THE PRESIDENTS: Yes, perhaps; I haven't read it.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: This document is an agreement between Schirach and Himmler. It was concluded in October 1938. It bears, I think, partial quoting:
"Organization of the Streifendienst.
"1. Since the Streifendienst in the Hitler Youth has to perform tasks similar to those of the SS for the whole movement, it is organized as a special unit for the purpose of securing recruits for the general SS. However, as much as possible, recruits for the SS Special Troops, for the SS Death Head Units, and for the officer candidate schools, should also be taken from these formations." red in your books "The selection of Streifendienst members is made according to the principles of racial selection of the Schutzstaffel.
The competent officials of the SS, primarily unit leaders, race authorities, and SS physicians, will be consulted for the admission tests."
Skipping to 5:
"To insure from the beginning a good understanding between Reich Youth Leadership and Reich SS Leadership, a liaison office will be ordered from the Reich Youth Leadership to the SS Main Office starting 1 October 1938. The appointment of other leaders to the SS sections is a subject for afuture agreement." Honor, 6:
"After the organization is completed, the SS takes its replacement primarily from these Streifendienst members. Admission of youths of German blood who are not members of the Hitler Youth is then possible only after information and advice of the competent Bann Leader." Jugend, and without his consent no one could go into the SS in the future after that agreement was made, which was in October 1938.
December 1938. It is found in our Document Book, No. 2567, page 98 of the Document Book. It is offered in evidence as USA Exhibit 674. It states that the Farm Service of the Hitler Youth "is, according to education and aim, particularly well suited as a recruiting agency for the SS, General SS and the armed section of the SS, SS Special Troops, and SS Death Head battalions." Youth who pass the SS admission tests will be taken over by the SS immediately after leaving the Hitler Youth Farm Service. Hitler Youth member who was in the Farm Service was obliged to go into the SS. And now, to come directly to the point you have been inquiring about, Your Honor: the launching of aggressive war, Schirach was actively engaged in militarizing German youth. From the beginning, the Hitler Youth was set up along military lines with uniforms, ranks, and titles. It was regimented and led in military fashion under the leadership principle. the Party Manual, and turn to the table, beginning with Table 54, and leaf through the book, you will see the very striking insignia of the Hitler Youth and how much it compares to what the normal military insignia were. You will further notice that one of the most prominent insignia is an "S" of the same type that the Nazis used with respect tothe SS. You will notice that part of the uniform was a long knife.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't that all a part of what they are pleased to call the Nazi ideology? I mean, the Fuehrership principle, military training?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: There is a relation between all of these things, perhaps, and the leadership principle, because the leadership principle dominated absolutely every aspect of German life.
However, Your Honors, I suggest that showing to you, in this graphic means, the similarity between the uniform of the Hitler Youth and military uniforms has some bearing upon the preparation foraggressive wars, about which I am further to speak in just a moment.
THE PRESIDENT: (interposing): One what?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Number 102. There is a whole book given over to just this question of the organization and the insignia of the Hitler Youth. or divisions which were very similar to military divisions.
That document is offered as USA Exhibit 675. I will refer no further to it. dropped some of the camouflage which surrounded their early military pre-parations for the wars which we have recently suffered, Hitler discussed the military training of the Hitler Youth in the Voelkischer Beobachter of the 21st of February, 1938. This is our document 2454-PS, found at page 97 of the Document Book. It is offered as USA Exhibit 676. ized trainin through the Hitler Youth in naval, aviation, and. motorized groups, and that over 7,000 instructors had trained more than one million Hitler Youth members in rifle shooting. That was February, 1938, shortly before the Anschluss. Note the progress of military training within the Hitler Youth between then and August 1939, just one month before the invasion of Poland. agreements, which many of these defendants like to make among themselves. It is Document No. 2398-PS, your Document Book page 72. It is offered as USA Exhibit 677. It is taken from "Das Archiv" which, in introducing the actual agreement, declared that this agreement was "the result of close cooperation" between Schirach and Keitel.
The agreement itself states, in part:
"While it is exclusively the task, of the Hitler Youth to attend to the training of their units in this direction, it is suitable, in the sense of a uniform training corr spending to the demands of the Wehrmacht, to support the leadership of the Hitler Youth for their responsible task as trainers and educators in all fields of training for defense by special courses." within the agreement: "A great number of courses are in progress." section on the aggressive war phase.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Whereas Hitler, in February, 1938, mentioned that 7,000 Hitler Youth leaders were engaged in training Gernan youngsters in rifle shooting, Schirach and Keitel, in their agreement of august, 1939, note the following:
"Thirty thousand Hitler Youth leaders are already being trained annually in field service. The agreement with the Wehrmacht gives the possibility of roughly double that number. The billeting and messing of "Hitler Youth leaders is done, recording to the regulations for execution already published, in the barracks, drill grounds, etc., of the Wehrmacht, at a daily cost of 25 pfennigs." recruits for organized banditry and the commission of atrocities, so also he dealt with the head of the Wehrmacht in furnishing young men as human grist for the mill of aggressive war. an important central thread. It is one of the manifestations of Nazism which has shocked the entire civilized world. The principal responsibility for the planning and execution of the Nazi youth policy falls upon this defendant. Document No. 3302-PS, so that there can be no doubt before this Tribunal or before the world, indeed, as to this defendant's own feeling of responsibility:
"I feel myself responsible for the policy of the youth movement in the Party and later within the Reich." I underline the phrase "I feel myself responsible." discussion of Schirach's connection to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
(Whereupon, at 1700 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned, to reconvene at 1000 hours on 16 January 1946).
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: May it please the Tribunal, I now pass to activities which involve Schirach in the commission of crimes against humanity as they bear directly on Count 1. The presentation of all specific acts will deal with the Reichsgau Vienna, but first allow me to refer back to two important points in the previous proof, which will show that Schirach bears responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity which bring in the whole of Europe. Through his agreements with Himmler he provided, through the Hitler Youth, many if not most of the SS men who administered, in the main, the concentration camps, and whose war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout Europe generally are notorious. mentioning one more thing, that he cannot escape responsibility for implanting in youth the Nazi ideology generally, with its tenets of a master race, "sub-human" peoples, and "Lebensraum" and world domination. For such notions were the psychological prerequisites for the instigation and for the toleration of the atrocities which zealous Nazis committed throughout Germany and the occupied countries.
To present Schirach's responsibilities for crimes committed within the Reichsgau Vienna, where Schirach was Gau Leader and Reich Governor from July 1940 until the downfall, the general basic functions of these two offices must be held in mind.
The first document I refer to is Document No. 1893 PS. This is an extract from the party manual of 1943 and therefore catches Schirach in midstream in his activities in the Reichsgau Vienna. That is page 42 of the Document Book, at pages 70, 71, 75, 98, 136 and 140b of the party manual, extracts from each of those pages appearing in your document book.
The following highlights Concerning the Gau leader's functions will appear, and I propose only to paraphrase. Since your Honors may take judicial notice of the party manual, you may check at your leisure unless you wish me to read from any one of these specific orders. These orders make it appear that the Gau leader was the highest representative of Hitler in his Gau, that he was the bearer of sovereignty, the top "Hoheitstraeger", and that he had sovereign political rights. Beyond that he was responsible for the entire political situation in his Gau. He could call -- and we believe this is important -- upon SR and SSleaders as "needed in the execution of a political mission." leaders of the affiliated Party organizations within his Gau, and this of course will include the SS. The position of Reich Governor in Vienna was somewhat special. After the Anschluss the State of Austria was abolished and Austria was divided into 7 administrative Reich Gaus. The most important was the Reichsgau Vienna, of which Schirach was governor. Reference to any statistical manual or the like at this time will establish that at that time Vienna had a population of over two million people. Therefore it was certainly one of the principal cities of the Reich. The Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice of the decree, 1939 *GBl., Part I, p.777, our Document No.3301-PS, found at page 107 of the Document Book. This is basic law on the administrative reorganization of Austria, enacted in April 1939, a little more than a year before Schirach became Reich Governor. This law shows that Schirach, as Governor, was the lieutenant of the head of the German State, Hitler; that he could issue decrees and orders within limitations set by the Supreme Reich authorities; that he was specially under the administrative supervision of the defendant Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior; and that he was also first mayor of the city of Vienna. For the same period that Schirach was Gau leader and Reich Governor of Vienna, he was also Reich Defense Commissioner: of Vienna, and after 1940, of course, the Reich was engaged in war.
Because of his far-reaching responsibilities and authority in these positions, the prosecution contends that Schirach must be held guilty, specifically, of all the crimes of the Nazi conspirators in the Reichsgau Vienna, on the ground that he either initiated, approved, executed or abetted these crimes. Specific examples follow which in fact demonstrate that Schirach was actively and personally engaged in Nazi crimes and that when he became boastful, a characteristic never lacking in a number of these defendants, he himself admitted his own involvement in acts which are crimes within the competence of this Tribunal. industries of an important city like Vienna. The general nature of this program and the crimes flowing therefrom has in part been set before you by Mr. Dodd and the Soviet prosecution will present further acts later on. Document No. 3352-PS, found at P. 116 of the Document Book which I would like to offer as U.S. Exhibit 206, gives extracts from a number of orders from the Party Chancellory which bear on the Gau Leader's responsibility for manpower placement and utilization in Germany. They prove quite simply and in unmistakeable language that the Gau Leaders under the direction of the experienced old Gau Leader Sauckel, who was then Plenipotentiary for Manpower after March 1942, became the supreme integrating and coordinating agents of the Nazi conspirators in the entire manpower program. At page 508 of the original volume of orders (page 116 of the Document Book), the defendant Goering is shown to have agreed, as leader of the Four-Year Plan, to Sauckel's suggestion that the Gau Leaders be utilized to assure the highest efficiency in manpower. At page 511 (page 117 of the Document Book), Sauckel in July 1942 makes the Gau Leaders his special plenipotentiaries on manpower within their Gaus, with the duty of establishing a harmonious cooperation of all interests concerned. In effect the Gau Leader became the supreme arbitrator for all the conflicting interests that exist during wartime with respect to claims upon manpower. Under this same order the Provincial Labor Offices and their staffs were ''directed to be at the disposal of the Gau Leaders for information and advice and to fulfill the suggestions and demands of the Gau Leader for the purpose of improvements in manpower."
At page 567 of the Party Chancellory Order (p. 118 and 119 of the Document Book), the defendant Sauckel ordered that his special plenipotentiaries, the Gau Leaders, familiarize themselves with the general regulations on Eastern Workers. He stated that his immediate objective was "to avoid that politically inept factory heads -
THE PRESIDENT: Where is this?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: That is at pages 118 and 119.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but when you are quoting you might draw our attention to the part of the page you are quoting from.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: It is ever on the next page, 119, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well; go on.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Towards the end of the entire document:
He stated that his immediate objective was "to avoid that politically inept factory heads give too much consideration to the care of the Eastern workers and thereby cause justified annoyance among the German workers." to concern himself in such manpower details as concern over the alleged annoyance of German workers for the consideration given Eastern workers, it is unnecessary to press further into the detailed workings of the manpower program to establish Schirach's connection and responsibility to the Slave Labor Program in the Reichsgau Vienna. was chief Nazi youth leader has already been noted. In March 1941 two letters, one from the defendant Bormann, the other from the conspirator Hans Lammers-
THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, have you any other evidence which connects von Schirach with the problem of manpower?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: I planned to present nothing further, your Honor. I felt that in view of the fact that our Soviet colleagues are going further with the details of the manpower program, particularly in the East, the main objective under Count I should merely be to show the general responsibil of the defendant Schirach for the Slave Labor Program.
The question of specific acts will have to be inferred from the other proof that is in the record and that which will come into the record later.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: There is just one further point: When I come to treat of the Jews in a few minutes, there will be one or two specific examples.
THE PRESIDENT: You are now going to deal with the persecution of churches, is that right?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Yes, sir. Book. This is offered as U.S. Exhibit 678. this document, in view of our common anxiousness to pass rapidly on; but perhaps I may paraphrase it and if you are not satisfied I will read it. Vienna Schirach and two other officials raised with the Fuehrer a complaint that the confiscations of church properties in Austria, made on various pretexts, should be made in favor of the Gaus rather than of the Reich, and later the Fuehrer decided the issue in favor of the position which had been taken by Schirach, namely, in favor of the Gau. I use this merely to connect Schirach with the persecution of the churches, concerning which there has been a great deal of evidence before this time.
THE TRIBUNAL (By Mr. Biddle): None of it is in evidence yet. You haven't put anything in evidence. We can't take judicial notice of something unless you ask us to.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Your ruling is that this wouldn't be in evidence unless I read it?
THE TRIBUNAL (By Mr. Biddle): I am not making any ruling; I was merel pointing out to you that we have nothing in evidence on the last document.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: I think, under the circumstances I had better read the document.
"Muenchen, 20 March, 1941, Brown House.
"C i r c u l a r L e t t e r No. 5g "To all Gauleiters "Subject Matter:
Sequestration of Church Properties "Valuable church properties had to be sequested to a large extent lately, especially in Austria; according to reports of the Gauleiter to the Fuehrer these sequestrations were frequently caused by offences against ordinances relating to war economy (e.g. hoarding of food-stuffs of various kinds, textiles, leather-goods etc.)
,. In other cases they were caused by offences against the Law relating to malicious attacks against the State and in some cases because of prohibited possession of firearms. Obviously no compensation is to be paid to the Churches for sequestrations made because of the abovementioned reasons.
"With regard to further sequestrations, several Austrian Gauleiter have attempted to clarify the question who should acquire such sequestered properties at the occasion of the Fuehrer's last visit to Vienna. Please take note of the Fuehrer's decision, as contained in the letter written by Reich Minister Dr. Lammers to the Reich Minister for the Interior, dated 14, March 1941. I enclose copy of extracts of same.
"(signed) M. Bormann".
I had offered that document as U.S. Exhibit 678. Do you still wish me to read the enclosure that went with it?
THE TRIBUNAL (By Mr. Biddle): I don't wish you to read anything; I was simply pointing out that, as you read it, it wasn't in evidence.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: In that event I will continue. The copy reads as follows:
"The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery "To the Reich Minister for the Interior "Subject:
Draft of an ordinance supplementing the provisions on confiscation of property inimical to People and State.
"Re. letter of this office dated 27 January 1941.
"The Reich Governor's and Gauleiter von Schirach, Dr. Jury , and Eigruber complained recently to the Fuehrer that the Reich-Minister of Finance still maintains the point of view that confiscation of property inimical to the People and State should be made in favor of the Reich and not in favor of the Reich-Gaue.
As a consequence the Fuehrer has informed me that he desires the confiscation of such properties to be effected in favor of the respective Reich-Gau, in which area the confiscated property is situated, and not in favor of the Reich."
THE PRESIDENT: You need not read any more of it.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: I pass over now to the Jewish persecution. and participated in anti-Semitic measures. Of course, the whole ideology and teaching of the Hitler Youth was predicated upon the Nazi racial myth. Before the war, Schirach addressed a meeting of the National Socialist German Students League, the organization he headed from 1929 to 1931. Ziemer. I wish to read merely from the bottom of page 95 of the Document Book to the end of the first paragraph at the top of page 96 of the Document Book. ded, some time before the war, personally, at which Baldur von Schirach addressed the Students League, which he at one time himself led.
THE PRESIDENT: What is this document?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: This is 2441.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean, what sort of a document is it?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: It is an affidavit of Gregor Ziemer.
"He"--meaning Schirach--"declared that the most important phase of German university life in the Third Reich was the program of the NSDSTB. He extolled various activities of the Bund. He reminded the boys of the service they had rendered during the Jewish purge. Dramatically, he pointed across the river to the old university town of Heidelberg where several burntout synagogues were mute witnesses of the efficiency of Heidelberg students. These skeleton buildings would remain there for centuries as inspiration for future students, as warning to enemies of the state." Jews under Schirach, we must look to his activities in the Reichsgau, Vienna, to the activities of his assistants, the SS and the Gestapo, in Vienna.
Document No. 1948, page 63 of your Document Book, is offered as US Exhibit 680. You will note it is on the stationery of the last Governor of Vienna.
THE PRESIDENT: Captain Sprecher, I have been reading on in this document 2441-PS, on page 22. It seems to me you ought to read the next three para graphs, page 96, in red, from the place where you left off.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The second, third, and fourth paragraphs.
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: "Even as old Heidelberg Castle was evidence that old Germany had been too weak to resist the invading Frenchmen who destroyed it, so the black remains of the synagogues would be a perpetual monument reminding the coming generations of the strength of New Germany.
"He reminded the students that there were still countries who squandered their time and energy with books and wasteful discussions about abstract topics of philosophy and metaphysics. Those days were over. New Germany was a land of action. The other countries were sound asleep.
"But he was in favor of letting them sleep. The more soundly they slumbered, the better opportunity for the men of the Third Reich to prepare for more action. The day would come when students of Heidelberg would take their places side by side with, legions of other students to conquer the world for the ideology of Nazism." found at page 63 of your Document Book, and which I offer as US Exhibit 680. This, you will note, is on the stationery of the Reich Governor of Vienna, The Reichsstatthalter:
"Vienna, 7 November 1940.
"Subject: Compulsory labor of able-bodies Jews.
"1. Notice:
"On 5 November 1940 telephone conversation with Colonel (Standartenfuehrer) Huber of the Gestapo. The Gestapo has received directions from the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) as to how able-bodies Jews should be drafted for the compulsory labor service. Investigations are being made at present by the Gestapo to find out how many able-bodied Jews are still available, in order to make plans for the contemplated mass projects. It is assumed that there are nor many more Jews available. If some should still be available, however, the Gestapo has no scruples to use the Jews even for the removal of the destroyed synagogues.
"SS Colonel Huber will report personally to the 'Regierungspraesident' in this matter.
"I have reported to the 'Regierungspraesident' accordingly. The matter should further be kept in mind."
The signature is by Dr. Fischer.
I want to call the Court's attention to the significance of the title "Regierungspraesident". The SS Colonel, you will note, was to report to the Regierungspraesident. If you will refer back again to the decree which set up the Reichstag, Vienna, 1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, page 777, you will find that the Regierungspraesident was Schirach's personal representative within the governmental administration of Vienna.
Fischer, concerning compulsory labor of able-bodied Jews, answers the argument that persons of the rank of Gauleiter were ignorant of the atrocities of the Gestapo and the SS in their own locality. It shows further that even the assistants of the Gau leaders were informed of the details of the persecution projects which were afoot at the time. in Vienna, which was alleviated for some members of the alleged "Master Race" who succeeded to the houses of the luckless Jews who were moved into the oblivion of Poland. Schriach. It is our Document 1950, page 64 of your Document Book, and it is offered in evidence as US Exhibit 681. The letter is very short:
"Berlin, 3 December 1940." Chancellery, and it is marked "secret". It is to the Reich Govenor in Vienna, Gauleiter von Schirach:
"As Reichsleiter Bormann informs me, the Fuehrer has decided, after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the 60,000 Jews still residing in the Roichsgau, Vienna, will be deported most rapidly -- that is, still during the war -- to the General Government, because of the housing shortage prevalent in Vienna.
"I have informed the Govenor General in Cracow, as well as Reichsfuehrer SS, about this decision of the Fuehrer, and I request you also to take cognizance of it."
Signed, "Lammers". of the defendants in the dock, I take something from how own lips, which was published for all Vienna, and indeed, for all Germany and the world to know even at that time. It appears in the Vienna edition of the Voelkischer Beobachter, on the 15th of September 1942 Document 3048-PS, your Document Book page 106. It is already in evidence as US Exhibit 274.
so-called European Youth League in Vienna in 1942. Youth Education in the NSDAP at that time:
"Every Jew who exerts influence in Europe is a danger to European culture. If anyone reproaches me with having driven from this city, which was once the European metropolis of Jewry, tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of Jews into the ghetto of the East, I feel myself compelled to reply, 'I see in this an action contributing to European culture."
Although Schirach's principal assistance to the conspiracy was made in his commission of the German Youth to the conspirators' objectives, he also stands guilty of heinous crimes against humanity as a Party and governmental administrator of high standing after the conspiracy had reached its inevitable involvement in wars of aggression. responsibility of the Defendant Schirach. Martin Bormann, and the presentation will be made by Lieutenant Lambert.
DR. FRITZ SAUTER (Counsel for Defendant von Schirach): Mr. President, as to the various errors made in the case against Schirach, I shall take a position when I have a chance to conduct my defense. But I should like to take the opportunity now to point out an error in translation in one of the documents. That is Document 3352; I believe it is page 117 in the Document Book - 117 or 116. and this order concerns itself with the fact that the work departments must be at the disposal of the Gauleiter under certain circumstances. In the German original of this order it reads as follows: "anregungen und wuensche," The first translation -- I mean, the translation for "anregungen" - we consider to be correct; but the second translation, namely, "demand" for "wuensche", we hold to be false, because, so far as we know, the word "demand" means such as "befehl" or "forderunger" in German, and is much stronger than "wuensche". We would hold it to be correct if the English translation "demand" could be changed to the word "wishes", which is an exact translation of the word "wuensche."
I don't know whether I have pronounced the word exactly correctly in English.
So much for the time being. I thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to say anything about that?
CAPTAIN SPRECHER: I think that Dr. Sauter has made a very good point.
I have checked with the translator beside me, your Honor, and the German word "wuensche" has been translated too strongly.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
LIEUTENANT THOMAS F. LAMBERT, JR: May it please the Tribunal, set forth in the Indictment.
And if the Tribunal will allow, we His official title was Chief of the Party Chancery.
Before that ago.
In 1922, only 22 years of age, he joined the Organization struggling pacifist minority in Germany.
While he was District purposes satisfactory to himself.
On 15 May, 1924, he was found subversive activities.
He joined the militarist organization, his ascent to a prominent position in the conspiracy.
In 1927 he became Press Chief for the Party Gau of Thuringia.
In other became an important staff officer and a Gauleiter.
On 1 April, We come now to a particularly important point, involving Bormann's tieup with the SA.