dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer impress you?
VON SCHIRACH: I have never agreed with these opinions of the Fuehrer, 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 Fuehrer'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 Fuehrer 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 Fuehrer. 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 Sturmer , 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 of lice 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 of lice 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: Dellbrugge, 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: Dellbrugge was a high SS leader. He was a special confidant of the Reichsfuehrer 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 answers 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.
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 * The interpreter mistranslated this "and looked upon him as a deity.'' 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 1933 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 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 can not 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 promilitary significance. I did not dispute this point at all. IBM; 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.