dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MAJOR JONES: The day's chief event was the traditional ceremony held in the Berlin State Opera House in Unter den Linden." In the presence of Hitler and representatives of the Party and Armed Forces, General Admiral Raeder made a speech, extracts from which are given below. I turn to Page 2 of the record, Page 104 of the document book, to about the 15th line. "National Socialism"-says Raeder-"which originates from the spirit of the German fighting soldier, has been chosen by the German people as its ideology. The German people follow the symbols of its regeneration with as much great love as fanatical passion. The German people has had practical experience of National Socialism and it has not been imposed, as so many helpless critics abroad believe. The Fuehrer has shown his people that in the National Socialist solidarity of the people lies the great and invincible source of strength, whose dynamic power ensures not only peace at home but also enables us to release all the Nation's creative powers." There follow eulogies of Hitler, and a few sentences below: "This is the reason for the clear and unsparing summons to fight Bolshevism and international Jewry, the nation-destroying activities of which our own people have sufficiently suffered. Therefore, the alliance with all like-minded nations who, like Germany, are not willing to allow their strength, dedicated to construction and peaceful work at home, to be disrupted by alien ideologies and by parasites of a foreign race." Then a few sentences on: "If later on we instruct in the technical handling of weapons, this task demands that the young soldier should also be taught National Socialist ideology and the problems of life. This part of the task, which becomes for us both a duty of honor and a demand which cannot be refused, can and will be carried out if we stand shoulder to shoulder and in sincere comradeship to the Party and its organizations ......
MAJOR JONES: The next sentence: "The Armed Forces and the Party thus became more and more united in attitude and spirit." And then just two sentences on the next page: "Germany is the protector of all Germans within and beyond our frontiers. The shots fired at Almeria are proof of that." That refers, of course, to the bombardment of the Spanish town of Almeria, carried out by a German naval squadron on the 31 May 1937 during the course of the Spanish Civil War. There are further references to the Fuehrer and his leadership, and then a final sentence of the first paragraph of Page 3: "They all planted into a younger generation the great tradition of death for a holy cause, knowing that with their blood they will lead the way towards the freedom of their' dreams." My submission is that that speech of Raeder's is the final proof of his deep personal involvement in the Nazi conspiracy. There is the mixture of heroics and fatalism that led millions of Germans to slaughter. There are boasts of violence used on the people of Almeria. There is the lip service to peace by a man who planned conquest. "Armed Forces and the Party have become more and more united in attitude and spirit"-there is the authentic Nazi voice. There is the assertion of racialism. Finally, there is the anti-Semitic gesture, Raeder's contribution to the outlook that produced Belsen. Imbued with these ideas he became an active' participant on both the political and military level in the Nazi conspiracy to wage wars of aggression and to wage them ruthlessly.
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the United States will continue with the presentation, showing the individual responsibility of the Defendant Von Schirach. It will be made by Captain Sprecher.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, it is my responsibility to present the individual responsibility of the Defendant Schirach for Crimes against the Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity as they concern directly the Common Plan or Conspiracy. The Prosecution contends that the Defendant Schirach is guilty of having exercised a leading part in the Nazi conspiracy from 1925 until the Nazi downfall. The conspiratorial acts and the criminality of the Defendant Schirach may be grouped for purposes of convenience into three principal phases: (1) His early support of the conspirators over the period 1925-1929; (2) his leadership and direction of German youth over the period 1929-1945; (3) his leadership of the Reichsgau Vienna as chief representative of the Nazi Party and the Nazi State in Vienna for the period July 1940 to 1945. The presentation will take up each of these principal phases after a brief listing of all the principal positions which Schirach held. In presenting first a listing of the positions held by Schirach, it is not intended immediately to describe the functions of each of these positions. Insofar as a description of the functions of any particular position is still felt necessary at this stage of the Trial, it will be given later during the discussion of Schirach's conspiratorial acts as Nazi Youth Leader and as Nazi official in Vienna. For the consideration of the Tribunal, we have submitted a brief on this subject. The document book contains English translations of 29 documents. Although we feel that we have reduced the number of documents to the minimum, the document book is still large. But Schirach's subversion of German youth is a large subject, even apart from any of his other acts. Most of these documents are from German publications, of which the Tribunal can take judicial notice. Therefore, in most cases, it is intended only to paraphrase these documents, unless the Tribunal in particular instances will indicate that they like fuller treatment.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Before passing to the proof I want to express my appreciation, particularly to Major Hartley Murray, Lieutenant Fred Niebergall at my right, and Mr. Norbert Heilpern for their assistance in research, analysis, translation, and organization of these materials. Schirach agrees he held the following positions. They are found in two affidavits, an affidavit of certificate and one affidavit of report dated December 1945, which is Document 3302-PS, document book, Page 110. I want to offer that affidavit as Exhibit Number USA-665. The certificate, which I will rely on for only one point, is Document 2973-PS. It is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-14. Turning first to Document 3302-PS: This affidavit shows that Schirach was a member of the Party from 1925 to 1945; that he was a leader of the National Socialist Student League from 1929 to 1931; that he was leader of the, Hitler Youth Organization from 1931 to 1940. In 1931 and 1932 Schirach was Reich Youth Leader on the staff of the SA Supreme Command, where at that time all Nazi youth organizations were centralized. Also, Schirach was Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP from 1931 to 1940. In 1932 Schirach became an independent Reich Leader (Reichsleiter), in the Party. Upon acquiring this relatively independent position, he no longer remained on the staff of the SA Supreme Command, since Nazi youth affairs thereafter, with the creation of the Reich Youth Leadership, were directly subordinate to Hitler with Schirach at the helm. We had that kind of condition existing in the Party where, under the Leadership Principle, at the pinnacle you had one man, Schirach, and you no longer had the youth affairs underneath the SA. However, within the SA, Schirach retained the rank and the title of a Gruppenfuehrer throughout the period from 1931 to 1941, and in that year, 1941, he was elevated to the rank of an SA Obergruppenfuehrer, a rank which Schirach continued to hold in the SA until the collapse. Schirach was Reich Leader of Youth Education in the NSDAP from 1932 until the collapse.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): In other words, from before the Nazis came to state power until the final downfall, this defendant held the high position of a Reichsleiter, a Reich Leader, inside the Party. Now, in addition to these positions in the Party, Schirach held the following positions in the Nazi State: Reich Youth Leader, 1933 to 1940; Reich governor (Reichsstatthalter) of the Reichsgau Vienna, 1940 to 1945; Reich Defense Commissioner of Vienna, 1940 to 1945. Now, although Schirach gave up some of his positions with respect to the leadership of German youth in 1940 when he accepted these positions in Vienna, he still continued to hold after that time the Party position of Reich Leader for Youth Education in the NSDAP. Moreover, he was given a very special position: Deputy to the Fuehrer for the Inspection of the Hitler Youth, the organization which he, of course, had led until 1940. He continued in these last two positions until the downfall. The certificate, Document 2973-PS, the only thing I rely on there in this particular presentation, is to show that Schirach was a member of the Reichstag from 1932 to 1945. We next take up acts showing that Schirach actively promoted the NSDAP and its affiliated youth organizations before the Nazis seized power. Schirach was an intimate and a servile follower of Hitler from the year 1925. In that year, when he was only 18 years old, Schirach joined the Nazi conspirators by becoming a member of the Party. Upon special request of Hitler, he went to Munich to study Party affairs. He became active in converting students to National Socialism. I am paraphrasing there, Your Honors, from Paragraph 2 of Schirach's own affidavit, Document 3302-PS, Exhibit Number USA-665, found at Page 110 of the document book. Now, this was the start of conspiratorial activities which Schirach thereafter continued for two decades in a spirit of unbending loyalty to Hitler and to the principles of National Socialism.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Hitler's early personal attentions to this defendant bore fruit for the conspirators, and we find Schirach's stature in the Party circles rapidly growing through these early years. In 1929 Schirach was made national leader of the entire National Socialist German Students League. He retained this position for 2 years until 1931. Document 3464-PS, document book, Page 121, is an extract from the 1936 edition of the Party manual, Exhibit Number USA-666, which I would like to offer in evidence. This makes it clear that the purpose of the Nazi Students League was the ideological and political conversion of students in universities and technical schools to National Socialism. After 1931 Schirach devoted his full time to Party work. Schirach was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag in 1932, and therefore he played his part in the unparliamentary conduct of the Nazi Reichstag members during the last months of the existence of the Reichstag as an independent instrument of government. Some of the best evidence concerning Schirach's support of the conspiracy in its early stages comes from Schirach's own words in his book The Hitler Youth. Excerpts, from this book are found in Document Number 1458-PS, document book, Page 1. It is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-667. Now, since this book, Your Honors, covers many years and many topics, I shall be required to refer to it occasionally later on. An example of Schirach's servile loyalty to Hitler during the early years is found at Page 17 of this book, Page 12 of your document book. There he writes of his early years of Party activity as follows: "We were not yet able to account for our conception in detail. We simply believed. And when Hitler's book Mein Kampf was published, it was our bible, which we almost learned by heart in order to answer the questions of the doubters and superior critics.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Almost everyone who today is leading youth in a responsible position joined us in those years." Before 1933 Schirach moved throughout Germany, leading demonstrations, summoning German youth to membership in the Hitler Youth. When the Hitler Youth and the wearing of its uniform were forbidden by law, Schirach continued his activities by illegal means. Of this period he himself writes, at Page 26 of his book on The Hitler Youth, Pages 16 and 17 of your document book, as follows: "At this time the HJ (the Hitler Jugend) gained its best human material. Whoever came to us during this illegal time, boy or girl, risked everything .... With pistols in our pockets we drove through the Ruhr district while stones came flying after us. We jumped every time we heard a bell ring, because we lived in constant fear of arrests and expected our houses to be searched." At Page 27 of the same book, Page 18 of Your Honors! document book, Schirach indicates that in the early intra-Party fight between Hitler and Strasser, Schirach clung steadfastly to the Hitler clique, and then, in discussing Strasser, he exchanged his confidence only with Hitler and the Defendant Streicher. It is hardly necessary to argue that such an intimate of the Fuehrer himself, was advised from the beginning of the general purposes, plans, and methods of the conspiracy. As an interesting sidelight, I believe a number of those conferences, you will note, took place in Schirach's apartment in Munich, and that Hitler used to come there occasionally. Schirach was the leading Nazi conspirator in destroying all independent youth organizations and in building the Nazi youth Movement.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): In connection with this point, the attention of the Tribunal is invited to the brief of the United States Chief of Counsel entitled "The Reshaping of Education, Training of Youth," which was written for the United States Chief of Counsel by Major Hartley Murray, and to the documents cited therein under the section headed "b." "The Nazi conspirators supplemented the school system by training youth through the Hitler Jugend." These documents were offered in evidence in Document Book D in the earlier phase of this Trial. The attention of the Tribunal is also called to the motion picture The Nazi Plan, which was shown before the Tribunal on the 11th of December , insofar as that film involved the Defendant Schirach and his Hitler Youth organization. Occasions when Schirach's activities are shown in this film are noted in Document Number 3054-PS, the index and the guide to this film, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-167. It was the task of Schirach to perpetuate the Nazi regime through generations by poisoning the minds of youth with Nazi ideology and preparing youth for aggressive war. This poisoning will long outlive the defendant. Indeed, one of the principal purposes of this exposure must be to bring to those German youths who survived the Nazi-created catastrophe a true picture of this man whom Nazi propaganda presented as a great youth hero; a man against whom the living breath of free criticism and the truth itself could make no answer before German youth or before the German people, for more than 10 years. Again, from Schirach's own hand in his book, The Hitler Youth, we have crystal - clear evidence concerning the methods and the tactics employed by this defendant in his destruction of independent youth organizations and their incorporation into the Hitler Youth.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): At Page 32, Pages 19 and 20 of Your Honors' document book, Schirach states that in 1933 the new Cabinet ministers were too overburdened to solve the youth question by their own initiative; that therefore he, Schirach, then leader of the Hitler Youth, commissioned one of his confederates to lead 50 members of the Berlin Hitler Youth in a surprise raid on the Reich Committee of German Youth Organizations. This raid resulted in destroying the Reich Committee and its absorption within the Hitler Youth. This raid was closely followed by a second surprise raid of like success upon the Youth Hostels Organization, Page 33, The Hitler Youth, found at Pages 20 and 21 of the document book. Now, after these successful showings of force and terror, Schirach's star climbed higher. He was appointed Youth Leader of the German Reich in June 1931 in a solemn ceremony before Hitler. Concerning his next steps, Schirach writes at Pages 35 and 36 of his book, Page 22 of the document book, as follows: "The first thing I did was to dissolve the Greater German League. Since I headed all German youth organizations and I had the right to decide on their leadership, I did not hesitate for a moment to take this step which was for the Hitler Youth the elimination of an unbearable state of affairs." Schirach accomplished the dissolution and destruction of most youth organizations by orders which he issued and signed as Youth Leader of the German Reich. This is shown by the order contained in Document Number 2229-PS, your document book, Page 65, which is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-668. By this one order of Schirach nine youth organizations were dissolved, including the Boy Scout movement. The Protestant and Catholic youth organizations were the last to be destroyed and absorbed by the Hitler Youth. Schirach accomplished the absorption of the Protestant youth organization by agreement with the Hitler-appointed Reich Bishop Ludwig Miller, Page 38 of The Hitler Youth, Page 24 of the document book.
CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Schirach's objective in forcing all German youth into the Hitler Youth was finally accomplished in December 1936 by the basic law on the Hitler Youth. Document Number 1392-PS is a decree, 1936, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 993, of which, of course, the Tribunal may take judicial notice. This law declared in part, and Your Honors, I read from this because it shows so clearly the nature of what was to happen and what was already happening to German youth under Schirach.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it set out in the document book?
CAPT. SPRECHER: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: What page?
CAPT. SPRECHER: It is Document Number 1392-PS. It is at Page 6 of your document book: "The future of the German nation depends on its youth, and German youth will have to be prepared for its future duties.... All of the German youth in the Reich is organized within the Hitler Youth.... The German youth, besides being reared within the family and school, shall be educated physically, intellectually, and morally in the spirit of National Socialism to serve the people and the community through the Hitler Youth.... The task of educating the German youth through the Hitler Youth is being entrusted to the Reich Leader of German Youth in the NSDAP...." The first executive order on this basic law concerning the Hitler Youth was issued on the 25th of March 1939. If you refer to Page 40 of your document book, this decree, 1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, Part 1, Page 709, among other points confirms the exclusive nature of Schirach's responsibility concerning German youth. I will quote only one sentence: "The Youth Leader of the German Reich is solely competent for all missions of the physical, ideological, and moral education of the entire German youth outside home and school."
THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, I think you have told us enough now to satisfy us that Von Schirach was in charge of the ideological education of German youth and completely in charge of it.
CAPT. SPRECHER: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: And we don't desire to hear any more of it.
CAPT. SPRECHER: I understand. In exercising, his far-reaching control over German youth, Schirach naturally relied on the common techniques of the Nazi conspirators, including the Leadership Principle, the nature of which has already been established before this Tribunal. The Tribunal will find a galling glorification and explanation of the Leadership Principle as it was applied to German youth, in Schirach's book, The Hitler Youth, at Page 68, translated at Page 32 of the document book. I won't read from that. In his affidavit, Document Number 3302-PS, Paragraph 5, Schirach states, "It was my task to educate the youth in the aims, ideology, and directives of the NSDAP, and beyond this to direct and to shape them." Naturally, Schirach established and directed an elaborate propaganda apparatus to accomplish a thorough-going poisoning of the minds of German youth. Document Number 3349-PS, your document book Page 114, is offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA- 666. This is an excerpt from Pages 452 and 453 of the 1936 edition of the Party manual. This document will show that the Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendfuehrung) of the NSDAP prepared and published numerous periodicals ranging from a daily press service to monthly magazines. This document also shows that the propaganda office of the Hitler Youth maintained, through liaison agents, a political and ideological connection with the propaganda office of the NSDAP and with the Propaganda Ministry, both of which, of course, were headed by the conspirator Goebbels. Schirach shares with the conspirator Dr. Robert Ley, Reich Organizationsleiter of the NSDAP, the responsibility for the establishment and general administration of the Adolf- Hitler Schools. This is shown by a joint statement of Ley and Schirach in the year 1937, which is found in the document book at Page 100. It is our Document 2653-PS, offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-669.
CAPT. SPRECHER: This document shows that these Adolf Hitler Schools were open free of charge to outstanding and proved members of the Young Folk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth organization. It further shows that the object of these schools was the building of youthful leadership for the Nazi Party and the Nazi State apparatus. Schirach extended his education of German Youth into the field of law and the legal profession even though these fields were principally under the control of the Defendant Frank. Proof is found in Document Number 3459-PS, Page 120 of the document book. This is a one-page extract from an account of the Congress of German Law in 1939. It is offered as Exhibit Number USA-670. This document shows that beyond purely technical education in law it was considered by the conspirators to be the task of the Party to exercise influence upon the ideological conceptions of the Young Law Guardians League. This league was a junior organization of the National Socialist Law Guardians League, a Nazi-controlled organization of lawyers. Now, at this Congress to which the document refers, an official of the youth law guardians declared that ignorance of the simplest legal principles could best be fought within the Hitler Youth and that, therefore, the legal education program of the Hitler Youth was to receive the broadest support. Obergebietsfuehrer Arthur Axmann, the subordinate of Schirach at that time and who in 1940 was to succeed him as leader of the Hitler Youth, was at that time, namely, May 1939, appointed the chairman of a youth legal committee for the establishment of the Youth Law. He was appointed by the Defendant Frank.
THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, I don't think I made it quite clear that the Tribunal is not really interested in these details -by which the Defendant Von Schirach acquired his power over the German Youth. You have told us sufficient to establish in our minds, so far at any rate, that he managed to get absolute command over the German youth. The only thing that seems to me to be material, at the present stage, is whether or not you can show us any direct evidence that the Defendant Schirach was a party to the aggressive aims of the Reich leaders, or to any War Crimes or to any Crimes against Humanity. Unless you can show us that, your address to us is really not useful to us at this stage.
CAPT. SPRECHER: I -plan to take up directly, Your Honor, the question of the militarization of youth. I did want to make one reference at this point to the relation of the Hitler Youth to the League for Germans Abroad, if that is 'satisfactory to Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that may bear on the aggressive aims of the Reich leaders.