VON SCHIRACH: From my knowledge, I can say that when the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created, Reichsleiter Rosenberg expressed a wish that the Reich Youth Leader should put at his disposal an official for the youth department in the new Ministry. This official was appointed; he was taken into the Ministry and directed its youth department. He was, of course, responsible to the Eastern Minister. I cannot say more about this point. Reports from this department did not reach me.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: You mean that the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth appointed a representative to a post in the Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories, and that this gentleman did not send in any report to the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?

VON SCHIRACH: General, I meant that the head of this department or whatever he was, this official in the Eastern Ministry who came from the Hitler Youth, did not report to me. He naturally reported to his immediate superiors in the Reich Youth Leadership. The Reich Youth Leadership was located in Berlin, and I assume that the officials of its staff were in constant touch with him.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: As I understand it, the measures that were carried out by the youth department in the Reich Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories were carried out with the knowledge of the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?

VON SCHIRACH: The measures taken there were carried out according to directions laid down by the Reich Minister, who was the immediate superior of his officials. If actual youth measures, the treatment of youth, and so on, were dealt with, I am sure that this official or youth leader discussed the matter with the Reich Youth Leadership and made a report to it. The Minister is always responsible for the youth official in his Ministry, and not the organization from which the youth official happens to come.

GEN. ALEXANDROV: I understand. To the question put to you by your defense counsel regarding the participation of the Hitler Youth in the atrocities committed in Lvov, you answered that the testimony of the French citizen, Ida Vasseau, supplied by the Extraordinary State Commission, is not true.

Mr. President, the Soviet Prosecution has had occasion to interrogate the witness Ida Vasseau. The defense counsel for the Defendant Schirach also requested an interrogation. I now submit to the Tribunal excerpts from the testimony of the witness Vasseau, dated 16 May 1946, and I would like to submit it as Exhibit USSR-455. I shall now read the excerpts into the record:

“The atrocities against the Jewish and the Soviet population of Lvov were perpetrated not only by adult Germans and old Nazis, but also by the German youth of the Fascist youth organization in Lvov. These youngsters, dressed in uniforms, armed with heavy sticks, hunting knives, and often with pistols, ran about the streets, broke into Jewish apartments and destroyed everything in them. They killed all the inhabitants of these apartments, including the children. Very often they stopped children who looked suspicious to them in the streets, shouted: “Stop, you damned Jew!” and shot them on the spot. This Hitlerite youth was often active in locating Jewish apartments, hunting Jews in hiding, setting traps, and assaulting innocent people on the streets, killing them if they were Jews and dragging others away to the Gestapo. Often their victims were Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, and people of other nationalities. This terror of adult and young Germans continued until the last day of the German occupation of Lvov. The intention of completely annihilating the Jews was especially apparent in the “Ghetto actions” in which Jewish children of various ages were systematically killed. They were put into houses specially set up for Jewish children and when sufficient children had been assembled, the Gestapo accompanied by the Hitler Youth broke in and killed them.”

I end the reading of the statement of Ida Vasseau.

Thus, the Hitler Youth in the service of the German army, SS and the Gestapo took part in these atrocities. Do you admit that?