Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-14/tgmwc-14-137.01
Last-Modified: 2000/03/18

                                             [Page 320]


HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY

THURSDAY, 23rd MAY, 1946

THE PRESIDENT: With reference to the documents of the
defendant Seyss-Inquart, the Tribunal admits the
following documents which were objected to:

No. 11, No. 47, No. 48, No. 50, No. 54, and No. 71,

The remainder of the documents which were objected to
are rejected. I will enumerate them:

No. 5, No. 10 No. 14, No. 19-B, No. 21, No. 22, No. 27,
No. 31, No. 39, No. 55, No. 60, No. 61, No. 68, No. 69.

That is all.

M. DUBOST (of the French prosecution): Mr. President,
last night at the end of the session the Counsel for
Admiral Raeder submitted a certain number of documents
including Document 105 of Document Book 5. This
document is an excerpt from the German White Book, No.
5. It is the testimony of an old man of 72, a native of
Luxembourg, who has lived in Belgium only for the last
six months, and who affirms that in April 1940 he saw
two hundred French soldiers in Belgium. These soldiers
were in armoured cars.

I will ask the Tribunal to allow me to make objection
to this Document 7 of the White Book No. 5, the
original of which has never been submitted and has not
even been reproduced in the White Book, as is the case
with a certain number of documents in the German White
Book. It is necessary that in the name of France and of
Belgium a protest - a formal categorical protest - be
made against such an assertion. At no time during the
invasion of Belgium by the German forces did any French
troops enter. The reading of this document, No. 105 of
Document Book 5 of Admiral Raeder, enables us to
understand the error in the testimony by Grandjanet
that is cited.

I have told the Tribunal that this man is 72 years old
and was from Luxembourg. To the question put to him by
the German authorities as to whether and how he
recognized the soldiers he had seen as being of French
nationality, he answered, "I knew them to be French
soldiers because I know their uniform extremely well.
Moreover, I recognized the soldiers because of the
language they used when they spoke to me."

Now, as far as the uniform is concerned, the Tribunal
knows that at the time when these events took place,
the Belgian Army had a uniform of the same colour as
that of the French Army and a cap of the same shape. As
for the language, the Tribunal also knows that a great
part of the Belgian population who live along the
Luxembourg frontier speak French, and by the same
token, the Belgian soldiers recruited in these
districts speak French.

The Tribunal will certainly remember that this witness,
who is a very old man, had only been living for six
months in Belgium and had most probably had a very
limited experience with Belgians - and especially with
the Belgian Army.

At any rate, we assert in the name of France and in the
name of Belgium that before 10th May, 1940, no French
troops, no organized French troops, penetrated Belgium,
and that the isolated individuals who did go into
Belgium were interned there.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Siemers?

                                             [Page 321]

DR. SIEMERS: If it please the Tribunal, may I reply
very briefly?

This matter concerns a document from the White Book, on
which a decision has already been taken here and which
was provisionally granted me. I propose that the
prosecution be requested to submit the original, if
they dispute the correctness of this document. In this
I am in agreement with a decision of the Tribunal
according to which the application is to be made for
the, presentation of the original if it is available,
or application should be made that whoever has the
original should produce it. As far as I know, the
prosecution have the original, since all original
documents were kept in the Foreign Office in Berlin, or
in the alternative place of safe keeping, and all the
originals of these White Books fell into the hands of
the Allies.

THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by "original"? The
original, I suppose, is the original of the White Book.
Is that what you mean?

DR. SIEMERS: Yes, I mean now, Mr. President, the
original of this court record.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, this comes from a White Book. That
is a printed document, I suppose. I do not suppose it
contains the original of the statement of this
Luxembourg man.

DR. SIEMERS: The White Book is a collection of numerous
documents, and the single original documents are in the
possession of the Foreign Office; in part they were
from the files of the French General Staff, and partly
they were records of court proceedings. Regarding the
contents of this document

THE PRESIDENT: Monsieur Dubost, you are not proposing
that we should strike the document out, but the
Tribunal will certainly take into account the facts to
which you have drawn our notice.

M. DUBOST: This is an application that the Tribunal
shall refuse to admit that document, Mr. President. At
the same time this is a protest against the assertion
made by the defence that French soldiers violated
Belgian neutrality in the course of the month of April.

I hope the Tribunal will allow me to add a few words of
explanation. The White Book, which we have here,
comprises two parts. The first part reproduces texts
and the second part gives photostatic copies of these
texts. In the first part, which simply reproduces the
texts, is found the document which I ask the Tribunal
to strike from the record. We have searched in the
second part, which gives the photostatic copies of the
documents in the first part, and we do not find it. We
inform the Tribunal that the original of the document,
which we ask the Tribunal to strike out, has not been
reproduced in the German White Book, since it is not to
be found in the second part.

DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, I believe that Monsieur
Dubost's entire explanation refers to the question of
the probative value of the document and not to the
question of the admissibility of the document. That
this document is in order appears to me to be quite
clear, since it is a record of court proceedings where
a certain person, namely Grandjanet, has been
interrogated. Everything said by Monsieur Dubost
referred more to the contents of the document, that is,
the question of its probative value. May I ask,
therefore, that the document be admitted, as it has up
to now, and that consideration be given to the fact
that the document has value in connection with the
other documents which have been granted to me and to
Dr. Horn in his document book with reference to Holland
and Belgium.

If in the second part of the document book there is no
photostatic copy -

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Siemers, and Monsieur Dubost,
the Tribunal will consider the objection that has been
made.

                                             [Page 322]

DR. SIEMERS: May I merely mention, Mr. President, that
if the photostat is not in the book, as M. Dubost is
objecting, that this is due to the fact that this court
record in its original text was German and the
facsimiles are those prepared according to the original
text in French, that is to say, made of those documents
which in their original version were in French. If
necessary, I would appeal to Geheimrat von Schnieden as
a witness, regarding this record, since he at the time
was informed about all the records of this type and
helped in the work of compiling the book.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the Tribunal will consider
the objection.

DR. KRANZBUHLER (Counsel for defendant Donitz): Mr.
President, with the permission of the Tribunal I should
like to say that the interrogatory put to the Chief of
the American Naval Staff, Admiral Nimitz, is available.
I received it the day before yesterday and in the
meantime it has gone to the interpreters for
translation. With the permission of the Tribunal, I
should like to submit it now, in connection with the
cases of Grand Admiral Donitz and Grand Admiral Raeder.

THE PRESIDENT: Have the prosecution seen it?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you got copies for us?

DR. KRANZBUHLER: I have been informed that the copies
for the Tribunal would be handed on by the General
Secretary.

THE PRESIDENT: Unless we have copies, the document must
not be read. It must be put off until we have copies.

DR. KRANZBUHLER: There are two copies in English and
one in French.

I present the document as Donitz No. 100.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kranzbuhler, the Soviet members of
the Tribunal do not have a copy of the document,
translated into their language, so you will present it
at a later date.

Will the counsel for the defendant von Schirach present
his case?

DR. SAUTER (Counsel for the defendant von Schirach):
Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I propose first of all to
conduct the examination of the defendant Schirach
himself, and in the framework of this examination then
to bring to your attention the passage of the document
book concerned, as the individual points come up.
Following the examination of the defendant I shall then
call my four witnesses, and at the end I intend to
submit the remaining documents, in so far as these
documents have not by that time been presented during
the examination of the defendant von Schirach. I
presume, Mr.  President, that you are agreeable to this
procedure.

I now call to the witness-stand, first, Baldur von
Schirach.

BALDUR VON SCHIRACH, one of the defendants, took the
stand and testified as follows:

BY THE PRESIDENT:

Q. Will you repeat the following oath after me:

I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I
will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add
nothing.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY DR. SAUTER:

Q. Witness, what is the date of your birth?

A. 9th May, 1907.

                                             [Page 323]

Q. That means that a few days ago you were thirty-nine.
You have been married for fourteen years; is that
correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And you have four children, whose ages are -

A.  - four, eight, eleven and thirteen.

Q. In the Third Reich your chief post was acting as
Youth Leader?

A. Yes.

Q. What offices did you fill in that connection, that
is, offices in the Party and in the Government - please
state also how long you held these various offices?

A. To start with, in 1929, I was the leader of the
National Socialist Students' Union. In 1931 I became
Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP, at first in the staff
of the Supreme SA Command; in 1932, Reich Leader for
the Youth Education System of the NSDAP; in 1933, Youth
Leader of the German Reich, at first under the Minister
of the Interior, Dr. Frick. In 1934 I held the same
position under the Reich Minister of Education, Rust.
In 1936 the Youth Leader in Germany became a leading
Reich official, and in that capacity I came directly
under the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor.

Q. Now, which of your offices were Party positions and
which of the ones you have mentioned were offices of
the Reich?

A. Party positions were the office of Reich Youth
Leader of the NSDAP, and that of Reich Leader for Youth
Education. Government positions: The Youth Leader of
the German Reich, at first subordinate to the Minister
of the Interior as I have described, or under the
Minister for Education, and then in an independent
position.

Q. Witness, you were removed from some of these offices
in 1940. What positions in Youth Leadership did you
lose in 1940 and what positions did you still continue
to fill to the end?

A. In 1940 I left the immediate leadership of youth,
that is, I left the office of the Reich Youth
Leadership of the NSDAP, but I retained the office of
Reich Leader for Youth Education and with that the
entire responsibility for German youth. I received as
an additional new post that of Gauleiter of Vienna,
which was combined with the governmental post of
Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor of Vienna and also
that of Reich Defence Commissioner for Wehrkreis XVII
(a military district).

Q. Witness, we want now to come back to your activity
as Youth Leader. There is an affidavit by you here
dated 4th December, 1945, PS-3302. In this affidavit
you stated to the prosecution in December that you
acknowledged yourself to be responsible for all youth
education in the Third Reich.

A. That is correct.

Q. Were you, when you gave the statement of guilt,
under the impression that your successor, the late
Reich Youth Leader Axmann, was dead?

A. Yes.

Q. You thought that he died in the last battles of the
war?

A. Yes, I was convinced that he had died in Berlin.

Q. In the meantime, witness, you have learned from
newspaper reports that your successor as Reich Youth
Leader, this man Axmann, is still alive. Is that
correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you want then, today, to support your affidavit
regarding your personal responsibility as Youth Leader,
and support it in its entirety; or do you want to limit
it in any respect today?

A. I do not want to limit this affidavit in any way.
Although during the last years of his life Hitler gave
orders to the German Youth of which I do not know; and
also my successor Axmann, particularly in 1944, gave
orders with which I am not acquainted, because the
relationship between us had been broken off due to the
events of the war, I stand by the statement that I have
made, in the expectation that the Tribunal will
consider me. the only person responsible in

                                             [Page 324]

the Youth Leadership and that no other youth leader
will be summoned before a court for these actions for
which I have assumed responsibility.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor