His entire relations with concentration camps were therefore limited, to attempt again and again to have people released from the concentration camps, and it is significant, after all, that he used his presence in the concentration camp Mauthausen - the one and only time he was there - to use his influence for Viennese citizens who were imprisoned in Mauthausen, to obtain their release.
larger or smaller part in the presentation of evidence of the case Schirach. In the interest of saving time I shall not deal more specifically with the alleged connection of Schirach with Rosenberg or Streicher, nor into his alleged collaboration with the program for slave workers, about which not even the High test cooperation of the defendant could be proven, nor into a telephone conversation which allegedly had been made by one of the Viennese officials with a SS - colonel (SS-Standartenfuehrer) about the compulsory work of the Jews, which has been used by the prosecution. ticularly in connection with the case of Rosenberg was dealt with. That is, a short explanation concerning the action by which thousands of youngsters in the eastern combat zone were collected and brought partly to Poland and partly to Germany. documents presented here, apparently to bring the youngsters who had been in a zone of operation, that is, immediately behind the front, and wandering around without homes, to bring them together, to lead them into professional training and into professions so that they should be saved from physical and moral neglect. The defendant von Schirach doubts whether that could be viewed as a crime against humanity or as a war crime. know anything at the time. He was not competent for it at the time. That entire affair was handled by the army group center, together with the Ministry for theEastern Territories, and it is quite credible that the Eastern Ministry, as well as the army group center, did not approach the Gauleiter of Vienna in order to get his approval of that action, or even to notify him about it.
The only thing which, a considerable time later, came to the knowledge of the defendant von Schirach, and which possibly has any connection with that action, was an occasional information by the Reich Youth Leader Axmann that so and so many thousand youngsters were brought to the Junkers works at Dessau as apprentices.
matter, because he had been Reich Youth Leader before, and he wants to make it quite clear that also after leaving that office, of course he would not have done anything against the interests of the Youth. von Schirach, at the time after the assassination of Heydrich, sent to Reichsleiter Bermann, and in which he has suggested to Bermann reprisal measures in the form of terror attacks against English centers of culture. That letter was actually sent by the defendant to Bermann. He stands for it. I have to point out at the very beginning that fortunately the suggestion remained a suggestion, and it was never carried out. strongly under theimpression of the assassination then brought against Heydrich, and it had been clear to him that a revolt of the population in Germany would necessarily lead to a catastrophe for the German armies in Russia, and in his capacity as Gauleiter of Vienna he had considered it his duty to undertake something to protect the rear of the German army fighting in Russia. And that explains that letter to Bermann, that teletype to Bermann of the year 1942, Document 3877, which, as I have already pointed out, fortunately remained unsuccessful. page 26. I shall not deal in detail with the Adolf Hitler Schools which were founded by Schirach, nor into the fifth column which somehow was connected with the Hitler Youth, about which nothing definite could be charged to the defendant. I shall no longer dwell either on the repeated attempts of the defendant Schirach and his friend Dr. Colin Ross for peace, and neith shall I discuss the merits of the defendant concerning the evacuation of children to the rural areas, which took millions of children from bomb-endangered districts during the war into mere quiet zones and which thus saved their lives and health.
in details himself, and should therefore like to refer to his own statements. As counsel for the defendant von Schirach, I shall discuss only onemore problem here, namely Schirach's position and attitude concerning the Jewish question. convinced National Socialist and thus also an anti-Semite from his earliest youth. He has also made clear to ms what he understood by anti-semitism during these years; He thought of the exclusion of the Jews from civil service and of thelimitation of Jewish influence in cultural life and perhaps also in economic life, up to a certain extent, But that was all which in his opinion could be undertaken against the Jews, and this was in accordance with the suggestion which he had already made as leader of the student's organization for the introduction of a quota in various classes. The defendant's decree concerning the treatment of Jewish youth is, for example, also important for his attitude (Document book Schirach No. 136) a decree in which he expressly orders that theJewish youth organizations should have the right and the possibility to practice freely within their framework; they were not to be disturbed in their own life. "In the youth (it says there) the Jewish community shall already today take that secluded and in itself unrestrained special position which at some time the entire Jewish community will receive in the German State and in the German economy." Obviously Schirach was not at all thinking about programs, not about bloody persecution of Jews and such he rather believed at that tire that the antisemitic movement has already reached its aim by the anti-Jewish legislative measures of theyears 1933/34; with this he believed the Jewish influence to be removed; as far as it seemed unhealthy to him. He was therefore surprised and seriously perplexed when the Nuernberg Laws were issued in 1935 which expressed a completeexclusion of the Jewish population and carried it out with barbaric severity. Schirach has in no way taken part in the planning of these laws; he has nothing whatsoever to do with their content and their formulation. That has been proved here. about the brutal excesses which were staged by Goebbels and his fanatic clique his indignation became known throughout the entire youth (compare page 10, 142) We have heard from the witness Lauterbacher (page 10,302), how Schirach reacted to the report of these excesses : he immediately called his assistants together and gave them the strictest orders that the Hitler Youth had to be kept out of such actions under all circumstances.
In this sense he also had the officers of the Hitler Youth in all German cities notified by telephone, and he warned every non-commissioned officer that he would held him personally responsible, if any excesses should occur in the Hitler Youth. that Hitler was thinking about the extermination of the Jews. He rather only heard about it that the Jews should be evacuated from Germany into other states, that they should be transported to Poland, and that they should be settled there at worst in ghettos, but probably in a closed settlement area. When Schirach received in July 1940 Hitler's order to take over the Gau Vienna, Hitler himself also talked to him along the same lines, namely that he would have the Jews brought from Vienna into the General Government; and even today Schirach has no doubt that Hitler himself was not thinking about the so-called "final solution" of the Jewish question at that time (1940). That is the extermination of the Jews. We learn from the Hossbach minutes and other evidence of these trials that Hitler was planning the evacuation to Poland already in 1937, but that he decided on the extermination of the Jewish people only in the year 1941 or 1942. Vienna; the execution of this measure was exclusively in the hands of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Vienna office of this agency, and it is known that the Vienna SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Brunner has in the meantime been sentenced to death because of it. The only report which Schirach received and carried out concerning the Viennese Jews, was to report to Hitler in 1940, how many Jews there were still left in Vienna, and he gave this report in a letter of December 1940 where he gave the figure of the Viennese Jews for 1940 as 60,000. As it is known, Minister Lammers answered this letter by the defendant Schirach with a letter, dated 3 December 1940 (PS 1950), which shows with all clarity that it was not Schirach who ardered the evacuation of the Viennese Jews into the General Government, by Hitler himself, and that it was not Schirach, either, who carried out this measure, but the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler who delegated his Vienna office with this task.
It therefore has to be stated here categorically that Schirach is in no way responsible for the deportation of the Jews from Vienna; he did not execute this action and he did not start it; when he came to Vienna in the summer of 1940 as Gauleiter, the large part of the Viennese Jews had already voluntarily emigrated or had been forcibly evacuated from Vienna, a fact which was also confirmed by the defendant SeyssInquart. The remaining 60,000 Jews who were still there at the beginning of Schirach's time in Vienna were deported from there by the SS. without his participation and without his responsibility. In spite of it, Schirach held the well-known Viennese speech of September 1942 (No. 3046 PS) in which he stated that every Jew working in Europe was a danger for European culture Schirach furthermore said in this speech : If one wanted to make reproach to him now that he had deported 10,000 and more Jews into the Eastern ghetto from this city which had once been the metropolis of Judaism, then he had to answer :"He considers that as an active contribution to European culture". Schirach has openly and couragiously admitted that he actually expressed himself in this sense at that time, and he has stated here remor sely :"I cannot take back this wicked word, I must take the responsibility for it. I spoke these words which I sincerely regret. Should the Tribunal see in these words a legally punishable crime against humanity, Schirach must make atonement for this single anti-semitic rema which could be proved against him, though they merely remained words and not result in any harmful aftermath, Schirach's attitude here does not exempt the Tribunal from its duty to verify carefully what Schirach has really done, further more under that circumstances he made this remark, and finally whether Schirach had also made any other spiteful remarks against the Jews, or committed any malicious actions against Jewry as a whole.
The foremost question is : what has Schirach really done ? The re to it as arising from the results of these proceedings can only be :
apart from the fact that he made some isolated anti-Semitic remarks in September 1942, he has not committed any crime against the Jews. He had no competence in the question of the deportation of the Vienna Jews, he did not participate in it at all, and having too little power he could not prevent them altogether. It is just as the prosecution incidentally stated He boastfully attributed to himself an action which in reality he had never committed, and in view of his entire attitude could never have done.
What, however prompted Schirach to make this remark ? How did he come to attribute an incident to himself an incriminate himself for an activity which he had never committed ? The answer is given by the results of the evidence : it demonstrates how very difficult a position Schirach had in Vienna without giving any reason, Hitler dismissed him as Reich Youth Leader presumably because he no longer tursted him.
From one year to another Hitler's fear was growing that the more youth stood behind Schirach the more they would be alienated from him (Hitler) the more the black wall of his SS was separating him from his people. Hitler possibly saw in his Youth Leader the personification of thecoming generation who thought in worldwide terms, whose feelings were humane and who felt themselves more and more bound to these perceptions of true morality which Hitler had long ago thrown overboard for himself and his leadership of the nation because they were no longer concepts of true morality for him, but mere slogans of a meaningless propaganda. This feeling might have been a deeper reason for Hitler to dismiss Schirach as Youth Leader suddenly in the summer of 1940, without any word of explanation, an send him to Vienna as Gauleiter, a most difficult position in the city he (Hitler) hated from the bottom of his heart, even whilst he spoke of his "Austria Fatherlan In Vienna Schirach's position was extremely complicated.
Wherever he went he was shadowed and spied upon, his administrative activity there was sharply criticised, he was reproached for not looking after the interests of the Party in Vienna for hardly ever assisting at Party meetings and for not making any public speech. I refer for that to the Affidavit Maria Hoepken, Document Book Schirach No. 3, figures 9-11). The Berlin Party Chancellery received any complaints the Vienna Party members made about their new Gauleiter with satisfaction and this fact alone might explain the unfortunate spee Schirach made in September 1942 which was diametrically opposed to the attitude he had always maintained also concerning the Jewish question.
After the interrogation of the witness Gustav Hoepken here in this court room, there can be no doubt as to how the Vienna Speech had come about, for it indicates that Schirach had then expressly commissioned his press agent Guenther Kaufm to emphasize this particular point when telephoning his report of the Vienna speech to the German News Agnecy, "because he had to make a concession to Bormann in this respect.", a point stressed by Schirach himself in the cours of his interrogation with the words "out of false loyalty he had morally identified himself with these acts of Hitler and Himmler. This malicious speech which Schirach made in September 1942 is however, in another sense a very valuable point in favour of Schirach : in the course thereof Schirach speaks of a "Transfer of the Jews to the Ghetto of the East Had Schirach known at that time that the Vienna Jews were to be sent away in order be murdered in an extermination camp, without doubt -in view of the pu pose of this speech- he would doubtless not have spoken of an Eastern Ghetto to which the Jews had been sent, but he would have reported the extermination of the Vienna Jews; but even at that time, in the fall of 1942, he never had the slightest idea that Hitler wanted to kill the Jews. That he would never have approved of and never accepted, his anti-Semitism had at no time gone so far. Schirach has also frankly stated here that he had at that time approved of Hitler's plan for a Jewish settlement in Poland, not inspired by anti-Semit or hatred of the Jews, but by the reasonable consideration, that with regard to actual conditions, it would have been in the Jews own interests to leave Vienna for Poland, because the Jews could not in the long run have been able to stay in Vienna for the furation of the Hitler-regime, but would have always been exposed to serious persecutions ; as Schirach declared on 24 May 1946, "considering Goebbels'temperament" it always seemed possible that inci dents, like those of November 1938 could be evoked in one night, and under such conditions of legal unsecurity the existence of the Jewish population in Germany would be unimaginable. He thought that Jewry would be safer in a restricted settlement area of the General Government than in Germany and Austria, where it was exposed to the "whims of the Propaganda Minister" who indeed had been the main supporter of the radical anti-Semitism in Germany.
Schirach was well aware of this fact. He could not shut his eyes to the knowledge that the drive against the Jews in Germany daily became obviously This conception of the Vienna speech of September 1942 and the true cause its genesis, coincide with the declaration of the defendant Schirach at the meeting of the Town Councillors of Vienna on 6 June 1942 (No. 3886 PS), na that in the late summer and fall of this year all Jews would be expelled for this city, and likewise with the file note of the Reichsleader Bormann of 2 October 1940 (USSR 142), according to which, at a social meeting at Hitle home, Schirach had remarked that he still had more than 50,000 Jews left in Vienna, which the Governor General of Poland must take over from him. This remark finds its reasoning in Schirach's embarassing situation at that time Hitler on the one hand pressed more and more for the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna; the Governor General Dr. Frank on the other hand strove against the acceptance of the Vienna Jews in the General-Government. This disagreement was evidently the reason for Schirach discussing this fact at the above mentioned meeting on 2 October 1940, in order to avoid renewed reproaches by the Fuehrer. He Schirach personally was not interested in the slightest in the removal of the Vienna Jews, as was proved by the testimony of the witn Gustav Hoepken regarding the discussion between Schirach and Himmler in November 1943. May I also add here concerning that discussion and that conference with Himmler that during that conference, Schirach presented the poi of view that one should leave the Jews in Vienna because they were wearin the Star of David anyway. That has been testified to by the witness Hoepk as being a statement made by Schirach during the conversation. I continue : Hitler demanded it, and Himmler insisted on its Execution. having made another malicious anti-Semitic remark, namely a speech which h supposedly made in late December 1938 at a Student's Meeting at Heidelberg Across the Neckar River he pointed to the old University town of Heidelber where several burned-out synagogues were the silent witnesses of the antimitic activities of the students of Heidelberg and I quote from the affida where the "little stout Reichstudents'leader" -as it is stated literallyis said to have by this incident approved and praised the anti-Jewish pogroms of 9 November 1938 as a heoric act.
This accusation, as already mentioned, is supported by the declaration in lieu of oath of a certain Gregor Ziemer. However, there can be no doubt that this claim of Ziemer is false. Ziemer never belonged to the German student movement or the Hitler Youth, and obviously was not personally present at the student assembly in question. The affidavit does not state from what source he is supposed to have obtained his knowledge. However, that his claim is false is already proven by his description of physical appearance when he speaks of a "little, fat student-leader"; for this does not at all apply to Schirach. Perhaps it would to some extent apply to his successor, who was Reich Student Leader at the end of 1938, but it certainly was not Schirach. As is known he had already in 1934 given the office of Reich Student Leader back into the hands of the Fuehrer's deputy, after he himself had in the meantime been appointed Reich Youth Leader. Schirach did not hold a speech at the end of 1938 or at any other time before Heidelberg students, and by the affidavit of the witness Mrs. Maria Hoepken, Schirach Document Book No.3, it has been clearly proved that at the time stated Schirach was not in Heidelberg at all. Schirach has also stated this under oath and his own statement can lay claim to credibility because he has not white-washed anything for which he was responsible, and he has not wrongfully denied anything, but on the contrary has accounted for all his actions like a man and with love of the truth during his entire examination. affidavit is untrue, at any rate in regard to the person of Schirach. In the presentation of evidence it happened to be stated by chance how Schirach reacted to the November-pograms of the year 1938. on another occasion, that Schirach on 10 November 1938 had condemned most vehemently the events of 9 November 1938 before his collaborators, and declared that he felt ashamed for the other s and for the whole party. The 9 November 1938, Schirach said,"would go down in German history as a unique german cultural disgrace. Such a thing could have happened with an uncivilized people but it should never have occurred with us Germans who imagine ourselves to be a highly civilized people." The Youth Leader had to prevent such excesses under any circumstances. Of his own organization he did not wish to hear anything like it,neither now or in the future. The Hitler Youth, under all circumstances, must be kept outside such things under any circumstances.
phone from Berlin in the same sense. If Schirach in November 1938 condemned and criticized in such an extremely sharp manner the events of 9 November 1938, it is impossible for him to have celebrated at about the same time the bloody acts which had been committed and thus have incited the Heidelberg students and the question therefore arises as to why a single participant of that student meeting in Heidelberg was not brought here as a witness, but that the Tribunal was satisfied instead with a witness who could only testify from hearsay. Moreover, the representative of the Prosecution did not revert to this alleged Heidelberg speech, during the cross examination and thereby acknowledged Schirach's own presentation of the facts as correct. participate in the excesses of 9 November 1938, nor did they commit any violence of such a kind either before or afterwards. The Hitler Youth, at that time, was the strongest Party organization, it comprised about 7-8 million members and in spite of that not one single case has been proved where the Hitler Youth participated in such crimes against humanity, although its members were mainly of an age, which according to experience, is only too easily tempted to participate in excesses and acts of brutality. The only exception which has been claimed so far concerns the testimony of the French woman Ida Vasseau, who is said to have been head of an Old People's Home in Lemberg and who is supposed to have claimed, according to the report of the Commission, USSR-6 "that the Hitler Youth had been given children from the Ghetto in Lemberg when they used as living targets for their shooting practice." This single exception, however, which has been claimed so far but not proved, could not be cleared up in any way, particularly not in the direction of whether members of the Hitler Youth had really been involved. But even if there had been such a single case among the 8 million members during 10 or 15 long years, this could not in any way prove that Baldur von Schirach had exercised an inciting influence, and if I may add here, at a time when he was no longer Reich Youth Leader.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(A short recess was taken.)
DR. SAUTER: Judges in the Bench, then I shall continue with page 36 of my final argument. Schirach wrote as Reich Youth Leader and which are in the possession of the Tribunal in the document book. These extend over a long period of years, yet they do not contain a single word inciting to race hatred, preaching hatred of Jews or exhorting the youth to commit acts of violence or defending such acts. If it has been possible to keep the members of the Hitler Youth, who numbered millions, apart from such excesses it proves the fact that the leaders endeavored to imbue the youth with the spirit of tolerance, love of his neighbor and respect of human dignity. is clearly evident from the scene which occurred in spring 1943 on the Obersalzberg and which is also described in the affidavit of the witness Maria Hoepken (Doc. book Schirach No.3 figure 5). In this case I refer to the scene where Schirach's wife told Hitler in his home how she had witnessed with her own eyes from a hotel window in Amsterdam how the Gestapo had deported hundreds of Dutch Jewesses.
Schirach himself could not dare at the time to bring such matters to Hitlers attention; a decreee of Bormann had expressively prohibited this to the district leaders (Gaulieters). Schirach therefore agreed with his wife that the latter should try to gain an improvement in the treatement of the Jewish question with Hitler. She did not succeed in this; Hitler dismissed Frau von Schirach with the harsh words "these were setimentalities". Because of this intervention on behalf of the Dutch Jews, the situation of the defendant von Scirach had become so critical that he preferred to leave the Obersalzberg immeidately in the early morning of the following day, and from that time on, Hitler was on principle no longer accessible to Schirach. tion perhaps also contributed to the fact that Hitler, a few months later, in the summer of 1943, seriously considered having Schirach arrested and having him brought before the People's Court, for the reason alone that Schirach had dared, in a letter to Rechsleiter Bormann, to describe the war as a national disaster for Germany. in the Jewish question, and that in a manner whereby he endangered his own position and existence. In spite of the fact that he was an anti-Seimite and it is just because of this that it deserves attention - he withstood all pressure from Berlin and refused to have an anti-Semite special edition published in the official journal of the Hitler-Youth, while he had published his own special editions for an understanding with England and for a more humane treatement of the Eastern nations. It is no less worthy of consideration that Schirach, in conjunction with his friend Dr. Colin Ross, strove for the emigration of the Jews into the neutral foreign countries in order to save then from being deported to a Polish Ghetto. share of the defendant von Schirach in the responsibility for the pogroms against Jews which occurred in Poland and Russia by trying to use against him the so-called "Reports on practice and Situation", which were regularly sent in by the SS to the "Commissioner for Defense of the Reich in Military Administrative District XVII".
In fact it must be said -- and I emphasize -- if Schirach had at that time had cognizane of these regular "Reports on Practice and Situation of the Operational Groups of the Security Police and the Security Service" in the East, then this fact would indeed entail for him a grave moral and political charge.
He could then not be spared the reproach that he must have been aware that, apart from the military operations in the East, horribly cruel mass murders of Communists and Jews had also taken place. The character picture we have had so far of von Schirach, who was also described by the prosecution as a "cultured man", would be obscured very materially if von Schirach effectively had seen and read these reports. For he would then have know that in Latvia and Lithuania, in White Ruthenia and in Kiev, mass murders had taken place, and this quite obviously without any judicial proceedings of any kind and without sentence having been passed.
What has, however, been proved by the evidence? to that of the "Reich Commissioner in Military Administrative District XVII" and, moreover, with the express direction "for attention of Government Councillor Dr. Hoffmann" or "for attention of Government Councillor Dr. Fischer". From this style of address and from the way in which these reports were initialled at the office of the "Commissioner for Defense of the Reich", it can be established beyond question that Schirach did not have an opportunity of seeing these reports and that he obtained no knowledge of them in any other way either. Vienna: as Reichsstatthalter and Reich Defense Commissioner he was the chief of the whole State administration; as Lord Mayor he was the head of the Communal administration; and as District Leader (Gaulieter) of Vienna, he was the top of the local Party machine. It is only natural that Schirach could not fulfill all these three tasks by himself, especially since in 1940 he had entered a completely different field of tasks, and first had to become accustomed to the work in the state as well as in the communal-administration. He therefore had a permant deputy for each of his three tasks, and this was for the affairs of the state administration, Regierungspresident of Vienna, Dr. Del-Brugge.
Dr. Delbruegge had to handle the currect affairs of the state administration completely on his own. Schirach occupied himself only with matters of the state administration with regard to such matters which were directed to him by his permanent deputy Dr. Delbruegge in written form or about which Dr. Delbruegge or one of the departmental assistants reported to him orally. "Situation and Experience Reports", then this would have somehow been noted on the documents in question. On the "Experience and Situation Reports" submitted there is not a single note, however, which shows that this report was submitted to the defendant von Schirach or that he was orientated about it. This can also be understood without further explanation; because after all, the experiences which the police and the SD had accumulated in the partisan struggles in Poland and Russia, were completely inconsequential for the Vienna administration; therefore there was not the least cause to inform the defendant von Schirach in any way, who was very much overburdened anyway with administrative matters of all kinds, of these reports. under oath of the defendant, but also on that of both witnesses Hoepken, who as Chief of the "Central Office" and/or as adjutant of the defendant were able to give the most exact information about the Vienna conditions. It is certain that these "Experience and Situation Reports" never came into the distribution of the "Central Office" in Vienna, but only into the distribution of Regierungspraesident Dr. Delbruegge, and that Hoepken, as Chief of the Central Office, as well as Wieshofer, as adjutant of the defendant, likewise did not have any previous knowledge of these "Experience and Situation Reports" but came to see them for the first time here in the Court Room during their questioning. are on the documents, that Schirach did not have any knowledge whatsoever of these reports, and that he is not co-responsible for the atrocities described therein, and therefore cannot be criminally charged on account of these activity reports.
And I should like to interpolage here, both of these experts, Dr. Fischer and the other gentleman, neither of them knew the defendant.
I shall continue. last weeks in Vienna is also not without importance; for Schirach it was only natural not to carry out the various insane orders which came from Berlin at that time. He has turned the lynching-justice concerning enemy aviators which was ordered by Bormann far from himself, and likewise the order to hang defeatists without pity, regardless whether they were men or women. His summary court has bever even been in session, his summary court has not pronounced a single death sentence. No blood stocks to his hands. On the contrary, he has done everything, for example, in order to protect enemy aviators who had made an emergency landing from the excited mob, and he has, as we have heard from the witness Wieshofer, for example, immediately sent out his own motor vehicle, in order to bring American aviators who had parachuted, into safety. Thereby he again placed himself in conscious and deliberate contrast to an order of Bormann that such aviators were not to be protected from lynching acts of the civilian population.
He also did not pay any attention to the order that Vienna was to be defended to the last man, or that in Vienna, bridges and churches and residential section were to be destroyed, and he abruptly refused the order to form partisan units in civilian clothing or to continue the hopeless struggle in a criminal manner with the aid of the "Werewolf." He refused such demands from his sense of duty, especially since this would have caused him to violate international law. incomplete, if we did not recall at this moment in addition the declaration which he deposed here in the morning of 24 May 1946. I am speaking of that declaration in which he has described Hitler as a millionfold murderer, here before the whole German people and before the whole world public. Schirach has already in the past year made declarations which show his feeling of responsibility and his preparedness to answer for his actions and those of his subordinates to the full extent. This was the case on 5 June 1945, for example, when he was hiding in Tyrol, and heard over the radio that all Party leaders were to be brought before an Allied court. Schirach, as a result of this, reported himself immediately and in his letter to the American local commander stated he was doing this in order to prevent others being made to account for his actions, who had only executed his orders. He surrendered voluntarily, although the English radio had already announced the news of his death, and although Schirach could have hoped to remain in his hiding place undiscovered. This manner of action deserves consideration in judging the personality of a defendant and in estimating his guilt. autumn of 1945 as he was heard by the Prosecution. He believed then that his successor Axmann had fallen. In spite of this, Schirach did not attempt to pass his responsibility on to his successor; on the contrary, he expressly stated that he assumed full responsibility also for the time of his successor, as well as for what had been done under his successor in the Reich Youth leadership. The keystone in this line is now fashioned by the statement which Schirach made here on May 24th 1946 and which went out of this room into the wide world, into all the German lands up to the last farm, up to the last workman's novel.
that he later may not himself understand. Schirach also has erred; he has brought up the youth for a man whom he for many years held as unimpeachable and whom he must now brand as a diabolical criminal. In his idealism and out of loyalty he remained faithful and true to his oath to a man who deceived and cheated him and the German youth and who, as we learned here from Speer, up to his last breath placed his own interests higher than the existence and the happiness of 80 million people. his mistakes -- which you may judge whichever way you like -- but who confessed them most honestly and who through his plain speaking prevented the creation of a legend of Hitler in the future. Such a defendant must be given the benefit of his trying to repair as far as lies within his possibilities the damage which he has caused in good faith.
Schirach has tried to do that; he took pains to open the eyes of our people about the "Fuehrer", in whom, together with millions of Germans he saw, through many years, the deliverer of the Fatherland and the guarantor of its future. He did this so the foreign countries could see how the conditions in Germany in the last years had come about, and just who was responsible for them. on the 24th of May 1946, wanted to tell the German youth openly that so far, quite unknowingly and with the best intentions, he had led them astray and that now they must take another direction, if the German people and the German culture were not to perish. In this Schirach did not think of himself; he was not thinking of his life's work which had been destroyed; he was thinking of the youth of today, which not only is facing the ruins of our cities and dwellings, but is also wandering about among the wreckage of its former ideals; he was thinking of the German youth, which is in dire need of a new orientation and which must base its future existence on another foundation. What was particularly valuable in his confession of May 24th 1946 was his assurance that he alone bore the guilt for the young people, just as he formerly bore the command over them.
If this point of view is acknowledged as being right, and if the necessary conclusions are drawntherefrom, the result would be for our German youth a valuable outcome of these trials. of the case of Baldur von Schirach. In the treatment of this case I desisted from making general statements, and especially those of a political nature. Rather, I confined myself to the evaluation of the personality of the defendant, his actions and his motives. that these considerations and this evaluation by the defense have shown that the defendant is not guilty in the sense of the indictment and cannot be judged and sentenced for he did not commit a punishable act, and you as judges will not judge political guilt but rather criminal guilt in the sense of the penal code. should like to have the privilege of making a few general statements, going beyond the personality of von Schirach.
Gentlemen of the Bench, you are the highest tribunal of our times; the power of the whole world stands back of you; you represent the four mightiest nations on earth; hundreds of millions of men, not only in the defeated countries, but also in the victorious nations listen to your opinions and anxiously await your judgment, ready to be taught by you and to follow your advice. through your verdict and its foundations, in order that out of today's disaster the way to a better future may be found for the benefit of your own people and for the blessing of the German people. people, the poorest of all. The German cities are destroyed; the German industry is smashed to pieces; on the shoulders of the German people rests a national debt representing many times the whole national wealth and which means want and poverty, hunger and slavery for many generations of the German people, if your people do not help us.
The argument supporting your verdict will in many respects point the way for the help needed to emerge from this desperate plight. this idea and to take it into account, when you think of the misfortune which the past six years also brought to your own countries It becomes doubly hard, because for months these Court proceedings revealed nothing but crimes, crimes committed for a great number of years by a tyrant with the misuse of Germans and in the name of this same German people of whose future you as judges are now asked to think. who in these years committed crimes without number tyrannizing over Germany and nearly all of Europe, and violating the German name for generations to come. The German people on the other hand lives and must be allowed to live if half a universe is not to fall into ruins. undergoing a very serious operation; it must not bring death; it must bring recovery. Your verdict can and must make a contribution in that direction, so that in future the world may not see in every German a criminal, but revert again to the concept of professor Arnold Nash of Chicago University, who a few days ago, when questioned about the purpose of his present trip to Europe replied: "Every scientist has two fatherlands, his own and Germany. These words ought to be a warning also for all of those critics who even today see their task to be only in the fact that with propaganda means of every sort to incite against everything Berman and to tell the world that at least every second person in Germany is a criminal.
You, as objective judges will not wish to forget one thing: There always was and there still is today another Germany, a Germany that knows industriousness and economy; a Germany of Goethe and Bethoven, a Germany that knows loyalty and honesty and other good qualities which in past centuries were proverbial for the German character.