The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Last-Modified: 2000/03/18

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q. There is only one point of that Hitler Youth
programme, if I may call it that, with which I would
like to deal, because it has been particularly stressed
against you in the Indictment. That is your
collaboration with the Lawyers' League, that is to say,
your occupation with law. In that connection I would
like to know why you, the Reich Youth Leader, were
interested in legal problems at all. What were you
striving for, and what did you achieve? Please, will
you tell us that briefly, because it has been
emphasized in the Indictment.

A. May I remind you that the youth of the State were
regarded by me as being a Youth State. In that Youth
State all professions and all tasks were represented.
My collaboration with the Lawyers' League was due to
the necessity of training legal advisers for our youth
who could offer them the necessary legal protection. I
was anxious that those Hitler Youth Leaders who were
studying law, should return to the organization to deal
with just such tasks within the organization.

That type of training developed into a large
organization within the ranks of youth, which was
equivalent to the organization of doctors within this
youth organization; our medical organization comprised
approximately 1,000 doctors, men and women. These legal
men assisted the staff, in the district and other units
of our youth organization, putting through those
demands which I had first made some years before the
seizure of power, and which I had championed in the
State later on, namely, the demands for free time and
for paid vacation for the young worker.

This legal work of our youth led to the founding of
faculties for Youth Law and Working Youth Law, etc.,
attached to the universities at Kiel and Bonn. In
particular it had the result that those demands which I
voiced in a speech in 1936 before the Youth Legal
Committee of the Academy for German Law could be
carried through.

Q. Just one moment.

DR. SAUTER: This is the speech of which excerpts are
reproduced, in Schirach Document Book, No. 63. It is
copied from Das Archiv of October 1936.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q. Herr von Schirach, perhaps you can tell us very
briefly which social demands you, as Reich Youth
Leader, made regarding youth. You said earlier, "free
time." What did you mean by that?

A. In the first place, a shortening of working hours
for young people, the abolition of night work for young
people, a fundamental prohibition of child labour,
extended weekends, and three weeks' paid vacation every
year.

In 1937, at Liegnitz, I noticed that at that time fifty
per cent of the youthful workers had no holidays at
all, and that only one per cent had fifteen to eighteen
days per annum. In 1938, on the other hand, I had put
through the Youth Protection Law, which prohibited
child labour, moved up the age of protection for
juveniles from 16 to 18 years, prohibited night work,
and realised my demand regarding the extended week-end,
while specifying at least fifteen days vacation per
annum for youngsters. That was all I could achieve. It
was only part of what I wanted to achieve.

DR. SAUTER: These are the demands which are contained
in the following documents in the Document Book: 40 to
41, and 60 to 64. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial
notice of these.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q. Witness, I now come to another problem, and that is
your position within the Party. Some time ago we were
shown a chart here giving a clear picture

                                             [Page 345]

of the organization of the Party. Was that plan correct
or what was your position within the Party?

A. My position in the Party was not correctly depicted
in that chart, at least not as far as the channels of
command are concerned. According to the chart which was
exhibited here, the channel of command would have been
from the Reich Leader for Youth Education to the Chief
of the Party Chancellery, and from there to Hitler and
from Hitler to the Reich Youth Leadership Office of the
Party. That, of course, is an erroneous picture.

I was not in Party headquarters in order to give my
orders through the Gauleiter and district leaders. I
was there because I was the representative and head of
the youth movement, so that if you want to describe my
position and the position of my organization in the
framework of the NSDAP correctly, you would actually
have to draw a pyramid, the apex of which, that is to
say, my position in Party headquarters, should be on
the same level as the Reichsleiter. I was the only
person in the youth movement who was connected with the
Party.

Q. And the other leaders and sub-leaders of the youth
movement?

A. Some of them may have been Party members, but not
all. At any rate, they were not members of the
Gauleiter's or Kreisleiter's headquarters. The entire
staff of the youth movement, the entire youth
organization, stood alongside the Party as a separate
unit.

O. Witness, as the Youth Leader of the German Reich,
were you a civil servant?

A. Yes.

Q. And since 1st December, 1936, I believe, you were
the chief of a Reich office at the highest level?

A. Only since 1st December, 1936, was I a civil
servant.

Q. And the title was?

A. Youth Leader of the German Reich.

Q. As the chief of a supreme Reich department, were you
actually independent with reference to the Minister of
the Interior and the Minister for Education?

A. Yes, that was, after all, the purpose of creating an
independent Reich agency.

Q. Did you thereby become a member of the Reich
Cabinet, as has been claimed?

A. I am sure I did not. I heard here for the first tune
that I was supposed to have been a member of the
Cabinet. I never participated in a Cabinet meeting. I
never received an appointment or any official paper
which would have made me a member of the Cabinet. I
never received invitations to attend Cabinet meetings.
I never considered myself a member of the Cabinet, and
I believe that the ministers did not consider me a
member either.

Q. Were you in any way informed of the resolutions
passed by the Reich Cabinet, for instance, by having
the minutes of the meetings sent to you?

A. No. Resolutions passed by the Reich Cabinet, in so
far as any were passed after 1st December, 1936, only
came to my attention in the same way as they came to
the attention of any other higher official or employee
of the Reich who read the Reich Law Gazette or the
Ministerial Gazette of the Reich. Records and minutes
were never sent to me.

Q. Well then, when you became a supreme Reich
authority, did you receive your staff which you needed
through a ministry, or how did you obtain that staff
for yourself?

A. A few youth leaders who had worked in my staff for a
number of years were made civil servants through me. I
did not receive a single official from any ministry to
deal with matters relating to the youth organization.
The entire supreme Reich department, if I remember
correctly, consisted of no more than five officials. It
was the smallest of the supreme Reich departments,
something I was particularly proud of. We carried out a
very large task with a minimum of personnel.

                                             [Page 346]


Q. And now, witness, I want to come to a subject which
is going to be rather extensive, and that is the
affidavit which you have already mentioned, by Gregor
Ziemer. It is a very lengthy affidavit which has been
presented by the prosecution under No. 2441-PS.

Witness, what do you have to say in detail with regard
to that affidavit? Do you know it? Do you know this man
Gregor Ziemer?

A. No.

Q. Have you found out who he is and from where he
gathered his alleged knowledge?

A. I gather from the affidavit that Herr Ziemer, before
the war, was head-master of the American school in
Berlin and that he has written a book which apparently
deals with youth and school education in Germany; this
affidavit being an extract from that book. The
affidavit as such, if you regard it in its entirety,
seems, I believe, to have more importance as propaganda
than it tends to be objective. I want to start by
quoting something from the very first page, which is
the page containing Ziemer's affidavit; and in the last
paragraph it says that street fights took place outside
the American school between the Jewish children going
to this school and the local youngsters. I need not
deal with the difficulties which the school itself had,
because that was not part of my sphere. But these
street fights took place outside the school, and I
think I ought to say something about them.

I never heard anything about these street fights, but I
should have heard about them under all circumstances
because during most of 1938 I was in Berlin. I should
have heard of them, firstly through the youth
organization itself, because the senior youth leaders
would have been obliged to report to me if such
incidents had taken place.

Furthermore, I should have heard about them through the
Foreign Office, because if youngsters from the American
colony had been molested, protests would certainly have
gone through the embassy to the Foreign Office, and
these protests would without fail have been passed on
to me at once, indeed, reported to me by telephone.

I can only imagine that the whole affair is a very
gross exaggeration. The American Ambassador, Wilson,
even had breakfast with me - I think in the spring of
1939, and I do not think I am wrong - in Gatau.

Q. In the Foreign House?

A. In the Foreign House.

And we discussed a number of subjects privately. I
believe that on this occasion or afterwards he would
most certainly have mentioned such incidents if they
had in reality occurred in the way Herr Ziemer is
describing them.

Q. I believe I can go over to Page 2, where -

THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): Dr. Sauter, how much of
this document has been read by the prosecution? As far
as I know, very little.

DR. SAUTER: I beg your pardon.

THE PRESIDENT: How much of this affidavit has been read
and put in evidence by the prosecution?

DR. SAUTER: I cannot tell you that offhand, Mr.
President. But judging by practice, it seems to me that
if a document is submitted to the Tribunal, judicial
notice of the entire document is taken by the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: That is not so. We have stated over and
over again that we only take judicial notice of those
parts of documents which have been read to the
Tribunal, unless they are documents of which full
translations have been given. This document was, I
suppose, presented in the course of the prosecution's
case, and probably one sentence out of it was read at
the time. I do not know how much was read; but you and
the defendant ought to know.

                                             [Page 347]
                                                       

MR. DODD: There was only one paragraph read, Mr.
President

THE PRESIDENT: One paragraph?

MR. DODD: One full paragraph, and perhaps one short one
on Page 21.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I have it here.

MR. DODD: I think the prosecution covered the part
dealing with the speech at Heidelberg.

THE PRESIDENT: And that is the only part of it that has
been read, and that is, therefore, the only part of it
that is in evidence.

THE WITNESS: Perhaps for the sake of credibility - and
I shall not deal in detail with the accusations
contained in that affidavit-I might be allowed to say
that with one sole exception, all the annual slogans of
the Hitler Youth are reproduced falsely in this
affidavit, and that Gregor Ziemer nevertheless swears
to the correctness of his statement.

THE PRESIDENT: Would it not be the best, if you want to
reply to his affidavit, that you should direct the
defendant's attention to the part which has been read?
Then he can make an answer to that.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in Ziemer's affidavit, which
the defendant has told me he regards as a clearly
inflammatory piece of writing, the annual slogans are
mentioned which are supposed to have been issued by the
defendant, that is, the "form" determining the work for
the following year.

THE PRESIDENT: One passage of this document has been
put in. If you want to put in the rest, you are
entitled to do so. But I should have thought that it
would have been the best way for you to answer the
passage which has been put in. The rest of the
affidavit is not in evidence.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, in that case my client would
get the worst end of the bargain, because in other
passages which have not been used by the prosecution

THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): I said you could use the
other passages if you want to.

DR. SAUTER: Certainly, but I want to prove that Herr
Ziemer's statements are not correct; that is why I have
just been discussing the question of annual slogans
with the defendant. This is only one example.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the defendant is apparently
saying that the affidavit is unreliable because of the
slogans which are referred to in it. Is that not
sufficient for your purpose?

DR. SAUTER: Yes; but I intend to prove that Herr
Ziemer's statements are untrue. The defendant maintains
that the statements contained in that affidavit are not
true. But I am trying to prove to you that, in fact,
Herr Ziemer has deliberately stated and sworn to
untruths.

THE PRESIDENT: Surely, Dr. Sauter, there being one
passage in this affidavit which is in evidence, you can
deal with the question of the credit of the person who
made the affidavit very shortly.

BY DR. SAUTER:

Witness, this Herr Ziemer, in his affidavit, has made
statements regarding the annual slogans which you
issued for the Hitler Youth. How these annual slogans
were worded can be easily seen by the Tribunal from the
affidavit. I am now asking you to tell us how the
annual slogans of the Hitler Youth were worded during
your time; that is, 1933 to 1940.

                                             [Page 348]

A. Herr Ziemer mentions the slogans on Page 16 of the
English document. Herr Ziemer says that in 1933 the
slogan for German Youth had been "One Reich, One
Nation, One Fuehrer." He probably means, "One People,
One Reich, One Fuehrer." Actually, the year 1933 was
the year of "Unity."

Q. What do you mean by "Unity"?

A. The Year in which German Youth joined ranks in one
organization.

Q. Witness, I want to pass over a few years now and
come to the year 1938. What was your slogan for the
Hitler Youth in 1938?

A. 1938 was the year of "Understanding."


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