and, finally, a fact of interest in the case Raeder, the strict limitation between the three branches of the Wehrmacht and the elimination of the Reichswehr Minister of the and/or Minister of War who held the three branches of armed services together and unified them. The greater the number of the governmental departments became, and the more the departments were cut off from one another, the stronger Hitler became as a dictator, as the only one with authority over all the innumerable agencies. But with this the constitutional as well as the criminal responsibility of the chief of the individual department decreased and with it also the responsibility for strategic planning in one individual department, in this instance the Navy. for instance the Navy, can in case of strategic planning only be responsible for the planning of naval strategy; he did not have an overall view of the total planning. Total planning was discussed nowhere; politically and militarily it was in Hitler's hands exclusively because he alone was the center where all threads and all activities of the individual departments joined. case of the Norway action, even Goering, as late as March 1940, was not included in the activities, which is one proof of the strong separation of the individual departments even within the Wehrmacht, the armed forces. it is customary in every country and because in every country the military commander of a branch of the armed forces does not and cannot know for what purpose the political leadership will use the plan prepared by him, whether it is a war of aggression or a defensive war. military agencies, both of the Allies as well as in Germany, worked out strategical plans in the same way and in the same areas and at the same times, namely in regard to Norway, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Rumania, and/moreover the Allied plans for the destruction of the Rumanian oil fields and especially of the oil sources in the Caucasus. Particularly , the plans concerning the Caucasus on the part of the Supreme Council, i.e. of the combined British and French General Staff, show the correctness of the statements. The Supreme Council would certainly decline to be made politically responsible for these thereof, and the execution of the plans was to strike not only the enemy country Germany, but also the neutral Soviet Union, as the documents also shown.
convincing and shows a strong parallel trend. May I point in this connection to my earlier statements made here on the occasion of the comprehensive discussion regarding the importance and admissibility of the documents submitted by me; may I also point in addition to document/Exhibit No. 130, namely the letter of the Foreign Office in which submission of the British Admiralty files is refused, but in which the plans in regard to Norway and the whole of Scandinavia are admitted, but with the addition that the plannin was not transferred into action, a fact which depended only on Germany's having started the execution of the planning first. but then one must be consistent and must take a stand not only against German military force, but against any military force. One may condemn the fact that the military, as the operational authorities, prepare military plans, and may in future insist that such plannings are punishable. But then not only German military planning, but also foreign military planning must be punishable. and legal conditions, if it wishes to make/responsible for political decisions although he had nothing to do with them, but has always worked as soldier only. Just as little as it could be suggested 130 years ago to bring before a Court an Admiral of the dictator/so just as little can one now condemn an Admiral of the dictator. Particularly with dictators -- and the Prosecution overlooks this -- not only the power and the influence of a military commander diminishes but his responsibility must also diminish to the same extent; for the dictator has seized all power and with it all responsibility, all the more so, if a dictator appears with such an extraordinary will, such immense power, as Hitler. The French Prosecutor said in a particularly pertinent way on 7 February 1946 before this Tribunal word for word:
"Hitler was actually the incarnation of all willpower". Prosecution, and, in any case, it has not been taken into consideration at the presentation of the facts and the loyal conclusions. How great this power is, Gustavo Le Bon shows in his famous book "Psychology of the Masses" in the chapter "The Leader of the Masses".
I quote from it:
"Within the class of leaders a somewhat strict division can be made.
belong to the one kind; the people with a strong, persevering less brilliant appearance."
this quotation, exercised an immense influence, and who, on the other hand, was unimpreessive in his brown uniform.
Gustavo le Bon continues:
"The unyielding will, which they possess is an exceedingly rare and powerful attribute which subordinates everything to it.
One does not always realize what a strong and persisten will can achieve.
Nothing can resist it, neither nature nor Gods nor men."
either.
Accordingly, only the question remains; can revolt ever be a soldier's duty, an open revolt? This question will be denied by every commander all over the world and likewise by any other non with one exception only, if it is the case of a dictator committing a crime the criminality of which is recognized by the military commander himself. Accordingly, Raeder could be made responsible for a military crime only, but not for a political one, because for the political crime, the dictator himself must answer. Should the Prosecution have come to some other conclusion regarding Raeder it has only occurred -- as I have already emphasized in my introduction -because, in their misconception of the actual and juridical facts, they regarded Raeder as politician and soldier.
But he was a soldier only. He lived for the Navy alone, for the welfare of the Navy for which he also is now prepared to bear all responsibility to the full extent. He has led the Navy in a unified manner, and, aided by his Officer-corps, has taught them to think decently and to fight morally, to fight up to humanity's expectations of a soldier. It must not be that, as a result of the deeds of a Hitler and his National Socialism, the officers and soldiers of this Navy be defamed by their highest ranking officer being declared a criminal. From a historical viewpoint Raeder may be guilty, because he, as many others within the country and abroad, did not know or see through Hitler, and did not have the strength to resist the dynamic strength of a Hitler, but an omission is no crime. What Raeder did or left undone in his life was in the belief that he was acting correctly and, that as a conscientious soldier, he had to act in this way. Raeder is highly regarded as an officer who is not a criminal and cannot be a criminal since all his life he has lived honorably and as a Christian. A man who believes in God does not commit crimes, and a soldier who believes in God is not a war criminal.
I therefore beg the Tribunal to acquit completely Grand Admiral Dr. h.c. Erich Raeder regarding to all points of the indictments.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Sauter for the defendant Schirach.
DR. SAUTER: Baldur von Schirach, who at that time was Reich Youth Leader welcomed in 1936 the guests to the Olympic Games in Berlin with the following words:
"Youth throws a bridge across all frontiers and seas!"
I call to the Youth of the World and through them, to Peace."
And Baldur von Schirach, then Gauleiter of Vienna, said to Hitler in 1940:
"Vienna cannot be conquered with bayonets, but only with music." defendant. It is the duty of the Defense to examine the evidence produced in this trial for the purpose of ascertaining whether the said Baldur von Schirach who expressed his political programme by such utterances, really committed those crimes against law and humanity, with which he is charred by the Prosecution.
Schirach is the youngest defendant here. He is also, of all the defendants, the one who was by far the youngest on his joining the Party, which he did when he was not yet 18. Those facts are perhaps already of some significance for the judging of his case. When still at school he entered the fold of the rising National Socialism; he was particularly attracted by the Socialist idea which had already in his country school, recognized no difference between the sons of fathers of different classes and professions; those boys around Schirach actually in the popular movement of the 1920 's in Germany the promise of the resurgence of our Fatherland from the aftermath of the lost Great War, to a happy future, and fate willed it that as early as 1925 Schirach came into personal contact, with Hitler in Weimar, Goethe's old town when he was seventeen Hitler' personality made a fascinating impression on young Schirach, as he himself admitted; the program for the Racial Community (Volksgemeinschaft) which Hitler had evolved at that time met with Schirach's hearty approval, because he thought he saw reproduced therein on a full-size scale that which he had personally experienced in a small way in the comradeship of the country school and in his Youth organization.
To him and his comrades Hitler appeared as the man who would open for the younger generation the road into the future; from him this younger generation also get its hope for a possibility to work its hope for a profession its hope for a happy life. So the young man became a convinced National Socialist; he became one as a result of the environment in which he had spent his youth, and which offered a soil which was only too fertile for the growth of that ideology ("Weltanschauung") which young Schirach embraced, because at that period he held it to be the right one. This environment of his childhood and a biased reading of political books, which the young man devoured in his hunger for knowledge, made of him, while still an inexperienced youth, also an anti-semite. It is true that he did not become an anti-semite in the sense of these fanatics who ended in ot receiling with horror from acts of violence and programs, nor in the sense of those fanatics who finally created an Auschwitz and murdered millions of Jews; but an anti-semite in that moderate sense, who would merely restrict Jewish influence in the government of the state and in cultural life, but for the rest would leave untouched the freedom and rights of Jewish fellocitizens, and who never thought of exterminating the Jewish people. At least that is the picture of Hitler's anti-Semitism which young Schirach drew for himself during those years.
That this was really Schirach's opinion is also substantiated by the statement which Schirach made here in the morning of 24 May 1946, in which he described without reservation the crimes committed by Hitler as a spot of shame in our history, as a crime which fills every German with shame ;
that statement in which he openly expresses that Auschwitz was bound to be the end of each and every racial policy and anti-Semitism. This statement came from the deepest spot in the heart of the defendant Schirach; it was the result of the terrible disclosures which these trials have brought to him also, and Schirach has given this statement here before the broadest public in order to bring back the German youth from a wrong road to the road of justice and tolerance. been raised against Schirach, and the major results which the evidence has shown in the individual points :
1. The defendant Schirach is first of all accused that before the seizure of power, that is before the year 1933, he actively furthered the National Socialist Party and the youth-organization affiliated with it, and that he had thereby contributed so that the Party could come into power. He had been, as is stated in the Trial Brief, a close and subordinate follower of Hitler; he had stood in blind loyalty to Hitler and the letter's National Socialist world of thinking; and he had, as leader of the student-league, led the students ideologically and politically to National Socialism and won them for it.
All this is not denied by Schirach in any manner : he has done what he is being accused of in this respect; this he confesses openly, and for this he naturally holds himself responsible today also. The only thing which he denies for this as also for the later time the more emphatically, is the accusation that he has participated in a conspiracy. According to Schirach's opinion, the Fuehrer-principle and dictatorship in their character and their theory are absolutely incompatible with the idea, of a conspiracy, and a conspiracy appears to him as a logical impossibility if many millions of members are to be included in it and if its existence and aims lie exposed before the country in question as well as the foreign countries. We furthermore know from the results of these trials that Hitler, aside from Bermann and Himmler did not have nay firend, any advisor, with whom he expressed himself as to his plans and aims; he rather drove the Fuehrer-principle to the furthest extremes.
He took no cognizance of any advisory meetings and discussions, but reached hi decisions solely by himself, without even listening to the opinion of those closest to him. With him there were only orders on his part and unconditional obedience on the other side and I do not wish to make any further statements about that chapter. That is how the"conspiracy" actually looked; and all of us who have lived through these trials would never have considered this most radical increase of the Fuehrer-principle possible had not all defendants and all witnesses who know about this, in complete agreement and without a single exception, shown the same picture to us again and again. he came completely under the influence of Hitler; that he had placed himself with his whole young personality in the service of this idea; and that at the time, as is stated in the indictment quite correctly, he was devoted to Hitler with unconditional loyalty. more experienced, mature Germans have committed with him, then you, gentlemen as Judges, may condemn him for this if our law code furnishes a legal basis for it. This then would be a further disappointment, in addition to the many others which he has already experienced for years. Schirach knows today that he has given loyal support into the end to a man who did not deserve this, an no also knows today that the ideas for which he was enthusiastic in his young years and for which he sacrificed himself led in practice to aims, which he himself had never thought of. But also the Schirach of today, cleansed by many experiences, cannot see any criminal act in that activity of his younger years carried out in good faith together with millions of other Germans, which he developed for Hitler and the latter's party. Because the Party at that time appeared quite legal to young Schirach, Schirach neverhad any doubt that it also came into power by legal means. The seizure of power by the Party, the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor by Reich President von repeated elections, confirmed for young Schirach again and again the legality of the movement which he had joined.
If today he is to be punished because he acknowledged this same Hitler as gnized as legal head of the state, Schirach could never acknowledge such a decision as being just. In spite of the severe judgment which he himself has pronounced in this Court Room about Hitler and had to pronounce here according to his convictions, he would feel himself a victim of his political convictions if he were to be sentenced because as a young enthusiastic man he had joined the National Socialist Party and collaborated in its construction and seizure of power. At the time he did not recognize that as a crime but from his standpoint he considered it his patriotic duty.
2. The second, far more important accusation which has been raised against the defendant von Schirach goes to the effect that he, as Reich Youth Leader in the years 1932-1940, to quote the accusation literally "poisoned the world of thought of the youth with the Nazi-ideology, and especially trained it for aggressive war." claims have not been substantiated either by the results of the evidence. The law on the Hitler Youth of 1936 described Schirach's task as Reich Youth Leader "to deucate the youth outside of the parental home and outside of the school physically, intellectually and morally for service to the people and to the community of the people, in the spirit of National Socialism through the Hitler Youth Movement and itsleader, the defendant v. Schirach." This is how for the program went, being repeated word for word in the enactment decree of 1939, which came out so late because Schirach did not intend to introduce compulsory membership until the movement would practically inclu de the entire German youth on the basis of voluntary membership, so that future joining by compulsion would exist on paper only. and writings, --because no other program of the Hitler Youth exists, does not contain a single word which would indicate a military education of youth, much less an education for aggressive warfare. But even in practice, the education of youth according to Schirach's ideas in no way gives evidence of a military education of German youth for such a purpose.
In that respect the point was stressed by the prosecution that the Hitler Youth was organized in various "Battalions and divisions". That is correct although the designations listed by the prosecution are not correct and although they do not have too least bit in common with military formations. But in the last analysis, every youth movement the world over will show a classification into smaller or larger units; each of these units naturally needs a name also, and it must also have a responsible leader. Similar to other countries, as also in the German Hitler Youth, the leader of the unit was designated by some sign of his rank.
Schirach knows that foreign youth organizations in Switzerland as well as in France, as well as in other countries. Also have similar classifications and similar insignia, and it never occurred to us so far to make that a reason for considering such foreign youth organizations as military associations. youth in Germany were also given training in shooting. That is also correct but proves equally little, in the opinion of Schirach, because the shooting Instruction for the Hitler Youth consisted fundamentally and without exception of low-caliber target practice, in other words, using short, light rifles (Flebertstutzen) which are nowhere in the world considered as a military weapon and which are not even mentioned in the enumeration of military weapons in the Versailles Treaty. Hitler Youth in Germany did not possess a single military weapon, no infantry rifles and no machine-guns, no motorized airplanes, no cannon and no tanks, all through their existence. However, if one wants to speak about military weapons, such as are used in modern warfare. As a matter of fact, as has been stated in the cross-examination of Schirach and in order to give added importance to his office a certain Dr. Stellrecht, a technical advisor on shooting instruction in the leadership of the Reich Youth attempted, as was established in his cross-examina tion to ascribe a certain considerable importance to this very branch of youth training, in order to make his own office appear particularly important. Schirach, however, was able to show without refutation that for this very reason he developed differences of opinion with this technical advisor and so finally parted from Dr. Stellrecht because he, Schirach, rejected any development which might perhaps have led to a military training of the youth. However, this Dr. Stellrecht, who was brought forward by the Prosecution as a witness against Schirach, has nevertheless also admitt ed for his part, that not a single boy in Germany was trained in handling weapons of war and that not one boy was given a military weapon.
Of further importance for consideration of these questions is the fact that Schirach as a matter of principle refuse to permit the youth to be trained by active officers or former officers -- because he considered these persons entirely unsuitable to educate the youth in that spirit which he envisioned as the goal of his activity. Moreover, neither Schirach nor any of his closer associates, were officers before the war and the same holds true for the overwhelming majority of the high or low-ranking HJ leaders subordinate to him. of the defendant Schirach himself and through depositions made by the witnesses Lauterbacher, Tustav Hoepken and Maria Hoepkin during their examination. For a number of years these witnesses were Schirach's closest collaborators; they are thoroughly familiar with his views and principles and they have unanimously confirmed that it is entirely out of the question to speak of a military, or even a pre-military, training of the Hitler Youth. The Prosecution, during the course of their cross-examination, made the attempt to doubt the credibility of the witness Lauterbacher. was asked about how many people Lauterbacher had hanged publicly and furthermore by putting to his the statement that he had ordered that four or five hundred prisoners from the penitentiary in Hanover should be poisoned or executed by shooting In this connection the American Prosecutor had submitted seven affidavits under document USA 874, offered in evidence. fact has made the assertion in his affidavit that the witness who appeared here for Schirach, witness Lauterbacher, in his function as Gauleiter at Hanover, had given him the order concerning the murder of the inmates.
During the Court's session of the 27 May, 1946 I had protested against the use of that affidavit by Kramer and I had shown to you gentlemen a newspaper article, according to which the witness Kramer on May 2, 1946, by a court in the British sector, had been condemned to seven years imprisonment.
Several days ago I submitted a report of the "Rheinische Zeitung" of 6 July, 1946 as evidence to show that our witness Lauterbacher in the meantime had been acquitted by the Supreme British military Court in Hanove time the Prosecution made against the credibility of the witness Lauterbacher and at which time they based their statements on the affidavit of Kramer, was not justified. Hitler Youth wore a uniform. That is correct, but it proves nothing. For the youth organizations of other countries, too, are accustomed, as is known, to wear a common costume, some sort of a uniform, without anybody for this reason terming them military or semi-military corporations, and Schirach and several of his associates have informed me that in many democratic countries, which certainly do not contemplate war, much less a war of aggression, the male youth is being trained in handling actual military weapons and that every year contests are hold in shooting wit military rifles. Hitler Youth, and indeed not only for the boys but also for the girls? We have heard the answer to this from several witnesses. Schirach, I may quote here, saw in the uniform of the boys and in the uniform costume of the girl the "dress of socialism", the "dress of comradeship". Schirach wrote, the child of the rich industrialist was to wear the same clothes, as the child of the minor, the son of the milliona ire the same as the son of a unemployed. The uniform of the Hitler Youth was to be as Schirach already wrote in 1934 in his book "The Hitler Youth", "the expression of an attitude, which did not ask for class and property, but only f or effort and achievement." The uniform of the Hitler Youth was for Schirach, as expressed further in this some book of his "not the sign of any militarism, but the emblem of the idea of the Hitler Youth, namely the idea of the classless society", in the spirit of the election slogan which he gave the Hitler Youth in 1933:
"Through Socialism to the nation". be seen from the quotation. Thus he wrote in the official publication of the Hitler Youth in 1937. "The uniform is not the expression of a martial attitude, but the dress of comradeship; it extinguishes class difference and again makes the child of the me; insignificant worker socially acceptable today; the young generation in our new Germany must be united in an indissoluble community". he described in 1934 in his book "The Hitler Youth", how he imagined this socialism and I quote again: "Socialism does not mean to take the fruits of his work away from someone, in order to give everybody something produced by the work of another. Everyone is to work, but everyone is also to harvest the fruits of his work. It Is also not to be that one person should got rich, while thousands of others must suffer want because of him. Whoever exploits his workers and spoliates the community in order to fill his cash box, is an enemy of the German people". That describes the attitude of the defendant von Schirach. writings, articles and speeches, which have been collected in the document book and have been submitted to the Tribunal, that he did not desire any, as he says, "pseudo-military exercise".
which would only spoil the joy of the Youth in the movement." the training in all sports activities and complied with the inclination of the male youth, which surely favors in oil states the shooting sport with particular interest. But this training had to be decreased very much in volume and importance in favor of the greater aims which Schirach pursued in the Hitler Youth and about which the examined witnesses give as clear a testimony as the writings and speeches of von Schirach. These aims of the Hitler Youth a education are to be explained here briefly, as they have been proven by the presentation of evidence; Schirach is naturally not being charged with these other aims of the Hitler Youth education, but one must consider them nevertheless if one is to obtain a total picture of his activity and of his plans. for socialism in the sense of overcoming class distinction, Schirach had, as he explained here, primarily four aims in mind: sports and in connection with it the hygienic care of the youth, this branch of the education of the youth took up a very large part of the training of the Hitler Youth, and if the German youth obtained such unexpectedly great success at the Olympic Games in 1936, it was to a certain degree due to the activity of the leadership of the Hitler Youth in cooperation with the sports leader of the Reich, von Tschammer-Osten. the working youth and the improvement of the position of adolescents in the youth legislation, particularly by prohibition of night work, by increasing the free time, by granting of paid vacations, by prohibition of child labor, by raising of protected age of adolescents, etc., the vocational advance training was promoted so strongly that finally over one million boys and girls entered professional competition annually, and from year to year the average performance in each profession rose very considerably. the slums of large cities, during hiking trips and in youth hostels. Thousands of youth homes and youth hostels were built in the course of those years because of Schirach's initiative, namely, by the own means of the Hitler Youth itself, in order to get the youth out of the large cities with their temptations and vices and return to rural life, to show them the beauties of the homeland and also to give a vacation to even the poorest child.
of youth: namely the understanding with youth of other nations, and this activity especially is a particularly suitable test for the question of whether one can accuse defendant von Schirach of having taken part in the planning of wars of aggression and of having committed crimes against the peace. Schirach has told us here on the witness stand, that again and again, in summer as in winter of every year, foreign youth groups were the guests of the German youth and it is shown by the documents in von Schirach's document book, for instance, that already in the year 1936, no less than 200,000 foreign youths received overnight lodgings in German youth hostels, and year after year German youth delegations went abroad, especially to England and France in order to enable youth to get acquainted and respect one another. Those very endeavors of Schirach's, which would be absolutely incompatible with the intension to prepare wars of aggression, received unlimited recognition before the war abroad as well. In one of the special numbers of the Hitler Youth magazine in "Wille und Hacht" (Will and power) in 1937, dedicated to this task of understanding, which was also published in French and circulated in France and which is quoted here only as an example, the French premier Chautemps -you have the evidence in the document book -- declared his willingness, as chief of the French government, to advance the further development of these peaceful meetings. "I wish", he wrote, "that the young men of both nations could live every year side by side by the thousands and in this way learn to know, to understand and to respect each other." And further: "Our two nations know that an understanding between then would be one of the most valuable factors for world peace; therefore it is the duty of all those, on both sides of the frontier, who have a clear view and human feeling to work for the understanding and rapprochement of both nations. But no one could do it more sincerely and more enthusiastically than the leaders of our wonderful youth, of the French and of the German youth. If they understood how to unite this youth, they would hold in their hands the future of European and human culture."
Schirach, ending his appeal in the monthly of the Hitler Youth with the words: "The education of youth in this spirit is one of the most important tasks of the politicians of both our countries."
"The French Ambassador Francois Poncet recognized just as heartily Schirach's efforts in the same publication under the title "Youth as a Bridge" and concluded his lengthy article with the words: "French participation enriches German soil. German influence fertilizes French spirit. May this exchange develop further. May also the generations, which will benefit from it at one time contribute to bringing the two halves of Charlemagne's empire closeer and to create between them those relations of mutual respect, harmony and of good comradeship for which both nations are deeply longing, because their instinct tells them that the welfare of European culture depends on it and because they know very exactly when they look into themselves that they have many more reasons to respect and admire each other than to hate each other with an enthusiastic article under the title: "Salute to France". In it he writes for instance: "The rapprochement of our two peoples is a European task of such urgent necessity that youth has no time to lose in order to work for its achievement". Then further: "Youth is the best ambassador of the world; it is disinterested, frank and without the eternal distruct of which diplomats can frequently not be cured because to a certain extent it is their professional disease. However no propagandists intentions may be hidden behind youth exchange." And he concludes, "I consider it now my task to bring about a conversation between German and French youth, which must not be on the German side composed of nice statements from me, but of many personal conversations of thousands of young Germans with just as many young Frenchmen.. One oust believe in youth, because it above all, com carry out a true understanding." Hitler Youth shortly before expressed their respect in the name of the young generation of Germany to the French Unknown Soldier by placing a wreath under the Are de Triomphe, and he concludes with the words:
"The dead of the great war died while carrying out their patriotic duty and nobly devoting themselves to the ideal of liberty, but Germans as well as French were always full of respect for the gallant foe. If the dead respected each other, then the living should try to shake hands. If the returned combat veterans of both nations could become comrades, why should the sons and grandsons not become friends?" tries to brand as a deliberate partner in a Hitlerian conspiracy for war. The Prosecution wants to make a war criminal out of this untiring prophet of international understanding and of peace, who is charged with having militarized youth and prepared it bodily and psychologically for wars of aggression and of having worked against the peace. So far, the Prosecution has not been able to furnish evidence to this effect. against him in the Trial Brief; he has Published a quantity of essays on the most varied problems of Youth education; his innumerable speeches, addressed to youth, have been published; his orders and instructions to youth are available in a collected form. It must, however, be concluded that amongst all this which constitutes his utterances not a single item is to be found in which he made instigations in favour of war or preached attacks against other countries. Transcript that he has referred to Lebensraum in his book "The Hitler Youth" and by so doing altered as his own an unpleasant slogan of the Hitlerite aggression policy. This claim is however unjustified, for the whole book "The Hitler Youth", does not, any more than every other speech and writing of Schirach, contain this word at all. True, he has referred to "Eastern Space, published in 1936, but he quite obviously did not in any way refer by this term to Polish or Soviet-Russian territories, but to the Eastern provinces of the former German Empire; that is to say, to territories which formerly belonged to Germany but were notoriously very thinly populated and well-suited as settlements for the excess of population.
War expressed the idea that he might wish Germany to conquer foreign territories; neither has he ever uttered the odious slogans of German "Master Race" or "Subhumanity" of other nations; on the contrary, he always was in favour of the preservation of peace with the neighbouring Nations and always intervened in favour of the peaceful settlement of any conflicts that cropped up and of inevitable clashes of interests. Had Hitler possessed but a fraction of the love of peace which his Youth Leader preached time and again, then perhaps this war would have been spared us Germans and the whole world.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 18 July, 1000 hours.)
NURNBERG, GERMANY ON 18 .JULY 1946, 1000-1700, LORD JUSTICE
THE MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the defendants Hess, von Ribbentrop and Fritsche are absent.
DR. SAUTER(Counsel for the defendant von Schirach): Gentlemen of the Tribunal, yesterday at the end of my statement I dealt with the accusation of the Prosecution that the defendant von Schirach had trained and educated the youth of the Third Reich in a military sense, that he had prepared them for the waging of aggressive wars and had participated in a conspiracy against the peace. Now I continue on page 15 of my brief, and I turn to a further accusation which has been made by the Prosecution against Defendant von Schirach. he over served Hitler's war policy before the war, he is now charged with having had variousrelations with the SS and SA and especially to have drawn his young recruits from the Hitler Youth as well as the SS and SA, as also the Leader Corps of the Party. This last fact is correct but proves nothing as to Schirach's attitude towards Hitler's war policy and is equally pointless as regards the question of his participation in a war conspiracy of Hitler's. For if 90 to 95 % or more of German youth belonged to the Hitler Youth, then it was only natural that the Party as well as its formations should draw their young recruits from year to year and to a growing extent from the Hitler Youth. Practically no other youth was available. Youth Leadership and the Reichsfuehrung SS dated Oct. 1938 concerning patrol service for the Hitler Youth which has been submitted as Document 2396-PS it cannot, by any means, draw any inference therefrom, for patrol service in the Hitler Youth was only an institution designed to control and supervise the discipline of the Hitler Youth members when they made a public appearance this was therefore a kind of corporative police operation carried out by the Hitler Youth against their own members and against them alone.