Q That means that a few days ago you were thirty-nine?
Q You have been married for fourteen years; is that right?
Q And you have four children; what are their ages?
Q In the Third Reich you were mostly youth leader, weren't you?
Q Which offices did you fill in that respect; that is, offices in the Party, offices in the State; and please, will you also state how long you had filled these individual offices? Students Union. In 1931 I became Reich Youth Leader of tie NSDAP; first of all in the staff of the Supreme SA Command, and in 1932 I became Reich Leader for the Youth Education System of the NSDAP; in 1933, Youth Leader in the German Reich -first of 11, under the Minister for Interior, Dr. Frick, and in 1934, in the same session, I came under the Reich minister of Education, Dr. Rust. In 1936, the Youth Leader in Germany became Supreme Reich Authority and in that capacity I came directly under the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. you have been mentioned with offices of the Reich? NSDAP and Reich Leader for Youth Education. Office posts of the state was the Youth Leader of the German Reich, first of all, in the position under the Minister of the Interior and as I have described it, or of the respective education minister and then it became an independent office. 1940, weren't you? Which position did you lose in connection with leading youth in 1940 and which positions did you hold subsequently and until the end? someone else; that is to say, I left the office of the Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP but I retained the position of Reich Leader for Youth Education and with that entire responsibility for German youth. The additional now position which I was given was that of Gauleiter, district lender, Vienna, which was connected with the state position of the Reich Governor of Vienna, and also of the Office of the Reich Defense Commissioner in the Armed Defense District 17.
leader and come back to that. There is an affidavit available from you, which is dated the 4th of December 1945, and the number is PS-3302. In December, you have stated to the prosecution in that affidavit, that you are declaring yourself responsible for all youth education in the Third Reich. conception or did you have the conception that your successor, Reich Leader Axmann, was dead?
Q You believed that he died during the final stages? that your successor in the office of Reich Youth Leader, this man Axmann, is still alive; is that right? as youth leader, do you wish to maintain the entire statement made in that affidavit to its full extent or do you want to limit it somewhat today? last years of his life, Hitler gave orders to the youth, which I do not know; and although my successor, Axmann, particularly in 1944 gave orders which I do not know, because communications between us had been severed through the events of the war -- I nevertheless adhered to the statement that I had made, expecting that the Tribunal will deal with me or consider me the only responsible person with regard to youth leadership in Germany, since no other youth leader is being put before a court for any such actions for which I am assuming responsibility. type of education of youth you carried out, principles and directives of any kind were decisive, which you received from Hitler or from any source of the Party, or from any other authority of the State, or whether for your youth education, the decisive factors were the experiences which you, yourself, have made during you own youth and amongst the circle of youth leaders of your time.
A The latter point is correct. Of course, the education of Hitler youth was an education placed on the basis of National Socialist ideas but the specific educational source originates not from Hitler nor did they originate from any other leadersin the party; they originate from youth itself, from me and from my assistants and officers. mere in detail how you, yourself, arrived at those principles and that type of youth education, based on your own education, your personal development, and so on and so forth. story very briefly of my own youth. I will just sketch it and I should descri in that connection those youth organizations with which I had been in contact. I shall save quite a lot of time through that for my further statements. I was born in Berlin and one year afterwards, my father retired and moved to Weimar where he became the head of the theatre there, the National Theater of Weimar; thus, I grew up in Weimar, and that town which, in a certain way, in a certain sense, is the home of all Germans, was regarded by me as my own home town. My father was well off; my home offered a great deal of intellectual and artistic interests, particularly of a literary and musical kind but apart from and over and above the means of education of my home, it was the atmosphere of that town, that atmosphere of the classic and post-classic Weimar which influenced my own developments, but it was most of all the Genius Loci which captured me completely later on and particularly because of those experiences of my youth I have again and again and year after year, I have led youth back to Weimar and back to Goethe.
It is that document which is important in this connection far my case, Document 80. It might prove just that. In that document there is a brief reference to one of many speeches which I made in the course of my activities as the leader of the young generation, and in this speech I pointed out to the youth of Germany what Goethe was -
Q May I interrupt you for a moment Dr. von Schirach?
DR. SAUTER: In that Document No. 80, Mr. President, there is -- on Page 133 of your document book -- a brief report of a cultural meeting og the Hitler Youth in the Reich which took place at Weimar. Quite accidentally, this happens to be a report relating to 1937, but the Defendant has already told that such culture conventions of the Hitler Youth in Weimar Shiller's and Goethe's home town, took place every year. In this report, Document 80 of your Document Book, there is a mention, for instance, of a speech of the Defendant regarding Goethe' s significance or importance for the National Socialist education of youth. It said, in this connection, that at that time von Schirach had said, and I quote
THE PRESIDENT: You needn't read it to us, Dr. Sauter. It refers to Goethe that is all.
DR, SAUTER: I see. Very well. BY DR. SAUTER:
Q In that case, von Schirach, will you continue?
A Those were not only annual culture conventions; they were meetings of the leaders of youth which took place in Weimar each year. Apart from that, ther were what we called the Weimar Festivals of German Youth. What is important in this connection is that in this speech I quoted a word of Goethe's which, shall we say, was the leading motive of all my educational work, that is: Youth educates itself again by youth. Even my worst enemy cannot deny the fact that at all times I not only was the propagandist of National Socialism but that I was also the propaganda agent for Goethe.
A certain Mr. Ziemer has given a considerable affidavit against me in which he speaks about youth education as I had carried it out, I believe that Mr. Ziemer has probably made that work a little too easy for himself. At least he should have referred to that educational activity which I carried out with reference to bringing youth nearer to Goethe when he wrote his description of the National Socialist education of youth; but I propose to deal with that affidavit later on during my statement.
I entered the first youth organization when I was ten years old. I was just old enough, or as old, at the time as were the boys and girls who later on entered the Jungvolk. That youth organization which I joined was the so-called Young German Union, Jung Deutschland Bund. It was an organization. Von der Golz and Heseler, being under the impression of being oppressed by the British Boy Scout movement, had founds Boy Scout movements and units in Germany and one of these Boy Scout units was the Jung Deutschland Bund, the German Youth Union which I havejust mentioned. It played an important part in the education of German youth until 1918 or 1919. in a bearding school in a forest. This was a country education home, a country boarding school which had been created by a friend of the well-known educational officer, Hermann Lietz, and there I was educated in the-
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, do you think the education of the Defendant himslef is in any way material for them to hear? It is the education which he imparted which is the matter that is material. What he imparted, not what he himself took in.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, the Defendant would nevertheless beg of you to be permitted to give a short statement of this type, particularly considering that by that means he is trying to show you that the principles according to which he later on led youth education in Germany came to him not from Hitler and not from any source of the Party, but that they were the results of his own experiences during his own youth. Up to a certain degree, it is of importance for the tribunal that the question should be examined as to which principles did the Defendant lead youth and how did he arrive at these principles; and that is what the Defendant is asking permission to explain to you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Sauter, the Defendant has already taken some considerable time in telling us about his early youth and his education, and the Tribunal thinks that it ought to be cut short and that not much more time ought to be taken up in dealing with the education of the Defendant. As I have pointed out to you, what is material for us is the education he imparted to German youth and not the education which he received himself.
DR. SAUTER: Of course we shall take your wishes into consideration, Mr. President. BY DR. SAUTER:
Q Mr. von Schirach, will you please summarize that part of your statement as briefly as possible?
A Yes, I can be very brief. It had been Lietz ' idea that youth should be given an education through which they would receive, through their schools, a true picture of the State. You see, the community of the school there developed a self administration of youth. I shall only briefly hint that Lietz himself eveloped ideas which eighty years ago had been developed by Froedl, with the first educational home of that time at Cairo, and that, of course, he was continuing to work on ideas which Pistelozz, in turn, had had under Jean Jacques and Jean Jacques had had many years before that. All education, of course goes back to Russaud, be it through Hermann Lietz or the Boy Scouts, or any other youth movement, At any rate, that idea of self administration of youth in a school comnunity gave me the idea of self leadership of youth. Lietz wanted to from the school to the younger generation and it was my thought that I should go from the younger generation to the schools. May I perhaps mention very briefly that in 1898 Lietz was -- his educational work had begun and that in the sane year, in a South African term, the British Major Powel, had been surrounded by rebels and had trained younsters to be spies and patrolmen which was the basis of his own Boy Scout movement; so that in 1898 Karl Fisher founded the Wandervogel movement in Germany. perhaps, in accordance with the wish of the President, be terminated now. which you yourself employed when you became Reich Youth Leader, that you learned these principles during your own youth and during your own participation in the youth movement of the time; is that right? That education at that time, did it have any political or anti-Semitic tendencies and know did you actually happen to go into politics?
anti-Semitic tendencies, because Liezt came from the circles of the Democrat Naumann.
Q But how did you go into politics?
Q Do you mean the revolution of 1918?
A. Yes, my father had been thrown out of his job by the Reds. The National Assembly in Weimar had convened. The Weimar Republic had been founded. We had a parliamentary system and we had a democracy or what we thought in Germany at the time was a democracy. I doubt that it was one. It was the time around about 1923, and I was at the home of my parents. It was a period of general insecurity, need and dissatisfaction. Many respected families had become beggars through the inflation, and the savings of the worker and the citizen had got lost. The name "Hitler" appeared for the first time in connection with the event of the 9th of November, 1923. I didn't have the possibility at the time to find anything out, anything exact, about him, but the trial later on informed me and boys of my own age of what Hitler actually wanted. At that time I wasn't a National Socialist. had the name "Kameradschaft". Somehow it came under the national movement, but it wasn't tied to any particular party. The principle thoughts in that organization were self-control, comradeship. There were about one hundred boys from my own home town in it at the time who in this youth movement fought against the shallow tendencies of youth in possible war days, against the loose living, against the cheap amusements of growing youngsters. It was in that circle that, as a sixteen-year-old, I first came into contact with socialistm because there was youth from every level, workers, boys, youngsters, sons of farmers; but there were some alder ones amongst us who had already filled their place in life, and there were some who had been in the war. stood for the first time the consequences of the Versailles Treaty in their entirety. The situation of the youth at the time was this: The school boy had the possibility that as a working student he might fight his way through one way or another and then later on he might in all probability become a member of the academic proletariat, if the possibility of an academic career existed for him at all. The young worker hardly had any prospect at all of finding a place to train because for him there was nothing other that the awful misery of unemployment. That was a generation whom nobody would help if they didn't help themselves.
Q. And that circle to which you belonged as a sixteen-year-old at the time gradually became subject to National Socialist influences?
A. Yes, and that was quite a natural process.
Q. How did it happen?
A. In the middle of Germany there was trouble. I've only got to mention the name of the Communist bandit leader Max Hoelz to indicate the conditions which prevailed at the time. And, even when outwardly calm had come, there were still such conditions there that it was impossible to hold any national meetings because communists used to disturb them. There came an appeal to us. us the young people, to furnish protection for these patriotic meetings, and we did. We had some wounded in chat connection, and one of us, a certain Gerschar, was beaten to death by communists. otherwise couldn't have been held in this Weimar Republic. Amongst them there were National Socialist meetings, too, and to an increasing degree it was these meetings which we had to protect because against them, particularly, the communist terror was directed. I heard Count Rebenloh speak, and I heard the first oratory attempts of Sauckel, who later on became the Gauleiter of Thuringia, of the National Socialist Party.
THE PRESIDENT: What date is he speaking of?
DR. SAUTER: This is the period around 1924, that is one year after the Hitler revolt.
A. In that manner, witness, the circle of which you were a member at the time came into contact with National Socialist influences. Was this supported by means of literature, the reading of National Socialist pamphlets, for instance?
A. Of course, I don't know what my comrades might have been reading, with the exception of one book which I shall give you in a minute. I only knew what I have read myself, and I at that time was interested in the scientist from Beireuth Chamberlain, who had written about the basis of the Nineteenth Century.
I read Adolf Mass' writings, his world history of literature, and I read the history of German National Literature.
THE PRESIDENT: I have already told you that we do not want to know the full story of the defendant's education. He is now giving us a series of the books which he had read, but we are not interested.
DR. SAUTER: Very well, Mr. President.
A. (Continuing): I shall only say one sentence about that. These were books which had no definite anti-Semitic tendencies, but through which antiSemitism went like a little rod thread. The decisive anti-Semitic book I read at the time and the book which influenced my comrades -
Q. Please -
A. The book which influenced my comrades was Henry Ford's "The International Jew". I read it and I became anti-Semitic. The reason why this book particularly impressed my friends and myself so much was because we had considered Henry Ford to be the representative of succes,, but also the representative of a progressive social policy. In that poverty stricken Germany at that time youth turned toward America. And, apart from that great man Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who represented the United States to us.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal thinks, as I have said twice now, that the educational influence of the defendant are quite irrelevant to us. I do not want to say it again end, unless you can control the defendant and keep him to the point, I shall have to stop his evidence.
DR. SAUTER: But, Mr. President, is it not of interest to the Tribunal when judging this defendant and his personality that they know how the defendant became a National Socialist and how the defendant became anti-Semitic
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not of interest to the Tribunal. BY DR. SAUTER:
Q. Witness, how did you meet Hitler and why did you enter the Party?
A. I want to say that I didn't become a National Socialist because I was anti-Semitic but because I was a pro-social. I met Hitler as early as 1925. He had just come out of the fortress at Landsberg and then came to Weimar. His incarceration came to an end and he came to Weimar, and there he made a speech.
It was on that occasion that I was presented to him. The program for the community which he developed interested me and appealed to me so enormously because in that I found in principle something which I had advocated in a small way amongst my comrades in the youth organization. He appeared to me to be the man who would show the way into the future to our generation and clear it for them; and I believed that through him there would be the prospect for that young generation for work, for an existence, for happiness; and he appeared to be the man who would liberate us from the shackles of Versailles. Hitler would never have happened. The dictate led to dictatorship.
Q. Witness, when did you become a member of the Party?
A. I became a member of the Party in 1925, and I simultaneously, and all my comrades, joined the SA.
Q. You were eighteen at the time, weren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Why did you join the SA?
A. The SA were furnishing this protection for the meetings and we quite simply joined the SA and took up our place in the SA, in the Party, and continued the activities which we had carried out before in our own youth movement.
Q. In 1926, witness, that is when you were nineteen years old, there was a Party Rally in Weimar?
A. Yes.
Q. As far as I know, you talked to Hitler personally on that occasion; is that correct?
A. Yes. I had talked personally to Hitler one year earlier, and on this occasion there was a renewed meeting. He was making speeches before mass meetings, and he came back to Weimar once again during that same year to speak before a smaller circle. Together with Rudolf Hess he paid a visit to the home of my parents and it was on that occasion that he suggested that I should study in Munich.
Q. Why.
A. Because he though that I ought to know the center of Party activities.
and because he thought that in that manner I ought to become acquainted with the work of the Party. But I want to say at once in this connection that at that time I still didn't intend to become a politician. I was very interested, of course, in seeing the activities of the movement at the very place where it had been founded.
Q. Well, then you went to Munich, didn't you?
A. Yes, I did; and there I became a student at the Munich University. I studied and, to start with, I didn't concern myself with the Party at all. I carried out my studies of Germanism, art, and history of art, and I wrote. I came into contact with large numbers of people, numbers of people in Munich who weren't actually National Socialists but who belonged, shall I say, to the sympathizers of the National Socialist movement. At that time and in the house of my friend publisher Bruckmann -
Q. In 1929 you became the head of the university movement, didn't you? I think you were, in fact, not nominated but elected, weren't you?
A. The situation at the beginning was this: I attended the Party meetings at the beginning in Munich and in Bruckmann's Salon I came into contact with Hitler and with Rosenberg. Just as I met them, more men who played an important part in Germany I met later. And at the university I joined the high school part of the National Socialist student movement THE PRESIDENT:
Yes, go on.
BY DR. SAUTER: jointed this high school group in Munich, and now will you please continue?
A Yes, I started to become active in this group. First of all, I spoke before my comrades about my own work in the literary field, and then I began to give lectures to students about the National Socialist movement. I organized student meetings on behalf of Hitler among the students in Munich. ASTA, and through that activity among the students to an ever-increasing degree I came into more and more contact with the Party. Union retired,ad the question arose as to who should become the leader of the entire university movement. At that time Rudolf Hess, on behalf of the Fuehrer, questioned all university groups of the National Socialist University Movement. The majority of all these groups of the various universities gave their vote to me to become the head of the National Socialist Students Union. Thus, it appears that I am the only Party leader who was actually elected into the Party leadership, which is a course of events which has never again occurred in the history of the Party. nominated, and you only were elected.
Q If I am right, then, you were elected during the students' meeting at Graz.
A No, that isn't correct; that is wrong. I am now only talking of the National Socialist Students Movement. I shall come to your point later. I reorganized, and I began my auditory activities.
THE PRESIDENT: Surely it is sufficient that he became the leader. It really doesn't very much matter to us whether he was elected or not.
DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I am making every effort all the time to abbreviate this speech as much as possible, but perhaps I may ask just one more question with reference to the subject.
BY DR. SAUTER: student meeting, Austrian and German, comprising all parties therefor. I think it is right that you were elected unanimously as president, weren't you; is that right?
A It isn't correct. At the general students meeting in 1931 where all students of Germany and Austria were represented, one of my assistants was unanimously elected as the leader of all German students. This was a most important affair for the youth and the Party. Twoyears before the seizure of power the entire academic youth had unanimously given their vote to a National Socialist. After the students rally at Graz -
THE PRESIDENT: I think this would be a convenient time to adjourn.
DR. SAUTER: Very well.
(A recess was taken) BY DR. SAUTER: fact that in 1929 you became theleader of the academic youth. Two years later, Hitler made you Reich Youth Leader. How did that appointment come about? very surprising to Hitler, I had a conference with Hitler. In the course of that meeting, Hitler mentioned a conversation we had had some time before. At that time he had asked me how it came about that the National Socialist youth movement was developing so quickly, whereas other National Socialist organizations were rather retarded in their development. appendix of a political party; youth has to be led by youth, and I developed the idea of the youth state, that idea which I had received from the experience of the school community, the school state. leadership of the National Socialist Youth Organization. There were a large number of organizations, National Socialist Youth in Industry, then Hitler Youth and National Socialist Pupils' organizations which also existed at that time. Several individuals had tried the leadership of these organization the SA leader Pfeffer, The Reich Leader Such, really without too good results. a member of the staff of the highest SA leader Roehm. In that position, as Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP and the staff of Roehm, I had the rank of an SA Gruppenfuehrer and kept that rank also half a year later when I became independent in my position. As to how I became an SA Obergruppenfuehrer many years later, I believe in 1941, I became that as honoris causa. However, I did not possess the uniform after 1933.
Q Then in 1931 you became Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP?
Q That, of course, was a Party office?
Q Then in 1932 you became Reich Leader. At that time you were 25 years old. How did that come about?
not be the appendix of another organization, but youth had to be independent; it had to lead itself; it had to become independent. It was the fulfilment of a promise which Hitler had given me at that time that now, half a year later, I become the independent Reich Leader.
Q Independent Reich Leader; Reichsleiter, so that you were subordinate immediately to the Party leader, that is, Hitler? time?
Q And how did you get these funds? By collections? membership fees was kept at the so-called district leadership offices. These were the offices which in the Party were the same as the Gauleitung or, in the SA, the Gruppeleitung. Another part went to the Reich Youth Leadership. The Hitler Youth financed its organization with its own means.
Q Then, I am interested in the following. Did the Hitler Youth, which you created and to which you gave the name of Hitler, get its importance only after the seizure of power and by the seizure of power, or what was the previous size and importance of that youth organization which you had created? the largest youth movement of Germany. I should like to add that the individual National Socialist youth organizations which I found when I took over my office as Reich Youth Leader were collected by me in one large youth movement. This youth movement was the strongest youth movement of Germany, long before we came to power. and on the occasion of that meeting more than 100,000 youth from all over the Reich came together without the Party's providing a single pfennig. All the means came from the youth itself. From that number of participants alone, you can see that that was the longest youth movement.
time already more than 100,000 participants were at that rally at Potsdam? seizure of power -- I believe in February 1933 -- you put your members into the Reich Committee of Youth Organizations. Is that correct, and against whom was that action directed?
A That is correct. The Reich Committee of Youth Organizations was practically no more than a statistical office which was subordinated to the Reich Minister of the Interior. That office was managed by a retired general, General Vogt, who later became one of my ablest collaborators. The taking over of that Reich Committee was a revolutionary act, an action which youth committed for youth, and from that day on dates the realization of the thought of a youth state within the state.
the Grossdeutsche Bund in 1933, that is, after the seizure of power. What was the Grossdeutsche Bund, and why did you dissolve it? an organization of youth groups with great pan-German tendencies. I am surprised, therefore, that the Prosecution has accused me of the dissolution of that organization. Many members of the German Union were National Socialists. There was very little difference between several of the groups which were collected in that organization on the one hand and the Hitler Youth on the other. I strove for unity of youth, and the German Union wanted to continue a separate existence. I objected to that. Therefore, there was agitated public controversy with Admiral von Trothar, the leader of the German Union, and in the and the German Union was coordinated into our youth organization. I cannot remember. I know only that the members joined our organization. Between Admiral von Trothar and me a reconciliation took place, and Admiral von Trothar until his death was one of the greatest sponsors of my work. organizations? zations, if I remember correctly, came out in connection with the prohibition of trade unions. I have no documents any more about that, but at any rate, from the legal point of view, I was not authorized in 1933 to express a prohibition of that kind. The Minister of the Interior was supposed to do that. The right to prohibit youth organizations, de jure, I had only after 1 December 1936. of course for me, and in speaking about this prohibition as such, I can only say that the German Workers Youth found the realization of its social ideals, socialistic ideas, not within the Weimar Republic but in the Hitler Youth.
Q Witness, at first you were Reich leader of the NSDAP. That was a party office. After the seizure of power, you became Youth Leader of the German Reich. That was a state office. On the basis of this state or national office, did you have competence and responsibility for the school system?
Education, and Culture was the only competent person. I was competent for education outside the schools -- outside the home and the school, as it says in the law of 1936. However, I had some schools of my own, the so-called Adolf Hitler Schools, which I shall mention in detail later. They were not subject to supervision by the state. During the war, by the action of sending children into the country -- that is, the organization by which we took care of the evacuation of youth from areas that were in danger of bombing raids -at that time within the camps where these children were collected, I had the competence for education, but on the whole I have to answer the question about competence for the schools system in Germany with No. Hitler Youth, the H.J.-- was membership to the Hitler Youth compulsory or voluntary? In 1936 the law which I have already mentioned concerning the H.J. was issued which made the German youth members of the Hitler. The directives, the executive orders, in connection with that law were only issued in the fall of 1939. Only during th e war, in May 1940, within the Reich Youth Leadership, the thought of the carrying out of a German youth draft was considered, and discussed and expressed publicly. time when I was at the front, stated in a public meeting -- I believe at Frankfurt in 1940 - that. now 97 per cent of the youngest age group of youth have volunteered for the Hitler Youth and that it became necessary to draft the remaining three per cent.
DR: SAUTER: In that connection, Mr. President, may I point out two documents of the Document Book Schirach. That is Numbre 51.
THE PRESIDENT: I did not quite understand what the defendant said.
He said that the membership was voluntary until 1936, that the H.J. Law was then passed, and something to the effect that the execution of the law was not published until 1939. Was that what he said?
DR. SAUTER: Yes, thatis correct. Until 1936 -- if I may explain that, Mr. President -- membership in the Hitler Youth was absolutely voluntary. Then in 1936 the J. J. Law was issued, which stated that boys and girls had to go to the Hitler Youth, but the directives, the executive directives, were issued by the defendant only in 1939, so thatpractically, until 1939, the membership was still a voluntary one.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that right, defendant?
THE WITNESS: That is right.
DR. SAUTER: And these facts which I have just presented, Mr. President, can also be seen from two documents of theDocument Book Schirach, Number 51, on page 91, and Number 52 on page 92. On the latter -
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Sauter, I accept it from you and from the defendant. I only wanted to understand it. You can go on.
DR. SAUTER: On the second document, mention is also made of the 97 per cent which the defendant has said had voluntarily joined the H.J., so that now there were only three per cent missing. BY DR. SAUTER: parents was to the question of whether the children should join the H.J. or not? What did the parents say? children joined the H. J. Whenever I broadcast a speech to the parents or to youth, it occurred that hundreds of parents sent me letters. Among these letters frequently there were some in which the parents stated their opposition to the H.J., and I always considered that as a proof of the confidence which I enjoyed with the parents. I should like to say that never, when parents tried to restrain their children from joining, have I exerted any compulsion or put them under any pressure of any kind. That would have destroyed the confidence of the parents of Germany. That con fidence was the basis of my entire educational work.