dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. SAUTER: Witness, the question of anti-Semitism would also include your attitude to Der Stuermer , the paper issued by your fellow-Defendant, Streicher. Did you distribute this anti-Semitic paper Der Stuermer within your youth organization, and did you in any way further its distribution?
VON SCHIRACH: Der Stuermer was not distributed within the youth organization. I believe that with the sole exception of those of the young people who lived in this Gau...
DR. SAUTER: Gau Franken?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, Gau Franken-that the rest of the German youth organization never read Der Stuermer at all. The paper was definitely rejected by all the youth leaders-both boys and girls-in my organization.
DR. SAUTER: Then, Witness, I must point out to you that the Prosecution have accused you of having given, on one occasion, an introduction to this paper, this anti-Jewish paper Der Stuermer . Do you know about it, and what have you got to say on the matter?
VON SCHIRACH: I can say the following in this respect. I was always in close collaboration with the press; in fact, I came from the press myself. In my press office, as Reich Youth Leader, I gave definite instructions that all requests from Gau papers for an introduction, or something else of the kind from me should be granted on principle. Therefore, whenever a Gau paper celebrated a jubilee- perhaps the tenth or twentieth anniversary of its existence, or published some special issue-then the experts in my press office would run up a draft and, together with the considerable volume of evening mail presented to me for my signature, these drafts and elaborations would be submitted to me. In this way it might have happened that I signed that introduction for Der Stuermer which, of course, was the paper of the local Gaul Otherwise I have no recollection of the episode.
DR. SAUTER: Consequently you cannot remember whether you drafted that short introduction yourself, or whether it was drafted by one of your experts and presented to you for signature?
VON SCHIRACH: I definitely believe that I did not draft it myself, because such short introductions-as already stated-were always submitted to me. I wrote my newspaper articles myself but never introductions of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, since we have just mentioned the name of Streicher, I would remind you of a very ugly picture book which was submitted here by the Prosecution. Was that picture book distributed among the youth with your consent, or do you know anything else about it?
VON SCHIRACH: Of course this book was not distributed among the young people. It is quite out of the question that an office of the HJ (Hitler Jugend) would have transmitted that book to the youth. Besides, the picture books of the Stuermer Publishing Firm are unknown to me. I am, of course, not competent to speak on education in the schools, but I should also like to say on behalf of education in the schools that I do not believe this picture book was ever introduced into any school outside of this Gaul At any rate, that book and similar writings of the Stuermer Publishing Firm were not, as a rule, distributed among the young people and the youth organizations. What I have already said when judging Der Stuermer also holds good for these books-namely, that the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth categorically rejected writings of this description.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you have also experienced how the anti-Semitic question actually developed and how it eventually resulted in the well-known anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938. Did you yourself, in any way, participate in these anti-Jewish pogroms of November 1938?
VON SCHIRACH: I personally did not participate in any way, but I did participate in the Munich session...
DR. SAUTER: Which session?
VON SCHIRACH: The session which was traditionally held on 9 November of each year in memory of those who had fallen on 9 November 1923. I did not take part in all the discussions of that day. But I do remember a speech by Goebbels in connection with the murder of Herr Vom Rath. That speech was definitely of an inflammatory nature, and one was free to assume from this speech that Goebbels intended to start some action. He is alleged-but that I only discovered later-to have given detailed instructions for this action directly from his hotel in Munich to the Reich Propaganda Ministry. I was present at the Munich session, as was my colleague Lauterbacher, my chief of staff, and we both rejected the action. The HJ, as the largest National Socialist organization, was not employed at all in the anti-Jewish pogroms of 9, 10, and 11 November 1938. I remember one incident where a youth leader, without referring to my Berlin office and carried away by some local propaganda, took part in a demonstration and was later called to account by me for so doing. After 10 November I was again in Munich for a few days and visited, inter alia , a few of the destroyed business houses and villas as well. It made a terrible impression on me at the time, and under that impression I instructed the entire Youth Leadership, the regional leaders if I remember rightly-in other words, all the highest responsible youth leaders-to come to Berlin and there, in an address to these youth leaders, I described the incidents of the 9 and 10 November as a disgrace to our culture. I also referred to it as a criminal action. I believe that all the colleagues present on that occasion will clearly remember how agitated I was and that I told them that my organization, both now and in the future, would never have anything to do with acts of this sort.
DR. SAUTER: You previously mentioned one individual case where an HJ leader, subordinate to you, participated in some action. Did you know of other cases, in November 1938 and after, where units of the HJ were factually supposed to have participated in the anti-Jewish pogroms?
VON SCHIRACH: No, I know of no other cases. The only thing I did hear was that here and there individual lads, or groups of youths, were called out into the streets by local authorities which were not of the HJ. In the majority of cases these lads were promptly sent home again by the youth leaders. The organization was never employed, and I attach great importance to the statement that the youth organization, which included more members than the Party itself with all its affiliated organizations, was never involved in these incidents. '
DR. SAUTER: Witness, you saw at least, from the incidents in November 1938, that developments in Germany were taking a different trend to the course you had expected-if we are to judge by your previous description. How did you, after November 1938, envisage the further solution of the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRACH: After the events of 1938 I realized that Jewry's one chance lay in a state-supported emigration; for in view of Goebbels' temper, it seemed probable to me that overnight similar actions could arise from time to time, and under such conditions of legal insecurity I could not see how the Jews could continue living in Germany. That is one of the reasons why Hitler's idea of a closed Jewish settlement in the Polish Government General, of which he told me at his headquarters in 1940, was clear to me. I thought that the Jews would be better off in a closed settlement in Poland than in Germany or Austria, where they would remain exposed to the whims of the Propaganda Minister who was the mainstay of anti-Semitism in Germany.
DR. SAUTER: Is it true that you yourself, whenever you had a chance of approaching Hitler, gave him your own positive suggestions for settling the Jews in some neutral country, under humane conditions?
VON SCHIRACH: No, that is not true.
DR. SAUTER: Well?
VON SCHIRACH: I should like fully to elucidate this matter. I mentioned yesterday how I had reported to Hitler and how he had told me that the Viennese Jews would be sent to the Government General. Before that, I had never thought of an emigration of the Jews from Austria and Germany for resettlement in the Government General. I had only thought of a Jewish emigration to countries where the Jews wanted to go. But Hitler's plan, as it then existed-and I believe that at that time the idea of exterminating the Jews had not yet entered his mind-this plan of resettlement sounded perfectly reasonable to me-reasonable at that time.
DR. SAUTER: But I believe that in 1942 you are supposed to have tried, through the kind offices of your friend, Dr. Colin Ross, to suggest to Hitler that the Jews from Hungary and the Balkan States be allowed to emigrate to some neutral country, taking their goods and chattels with them.
VON SCHIRACH: That was at a later date. I no longer remember exactly when, but in any case it was after the occupation of Hungary. Among the innumerable suggestions which I made to the Fuehrer and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs through Colin Ross, was one to the effect that the entire Jewish population of Hungary be transferred to the neutral countries. If the witness Steengracht has stated here that this idea had been discussed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that it had emanated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then he probably spoke in good faith. The idea originated in discussions held between Colin Ross and myself, and Ross then put it down in the form of a memorandum. But-and this is specially important-it was reported verbally to the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs who, in turn, informed Colin Ross, on the occasion of a further visit, that the Fuehrer had definitely turned the suggestion down.
DR. SAUTER: The emigration to neutral countries abroad?
VOW SCHIRACH: Yes, to neutral countries abroad.
DR. SAUTER: The majority of the Viennese Jews, Witness, were -as you yourself know-deported from Vienna. In 1940, when you became Gauleiter in Vienna-or later on-did you ever receive a directive from Hitler to the effect that you yourself should carry out this deportation of the Jews from Vienna or that you should participate in the deportation?
VON SCHIRACH: I never received any such directive. The only directive which I received in connection with the deportation of the Jewish population from Vienna was a question from Hitler asking about the number of Jews living in Vienna at the time. That number, which I had forgotten, was recalled to my memory by a document put to me by the Prosecution. According to that document I reported to Hitler that 60,000 Jews were then living in Vienna. That figure probably comes from the registration office. In former times about 190,000 Jews, all told, lived in Vienna. That, I believe, was the highest figure reached. When I came to Vienna there were still 60,000 Jews left. The deportation of the Jews was a measure immediately directed, on orders from Hitler, or by Himmler; and there existed in Vienna an office of the Reich Security Main Office, or local branch office under Himmler-Heydrich, which carried out these measures.
DR. SAUTER: Who was in charge of that office?
VON SCHIRACH: The head of that office was-that I found out now; I did not know his name at the time-a certain Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: An SS Sturmfuehrer?
VON SCHIRACH: An SS Sturmfuehrer, Dr. Brunner.
DR. SAUTER: The one who, a few days ago, is supposed to have been condemned to death? Did you know that?
VON SCHIRACH: I heard it yesterday.
DR. SAUTER: Did you have to issue any orders to this Brunner who was an SS leader, or could you give him any kind of instructions?
VON SCHIRACH: It was entirely impossible for me to stop the deportation of the Jews or to have any influence thereupon. Once, as early as 1940, I told the chief of my Regional Food Supply Office that he should see to it that departing Jewish people be provided with sufficient food. Frequently, when Jews wrote to me requesting to be exempted from deportation, I charged my adjutant or some assistant to intervene with Brunner so that possibly an exception might be made for these persons. More I could not do. But I have to admit frankly, here and now, that I was of the opinion that this deportation was really in the interests of Jewry, for the reasons which I have already stated in connection with the events of 1938
DR. SAUTER: Did the SS, which in Vienna too was charged with the evacuation of the Jews, send continuous reports as to how and to what extent this evacuation of the Jews was carried out?
VON SCHIRACH: No. I am, therefore, also not in a position to state when the deportation of the Jews was concluded and whether the entire 60,000 were dragged out of Vienna or if only a part of them was carried off.
DR. SAUTER: Did not the newspapers in Vienna report anything at all about these deportations of the Jews, about the extent of the deportations and the abuses occasioned in this connection?
VON SCHIRACH: No.
DR. SAUTER: Nothing? But, Witness, I must put a document to you which has been submitted by the Prosecution. It is Document Number 3048-PS, an excerpt from the Viennese edition of the Voelkischer Beobachter , on a speech which you, Witness, made on 15 September 1942 in Vienna, and in which occurs the sentence-I quote from the newspaper: "Every Jew who operates in Europe is a danger to European culture. If I were to be accused of having deported tens of thousands of Jews from this city, once the European metropolis of Jewry, to the Eastern ghetto, I would have to reply, 'I see in that an active contribution to European culture."' Thus runs the quotation from your speech which otherwise contains no anti-Semitic declarations on your part. Considering your previous statements, Witness, I am compelled to ask you: Did you make that speech, and how did you come to make it despite your basic attitude which you have previously described to us?
VON SCHIRACH: First, I want to say that I did make that speech. The quotation is correct. I said that. I must stand by what I have said. Although the plan of the deportation of the Jews was Hitler's plan and I was not charged with its execution, I did utter those words, which I now sincerely regret; but I must say that I identified myself morally with that action only out of a feeling of misplaced loyalty to the Fuehrer. That I have done, and that cannot be undone. If I am to explain how I came to do this, I can only reply that at that time I was already "between the Devil and the deep sea." I believe it will also become clear from my later statements that from a certain moment on I had Hitler against me, the Party Chancellery against me, and very many members of the Parts itself against me. Constantly I heard from officials of the Part, Chancellery who expressed that to the Gauleiter of Vienna, and from statements made in Hitler's entourage that one was under the impression-and that this could be clearly recognized from my attitude and my actions-that I was no longer expressing myself publicly in the usual anti-Semitic manner or in other ways, either; and I just have no excuse. But it may perhaps serve as an explanation, that I was trying to extricate myself from this painful situation by speaking in a manner which today I can no longer justify to myself.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I should like to ask you, in this connection-you have just spoken of a painful situation in which you found yourself in Vienna. Is it true that Hitler himself, on various occasions, reproached you personally and severely because your attitude in Vienna had not been sufficiently energetic, that you had become too slack and too yielding; that you should concern yourself more with the interests of the Party, and that you should adopt far stricter methods? And what, Witness, did you then do?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, I assume that you realize that you are putting questions in the most leading form, that you are putting questions which suggest the answer to the defendant, and such questions cannot possibly carry-the answers to such questions cannot possibly carry the weight which answers given to questions not in their leading form would carry.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, did Hitler personally reproach you for your behavior in Vienna, and what attitude did you adopt? I believe that is not a suggestive question.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is. I should have thought it is a leading question. He says he was in a very difficult situation. You could ask him if he would explain what was the difficulty of the situation.
DR. SAUTER: Very well. Then will you answer this question, Witness?
VON SCHIRACH: Counsel for the defense, I could not, in any case, have accepted the question in the form in which you previously presented it. The difference between Hitler and myself arose primarily over an art exhibition, and the breach between Hitler and myself in 1943 was in the beginning the result of differences of opinion over the cultural policy. In 1943 I was ordered to the Berghof where Hitler, in the presence of Bormann, criticized me violently on account of my cultural work and literally said that I was leading the cultural opposition against him in Germany. And further, in the course of the conversation he said that I was mobilizing the spiritual forces of Vienna and Austria and the spiritual forces of the young people against him in cultural spheres. He said he knew it very well indeed. He had read some of my speeches, primarily the Duesseldorf speech; he had discovered that I had authorized in Weimar and in Vienna art exhibitions of a decadent nature; and he offered me the alternative, either to end this kind of oppositional work immediately-then for the time being everything could remain as in the past-or he would stop all Government subsidies for Vienna. This scene made a frightful impression on me, for it represented to me a breach of Hitler's promised word, since he had granted me absolute freedom of action when he appointed me to the Vienna mission. I then recognized that he nourished an icy hatred toward me, and that behind these statements on cultural policies something else was concealed. Whether he was dissatisfied in every detail with the way I conducted my office in Vienna at the time, I do not know. He rarely expressed himself directly about such matters. From his entourage I learned only of occasional happenings. I then-and that led to the complete and final break between Hitler and myself-a few weeks after I had received this order, if I may call it so, received a strange invitation for myself and my wife to spend some time on the Berghof.
VON SCHIRACH: At that time I innocently believed that Hitler wished to bridge the gap between us and to let me know, in one way or another, that he had gone too far. In any case, at the end of a 3 days' visit-I cut my stay short-I discovered that this was a fundamental error on my part. Here I will limit myself to a few points only. I had intended-and I also carried out my intention-to mention at least three points during my visit. One was the policy toward Russia, the second was the Jewish question, and the third was Hitler's attitude toward Vienna. I must state, to begin with, that Bormann had issued a decree addressed to me, and probably to all the other Gauleiters, prohibiting any intervention on our part in the Jewish question. That is to say, we could not intervene with Hitler in favor of any Jew or half-Jew. That too was stated in the decree. I have to mention this, since it makes matters clearer. On the first evening of my stay at the Berghof, on what appeared to me a propitious occasion, I told Hitler that I was of the opinion that a free and autonomous Ukraine would serve the Reich better than a Ukraine ruled by the violence of Herr Koch. That was all I said, nothing more, nothing less. Knowing Hitler as I did, it was extremely difficult even to hazard such a remark. Hitler answered comparatively quietly but with pronounced sharpness. On the same evening, or possibly the next one, the Jewish question was broached according to a plan I made with my wife. Since I was forbidden to mention these things even in conversation, my wife gave the Fuehrer a description of an experience she had had in Holland. She had witnessed one night, from the bedroom of her hotel, the deportation of Jewish women by the Gestapo. We were both of the opinion that this experience during her journey and the description of it might possibly result in a change of Hitler's attitude toward the entire Jewish question and in the treatment of the Jews. My wife gave a very drastic description, a description such as we can now read in the papers. Hitler was silent.
VON SCHIRACH: All the other witnesses to this conversation, including my own father-in-law, Professor Hoffmann, were also silent. The silence was icy, and after a short time Hitler merely said, "This is pure sentimentality." That was all. No further conversation took place that evening. Hitler retired earlier than usual. I was under the impression that a perfectly untenable situation had now arisen. Then the men of Hitler's entourage told my father-in-law that from now on I would have to fear for my safety. I endeavored to get away from the Berghof as quickly as possible without letting matters come to an open break, but I did not succeed. Then Goebbels arrived on the next evening and there, in my presence and without my starting it, the subject of Vienna was broached. I was naturally compelled to protest against the statements which Goebbels at first made about the Viennese. Then the Fuehrer began with) I might say, incredible and unlimited hatred to speak against the people of Vienna. I have to admit, here and now, that even if the people of Vienna are cursing me today, I have always felt very friendly toward them. I have felt closely attached to those people. I will not say more than that Joseph Weinheber was one of my closest friends. During that discussion, I, in accordance with my duty and my feelings, spoke in favor of the people under my authority in Vienna. At 4 o'clock in the morning, among other things, Hitler suddenly said something which I should now like to repeat for historical reasons. He said, "Vienna should never have been admitted into the Union of Greater Germany." Hitler never loved Vienna. He hated its people. I believe that he had a liking for the city because he appreciated the architectural design of the buildings on the Ring. But everybody who knows Vienna knows that the true Vienna is architecturally Gothic, and that the buildings on the Ring are not really representative.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, I consider that this subject has little to do with the Indictment-please adhere to the Indictment.
VON SCHIRACH: I shall now conclude. I only want to say that so total a break resulted from that discussion-or, rather explosion- of Hitler's that on that very night at about 0430 I took my leave and left the Berghof a few hours later. Since then I had no further conversations with Hitler. I must now refer to something else in this connection. Reich Marshal Goering, in the witness box, mentioned a letter of mine which Hitler had shown him, and Herr Von Ribbentrop has stated here that he was present at a conversation during which Himmler suggested to Hitler that I be indicted before the People's Court, which meant in reality that I should be hanged. I must add one thing more: What Goering said about this letter is mainly true. I wrote in quite a proper manner about family relations in that letter. I also wrote one sentence to the effect that I considered war with America a disaster.
DR. SAUTER: When was that letter written?
VON SCHIRACH: 1943, shortly after my stay at the Berghof. That statement contained nothing special, since Hitler even without . . .
THE PRESIDENT: He hasn't given the date of his stay at the Berghof yet.
DR. SAUTER: He has said 1943, Mr. President. He has just said 1943.
THE PRESIDENT: There are 12 months in 1943.
DR. SAUTER: I believe you ought to give us the month.
VON SCHIRACH: I believe that the conversation on the Berghof was in the spring, and that the letter, though I cannot tell you precisely when, was written in the summer.
DR. SAUTER: Summer of 1943?
VON SCHIRACH: Yes, 1943; but I could not say precisely when the letter was written. The letter was correct. It was written by hand, and no secretary read it. It went by courier to the head of the State.
DR. SAUTER: To Hitler personally?