Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-15/tgmwc-15-139.01
Last-Modified: 2000/03/24

                                                    [Page 1]

HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH DAY

MONDAY, 27th MAY, 1946

MR. DODD: Mr. President, I would like to make certain that I
did offer the following documents in evidence

3914-PS, which becomes Exhibit USA 863; 3943-PS, Exhibit USA
864; and 3877-PS, Exhibit USA 863.

THE PRESIDENT: Give me the first one again, will you?

MR. DODD: 3914-PS, USA 863.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

BALDUR VON SCHIRACH, one of the defendants, resumed the
witness stand and testified further as follows

CROSS-EXAMINATION - Continued

BY MR. DODD:

Q. Witness, at the close of the session on Friday we had
just handed to you a copy of the teletype message to Martin
Bormann. I had read it to you over this transmission system.
I wish to ask you now if you sent that message to Bormann.

A. Yes, I dispatched that teletype message, and I should
like to give an explanation in this connection. First -

Q. May I interrupt you just for a minute and ask, that for
the little while that we will be talking today, that you
pause after your answer. I think it would help a little with
the interpreting. I do not think we will have any trouble
this morning. I will try to do the same thing, and perhaps
we will work a little better together.

A. First of all, then, I want to explain why I addressed
Bormann with "Du," the friendly "you." Bormann and I came
from the same town; I knew him at Weimar, but only slightly.
And when in 1928 or 1929 he came to Munich, he paid me a
visit, and because he was the elder of us he suggested to me
that we should call one another "Du." We maintained that
form until 1943, when on his own initiative he dropped it
and addressed me in his letters only with "Sie."

Now, the text of this teletype message: We were in the third
year of the war; the Czech population both in the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in Vienna had
remained perfectly quiet; in the Protectorate conditions
were almost like those in peacetime. I had a very large
Czech population in Vienna, and as a result of the attempt
on Heydrich's life I feared that in the Protectorate there
might be unrest which would no doubt have serious
repercussions in Vienna. This was the time when German
troops were advancing on the peninsula of Kertch; it was a
time when nothing could be allowed to happen behind our
front. And simultaneously with the news of the murder of the
Protector I received official notification that the attempt,
as is mentioned in this document, had been carried out by
British agents and with British weapons.

During the same month we heard, it was also mentioned in the
Wehrmacht communiques, that British bombers had bombed
residential areas in Hamburg and Paris and had attacked
German cultural sites at Kiel. And so I suggested a

                                                    [Page 2]

reprisal measure to establish before the world British guilt
in this attempt and to prevent serious unrest in
Czechoslovakia. That is all I have to say. This teletype
message is genuine.

May I at this point also comment on a difficulty of
translation which occurred during the last cross-examination
on Friday? The German word "Better" was at that time
translated into the English "Saviour." It is an expression
which I used in my book when I described the Fuehrer as a
"Better," and the difficulty lies in the translation of that
word into English: it can only be translated into the
English "Saviour." But re-translated into German, "Saviour"
means "Heiland," "Saviour," "Saint."

In order to make quite clear what the German "Better" is
meant to express in English, I should have to use an
explanatory phrase. If I say that the exact translation is
"rescuer," then the real meaning of the word "Better" is
clearly set forth; and there is nothing blasphemous in the
comparison or the description of the head of the State as a
"Saviour." But if I had written in German that the head of
the State was a saint, then, of course, that would be
blasphemy.

THE PRESIDENT: This sort of explanation should be kept for
re-examination. It is not a matter which ought to interrupt
the cross-examination.

MR. DODD: Now, I have only one or two questions to ask you
in addition about this message.

Q. Were you thinking of some particular cultural city in
Britain, like Cambridge, Oxford, Stratford, Canterbury?

A. No, I had no definite plan in mind. I thought that one
ought to choose an objective corresponding to the sites hit
by British bombers in Germany.

Q. As long as it was a cultural city. Were you thinking of
what happened in Germany or of what happened to Heydrich?

A. I was thinking of the cultural buildings in Germany which
had been attacked, and I wanted to suggest this as an
opportunity to make clear, unmistakably, that the murder of
Heydrich had not been committed by the Czech population but
by the Czech emigrants in London with British support. This
retaliation in the third year of the war was to be a reply
both to the attempt against, Heydrich and to the attacks on
German cultural monuments.

Q. You did not make any reference in this telegram to any
so-called or alleged bombings of cultural objects in
Germany, did you?

A. The Wehrmacht communiques had already announced them, and
they were generally known.

Q. That is not what I asked you. I asked if it is not a fact
that in this teletype you made no reference at all to the
alleged bombing of cultural objects in Germany, nor did you
relate your suggestion for the bombing of a cultural town in
England to any alleged bombing of cultural towns in Germany,
but rather, you made it perfectly clear that you wanted to
strike at a cultural town in England because of what had
happened to Heydrich. That is so, is it not?

A. It was not at all necessary for me to point to the
bombing of German cultural sites. It was a fact known to the
entire German population from the daily attacks of British
bombers.

Q. I suppose by this time you knew very well the general
reputation of Heydrich, did you not?

A. No, that is not correct. I considered Heydrich in this
particular case as the representative of our Reich in
Bohemia and Moravia and not as the Chief of the Gestapo.

Q. Did you know his general reputation in Germany, at least
at that time?

A. I knew that he was the Chief of the Gestapo. I did not
know that he had committed the atrocities which have
meanwhile become known.

Q. You had no knowledge that he was considered "the terror
of the Gestapo"?

A. That is an expression which enemy propaganda used against
him.

Q. You mean you still think it is propaganda?

                                                    [Page 3]

A. No.

Q. Well, was it through enemy propaganda that you heard that
he was called a terror before he was killed in 1942?

A. No, I do not want to say that

Q. How did you know it?

A. I merely want to state here that for me the Reich
Protector Heydrich was, during this third year of the war, a
person other than the Chief of the Gestapo. This was a
political matter.

Q. You did not content yourself with this suggestion to bomb
England, did you? Do you recall what else you suggested not
long afterwards?

A. No, I do not know.

Q. Do you recall anything that you either suggested or did
by way of further so-called retaliation for the
assassination of Heydrich?

A. No, I have no recollection.

Q. You suggested evacuating all of the Czechs out of Vienna,
did you not?

A. This is a suggestion which did not originate with me
personally, but which goes back to a remark about Vienna
which the Fuehrer himself had made in 1940 while I was
reporting to him at his headquarters. I think I already
mentioned during my own testimony that he said, "Vienna must
become a German city and the Jews and Czechs must gradually
be evacuated from Vienna." I already said that during my own
testimony here.

Q. My question is: Is it not a fact that a few days after
the assassination of Heydrich you suggested the evacuation
of the Czechs from Vienna as a retaliatory measure for the
assassination of Heydrich?

A. I have no recollection of it, but it is possible that in
the excitement of this    event, which disquieted me
greatly, I said something like that.

Q. I suggest that you take a look at Document 3886-PS, which
becomes                   Exhibit USA 866, Mr. President.

Now, this document consists of excerpts from the record of a
meeting of the Vienna City Council on 6th June, 1942, as you
will see on page nine of the original. You were present, and
according to these notes, you spoke as the Reichsleiter
Baldur von Schirach and, moving down towards the bottom of
that page, you will find this statement:

  "Finally, he" - meaning you - "disclosed that already in
  the latter part of the summer or in the autumn of this
  year all Jews would be removed from the city, and that
  the removal of the Czechs would then get under way, since
  this is the necessary and right answer to the crime
  committed against the Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia
  and Moravia."

Do you remember saying that?

A. I have no exact recollection, but I consider that these
records here are genuine, and they probably represent the
sense of what I said at the time. I was very much perturbed
by Heydrich's death. I was afraid of serious trouble in
Bohemia and Moravia, and I expressed my fears. The essential
thing is that after calm consideration of this plan I
dropped it, and did nothing more about it.

Q. Well, in any event, I think it is perfectly clear - and I
ask you if you do not agree - that you made two suggestions,
at least: one for the bombing of a cultural English town and
the other for the wholesale evacuation of the Czechs from
Vienna, because of the assassination of this man Heydrich.

A. It is true that I put the idea of such an evacuation of
the Czechs into words.    It is equally true, and an
historical fact, that I dropped the idea and that it was
never carried out. It is correct that I suggested the
bombing of a British cultural site as an answer to the
attempt against Heydrich and to the innumerable bombardments
of German cultural places in the third year of the war, at a
time when vital interests of the German people were at
stake.

Q. Incidentally, Hitler also suggested the wholesale
evacuation of the Czechs  from Czechoslovakia as a
punishment for the murder of Heydrich, did he not?

A. That I do not know.

                                                    [Page 4]

Q. Now I want to turn to something else and see if we can
get through rather quickly this morning. You recall that on
Friday we talked a little bit about your relationship with
the SS and with Himmler, and I want to ask you this morning
if it is not a fact, witness, that you worked very closely
with Himmler and his SS from almost the earliest days right
down to almost the last days of your regime in Vienna? I
wish you would answer that question.

A. I should very much like to answer that question in great
detail.

Q. It does not require great detail in the first answer, but
later, if you feel that you have some necessary explanation,
I am sure you will be permitted to do so. Will you tell the
Tribunal first of all, if it is not a fact that you did
closely cooperate with Himmler and his SS from the earliest
days of your public office to the very late days of your
public office?

A. Close collaboration, in the sense that Himmler had
considerable influence upon education, did not exist.

Q. Let us stop and inquire a little farther. Is it not a
fact that Himmler assigned his SS personnel to your Youth
Organization for the purpose of training your young people?
You can answer that very simply. Did he or did he not?

A. For training purposes?

Q. Yes.

A. I am not aware of anything like that. The fact that there
might have been liaison officers would not be unusual,
because practically all ministries and organizations had
liaison officers. What you have just suggested, however, I
do not recall.

Q. I think we had better clear this up first, and I ask that
you look at Document 3931-PS, which is a new document which
becomes Exhibit USA 867, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: It will become what?

MR. DODD: Exhibit USA 867.

BY MR. DODD:

Q. Now, witness, if you will look at this document, you will
observe that it is a message which you sent to "Dear Party
Member Bormann" in August of 1941. It is quite long, and
there will not be any necessity, I am sure, for reading all
of it, but I want to direct your attention to some parts of
it that might help your memory with respect to the SS.

By way of a preliminary question, the SA apparently had
suggested that it take over some of the training of young
people, had it not, some time in the summer of 1941?

A. I said in my testimony - I think on Thursday - that
already in the spring of 1939 - I believe - the SA had
attempted to take over the pre-military training of the
youth of the two older age classes, and such attempts were
probably repeated in 1941.

Yes, I knew you were complaining to Bormann about it when
you wrote this message. You recall now, do you not, from
just looking at the letter, that that is the whole substance
of the letter - a complaint about the attempt of the SA to
directly control the training of some young people in the
Hitler Youth Organization.

A. I cannot speak about this long teleprint letter without
having read through it.

Q. Well, let us see. If you will turn - it is the second
page of the English text. You do not have separate pages
there. I think it is all one. It is all a teletype, but it
will be about - not too far down on the first part of it.
First of all, I want you to find the statement that "The
Hitler Youth has considered it necessary from the very
beginning to make the Party itself the agency for the
direction and administration of its military training." Do
you find that passage?

A. No.

                                                    [Page 5]

Q. Well, you will find the paragraph numbered (I) on your
teletype, small Arabic number one. You will find they start
to be numbered (1), (2), (3), and so on. Do you find that,
witness?

A. I have Roman numeral I.

Q. All right. That is what I want to call your attention to.
If we agree, then we can move on. You found number (I), that
says that "For more than one year an agreement in draft form
has been submitted to the SA" - Do you find that, all right,
do you? " - which requests that the SA cadre be furnished
for the military training of the youth," and that the SA
leadership did not comply with this request. Now, will you
move down farther, let me see, in number (3), and then
following (3), probably down another three or four
paragraphs, you will find - it is in capital letters, by the
way, what I want to call your attention to; I assume it is
in capital letters in the German:

  "I would be happy if the SA would put personnel at my
  disposal for support for this purpose, similar to the way
  in which the SS and the police have been doing for a long
  time already."

In the English, Mr. President, that is at the bottom of page
four and the top of page five.

Q. Did you find that sentence?

A. I have not found it yet.

Q. It is almost at the end of the teletype. Have you found
it?

A. Yes.

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