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.
In order, however to guard against difficulties with the general police, an arrangement by agreement with the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler was necessary because the latter was the Chief of the whole police organization in Germany and could have made difficulties for the institution of the patrol service of the HJ. reality had just as little to do with providing new blood for the SS, as with the conduct of and the preparation for war. Moreover, it can clearly be seen how much Schirach resisted any influence the Party might win over the Hitler youth from the fact that in 1938 he protested very sharply against having the eudcation of the Hitler Youth during the last two years, namely from 16 to 10 years, taken over by the SA; he sharply rejected this plan and through a personal visit to Hitler succeeded in having the Fuehrer order in question not carried out in practice. ness Gustov Hoepken who was heard here on the 28th of day 1946, and from the affidavit of the witness Maria Hoepken, Schirach Document Book no. 3 that Schirach always feared he was being shadowed and spied upon by the SS in Vienn He always had an uncomfortable feeling because at the beginning of his activity in Vienna there had been appointed for him for the business of Reichsstatthalt and Reich Defence Commissioner, a permanent representative in the person, of all things, of a higher SS leader Dr. Deloruegge, who, as Schirach knew, had direct connections with the Reich leader SS. The same man, as has been proved, proposed to Hitler in 1943 to have Schirach imprisoned for crestism and to have him placed before the people's court, which meant in practice that by Himmler's urging, Schirach would be hanged. These facts alone already prove what was the real relation between defendant von Schirach and the SS and it is then compreh ensible why Schirach finally refused even the so-called protection by the police force appointed to him and preferred to transfer his personal protection to a unit of the Wehrmacht which was hot subordinate to the order of Himmler. (Compare Affidavit Maria Hoepken figure 5 in v. Schirach Document Book No. 3 ).
which is included in the indictment concerns his attitude toward the Church question. This issue is, in fact, given a minor part in the Indictment, but turns out nevertheless to be of considerable importance for the judgement of Schirach's human personality. the Church. To the foreign critic this circumstance may perhaps appear an unimportant detail, but we Germans know the amount of pressure exercised uponranking Party officials precisely in such matters and how few, in his position, ventured to resist such pressure. Schirach was one of those few. He was that high-ranking Party Leader who constantly and invariably stepped in with extreme severity when he learnt of hostile interference and outrages against the Church on the part of the Hitler Youth. He has, indeed, been reproached of the fact that various songs were sung by the Hitler Youth, which contained outrageous remarks about religious institutions, out in this respect Schirach could with a good conscience confirm on his oath to the effect thathe was to a certain extent unaware of those songs, which is entirely conceivable where an organization of 7 or 8 million members is involved, and, moreover that certain songs now considered objectionable, date back to the Middle Ages and have figured in the Song-book of the "Wandervogel", a former Youth organization which the Prosecution surely does net propose to condemn. Schirach has, however, especially pointed out that in the years 1933 to 1936, several million youths from an entirely different spiritual environment joined the Hitler Youth and that in the first revolutionary years, that is, in the period of storm and stress of the movement, it was quite impossible to hear of and prevent outrages of this short. of this kind, which naturally represented only excesses onthe part of isolated elements and could net commit the Youth organization as a whole.
It is Schirach's conviction that the examination of evidence leaves no doubt as to his concilatory behavious in the matter of the Church, and to the fact that he strove to establish a proper relation of mutual respect between the Church on the one hand and the Third Reich, and more especially the Reich Youth Leadership, on the other hand, and to observe their respective rights and competence.
At his own request, Schirach was invested by the Reich Minister of the Interior with the direction of the Concordat negotiations with the Catholic Church in 1934, because he hoped, by his personal cooperation, to achieve an agreement with theCatholic Church more easily. He has honorably endeavoured to find, for the settlement of the Youth question, a formula upon which unanimity with the Catholic Church couldbe possible. His moderation and good will in this respect were then indeed frankly acknowledged by the representatives of the Catholic Church. But it was all ultimately frustrated by Hitler's opposition and the complications created, particularly for these negotiations, by the events brought about on the June 30 1934 by the so-called Roehm Putsch. agreement with the Reich Bishop Dr. Meuller, so that the incorporation of the Protestant Youth Associations in the Hitl er Youth was not achieved by constraint but by mutual agreement, and therefore not by the breaking up of these associations by the State or Party as the Prosecution assumes, but upon the intiative of the ecclesiastical head andin complete agreement with him.
It must be pointed out here that it was always Schirach's policy that on the part of the youth leadership neither then nor later restrictions were imposed on church services for youth. On the contrary, as he himself has testified and as was confirmed by the witness Lauterbacher, Schirach emphatically stated in 1937 that he would leave it to thechurches to educate the Youth according to the spirit of their faith and at the same time he ordered that, as a principle, no Hitler Youth duty was to be arranged on Sundays during the time of church services. If, however, in individual cases such interferences occurred anyhow and, as it was proven in the cross-examination, religious authorities made complaints about this, then the defendant Schirach can not be blamed for this nor does it liter the good intentions which he had. had made anti-religious statements; on the contrary; at numerous rallies, contained in the von Schirach document book which has been presented to the Tribunal, he not only repeatedly objected the accusation that the Hitler Youth were enemies of the church or atheists, but he positively always in-culcated the leaders andmembers of the Hitler Youth with the obligation to fulfill their obligation toward God; he would not tolerate anyone in the Hitler Youth who did not believe in God; every true educator, would have to be at the same time an educator for religious feeling, it being thebasis of all education activities; Hitler Youth dut ies and religious convictions could very well be associated with each other and exist side by side.
The Hitler Youth leader was to bring no conflicts of conscience whatsoever to his adherents. Leave from duty was to be granted to Hitler Youth members for religious services, rites and such. That wasvon Schirach's point of view. can claim that he will not be judged as an enemy of the church and as an enemy of religions life. By the way, it is interesting in this connection, What such a reliable judge as Neville Henderson, wrote in his oft-quoted book "Failure of a Mission" about a speech which he heard from thelips of Schirach at the 1937 Reich Party Rally and parts of which have been submitted in Schirach's document book: ditions evidently expected that Baldur v. Schirach would speak against the church at the Reich Party Rally and would influence the youth in the spirit of enmity to the church, as wasoften heard from theother leaders of the Party. Henderson writes and I quote two sentences: "On this day it was Schirach's speech which impressed me most, although it was quite short. A part of this speech surprised me, when he, addressing himself to the youth said: 'I do not know whether you are Protestants or Catholics, but I do knew that you believe in God.!".
And Henderson added: "Formerly I had the impression that all connections with religion were abolished with in the Hitler Youth, but these expositions by Schirach appear to refute my assumption." he influenced the youth, is proved not only by his declaration of opinion which he expressed incidentally once in his speech to theteachers of the Adolf-Hitler Schools at Ordensburg Senthofen, that Christ was the greatest to you in evidence, entitled, "Christmas Gift of War Welfare Service". This book, which was sent to thefront in large editions, was dedicated by Schirach to the front soldiers who came forth from the Hitler Youth in 1944, thus at a time when radicalism in all districts of Germany could not be carried any further.
Here also Schirach was an exception: you will find no swastika, no picture of Hitler, nor an SA song in the book of Reich Leader von Schirach but among other things on avowed Christian poem from Schirach's own pen, next a picture of a Madonna, beside it a reproduction of van Gogh who, as is generally known, was strictly proscribed in the Third Reich. Instead of inflammatory words, we find an exhortation to a Christian way of thinking and a copy of the "Wessebrunner Gebet", the most remarkable prayer in the German language, as everyone knows. firm and refused to withdraw the little book or alter it in any way. undertaken a hostile action against the Church and with having thereby taken part in the persecution of the Church. From a letter of Minister Lammers of 14 March 1941, Document R 146, it appears that Schirach proposed to keep confiscated property at the dispose of the districts, the Gau, and not to hand it over to the Reich. This case alone is no justification at all for connecting the defendant von Schirach in some way or other with the persecution of the Church. The case mentioned by the Prosecution does not concern Church property at all, but confiscated property of a Prince Schwarzenberg in his Vienna palace. This affair therefore had nothing to do with the Church. This is also confirmed unequivocally by minister Lammer's letter of 14 March 1941, Document R 143, which mentions only a "confiscation of property hostile to the people and the State", whereas Bermann's far reaching personal intention becomes apparent and betrays its hostile tendency towards the Church, when Bermann speaks about "Church properties, (Monasterial possessions ans so forth)" in his accompanying letter of 20 March 1941, referring to this case. Moreover, the confiscation of Prince Schwarzenberg's property has not been caused, pronounced nor carried out by Schirach. Schirach had nothing to do with the confiscation as such; Schirach, however, agreeing with the other Gauleiters of the Austrian NSDAP and at their request, personally then applied to Hitler and requested that such confiscated property should not be taken to the Reich and not be used on behalf of the Reich, but that it should remain in Vienna. This proposal was crowned with success.
Hitler complied with his request, the result being that, When the confiscation was rescinded later on, the property could be returned to its legitimate owner whereas it would otherwise have been lost to him. and to that person who was the owner of the seized property. This case therefore cannot be charged to the defendant von Schirach; on the contrary, it speaks in his favour just as in the other case where, whilst circumventing Bermann, he intervened on behalf of Austrian nuns and as a result obtained that the whole project of confiscating Church and Monastery property was discontinued in one day in the whole of the Reich by a direct order of Hitler. fact that the Vienna Authorities, subordinate to him, intended to put an Adolf Hitler School into the Monastery of Neuburg in 1941, it must on the other hand be pointed out that, even prior to the requisitioning of this monastery, entirely independent of Schirach, the Vienna Police and several Vienna Courts had established the occurrence of considerable criminal offences in this monastery; furthermore that the confiscation of part of the monastery seemed entirely justified to the defendant Schirach, as the very spacious rooms of this religious establishment were not required for monastery purposes. document submitted, did not complain to the Reich Minister of the Interior, of one decision to confiscate and therefore recognized the confiscation as just, although it had been expressly informed in the confiscation decree of the possibility of lodging a complaint. establishment of an Adolf Hitler school, but for the purpose of the Museum of Historical Art, thus for no Party establishment, which again testifies to the fact that the Confiscation Decree had in no way been rescinded through Schirach's hostile attitude towards the Church. Had it been of importance to Schirach to injure themonastery because it was an Ecclesiastical Institution, he would also have confiscated the rooms used for religious ceremonies. He, however, strictly forbade their confiscation.
the fact that the justification of the Confiscation Decree of 22February 1941 had one remarkable reservation. The decree restricts itself to justifying the confiscation by the fact that on the one hand Vienna badly needed rooms and on the other the confiscated rooms were superfluous for the purposes of the monastery. Not a single word mentions or oven suggests that criminal offences had beenestablished in the monastery, as mentioned in a Police report of 23 January 1941. If this confiscation had been the result of a hostile attitude of Schirach to the Church, we could have been sure that somehow or other reference would have been made to these offences for justification of the confiscation by the Prosecution.
At Schirach's instigation, a monthly rent was paid for it to the clergy who had occupied some of the confiscated rooms, for which rent there existed no political obligation whatever.
Defendant von Schirach's further behavior does not reveal at all a hostile attitude towards the Church, particularly, if one considers, whilst appreciating this behavior, that during these years a Reich Leader was also under strong pressure by the Reich Chancellory and by Bermann and that a considerable amount of courage was necessary to resist this pressure and carry on a policy in opposition to the official Berlin policy. Schirach's activities, confirmed that Schirach in Vienna also strove to establish correct relations with the Church, that he was always willing to listen to Cardinal Innitzer's complaints, and took severe measures against the excesses of individual members of the Hitler Youth or Hitler Youth Leader. In Vienna, he thus carried out a policy towards the Church quite different from that which his predecessor had favored, and it is beyond doubt that the Ecclesiastical circles in Vienna and the whole of the Viennese population appreciated Schirach's attitude towards the Church. This is also confirmed by the witness Gustav Heepken who, by order of Schirach, held regular conferences with a Vienna theologian, Dekan Prof. Ens, to be able to inform the defendant Schirach of the clerical wishes and the differences which had arisen with Ecclesiastical authorities. Schirach could not do anything more in the prevailing political circumstances, as they are described in the Affidavit of Maria Hoepken, Document Book von Schirach No. 3, Figures 5, 10 and 11, if he did not wish to expose himself to the most serious danger.
not in the bill of indictment but during the presentation of evidence, and the witness Aleis Hoellriegel, who was questioned here was asked in the witness box, whether Schirach had over been in Mauthausen concentration camp. To this I should like to remark that the defendant Schirach mentioned his visit to Nauthausen in his own examination by the American Prosecution before the beginning of the trial; it would, therefore, not have been necessary to have this visit testified to again by the witness Hoellriegel. in 1944, as the witness Marsalek erroneously stated; the exact year 1942 has been confirmed by the witness Heellriegel, and in the same way also by the witness Heepken and Wieshefer, from whom we heard that neither after 1942 nor at any other time did Schirach visit concentration camps. The visit to Mauthausen in 1942 cannot charge the defendant Schirach in this sense with having known, approved and supported all the conditions and atrocities in concentration camps. crimes. There still were no gas evens and such at Mauthausen in 1942. At that time mass executions did not take place at Mauthausen. The statements of the defendant von Schirach concerning his impression of this camp appear to be plausible, on the whole, because through the testimony of numerous witnesses, who have been heard during the course of this trial, it has been confirmed again and again that on the occasion of such official visits, which have been announced previously everything was carefully prepared in order to show to the visitors only that which did not fear the light of day. Mistreatments and tortures were concealed during such official visits in the same manner as arbitrary executions or cruel experiments. This was the case at Mauthausen in 1942 and also at Dachau in 1935, where Schirach and the other visitors were shown only orderly conditions, conditions which at a superficial glance appeared to be almost better than in some ordinary prisons.
concentration camps in Germany in which, in his opinion, incorrigible habitual criminals and political prisoners were confined. However even today, Schirach still cannot believe that the mere knowledge of the existence of concentration comps in itself is a punishable crime, since he at no time had done anything whatsoever to promote concentration comps, never has expressed his approval of this arrangement, never has sent anybody to a concentration camp, and since he also would never have been able to make any changes in this institution or to prevent the existence of concentration camps.
Schirach's influence was always too small for that. To begin with, as Reich Youth Leader he of course had nothing to do with concentration camps, and it was lucky for Schirach that in his entire Vienna district there was not a single concentration camp.