The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Q. All right, we will see. Do you remember the one, "Can you
see the dawn in the east?" Do you remember that song?

A. That is not one of my songs.

Q. It is one of the songs in the Hitler Youth Song Book, is
it not?

A. That is an old SA song dating from 1923-24.

Q. Well, that may be. I am only asking you, is it not a fact
that it was in your official song books for your young
people.

A. Yes.

Q. It is in that song that you vilify the Jews, is it not?

A. I do not remember that. I would have to see the song.

Q. Well, I can show it to you, but perhaps if you recall it,
we can save a little time. Do you remember that the second
stanza says, "For many years the people were enslaved and
misguided, traitors and Jews had the upper hand"? Do you
remember those words in that song? "People to arms" in the
next one.

A. Yes, but I am not sure if that was published in a youth
song book.

Q. I can assure you that it was, and if you would like to
see it, we have it here.

A. It is a very well-known SA song, which was sung by the
young people, and was, therefore, included in the youth song
book.

Q. All right, that is all I wanted to find out. I do not
care where it originated. It is the kind of song you had in
your song book for young people.

A. I should like to say one more thing. The song book which
I have here was published in 1933.

Q. Yes.

A. I do not believe that the youth organization which I
built up can be judged from the year 1933 only.

Q. I do not suggest that either, but we found it in 1945.

A. Later we published other song books, with very different
songs.

Q. Yes, I am coming to those in a minute.

That song book was 3764-PS, Exhibit USA 854. It has just
been called to my attention that the last phrase in that
fourth stanza says: "Germany awake. Death to Jewry. People
to arms."

A. One moment, please; where is that?

Q. In the English text, in the fourth stanza. I do not know
where it would be; it is on page 19, I am told, of the
German text. Did you find it?

A. No.

Q. Well, maybe it is the wrong document. In any event, we
will find it for you. However, you remember the song, do you
not? You do not deny that it says "Death to the Jews," and
so on, do you, in that song?

A. That is the song that starts with the words, "Can you see
the dawn in the east?"

Q. That is right.

A. Yes.

Q. That is all I wanted to know.

A. That song is not in this book.

(A book was submitted to the witness.)

Q. We have quite a few of your song books here.

A. Yes, but there is a great difference between them. This
book, which does not contain the song, is an official
edition published by the Reich Youth Leadership. As I say,
it does not contain the song. It does appear, however, in a
song book published by Tonner, a firm of music publishers,
in Cologne, under the title of "Songs of the Hitler Youth."
This book is not, however, an official collection issued by
the Reich Youth Leadership. Any publishing firm in Germany
can publish such books.

                                                  [Page 388]

All right, I will accept that, but certainly you won't deny
that the book was used, will you? And that is all we are
trying to establish.

A. That I do not know. I do not know whether that book was
used by the Hitler Youth.

Q. Do you know that the one in which it is contained was
published by you?

A. (No response.)

Q. Well, in any event, I would like to point this out to
you. I am not claiming, or trying to suggest to you by
questions, that any one of these songs in themselves made
young people in Germany more fit for war; but rather, what I
am trying to show is that, in contradiction to the testimony
you gave here yesterday, you were doing something more than
just giving these boys and girls gams to play.

A. My statements of yesterday certainly did not imply that
we only gave them games to play. For every song of this kind
there are innumerable others.

Q. Yes, I know, but these are the ones we are concerned with
now. "Unfurl the blood-soaked banners," you remember that?
"Drums sound throughout the land"?

A. These are all songs of the "Wandervogel" and the Youth
League. They are songs which were sung at the time of the
Republic, songs which did not have anything to do with our
time.

Q. Just a minute.

A. They are songs which had nothing to do with our period.

Q. Do you think that anybody, in the days of the Republic,
was singing Hitler Youth marches?

A. What song is that? I do not know it.

Q. That is the one. "Drums sound throughout the land." Do
you remember any of these songs, actually?

A. Of course, I know quite a number of these songs; but the
most important - the mass of them - come from the old
"Zupfgeigenhansl" of the Wandervogel movement and from the
Youth League. That the SA also sang these songs goes without
saying.

Q. Yes, I do not doubt that they did, but wherever they
emanated from, you were using them with these young people.
And that one, "Drums sound throughout the land," you wrote
yourself; is that so?

A. "Drums sound throughout the land": Yes, I believe I did
write some such song.

Q. All right; that certainly does not have a very ancient
origin then, does it?

A. It was long before the seizure of power.

Q. Now, you also recall, perhaps, that on one occasion,
General Field-Marshal von Blomberg wrote an article for the
Hitler Year Book. Do you remember that?

A. No.

Q. Well, it was not so very long ago. It was in 1938. I
suppose you read the Year Book of your organization for that
year at that time, anyway?

A. That may be taken for granted; but I really cannot
remember what Fieldmarshal von Blomberg wrote for it.

Q. Well, all right.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, I believe you are passing away from
these songs?

MR. DODD: Yes, Sir, I was.

THE PRESIDENT: But have you offered in evidence yet Document
3764-PS?

MR. DODD: Yes, sir; I offered it as Exhibit USA 854.

THE PRESIDENT: What was 3763?

MR. DODD: No, I am sorry, 3764 is 854, and 363 - I am sorry,
it is 855.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, 855.

                                                  [Page 389]

BY MR. DODD:

I would like you to look at this document; it is 3755-PS- I
think it is on Page 134 of the text that you have, witness;
and on Pages 148 to 150 you will find an article, "Education
for War of the German Youth," or rather, it says: "The work
Education for War of the German Youth, by Dr. Stellrecht,
contains a slogan of General Field-Marshal von Blomberg,"
and then it goes on to give the slogan. Do you find that?
"The fighting spirit is the highest virtue of the soldier."
And so
on.

Have you found the quotation of Blomberg's slogan? That is
what I want to know.

A. Yes.

Q. And then the article by Stellrecht is also contained
there, after the slogan.

A. Yes.

Q. Now certainly, when you move down a few lines, you will
see this sentence

"Therefore, it is a stern and unalterable demand which
Field-Marshal von Blomberg makes of the young men marching
in the columns of the Hitler Youth," and so on.

In those days, in 1938, witness, you were at least thinking
in terms of future military service, and so was
Field-Marshal von Blomberg, with respect to the Hitler
Youth. That is the point I am trying to make.

A. We had a State with compulsory military training.

Q. I know.

A. And it goes without saying that we as educators were also
anxious to train our youth to the highest degree of physical
fitness so that they would also make good soldiers.

Q. You were not doing any more than that? Is that what you
want the Tribunal to understand?

A. I described to you yesterday what else we did in the way
of rifle training, cross-country sports and the training of
special units.

MR. DODD: That is Exhibit USA 856, Mr. President.

Q. Yes, I know you told us yesterday that whatever else it
might have been, it certainly was not any kind of military
training.

This man Stellrecht was associated with you, was he not?

A. Dr. Stellrecht had the "Office for Physical Training" in
the Hitler Youth under Reich Sport Leader von Tschammer und
Osten. That office was one of twenty-one offices within the
Youth Leadership.

Q. He was associated with you?

A. Yes.

Q. And you have also used something from him as part of your
defence; it is in your document book. Do you know about
that?

A. Yes, it is a statement made by Dr. Stellrecht, in which
he speaks of education for defence and physical training for
youth; and says that not a single boy in Germany is trained
with weapons of war.

Q. I know that, and therefore I want you to look at another
statement that he made on another date.

MR. DODD: That is Document 1992-PS, Mr. President, and we
offer it as Exhibit USA 439.

Q. Do you remember when he made the speech to the military
men in January of 1937, while he was affiliated with your
Hitler Youth Organization? Do you know the speech to which I
refer?

A. I was not present on the occasion of that speech, and I
do not consider myself responsible for any statement which
he may have made in it.

Q. Well, that is your statement, but perhaps others feel
differently. I ask you whether or not you were aware of and
know about the speech, and will you tell us whether you do
know about it before you look at it? You know the speech. I
am talking about, do you not?

                                                  [Page 390]

A. I cannot remember being informed of the fact that he
spoke on a national and political training course for the
armed forces; but I may have been informed of it. The
speech, itself -

Q. Well, it seems to me you were very anxious to deny
responsibility for it before you knew what he said.
 
 A. I did not want to make a statement on that. Disputes
arose between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of a
certain tendency which he showed with regard to defence
training; also disputes arose between his office and the
other offices of the Reich Youth Leadership which finally
led to his dismissal from the Reich Youth Leadership.

Q. Well, in any event, he was on your staff when he made
this speech, and I wish now you would look at Page - well,
I have it, Page 3 of the English, and it is Page 169 of the
text that you have, and it begins at the very bottom of the
English page, and the paragraph reads:

  "As far as purely military education is concerned, this
  work has already been done in years of co-operation and
  very extensively. The results have been set out in a book
  written by myself, regulating future work in military
  education down to the last detail of training, and which,
  with our mutual agreement, contains a foreword and a
  preface by the Reich Minister of War, and the Reich Youth
  Leader."

And then the next paragraph

  "The basic idea of this work is always to present to the
  boy that which belongs to the particular stage of his
  development,"

and so on. And I want you to come to the sentence that
says:

  "For that reason, no boy is given a military weapon,
  simply because it seems to serve no useful purpose for
  his development. But, on the other hand, it seems
  sensible to give him guns of small calibre for training.
  Just as there are certain tasks occurring in military
  training which are only suitable for grown men, so there
  are other training tasks snore suited to boys."

And then moving down further in the English text, next to
the last paragraph, Page 170 of your text, you will find in
the next to the last paragraph that your Dr. Stellrecht
says:

  "This picture is the goal of a comprehensive education
  which starts with the training of the boy in outdoor
  games, and ends with his military training."

And then moving on again to the fifth page of the English
text, and I think it is Page 171 of your text, the next to
the last paragraph, in talking about hiking trips, he says
that:

  " - have still a wider purpose because it is the only way
  in which the boy can get acquainted with the Fatherland
  for which he will have to fight one day."

Moving on through this article, I want to direct your
attention to Page 6 of the English text, and Pages 174 and
175 of your text. In the last paragraph of the English text,
you will find this sentence, which says:

  "All training, therefore, culminates in rifle training.
  This cannot be emphasized too much, and, because shooting
  is a matter of practice, one cannot start too early. The
  result we want to achieve in the course of time is that a
  gun should feel just as natural in the hands of a German
  boy as a pen."

Now, turn over to the next page, Page 7 of the English text,
and Page 176 of your text. Your Dr. Stellrecht says there
more about shooting, and how it "meets with the boys'
desire"; and then he goes on to say:

  "Along with the general training, there is special
  training for new replacements for Air Force, Navy and
  motorized troops. The training course for this has been
  established in conjunction with the competent offices of
  the Armed Forces - on as broad a basis as possible; and
  in the country, cavalry training is given."
 Now, I want to call your attention to the following
sentence-I suppose it is on -the next page of your text, but
it is the penultimate or ante-penultimate

                                                  [Page 391]

paragraph in the English text: "Military education and
ideological education belong together." The English text
says "philosophical" but I think that is a mistranslation,
and actually, in German, it is "ideological." And you see
the sentence in the next paragraph that says:
  
  "The education of youth has to take care that the
  knowledge and the principles, according to which the
  State and the Armed Forces of our time have been
  organized, and on which they rest, enter so thoroughly
  into the thoughts of the individual, that they can never
  again be taken away and that they remain guiding
  principles all through life."

Now, witness, I wish you to look at the last paragraph of
that speech, because I think you used the term "playful"
yesterday, if I am not mistaken, and Dr. Stellrecht said to
the military men that day: "Gentlemen, you can see that the
tasks of present youth education have gone far beyond the
'playful.' "

Are you sure, now, that you didn't have any kind of a
programme for military training in your youth organization?

A. I can see from this document, which I should really have
to read in its entirety in order to be able to answer
correctly, that Dr. Stellrecht, to put it mildly, considered
himself very important. The importance of Dr. Stellrecht for
the education of the youth and the importance of office
which he held in the youth leadership, were definitely not
as great as implied by this training course for men of the
armed forces. I have already said before that there were
disputes between Dr. Stellrecht and myself on account of his
exaggerations, and especially because of the extent to which
he over-estimated the value of rifle training, and what he
called "military training"; and that these differences of
opinion finally led to his dismissal and departure from the
service of the Reich Youth Leadership. He was one of many
heads of offices, and the importance of his special activity
was not as great as he has represented it to be in his
statement here. I think I explained yesterday what a large
number of tasks confronted the Youth Leadership. I was also
able to indicate the approximate proportion of pre-military
training or military training, as Herr Stellrecht calls it,
as compared with other forms of training. But this document
also states clearly that there was no intention of
anticipating military training, as I said yesterday. When he
says that every German boy should learn to handle the gun as
easily as the pen, that is an expression of opinion with
which I cannot identify myself.


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