Chapter XXIV: Book 4: , Page 28 of the English book, and just look at Captain (15)

MR. DODD: Now, I understood you also to say that, whatever else you may have done with the young people of Germany during the years over which you had control of them, you certainly did not prepare them militarily in any sense, in any sense ordinarily accepted as being military; is that so?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: Well, now, let’s see. What was the name of your personal press expert, or consultant, if you prefer that term?

VON SCHIRACH: The press expert who worked with me longest was a Herr Kaufmann.

MR. DODD: And you have asked him—as a matter of fact, you do have an interrogatory from him, don’t you, which will be submitted. I assume you know about that, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I know that my counsel has applied for it, but I do not know the answers which Kaufmann gave.

MR. DODD: Well, you know the questions he asked, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember them.

MR. DODD: Well, perhaps if I remind you of one or two you will remember. You asked him if he ever put out any press releases without your authority. You asked him if he wasn’t your personal press consultant. And you asked him if it wasn’t true that you personally gave him the directive for what you wanted published in the press, and particularly in the youth press. Do you remember those questions?

[_There was no response._]

MR. DODD: But you don’t know the answers; is that it?

[_There was no response._]

MR. DODD: Well, do you know that he published in the SS official publication in September of 1942 an article about the young people and the youth of Germany?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember that article.

MR. DODD: Well, I think that you had better have a look at it. It is Document 3930-PS. That becomes USA-853, Mr. President.

Now, this document which I am showing you is a telegram, of course, a teletype message, “Reich Governor in Vienna.” You will see at the top that it was received by you on 10 September 1942, and it sets out a copy of the subject for the body of this article for the editorial staff of the _Schwarzes Korps_. That is the SS magazine, as you recall.

Now, you will see from reading it, and in the very first part it states that a high-ranking officer who had come back to Berlin from Sevastopol said that the youngsters who had been seen some 4 years ago in short pants marching through German cities singing “Yes, the flag is more than death,” were the 19-year-olds who took that city of Sevastopol.

The article goes on to say that the lads are fulfilling in fighting what they promised in singing and that the National Socialist movement had brought up a young generation, filling them with faith and self-denial, and so on. And then the rest of it goes on in substance to say that there were people who objected to your program at the time that you were trying to make these youngsters strong.

The clear meaning of it is that you are now claiming credit for having had something to do with making them the good 19-year-old fighters who took Sevastopol, isn’t that so? You are claiming credit, I say, in this article for having produced this kind of 19-year-old boy.

VON SCHIRACH: I had no knowledge of this article up to now.

MR. DODD: Well, you do now. You can talk about it, certainly.

VON SCHIRACH: That is just what I want to do. Herr Kaufmann at that time had just returned from the Eastern Front, and under the impression of what he had experienced out there he wrote down what appears in this article, which I cannot possibly read now in its entirety.

MR. DODD: Well, it isn’t very long. Really I read what I think are the most important parts of it insofar as you are concerned.

VON SCHIRACH: That the youth was trained in a military way I believe is not mentioned in one single sentence in that entire article.

MR. DODD: Oh, I know. I am simply asking if it isn’t a fact that you were claiming credit in this article for having had something considerable to do with the fact that these 19-year-old boys were such good fighters in Russia. That is all I am asking you.

VON SCHIRACH: I have already told you that I wanted to train the youth to become good citizens, and that I wanted to train them to be good patriots, who did their duty in the field later on.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: And should also do their duty in the field.

MR. DODD: Well, your answer then is, yes, you were claiming credit for the fact that they were such good fighters. Now, there is no trick in this question. It is merely preliminary, and I want to get on, but I think you might say “yes.” And incidentally, this song, “The flag is more than death,” was a song that you wrote, wasn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: The “Flag Song” which I based on the refrain “The flag is more than death.” That is true.

MR. DODD: Now, you have also published a number of other songs for young people, in the formative days before the war started, in a songbook.

VON SCHIRACH: A great many songbooks for young people were published. I do not know them all.

MR. DODD: No, I don’t either, but I am asking you if it isn’t a fact that you did publish songbooks for young people.

VON SCHIRACH: Both the Cultural Service of the Reich Youth Leadership and the Press Service published such books. Of course, I did not look at each single song in them myself; but on the whole I believe that only songs which were sung by young people appeared in these books.

MR. DODD: All right. We have some extracts from one of your songbooks, and there is only one that I wish to refer to. Do you remember the one “Forward, Forward,” that you wrote, by the way; another one that you wrote. Do you remember that song?

VON SCHIRACH: “Forward, Forward” is the Flag Song of the youth organization.

MR. DODD: All right. Did you write it?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Well, now, certainly that also contains, does it not, highly inciting words and phrases for young people with respect to their military duty?

VON SCHIRACH: The Flag Song of the youth organization? I cannot see that?

MR. DODD: Well, words, like these: “We are the future soldiers. Everything which opposes us will fall before our fists. Führer, we belong to you,” and so on. Do you remember that?

VON SCHIRACH: I did not say: “We are the future soldiers,” as I hear now in English, but “We are the soldiers of the future.”

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: The soldiers of the future, the bearers of a future.

MR. DODD: All right, but that is another one of your songs, isn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: That is a revolutionary song dating from the fighting period; it does not refer to a war between, say, Germany and other powers, but to the fight which we had to carry on inside the country in order to achieve our revolution.

MR. DODD: All right, we will see. Do you remember the one, “Can you see the dawn in the East?” Do you remember that song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is not one of my songs.

MR. DODD: It is one of the songs in the Hitler Youth Songbook, is it not?

VON SCHIRACH: That is an old SA song dating from 1923-24.

MR. DODD: Well, that may be. I am only asking you, isn’t it a fact that it was in your official songbooks for your young people?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: It is in that song that you vilify the Jews, is it not?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember that. I would have to see the song.

MR. DODD: Well, I can show it to you, but perhaps if you recall it we can save a little time. Don’t you remember that the second stanza says, “For many years the people were enslaved and misguided, traitors and Jews had the upper hand?” Do you remember those words in that song? “People to Arms” is the next one.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but I am not sure if that was published in a youth songbook.

MR. DODD: I can assure you that it was; and if you would like to see it, we have it here.

VON SCHIRACH: It is a very well-known SA song, which was sung by the young people, and was therefore included in the youth songbook.

MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to find out. I don’t care where it originated. It is the kind of song you had in your songbook for young people.

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say one more thing. The songbook which I have here was published in 1933.

MR. DODD: Yes?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that the youth organization which I built up can be judged from the year 1933 only.

MR. DODD: I don’t suggest that either, but we found it in 1945.

VON SCHIRACH: Later we published other songbooks, with very different songs.

MR. DODD: Yes, I am going to get around to these in a minute.

That songbook was 3764-PS, USA-854. It has just been called to my attention that the last phrase in that fourth stanza says: “Germany awake! Death to Jewry! People to arms!”

VON SCHIRACH: One moment, please; where is that?

MR. DODD: In the English text, in the fourth stanza. I don’t know where it would be; it is on Page 19, I am told, of the German text. Did you find it?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Well, maybe it is the wrong document. In any event, we will find it for you. However, you remember the song, do you not? You don’t deny that it says “Death to the Jews,” and so on, do you, in that song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is the song that starts with the words, “Can you see the dawn in the East?”

MR. DODD: That is right.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: That is all I wanted to know.

VON SCHIRACH: That song is not in this book.

[_A book was handed to the defendant._]

MR. DODD: We have quite a few of your songbooks here.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but there is a great difference between them. This book, which does not contain the song, is an official edition published by the Reich Youth Leadership. As I say, it does not contain the song. It does appear, however, in a songbook published by Tonners, a firm of music publishers in Cologne, under the title of “Songs of the Hitler Youth.” This book is not, however, an official collection issued by the Reich Youth Leadership. Any publishing firm in Germany can publish such books.

MR. DODD: All right, I will accept that, but certainly you won’t deny that the book was used, will you? And that is all we are trying to establish.

VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know. I do not know whether that book was used by the Hitler Youth.

MR. DODD: Do you know that the one which it is contained in was published by you?

[_There was no response._]

Well, in any event, I would like to point this out to you. I am not claiming, or trying to suggest to you by questions, that any one of these songs in themselves made young people in Germany fit for war; but rather, what I am trying to show is that, as distinguished from the testimony you gave here yesterday, you were doing something more than just giving these boys and girls games to play.

VON SCHIRACH: My statements of yesterday certainly did not imply that we only gave them games to play. For every song of this kind there are innumerable others.

MR. DODD: Yes, I know, but these are the ones we are concerned with right now. “Unfurl the Blood-Soaked Banners,” you remember that? “Drums Sound Throughout the Land”?

VON SCHIRACH: These are all songs of the “Wandervogel” and the Youth League. They are songs which were sung at the time of the Republic, songs which did not have anything to do with our time.

MR. DODD: Just a minute.

VON SCHIRACH: They are songs which had nothing to do with our period.

MR. DODD: Do you think that anybody, in the days of the Republic, was singing Hitler Youth marches?

VON SCHIRACH: What song is that? I do not know it.

MR. DODD: That is the one, “Drums Sound Throughout the Land.” Don’t you remember any of these songs, actually?

VON SCHIRACH: Of course, I know quite a number of these songs; but the most important—the bulk of them—come from the old “Zupfgeigenhansl” of the Wandervogel movement and from the Youth League. That the SA also sang these songs goes without saying.

MR. DODD: Yes, I don’t doubt that they did; but wherever they emanated from, you were using them with these young people. And that one, “Drums Sound Throughout the Land,” you wrote yourself; isn’t that so?

VON SCHIRACH: “Drums Sound Throughout the Land?” Yes, I believe I did write some such song.

MR. DODD: All right; that certainly doesn’t have a very ancient origin then, does it?

VON SCHIRACH: It was long before the seizure of power.

MR. DODD: Now, you also recall, perhaps, that on one occasion Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote an article for the Hitler Year Book. Do you remember that?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Well, it wasn’t so very long ago. It was in 1938. I suppose you read the Year Book of your organization for that year at that time, anyway?

VON SCHIRACH: That may be taken for granted; but I really cannot remember what Field Marshal Von Blomberg wrote for it.

MR. DODD: Well, all right. I would like you to look at this document; it is 3755-PS. I think it is on Page 134 of the text that you have, Mr. Witness; and on Pages 148 to 150 you will find an article, “Education for War of German Youth,” or rather, it says, “The work ‘Education for War of German Youth,’ by Dr. Stellrecht, contains a slogan of Field Marshal Von Blomberg, in which the following passage is quoted.” And then it goes on to give the quotation. Do you find that? “The fighting spirit is the highest virtue of the soldier.” And so on.

Have you found the quotation of Blomberg’s? That is what I want to know.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And then the article by Stellrecht is also contained there, after the quotation.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: Now certainly, when you move down a few lines, you will see this sentence: “Therefore, it is a stern and unalterable demand which Field Marshal Von Blomberg makes of the young men marching in the columns of the Hitler Youth,” and so on.

In those days, in 1938, Mr. Witness, you were at least thinking in terms of future military service and so was Field Marshal Von Blomberg, with respect to the Hitler Youth. That is the point I am trying to make.

VON SCHIRACH: We had a State with compulsory military training.

MR. DODD: I know.

VON SCHIRACH: And it goes without saying that we as educators were also anxious to train our youth to the highest degree of physical fitness so that they would also make good soldiers.

MR. DODD: You weren’t doing any more than that? Is that what you want this Court to understand?

VON SCHIRACH: I described to you yesterday what else we did in the way of rifle training, cross-country sports, and the training of special units.

MR. DODD: That is USA-856, Mr. President.

Yes, I know you told us yesterday that, whatever else it might have been, it certainly was not any kind of military training.

This man Stellrecht was associated with you, was he not?

VON SCHIRACH: Dr. Stellrecht had the “Office for Physical Training” in the Hitler Youth under Reich Sport Leader Von Tschammer-Osten. That office was one of 21 offices within the Youth Leadership.

MR. DODD: He was associated with you?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And you have also used something from him as part of your defense; it is in your document book. Do you know about that?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it is a statement made by Dr. Stellrecht, in which he speaks of education for defense and physical training for youth; and says that not a single boy in Germany is trained with weapons of war.

MR. DODD: I know that, and therefore I want you to look at another statement that he made on another date.

That is Document 1992-PS, Mr. President, and we offer it as USA-439.

Do you remember when he made the speech to the military men in January of 1937, while he was affiliated with your Hitler Youth organization? Do you know the speech to which I refer?

VON SCHIRACH: I was not present on the occasion of that speech and I do not consider myself responsible for any statement which he may have made in it.

MR. DODD: Well, that is your statement, but perhaps others feel differently. At any event, I ask you whether or not you were aware of and knew about the speech, and will you tell us whether you do know about it before you look at it? You know the speech I am talking about, don’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember being informed of the fact that he spoke at a national and political training course for the Armed Forces; but I may have been informed of it. The speech, itself...

MR. DODD: Well, it seems to me you were very anxious to deny responsibility for it before you knew what he said.

VON SCHIRACH: I did not want to make a statement on that. Disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of a certain tendency which he showed with regard to defense training, because I felt that he insisted too much on his office. Disputes arose also with the other offices of the Reich Youth Leadership which finally led to his dismissal from the Reich Youth Leadership.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, he was on your staff when he made this speech and I wish now you would look at page—well, I have it Page 3 of the English, and it is Page 169 of the text that you have; and it begins at the very bottom of the English page. The paragraph reads:

“As far as purely military education is concerned this work has
already been done in years of co-operation, and very
extensively. The result has been set down in a book written by
myself, regulating future work in military education down to the
last detail of training and which, with our mutual agreement,
included a foreword and preface by the Reich Defense Minister
and the Reich Youth Leader.”

And then the next paragraph:

“The basic idea of this work is always to present to the boy
that which belongs to the particular stage of his
development”—and so on. And I want you to come to the sentence
that says:

“For that reason no boy is given a military weapon, simply
because it seems to serve no useful purpose for his development.
But, on the other hand, it seems sensible to give him guns of
small caliber for training. Just as there are certain tasks
occurring in military training which are only suitable for grown
men, so there are other training tasks more suited to boys.”

And then moving down further in the English text, next to the last paragraph, Page 170 of your text, you will find in the next to the last paragraph that Dr. Stellrecht says:

“This picture is the goal of a comprehensive education which
starts with the training of the boy in outdoor games and ends
with his military training.”

And then moving on again to the fifth page of the English text, and I think it is Page 171 of your text, the next to the last paragraph, in talking about the hiking trip, he says that:

“...has still a wider purpose...because it is the only way in
which the boy can get acquainted with the fatherland for which
he will have to fight one day.”

Moving on through this article, finally, I want to direct your attention to Page 6 of the English text and Pages 174 and 175 of your text. In the last paragraph of the English text, you will find this sentence which says:

“All training, therefore, culminates in rifle training. It can
scarcely be emphasized enough; and because shooting is a matter
of practice, one cannot start too early. The result we want to
achieve in the course of time is that a gun should feel just as
natural in the hands of a German boy as a pen.”

Now, move over to the next page, Page 7 of the English text and Page 176 of your text. Your Dr. Stellrecht says there more about shooting and how it “meets with the boys’ desire”; and then he goes on to say:

“Along with the general training there is special training for
new replacements for Air Force, Navy, and motorized troops. The
training course for this has been established in conjunction
with the competent offices of the Armed Forces... on as broad a
basis as possible, and in the country cavalry training is
given.”

And I suppose it is on the next page of your text, but it is the next to the last paragraph of the English text—I want to call your attention to this sentence—or it is two from the last paragraph in the English text: “Military education and ideological education belong together.” The English text says “philosophical,” but I think that’s a mistranslation and actually in German it is “ideological.” And you see the sentence that says in the next paragraph:

“The education of youth has to take care that the knowledge and
the principles, according to which the State and the Armed
Forces of our time have been organized and on which they base,
enter so thoroughly into the thoughts of the individual that
they can never again be taken away and that they remain guiding
principles all through life.”

And the last paragraph of that speech, Mr. Witness—I wish you would look at it because I think you used the term “playful” yesterday, if I am not mistaken, and Dr. Stellrecht, anyway, a little earlier in his speech. Here is what he said to the military men that day: “Gentlemen, you can see that the tasks of present youth education have gone far beyond the ‘playful.’”

Are you sure, now, that you didn’t have any kind of a program for military training in your youth organization?

VON SCHIRACH: I can see from this document, which I should really have to read in its entirety in order to be able to answer correctly, that Dr. Stellrecht, to put it mildly, considered himself very important. The importance of Dr. Stellrecht for the education of youth and the importance of the office which he held in the Youth Leadership were definitely not as great as implied by this training course for men of the Armed Forces. I have already said before that disputes arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of his exaggerations and especially because of the extent to which he overestimated the value of rifle training and what he called “military training” and that these differences of opinion finally led to his dismissal and departure from the service of the Reich Youth Leadership. He was one of many heads of offices, and the importance of his special activity was not as great as he has represented it to be in his statement here. I think I explained yesterday what a large number of tasks confronted the Youth Leadership. I was also able to indicate the approximate proportion of premilitary training or military training, as Herr Stellrecht calls it, as compared with other forms of training. But this document also states clearly that there was no intention of anticipating military training, as I said yesterday. When he says that every German boy should learn to handle the gun as easily as the pen, that is an expression of opinion with which I cannot identify myself.

MR. DODD: Well, of course, you have your view of him; but I think it is well that we brought it out in view of the fact that you have yourself offered before this Tribunal a statement by Stellrecht in your own document book. You are aware of that, of course, aren’t you? You want, of course, to have us understand that Stellrecht is reliable when you quote him, but he is not reliable when we quote him; is that it?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not mean that at all. He is a specialist in ballistics and outdoor sports and, of course, he represented his tasks, as is natural to human nature, as being the most important in youth training. Probably another office chief would have described cultural work or occupational competition contests, as the case might be, as being the most important aspects of youth training. At any rate, the decisive pronouncement for the education of German youth was not the remarks which Stellrecht made during a course for soldiers but my own remarks to the youth leaders.

MR. DODD: I just want to remind you that a year after he made this speech you wrote a preface for his book, didn’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: I believe this preface was written for the book “Hitler Youth on Service.”

MR. DODD: I say it was a year after he wrote this speech, which was put out and published in Germany. He not only made the speech; but it was put out in pamphlet form, wasn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: I cannot remember exactly.

MR. DODD: Well, I can tell you if you look at the document that I handed you. I think you will see that. Well, in any event, we will pass along. You told the Tribunal yesterday that the statement in the _Völkischer Beobachter_, attributed to Hitler, on 21 February 1938 was something of a mystery to you; you did not know where he got his figures from. Did you understand what I said, Mr. Witness?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And do you know to what I referred in your testimony of yesterday, that quotation from Hitler in the _Völkischer Beobachter_?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: What is wrong with those figures?

VON SCHIRACH: I think that these figures are exaggerated and I think that there are errors in the text in my possession, which is a translated text. He probably received these figures from Dr. Stellrecht’s office, or so I assume. The statements regarding armored troops were, I imagine, probably added by himself; for the conclusion that some thousands or tens of thousands qualified for driving licenses is really an incorrect one, just as it is incorrect to draw from the fact that some tens of thousands of lads qualify for driving licenses the conclusion that they were trained as tank troops.

MR. DODD: Well, you see, we didn’t say so. You understand it was your Führer who said so in February 1938, and what I asked you was that I wish perhaps we can go through it and you can tell the Tribunal where they are in error and to what extent. Now Hitler said, according to the press, that your naval Hitler Youth comprised 45,000 boys. Would you say that figure was too large and altogether untrue?

VON SCHIRACH: No, that is correct.

MR. DODD: That is correct?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: He then said, the motor Hitler Youth 60,000 boys. What do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: That is correct.

MR. DODD: And then he said that, as part of the campaign to encourage aviation, 55,000 members of the Jungvolk were trained in gliding for group activities. What do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: Glider training and model plane construction in the youth organization with—may I have the figure again—50,000 youth airmen?

MR. DODD: 55,000.

VON SCHIRACH: 55,000—yes, that is correct.

MR. DODD: That’s correct. Then he says, “74,000 of the Hitler Youth are organized in its flying units.” Now, what do you say about that figure?

VON SCHIRACH: You say “flying units”; those are “Fliegereinheiten,” groups of Hitler youth airmen, who—as I must emphasize again—were concerned only with gliding and the construction of model planes. There may have been such a large number at the time.

MR. DODD: Is the figure correct, 74,000?

VON SCHIRACH: It may be.

MR. DODD: Well, he lastly says, “15,000 boys passed their gliding test in the year 1937 alone.” What do you say about that; is it too big or too little or not true at all?

VON SCHIRACH: No, that is probably correct.

MR. DODD: Well, now, so far you haven’t disagreed with Hitler on any of these, have you?

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Then, he lastly says, “Today, 1.2 million boys of the Hitler Youth receive regular instruction in small-bore rifle shooting from 7,000 instructors.” What’s wrong with that figure, if anything?

VON SCHIRACH: It may be correct—of course, I have no documentary proof that we had 7,000 young men who conducted training in small-bore rifle shooting. I discussed this small-bore rifle shooting yesterday. It is well known that we carried that out.

MR. DODD: Actually you haven’t disputed any of these figures. They are true, then, to the best of your knowledge, aren’t they?

VON SCHIRACH: My objection concerned a remark, which I remember in connection with the speech, mentioning tank force.

MR. DODD: Well, we don’t have it but, if you have it, we’d be glad to see it. But this is the _Völkischer Beobachter_ speech that was put in by the Prosecution at the time that the case against you was put in; there is nothing in that about the tanks.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe the reason is that the retranslation of the document from English back into German is incorrect.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, we agree that Hitler wasn’t very far off on his figures when he made this speech or gave them out?

VON SCHIRACH: No; I think the figures which you have just mentioned are correct.

MR. DODD: All right. Now, then, in the Year Book of your Hitler Youth for 1939, Stellrecht, your man who had charge of training, uses that same expression. Do you recall that? “To handle a rifle should be just as natural for everybody as to handle a pen”?

VON SCHIRACH: 1939?

MR. DODD: Yes, sir.

VON SCHIRACH: May I have the month?

MR. DODD: Well, it’s in the Year Book of the Hitler Youth for the year 1939, at Page 227. If you’d like to see it, I’ll be glad to show it to you.

VON SCHIRACH: No, thank you. I do not have to see it. If he has already mentioned it before, it is possible that he will repeat it.

MR. DODD: Yes. You see, the importance of it to us is that this is 2 years after he made this speech, 1 year after you wrote the preface to his book, and I assume some time after you found him to be—what did you say—unreliable?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I did not say that. On the contrary, he was a reliable man, but differences of opinion arose between us because I did not agree with him on the question of overemphasizing premilitary training.

MR. DODD: Well...

VON SCHIRACH: I considered the rifle training as constituting only a part of our training, and not the most essential part; and he pushed it too much into the foreground.

MR. DODD: All right. But you let him write in the Year Book; and 2 years, after he made the speech, he made this same kind of a statement for young people to read, that they should be as handy with a rifle as they were with a pen. Did you make any objection when that book went to press? I assume you must have...

VON SCHIRACH: I did not see the book before it went to press...

MR. DODD: You did not proofread it?

VON SCHIRACH: ...and I had no objections to raise in particular.

MR. DODD: Did you object when you read in the same book and on the same page that the Wehrmacht had presented to your Hitler Youth in 1937, 10,000 small-bore rifles?

VON SCHIRACH: No, I was very glad to have that gift from the Armed Forces. As we in any case did small-bore shooting, I was grateful for every rifle we received because we always had less than we needed for training purposes.

MR. DODD: And were you distressed when you also read in that same Year Book that there was no shortage of shooting ranges:

“Since organized rifle training was started in the autumn of
1936, 10,000 shooting instructors have acquired the green
shooting license in weekend courses and special courses; and
this figure increases by some thousands every year.”

Do you remember that in your Year Book for 1939?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not remember it, but I think you are probably presenting the facts correctly; I will not dispute it. Switzerland gave her young men a much more intensive rifle training than we did and so did many other countries.

MR. DODD: Yes, I know.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not deny that our young men were trained in shooting.

MR. DODD: I hope you’re not comparing yourself to Switzerland, either.

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: This document is 3769-PS, Mr. President; it becomes USA-857.

Now, we’ve heard about this agreement that you and the Defendant Keitel drew up in 1939, not very long before the war against Poland started. It was in August of 1939.

It’s already in evidence, Mr. President, as USA-677.

It was the 8th day of August, wasn’t it—or 11th day; I’m sorry.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know the exact date. The fact that the agreement was concluded in August 1939 is enough to show that it did not have—and could not have had—any connection with the war.

MR. DODD: You say it had no relation to the war, 3 weeks before the attack on Poland?

VON SCHIRACH: If that agreement had had any significance for the war, it would have had to be concluded much earlier. The fact that it was only concluded in August shows in itself that we were not thinking of war. If we had wanted to train youth for the war, we would have made an agreement of this kind in 1936 or 1937.

MR. DODD: Well, in any event, will you agree to this: That this agreement between you and Keitel certainly was related to your shooting practice and related to the Army?

VON SCHIRACH: As far as I remember, the agreement referred to training for outdoor sports.

MR. DODD: Well, then I had better show it to you and read from it to you, if you have forgotten insofar that you don’t remember that it had something to do with your shooting practice.

VON SCHIRACH: I believe that it says—and to that extent a connection with rifle shooting does exist—that in future field sports are to receive the same attention which has hitherto been given to shooting. I do not know if I am giving that correctly from memory.

MR. DODD: I’ll tell you what it says and you can look at it in a minute. It says that you already have 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders trained annually in field service. And in the whole sentence it says:

“In the Leadership Schools of the Hitler Youth, particularly in
the two Reich schools for shooting practice and field sports and
in the District Leadership Schools, 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders
are being trained every year in field service...”

and that this agreement gives you the possibility of roughly doubling that number.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And it goes on to say how you will quarter these people and billet them, and so on.

VON SCHIRACH: Yes.

MR. DODD: And it does have some relationship to your shooting training program, doesn’t it?

VON SCHIRACH: I explained that before I even saw it.

MR. DODD: Well, I misunderstood you then. I thought that you said that it didn’t have...

VON SCHIRACH: No, no, I explained that. I said that field service should have the same prominence as rifle training in the program; but, here again, we are not concerned with training youth leaders to become officers. It was not a question of military training, but of training in field sports for the youth leaders who, after short courses—I believe they lasted 3 weeks—went back again to their units. A young man of 16 cannot be trained along military lines in that period of time, nor was that the purpose of the agreement.

MR. DODD: Surely you are not asking us to believe that you and Keitel were entering into an agreement over cross-country sports, are you, in August of 1939? Are you serious about that?

VON SCHIRACH: I am perfectly serious when I say that at that time I knew nothing about a war—the war to come. I said yesterday...

MR. DODD: Well, but you...

VON SCHIRACH: And I do not believe either that Field Marshal Keitel drafted that agreement; I think one of his assistants worked it out along with Dr. Stellrecht. If it had had any significance for the war, it would certainly not have been announced in August in an official publication.

MR. DODD: Well, now, listen. You just look at the first paragraph of this and read what it says the purpose of this agreement is, and perhaps we can put an end to this discussion.

“An agreement was made between the High Command of the Wehrmacht
and the Reich Youth Leadership representing the result of close
co-operation between the Chief of the High Command of the
Wehrmacht, General Keitel, and the Youth Leader of the German
Reich, Von Schirach, and promising the co-operation of the
Wehrmacht in the military education of the Hitler Youth.”

You don’t see anything there about cross-country running, do you, or training?

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to give an explanation as to that. What you have just quoted is not part of the text of the agreement, but represents a commentary by the editor of the collection _Das Archiv_.

MR. DODD: Well, I’m not going on; but I’ll leave it up to the Tribunal to decide whether that has to do with sports or has any relation to military education.

THE PRESIDENT: I think it is a convenient time to break off.

[_A recess was taken._]

MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the report is made that the Defendant Raeder is absent.

MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, would you agree that from time to time members of your Hitler Youth sang songs and otherwise conducted themselves in a manner which certainly was hostile to organized religious institutions?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not intend to deny that isolated members behaved in that way during the early years of the National Socialist State, but I should like to add a short explanation.

In the early years I took into my movement millions of young people from Marxist organizations and the atheist movement, _et cetera_; and, of course, it was not possible in the space of 2 or 3 or 4 years’ time to discipline all of them completely. But I think I may say that after a certain date, say 1936, things of that sort no longer happened.

MR. DODD: Well, I thought perhaps we could say, anyway, that in 1935 this sort of thing was going on and perhaps save some time. Would you agree to that? They were singing songs such as, “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, we want to be pagans again” and that sort of business. Are you familiar with that? Do you know that kind of thing that came to the attention of the Minister of Justice from the prosecuting authority in Baden.

VON SCHIRACH: No.

MR. DODD: Do you know that they sang a song published in the songbook “Blut und Ehre,” a song saying, “We want to kill the priest, out with your spear, forward; set the red cock on the cloister roof.” You know that old song?

VON SCHIRACH: That is a song dating back to the Thirty Years’ War and sung by the youth movement for many, many years, even before the first World War.

MR. DODD: I know, you have told me that before. I am trying to cut that down. Will you agree that your people were singing it in 1933, 1934, and 1935, to the extent that when clerics objected they were subjected themselves to the prosecuting authorities for interfering and criticizing? That is how important it was.

VON SCHIRACH: I know, as I have already said, that this song dates back to the Thirty Years’ War. It was sometimes sung by young people in the years 1933-1934. I tried to abolish this song, but I cannot give you any information as to special complaints which were lodged about it.

MR. DODD: I do not think that we have made clear that these songs were put out in a book which you published for the Hitler Youth to sing in these days. Do you agree to that?

VON SCHIRACH: I think it is possible, as for many years this song was included in every collection. It is a song which appeared in the first songbooks of the Wandervogel movement in 1898.

MR. DODD: I am not really interested in the history. All I am trying to establish is that in your songbook for your young people this song was present, that it was sung, that when the Church people complained, they were subjected to the prosecuting authorities for complaining.

VON SCHIRACH: I must dispute the last point.

MR. DODD: Well, I will have to put this document in.

It is Number 3751-PS. These are extracts from the diary of the prosecuting authorities, the diary of the Minister of Justice. And that becomes USA-858.

Now, the very first entry that is shown to you is a note from the diary of the Minister of Justice on the Catholic Vicar Paul Wasmer concerning criminal proceedings against him, and it is a question of whether a penal sentence should be proposed by Rosenberg because of libel. The vicar in his sermon cited a song being sung by young people. I quoted a few words of it a moment ago about “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, out with the Jews,” and so on. The Minister of Justice in his diary goes on to say that this Catholic vicar also quoted from “the little book of songs published by Baldur von Schirach” a verse with the following text:

“To the Lord in Heaven we’ll surely say
That we his Priest would gladly slay.”

and so on:

“Out with your spear, forward march.”

And he further quoted you as saying, “The path of German youth is Rosenberg.” Now, that is what he got into trouble for doing, and all I am asking you—and all I did ask—is if you won’t admit that people who criticized the use of this kind of stuff by your young people under your leadership were subjected to possible, and in many cases actual, prosecution? You see, you told the Tribunal yesterday that you never did anything directly to interfere with the Church, Catholic or Protestant.

VON SCHIRACH: The song quoted, which has the refrain “Kyrieleis,” which in itself shows it is a very old song...

MR. DODD: May I interrupt you to say...

VON SCHIRACH: ...may possibly be included in the songbook “Blood and Honor.” I am, of course, unaware that a clergyman was prosecuted for criticizing it. That is something new which I learn for the first time.

MR. DODD: All right. Look at Page 192 of that same diary, and you will see where the Archbishop of Paderborn reported the incident of 12 May. In this case he was asking that something be done to stop this sort of thing, and there is a rather nasty little song there about a monk and a nun, and so on, which your young people were singing; and then it goes on to say what happened to the Archbishop when he came out into the square and what the Hitler Youth did, what names they called him, and it says there were seven Hitler Youth leaders from outside present in that city that day and they were in civilian clothing. Do you mean to say you never heard of these things?

VON SCHIRACH: I know of this incident. I called the competent leader of the area, Langanke by name, to account for this. I had a good deal of trouble in connection with the incident. I shall therefore ask my counsel to question the witness Lauterbacher, who then held the rank of Stabsführer and is acquainted with the details. Some lines of the song you quoted just now caused a good deal of violent feeling among the population at the time—some of those lines are quoted here—on account of the foreign currency racketeering indulged in by some clergymen. That is why this satirical song was sung.

I should like to say in conclusion that I thoroughly and obviously disapproved of the attitude of these youth leaders. The whole affair is, as I have already said, one of those incidents dating back to the years when I had to take into my organization an enormous number of youths from other organizations and with an entirely different intellectual background.

MR. DODD: All right, turn to Page 228 of that diary, and you will see where a Chaplain Heinrich Müller and a town clergyman Franz Rümmer were under suspicion because they said in a circle of Catholic clergy that a certain song was sung by the Hitler Youth at the Party Rally in 1934:

“We are the rollicking Hitler Youth;
We have no need of Christian truth;
For Adolf Hitler is our Leader
And our Interceder.

“No evil old priest these ties can sever;
We’re Hitler’s children now and ever.”

Wait until I get through.

VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place.

MR. DODD: It is Page 228, a and b, I’m sorry. Maybe you will remember the song anyway if I read it to you. Do you remember the lines that said, “We don’t follow Christ but instead Horst Wessel”?

VON SCHIRACH: This is the first time I have seen this song. I do not know this song.

MR. DODD: All right; I will not go on reading it. You noticed that in an entry in the diary, the last paragraph, it says:

“The Advocate General notes that there is no doubt that the song
in question was sung or circulated in Hitler Youth circles; he
thinks that the statement that this song was sung at the Party
Rally, that is, to a certain extent under the eyes and with the
consent of the highest Party officials, can be refuted.”

VON SCHIRACH: The third stanza reads:

“I am no Christian, no Catholic;
I follow the SA through thin and thick.”

We gather that it is not a youth song. If the young people sang that song, I very much regret it. That song was certainly not sung at a youth festival at the Party Rally in 1934, as stated here.

MR. DODD: All right.

VON SCHIRACH: I myself read through all the programs for youth events at the Party Rally.

I do not know this song; I have never heard it; and I do not know the text.

MR. DODD; You will notice that the last line says: “Baldur von Schirach, take me too!”

The only point to all this is that certainly it is a surprise to the Prosecution to hear you say, as the Youth Leader, that you did not know that there was a great difficulty between the churchmen of all the churches in Germany and the youth organization in Germany, certainly during these years.

VON SCHIRACH: The point that I should like to make clear to the Tribunal is that in the youth movement there was a period of storm and stress, a period of development, and that the organization must not be judged by the actions of a few individuals or groups in the same year in which these individuals or groups became members of the organization. The result of educational work cannot be judged until some years have elapsed. It is possible that a group of youths who entered our ranks from the atheist movement in 1934 composed and sang these songs. In 1936 they would certainly no longer have done it.

MR. DODD: Well, let’s see what you were doing in 1937. You know the publication “Enjoyment, Discipline, Faith”? Do you know that handbook for cultural work in your youth camps?

VON SCHIRACH: I should like to see it, please.

MR. DODD: I’ll show it to you, but I wanted to ask you, first of all: Do you know the publication? Do you know what I am talking about when I refer to it?

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know all our publications. We had such an enormous number of publications that unless I have the book in front of me I cannot make any statement on the subject.

MR. DODD: All right; I’ll take your answer that you don’t know this one without seeing it. We’ll show it to you. This one, among other things, has the program for a week in one of your camps, a suggested series of programs. And again I’ll ask you a question and maybe we can cut this down.

Isn’t it a fact that in your camps you tried to make Hitler and God more than partners and particularly tried to direct the religious attitudes of young people to the belief that Hitler was sent to this earth by God and was his divinely appointed in Germany?

Well, just answer that first of all, and then we can look at the program.

VON SCHIRACH: No. I never made any comparison between Hitler and God; and I consider it blasphemous and have always considered such a comparison blasphemous.

It is true that during the long period of years in which I believed in Hitler, I saw in him a man sent by God to lead the people. That is true. I believe any great man in history—and in the past I considered Hitler such a man—may be regarded as being sent by God.

MR. DODD: This is Document 2436-PS, USA-859.

I am not going to go all through it with you, but I do want to call your attention to some specific parts.

First of all, on Page 64 you have the names of people suggested as mottoes, I guess you would say, for the day. They are all political or military heroes of Germany, I expect, aren’t they?

VON SCHIRACH: Arminius, Geiserich, Braunschweig...

MR. DODD: You don’t need to read them all. If they are not, say they aren’t, and if they are, say “yes.” I merely asked you if they were not all military or political heroes of Germany.

VON SCHIRACH: I do not know whether Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia can be characterized simply as a war hero here. He was certainly an artist as much as an officer.

MR. DODD: All right, I’ll pass that and take your answer that they are not.

Let’s move on to the Sunday morning celebration on Page 70 of your text, near the end of it. I wanted particularly to direct your attention to this in view of what you said about Rosenberg earlier this afternoon:

“If there is no one who can make a short formal address—it must
be good and command attention—extracts from ‘Mein Kampf’ or
from the Führer’s speeches or Rosenberg’s works should be read.”

Do you find that?

VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have found it.

MR. DODD: Well, do you still say that Rosenberg and his works had nothing to do with your Hitler Youth? You were suggesting that, for Sunday morning reading, they might listen to this benign philosopher’s works, weren’t you?

VON SCHIRACH: Nothing is proved by the fact that such a reference is made in one of the numerous handbooks of cultural work to one of the training staff who attended those biannual discussions of Rosenberg’s which I have already mentioned. I think you will look a long time before you find this particular passage in one of the many youth handbooks.

MR. DODD: Let me ask you something about this. You find one line in here for the Sunday morning celebration about a churchman, a chaplain, Holy Scripture, or anything related to religious institutions and tell the Tribunal where it is.

VON SCHIRACH: I take it as certain that nothing like that occurs there.

MR. DODD: That is your Sunday morning program?