Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 14 (part 3 of 3)
DR. SAUTER: And now I have one last question to ask you. You know that the order went out from the Party Leadership and from circles of the Reich Chancellery to stage a “Werewolf” movement for fighting the advancing troops. What was your attitude towards this movement?
VON SCHIRACH: I prohibited any Werewolf organization in my Gau, but to avoid misunderstandings I must tell you that there was a youth battalion, a Volkssturm battalion, which bore the name of “Werewolf,” but there was no Werewolf unit. I invariably refused, both for the young people and the adults, permission to participate in any form of combat contrary to the decrees of international law.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other member of the defendants’ counsel want to ask any questions?
DR. ALFRED THOMA (Counsel for Defendant Rosenberg): Witness, what was the attitude of Rosenberg, as the Führer’s Plenipotentiary for the Ideological Education of the Party, toward the Reich Youth Leadership?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the Chief of the Department for Ideological Education in the Reich Youth Leadership had to attend, on an average, two, perhaps three, meetings per annum, also attended by educational leaders from other Party organizations. These meetings took place under the chairmanship of Reichsleiter Rosenberg. On these occasions, as I have been told by the chief of the department, Rosenberg was wont to lay down general instructions and directives and ask for reports on the educational work of the individual organizations.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg select specific subjects to be lectured on at these meetings?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know for certain. At these meetings of the Youth Leadership representatives, at which Rosenberg spoke once a year, he usually selected educational themes, themes dealing with character training. He would, for instance, speak about solitude and comradeship and, as far as I remember, about personality, honor, et cetera.
DR. THOMA: Did Rosenberg at these meetings mention the Jewish problem and the confessional question?
VON SCHIRACH: During these Youth Leadership sessions he never made any speeches against the Jews, nor did he, as far as I can remember, ever touch on the subject of the confession—at least, not in my presence. I usually heard him speak on subjects such as I have just enumerated.
DR. THOMA: Witness, did you read Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century? And if so, when?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I began to read it, but I did not read the whole book.
DR. THOMA: Did this Rosenberg’s Myth make any impression on the young people or did other leaders have experiences similar to your own?
VON SCHIRACH: The youth leaders certainly did not read the Myth of the Twentieth Century.
DR. THOMA: I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defendant’s counsel want to ask questions? Or perhaps we had better adjourn now.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
Afternoon Session
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have already stated in connection with Sauckel’s directive regarding employment of labor that you were flooded with such directives. Were these directives carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: As far as my own information goes, I can confirm that. I had the impression that the functionaries of the labor employment administration felt that they had to keep strictly to Sauckel’s orders, and in those industrial plants which I visited I was able to ascertain that the requirements stated in the directives were in fact fulfilled.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did Sauckel himself take steps to insure that these things were carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I remember that Sauckel once came to Vienna—I think in 1943—and that on that occasion he addressed all his labor employment functionaries and repeated orally everything which he had stated in his directives. He spoke of the foreign workers in particular, demanding just treatment for them; and I remember that on this occasion he even spoke of putting them on the same footing as German workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have a few more questions about the political leaders. How were political leaders on the Gauleiter level informed? Did the Gauleiter have individual interviews with the Führer, especially in connection with the Gauleiter assemblies?
VON SCHIRACH: No. After the Gauleiter assemblies the Führer always held forth in a comparatively large circle just as he did in his speeches. Interviews in the real sense of the word did not exist. He always made speeches. Fixed dates on which Gauleiter could have interviews with Hitler almost ceased to exist once the war had begun.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could not a Gauleiter approach Hitler personally and ask for an interview?
VON SCHIRACH: He could ask for an interview, but he did not get it; he received an answer from Bormann, usually in the form of a telegram. That happened to me very frequently, because I made such requests; one was asked to submit in writing the points one wanted to discuss, after which one either received an answer or did not receive one.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, a letter has been submitted here as Document D-728, signed or initialed by Gauleiter Sprenger. You were here when it was submitted and you know the document. I have two questions concerning it.
Do you know anything about a list, which was to be compiled, containing the names of those suffering from heart and lung diseases, who were to be removed from the population?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I know nothing about that.
DR. SERVATIUS: Or that you were to make suggestions for this to the Führer?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: In my opinion that document also contains an error which has already been mentioned here, namely, the word “Herr” as a form of address. This letter was addressed to the “Herren Ortsgrüppenleiter,” and repeated mention is made of the “Herren Kreisleiter and Ortsgrüppenleiter” in the text. I ask you now if the expression “Herr” was customary in Party language?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I have never known a Party document with the exception of this one, which I consider a fraud, in which the term “Herr” was used.
DR. SERVATIUS: You are therefore of the opinion that that designation proves in itself that the document is false?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
DR. STEINBAUER: Herr Von Schirach, your predecessor as Gauleiter was Josef Bürckel. What sort of relations existed between Bürckel and Seyss-Inquart?
VON SCHIRACH: I can only repeat what was generally known in the Party about relations between them. They were extremely bad, and all of us had the impression that from the very beginning Bürckel worked hard to push Seyss-Inquart out.
DR. STEINBAUER: Which one of the two really had the power in his hands?
VON SCHIRACH: Bürckel, undoubtedly.
DR. STEINBAUER: Who, in your opinion and according to the actual information you obtained from the files, is responsible for the persecution of Jews in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: Hitler.
DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You say Hitler; but Hitler was not in Vienna. Who carried out these orders in Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: In my opinion, these orders were carried out—even during Bürckel’s and Seyss-Inquart’s time—by the same man who has already been mentioned here once today and who, in the meantime, has been condemned to death in Vienna—Dr. Brunner.
DR. STEINBAUER: Good. Are you aware that Seyss-Inquart repeatedly protested to Bürckel about excessively severe measures and quarreled with Bürckel on account of that?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say anything about that. I do not know.
DR. STEINBAUER: My client has been accused in a document of presenting to Adolf Hitler tapestries, among them Gobelins, formerly in the Emperor’s possession. Do you know anything about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I know this: In the large collection of Gobelins in Vienna, there were two sets depicting Alexander’s victory. The inferior series was loaned by Reich Governor Seyss-Inquart to the Reich Chancellery, where it hung in the lobby.
DR. STEINBAUER: So it was a loan and not a definite gift, which would have entailed a loss for Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: In the catalog of the Gobelin collection this set was marked as a loan.
DR. STEINBAUER: Are you aware that other Gobelins were put at the disposal of the Reich—that is to say, at Adolf Hitler’s disposal—by Seyss-Inquart?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I was not aware of it.
DR. STEINBAUER: But maybe you know who did take away other such Gobelins and tapestries?
VON SCHIRACH: I assume that you allude to Bürckel.
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know for certain whether Bürckel took Gobelins. When I took up my appointment in Vienna, I found that Bürckel had taken from the imperial furniture depot a number of pieces of furniture including, I believe, some carpets, not for his personal use but for a Viennese house which he intended to establish in Gau Saarpfalz as a sort of clubhouse.
I therefore approached the competent office in Berlin—I do not know whether it was the Reich Finance Ministry or the Reich Ministry of Culture—and when I was not successful there, I approached Hitler himself. In the end I succeeded in having Bürckel ordered to return these objects to Vienna at once; I cannot say with certainty whether these objects were in fact returned. I know that he received injunctions to return them and I assume that these objects were really returned later.
DR. STEINBAUER: All right. You know from statements which I have made to your defense counsel that we Austrians always hated Bürckel intensely for a number of very good reasons and that in fairness it must be admitted that many things, including, for instance, the city’s food supplies, improved after you took over. For this reason it seems to me all the more important to clear up completely the most serious charge against you. You have been made responsible in your capacity of Reich Defense Commissioner for the destruction of the most valuable monuments in Vienna. I ask you: On 2 April, when your deputy Scharizer and Engineer Blaschke, the National Socialist mayor, wanted to declare Vienna an open city as the Red Army approached, did you oppose them and give orders that Vienna must be defended to the last? Or who gave that order?
VON SCHIRACH: Neither Blaschke nor Scharizer expressed the view that Vienna should be declared an open city. There was...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Steinbauer, the Tribunal understands you are appearing for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes, because this is a War Crime and in the light of conspiracy he is responsible for everything and the main charge made against Herr Von Schirach must be clarified—that is, we must find out who actually gave this order which did so much harm.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, but you just said that you were not asking the questions in defense of Seyss-Inquart, but in defense of Von Schirach. I do not think that the Tribunal really ought to have the defense of Von Schirach prolonged by questions by other counsel. We have already had his defense for a considerable time presented by Dr. Sauter.
DR. STEINBAUER: Then I shall not put this question.
Do you also remember what attitude Seyss-Inquart adopted on Church matters when dealing with Bürckel?
VON SCHIRACH: I know only that Dr. Seyss-Inquart, generally speaking, was considered a man with Church ties. That this brought him into conflict with Bürckel is quite obvious to me. I cannot go into details.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, we understood you this morning to make a statement in the nature of a confession with respect to, at least, the persecution of the Jews; and while that part of it that you gave was perhaps bravely enough said, I think there is much of it that you neglected to say, perhaps through oversight.
Now, I wish you would tell the Tribunal whether or not it is a fact that your responsibility for young people in Germany under the National Socialists was fundamentally concerned with making really good National Socialists out of them, in the sense of making them fanatical political followers.
VON SCHIRACH: I considered it my task as educator to bring up the young people to be good citizens of the National Socialist State.
MR. DODD: And ardent followers and believers in Hitler and his political policies?
VON SCHIRACH: I believe I already said this morning that I educated our youth to follow Hitler. I do not deny that.
MR. DODD: All right. And while you said to us that you did not have the first responsibility for the educational system, I am sure you would not deny that for all of the other activities with which young people may be concerned you did have first responsibility?
VON SCHIRACH: Out-of-school education was my responsibility.
MR. DODD: And, of course, in the schools the only people who taught these young people were those who were politically reliable in keeping with Hitler’s opinions and beliefs and the teachings of National Socialism?
VON SCHIRACH: The teaching staffs of German schools were definitely not homogeneous bodies. A large part of the teaching body belonged to a generation which had not been educated on National Socialist lines and did not adhere to National Socialism. The young teachers had been educated on National Socialist principles.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, you are not saying, certainly, that young people under the public educational system of Germany were not, at all times, under the guidance of those who were politically reliable, certainly after the first year or two of the administration of Hitler and his followers, are you?
VON SCHIRACH: Would you please repeat the question? I did not quite understand.
MR. DODD: What I am trying to say to you is that there is not any doubt in your mind or in ours that the public school system of Germany was supervised, for the most part at least, by people who were politically sound insofar as National Socialism is concerned.
VON SCHIRACH: I should not care to say that. Educational administration in Germany was supervised by Reich Minister Rust, who—and this is a fact—for reasons of ill health took very little interest in his official duties. Many thousands of older men were employed in connection with educational administration. They had received their appointments long before the days of the National Socialist State and had retained them throughout.
MR. DODD: I do not care whether they were old or young or how long they had been in office. They all took an oath to Hitler, did they not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is correct; inasmuch as they were civil servants, they all took their oath as such.
MR. DODD: Rosenberg had a very considerable influence on young people in Germany, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that. I think you are estimating my Codefendant Rosenberg’s influence on youth quite wrongly—meaning that you are overestimating it. Rosenberg certainly had some influence on many people who were interested in philosophical problems and were in a position to understand his works. But I must dispute the extent of the influence which you are ascribing to him.
MR. DODD: You publicly said on one occasion that the way of Rosenberg was the way of the Hitler Youth, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: That was, I believe, in 1934...
MR. DODD: Never mind when it was. Did you say it or not?
VON SCHIRACH: I did say it.
MR. DODD: When was it?
VON SCHIRACH: That was in Berlin, at a youth function there. But later I myself led youth along an entirely different path.
MR. DODD: Well, we will get around to that a little later. But in any event, on this occasion in Berlin, when you had a large group of your youth leaders present, you were doing your best, at least, to have them understand that the way of Rosenberg was the way that they should follow?
VON SCHIRACH: But those were the same youth leaders who later received different instructions from me.
MR. DODD: Well, I dare say that may be so. We will get around to those different instructions; but on this occasion and at that time, insofar as you were concerned, you wanted them to understand that they were to follow Rosenberg’s way, didn’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but this way only affected one quite definite point, which was under discussion at that time, namely, the question of denominational youth organizations. Rosenberg and I agreed on this point, whereas we differed on many others; and it was to this point that the statement referred.
MR. DODD: Rosenberg’s way certainly wasn’t the way of young people remaining faithful to their religious obligations or teachings, was it?
VON SCHIRACH: I would not like to say that.
MR. DODD: What do you mean? You don’t know?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say in so many words that I have never heard Rosenberg make any statement to the effect that young people should be disloyal to their religious convictions.
MR. DODD: Well, I don’t know that he ever said it that way either; but I think you do know perfectly well, as many other people who were outside of Germany through all of these years, that Rosenberg was a violent opponent of organized religious institutions. You don’t deny that, do you?
VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not deny that in principle, but I do not think that it can be expressed in these terms. Rosenberg in no way tried to influence youth to withdraw from religious societies.
MR. DODD: And later on, actually—aren’t you willing to now say that later on, and perhaps at that time, in a secret and indirect sort of way you played Rosenberg’s game by arranging youth affairs at hours when Church ceremonies were going on?
VON SCHIRACH: I deny absolutely that I worked against the Church in such a way. In the years 1933-34, I was concerned mainly with the denominational youth organizations. I explained that here yesterday.
MR. DODD: I know. You garbled them up, and they all had to join your organization sooner or later. But I am not talking about that now. What I am trying to say is—and I think you must agree—that for a considerable period of time you made it really impossible for young people of certain religious belief to attend their Church services, because you scheduled your youth affairs at which attendance was compulsory.
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not correct.
MR. DODD: You say that is not so? Didn’t the Catholic bishops publicly object to this very sort of thing, and don’t you know it as well as I do?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot recall that.
MR. DODD: You do not recall any Catholic clerics objecting to the fact that you were scheduling your youth affairs on Sunday mornings when their clerics were holding services?
VON SCHIRACH: In the course of time, as I explained yesterday, many clergymen either approached me personally or complained in public that they were hampered in their spiritual ministration by the youth service and the forms which it took; and that is why I adjusted matters in the way shown by the document which my counsel submitted to the Court yesterday.
MR. DODD: Well, I don’t think that is altogether an answer; and perhaps I can help your memory by recalling for you that your organization specifically provided that these young people, who were attending church on Sunday, could not go in uniform; and that was a very purposeful thing, wasn’t it, because they could not get out of church and get to their youth attendance places at all if they had to go home and change their clothes.
VON SCHIRACH: But in many parishes the Church authorities forbade young people wearing uniform to enter the church.
MR. DODD: Well, I am not going to argue about it with you. Your answer is that you don’t recall any frequent and strong criticism and objection from churchmen about this particular Sunday morning program. Is that the way you want to leave it?
VON SCHIRACH: I certainly do not mean that. There were periods of great tension, periods of heated argument, just as there was a stormy period in youth organization generally. Later, all these things were satisfactorily settled and put in order.
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?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a state youth organization, and my aim was to separate religious and state education. A young man who wanted to go to church could go after the morning celebration—it was a camp function—or before it, according to whether he wanted to attend mass or go to a Protestant service; and on these Sundays on which he was not in camp—the whole camp lasted 3 weeks at the outside—he was completely free to attend church at home with his parents or other friends.
MR. DODD: All right.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, I think it is fair to say that immediately before the words “Page 71” there are three lines which might be said to refer to religion.
MR. DODD: Yes, I intend to quote it. I was saving that for a little later. I will be glad to do it now if Your Honor prefers to have it.
THE PRESIDENT: No.
MR. DODD: I want to call your attention to a historical moral ballad that is suggested for the youth of this camp, on Page 89 of your text or 90, and on Page 6 of the English text.
Now, I am not going to read this whole ballad, but I think you will agree that it ridicules, to put it mildly, the Jews, other political parties in Germany. It refers to “Isidor, Isidor” in the opening lines, and it goes on down, “Poor Michael was a wretched man; he had to serve the Jewish clan.” In another line, “He gave the gang and the Jew a kick.”
And then your Party youth leaders suggest that now they have a—what is it—a shadow show:
“The nose of Isidor must be strongly exaggerated; the German Michael should be presented in the conventional manner; the Communist as a wild stormer of barricades; the Social Democrat with a balloon cap; the Center Party man with a Jesuit cap, and the reactionary with top hat and monocle.”
Did you ever see one of those shows, by the way?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot find the text you have just quoted on Page 89.
MR. DODD: I probably have given you the wrong page. I have just been told it is Page 154 of your text—155, rather.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, I just want to know about this suggested part of the program for these young people of yours.
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say something about the whole question as far as this book is concerned. I wrote the preface and I accept responsibility for the contents. I did not read every detail of this book beforehand; and I do not wish to dispute the fact that in the camps forming part of the camp circus, as it was called, political caricatures were presented in the form of shadow-shows.
MR. DODD: You know one of your youngsters wrote Streicher a letter telling him that he saw this kind of a show. Do you know about that? I am going to show you that letter in a little while, just to show you that it did happen, and that your young people wrote to Streicher about it.
And on the last page of the English text, for Sunday, 19 July—I think it is Page 179 of your text—the motto for the day is “Our service to Germany is divine service.” And that was a slogan you used on other Sundays, and as the Tribunal has pointed out, on Page 70 of your text you say:
“...that this Sunday morning ceremony does not aim at presenting arguments or conflicts with confessional points of view, but at imbuing life and men with courage and strength to fulfill their greater and lesser tasks through unqualified faith in the divine power and the ideology of the Führer and his movement.”
Now, in no place where you ever made any reference to God did you ever fail also to mention Hitler or the leaders of the Party, did you?
VON SCHIRACH: Will you please indicate the passage that you quoted just now?
MR. DODD: It is on Page 70, right at the bottom of your Page 70.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, it says here:
“It does not aim at presenting arguments or conflicts with confessional points of view, but at imbuing life and men with courage and strength to fulfill their greater and lesser tasks through unqualified faith in the divine power and the ideology of the Führer and his Party.
That does not, after all, mean that Hitler is compared to God, but I believe that in the answer I gave a few minutes ago I did define my attitude.
MR. DODD: Let’s see if you don’t. In your book Revolution of Education, on Page 148, do you remember this statement: “The flag of the Third Reich”—we’ll begin the whole sentence:
“On the contrary, the service of Germany appears to us to be...the service of God. The banner of the Third Reich appears to us to be His banner; and the Führer of the people is the savior whom he sent to save us from the calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic.”
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to see the original of this text, please.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: Here I write:
“We consider that we are serving the Almighty when with our youthful strength we seek to make Germany once more united and great. In acknowledging loyalty to our Homeland we see nothing which could be construed as a contradiction of His eternal will. On the contrary, the service of Germany appears to us to be genuine and sincere service of God; the banner of the Third Reich appears to us to be His banner; and the Führer of the people is the savior whom He sent to rescue us from the calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic.”
This is the Center Party of the old Republic and other similar organizations of a confessional and political nature. I wrote this. I really do not see anything in that which could be construed into a deification of the Führer. For me, service to my country was service to the Almighty.
MR. DODD: All right, if that is your answer—I see it differently. Let’s go on to something else so that we can get through. I don’t want to neglect to show you, if you care to be shown, that communication to Streicher. It has already been presented to the Tribunal by the British Delegation, the British prosecutor. I think it was read from, but not put in, I am told.
In any event, do you know about that, Mr. Witness? Do you know about the letter that the boys and girls of the Youth Hostel at Grossmöllen wrote to Streicher in April of 1936, when they told him about seeing the Jews, “Every Sunday our leader shows a play about the Jews with his puppet theater.”
I just want to know if you are aware of it.
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say in this connection that the National Socialist Youth Home at Grossmöllen, which is mentioned here, was not a Hitler Youth institution but was, I believe, a kindergarten run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or some other organization.
This is typical of the letters ordered by the publisher of Der Stürmer for recruiting purposes.
MR. DODD: Just a moment. Didn’t you take over every youth hostel in 1933?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, what do you mean by saying that in 1936 this National Socialist Youth Hostel at Grossmöllen was not a part of the Hitler Youth organization?
VON SCHIRACH: It says here youth home (Heimstätte), not hostel (Herberge). I am not familiar with the expression “Heimstätte.” That must refer to a home run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or the National Socialist Women’s League. We had only “Jugendheime” and “Herbergen.”
MR. DODD: Well, doesn’t it strike you as being strangely coincidental that in your program for one of your youth camps you suggest a show which portrays a Jewish man with a great nose and ridicules him and teaches children to dislike him and laugh at him and that from a youth camp a youngster writes to Streicher saying that she and boys and girls saw such a show?
VON SCHIRACH: This letter was not written from any youth camp.
MR. DODD: Well, I accept it if that is your answer.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not deny that this puppet play was shown and that this letter was written; but I believe the connection is pulled in by the hair, so to speak. The connection is a very remote one.
MR. DODD: You think the connection about the ridiculing of the Jews is very far afield and pulled in by the hair.
VON SCHIRACH: No. I dispute the statement that this is a Hitler Youth institution. I believe actually it is a day nursery run by the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or something similar.
MR. DODD: Well, maybe the explanation is that all the young people in Germany saw one of those shows. But, in any event, I want to take up the last matter on this subject with you.
This morning your counsel examined you about the confiscation of a monastery, I believe it was in Austria while you were there, Klosterneuburg. Do you remember?
VON SCHIRACH: We discussed Count Schwarzenberg’s palace this morning. That was not a monastery. It was the property of a private citizen.
MR. DODD: Well, the document that Counsel Dr. Sauter referred to was R-146, USA-678. It was a letter from Bormann to all Gauleiter, and it began by saying that valuable Church properties had to be seized in Italy and in Austria. It was signed by Bormann. And then also on that document was a letter from Lammers saying that there had been some dispute as to whether the seized Church property should go back to the Reich or should remain in your Gau. You remember that, don’t you? Well, now, you seized the monastery down there, didn’t you, in 1941, at Klosterneuburg? Klosterneuburg, you know what I am referring to. I may mispronounce it.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. The well-known foundation Klosterneuburg, the famous monastery, served as a receiving office for collections of works of art taken from our art museum.
MR. DODD: Yes. Now, what excuse did you have for seizing the monastery at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: I can no longer give you exact details with regard to this. I believe there were very few people in the monastery, that the large building was not being used to the fullest possible extent, and that we urgently needed more space for the expansion of the experimental station run in conjunction with our State School of Viniculture. I believe that is why this monastery was confiscated.
MR. DODD: All right. I am going to ask that you look at Document 3927-PS, and I wish you would remember that this morning you told the Tribunal that you stopped the confiscation of churches and Church property in Austria. When you look at this document I wish you to recall your testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you offer M-25 in evidence or not?
MR. DODD: I wish to do so, Mr. President. It is USA-861. And this one, 3927-PS, becomes USA-862.
Now, the first page of this document shows that it is marked secret. It is dated 22 January 1941. It is a letter addressed to Dellbrügge in your organization in Vienna.
He says that he hears there is a possibility of getting a Hitler School, which the city of Hamburg is also trying to get, and that he wants the monastery Klosterneuburg considered as the place for the Hitler School in Vienna. This letter is written by Scharizer, your deputy, as you described him yesterday.
Now, he enclosed a communication, a teletype letter, from Bormann; and if you turn the page, you will see that it is dated 13 January. Bormann says it is strictly confidential:
“It is learned that the population does not show any indignation when monastery buildings are used to serve what appears to be a generally appropriate purpose.”
He goes on to say:
“Their conversion into hospitals, convalescent homes, educational institutes, Adolf Hitler Schools, may be considered as serving a generally appropriate purpose.”
Now, that communication was dated the 13th of January, and your deputy wrote the letter on the 22d.
Now turn another page, and you will find a Gestapo report on the monastery, dated 23 January 1941, addressed to your assistant Dellbrügge. I wish you would look where it says, “Oral order of 23 January 1941.” Apparently somebody in your organization, you or your assistants, orally asked the Gestapo to get up a report on this monastery the very day that you wrote to Berlin asking that it be considered as a Hitler School.
There are some charges against the inhabitants of that monastery in this Gestapo report, but I ask you to turn over further and you will find where you wrote an order for the taking over of the monastery as an Adolf Hitler School on 22 February 1941. I will show it to you if you like to see it, but that order bears your initials, the original does—Pages 15 to 17 of the photostat that you have.
Now, you framed up an excuse to seize that monastery, didn’t you, when you really wanted it for a Hitler School; and you didn’t have any just grounds for seizing it. And you get the Gestapo to write a report and then you never referred to the reason that the Gestapo framed up for you.
VON SCHIRACH: I myself as head of these schools was naturally extremely anxious to have such a school established in Vienna. At one time the idea expressed here of taking Klosterneuburg and housing one of the Adolf Hitler Schools in it did occur to me, and I probably did discuss it with Herr Scharizer; but I dropped the idea completely. Klosterneuburg was never converted into an Adolf Hitler School.
MR. DODD: No. But it never was turned back to the Church people, either, was it?
VON SCHIRACH: No. Since the museum space available in Vienna was not sufficient for the very large collections, we wanted to turn this monastery into an additional large museum which would be open to the public. We began to carry out this plan, and a great part of the collections was transferred to the building. In addition, we needed the strongly built cellars of this monastery for the safekeeping of the many art treasures which we had to protect against bombing attacks.
It occurred to me that we might house an Adolf Hitler School in this building and I discussed the possibility with one or two of my colleagues and then abandoned it: Firstly, because it would have caused some ill-feeling if we had housed an Adolf Hitler School in a building which had formerly been consecrated ground, and secondly, because we badly needed the monastery for these other purposes.
I have nothing to add to my explanation.
MR. DODD: You will notice the date of that whole transaction and the communication from Bormann. When did you first discover that Bormann was so antireligious and anti-Church as you told the Tribunal he was?
VON SCHIRACH: Bormann...
MR. DODD: Just tell us when you found that out.
VON SCHIRACH: I was just about to. Bormann showed his antireligious views most clearly in 1943; but they had already begun to appear in 1937.
MR. DODD: And this telegram from him was when? 1941?
VON SCHIRACH: 1941.
MR. DODD: Witness, when did you first start to do business with Himmler?
VON SCHIRACH: I met Hitler...
MR. DODD: Himmler.
VON SCHIRACH: I met Himmler in 1929 when I visited the offices of the Party Leadership. At that time he was the propaganda chief of the Party. That was our first meeting.
MR. DODD: I did not really want to know, although it’s of interest, when you first met him. What I really wanted to know was when you with your youth groups started really to do business with him for the first time. And by “business” I mean arrangements such as the recruitment of young men into the Death’s-Head Brigade of the SS.
VON SCHIRACH: I think I explained that this morning. One of the first agreements laid down was, I think, contained in the agreement regarding the patrol service, the date of which I do not recall. This was not, by the way, a guarantee of reinforcements for Death’s-Head units, but for police units generally. These were special troops to be at the disposal of the Police.
MR. DODD: How long did you continue to channel or divert young men from your Youth organization to the SS? When was the last time that you remember this program being effective?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not artfully drive young people into the SS. But I permitted the SS to recruit among young people like any other organization.
MR. DODD: I did not ask you that. I asked you when you would say was the latest date when you were effectively helping, at least, Himmler to get young candidates from the young people of Germany through your Hitler Youth organization. I do not expect an exact date. Approximately?
VON SCHIRACH: From 1940 on I tried constantly to have youth taken into Army units. The SS, the Waffen-SS, carried on very active recruitment among youth up to the last day of the war. I could not prevent this recruitment.
MR. DODD: And you knew what use they were being put to in the last days of the war and in the mid-days of the war, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I did know that all young people who were drafted or who volunteered had to fight.
MR. DODD: I am talking about something other than fighting. You knew what was going on in the East, and you knew who the guards were in the concentration camps, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: This morning I testified on what I knew about events in the East. I did not know that young men who volunteered to go into the Waffen-SS were used during the war to guard concentration camps.
MR. DODD: You did not know who were the guards there, although you visited two of them yourself?
VON SCHIRACH: Those guards did not belong to the Waffen-SS.
MR. DODD: I know, but your agreement with Himmler provides specifically for recruitment for SS Death’s-Head troops.
VON SCHIRACH: When I concluded that agreement, I did not know that he effected the supervision of concentration camps chiefly by means of Death’s-Head units. Besides, I thought at that time that concentration camps were something quite normal. I said so this morning.
MR. DODD: You told the Tribunal yesterday that it was in 1944, I think, that you found out about the extermination. And I want to talk to you about that a little bit, and ask you some questions. And the first one is, how did you find out? Was it only through this man Colin Ross?
VON SCHIRACH: I said that I heard of it through Colin Ross...
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: And, furthermore, that I asked numerous questions of everyone I could reach, in order to get definite information.
MR. DODD: Really I asked you if, from any other source, you found out? And you can answer that pretty simply. We know that you found out through Ross. Was there anyone else from whom you found out?
VON SCHIRACH: I could not obtain any really definite information.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: Most people had no information. I only received positive—that is, detailed—information by way of the Warthegau.
MR. DODD: Now, as a matter of fact, you got regular reports about the extermination of the Jews, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: These...
MR. DODD: Written reports, I mean.
VON SCHIRACH: These reports, two of which have been submitted in this Court, were sent to the Reich Defense Commissioner for the attention of the expert in question. This expert passed the copies on to the inspector—I believe—or the commander of the regular Police.
I have looked at the copy which was submitted here in Kaltenbrunner’s case but I had never seen it before (Document 3876-PS).
MR. DODD: You mean you did not know that it was arriving in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: I have never seen this text before.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: My office was the Central Office; it was not the office of the Reich Defense Commissioner. The affairs of the Reich Defense Commissioner were officially in charge of the Regierungspräsident, whose personal adviser took care of routine matters. My mail was delivered at the Central Office.
MR. DODD: You were the Reich Defense Commissioner for that district, were you not?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: This was an SS report of a highly confidential nature, was it not? They were not just peddling this all over Germany?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know how many copies of this were sent out, I cannot say.
MR. DODD: 100, and you got the sixty-seventh copy.
VON SCHIRACH: And these copies, as I gathered from the original which I saw, were not sent to me but to the competent adviser, a Herr Fischer.
MR. DODD: And who was Herr Fischer?
VON SCHIRACH: I have already told you this morning that I have no idea who this Herr Fischer was. I assume that he was the expert attached to the Regierungspräsident, the expert on defense matters.
MR. DODD: Now, I am going to show you some documents from your own files.
We don’t have a full translation, Mr. President, because some of this we located too late (Document 3914-PS).
But I think you will readily recognize this original is from your files. And in there you will find—and I will direct your attention to the page—something that I think will recall to your mind who Dr. Fischer is.
Now, I think it is on Page 29, you will find the names of persons to serve on the Reich Defense Council submitted; and you will find the name of Fischer, together with General Stülpnagel, Major General Gautier, Dr. Förster—do you find that? This was your own Reich Defense Council, before which you appeared from time to time, and with whom you met frequently. And I will show you documents on that, if you care to deny it.
VON SCHIRACH: Just a moment, please. Will you please repeat the page to me?
MR. DODD: Page 29; it is a memorandum dated 28 September 1940.
VON SCHIRACH: I have it now.
MR. DODD: Do you find the name of Dr. Fischer? You found Dr. Fischer’s name as one of those suggested to your defense council? His is the last name, by the way, and his signature. He is the one that suggested the others to you.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, will you go a little bit more slowly?
MR. DODD: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: His name is the twentieth name on the list: “Regierungsrat Dr. Fischer, Expert for Reich Defense Matters”—in other words, expert attached to the Regierungspräsident. I have probably seen him at some meeting or other. I take it that he kept the minutes. However, I must admit that I have no personal recollection of this gentleman. I cannot attach any owner to that name; but it is clear to me now that he was the person who took charge of incoming mail for the Reich Defense Commissioner and probably kept the minutes as well.
MR. DODD: All right.
VON SCHIRACH: In view of his junior status—he is only a Regierungsrat—he cannot have held any other appointment on this council.
MR. DODD: On Page 31 of that same file you will find another reference to him, and your initials on the paper this time. It is the membership list of the Reich Defense Council. There are 20 persons on there, and the last name is Fischer’s. And at the bottom of the page are your initials, apparently approving the list. Do you see that?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes; I had to initial this list.
MR. DODD: And you approved the membership, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot swear that I would not recognize Dr. Fischer again if I were confronted with him. He seems to have been the official who kept the minutes. However, among the large circle of people who attended meetings of this kind, he did not come to my attention. Only very few Reich defense meetings of this sort actually took place. What seems to me the decisive point is that he did not report to me personally but to the Regierungspräsident.
MR. DODD: How could you fail to meet him? You met regularly in 1940 with this Reich Defense Council. We have some documents here, and I will be glad to show them to you, showing exactly what you said before that council.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, as I said, he probably kept the minutes of the meetings.
MR. DODD: Well surely, then, you saw him certainly on some occasions, between 1940, the date of these files, and 1942, the date of the SS reports on the exterminations. He apparently was with you for 2 years before the first report that we have, which is dated 1942, and he was 1 of 20 on your council.
VON SCHIRACH: I believe I must describe the exact composition of this Reich Defense Council. There were the leading commanding generals of the Army and the Luftwaffe; there were various Gauleiter; there were the people mentioned here; there was Dr. Putt, the representative of the Economic Management Staff and all the others who are listed here. In this large circle of people, whom I had to welcome, there was an official who kept the minutes and who was one of many officials in my office. These meetings, as you have probably ascertained, took place very infrequently. Dr. Fischer did not report to me currently, nor did he submit to me the minutes of these sessions; the Regierungspräsident reported to me.
MR. DODD: Do you think that Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich were sending these reports to inferior people around Germany in these Gaue about the exterminations in the East?
VON SCHIRACH: If these reports had been meant for me, they would have been sent to me directly. Moreover, I said today that I do not dispute having been informed of the shooting of Jews in the East, but at a later period. I mentioned that in connection with the war. However, the reports themselves were not in my hands. If these reports had been before me, they would have had a certain note, which I would recognize immediately.
MR. DODD: Well, let’s see. Of course they are addressed to you, to the attention of Fischer.
But I am going to move on a little bit. Now I am going to tell you that you got weekly reports. You haven’t seen these. What do you say to that?
VON SCHIRACH: Weekly reports?
MR. DODD: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: I received innumerable weekly reports from every possible office.
MR. DODD: No, I am talking about one kind of report. I am talking about the reports from Heydrich and Himmler.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know what you mean.
MR. DODD: Well, you had better take a look (Document 3943-PS). We have 55 of them, for 55 weeks. They are all here, and they run consecutively, and Dr. Fischer is not involved in these. And each one bears the stamp of your office having received it on it, and the date that it was received.
They tell, by the way—and you can look at them—what was happening to the Jews in the East.
VON SCHIRACH: All these probably—I cannot look at them all just now. These reports went from the Chief of the Security Police to the Office of the Reich Defense Commissioner. They were not, as I can tell from the first document, initialed by myself, but bear the initials of the Regierungspräsident. I did not receive these reports; otherwise my initial would have to be there.
MR. DODD: Dr. Dellbrügge was the man who received them, according to the note, and he was your chief assistant. Incidentally, I think we ought to make this clear to the Tribunal, both of your chief assistants were SS Brigadeführer, were they not?
VON SCHIRACH: I should in any case have stated that Dr. Dellbrügge was one of Himmler’s confidants; but I believe...
MR. DODD: And he was your chief assistant, that is the point I am making. And so was your other chief assistant, also an SS Brigadeführer.
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that this statement proves the opposite of what you want to prove against me.
MR. DODD: Well, I am going to go on with these weekly reports in a minute, but there is one thing I do want to ask you.
Were you pretty friendly with Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: I knew Heydrich, and while he was Reich Protector in Prague he extended an invitation to me as President of the Southeastern Europe Society to hold a meeting there which I accepted. However, I did not have close personal contact with Heydrich.
MR. DODD: Did you think he was a good public servant at the time that he was terrorizing Czechoslovakia?
VON SCHIRACH: I had the impression that Heydrich, as he said himself during my stay in Prague, wanted to carry out a policy of conciliation, especially in regard to Czech workers. I did not see in him an exponent of a policy of terror. Of course, I have no practical knowledge of the incidents which took place in Czechoslovakia. I made only this one visit, or possibly one further visit.
MR. DODD: You sent a telegram to “Dear Martin Bormann” when Heydrich was assassinated; do you remember that—the man who was, I understand, not in your good standing in 1942? Do you remember when Heydrich was assassinated by some Czech patriots in Prague?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Do you remember what you did when you heard about it?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not remember exactly.
MR. DODD: Perhaps if I read you this telegram you will remember it.
“To Reichsleiter Bormann, Berlin, Party Chancellery; Express. Urgent. Immediate attention.
“Dear Martin Bormann:
“I request that the following be submitted to the Führer.
“Knowing the Czech population and its attitude in Vienna as well as in the Protectorate, I would draw your attention to the following:
“The enemy powers and the British cliques around Beneš have for a long time felt bitter about the co-operation generally found among the Czech workers and their contribution to the German war economy. They are seeking for a means to play off the Czech population and the Reich against each other. The attack on Heydrich was undoubtedly planned in London. The British arms of the assailant suggest parachuted agents. London hopes by means of this murder to induce the Reich to take extreme measures with the aim of bringing about a resistance movement among Czech workers. In order to prevent the world from thinking that the population of the Protectorate is in opposition to Hitler, these acts must immediately be branded as of British authorship. A sudden and violent air attack on a British cultural town would be most effective and the world would have learned of this through the headline ‘Revenge for Heydrich.’ That alone should induce Churchill to desist immediately from the procedure begun in Prague of stirring up revolt. The Reich replies to the attack at Prague by a counterattack on world public opinion.
“It is suggested that the following information be given the press tomorrow regarding the attempt on Heydrich’s life.”
And then you go on to say that it was the work of British agents and that it originated in Britain. You sign it, “Heil Hitler, Dein Schirach.”
Do you remember sending that telegram to Bormann?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just been listening to the English translation. I should like to see the German original, please.
MR. DODD: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, you read, I thought, a British “coastal” town, did you not?
MR. DODD: No, “cultural” I meant to say, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is what I have got.
MR. DODD: Yes, it is “cultural.”
Incidentally, I call your attention, Mr. Witness, to the word “cultural.” You have expressed such a great interest in culture.
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be all right to break off now, or do you want to go on?
MR. DODD: I had hoped I could finish. I won’t be many minutes, but I do have one or two rather important documents that I would like to put to the witness.
Mr. President, if we recess, may I ask that the witness not be talked to by his counsel overnight? I think it is only fair, when a witness is under cross-examination, that he not have conversations with his counsel.
VON SCHIRACH: I should like to say to this document...
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I should like to have this question clarified as to whether as defense counsel I am entitled to talk with my client or not. Mr. Dodd forbade me to talk to my client some time ago; and, of course, I acquiesced. But, if I am told that I must not speak to my client until the end of the cross-examination and the cross-examination is to be continued on Monday, that means that I cannot speak with my client tomorrow or the day after. But, in order to carry on his defense, I must have an opportunity of discussing with my client all the points raised here today.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I will withdraw my request. I really forgot we were going over until Monday. I do think it is the ordinary rule, but I do think it might present some difficulty for the counsel here.
I want to be fair with the Tribunal. During the recess Dr. Sauter approached the witness stand and I did tell him then that I did not think he should talk to him during the recess while he was under cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is the British rule, but I think in the circumstances we had better let Dr. Sauter...
MR. DODD: I quite agree. I was thinking we would go on tomorrow, but I do not want to interfere with his consultation over the weekend.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 27 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH DAY Monday, 27 May 1946
Morning Session
[The Defendant Von Schirach resumed the stand.]
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I would like to make certain that I did offer the following documents in evidence: 3914-PS, which becomes USA-863; 3943-PS, USA-864; and 3877-PS, USA-865.
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, at the close of the session on Friday we had just handed to you a copy of the teletype message to Martin Bormann. I had read it to you over this transmission system. I wish to ask you now if you sent that message to Bormann.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I dispatched that teletype message, and I should like to give an explanation in this connection. First...
MR. DODD: May I interrupt you just for a minute and ask that for the little while that we will be talking today, that you wait just a minute after your answer. I think it would help a little bit with the interpreting. I do not think we will have any trouble this morning. I will try to do the same thing, and perhaps we will work a little better together.
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, then, I want to explain why I addressed Bormann with “Du,” in the friendly form. Bormann and I come from the same town; I knew him from Weimar, but only slightly. And when in 1928 or ’29 he came to Munich, he paid me a visit, and because he was the elder of us he suggested to me that we should call one another “Du.” We maintained that form until 1943, when on his own initiative he dropped it and addressed me in his letters only with “Sie.”
Now, the text of this teletype message: We were in the third year of the war; the Czech population both in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in Vienna had remained perfectly quiet; in the Protectorate conditions were almost like those in peacetime. I had a very large Czech population in Vienna, and as a result of the attempt on Heydrich’s life I feared that in the Protectorate there might be unrest which would no doubt have serious repercussions in Vienna. This was the time when German troops were advancing on the peninsula of Kerch; it was a time when we could not afford to have anything happen behind our front. And simultaneously with the news of the murder of the Protector I received official notification that the attempt, as is mentioned in this document, had been carried out by British agents and with British weapons.
During the same month we heard, and it was also mentioned in the Wehrmacht communiqués, that British bombers had bombed residential areas in Hamburg and Paris and had attacked German cultural sites at Kiel. And so I suggested a reprisal measure to establish before the world British guilt in this attempt and to prevent serious unrest in Czechoslovakia. That is all I have to say. This teletype message is genuine.
May I at this point also comment on a difficulty of translation which occurred during the last cross-examination on Friday? The German word “Retter” was at that time translated into the English “savior.” It is an expression which I used in my book when I described the Führer as a “Retter,” and the difficulty lies in the translation of that word into English: it can only be translated into English as “savior.” But retranslated into German, “savior” means “Heiland.” In order to make quite clear what the German “Retter” is meant to express in English, I should have to use an explanatory phrase. If I say that the exact translation is “rescuer,” then the real meaning of the word “Retter” is clearly set forth; and there is nothing blasphemous in the comparison or the description of the head of the State as a “rescuer.” But if I had written in German that the head of the State was a “Heiland,” then, of course, that would be blasphemy.
THE PRESIDENT: This sort of explanation should be kept for re-examination. It is not a matter which ought to interrupt the cross-examination.
MR. DODD: Now, I have only one or two questions to ask you in addition about this message.
Were you thinking of some particular cultural city in Britain, like Cambridge, Oxford, Stratford, Canterbury?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I had no definite plan in mind. I thought that one ought to choose an objective corresponding to the sites hit by British bombers in Germany.
MR. DODD: As long as it was a cultural city. Were you thinking of what happened in Germany or of what happened to Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: I was thinking of the cultural buildings in Germany which had been attacked, and I wanted to suggest this as an opportunity to make clear unmistakably that the murder of Heydrich had not been committed by the Czech population but by the Czech emigrants in London with British support. This retaliation in the third year of the war was to be a reply both to the attempt against Heydrich and to the attacks on German cultural monuments.
MR. DODD: You did not make any reference in this telegram to any so-called or alleged bombings of cultural objects in Germany, did you?
VON SCHIRACH: The Wehrmacht communiqués had already announced them, and they were generally known.
MR. DODD: That is not what I asked you. I asked if it is not a fact that in this teletype you made no reference at all to the alleged bombing of cultural objects in Germany, nor did you relate your suggestion for the bombing of a cultural town in England to any alleged cultural bombing in Germany, but rather, you made it perfectly clear that you wanted to strike at a cultural town in England because of what had happened to Heydrich. That is so, is it not?
VON SCHIRACH: It was not at all necessary for me to point to the bombing of German cultural sites. It was a fact known to the entire German population from the daily attacks of British bombers.
MR. DODD: I suppose by this time you knew very well the general reputation of Heydrich, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not correct. I considered Heydrich in this particular case as the representative of the Reich in Bohemia and Moravia and not as the Chief of the Gestapo.
MR. DODD: Did you know his general reputation in Germany at least at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: I knew that he was the Chief of the Gestapo. I did not know that he had committed the atrocities which have meanwhile become known.
MR. DODD: You had no knowledge that he was considered “the terror of the Gestapo”?
VON SCHIRACH: That is an expression which enemy propaganda used against him.
MR. DODD: You mean you still think it is propaganda?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, was it through enemy propaganda that you heard that he was called a terror before he was killed in 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not want to say that...
MR. DODD: How did you know it?
VON SCHIRACH: I merely want to state here that for me the Reich Protector Heydrich was during this third year of the war a person other than the Chief of the Gestapo. This was a political matter.
MR. DODD: You did not content yourself with this suggestion to bomb England, did you? Do you recall what else you suggested not long afterwards?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not know.
MR. DODD: Do you recall anything that you either suggested or did by way of further so-called retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I have no recollection.
MR. DODD: You suggested evacuating all the Czechs out of Vienna, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: This is a suggestion which did not originate with me personally, but which goes back to a remark about Vienna which the Führer himself had made in 1940 while I was reporting to him at his headquarters. I think I already mentioned during my own testimony that he said, “Vienna must become a German city and the Jews and Czechs must gradually be evacuated from Vienna.” I already said that during my own testimony here.
MR. DODD: My question is: Is it not a fact that a few days after the assassination of Heydrich you suggested the evacuation of the Czechs from Vienna as a retaliatory measure for the assassination of Heydrich?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of it, but it is possible that in the excitement of this event, which disquieted me greatly, I said something like that.
MR. DODD: I suggest that you take a look at Document 3886-PS, which becomes USA-866, Mr. President.
Now, this document consists of excerpts from the record of a meeting of the Vienna City Council on 6 June 1942, as you will see on Page 9 of the original. You were present, and according to these notes, you spoke as Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach and, moving down towards the bottom of that page, you will find this statement:
“Finally, he”—meaning you—“disclosed that already in the latter part of summer or in the fall of this year all Jews would be removed from the city, and that the removal of the Czechs would then get under way, since this is the necessary and right answer to the crime committed against the Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.”
Do you remember saying that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no exact recollection, but I consider that these records here are genuine, and they probably represent the sense of what I said at the time. I was very much perturbed by Heydrich’s death. I was afraid of serious trouble in Bohemia and Moravia, and I expressed my fears. The essential thing is that after calm consideration of this plan I dropped it, and did nothing more about it.
MR. DODD: Well, in any event, I think it is perfectly clear—and I ask you if you do not agree—that you made two suggestions at least: one for the bombing of a cultural English town and the other for the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Vienna, because of the assassination of this man Heydrich.
VON SCHIRACH: It is true that I put the idea of such an evacuation of the Czechs into words. It is equally true, and a historical fact, that I dropped the idea and that it was never carried out. It is correct that I suggested the bombing of a British cultural site as an answer to the attempt against Heydrich and to the innumerable bombardments of German cultural places in the third year of the war, at a time when vital interests of the German people were at stake.
MR. DODD: Incidentally, Hitler also suggested the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from Czechoslovakia as a punishment for the murder of Heydrich, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: That I do not know.
MR. DODD: Now I want to turn to something else and see if we can get through here rather soon this morning. You recall that on Friday we talked a little bit about your relationship with the SS and with Himmler, and I want to ask you this morning if it is not a fact, Mr. Witness, that you worked very closely with Himmler and his SS from almost the earliest days right down to almost the last days of your regime in Vienna. I wish you would answer that question.
VON SCHIRACH: I should very much like to answer that question in great detail.
MR. DODD: It does not require great detail in the first answer, but later, if you feel that you have some necessary explanation, I am sure you will be permitted to do so. Will you tell the Tribunal first of all, rather, if it is not a fact that you did closely co-operate with Himmler and his SS from the earliest days of your public office to the very late days of your public office?
VON SCHIRACH: Close collaboration in the sense that Himmler had considerable influence upon education did not exist.
MR. DODD: Let us stop right there and inquire a little bit. Is it not a fact that Himmler assigned his SS personnel to your youth organization for the training purpose of your young people? You can answer that very simply. Did he or did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: For training purposes?
MR. DODD: Yes.
VON SCHIRACH: I am not aware of anything like that. The fact that there might have been liaison officers would not be unusual, because practically all ministries and organizations had liaison officers. What you have just suggested, however, I do not recall.
MR. DODD: I think we had better clear this up first, and I ask you that you look at Document 3931-PS, which is a new document which becomes USA-867, Mr. President.
Now, Mr. Witness, if you will look at this document, you will observe that it is a message which you sent to “Dear Party Member Bormann” in August of 1941. It is quite long, and there will not be any necessity, I am sure, for reading all of it, but I want to direct your attention to some parts of it that might help your memory with respect to the SS.
By way of preliminary question, the SA apparently had suggested that it take over some of the training of young people, had it not, some time in the summer of 1941?
VON SCHIRACH: I said in my testimony—I think on Thursday—that already in the spring of 1939, I believe, the SA had attempted to take over the premilitary training of the youth of the two older age classes, and such attempts were probably repeated in 1941.
MR. DODD: Yes, I knew you were complaining to Bormann about it when you wrote this message. You recall now, do you not, from just looking at the letter, that that is the whole substance of the letter—a complaint about the attempt of the SA to directly control the training of some young people in the Hitler Youth organization.
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot speak about this long teletype letter without having read through it.
MR. DODD: Well, let us see. If you will turn to the second page of the English text—you do not have any pages there; I think it is all one. It is all a teletype, but it will be not too far down on the first part of it. First of all, I want to have you see if you can find the statement that “the Hitler Youth has considered it necessary from the very beginning to make the Party itself the agency for the direction and administration of its military training.” Do you find that passage?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Well, you will find the paragraph numbered (1) on your teletype, small Arabic number one. You will find they start to be numbered (1), (2), (3), and so on. Do you find that, Mr. Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: I have Roman numeral I.
MR. DODD: All right. That is what I want to call your attention to. If we hit some place that we agree on, then we can move on. You found that Number (1) that says that “for more than one year an agreement in draft form has been submitted to the SA which requests that the SA cadre be furnished for the military training of the youth,” and that the SA leadership did not comply with this request.
Now, will you move down further, let me see, in Number (3), and then following (3), probably down another whole length three or four paragraphs, you will find—it is in capital letters, by the way—what I want to call your attention to; I assume it is in capital letters in the German:
“I would be happy if the SA would put personnel at my disposal for support for this purpose, similar to the way in which the SS and the Police have been doing for a long time already.”
In the English, Mr. President, that is at the bottom of Page 4 and the top of Page 5.
[Turning to the defendant.] Did you find that sentence?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: You say there that you would be happy if the SA would put personnel at your disposal for support of this purpose, similar to the way in which the SS and the Police have been doing for a long time already, and you are referring—if you will read back to the paragraph just ahead of that sentence—to the training of the young people. You talk about Hitler Schools and the training of Hitler Youth. Now, it is perfectly clear, is it not, that you did have assistance from the SS, according to your own words, from the SS and Police, for a long time before you sent this message?
VON SCHIRACH: During the war, yes; since the beginning of the war in 1939 we had premilitary training camps and I wanted youth instructors for these camps. Neither the Army nor the SA could supply sufficient instructors; the SS and the Police could place a few young officers at my disposal.
MR. DODD: So it was only from the beginning of the war that you had personnel from the SS and Police for the training of young people, was it?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not think that there would have been need for SS instructors otherwise. As I have said, we selected youth leaders from among youth itself.
MR. DODD: I ask you again, do you want the Tribunal to understand that it was only from the beginning of the war that you had the assistance of SS and Police personnel assigned to your youth organization for the training of young people?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that question definitely for this reason: we had for example a training camp for skiing practice, and it was quite possible that one of the instructors was an SA man or an SS man only because by chance he happened to be one of the best sportsmen in that field. But I cannot think where such collaboration existed elsewhere.
MR. DODD: Are you able to say that you did not have SS personnel assigned for training purposes; and I am not talking about some isolated skimaster, I am talking about a regular program of assistance from the SS to you in your training of young people.
VON SCHIRACH: As far as premilitary training is concerned, it was only through this teletype message that I requested help for training purposes. Apart from that, I do not recollect any collaboration.
MR. DODD: Do you know the term “Heuaktion”?
VON SCHIRACH: Heuaktion? I do not remember it. I do not know what is meant by that.
MR. DODD: Well, you have been in the courtroom every day. Do you not remember that there was proof offered here by the Prosecution concerning the Defendant Rosenberg and an action termed Heuaktion?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not remember it at the moment; I do not know it.
MR. DODD: Do you not remember that there was some talk here in the courtroom about the seizing of young people in the East and forcing them to be brought to Germany, 40,000 or 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14? You remember that, don’t you, and that one of the purposes was to destroy the biological potentiality of these people? You do not know what I refer to?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, that is an action which I now remember in connection with this Trial. The only thing I can say on this in an official capacity is what Axmann told me during the war—I cannot recall the exact year—namely, that he had placed a large number of young Russians in apprentice hostels and apprentice workshops at the Junkers works in Dessau, and that these youths were extremely well accommodated and looked after there. I had not been in any way concerned with this action before, but as I stated at the beginning of my testimony here, I assume responsibility for the actions of youth in this war; I adhere to that statement. I do not think, however, that youth is responsible in this case, and I recall the Defendant Rosenberg’s statements that he was complying with the wishes of the Army and an army group in this affair.
MR. DODD: Well, we have the document here. It is already in evidence as USA-171—the Tribunal is familiar with it—and I would like to call your attention to the fact that in this document, which says that Rosenberg agreed to the program of seizing or apprehending 40,000 to 50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14 and the transportation of them to the Reich, it also said that this program can be accomplished with the help of the officers of the Hitler Youth through the Youth Bureau of Rosenberg’s Ministry; and it also said that a number of these young people were to be detailed to the SS and SS auxiliaries. Now, what I want to ask you particularly is what you know about that program and how the Hitler Youth co-operated in it?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot add to what I have already said about this program.
MR. DODD: You were in charge of the war commitment of the Hitler Youth, were you not, the “Kriegseinsatz”?
VON SCHIRACH: The war commitment of German youth was under immediate direction of the Reich Youth Leader. From my own knowledge I can give only general but no detailed information.
MR. DODD: Mr. Witness, I ask you again, were you not appointed and did you not serve as the person responsible for the war commitment of youth in Germany? Now, I have got the document to show your appointment if you want to see it.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes; I do not want to deny it at all. In 1939 and 1940, as long as I was Reich Youth Leader, I myself directed that war commitment.
MR. DODD: I am talking about an appointment that was made even later than 1939 or 1940. You were appointed the person in charge of the war commitment of German youth by the Führer at his headquarters in March of 1942, were you not?
VON SCHIRACH: Will you be good enough to show me the document. I consider it possible, but I have no exact recollection.
MR. DODD: All right. It is 3933-PS, which becomes USA-868. But first of all: You do not know you were appointed in charge of the war commitment for youth without being shown the document?
VON SCHIRACH: No; only I cannot tell you the exact date from memory. I was under the impression that I had been responsible for the war commitment beginning in 1939.
MR. DODD: All right, that is all I wanted to establish, that you were in fact responsible for it and continued to be responsible for it right up to the end of the war. I understood you to say a minute ago that the Reich Youth Leader was the man responsible rather than yourself?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I said that I could give you only general but no special information, because the practical application of the war commitment was a matter for Axmann; I do not, however, want to minimize my own responsibility in any way.
MR. DODD: Very well. I think we are sufficiently clear about the fact that you were certainly named to the position no matter how you now wish to “water” your responsibility. What do you say is the date when you first became responsible for the war commitment of youth?
VON SCHIRACH: As far as I remember, I was responsible for it beginning 1939, at the outbreak of war, but I now see that this decree was not signed until 1942.
MR. DODD: All right; we will agree then that from that date, March 1942, you were responsible. Now, I want to ask you to look at another document.
VON SCHIRACH: One moment, may I explain something in this connection? I do not know whether Hitler signed this decree in March 1942; I do not know when it was signed. In this document Axmann tells me: the draft of the decree is now going to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, who will request the official approval of the higher Reich authorities concerned, and then Bormann...
MR. DODD: You do not need to read it, really. What do you want to say now? Are you saying that maybe it was not signed, or maybe you were not appointed, or are you going to say that you were appointed? Will you please give us an answer?
VON SCHIRACH: Not at all. But I really cannot say that the date of the publication of this decree was March 1942. It may not have been published until May.
MR. DODD: I am not attaching any great importance to the date. I want you to look at 345-PS, which we offer as USA-869. This may help you on this Heuaktion program; that is, with respect to your memory.
Now, this is a telegram that the Defendant Rosenberg sent to Dr. Lammers at the Reich Chancellery for the Führer’s headquarters on 20 July 1944. You will observe that in the first paragraph there is stated:
“In accordance with an agreement between the Reich Marshal as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the Reichsführer SS, the Youth Führer of the German Reich, and the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the recruiting of young Russians, Ukrainians, White Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Tartars, between 15 and 20 years of age, ‘will take place on a volunteer basis for Kriegseinsatz in the Reich’”—“Kriegseinsatz” being a program that you were responsible for clearly at that time.
Now, moving down, I want to call your attention to Paragraph 3, and I want to remind you of the Heuaktion document that is already in evidence. This telegram says:
“On the basis of a suggestion by military offices, the seizing and turning over of youths between the ages of 10 to 14 to the Reich territories will take place (Heuaktion) in a part of the operational territory, since the youths in the operational territory present a not insignificant burden.”
It goes on to say:
“The aim of the action is a further disposal of the youths by placing them in the Reich Youth Movement, and the training of apprentices for German economy in a form similar to that which has been effected in agreement with the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor with White Russian Youths, which already shows results.”
I particularly call your attention to that last phrase, “which already shows results.”
Then the last clause in the next sentence, which says, “...these youths are to be used later in the Occupied Eastern Territories as especially reliable construction forces.”
You will observe that the last paragraph says that “the actions under Points 1 and 3”—which I have just been reading—“are known to the Führer.” And there is something about SS help in regard to this action. You had set a time limit on that.
The next page of the document has the distribution, to the Reich Marshal, the Reichsführer SS, the Reich Youth Führer, and the Reich Minister of Interior, and down at the bottom, a Gauleiter bureau, among others.
What do you know about this seizing of young people between 10 and 14 and the turning over of them to your youth organization in Germany during these war years, and about how many thousands of them were so kidnaped, if you know?
VON SCHIRACH: I have already said that I do not wish to minimize my responsibility in this connection. But it was not until later that I was informed of this matter. Not I, but somebody else was Youth Leader of the German Reich in that year; and he made the agreement with the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force and the Reichsführer SS. But my own measures were...
MR. DODD: Later you were the Youth Reichsleiter of Germany, were you not? And you were also the war commitment officer of Youth in Germany at this very time?
VON SCHIRACH: I was at Vienna, and the date was 20 July 1944. You will remember that the history-making events of that time were occupying all officials in Germany to a very great extent. Later I heard about this matter from Axmann, and I know that the accommodation, training, feeding, and the whole treatment of these Russian youths was actually excellent.
MR. DODD: You also know that even at this hour the Allied forces are trying to find thousands of these young people to return them to their proper place? Do you know that this morning’s press carried an account of 10,000 people that are still unlocated?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe that those are these young people who were accommodated in apprentice hostels and who under exceptionally well-ordered conditions received very good professional training.
MR. DODD: You see, it is perfectly clear from this Document 345-PS that this program was in fact in operation. The letter from Rosenberg says so. He says it had “already shown results.” And so your youth organization must have had something to do with it before this message was sent.
VON SCHIRACH: I have not at all denied that. Youth leaders were active within the framework of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. And on the basis of what I have heard here during the Trial, I can perfectly well understand that the generals in the East said that the young people must be taken out of the combat zone. The point was that these youngsters from 10 to 14 years of age had to be taken away from the front.
MR. DODD: With the help of the SS?
Now, I want to show you another document, 1137-PS, which will give you some idea, if you do not recall, of what was done with these young people, and how many of them are involved.
That will become USA-870.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, there is a paragraph at the bottom of Page 1 of that document which relates to another defendant.
MR. DODD: Yes, Your Honor, I am sorry; I overlooked that. I will read it for the benefit of the record, if I may, at this time.
Mr. Witness, I direct your attention back, if I may, to this Document 345-PS, so that you will be aware of what I am reading. You will observe that in the last paragraph of Rosenberg’s communication to Dr. Lammers we find this sentence:
“I have learned that Gauleiter Sauckel will be at the Führer’s headquarters on 21 July 1944. I ask that this be taken up with him there and then a report made to the Führer.”
Sauckel was participating in this kidnaping of 10- to 14-year-olds as well, was he? Do you know about that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it. I cannot give any information on that subject.
MR. DODD: Now, this Document 1137-PS begins with a letter from a general, a message rather, an interoffice memorandum, dated 27 October 1944, and it closes with a report by the brigadier general of the Hitler Youth, a man named Nickel.
Do you know Nickel, by the way? N-i-c-k-e-l?
VON SCHIRACH: The name is known to me, and probably I know the man personally; but at the moment I do not recall more than just the name. At any rate, he was not a brigadier general; he was a Hauptbannführer.
MR. DODD: Well, all right. Whatever he was, he was an official of the youth organization. That is all I am trying to establish. I may have his title wrong. We have it brigadier general.
But in any event, if you look over this document, you will see that he is reporting about the seizing of these youths in the Occupied Eastern Territory. This is October 1944. And he begins by saying that on 5 March he “received an order to open an office for the recruitment of youths from 15 to 20 years of age from the Occupied Eastern Territories for war employment in the Reich.”
Then he goes on to cite figures, and he tells where he began his work: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the middle sector of the Eastern front, the southern sector of the Eastern front. And then on the next page of the English—and I imagine it is also on your next page—it tells how they were classified, those that were brought back:
“1,383 Russian SS Auxiliaries, 5,953 Ukrainian SS Auxiliaries, 2,354 White Ruthenian SS Auxiliaries, 1,012 Lithuanian SS Auxiliaries.”
Then he gets into the Air Force: “3,000 Estonian Air Force Auxiliaries,” and so on. Some went to the Navy.
I am not going to read all of it; but it gives you an idea of what distribution was made of these men, or young boys and girls rather than men. You will notice that a considerable number went to the SS.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, but Hauptbannführer Nickel’s letter bears a stamp with the words “Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories.” That means he was not acting on behalf of the Reich Youth Leader’s department but on behalf of the Reich Ministry for the East.
MR. DODD: Yes. I also want to ask you if you will look at Page 6. I think it is Page 5 of the original of your German. You will find what personnel Hauptbannführer Nickel had for the purpose of carrying out his task. He had members of the Hitler Youth, so he says: 5 leaders, 3 BDM leaders, 71 German youth leaders as translators and assistant instructors, 26 SS leaders, 234 noncommissioned officers and troops, drivers, and translators of the SS. And of the Air Force personnel, he had 37 officers, 221 non-coms, and so on.
Does that help your memory any with this program that your youth people were engaging in? Do you recall any more of it now?
VON SCHIRACH: It does not help my memory at all, because I hear this for the first time from this document. I was not informed of the activities of the Eastern Ministry in Russia, and I do not know what assignment the Eastern Ministry gave to Hitler Youth Leader Nickel. I assume responsibility for what was done on my orders, but anything done on the orders of others must be their responsibility.
MR. DODD: Let me show you something with respect to your answer that you have just made. That personnel that I read out, you know, was only in one part of the program. And on the last page of the document you will see on how wide an area Nickel was operating. He was operating in co-operation with the Netherlands Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Adria Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Southern Hitler Youth Operational Command in Slovakia and Hungary, the Lieutenant Nagel Special Command in refugee camps within the Reich, and then, interestingly enough, the field offices in Vienna.
That is where you were located at the time, is it not? And you are telling the Tribunal you did not know anything about this program and the participation of your Hitler Youth Leaders?
VON SCHIRACH: I received no written or verbal report from Nickel. His report, as can be seen from the letter, went to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and to what extent the Reich Youth Leader was being informed is not known to me. I myself do not know what took place. What I do know of the entire affair I very clearly stated in my testimony with reference to the Junkers works and the professional training which these youngsters were given in Germany. Apart from that I have no further knowledge.
MR. DODD: Observe also, if you will, Mr. Witness, that your Hitler Youth Operational Command was in Poland, and even in northern Italy. And now I ask you once again, as the long-time Hitler Youth Leader, as the leader for the War Commitment of Youth, then Gauleiter in Vienna, with part of this program being carried on in Vienna and the whole program being carried on on this vast scale, do you want the Tribunal to believe that you knew nothing about it?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no knowledge of it, but I assume responsibility for it.
MR. DODD: You told the Tribunal in your direct examination that you wrote the letter to Streicher’s Stürmer.
I would like to submit this in evidence, Mr. President, so that the Tribunal will have an idea of what it appeared like on the front page of Der Stürmer.
Perhaps—if you would like to look at it, you may, of course, Mr. Witness. It is USA-871. I just wanted you to have a look at it before it was submitted. You know about it anyway.
VON SCHIRACH: I already made a statement about that the other day.
MR. DODD: Yes, I did not wish to go into it further. What I do want to ask you, Mr. Witness, is: Do I understand you clearly when I say that from your testimony we gathered that it was Hitler who ordered the evacuation of the Jews from Vienna and that you really did not suggest it or wish to see it carried out? Is that a fair understanding of your testimony of a day or two ago?
VON SCHIRACH: I stated the other day, and I repeat this, that the idea of evacuating the Jews from Vienna was Hitler’s idea which he communicated to me in 1940 at his headquarters. Furthermore, and I want to make this quite clear, I stated that after the events of those November days in 1938 I was actually of the opinion that it would be better for the Jewish population to be accommodated in a closed settlement than to be regularly singled out by Goebbels as a target for his propaganda and his organized actions. I also said that I identified myself with that action suggested by Hitler, but did not carry it out.
MR. DODD: Now you had a meeting at the Führer’s headquarters in October 1940. Present was the Defendant Frank and the now notorious Koch whom we have heard so much about. Do you remember that meeting?
VON SCHIRACH: I no longer recall it exactly.
MR. DODD: Now, you mean you do not recall that meeting at all?
VON SCHIRACH: In October 1940 I was in the Reich Chancellery because that was the time when I was organizing the evacuation of youth. It is possible that at lunch...
THE PRESIDENT: You were asked whether you recalled a particular meeting in October 1940 with certain particular people. Do you remember it or do you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I have no recollection of it. If I am shown a document, then I can confirm it.
MR. DODD: Very well; that is what I wanted to know. I will now show you the document USSR-172. A part of this document was read over the system for the Tribunal by Colonel Pokrovsky. Now you will observe that on 2 October—this is a memorandum, by the way, made up of the meeting. Herr Martin Bormann compiled these notes, so I assume he was there too. After a dinner at the Führer’s apartment there developed a conversation on the nature of the Government General:
“The treatment of the Poles and the incorporation already approved by the Führer for the districts Petrikau and Tomassov.”
Then it says:
“The conversation began when Reich Minister Dr. Frank informed the Führer that the activities in the Government General could be termed very successful. The Jews in Warsaw and other cities were now locked up in the ghettos and Kraków would very shortly be cleared of them. Reichsleiter Von Schirach, who had taken his seat at the Führer’s other side, remarked that he still had more than 50,000 Jews in Vienna whom Dr. Frank would have to take over. Party Member Dr. Frank said this was impossible. Gauleiter Koch then pointed out that he, too, had up to now not transferred either Poles or Jews from the District of Ziechenau, but that these Jews and Poles would now, of course, have to be accepted by the Government General.”
And it goes on to say that Dr. Frank protested against this also. He said there were not housing facilities—I am not quoting directly, I do not want to read all of it—and that there were not sufficient other facilities. Do you remember that conference now?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have refreshed my memory now.
MR. DODD: Yes. And you suggested that you wanted to get 50,000 Jews moved into Frank’s territory out of Vienna, didn’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The Führer asked me how many Jews were still in Vienna, and at that time—I mentioned this during my own testimony the other day and it is contained in the files—there were still 60,000 Jews in Vienna. During that conversation, in which the question of settling Jews in the Government General was discussed, I also said that these 60,000 Jews from Vienna were still to be transferred to the Government General. I told you earlier that as a result of the events of November 1938 I was in favor of the Führer’s plan to take the Jews to a closed settlement.
MR. DODD: Well now, later on, as you know from USA-681 concerning which your own counsel inquired, Lammers sent you a message in Vienna and he said the Führer had decided, after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the 60,000 Jews in Vienna would be deported most rapidly, and that was just 2 months after this conference that you had with Frank and Koch and Hitler, wasn’t it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, since 1937—and I think that becomes clear from the Hossbach minutes—the Führer had the idea of expatriating the Jewish population. This plan, however, did not become known to me until August 1940 when I took over the Vienna district. I reported to Hitler on that occasion, and he asked me how many Jews there were in Vienna. I answered his question, and he told me that he actually wanted all of them to be settled in the Government General.
MR. DODD: How many Jews did you, in fact, deport out of your district while you were the Gauleiter?
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, the practical measures of that action were not in my hands. I do not know how many of these 60,000 Jews were actually transported out of Vienna.
MR. DODD: Do you have any idea where they went to?
VON SCHIRACH: I was informed that the aged were being taken to Theresienstadt and the others to Poland, to the Government General. On one occasion—it was either when I took my oath of office as Governor or when I made a speech about the evacuation of children—I even asked Hitler how these Jews were being employed, and he told me: in accordance with their professions.
MR. DODD: We will get around to that. You remember, don’t you, that they were sent, at least some of them were sent, to the cities of Riga and Minsk, and you were so notified. Do you remember receiving that information?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Now take a look at Document 3921-PS, which becomes USA-872. Now this is a communication concerning the evacuation of Jews, and it shows that 50,000 Jews were to be sent to the Minsk-Riga area, and you got a copy of this report as the Commissar for the Defense of the Reich, and if you will look on the last page you will see an initial there of your chief assistant, the SS man Dellbrügge, and also the stamp of your own office as having received it.
VON SCHIRACH: I can only see that Dr. Dellbrügge marked the matter for filing. It shows the letters “z. d. A.” to the files.
MR. DODD: And he did not tell you about this report concerning the Jews? Even though you had been talking to Hitler about it? That they were being moved out of your area? I suppose your chief assistant did not bother to tell you anything about it. Is that what you want us to understand?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Now then, take a look at another document which will shed some light on this one. It is USA-808, already in evidence. It tells you what happened to the Jews in Minsk and Riga, and this was also received in your office if you recall. Maybe it is not necessary to show it to you again. You remember the document—that is one of those monthly reports from Heydrich wherein he said that there were 29,000 Jews in Riga and they had been reduced to 2,500, and that 33,210 were shot by the special unit, and “Einsatz” group. Do you remember that?
VON SCHIRACH: During the last 2 days I looked at these monthly reports most carefully. The bottom right-hand corner of the cover of these monthly reports—and I want to make this categorically clear—bears initials something like “Dr. FSCH.,” that is Dr. Fischer’s initials. At the top the reports are not initialed by me, but by the Government President, with the notation that they should be put into the files. If I had read them...
MR. DODD: I am not suggesting that you had your initials on any document like this, but I am claiming that these documents came into your organization and into the hands of your principal assistant.
VON SCHIRACH: But I must point out that if they had been submitted to me, then there would have been on them the notation, “submitted to the Reichsleiter,” and the official submitting them would have initialed this notation. If I myself had seen them, then my own initials would be on them with the letters “K.g.,” noted.
MR. DODD: Yes. I want to remind you that the date of that report is February 1942, and I also want to remind you that in there as well Heydrich tells you how many Jews they had killed in Minsk. Now you made a speech one time in Poland about the Polish or the Eastern policy of Germany. Do you remember it, Mr. Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: In Poland?
MR. DODD: In Poland, yes.
VON SCHIRACH: In 1939 I spent a short time in Poland, but I do not think I was there again later.
MR. DODD: Your memory seems particularly poor this morning. Don’t you remember speaking in Katowice on 20 January 1942?
VON SCHIRACH: That is Upper Silesia.
MR. DODD: Upper Silesia, all right. Do you remember that speech?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I made a speech at Katowice.
MR. DODD: And did you talk about Hitler’s policy for the Eastern Territories?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot say from memory what I spoke about there. I have made many speeches.
MR. DODD: Well, I will ask that you be shown D-664, which becomes USA-873. You were speaking to a group of Party leaders and German youth leaders.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: In Paragraph 7, you dealt with the tasks of German youth in the East. The Hitler Youth had carried out political schooling along the line of the Führer’s Eastern policy and you went on to say how grateful you were to the Führer for having turned the German people toward the East, because the East was the destiny of your people. What did you understand to be the Führer’s Eastern policy, or did you have a good understanding of it at that time?
VON SCHIRACH: I said this in Upper Silesia out of gratitude for the return of that territory to us.
MR. DODD: Well, I didn’t ask you that, really. I asked you if you then understood the Führer’s policy when you made that speech?
VON SCHIRACH: On the basis of our victory over Poland and the recovery of German soil, I naturally affirmed Germany’s policy.
MR. DODD: You not only affirmed it, but I want to know if you really understood it.
VON SCHIRACH: I do not quite know how I should answer that question. Probably Hitler’s conception of the term Eastern policy was quite different from mine.
MR. DODD: But my point is that he had told you about it, hadn’t he, some time before you made this speech?
You had better look back at that document you have in your hands, USSR-172, and you will find that, after you and Frank and Koch and Hitler finished talking about deporting the Jews from Vienna, the Führer then told you what he intended to do with the Polish people, and it is not a very pretty story, if you will look at it.
VON SCHIRACH: Hitler says here:
“The ideal picture would be that a Pole in the Government General had only a small parcel of land sufficient to feed himself and his family fairly well. Anything else he might require in cash for clothing, additional food, and so on he would have to earn by working in Germany. The Government General would be the central office for providing untrained workers, particularly agricultural workers. The livelihood of these workers would be assured, for they could always be used as cheap labor. There would be no question of further agricultural labor for Poland.”
MR. DODD: Let me read a few excerpts that I think you have missed:
“The Führer further emphasized that the Poles, in direct contrast to our German Workmen, are born for hard labor...” and so on. “The standard of living in Poland has to be and to remain low.”
Moving over to the next page:
“We, the Germans, had on one hand overpopulated industrial districts, while there was also a shortage of manpower for agriculture. That is where we could make use of Polish laborers. For this reason, it would be right to have a large surplus of manpower in the Government General so that every year the laborers needed by the Reich could in fact be procured from there. It is indispensable to keep in mind that there must be no Polish land owners. However cruel this may sound, wherever they are, they must be exterminated. Of course, there must be no mixing of blood with the Poles.”
Further on, he had to stress once more that:
“There should be one master only for the Poles, the Germans. Two masters side by side cannot exist. All representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be exterminated. This sounds cruel, but such is the law of life.”
Stopping there for a minute, by the way, Mr. Witness—you are a man of culture, so you have told the Tribunal—how did that sentiment expressed by the Führer impress you?
VON SCHIRACH: I have never agreed with these opinions of the Führer, and I said here that I approached him in 1943 on the subject of this policy in the Ukraine. When in 1942 I talked about Eastern policy in Katowice, the German town of Katowice, to the German population of Upper Silesia, then, of course, I did not mean this brutal Polish policy of Hitler.
MR. DODD: But you knew about it when you made the speech, did you not?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not recollect it on that occasion 2 years later, and my speech did not mean it either.
MR. DODD: You forgot that Hitler said he must exterminate the intelligentsia, that you must be masters of these people, that they must remain at a low standard of living? Did that pass out of your mind so easily?
VON SCHIRACH: I remember that speech in Katowice; I spoke there about completely different matters. I assume that the Prosecution even has the shorthand record of that speech and need only submit it here. This is just a short extract.
MR. DODD: But, you see, Mr. Witness, the point is, knowing what the policy was, I would like to have you tell the Tribunal how you could urge and praise that policy to a group of young people and party leaders on the occasion of this speech in Katowice.
VON SCHIRACH: The policy which I was recommending to youth leaders there was not the policy which Hitler developed in his table talk.
MR. DODD: Of course, you said it was the Führer’s policy in your speech, and you know what it was, but I won’t press it further if that is your answer.
VON SCHIRACH: Very often probably—and I once said this here—I supported the policy of the Führer out of erroneous loyalty to him. I know that it was not right.
MR. DODD: That is what I want to know. You were, weren’t you, acting under an impulse of loyalty to the Führer. Now you recognize it to be erroneous, and that is all I am inquiring for, and if you tell the Tribunal that, I shall be perfectly satisfied.
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I am prepared to admit that.
MR. DODD: Very well. And, Mr. Witness, now we are getting to it; that goes for all these things that went on.
VON SCHIRACH: Not at all.
MR. DODD: Don’t you have to say to the Tribunal, concerning your letter to Der Stürmer, and all these things you said about the Jewish people to the young people, and this slow building up of race hatred in them, the co-operation with the SS, your handling of the Jews in Vienna, that for all these things you are, and for all of them, responsible?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
MR. DODD: Finally, I want to offer in evidence, Mr. President, some excerpts from these weekly SS reports to which I referred briefly on Friday, so that they shall be before the Tribunal. There are 55 of them, Mr. President, and they run consecutively by weeks, and they all bear the stamp of this defendant’s office as having been received there, and they supplant the monthly report which was received up to the time that weekly reports began arriving.
We have not had all of them translated or mimeographed, and if the defendant wishes to put in any others, we will make them available, of course. We have selected a few as samples to illustrate the kind of report that was contained in these weekly reports, and I wish to offer them.
The first one is Number 1, beginning on 1 May 1942, and Numbers 4, 6, 7, 9, 38, 41, and 49.
Now I want to make this clear to you, Mr. Witness, out of fairness. Besides statements concerning what was happening to the Jews, you will find in these weekly reports a number of statements about the partisan affairs in the East as well. These excerpts have mostly to do with what happened to the Jews, and we have not, Mr. President, drawn out a great number that had to do with the partisans. There are a number, however, that do have to do with partisans and not with the Jews, so we wish there to be no doubt about how we offer these weekly reports. I just want to ask you, with respect to these weekly reports: Do you this morning recall that you did receive them every week in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: But that is not my office. My office is the Central Office. That office was directed by the Government President, and one of his officials initialed the files, as appears from the marking on them, and as any official trained in German office routine can confirm. They were then put before the Government President who marked them “for the files” and initialed them. I could not know these documents at all.
MR. DODD: Now just a minute. You were the Reich Commissioner for the defense of that territory; weren’t you?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: And that is the stamp that is on these weekly reports, isn’t it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, what do you mean by saying that it was not your office?
VON SCHIRACH: Because the mail, by a procedure similar to that in a ministry, where it goes to the office of the minister, reached me in the Central Office; and a corresponding notation had to be made on these files. I can understand perfectly well why the Government President, since I was overburdened with work, did not submit to me material which had no connection at all with Vienna or my activities, but which was merely informatory and concerned with events in Russia, mostly guerrilla fighting in Russia.
MR. DODD: I am going to ask you again, as I have so many times in the course of this examination: Dellbrügge, who initialed these, was your principal assistant, wasn’t he? Yes or no?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, he was one of my three deputies.
MR. DODD: And he was also an SS man, and so was your other principal assistant, as we asked the other day.
VON SCHIRACH: Dellbrügge was a high SS leader. He was a special confidant of the Reichsführer SS.
MR. DODD: How did he happen to be working for you?
VON SCHIRACH: He was assigned to me there.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I don’t think it is necessary to read any excerpts from these weekly reports. They have been translated into four languages, and—well, I am misinformed. I thought they were translated. Then I think it would be better if we do have them translated and submit them at a later date rather than take the time to read them now.
I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine? We had better adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
MAJOR GENERAL G. A. ALEXANDROV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend had the task of inculcating German youth and children, starting from 9 years of age, with Fascist ideology?
Do you hear me?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I understood you to ask, whether, I would admit having inculcated Fascist ideas into 10- to 14-year-old children of the Hitler Youth?
As I said in my testimony a few days ago, I saw my mission and my duty in educating German youth to be citizens of the National Socialist State...
THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing.] That is not an answer to the question. It is not necessary for you to tell us what you said in your previous evidence. Will you just answer the question: Do you admit that you inculcated in the Hitler Youth Hitler’s ideology? You can answer that “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot answer that question with “yes,” because it referred to Fascism. There is a great difference between Fascism and National Socialism. I cannot answer that question with “yes.” I did educate German youth in the spirit of National Socialism, that I can admit.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like you to confirm the evidence which you gave on 16 November 1945, during your interrogation. You defined your personal attitude to Hitler in the following way; and I quote your evidence: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]} Do you confirm this statement?
VON SCHIRACH: I did not say that, and that is not a record which was submitted to me. I never spoke of Hitler as a deity, never. I remember exactly, General, that you interrogated me on this point, and I was asked whether I had been an enthusiastic follower. I confirmed that, and I spoke about the time when I joined the Movement; but I never set up the comparison with which I am now confronted in the translation; I never said that I believed in Hitler as a deity, never.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You do not understand me correctly. Nothing is said here about deity. Your evidence has been taken down, and I will repeat it: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]}
Do you confirm this statement? Answer the question directly.
VON SCHIRACH: The translation is quite inexact. May I ask you to put the exact question again?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will quote your statement again: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be a manifestation of truth.”^{[*]} Is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: I am accused now of having said: “I was an enthusiastic adherent of Hitler, and I considered everything that he wrote and stated to be the personification of truth.” That is how I understood it, and I must say I could never have uttered such nonsense.
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^{[*]} The interpreter mistranslated this “and looked upon him as a deity.”
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DR. SERVATIUS: May I give an explanation of this translation? I think the correct German would have to be: “I considered what Hitler said to be a manifestation of truth,” and not “the personification of truth”; then it would be intelligible. There is a mistake in the interpretation.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Your defense counsel has perhaps helped you to answer my question.
VON SCHIRACH: General, that was not my defense counsel, but the defense counsel for the Defendant Sauckel. If it is translated “manifestation of truth,” then of course the whole passage makes sense, and also corresponds roughly to what I said to you when I described the period of my youth.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Very well.
In your book entitled the Hitler Jugend it said, and I quote Page 17: “Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, is our bible.” Do you confirm this? Did you write that?
VON SCHIRACH: But I added something to that in my book The Hitler Youth, Its Faith and Organization. I want to say, first of all, that I did write this book. I wrote it...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to interrupt you. I do not need such detailed explanations, and I would like you to answer the question: Is that sentence contained in your book?
VON SCHIRACH: I have just confirmed that, but I would like to add an explanation. In this book—which I wrote in 1933, and which was published in 1934—I said: “We could not yet offer detailed reasons for our belief, we simply believed. But when Hitler’s Mein Kampf appeared, it was like a bible, which we almost learned by heart so as to answer the questions of doubtful and deliberating critics.”
That is how I worded it at the time; that is correct.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I would like to put another more precise question to you. Do you admit that the Hitler Jugend was a political organization which, under the leadership of the NSDAP, carried out the policy of this Party among German youth?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was a large educational community on a political basis, but I cannot admit that it was led by the Party; it was led by me. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Party, and in that sense one might speak of a Party influence. But I can see no reason for having to confirm this, since I have already testified to it. It is correct that the Hitler Youth was the youth organization of the Party.
If that is the sense of your question, I will confirm it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, I just had that in view.
I would like to remind you of the tasks which Hitler had assigned for the education of German youth. That is set out in Rauschning’s book, which has already been submitted as documentary evidence before the Tribunal as USSR-378. I quote Page 252 of that book:
“In my schools we will bring up youth who will make the world shudder with fear, youth that is hard, exigent, unafraid, and cruel. That is my wish. Youth must have all these qualities; they must be indifferent to sufferings; they must have neither weakness nor softness. I would like to see in their eyes the proud, self-sufficient glitter of a beast of prey.”
You educated German youth in accordance with these demands of Hitler. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I will not admit what Herr Rauschning wrote. Just by accident I was present at a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning and, judging by it, I must say that the statements in Rauschning’s book represent an unfaithful record of what Hitler said. Just by accident I witnessed a conversation between them.
Hitler did not give me the directives which Rauschning sets forth here as the guiding principles laid down by Hitler himself for the training of the Hitler Youth.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I did not ask you to give such a detailed explanation. I would like you to answer the question I put to you briefly in order to shorten the time of interrogation. You have stated the Hitler Youth did not educate German youth in the militaristic spirit and did not prepare German youth for future aggressive wars. I would like to remind you of certain statements you made in that very same book of yours, “Hitler Youth,” right here on Page 83 of that book. Talking of the younger generation, the so-called Jungvolk, you wrote:
“They carry the National Socialist characteristics. The toy merchants are worried because these children no longer need toys; they are interested in camp tents, spears, compasses and maps. It is a particular trait of our youth. Everything that is against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”
And these also were the directives which German soldiers, trained in the Hitler Youth, followed when they set on fire houses of the peaceful population in occupied territories, isn’t that true? Is that contained in the book, the passage I have just read?
VON SCHIRACH: What is in front of me now, is contained in my book. What I heard from the interpreter is not in my book.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, then make your corrections.
VON SCHIRACH: May I read the correct passage?
“The toy merchants have complained to me that the boys”—they mean the Jungvolk—“no longer want toys, but are interested only in tents, spears, compasses, and maps. I cannot help the toy merchants, for I agree with the boys that the times of the Indians are finally gone. What is ‘Old Shatterhand,’ what is a trapper in the backwoods of America compared to our troop leader? A miserable, dusty remnant from the lumber chest of our fathers. Not only the toy merchants are complaining but also the school-cap manufacturers. Who wears a school cap nowadays? And who nowadays is a high-school boy or girl? In some towns the boys have banded together and publicly burned such school caps. Burning is, in fact, a specialty of new youth. The border fences of the minor states of the Reich have also been reduced to ashes in the fires of your youth.
“It is a simple but heroic philosophy; everything that is against our unity must be thrown to the flames.”
That, General, is the expression of the “storm and stress” of youth which has found its special unity.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: According to your opinion, the philosophy implies that children must no longer play with toys, but must do other things. Did I understand you correctly? I do not see any essential difference between my quotation and yours.
VON SCHIRACH: May I say that I think the military training of the youth of Germany falls much behind that of the Soviet Union.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This is an irrelevant comparison. On Page 98 of your book, speaking of the Hitler Youth, you wrote:
“They strive to be political soldiers. Their model is Adolf Hitler.”
Did you write that?
VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place; is it Page 98?
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has admitted he wrote the whole book, hasn’t he?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In order not to lengthen the proceedings we will pass to the next question.
You have already spoken here of a specially created organization of motorized Hitler Youth; you assert this organization had sport as its aim; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: In connection with the training of the motorized Hitler Youth I spoke also of ground and driving exercises, and I admitted that the motorized Hitler Youth had premilitary significance. I did not dispute this point at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd cross-examined the witness at very considerable length on these matters about the special units of the Hitler Youth, and it really is not any good to go over it all again.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, several points which are still unexplained will be clarified through the following questions.
Did you have knowledge of the fact that at the end of 1938 the organization of motorized Hitler Youth consisted of 92 detachments, that is of 100,000 young men?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 92 detachments, because the word “Abteilung”—that was the translation—was not a designation for any unit of the Hitler Youth. I gave the exact strength of the motorized Hitler Youth for 1938 in one of my statements here either to my defense counsel or to Mr. Dodd. I gave exact figures of its strength in 1938.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, I am speaking of 1938, and you give the number of 100,000 Hitler Youths who formed the motorized youth organization. Do you have knowledge of this?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot tell you from memory whether there were 100,000 members of the motorized Hitler Youth in 1938. There might have been 60,000 or 120,000. I cannot say; I do not know. I have not the documents to prove it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, but I am quoting this number from data given by the magazine Das Archiv. I would like to recall to you the tasks of these organizations as they were set out in this magazine in November-December 1939. I quote:
“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be carried out in special training groups, and later in special motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps.”
I quote this excerpt according to the document book of the Defense, Document 20, Page 50 of the Russian text. I repeat:
“The preliminary training of the motorized Hitler Youth must be carried out in special training groups, and later in special motorization schools of the National Socialist Motor Corps, but this applies only to youths who have reached the age of 17 or more. The course of instruction includes motor mechanics, a driving license test, field driving exercises, and also ideological schooling. Those who successfully participate in this course of instruction will be admitted into the National Socialist Motor Corps.”
This does not quite agree with your statement that the aim was sport, does it?
THE PRESIDENT: We heard a long commentary about these special units, and we really do not want to hear it any more. If you have any questions on new matters which have not been dealt with by Mr. Dodd, we shall be glad to hear them, but we do not want to hear about whether there are 60,000 or 70,000 or 100,000 or 120,000 Hitler Youths in the motorized units.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am only quoting what has not been mentioned yet.
THE PRESIDENT: General, we do not want to hear it. We do not want to hear it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will pass on to the next question.
You issued a directive for a nation-wide training scheme of the members of the Hitler Youth, known as “Hitler Youth on Duty.” This directive foresaw the following kind of education for the Hitler Youth: the theory of weapons, the theory of firing, target shooting, rifle practice, military drill, topography, and field exercises; also instruction in the use of the field compass and the goniometer. Are you acquainted with this directive? Do you consider that this also did not constitute military training of German youth?
VON SCHIRACH: I spoke in great detail about the training of “Hitler Youth on Duty” in my testimony last Thursday, and I particularly discussed rifle training which takes up 40 pages of this book. I mentioned in that connection that this rifle training was carried out according to the rules of international rifle sport and that the British Board of Education recommended this rifle training, and also the entire book, to all Boy Scouts. I do not dispute that I published this book Hitler Youth and that it served as a guiding directive for this training. But I already said that here the other day.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You have denied that the Hitler Youth played an important part in the Fifth Column in Poland. Similar methods were carried out especially in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Government has put at the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution documents which estimated the part of the “Hitler Youth on Duty,” under the leadership of the Hitler Jugend, in the organization of the Fifth Column on Yugoslav territory. Do you have any knowledge of this? Do you know anything about this?
VON SCHIRACH: The Hitler Youth was never active in the Fifth Column either in Yugoslavia or anywhere else.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will then quote excerpts from the official report of the Yugoslav Government. This has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-36. I quote from Page 3 of the Russian text of this document:
“The Reich Government and the Hitler Party have secretly organized the German minority. From 1930 they had their own organization, the ‘Union of Culture.’ Already in 1932 Dr. Jacob Awender held the view that the ‘Union of Culture’ should be Fascist in its outlook. In 1935 he was put at the head of an active youth organization which shortly afterwards received the name of ‘Organization of Revival.’”
Do you know anything about this?
VON SCHIRACH: I cannot comment on the information which you have just mentioned. I heard that Bohle had some youth leaders there as his representatives, but I do not know any details. On the subject of Yugoslavia I can tell you from my previous activity that my relations with Yugoslav youth were very amiable and friendly in the period before the war.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am not interested in that. I will try to help your memory by quoting a few excerpts from a supplementary report of the Yugoslav Government, which is submitted to the Tribunal as Yugoslav Exhibit, Document Number USSR-357. On Page 5, in the third line of the Russian text of this document, it says:
“In 1937 there began among the Volksdeutsche in our country an orientation towards National Socialism, and the first groups of youth started going to Germany for special courses of instruction.”
Further down on Page 8, we read that later on, but before the war with the Soviet Union, the greater part of these members became officers of the German Army. In addition, a special SS division, “Prinz Eugen,” was formed from among members of the youth organizations. Do you deny these facts?
VON SCHIRACH: I can admit some; others I must deny. May I explain this? Since 1933 I tried to bring about good relations with Yugoslav youth. Starting in 1936 or 1937 I extended invitations to Yugoslav youth groups, as well as to youth groups of all European countries, to visit and inspect German youth institutions. Yugoslav youth groups actually came to Germany in reply to my invitation. But I know nothing about the enlisting of Yugoslav youths in the German Army; I do not believe that. I can only say that at the time of the regency of Prince Regent Paul there was very close collaboration with Yugoslav youth. During the war we maintained good relations with both Serbian and Croatian youth. German youth visited Serbia and Croatia, while Serbian and Croatian youth came to German youth camps, German youth leader training schools, and so on, and looked at our institutions. That, I think, is everything I can say about this. But we had friendly relations not only with Yugoslavia but also with many other countries.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You did not understand me correctly. I was not speaking of Yugoslav or Croatian youth. I am speaking of the youth of the German minority in Yugoslavia who are mentioned in this report and who, with the help of the Hitler Youth, created centers of Fifth Column activity to engage in subversive operations and recruit for the SS units and the Wehrmacht. That is what I am speaking about. Are these facts known to you?
VON SCHIRACH: I know that there were young people among the German minority in Yugoslavia, just as in Romania and Hungary. I know that this German youth felt that it belonged to the Hitler Youth, and I think it is perfectly natural that these young people welcomed the German troops on their arrival. I cannot give information on the extent to which collaboration existed between the troops and the youth, but that it did exist is also quite natural. Of course, it could not be considered military collaboration, but rather the kind of co-operation which will always exist between an occupying force and the youth of the same country or nationality as the members of that force. But that has nothing to do with espionage or the like.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: But the major part of the SS Division “Prinz Eugen” which was formed on Yugoslav territory was made up of Hitler Youth members from the German national minority in Yugoslavia; and this was the result of the preparatory work of the Hitler Youth. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not know how the divisions of the Waffen-SS, of which there were very many, were recruited. It is possible that some members of the German minority were recruited then and there, but I have no definite information on this.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will quote a few excerpts from two German documents. They have not yet been submitted to the Tribunal. The first excerpt is from a book by Dr. Sepp Janko who was the youth leader in Yugoslavia, entitled Speeches and Articles. He wrote:
“All our national work before 1 September 1939 depended on the help of the Reich. When on 1 September 1939 the war began and it at first appeared impossible to receive further aid, there was a danger that all our work would be interrupted....”
And later:
“The fact that in this cause, so decisive for a nation and its worth, I put at the disposal of the Führer almost the entire German national group in the former State of Yugoslavia and gave him so many volunteers as soldiers, is to me a subject of great pride....”
I submit this to the Tribunal as evidence; Exhibit USSR-459.
The next excerpt is from an article, “We in the Batchka,” written in 1943 by Otto Kohler who was leader of German youth in that territory. I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-456. Otto Kohler wrote in that article:
“Ninety percent of our youth are members of the Hitler Youth, the youth organization for Germans abroad.”
The statements ought to convince you that the subversive activity and organization of the Fifth Column, the “nazification” of the German minority and its enlistment in military units were actually carried out on Yugoslav territory through the Hitler Youth. Please answer “yes” or “no.”
VON SCHIRACH: No. But I should like to comment on these documents. This Dr. Sepp Janko who is said to have been the leader of the Volksdeutsche in Yugoslavia is not known to me either by name or personally. I have visited Yugoslavia several times in the past, but neither in 1937, when I believe I was there for the first time, nor later in 1938 when I visited Prince Regent Paul, did I concern myself with the Volksdeutsche youth there or with their leaders. On those visits I spoke only with youth of Yugoslav nationality. That is all I have to say about the first document, which on the whole does not refer to youth at all.
The second document, which is signed by one Otto Kohler, who calls himself the “D. J. leader”—probably German youth leader—in Subdivision 7, to that document I can only say that it was taken from a book about German youth in Hungary which appeared in 1943. In the Batchka we had a very large settlement of Germans, people who had been living there for 150 or 200 years, and this youth leader organized the German youth there with the approval of the Hungarian Government and the Hungarian Minister of Education and in collaboration with other Hungarian authorities. It was an entirely legal measure, and no controversy existed about it between the two countries. These young people were not members of the German Hitler Youth, but they belonged to Hungarian youth groups of the German minority in Hungary.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: And did the Reich Leadership of Hitler Youth have no connection at all with such organizations abroad?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course we visited these youths. When, for instance, I was a guest in Budapest, the Hungarians themselves asked me whether I would like to visit the villages and the youth of the German minority. Neither the Regent nor any other government authority had any objections to this. There was no reason why I should ask German youth leaders to engage in espionage in Hungary. I could just as easily have asked Hungarian youth leaders with whom I was on very good terms.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Who was the leader of the Hitler Youth organizations abroad? There was a special foreign section in the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth. Its task was the direction of the German youth organizations abroad, was it not?
VON SCHIRACH: That is not correct. The foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership was, if I may say so, the “foreign office” of the younger generation. It was the task of the foreign office to maintain contact with other national youth organizations, to invite youth leaders from abroad, to organize tours of foreign youth organizations through Germany, and to arrange visits of German youth to other countries, in co-operation with the foreign offices of those countries; in a case like this, the foreign office of the Reich Youth Leadership would approach the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office would approach the ambassador or representative of the country involved. The Organization of Youth Abroad to which you are referring was an organization subordinate to the Organization of Germans Abroad, the head of which was Gauleiter Bohle, who has already been heard in this court. This youth abroad consisted of German nationals who formed units of the Hitler Youth in the countries where they were living. For instance in Budapest the children of the German colony, starting with the children of the German Minister...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Defendant, it is not necessary to make such a long speech about it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You are giving too many details. The next question:
In the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories, a special youth department was created in the first main office. What do you know about the work of this department and what was its relationship to the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth? Please answer briefly.
VON SCHIRACH: From my knowledge, I can say that when the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was created, Reichsleiter Rosenberg expressed a wish that the Reich Youth Leader should put at his disposal an official for the youth department in the new Ministry. This official was appointed; he was taken into the Ministry and directed its youth department. He was, of course, responsible to the Eastern Minister. I cannot say more about this point. Reports from this department did not reach me.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You mean that the Reich Leadership of the Hitler Youth appointed a representative to a post in the Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories, and that this gentleman did not send in any report to the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: General, I meant that the head of this department or whatever he was, this official in the Eastern Ministry who came from the Hitler Youth, did not report to me. He naturally reported to his immediate superiors in the Reich Youth Leadership. The Reich Youth Leadership was located in Berlin, and I assume that the officials of its staff were in constant touch with him.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: As I understand it, the measures that were carried out by the youth department in the Reich Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories were carried out with the knowledge of the Reich Youth Leadership; is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: The measures taken there were carried out according to directions laid down by the Reich Minister, who was the immediate superior of his officials. If actual youth measures, the treatment of youth, and so on, were dealt with, I am sure that this official or youth leader discussed the matter with the Reich Youth Leadership and made a report to it. The Minister is always responsible for the youth official in his Ministry, and not the organization from which the youth official happens to come.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I understand. To the question put to you by your defense counsel regarding the participation of the Hitler Youth in the atrocities committed in Lvov, you answered that the testimony of the French citizen, Ida Vasseau, supplied by the Extraordinary State Commission, is not true.
Mr. President, the Soviet Prosecution has had occasion to interrogate the witness Ida Vasseau. The defense counsel for the Defendant Schirach also requested an interrogation. I now submit to the Tribunal excerpts from the testimony of the witness Vasseau, dated 16 May 1946, and I would like to submit it as Exhibit USSR-455. I shall now read the excerpts into the record:
“The atrocities against the Jewish and the Soviet population of Lvov were perpetrated not only by adult Germans and old Nazis, but also by the German youth of the Fascist youth organization in Lvov. These youngsters, dressed in uniforms, armed with heavy sticks, hunting knives, and often with pistols, ran about the streets, broke into Jewish apartments and destroyed everything in them. They killed all the inhabitants of these apartments, including the children. Very often they stopped children who looked suspicious to them in the streets, shouted: “Stop, you damned Jew!” and shot them on the spot. This Hitlerite youth was often active in locating Jewish apartments, hunting Jews in hiding, setting traps, and assaulting innocent people on the streets, killing them if they were Jews and dragging others away to the Gestapo. Often their victims were Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, and people of other nationalities. This terror of adult and young Germans continued until the last day of the German occupation of Lvov. The intention of completely annihilating the Jews was especially apparent in the “Ghetto actions” in which Jewish children of various ages were systematically killed. They were put into houses specially set up for Jewish children and when sufficient children had been assembled, the Gestapo accompanied by the Hitler Youth broke in and killed them.”
I end the reading of the statement of Ida Vasseau.
Thus, the Hitler Youth in the service of the German army, SS and the Gestapo took part in these atrocities. Do you admit that?
VON SCHIRACH: I do not believe a word of what is contained in this document.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Well, that is your affair.
Mr. President, I am submitting to the Tribunal another document, USSR-454, excerpts from the testimony of the German prisoner of war Gert Bruno Knittel.
Gert Bruno Knittel, a hatter by trade, was born in 1924 in Saxony. After 1938 he was a member of the Hitler Youth. His sister Ursula was also a member of the National Socialist League of German Girls (BDM). In 1942, when he was 18 years old, he was called up for the German Army. Thus, he is a typical representative of the Hitler Youth, and his testimony is therefore of interest. This is what he relates about his service in the German Army. I quote:
“Not less than twice a week we were called upon to comb out the forests.”
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I must object against the use of this document of which we have just received a copy. It does not appear from this copy whether the document was actually signed, whether it was sworn or who drew up this document, which seems to be a report. I must object to this document until these questions have been clarified.
Perhaps in this connection, Mr. President, I might comment on the other document which contains the testimony of Ida Vasseau—the writing is difficult to read. I assume that this witness is identical with the French national Ida Vasseau to whom a questionnaire was sent a long time ago with the permission of the Tribunal. We have been constantly waiting for the answers to this questionnaire, and now today we receive this report dated 16 May 1946, which apparently refers to the same witness. It is obvious that...
THE PRESIDENT: I am not following quite what you are saying. Are you saying that you have issued a questionnaire to the person who is alleged to have made this document?
DR. SAUTER: The High Tribunal approved a questionnaire to a French woman, Ida Vasseau; I will spell the name, V-a-s-s-e-a-u. This is the French woman, Ida Vasseau, who was working in an establishment in Lvov, and who is mentioned in the Lvov Commission report. Perhaps you remember, Mr. President, that one of these reports says that children were taken from the ghetto and given to the Hitler Youth and that the Hitler Youth used these children as live targets. That is the statement of the witness Ida Vasseau, and I am sure that she is the same person who is now mentioned in the report of 16 May 1946. The remarkable thing is that in the report of 16 May 1946, she does not answer the questions which are set down in the questionnaire, but makes further allegations which are obviously not contained in the earlier Lvov Commission report. This is a very mysterious matter, and I believe it would not be just to the Defendant Von Schirach if I did not call your attention to these contradictions.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: May I give my explanation?
THE PRESIDENT: We would like to hear you in detail, General, in answer to what Dr. Sauter has said.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Ida Vasseau, excerpts from whose statement I have read, is certainly the person of whom Dr. Sauter is speaking. I do not know to whom and through what channels the interrogatory was sent; it was not sent through our office. Ida Vasseau was interrogated on our own initiative and we could do so only on 16 May. A special interrogatory was not received by us, and we could not have sent it because the evidence was given only...
THE PRESIDENT: I have only got this document here in German and it doesn’t appear to be a document signed or made by a person called “Vasseau” at all. I don’t know whether it is dealing with something that Ida Vasseau is alleged to have said.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This document is signed.
THE PRESIDENT: I said it wasn’t signed by Vasseau.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This document is signed by Ida Vasseau-Thom and also by the interrogating officials, namely the Chief of the Investigation Branch, Public Prosecutor’s Department for the Lvov Region, Kryzanovsky, and the public prosecutor for the Lvov Region, Kornetov. The interrogation took place on 16 May 1946.
THE PRESIDENT: Look at this document and see if it is the right document.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, these are excerpts from the interrogation of Ida Vasseau.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the same document?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, yes, that is the same document which we are now submitting to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the original you have got before you?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, this is an excerpt from the record, certified by the Chief of Documentation of the Soviet Delegation, Colonel Karev. This is not the original record of the interrogatory. These are excerpts from it.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that it is a document which is admissible under Article 21 or what are you saying about it?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: We are submitting it. If the Tribunal considers that it is necessary to bring out the original of the record, which at the present moment is at Lvov, we will be able to do so in a short time. If the Tribunal is not satisfied with these excerpts, we will very easily be able to submit the record in full.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you tell us what the document is? Is it an affidavit? Is it sworn to? Is it made before an official of the Soviet Union?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: There is a note on the record referring to the responsibility for false testimony, as set forth under Article 89 of the Penal Code of the Ukrainian S.S.R. This warning is in accordance with the requirements for legal procedure in the Soviet Union, and this warning was given to Ida Vasseau, as a special certification on the record shows.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that it is a document which falls within Article 21 of the Charter?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Yes, but if the Tribunal consider it necessary, we will later be able to submit the complete original record.
I am now asking the Tribunal to accept the excerpts from this record which have been certified by the Chief of our Documentation Division.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, what is the date on which your interrogatory was allowed by the Tribunal and what was the date on which it was sent out to this person?
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the interrogatory bears the date of 11 April.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: The interrogatory could not be sent because we did not know where the witness Vasseau was. We only discovered it recently.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that the interrogatory has not been administered to the person who made this statement?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This interrogatory could not have reached its destination because, I repeat, until quite recently the whereabouts of the witness Vasseau was unknown.
THE PRESIDENT: When you did find out where the witness was, the interrogatory could have been administered.
GEN; ALEXANDROV: Yes, yes, it can be sent to her. It can be done now if it is necessary.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, may I point out the following: This woman, Ida Vasseau, was in Lvov when this statement which is mentioned in the Commission Report was made; that is clear from the report. I believe it is USSR-6, but I am not quite certain. Now, on 16 May of this year, this woman, Ida Vasseau, was also at Lvov; and her whereabouts were not unknown, since she was interrogated on that day. I had discussed the interrogatory which was sent to Vasseau with the Prosecution; it was at first said that the questions were suggestive or that something was not in order. But we came to terms and I altered the questions which I submitted to the High Tribunal according to the wishes of the Prosecution; so if the Soviet Delegation were willing, Ida Vasseau could be interrogated at any time. It is remarkable that in this later statement, this woman testified on something entirely different from what is set forth in her previous statement, and something entirely different from what she was asked in the interrogatory. I think it would be useful if Ida Vasseau were examined here.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, what previous statement do you mean? What previous statements do you mean?
DR. SAUTER: The statement in the commission report of the City of Lvov. This commission report was read here once and it says that the Hitler Youth committed these outrages against the children; my questionnaire, which the Tribunal approved, deals with this point.
THE PRESIDENT: General, was the interrogatory submitted by Dr. Sauter shown to the witness Vasseau?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No, it was not sent to her. May I, to clarify the matter, come back to the history of this interrogatory? The Soviet Prosecution submitted a document, the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German Atrocities in the Lvov Region, and this document contained a statement by the witness Ida Vasseau; no one interrogated her at that time. In this statement she said that she witnessed how the Hitler Youth used small children as targets. That was her statement in the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission. This document was accepted by the Tribunal. Then, on our own initiative—Dr. Sauter’s interrogatory did not come to us and we did not send it out—the whereabouts of Ida Vasseau was established. She was examined by interrogating officers and supplemented the testimony which she had given before the Extraordinary State Commission. I am now submitting to the Tribunal excerpts from her interrogatory on 16 May in which she dwelt on certain details of the treatment of children by the Hitler Youth.
THE PRESIDENT: We all understand that, General, but the question is: Why, if interrogatories had been allowed by the Tribunal and had been seen by the Prosecution and were dated sometime in April, why was the witness interrogated in May without having seen these interrogatories? This document is dated 16 May 1946, isn’t it, Dr. Sauter?—Dr. Sauter tells us that interrogatories allowed by the Tribunal were dated in April.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I do not know where Dr. Sauter sent his interrogatory. He did not send it through our office. I repeat that we did not send this interrogatory and could not have sent it on, for we did not know where Ida Vasseau lived. On our initiative steps were taken to establish her whereabouts, and when we found her she was interrogated, namely on 16 May.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1415 hours.]
Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: General, the Tribunal will not admit this document at the present time, but it would wish that you should present the original document and at the same time the answers to the interrogatories which the Tribunal has ordered; and the Tribunal will call upon the Secretary General for a report upon the whole matter.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, during the recess I had a chance to talk this over with Dr. Sauter. He will give me the interrogatory and measures will be taken to get the necessary replies from the witness in the shortest possible time. Besides this the request of the Tribunal to get the original of the document will be complied with as soon as possible.
May I continue now with my interrogation?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I stopped at the testimony of Gert Bruno Knittel. Here is what he relates about his service in the German Army:
“Not less than twice a week we were sent to comb the forests, to round up guerrillas and to look for discontent against the German regime, so that these people could be arrested and shot immediately. Our 3d Company, Field Depot Battalion 375, caught and shot five persons in the woods. Most possibly these persons were not even partisans or guerrillas, but merely citizens who went into the woods for personal matters. But we had orders to shoot all who crossed our path in the woods. I did this together with the other soldiers of my company.
“One day in June 1943, in a roundup in the village of Lishaysk, we surrounded the whole place with three to four companies so that no one could leave or enter the village. Outside each house that had to be searched...”
THE PRESIDENT: You are cross-examining the Defendant Von Schirach who was in Vienna. What has this document got to do with him?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: This is the testimony of one of the members of the Hitler Jugend regarding his participation in atrocities during his service in the German Army in the occupied territory. This document is translated into German. I need not read it. However, I would like the witness Von Schirach to familiarize himself with this document. Did you read this document? I am asking you this now, Witness, have you read that document?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I have read the document. This man Knittel who is testifying here was not a member of the Hitler Youth, but belonged either to the Labor Service or to a unit of the Army. Earlier in his life, just like all the other young Germans, he had been a member of the Hitler Youth. He states that; but in this case he was acting as a member of some unit of the Armed Forces, not as a member of the Hitler Youth. The entire testimony seems to be of little credibility. For example, he mentions a Hitler Youth Party...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Have you read all the testimony that is given there?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Have you read all this testimony?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In connection with this, do you admit that participation of German youth in similar atrocities was the effect of the special education and preparation of the Hitler Youth?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I do not admit that.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I have two more questions, and that will be all. Up to what time did you hold the post of Reichsstatthalter of Vienna and Reichsleiter of Youth Education?
VON SCHIRACH: I was head of Youth Education from 1931 and Reich Governor of the city of Vienna since 1940.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am interested in knowing to what date, to what moment?
VON SCHIRACH: I held both of these offices until the collapse.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You were telling here in detail about your break with Hitler in 1943. You stated that from that time on you were politically dead. However, you continued to hold your posts to the very end. Therefore your break with Hitler was only theoretical, and in effect entailed no consequences for you. Is that correct?
VON SCHIRACH: That is wrong. I described the consequences which it had for me in my statement either on Thursday or Friday, and I also mentioned at that time that up to the very last moment I kept my oath which I had given to Hitler as Youth Leader, as an official, and as an officer.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I have no more questions, Mr. President.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in order to expedite the proceedings, I should like to put two brief questions to Defendant Von Schirach.
The first question, Witness: in the course of the cross-examination you were asked whether you gave the order to hold Vienna until the very last moment and to defend the city to the last man. As far as I remember, you answered that question in the negative. Now, I am interested in knowing in this connection what orders you gave to your subordinates during the last days in Vienna—I mean to the Deputy Gauleiter Scharizer and the then Mayor Blaschke?
VON SCHIRACH: The order for the defense of Vienna originated with Hitler. The defense of Vienna was a matter for the military authorities, that is, the commandant of the city of Vienna, the military commander who was in charge of the 6th SS Panzer Division....
DR. SAUTER: What was his name?
VON SCHIRACH: Sepp Dietrich, and the officer commanding the Army Group South, Generaloberst Rendulic.
DR. SAUTER: Did they give the orders?
VON SCHIRACH: In carrying out the order which Hitler had given them regarding the defense of Vienna, they defended Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: What orders did you, Witness, give your subordinates in this connection?
VON SCHIRACH: For the defense of Vienna I gave only such orders as related to the Volkssturm, or those dealing with the food supply of the city and similar matters with which I was charged. I personally had nothing to do with the actual defense of the city. For even the work of destruction which was necessary in the course of the military defense of the city is to be traced back to orders which originated from the Führer’s headquarters and had been transmitted to the officer commanding the Army group, and to the city commandant.
DR. SAUTER: My second question, Witness: In your cross-examination you were questioned about Document 3763-PS. This is a document which deals with the songs of youth, into which the Prosecution seems to read a different attitude from the one you set forth. Do you wish to supplement your testimony on this point?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, I must supplement it briefly.
DR. SAUTER: Please do.
VON SCHIRACH: The Prosecution accuses me concerning a certain song, a song which begins, “We are the black swarms of Geyer, hey, ho”; the chorus of which goes, “Spear them, spike them, put the red cock on the cloister roof,” and one verse runs, “We will cry to Him on high that we want to kill the priest.”
This is a Christian song.
DR. SAUTER: How is that?
VON SCHIRACH: This can be seen in the fourth and fifth verses. It is the song of the Protestant peasants under the leadership of Florian Geyer.
The fourth verse goes: “No castle, abbey, and monastery matters. Nothing but the Holy Scripture is of value to us.” The next verse goes: “We want the same law from prince down to peasant.”
Protestantism, too, was once a revolution. The rebel peasants sang this song; and it may serve as an example, this song of the 16th century, like some of the songs of the French revolution. This song may be used as an example to show how, in the beginning, revolutions are radical rather than tolerant.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, with this point I should like to conclude my direct examination of the Defendant Von Schirach. Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Who were your principal assistants in your office at Vienna?
VON SCHIRACH: First of all, the chief of my Central Office, Hoepken; secondly, the Regierungspräsident Dr. Dellbrügge; thirdly, the Mayor, Blaschke; and fourthly, the Deputy Gauleiter, Scharizer. They were my chief collaborators.
THE PRESIDENT: That makes four, does it?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And did they occupy the whole of their time working for you in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: Not all of them. The Deputy Gauleiter had already been functioning under my predecessor, Bürckel. Mayor Blaschke, as far as I recall, first became mayor in 1943. His predecessor as mayor was a Herr Jung. The District President, Dr. Dellbrügge, assumed his office in 1940, after my arrival in Vienna. He was sent to me from the Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: Well then, from the time that you took over the office in Vienna these four men were working for you, is that right?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. I should like to mention also that the head of the Central Office, Hoepken, was first of all active under me as adjutant and assumed his position as chief only when the former chief of this office, Obergebietsführer Müller, lost his life in an air raid.
THE PRESIDENT: Which of the four was it who initialed those weekly reports which were received in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: That was the District President, Dr. Dellbrügge.
THE PRESIDENT: Dellbrügge?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And at the time that he received them he was working in your office as one of your principal assistants?
VON SCHIRACH: He was my deputy in the State Administration.
THE PRESIDENT: That was your office?
VON SCHIRACH: That was one of my offices.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, one department in your office?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes. May I add, by way of explanation, that there were various branches: The State Administration, the Municipal Administration, the Party Management and the Reich Defense Commissariat. The Reich Defense Commissariat and the State Administration were combined as far as their representation was concerned. Everything was co-ordinated in the Central Office.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, in which department was this principal assistant who initialed these documents? Which department was he head of?
VON SCHIRACH: He held a key position in the office of the Reichsstatthalter as Chief of the State Administration.
THE PRESIDENT: Civil administration?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, Civil State Administration.
THE PRESIDENT: Was he the Deputy Reich Defense Commissioner?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And you were the Reich Defense Commissioner for the Military District Number XVII, were you not?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And he was your deputy in that military district?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: He received and initialed those reports in that office, did he not?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant can return to the dock.
[The Defendant Von Schirach left the stand.]
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, with your permission I should like to call to the witness box the witness Lauterbacher.
[The witness Lauterbacher took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
HARTMANN LAUTERBACHER (Witness): Hartmann Lauterbacher.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that your full name?
LAUTERBACHER: Lauterbacher.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this 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 witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you sit down.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Lauterbacher, I have already discussed this matter with you in the prison; is that right?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Please pause after each question before you answer so that the interpreters may keep up.
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: When were you born?
LAUTERBACHER: On 24 May 1909.
DR. SAUTER: 1909?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, 1909.
DR. SAUTER: Are you married?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: You have three children?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What is your profession?
LAUTERBACHER: Druggist.
DR. SAUTER: Retail druggist?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: You are in an American prison?
LAUTERBACHER: In an English prison.
DR. SAUTER: Since when?
LAUTERBACHER: Since 29 May 1945.
DR. SAUTER: Have you been interrogated by the Prosecution on this matter?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SAUTER: When did you become an official, that is to say, a paid employee of the Hitler Youth?
LAUTERBACHER: I became a paid employee of the Hitler Youth when appointed District Leader (Gebietsführer) of the Westphalia-Lower Rhine area.
DR. SAUTER: And when was that?
LAUTERBACHER: In April 1932:
DR. SAUTER: April 1932. That was at the age of 23?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, at the age of 23.
DR. SAUTER: Before then had you been a member of the HJ?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. I was...
DR. SAUTER: Slowly, please, and always wait until the question has been completed before you answer.
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: I was asking you if you were already a member of the Hitler Youth when you took up your paid appointment in the year 1932.
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. When I was 13 years old, in the year 1922, I joined what was then known as the National Socialist Youth Organization. Then, when I was 18 years old, in the year 1927, I accepted the duties of an Unterführer in my home province of the Tyrol...
DR. SAUTER: And officially you were...
LAUTERBACHER: ...then I worked in an honorary capacity in Brunswick from 1929 until 1932; and later on I had a paid appointment.
DR. SAUTER: That is to say from 1932?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What was your status in the year 1932? What position did you get then?
LAUTERBACHER: In the year 1932 I was entrusted with the leadership of the area then known as Westphalia-Lower Rhine.
DR. SAUTER: When were you assigned to the Defendant Von Schirach?
LAUTERBACHER: On 22 May 1934.
DR. SAUTER: What was your position under him?
LAUTERBACHER: Stabsführer.
DR. SAUTER: How long did you remain a Stabsführer?
LAUTERBACHER: Until August 1940.
DR. SAUTER: I suppose until the time he resigned his office as Reich Youth Leader?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: When you took up your paid appointment with the HJ, had you already served with the Army?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SAUTER: Then you had not been an officer?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SAUTER: You told us, I believe, that since 1934 you had been Stabsführer of the Reich Youth Leadership. What tasks did the Stabsführer of the Reich Youth Leadership have? Please tell us briefly, so we may have an idea of what your jurisdiction was.
LAUTERBACHER: As the title of Stabsführer indicates, I was in the first place the chief of the staff of the Reich Youth Leadership. As such, I had the task of dealing with the general directives of the Reich Youth Leader, particularly those concerning the Hitler Youth offices and regions insofar as the Youth Leader did not do that himself. I had to co-ordinate the various departments of the Reich Youth Leadership and in particular to deal with matters of an organizational and personal nature.
Furthermore, in the years 1935 to 1939 I made a number of journeys abroad at Von Schirach’s request.
DR. SAUTER: Who was the deputy of the Reich Youth Leader when he could not act personally?
LAUTERBACHER: I was his deputy on occasions when he was prevented from acting personally.
DR. SAUTER: Then apparently you were the first man in the Reich Youth Leadership after Schirach?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Were your relations with Von Schirach purely official, or were you friends as well?
LAUTERBACHER: Our association was not limited only to official matters; we were also personal friends, and so our personal relationship was not interrupted by Schirach’s appointment in Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: Do you believe, Herr Lauterbacher—regarding this friendly relationship that you had with Von Schirach—that he concealed certain things from you; or are you of the conviction that so far as official matters were concerned he had no secrets from you?
LAUTERBACHER: I always have been, and still am today, convinced of the fact that Von Schirach made all his intentions and educational measures known to me.
DR. SAUTER: So he kept nothing from you?
LAUTERBACHER: No, he kept nothing from me. If Schirach had discussions with Adolf Hitler during the earlier years he always informed me immediately afterwards.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, in the year 1939 the second World War broke out. Did the Defendant Von Schirach, in the last few years prior to the outbreak of the World War, have any discussions with you in which he expressed the view that youth should be educated for war—in other words—that in educating youth the necessities and requirements of future war must be taken into account? What transpired on this point between you and Von Schirach before the war?
LAUTERBACHER: The possibility of war was never discussed. Occasionally I attended Party rallies in the company of Von Schirach; and on these occasions, when Adolf Hitler delivered a speech, I only—on the occasion of these rallies I had the definite and unalterable impression that Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Reich were determined to maintain peace and to allow matters to follow a peaceful course. That is why it never occurred to me that youth should be trained specifically for war.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, in your capacity as Stabsführer of the Reich Youth Leadership, did you have any knowledge about the mail as a whole which either came to Schirach or was dispatched by him?
LAUTERBACHER: I always saw all the official mail.
DR. SAUTER: In the mail which reached Schirach in his office, did you see anything about directives for the Reich Youth Leadership received from Hitler, from the Party leadership, from the OKW, or from any other agency, either State or Party, regarding the preparations for war?
LAUTERBACHER: No, neither open nor camouflaged.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we have already heard about the main functions of youth education in the course of the last few days. I do not believe, Mr. President, that I need go into these subjects in detail. The witness is the person best qualified to give us information, but I think I may take the subject of youth education as clarified.
THE PRESIDENT: I think so. I think the facts about it have been sufficiently stated.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you. Then I can pass on to another subject immediately.
[Turning to the witness.] You said that you had not been a soldier. Did not Schirach attach importance to the inclusion among his collaborators of a certain number of officers, or at least of men who had served their term of military service and who might be enrolled as instructors? Please be brief.
LAUTERBACHER: No, at first, that is, during the early years of the period of development, Von Schirach rejected officers as youth leaders on ideological and educational grounds. The aim and mission of the Hitler Youth were those of a socialist community and of a socialist state; and the old type of officer of the period, the representative of a reactionary epoch, would have been absolutely incompatible.
DR. SAUTER: Absolutely incompatible? Do you mean with the...
LAUTERBACHER: With the principles of education which Schirach had laid down for the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, have you any idea whether Schirach always rejected the proposal, or to put it the other way round, do you know whether he agreed when any military authorities tried to influence the character of the Youth Leadership? Perhaps you could also answer this point briefly.
LAUTERBACHER: Even in 1933 attempts were made to introduce officers into the Hitler Youth as leaders. As far as my information goes, two officers had been given appointments in the Hitler Youth before my period of office as Stabsführer, under more or less direct orders from Hitler. They were entirely unable to cope with youth as such; and I think I am justified in saying that their appearance was a complete failure.
DR. SAUTER: What happened to them?
LAUTERBACHER: Schirach went to Adolf Hitler and succeeded in having these gentlemen dismissed; also through him, a directive was drawn up by Hitler which said that officers were not to hold positions in the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Were no further attempts of the kind made to force officers from somewhere or other upon him?
LAUTERBACHER: Oh, yes. In 1936 and 1937, and then again in 1938, attempts were made to influence the education of the Hitler Youth through so-called liaison officers. But these attempts also failed; and up to the very end there were no officers working with the Hitler Youth who were responsible to any other authority except Schirach, apart from former Hitler Youth leaders who had served in the Army and received officers’ commissions.
DR. SAUTER: If I understand you correctly, Witness, you wish to say—and please confirm whether I have understood you correctly—that Schirach rejected these attempts. Is that correct?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, why did the Hitler Youth wear uniform—the girls as well?
LAUTERBACHER: Uniform is perhaps not quite the correct term for the clothing worn by the members of the Hitler Youth. It was more in the nature of a national costume which was worn by members of youth organizations before the existence of the Hitler Youth, not only in Germany but in other countries as well. Moreover, Schirach was anxious that all boys and girls should, as he expressed himself, wear the dress of the socialist community.
DR. SAUTER: Of the socialist community. Does that mean a community of all—of all the boys and girls of every class of German society without any distinction?
LAUTERBACHER: Without any distinction as to descent or creed or anything else.
DR. SAUTER: Or rich or poor?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Were the Hitler Youth in possession of weapons and were they trained in the use of military weapons? You must know that.
LAUTERBACHER: No, they were not trained in the use of military weapons during the period in which Schirach and I held office.
DR. SAUTER: Did the Hitler Youth have, in particular, tanks, armored cars, and so forth, since reference was made to the training of the young men in the so-called “motorized Hitler Youth” in connection with the question of the special unit (Sonderformation)—tanks, armored cars?
LAUTERBACHER: No, to my knowledge the Hitler Youth never received any training in armored cars, tanks, or anything of the kind, even after Schirach’s term of office. At any rate...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the facts stated by the defendant as to the weapons of the Hitler Youth and their formations were not cross-examined. You need not go into that. Mr. Dodd did not suggest that they had tanks.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Then I can perhaps be more brief.
I now come, Herr Lauterbacher, to the Defendant Von Schirach’s attitude toward the Jewish question. Was the Hitler Youth involved in any way in the Jewish pogroms of November 1938?
LAUTERBACHER: I think I can answer your question with a definite “no.”
DR. SAUTER: Herr Lauterbacher, you told me something about a speech made by the Defendant Von Schirach a few days after 9 November 1938, on the subject of these Jewish pogroms. Tell me when and to whom he delivered this speech and what the contents of the speech were.
LAUTERBACHER: Von Schirach was in Munich on 10 November 1938 and I was in Berlin. Schirach instructed me by telephone to tell the district leaders of the Hitler Youth that their organizations were in no circumstances to take part in these anti-Jewish demonstrations, and to call a meeting of all these leaders to hear a specific declaration on this point. This meeting took place about 15 November 1938.
DR. SAUTER: Where?
LAUTERBACHER: In Berlin. Schirach asked these district leaders to report to him and expressed his satisfaction at having in the meantime received reports to the effect that the Hitler Youth had not been involved in these excesses. He then described the said excesses in his speech. I still remember this speech extraordinarily well, for it was particularly impressive. He described these pogroms as a disgrace to our culture and as amounting to self-defamation. He said that such things might be expected of an uncivilized people but not of the German people. He went on to say that we had antagonized not only the world in general but also all decent people in Germany itself by these demonstrations. He was afraid that serious political difficulties would arise at home, as well as difficulties within the Party itself. As we know, the Party was not at all unanimous in its judgment of these happenings. A very large section of the Party members and of the Party leadership condemned these excesses.
DR. SAUTER: Please tell us more of what Schirach said at that time. I should be more interested in that.
LAUTERBACHER: Von Schirach then gave the Youth Leadership special instructions to keep out of demonstrations of this or a similar kind in the future, no matter what the circumstances might be, and condemned every use of violence on educational grounds alone. He concluded the proceedings by prohibiting the reading of the newspaper Der Stürmer by the Hitler Youth at club evenings or on any other occasions.
DR. SAUTER: On this occasion, Herr Lauterbacher, did he say anything about the needless destruction of so many cultural treasures, art treasures, property belonging to the people, et cetera, and did he not give certain instances of this?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. As an especially glaring instance, he quoted the case of the attempt, which was at least partially carried through, to loot the Jewish firm of Bernheimer, art dealers in Munich.
DR. SAUTER: Munich?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. He quoted this example to the Youth Leadership to illustrate the dangerous and irreparable inroads made on the reservoir of our culture and our cultural treasures by these demonstrations.
DR. SAUTER: Is it true that immediately after this Berlin speech about which you have just told us, the Defendant Von Schirach caused definite directives to be issued by telephone from Berlin, through your agency, to the individual Hitler Youth offices?
LAUTERBACHER: This took place as early as 10 November, the day after the Munich meeting. It had nothing to do with the district leaders’ meeting, which only took place about 15 November.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Lauterbacher, I assume that, as time went on, you were present at a good many speeches made by the Defendant Von Schirach to his subleaders, or to the Hitler Youth, and that you listened to many of these speeches yourself. Did the Defendant Von Schirach engage in Jew-baiting on these or other occasions? Did he suggest that violence be used against the Jews? What was his attitude?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes; I must have listened to all the important speeches delivered by Von Schirach before the Leadership Corps of the Hitler Youth, and on the occasion of these speeches I never heard him urge the use of violence, which would in any case have been completely foreign to his nature. At any rate, I cannot recall that Von Schirach ever called upon the Youth Leadership, either directly or indirectly, to take part in acts of violence of any kind against anyone.
DR. SAUTER: What did Schirach usually talk about in delivering one of his many speeches addressed to youth? Just the main topic, briefly.
LAUTERBACHER: One must certainly differentiate between the long speeches which he delivered at public demonstrations and the speeches which he made before the leaders of the Hitler Youth.
In the speeches he addressed to the leaders he always discussed the main political and ideological tasks and the tasks of social policy, cultural policy, and professional training which he had assigned to the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Now, we shall turn to a different topic, Herr Lauterbacher. Did Schirach cause you to leave the Church?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SAUTER: Did you leave the Church?
LAUTERBACHER: I do not believe that Herr Von Schirach even knew to what religious denomination I belonged or whether I left the Church or not. I left the Church in 1937 or 1938, without being influenced or forced to do so by anyone.
DR. SAUTER: Did Von Schirach urge his other collaborators to leave the Church, as far as you know?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SAUTER: Did Schirach abuse Christianity or incite others to attack it on the occasion of the numerous speeches made by him, to which you have just told us that you listened?
LAUTERBACHER: On those occasions Schirach always told the youth to respect religious convictions, and characterized atheism as an evil, not only once but many times. In his speeches, Von Schirach vigorously criticized, for instance, the athletic clubs existing both before and after 1933 in connection with the various churches and demanded the unity of youth; but on these occasions he did not attack Christianity or the religious convictions of others either in public or in private.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Lauterbacher, during the time the Defendant Von Schirach was Reich Youth Leader, negotiations were pending with the Roman Catholic Church with a view to concluding a concordat, so that relations between the State and the Church would be regulated by an agreement. Do you know whether Von Schirach took part in these concordat negotiations and whether he took much trouble to effect an understanding with the Church on a basis satisfactory to both sides?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. In 1933 and 1934 Schirach had numerous discussions with representatives of the Church, Reich Bishop Müller of the Protestant Church and the representative of the Fulda Conference of Bishops, Bishop Berning of Osnabrück. I remember that Schirach strove to draw a dividing line between their respective powers and jurisdiction on some such basis as: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s.”
DR. SAUTER: I have another question, Witness: Do you know whether Von Schirach actually tried to bring about an understanding between the Hitler Youth, of which he was the leader, and the youth of other countries, and can you tell us, for instance, what he did and what steps he took to that end?
LAUTERBACHER: The establishment of a cordial understanding between German youth and world youth generally was undoubtedly one of those tasks the importance of which Schirach constantly emphasized to his youth leaders, and I always had the impression that this task was, as I might almost say, his particular passion. I myself, on his orders—and perhaps I am a cardinal witness on precisely this point—visited the various European countries, from 1935 onwards, at least once a year and sometimes even two or three times a year, so that I could get in touch with existing youth organizations and with organizations of combatants of the first World War, in order to establish contact with them.
DR. SAUTER: Which countries?
LAUTERBACHER: It can truthfully be said that the Hitler Youth sought contacts with all the countries of Europe; and I myself, at the direct order of Von Schirach, visited England several times. There I met the leader of the British Boy Scouts and his colleague, but also...
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think those facts are in dispute. It is merely the inference that is to be drawn from the facts that the Prosecution will rely upon. Therefore it is not necessary for you to go into the facts again, as to the connection of the Hitler Youth with the foreign youth.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, Mr. President.
Witness, you have just heard that these facts are not in dispute. We can therefore turn to another topic. You were the Stabsführer of the Hitler Youth in the Reich Youth Leadership. Do you know whether the Leadership of the Hitler Youth maintained spies or agents abroad, or whether it trained people for the so-called Fifth Column—and I take it you know what that is—in other countries, or whether it brought young people over to be trained as parachutists in Germany and then sent them back to their own countries. During your whole period of office as Stabsführer, did you ever learn of anything like that?
LAUTERBACHER: The Hitler Youth did not have spies, agents, or parachutists to operate in any country in Europe. I would have been bound to learn of such a fact or such an arrangement in any circumstances.
DR. SAUTER: Even if Schirach had made such an arrangement behind your back, do you believe that you would have been bound to learn of it in any case through the channels of reports from district leaders and similar channels?
LAUTERBACHER: I would inevitably have learned of this or have observed it in these districts on some of my many official trips.
DR. SAUTER: Then, Witness, I should like to turn to another topic. The other day you told me about a certain discussion. After the Polish campaign—that would be, presumably, at the end of September or beginning of October 1939—and before the actual campaign in France you had a meeting with the Defendant Von Schirach in your residence in Berlin-Dahlem, on which occasion the Defendant Von Schirach voiced his attitude to the war. Will you describe this conversation briefly to the Court?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. Von Schirach came to see me at the end of September or beginning of October 1939. He visited me in the house which I occupied at the time in Berlin. The conversation very quickly turned to war, and Schirach said that, in his opinion, this war should have been prevented. He held the Foreign Minister of that time responsible for having given Hitler inadequate or false information. He regretted the fact that Hitler and the leading men of the State and the Party knew nothing about Europe and the world generally and had steered Germany into this war without having any idea of the consequences.
At that time he was of the opinion that if the war could not be brought to an end in the shortest possible time, we should lose it. In this connection he referred to the enormous war potential of the United States and England. He said—and I remember the expression very well—that this war was an unholy one and that if the German people were not to be plunged into disaster as a result of it, the Führer must be informed of the danger which would arise for Germany if America were to intervene, either through deliveries of goods or through actual entry into the war.
We considered at the time who could inform Hitler, who, in fact, could even obtain access to him. Schirach suggested trying in some way to introduce Colin Ross into Adolf Hitler’s presence. Colin Ross was to call Hitler’s attention to the threatening catastrophe and to inform Hitler of the facts. This was to be done outside the competency of the Foreign Minister and without the Foreign Minister being present. At that time Colin Ross was not yet in Germany. I remember that when he returned he was introduced into Hitler’s presence by way of Schirach.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, will you tell us more about the discussion which you mentioned as having taken place in 1939. I should like you to answer this question: How did he come to choose Dr. Colin Ross in particular? How did you happen to think of him?
LAUTERBACHER: I have already mentioned that the leaders of the National Socialist State and of the Party were almost totally lacking in knowledge of the world and foreign countries generally, and had consequently hit upon this man, who had seen so much of the world. Colin Ross had occasionally attended meetings of the Hitler Youth Leaders before 1939 and had addressed them...
DR. SAUTER: What about?
LAUTERBACHER: ...and thus he was known to Schirach and the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: What were the topics he discussed before the Hitler Youth?
LAUTERBACHER: Colin Ross spoke of his experiences in every continent.
DR. SAUTER: How did Colin Ross become known to the Hitler Youth? On this occasion did you also speak of whether an attempt should be made to find a solution of the Jewish problem, so that it would be easier to reach an understanding with other countries, and if so, on what basis?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. In the course of this conversation Schirach referred to the excesses of 9 November 1938 and to the speech he made immediately afterwards, and said that in the circumstances it would naturally be extremely difficult to start discussions with America; that we might have to try beforehand—if circumstances permitted—and he wished to suggest this to Hitler during an interview...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal does not think it is really sufficiently important to go into Schirach’s private discussions with this witness. If he can say anything as to what Schirach did, it may be different, but now the witness is simply reciting the discussions which he had with Schirach, nothing more than private discussion.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what steps did Schirach actually take towards peace, or to shorten the war, as a result of these discussions with you? Did he take any steps; and what were these steps?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, as he told me at a later discussion, Schirach made use of every opportunity at the beginning of the war to convince Hitler of the need for discussions with America, and with this purpose in view, he actually brought Colin Ross to Hitler, as he told me later. Colin Ross was with Hitler for several hours. When Colin Ross visited me at Hanover he told me about this discussion and on this occasion he said that Hitler was very thoughtful. He did say also, however, that a second discussion which had been planned with Hitler had not materialized, for, according to his version, the Foreign Office had protested against this kind of information.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal thinks that this witness is dealing in great detail with matters which are of very little importance and the Tribunal wishes you to bring his attention to something which is of real importance.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have in any case only one more question.
One last question, Witness. You have not been with Schirach since 1940. I believe you became a Gauleiter.
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Schirach went to Vienna. But in 1943 you again had a long talk with him, mainly about why Schirach did not resign from his post. My reason for putting this question to you is that one member of the Prosecution has already discussed the question today. Will you tell us briefly what reasons Schirach gave at the time for retaining his office or why he did not resign, and what his views on the war were in 1943—at that time, I mean?
LAUTERBACHER: In March 1943, when I made an unofficial visit to Vienna, a very long conversation took place between Von Schirach and myself. At that time, Von Schirach talked very pessimistically about the prospects of the war and told me that we should soon be fighting outside Vienna, in the Alps and along the Rhine. On that occasion he said that he had not been able to see Adolf Hitler for a very long time; that he had had no further opportunity of reporting to him, as had formerly been the case; and that the Chief of the Party Chancellery, Bormann, had consistently prevented him from seeing the Führer and talking to him alone; and that he therefore no longer had any opportunity whatsoever of discussing Viennese questions or general questions with Hitler. In this connection he also stated that Bormann came to him with objections and complaints every day, cancelling orders and directives he had issued in his capacity of Gauleiter in Vienna, and that in view of all this, it was no longer possible for him to remain in office and to shoulder the responsibility.
At a later stage of that conversation, in the course of which we considered all kinds of possibilities, he said that, as he had sworn an oath of allegiance to Hitler, he felt bound to remain in office whatever happened and that, above all, he could not take the responsibility in the present military situation for abandoning the population over which he had been appointed Gauleiter.
He saw the catastrophe coming but said that even his resignation or any action that he might take would not have any influence on the leaders of the State or on Hitler himself and that he would, therefore, remain true to his oath, as a soldier would, and retain his appointment.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, that concludes my examination of this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defense counsel want to ask him any questions?
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, were you Gauleiter in Hanover from 1940?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, from December 1940.
DR. SERVATIUS: You were also Plenipotentiary for Labor in that capacity?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were there many foreign laborers in your Gau?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, there were a great many foreign laborers in my district. This was mainly due to the Hermann Göring Works, which had been established near Brunswick.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have to look after them?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, my assignments as Plenipotentiary for Labor were confined to looking after foreign civilian workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you receive instructions from Sauckel on that point?
LAUTERBACHER: I, like all other Gauleiter of the NSDAP, constantly received instructions from Sauckel with regard to the recruitment of labor; that is to say, regarding the welfare of these civilian workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: What type of instructions were they?
LAUTERBACHER: The instructions which I received as Gauleiter consisted almost exclusively of repeated demands to do everything to satisfy the foreign workers in matters of accommodation, food, clothing, and cultural welfare.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was that carried out in practice?
LAUTERBACHER: It was naturally carried out within the limits of existing possibilities.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you inspect camps or factories where these workers were employed?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, I myself inspected such camps and especially such factories on my official trips. Apart from that I had, as my Gau supervisor of the German Labor Front, a man who assisted me in this task on such occasions.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you or your Gau supervisor discover the existence of shocking conditions?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes. After the air raids from which Hanover and Brunswick suffered particularly badly from 1943 onwards, I found conditions in foreign civilian labor camps—just as I did in the living quarters of German people—to be what I would call, perhaps not shocking, but certainly very serious; and after that I tried as far as possible to have these destroyed dwellings repaired, for instance, or to have new ones built.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you see any abuses for which these industrial enterprises of the supervisory agencies were directly responsible?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, I do remember two such cases.
Several firms in Hanover had formed a kind of industrial association—a kind of union—and had established a camp for their foreign civilian workers. The trustees of these firms were responsible for this camp. One day the Gau supervisor of the German Labor Front reported to me that living conditions did not comply with instructions received and asked my permission to intervene, that is to say, to be allowed to assume responsibility through the German Labor Front for that collective camp. I gave him this assignment; and sometime afterwards he reported that these difficulties had been overcome.
The Hermann Göring Works constitute another example of this kind. Since I am speaking under oath here, I must mention the fact that that firm disregarded Sauckel’s instructions in many respects. On one occasion they recruited workers independently, outside the jurisdiction of the labor administration through their branches in the Ukraine and other countries. These laborers came to Watenstedt, in the area supervised by the Executive Board of the Party, outside the quota fixed by the Plenipotentiary for Labor, and consequently outside of his jurisdiction.
I myself had very considerable difficulty in obtaining entry to the works and the camp. For although Gauleiter and Plenipotentiary, I was not by any means in a position simply to...
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. What has this got to do with the Defendant Sauckel?
DR. SERVATIUS: I asked him about any abuses which he had found, for as plenipotentiary for the recruitment of foreign workers it was his duty to ascertain where such bad conditions existed and to report them so that they would finally be brought to Sauckel’s notice. He has digressed rather widely and has just been describing the Hermann Göring Works.
THE PRESIDENT: You should stop him, Dr. Servatius. You know the question you were asking.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, did you discover the existence of abuses in the camp?
LAUTERBACHER: I was unable to enter the camp, because entry was forbidden.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did Sauckel himself address the workers in your Gau?
LAUTERBACHER: No, not during my period of office. But he frequently sent representatives.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have now got some questions to put on behalf of the political leaders whom I represent.
Did you receive special instructions from the Führer on your appointment as Gauleiter?
LAUTERBACHER: No. When I was appointed Gauleiter I was merely introduced by Herr Hess as Gauleiter, during an assembly of Gauleiter. But I received no special instructions on the occasion of that meeting, and during my...
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, the answer was “no” and you did not need to add to it at all.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you talk to the Führer later on? Did you receive special or secret instructions?
LAUTERBACHER: I only saw the Führer now and again at Gauleiter meetings and I never had any official discussions with him.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know anything about the activities of block leaders? In particular, I want to ask you: Were they used as spies?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: But there seems to be a widespread belief that in fact block leaders did act as spies and informers and that has been brought up by the Prosecution. Perhaps the SD used block leaders for that purpose?
LAUTERBACHER: The SD had its own agents who were not known to the Party. At any rate, the block leaders had no instructions to work for the SD.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was no card index kept of Party opponents?
LAUTERBACHER: Not in the Party organizations. As far as I know this card index was kept by the Secret Police, as was made known in connection with the plot of 20 July 1944.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the Party use agents for spying who may not have been block leaders but who worked for you in your capacity of Gauleiter?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
MR. DODD: When did you join the SS, Witness?
LAUTERBACHER: I was made an SS Brigadier General on 2 August 1940, on the occasion of my appointment as Deputy Gauleiter.
MR. DODD: I did not hear your answer as to when you first joined the SS. Would you repeat it, please?
LAUTERBACHER: On 2 August 1940.
MR. DODD: You had not belonged before that date to the organization at all?
LAUTERBACHER: I was not a member of the SS before that date; but I served in the Waffen-SS as a soldier, from 26 May 1940 to September 1940.
MR. DODD: And then you later became an SS Obergruppenführer, did you not?
LAUTERBACHER: On 20 April 1944.
MR. DODD: And when did you join the staff of Himmler?
LAUTERBACHER: I was never a member of Himmler’s staff.
MR. DODD: Did you not join it in January of 1944, or what would you say that you did join in the Reichsführer SS Organization? Perhaps I have used the wrong term “staff.” There is some other name for it. Were you not affiliated in some way with Himmler?
LAUTERBACHER: No, I never had any SS assignments.
MR. DODD: Did you have any connection with the Reichsführer SS from January 1944 on?
LAUTERBACHER: In October 1944 the Reichsführer SS had gone in his special train to Bad Pyrmont, on the occasion of a meeting of West German Gauleiter and Higher SS and Police Leaders. I had orders to be present at that function; and in the course of the meeting I had a talk with him.
MR. DODD: That is not what I asked; but I will pass it. Did you become an SA Obergruppenführer in 1944, as well as SS Obergruppenführer?
LAUTERBACHER: I became an SA Obergruppenführer, I think, in 1944 or 1943.
MR. DODD: You were also a member of the Reichstag in 1936, were you not?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
MR. DODD: And a member of the Party, I guess you said, since 1927; is that right?
LAUTERBACHER: Since 1927.
MR. DODD: And a member of the Hitler Youth, or NSDAP, since 1923?
LAUTERBACHER: I joined the Hitler Youth in 1927. The Hitler Youth was not established until 1927.
MR. DODD: Well, whenever it was, the youth organization of the Party, that is what I mean. How many people did you have hanged publicly while you were the Gauleiter up in Hanover?
LAUTERBACHER: I did not understand the question.
MR. DODD: I said: How many people did you have hanged publicly while you were the Gauleiter up in Hanover?
LAUTERBACHER: I never hanged anyone publicly.
MR. DODD: Are you sure about that?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
MR. DODD: How many people did you send to concentration camps?
LAUTERBACHER: I might have handed over 5 or 10 persons to ordinary courts for violating war economy regulations. And in one case which I remember particularly well, there were two people who refused...
MR. DODD: Well, I do not care about the details. Just tell me how many you sent.
LAUTERBACHER: There were two. I do not know if they were sent to concentration camps, because I myself could not intern them. The internment was decided in Berlin.
MR. DODD: Do you know a man by the name of Huck, H-u-c-k, Heinrich Huck?
LAUTERBACHER: Huck—no. At the moment I cannot remember that name.
MR. DODD: The police commissar under your Gau, or in your Gau?
LAUTERBACHER: No, I do not know him.
MR. DODD: I want to ask: Did you not have a foreign worker from one of the eastern countries hanged, publicly hanged in the market square, and to remain there a whole day, at one time, while you were the Gauleiter up there?
LAUTERBACHER: No. Where is that supposed to have happened?
MR. DODD: It is supposed to have happened in Hildesheim.
LAUTERBACHER: No.
MR. DODD: In March of 1945, just before the war ended.
LAUTERBACHER: No. That is unknown to me. I never gave any such instructions.
MR. DODD: Did you order 400 or 500 prisoners poisoned or shot just before the city was taken by an Allied army?
LAUTERBACHER: No, that was put to me in London, and I think I cleared up the matter.
MR. DODD: You know what I am talking about, then?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, the penitentiary at Hameln.
MR. DODD: You know that your Kreisleiter says that you ordered them poisoned with either prussic acid or strychnine, or else they were to be shot?
You know about that, do you not?
LAUTERBACHER: I was told about that in London.
MR. DODD: And not only does your Kreisleiter say that but Richard Rother, who was an inspector at the prison at Hameln, confirms that the order was passed on, that either they were to be poisoned or shot; do you know about that as well?
LAUTERBACHER: I never gave any such order.
MR. DODD: I am asking you if you know that these people associated with you have sworn under oath that you did. You have seen these affidavits, have you not?
LAUTERBACHER: I was told of it in London; but I was also told that the inmates of that penitentiary were neither poisoned nor shot, but sent back.
MR. DODD: Yes, they were, but not because of you, but because your people refused to carry out your orders, is not that so?
LAUTERBACHER: I know nothing about that, because I was no longer in Hameln and no longer a Gauleiter.
MR. DODD: You have seen these affidavits, so I do not think there is any need to hand them to you, but I am going to offer them in evidence.
LAUTERBACHER: I received the statement of the commissioned Kreisleiter, Dr. Krämer, in London, and I replied to it.
MR. DODD: Very well. You know what he says, then?
I offer this D-861 as Exhibit USA-874, Mr. President. It is a document consisting of 7 affidavits from persons associated with this witness when he was the Gauleiter, and having to do with his conduct while he was Gauleiter there.
THE PRESIDENT: How do you suggest that that evidence is relevant?
MR. DODD: I offer them in relation to this man’s credibility, or rather lack of it. I do not think that they have anything to do directly with the case, other than they show the kind of individual he is, as we claim, and that the Tribunal should have this information before it when it considers the weight it will give to his testimony.
I have also just been reminded by my friend, Mr. Elwyn Jones, that of course it would have a bearing on the issue of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, of which he is a member. That had not occurred to me, however. However, I do wish to claim it as a ground, also, for this document.
THE PRESIDENT: Where are the people who made these affidavits?
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I will have to inquire. I do not know. They are in custody, some of them at least, in the British zone here in Germany.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, you have just inquired where these people are who made these affidavits. Perhaps I can assist you in clarifying these questions. This Josef Krämer, whom the Prosecution have just quoted as the leading witness against the witness Lauterbacher, was sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment by an English court some 8 or 10 days ago, and this for the very reason which the prosecutor has just mentioned. Herr Lauterbacher knows nothing about this matter, but quite accidentally I read a report of this trial in a German newspaper and I have the report here. In that article, dated 2 May of this year, it is stated that the former Kreisleiter of Hameln, Dr. Josef Krämer, was sentenced by the court of the 5th British Division to 7 years’ imprisonment. I quote from that article:
“Upon the approach of the Allied troops Krämer had given the order to liquidate the inmates of the penitentiary at Hameln. ‘No dangerous prisoner and no foreigner is to be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy,’ was his order. ‘They must all be poisoned with prussic acid, or, if that is not possible, they will have to be shot.’”
That was the wording of the order given by ex-Kreisleiter Josef Krämer; and he is now being used as a witness against my witness here. The report goes on to say that officials at the penitentiary, who appeared as witnesses, stated that in spite of this order from Dr. Krämer they had refused to liquidate the prisoners. The rest is of no interest but I thought that perhaps it might be important for the Tribunal, when dealing with this question, to see from a document how this former Kreisleiter behaved in reality. If you are interested, Mr. President, the newspaper clipping, although it is in German, can be admitted to you at once.
MR. DODD: May I say, Mr. President, that perfectly substantiates the document; that is, Krämer says in here that is what he did, that he passed orders on but that he got them from this man. If anything, it supports us. It does not hurt us one whit insofar as the value of this document is concerned.
In looking them over, I think it is perhaps best if I only offer the first one and the last one. There are some others in this group that are not particularly helpful, I expect, for the Court. I shall withdraw all but the first and last and offer only the affidavit of Krämer and the affidavit of Huck.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, the Tribunal does not think that these documents ought to be admitted. In the first place, so far as the credit of the particular witness is concerned, they do not think that his answers on questions of credit ought to be challenged by other evidence. So far as the Leadership Corps is concerned, they think that these documents are only evidence of one individual crime.
MR. DODD: Very well, Mr. President.
Witness, I understood you to say that you never heard the Defendant Von Schirach say anything really derogatory of the Jewish people, and, on the contrary, you heard him speak out quite openly after the events of 9 November 1938. Did I understand you correctly?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, he criticized the atrocities in no uncertain terms at the meeting of Gauleiters. He had no doubt that...
MR. DODD: Do not go all through it again. I just wanted to be sure that I understood you correctly.
I suppose you read the Hitler Youth yearbook for the year 1938, as the Deputy to the Reich Leader.
LAUTERBACHER: At the moment I do not remember this book. If I could have a look at it?
MR. DODD: Of course I do not expect you to. I merely wanted to ascertain that you did read it. I suppose you always read your yearbook?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
MR. DODD: What, you did not read it?
LAUTERBACHER: I cannot remember, no.
MR. DODD: Well, would it not be customary for you to read the yearbook? Let us put it that way.
LAUTERBACHER: The yearbook was compiled by the Press Department and I had no influence on the details of the journalistic make-up of our newspapers, periodicals or yearbooks. I do not remember this book, at least as far as it concerns demands for anti-Semitic atrocities, or a policy of force.
MR. DODD: Well, I will show it to you in any event and call your attention to an article in the yearbook concerning the Jewish people. Do you know what I refer to? Where they were charged with having spilled the blood of millions of dead in history. That was put out, I assume, after the brave statements by the defendant in November of 1938, since it is for the whole year of 1938. You will find the article that I refer to on Page 192.
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
MR. DODD: Have you seen that article before?
LAUTERBACHER: No. That yearbook had no official character; it was a private enterprise on the part of the publishers.
MR. DODD: Now, just a minute. What do you mean, “it had no official character”? It was the yearbook of the Hitler Youth, was it not?
LAUTERBACHER: This yearbook was not officially edited by the Hitler Youth or by the Party. I never saw it until after it was published.
MR. DODD: It was published by the Central Publishing House of the NSDAP, was it not?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes, that is correct; I see that.
MR. DODD: It was called The Yearbook of the Hitler Youth, and you put it out for a good many years consecutively, did you not? I do not mean you personally, but I mean the Party and the Hitler Youth.
LAUTERBACHER: No. This yearbook was compiled and published every year by the gentleman mentioned there, or by others, as the case might be.
MR. DODD: I know that. I am simply trying to establish this, that this was the yearbook of the Hitler Youth and the only one that was put out, and it was put out each year. Now is that not so?
LAUTERBACHER: This book appeared every year, but I repeat again that it had no official character, nor do I believe that...
MR. DODD: Well, what would you say would give it an official character?
LAUTERBACHER: If it said here, “Published by the Reich Youth Leader’s Office,” it would have an official character.
MR. DODD: And the fact that it said, “Published by the Central Publishing House of the NSDAP” would not give it one, is that it?
LAUTERBACHER: Certainly not.
MR. DODD: You did not put out any other publications in the nature of a yearbook, did you, except this one?
LAUTERBACHER: A calendar was published every year.
MR. DODD: Well, I am certainly not talking about a calendar; I am talking about a report or a book.
LAUTERBACHER: No.
MR. DODD: And you are still telling this Tribunal that this was not the yearbook of the Hitler Youth and the only one that was published in Germany?
LAUTERBACHER: I repeat that this yearbook did not have any official character.
MR. DODD: Well, after having read that quotation, do you still think that Schirach, as leader of the Reich Youth, was not actively speaking about the Jews in a derogatory sort of way, or that talk of this kind was not going on under his leadership?
LAUTERBACHER: Von Schirach never left any doubt regarding his anti-Semitic attitude as long as he was Reich Youth Leader.
MR. DODD: Do you know the speech he made in 1942 when he took credit for deporting the Jews from Vienna? Are you familiar with that speech?
LAUTERBACHER: No, I do not know that speech. During that time I was in Hanover, and Schirach was in Vienna.
MR. DODD: Yes. He was a fellow Gauleiter at that time.
Did you ever get any SS reports on what was happening to the Jews in the East?
LAUTERBACHER: Never. I never had access to SS reports, SS circulars, or orders.
MR. DODD: Did you deport any Jews from your Gau?
LAUTERBACHER: When I came to the Gau in December 1940, the Jews had already emigrated.
MR. DODD: They were already out by the time you got there?
LAUTERBACHER: Yes.
MR. DODD: Did you ever hear of Gauleiters getting reports from Heydrich or from Himmler about what was happening to the Jews in the East? Did any of your fellow Gauleiter ever tell you that they got reports regularly, say by the month or by the week?
LAUTERBACHER: No. Himmler’s reports were no more accessible to the Gauleiter than they were to the honorary leaders of the SS. As Obergruppenführer of the SS I never received a report or an instruction from Himmler.
MR. DODD: Those Himmler reports were handled pretty carefully, were they not?
I am now asking you—as an SS Obergruppenführer I suppose you know something about it—were those reports handled very carefully, those Himmler and Heydrich reports?
LAUTERBACHER: As an SS Obergruppenführer I never received any of Himmler’s reports, and I know that Himmler sent all reports dealing with confidential or internal SS matters only to SS and Police, that is, SS leaders in the service of the SS, but never to the honorary leaders.
MR. DODD: Now, what I really asked you was whether or not the reports, when they were sent out, were very carefully handled. Do you know the answer to that?
LAUTERBACHER: I do not know. I do not know how these reports were handled.
MR. DODD: What was Heydrich’s reputation, so far as you were concerned, in 1942? Did you think very well of him or did you think very poorly of him before he was killed?
LAUTERBACHER: I only knew Heydrich from meeting him a few times in the Reich Youth Leader’s Office, and I had a good impression of him personally. I am forced to have a different opinion of him now; but only because I now know of his measures.
MR. DODD: What was he doing in the Reich Youth Leader’s Office the few times that you met him? What business did he have there?
LAUTERBACHER: He had intervened on his own initiative and through his own agencies in cases of homosexuality. Schirach forbade that and told him that these matters too were first of all subject to his own jurisdiction.
MR. DODD: You sat in on all of these conferences with Heydrich, no matter how many there were, did you not?
LAUTERBACHER: I participated in one conference on the question of homosexuality in the Hitler Youth.
MR. DODD: Tell us this: Did it appear to you, from what you saw and heard there, that Heydrich and Schirach were very friendly, or on a very friendly basis?
LAUTERBACHER: That conference did not take place with Von Schirach, but with one of the officials from the Reich Youth Leader’s Office who, as Chief of the Hitler Youth Legal Administration, conducted the discussion with Heydrich.
MR. DODD: Were you ever present when Heydrich talked to Von Schirach? Were you ever present?
LAUTERBACHER: No.
MR. DODD: Did Heydrich ever talk to you, or rather, did Von Schirach ever talk to you about Heydrich?
LAUTERBACHER: No, I cannot remember that.
MR. DODD: We have no further questions, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter?
DR. SAUTER: Thank you, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire.
DR. SAUTER: With the permission of the President, I shall now call my next witness, Gustav Hoepken.
[The witness Hoepken took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please?
GUSTAV DIETRICH HOEPKEN (Witness): Gustav Dietrich Hoepken.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this 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 witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Hoepken, I have already examined you on the case of Schirach when you were in prison?
HOEPKEN: Yes, you have already examined me.
DR. SAUTER: How old are you?
HOEPKEN: I am 36.
DR. SAUTER: What is your father’s occupation?
HOEPKEN: My father is a dock laborer.
DR. SAUTER: And yourself?
HOEPKEN: I was a newspaper boy, a dock laborer, a spare-time student, and sports instructor.
DR. SAUTER: Sports instructor. You are now in American hands, are you not?
HOEPKEN: Yes, I am a prisoner in American hands.
DR. SAUTER: Since when?
HOEPKEN: Since 19 May 1945.
DR. SAUTER: Has the Prosecution interrogated you on this matter?
HOEPKEN: Up to now the Prosecution has not interrogated me.
DR. SAUTER: When did you join the Hitler Youth?
HOEPKEN: I joined the Hitler Youth in 1933.
DR. SAUTER: You joined the Hitler Youth in 1933? How old were you at that time?
HOEPKEN: I was 23.
DR. SAUTER: And in what capacity did you join?
HOEPKEN: First as an ordinary member. In September 1933 I became an Unterbannführer in the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: Unterbannführer in 1933?
HOEPKEN: Yes, in September 1933.
DR. SAUTER: Was that a salaried position or an honorary appointment?
HOEPKEN: From 1933 to 1935 I worked as a sports instructor in the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: And in 1935?
HOEPKEN: In 1935 I joined the government offices at Potsdam as an expert on PT in schools.
DR. SAUTER: But that had nothing to do with the Hitler Youth, had it?
HOEPKEN: At Potsdam I also commanded the Potsdam unit and local headquarters of the Hitler Youth.
DR. SAUTER: So you were a civil servant—or rather, an employee of the State and apart from that an honorary leader of the Hitler Youth?
HOEPKEN: From 1935 until 1939 I was a civil servant in the government offices at Potsdam and I also commanded the Hitler Youth unit and local headquarters at Potsdam in an honorary capacity.
DR. SAUTER: Therefore in the summer of 1939 you joined the Reich Youth Leadership, did you?
HOEPKEN: In June 1939 I joined the Reich Youth Leadership and became adjutant to Baldur von Schirach who was Reich Youth Leader at the time.
DR. SAUTER: And how long did you hold that office?
HOEPKEN: Until August 1939, and then I became a soldier.
DR. SAUTER: Before you joined Schirach’s staff, had you not served in the Armed Forces?
HOEPKEN: Up to joining Schirach in 1939 I had done 8 weeks’ obligatory training in the Air Force.
DR. SAUTER: Apart from that, you had no training?
HOEPKEN: Apart from that I had no military training.
DR. SAUTER: Were you an officer?
HOEPKEN: I had not been an officer up to that time.
DR. SAUTER: So far as his other collaborators were concerned, did Schirach attach importance to their being officers or trained soldiers?
HOEPKEN: So far as I know, Von Schirach did not care whether his collaborators were soldiers or officers, on the contrary, it was his view, as he told me repeatedly, that soldiers and officers, as far as he could see, were less suitable as youth leaders.
DR. SAUTER: I do not want to go into the general question of the training of the Hitler Youth, but I wish to ask you one single question on this point, especially because you are a sports instructor by profession. It is a question about the training of the Hitler Youth in shooting. Were they trained with military weapons, or how were they trained in firing?
HOEPKEN: The Hitler Youth were trained in shooting with air guns or small arms. They did not shoot with military weapons.
DR. SAUTER: In that case I will not put any further questions to you on the subject of uniform as these questions have already been clarified. But there is one other thing in which I am interested and that is the relationship to the Church: Do you know, Witness, whether the Defendant Von Schirach in 1937, that is in the issue of the Berlin paper, the Berliner Tageblatt of 14 January 1937, published an article written by his press adviser Günther Kaufmann, headed “Can the Gap be Bridged”? That article, a copy of which I have before me, deals with a problem in which I am interested, and that is why I want to ask you: Do you know what Schirach made his press adviser write in that article on the question of whether the Hitler Youth leaders should consider the young people’s need for church services or not?
HOEPKEN: I know the article.
DR. SAUTER: You know it?
HOEPKEN: I also know the order issued by the Reich Youth Leader of that time stating that on Sundays there should be no Hitler Youth duty for all those boys and girls who wanted to attend church. Every boy and girl in the Hitler Youth at that time was supposed to be able to attend religious services of his or her own free will; and it was made part of the duty of the Hitler Youth leaders at the time to refrain from entering into any arguments or controversies about the Hitler Youth and the Church. He prohibited that.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, that is the main point of that article of 14 January 1937. But you know that the Defendant Schirach had certain difficulties with Hitler because of this article. Will you tell us briefly what you know about it?
HOEPKEN: As soon as the agreement between the Church and the Hitler Youth was made, the article mentioned appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. On the day that article appeared, Schirach was at a meeting in Rosenberg’s office. Hitler called Schirach to the telephone at that time. Hitler took Schirach sternly to task, firstly, for making an agreement between the Church and the Hitler Youth and, secondly, for publishing this article. His intention was to cancel the agreement and to ban any further issue of the newspapers. Neither of these things happened.
DR. SAUTER: Did Schirach refuse to withdraw the article?
HOEPKEN: So far as I know he did.
DR. SAUTER: In 1940 you went to Vienna with Schirach?
HOEPKEN: No, I did not.
DR. SAUTER: When did you go?
HOEPKEN: I went to Vienna for the first time in September 1941.
DR. SAUTER: Where had you been in the meantime?
HOEPKEN: I have already told you that I joined the Luftwaffe in August 1939 and served during that time as a service flying instructor in a Luftwaffe training school.
DR. SAUTER: And you did not rejoin Schirach until 1941, and then in Vienna?
HOEPKEN: Yes; I joined Schirach in Vienna in September 1941.
DR. SAUTER: The highest dignitary of the Catholic Church in Vienna is Cardinal Innitzer, right?
HOEPKEN: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know what Von Schirach’s attitude to Cardinal Innitzer was? I will tell you at once why I am asking you this question; I want to know if it is true that Schirach objected to Cardinal Innitzer’s being molested by the Hitler Youth, and what steps he took, et cetera.
HOEPKEN: Schirach told me repeatedly that he would like to have a talk with Cardinal Innitzer, but that he was not allowed to do so, firstly, because of a decree issued by the former head of the Party Chancellery, Martin Bormann, prohibiting the Gauleiter from contacting Church dignitaries and, secondly, because Schirach knew that he himself was under surveillance.
DR. SAUTER: Who, Schirach?
HOEPKEN: That Schirach was under surveillance and thought that if he forced such a discussion, Bormann would be certain to know of it on the next day, which would have had most unpleasant consequences both for Schirach and Cardinal Innitzer. On the other hand, it was Schirach’s view that Cardinal Innitzer also would certainly have liked to have a talk with Schirach and Schirach thought that certainly would not have been the case if Cardinal Innitzer had not known of his tolerant attitude toward the Church and the Christian religion. It is furthermore known to me—and I think this happened in the winter of 1944 to 1945—that Cardinal Innitzer was molested by youthful civilians while returning from mass. Cardinal Innitzer had the police find out the names of these youngsters, and they turned out to be Hitler Youth leaders. Schirach ordered the competent district leader of the Hitler Youth to him the same day, took him severely to task, and demanded that the youth leaders in question be relieved of their duties at once. As far as I know, this was actually done. I believe I also remember that Schirach had a letter of apology sent to Cardinal Innitzer, either personally or through one of his officials.
THE PRESIDENT: I think we had better break off now.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 28 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]
ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH DAY Tuesday, 28 May 1946
Morning Session
MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the report is made that Defendant Göring is absent.
THE PRESIDENT: We were going to deal with Defendant Bormann’s documents, were we not?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, two witnesses only have arrived so far for the Defendant Sauckel. Three essential witnesses are still missing. Perhaps the Court can help to bring these witnesses quickly so that the case will not be delayed. They are the witnesses Stothfang, Dr. Jäger, and Hildebrandt. I have repeatedly asked the Prosecution to get them but they are not here yet. I have not yet spoken to the witnesses.
THE PRESIDENT: Have they been located?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. One is in a camp in Kassel, which is only a few hours from here, and the other is in Neumünster. That is a little farther, perhaps 6 or 7 hours from here. Dr. Jäger is free.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not in accordance with the information which the Tribunal has. The Tribunal has the information that they cannot be found.
DR. SERVATIUS: I received the information that their whereabouts has been ascertained.
THE PRESIDENT: From whom did you receive that information?
DR. SERVATIUS: Officially, from the General Secretary.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will make inquiries into it.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, first, with regard to the witnesses applied for for the Defendant Bormann. They are, as I understand it, Fräulein Krüger, to whom we have no objection. The witness Müller is no longer applied for?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, I have dispensed with that witness.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then, Klopfer, and lastly, Friedrich. These are with regard to Bormann’s law-making activities, and the Prosecution have no objections.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Lordship, in place of the witness Müller, whom I have withdrawn, I have an additional request for the witness Gerta Christian on the same subject for which I had requested the witness Müller.
THE PRESIDENT: The first witness, Miss Krüger, is going to speak to exactly the same facts, is she not, to the death of Bormann?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, Your Lordship. The circumstances concerning Bormann’s death are not very clear. It is very necessary to hear all the available witnesses on this subject because only in this way can one be convinced of the fact, which I am trying to establish, that the Defendant Bormann is already dead.
THE PRESIDENT: It does not seem to be a very relevant fact. It is very remotely relevant whether he is dead or whether he is alive. The question is whether he is guilty or innocent.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Lordship, my point of view is that sentence cannot be passed against a dead man. That is not provided for in the Charter. According to the Charter, the Court can only sentence an absent person, but a dead person cannot be included under the term “absent.” If the defendant is dead, the Charter does not provide the possibility of continuing proceedings against him.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, have you any objection to that other witness?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, My Lord, the Prosecution does not make any objections.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, My Lord, with regard to the documents, the first batch of documents is a series of treaties and diplomatic pronouncements and documents to counteract the statement of Sir Hartley Shawcross as to the position of international law before the Charter, the statement that the law of nations had constituted aggressive war an international crime before this Tribunal was established and this Charter became part of the public law of the world. The position of the Prosecution is that evidence on that point is really irrelevant because after all, the Tribunal is covered by the Charter, and it seems unnecessary to translate and publish, by way of document books, all these matters which the learned counsel has set out in his application. That is, shortly, the position of the Prosecution with regard to that first batch of documents. Especially, I do not want to discuss the problem for the reason that I have given.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. What are the numbers of them?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: They are 1 to 11—no, 7, in the application.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Are they long documents?
DR. BERGOLD: Your Lordship, I have not seen them yet. I applied for these documents 3 months ago in order to look them over, but unfortunately I have not received them yet and therefore I cannot give the Court any information as to whether they are long or not and what parts of them I will need for my defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Number 2 looks like a long document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord.
DR. BERGOLD: But I will not use all these documents if I receive them. I shall probably take some of them, Your Lordship; I shall only...
THE PRESIDENT: When you say you applied for them 3 months ago, you do not mean you applied to the Tribunal, do you?
DR. BERGOLD: I applied to the General Secretary, but perhaps it was put aside when Your Lordship decided that my case should be postponed to the end. Perhaps it was forgotten.
THE PRESIDENT: Was there any order on your application?
DR. BERGOLD: No.
THE PRESIDENT: You applied, I think, for an adjournment, did you not, in order that the matter might be brought up later?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, Your Lordship; I am in an especially difficult situation. I have questioned many witnesses and have tried very hard, but I can find nothing exonerating. All the witnesses are filled with great hatred toward the Defendant Bormann, and they want to incriminate him in order to exonerate themselves. That makes my case especially difficult. The man himself is probably dead and can give me no information. Any day now I might get new information. For example, a few days ago one of Bormann’s co-workers, a Dr. Von Hummeln, was arrested in Salzburg. I will go to see him and perhaps I shall get fresh information—perhaps none. I must also assume...
THE PRESIDENT: We need not bother about that now. We are only inquiring about your application with reference to the documents.
Sir David, have you anything further you want to say about the documents?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No, that is my short point. I do not want to discuss the merits of my points because that is the issue, that I am saying is irrelevant.
THE PRESIDENT: What about Number 11?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am not disposed to object to any of the other documents, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any others besides...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Number 11—I can see a possible argument on that, My Lord; therefore I am not going to object to it. The other documents we certainly have no objection to; the ordinances of the Führer’s Deputy and...
THE PRESIDENT: All under “B”?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes. The Prosecution makes no objection to these.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Now, what do you say to Sir David’s objection to these documents, 1 to 7?
DR. BERGOLD: Well, Your Lordship, I have already made my point of view clear in my application. In order to save the time of the Court, I will merely refer to this written application. I will not say any more at the moment on the subject, but if Your Lordship wants me to explain it here now I am ready to do so.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the matter.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Did Your Lordship wish to deal with the other outstanding applications or would Your Lordship prefer to deal with that later on at the end of the case of Von Schirach?
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think we have the papers here. We were only going to deal with Bormann this morning.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Lordship pleases.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, we have got a document here, D-880, said to be extracts from testimony of Admiral Raeder, taken at Nuremberg on 10 November 1945 by Major John Monigan. Have you offered that document in evidence or not?
MR. DODD: May I have just a minute to check it? I am not certain.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we will give you the document.
MR. DODD: I believe not, Mr. President; I do not believe it has been offered in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to have been handed up yesterday or the day before...
MR. DODD: I think through a mistake.
THE PRESIDENT: ...or last week. Yes. But you will find out about that and let us know.
MR. DODD: Very well, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, you were still examining Gustav Hoepken, were you not?
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I shall continue my examination of the witness Hoepken.
[The witness Hoepken resumed the stand.]
DR. SAUTER: Herr Hoepken, we stopped yesterday when discussing the question whether the Defendant Von Schirach during his time in Vienna was opposed to the Church or was tolerant in this connection. The last answer you gave me yesterday referred to the relations of the Defendant Von Schirach to the Viennese Cardinal, Innitzer. Is it correct, Witness, that at the suggestion and with the knowledge of the Defendant Von Schirach during his time in Vienna you periodically had talks with a Catholic priest there, a Dean, Professor Ens, for the purpose of discussing Church questions with him and removing any differences which might arise?
HOEPKEN: Yes, that is true. Professor Ens was not, as you assume, Catholic, but Protestant. He was Dean of the faculty of theology of the University of Vienna. When he visited me he submitted many Church and religious questions to me. I discussed them with him. He then asked me to report on them to Herr Von Schirach so that, if it were in his power, he could make redress. This was done as far as possible.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know, Witness, that the Defendant Von Schirach, for example, ordered that at the Party Christmas celebrations new National Socialist Christmas songs were not to be sung, but the old Christian Christmas hymns?
HOEPKEN: Yes, I know that at the Christmas celebrations of the Party and of the Hitler Youth, and the Christmas celebration for wounded soldiers, the old Christian Christmas carols, such as “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen,” and “Silent Night, Holy Night...”
THE PRESIDENT: This is surely not a matter which is worthy to be given in evidence.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, do you know that the Defendant Von Schirach, in the official magazine of the Hitler Youth, had a special number published which was in favor of humane treatment of the people of the Eastern Territories, and when was that?
HOEPKEN: I know that it was the quarterly number for April to June 1943.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know that in the same official magazine of the Hitler Youth, at the request of the Defendant Bormann, a special anti-Semitic number was to appear, but that Von Schirach refused it?
HOEPKEN: I know that it was requested at that time by the Propaganda Ministry and also by the Party Chancellery. Von Schirach refused each time.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, do you know that Von Schirach once inspected a concentration camp?
HOEPKEN: Yes, I know that.
DR. SAUTER: Which one?
HOEPKEN: The concentration camp Mauthausen.
DR. SAUTER: In regard to this point, which has already been more or less cleared up by the testimony of other witnesses, I am interested only in one question. When was this visit to Mauthausen?
HOEPKEN: I cannot say exactly. I can say with certainty, however, that it was not after April 1943.
DR. SAUTER: Why can you say that?
HOEPKEN: In April 1943 I was discharged from hospital and began my service in Vienna. From that day on until April 1945 I knew every day where Von Schirach was. Moreover, immediately after my arrival in Vienna in April 1943, when I asked him, as I was rather run-down physically because of my wound and was also a sports teacher, whether I might do some sports between 7 and 8 in the morning...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, we do not want to know about the witness’ health, do we?
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you heard what the President just said. I have already told you I am interested in when this visit to Mauthausen was. You said, if I understood you correctly...
THE PRESIDENT: He said he could not say when it was and it was after April 1943. He said he could not say when it was.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I believe you misunderstood the witness. Witness, please pay attention as to whether this is correct. I understood the witness to say that it was before April 1943. The visit must have been before April 1943. It could not have been later.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, he also said, according to the conversation I heard and took down, that he could not say when the particular time was.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, but through the testimony of the witness I should like to settle the fact that it was not later than April 1943.
THE PRESIDENT: He said that already. He said it. He said, “I cannot say when it was, but it was not after April 1943.” He said: “In April 1943 I was discharged from the hospital and began my service in Vienna. I knew every day where Schirach was.” I have got that all written down.
DR. SAUTER: Very well. Witness, in this conversation about his visit to Mauthausen did the Defendant Von Schirach tell you anything to the effect that on this visit he got to hear of any atrocities, ill-treatment, and such things?
HOEPKEN: No, he said nothing about that.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I now turn to the question of the deportation of Jews from Vienna. As far as I know you were an ear-witness of a conversation between the Reichsführer SS Himmler and the Defendant Schirach. Will you tell us what was said in this conversation on the question of the deportation of Jews?
HOEPKEN: I believe it was in November 1941; Himmler and Schirach were motoring through East Prussia from Himmler’s quarters to his special train. In the car Himmler asked Von Schirach: “Tell me, Von Schirach, how many Jews are still in Vienna?” Von Schirach answered, “I cannot say exactly. I estimate 40,000 to 50,000.” And Himmler said: “I must evacuate these Jews as quickly as possible from Vienna.” And Schirach said: “The Jews do not give me any trouble, especially as they are now wearing the yellow star.” Then Himmler said: “The Führer is already angry that Vienna, in this matter as in many others, is made an exception, and I will have to instruct my SS agencies to carry this out as speedily as possible.” That is what I remember of this conversation.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know anything about the anti-Semitic speech made by the Defendant Von Schirach in September 1942 at a Congress in Vienna, which the Prosecution submitted to the Court?
HOEPKEN: Yes, the contents of the speech are known to us.
DR. SAUTER: I want to know whether you know anything about it, especially whether Schirach said anything to you about why he made this anti-Semitic speech?
HOEPKEN: I know from the press officer Günther Kaufmann, who was mentioned yesterday, that directly after this speech Von Schirach instructed Kaufmann that every point in the speech should be telephoned to the DNB (Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro) in Berlin, with the remark that he had every reason to make a concession to Bormann on this point.
DR. SAUTER: Why a concession?
HOEPKEN: I assume that Schirach knew that his position in Vienna was precarious, and that he constantly heard, especially from the Party Chancellery, that he must take a stricter course in Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: You were Chief of the Central Bureau with Schirach in Vienna. In this capacity, did all Schirach’s incoming mail go through you?
HOEPKEN: Not all of his mail, but the great majority of it. Mail stamped “only direct” and “personal” did not go through my hands.
DR. SAUTER: But the other mail?
HOEPKEN: That went through my office.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, we have here a number of documents which have been submitted to the Court. They are the activity and situation reports which the Chief of the Security Police made, I believe, monthly or weekly and which have been submitted to the Court under Number 3943-PS. These reports came from Vienna, and since you know the situation in the Central Bureau in Vienna and are well-informed about its activity, I will now hand you several of these documents. Please look at the documents and then tell us whether from these documents, which are photostat copies, you can determine whether these reports of the SS came to you or to the Defendant Von Schirach, or whether they went to a different office. I call your special attention to the manner in which these documents are annotated. Please note on the individual documents who initialed the document and what was done with the document after that. And then please tell us who these officials are who figure in the documents as officials of the Reich Defense Commission; for instance, a Dr. Fischer, et cetera.
Those are the documents, Mr. President, about which the Court asked questions the other day.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know they are, but I do not know what the question is exactly. It seems to me there are a great number of questions. Well, let us get on, Dr. Sauter. We shall have to consider these documents, you know, and the witness ought to be able to give his answer.
DR. SAUTER: Yes, Mr. President. Of course, the witness has to look at the documents first. He must especially note which officials initialed the documents and what the officials did with them. That is what I must ask the witness, in order to ascertain what the documents...
THE PRESIDENT: I should have thought that he had seen these documents before.
DR. SAUTER: No; they were just handed over in cross-examination. I could not discuss them previously with the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: They were certainly handed over before this morning.
DR. SAUTER: Not to the witness—to me, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, get on, Dr. Sauter, get on.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what do these documents tell you? Did they come to the knowledge of the Defendant Von Schirach, or how were they dealt with?
HOEPKEN: These documents did not go through the Central Bureau. I see here that they are initialed by a Dr. Felber. I know him. He was the expert assigned to the Regierungspräsident in Vienna for all matters concerning the Reich Defense Commissioner.
From the treatment given these documents, I must assume that the Berlin SD agency sent them directly to the office of the Regierungspräsident, and from there they were entered into the files, as I see here. I do not see Von Schirach’s initials here.
DR. SAUTER: The Regierungspräsident was a certain Dellbrügge?
HOEPKEN: Dr. Dellbrügge.
DR. SAUTER: And this Dr. Felber whom you mentioned was an official of the Regierungspräsident?
HOEPKEN: Yes, an official of the Regierungspräsident.
DR. SAUTER: And when such a document as you have there arrived, where did the post office or any other agency deliver it? Was it delivered to you or did the Regierungspräsident have his own office for incoming mail, or how was it?
HOEPKEN: I already said that they must have been sent directly to the office of the Regierungspräsident, who had his own office for incoming mail.
DR. SAUTER: How can you tell that the Defendant Von Schirach had no knowledge of these documents?
HOEPKEN: Because he did not initial these documents. If documents were submitted to him, they were initialed “z.K.g.”—noted—“B.v.S.,” and that does not appear on these documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, I do not think the Prosecution suggested that they were initialed by Von Schirach. It was quite clearly brought out in Von Schirach’s evidence that he had not initialed them, and that fact was not challenged by Mr. Dodd.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I believe it is a decisive point whether Defendant Von Schirach had any knowledge of these documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Why do you keep asking whether they were initialed by him or not? That fact, as I have pointed out, has already been proved and not challenged.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I have here an additional collection of documents under Number 3876-PS. They are additional reports from the Chief of the Security Police. There is another address on these. It says here, among other things: “To the Reich Defense Commissioner for the Defense District XVII”—that was Vienna—“for the attention of Oberregierungsrat Dr. Fischer in Vienna.”
I am interested in knowing who Dr. Fischer was. Was he in the Central Bureau, or who was he?
HOEPKEN: I do not know a Dr. Fischer either in the Central Bureau or in the Reichsstatthalterei.
DR. SAUTER: Then how do you explain the fact that in these reports it always says, “To the Reich Defense Commissioner for the Defense District XVII, for the attention of Oberregierungsrat Dr. Fischer?”
HOEPKEN: I assume he was a colleague of Oberregierungsrat Dr. Felber, who specialized in these matters. Also I see they were secret letters, and were therefore addressed to him personally.
DR. SAUTER: As far as you know, did not the Regierungspräsident Dellbrügge report to the Defendant Von Schirach on these reports which reached him, or have one of his officials report about them?
HOEPKEN: The Regierungspräsident reported directly to Herr Von Schirach about matters concerning the Reich Governor and the Reich Defense Commissioner. I was not present at these conversations; consequently I cannot say to what extent he reported to Von Schirach on these matters.
DR. SAUTER: If the Regierungspräsident or one of his officials reported to the Defendant Von Schirach on these reports, would that be shown in the documents?
HOEPKEN: Probably yes. In that case the Regierungspräsident or the officials would have had to write on them “To be filed after being reported to the Reich Governor,” or “for further action.”
DR. SAUTER: On the documents which I submitted to you there is no such indication?
HOEPKEN: On these documents, no.
DR. SAUTER: And on the documents which I have here, there is no such note either. Do you conclude from this that the Defendant Von Schirach received no report on them?
HOEPKEN: I must conclude that Von Schirach was not informed on these matters.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the Defendant Von Schirach was chief of the state administration in Vienna in his capacity as Reich Governor, as well as chief of the local administration to a certain extent as mayor, and finally chief of the Party as Gauleiter. Now, we hear that in each of these capacities he had a permanent representative.
I should like to know who normally administered the affairs of the Reich Defense Commissioner and the Reich Governor; that is, the affairs of the state administration?
HOEPKEN: I have already said that it was the Regierungspräsident, Dr. Dellbrügge.
DR. SAUTER: And then what did the Defendant Von Schirach do in the field of state administration?
HOEPKEN: He was given regular reports by the Regierungspräsident. Von Schirach then made his decision, and these decisions were then carried out by the officials or departments.
DR. SAUTER: If I understand you correctly, the Defendant Von Schirach concerned himself only with such matters as were reported to him by the Regierungspräsident or which were brought to his special attention in writing; is that true?
HOEPKEN: Yes, that is true.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, were you yourself a member of the SS?
HOEPKEN: No, I was never a member of the SS.
DR. SAUTER: Of the SA?
HOEPKEN: No.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know that these three permanent representatives, whom the Defendant Von Schirach had in Vienna, namely the Regierungspräsident, the Deputy Gauleiter, and the Mayor, were all three SS Führer?
HOEPKEN: Yes, I know that.
DR. SAUTER: How was that? Did the Defendant Von Schirach select these men himself, or how do you explain the fact that all three of his representatives were SS Führer?
HOEPKEN: The Deputy Gauleiter, Scharizer, was an honorary SS Führer and, as far as I recall, he was Oberbefehlsleiter of the Party. When Von Schirach came to Vienna, Scharizer had already been active for several years in Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: As what?
HOEPKEN: As Deputy Gauleiter. I do not know when the Regierungspräsident, Dr. Dellbrügge, came to Vienna; but I assume either before or at about the same time as Von Schirach. Moreover, the Regierungspräsidenten were appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, so that I think he could hardly have had sufficient influence to refuse or select a particular Regierungspräsident.
As for the mayor, the situation was similar.
DR. SAUTER: He was a certain Blaschke?
HOEPKEN: Yes. He was SS Brigadeführer Blaschke, he was also appointed by the Ministry of the Interior as acting mayor.
DR. SAUTER: By the Ministry of the Interior?
HOEPKEN: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: When was that?
HOEPKEN: I believe that was in 1944, in January or February of 1944.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know that this SS Brigadeführer, or whatever he was, this Blaschke, before the time of the Defendant Von Schirach, was active in Vienna as a town councillor, and I believe also as vice mayor?
HOEPKEN: He was a town councillor before; and I believe he was vice mayor before I came to Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know that the Defendant Von Schirach for a long time opposed this SS Oberführer or Brigadeführer Blaschke being appointed mayor of Vienna?
HOEPKEN: I should say he opposed this for about 6 or 9 months, and I believe later he refused to allow the Minister of the Interior finally to confirm his appointment as mayor.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, what were the relations between the Defendant Von Schirach and the SS and the SS officers? Were they especially friendly and cordial or what were they like?
HOEPKEN: As far as I know, Schirach associated with the SS Führer as far as was officially necessary and no more.
DR. SAUTER: Was he friendly with SS men?
HOEPKEN: No; I do not know. In any case I knew of no such friendship.
DR. SAUTER: Did he not express to you his attitude toward the SS?
HOEPKEN: I have already said that he always had the feeling that he was under a certain supervision from them and for that reason he was rather distrustful.
DR. SAUTER: Distrustful of...
HOEPKEN: Of the SS.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, do you know how the Defendant Von Schirach received his information about the foreign press and foreign press reports?
HOEPKEN: He received them from the Reich Propaganda Office in Vienna. They were excerpts which the Propaganda Ministry issued in collaboration with the Reich Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich. As far as I know, however, they were selected and screened.
DR. SAUTER: Did you live for a long time with Von Schirach in Vienna?
HOEPKEN: From 1944 on I lived in Schirach’s house.
DR. SAUTER: You also took your meals with him?
HOEPKEN: Yes, I also took meals with him.
DR. SAUTER: Did not the Defendant Von Schirach obtain information from the foreign radio?
HOEPKEN: No, I am almost certain he did not, because after every meal he listened to the official German news services with me and a few other co-workers. Besides, if he had done so it would in my opinion have become known very soon for, as I said already, he had the feeling that he was being watched.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the witness can only tell us what he knows. How could he know whether Von Schirach ever listened to any foreign news? If he does not know, why do you not take him on to something else?
DR. SAUTER: The witness said, Mr. President, that during the latter part of his time in Vienna, from the spring of 1944 I believe he said, he lived in the house of the Defendant Von Schirach.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know he said that, and he said that he did not think he heard foreign news. What more can he give? What more evidence can he give on that subject?
DR. SAUTER: I wanted to hear that, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: But he said it already. I have taken it down. Why do you not go on to something else?
DR. SAUTER: Witness, do you know that in the last weeks of the resistance an order came to Vienna from Berlin according to which all defeatists, whether men or women, were to be hanged? What attitude did Schirach take toward this order?
HOEPKEN: I know that so-called courts martial were to be set up with the purpose of speedily sentencing people who objected to the conduct of the war or who showed themselves to be defeatists. This court martial was set up in Vienna, or rather appointed, but it did not meet once, and thus did not pronounce any sentences.
DR. SAUTER: Did the court martial of the Defendant Von Schirach carry on any proceedings at all?
HOEPKEN: No, not to my knowledge.
DR. SAUTER: Do you know anything about it?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, that fact, again, was given in evidence by Von Schirach and was not cross-examined to—that that court martial did not meet.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, do you know anything about the fact that in the last weeks an order came to form franc-tireur units? What was Von Schirach’s attitude to that?
HOEPKEN: I do not know that franc-tireur units were to be formed, but I do know that a “Freikorps Hitler” was to be formed. They were to be in civilian clothes. Schirach ordered that no people from the Reichsgau Vienna were to be assigned to this “Freikorps.”
DR. SAUTER: Why not?
HOEPKEN: Because at that time he considered resistance senseless. Secondly, because he considered it contrary to international law.
DR. SAUTER: My last question to you, Witness. You were with Schirach to the last, until he left Vienna?
HOEPKEN: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Did Schirach give an order to destroy bridges or churches, residential quarters, and so forth, in Vienna?
HOEPKEN: No, I do not know of that.
DR. SAUTER: What was the position he took?
HOEPKEN: That orders to blow up bridges or to take any defense measures were given only by the military authorities, as far as I know.
DR. SAUTER: But not by Schirach?
HOEPKEN: No.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no more questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defendant’s counsel want to ask questions? The Prosecution?
MR. DODD: Witness, would you see all of the files that were in Von Schirach’s office during the time that you were his adjutant?
HOEPKEN: I have already told you, or I told the defense counsel, that most of the mail went through the Central Bureau.
MR. DODD: I want to show you a document that is in evidence here and ask you if you can tell us whether or not you have seen this before.
[A document was handed to the witness.]
Have you ever seen that document before?
HOEPKEN: I do not know this document officially, as I see it is dated 28 May 1942, at which time I was an officer in the Luftwaffe.
MR. DODD: I see, you did not mean the Tribunal to understand that you were familiar with everything that was in Von Schirach’s files, because certainly this document was there during the years that you were his adjutant. You never saw it. It is marked “Central Bureau,” and you had charge of these very files, yet you never saw this teletype to Bormann? So you certainly did not know everything that was in his files, did you?
HOEPKEN: I said that the majority of the mail went through my offices but, of course, since I was not in Vienna at this time but only came to Vienna in April 1943, I was not able to look through all the back documents and letters in the files of the Reich Governor. That would have taken years.
MR. DODD: Let me ask you something else. You were there in the last days, I assume, when the city was taken by the Allied Forces, were you not?
HOEPKEN: I was in Vienna until April 1945.
MR. DODD: What was done with Von Schirach’s files when the end was very obviously coming? What did you do with all those files over which you had control?
HOEPKEN: I was not in charge of any files. I was chief of the bureau, and I...
MR. DODD: Well, you know what I mean—chief of the bureau or of the office where these files were kept. What I want to know is what did you do with the files?
HOEPKEN: I gave no orders in this connection.
MR. DODD: Do you know what became of the files?
HOEPKEN: No, I do not.
MR. DODD: They were taken out of the office sometime before the city was captured; do you not know that?
HOEPKEN: No, I did not know that.
MR. DODD: Were the files there the last day that you were there?
HOEPKEN: Probably, yes.
MR. DODD: I do not want a “probably.” I want to know if you know and if you do, to tell us. Were they there or not the last day that you were in the office?
HOEPKEN: I gave no orders to destroy them or to remove them.
MR. DODD: I did not ask you if you gave orders. I asked you if you know what became of them and whether or not they were in the office the last day that you were there?
HOEPKEN: I do not know what happened to them. Nor can I say whether they were still there on the last day.
MR. DODD: Do you not know that they were all moved to a salt mine in Austria?
HOEPKEN: No, I do not know that.
MR. DODD: You have never heard that, or that they were taken out of the office and were later found by the Allied Forces in a salt mine?
HOEPKEN: No, I do not know that.
MR. DODD: I do not mean that you heard they were found there, but you certainly knew that they were taken out of the office?
HOEPKEN: No, I do not know. I also gave no orders.
MR. DODD: Well, now, let me put this proposition to you, and then perhaps you can give an explanation of it to the Tribunal. This document that I have just shown to you and these reports that you examined for Dr. Sauter were all found in Schirach’s files in a salt mine. Would you have any explanation for that?
HOEPKEN: No, I cannot explain that.
MR. DODD: They were found together. Would that mean anything to you, or would you have any explanation for it?
HOEPKEN: No, I have not. I can only explain that by saying that probably the Chief of the Reich Governor’s office or one of his officials who was in charge of these things gave the order to that effect, of course without my knowledge and without any order from me.
MR. DODD: Tell the Tribunal exactly what day you closed up your office in Vienna, or the last day that you were in this office.
HOEPKEN: It might have been the 3d or 4th of April.
MR. DODD: When was the city taken?
HOEPKEN: I read in the newspaper afterwards that the city finally fell into the hands of the Allies on 13 April.
MR. DODD: Did you all leave your office on the 3d or 4th of April? Did Von Schirach leave as well, and all the clerical staff, et cetera?
HOEPKEN: Schirach and I and his adjutant left the office on this day, or rather, Schirach had previously set up his office at his home and was working there.
MR. DODD: Had he taken any files from his office to his home?
HOEPKEN: Only what he needed immediately to carry on his business; that is, the matters which were being dealt with at the moment.
MR. DODD: Did you leave someone in charge of the files when you left there, you and Von Schirach on the 3d of April; and if you did, who was it that you left in charge?
HOEPKEN: I did not leave anyone to supervise. The file clerks did that of their own accord.
MR. DODD: I am trying to understand—and I think it would be helpful to the Tribunal—whether or not you just walked out of this office and left everything there, or whether just you and Von Schirach left and left other people there, or whether the place was in such chaos that nobody remained. I have not any accurate picture of it, and I think it is of some importance. You ought to be able to tell us. You left there with him. What was the situation on the 3d or 4th of April? The city was practically to be taken in another 10 days. It was under siege. There was much confusion. What were you doing about your files and all of your other papers in your office when you walked out of there that day? You certainly just did not walk out and not give some directions.
HOEPKEN: I believe that we are not clear about the character of the Central Bureau. The Central Bureau, of which I was in charge for the last few months, had no powers, no executive powers, but all of these things were done by the competent Reich Governor, that is, the Regierungspräsident, and he probably...
MR. DODD: I do not need any explanation of how your office was set up. I want to know if the papers were left there or not, or if anybody was left with them.
HOEPKEN: The papers, as far as I know, were left there, and the archivists were instructed to take care of them.
MR. DODD: Did you order any papers to be destroyed before you walked out that day, the 3d or 4th of April, anything at all?
HOEPKEN: I gave no orders to destroy anything in the Reich Governor’s Office; I had no authority to do that.
MR. DODD: Did anybody to your knowledge order anything destroyed, whether you did or not?
HOEPKEN: Whether such an order was given and who gave it, I do not know.
MR. DODD: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the document you put to him?
MR. DODD: Number USA-865. It is Document 3877-PS, a teletype to Bormann from Von Schirach on 28 May 1942.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine the witness, Dr. Sauter?
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should like to go back to what the Prosecution just asked you.
The documents of the Reich Governor’s office apparently are supposed to have been found in a salt mine. Did you have any supervision over the documents of the Reich Governor’s office?
HOEPKEN: No, I had no supervision over these documents. I just explained that. For that reason, I could not give any order to remove them. I know that valuable objects, pictures, and so on, were removed, but much earlier.
DR. SAUTER: And the other employees of the Central Bureau, were they Viennese? Did they stay in the office, or what do you know about that?
HOEPKEN: Most of them were Viennese, of course, and probably remained behind. I shook hands and said goodbye to them, and then we separated. I also asked whether I could do anything for them, and then I left Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: I have no more questions, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.
Perhaps we had better adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: With reference to the application on behalf of the Defendant Bormann the Tribunal allows witness Number 1, Miss Else Krüger.
The Tribunal allows witnesses Numbers 3 and 4, Dr. Klopfer and Helmuth Friedrich.
The Tribunal also allows the witness whose name I have got inserted instead of Number 2, Christians, I think it was.
With reference to the documents applied for, Numbers 1 to 7, the application is refused. But the Tribunal will consider any application for documents which the defendants’ counsel, who may be appointed to argue the general questions of law on behalf of all the defendants, may wish to have translated.
Document Number 11 may be translated.
Counsel for the Defendant Bormann may see the documents which are mentioned under Roman Number III in the application and counsel for the Defendant Bormann may also use the documents contained under heading “B.”
The final decision upon the admissibility of all these documents is, of course, a matter which will be decided at the time the documents are presented.
There is one other thing that I want to announce, and it is in answer to the application of Dr. Servatius on behalf of the Defendant Sauckel.
I am told that the witness Timm is in Nuremberg prison. The witness Biedemann is also in Nuremberg prison. The witness Hildebrandt will probably arrive in Nuremberg today. His whereabouts had been lost and he has only just been rediscovered. The witness Jäger is in the British zone, and the British secretary is trying through the military authorities to obtain his attendance; The witness Stothfang has not been located. There appears to be a mistake in the identity of the person who was reported to the General Secretary previously. The witness Mitschke has never been located, although every effort is now being made to locate him.
That is all.
DR. SAUTER: I ask permission to call a further witness, Fritz Wieshofer. I shall examine this witness only very briefly, because most points have already been clarified through the other witnesses.
[The witness Wieshofer took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
FRITZ WIESHOFER (Witness): Fritz Wieshofer.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this 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 witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SAUTER: Herr Wieshofer, how old are you?
WIESHOFER: 31 years old.
DR. SAUTER: Married?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Children?
WIESHOFER: One son.
DR. SAUTER: Were you a member of the Party?
WIESHOFER: I applied for membership in 1938.
DR. SAUTER: You only applied for membership?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Were you a member of the SS or the SA?
WIESHOFER: I was in the Waffen-SS.
DR. SAUTER: Since when?
WIESHOFER: Since June 1940.
DR. SAUTER: Are you Austrian by birth?
WIESHOFER: I am Austrian.
DR. SAUTER: When did you join the Reich Youth Leader’s Office?
WIESHOFER: I joined Herr Von Schirach on 3 October 1940.
DR. SAUTER: And what did you do before that?
WIESHOFER: Before that I had a temporary post in the Foreign Office.
DR. SAUTER: For how long?
WIESHOFER: Only from May until October 1940.
DR. SAUTER: And before that?
WIESHOFER: Before that I was employed in the Gauleiter’s office in Carinthia.
DR. SAUTER: Did you have anything to do with the Hitler Youth?
WIESHOFER: No.
DR. SAUTER: In October of 1940, then, you came to Vienna to join Von Schirach?
WIESHOFER: Yes, to Vienna.
DR. SAUTER: In what capacity did you go there?
WIESHOFER: I went there as Von Schirach’s adjutant.
DR. SAUTER: And what did your duties mostly consist of?
WIESHOFER: As adjutant I was responsible for the handling of the mail, engagements for conferences, seeing to it that files were presented on time at conferences, travel arrangements, and so on.
DR. SAUTER: Did you only work for Schirach in his capacity as Reich Governor, as Gauleiter, or did you act for him only as mayor?
WIESHOFER: I was adjutant for Herr Von Schirach in all his capacities.
DR. SAUTER: Did you also have access to the secret files?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I shall only have a very few brief questions to put to you. First of all, I am interested in this: Who was responsible for the forced evacuation of Jews from Vienna?
WIESHOFER: The forced evacuation of Jews from Vienna, as far as I know, was handled by the RSHA. The representative in Vienna was a certain Dr. Brunner, an Obersturmführer in the SS.
DR. SAUTER: Did you often visit Dr. Brunner officially in connection with the forced evacuation of Jews, and for what reason?
WIESHOFER: In some cases, Jews who were affected by this forced evacuation made written applications to Von Schirach to be left out of the transport. In such cases, Von Schirach, through the Chief of his Central Bureau, took the matter up with Dr. Brunner’s office and asked that the request of the applicant be granted. I would say that generally this was done by the Chief of the Central Bureau. I remember two cases where I myself received instructions to intervene with Dr. Brunner, not by writing or telephoning, but by going to see him personally.
DR. SAUTER: And what did this SS Sturmführer Dr. Brunner tell you about what was actually going to happen to the Jews when they were taken away from Vienna?
WIESHOFER: Dr. Brunner only told me, on the occasion of one of these interventions, that the action of resettling the Jews would be a resettlement from the district of Vienna into the zone of the former Government General. He also told me in what way this was being carried out. For instance he said that women and small children would travel in second-class carriages; that sufficient rations for the journey and milk for small children would be provided. He also told me that these resettled persons, upon arrival at their destination, insofar as they were capable of working, would immediately be put to work. First of all, they would be put into assembly camps, but that as soon as accommodation was available, they would be given homes, et cetera. He also told me that because of the numerous interventions by Herr Von Schirach his work had been made very difficult.
DR. SAUTER: Did you, or have you—I will put my next question this way: Did you ever see an order in which Gauleiter were forbidden to intervene in any way on behalf of Jews, and did you discuss that order with Von Schirach?
WIESHOFER: I recollect a written order which we received either at the end of 1940 or at the beginning of 1941. It stated that “There are reasons which make it necessary once more to point out,” et cetera. It obviously was a repetition of an order which had already been given. The purport of the order was that because of certain reasons, Gauleiter were prohibited from intervening on behalf of Jews in the future.
DR. SAUTER: Did you talk about that with Schirach?
WIESHOFER: I talked to Herr Von Schirach about it.
DR. SAUTER: What did he say?
WIESHOFER: As far as I can recollect, Von Schirach wrote on the order “To be filed.” He did not say anything more about it.
DR. SAUTER: I have another question, Witness. The Defendant Von Schirach was once in the concentration camp at Mauthausen. Can you tell us when that was?
WIESHOFER: I cannot tell you that exactly. All I can say on that subject is that when I came back from the front—and this was either in the autumn of 1942 or in June 1943—the adjutant who was on duty at the time told me that he had accompanied Herr Von Schirach to a concentration camp, Mauthausen Camp. Some time afterwards—it must have been when I came back from the front the second time, at the end of 1943—Herr Von Schirach also told me that he had been to Mauthausen. I only recollect that he said that he had heard a symphony concert there.
DR. SAUTER: Well, we are not interested in that; we have heard that. I am only interested in one thing: Did he visit Mauthausen or another concentration camp again later on? Can you give us reliable information on that or not?
WIESHOFER: I can give you reliable information on that. That is quite out of the question, because from November 1943 until the collapse I was continuously on duty and I knew where Von Schirach was, day and night.
DR. SAUTER: Did he go to Mauthausen again in 1944?
WIESHOFER: No, certainly not, that is out of the question.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you remember that toward the end of the war there were orders coming from some source or other stating that enemy airmen who had been forced to land were no longer to be protected. Do you know of that?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: That somewhere such orders were issued?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: What was the attitude of Defendant Von Schirach regarding such orders, and how do you know about it?
WIESHOFER: I talked about these orders with Herr Von Schirach. Von Schirach was always against the idea contained in the order, and he always said that these airmen, too, should be treated as prisoners of war. Once he said: “If we do not do that, then there is the danger that our enemies, too, will treat their prisoners, that is Germans, in the same manner.”
DR. SAUTER: Do you yourself know of cases where Defendant Von Schirach actually intervened on behalf of enemy airmen in that way?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SAUTER: Will you please tell us about it?
WIESHOFER: During one of the last air attacks on Vienna, in March 1945, an American plane was shot down and crashed near the headquarters of the Gau command post. That command post was on a wooded hill in Vienna to which part of the population used to go during air attacks. Von Schirach was watching from a 32-meter high iron structure on which he would always stand during air attacks, and he observed that a member of the American crew bailed out of the aircraft. He immediately ordered the commander in charge of this command post to drive to the place of the landing so as to protect the American soldier against the crowd and bring him to safety. The American soldier was brought to the command post and after the air attack he was handed over to the Air Force Command XVII as a prisoner of war.
DR. SAUTER: When did you leave Vienna?
WIESHOFER: I left Vienna with Herr Von Schirach on 13 April 1945.
DR. SAUTER: On 13 April together with the Defendant Von Schirach?
WIESHOFER: Together with Herr Von Schirach.
DR. SAUTER: Now, this is the last question I have to put to you: Witness, have you ever heard from Schirach’s lips anything to the effect that Vienna was to be held “to the last man” at all costs, or that destruction should be carried out in Vienna?
WIESHOFER: I have never heard him say either the one or the other.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions to put this witness.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, do you know the Prater in Vienna?
WIESHOFER: Yes, of course, I am Viennese.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sort of an institution is that?
WIESHOFER: The Prater is, or at least was, a pleasure park.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was it closed during the war?
WIESHOFER: The Prater was not closed during the war.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sort of people used to go there?
WIESHOFER: During the war you mean?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
WIESHOFER: Workers, employees, civil servants, that is the Viennese, the whole of Vienna.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you also see foreign workers there?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: A great many or just a few?
WIESHOFER: The situation in Vienna was such that we used to say that if you wanted to go to the Prater then you would have to be able to speak French and Russian, because with Viennese alone you could not get along. The Prater was overcrowded with foreign workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: How were these foreigners dressed, badly or well?
WIESHOFER: These foreigners were well dressed, so that you could not distinguish them from the population. Only when they talked could you recognize that they were foreigners.
DR. SERVATIUS: How did they look otherwise? As regards food, did they look starved?
WIESHOFER: As far as I myself could see, the workers looked perfectly well fed.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the people have money?
WIESHOFER: They had lots of money. It was known that the “black market” in Vienna was almost entirely dominated by foreign workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could foreigners be seen only in the Prater or were they to be seen everywhere in the town?
WIESHOFER: Not only in the Prater, but also in the rest of the town, in cafés, of which there are so many in Vienna, in restaurants, and in hotels.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.
MR. DODD: Whom, besides the Defendant Von Schirach, do you know of these defendants? And by “know” I mean know personally, or have some acquaintanceship with the person, or had something to do with the person?
WIESHOFER: Personally, I only know Herr Funk.
MR. DODD: Do you know Sauckel?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: Well, who else?
WIESHOFER: I know Herr Seyss-Inquart, but I did not have any personal dealings with him. I was the adjutant of Von Schirach.
MR. DODD: How do you know Funk?
WIESHOFER: I was invited by Herr Funk a few times. Officially, as adjutant of Herr Von Schirach, I had some dealings with him, and apart from that, he invited me several times privately.
MR. DODD: Were you in the SS at that time, when you were invited by Funk?
WIESHOFER: At that time I was in the Waffen-SS as an officer.
MR. DODD: By the way, when did you first join the SS?
WIESHOFER: I joined the Waffen-SS on 26 June 1940.
MR. DODD: Were you in any other branch of the SS besides the Waffen-SS?
WIESHOFER: I was also in the General SS.
MR. DODD: When did you join the General SS?
WIESHOFER: In June or July 1939.
MR. DODD: So you were actually in the SS from as far back as 1939?
WIESHOFER: In the General SS; yes.
MR. DODD: Now, you also became an SS Obersturmführer at one time, did you not?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: When was that?
WIESHOFER: I became Obersturmführer about 21 June 1944.
MR. DODD: When did you join the SA?
WIESHOFER: I joined the SA on 9 May 1932.
MR. DODD: Did you know the Strasshof Camp, S-t-r-a-s-s-h-o-f?
WIESHOFER: This is the first time I have heard that name.
MR. DODD: Well, it may have been mispronounced. It was a camp located outside Vienna.
WIESHOFER: I do not know which camp you mean. I understood Strasshof. I do not know of any such camp.
MR. DODD: Yes, something like that. You never heard of that camp?
WIESHOFER: Never.
MR. DODD: And you were in Vienna from what year?—19...?
WIESHOFER: I was born in Vienna.
MR. DODD: Well, I know you were, but I am talking about your service with the Defendant Schirach. You were there with him for how long?
WIESHOFER: From the beginning of October 1940.
MR. DODD: And you never heard of Strasshof?
WIESHOFER: No.
MR. DODD: Did you have much to do with the files of this Defendant Von Schirach?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: What would you say you had to do with them? What was your responsibility?
WIESHOFER: I merely had to see to it that files were presented in good time for the conference, and that after they had been used they were returned to the Central Bureau.
MR. DODD: Where would you go to get a file for Von Schirach that had to do with the Reich Defense Commission for that district or that defense district? Where would you go to get a file that had to do with matters concerning the Reich Defense Commission? Now, let us assume a situation—let me make it clear to you. Say that Von Schirach tells you he wants a file about a certain matter that has to do with the Reich Defense Commission. You had to have it on his desk by a certain hour and see that it was there, as you say. Tell the Tribunal just what you would do, where you would go, who you would talk to, and how you would get that for him.
WIESHOFER: That would be simple for me. I would apply to the Chief of the Central Bureau, knowing that he would probably have to go to the Regierungspräsident to obtain that file. That is what I assume. I myself would only have gone to the Central Bureau.
MR. DODD: You had a central filing place, did you not, for all of your files, whether they were under the Reich Defense Commission or the Gauleiter or the civil government of Vienna; is that not so? They were all kept in one place?
WIESHOFER: They were not all together in one place; only a part of the files were in the Central Bureau. I cannot tell you which part because I have never had anything to do with that.
MR. DODD: You left Vienna on 13 April, you say, with Von Schirach?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: I suppose, as his adjutant, you had to make considerable preparations for leaving for some days previously, did you not?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: What did you pack up? What did you take with you?
WIESHOFER: We did not take anything with us from Vienna. Von Schirach went by car, and the gentlemen on his staff went in two or three other cars. Nothing else was taken along from Vienna.
MR. DODD: Well, what did you do in the office; how did you leave it?
WIESHOFER: We had not used the office since, I think, the spring or early summer of 1944, because the “Ballhausplatz,” that is, the office of the Reich Governor, had a direct hit and Von Schirach could no longer work there. He was working in his apartment.
MR. DODD: In his apartment? And did he have all his files in his apartment or somewhere near at hand?
WIESHOFER: He had no files whatever in his apartment. They remained in the office, in that part of the Reich Governor’s building which was still being used and in which one could still work.
MR. DODD: Were any files taken out of the filing department of the Reich Governor’s Office when you left Vienna, or before you left Vienna?
WIESHOFER: I do not know anything about that. I know that an order existed, both for the State Administration as well as for the Party, that files must be destroyed when the enemy approached. Whether that was done or what actually happened to the files, I do not know.
MR. DODD: Who got that order?
WIESHOFER: The order, as far as the Party channels were concerned, went to the deputy Gauleiter, and as far as the State Administration was concerned, to the Regierungspräsident.
MR. DODD: Did you also receive an order to start moving your files to places of safety some time in the spring of 1945 or even the late winter of 1944?
WIESHOFER: I have no recollection of such an order.
MR. DODD: Do you know that some 250 folders of your files were moved to a salt mine outside Vienna? Do you know anything about that?
WIESHOFER: No, I hear that for the first time.
MR. DODD: Do you know that there is such a mine near Vienna? You have lived there quite a while, I gather.
WIESHOFER: No. It is not near Vienna—if I may be permitted to put this matter right—but near Salzburg; we never lived there. I only know that this mine exists.
MR. DODD: How far is it from Vienna?
WIESHOFER: Approximately 350 kilometers.
MR. DODD: You do not know anything about any files being taken there. You are sure about that, are you?
WIESHOFER: I am absolutely certain; I do not know anything about that.
MR. DODD: I have just one other question to ask. I suppose you knew the defendant pretty well. He is a little older than you, but you had worked for him for some time. Is that not so?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: Why did you not join the Army instead of the SS when you wanted to do something for your country?
WIESHOFER: When I was called up, the Waffen-SS was considered the elite unit and I preferred to serve in such a guards unit, if I may say so, than in the general Armed Forces.
MR. DODD: Was it partly due to the fact that you had been in the General SS since 1939?
WIESHOFER: No. That had nothing to do with it. Many members of the General SS went to the Forces.
MR. DODD: Did you talk this matter over with your superior, the Youth Leader Von Schirach, before you joined the SS in 1939, and the Waffen-SS later on?
WIESHOFER: No. Might I remind you that I did not join Von Schirach until October 1940, whereas I joined the Waffen-SS on 26 June 1940.
MR. DODD: Yes, but you were, I suppose, a young man and you were in touch with the Reich Youth organization in 1939 when you joined the General SS. Is that not a fact? Were you not a part of the Youth organization in 1939?
WIESHOFER: No. I was not taken into the Youth Officers Corps until April 1944 when I became Bannführer. Before that I had nothing to do with it.
MR. DODD: Well, I do not think you understand me. It is not too important, but how old were you in 1939? You were 24, approximately, were you not?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
MR. DODD: And were you not then in some way affiliated with the Hitler Youth or the Youth organization in Germany, either as a member, or having something to do with it?
WIESHOFER: No. Neither as a member nor in any other way. Of course I knew Youth Leaders in Carinthia, yes.
MR. DODD: You were quite a speech maker for the Party, were you not, during your lifetime?
WIESHOFER: I spoke at several meetings in Carinthia between April 1938 and May 1940.
MR. DODD: At about how many meetings would you say you spoke in that period of 2 years?
WIESHOFER: During that time I spoke at about 80 meetings.
MR. DODD: Before an average of about, say, 3,000 persons per meeting?
WIESHOFER: I also spoke in very small villages. I would say that the average attendance would be about 200.
MR. DODD: That is all I have.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine?
DR. THOMA: What were the subjects you talked about at these meetings?
WIESHOFER: Our subject was given to us by the Reich Propaganda Ministry. The meetings were conducted in such a way that every speaker was able to talk on general matters. For instance the subject might have been “With the Führer to Final Victory,” or “Why Welfare for the Nation?” or “Why Winter Relief?” Such subjects were always given.
DR. THOMA: Did you spread Rosenberg’s Myth of the 20th Century?
WIESHOFER: No.
DR. THOMA: Did you speak about such subjects?
WIESHOFER: Never; in view of my education I would not have been in a position to do so.
DR. THOMA: Have you ever read this Myth?
WIESHOFER: I have not read the Myth.
DR. THOMA: Did you speak to youth at these meetings?
WIESHOFER: I did not speak to youth—that is, not particularly to youth.
DR. THOMA: Thank you.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I do not wish to put any questions to the witness; thank you very much.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Witness, did Schirach have any authority to intervene in case of Jews who were being deported from Vienna?
WIESHOFER: He had no authority to do so, but he did it.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): How many times did he intervene?
WIESHOFER: I cannot recollect a single case where Von Schirach did not intervene when he received a petition.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I did not ask that; I asked how many times he intervened.
WIESHOFER: I cannot give you any figure without being inaccurate. It is difficult to say.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did he intervene many times, or a few?
WIESHOFER: No. He intervened often.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you see the order to the Police not to protect aviators? You said it was in writing, did you not?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Who signed it?
WIESHOFER: The order was signed by Bormann.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And was it distributed to the Police in Vienna?
WIESHOFER: By the Police? If I have understood you rightly, you were talking about the order that Gauleiter must not intervene on behalf of Jews.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): No. This was the order about not protecting aviators who had crashed. You said you saw that order, did you not?
WIESHOFER: I did see the order, yes. I can no longer remember whom it came from and to whom it was addressed. It was merely sent to our office for our information. We were not called upon to take any action.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you not know whether or not the Police had a copy of it?
WIESHOFER: Please, will you be good enough to repeat the question?
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know whether or not the Police in Vienna had copies of the order?
WIESHOFER: That I do not know.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you ever know Himmler?
WIESHOFER: I have seen him.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did he give you any instructions?
WIESHOFER: No.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you get any instructions from the SS?
WIESHOFER: In which way do you mean?
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Any instructions from the SS directly when you were in Von Schirach’s office?
WIESHOFER: No.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): None at all?
WIESHOFER: None at all. I cannot recollect any.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I think you said once that Schirach sent a command to save American aviators from the crowd, did you not? Do you not understand?
WIESHOFER: Yes, I understand, and I did say that.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And what other efforts did Von Schirach make to protect aviators from the crowd? Did he make any other efforts?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did he issue any orders to the Police or take it up with the Police?
WIESHOFER: Von Schirach’s opinion was known. In the circles...
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I did not ask you the opinion. Did he issue any orders to the Police or talk to the Police?
WIESHOFER: I have no recollection of that.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, you would know if he had, would you not?
WIESHOFER: If I had been present when he gave the orders then I would know it, but it is possible that he talked when I was not there.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you say you had access to the secret files?
WIESHOFER: Yes.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): What was kept in the secret files?
WIESHOFER: I did not understand the question.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I asked you what was kept, what was put in the secret files, what sort of papers?
WIESHOFER: There were secret files which came from the Supreme Party Headquarters, secret files which came from the Minister of the Interior; there were things which made one wonder why they were called “secret.” But as far as details of these files are concerned, I cannot, of course, today remember them.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And I suppose any documents, any reports, that were marked “secret” would be put in those secret files, would they not?
WIESHOFER: Reports from us to higher departments, or do you mean from the top downwards?
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Reports coming in to you.
WIESHOFER: They would then have been filed in the secret archives.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And SS secret reports would go in the secret files, would they not?
WIESHOFER: SS reports did not come to us, because we were not a service department of the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: If you have no questions yourself, Dr. Sauter, then the witness may retire.
DR. SAUTER: No.
[The witness Wieshofer left the stand.]
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in Schirach’s document book there are still a few documents which, up to now, have not been expressly presented; but I believe it is not necessary to read these documents to you. To save time, I should like, if I may, to refer to the documents and ask you to take judicial notice of them; for instance, of the affidavit of Frau Hoepken, which is incorporated in the document book under Number 3 and which has already been submitted somewhere else.
There is only one document, Mr. President, about which I want to give a very brief explanation. In the Schirach document book, under Number 118(a), there is the farewell letter of the explorer Dr. Colin Ross. With reference to this Dr. Colin Ross, when the documents were dealt with, the Prosecutor said that the body of Dr. Ross had not been discovered. My first reaction was of course surprise, and I made inquiries as to what actually had been done with these bodies and I discovered that in fact on 30 April 1945, the day before the arrival of American troops, the bodies of Dr. Colin Ross and his wife were found in the house of Defendant Von Schirach at Urfeld, on Lake Walchen. They had both first taken poison and then, to be quite sure, Dr. Ross shot his wife and then himself. German soldiers who were still at Urfeld on Lake Walchen as patients at the time then buried the bodies quite close to the house of the Defendant Von Schirach.
In the autumn the American Governor ordered that the bodies were to be transferred to the cemetery, but eventually he rescinded that order and permitted the bodies to remain where they had originally been buried.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, can you indicate in what way you will submit this document has any relevance at all? We have read the document. It does not appear to have any striking relevance.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, we have submitted this document because it is to prove, or at least indicate, that the Defendant Von Schirach, together with this Dr. Colin Ross, continuously worked to maintain peace, and later on to limit the war. Therefore it is submitted only to show that the Defendant Von Schirach worked for peace.
THE PRESIDENT: The document does not mention Von Schirach or in any way indicate that he had worked for peace.
DR. SAUTER: But it says in the document, “We have done everything in our power to prevent this war, or...”
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the word “We” must mean the people who “leave this world by our own will,” namely Dr. Colin Ross and his wife. It does not refer to Von Schirach.
DR. SAUTER: We do not know that. Why should it not also refer to Von Schirach?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, because there is such a thing as grammar. The document begins “We leave this world by our own will.”
DR. SAUTER: As to that, Mr. President, may I remind you that this name, Dr. Colin Ross, has been mentioned very often during this trial in connection with the peace efforts of the Defendant Von Schirach, and that Dr. Colin Ross, together with his wife, was living in Schirach’s apartment when they committed suicide.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, very well, Dr. Sauter, if you wish to draw our attention to it, you may do so.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you. Mr. President, this letter was not really meant for the public; the original of the letter was left behind by Dr. Ross, and a number of carbon copies were sent to personal friends. In this way we found this letter of Dr. Colin Ross. I do not think there is anything else I have to say.
THE PRESIDENT: I have not said anything critical of the letter. If you want to read some sentences of it, read them; if you do not we will take judicial notice of it. As I tell you, we have already read this letter.
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not stopping your reading a sentence of it, if you want to read a sentence of it.
DR. SAUTER: It is of course not necessary, Mr. President, if you have taken cognizance of it. I have nothing else to say, and at this point I can end my case for the Defendant Von Schirach.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, have you offered in evidence all the documents which are in these books?
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Then they will be numbered with the numbers which are in the books.
DR. SAUTER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, then we will take judicial notice of them all.
MR. DODD: Well, Mr. President, there is one here which the Tribunal expressly ruled on—the affidavit of Uiberreither. The Defendant Von Schirach was told he would have to present Uiberreither if he were to use this affidavit. He has not been presented here and now the affidavit is being offered. We expressly asked that he be called here if this affidavit was to be submitted to the Tribunal.
DR. SAUTER: I am not making any reference to Uiberreither’s affidavit, and I will forego calling the witness Uiberreither.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Sauter.
MR. DODD: Then the affidavit is not offered?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not being offered.
MR. DODD: That is Page 135.
THE PRESIDENT: Then it will not be admitted, and we will adjourn now.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
Afternoon Session
MR. DODD: Mr. President, during the presentation of the case involving the Defendant Funk, there was a number of documents that we did not submit in evidence at the time; and I asked the Tribunal’s permission to do so at a later time. I am prepared to do so now if the Tribunal would care to have me.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think it would be quite convenient now.
MR. DODD: Very well, Sir.
The first one is a matter of clarifying the record with respect to it. It is Document 2828-PS. It has already been offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-654. But the excerpt, or the extract, which was read will be found on Page 105 of the document. We cited another page, which was in error. Reference to this Document USA-654 will be found on Page 9071 (Volume XIII, Page 141) of the record.
We also offered our Document EC-440, which consisted of a statement made by the Defendant Funk, and we quoted a sentence from Page 4 of that document. I wish to offer that as Exhibit USA-874.
Then Document 3952-PS was an interrogation of the Defendant Funk dated 19 October 1945. We wish to offer that as USA-875.
I might remind the Tribunal that the excerpt quoted from that interrogation had to do with the statement made by Funk that the Defendant Hess had notified him of the impending attack on the Soviet Union. That excerpt has been translated into the four languages, and therefore will be readily available to the Tribunal.
Then there is also another interrogation dated 22 October 1945. We read from Pages 15 and 16 of that interrogation, as it appears in the record at Page 9169 for 7 May (Volume XIII, Page 214). The document is Number 3953-PS; we offer it as Exhibit USA-876.
We next referred to Document Number 3894-PS, the interrogation of one Hans Posse. We offered it as Exhibit USA-843 at the time, as appears on Page 9093 of the record for 6 May (Volume XIII, Page 158). At that time I stated to the Tribunal that we would submit the whole interrogation in French, Russian, German, and English. We are now prepared to do that, and do so.
Then we have Document 3954-PS. This is an affidavit by one Franz B. Wolf, one of the editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung. Reference to it will be found at Page 9082 of the transcript, where we stated that we would have more to say about the reason for the retention of the editorial staff of the Frankfurter Zeitung (Volume XIII, Page 150). That Document, 3954-PS, is also now available to the Tribunal in French, Russian, German, and English; and we offer it as Exhibit USA-877.
Then, Mr. President, a motion picture film was shown during this cross-examination of the Defendant Funk; and the Tribunal inquired as to whether or not we would be prepared to submit affidavits giving its source, and so on. We are now prepared to do so; and we offer first an affidavit by Captain Sam Harris who arranged to have the pictures taken, which becomes Exhibit USA-878. The second affidavit is by the photographer who actually took the picture. We offer that as Exhibit USA-879.
Finally, I should also like to clear up one other matter. On March 25, during the cross-examination of the witness Bohle, witness for the Defendant Hess, Colonel Amen quoted from the interrogation of Von Strempel, as appears in the record beginning at Page 6482 (Volume X, Page 40). We have had the pertinent portions translated into the operating languages of the Tribunal, and we ask that this interrogation, which bears our Document Number 3800-PS, be admitted in evidence as Exhibit USA-880.
I believe, Mr. President, that clears up all of the documents that we have not offered formally, up to this date.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, counsel for the Defendant Sauckel.
DR. SERVATIUS: With the permission of the Tribunal, I will now call Defendant Sauckel to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
[The Defendant Sauckel took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): Ernst Friedrich Christoph Sauckel.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this 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.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, please describe your career to the Tribunal.
SAUCKEL: I was the only child of the postman Friedrich Sauckel, and was born at Hassfurt on the Main near Bamberg. I attended the elementary school at Schweinfurt and the secondary school.
DR. SERVATIUS: How long were you at the secondary school?
SAUCKEL: For 5 years. As my father held only a very humble position, it was my mother, a seamstress, who made it possible for me to go to that school. When she became very ill with heart trouble, I saw that it would be impossible for my parents to provide for my studies, and I obtained their permission to go to sea to make a career for myself there.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you join the merchant marine, or where did you go?
SAUCKEL: First of all I joined the Norwegian and Swedish merchant marine so that I could be thoroughly trained in seamanship on the big sailing vessels and clippers.
DR. SERVATIUS: How old were you at the time?
SAUCKEL: At that time I was 15½.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were you earning?
SAUCKEL: As a cabin boy on a Norwegian sailing ship I earned 5 kronen in addition to my keep.
DR. SERVATIUS: And then, in the course of your career at sea, where did you go next?
SAUCKEL: In the course of my career as a sailor, and during my training which I continued afterwards on German sailing vessels, I sailed on every sea and went to every part of the world.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you come into contact with foreign families?
SAUCKEL: Through the Young Men’s Christian Association, principally in Australia and North America, as well as in South America, I came into contact with families of these countries.
DR. SERVATIUS: Where were you when the first World War started?
SAUCKEL: It so happened that I was on a German sailing vessel on the way to Australia when the ship was captured, and on the high seas I was made prisoner by the French.
DR. SERVATIUS: How long did you remain prisoner?
SAUCKEL: Five years, until November 1919.
DR. SERVATIUS: And did you return home then?
SAUCKEL: Yes, I returned home then.
DR. SERVATIUS: And then what did you do?
SAUCKEL: Although I had finished my training and studies in seamanship required of me, I could not go to sea again and take my examination, since my savings made during those years at sea had become worthless because of the German inflation. There were also few German ships and very many unemployed German seamen, so I decided to take up work in a factory in my home town of Schweinfurt.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you remain in your home town?
SAUCKEL: At first I remained in my home town. I learned to be a turner and engineer in the Fischer ball-bearing factory in order to save money so that I later could attend a technical school, an engineering college.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you already interested in politics at that time?
SAUCKEL: Although as a sailor I despised politics—for I loved my sailor’s life and still love it today—conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems. No one in Germany at that time could do otherwise. Many years before I had left a beautiful country and a rich nation and I returned to that country 6 years later to find it fundamentally changed and in a state of upheaval, and in great spiritual and material need.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you join any party?
SAUCKEL: No. I worked in a factory which people in my home town described as “ultra-Red.” I worked in the tool shop, and right and left of me Social Democrats, Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists were working—among others my present father-in-law—and during all the rest periods discussions went on, so that whether one wanted to or not one became involved in the social problems of the time.
DR. SERVATIUS: You mention your father-in-law. Did you marry then?
SAUCKEL: In 1923 I married the daughter of a German workman I had met at that time. I am still happily married to her today and we have 10 children.
DR. SERVATIUS: When did you join the Party?
SAUCKEL: I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.
DR. SERVATIUS: What made you do it?
SAUCKEL: One of those days I heard a speech of Hitler’s. In this speech he said that the German factory worker and the German laborer must make common cause with the German brain worker. The controversies between the proletariat and the middle class must be smoothed out and bridged over by each getting to know and understand the other. Through this a new community of people would grow up, and only such a community, not bound to middle class or proletariat, could overcome the dire needs of those days and the splitting up of the German nation into parties and creeds. This statement took such hold of me and struck me so forcibly, that I dedicated my life to the idea of adjusting what seemed to be almost irreconcilable contrasts. I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally. I had to examine myself very thoroughly to find the right path for me personally. As I have already said, I had hardly taken any interest in political questions. My good parents, who are no longer alive, brought me up in a strictly Christian but also in a very patriotic way. However, when I went to sea, I lived a sailor’s life. I loaded saltpeter in Chile. I did heavy lumber work in Canada, in Quebec. I trimmed coal on the equator, and I sailed around Cape Horn several times. All of this was hard work; I ask...
DR. SERVATIUS: Please, come back to the question of the Party.
SAUCKEL: This has to do with the question of the Party, for we must all give some reasons as to how we got there. I myself...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, I stated at the beginning of the defendant’s case that we had heard this account from the Defendant Göring and that we did not propose to hear it again from 20 defendants. It seems to me that we are having it inflicted upon us by nearly every one of the defendants.
DR. SERVATIUS: I believe, Mr. President, that we are interested in getting some sort of an impression of the defendant himself. Seen from various points of view, the facts look different. I will now briefly...
THE PRESIDENT: It is quite true, Dr. Servatius, but we have had half an hour, almost, of it now.
DR. SERVATIUS: I shall limit it now.
The Party was dissolved in 1923, and refounded in 1925. Did you join it again?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you take an active part in the Party or were you just a member?
SAUCKEL: From 1925 on I took an active part in it.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what position did you hold?
SAUCKEL: I was then Gauleiter in Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you do that to get work, to earn your living, or for what reason?
SAUCKEL: As Gauleiter in Thuringia I earned 150 marks. In any other profession I would have had accommodations and earned more money.
DR. SERVATIUS: When did you make Hitler’s acquaintance?
SAUCKEL: I met him briefly in 1925.
DR. SERVATIUS: When did you become Gauleiter?
SAUCKEL: I became Gauleiter in 1927.
DR. SERVATIUS: And how were you appointed?
SAUCKEL: I was appointed by letter.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you receive any special instructions which pointed to secret intentions of the Party?
SAUCKEL: At that time we were very definitely told that under no circumstances should there be any secret chapters or any other secrecy in the life of the Party, but that everything should be done publicly.
DR. SERVATIUS: Who was your predecessor?
SAUCKEL: Dr. Dinter.
DR. SERVATIUS: Why was he relieved of his post?
SAUCKEL: Dr. Dinter was dismissed because he wanted to found a new religious movement within the Party.
DR. SERVATIUS: In 1929 you became a member of the Thuringian Diet?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you elected to that?
SAUCKEL: I was elected to the Diet in the same way as at every parliamentary election.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was dictatorship in power there already at the time?
SAUCKEL: That was not possible; the province was governed in accordance with the Thuringian constitution.
DR. SERVATIUS: How long were you a member of the Diet?
SAUCKEL: I was a member of the Diet as long as it existed, until May 1933.
DR. SERVATIUS: How was it dissolved?
SAUCKEL: The Diet was dissolved by a Reich Government decree.
DR. SERVATIUS: Then in 1932, you were a member of the Provincial Government of Thuringia. How did you get into that position?
SAUCKEL: In 1932, in the month of June, new elections took place for the Thuringian Diet, and the NSDAP obtained 26 out of 60 seats.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was any mention made of a dictatorship which was to be aimed at?
SAUCKEL: No, a government was elected according to parliamentary principles.
DR. SERVATIUS: Well, you had a majority in the Thuringian Government, had you not, and you could use your influence?
SAUCKEL: Together with the bourgeois parties, by an absolute majority, a National Socialist government was elected.
DR. SERVATIUS: What happened to the old officials? Were they dismissed?
SAUCKEL: I myself became the President and Minister of the Interior in that government; the old officials, without exception, remained in their offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: And with what did that first National Socialist government concern itself in the field of domestic politics?
SAUCKEL: In the field of domestic politics there was only one question at that time, and that was the alleviation of an indescribable distress which is only exceeded by that of today.
DR. SERVATIUS: In this connection, Mr. President, may I submit two government reports from which I only wish to draw your attention briefly to two passages. One is the report contained in Document Number 96, which shows the activity of the government and its fight against social distress. What is particularly important when you run through it, is what is not mentioned, that is, there is no mention of the question of war or other such matters, but again and again the alleviation of distress is mentioned. And important, too, is the work that was carried out. That is in Document Number 97. In this book, on Page 45, there is a statement of the work undertaken by the government—bridge-building, road-making, and so on—and in no way had this work anything to do with war.
Then I am submitting Document Number 95 from the same period. It is a book called Sauckel’s Fighting Speeches. Here, too, the book is remarkable for what does not appear in it, namely preparations for war. Instead it emphasizes the distress which must be alleviated. It becomes clear from the individual articles that these are speeches made during a number of years, which show in a similar way what the preoccupations were of the Defendant Sauckel. It begins in 1932 with a speech dealing with the misery of the time, and ends with the final questions where reference is made once again to the alleviation of social need and the preservation of peace. The Tribunal will be able to read these articles in the document book.
In 1933 you also became Reich Regent of Thuringia. How did you manage to get to that position?
SAUCKEL: I was appointed Reich Regent of Thuringia by Field Marshal Von Hindenburg, who was Reich President at that time.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the instructions you received when you took up your offices?
SAUCKEL: When I took over my office as Reich Regent I received instructions to form a new Thuringian Government, as the Reich Regent was to keep out of the administrative affairs of a German state...
DR. SERVATIUS: You need not tell us these technical details. I mean what political task were you given?
SAUCKEL: I was given the political task of administering Thuringia as Reich Regent within the existing Reich law and prevailing Constitution, and of guaranteeing the unity of the Reich.
DR. SERVATIUS: And did the words “guarantee the unity of the Reich” mean the overpowering of others, in particular the authorities in Thuringia?
SAUCKEL: No, the authorities remained.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now, you held both the position of Gauleiter and that of Reich Regent. What was the aim of that?
SAUCKEL: Both positions were entirely separate in their organizations. Under the Regent were officials in office, and under the Gauleiter were employees of the Party. Both positions were administered absolutely separately, as is the case in any other state where members of a party are at the same time party officials or leaders and exercise both these functions simultaneously.
DR. SERVATIUS: So you received no order that one position should absorb the other?
SAUCKEL: No, I had no such orders. The tasks were entirely different.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you a member of the SA?
SAUCKEL: I myself was never an SA man. I was an honorary Obergruppenführer in the SA.
DR. SERVATIUS: How did you receive that appointment?
SAUCKEL: I cannot tell you. It was honorary.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you appointed SS Obergruppenführer by Himmler?
SAUCKEL: No, the Führer made me honorary SS Obergruppenführer for no special reason and without functions.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were you a member of the Reichstag?
SAUCKEL: Yes, from 1933 on.
DR. SERVATIUS: As a member of the Reichstag, did you know anything in advance about the beginning of the war? Were you informed?
SAUCKEL: I was never informed in advance about the start of the war or about foreign political developments. I merely remember that quite suddenly—it may have been during the days between 24 August and the end of August—we were called to a session of the Reichstag in Berlin. This session was canceled at the time, and we were later ordered to go to the Führer, that is, the Gauleiter and Reichsleiter. But a number had already left so that the circle was not complete. The conference, or Hitler’s speech, only lasted a short time. He said, roughly, that the meeting of the Reichstag could not take place as things were still in the course of development. He was convinced that there would not be a war. He said he hoped there would be some settlement in a small way and meant by that, as I had to conclude, a solution without the parts of Upper Silesia lost in 1921. He said—and that I remember exactly—that Danzig would become German, and apart from that Germany would be given a railway line with several tracks, like a Reichsautobahn, with a strip of ground to the right and left of it. He told us to go home and prepare for the Reich Party Rally, where we would meet again.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any close connections with the Führer?
SAUCKEL: I personally, as far as I know the Führer, had a great deal of admiration for him. But I had no close connection with him that one could describe as personal. I had a number of discussions with him about the administration of my Gau and in particular about the care he wished to be given to cultural buildings in Thuringia—in Weimar, Eisenach, and Meiningen; and later on there were more frequent meetings because of my position as Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: We shall come to that later. What connections did you have with the Reichsleiter?
SAUCKEL: My connections with the Reichsleiter were no different from my connections with the Führer. They were of an official and Party nature. As regards personal relationships I cannot say that I had any particularly personal intercourse with anyone.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about your connection with the Reich Ministers?
SAUCKEL: My connection with the Reich Ministers was of a purely official nature and was very infrequent.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about the Wehrmacht?
SAUCKEL: I could not have the honor of being a German soldier because of my imprisonment in the first World War. And in this World War the Führer refused to allow me to serve as a soldier.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have held a number of high positions and offices. You knew the Reich Ministers and Reichsleiter. Will you please explain why you went aboard the submarine at that time?
SAUCKEL: I had repeatedly made written requests to the Führer that I might be allowed to join the Wehrmacht as an ordinary soldier. He refused to give me this permission. So I arranged in secret for someone to take my place and went aboard Captain Salmann’s submarine with his agreement. As a former sailor and now a politician in a high position I wanted to give these brave submarine men a proof of my comradeship and understanding and of my sense of duty. Apart from that I had 10 children for whom, as their father, I had to do something too.
DR. SERVATIUS: I should like now, in a number of questions, to refer to your activities. Were you a member of a trade union?
SAUCKEL: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know what the aims of German trade unions were?
SAUCKEL: Yes, I do.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were they economic or political?
SAUCKEL: As I, as a worker, came to know them, the aims of German trade unions were political, and there were a number of different trade unions with varied political views. I considered that a great misfortune. As workman in the workshop I had had experience of the arguments among the trade unionists—between the Christian Socialist trade unions and the Red trade unions, between the syndicalist, the anarchist and the communist trade unions.
DR. SERVATIUS: The trade unions in your Gau were then dissolved. Were the leaders arrested at the time?
SAUCKEL: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you approve of the dissolution of the trade unions?
SAUCKEL: The dissolution of the trade unions was in the air then. The question was discussed in the Party for a long time and there was no agreement at all as to the position trade unions should hold, nor as to their necessity, their usefulness and their nature. But a solution had to be found because the trade unions which we, or the Führer, or Dr. Ley, dissolved all held different political views. From that time on, however, there was only one party in Germany and it was necessary, I fully realize, to come to a definite decision as to the actual duties of the trade unions, the necessary duties indispensable to every calling and to workers everywhere.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not the purpose of removing the trade unions to remove any opposition which might stand in the way of an aggressive war?
SAUCKEL: I can say in all good conscience that during those years not one of us ever thought about a war at all. We had to overcome such terrible need that we should have been only too glad if German economic life could have been started again in peace and if the German worker, who had suffered the most during that frightful depression, could have had work and food once more.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did members of trade unions suffer economically through the dissolution?
SAUCKEL: In no way. My own father-in-law, who was a member of a trade union and still is today, and whom I repeatedly asked for information, whom I never persuaded to join the Party—he was a Social Democrat and never joined the Party—confirmed the fact that even when he was getting old and could no longer work, the German Labor Front never denied him the rights due to him as an old trade unionist and by virtue of his long trade-union membership, but allowed him full benefits. On the other hand, the German State—since in Germany old age and disability insurance and the accident insurance, et cetera, were paid and organized by the State—the National Socialist State guaranteed him all these rights and made full payment.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were all Communist leaders arrested in your Gau after the Party came to power?
SAUCKEL: No. In my Gau, as far as I know, only Communists who had actually worked against the State were arrested.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what happened to them?
SAUCKEL: The State Police arrested and interrogated them and detained them according to the findings.
DR.. SERVATIUS: Did you have Kreisleiter in your Gau who had been members of a former opposition party?
SAUCKEL: The Party’s activity was recruiting. Our most intensive work was the winning over of political opponents. I am very proud of the fact that many workers in my Gau, numerous former Communists and Social Democrats, were won over by us and became local group leaders and Party functionaries.
DR. SERVATIUS: But were there not two Kreisleiter from the extreme left appointed by you?
SAUCKEL: One Kreisleiter from the extreme left was appointed. Also, besides a number of other leaders, the Gau sectional manager of the German Labor Front had belonged to the extreme left for a long time.
DR. SERVATIUS: How did you personally deal with your political opponents?
SAUCKEL: Political opponents who did not work against the State were neither bothered nor harmed in my Gau.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know the Socialist Deputy Fröhlich?
SAUCKEL: The Socialist Deputy August Fröhlich was my strongest and most important opponent. He was the leader of the Thuringian Social Democrats and was for many years the Social Democrat Prime Minister of Thuringia. I had great respect for him as an opponent. He was an honorable and upright man. On 20 July 1944, through my own personal initiative, I had him released from detention. He had been on the list of the conspirators of 20 July, but I had so much respect for him personally that, in spite of that, I asked for his release and obtained it.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you treat other opponents similarly?
SAUCKEL: I also had a politician of the Center Party I knew in my home town of Schweinfurt released from detention.
DR. SERVATIUS: The Concentration Camp of Buchenwald was in your Gau. Did you establish it?
SAUCKEL: The Buchenwald Camp originated in the following manner: The Führer, who came to Weimar quite often because of the theater there, suggested that a battalion of his SS Leibstandarte should be stationed at Weimar. As the Leibstandarte was considered a picked regiment I not only agreed to this but was very pleased, because in a city like Weimar people are glad to have a garrison. So the State of Thuringia, the Thuringian Government, at the request of the Führer, prepared a site in the Ettersburg Forest, north of the incline outside the town.
After some time Himmler informed me, however, that he could not bring a battalion of the SS Leibstandarte to Weimar, as he could not divide up the regiment, but that it would be a newly established Death’s-Head unit, and Himmler said it would amount to the same thing. It was only some time later, when the site had already been placed at the disposal of the Reich, that Himmler declared that he now had to accommodate a kind of concentration camp with the Death’s-Head units on this very suitable site. I opposed this to begin with, because I did not consider a concentration camp at all the right kind of thing for the town of Weimar and its traditions. However, he—I mean Himmler—making use of his position, refused to have any discussion about it. And so the camp was set up neither to my satisfaction nor to that of the population of Weimar.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have anything to do with the administration of the camp later on?
SAUCKEL: I never had anything to do with the administration of the camp. The Thuringian Government made an attempt at the time to influence the planning of the building by saying that the building police in Thuringia wished to give the orders for the sanitary arrangements in the camp. Himmler rejected this on the grounds of his position, saying that he had a construction office of his own and the site now belonged to the Reich.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you visit the camp at any time?
SAUCKEL: As far as I can remember, on one single occasion at the end of 1937 or at the beginning of 1938, I visited and inspected the camp with an Italian commission.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you find anything wrong there?
SAUCKEL: I did not find anything wrong. I inspected the accommodations—I myself had been a prisoner for 5 years, and so it interested me. I must admit that at that time there was no cause for any complaint as such. The accommodations had been divided into day and night rooms. The beds were covered with blue and white sheets; the kitchens, washrooms, and latrines were beyond reproach, so that the Italian officer or officers who were inspecting the camp with me said that in Italy they would not accommodate their own soldiers any better.
DR. SERVATIUS: Later on did you hear about the events in that camp which have been alleged here?
SAUCKEL: I heard nothing about such events as have been alleged here.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have anything to do with the evacuation of the camp at the end of the war, before the American Army approached?
SAUCKEL: When the mayor of Weimar informed me that they intended to evacuate the camp at Buchenwald and to use the camp guards to fight the American troops, I raised the strongest objections. As I had no authority over the camp, and since for various reasons connected with my other office I had had considerable differences with Himmler and did not care to speak to him, I telephoned the Führer’s headquarters in Berlin and said that in any case an evacuation or a transfer of prisoners into the territory east of the Saale was impossible and madness, and could not be carried through from the point of view of supplies. I demanded that the camp should be handed over to the American occupation troops in an orderly manner. I received the answer that the Führer would give instructions to Himmler to comply with my request. I briefly reported this to some of my colleagues and the mayor, and then I left Weimar.
DR. SERVATIUS: The witness Dr. Blaha has stated that you had also been to the concentration camp at Dachau on the occasion of an inspection.
SAUCKEL: No, I did not go to the Dachau Concentration Camp and, as far as I recollect, I did not take part in the visit of the Gauleiter to Dachau in 1935 either. In no circumstances did I take part in an inspection in Dachau such as Dr. Blaha has described here; and consequently, above all, I did not inspect workshops or anything of the sort.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not, as Gauleiter, receive official reports regarding the events in the concentration camp, that is to say, orders which passed through the Gau administrative offices both from and to the camp?
SAUCKEL: No. I neither received instructions for the Buchenwald Camp, nor reports. It was not only my personal opinion but it was the opinion of old experienced Gauleiter that it was the greatest misfortune, from the administrative point of view, when Himmler as early as 1934-35 proceeded to separate the executive from the general internal administration. There were continual complaints from many Gauleiter and German provincial administrations. They were unsuccessful, however, because in the end Himmler incorporated even the communal fire brigades into the Reich organization of his Police.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any personal relations with the Police and the SS at Weimar?
SAUCKEL: I had no personal relations with the SS and the Police at all. I had official relations inasmuch as the trade police and the local police of small boroughs still remained under the internal administration of the State of Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did not the Police have their headquarters near you, at Weimar?
SAUCKEL: No, it was the ridiculous part of the development at that time that, as I once explained to the Führer, we had been changed from a Party state, and a state made up of provinces, into a departmental state. The Reich ministries had greatly developed, their departments being fairly well defined, and the individual district departments of the various administrations did not agree among one another. Until 1934 Thuringia had its own independent police administration in its Ministry for Home Affairs. But from that time the headquarters of the Higher SS and the Police Leader were transferred to Kassel, so that Himmler, in contrast to the rest of the State and Party organizations, obtained new spheres for his Police. He demonstrated this in Central Germany where for example the Higher SS and Police Leader for Weimar and the State of Thuringia was stationed in Kassel, whereas for the Prussian part of the Gau of Thuringia—that is to say the town of Erfurt which is 20 kilometers away from Weimar—the Higher SS and Police Leader and the provincial administration had their seat in Magdeburg. It is obvious that we, as Gau authorities, did not in any way agree with such a development and that there was great indignation among the experienced administrators.
DR. SERVATIUS: The question is: Did you co-operate with these offices and did you have a friendly association with the officials in the regime and therefore know what was going on in Buchenwald?
SAUCKEL: On the contrary, it was a continual battle. Each separate organization shut itself off from the others. At such a period of world development this was most unfortunate. For the people it was disadvantageous and it made things impossible for any administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there persecution of the Jews in your Gau?
SAUCKEL: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: What about the laws concerning the Jews and the execution of those laws?
SAUCKEL: These Jewish laws were proclaimed in Nuremberg. There were actually very few Jews in Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were there no violations in connection with the well-known events, following the murder of the Envoy Vom Rath in Paris, which have repeatedly become the subject of discussion in this Trial?
SAUCKEL: I cannot recollect in detail the events in Thuringia. As I told you, there were only a few Jews in Thuringia. The Gauleiter were in Munich at the time, and had no influence at all on that development, for it happened during the night, when all the Gauleiter were in Munich.
DR. SERVATIUS: My question is this: What happened in your Gau of Thuringia, and what instructions did you give as a result?
SAUCKEL: There may have been a few towns in Thuringia where a window was smashed or something of that sort. I cannot tell you in detail. I cannot even tell you where or whether there were synagogues in Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now one question regarding your financial position.
On the occasion of your fiftieth birthday the Führer made you a donation. How much was it?
SAUCKEL: On my fiftieth birthday in October 1944 I was surprised to get a letter from the Führer through one of his adjutants. In that letter there was a check for 250,000 marks. I told the adjutant that I could not possibly accept it—I was very surprised. The Führer’s adjutant—it was little Bormann, the old Bormann, not Reichsleiter Bormann—told me that the Führer knew quite well that I had neither money nor any landed property and that this would be a security for my children. He told me not to hurt the Führer’s feelings. The adjutant left quickly and I sent for Demme who was both a colleague and a friend of mine and the president of the State Bank of Thuringia. He was unfortunately refused as a witness as being irrelevant ...
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is enough if we know whether he ultimately accepted it or not.
DR. SERVATIUS: Let us drop that question. What happened to the money?
SAUCKEL: Through the president of the State Bank in question the money was placed into an account in the State Bank of Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: What other income did you receive from your official positions?
SAUCKEL: The only income I had from my official positions was the salary of a Reich Regent.
DR. SERVATIUS: How much was that?
SAUCKEL: The salary of a Reich Minister; I cannot tell you exactly what it was. I never bothered about it. It was something like 30,000 marks.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what means have you today apart from the donation in that bank account?
SAUCKEL: I have not saved any money and I never had any property.
DR. SERVATIUS: That, Mr. President, brings me to the end of those general questions and I am now coming to the questions relating to the Allocation of Labor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. SERVATIUS: To aid the Court I have prepared a plan showing how the direction of labor was managed, which should help to explain how the individual authorities co-operated and how the operation was put into motion.
I will concern myself mainly with the problem of meeting the demand, that is with the question of how the labor was obtained. I shall not concern myself much with the question of the use made of the labor and the needs of industry. That is more a matter for Speer’s defense, which does not quite fit in with my presentation of things. But those are details which occurred in error because I did not go into such matters thoroughly when the plan was being prepared. Fundamentally there are no differences.
If I may explain the plan briefly: At the top there is the Führer, in red; under him is the Four Year Plan; and under that, as part of the Four Year Plan, there is the office of Sauckel, who was Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor and came directly under the Four Year Plan. He received his instructions and orders from the Führer through the Four Year Plan, or, as was the Führer’s way, from him direct.
Sauckel’s headquarters were at the Reich Ministry of Labor. It is the big space outlined in yellow to the left, below Sauckel’s office which is in brown. Sauckel only became included in the Reich Labor Ministry by having a few offices put at his disposal. The Reich Minister of Labor and the whole of the Labor Ministry remained.
In the course of time Sauckel’s position became somewhat stronger, individual departments being necessarily incorporated into his, over which, to a certain extent, he obtained personal power; but the Reich Ministry of Labor remained until the end.
I should now like to explain how the “Arbeitseinsatz” was put into operation. Owing to operations in Russia and the great losses in the winter, there arose a need for 2 million soldiers. The Wehrmacht, OKW, marked in green at the top next to the Führer, demands soldiers from the industries. It is marked here in the green spaces which run downwards below the OKW. The line then turns left downwards to the industries which are marked as having 30 million workers. The Wehrmacht withdraws 2 million workers but can only do so when new labor is there. It was at that moment that Sauckel was put into office in order to obtain this labor.
The number of men needed was determined by the higher authorities through the so-called “Requirements Board,” marked at the top in yellow, which represented the highest offices: the Armaments and Production Ministries, the Ministry of Air, Agriculture, Shipping, Traffic, and so on. They reported their requests to the Führer and he decided what was needed.
Sauckel’s task was carried out as follows: Let us go back to the brown square. On the strength of the right of the Four Year Plan to issue orders, he applied to the space on the right where the squares are outlined in blue. They are the highest district offices in the occupied territories, the Reich Ministry for the Eastern Territories, that is, Rosenberg; then come the military authorities; and as things were handled a little differently in each country, here are the various countries, Belgium, Northern France, Holland, et cetera, marked in yellow. These agencies received the order to make labor available. Each through its own machinery referred the order to the next agency below and so on down to the very last, the local labor offices which are under the district authorities, and here the workers were assigned to the factories. That is the reserve of foreigners. Beside that there are two other sources of labor available, the main reserve of German workers, which is marked in blue to the left at the bottom, and the reserve of prisoners of war.
Sauckel had to deal with all these three agencies. I will now put relevant questions to the witness. This is only to refresh our memories and to check the explanation.
I will submit other charts later. There is a list of the witnesses drawn up according to their offices so that we know where they belong; and later there will be another chart showing the inspection and controls which were set up.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Servatius, you will no doubt be asking the witness whether he is familiar with the chart and whether it is correct.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you have seen this chart. Is it correct? Do you acknowledge it?
SAUCKEL: To the best of my memory and belief it is correct, and I acknowledge it.
DR. SERVATIUS: On 21 March 1942 you were made Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor. Why were you chosen for this office?
SAUCKEL: The reason why I was chosen for this office was never known to me and I do not know it now. Because of my engineering studies and my occupation I took an interest in questions concerning labor systems, but I do not know whether that was the reason.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was your appointment not made at Speer’s suggestion?
SAUCKEL: Reichsleiter Bormann stated that in the preamble to his official decree. I do not know the actual circumstances.
DR. SERVATIUS: I beg to refer to Sauckel Document Number 7. It is in Document Book 1, Page 5.
SAUCKEL: I should like to add that this appointment came as a complete surprise to me, I did not apply for it in any way. I never applied for any of my offices.
THE PRESIDENT: What number are you giving to this document?
DR. SERVATIUS: Document Number 7.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean the chart. What number are you giving to the chart?
DR. SERVATIUS: Document 1.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I see, and Document Number 7, Page 5.
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes. This document is a preamble added by Reichsleiter Bormann to the decree and which shows that it was Speer who suggested Sauckel for this position.
Was it an entirely new office which you then entered?
SAUCKEL: No. The Arbeitseinsatz had been directed by the Four Year Plan before my appointment. A ministerial director, Dr. Mansfeld, held the office then. I only learned here, during these proceedings, that the office was already known before my time as the office of the Plenipotentiary General.
DR. SERVATIUS: On taking up your office did you talk to Dr. Mansfeld, your so-called predecessor?
SAUCKEL: I neither saw Dr. Mansfeld nor spoke to him, nor did I take over any records from him.
DR. SERVATIUS: To what extent was your office different from that of the previous Plenipotentiary General?
SAUCKEL: My office was different to this extent: The department in the Four Year Plan was given up and was no longer used by me. I drew departments of the Reich Labor Ministry more and more closely into this work as they had some of the outstanding experts.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the reason for this reconstruction of the office?
SAUCKEL: The reason was to be found in the many conflicting interests which had been very prominent up to the third year of the war in the political and state offices, internal administration offices, Party agencies and economic agencies, and which now for territorial considerations opposed the interdistrict equalization of the labor potential, which had become urgent.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sort of task did you have then? What was your sphere of work?
SAUCKEL: My chief sphere of work was in directing and regulating German labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: What task were you given then?
SAUCKEL: I had to replace with suitably skilled workers those men who had to be freed from industry for drafting into the German Wehrmacht, that is, into the different branches of the Wehrmacht. Moreover, I also had to obtain new labor for the new war industries which had been set up for food production as well as for the production of armaments, of course.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was your task definitely defined?
SAUCKEL: It was at first in no way definitely defined. There were at that time about 23 or 24 million workers to be directed, who were available in the Reich but who had not yet been fully employed for war economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you look on your appointment as a permanent one?
SAUCKEL: No. I could not consider it as permanent.
DR. SERVATIUS: Why not?
SAUCKEL: Because in addition to me the Reich Labor Minister and his state secretaries were in office and at the head of things; and then there was the whole of the Labor Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: What sources were at your disposal to obtain this labor?
SAUCKEL: First, there were the workers who were already present in the Reich from all sorts of callings who, as I have said, had not yet been directed to war economy, not yet completely incorporated in the way that was necessary for the conduct of the war. Then further there were the prisoners of war as far as their labor was made available by the army authorities.
DR. SERVATIUS: At first then, if I have understood you correctly, proper distribution, and a thrifty management of German labor?
SAUCKEL: When my appointment ...
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, I do not understand the German language, but it appears to me that if you would not make pauses between each word it would make your sentences shorter; and pause at the end of the sentence. It would be much more convenient for the interpreter. I do not know whether I am right in that. That is what it looks like. You are pausing between each word, and therefore it is difficult, I imagine, to get the sense of the sentence.
SAUCKEL: I beg your pardon, Your Lordship.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Dr. Servatius.
DR. SERVATIUS: What did you do to carry out your task?
SAUCKEL: I will repeat. First, as I had received no specific instructions I understood my task to mean that I was to fill up the gaps and deficiencies by employing labor in the most rational and economic way.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the order you received? How many people were you to obtain?
SAUCKEL: That question is very difficult to answer, for I received the necessary orders only in the course of the development of the war. Labor and economy are fluid, intangible things. However I then received the order that if the war were to continue for some time I was to find replacements in the German labor sector for the Wehrmacht, whose soldiers were the potential of peacetime economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: You drew up a program. What was provided for in your program?
SAUCKEL: I drew up two programs, Doctor. At first, when I took up my office, I drew up one program which included a levée en masse, so to speak, of German women and young people, and, another, as I already said, for the proper utilization of labor from the economic and technical point of view.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was the program accepted?
SAUCKEL: The program was rejected by the Führer when I submitted it to him and, as was my duty, to the Reich economic authorities and ministries which were interested in the employment of labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: Why?
SAUCKEL: The Führer sent for me and in a lengthy statement explained the position of the German war production and also the economic situation. He said that he had nothing against my program as such if he had the time; but that in view of the situation, he could not wait for such German women to become trained and experienced. At that time 10 million German women were already employed who had never done industrial or mechanical work. Further, he said that the results of such a rationalization of working methods as I had suggested, something like a mixture of Ford and Taylor methods ...
DR. SERVATIUS: One moment. The interpreters cannot translate your long sentences properly. You must make short sentences and divide your phrases, otherwise no one can understand you and your defense will suffer a great deal. Will you please be careful about that.
SAUCKEL: In answer to my proposal the Führer said that he could not wait for a rationalization of the working methods on the lines of the Taylor and Ford systems.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what did he suggest?
SAUCKEL: May I explain the motives which prompted the Führer’s decision. He described the situation at that time, at the end of the winter of 1941-42. Many hundreds of German locomotives, almost all the mechanized armed units, tanks, planes, and mechanical weapons had become useless as a result of the catastrophe of that abnormally hard winter.
Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers had suffered terribly from the cold; many divisions had lost their arms and supplies. The Führer explained to me that if the race with the enemy for new arms, new munitions, and new dispositions of forces was not won now, the Soviets would be as far as the Channel by the next winter. Appealing to my sense of duty and asking me to put into it all I could, he gave me the task of obtaining new foreign labor for employment in the German war economy.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have no scruples that this was against international law?
SAUCKEL: The Führer spoke to me in such detail about this question and he explained the necessity so much as a matter of course that, after he had withdrawn a suggestion which he had made himself, there could be no misgivings on my part that the employment of foreign workers was against international law.
DR. SERVATIUS: You also negotiated with other agencies and there were already workers within the Reich. What were you told about that?
SAUCKEL: None of the higher authorities, either military or civilian, expressed any misgivings. Perhaps I may add some things which the Führer mentioned as binding upon me. On the whole, the Führer always treated me very kindly. On this question, he became very severe and categorical and said that in the West he had left half the French Army free and at home, and he had released the greater part of the Belgian Army and the whole of the Dutch Army from captivity. He told me that under certain circumstances he would have to recall these prisoners of war for military reasons, but that in the interests of the whole of Europe and the Occident, so he expressed himself, only a united Europe, where labor was properly allocated, could hold out in the fight against Bolshevism.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you know the terms of the Hague land warfare regulations?
SAUCKEL: During the first World War I myself was taken prisoner as a sailor. I knew what was required and what was laid down with regard to the treatment and protection of prisoners of war and prisoners generally.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did foreign authorities—I am thinking of the French—ever raise the objection that what you planned with your Arbeitseinsatz was an infringement of the Hague land warfare regulations?
SAUCKEL: No. In France, on questions of the Arbeitseinsatz, I only negotiated with the French Government through the military commander and under the presidency of the German Ambassador in Paris. I was convinced that as far as the employment of labor in France was concerned, agreements should be made with a proper French Government. I negotiated in a similar manner with the General Secretary in Belgium.
DR. SERVATIUS: Now a large part—about a third—of the foreign workers were so-called Eastern Workers. What were you told about them?
SAUCKEL: With regard to the employment of workers from the East I was told that Russia had not joined the Geneva Convention, and so Germany for her part was not bound by it. And I was further told that in the Baltic countries and in other regions, Soviet Russia had also claimed workers or people, and that in addition about 3 million Chinese were working in Soviet Russia.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what about Poland?
SAUCKEL: As regards Poland I had been told, just as in the case of other countries, that it was a case of total capitulation, and that on the grounds of this capitulation Germany was justified in introducing German regulations.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you consider the employment of foreign labor justifiable from the general point of view?
SAUCKEL: On account of the necessities which I have mentioned, I considered the employment of foreign workers justifiable according to the principles which I enforced and advocated and to which I also adhered in my field of work. I was, after all, a German and I could feel only as a German.
DR. SERVATIUS: Herr Sauckel, you must formulate your sentences differently, the interpreters cannot translate them. You must not insert one sentence into another.
So you considered it justifiable, in view of the principles you wished to apply and, which as you said, you enforced in your field of work?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you also think of the hardships imposed on the workers and their families through this employment?
SAUCKEL: I knew from my own life even if one goes to foreign countries voluntarily, a separation is very sad and heartbreaking and it is very hard for members of a family to be separated from each other. But I also thought of the German families, of the German soldiers, and of the hundreds of thousands of German workers who also had to go away from home.
DR. SERVATIUS: The suggestion has been made that the work could have been carried out in the occupied territories themselves, and it would not then have been necessary to fetch the workers away. Why was that not done?
SAUCKEL: That is, at first sight, an attractive suggestion. If it had been possible, I would willingly have carried out the suggestion which was made by Funk and other authorities, and later even by Speer. It would have made my life and work much simpler. On the other hand, there were large departments in this system which had to provide for and maintain the different branches of German economy and supply them with orders. As the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor I could not have German fields, German farming, German mass-production with the most modern machinery transferred to foreign territories—I had no authority for that—and those offices insisted that I should find replacements for the agricultural and industrial workers and the artisans whose places had become vacant in German agriculture or industry because the men had been called to the colors.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said before that the manner in which you had planned the employment of workers was such that it could have been approved. What then were your leading principles in carrying out your scheme for the employment of labor?
SAUCKEL: When the Führer described the situation so drastically, and ordered me to bring foreign workers to Germany, I clearly recognized the difficulties of the task and I asked him to agree to the only way by which I considered it possible to do this, for I had been a worker too.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not your principal consideration the economic exploitation of these foreign workers?
SAUCKEL: The Arbeitseinsatz has nothing to do with exploitation. It is an economic process for supplying labor.
DR. SERVATIUS: You said repeatedly in your speeches and on other occasions that the important thing was to make the best possible economic use of these workers. You speak of a machine which must be properly handled. Did you want to express thereby the thought of economic exploitation?
SAUCKEL: At all times a regime of no matter what nature, can only be successful in the production of goods if it uses labor economically—not too much and not too little. That alone I consider economically justifiable.
DR. SERVATIUS: It was stated here in a document which was submitted, the French Document RF-22, a government report, that the intention existed to bring about a demographic deterioration, and in other government reports mention is made that one of the aims was the biological destruction of other peoples. What do you say about that?
SAUCKEL: I can say most definitely that biological destruction was never mentioned to me. I was only too happy when I had workers. I suspected that the war would last longer than was expected, and the demands upon my office were so urgent and so great that I was glad for people to be alive, not for them to be destroyed.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the general attitude toward the question of foreign workers before you took office? What did you find when you came?
SAUCKEL: There was a controversy when I took up my office. There were about two million foreign workers in Germany from neutral and allied states and occupied territories of the East and the West. They had been brought to the Reich without order or system. Many industrial concerns avoided contacting the labor authorities or found them troublesome and bureaucratic. The conflict of interests, as I said before, was very great. The Police point of view was most predominating, I think.
DR. SERVATIUS: And propaganda? What was the propaganda with regard to Eastern Workers, for example?
SAUCKEL: Propaganda was adapted to the war in the East. I may point out now—you interrupted me before when I was speaking of the order given me by the Führer—that I expressly asked the Führer not to let workers working in Germany be treated as enemies any longer, and I tried to influence propaganda to that effect.
DR. SERVATIUS: What else did you do with regard to the situation which confronted you?
SAUCKEL: I finally received approval from the Führer for my second program. That program has been submitted here as a document. I must and will bear responsibility for that program.
DR. SERVATIUS: It has already been submitted as Document 016-PS. It is the Program for the Allocation of Labor of 20 April 1942, Exhibit USA-168.
In this program you made fundamental statements. I will hand it to you and I ask you to comment on the general questions only, not on the individual points.
There is a paragraph added to the last part, “Prisoners of War and Foreign Workers.” Have you found the paragraph?
SAUCKEL: Yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: If you will look at the third paragraph you will find what you want to explain.
SAUCKEL: I should like to say that I drew up and worked out this program independently in 1942 after I had been given that difficult task by the Führer. It was absolutely clear to me what the conditions would have to be if foreign workers were to be employed in Germany at all. I wrote those sentences at that time and the program went to all the German authorities which had to deal with the matter. I quote:
“All these people must be fed, housed, and treated in such a way that with the least possible effort”—here I refer to economics as conceived by Taylor and Ford, whom I have studied closely—“the greatest possible results will be achieved. It has always been a matter of course for us Germans to treat a conquered enemy correctly and humanely, even if he were our most cruel and irreconcilable foe, and to abstain from all cruelty and petty chicanery when expecting useful service from him.”
DR. SERVATIUS: Will you put the document aside now, please. What authority did you have to carry out your task?
SAUCKEL: I had authority from the Four Year Plan to issue instructions. I had at my disposal—not under me, but at my disposal—Sections 3 and 5 of the Reich Labor Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: What departments did they represent?
SAUCKEL: The departments, “Employment of Labor” and “Wages.”
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you issue directives and orders?
SAUCKEL: I could issue directives and orders of a departmental nature to those offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you carry on negotiations with foreign countries independently?
SAUCKEL: I could carry on negotiations with foreign countries only through the Foreign Office or, when I had received permission, with the ambassadors or ministers in question.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you give your orders independently or was agreement and consultation necessary?
SAUCKEL: My field of work, as in every large branch of an administration, made it absolutely necessary for me to discuss the questions and have consultations about them with neighboring departments. I was obliged to do so according to instructions.
DR. SERVATIUS: With whom did you have to consult, apart from the Four Year Plan under which you were placed?
SAUCKEL: I had first of all to consult the departments themselves from which I received the orders, and in addition the Party Chancellery, the office of Reich Minister Lammers—the Reich Chancellery, the Reich Railways, the Reich Food Ministry, the Reich Defense Ministry.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did things go smoothly, or were there difficulties?
SAUCKEL: There were always great difficulties.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any dealings with Himmler?
SAUCKEL: I had dealings with Himmler only insofar as he gave instructions. He was Reich Minister and was responsible for security, as he said.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not that a question which was very important for you in regard to the treatment of workers?
SAUCKEL: During the first months or in the first weeks, I believe, of my appointment I was called to see Heydrich. In a very precise way, Heydrich told me that he considered my program fantastic, such as it had been approved by the Führer, and that I must realize that I was making his work very difficult in demanding that barbed wire and similar fences should not and must not be put around the labor camps, but rather taken down. He then said curtly that I must realize that if it was I who was responsible for the allocation of labor, it was he who was responsible for security. That is what he told me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you accept the fact that these strict police measures now existed?
SAUCKEL: Through constant efforts I had these police measures gradually reduced as far as they concerned the workers who were employed in Germany through my agency and my office.
DR. SERVATIUS: What did your authority to issue instructions consist of? Could you issue orders or had you to negotiate, and how was this carried out in practice?
SAUCKEL: The authority I had to issue instructions was doubtful from the beginning because, owing to the necessities of war, the lack of manpower, and so on, I was forbidden to establish any office of my own or any other new office or organization. I could only pass on instructions after negotiation with the supreme authorities of the Reich and after detailed consultation. These instructions were, of course, of a purely departmental nature. I could not interfere in matters of administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: How was this right to issue instructions exercised with regard to the high authorities in the occupied territories?
SAUCKEL: It was exactly the same, merely of a departmental nature. In practice it was the passing on of the Führer’s orders which were to be carried out there through the individual machinery of each separate administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: Could you give binding instructions to military authorities, to the Economic Inspectorate East, for example?
SAUCKEL: No, there was a strict order from the Führer that in the Army areas, the operational areas of the Commanders-in-Chief, the latter only were competent, and when they had examined military conditions and the situation, everything had to be regulated according to the needs of these high military commands.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did that apply to the military commander in France, or could you act directly there?
SAUCKEL: In France I could, of course, proceed only in the same way, by informing the military commander of the instructions which I myself had received. He then prepared for discussions with the German Embassy and the French Government, so that with the Ambassador presiding, and the military commander taking an authoritative part, the discussion with the French Government took place.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what happened as far as the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories was concerned?
SAUCKEL: In the case of that Ministry I had to transmit my orders to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and had to consult with him. With Reich Minister Rosenberg we always succeeded in arranging matters between ourselves in a way that we considered right. But in the Ukraine there was the Reich Commissioner who was on very intimate terms himself with headquarters, and, as is generally known, he was very independent and acted accordingly by asserting this independence.
DR. SERVATIUS: How did these authorities in the occupied territories take your activities at first?
SAUCKEL: In the occupied territories there was naturally much opposition at the start of my work, because I brought new orders and new requirements and it was not always easy to reconcile conflicting interests.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there any apprehension that you would intervene in the administration of the territories?
SAUCKEL: From my own conviction I refrained entirely from any such intervention and I always emphasized that in order to dispel any such apprehensions, since I myself was not the administrator there; but there were many selfish interests at work.
DR. SERVATIUS: We will discuss this on another occasion. Now I should like to ask you: You had deputies for the Arbeitseinsatz—when did you obtain them?
SAUCKEL: I was given these deputies for the occupied territories through a personal decree of the Führer on 30 September 1942, as far as I remember.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the reason?
SAUCKEL: The reason for appointing these deputies was to do away more easily with the difficulties and the lack of direction which prevailed to some extent in these areas.
DR. SERVATIUS: I refer in this connection to Document 12, “The Führer’s Decree Concerning the Execution of the Decree of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor.” No, it is Document 13. “Decree Concerning the Appointment of Deputies”—on Page 13 of the English document book, and I also refer to Document 12 which has already been submitted as 1903-PS, Exhibit USA-206.
Did you not have two different kinds of deputies, I mean, were there already some deputies previously?
SAUCKEL: There were previously deputies of the Reich Labor Ministry who in allied or neutral countries were assigned to the German diplomatic missions. They must be distinguished from those deputies who were assigned to the chiefs of the German military or civilian administration in the occupied territories.
DR. SERVATIUS: What position did the deputies hold in the occupied territories?
SAUCKEL: In the occupied territories the deputies had a dual position. They were the leaders of the labor sections in the local government there—a considerable burden for me—and at the same time my deputies who were responsible for the uniform direction and execution of the principles of the allocation of labor as laid down by me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have your own organization with the deputy at the head, or was that an organization of the local government?
SAUCKEL: I did not have any organization of my own. The local governments were independent separate administrations with an administrative chief as head to whom the various departments were subordinated.
DR. SERVATIUS: How many such deputies were there in one area?
SAUCKEL: In the various countries I had one deputy in each of the highest offices.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the task of the deputy?
SAUCKEL: The task of the deputy, as I have already said, was to guarantee that German orders were carried out in a legal way and, as member of the local administration, to regulate labor questions which arose there.
DR. SERVATIUS: What tasks did they have as regards the interest of the Reich and the distribution of labor for local employment and in the Reich?
SAUCKEL: It was expressly pointed out that they were to produce labor in reasonable proportions with consideration for local conditions; they also had to see to it that my principles were observed with respect to the treatment, feeding, and so forth of workers from the occupied zones. That is laid down in the form of a directive.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not have your own recruiting commissions?
SAUCKEL: There were no recruiting commissions in the sense in which the expression is often used here and in our own documents. It was a question of reinforcements of experts which were requested by the local government, in order to carry out the tasks in the countries concerned.
DR. SERVATIUS: What instructions did these recruiting commissions have?
SAUCKEL: They received the instructions which are frequently and clearly expressed in my orders and which, as they have been laid down, I need not mention.
DR. SERVATIUS: I refer here to Document 15 which has already been submitted as 3044-PS; Exhibit Number USA-206, and also USSR-384.
That is the Order Number 4 of 7 May 1942, which settles in principle all the problems relating to this question, and gives the necessary directives to the deputies regarding recruitment.
Were those directives which you issued always adhered to?
SAUCKEL: The directives I issued were not always adhered to as strictly as I had demanded. I made every effort to impose them through constant orders, instructions, and punishment which, however, I myself could not inflict.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were these orders meant seriously? The French Prosecution has submitted in the government report one of your speeches, which you made at that time in Posen. It was termed a speech of apology. I ask you whether these principles were meant seriously or whether they were only for the sake of appearances, since you yourself believed, as the document stated, that they could not be carried out?
SAUCKEL: I can only emphasize that in my life I had worked so much myself under such difficult conditions that these instructions expressed my full conviction as to their necessity. I ask to have witnesses heard as to what I thought about it and what I did in order to have these instructions carried out.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was there any noticeable opposition to your principles?
SAUCKEL: I have already said that to a certain extent my principles were considered troublesome by some authorities and injudicious as far as German security was concerned.
When I was attacked on that account, I took occasion, in addition to a number of instructions to the German Gauleiter, to issue a manifesto to all the highest German government offices concerned.
DR. SERVATIUS: May I remark that this is Document S-84, in Document Book 3, Page 215.
I submit the document once more in German because of the form in which it is printed. It is in the form of an urgent warning and was sent to all the authorities.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it Document Number 84?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
Witness, did you, in a meeting of the Central Planning Board ...
SAUCKEL: May I be allowed to say a word with regard to this manifesto?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
SAUCKEL: When I issued the manifesto, I was met with the objection, mainly from Dr. Goebbels, that a manifesto should really be issued only by the Führer and not by a subordinate authority such as myself. Then I found that I was having difficulties in getting the manifesto printed. After I had had 150,000 copies printed for all the German economic offices, for all the works managers and all the other offices which were interested, I had it printed again myself in this emphatic form and personally sent it once more, with a covering letter, to all those offices.
In this manifesto, in spite of the difficulties which I encountered, I especially advocated that in the occupied territories themselves the workers should be treated in accordance with my principles and according to my directives and orders.
I respectfully ask the Court to be allowed to read a few sentences from it:
“I therefore order that for all the occupied territories, for the treatment, feeding, billeting, and payment of foreign workers, appropriate regulations and directives be issued similar to those valid for foreigners in the Reich. They are to be adjusted to the respective local conditions and applied in accordance with prevailing conditions.
“In a number of the Eastern Territories indigenous male and female civilian labor working for the German war industry or the German Wehrmacht is undernourished. In the urgent interests of the German war industry in this territory this condition should be remedied. It is checking production and is dangerous. And endeavor must therefore be made by all means available to provide additional food for these workers and their families. This additional food must be given only in accordance with the output of work.
“It is only through the good care and treatment of the whole of the available European labor on the one hand, and through its most rigid concentration”—here I mean organizational—“leadership and direction on the other hand, that the fluctuation of labor in the Reich and in the occupied territories can be limited to a minimum, and a generally stable, lasting and reliable output be achieved.”
May I read one more sentence:
“The foreign workers in the Reich and the population in the occupied territories who are being employed for the German war effort must be given the feeling that it is to their own interests to work loyally for Germany and that therein alone will they see and actually find their one real guarantee of life.”
May I read still one sentence in the next paragraph:
“They must be given absolute trust in the justness of the German authorities and of their German employers.”
THE PRESIDENT: I think we had better not go further in this document. Can you indicate to us at all how long you are likely to be with this defendant?
DR. SERVATIUS: I shall probably need the whole day tomorrow.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, would it be convenient for you some time to deal with the documents of the remaining defendants?
MR. DODD: Yes, Mr. President, any time that you might set aside.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know how far the negotiations and agreements with reference to documents have gone.
MR. DODD: I do with some, but not with all. I can ascertain the facts tonight, or before the morning session, and advise you at that time.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, and you will let us know tomorrow what time will be convenient?
MR. DODD: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 29 May 1946 at 1000 hours.]
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Punctuation and spelling have been maintained except where obvious printer errors have occurred such as missing periods or commas for periods. English and American spellings occur throughout the document; however, American spellings are the rule, hence, “Defense” versus “Defence”. Unlike Blue Series volumes I and II, this volume includes French, German, Polish and Russian names and terms with diacriticals: hence Führer, Göring, etc. throughout.
Although some sentences may appear to have incorrect spellings or verb tenses, the original text has been maintained as it represents what the tribunal read into the record and reflects the actual translations between the German, English, French, and Russian documents presented in the trial.
An attempt has been made to produce this eBook in a format as close as possible to the original document presentation and layout.
[The end of Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal Vol. 14, by Various.]