dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. DODD: You say it had no relation to the wart 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 an 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 Stabsfuehrer 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 Mueller and a town clergyman Franz Ruemmer 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's 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 of finials, 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 Racy. 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 nod 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 193' 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 knob 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 religion 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 Fuehrer'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 gusto 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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.
VOW 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer. 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 Stretcher. 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 Grossmoellen 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 Grossmoellen, 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 Stuermer 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 Grossmoellen was not a part of the Hitler Youth organization?