Chapter XIX: Book 4: , Page 28 of the English book, and just look at Captain (10)

DR. SIEMERS: Then I come to the Commando Order about which you testified already. I want to put to you the following: You have been shown Document D-658, which says that according to the Armed Forces communiqué the soldiers were executed, that the soldiers wore uniforms and that the Führer’s Order was something new in international law. I believe that the naval commander in western France reported this and that this was contained in the Armed Forces communiqué. The man who compiled the War Diary wrote: “A new thing in international law.” I am not a military man, but I should like to ask you, would you consider such a reference a criticism of the order?

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: I believe that I have to answer the question in the following manner: Normally, the fact of an execution is not entered in a war diary on operational matters.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think that is really a matter which we can go into, whether he thinks this is an entry which is a criticism of the order.

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: I believe he wanted to establish that it was something new.

DR. SIEMERS: Never mind, Admiral. A factual question. The Prosecution asserts again that it concerns soldiers in uniform. The Wehrmacht communiqué announced the execution on 9 December. The execution, as I have already shown in another connection, did not take place until 11 December. I am presenting to you now Document UK-57, and ask you to look at the second paragraph under Figure 4. The heading Figure 4 reads: “Sabotage against German ships near Bordeaux”; then it says: “December 12, 1942”; and further on we read:

“From the submarine the participants went two by two in paddle
boats up the Gironde estuary. They wore special olive gray
uniforms. After carrying out the blastings they sank their boats
and tried, with the aid of French civilians, to escape to Spain
in civilian clothes.”

Did these soldiers behave correctly according to the provisions of international law?

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: In my opinion, no.

DR. SIEMERS: Then I have no more questions.

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: If they had had a clear conscience, they would not have needed to wear civilian clothes.

DR. SIEMERS: Excuse me, just this final question:

Did you personally in the High Command receive an inquiry or any information before this execution which was carried out at the direct order of the Führer?

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: No, neither an inquiry nor any information.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Mr. President, the question as to whether a document concerning Norway had been translated correctly was just discussed. I shall find out what number it is. The English translation which I have before me is not identical with the German original. It deviates considerably. It is Document GB-482.

I shall read the German text which in my opinion differs from the English translation.

“The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy states: Conquest of Belgian
coast provides no advantage for our submarine warfare; points
out value of winning Norwegian bases (Trondheim) with the help
of Russian pressure. The Führer will consider the question.”

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbühler, would it not save time, really, if we have the sentence which is said to have been wrongly translated referred to a committee of experts in the translating division?

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Mr. President...

THE PRESIDENT: It really is not a matter which it is worth while wasting time over.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: I beg your pardon, I did not know that it was to be examined again.

THE PRESIDENT: I think we had better have it examined and then the translation certified to.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: I beg your pardon, Mr. President. I, myself, have a question to put to the witness.

Admiral, Document D-873 has been put to you before. That was a war diary of _U-71_ and concerned the supplying of three Norwegians in a lifeboat. The entry was on 21 June. I have already submitted it to the Tribunal under Dönitz Number 13, on Page 23 of my document book, a statement by the above-mentioned commanding officer Flachsenberg. According to that statement this submarine put to sea on 14 June. It was west of Norway. Can you tell me if that U-boat, therefore, on 21 June, was putting out for operations or returning from operations?

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: You mean from memory?

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: No, considering the dates, put out to sea on 14 June, this entry on 21 June.

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: Putting out.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Putting out. As you know, this submarine was a 500-ton vessel. Is a boat of that size in a position to carry out an operation over several weeks with three additional people on board?

SCHULTE-MÖNTING: I believe not. I am not enough of an expert to be able to judge definitely what the extra weight of additional persons on board might mean as far as trimming experiments and such things are concerned; but aside from that, I do not believe that such a small boat, which is putting out to sea for an operation, can load itself on the way with prisoners. I do not consider that possible.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.

DR. SIEMERS: Then, with the permission of the Court, the witness may retire.

[_Turning to the President._] Mr. President, in accordance with my statement at the beginning of this case, I have already submitted the majority of my documents during the examination. With the permission of the Tribunal, may I proceed now to submit as quickly as possible the remainder of the documents with a few accompanying statements.

I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number Raeder-18, an excerpt from the Document Book 2, Page 105, an excerpt from a book which Churchill wrote in 1935 called _Great Contemporaries_. I ask the Tribunal to take official notice of the contents. Churchill points out that there are two possibilities, that one cannot say whether Hitler will be the man who will start another world war or whether he will be the man who will restore honor and peace of mind to the great German nation and bring it back serene, helpful and strong to a galaxy of the European family of nations.

As Exhibit Number Raeder-20 I submit a short excerpt from Adolf Hitler’s _Mein Kampf_ with reference to the fact that the Prosecution has said that from that book one could see that Hitler intended to wage aggressive wars. I shall show in my final pleadings how much one can see from that book. I ask that the Tribunal take judicial notice of the short excerpt on Page 154: “For such a policy there was but one ally in Europe, England.”

Exhibit Number Raeder-21, a speech made by Hitler to the German Reichstag on 26 April 1942, is to show how rights were increasingly limited in Germany and how the dictatorship became more and more powerful.

Document Book 4, Exhibit Number Raeder-65, intended to facilitate my arguments, is the Hague Agreement about the rights and duties of neutrals in naval warfare. I need that for my final pleadings in connection with Exhibit Number Raeder-66, the statement of opinion by Dr. Mosler in Document Book 4, Page 289, the first document.

THE PRESIDENT: Can you give us the pages?

DR. SIEMERS: Page 289, Mr. President. It is the first page of the Document Book 4.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

DR. SIEMERS: Then I ask the Tribunal to be kind enough to take up Document Book 5, since the remaining documents have already been submitted. I submit as Exhibit Number Raeder-100, Document Book 5, Page 437, a document from the _White Book_ concerning the “top-secret” meeting of the French War Commission on 9 April 1940, with Reynaud, Daladier, Gamelin, General Georges, the Minister of the Navy, the Minister of the Colonies and the Air Minister present. It concerns the suggestion by Admiral Darlan of moving into Belgium. The suggestion was supported by General Gamelin and also by the Minister for National Defense and War. On Page 442 there is mention of the march into Holland and finally of Luxembourg. Since the High Tribunal has knowledge of the contents from the discussion of the documents, I do not want to read any details. I simply ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it. I should also like to point out that on Page 443 of this very long document mention is made of the occupation of the harbor of Narvik and of the intention to get hold of the mines of Gallivare.

I now submit Exhibit Number Raeder 102, in the same document book, Page 449. This is an order of the 2d Belgian Infantry Regiment of 13 April 1940 concerning information about friendly troops and the building of a fortified position. It can be seen from the document that the friendly troops mentioned are the Allies.

Then I submit Exhibit Raeder-103, Page 452, which is a French document of 16 April 1940 from headquarters concerning measures about the rail transportation of French troops in Belgium.

I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of all these documents, which I shall not read in detail.

The same applies to Exhibit Number Raeder-104, Document Book 5, Page 455, which is the order of 19 April 1940 of the 2d British Division concerning security measures in Belgium. There we find a directive similar to one in a document which has been submitted by the Prosecution, a directive to establish contact with Belgian civilian authorities.

Exhibit Number Raeder-105, Document Book 5, Page 459, is the statement of a Luxembourg citizen which shows that 200 men, French soldiers in uniform, entered Belgium in armored cars 7 days before the outbreak of the German-Belgian hostilities.

May it please the Tribunal, I originally intended not to submit anything in this Trial concerning the character of my client because I was of the opinion that Admiral Raeder, both at home and abroad, enjoyed great respect. The first trial brief against Raeder did not affect that intention. Shortly before the presentation of that trial brief it was changed, becoming considerably more severe and containing moral accusations which seriously injure and insult Raeder’s honor. I have no doubt that the High Tribunal will understand why under these circumstances I ask to be permitted to submit some of the documents granted me which concern Raeder’s character. I submit Exhibit Raeder-119, Document Book 6, Page 514. That is a letter from Frau Von Poser addressed to me. It is not an affidavit and quite purposely I have submitted the original because in my opinion it will make a more immediate and direct impression than an affidavit which I would first have to ask for in my capacity as defendant’s counsel.

Similarly, there is a fairly long letter from Professor Dr. Seibt who approached me on his own initiative. I submit Exhibit Number Raeder-120, Document Book 6, Page 517. I would be grateful to the Tribunal if it would take judicial notice of that letter. In order to save time I refrain from reading it since it is six pages long.

Then I submit Exhibit Raeder-122, Document Book 6, Page 526, a letter from Herr Erich Katz, which I submit with its appendices and I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it. This presents one of the cases in which Raeder intervened personally, using his influence and position—he used the official stationery of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy to intervene on behalf of Herr Katz who had been attacked as a Jew—and actually succeeded in protecting him. Herr Katz has sent me these documents on his own initiative in order to show his gratitude.

As Exhibit Raeder-123 I submit a letter from Günter Jacobsen that concerns a similar case. Jacobsen also, without my asking it, approached me in order to testify that Raeder rescued his father, who as a Jew had been accused of race defilement, from the concentration camp Fuhlsbüttel—I believe it was still a prison at that time—so that Jacobsen could emigrate to England where he is living now.

I submit as Exhibit Number Raeder-124, an affidavit...

GENERAL RUDENKO: Mr. President, I must make the following statement. All four exhibits mentioned just now by Dr. Siemers are personal letters from various persons to Dr. Siemers. They are not sworn affidavits. They are not interrogations. Therefore these documents have little probative value, and I hold the view that they ought not to be admitted as evidence. Many letters are received, and if they were all to be submitted to the Tribunal, the Tribunal would have great difficulty in establishing the truth and how far they are of probative value. In that connection, I personally object to the fact that these documents should be accepted as evidence in Raeder’s case.

DR. SIEMERS: My Lord, may I...

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not think that the matter is of sufficient importance to insist upon evidence being upon oath. The documents are admitted.

DR. SIEMERS: As Exhibit Number Raeder-124 I submit an affidavit by Konrad Lotter. The affidavit is very short and with the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to read this one page:

“Grand Admiral Raeder has always appeared to me a man who
embodied the finest traditions of the old Imperial Navy. This
was true particularly in regard to his philosophy of life. As a
man and as an officer he was at all times the best model
imaginable.

“In 1941, when the anti-Christian policy of the Hitler regime
was in full force in Bavaria, when cloisters were closed and in
the education of the youth intolerance against every creed
became crassly manifest, I sent a memorandum of 12 pages to the
Admiral in which I presented to him my objections to this
policy. Admiral Raeder intervened at once. Through his
mediation, I was called to the Gauleiter and Minister of the
Interior, Wagner, in Munich. After a series of discussions
between the clerical, governmental, and Party authorities an
agreement was reached which had the following results: The
school prayer was retained, the crucifix was allowed to remain
in the schools, _et cetera_; furthermore, 59 clergymen who had
been fined 500 marks each were pardoned.

“The closing down of cloisters was also stopped at that time.
Gauleiter Wagner had to...”

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, all these documents have been read by us very recently.

DR. SIEMERS: Very well. Then I just ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the remainder.

I submit also the two documents, Exhibit Number Raeder-125 and Exhibit Number Raeder-126. Number 125 is an affidavit by the former Reich Defense Minister, Dr. Otto Gessler, and Number Raeder-126 is an affidavit by the Navy Chaplain Ronneberger. I ask you to take judicial notice of this latter document.

I should like to be permitted to read the short affidavit by Dr. Gessler since it contains not only something of a purely personal nature, but also remarks concerning the accusations against Raeder.

“I, Gessler, have known the former Admiral Dr. Raeder personally
since about the middle of the 20’s when I was
Reichswehrminister. Raeder was then inspector of the educational
system in the Navy. I have always known Raeder as a man of
irreproachable, chivalrous character, as a man fully conscious
of his duty. As to the subject of the Indictment, I know very
little.

“Raeder visited me repeatedly after my release from imprisonment
by the Gestapo in March 1945 when I lay in the Hedwig Hospital
in Berlin and he also made arrangements for me to get home, as I
was ill and completely exhausted. I told him then about the
ill-treatment I had suffered, especially the torture. He was
obviously surprised and incensed about this. He said he would
report this to the Führer. I asked him at once to refrain from
that, for I had been told before the torture, and officially,
that all of this was taking place at the explicit order of
Hitler. Moreover, I knew definitely that I would immediately be
rearrested, since on my release I had signed the well-known
declaration and could not even obtain a confirmation of my
detention in order to get a ticket for my trip home.

“I heard nothing about secret rearmament in the Navy, neither
during my term of office nor later. During my term of office,
until January 1928, Admiral Raeder would not have been
responsible either, for at that time he was not Chief of the
Naval Command.

“At the time of the National Socialist regime I was ignored by
my former department and snubbed. One of the few exceptions was
Dr. Raeder. Before 1939 among other things he invited me three
times to visit on the cruiser _Nürnberg_ although I had refused
twice. During the visit in June 1939 he came to Kiel personally
to pay his respects to me. At that time we also discussed the
political situation. I expressed the apprehension that an attack
on Poland would mean a European war. Raeder declared positively
that he considered it out of the question that Hitler would
attack Poland. When this did happen later, I explained this to
myself on the grounds that Hitler liked to place even the
highest military leaders face to face with accomplished facts.”

Then there is the statement “under oath” and the signature of the notary.

As to the last Exhibit Number Raeder-126, from the Navy Chief Chaplain Ronneberger, I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it since it is too late to read it. It is a factual description and survey of church questions and of religious matters in the Navy.

Mr. President, with that, with the exception of three points, I can conclude my case. There are still two interrogatories missing which have not yet been returned. I ask permission to submit these as soon as they are received.

Then, there is the witness Generaladmiral Böhm, who has already been approved, but who on account of illness has not yet been able to appear. The British Delegation, through Sir David, has been kind enough to agree that if necessary this witness can be interrogated at a later date. May I be permitted to ask the Tribunal to keep this open, and if possible to permit Admiral Böhm to be questioned at a later date. I want to point out now that it will not be so large a complex of questions as in the case of Admiral Schulte-Mönting, which the Tribunal knows from the material I have submitted.

This concludes my case Raeder.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 23 May 1946 at 1000 hours._]

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY
Thursday, 23 May 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: With reference to the documents of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, the Tribunal admits the following documents which were objected to: Number 11, Number 47, Number 48, Number 50, Number 54, and Number 71.

The remainder of the documents which were objected to are rejected. I will enumerate them: Number 5, Number 10, Number 14, Number 19b, Number 21, Number 22, Number 27, Number 31, Number 39, Number 55, Number 60, Number 61, Number 68, Number 69.

That is all.

M. DUBOST: Mr. President, last night at the end of the session the counsel for Admiral Raeder submitted a certain number of documents including Document Raeder-105 of Document Book 5. This document is an excerpt from the German _White Book_, Number 5. It is the testimony of an old man of 72, a native of Luxembourg, who had lived in Belgium for only 6 months, and who affirms that in April 1940 he saw 200 French soldiers in Belgium. These soldiers, who he said were French, were in armored cars.

I must ask the Tribunal to allow me to make objection to this Document Number 7 of the _White Book_ Number 5, the original of which has never been submitted and has not even been reproduced in the _White Book_, as is the case with a certain number of documents in the German _White Book_. It is necessary that in the name of France and of Belgium a protest—a formal, categorical protest—be made against such an assertion. At no time before the invasion of Belgium by the German forces did any French troops set foot on Belgian soil. The reading of this document, Number Raeder-105 of Document Book 5 of Admiral Raeder, enables us to understand how there came to be the error in the testimony by Grandjenet that is cited.

I have already told the Tribunal that this man is 72 years old and was from Luxembourg. To the question put to him by the German authorities as to how he recognized the soldiers he had seen as being of French nationality, he answered:

“I was quite sure that they were French soldiers because I know
their uniform well. Moreover, I recognized the soldiers because
of the language they used when they spoke to me.”

Now, as far as the uniform is concerned, the Tribunal knows that at the time when these events took place, the Belgian Army had a uniform of the same color as the French Army and a helmet of the same shape. As for the language, the Tribunal knows that a great part of the Belgian population who live along the Luxembourg frontier speak French, and the Belgian soldiers recruited in these districts speak French.

The Tribunal will certainly remember that this witness, who is a very old man, had only been living for 6 months in Belgium and probably had only a limited experience with things Belgian—and especially with the Belgian Army.

At any rate, we assert in the name of France and in the name of Belgium that before 10 May 1940 no French troops, no organized French troops, penetrated Belgium, and that the isolated individuals who did go into Belgium were interned there.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Siemers?

DR. SIEMERS: If it please the Tribunal, may I reply very briefly?

This matter concerns a document from the _White Book_, on which a decision has already been handed down once and which was granted me. I propose that the Prosecution be requested to submit the original if they dispute the correctness of this document. In this I am in agreement with a decision of the Tribunal according to which the application is to be made for the presentation of the original if it is available, or application should be made so that whoever has the original should produce it. As far as I know the Prosecution have the original, since all original documents were located in the Foreign Office in Berlin, or in the alternative place of safekeeping, and all the originals of these _White Books_ fell into the hands of the Allies.

THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by “original”? The original, I suppose, is the original of the _White Book_. Is that what you mean?

DR. SIEMERS: Yes, I mean now, Mr. President, the original of this court record.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, this comes from a _White Book_. That is a printed document, I suppose, I do not suppose it contains the original of the statement of this Luxembourg man.

DR. SIEMERS: The _White Book_ is a collection of numerous documents, and the single original documents are in the possession of the Foreign Office; in part they were from the files of the French General Staff, and partly they were records of court proceedings. Regarding the contents of this document...

THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, you are not proposing that we should strike the document out, but the Tribunal will certainly take into account the facts to which you have drawn our notice.

M. DUBOST: This is an application that the Tribunal shall refuse to admit that document, Mr. President. At the same time this is a protest against the assertion made by the Defense that French soldiers violated Belgian neutrality in the course of the month of April. I hope the Tribunal will allow me to add a few words of explanation. The _White Book_, which we have here, comprises two parts. The first part reproduces texts and the second part gives photostatic copies of these texts. In the first part, which simply reproduces the texts, is found the document which I ask the Tribunal to strike from the record. We have searched in the second part which gives the photostatic copies of the documents in the first part, and we do not find it. We state to the Tribunal that the original of the document, which we ask the Tribunal to strike out, has not been reproduced in the German _White Book_, since it is not to be found in the second part.

DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, I believe that M. Dubost’s entire explanation refers to the question of the value of the document as evidence and not to the question of the admissibility of the document. That this document is in order appears to me to be quite clear, since it is a record of court proceedings where a certain person, namely Grandjenet, has been interrogated. Everything said by M. Dubost referred more to the contents of the document than to the question of its value as evidence. May I ask therefore that the document be admitted, as has been done up to now, and ask that consideration be given to the fact that the document has value in connection with the other documents which have been granted to me and to Dr. Horn in his document book with reference to Holland and Belgium.

If, in the second part of the document book there is no photostatic copy...

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Siemers, and M. Dubost, the Tribunal will consider the objection that has been made.

DR. SIEMERS: May I merely mention, Mr. President, that if the photostat is not in the book, as M. Dubost states, then this is due to the fact that this court record in its original text was German, and the facsimiles are those prepared from the original text in French, that is to say, of those documents which in their original version were in French. If necessary I would appeal to Geheimrat Von Schnieden as a witness regarding this record, since he at the time was informed about all the records of this type and helped in the work of compiling the book.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the Tribunal will consider the objection.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal I should like to say that the interrogatory put to the American Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Nimitz, is available. I received it the day before yesterday and in the meantime it has gone in to the interpreters for translation. With the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to submit it now, in connection with the cases of Admiral Dönitz and Admiral Raeder.

THE PRESIDENT: Have the Prosecution seen it?

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you got copies for us?

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: I had been informed that the copies for the Tribunal would be handed on by the General Secretary.

THE PRESIDENT: Unless we have copies, the document must not be read. It must be put off until we have copies.

FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: There are two copies in English and one in French.

I present the document as Number Dönitz-100.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbühler, the Soviet members of the Tribunal do not have a copy of the document translated into their language, so you will present it at a later date.

Will the counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach present his case?

DR. FRITZ SAUTER (Counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach): Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I propose first of all to conduct the examination of the Defendant Schirach himself, and in the course of this examination I will bring to your attention the passage of the document book concerned, as the individual points come up. Following the examination of the defendant I shall then call my four witnesses, and at the end I intend to submit the remaining documents, insofar as these documents have not by that time been presented during the examination of the Defendant Von Schirach. I presume, Mr. President, that you agree to this procedure.

I now call to the witness stand, first, Baldur von Schirach.

[_The Defendant Baldur von Schirach took the stand._]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat the following oath after me: I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.

[_The defendant repeated the oath in German._]

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, what is the date of your birth?

BALDUR VON SCHIRACH (Defendant): 9 May 1907.

DR. SAUTER: That means that a few days ago you were 39. You have been married for 14 years; is that correct?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: And you have four children, whose ages are...

VON SCHIRACH: 4, 8, 11, and 13 years.

DR. SAUTER: In the Third Reich you were mainly active as Youth Leader?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: What offices did you fill in that connection, that is, offices in the Party and in the Government—please state also how long you held these various offices?

VON SCHIRACH: To start with, in 1929 I was the leader of the National Socialist Students’ Union. In 1931 I became Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, at first on the staff of the SA Supreme Command; in 1932, Reich Leader for Youth Education of the NSDAP; in 1933, Youth Leader of the German Reich, at first under the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick. In 1934, I held the same position under the Reich Minister of Education, Rust. In 1936 the Reich Youth Leader became a leading Reich official, and in that capacity I came directly under the Führer and Reich Chancellor.

DR. SAUTER: Now, which of your offices were Party positions and which of the ones you have mentioned were offices of the Reich?

VON SCHIRACH: Party positions were the office of Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, and that of Reich Leader for Youth Education. Government positions: The Youth Leader of the German Reich, at first subordinate to the Minister of the Interior as I have described or under the Minister for Education, and then in an independent position.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, you were removed from some of these offices in 1940. What positions in Youth Leadership did you lose in 1940, and what positions did you still continue to fill to the end?

VON SCHIRACH: In 1940 I left the position as the leader of Youth, that is, I left the office of the Reich Youth Leadership of the NSDAP, but I retained the office of Reichsleiter for Youth Education and with that the entire responsibility for German youth. I received as an additional new post that of Gauleiter of Vienna, which was combined with the governmental post of Reichsstatthalter of Vienna and also that of Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreis XVII.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, we want now to come back to your activity as Youth Leader. There is an affidavit by you here dated 4 December 1945, 3302-PS. In this affidavit you stated to the Prosecution in December that you acknowledge yourself to be responsible for all youth education in the Third Reich.

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

DR. SAUTER: Were you, when you gave the statement of guilt, under the impression that your successor, the late Reich Youth Leader Axmann, was dead?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: You thought that he died in the last battles of the war?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I was convinced that he had died in Berlin.

DR. SAUTER: In the meantime, Witness, you have learned from newspaper reports that your successor as Reich Youth Leader, this man Axmann, is still alive. Is that correct?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: Do you want then, today, to support your affidavit regarding your personal responsibility as Youth Leader without reservation; or do you want to limit it in any respect today?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not want to limit this affidavit in any way. Although during the last years of his life Hitler gave orders to the Youth of which I do not know and also my successor, Axmann, particularly in 1944, gave orders with which I am not acquainted since the relationship between us had been broken off due to the events of the war, I stand by the statement that I have made in the expectation that the Tribunal will consider me the only person responsible in Youth Leadership and that no other Youth Leader will be summoned before a court for actions for which I have assumed responsibility.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, I would now be interested in knowing whether possibly principles and directives which you received from Hitler or from any Party office or from any governmental quarter were the formula for your youth education; or whether, for your youth education, the principles were derived from the experiences which you had during your own youth and among the youth leaders of that time.

VON SCHIRACH: The latter is correct. Of course, the education of the Hitler Youth was an education on the basis of the National Socialist idea. But the specifically educational ideas did not originate with Hitler, they also did not originate with other leaders in the Party; they had their origin in youth itself, they originated with me, and they originated with my assistants.

DR. SAUTER: Perhaps you will be good enough now to explain to the Tribunal somewhat more in detail how you, yourself, arrived at those principles and that type of youth education, based on your own education, your personal development, and so forth?

VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the simplest way for me to do this would be for me here, very briefly, to sketch the story of my youth and describe also in that connection the youth organizations with which I came in contact. I can in that way save much time for my further statements.

My father was a professional officer in the Garde-Kürassier Regiment of the Kaiser. I was born in Berlin and one year later my father retired and moved to Weimar, where he took over the management of the Court Theater there, which later became the Weimar National Theater. Thus I grew up in Weimar, and that town, which in a certain sense is the native city of all Germans, I regard as my native city. My father was well off; our home offered a great deal of intellectual and artistic stimulation, above all in the literary and musical field, but apart from and beyond the educational opportunities of our home, it was the atmosphere of the town itself, that atmosphere of the classic and also the postclassic Weimar which influenced my development. It was most of all the genius loci, which early captured my imagination. It is directly due to those experiences of my youth that later on I led the youth back again, year after year, to Weimar and to Goethe.

And the first document which is important in this connection for my case, which is Document Schirach-80, will prove just that. There is a brief reference in that document to one of the many speeches which I made in the course of my activity as Youth Leader to the leaders of the young generation, and in which I directed the youth to Goethe...

DR. SAUTER: May I interrupt you for a moment, Herr Von Schirach?

In this Document Number Schirach-80, Mr. President, there is—on Page 133 of Schirach’s document book—a brief report on a Reich Cultural Convention (Reichskulturtagung) of the Hitler Youth in Weimar. This happens to be a report from 1937, but the defendant has already told you that such cultural conventions of the Hitler Youth took place every year in Weimar, the city of Schiller and Goethe. In this report, Document 80 of document book Schirach, there is, for instance, discussion of a speech of the defendant on the importance of Goethe for the National Socialist education of youth. It is said, in this connection, that at that time Schirach stated, and I quote...

THE PRESIDENT: You need not read it to us, Dr. Sauter. It refers to Goethe, that is all.

DR. SAUTER: In that case, Herr Von Schirach, will you continue?

VON SCHIRACH: It was not only the annual cultural convention but the annual meeting of the leaders of the Hitler Youth which took place in Weimar. Apart from that there were also what we called the “Weimar Festivals of German Youth.”

What is important in this connection is that in this speech I quoted a sentence of Goethe which, to a certain extent, became the leitmotiv of all my educational work: “Youth fashions itself afresh from youth.”

Even my worst enemy cannot deny the fact that I was to the young generation of the German people at all times not only the propagandist of National Socialism but also the propagandist of Goethe. A certain Herr Ziemer has submitted a lengthy affidavit against me in which he quarrels with the youth education for which I am responsible. I believe that Herr Ziemer did his work a little too superficially. In his description of German national education he should at least have taken into consideration my educational efforts designed to guide youth toward the life work of Goethe.

I joined my first youth organization when I was 10 years old. I was then just the age of the boys and girls who later on entered the Jungvolk. That youth organization which I joined was the so-called “Young German League,” (Jungdeutschland Bund), which Count von der Goltz had founded, a Boy Scout organization. Count von der Goltz and Haeseler, impressed by the British Boy Scout movement, had formed Pathfinder units in Germany, and one of these Pathfinder organizations was the Jungdeutschland Bund just mentioned. It played an important part in the education of German youth until about 1918 or 1919.

Much more significant in my development, however, was the time which I spent in a country boarding school (Waldpädagogium). This was an educational institution directed by an associate of the well-known educator, Hermann Lietz. There I was educated in the way which I later, on an entirely different basis...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, do you think the education of the defendant himself is in any way material for the Tribunal to hear? It is the education which he imparted which is the matter that is material. What he imparted, not what he himself took in.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the defendant would nevertheless ask you to allow him these statements, particularly, from the point of view that with them he wants to show you that the principles according to which he led youth education came to him not from Hitler and not from any Party source, but that they resulted from his own experiences in his own youth. It is, indeed, of some importance for the Tribunal to examine the question: According to what principles did the defendant direct youth education and how did he arrive at these principles? The defendant is asking permission to explain that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Sauter, the defendant has already taken some considerable time in telling us about his early youth and his education, and the Tribunal thinks that it ought to be cut short, and that not much more time ought to be taken up in dealing with the education of the defendant. As I have pointed out to you, what is material for us is the education he imparted to German youth and not the education which he received himself.

DR. SAUTER: We shall, of course, comply with your wish, Mr. President.

[_Turning to the defendant._] Herr Von Schirach, will you please make your statements as brief as possible?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I can be very brief.

DR. SAUTER: Please, go on.

VON SCHIRACH: Lietz’ idea was to give youth an education in which they have in the school an image of the state. The school community was a miniature state and in this school community was developed a self-administration of youth. I only want to point out in passing that he, too, was applying ideas which long before him had been developed by Pestalozzi and the great Jean Jacques. All modern education, of course, goes back somehow to Rousseau, be it a question of Hermann Lietz or the Boy Scouts, the Pathfinder movement or the German Wandervogel movement. At any rate, that idea of self-administration of youth in a school community gave me my idea of the self-leadership of youth.

My thought was to attract the younger generation in school to ideas that Fröbel had originated 80 years before. Lietz wanted to win over youth from early school days onward.

I may perhaps mention very briefly that when in 1898 Lietz began his educational work, the British Major Baden-Powell was being surrounded by rebels in a South African town, and was training youngsters to scout in the woods and with this laid the groundwork for his own Boy Scout movement, and that in that same year, in 1898, Karl Fischer from Berlin-Steglitz founded the Wandervogel movement.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, I think that this chapter, which is merely the historic background, might perhaps, in accordance with the wish of the President, be terminated now. If I understand you rightly then, you mean that those principles which you applied later on as Reich Youth Leader had become familiar to you in your own youth and in the youth movement of the time. Is that right?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes; basically, yes. The basic principles of my later work originate there.

DR. SAUTER: There is one more point I want to know in this connection. Did this education at that time have any political or anti-Semitic tendencies and how did you happen to get into politics?

VON SCHIRACH: No, that educational work had no political and most certainly no anti-Semitic tendencies, because Lietz came from the circles around the Democrat Naumann, from the Damaschke circle.

DR. SAUTER: But how did you get into politics?

VON SCHIRACH: In the meantime the revolution had broken out. My father...

DR. SAUTER: The revolution of 1918-1919?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, the revolution of 1918-1919. My father had been thrown out of his position by the Reds. The National Assembly in Weimar had convened. The Weimar Republic had been founded. We had a parliamentary system, we had a democracy, or what we in Germany thought was a democracy—I doubt that it was one. It was about 1923. I was at home at the time. It was a period of general insecurity, want, and dissatisfaction; many respectable families had become beggars through the inflation, and the worker and the citizen had lost their savings. The name “Hitler” made its appearance in connection with the events of 9 November 1923. I was not able at the time to gain any exact information about him. This Trial has informed me and people of my generation for the first time what Hitler actually wanted. At that time I was not a National Socialist. Together with some boys of my age I joined a youth organization which had the name “Knappenschaft.” It was in some way connected with the people’s movement, but it was not bound to any party. The principles of that organization were simply comradeship, patriotism, and self-control. There were about 100 boys from my city in it at the time who, in this youth organization, fought against the shallow tendencies of youth in the postwar period and against the dissipation indulged in by growing youngsters.

In that circle, as a 16-year-old, I first came in contact with socialism, for here I found youths from every level, working boys, craftsmen, young office employees, sons of farmers. But there were some older ones among us too, who were already settled in life, and some also who had been in the World War. From discussions with these comrades I came to grasp for the first time the consequences of the Versailles Treaty in their full import. The situation of the youth at the time was this: The school boy had the prospect of struggling through somehow or other as a working student, and then he would in all probability become a member of the academic proletariat for the possibility of an academic career practically did not exist for him at all. The young worker had no prospect of finding an apprenticeship. For him there was nothing other than the grim misery of unemployment. It was a generation nobody would help unless it helped itself.

DR. SAUTER: And that circle to which you belonged as a 16-year-old boy, then, gradually drifted into the currents of National Socialism?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and in quite a natural way.

DR. SAUTER: How did it happen?

VON SCHIRACH: In central Germany there were disturbances. I need only mention the name of the Communist bandit leader, Max Hölz, to indicate what conditions obtained at the time. And even after outward calm had come, conditions still prevailed that made it impossible to hold patriotic meetings because they were usually broken up by Communists. There came an appeal to us young people to furnish protection for these patriotic meetings, and we did. Some of us were wounded in doing this. One of us, a certain Garschar, was killed by Communists. In that manner a large number of national meetings took place which otherwise could not have been held in the Weimar Republic, National Socialist meetings, too; and to an increasing degree it was exactly such meetings that we had to protect because the Communist terror was directed against them particularly.

Through this protective activity I met leading National Socialists—at first as speakers, naturally, not personally. I heard Count Reventlow speak; I think I heard Rosenberg then too; I heard Streicher speak and heard the first oratorical efforts of Sauckel, who soon after became Gauleiter of the National Socialist Party in Thuringia. In this way...

THE PRESIDENT: What date is he speaking of?

DR. SAUTER: This is the period around 1924, that is, a year after the Hitler Putsch.

In that way, Witness, the circle of which you were then a member came under National Socialist influences. Was this also supported with reading, reading of National Socialist literature?

VON SCHIRACH: Of course, I do not know what my comrades read, with the exception of one book which I shall give you directly. I know only what I read myself; I was interested at that time in the writings of the Bayreuth thinker, Chamberlain, in _The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century_, in the writings of Adolf Bartels, in his _Introduction to World Literature_ and _History of German National Literature_. There were works...

THE PRESIDENT: I have already told you that we do not want to know the full story of the defendant’s education. He is now giving us a series of the books which he has read, but we are not interested.

DR. SAUTER: Very well, Mr. President.

VON SCHIRACH: I shall only say in one sentence that these were works which had no definite anti-Semitic tendencies, but through which anti-Semitism was drawn like a red thread. The decisive anti-Semitic book which I read at that time and the book which influenced my comrades...

DR. SAUTER: Please...

VON SCHIRACH: ...was Henry Ford’s book, _The International Jew_; I read it and became anti-Semitic. In those days this book made such a deep impression on my friends and myself because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success, also the exponent of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and apart from the great benefactor, Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who to us represented America.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal thinks, as I have said twice now, that the educational influences of the defendant are quite irrelevant to us. I do not want to say it again and, unless you can control the defendant and keep him to the point, I shall have to stop his evidence.

DR. SAUTER: But, Mr. President, is it not of interest to the Tribunal when judging this defendant and his personality that they know how the defendant became a National Socialist and how the defendant became anti-Semitic? I had thought...

THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not of interest to the Tribunal.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, how did you then meet Hitler and how did you happen to join the Party?

VON SCHIRACH: I must say that I did not become a National Socialist because of anti-Semitism but because of Socialism. I met Hitler as early as 1925. He had just left Landsberg on the Lech, his imprisonment was ended, and he came to Weimar and spoke there. It was on that occasion that I was introduced to him. The program for the national community which he developed appealed to me so enormously because in it I found on a large scale something I had experienced in a small way in the camaraderie of my youth organization. He appeared to me to be the man who would pave the way into the future for our generation. I believed that through him there could be offered to this younger generation the prospect of work, of happiness. And in him I saw the man who would liberate us from the shackles of Versailles. I am convinced that without Versailles the rise to power of Hitler would never have happened. That dictate led to dictatorship.

DR. SAUTER: Witness, when did you then become a member of the Party?

VON SCHIRACH: I became a member of the Party in 1925. I joined the SA at the same time, with all my comrades.

DR. SAUTER: You were 18 at the time?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: Why did you join the SA?

VON SCHIRACH: The SA furnished the protection for the meetings, and we simply continued in the SA, as part of the Party, the activities which we had carried out before in our youth organization.

DR. SAUTER: In 1926, Witness, that is when you were 19 years old, there was a Party rally in Weimar?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

DR. SAUTER: As far as I know, you talked to Hitler personally on that occasion; is that correct?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I was to have talked personally to Hitler one year earlier. On this occasion there was another meeting. He was making speeches at various mass meetings in Weimar, and he came back to Weimar again during the same year to speak before a smaller circle. Together with Rudolf Hess he paid a visit to the home of my parents and on that occasion he suggested that I should study in Munich.

DR. SAUTER: Why?

VON SCHIRACH: He thought I ought to know the Party at its very core and thought I would become acquainted with the Party work in that way. But I want to say here that at that time I did not have any intention at all of becoming a politician. Nevertheless, I was very much interested, of course, in getting acquainted with the Movement at the place where it had been founded.

DR. SAUTER: You went, then, to Munich, and studied there?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I then went to Munich. At first I did not concern myself with the Party. I was occupied with Germanic studies, history, and the history of art; I wrote and I came into contact with many people in Munich who were not actually National Socialists but who belonged, I should say, to the periphery of the National Socialist movement. At that time I lived in the house of my friend, the publisher Bruckmann...

DR. SAUTER: Then in 1929 you became the head of the Movement within the universities. I think you were elected, not nominated, to that post?

VON SCHIRACH: The situation at the beginning was this: I attended Party meetings in Munich; in Bruckmann’s salon I met Hitler and Rosenberg and many other men who later played an important role in Germany. And at the university I joined the university group of the National Socialist German Students League.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go on.

DR. SAUTER: Go on, Herr Von Schirach, you have just told us that you joined this university group in Munich. Will you please continue?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, and I also started to take an active part in this group. I spoke there before my comrades, at first about my own work in the literary field, and then I began to give lectures to the students also about the National Socialist movement. I organized Hitler student meetings among the students in Munich, and then I was elected a member of the General Students Committee, the ASTA, and through this activity among the students I came more and more into contact with the Party leadership. In 1929, the man who was the then so-called Reich Leader of the National Socialist Students Union retired, and the question arose of who should be given the leadership of all the university groups. At that time Rudolf Hess, on behalf of the Führer, questioned all university groups of the National Socialist University Movement and the majority of all these groups cast their vote for me to head the National Socialist Students Union. This accounts for the curious fact that I am the only Party leader who was elected into the Party leadership. That is something which has otherwise never occurred in the history of the Party.

DR. SAUTER: You mean to say by that, that all the others were nominated, and you alone were elected?

VON SCHIRACH: I was elected, and then I was confirmed in office.

DR. SAUTER: And if I am right, you were elected at the students’ meeting at Graz in 1931.