization of Germans Abroad, the head of which was Gauleiter Bohle, who has already been heard in this court. This youth abroad consisted of German nationals who formed units of the Hitler Youth in the countries where they were living. For instance in Budapest the children of the German colony, starting with the children of the German Minister...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Defendant, it is not necessary to make such a long speech about it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You are giving too many details. The next question:
In the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories, a special youth department was created in the first main office. What do you know about the work of this department and what was its relationship to the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth? Please answer briefly.